and the helper he had left behind botched the suit alteration. He adjusted the coat sleeves and pants cuffs too short again!
But Heller dressed anyway. He was now in dark blue with an Eton collar and he looked younger than ever!
He presented the store with the red-checked jacket and the blue-striped pants. And because those clothes were bugged, I bitterly surmised that Raht and Terb, who were depending on those bugs, would now stake out the tall man's shop!
He couldn't find any shoes he liked so he kept the baseball spikes on, popped his red baseball cap on the back of his head and was shortly engaged again in what seemed his favorite pastime: examining fenders of parked cars.
In peripheral vision, I saw the figure again. He was being tailed!
But Heller? Did he take evasive tactics? Run through a large store with two entrances? Dash into a crowd? Not Heller! He didn't even inspect the street behind him! Amateur!
He knelt down by the fender of a very modern car and bent it with his fingers—an easy thing for anybody to do. Then he looked around quickly to see if the unintentional act of vandalism had been noticed. Apparently to make sure he covered it up, he stood, turned, folded his arms and sort of lounged back against the fender. It really buckled!
He walked off. And then, abruptly, began the craziest series of actions I had yet seen him engage upon.
He caught a cab. Breathlessly, he said to the driver, "Quick! Take me to the bus terminal! Five-dollar tip!"
They went westward. No especially hurried ride. Heller got out at the Port Authority Bus Terminal and paid the driver.
Immediately, he got another cab. He leaped in and said urgently, "Quick! Take me to the Manhattan Air Terminal! I'm late! Five-dollar tip!"
Aha! I thought I understood at last! He had noticed the tail and was shaking it!
Cross-town rides are slow and it was very uneventful.
At the Manhattan Air Terminal, he paid the driver and got out.
Then Heller walked along a line of cabs, looking at their fenders. He found one with some bashes. It was a Really Red Cab Company hack.
Heller leaped in. "Quick! I have to be at Broadway and 52nd Street in two minutes and nineteen seconds. There's a five-dollar tip!"
Disregarding other drivers' protests that it was not his turn to go, the cabby zipped out of line, screamed into high gear. He cut a corner, bashed a car out of his way, ran a red light, sent a works-in-progress sign skyrocketing and stopped at Broadway and 52nd Street. Heller looked at his watch. It was two minutes!
Heller paid him the fare and the five-dollar tip.
AND THEN HELLER JUST SAT THERE IN THE CAB!
The driver, expecting Heller to rush out, looked at him in amazement.
"How would you like to teach me to drive in New York?" said Heller.
Oh, my Gods! Heller was not shaking a tail. He was trying to find a reckless cab driver! Heller was a hopeless idiot!
"I ain't got the time, buddy," said the driver.
"For a hundred bucks would you have the time?"
Silence.
"For two hundred bucks would you have the time?"
Silence.
Heller opened the cab door to get out.
The driver said, "I'm almost off shift! I'll race up to the barn, turn in and come back. You wait here. No. You come with me. I'll turn this wreck in and get a decent hack."
Promptly, driving rapidly, the cabby started for the Really Red Cab barn. "What's your name?" he shot back through the open glass partition.
"Clyde Barrow," said Heller.
I snorted. That was a famous gangster! Nothing was sacred to Heller!
"I see on the card here," said Heller, "that you're called Mortie Massacurovitch. Been driving cabs long?"
"Me?" said the cabby, glancing back at Heller without regard to a near collision. He was a very tough-looking oldster. "My old man was a hacker in this town and I learned how from him. In the last war, on the strength of it, they made me a tank driver."
"Get any medals?" said Heller.
"No. They sent me home—said I was too brutal to the enemy!"
Heller waited outside while the hacker turned his cab and receipts in. And suddenly it dawned on me what he was up to. He had believed that tale about it being too hard to drive in New York! He was going to bring the Cadillac into town!
