The flames were higher, now, and they could make out the blue figures of policemen pushing back the crowd. There was an ear-splitting explosion, and the whole section of the building where the ambulance lay was coated with a sheet of flame.
Clark's face was pale. "Well," he said. "You got rid of a couple of your playmates that time, didn't you? Must have followed you here. They were parked right there by the entrance. The second you stepped to the curb they headed straight for you."
Graham stared down into the abyss. "You've got damned sharp eyes, Ken," he said. "I couldn't have made out anything at that distance."
Clark grinned. "Probably some eagle in my ancestry," he said cheerfully: "But let's get back to you. It is my personal thought that you'd better get out of town. I know of a place where I imagine ... Hey! What's the matter with you?"
There was nothing the matter with him... . Nothing. Only, suddenly, minutes afterward, he had realized: They meant to kill him.
He thought about it, feeling the trembling in his limbs. They weren't kidding. They had shot ahead, and twisted around to come straight at him. The curb had put the wheel out of joint, and the driver had lost control. But that made no difference, cut no ice. They had missed killing him by inches, and they had planned to kill him. Deliberately. In cold blood. Figuring it out in advance, adjusting themselves for that sudden spurt, stepping down hard on the gas--to kill him: Larry Graham. He realized Clark was staring at him. "What did you say?"
Clark opened his desk drawer and drew out a bottle. "Here you are, sonny boy. Have yourself a shot. You should be used to being a target by now." He held out the bottle to Graham, who filled his mouth with the warm fluid.
Clark said: "Cheer up. I'll give you a lovely funeral--lilies of the valley and a corsage of skunk-cabbage blossoms. They won't even be able to stand the smell of you in the church."
Graham smiled feebly.
"O.K., now?" Clark asked.
Graham nodded.
"O.K. Here's the plan. You've got to get out of town. Your little playfellows aren't kidding. I don't think there's anybody watching the place now. They probably left it all up to the ambulance. But I wouldn't advise going out the front way anyhow. There're too many cops around. So here's what you do. Take the rear elevator in the building, and go out the side exit--there are always one or two taxis hanging around there. Now," Clark handed Larry a card with a name and address in Brooklyn, "you go to this address. You can trust the man there. He'll put you up for a while. Nobody'll be looking for you in Brooklyn. Nobody from Manhattan ever goes to Brooklyn for anything--especially not to hide out. Just keep out of trouble there and everything will be swell.
"Meanwhile, I'll put a private detective on this Black Jewel place and we'll see what we can turn up. One other thing--have you got enough money to last you?"
Graham said: "Yes." Ken was a swell fellow. You couldn't tell him how grateful you were for all this. He was a great guy.
There were two cabs at the side exit of the building. Graham picked the one not directly in front.
"Brooklyn! In the rush hour? Are you kidding?" the driver demanded.
The other driver said: "Well, this is a bad time for it. But--where you going?" Graham repeated the address on the card. "O.K. Hop in."
He crawled into the back seat and slumped wearily on the leather cushions. The sun had been burning at them through the open top of the car. They were scorching. He sought out a cooler section of leather and let himself go limp, his feet stretched out in front of him until they touched the uptilted spare seats before him.
The car lurched through the rush-hour traffic, heading downtown. Graham stared from its windows, trying to keep the images from blurring in his eyes as he looked. He must concentrate and stay awake. He studied the back of the driver's neck. There was nothing of enduring interest about that neck--nothing but its miscellaneous ugliness: two wrinkles running parallel to the collar and creating an unhealthy looking bulge; a dusky-red shading stretching to the straggling hairline. An uninteresting neck, a neck to be disregarded at all costs and avoided if possible. He removed his eyes from the neck. Necks were not for him, he told himself firmly. Other things--weird assortments of objects, steam-shovels, helicopters, brontosaurians, chiropodists, anthrax bacilli, anything but necks--were meat for his researches. But from necks he had been driven, like Moses into the desert before the wrath of God--or wasn't it Moses?--by the humble but clean neck of the hack-driver.
