"Westlake, Donald E as Stark, Richard - Parker 01 - The Hunter (Point Blank) 1.2" - читать интересную книгу автора (Westlake Donald E)

She looked after him, face red with rage, and threw his dime into the garbage. Half an hour later, when the other girl said something to her, she called her a bitch.

Parker went on to the Motor Vehicle Bureau and stood at the long wooden table while he filled out a driver's license form with one of the old-fashioned straight pens. He blotted the form, folded it carefully, and stuck it into his wallet, which was brown leather and completely empty and beat to hell.

He left the Bureau and walked over to the post office, where the federal government was in charge and they had ball-point pens. He took out the license and stood hunched over it, sketching with small quick strokes in the space reserved for the state stamp. The ball-point pen had ink of almost the right color, and Parker's memory of the stamp was clear.

When he was finished, it looked all right for anybody who didn't inspect it closely. It just looked as though the rubber stamp hadn't been inked well enough or had been jiggled when it was pressed to the paper or something. He smudged the damp ink a bit more with his finger, licked the finger clean, and returned the license to his wallet. Then he crumpled and bent the wallet in his hands before putting it back in his hip pocket.

He walked up to Canal Street and went into a bar. It was dark in there, and clammy. The barman and his one customer stopped mumbling down at the end of the bar and looked at him, their expressions like those of fish looking out through the glass wall of a tank.

He went on down, ignoring them, and pushed open the spring door to the men's room. It slammed behind him.

He washed his face and hands in cold water without soap, because there wasn't any hot water and there wasn't any soap. He got his hair wet and pushed it around with his fingers until it looked all right. He stroked his palm up his jawline and felt the stubble, but it didn't show bad yet.

Taking his tie from his inside jacket pocket, he ran it taut through his fingers, to get the wrinkles out of it, and put it on. The wrinkles still showed. He had a safety pin attached to the lining of his jacket. He took it and pinned the tie to the shirt, where it wouldn't show. Pulled down that way, and with the jacket closed, it looked pretty good. And you couldn't see that the shirt was dirty any more.

He wet his fingers at the sink again, and forced the approximation of a crease into his pant legs, stroking down again and again until a vague line showed and stayed there. Then he looked at himself in the mirror.

He didn't look like any Rockefeller, but he didn't look like a bum either. He looked like a hard worker who never got out of the mailroom. Good enough. It would have to do.

He got out the driver's license one last time and dropped it on the floor. He squatted beside it, and patted the license here and there on the floor till it was reasonably dirty. Then he crumpled it some more, brushed the excess dirt off, and put it back in his wallet. One last rinsing of his hands, and he was ready to leave.

The bartender and his customer stopped mumbling again as he went by, but he didn't notice. He went back out into the sunlight and headed uptown and west, looking for just the right bank. He needed a bank that would have a lot of customers of the type he was faking.

When he found the one he wanted, he paused for a second and concentrated on rearranging his face. He stopped looking mean and he stopped looking mad. He kept working at it, and when he was sure he looked worried he went on into the bank.

There were four desks to his left, two of them occupied by middle-aged men in business suits. One of them was talking with an old woman in a cloth coat who was having trouble with English. Parker went straight over to the other and added a smile to the worried expression.

"Hello," he said, making his voice softer than usual. "I got a problem, and maybe you can help me. I've lost my checkbook, and I can't remember my account number."

"No problem at all," said the man, with a professional smile. "If you'll just give me your name. . . ."

"Edward Johnson," said Parker, giving him the name he'd put on the license. He hauled his wallet out. "I've got identification. Here." He handed over the license.

The man looked at it, nodded, handed it back. "Fine," he said. "That was a special account?"

"That's right."

"One minute, please." He picked up his phone, talked into it for a minute, and waited, smiling reassurance at Parker. Then he talked a few seconds more and looked puzzled. He capped the phone mouthpiece with his hand and said to Parker, "There's no record of your account here. Are you sure it's a special account?

"No minimum balance?"

"Try the other kind," said Parker.

The man continued to look puzzled. He talked into the phone a while longer, then hung up, frowning. "There's no record of any account at all under that name."

Parker got to his feet. He grinned and shrugged. "Easy come, easy go," he said.

He walked out, and the man at the desk kept staring after him, frowning.