5lst.
He looked first to the right
There it was half a block away. Safety. He dared to look back, now. The cab came on. But slowly, hesitantly. Waiting for him to turn or go on.
Graham plunged down the street. Standing in front of the station he could make out the figures of two cops. No hurry. He slowed down, feeling the delight of cessation of strain.
He was safe.
The cab, behind him, was turning the corner, now.
The driver, too, saw the officers. The cab stopped. ["Very well," said the cat. "I will simply watch the mouse-hole until the mouse emerges."]
Graham marched to the station steps--triumphant. All the avenues had not been blocked. He went in through the open doorway.
He was safe. "Home-free."
"I want to report a little trouble," he said.
"Yeah?" the man behind the desk said. He looked up from the book in which he was working.
The room lurched, suddenly.
Facing Larry Graham in the uniform of a desk lieutenant of the Police Department of the City of New York, was the man with the gun.
Chapter VI
... ONLY PURSUIT
It was too much coincidence. As though the stars were in conspiracy against him. There was the feeling of being hemmed in. Of being surrounded by menace without meaning. A nightmarish feeling. A sense of invalid unreality as though, at any moment, you must awaken and find yourself snuggly wuggly in your itsy bitsy beddie-bye.
He thought: Why did I think that? He thought: Must concentrate; think fast.
But you couldn't think fast. Your mind drove off at tangents. Tangents of guns, and shadowy pursuers. Tangents of tunnel-like streets and dark, chaotic sounds echoing.
He said: "Does Clancy O'Gorman work out of this station?"
"Not any more," the lieutenant said. "Tonight was his last night. He's out on Long Island now--starting tomorrow." There was no recognition in the lieutenant's voice. Nor in his eyes.
Graham thought: Maybe all this isn't connected. Maybe it just appears connected in my mind. You had to think fast. The lieutenant was getting suspicious. He was looking at you, standing there saying nothing, and getting suspicious.
"I've just been kicked out of my furnished room," Graham explained. "I had my rent all paid up for two weeks ahead, and while I was out tonight the landlord rented my room to somebody else."
"You got any receipts to show your rent is paid?" the Lieutenant asked.
"No. They were in the room."
The lieutenant was sympathetic. "I dunno what we can do," he said. "Sometimes these furnished-room-landlords scare when you send a cop around and sometimes they don't. Anyway, there's nothing I can do now. Too late at night. You understand, maybe we can help you and maybe we can't. If this guy knows his way around he'll know that there isn't anything you can do without your receipt. You come around in the morning and we'll see what we can do. Leave your name and address here."
The lieutenant pushed a blank pad toward Graham. "You can stay here if you want."
But you didn't want. You wanted to get out of there. The lieutenant hadn't recognized you, yet. It had been dark on the steps at 42 Barker. But you didn't dare hang around.
Your heartbeat said: hurry--hurry--hurry. And your fingers trembled as you wrote your name.
Another avenue closed. Another place you couldn't go. Nothing to fail back on. Nothing to help. No place to hide.
You pushed the paper over to the lieutenant.
The lieutenant looked down at the pad, casually. He said: "O.K. son. We'll see ..." Then: "Hey! You're ..." Then: "Oh, Yeah. That's right."
You got out of there. There was a connection. The lieutenant knew your name. Everything linked together.
Graham stood in the doorway of the police station. There was a radio patrol-car parked in front, and two policemen, talking, leaning against the fender.
He looked down the street. Toward Lexington. There was a parked taxi. Maybe the same one. Maybe not. He turned right, toward Third Avenue. Back into the tunnel. Gloom under the El. He had to go right.
His mind raced feverishly.
Why? Why? What point was there in all this? You had no money. No secrets. No inside tip. Why was your name, Larry Graham, a sort of 'Close sesame'?"
You had to figure it out. You had to stand there, stock-still, in the middle of the block, thinking until you got the answer. Not letting your mind wander off onto tangents. But moving in a straight line.
