The Fugitive Pigeon

by Donald E. Westlake

  “I know,” she said. “There’ve been a couple of other signs like that. Like him looking up to you like he does these days. Maybe he’s growing up, maybe pretty soon I’ll have to be somebody else’s morning-after girl.”

  I said, “Couldn’t you—”

  “Don’t say anything dumb, Charlie,” she said. “Look, there goes your cop friend.”

  I looked, and there went my cop friend all right, into the station house.

  Chloe said, “To get back to business, can I make a suggestion?”

  “Sure.”

  “After this, we call it quits for tonight. It’s getting late, Mr. Gross probably has men looking all over for us, we’d probably be smartest to hole up somewhere until morning. Besides, I’m getting tired and you should be, too.”

  “I guess I am,” I said. “But—”

  “You’re not going to find this Mahoney in the middle of the night,” she said.

  “Where do I hole up?”

  “Same place as last night. Artie’s. I’ve got a key. We should be safe there till morning.”

  “We?”

  She made a disgusted face. “Don’t start a foolish argument, Charlie,” she said. “I’m sticking with you. I’ll drive the getaway car, I’ll do whatever you need. I already came in handy once, remember?”

  “I remember,” I said. And I thought to myself, there was no point arguing with her. She was right about my waiting till morning before going on, and right about my holing up at Artie’s place in the maantime. If Artie was there, or showed up by morning, we could all talk over who’d do what from there on. If Artie didn’t show, the morning would be time enough to tell Chloe I’d feel better going off on my own.

  Not that I would feel better. It just seemed as though that’s what I ought to say.

  A few minutes later Patrolman Ziccatta came back out of the station house and began walking back and forth, looking for us. We were across the street and down a way to his left, in plain sight, with a streetlight just down at the corner behind us. I rolled my side window down and waved my arms at him, but he just kept walking back and forth and he couldn’t find us.

  All in all, Patrolman Ziccatta was not an ideal cop. He couldn’t twirl his nightstick worth a damn, he didn’t like poking his nose into other people’s business, and he couldn’t find a 1938 Packard parked directly across the street under a streetlight.

  I finally had to holler, “Hey!”

  He looked up, looked around, and saw us. In fact, he pointed at us, as though showing us to himself. He smiled, pleased to find us at last, and came across the street.

  I said, sotto voce, “Did you find out anything?”

  “Did I?” he said. “You bet I did.” He leaned a forearm on the Packard, above my side window, and leaned down so his face was framed in the window. He smiled past me at Chloe and said, “Hello, there.”

  She smiled back, a little more sweetly than necessary I thought, and said, “Hello again.”

  “Hello, hello,” I said, somewhat snappish. “What did you find out?”

  “This might not be the right Patrick Mahoney,” he said. “There’s probably more Patrick Mahoneys on the force than you could shake a stick at.”

  “I don’t want to shake a stick at anybody,” I said. “Tell me about the Patrick Mahoney you’ve got.”

  “Well, he’s a wheel,” he said. “He’s a deputy chief inspector, and that’s right under an assistant chief inspector.”

  “Wow,” I said snidely. “What does he deputy chief inspect?”

  “He’s in the Mob & Rackets Squad,” he said. “He’d be second in command under Assistant Chief Inspector Fink.”

  “What’s the Mob & Rackets Squad?”

  “It’s something they started after all that stuff came out on television about the Cosa Nostra. It’s a special squad to be on the lookout for organized crime in New York City.”

  “I wonder if they find any,” I said.

  “I don’t know if he’s the Mahoney you want,” Patrolman Ziccatta said.

  I told him, “I’ll be mightily surprised if he isn’t. Where’s he stationed, at Centre Street?”

  “No. At Headquarters out in Queens.”

  “Queens,” I said.

  “It’s probably in the phone book,” he said. “Somewhere out in Queens.”

  “Queens.”

  He nodded. “Yeah. Queens.”

  “The Mob & Rackets Squad is out in Queens.”

