Runaway

by McBain, Ed

  “Tell me the truth,” she said.

  He looked at her face, and she hoped the fear was not showing there. “All right,” he said, “I’m running from the police.”

  “Wh … what did you do?”

  “Nothing.”

  “If the police are after you, you must have done something.”

  “I didn’t do anything, believe me. They say I killed a man, but—”

  “Killed a man!”

  “But I didn’t do it, believe me. Look, miss …”

  “I … I need another drink,” she said. She rose and walked shakily to the bar, trying to keep the swing out of her hips. He had killed a man, but no, he said he hadn’t killed a man, and yet the police were after him. She poured a jigger full of bourbon, and then threw it off hastily, her hand trembling.

  She put down her glass and made a stroking motion at her throat, her arm covering the front of her sweater. She could feel the fear mounting inside her, and there was nothing enjoyable about it now. She kept cursing herself for having been such a fool. My God, what could have been on her mind to have pulled such a crazy stunt? A man wanted for murder. Oh, my God, Mark, where are you? Come back. Mark, please. Take this … this black murderer away.

  He sat on the couch, staring at the floor. He looked up suddenly with a smile on his face.

  “Are you afraid of me now?” he asked.

  “No,” she said quickly. “Don’t … don’t be silly.”

  “You’ve nothing to be afraid of.”

  “I … know.”

  He kept staring at her with the curious smile on his face, and she wondered what he was thinking and suddenly she seemed to know just what he was thinking, and she expected him to get off the couch any minute and come across the room to her. She stood by the bar, petrified, waiting for the move. When it did not come, she cleared her throat and said, “I’m … a little chilly. I think I’ll put on a robe.”

  She went into the bedroom, closing the door behind her, not noticing in her haste that it was still partially open. She ran past the tweed coat and the slip on her bed, and then she stepped over her panties and bra where they lay on the floor in a heap. She went directly to the phone, lifting the receiver quickly.

  She waited for a dial tone, and then she dialed the “O” for Operator.

  When the voice came on the line, she said, “Get me the police. Quickly, please.”

  She waited, hearing the phone ring on the other end. She heard the outer door of her apartment slam just as the voice on the line said, “Sergeant Haggerty.”

  She paused, listening.

  “Never … never mind,” she said. She hung up quickly, and then walked into the living room, hoping she’d been right. She sighed heavily.

  The Negro was gone.

  She called Mark immediately, and when he got there, about ten minutes later, she sobbingly told him the whole story, leaving out the emotions she had felt, but telling him everything else. Then, after she had quieted down, Mark took the tweed coat out to the incinerator in the hallway, and opened the metal door and shoved it down the chute.

  Thirteen

  She was standing before the full-length mirror in her dressing room, having just come off the floor. She stood in her sequined bra and G string, wearing only those and high-heeled slippers. She stood and looked at her body, thinking of what Hank Sands had done to that body, and wanting to crawl out of her skin, leave it somewhere the way a snake does. She wanted to dress quickly. She wanted to cover her body, hide it. She had felt a peculiar revulsion tonight on the floor. Hank Sands had not been in the crowd, but she could feel his eyes in the eyes of every man in the club. It was not a wholesome feeling. For the first time since she’d been working at the Yahoo, she’d felt ashamed of her job.

  She turned from the mirror, reaching for the underwear piled over a chair. She was taking off one slipper when the knock sounded on the door.

  “Who is it?” she said.

  “Police,” the voice answered.

  “Just a moment.” She took a silk robe from a hanger on the screen and pulled it on quickly, belting it tightly around her waist. She tightened the strap on her slipper again, and went to the door.

  “Yes?” she said coldly.

  “May I come in?” the man said.

  “All right,” she answered.

  She held the door wide, and he entered the small room. He did not look like a cop. He was thin, and his hair was going, and he owned a nose that should have belonged to a hawk. He looked around the room, seemingly embarrassed.

  “What do you want?” she asked. She folded her arms across the front of her robe and leaned back against the dressing table.