They all tied together, one way and another. They were interrelated. You had to remember that. You had to remember that while a taxi, down the block, carried two men who were following you. You had to remember while a police lieutenant devised new plots to frustrate you.
They all tied together. Lois' non-appearance at the date. The loudspeaker on the truck--tied to Lois by her voice on the phonograph record. The phone-calls and the trip to Barker Street. Again they tied together with Lois. The man who was following you--the two men--related to Lois, too, because of the conversation with the kid in the lunch-counter. He had given you Lois' real name, and then, after one of your pursuers went into the store, he denied even talking to you. And that related the man-with-the-gun--the Lieutenant--to the pursuer because both wanted to censor out Lois.
What about your landlord? How did he fit in? Was that a spontaneous dishonesty that had sprouted in Jensen's thick skull? Probably not. Because your pursuers knew where you lived--knew you well enough to pick you up at 39th Street, follow you to the trolley, ride down with you, and, on the way back, get off a station early and pick you up again. Therefore, knowing your address, they must have fixed things with Jensen; paid him some money to kick you out of the house. That was reasonable, wasn't it?
Yeah. Sure. But why?
Graham flashed a look back down 51st. The taxi was coming down the street, toward him. Not hurrying.
There was a throbbing pulse inside his skull. An empty feeling, and an ache that come and went with his heartbeat.
The street seemed moving in a slow circle around him. Moving and closing in on him. Ahead was the tunnel. Behind the taxi. He knew the taxi was the menace; the real threat. But Third Avenue was the thing he feared. Third Avenue, and the blackness, the shadows, the grim red-grey. The throbbing in his head he realized had been going on for a while--quite a while. A dull tom-tom beat. A drunken bolero-rhythm. Eccentric, maddening, like the tlock, tlock-- tlock of the wooden blocks in a Cuban orchestra--out of rhythm with everything else. Two beats. No beat when the third was due. Then another, exactly out of time.
He swung around, facing back toward the taxi and the police station. Into the subway. That was the best way.
Straight toward the taxi and the police station. Into the Valley of Death Rode ... Alfred, Lord Tennyson. [Funny: People thought Lord was Tennyson's name.] Into the Valley ... But this wasn't a valley. You were going toward a subway entrance. The old familiar subway--full of people. Brightly lighted. New York's rabbit-warren.
Two hundred miles for a nickel. Uptown and downtown and in my lady's chamber.
There were the two cops and the radio car. Ten feet ahead. Seven feet. Four feet. One foot. Now they were behind.
The taxi was passing, now. You passing it. And it passing you. You wanted to keep your eyes away. Not look at it. But your eyes didn't care what you wanted. They looked anyway--staring in at the rear seat--looking for the face with the spread nose. Looking--and not finding it.
The rear seat was empty. And the terror flamed up and swelled through your skull--drowning out the drunken drumbeat of your headache. Making you forget everything but the darkness of the street. Into the valley--into the valley of death ...
You knew what had happened. When the taxi stopped near the corner the men had gotten out. They were waiting around the corner for you--standing behind the sharp angle of the building.
But you had to keep going, before the cops got curious about your pacing back and forth in front of the station. You did
n't want them to get curious. You didn't want them to pick you up and take you in the station to face the terrible lieutenant.
But why not? The lieutenant was a small man. Smaller than you. It didn't matter. He was small--like a coral viper.
You had to keep going. [Sail on and on and on--behind them lay the grey Azores, behind the Gates of Hercules--poetry, at a time like this; bad poetry, too. The parody: In Fourteen-hundred ninety-two a dago from Italy ... Not Joaquin Miller.] You had to keep going. Onward Christian Soldiers ...
No! No! Damn it! No! It was all your imagination--your filthy, cowardly little imagination, like the night-fright at going upstairs alone in the dark when you were a kid. All imagination. There was no connection. The taxi had been empty all along. Sure. Empty. Just a cruising cab, hoping for a customer--following you along in case you got tired and wanted to spend twenty-five cents for the first quarter mile and so ad infinitum [or fraction thereof].