  “Well, you know. It’s a bureaucracy, Charlie, you know that.”

  “Sure. Thanks a lot, anyway. I really appreciate it.”

  “Any time, Charlie. And if there’s anything I can do, whatever the problem is here, I don’t want to pry but you know I’ll do all I can to help.”

  “I know that,” I said, and I did. Patrolman Ziccatta really was a first-rate guy. How he ever got on the force I do not know.

  “Thanks again,” I said.

  He lowered his head so he could smile past me at Chloe again. “Well,” he said to her, “good-bye again.”

  “So long,” she said, and smiled upon him once more.

  Ostentatiously I started the engine. “I don’t want to keep you from your appointed rounds,” I said.

  “That’s mailmen,” he said, but he backed away from the car and the conversation was over.

  As we drove away, Chloe said, “He’s sweet.”

  I said nothing. I was feeling mixed emotions.

  Chapter 19

  All the streets in Greenwich Village are one way the other way. I pushed the Packard around most of the Village, like a landlocked Flying Dutchman, and finally came on Perry Street from the rear. “Almost there,” I said.

  “It’s about time.”

  “If you knew a quicker way,” I said, “all you had to do was speak up.”

  “You’re driving,” she told me. For some reason, we’d been snapping at each other since Canarsie.

  I was about to answer—about to say, in fact, “Thanks for the information”—when I saw the black car, the famous black car, parked by a fire hydrant directly across the street from Artie’s apartment. I almost missed it, almost passed it by, because there was only one of them in it, either Trask or Slade, and I had come to think of them as inseparable, like the Doublemint girls. But there was no reason they wouldn’t split up from time to time, for one to rest or go get fresh orders or some such thing. In this case my guess would be the other one was with Deputy Chief Inspector Mahoney.

  Chloe, still blissfully unaware, said, “There’s a parking space. Isn’t that incredible?”

  It was, but I went on by. The next intersection was West Fourth Street—this was two blocks north of where West Fourth crosses West Tenth and one block south of where West Fourth crosses West Eleventh, if you’re keeping a crime map—and West Fourth Street is one way west, or south, so I took it.

  Chloe said, “Hey! That was a parking space!”

  “Trask or Slade,” I said.

  “What?”

  “The killers. One of them is parked across the street from Artie’s place.”

  She turned around in the seat and looked out the back window, although we’d now turned the corner and gone an additional block, so it was unlikely she could see in front of Artie’s place too clearly. She squinted and said, “Are you sure?”

  “I’m sure. I know those guys pretty good by now.”

  “In front of Artie’s place? How come they’re in front of Artie’s place?”

  “They’re ubiquitous,” I said.

  “They’re what?”

  “That means you told Uncle Al I was there once before.”

  “Oh.” Then one beat late, she took offense: “What are you talking about? How was I supposed to know—”

  “All right, never mind. The point is, what now?”

  “I’m tired, Charlie,” she said. “I can’t tell you how tired I am.”

  “Were there any lights in Artie’s windows, did you notice?”

  “No
. I was looking for parking spaces.”

  I had come to Seventh Avenue and a red light. I was just as pleased to stop, since I had no idea where I was going. I said, “Is there any back way into his building, around from the next street?”

  “I don’t know. How would I know?”

  “I don’t know how you’d know. I’m tired too.”

  She said, “Isn’t there any place else?”

  I shook my head. “Artie was the only guy I could think of last night. What about your place?”

  “Sorry. I’ve got two roommates, and they’re both schizo enough as it is. I’m not about to bring a man in, in the middle of the night.”

  “Then I don’t know.”

  The light turned green. Seventh Avenue is one way south. I turned that way, went about five feet, and was stopped by another red light.

  Chloe said, “What about across the roofs?”

  “What?”

  “We’ll go in the building on the corner, and up on the roof, and along the roofs to Artie’s building, and down inside to the apartment.”

  I said, “How do we get into the building on the corner?”

