Sally

by Howard Fast

  “Where the hell is he?” Gonzalez asked himself angrily as he ran north across Fifty-seventh, dodging the traffic. “You want a cop, you never find a cop. You don’t want one and they’re all over the place.”

  At Fifty-eighth Street and Fifth he paused in front of the Savoy Plaza. The magnificent old building was being ripped apart, brick by brick. The wind blew a curtain of dust up Fifty-eighth Street, and the dust hung like gauzy drapes around the tall, hollow front of the building.

  Gonzalez forced himself to stand still and search and watch; and then suddenly, a block to the north of him, he saw a man run across Fifth Avenue to the park. Gonzalez stopped thinking, stopped planning, and reacted.

  He reacted instinctively, racing across Fifth Avenue after the man. Crosstown traffic was moving eastward out of Fifty-ninth Street. Gonzalez dashed through the moving vehicles like an openfield runner to the curses of taxi drivers and truck drivers and the screaming of brakes. When he gained the island at the foot of the park, his man was racing up the footpath toward the zoo. Gonzalez had another street to cross, and traffic was pouring through the street. Again he plunged headlong into the traffic, to a chorus of screaming brakes. As Gonzalez gained the park, the man he was after vaulted the fence and the line of benches between the footpath and the auto road and took off across the grass to the auto road in as wild a plunge as the detective’s.

  If Gonzalez had any doubts, they were washed away. The gray jacket, the black trousers, the thatch of blond hair clinched it. The killer was hunting, and his lead over Gonzalez was enough to prevent Gonzalez from seeing the quarry.

  It was early evening now, people drifting out of the park on the footpaths and north along the footpaths on their way home from work. The killer had put the East Drive between himself and Gonzalez, and as Gonzalez vaulted the fence that edged the drive, traffic became a solid stream—much too solid for him to use the tactics he had used twice before. To throw himself into it would have meant a stupid and speedy demise, so he had no alternative but to stand there biting his nails and cursing the cars and himself.

  Meanwhile the killer had disappeared. The block of traffic passed and Gonzalez raced across the East Drive, but the killer was out of sight. Instinct took Gonzalez north—past the Wollman Memorial Skating Rink and over the Sixty-fifth Street transverse. He was running with all his strength now, and where he ran the park was empty. His heart hammered, his breathing hard and broken.

  “What lousy condition I’m in,” he said to himself. “What the hell good is a cop who keeps himself in condition like this?”

  He came around the shoulder of the hill now and raced across the east-west connecting drive onto the Mall. Ten long strides into the Mall and then he paused and thanked God.

  A film unit was working there, putting together background material for a New York sequence. Their truck was parked on the driveway about forty feet to the east of the Mall. They had set up cameras on the Mall itself, and their sound men and cameramen were ready, and the grips were ready, and the actors and the extras were ready and standing around and waiting, and the director was shouting wildly:

  “Miss, will you please get out of the line of our cameras? Miss, we have ten minutes of twilight ahead of us, and we have waited a week for this kind of light, and if we miss that ten minutes of twilight, we lose maybe two, three days! Miss, please, baby, do you understand what it costs to lose an entire day? Must I tell you exactly how much it costs to lose an entire day? Honey, do you want blood?”

  One of the photographers said, “Pick her up and carry her out of the damn scene.”

  Gonzalez, shaking and breathless, saw Sally Dillman standing there directly in front of the two cameras and heard her say, “You will not touch me. You will not lay a hand on me. I will stand right here, and I have as much right to be in this film as anyone.”

  “Sidney, she is nuts,” one of the men said. “She’s a nut. This ain’t L.A. This is a city of nuts.”

  A young girl, one of the actresses, strode toward Sally indignantly. The girl was small, fragile, pretty with blond hair and large blue eyes.

