Suddenly the runner was standing beside the desk again. He put down the file-card, with a sheaf of money clipped up against it. The card had been diagonally perforated “Canceled” to show that the account was closed out. The bank official unclipped the money, separated it from the card, shifted it over to me. “There you are,” he said and watched my face.
I was looking down at a hundred-dollar bill. My heart started to pick up speed. Over a hundred dollars—gee, it had been worth going to all that—I thumbed it. The second one from the top was a hundred-dollar bill too. Over two hundred; this was even better than I’d dared. The third from the top was still another—I couldn’t go ahead separating them. My heart was rattling around in my chest like a loose bolt. I took a short-cut, reached out for the file-card, scanned it instead.
My eyes riveted themselves to that last group of numerals at the bottom, blurred, then cleared again by sheer will-power. Twelve hundred and—over a thousand dollars! Suddenly another zero had jumped up at the end, almost as though an invisible adding-machine was at work under my very eyes.
12010
I just looked at him helplessly. He nodded. He finished counting it out for me, since I was obviously too shaken to be able to do it for myself right then. Dazedly I saw one hundred and twenty hundreds whirr through his deft fingers. And then a lone ten at the end.
“It’s the biggest unclaimed sum we’ve turned over in years,” he told me. “In fact, as far as I know, it’s the biggest that’s ever been held anywhere, since the law first went into effect. Sign this, please.”
It was some kind of a quit-claim or acknowledgment. There had to be one in this case, because of the size of the sum involved and because I hadn’t presented any passbook. Catastrophe flicked me with its dread wings—I just managed to swerve out from under them by a hair’s breadth now, at the very end, with the money already counted out and turned over to me there on the desk.
I was so stunned, so punchdrunk, that as I took up the pen I started to write George Palmer, my own name, my former name, I should say, from automatic force of long habit. I’d already formed the capital G when I caught myself doing it. Luckily, his eyes were off me at that instant, he was putting the money in an envelope for me. I quickly pushed down on the pen and a blot obliterated the damning initial completely. I started further over and scrawled “Lee Nugent” with a shaky hand.
He blotted it for me, put it away. I picked up the envelope, stood up, and found my legs were a little unmanageable. I had to “lock” them at the knees to get them to work. He shook hands with me. “Sure you don’t want to rent a safety-box with us, make sure of nothing happening to it? That’s a lot of cash to be carrying around on you.”
“No thanks, I’ll take it with me,” I mumbled. The one thing I was sure of was I wanted to get far away from there with it, and stay away.
3
I could feel heads turning to look after me curiously as I made my way toward the revolving door. Something about the pallor of my face, I guess, or my jerky gait. Heads of people I didn’t know, and who didn’t know me. Or did they?
Sometimes I think they have a sixth sense, that other people don’t have, that draws them unerringly to the right place at just the right time. As I came down the sloping steps to sidewalk-level, there were several others behind me leaving at the same time I did. Just as there were those making their way in. The bank was a busy one. But it seemed to me that one of them had kept on looking at me intently all the way out here, outside the bank.
I stiffened the cords of my neck to keep my head from turning as it wanted to. I didn’t want to meet anyone’s eyes, lock glances with anyone, I just wanted to get into the street crowds and lose myself. I hurried along, close to the building line. Then, just before rounding the corner, I couldn’t hold out, I cast a circumspect look over one shoulder.
No one had followed me with their feet, but eyes were definitely following me, from back there at the bank entrance. Not just one face was turned my way, but two now. One of those who had left when I did had gone over to a small car standing at the curb. Both he and the man at the wheel were looking unmistakably toward me. I even caught one of them make a gesture pointing me out to the other.
I didn’t wait for any more. I hurried around the corner and out of sight. I quickened my gait, still trying to keep from an outright run, if possible. Before I could cover a third of the distance toward the next corner, which I again intended rounding, there was a hissing sound and the car had suddenly overshot me, braked against the curb a few yards ahead.
I stopped short, swerved, and started back the other way. I might have made it, but I ran full-tilt into one of these vagrant peddlers you see here and there on the downtown streets, carrying a shoulder-slung tray of razor blades or shoelaces out before him. The whole trayful went all over the sidewalk. Before I could get out and around him, the two in the car had leaped down and come up to me, one behind the other.
The one in the lead was jabbering as he closed in: “Your name’s Lee Nugent and you just came into a whale of a big unclaimed deposit back there at the bank, right? How about a few words, what it feels like and what you intend doing—” And before I knew it the second one had fanned out from behind him, sighted a camera, and clicked it at me repeatedly.
Instead of being relieved I was more frightened even than when I’d thought it was a hold-up or some sort of retributive vengeance. That was the one thing I didn’t want: pictures and publicity on it. That was the one thing that could make it end up bad for me.
I reversed, rushed headlong out at them instead of away. The legman warned, “Look out for your camera, Bill, he’s after it!” They both evaded me, jumped agilely aside. “Never mind, I’ll write it on the cuff back at the office, let’s clear out.” They doubled back, regained the car, and it had streaked off again before I could stop them.