Oh! No, no, no! There was no way to warn this naive simpleton! One of the things Bury would surely have done was to have that Cadillac rigged to explode! Bury had not wanted it to be near the planned murder of the bogus Rockecenter, Junior. But aside from that, it was strictly textbook that he would have it set to explode, particularly now that he had missed. Bury was the sort of man who did multiple planning and handled eventualities.
So I sat there helplessly while Heller, in a forthright fashion, industriously planned his own suicide!
Chapter 4
Shortly, Mortie Massacurovitch came out of the huge garage they called a barn. He beckoned and Heller went inside.
Way back in the corner, covered with dust, sat the remains of a cab. Most of the paint was off by reason of dents and scrapes. It still had its meter and its top taxi lights but it was a long way from a modern cab. It was sort of square, with no smooth gentle curves.
"Here," said Mortie, "is a real cab! It has real steel fenders, quarter of an inch thick. It has real bumpers with side bars and hooks. It has real bulletproof, nonshatter glass." He looked at it proudly. "They really used to build them! Not plaster and paper like today."
A passenger could ride with the driver in this one and Mortie wiped off the seat and got Heller in. Then the cabby got in. "Gives you the edge," he said. "My favorite cab!"
He got its oil and gas checked and off they went, back to town. And, in truth, there was nothing wrong with its motor. It seemed to have more acceleration than modern cabs in that it got away from lights way ahead of everybody. "Geared down for fast darts," said Mortie.
Heller learned how to handle the gear shift and clutch on a quiet street and Mortie, satisfied now on that score, took over. "Now, let's see, where is the traffic
thickest this time of day?" He looked at his watch. "Ah, yeah. Grand Central Station." And off they roared.
It was creeping up to afternoon going-home time when they neared the area. The traffic was THICK! And fast!
"Now," said Mortie, "this is going to require your close attention because it is a very high art. People are basically yellow. They always give up before you do. So that leaves you a very wide scope."
Chattering along, naming each maneuver as he went, Mortie Massacurovitch performed.
It was horrifying!
They dashed between two cars to make the cars split each way! They squealed brakes to startle people "because honking was frowned upon." They swerved to make a car dodge away from its intended parking place and then stole it. They dove in ahead of another hailed cab and when the passenger tried to get in, told him the cab was engaged. They bashed backwards to widen a place to park. They bashed forward to get a place to park. They did a skid "to alarm a motorist, who then stamps on his brakes and you grab his place in line." They followed an ambulance to get somewhere quick. They followed a fire engine to really run the meter up fast, "but setting a fire ahead to get the engines to run is frowned on."
Heller then got under the wheel. He did all those things Mortie had done, with a few embellishments.
With bent fenders, raw voices and screams of anguish and terror strewn behind them, Mortie now guided Heller to a cabby bar on Eighth Avenue. It was a time of traffic lull and one had better have a sandwich.
Heller tried to order a beer and got scolded both by Mortie and the proprietor: "Trying to make the place lose its license?" So Heller had milk with his steak
instead. "You got to have respect for the law, kid," Mortie told him. "Learn to grow up to be a good, peaceful, orderly, law-abiding citizen. That's the only way to get ahead.
"Got to get goin
g!" said Mortie. "Time for theater traffic around Times Square."
En route, Mortie told him, "Now you got to learn how to handle police. When a cop stops you for speeding, you stop, see. You wait until he comes up and then you whisper, 'Run for your life. This fare is holding a gun on me.' And the cop will beat it every time!"
Heller thanked him.
"You got to know these things, kid." But something else had attracted Mortie's attention. "You got any enemies, kid? Your parents looking for you or something?"
"Why?"
"Well, it'd have to be you. I never made an enemy in my life. A cab started up behind us when we left the eatery and it's still back there."
Mortie did a right-angle turn, went down an alley, went wrong way on a one-way street. Looked back. "Don't see him now. I think we shook him. So we can get busy."
They were into the theater district. It was well before the evening start of the shows but the traffic was THICK!
"Now, you see that line of cars, kid? Watch!"