  “My dear,” she said to Sally Dillman, “my dear girl, why don’t you just drop dead? It’s too easy to plunk yourself down and louse up a scene like this. Why don’t you make it the way everyone makes it? Why don’t you work for it? We all worked for it. What do you get out of this? Bellevue? Your name in the papers? Let me tell you that any hope you ever had of getting a decent part went down the drain right now, dearie. Just listen to me. I can tell you this out of most bitter experience.”

  Gonzalez walked into the scene now. When Sally Dillman saw him, her front vanished, her face collapsed, and she began to cry. Not knowing what else to do, he took her into his arms.

  “You crazy little bitch,” he whispered to her.

  Then he turned to the people of the film company and said to them, “It’s all right now. I’m her keeper. I’ll take care of her. No more trouble.”

  “What do you mean, you’re my keeper?” Sally whispered. “I’m not insane. I did this to save my life.”

  “You heard what I mean. I’m your keeper. That’s it. Enough. You’re a nut. Now let’s get out of here.”

  He pulled her away from the film company and led her over to one of the benches that line the wide footpath which cuts through the center of the Mall. Gonzalez sank down there, Sally next to him, and putting a big arm around her, he said to her. “Look, kid, this is professional. Everything I do now is professional. Stay close to me. You watch the right and I watch the left. Just keep looking over there to the right and tell me what the hell happened to you and how the devil you got into this mess.”

  She began to cry, and then she tried to stop crying as she told him that all that had happened to her was that she had run out of cigarettes.

  “I didn’t want to order cigarettes,” she said to him. “You told me not to answer the door if anyone but you knocked. It would have been a bellhop, but how would I have known that it was a bellhop?”

  “God damn TV,” Gonzalez muttered.

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “What are you—stupid? I mean, how stupid can you be?”

  “Don’t call me stupid.”

  “What should I call you? No, don’t look at me. Look over there to the right and keep looking. I don’t have four eyes. I have two eyes. I can watch what’s on the left, half a circle. That’s all. Now you watch what’s on the right. I got to sit here a little and think this through and wait for him to make his move. You have to pull yourself together and I have to think.”

  “Don’t call me stupid. What gives you the right to call me stupid? What gives you the right to hold me like this? Let go of me!”

  “My holding you like this is professional, and my calling you stupid is the result of an excess of temper. Forgive me. Keep looking.”

  “Where is he?” she asked him.

  “Who?”

  “Well, who do you think? The killer. Don’t you know I saw him there at the hotel?”

  “I know, I know,” Gonzalez replied. “Why am I here? You ran. He ran after you. I ran after him. Big stupid comedy!”

  “Where is he?”

  “That’s why you keep looking,” Gonzalez said. “I don’t know where he is. He’s out there somewhere, so just keep looking.”

  “And we sit here like this.”

  “What do you want us to do? Start running again? Yes, we sit here like this until we can think cool and clear. And look where I told you to look. I don’t want anyone walking up behind us and putting a bullet into the back of your head. Can you understand that? You say you’re not stupid, then prove it!”

  “Oh, I am beginning to dislike you intensely, Mr. Gonzalez.”

  “The hell with that! Please, just shut up a minute and let me think!”

  He was livid with anger, anger at her, at the film company, and at the killer. He recognized this and took hold of himself and fought against the anger and said to himself, “Y
ou’re the stupid one, Gonzalez, not the girl. You’re letting something get to you. This girl is a kid whom you are trying to take care of. You’re a cop. This girl is not someone you’re in love with. This girl is not someone upon whose life your own life depends. Try to keep that in your own head, and maybe you’ll do a job.”

  The man called Sidney left the film group and walked over to them. He stood in front of them, watching Sally curiously, for she stared fixedly to the right. Then he said to Gonzalez, “Are you a cop?”

  “I’m a cop.”

  “Something wrong?”

  “There’s always something wrong,” Gonzalez said. “Go ahead with your work. Just don’t pay any attention to us.”

  “What about her?” Sidney asked.

