The Outfit
By
Richard Stark
A book in the Parker series
Copyright S Donald E. Westlake 1963
PART ONE
1
WHEN THE WOMAN screamed, Parker awoke and rolled off the bed. He heard the plopof a silencer behind him as he rolled, and the bullet punched the pillow where his head had been.
He landed face down on the floor. His stubby, pregnant .32 was clipped to the springs under the bed like a huge black fly standing upside down, and Parker’s hand was reaching out for it before he hit the floor. He spun a half-turn away from the bed and raised the .32 so the other one would know he had it, but he didn’t fire. This was a hotel room and the .32 wasn’t silenced.
A half-turn; then he reversed his spin and rolled under the bed, hearing the second bullet thud into the floor just behind him. His arms were tucked in close to his body and he rolled all the way across and came up on the other side seeing the other one just stooping to fire under the bed. Parker threw the .32. The grip hit the other’s forehead, just above the nose. He grunted; then dropped out of sight. Parker bent and looked through under the bed. The other was lying on his face.
After the first scream the woman had been silent. Now she stared, slack-faced, as Parker got to his feet and went around the bed. He was tall and lean with corded veins and hard, tanned flesh. His torso was creased by old scars. His legs had a bony angularity to them; the muscles were etched against the bones. His hands were big, thick, knotted with veins; they were made for gripping an axe, or a rock. When he picked up the .32 again his hand made it look like a toy.
The killer lay, arms and legs splayed out, as though he’d been dropped from a height. His gun was still in his right hand. Parker stepped on the wrist, then bent and took the gun. It was a .25 calibre target pistol, useless for almost any serious work except to come up close and kill a sleeping man. The silencer had been made for a gun with a larger barrel, and a jury-rigged clamp arrangement had been fashioned to fit it to the small barrel of the .25.
Parker stuck his foot under the killer’s chest, pushed, and rolled him over. He flopped over like a fish, his right arm swinging over and thumping the floor like a sack. He had a narrow pale face, skimpy eyebrows, small nose and thin lips, prominent cheekbones and temples. He wore a short-sleeved white shirt with button-down collar, a red- and-green striped tie, with sharply creased tan trousers and no cuffs, and highly polished brown shoes with zippers instead of laces. Floppy leather fringes hid the zippers. There was a purpling bruise on his right temple, and a small cut in the middle of it gleamed carmine. Parker had never seen him before.
The woman found her voice again and half whispered, “Shouldn’t we call the police?”
“Shut up a minute! Let me think.”
It was a mess. She knew him as Charles Willis, absentee businessman with an income from a few parking lots and rental properties and gas stations here and there around the country. How to be square Charles Willis and explain a silent killer in the middle of the night? He had to give her a story; she had to be convinced by it; and it had to give her a reason to keep her mouth shut. The law, too, would want to know why a professional killer had been aimed at Charles Willis.
The truth might do it, but he didn’t know her very well; nor how far he could trust her.
Her name was Elizabeth Ruth Harrow Conway. She was a good-looking woman, twenty-nine, with honey hair, golden flesh and the tall, lush, well-proportioned body of a voluptuous athlete. She lived on a combination of alimony from her ex-husband and atonement gifts from her parents. She’d always been rich, had always lived in luxury surrounded by servants, and she’d never had a problem that wasn’t fashionable. That much Parker knew about her. Also, that she was fine in bed, and that she sometimes had a panther craving for brutality. He knew little more than that, and thought there was probably little more to know.
The killer made a small sound in his throat and his head thrashed slightly on the floor. His blond hair was dry and limp. Sweat had broken out on his face, though the room was air-conditioned. He’d be waking up soon, and Parker had to have the woman squared away by then.
He saw her watching him, and was surprised at her expression. He’d expected fear and astonishment, but she looked breathless. Pleased, excited, and curious. The way she always looked when they bedded together. Expectant. So, the truth. But as little of it as possible.
There was a wooden chair with padded seat and back over by the blind window, the one with the air- conditioner in it. He got it, brought it to the bed, and sat down. “Charles Willis isn’t my name,” he said. “I have another name. I use it in my work. You don’t want to know about my work.”
“What?” She frowned at him, and glanced down at the man lying on the floor between them. “I don’t under You aren’t Chuck Willis?”
“I am now, and here. When I’m not working, I’m Charles Willis. Here in Miami, or in Nevada, or out on the Coast.”
“And when you are working?” She’d absorbed it faster than he’d expected.
He shook his head. “You don’t want to know about that.”
“But he ” She pointed at the man who had tried to kill him. ” he’s from that other part of your life.”
“That’s right.”
“What’s his name?”
“I don’t know. I never saw him before.”
“Oh. You mean he was just hired.”
“That’s right.”
