Dom held up a massive hand. ‘OK. For you, Connie, we’ll keep the lady on board. We need to get you both off the streets. Go somewhere safe.’
He turned toward Jones.
‘But, just you try one more of your tricks and that’s it, Dr Dim. You’re on your own. Yeah?’
Jones nodded. She felt defeated. She was certainly totally unqualified to protect either Connie or herself. She had little choice but to go along with the Dominator.
‘Right,’ said Dom aggressively, pointing a finger at Jones. ‘You do exactly what I say, lady. Yeah?’
‘Yeah,’ repeated Jones meekly.
‘Then let’s get this show on the road.’
Dom was wearing a long black scarf around his neck. He whipped it off and handed it to Connie.
‘First of all, let’s not advertise who you are, Connie darlin’,’ he said. ‘Wrap this scarf round your head and hide that damned red hair of yours. Will you?’
Connie obeyed. Her hair disappeared. She no longer looked nearly so conspicuous. Dom’s scarf worked a hell of a lot better than the unfortunate yellow baseball cap.
Then Dom turned his attention to Jones, looking her up and down.
‘That your bag?’
He gestured to the hold-all by Jones’s feet. Jones nodded.
‘Good. You gonna need to change your clothes. It will have to wait, though. I’d rather get you both away from here without wasting any more time. OK?’
‘OK,’ said Jones.
She felt anything but OK. Two days ago she had been sitting at her desk in Exeter indulging in a certain amount of self-congratulation. Since then she’d embarked on a crazy wild goose chase, been arrested, more or less kidnapped, and, finally, caught up in an attempted murder that had nearly led to her own death. Worse still, there was a possibility, although she could hardly believe it, that her own indiscretion may have precipitated that murder attempt.
And now she was a fugitive, on the run from an unknown enemy, and left with no choice but to accept the protection of a man whom she still half believed could be the enemy.
Fourteen
Dom hurried them outside, a big protective arm around Connie’s shoulders. Jones followed as best she could.
His cab was parked on the rank just around the corner in 42nd Street. He hustled them towards it.
‘Don’t you think this might be a target too now?’ Jones asked, pointing at the yellow vehicle.
Dom turned to look at her. ‘Who do you think is after you and Connie?’ he asked. ‘Every security force in America?’
Jones shrugged. Dom seemed to think she was being paranoid. Well there was a pretty good reason for it. A reason they’d left lying on a New York street.
‘No lady,’ continued Dom, once they were all in the cab. ‘Somebody’s after Connie, there’s no damned doubt about that, and somebody with resources. Of course they can get to me because of the apartment, and once they’ve traced me it’s on record that I work as a cabby. And of course my medallion number’s listed. But they gotta work their way through all of that. And I’ve kept the cab out of the way too, remember. Even when the truck hit you guys I was parked out of sight, and I’d been following you on foot.’
Jones mumbled assent. The Dominator was probably right. He was certainly capable, there was no doubt about that. He also seemed able to keep his head while all around were losing theirs.
Connie, meanwhile, was very quiet.
‘You all right?’ Jones asked, realizing as she spoke what a darned silly question that was.
‘What do you think?’ Connie snapped the words out.
‘Sorry,’ said Jones.
Connie’s face was red and blotchy from her tears, her eyes red-rimmed and full of pain.
‘And I’m so so sorry about Marion. I can’t believe it could have been Ed though—’
‘What? No. Of course it wasn’t Ed. I mean... not deliberately anyway.’
‘All the same, I shouldn’t have told him.’
‘No, but like you said, we all go back a long way.’
Connie sounded reasonable again. Understanding. It made Jones feel even worse.
‘Yes, we do.’
Jones felt her own tears pricking.
‘It’s OK, Sandy. Really it is.’
‘Thank you for not blaming me,’ said Jones. ‘Or not entirely, anyway...’
‘You are not responsible for any of this. You came to help. No other reason. And there’s so much... so much...’
Connie stopped suddenly, as if she’d been about to say something and had thought better of it.
‘Anyway, this is where we’re at,’ she continued. ‘And I have to find out about Marion. Dom, why can’t I phone from a pay phone? Will you pull over?’
‘Hey Connie, no way, girl.’
The big man’s voice sounded rather more highly pitched than usual.
‘Who you gonna phone, eh? The police? All the hospitals in New York? You gonna try it anonymous, you gonna get nowhere. You tell them who you are and you’re asking for big trouble.’
‘I’d be quick. This is the middle of Manhattan. We could be twenty blocks away before anyone could trace the call.’
‘You reckon? Connie darlin’, it takes exactly fifteen seconds to pinpoint a call in this city. No. Trust me, Con, for Christ’s sake, trust me. I know a safe place. I’m gonna take you there. And then I’ll find out about Marion for you. I promise you, darlin’.’
‘You will?’ Jones interjected. ‘If you’re not a target yet, Dom, you surely will be soon. How can it be any safer for you to start asking questions about Marion than it is for Connie?’
‘Yeah, well maybe I won’t do it personally.’
‘Please don’t talk in riddles.’
‘I’m going to introduce you guys to my girlfriend.’
‘To your girlfriend?’ If the situation hadn’t been so tragic Jones would probably have burst out laughing. ‘Are we off to the theatre and supper at Sardi’s or something? Are you serious? You really want to get your girlfriend into this? Or were you lying just now? Have you told her already about Connie? And are we just supposed to trust her...’
There were traffic lights ahead. The cab screeched to a sudden halt. Dom turned around, twisting his body so that he was able to thrust most of his head into the rear compartment. He reached a long, bling-jangling arm through the gap and grabbed Jones by the shoulder.
‘Will you shut the fuck up, you crazy Englishwoman,’ he growled. ‘We don’t have any goddamned choice. I haven’t told her yet, but I’m about to. Everything’s different now. In any case...’
He paused in mid-sentence, as if he too were about to say something but had changed his mind.
‘My girl’s special,’ he continued obliquely.
Jones was not impressed. All that indicated to her was that Dom was probably in love. And she’d had reason enough in her life to believe that love really is blind.
Dom drove them into the heart of Harlem, further north than Jones had ever been before, to an area the property speculators had yet to launch themselves on, a place where you still didn’t see a white face in the street. Jones hunkered down in the back, still in shock, her hands clasped to stop them shaking.
Eventually Dom turned off Harlem’s main drag, swung the cab into a narrow alley between two tall rundown-looking buildings and pulled to a halt in a yard at the back.
‘It’s a flop house, owned by a pal of mine who owes me big time,’ he told Jones and Connie, as he opened the driver’s door and stepped out of the cab.
‘You two just wait here.’
It was both a command and a warning.
Jones and Connie obediently muttered their assent. They were entirely in Dom’s hands now, and even Jones knew she just had to accept that.