Then I turned and met the eyes of the poor devil of a street-vendor. Probably if he had stood there and snarled imprecations at me I would have told him to go to the devil, and hurried on my way. But he didn’t, for some strange reason. He just stood there and looked at me in a sort of mildly reproachful way without saying a word, as though accepting this as just one more of the hard knocks he kept getting all day long. Something about that look on his face touched me. After all, he was me, twenty minutes ago. Except that I’d had the use of both of my legs and he was game-legged.
I moved over against the wall, took out the envelope, fumbled in it without letting anyone see me, turned back to him and handed him the odd ten that came with the 12010. “Here,” I said, “to make it square.”
He just stared at me speechless. It gave me sort of a glow. It was as though I’d found myself a mascot, a living good-luck piece, to help ward off the evil that I could feel crowding close behind me. Long before he could stammer his thanks I was out of hearing and on my way again.
It had hit all the papers by six that evening. It was a natural, you couldn’t blame them for playing it up. I didn’t mind the write-ups so much; it was the pictures. All of them ran that one he’d taken, probably it had been distributed by some news-service. There was my face, caught for good. For thousands to look at. For the whole city around me to see. And somewhere among those thousands, somewhere in that whole city around me, might be—must be—the real Lee Nugent.
* * *
—
I was in a night-club with a redhead on one side of me, a blonde on the other, when I first became aware of him. I was in a different night-club every night now, with a different blonde and a different redhead beside me every night.
At the third look he started to sink in. He was standing there by the entrance looking steadfastly over at me. At first sight there was nothing unusual in that. The place was small and overcrowded and there were plenty of people standing around, jawing and holding drinks. But he wasn’t with anyone and he wasn’t h
olding any drink. And he wasn’t looking anywhere but over at my table, the direction of his head never changed.
At the fourth look, the fourth I gave him, I mean, he tried to cover up. He was looking at the ceiling. Only there was nothing up there to see. And the first three looks had told the story. I said, trying to laugh it off: “Let’s go some place else, that guy’s getting on my nerves.”
They didn’t have a brain between the two of them. “Maybe he knows you, why don’t you ask him over?” one of them giggled.
I said: “Quit staring at him. Start putting your faces on. I’ll be right with you, I’m going out back.”
I went back toward the men’s room. Fortunately it was in the other direction, away from the front. There was a darky in there in a white jacket. I let him give me the works, brush-off, shoe-dusting, hair-tonic, talcum, anything to stay in there. Money was no object any more, these days.
Then when he was all through, I eased the door a finger’s width open and squinted out. By standing there in a certain position I could look straight out across the club proper, over to the entrance where he was. He hadn’t stirred. His whole attitude expressed that terrible lethal patience that never tires, never gives up.
“Is there any other way out of here?” I asked the attendant.
“No suh, this a one-way place.”
I peered out again, and he had started to move. Time was up. I was taking too long to come back. He was coming in after me. There was no mistaking that. You could tell by the way he cut through the dancers, elbowed aside waiters and whoever happened to get into his way, eyes fixed straight ahead—at the door behind which I was standing.
I pointed to a narrow door right beside the main one. “What’s that?”
“Closet where I keep my supplies, boss.”
I peeled off another ten. It was always tens these days. “What would you do for one of these?”
“Practickly anything,” was his frank answer.
* * *
—
I only had seconds. I hoisted up first one foot, then the other, wrenched off my patent dress-oxfords, handed them to him. “Put these on the floor in that cabinet over there. Side by side, where they can be seen from outside, as though there was somebody in them. Here’s a jit to open it up with. There’s a man on his way in—this ten dollars is for you to do something—anything—so I can get from the closet out that door without him seeing me.”
I backed into it, drew the door after me. It was lined with shelves, but there was enough space between them and the door for me to sandwich myself upright in; one week’s high living hadn’t been enough to put any paunch on me yet. I left the closet-door open by a hair’s breadth, to be able to breathe and also so I could watch for a chance to slip out.
The other door winged inward, blocking the one I was behind. Then it receded again, and he was standing there. Motionless for a moment, like he had been outside against the wall. There were two things I didn’t like about him. One was the look on his face, even though it was held profile-ward to me. It was bloodless and yet glowing, as if with the imminent infliction of death—on someone, by him—right in here, right now, no matter who was around, no matter where he happened to be. And the second thing I didn’t like was the stance his right arm had fallen into.
To the attendant facing him from the line of gleaming washstands opposite, it might have seemed only as if he was fumbling for a handkerchief. But I was behind him, and I could see the wedge-shaped bottom of the hip-holster peering from under his coat. The colored boy was engaged in dumping talcum from a big square canister into a round glass bowl, to be set out on the shelf for the convenience of customers whose beards grew in too fast while they were patronizing the club. But he managed to get too much in, it piled up higher than the rim in a mound.
The man in the doorway took a slow step forward. He started, “Hey, you—” and backed up his thumb. I suppose he was going to tell him to clear out.