Mortie came up alongside of a cab in the line. He stopped. He screamed an insult at the driver. Mortie made a motion to get out of his cab. The other driver, in a rage, leaped out of his. Mortie didn't leave his cab. The line moved ahead. Mortie slid the cab into it, taking the place of the immobilized cab. "See, kid? Art!"
Mortie got to an intersection near a big hotel. There were several cabs and few customers. Mortie sailed in,
skidding to block the exit of the driveway, and killed his engine. Other cabbies screamed at him. He screamed back, "I'm stalled!" As he was now first in line, an elderly, well-dressed man and woman tried to get into Mortie's cab. "Sorry," said Mortie, "I'm going to the barn." He drove off. "See, kid, I could have had my pick of fares. You got to know what you're doing and think, think, think all the time."
He raced down a line of traffic. A car looked like it was going to turn out and block him. He sideswiped it with a scream of metal. The car pulled hastily back. "Don't try it with limousines, kid. They're really yellow. Scared for their paint. You don't have to sideswipe. You just gesture, like this." He veered toward a limousine and it promptly climbed the curb.
The bright lights of theater marquees, the flashing advertising signs, the throngs and ticket lines. A lively, blazing night.
"Now, you see that car ahead there that's stopping. I'll show you how to take off doors."
The street side door swung open. The old cab was there before anyone could get out. There was a rending crash and off came the door.
"It's timing, kid. All timing. Now, you see that guy up the street waving for a fare? Over there on the wrong side for us?"
Mortie zoomed ahead to forty miles an hour, stamped on the brakes, did a hundred-and-eighty-degree turn and skidded sideways to the curb. The hopeful fare started to get in. "Sorry, we're heading for the barn," said Mortie.
He found a one-way street. They backed down it at forty miles an hour. "You see, we're pointed the right direction so it ain't illegal.
"See that red light? Now we're going to rush it. If
you listen you can hear the switch in the box and you can claim it was yellow.
"Now here is a curb bounce. That's a nice curb. If you hit it right, you can bounce back into the street and the guy that was about to pass you, thinking you was parking, gets sideswiped! Watch."
They bounced. There was a rending scream of metal. Headlight glass tinkled to the pavement.
"All right, kid. Now let's see you do it."
Heller took the wheel. He started up. He went through the routine. But just as he was about to rush a red light, the sound of a heavy thud shook the cab.
"What was that?" said Mortie. Then he pointed. The side window had a star. "Jesus, that's a bullet!"
Another thud!
"Get the hell out of here, kid! Somebody is breaking the firearms law!"
Heller was on his way!
He went down 42nd Street, headed west. He was not going very fast.
"Step on it, kid! A cab just came around the corner behind us!"
"You sure?" said Heller.
"Hell, yes! He's gaining!"
But Heller was loafing.
He was watching in the rearview mirror. Sure enough, there was a cab behind them, gaining!
A bullet hit the rear window!
"Now we can go!" said Heller.
He fled down 42nd Street.
He passed the Sheraton Motor Inn.
I grabbed a New York map to see if he was leaving the country.
The old cab negotiated the approaches to the West Side Elevated Highway. Traffic was light. Below them
over the rail, the ground level street was dim. To their left lay the North River and the passenger steamship docks. Yes, on this route he could escape to Connecticut!
Heller checked the rearview mirror. The pursuing cab was still coming.
Below the elevated highway, to their right, the De Witt Clinton Park fled by and was gone.
Heller wasn't moving fast. The other was close behind!
A sign ahead and a split in the elevated highway: 55th Street!
Suddenly, with a yank of the wheel, Heller sent the cab into a ninety-degree right turn! He stamped on the brakes! The rail was right in front of him! The lower street was fifty feet down!
He was stopped!
The other cab was coming on.
Heller suddenly backed up!
There was room for the other cab to pass in front of his radiator. It started through the hole.
Heller sent his cab ahead!
The bumper hit the other cab's front wheels.
The other cab was punched over toward the rail!