  He reached into his pocket and flipped open a wallet. She saw the shield and nodded, and he said, “My name is Dave Trachetti. Sergeant.”

  “So?” she said. She reached over for a package of cigarettes, shaking one loose and hanging it on her lip. She thought he might offer to light it. When he didn’t, she struck a match herself, shook it out, and dropped it to the floor.

  Trachetti smiled, still looking a little embarrassed. “I saw your show, Miss Matthews. It was very nice. I was out front when—”

  “I don’t go out with white men,” Cindy said. “Not even if they’re cops.”

  “That’s not it, Miss Matthews. I wanted to talk to you about Johnny Lane,” Trachetti said.

  Cindy stopped the hand with the cigarette an inch away from her mouth.

  “Oh,” she said. “So that’s it. I’m sorry I misunderstood. So many men come back here wanting …”

  “I understand,” Trachetti said. He wet his lips nervously. “It must be a … trying profession.”

  Cindy did not smile. “But about Johnny, I don’t know anything. We split up a long while ago. I told you that before.”

  “You don’t know where he is?” Trachetti asked.

  “No, I don’t. Corporal, why don’t you go? Find him yourself. Do me a favor, and find him yourself. Leave me alone.”

  “I wish I could find him,” Trachetti said.

  “So you can pin a phony rap on him?”

  “That’s just it, Miss Matthews. We …”

  “Johnny didn’t kill the spic, but that doesn’t matter to you. You’ve got yourself a sucker, so now everything will be clear with the commissioner. As long as your nose is clean, what do you care? Get out, Corporal. You’re wasting your time, and I’m getting chilly, and I want to dress. Get the hell out, unless you’re going to book me for something.”

  “I should have been a bus driver,” Trachetti said. “I swear to God I should have been a bus driver. Look, Miss Matthews, I came here to tell you we caught Luis Ortega’s killer.”

  She stared at him, and then she blinked her eyes, and then she leaned back against the dresser again, almost as if she’d dropped there involuntarily.

  “You … you …”

  “Not Johnny Lane. Another guy. We’ve got a confession. That’s what I came here to tell you. I thought you might like to know. I thought you’d want to tell Johnny—if you can find him again after being split up so long.” He couldn’t resist the sarcasm.

  “You … you don’t want him any more?”

  “He’s clean,” Trachetti said. “I told you, we’ve got a confession.”

  “Then he’s running for nothing! He doesn’t have to run. You say someone else did it?”

  “Didn’t you know that all along, Miss Matthews?”

  “Yes, but I mean … Oh, God, his arm. His arm is cut. I’ve got to find him, Corporal. I’ve got to tell him.”

  “Yes,” Trachetti said.

  He watched her go to the closet and take a coat from its hanger. She pulled the coat on over her robe, and the silk pulled back to show the naked length of her leg and thigh and the sequined sparkle of the G string. She belted the coat quickly and started for the door.

  “It’s pretty cold out there,” Trachetti said. “Maybe you ought to …”

  She stopped just inside t
he doorway. She turned and said, “Thank you, Corporal. I’m sorry I was … Thank you. Thank you very much.”

  “Do you think you can find him?” he asked.

  Cindy hesitated for a moment. “I hope so,” she said. “Oh, God, I hope so.”

  It was very cold, and Johnny Lane was very tired of running.

  He thought of the tweed coat he’d left back in Washington Heights, and he thought, Barney is going to be sore as hell. He wondered if he shouldn’t have stayed up in the Heights someplace, but with that crazy chick on the phone yelling to the cops, he was better off in Harlem. He still couldn’t figure her out. What the hell was her game, anyway? He’d met up with nuts before, but she took the prize.

  The cold was biting, and he walked quickly, trying to work up some heat in his body. Goddamnit, why had he let her take the coat in the first place? Hadn’t he learned his lesson with coats yet? How many coats and jackets and assorted wearing apparel do you have to lose before catching on? Why couldn’t the day have stayed the way it was this afternoon? He hadn’t needed a coat then. He’d had a coat when he didn’t need it. And now, when it was colder than hell, he was running around in his shirt sleeves.

