“You couldn’t wait,” Parker said. “You had to be damn fools.”
It was Lennie who answered, apologetically. “We figured you for a phony,” he said. “We got to talking it over, and May thought — we all thought you were just out to kill Stubbs, that you’d sold us a bill of goods. May said — we all figured you wouldn’t be coming back. So I went down into town, and talked with a guy I know. He works for the bookie’s wire service, and he made a couple phone calls, and then I talked to another man on the telephone–-“
“Who?”
“I don’t know, named Lowry, something like that. And I gave him your description.”
“You acted so goddam tough,” May cried.
“Not tough enough. I should have burned you, all three of you. I should have known I couldn’t trust you.”
Lennie, still apologizing, said, “It wouldn’t of been fair not to tell you. After all the trouble you went through. We did wrong, but it wouldn’t of been fair not to tell you.”
Parker considered. The thing was shot now. The syndicate didn’t have a picture of him, and a description always fits thousands of men, but they did know about the new face. They knew now not to look for Parker the way he used to be. He felt like taking the Peacemaker away from May and using it on the three of them, but it wouldn’t do any good.
So what now? He could go find himself another plastic surgeon, run the whole thing again, but the hell with it. You could never be sure, never be absolutely sure. Doing it this way, running away and trying to hide from the syndicate, that had been wrong from the beginning. He had his own life to live, his own pattern, his own plans and pace. What good was it to > change all that? He might just as well let the syndicate kill him.
What he had to do was make sure the syndicate was convinced they should forget him. He had to make them hurt, he had to bring them down to where they’d be willing to throw in the towel. Then he could go on about his business without worrying about new names or new faces or new days of life.
The three of them were watching him, warily. Finally Lennie said, “What do you figure to do now?”
“With you people? Forget you.”
“We’re sorry, Mr Anson,” Lennie said. “Honest to God.”
There was no sense talking to them. They were idiots, but they’d done all the damage they could do. Parker started through them, out of the room, but Blue said, “You forgot your bag.”
Parker paused and looked back at the overnight bag. “Oh, yeah.” He went back to it. “Stubbs told me one time, if anybody tried to kill the doctor to protect their new face, Stubbs would take the new face away from them. Stubbs got killed, so I did it for him.”
He picked up the overnight bag and set it on the desk. There was a zipper around three, sides, and Parker unzipped it all the way around. The flap fell open, and May and the two men looked at the new face Dr Adler had given to Charles F. Wells.
They were still staring at the head when Parker walked through them and down the hall and out to the car. He paused beside the car to light a cigarette, then climbed in behind the wheel and drove back out to the road. He’d give the car back to the rental people. And after that…?
After that, Miami. The syndicate trouble had to be settled, but it could wait. Parker had to unwind for a while, for a few weeks anyway. It would be good to be Charles Willis again for a time.
The end.
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