With a shattering crash, it went through the guard!
It catapulted into space!
Chapter 5
Even before it hit the street below, Heller shouted to Mortie, "Take over!"
There was a crash below!
Heller was out. The rail was torn into jagged pickets where the cab had disappeared.
He peered down. There were girders and supports.
He went through the hole in the rail. He swarmed down a girder. He slid down a pillar and hit the lower street.
The other cab had landed on its wheels, shot ahead
and struck a stanchion.
Gas was flooding the street!
A traffic light was nearby. Heller looked at the control box.
He raced over to the cab.
The doors were buckled.
He yanked a small jimmy out of his pocket and went to work on the rear door. The metal bent around the jammed lock. He inserted the jimmy higher and pried. He got his fingers in and, with a heave, got the door open.
He glanced at the spreading gasoline and then at the traffic light. Suddenly I knew why. Fumes, rising, would explode when they hit those control box switches! Like a bomb! I know bombs!
Heller had the driver out. Then he reached in and grabbed the man in the back.
Lugging two bodies, he sped over to the curb.
He looked back. He evidently decided he was not far enough. He went another fifty feet.
On the pavement, in the protection of a big concrete abutment, he laid the bodies out.
With a shattering blue crash, the wreck exploded!
The "cabby" was dead. But even though the top of his head was half off, he was obviously a Sicilian.
Heller turned to the other one.
The weird hue of the street light shone down upon the face of Torpedo Fiaccola!
The hit man's eyelids fluttered. He was still alive!
A squad car chortled in the distance. Nobody could have missed that blast for a mile!
Torpedo opened his eyes. He saw Heller. He recognized him.
Torpedo said, "You ain't going to kill my mother?"
Heller looked down at him. "I'll think about it."
"No!"
Heller reached into Torpedo's coat and took his wallet. The money was only the five thousand that Heller had g
iven him back. But there was a slip of paper. It said:
Valid with the evidence. Hand package to bearer.
Heller shook the paper at Torpedo. "Hand to who?"
Torpedo said, "You going to kill my mother?"
"I was thinking about it. Give me the name and address for this slip and I might reconsider."
The hood was blinking hard. Then he said, "Mamie. Apartment 18F. Two thirty-one Binetta Lane. Downtown."
"And the evidence?" said Heller.
"Look," moaned Torpedo, "Bury is going to kill me!"
Heller said, "Mothers should be cherished."
Torpedo shuddered. "Your baseball cap with blood on it and a lock of your hair."
Heller took off his cap, turned it wrong side out and swabbed it through the mess that had been the driver's head.
He said, "I hear an ambulance coming. Get yourself patched up in the hospital and then I'd advise you to take up residence at the North Pole." He bent over him and put the wallet and five thousand back in his pocket. "I
keep trying to give you this. Now take it and learn to speak polar-bear. I'm not a mother killer but I sure enjoy exploding torpedoes!"
The squad car had been drifting slowly closer, cautiously. The flames flickering from the wreck made a shifting patchwork on it. The cops got out.
"How come you drug the bodies from the wreck, kid?" said the first cop, threateningly.
"He just missed me," said Heller. "I wanted to give him some advice."
"Oh," said the cop in sudden comprehension. "But I'll have to give the driver a ticket all the same." He got out his book and called to his partner. "What would you say the charge was, Pete?"
"Littering," said the other cop.
"It's that one that was driving," said Heller. "He's dead."
"Gets the ticket all the same," said the cop, writing.
The ambulance was whining up, probably called by the cops earlier.
Mortie Massacurovitch had brought the old cab down to the lower level. Heller got in. "Take me to 231 Binetta Lane."
"That's Little Italy," said Mortie. "Wrong time of night. You got a gun?"
"I got another hundred," said Heller.
They zipped downtown. They went from Eleventh Avenue to Tenth, shifted over on 14th Street, went down Greenwich Avenue, worked their way around Washington Square and were soon in Little Italy. They stopped across the street from the address. It was awfully dark.
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