"Westlake, Donald E as Stark, Richard - Parker 09 - The Split (The Seventh) 1.1" - читать интересную книгу автора (Westlake Donald E)

'We can go see him together.' He was pleading now. 'Two heads are better than one,' he said.

'Not always.' Parker turned away and walked on. Ahead, far down the street, the world was more brightly lit. There he could find a cab to take him to Kifka's place.

The clown in the mackinaw wouldn't give up. He came padding along saying, 'You're going to see him anyway, what difference does it make to you? I won't get in your way; I just want to get my thirty-seven bucks.'

Parker stopped and turned around and said, 'Walk someplace else.'

'You don't have to be so goddam tough about it.' He spoke with the whine of the natural loser, but he wouldn't give ground. He just stood there, unable to force himself on Parker and unwilling to go away and forget it.

Parker had no patience for this kind of clown. He took his hands out of his topcoat pockets, empty, and balled them into fists. He took a step toward the clown, but he skittered away like an underfed mongrel. Parker said, 'Don't follow me.'

The clown said, 'It's a free country. I can walk where I want.' He was at least forty years old, but he talked like a kid in a schoolyard.

Parker felt the pistols weighing heavy in his pockets, but that was no good. That answer was always too simple, too easy, and left the worst kind of trail. It was a temptation to be resisted.

Instead, he said to the clown, 'I don't want you around.' He let it go at that, and turned away, and walked on toward downtown.

The clown kept trailing along about a block behind.

Another three blocks and Parker was beginning to come into a more active section. He saw a cruising cab with its dome light lit, and stepped off the sidewalk to motion at it. The cab made a U-turn and stopped in front of him. He got into the back seat and gave Kifka's home address. The cabby pushed flag and accelerator down at the same time.

Looking out the rear window, Parker saw the clown standing there two blocks back, standing on the curb with his hands in his mackinaw pockets, his shoulders hunched as he gazed after the cab. He just stood there.



Three


The blonde that opened the door had put on the first piece of clothing she'd come across, a gray sweatshirt with a picture of Bach on it. With one hand she was pulling it down in front, which meant she probably wasn't wearing pants either; it was obvious she wasn't wearing a bra.

Parker told her, 'I want to see Dan.'

'He's taking a nap,' she said. She was about nineteen or twenty, looked like a college girl. Cheerleader type. Except she looked like a cheerleader who'd been on a binge, hair tousled, lace puffy, eyes heavy-lidded, expression lethargic and sated.

Parker pushed the door the rest of the way open and went on into the apartment. 'He'll want to see me,' he said. 'When he knows I'm here he'll want to wake up.'

She couldn't give him her full attention, both because she was still half asleep and because she was having trouble keeping the sweatshirt on as much of her as she wanted. What with her breasts pushing outward and her hand pulling downward, Bach didn't look much like his old self at all.

She said, 'You shouldn't push your way into places like that. I told you, Dan's taking a nap. He needs his rest.'

'I'm sure he does.'

'That isn't what I meant,' she said. 'I mean he's sick. He's got a virus.'

'Fine.' Parker had been here only once before, and then only in this living room, never deeper in the apartment. Now he looked around, saw two doors either of which could lead to the bedroom, and pointed at them, saying, 'Which one?'

'I don't want you to wake him,' she said, trying to sound like a private nurse. It might have come off better if she hadn't been out of uniform.