I had to take his word for it. I didn’t hesitate long. “Keep going, driver, don’t slow up.”
“What was it?” I asked.
“There’s a guy waiting in the shadows across the way from the hotel-entrance for you to come back. I don’t know what his game is, but he don’t act like he’s up to any good. I’ve been casing every car that came along for the past hour down there at the other corner, trying to head you off and tell you. Luckily it’s a one-way street and they all got to slow up for the turn even when the light’s with them.”
“How do you know it’s me he’s waiting for?”
“There were two of them came up together first. I seen them stand and chat for a minute with old Pete, your hotel doorman. One of them went inside, maybe to see if you were in, then he came out again in a minute, and they shoved off. But not very far, just down around the lower corner there. I went up to Pete after they’d gone, I know him pretty well from hanging around here so much, and he told me they’d just been asking him kind of aimless questions about you. I went on down the line, pushing my pack, and when I got around the corner they were still there. They didn’t pay any attention to me, and I’ve got a favorite doorway right there I hang out in wet weather. I couldn’t help overhearing a little of what they were saying, they were right on the other side of the partition from me. One of them said: I’ll go back and keep the hotel covered. You start out and make a round of the clubs. See if you can put the finger on him. Don’t close in on him, just tail him, stay with him. Between the two of us we ought to be able to get him’
“Then they split up. One crossed over, got in a car, and drove off. The other one went back around the corner, but he stayed on the dark side, hid himself in the shadows. You couldn’t tell he was there any more, after that, unless you knew like me.”
“What’d the one that drove off in the car look like?”
He described him to the best of his ability. I knew by that he wasn’t lying. It was the same man I’d seen at the club — the man I had narrowly evaded.
So there were two of them, instead of just one. The authentic Lee Nugent, if it was he, had someone working with him. Which was which didn’t matter. Their intentions, obviously, went far beyond mere accusation, arrest, and juridical procedure. They wouldn’t have gone about it the way they were, if that had been the case. They noticeably had avoided having the police participate.
And the expression I’d seen on the face of one of them, in that washroom, had been that of a killer as he closes in for the kill.
I reached out and gripped Limpy absently by one of his skinny shoulders while I was thinking it over. “Thanks, you’re a real pal.”
“That ain’t nothing. One good turn deserves another. You’ve been swell to me ever since that first day you bumped into me on the street.” He waited a while, watching me intently. “What’re you going to do, Mr. Nugent?”
That was it, what was I? I pawed my chin a couple of times. “I don’t know who they are or what they’re out for,” I lied for his benefit, “but I’m not going back there and get all tangled up with them.”
“Why don’t you go to the police, Mr. Nugent?”
“No, that’s no good.” I didn’t tell him why. I had as much, possibly even more, to lose by police interference than they did. “I’m going to blow town for a while,” I decided suddenly. Yes, that was it. I had the money now, one place was as good as another to enjoy it in. That was the best way of throwing them off the trail once and for all. Simply to change from one hotel to another would only win me temporary immunity.
I looked down at my sock-feet, wiggled my toes ruefully. “Look, there’s something I have to have, though, and I can’t go back to there myself and get it. You’ve been up to my place several times, you know the layout.” I didn’t know why, but I had a strong hunch I could trust him. “I’m going to take a chance on you, Limpy. Here’s my key. Go up there and get me a pair of shoes out of the clothes-closet. That’s one thing. And the second thing — now listen carefully. You know that little knee-high frigidaire in the serving-pantry? Open it up. Put your hand in where the ice-cube tray goes. Instead you’ll find a flat tin box, locked. Pull it out, wrap it up in a towel or something, and bring it out with you.”
I didn’t tell him what was in it. There was roughly $11,000 in cash in it. I’d spent about $1,000 in the past week. I hadn’t trustee it to any bank or even the hotel safe. I was glad now. It made it easier to get hold of at short notice, and without having to appear personally.
“The elevator boys all know you, and I’ll phone in to the desk from outside and tell them I’m sending you over to get something from my rooms, so you won’t be stopped on the way out. You bring it over to the station and meet me there. I’ll be in the last row of benches in the waiting-room, against the wall, so my bare feet won’t be noticed. I’ll have a newspaper spread out full-width in front of my face. Look for me behind a spread-out newspaper.”
“I can get in and out through the service entrance. That way, if they do happen to spot me, they won’t think nothing of it. I know the hotel fireman, I’ve often gone down there to get warmed up in the cold weather.”
“Make it as fast as you can, Limpy. There’s a Midnight Flier I’d like to make.”
As I watched him get out of the cab and disappear around the corner, I wondered if I’d ever see him again. Even though I hadn’t told him, he was no fool, he must have a good hunch what was in such a box as I’d asked him to bring. Locked or otherwise, a chisel and hammer would open it in five minutes. It was a pretty strong temptation to put to a half-disabled down-and-outer like him.
Maybe, I thought shamefacedly, he’s not like you, maybe he don’t take what don’t belong to him.
I put in my identifying call to the hotel and then I cabbed over to the station. I had enough money on my person to buy my Flier ticket ahead of time, without waiting for him. My socks were black, fortunately, and I forced myself to walk as naturally as possible, in order to avoid attracting attention to my feet. No one seemed to notice that my extremities ended in silk instead of shoe leather. I picked up a newspaper, sidled into the last row of benches in the waiting-room, and opened it out full-spread before my face.
I had sixteen minutes to go before train-time.
The first five minutes, he was coming and it was going to be all right. The second five, he’d let me down, he’d taken the cash-box and goodbye. I’d have to powder out of here as broke as I’d been a week ago, and when I got where I was going, the whole thing would start over — park-benches and papers out of bins. Then the next four minutes or so after that with the gates already open and that minute-hand on the wall creeping closer and closer to twelve, were a mixture of the two, hope and despair, with a third fear added for good measure. Maybe it wasn’t his fault, maybe those guys waiting outside had caught on, had jumped on him and hauled him off with them as he came out.
Somebody coughed in front of my newspaper, and I tucked my head a little lower. The cough came again, like a double-take-em of the throat if there is such a thing. This was on the fourteenth minute.
I lowered the paper and Limpy was sitting there, in the scat right in front of me. He was turned sidewise toward me, holding up a paper of his own to screen him from the front. His arm hung down over the back of the scat toward me. An oddly shaped news-paper-wrapped bundle, obviously a pair of shoes, already lay on the floor beside me. The flat oblong of the strong-box, also newspaper-wrapped, came down beside them a moment later, from somewhere underneath his outer clothing.