Halfway through the bright, white kitchen a salad cauldron on wheels was in Robby’s path. It was not much of an obstacle for him. Hoping to make it more of an obstacle for Tony Savallo, Robby spun the cauldron around him with some energy. He then ran backwards. A cook, using a knife as long as his forearm, looked on with disinterest. Tony grabbed the cauldron by its rim and pushed it ahead of him as he ran. Robby turned again and made it through a door to a storeroom. He heard the rim of the cauldron clank against both sides of the door frame.
Robby tripped over one box in the dark storeroom, followed his nose to fresh air and found himself on a loading dock.
The alley was wide enough for two trucks to pass. After jumping off the loading dock Robby, who was beginning to think with the instinct of the hunted, realized that he had less cover than a quail four meters over a shooting blind. Signs every few feet read LOADING PLATFORM. Across the alley the signs read RAILROAD LOADING PLATFORM. Robby crossed the alley at a trot. Getting onto the railroad loading platform required another great leap, but, as he had been practicing leaping in terror and therefore had some confidence in himself, Robby picked up his running pace to make the leap. He increased the pace even more when he heard a gunshot. At precisely the right instant a second gunshot caused all his muscles to leap and he found himself with both feet on the platform.
Through a wide door Robby found himself in a huge room. Many signs read LOST AND FOUND AREA. Many, many trunks, suitcases and wooden crates, stamped, stickered, stenciled, with labels dripping off them, all suggesting they shouldn’t have been lost in the first place, were stacked on top of each other under thick layers of dust.
Hands on his knees, Robby grabbed breath. In the alley Tony Savallo had shot at him twice. Tony was getting careless. Tony was getting impatient. Tony was getting desperate.
Robby worked through Lost and Found and pushed through a door to the main concourse of the railroad station.
* * *
Railroad stations are entirely different from hotel lobbies, Robby immediately realized. Whereas he had attracted great attention (which had done him no good) running through the hotel lobby, he attracted no attention whatsoever running through a railroad station. Of course railroad stations do not set up hurdles to subdue people. The main piece of art in that railroad station, Robby couldn’t help noticing, was a huge, bright work of a young woman sitting in a most uncomfortable-looking position in a red bathing suit on a beach smoking a cigarette. Beneath her people looked and acted more excited than subdued. They hurried and jostled each other and yelled directions at each other. Those standing in groups, waiting with each other, saying hello, saying good-bye, spoke loudly, laughed openly, and did not hide their tears. Most of the men in the concourse were in military uniforms. One man, in fact, identical to any man in the Hotel Clemens who had shouted angrily at Robby for running, in the railroad station ran right into Robby, bowled him over and never stopped to observe any manners whatsoever.
Robby got up and looked in all directions through the crowd. For the moment he could spot Tony Savallo’s green windbreaker nowhere. Which meant that for the moment, standing in the middle of the railroad station, Robby didn’t know in which direction to run. He did not know in which directions Tony Savallo wasn’t.
Robby went up to a group of men he recognized as naval officers. They wore blue uniforms with brass accoutrements, white hats with black visors. One or two of them glanced at Robby, but the conversation on the game at the Point continued. Robby did not like to interrupt naval officers, especially when it seemed they were discussing tactics. ’Round the left end was being debated with a slash through the middle. Robby trusted resolution of this question would end the war that much sooner, and thus remained silent as long as possible.
When he began to feel Tony Savallo’s presence again, he plucked at the sleeve of the officer nearest him.
“Please, sir,” he said.
“No shoe shines,” said one of the officers.
In fact their shoes shone enough to make a good valet blush.
“He’s not a shoe-shine kid,” said another. “Look at his clothes. What’s that insignia he’s wearing?”
“You lost, kid?”
“Please, sir, I’m being chased by a murderer who kept me in a rubbish barrel all night.”
“What? Where you from, kid?”
“England, sir. My name’s Robby Burnes and just everybody’s looking for me—except everybody who sees me, except nobody sees me, you see, sir, except Tony Savallo, who keeps chasing me because I saw him shoot a man dead in the streets, sir, and I know who he is, you see, sir—”
“He’s English,” said one.
“If he were any more English he couldn’t talk at all,” said another.
“Calm down, kid,” said a third. “Tell us what’s the matter?”
“He’s been chasing me all night, sir, all day—”
“I didn’t know an ox was powerful enough to uproot a big tree like that,” said the officer, still studying the Wolsley School emblem.
“Who’s been chasing you?”
“Tony Savallo, sir.”
“I don’t think you can train an ox like that.”
“Ton-he Sa-va-lo. What does Sa-va-lo mean?”
“It was all right, sir, I had nowhere to go, and I understood that, all right. I made the best of it, honestly I did, but I’ve begun to upset people, sir, a naked lady in her kitchen this morning, she threw milk at me; I upset a whole churchful of people, I did, I put a mouse in a lady’s lap; all the people at the Hotel Clemens, they yelled at me, and kicked at me, and I’m beginning to think less of myself for all that, I am. Honest, sir, I never raised trouble before, I haven’t!”
“You put a mouse in the lap of a naked lady?”