The attendant said, “Yessuh, gen’man, whut’ll it be?” but in his anxiety to please, he stepped out without watching where he put his foot, and it landed on the floor-pedal of a hot-air drier. The blast caught the cone of dumped talcum in the bowl he was holding head-on. There was suddenly a swirling blizzard over there, veiling the two of them as though they were in a fog.
Two quick, quiet steps in my bare socks took me from the closet to the outer door. I pared it open, sidled around the edge of it, and was outside. It worked on springs, didn’t make any noise closing after me.
I passed through the club a moment later in my bare socks, without stopping. I flung down a pair of tens at the table with the redhead and the blonde, said, “Sorry, girls, see you around,” and was gone before their heads had even had time to turn around toward me.
I hobbled painfully out across the hard cold sidewalk and jumped into a cab. I gave him the address of my hotel, and spent the first few blocks of the ride dusting off the soles of my feet between both hands. I’d have to change quarters right away, as soon as I got back. He’d be able to pick up the trail too easily, from back there at the club, now that he was once on it. Too many of those little numbers who frequented the place knew where I was stopping, had called me up now and then.
Just before we made the turn around the corner into the block the hotel fronted on, a light held us up. I swore softly; every minute counted. But I should have blessed it instead of cursing it out. In the minute that we were standing there motionless, there was a street light shining into the cab from almost directly overhead, and a figure suddenly launched itself out at us from the enshrouding gloom of the building line, where it must have been lurking unseen.
The human projectile caught onto the door-handle, was carried around the corner with us, managed to get it open and flounder in against me. I shied away instinctively along the seat before I saw who it was. It was my living talisman, the shoelace peddler. He’d made the immediate vicinity of the hotel his beat, ever since that first day. There wasn’t one night, since then, that I’d failed, on coming home, to stop a minute by him and slip him another one of those tens.
I reached for my wallet to do it again right now. “Hullo, Limpy. You seem mighty spry tonight. Sorry I couldn’t stop, I’m in kind of a rush—”
He motioned the offered money away. “That ain’t why I stopped you, Mr. Nugent!” he said breathlessly. Meanwhile he was tugging at me by the shoulders, trying to draw me off the seat. “Get down! Get down low, where you can’t be seen! And tell him not to stop, don’t leave him stop in front of the hotel. Quick, tell him to keep on going straight through and turn the next corner. I’ll tell you why after we get around there. Hurry up, Mr. Nugent, we’re nearly there!”
I had to take his word for it. I didn’t hesitate long. “Keep going, driver, don’t slow up.”
Limpy, huddled low beside me, put his hand out, displaced my hat, and pressed my head still further down, well below the level of the windows, as we entered the brightly-lighted area surrounding the hotel-entrance. A minute later it had dimmed out again behind us, and we turned the corner into the next street below, coursed it for most of its length, and then drew up against the curb.
“What was it?” I asked, straightening up.
“There’s a guy waiting in the shadows across the way from the hotel-entrance for you to come back. I don’t know what his game is, but he don’t act like he’s up to any good. I’ve been casing every car that came along for the past hour down there at the other corner, trying to head you off and tell you. Luckily it’s a one-way street and they all got to slow up for the turn even when the light’s with them.”
“How do you know it’s me he’s waiting for?”
“There were two of them came up together first. I seen them stand and chat for a minute with old Pete, your hotel doorman. One of them went inside, maybe to see if you were in, then he came out a
gain in a minute, and they shoved off. But not very far, just down around the lower corner there. I went up to Pete after they’d gone, I know him pretty well from hanging around here so much, and he told me they’d just been asking him kind of aimless questions about you. I went on down the line, pushing my pack, and when I got around the corner they were still there. They didn’t pay any attention to me, and I’ve got a favorite doorway right there I hang out in in wet weather. I couldn’t help overhearing a little of what they were saying, they were right on the other side of the partition from me. One of them said: ‘I’ll go back and keep the hotel covered. You start out and make a round of the clubs. See if you can put the finger on him. Don’t close in on him, just tail him, stay with him. Between the two of us we ought to be able to get him.’
“Then they split up. One crossed over, got in a car, and drove off. The other one went back around the corner, but he stayed on the dark side, hid himself in the shadows.”
“What’d the one that drove off in the car look like?”
He described him to the best of his ability. I knew by that he wasn’t lying. It was the same man I’d seen at the club.
So there were two of them, instead of just one. The authentic Lee Nugent, if it was he, had someone working with him. Which was which didn’t matter. Their intentions, obviously, went far beyond mere accusation, arrest, and juridical procedure. They wouldn’t have gone about it the way they were, if that had been the case.
4
I reached out and gripped Limpy absently by one of his skinny shoulders while I was thinking it over. “Thanks, you’re a real pal.”
“That ain’t nothing. One good turn deserves another. You’ve been swell to me ever since that first day you bumped into me on the street.” He waited a while, watching me intently.
The Big Book of Reel Murders Page 45