The cab turned cross-town, turned again at Third Avenue. Graham snapped awake, staring up through the vehicle's open top at the maze of metal and wood of the elevated. He hated it--the sight of the grillwork rampart. He hated the reduced light in its shadow, the hollow sound of the street beneath it, the straight-lined ranks of girders that supported it, threatening the fast-moving traffic of the Avenue. The cab halted for a red light; jerked forward in a racing start.
Graham felt a movement against his outstretched feet. One of the two extra seats of the cab had tilted backward from its closed position with the inertia of the sudden start. He pressed at the seat with his toe, but it refused to return to position.
The cab turned into Delancey Street, heading for the Williamsburg Bridge. The fast swing around the corner threw Graham toward the right-hand side of the seat. He straightened himself.
The spare seat had moved farther out, and the corner of a box protruded from behind it,
That's what put it off balance, he thought--automatically, without interest. Casually he pushed at the seat with his toe, but his efforts to replace it served only to force the box farther out of position. He could read the label, now. "Castille Soap."
The cab stopped sharply, with a squealing of brakes, for another traffic light, and the seat recoiled. That had done it. The corner of the box was crushed, and there was a coarse white dust trickling from the smashed corner. Funny soap.
Probably some stuff the driver had got for his wife-- soap flakes or something. Graham turned his attention to other matters.
The street was crowded, tumultuous with the swarms of people who, antlike, jammed every square inch of the wide thoroughfare.
His eyes switched back to the inside of the cab. The flow of soap-powder had ceased. There was a little pile of white dust on the floor, now. And, another thing, there was something wrong with that seat back. He tried to recall what it was--something different from other cabs in which he had ridden? The car started abruptly, entering the long ramp of the bridge.
Something wrong, something important! What was it? What? You weren't used to riding in cabs. The subway and buses were your speed. Only in the last few days you'd been doing all this riding--last few? Last day. Well? What was it?
Then it came, clearly. There should be, fastened to the back of the driver's seat, a metal frame, including the hack-driver's license and his picture. But there was none. None at all.
He felt a paralysing fear striking at him. Again? And that stuff on the floor? Some sinister narcotic--some ... some ... He knew no word for it.
Probably only soap. He bent forward, and dipped his finger in the powder--hard. Crystalline. He touched it to his lips--bitter! Not soap.
He raised his eyes and saw the driver looking at him in the rear-view mirror--staring. Hard.
They were entering the bridge now. Had to get out. Quick. Driver couldn't stop. Wasn't room to stop on the bridge. Only room for one car at a time. Driver had to run the car, couldn't do anything to him.
He stood up on the seat, thrusting his head up through the open top. Looking down he could see the driver hastily pulling something from his pocket. A gun!
But he couldn't use it. Graham almost laughed aloud. He couldn't use it here on the bridge, because the cops would see the body when he got to the end--the body, hanging half out the roof. His body. But the driver couldn't shoot.
Graham pulled himself up, onto the roof of the cab. Looking to both sides. One way was the river--way down, more than a hundred feet below. Couldn't dive--not
at this speed. Throw you off and break your back when you hit.
O.K. Fine. The traffic ahead was slowing the taxi. Evening rush hour. Fine. Graham stood up on the roof, feeling the wind rushing at him. He faced to the left. There was the walk. All you had to do was just jump and catch hold.
Taxi couldn't stop. Couldn't turn back. Have to go on ...
He leaped.
He felt a powerful blow against his chest--almost crushing him, as he struck against the parapet. But his hands caught--and held. For a moment he hung there. Below him, through a tangle of girders, he could see the rippled water--way below.
He dragged himself through a network of girders and up onto the promenade. He'd have to run for it now--run for it despite the pain in his chest, and the soreness in his knee where it had struck against something in his leap.
Had to run. The cab could turn around in Brooklyn and come back. He raced down the long open causeway, running like a madman. Had to make it before the cab could turn around and pick him up at the Manhattan end. He moved over to the right-hand side of the promenade, running beside the railing where he could look down at the Manhattan-bound cars.