  “Never mind about her. She’s all right. Just never mind about her.”

  “What is she looking for?”

  “Now see here, mister,” Gonzalez said with growing testiness, “what she is looking for is none of your goddam business. You were complaining before that she was lousing up your picture company and losing the twilight; well, go back and make your pictures and leave her alone.”

  Sidney walked away, shaking his head, and Sally said softly, “Now you’re on my side?”

  “You know what?” Gonzalez said to her. “Suppose a man were to fall in love with a girl like you? You know how long it would take you to drive him out of his mind, to make him completely crazy?”

  “That’s your distorted attitude toward women,” she said, her voice still quivering with fear.

  “One thing I got to say for you, you may be scared as hell, but you’re still able to make a philosophical value judgment on my attitude toward women.”

  “That’s no miracle. You’re thirty-three years old and you’re not married. I know one thing about you. When you’re nervous, you use big words.”

  “How the devil do you know that I’m thirty-three years old?”

  “Lieutenant Rothschild told me when you were on the telephone talking to your mother.”

  “What else did Lieutenant Rothschild tell you about me? We’ll make him number-one big mouth of the week.”

  “He didn’t say anything bad about you. He only thought that it was a little peculiar that a man who is thirty-three years old should still talk to his mother and ask for her permission for what he was going to do. That is, for earning his living.”

  “I listen to my mother,” Gonzalez said. “Is that something to be ashamed of? Because I’m thirty-three years old I should stop respecting my mother? I should kick her out into the street? It just so happens that I listen to my mother. Maybe this is a weak national trait of Puerto Ricans. Maybe this is something that you people have overcome. With me it’s a kind of an occupational disease of some kind. I can’t shake it. Does that satisfy you?”

  “Well, you don’t have to get so angry about it. I don’t see what I said that should make you angry.”

  “It’s a peculiar habit Puerto Ricans have in relation to their mothers. They are sensitive.”

  “It seems to me,” she said, “that whenever you can’t explain something or you’re backed into a corner, you call upon the fact that you’re a Puerto Rican and you invoke the Civil Rights movement. Otherwise you don’t seem to be particularly Puerto Rican. To me it seems to be less a nationality than some sort of a life preserver or excuse maker that you carry around with you and pull out when the occasion demands.”

  Gonzalez grinned and said to her, “Don’t look at me. Over there. You’re still watching.”

  Obediently she turned the other way and watched her half of the circle. Her back to him, she asked him what they were going to do.

  “Haven’t you any plans yet?”

  “Not yet. I’m thinking.”

  “Why don’t we stay here and then move out with those film people? Or maybe they have a telephone. You know there are such things as telephones in cars and in trucks, and then you could call your friend, Lieutenant Rothschild.”

  “What are we going to gain if we move out of here with the film people? The mere fact that we are sitting here or that these film people are near us does not add to our safety. All it does is to slow him up, make him think and plan for a while. I want to think and plan a step or two in front of him. And furthermore, I got a mind of my own. I don’t need Lieutenant Rothschild.”

  Then to himself he said, “You are a horse’s ass. If anyone ever needed Lieutenant Rothschild and about two hundred cops right at this moment, you are that person. You need that kind of company right at this moment like no one ever did.” He called out to the director. “Hey, Sidney, do you have a telephone in that truck?”

  Sidney walked toward them and said softly but fiercely, “Look, mister, we’re using sound equipment. I mean, Officer. All right, Officer, we’re using sound equipment. Please don’t shout if you don’t have to.”

  “I’m sorry,” Gonzalez apologized. “No more shouting. Do you have a telephone in that truck?”

  “A real telephone?” He was staring at Sally. “Is she catatonic or something?”

  “That’s right, a real telephone. What use would a stage telephone be to me?”

  “No, we don’t have a real telephone,” Sidney said. Then he walked back to his work.