  He walked up 125th Street, watching the people bundled in their overcoats, watching them and wondering where they were all going. It was very late at night. Were they going home to clean sheets and a warm bed? What did a warm bed feel like? When’s the last time I slept in a warm bed? he wondered. I slept in a warm bed at Cindy’s place. What’s Cindy thinking by now? Just a penciled note, and I haven’t even called her or anything. But how did I know I was going to pass out, and how did I know that dizzy broad was going to drag me up to her place? I should have played it cool. I should have given it to her the way she wanted it, told her yes, I’d been in a street fight, yes, I was a poor neglected nigger, yes, I needed her help and her comfort. I should have played it the cool way, instead of scaring her out of her wits. What the hell did I tell her the truth for?

  And now Barney’s coat is up there, and man, he’s going to be sore as hell. Suppose I told Barney the truth? He’d still be sore as hell, and I can’t blame him much, it was a nice coat. And he stuck his neck out for me, he did do that, even if he didn’t want to. And those other guys, The Flower and the other guy, they didn’t have to get me that boat. They got it for me after I told them the truth.

  Or maybe they thought I was lying, and besides, they just helped me to get even with the bulls. They didn’t give a damn about truth or lies or whatever. But they did get me the boat. I wonder if I should go back to the boat tonight.

  How can I spend another night on that tub, with those goddamn rats roaming around? Without even a coat this time, with all that cold, damp wind blowing off the water, and the stink of garbage, but most of all the rats crawling around. Even if I didn’t see a single rat, I could feel them out there. No, I wouldn’t go back to that boat if you gave me a million dollars. I’d freeze to death there, and I’m gonna freeze to death here, too, unless I get a place to stay and damned soon. Why does it get so tough once night rolls around? Because then you’re noticeable on the streets, jerk. Then a roaming Snow White will spot you, and then it’s the kiss-off. Lord, I’m cold, I’ve never been so damn cold in all my life.

  He passed the darkened windows of the shops on 125th Street, heading west, wondering just where he was going. He wondered, too, what the cops were doing now.

  He could almost see them bustling around downtown, getting out a general alarm or whatever they got out. Would they use bloodhounds? Did city cops ever use bloodhounds? All he needed was a pack of mutts chasing him up Lenox Avenue. He smiled, the picture striking him somehow as amusing. He could just see his photo on page four of the Daily News, Johnny Lane up a lamppost, his pants seat torn to shreds, while the mutts stood up on their hind legs and barked and snapped. Caption: “Killer at Bay.”

  Bay, you know. The hounds baying, you know.

  Very funny, he told himself, but you can’t wrap a joke around your back, and a laugh won’t stop the wind, and the wind was sure cold.

  So what now? First, he needed a place for the night.

  Now there’s a simple thing. How about the Waldorf, Lane? All right, how about the Waldorf? No, I don’t think so. Really, my dear, after all, the Wal-dorf? Hardly. Not for Johnny Lane. Nothing but the best for Johnny Lane.

  Well, how about Cindy’s pad, then? That’s the place to be. That’s the place, but the cops don’t want me to be there, so we’ll just stay away from there, too, thank you.

  A hotel, then. Any hotel. A hotel in Brooklyn or Staten Island or any goddamn place. Sure, why not? Except what makes you think the hotels aren’t as alerted tonight as they were last night? And how do you check into a hotel with no luggage and in your shirt sleeves? Damnit, it’s getting colder by the minute.

  So where? Where?

  He began giving the problem serious thought, because he recognized freezing as a very serious thing. He did not want to pass out again. He might not be so lucky next time, even if the broad had turned out to be a little loony. So in his mind he turned over every nook and cranny in Harlem, examining it minutely. When he got the idea, he considered it gravely, and then he inspected it, and then he tested it again for size.