  “Oh,” she said.

  This light also turned green, and once again I turned right, this time onto Grove Street, which I took to Hudson Street, where the light was red.

  She said, “We could drive around like this all night, you know.”

  “Please. I’m trying to think.”

  “Then we’re lost,” she said.

  “Ha ha,” I said. “Very funny.”

  The light, as they all do, turned green, and yet again I turned right. Hudson Street is one way north. I drove one block, to Christopher Street, and got stopped by a red light.

  “This is ridiculous,” Chloe pointed out. “There’s got to be some way to get in there.”

  I said, “Such as.”

  We were both silent. We sat and watched the red light, and after a while it did guess what. I drove north up Hudson Street, past West Tenth Street—hello, West Tenth Street!—and past Charles Street, and past Perry Street—hello, Artie’s apartment, a block and a half to our right—and between Perry and West Eleventh I found a parking space. It was a little small, and I stuck the Packard in it like someone putting a marshmallow in a ring box. When it was at last within walking distance of the curb, I turned everything off and said, “All right. The apartment is two blocks from here. Let’s think of a way in.”

  So neither of us said anything for a while. I sat with arms folded and stared gloomily out at the hood, glinting evilly in the night. I couldn’t think of a thing. In fact, I had trouble thinking about thinking about the problem. I kept going off into reveries in which none of this had happened, in which I was at this very moment standing behind the bar in the ROCK GRILL, watching Baby LeRoy, on television, throw the can of clams at W.C. Fields.

  Chloe said, abruptly, “Maybe …”

  Wrenched back from Baby LeRoy—now spilling the molasses on the floor—I turned my head and said, “Maybe what?”

  With maddening slowness she said, “It might work.” She was gazing out at the street and frowning in concentration.

  A trifle impatient, I said, “What might work?”

  “Neither one of them,” she said thoughtfully, “got a good look at me. You’re the one they know by sight.”

  “So?”

  “In fact,” she said, “Mr. Gross thinks I’m Althea, and Trask and Slade know what Althea looks like, so I’m perfectly safe. Perfectly safe.”

  “I’m happy for you,” I said. She seemed less irritated now, no longer waspish, but I was having trouble making the adjustment.

  “No, listen,” she said, letting sarcasm pass for the first time in over an hour. “I’ll go first. I’ll walk along like I’m drunk, and when I get to his car I’ll make a racket. I’ll sing or something, or fall all over his car. I’ll make a great big fuss and distract him, and you duck inside: Then I’ll come in.”

  “What if he gets suspicious?”

  “Why should he get suspicious? A drunk girl in Greenwich Village at one o’clock in the morning? What could be more natural?”

  “I don’t like it,” I said.

  “You think you should disapprove,” she told me, “because I’m female and because Errol Flynn would disapprove.”

  “Then go right ahead and do it,” I told her, cut to the point where I hoped she would get into a jam with Trask or Slade. “Have a big time,” I told her.

  “Don’t be snippy. I know we’re both tired, but control yourself.”

  “Fine,” I said. “I’m controlling myself.”

  “Good. Now, here’s the key. It unlocks both the downstairs door and the apartment door.”

  “Last night,’ I said, “the downstairs door wasn’t locked.”

  “Oh?” She didn’t seem very interested. She opened the door on her side. “Leave your jacket in the car,” she said. “I’ll wear it when I come back around, so he won’t know I’m the same girl.”

  I said, “You really want to do this?”

  “Yes. I’m tired, and it’s perfectly safe, and we haven’t been able to think of anything else.”

  I shrugged and got out of the car. I took my jacket off and left it on the front seat, then locked the door on my side and walked around to the sidewalk, where Chloe was standing and waiting for me. I said, “Maybe we ought to get a hotel room some place instead.”

  She looked at me. “There are so many things wrong with that idea,” she said, “I hardly know where to begin.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like number one, for instance, he couldn’t get a hotel room, we’d have to get two hotel rooms.”

