“He’s a scavenger bird,” she said. “He pulls things nobody else wants. He’s done a couple of kidnappings, he was a whiskey hijacker along the Canadian border for a while, he’s been all over.”
“He doesn’t do the big hits?”
“Oh, them too,” she said. “With a pretty respectable string sometimes, too. He’ll work any racket he comes across, so a few times it’s been your sort of thing. But he’s too wild; a lot of smart ones won’t work with him. I’ve heard it said he’s a snowbird, but I don’t think he’s on anything. He’s just one of those naturally wild ones. If this George Uhl thinks Matt Rosenstein is hot stuff, it tells you a lot about George Uhl. Like you probably shouldn’t work with him.”
“Too late to tell me that,” Parker said. “He came recommended by Benny Weiss.”
“Benny’s okay,” she said and shrugged. “But anybody can make a mistake.”
“Where do I find Rosenstein, do you know?”
She shook her head. “I’m sorry, I don’t. I know who he is. He’s been here once or twice with a bunch, but I wouldn’t know how to reach him or even who would know how.”
“That’s what — “
The phone sounded again. Parker broke off what he was saying and went over to answer it, and this time it was Handy McKay. He nodded at Madge and said to Handy, “Get anywhere?”
“Not on Uhl. He’s too new, I guess. But I found out about Matt Rosenstein.”
“Where he is?”
“He’s like you,” Handy said. “You don’t contact him direct. Just like people with a message for you come to me, people with a message for Rosenstein go to somebody else.”
“Who?”
“A guy named Brock, in New York. Paul Brock. He runs a record store there.”
“Hold on while I get a pencil.”
Madge was already on her feet. “I’ll get it.”
She got him pencil and paper, and Parker put down Brock’s name and address. Madge whispered, “Tell him about the money,” and Parker nodded.
Handy said, “That’s all I could get.”
“That’s fine,” Parker said. “Madge says she’s got twenty-two hundred bucks belongs to you. Remember those jewels we took away from Bronson that time?”
“Christ, yes! I forget about that.”
“She wants to know should she send you the money or hold it for you.”
“Send it.”
Parker was surprised. “You don’t want it stashed?”
“What do I want it stashed for? I’m not going anyplace. I run a diner now, Parker. That’s what I do.”
“Okay,” Parker said. “I’ll tell her. And thanks for the stuff on Rosenstein.”
“Any time.”
Parker hung up and told Madge she was to send the money and gave her Handy’s address. Then the phone rang again and it was the third man Parker had called, and he had the Brock name too but nothing else. Parker thanked him for it and hung up and said to Madge, “I’ll be going in the morning.”
“You’re after this boy Uhl,” she said.
“Have Ethel call me at eight,” Parker said.
“You always were gabby,” she said, and emptied her glass. She got to her feet. “That’s always been your big failing, Parker,” she said. “You talk too much.”
Parker locked the door after her and switched off the light. In the morning he left for New York.
Two
With enough volume to drown out a sonic boom, the loudspeaker over the doorway blared out the voices of a rock quartet declaiming the end of civilization as we know it. Album jackets hung turning from wires in the tall, narrow window beside the entrance. Rain streaked the window, further distorting the distorted photographs on the jackets.
Parker had left the car around the corner on Sixth Avenue. Discodelia, Brock’s record shop, was on Blecker Street in Greenwich Village on one of the tourist blocks. Parker walked up the block in the rain and he was the only one on the sidewalk. It was late morning, too early for tourists, and a weekday. And it was raining.
He turned and went in through the open doorway under the yowling speaker. Because the sound was aimed outward, away from the shop, it was quieter inside, almost cosy.
It was a long, narrow room with a yellow floor and ceiling. A high counter and a cash register and a glum male cashier were just to the left of the entrance, and beyond that both side walls were lined with record bins. The rear wall was a montage of posters, newspaper clippings, publicity photos, and pages from old comic books. More album jackets filled the upper half of both side walls above the record bins. More records were stored underneath the bins. Three boys of about twenty were scattered through the store, flipping through the records in the bins.
Parker said to the cashier, “I’m looking for Paul Brock.”
He shook his head. “He ain’t in in the mornings. Try again around two, two thirty.”