“What naked lady? Where, where?” asked another officer.
“What’s he talking about?”
“That kid’s suffering from bad dreams.”
“Only things are getting serious now, sir. Tony Savallo shot at me twice just now in the alley. He shot at me. Twice.”
“Where’s your momma, boy?”
“She’s dead, sir. She died in the bomb. Thadeus Lowry took my picture of her.”
“Is somebody shooting pictures?”
“Wouldn’t you say, sir, things are getting serious?”
“Listen, son, I’ll take you to Lost and Found.”
“Oh, no, sir, not there. I’ve been there.”
“You’ve been to Lost and Found?”
“It’s all covered with dust, sir.”
“What I think we have here, gentlemen,” said the eldest officer, “is an escapee from Lost and Found.”
“Yes, sir,” said an officer.
“Bring him back, will you, Tom? Someone at the information desk should be able to help you.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Oh, no, sir, not that room! That room’s no good at all, sir!”
The officer called Tom put his hand on Robby’s shoulder. “It’s all right, son.”
When the officer moved his arm, Robby saw the green of Tony Savallo’s jacket. Then he saw Tony Savallo.
“Oh, no, sir!” Robby ducked his shoulder from beneath the officer’s hand.
Both Tony Savallo’s hands were in his jacket pockets, but Tony was moving steadily toward Robby.
Robby ducked again as the officer was reaching for him, turned and ran.
“Oh, whup, whup, whup!”
Across the station Robby saw a gate closing on Track 19. He ran straighter for it than any bee ever made for a honeycomb. He skirted a man in a brown uniform so narrowly he left the man pirouetting in midconcourse. The momentum of the heavy pushed gate was such that the trainman pushing it tried to stop it as he saw Robby approaching at high speed but could not. Robby danced sideways through the narrow aperture.
Even on sneakered feet Tony Savallo skidded into the diamond-grilled gate.
From the other side of the gate Robby saw Tony’s arm pull back
and curve to reach into his jacket pocket.
“Whup!”
Robby ran down the station platform. The train was moving with him. Shortly the train was moving faster than he was. Train steps drew abreast of Robby. Remembering how Thadeus Lowry got into taxicabs, Robby ran a few steps sideways with the train and sat on its steps. He pulled his feet up.
He looked back along the train.
Still on the other side of the blurring gate was a patch of green.
* * *
“Ticket?”
“Oh, yes, sir!”
When Robby had caught his breath he found himself a seat in a coach car. He was near the front of the car. The old conductor came through the door, enquired of Robby, then proceeded on, punching tickets held out to him.
He turned back to Robby. “Ticket?”
“Yes, sir!” Robby answered agreeably.
The conductor continued down the aisle and did not turn back to Robby again.
The man in the seat next to Robby was in a sailor’s uniform, smelled of beer, and was comfortably asleep. His ticket was in the holder in the seat in front of them and had been punched by the conductor.
Robby expected a nice, long train ride. He put his hands in his pockets and slumped in his seat. In his pocket he discovered he still had the envelope containing ten thousand dollars. Scamp! Come back here! You have something of mine! Robby had tried to give it to him. The politician had not stopped talking enough to listen. Thief! You little thief! had yelled the householder that morning from his front door, his naked, surprised wife behind him. Robby considered that he had been yelled at quite a lot for a Sunday.
He expected the train would carry him to some other place altogether, a place utterly without Tony Savallo. The trains he had taken from London had carried him long distances, to Edinburgh, once to Leeds, often to Wolmwold. The people in these places had never been the same people as those he’d left in London. Except for the people who travelled with him, different places had different sets of people in them altogether.
Robby was right in that he did have a nice train ride, and it did bring him to someplace altogether different. He was right about nothing else.
Very shortly the train stopped. He sat up straight. Another platform had appeared beside the train.
A sign over the platform read 125TH STREET.
No one in Robby’s coach made a move to get off so Robby reasoned that wherever they were all going (including him) they hadn’t gotten there yet. He settled back in his seat.
More people got on the train.
The train did not move for a longer time than it had taken the train to get there. It was dark out. Dim lights shone on the station platform. No one aboard seemed disturbed by the half-hour delay. Robby remembered the Lost and Found room at the main railroad station and understood that it took a lot of time for a railroad to lose that much luggage and freight. Beside him the sailor snored on every third inhale.
Finally there was a renewed banging of doors and cold drafts swept through the coach.
Through the train window Robby saw Tony Savallo’s head appear in a stairwell. It rose at a reliable pace and below Tony Savallo’s head, incredibly enough, was Tony Savallo’s whole body. His right hand was in his jacket pocket.
Robby was so amazed, so incredulous, so doubting of his own eyes that he leaned over the sailor’s inert body and stared through the window overlong.
Tony’s face registered that he saw Robby. The train began to move. Tony headed for the steps at the rear of Robby’s coach.
Robby bolted out of his seat, through the door at the front of the coach, and jumped down the steps to the platform. He caught his balance and stood still. If he crossed the platform he would be visible from the train windows. He stood as close to the train as possible as it pulled itself past him. He remained where he was, making the most of the blind spot until the train was ’way up the track.
