“No,” Quinn said evenly. “Then I’ll probably keep it and look up the payee; Stephen Graves. See if I can locate him.”
That got him if nothing else had until now. And plenty else had until now. Quinn could almost hear his heart turn over and do tailspins; all the way up through his throat and across the wire.
There was a break; somebody else got between them. The operator said: “Your five minutes is up. Deposit another nickel, please.” Meaning Quinn.
He glanced down at the one he’d been holding in readiness in his palm. In case the conversation hadn’t taken the successful turn it had.
He held it out a minute, to try out something.
The voice cried out wildly, “Wait a minute! Don’t cut us off, whatever you do!”
Quinn dropped in the nickel. There was a click and then they went on as before.
Me afraid of losing him? Quinn thought. He’s the one afraid of losing me.
The voice had had a bad fright. It decided not to do quite so much feinting. “Well, all right, I... I would like to see this check you’re holding,” it capitulated. “It’s of no possible value to anyone. There was a mistake, and—”
Quinn gave him the axe on that. “It was returned by the bank,” he said flatly.
The voice swallowed that; literally as well as metaphorically.
“Let me ask you— You said your name was Flynn?”
“Quinn. But that doesn’t really make any difference.”
“Tell me something about yourself. Who are you? What do you do?”
“I don’t see that that has anything to do with it.”
The voice tried again. “Are you a married man? Have you a family to support?”
Quinn shied off a little, while he looked this one over. What’s he asking that for? To figure how large a payment it’ll take to shut me up? No, there must be some darker purpose behind it. To try and find out if I’ll be missed if... if anything happens to me.
He could feel the hairs on the nape of his neck tighten a little. “I’m single,” he said. “I live by myself.”
“Not even a room-mate?” the voice purred.
“Nobody. Strictly lone-wolf.”
The voice mulled that over. It sniffed at the trap. It edged closer. It reached in for the bait. And the primary bait, Quinn sensed, was no longer the check itself. It was his life.
“Well, look, Quinn. I’d like to see the check and — maybe I can do something for you.”
“Fair enough.”
“Where are you now?”
He wondered if he should tell him the exact truth. He told him. “I’m on Fifty-ninth Street? You know the Baltimore Lunchroom on Fifty-ninth Street? I’m in there, speaking from there.”
“I’ll tell you what I’ll do. You’ll have to give me a little time to get dressed — I was in bed, you see, when you rang. I’ll get dressed and come out. You go to — let’s see now—” The voice was trying to work out something. But something more than just the selection of a meeting-place for the two of them. Quinn gave it its head, waited. “I’ll tell you. You go over toward Columbus Circle. You know where Broadway splits off from Central Park West, forming a narrow little triangular block. There’s a cafeteria there with two entrances, open all night. You go in there and— You have no money on you, have you?”
“No.”
“Well, go in anyway; they won’t bother you. Say you’re waiting for someone. Sit by the window, close up against the window, on the Broadway side. I’ll contact you there in fifteen minutes.”
Quinn thought: Why shift me to another place? Why not just meet me at the place I’m in already? He’s afraid there’s a set-up here, I guess; that I’ve got someone else planted out of sight. He also took note of the expression he’d used; he hadn’t said “I’ll meet you,” he’d said “I’ll contact you.” He’s going to case me first, case me good, before he comes near me, he told himself. He’s playing it smart. But no matter how smart he plays it, that won’t save him. I’ve got that check, and he has to have it back. If we take all night and cover all New York between us.
He played it dumb, for his part. Played it dumb and unsuspecting.
“Right,” he said.
“Fifteen minutes,” the voice said.
The conversation ended.
Quinn left the phone. He went into the men’s room, planted his foot up against the wall, and stripped off his shoe. Then he took the check out, covered it with an extra piece of paper to protect it, and put it down flat on the bottom of the shoe. Then he put his foot back in again. He was taking a leaf from Graves and the note he’d received at the night-club.
He came outside again, and on his way out to the street stopped for a moment beside the rack where they had the trays and cutlery.
There was no one in the place but himself, and the attendant behind the counter wasn’t watching him. He picked up one of the chrome-plated knives and surreptitiously fingered the edge of it. They weren’t very much good; blunt. But he had to have something; even if only for moral effect rather than actual use. He sheathed it in one of the paper napkins and bedded it slantwise in his inside coat-pocket.
He walked the park-breadth over to Columbus Circle and got to the second place in about twelve minutes out of the fifteen he’d been given. He sat down at a table up against the window on the Broadway side and waited.
You could look straight through the place. For instance, from the Central Park West side, if you were out there in the dark, either on the sidewalk or in a car up against the curb, you could look in through the window, across the entire lighted depth of it, to where he was sitting, obliviously looking out the other way.
Quinn knew that, knew that was why he’d picked this place.
He glanced around that way, to the far side of him, once or twice. One time he thought he saw the dark, blurred form of a car, that had been motionless until his eye caught it, glide slowly onward in the gloom. But it might have been just some legitimately passing car, halting for the lights as it neared the Circle.
The fifteen minutes was up, then eighteen, then twenty.
He began to get uneasy. Maybe I had him figured wrong; maybe he just wanted time to make a getaway. Maybe he’s more afraid of coming near me than of not getting the check back.
It’s him, all right, it’s him, and now maybe I’ve fumbled the thing, lost him again. His forehead started to get damp, and every time he’d wipe it dry, it would get damp all over again.
The phone suddenly rang, up by the cashier’s desk.
He looked around, then looked away again.
Somebody began to thump on glass. He looked around again, and the cashier was motioning him.
He went over and the cashier said, “There’s somebody on here says he wants to talk to a man sitting by himself up against the window. Now look, people aren’t supposed to get calls here at my desk—” He handed it over to him nevertheless.
It was he. “Hello, Quinn?”
“Yeah, what happened to you?”
“I’m waiting for you at a place called Owen’s. I’m at the bar there. It’s down on Fifty-first.”
“What’s the idea of doing that? You told me here first. What’re you trying to do, give me the run-around?”
“I know, but — you come where I am now. Take a cab, I’ll pay for it when you get here.”
“Are you sure you’re not kidding this time?”
“I’m not kidding. I’m in the place already, waiting for you.”
“All right, I’ll see whether you are or not.”
Chapter 11
She paced back and forth in front of the place, grinding her fist into its opposite palm. They wouldn’t let her in any more. The sign over the entrance was out. The trashcans full of refuse were out. The last lush was out. It was dead. Dead, but not quite cold yet, still only in the process of giving up the ghost. Every few moments a solitary figure would emerge and walk away, somebody who earned a living inside. This was the five o’clock in the afternoon of the night-club workers, whose clock goes in the opposite direction to that of the rest of the world.