He spent a few minutes meditating, trying to get himself into character, then headed for the subway station.
It wasn’t that far, but before long, Collin’s back started to hurt from doing Barton’s funny walk. The pain and stiffness reminded him of how scrunched up Barton was in the trunk of the car, and he wondered if it hurt after you were dead.
Collin stopped, chills running up and down his spine. What if Barton wasn’t really dead? He wasn’t a doctor or anything — actually, most of his medical training came from watching General Hospital — and there could have been some signs of life he missed. It could be like those people who woke up in the middle of their funeral and opened the lid of their coffin. What if Barton started knocking on the trunk of the car when the cops pulled Ariana over? His skin started to feel cold and clammy and he began to walk a little slower.
The subway was quiet and cool and empty this time of day. Collin tried to check his appearance in the reflection of the window of the token booth as he went past, but it was too dark to see anything.
There weren’t any trains, so he had time to think about what he was doing. He was a good actor, but pretending to be Barton was giving him the creeps. He began to shiver in the semi-dark coolness of the station. Finally, he realized what the problem was — he was too deeply in character. He wasn’t doing Barton at all — he was doing Barton in the trunk of the car. The stiff-legged walk, the cold skin, and the absence of a reflection in the mirror all reminded him of scary late-night movies. He couldn’t remember whether it was zombies or vampires who acted like that, but the general idea was enough to scare him.
He felt the hair rise at the back of his neck, and he began to gasp for air, struggling to get out of his Barton persona in a hurry. He fled the station and raced back to the apartment.
Now he was sorry he’d given up the car. He couldn’t get the picture of Barton knocking on the trunk lid out of his mind, and he was anxious to get to the airport. He schlepped his suitcase out to the sidewalk hurriedly and raced to the corner for a taxi, stopping briefly at the Korean fruit stand for a newspaper to read on the way.
His eye was caught by the front page of the New York Post. A wedding picture of Ariana and Dr. Montgomery? What was that doing there? He felt suddenly disoriented.
He heard some abrupt words in Korean, or maybe Korean-accented English, and looked up. The man was holding out his hand. Collin stared at him blankly for a moment, then caught on and reached into his pocket for the thirty-five cents.
He paid the man and rushed out blindly to hail a taxi. He unfortunately got a driver with a nonstop mouth, but being a fairly good actor, he managed to keep one eye on the paper without rustling it while pretending to be hanging on the cabbie’s every word. Nevertheless, he didn’t really get the gist of what was going on until he got to the airport.
While he stood in line waiting to check in at the airline ticket counter, he reread the story, trying hard to concentrate.
Quick flashes jumped off the page at him, making his skin crawclass="underline" Ariana and Dr. Montgomery married for two months... Porphyria Foundation scam... body in the closet... five million dollar ripoff of wealthy contributors... catching plane to Rio... body in the trunk of the car... BODY IN THE TRUNK OF THE CAR! It hopped off the page and floated around on his retinas for a while. He blinked.
This changed things, and not for the better. How could he have been so stupid? Collin had some heavy thinking to do. He knew Ariana real well. She wasn’t the kind of woman to take a fall for anyone. She had probably already given his name to the cops... all of his names. And Ethel the flake... the pushy guy who wanted the apartment so bad... all those others who could identify him. He was in deep trouble.
He decided to get out of line, try to get a reservation under another name on another airline to another destination.
As he stooped down to hook the handle of his suitcase, he saw a large shadow over him. He looked up. A tall blond man in a black suit and cape, with fake Halloween fangs in his mouth and a sardonic look in his eyes, accompanied by a rumpled brown-checked suit lost in a swirl of cigar smoke, surrounded him. More or less.
The blond raised his arms slowly over his head, allowing the detective’s shield in his hand to fall open. He had shined his badge to a high gloss. As Collin squinted against the reflection, Hrudic said in his best imitation of a Transylvanian accent, “Ju arrrre underrr arrrest for the murrrder of Emanuel Barton. Ju have the rrrright to rrrremain silent...”
In the background, Flaherty tried to keep one eye on the suspect so he didn’t flee while Flaherty pretended to be somewhere — anywhere — else.
Off and Running, Or, Bob Swillet’s Luck (Bad)
by Lawrence Doorley
Maybe you missed it. It was in the News, page three (BRAVE ORPHAN PERFORMS DOUBLE HEROICS IN CENTRAL PARK; SUBSTANTIAL REWARDS IN OFFING). Shades of Horatio Alger, of gas lights and horse-drawn streetcars, of Luck and Pluck, of America, the Land of Opportunity.
Unfortunately, the News reporter missed the real story. Here is the whole sad tale (Woe and Rue, Or, It Ain’t Necessarily So).
If Bob Swillet had been someone that Horatio Alger made up, a fictitious person, he would have possessed all the necessary qualities — poverty, self-reliance, determination, up-and-at-’emness — that the real Bob Swillet possessed. Horatio could have titled Bob’s story Bob Swillet, Ball of Fire, Or, An Orphan’s Odyssey.
Early in the going young Swillet would have rescued the lovely eighteen-year-old daughter of a Pittsburgh Nut and Bolt tycoon from a foul-smelling plug-ugly, and the grateful father of the doe-eyed damsel would have rewarded young Swillet with a clerkship in the New York nut and bolt sales office. From then on it would have been Up The Ladder until The End where Bob Swillet dedicates his Newsboys Orphanage in the last paragraph. Then... “Bob Swillet, an old man now, in his late fifties, gazed at the eager faces of the brave little chaps who were devouring the sumptuous repast and a mist formed in his eyes as he thought, How I envy you fortunate young orphans. Just beginning the climb from the depths of adversity to the pinnacle of success. Oh to be an urchin again, a homeless hobbledehoy, in ragged raiment... ah, those were the dear days.”
That’s the way Horatio Alger would have handled Bob Swillet had Bob been a Horatio Alger hero. Life handled Bob Swillet differently.
Horatio Alger’s “rags to riches” theme had an enormous influence on late nineteenth and early twentieth century youth. He wrote one hundred ten books. The titles speak for themselves: Ragged Dick; Tattered Tom; Struggling Upward, Or, Luke Larkin’s Luck; Tom the Bootblack; Phil the Fiddler; Slow and Sure; Strong and Steady; Fame and Fortune.
The typical hero is thirteen years old as the story opens. He is either a total orphan (his parents are disposed of in a few opening sentences) or he has a widowed mother (she is seldom more than thirty years old). By page nine the kid heads for Lower Broadway, New York City — that’s where the action is. He is a go-getter, willing and eager to attack the most menial work for starvation wages. Evenings, in a freezing garret, are spent in study, preparing for the big chance.
In those days disreputable characters lurked — footpads, bullies, Dick Turpins, filchers, pickpockets, sneak-thieves, plus a better class of unprincipled villains such as rich wastrels, crooked lawyers, flash gentry, embezzlers, swindlers. Our young hero encounters a host of these rascals and, early on, is fleeced of his hard-earned money. He profits from these experiences and continues upward.