Parker covered the three hundred miles between Cincinnati and Pittsburgh in under seven hours, crossing into Pennsylvania at Weirton a little after nine. He circled Pittsburgh, not wanting to go through town, and when he got back to 22 on the other side it was after ten. He slowed down, then, looking for a motel.
When he found one he stopped. He slept most of the day, getting up at quarter to seven. He took a shower and shaved and dressed, and then opened the typewriter case on the bed. He counted out three thousand dollars, then closed the typewriter case again. He needed money badly, so he’d decided to bankroll the job himself. So far as Skimm was concerned, the money was coming from the contacts in Baltimore.
Parker stowed the three thousand in his suitcase, then carried the typewriter case down the row of doors to the motel office. This was a secondary route now that the Pennsylvania Turnpike was in existence, and the motel was seedy and rundown. The interior walls needed a new coat of paint, and half the neon sign out by the road Wasn’t working.
The man who ran the motel was short, fat, and balding. His eyes shone behind glasses with plastic frames patched by friction tape. He sat at the counter in the motel office, dressed in a rumpled suit and a frayed white shirt and a wrinkled tie. He had sullen lines around his mouth, and he was surly whenever his customers spoke to him.
He was alone at the desk when Parker came in, staring glumly across the counter through the plate-glass window at the road. A semi passed, headed east, and then the road was empty again.
Parker put the typewriter case up on the counter and said, “Want to make half a G?”
The owner looked at him. “Why don’t you go to hell?”
Parker lit a cigarette and dropped the match on the counter, still burning. The owner made a startled sound and reached out, slapping the match. Parker said, “One of these days, somebody’s going to break your head.”
“You get the hell out of here!” the owner said angrily. “Who do you think you are?”
“Five hundred,” Parker said. “You could get the sign fixed.”
The owner got off his stool, looking back at the phone on the wall. Then he looked at Parker again. “You mean it?”
Parker waited, smoking.
The owner considered, gnawing on the inside of his cheek. He stood next to his stool, one hand flat palm down on the counter. His fingernails were ragged and dirty. He thought about it, gnawing his cheek, and then he shook his head. “You’re talking about something illegal,” he said. “I don’t want no part of it.”
Parker opened the typewriter case. “See? Five grand. And it isn’t hot money. I want to stash it some place where I know it’s safe. If I ask you to hold it for me and you look in it and see the dough you might be tempted. So I pay you five hundred. You’ve made a nice piece of change, and you don’t get tempted.”
“Five thousand.” He said it with a kind of heavy contempt. “What would I do with five thousand? Where would I go? What would it get me? I’d need a lot more than that. I’m stuck in this rat-trap for the rest of my life.”
“You want the five hundred?”
“If a state trooper comes in looking for that money, I’ll hand it right over. I don’t go to jail for no five hundred dollars. Or any five thousand, either.”
“I told you, it isn’t hot.”
The owner looked at the money. “For how long?” he asked.
Parker shrugged. “Maybe a week, maybe a year.”
“What if it gets stolen off me?”
Parker smiled thinly, and shook his head. “I wouldn’t believe it,” he said.
“I don’t know.” The man looked at the money doubtfully. “Why don’t you put it in a bank?”
“I don’t like banks.”
The owner sighed and nodded. “All right,” he said. “I’ll get the sign fixed.”
Parker reached into the typewriter case and counted five hundred dollars on to the counter. Then he closed and locked the typewriter case and slid it across to the owner. “I’ll stop back for it sometime,” he said.
Then he went back to the room and picked up the suitcase. He stashed it in the Ford and left the motel, heading east.
It was after midnight when he reached New Jersey. He stayed north of Philadelphia and crossed the Delaware River from Easton to Phillipsburg, still on 22. He stayed with 22 all the way to Newark. When he reached Newark he drove around the side streets for a while, and made two stops.
The first time, he took a screwdriver and removed the Jersey plates from a five-year-old Dodge. The second time, he took a razor blade from his shaving kit, and walked three blocks until he found an unlocked parked car. The street was deserted, so he slid behind the wheel and spent three minutes with the razor blade carefully removing the state inspection sticker from the windshield. It tore in a couple of places, but not badly. He went back to the Ford, found route 9, and drove out of Newark.
About twenty miles south he passed the Shore Points Diner, all lit up, with three trucks and a station wagon parked at the sides. He continued south, nearly to Freehold, and when the highway narrowed to two lanes pulled off on to the shoulder. He removed the Ohio plates and put the Jersey plates on and stowed the Ohio plates under the mat in the trunk. He smeared red Jersey mud on the bumpers and licence plates, so the numbers could still be read, but only with difficulty, and then turned around and drove north again, stopping at a motel in Linden. He borrowed some mucilage from the woman who ran the motel, attached the inspection sticker to the windshield of the Ford, and went to bed.
Chapter 5
SITTING AT the counter over a cup of coffee, Parker tried to figure out which waitress was Alma. Since it was Saturday, just after noon, the place was nearly full, and the four waitresses were kept constantly on the move. Parker watched them, one at a time, trying to decide.
