“You shoulda gone heeled, pal,” Hoppy said.
“I did.” Whitey slapped his right hip. “But I just figured on bawling Spangler out, not killin’ him, and then I get blasted from behind.”
“How long were you there?” Simon asked.
“’Bout half an hour. Say!” Whitey’s voice lifted as though remembering. “It couldn’a been Karl who was with those mugs that you said tried to gun you. He was in that room with Spangler most of the time I was cussin’ the Doc.” His pale eyes brightened with thought. “Y’know, there’s a coupla hot guys with the Scarponi mob who Spangler hires sometimes for jobs. They look a lot like Karl.”
The Saint shrugged.
“He still might have made it. I figure that Karl got some of his pals together in a hurry after he left Steven’s place, and followed Hoppy and me when we left. I wouldn’t give him an alibi unless he punched a time clock. You certainly weren’t in shape to time everything to the minute.” He glanced at Whitey. “We’d better drop you off at a doctor’s so you can get that fixed up. How do you feel?”
“Oh, I’m okay, Saint,” Whitey minimised. He felt his blood-dotted head gingerly. “The slug took a li’l hair off, that’s all. Just drop me off at Kayo Jackson’s gym. I’ll wash up there.”
“It’s your noodle.” Simon swung the wheel to his left and cut westward towards Sixth Avenue.
“Did you mean it,” Whitey asked after a moment, “when you said you’d work with the Champ?”
The Saint fished a cigarette from his breast pocket and punched the dashboard lighter.
“You’re the trainer, Whitey.”
Whitey found a match in his pocket and struck it with his thumb, cupping the flame as he held it to the Saint’s cigarette.
“Kayo’ll go nuts when I tell him,” he grinned. “Wit’ you and the Champ workin’ out here together, we’ll pack ’em in.”
“At two bits a head,” Mr Uniatz mentioned, rather quickly for him. “So whaddas de boss get out of it?”
“I’ll see that Kayo shells out with the Saint’s cut of the gymnasium gate, don’t worry.”
“Hoppy is my agent,” said the Saint.
He was thinking more about the slug he carried in his pocket — the slug he had dug out of the pawnshop doorframe. He had to ponder the fact that neither Karl’s guns nor Slim Mancini’s were of the same calibre — and in spite of what he had said, he couldn’t really visualise Doc Spangler doing his own torpedo work. There was at least negative support for Whitey’s evidence that Karl had been in the house during the time the Saint thought he’d seen him at the wheel of the gunmen’s car. Yet Simon found it impossible to reconcile his indelibly photographic impression of the man who had driven that car with the possibility that it had been someone other than Karl... If it hadn’t been Karl, then it had certainly been his identical twin.
Chapter twelve
The dawning sun arched a causeway of golden light through the Saint’s bedroom window, glinting on his crisp dark hair as he laced on the heavy rubber-soled shoes in which he did his road-work with Steve every morning. Hoppy, bleary-eyed, leaned against the doorframe, watching him, unhappily.
“Chees,” he complained hoarsely, “will I be glad when de fight is over tomorrow night! I’m goddam sick of gettin’ up wit’ de boids every mornin’ to do road-work wit’ Nelson.” He yawned cavernously. “Dis at’letic life is moider.”
“What athletic life?” the Saint inquired with mild irony. “The only road-work you do is follow behind in the car with Whitey.”
Hoppy sighed lugubriously.
“Dat ain’t de pernt, boss. It’s just I don’t get de sleep a guy needs at my age.”
“Well, I must say you wear the burden of your years with lavender and old dignity,” Simon complimented him. He stood up and headed for the door. “Come on, Steve and Whitey will be waiting for us.”
Hoppy groaned and followed like an exhausted elephant.
They found Nelson near the Fifty-Ninth Street entrance of Central Park, alone.
“Whitey’s got another of those headaches,” he explained. “I think maybe that bullet Karl grazed him with last month must have shaken his brains up worse than he admitted.”
The Saint nodded, breaking into an easy, jogging trot beside Nelson as they struck out northward along the side of a winding park road.
“Could be,” he agreed.
Mr Uniatz climbed into the car again and waited disconsolately for several minutes in order to give them a good head start. Then he started the car up and followed slowly behind.
Some thirty minutes later the Saint and Steve Nelson were jogging eastward along the inner northern boundary of Central Park, following the edge of the park road. The Saint’s long legs pumped in smooth, tireless rhythm as he breathed the dew-washed fragrance of blooming shrubs that covered the green slopes. At that early hour there was practically no traffic through Central Park, and he filled his lungs with air untainted by the fumes of carbon monoxide and tetraethyl lead... During the past weeks the regimen of training in which he had joined Steve Nelson had tempered his lithe strength to the whiplash resilience of Toledo steel and surcharged his reflexes with jungle lightning, and as he ran his blood seemed to tingle with the sheer exultation of just living. He drank deeply of the perfume of the morning, smiling at a sky of the same clear blue as his eyes, his every nerve singing, feeling his youth renewed indestructibly.
He glanced back once at the brooding shadow of Hoppy’s face behind the wheel of the car far behind, and chuckled softly. Nelson, trotting beside him, asked, “What’s funny?”
The Saint nodded over his shoulder.
“Hoppy. He’s miserable. Nobody to talk to. Nothing to drink.”
Nelson looked back and grinned.
Ahead to his left over the park wall some distance away Simon could see the broad terminus of Lenox Avenue coming into view. Directly in front of them, through the trees, he caught the gleam of the lake that lies at the northern end of the park. The park road swoops sharply to the right at this point, paralleling the lake for a distance as it winds southward again.
The easy purr of an approaching car blended against and quickly drowned out the sound of the Saint’s car hugging the edge of the road. The overtaking car accelerated as it came up to them and whooshed past, disappearing round the curve some distance ahead.
The Saint looked after it thoughtfully. Only two private cars had passed them since they’d started running — and both of them had been this same big limousine with the curtained windows.
“I hope you won’t be too busy the day after the fight,” Nelson said, glancing at him.
The Saint pondered his remark for a moment.
“That all depends. Why?”
“Connie and I have set the date for our wedding. Will you be my best man?”
The Saint’s quick, warm smile sparkled at him. “It’ll be a pleasure, Steve.”
Nelson slapped him on the back as they jogged along.
“Thanks.”
“Will you be staying on at your place on Riverside Drive?”
“Yeah. Having it redecorated. As a matter of fact they started work today. It was the only date I could make that would have it finished when we get back from our honeymoon, but the place is a mess right now.”
“Why don’t you move in with me until the day after tomorrow?” Simon suggested. “We’ve got a spare bed that you’re welcome to.”
“That’s swell of you, Saint.”
“No trouble at all. Besides, it’ll be easier to keep an eye on you.”