Chapter 4

PARKER took the Carey bus from La Guardia to the East Side Terminal building on 37th Street in Manhattan. A rented Chevrolet was waiting for him there, but he let it wait a little longer, while he went up to Grand Central. It was five o'clock Sunday afternoon, and the station was doing a thriving business. Parker worked his way through it to the phone booths and the telephone books.

Buying a house had meant suburb to Parker from the beginning. The East Side Airlines Terminal had the phone books for the boroughs of New York – except for Staten Island – but the man Parker was looking for would be in Nassau County or Westchester County, or maybe even in Fan-field County up in Connecticut.

There was a "Wells, Chas. F.", in Nassau County. Parker knew from May that Stubbs had planned to go through the phone book for all the possibilities and then go visit each one. He also knew that Stubbs would start with the city itself.

But sooner or later it would have to occur to Stubbs that Wells lived outside the city, and Stubbs was six days ahead of him. There wasn't time to do it the way Stubbs was doing. Parker looked at the phone number for this Nassau County Wells, got some change out of his pocket and went into one of the booths.

He talked with an operator first, and fed some more money into the slots. Then the ringing sounded in his ear. He was just about to give up, after ten rings, when the phone was answered by a male voice. Parker said, "I want to talk to Charles F. Wells."

"Speaking."

"This is Wallerbaugh."

If he was the wrong Wells, he'd be baffled. If he was the right Wells, the naming coming at him this way might throw him off base.

It did. There was a pause, and then the voice, wary and careful. "What was that name, please?"

"Dr Adler," Parker said. Just to be absolutely sure.

The wait was longer this time, and the voice this time was low and vicious. "Who are you? What do you want?"

Parker hung up. He left the booth and went back across the crowded terminal floor and took a cab back to the Airlines Terminal. It was the right Wells, and he was still alive. That could mean Stubbs hadn't found him yet, even though he'd had six days. Or it could mean Stubbs had found him and Wells had proved his innocence. It could also mean that Stubbs had found him and was now dead.

The address wasn't much to go on. Reardon Road, Hunting-ton, Long Island. There was a map in the glove compartment of the rented Chevrolet, and Parker found Huntington and figured out his best route. The Queens Midtown Tunnel, because it was handy to the Terminal, and then the Long Island Expressway. Glen Cove Road up to North Hempstead Turnpike, which was also 25A, and that road into Huntington. When he got there, he could ask directions to Reardon Road.

He put the map back in the glove compartment.