Richard Stark - Nobody Runs Forever

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

Copyright 2004 by Richard Stark

All rights reserved.

Mysterious Press

Warner Books

Hachette Book Group USA

237 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10017

Visit our Web site at HachetteBookGroupUSA.com.

First eBook Edition:: November 2004

ISBN 978-0-446-50733-2

The Hunter

The Man with the Getaway Face

The Outfit

The Mourner

The Score

The Jugger

The Seventh

The Handle

The Damsel

The Rare Coin Score

The Green Eagle Score

The Dame

The Black Ice Score

The Sour Lemon Score

Deadly Edge

The Blackbird

Slayground

Lemons Never Lie

Plunder Squad

Butchers Moon

Comeback

Backflash

Flashfire

Firebreak

Breakout

W hen he saw that the one called Harbin was wearing a wire, Parker said, Deal me out a hand, and got to his feet. Theyd all come to this late-night meeting in suits and ties, traveling businessmen taking a break with a little seven-card stud. Harbin, a nervous man unused to the dress shirt, kept twitching and moving around, bending forward to squint at his cards, and finally Parker, a quarter around the table to Harbins left, saw in the gap between shirt buttons that flash of clear tape holding the wire down.

As he walked around the table, Parker stripped off his own tiedark blue with thin gold stripesslid it into a double thickness, and arched it over Harbins head. He drew the two ends through the loop and yanked back hard with his right hand as his body pressed both Harbin and the chair he was in against the table, and his left hand reached over to rip open Harbins shirt. The other five at the table, about to speak or move or react to what Parker was doing, stopped when they saw the wire taped to Harbins pale chest, the edge of the black metal box taped to his side.

Parker bore down, holding Harbin against the table, pulling back now with both hands on the tie, twisting the tie. Harbins hands, imprisoned in his lap, beat a drumroll on the bottom of the table. The other players held the table in place, palms down, and looked at McWhitney, red-bearded and red-faced, whod brought Harbin here. McWhitney, expression solemn, looked around at each face and shook his head; he hadnt known.

My deal, I think, Dalesia said, as calm as before, and shuffled the cards a while, as the others watched Harbin and Parker. Dalesia dealt out hands in front of himself, all the cards facedown, and said, Bet the king.

Fold, said Mott.

It was Stratton whod taken this hotel room in Cincinnati. He pointed at McWhitney, pointed at Harbin, made a thumb gesture like an umpire calling the runner out. McWhitney nodded and quietly got to his feet, being sure the chair wouldnt scrape on the floor.

Mott and Fletcher were seated flanking Harbin; now they held him upright while Parker peeled his necktie out of the new, deep crease in Harbins neck.

These cards are dead, Mott said, and Fletcher peeled the tape off Harbins chest, freeing the antenna wire and the transmitter box.

McWhitney, standing there, made a broad shrugging gesture to the table, a combination of apology and innocence, then came around to pick Harbin up in a firemans carry, bent forward with Harbins forearms looped around his own throat.

Bet two, Parker said, coming back to his place at the table.

Fletcher held the transmitter and antenna while Mott crossed to the sofa at the side of the room and came back with a cushion, which he put where Harbin had been seated. Fletcher put the transmitter on the cushion, and they all sat, making comments about the game they werent playing, except Stratton, who went into the other room, where his gear was.

McWhitney carried Harbin to the hall door, looked out, and left, carrying the body. At twenty after one on a weekday morning, there wasnt likely to be much traffic out there.

They continued not to play, to discuss how cold the cards were, and to suggest they might all make an early night of it. They hadnt been together in the room long before Parker had made his discovery, and so hadnt yet started to talk about anything that the wire shouldnt know. They were mostly new to one another, and would have had to get acquainted a while before they started to talk for real.

Stratton was back from the other room in five minutes, with one suitcase. He took his former chair and said, Deal me out.

The others all made comments about breaking up early, the cards not interesting, try again some other time. Fletcher, who, it turned out, could sound something like Harbin, with that same rasp in his voice, said, You guys go ahead, Ill clean up in here.

Thanks, Harbin, Stratton said, and as they left, they all said, See you, Harbin, to the transmitter on the cushion.

P arker and Dalesia and Fletcher and Mott and Stratton rode the elevator down together. Mott said, Which of us is in their sights, do you think?

I hope not me, Stratton said. I took that room. Not as me, but still...

Parker said, Most likely McWhitney, he brought him.

Or maybe, Fletcher said, just any target of opportunity. Decorate him like a Christmas tree, send him out to get them somebody else, because theyve already got him.

That sounds right, Stratton said. They love to turn people. Tag, youre it, now youre on my side, go turn some of your friends.

Theyre like vampires, Fletcher said, making more vampires.

The lobby door opened and they went out to a big space empty of people except for one green-blazered girl clerk behind the check-in desk. Fletcher and Mott had come together, and went off together. The other three had all arrived alone. See you, Stratton said, and left.

Parker was also going to leave, but Nick Dalesia said, You got a minute?

Dalesia, a thin man with tense shoulders, was the one whod invited Parker here, and the only one present hed known before, and that not very well. Yes, Parker said.

Lets find a bar.

At a booth in an underpopulated bar, the few other customers either male-female couples or male singletons, Dalesia said, This means Im still out of work.

Yes, Parker said.

And you, too.

Parker shrugged.

Dalesia said, I came here because the only other thing I had for a possible is maybe a little iffy and farther down the line. But now Im thinking maybe Ill look into it, and maybe youd like to check it out, too. Its good to have somebody with you where theres a little history.

Not much history, Parker said.

Nick Dalesia was a driver brought into a job Parker was on some years ago, brought in there by a guy named Tom Hurley, who Parker had known better. But Hurley got himself shot in the arm that time, and hadnt ever gotten over it completely, and had gone away to life in retirement somewhere offshore, maybe the Caribbean. Dalesia had been competent that one time, but Parker hadnt met up with him again until Dalesia had made the phone call that had brought them both here.

A little history is enough, Dalesia said, if you feel you can trust the guy. This gold thing is dead, I think. Meaning Strattons target, which they hadnt gotten around to talking about: a shipment of dental gold.

Its dead as far as Im concerned, Parker said. Whats this other thing?

Its a bank, Dalesia said, in western Massachusetts.

Parker shook his head. A small-town bank? Theres not much there.

No, what this is, Dalesia told him, its a transfer of assets. These two local banks merged, or one of them bought the other one, so theyre shutting one of the main offices down, so theyre emptying a vault.