  “You could sleep at your own place.”

  “If I leave you alone, God knows what you’ll do. Number two, neither of us have the money to waste on hotel rooms. Number three, we still want to get back in touch with Artie, and how do we do that if we don’t go to his apartment?”

  I said, “All right. You convinced me.” I locked the door on this side of the car and gave her the keys. “Good luck,” I said.

  “Watch me,” she said, and winked.

  We walked down to the corner of Perry and Bleecker Streets together, and I stationed myself against the corner building, where I could peek around Perry Street and see what was doing. Chloe said, “Wait till I’ve got him good and distracted.”

  “Right.”

  “See you,” she said, and walked around the corner. She began at once to sing, very loud and not on key: “‘Hail to the bastard king of England …’” And so on.

  I’d never heard that song all the way through before. That was really a very dirty song.

  Singing, waving her arms in grandiose gestures to amplify the song, Chloe tottered down the block and angled across the street toward the black car. In her dungarees and black turtleneck sweater and long straight black hair she was every Greenwich Village free-love cliché ever spawned, and I didn’t see how Trask or Slade could be anything in this world but distracted out of his mind.

  Chloe, however, was taking no chances. Still singing, she brought up against the front left fender of the black car, and stood swaying there a few seconds, studying the obstruction. I couldn’t see Trask or Slade from where I was, but it seemed a safe bet he was looking at Chloe and not across at Artie’s building. I took a deep breath and prepared to make my dash.

  Then Chloe took her sweater off.

  The clown; she distracted me. I just stood there and gaped.

  “‘Now I lay me down to sleep,’” Chloe bellowed, top of her voice, and climbed up on the black car’s hood. She arranged her sweater as a pillow and curled up on the hood like a cat on the hearth.

  She wore a black bra.

  Lying there, she finished the prayer, allowed a second or two to go by for reverence’ sake, and then began to sing that song again.

  Trask or Slade abruptly came boiling out of his car, shouting and hollering and waving his hands, like an orchard owner
shooing kids out of his apple trees. “Get offa there! Come on, come on, get offa there!”

  Chloe told him something I will not record, and rolled over on her other side.

  At last I moved. I ran, like unto the wind. Chloe and Trask or Slade continued to shout at each other—I’m not sure but what I heard Chloe mention rape, as a matter of fact—and I did a Roger Bannister halfway down the block, turned left, up the steps, and into the building.

  The downstairs door was unlocked tonight, too. I thundered up the stairs and unlocked my way into Artie’s apartment.

  There was no light on in here, and I had to leave it that way. If Trask or Slade looked up and saw light from these windows, he’d surely come and investigate. Still, there was faint illumination from outside, and I made my way around the perimeter of the furniture lumped in the middle of the room, and when I got to one of the windows I looked down and saw a very rumpled-looking Chloe standing on the sidewalk next to the black car, pulling her sweater on. Trask or Slade stood on the street side of the car, still making shooing motions with his hands. The two of them were still hollering at one another.

  No one came out of any buildings to see what was going on. No police showed up. Everything was nice and private.

  I watched, and Chloe finally went shuffling away, still singing and doing her drunk act. Trask or Slade stood in the street and glared after her till she’d rounded the far corner, and then he turned and looked up at me—that is, at the window behind which I was cowering—and then he got back into his car. I watched, and a few seconds later a match flared in the car as he lit a cigarette to calm his nerves.

  Six hundred seconds went by, one at a time. I stood at the window and watched the street.

  A young guy in work clothes—dungarees and a black jacket and cap on his head—came walking down the street from the direction in which I had come. A cigarette dangled from his mouth, and his hands were in his jacket pockets. A rolled-up newspaper jutted out of a hip pocket of his dungarees.

  He came down the street and stopped in front of this building and flipped his cigarette in the street and I saw it was Chloe. I also saw the pale face of Trask or Slade across the way, looking at her and satisfying himself she wasn’t me. Then she trotted up the steps and out of my line of vision.