  “All right,” Gonzalez said to her, softly and earnestly. “I think this is the way it has to be. We have about ten minutes more of daylight and then another fifteen minutes after that of fading light. Now I want to get us out of this in the good daylight. Are you game?”

  “For what?”

  “To take a chance? To let him come at us?”

  “How do you mean, come at us?”

  “Over there”—he pointed—“over there is a place called the Sheep Meadow. It’s as big a flat and empty piece of land as there is anywhere in New York. Have you ever been there?”

  “I think I know the place,” she replied. “I think I’ve seen it when I was in the park before. It’s hard to remember properly when you just look at something casually.”

  “All right. Now do you want to play a long shot?”

  “Just ask me. Tell me what it is.”

  “You know, he’s near us right now. He’s within sight of us now, or rather, we are in his circle of vision. We’re both watching half of a circle. He won’t move into our view right now. But somewhere—wherever he is—he can see us, and probably he can see most of the paths that would lead us, away from here. That’s the way he would think. That’s the way he would plant himself. He wants a shot and he wants a very good shot. But he wants the shot when we’re clear of people and he can move up on us. Do you follow me?”

  “I follow you.”

  He hesitated for a while and then he said to her, “Look, Sally, this—well, this is something I got to say now. Now just keep looking over there the way you are, and I’ll watch my half, and let those people over there in the film company wonder about why we talk to each other and look in opposite directions at the same time. It’ll give them nice conversation stuff around the dinner table tonight.

  “Sally, I am going to say to you very simply and directly. ‘I feel something about you.’”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “I am trying to convince you that your life is very important to me. More important to me than if you were just someone I had met or someone who is a part of an assignment that was given to me.”

  “Are you trying to tell me that you like me?” she asked him. “It seems to me that this is the worst possible time and place to tell me that. I’m scared to death and I am sure I’m going to die in the next few minutes.”

  “I am trying to tell you that you got some reason to trust me because I’m going to suggest something that may seem to make very little sense to you. It may also seem to you that I am putting you in the kind of danger that no sensible cop should put any citizen in. But I don’t think so. I want you to accept my decision on the basis that you mean something to me—that you mean a lot to me.”

&n
bsp; “Can’t I just accept whatever decision you have come to because I think that you’re an intelligent human being and a good policeman?”

  “If you can accept it that way, all right. I come from an emotional people. We welcome a little emotion. It leavens common sense.”

  “There you go with the Puerto Rican business again, and I don’t know what you mean—leavening common sense.”

  “I never said a word about being a Puerto Rican. All right, look, don’t argue with me. Listen to me now because there’s only so much time left and the light is going. Right over there past the film company the big meadow begins—the Sheep Meadow. I want us to get up and to walk over there and on to the Sheep Meadow, and then we’ll cross the Sheep Meadow moving west. I’m going to play a long shot. I’m going to throw all our chips into the chance that before we get across the Sheep Meadow, he will show himself. Hell make a play for it.”

  “And then what?” she asked, her voice trembling slightly.

  “I’m a cop. I’m a good shot. As far as he is concerned, he’s a man on the run and on the hunt. He’s killed two and he’s coming after his third—but not just his third. You and me—we’re together. He has to kill both of us. He’s wound up as tight as a violin string. If you could see what is inside of him, it would be all tight and raging. My guess is that he’s thrumming the way a violin string vibrates, and if he vibrates too much, something in him is going to crack. I want to push it—make it crack. We go out on the meadow and, so help me God, he is going to follow us and try to make his kill. I want to blow our whole stake on the chance that I can get him first.”

  “Have you ever killed anyone, Frank?” she said.

  “No.”

  “Then how do you know that, when the time comes, you’ll be able to? That’s the only thing I’m asking you. Otherwise I’ll do it. But how do you know? He’s a killer. He knows he can kill, but how do you know?”

  “God help me! I know,” Gonzalez answered her. “For my own life, no. For yours, I am certain.”

  “All right, then I’ll do it.”