Taxis. Millions of them. How would you pick out the right one when it came along? You tried to conjure up the driver's face in your mind. But it wouldn't conjure. You couldn't remember what he looked like.
The setting sun was glaring in your face, blinding you. Couldn't remember the driver's face. But you had to. You had to. You had to identify that cab when it returned along the toward-Manhattan ramp.
O.K. Didn't matter. You were nearly off the bridge now--if only your bursting lungs held out. If only that stitch in your side would wait another fraction of a minute before exploding--if ...
He saw the cab! He could recognize the driver's face, now. It was crawling along the ramp, though. He was outdistancing it. His heart pounded in his chest, and his lungs were afire.
Almost at the end now. He looked, once more, over the railing. The line of cars was halted on the bridge. Traffic light or something. He reached the end of the promenade, walked past the unattentive policeman at the wire gate, turned right, and mixed himself thoroughly with the snarl of sidewalk stands and pushcarts in the Yiddish district.
He was safe, again. For a little while.
Chapter XIV
WHICH DOES NOT INCLUDE C AND H
Graham stood in front of the drug counter, tapping nervously with his fingers, while the pharmacist made a coca-cola for a customer and served another with a rubber syringe.
After a while the druggist got around to noticing his drug-counter. "Vat can I do for you?" he asked.
"Look," Graham said. "This is going to sound kind of silly to you, but it's very important. What kind of drug comes in white crystals and has a bitter taste?"
"Alum," the druggist said, promptly. "You vant I should give you some alum?"
"No," Graham said, impatiently. "Look, are there any narcotics like that?"
"You vant I should recite you the whole pharmacopoeia? It could be any opiate--Morphina, codeina, codeinae phosphas, Diacetylmorphine hydrochloride--any vun it could be."
"O.K., translate," Graham said. A little harshly.
"Morphine, codeine, heroin--all bitter and all in crystals. And then: Cocaine, Benzamine Lactas. They're bitter, too. But also they make numb the tongue aftervards."
Graham said: "Thanks." He started to walk out.
"You ain't going to buy something?" The druggist was annoyed.
"Not right now," Graham said. "I'll be back later."
In the street, he looked both ways. There were no taxis in sight--not that he'd expected any. After all, these people weren't mind-readers. But, he thought, they were uncomfortably close to it.
He had coffee in a little Jewish bakery, and bought a new and clean polo shirt from a pushcart peddler. Then he went in another pharmacy and studied the phone-book.
This was the way to do things--you did them yourself. That had been the trouble all along. You'd been going around looking for somebody to take care of things for you. All right. Now you'd handle them yourself.
Graham thumbed through the B's in the huge book. The search narrowed: Black, Black, Black Cat. Black Diamond, Black Eagle, Black Ivan, Black Jas, Black Jewel. The address was on West 125th. Graham felt in his pocket for something to write, found the card on which had been scribbled: The Lantern. Neatly he copied down the address, with the pencil chained to the phone-book stand.
O.K. He'd head for there. That was the way to handle things. Do them yourself. Go right to the source.
Taxi was the best way. Have to be careful. Watch out for cops. Walk as normally as possible, so they wouldn't take a good look at you.
He prowled unhappily through the crowded, narrow streets. There were no taxis.
Graham dared not go near Third Avenue. Some uncontrollable fear of the under-the-elevated tunnel of the Avenue stopped him. He must find a cab here, on the side streets. Delancey Street was out, too. The hack-driver might still be watching for him there. He moved steadily uptown in his search and found taxis, occupied taxis waiting for passengers at a stopover, but no empty taxis.
It became a desperate problem. He must find a taxi. Nothing else would do. Everything else became unacceptable. He whistled, frantically, at passing vehicles. They kept going. He approached parked cars, only in time to watch them pull out and dwindle in the distance.
The streets rolled back. He had reached the numbered thoroughfares now. Third. Ninth. Thirteenth. At Fourteenth, trembling with fatigue, he succeeded in stopping a passing cab.
He gave the address, stumbled into the tonneau and promptly fell asleep.