  There was a warehouse off 125th down near Lex, was it? Or was it 126th, or where was it exactly? He’d find it, that was for sure. A warehouse where one of the furniture stores kept all its new goods. There was a window the guys used to sneak in through, where one of the bars was loose and capable of being swung out of position. They’d taken Carmen Diaz there once when they were just kids, and they’d had a jolly old time on the mats the movers used to wrap around the furniture. He wouldn’t forget that time so easily because Carmen had really known the score, and even if the other guys were yelling for him to hurry up it had still been damned fine. Nor would he forget how they had got into the warehouse, because that had been the trickiest part, and he could rememeber seeing Carmen’s backside under her skirt as she squeezed through the bars. There was no watchman because all the windows were barred, and who the hell would want to steal furniture, anyway? (He forgot that Mikie the Turk, for one, had wanted to steal furniture, and that he’d lugged an end table all the way downstairs, only to discover he couldn’t get it through the narrow opening the loose bar presented.) One of the guys had lived down there, near the Triboro, on the colored fringe bordering Wop Harlem. They’d kidded with the guy about not being high-class enough to move into what was really Harlem. They’d kidded him until the guy came up with the little spic whore, and then they didn’t kid him any more.

  He reversed his course abruptly, heading east. It was probably best, anyway, to stay out of the Harlem he knew well. In fact, what was he doing on a main drag like 125th? He cut down to 124th, and then turned left on Third Avenue, noting the mixture of whites and blacks and spics. He kept walking uptown, and he spotted the warehouse when he looked up one of the side streets. The street was very dark, and that was just the way he wanted it. He saw a cat cross the street, and then run when she spotted him. There wasn’t a human being in sight. He walked to the fence surrounding the warehouse and climbed over it rapidly, dropping to all fours on the other side. The yard was empty and silent. He looked around for a few moments, probing his memory, getting his bearings, and then he went directly to the window with the loose bar.

  Suppose they fixed the bar? he thought suddenly. It was a long time ago. Suppose …

  He began trying the bars, losing hope almost before he started. And then suddenly the fifth bar came free under his hands. He moved it to one side, and then jimmied open the window, expecting an alarm to go off. He waited, listening. There was no alarm. Quickly he squeezed through the window. It was a tighter fit than it had been when he was a kid, but he got through and dropped to the concrete floor, reaching up to close the window behind him.

  There was the smell of dust all around him, and a silence like being underwater at the beach. Like suddenly duc
king your head under the water, cutting off the locust hum of people that hangs over the sand and the air, hearing only the cool vastness of the ocean. The furniture was stacked all over the place, covered with mats and sheets. The windows were dirty, and he could barely make out the headlamps of passing cars through them.

  It was warm. He was thankful for that. It was warm, and maybe there were rats in furniture warehouses, too, but he doubted it. Why would a rat go where there was no food? Besides, he could pull one of the heavy mats over his body and head, and then he wouldn’t have anything to worry about, even if there were rats.

  He was looking forward to a good night’s sleep. In the morning he would … In the morning. There was always the goddamn morning.

  He found the old iron stairs, and he began climbing to the third floor, where the mats had been stacked that time with Carmen. He could remember the incident as clearly as if it were happening now, the gang of them stealing up these same iron steps, Mikie shushing everybody, and Carmen’s skirt flashing around her mature legs. There had been a high, excited flush on her face, and she had giggled all the way upstairs. He climbed steadily, lost in the memory. When he heard the sudden voice, he turned and was ready to run, but he’d already been spotted and he didn’t want a bullet in the back now.

  “Hold it, Mac,” the voice said.

  A watchman, he thought.

  He froze solid because there was no sense running now. Maybe he could bull it through, and if not, he still had a good left arm, and he still knew how to throw a fist. He waited in the darkness, hearing the footsteps ring closer on the iron stairs. The man came up to him, a big man barely visible in the dimness.

  “Whattaya want, Mac?” the man asked.

  A white man, Johnny thought, a white man. This makes it even better. This makes it just grand.

  “You the watchman?” he asked.

  The big man laughed. “Watchman, huh? A watchman? You on the bum, too, kid?”

  He felt immensely relieved all at once, so relieved that he almost smiled. “Yeah,” he said, “I’m on the bum.”

  “Come on up,” the man said. “You want a cup of java?”