There was nobody around the corner. Nobody. Just a street corner and a subway entrance. Forward into battle see our banners go ... alons, citoyen ...
Graham slowed a little, just before the corner. Catching back at the new wave of fear. Then went on. Past the corner, not looking back. Not daring to look back, and into the subway entrance. Down the steps. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve ... holding his breath ... thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, counting the steps not to think of what was behind. Not knowing what was there.
He was on the uptown side. That was wrong. He'd have to go back out and cross over. He wanted to go downtown. Then: But why downtown? What was downtown? Nothing. Then why go downtown? Anyway, this was all rationalization. You knew you were, really, afraid to go back up those steps, leave the security of the lighted subway and cross the dark street.
There were steps coming down the stairs, now. Scuffing shoes on the metal risers.
He looked about him. There was no one in the subway. No one--except the man in the little change booth. O.K. That was enough protection; enough, until the train came.
There was no place to go. Nowhere. But you had to keep moving and you had to be among people. Nothing could happen to you while you were among people.
That was it. You had to be among people. Near somebody all the time. Refuge. "Home-Free." Safe before witnesses.
They were coming, now. Through the turnstile, standing in back of you. You felt their eyes looking into you, studying you. Studying your back. Your back ...
Graham walked down the platform. Trying to whistle. Thrusting his hands into his pockets--to be natural. Did they know he recognized them?
But he hadn't recognized them. Hadn't even looked at them. They might be somebody else--somebody perfectly innocent.
He turned around slowly--casually. The men were facing away from him but--those were the ones. As he watched, they turned around slowly and looked at him. They began to walk toward him, close in on him ... Coming steadily, in his direction.
He jerked his head; realized he was out of the line of vision of the man in the little booth. Fear engulfed him.
Should he shout for help? He thought of it: My mouth, shouting "Help!" Like that. No. He couldn't do it. He couldn't throw his cowardice down in front of people like that.
Suddenly he had turned and was running down the platform, away from the two men. Away. To the end of the platform. The end. That was as far as you could go.
No. There was a little space, there. And iron handholds to lower yourself to the road-bed. Fine. Swell. Wonderful. You could lose them there. You could lose them underground in the network of rails and tunnels, pillars and concrete.
Graham lowered himself; down--down--down, until hard concrete was under his feet. Not looking back. Not turning to see if he was followed. He slid through the first few feet and suddenly was in darkness.
Now it was safe. Now he could turn around and look. He drew back a little into the shadows and turned around.
They were coming. Running toward the end of the platform.
Chapter VII
A NICKEL TO WALK
Now was the time. Now. While they were in the light and you in the shadow. You had about five seconds to lose them. Five seconds before they could get to the end of the platform, say, another two before their eyes became adjusted to the darkness.
You had to turn away and run. Run. Into the darkness. Run now.
Graham twisted around and began trotting along the road-bed. The sound of his feet thundered in the cavernous darkness.
He flashed a look back over his shoulder. They were at the end of the platform. Now was the time. He picked his way carefully over the rails; daintily, like a woman wearing an evening gown, avoiding the metal tracks and the bare third rail. Slipping between the pillars. He was across the uptown local track, now. Now the uptown express. Didn't have to be careful here. Expresses stopped running for the night.
He was on the downtown local track. Now to double back. Now. He faced downtown. Then, ahead of him he made out the figure of the other man--the tall one. Not the one he'd been going by. The other.
There was something shiny in his hand, and he was coming slowly uptown on this side.
The pillars obstructed his view. He couldn't see "spread-nose." But he knew. They were both closing in on him, forcing him to go uptown. Uptown underground. Into the darkness.
It was as through they knew how he feared the darkness. As though they recognized, understood and were using his panic of the tunnel. He slid over into the express line.
No sense in taking a chance.
But it was so dark. So dark and dimly lit. You almost wanted to turn back. To face the real danger of the men, rather than run on headlong into the darkness.
But no. You went on. Trying to think and feeling the pain in your side, the oppression in your lungs, the sweat-soaked hair falling on your forehead.