Only then did he cross the platform and saunter down the long, iron stairs which Tony Savallo had climbed.
22
In the Lap of America
“Hey, boy. You lost?”
“No, sir.”
“Whatcha doin’?”
“Nothing, sir.”
The skinny young man crouched in front of Robby, his dark face looking at him through the dark. The whites of his eyes stood out like moons on a perfect night. “You need he’p?”
“Hep, sir?”
“You need he’p?”
“No, sir. I don’t think so.”
Robby didn’t know what hep was, but he had been taught properly not to accept things he didn’t know. So far, since coming down the stairs from the railroad station, standing on the sidewalk, he had been offered a drink from a brown bottle by a smelly, staggery old man who didn’t speak at all understandably, and Robby had not accepted the drink. Now this young man had come along and noticed him and offered him hep.
“You sure you don’t need he’p?” The young man looked at him as if he doubted him.
Robby looked back at him, not sure.
“You don’ look to me as if you belong here, at all.”
“Sir?”
“You belong downtown.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You goin’ downtown?”
“Yes, sir. I guess so.”
“You must be waitin’ on someone, that it?”
Robby looked at his shoes. He wasn’t on someone. He raised his eyes to the face of the man, who had stood up.
“All right, boy. You make up your mind you need he’p I’ll be over there in that drugstore. You hear? I work behind the counter there.”
“Yes, sir.”
Robby watched the young man cross the street, walk to the corner and go into the drugstore. Hep must be something you get in a drugstore.
“Hey, Lilly! Hey, Lilly!” Across the street five boys, somewhat older than Robby, had stopped on the sidewalk. They were calling in his direction. “Hey, Lilly! Hey, Lilly! Hey, Lilly!”
Robby looked around himself in the dark. There was no one else to whom they could be calling.
“Lillypad!”
“Whatcha doin’, Lillypad?”
Robby backed into the area under the stairs leading to the railroad station. He felt there was no light on him.
“You come over here, Lillypad, we’ll cut your stem off!”
All the boys must have found that funny because they all laughed. They continued along the sidewalk. Three of the five had their hands in the back pockets of their trousers. One of the other two rolled over a rubbish barrel, spilling its contents into the street. That, too, must have been funny because they all laughed.
At the far corner one of them shouted, “Comin’ to getcha, Lillypad. Cut yo’ stem off!”
They turned the corner, and were gone.
It began to snow. There was little light in the street. In the windows in the brick buildings across from Robby there were only a few slits of light. There were no lights in the window of the drugstore at the corner. The sign saying stron’s drugs was big and painted black against white so Robby could read it in the little light there was. When the drugstore door opened, as people went in and came out, a shaft of yellow light fell on the sidewalk. There were few cars going by and the headlights of all those were half-lidded to prevent their being seen from the air. It was in the headlights of a car that Robby first noticed it was snowing.
There had been several people walking the streets along the two sidewalks. There had been a few young men in uniform with girls; a few young men in uniform without girls, together; a few young men in uniform, alone. There had been the smelly, staggery old man with the brown bottle. There had been two women, each alone, both hurrying. One had worn a nurse’s uniform and cape. There had been the young man in the reindeer sweater who offered Robby hep and asked if Robby were waitin’ on someone. There were the boys who called Robby Lillypad.
Until Robby stepped into the shadow of the stairs everyone on the street seemed to no
tice him, look at him, see him, even those who had not spoken to him. For the most part, if their looks expressed anything they expressed mild curiosity. The woman who was not in a nurse’s uniform looked as if she might speak, perhaps wanted to, but decided against it. In his days and nights so far on the streets of New York, America, Robby felt few had seen him until he came to this dark place. He had run right through a crowd of people looking at his picture in the Sunday newspapers, but none had seen him. He had sat stinking in a crowded church, and many had looked at him certainly; none had seen him. He had upset everyone in the lower floor of the Hotel Clemens (except the waiter who held the door open for him), and everyone had yelled at him, two had kicked him, but no none had seen him. Of course Marie Savallo had seen him and one thing had led to another. The vanWankles’ butler, Cabot, had seen him and done his best for him. Robby marveled that in a world of people ordered by their newspapers to look for him so few had seen him.
Robby felt snowflakes on his cheeks. He looked up. The iron steps to the railroad station were latticed. Some snowflakes came right through them.
Of course Robby had seen black people before. There had always been some black people on the streets of London, and he had seen many black people on the streets of New York. Black diplomats and their wives had come to tea and dinner at Pladroman House. Robby had loved the long, graceful robes the men wore. His family had a special friend who was an English black man, who had married the Cullinan woman. They had stayed at the country house at Wolmwold a whole winter while the man wrote a book which everyone said was quite good and which was published in England and France. Robby had never been in a place before where all the people were black.
He supposed that was why people on this street were seeing him. They were all black, and he wasn’t.
Or they all read newspapers, really read them, and no one else did.
It was snowing hard. Robby looked across the street to the drugstore and wondered again what hep was. The time might be coming when he wanted some of whatever it was.
On the opposite sidewalk a man hurried along clutching his coat collar to his throat.
Snatch Page 37