... The driver said: "Look, Mister, I don't mind your sleeping in my cab, but it's only fair to warn you that I'm leaving the meter running."
Graham dragged himself from the deep reaches, struggling to the surface of consciousness like an underwater swimmer coming up for air. He paid the driver, tipped him enthusiastically because he wasn't used to riding in cabs, and stepped onto the sidewalk. He found himself directly facing a coffee-shop. He went inside and negotiated for two cups, black ...
He thought: Too bad I fell asleep, like that. Takes me longer and longer each time to get clear.
And you had to be clear. You had to get this fog out of your brain, this non-recognition of objects out of your eyes.
There was a thunderstorm compiling itself distantly. Its rumbles merged with the humming roar of the two huge electric fans in the restaurant. It would be cooler, then.
But now the sweat soaked your clothes, dampened your armpits and harassed your crotch. Your legs itched with the salt solution from your pores.
Graham moved to the front end of the counter and stared across the street through the window. A tangle of glowing neon festooned the facades of the buildings.
One by one he picked them out: The Minerva Theater--he knew the place. Never been there, but he knew it. Jazz bands there all the time. Who was it used to come here regularly? Oh, yeah. Bill Brice. Always fooling around with jazz bands. Get all excited about some new outfit.
Graham's eyes followed the theater marquee upward, moved to the left. There was a neon sign in the loft next door: The Black Jewel, Recordings of Quality--voice, instrumental, sound effects; transcription reproduction; public address systems.
That was the place. He let his eyes drift downward, searching for the entrance. There it was, between the theater marquee and the entrance to that night-club or whatever it was.
Funny. The night-club had a peculiar sign. Couldn't make out the letters this way. Couldn't make them out at all. There were no letters. It was just a network of neon shaped like a four-sided Egyptian sarcophagus--or a ship's lantern. A lantern! Something clicked suddenly in Graham's mind. Lantern! Postcard. Lois. It was all straightening itself out, now. You couldn't tell which had happened first. But you knew.
Lois had been, for some reason, a prisoner in the Lantern or the recording studio upstairs. She had st
arted to write the postcard--something she found around, in her bag or somewhere. They had surprised her as she finished writing: "Dear Larry." She had already addressed the card, and fastened to its face, with chewing gum or something, a coin. So she scribbled the first identifying thing that came in her head--The Lantern, and flung it out the window. Someone had picked it up and mailed it.
Graham took the card from his pocket and stared at it. That explained the footprints on its dirty surface. And the soundtrack on the record.
O.K. O'Hannagan had made his recording. Maybe while she was there, maybe before. She knew the record was going to be used publicly that night. She was close to the recording machines, somehow. She set the stylus on the record and added the few words she had been able to finish before they caught her. That was it.
That explained a lot of things. The card was in her handwriting. It would prove that she was uptown in The Lantern last night from the post office date. They didn't know he couldn't recognize her handwriting. O.K. But why, and who? All you knew now was--what.
Graham signaled to the colored waiter. The man came to his end of the counter, abandoning a group of colored youth in bright-colored baggy suits.
"What's that place across the street--the one with the neon lantern hanging out in front?"
"Dat dere's de dance-hall," the waiter said. "Nicest place you evah was in. Got dey own band and 'bout fifty, sixty gals. So't of a tea-gahden joint." The waiter was full of enthusiasm. Graham thought, frantically: Tea-garden. Tea. Hadn't Bill told him, once, that in Harlem tea meant marijuana. Tea. Yeah. That was it.
And Bill. Funny, Bill knowing all about this. Way he used to hang around up in Harlem. Still, Bill had helped him get away from the cops. Even worked out that business with the dumbwaiter.
The colored waiter was starting back toward the other end of the counter. Graham hissed at him. He turned.
"Can you get anything else over there besides tea?" Remembering the taxi and the still unidentified bitter-tasting crystals.
"Dunno 'bout dat," the colored man said. "Maybe you could fin' sump'n like dat, mind you I ain' sayin' for suah, 'round de Minerva." [He pronounced it to rhyme with Nineveh.]
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