It wasn't kidding, anymore. You had cut yourself off. There was no safety. No more protection. Only a straight line ahead of you. You must go on until you could go on no more. On and on and on in the darkness.
You wanted to laugh. Because: What the hell had you been doing but going on? On. And on. And on. AND ON!
Running through the darkness. Running, and trying to remember why you were running. There was something you were running away from. Something. Was it that drumbeat pounding in your hollow skull? Was it the raging strangulation in the throat; the torture of the knife thrust in your side?
You couldn't remember? He screamed it, out loud, his words crashing in the tunnel, thundering along the concrete walls, resounding in the upright forest of metal girders: "I can't remember! I CAN'T REMEMBER!"
And the fiendish echo roared back: "CAN'T REMEMBER, N'T REMEMBER, Remember, ember, ber!" in dark diminuendo.
He stopped dead and stood there, struggling with his mind, threatening it and cajoling it, begging it to remember. Why were you running? What was it?
Something. Something frightening and horrible. Those feet.
Graham heard them clearly. Feet. Running. Whose feet? Whose?
He knew, realized, sensed, that, second by second, thundering footfall by thundering footfall, it was imperative he identify those feet.
But the meaning, the horrible, terrible, immense meaning, the frightful, nightmarish, screaming meaning, was too large, too gigantic for him to seize upon. Coherent thought after coherent thought slipped lightly from his grasp. His exhausted mind retained only one tiny concept--terror.
Terror of the surrounding dark, the long, black empty on-reaching corridor, terror of the approaching footsteps, terror of the hollow roaring, like some frenzied lion, which had begun to resonate from somewhere in the tunnel-darkness ahead.
He must speak to someone. He must ask. Ask why he was afraid. Why he was here, standing terrified in a tunnel? What was this tunnel? What frightful force, malignant and malicious, made the sound of those running footsteps in the emptiness?
Then, in a swift tide, it came flooding back to him:
Lois! Third Avenue! Bowery! Barker Street! Darkness! Landlords! Policemen! Flat-nosed pursuers! Subway! Tunnel!
He was running again; disregarding the torture in his lungs, his chest, his head, his side, disregarding the weakness in his legs, the drumbeat in his skull, the swelling pulse that seemed to expand his body like a squeezed balloon.
He must run. Must keep running. Must go on.
Fix your mind on the station--the next station. You would get there ahead of them. You must burst from the station, get to the street, and find a hiding place before they were close enough to see you.
Suddenly, providentially, like a heaven-sent shelter, his eyes caught a bright light in the darkness--white, clear, marking an opening in the seemingly needless concrete walls. And a sign: "EMERGENCY EXIT."
What did you do? If you took it and tried to go out that way how would you know you could reach the street? A trap. A death-trap. First place they'd look. Sure. They'd look there. Keep going. Let them look--waste their time, so you had more chance to get away.
On.
Bright lights ahead in the darkness. Approaching roar, too, rising in pitch. Train coming. All right. Not on this track. No expresses running this hour of the night. Keep running. Keep running while your guts trickled slowly out of the huge hole in your side and slithered down your legs.
That was the way it felt. Your intestines seemed, looping and tangled, writhing and twisting like a multitude of little snakes, to have burst through your side. Trip over them any second now. Intestines. Run. Keep running.
Your head was bursting. But run. Run. Run. The Hall Johnson Choir will now sing: Run, Little Chillun. Run, courtesy of Ex-Lax. [Who said that? Who? Jim Murray, down at the office. How could you think about that now?]
Now you were coming into the light. Station. What street? Fifty-ninth. Fifty-ninth. Near the park. Central Park. You could run and hide in the park. Get away in the park-dark. Dark-park. Dark.
How you hated and feared the dark. Park. Park. Dark. What was wrong with your head? Dizzy. Empty. Pounding. Like a drum. Tom-tom. Turn, turn, turn, turn. Drum, drum, drum, drum. Run. Run. Run. Run.
Madman on a Drum Page 5