Free Parker 01 - The Mark by Jason Pinter Page A

sure about that yet. Cops’re checking phone records, my man at the 24th said he’ll tell me whatever they find, but they’re still looking. We’re not gonna know anything until they do.”
    DiForio picked his chair up and heaved it across the room. A dozen pairs of eyes watched it fly over their heads and clang against the wall. Michael walked around the table and approached Blanket, his chest mere inches away.
    Dom Loverro stood up. The man weighed three hundred, three-fifty easy. Body fat percentage hovering around ninety-five. He said, “Mike, you want us to take care of it? Find this prick Parker?”
    DiForio looked at him with contempt. “If I need a fat asshole to walk up behind a deaf and dumb guy and hit him in the back of the head with a crowbar, I’ll let you know. I need to chase down a fugitive thirty years younger than us, something tells me I’ll need a guy who can see his toes.”
    “Mike?” Blanket said.
    “The package from that junkie shutterbug,” DiForio said. “Where is it?”
    Blanket’s heart caught in his throat. He blinked rapidly, felt sweat leaking through his pores. “The cops don’t have it. It wasn’t at the scene.”
    DiForio slowly turned around, taking two steps away from Blanket. Then in the blink of an eye, he spun around and slapped Blanket across the face.
    Spit flew from his lips. He tasted salty blood, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, took it in stride.
    “So, would you find it safe to say that since Luis Guzman doesn’t have my package, and the cops don’t have it yet, either…you see what I’m getting at you stupid fuck?”
    Blanket spit a cluster of blood and phlegm onto the concrete. “Parker,” he said. “He must have taken it last night when he ran.”
    DiForio nodded. “Blanket?”
    “Yeah, boss?”
    “Call the Ringer.”
    Blanket felt a shiver, an electrical pulse, course through his body. A smile crept over his busted lip. He felt no pain, only a sense of satisfaction. At that moment, Blanket wouldn’t have traded places with Henry Parker for all the riches on earth.

10
    F ederal Plaza felt like 3:00 a.m. during a graveyard shift, everyone walking around like zombies. Many of the agents knew the man who died last night. And they were all looking to Joe Mauser to bring Henry Parker to justice.
    Mauser banged open the office door. The younger agent, Leonard Denton, was already there. Clean shaven, smelled like a bottle of Drakkar Noir threw up all over him. Joe offered an imperceptible nod and sat down at the table. He sniffed, grimaced, the younger man’s aftershave reeking like holy hell. Hygiene be damned, Joe didn’t care much about anything at this point. Parker was still out there. Goddamn NYPD had the kid pinned like a rat and let him squirm away.
    Leonard Denton had a squeaky clean rep in the department, squeaky to the point where people almost assumed he would flip out one day and go postal. He was efficient and by-the-book, admirable qualities. But being admired and having admirable qualities were two totally different animals. Denton requested this case for that very reason, to prove to the rank and file that he would take down a man who killed one of their own. When it came to tracking down a fugitive cop killer, you set the book on fire and laughed at it while it burned. And Mauser could tell from Denton’s face that the man was completely prepared to do that.
    Denton had requested that he partner with Mauser. Joe obliged. This would be their first time working together. And as much as a longtime partner could bring familiarity to a case, Joe wanted to be kept on his toes. Denton was six-one. A little too skinny. Probably drank too much coffee, didn’t eat much, worked out like crazy. He didn’t wear a wedding ring. Never talked about a girl, serious or just someone he was banging on the side. His life was streamlined for the job. The kind of guy you’d want to track down Henry Parker.
    Joe had seen the body lying in the