“Easy come, easy go,” Charley muttered.
They walked briskly through the combination of pitch-black and bright-as-day that is New York City as midnight approaches. After a couple of blocks, Tricia found herself flagging, falling behind. “Do you know any place we can go for a couple of hours?” she said. “I’m beat.”
“I know some places we can’t go. The office. The Sun, the Stars. Cornelia Street. Queens. This city’s starting to feel awful small.”
She chose not to mention that they’d be going to one of those very places when 1:30 rolled around. “Come on, Charley, you’re a resourceful man. Where would you go if you didn’t want to be found for a few hours?”
He thought for a bit, then took her arm. “I know a place.”
Half a mile downtown and a few blocks west, just off Times Square, Charley led her up a flight of stairs and knocked on a heavy wooden door. A panel slid open speakeasy-style and a pair of eyes looked out at them. “Borden!” a voice called out. “Haven’t see you in dog’s years!”
“Mike,” Charley said when the door swung wide, revealing a man in an undershirt and apron, dishtowel in one hand and a pair of shot glasses in the other. “This is...Trixie, Mike. A friend of mine. We’ve got an appointment in two hours, need to be off the street in the meantime.”
“No problem,” Mike said, and ushered them into a quiet, dark room where a handful of men sat drinking. No one looked up, no one said anything to them. “What’s your thirst?”
“No drinking for us tonight, Mike,” Charley said. “What we really need is a good hour’s sleep. The back room occupied?”
“No,” Mike said, “just some things of mine I can clear out.”
“Leave ‘em,” Charley said. “We’re not particular.”
Mike took them to the room, where Tricia had to step over a man-sized duffel bag and a pile of newspapers and pawnshop tickets to get to the low mattress on the other side. There was an armchair, too, though it looked none too comfortable.
“You’ll tell me what this was all about, right,” Mike said, “when it’s all over?”
“If I’m in talking condition, you’ll be the first I tell.”
“Knock in an hour?”
“Give us ninety minutes,” Borden said.
“You got it.” Mike swung the door shut.
“Go ahead,” Charley said, and waved at the mattress. He lowered himself into the chair. “Lie down.”
Tricia did, pulled up a thin blanket over her. She kicked off her shoes and instantly felt better. She looked at Charley, who was twisting to find a comfortable angle in the chair.
“Hey, Borden,” she said and lifted the blanket. He looked up. “There’s room here for two.”
“You’re not worried I’ll offend your virtue?” Charley said.
“Two hours from now, I’ll have a loaded gun in my hands,” Tricia said. “I’m sure you’ll be a perfect gentleman until then. Now lie down and get some sleep.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Charley said.
25.
The Last Match
She didn’t intend to wind up in his arms, but that’s where she found herself when the knocking at the door awakened them. It felt nice, she had to admit. Secure. Even if it was a false sense of security—and lord knows it was—there was something to be said for having a strong pair of arms around you. Or even a not-so-strong pair like Charley’s.
But it was moot, since she didn’t have it anymore. Charley had leapt up, shooting from a deep sleep to fully awake like toast from a toaster. He’d said nothing about how they’d found themselves, and she’d gone along with his silence. Just as well not to add one more complication to a situation that was already, not to put too fine a point on it, a goddamn mess.
While she splashed some cold water on her face and gargled a mouthful of Listerine in the little bathroom across the hall, Tricia tried to decide whether getting ninety minutes of sleep was a blessing or a curse. She felt less sore but more groggy. Take your pick.
“If anyone asks, Mike,” Charley was saying when she returned from the bathroom, “you haven’t seen us. That’s for your sake, not ours. Well, not just ours, anyway.”
“That’s okay,” Mike said. “You know me. I never see anything. It’s how I stay in business.”
“Good man.”
“How do you know him?” Tricia asked, when they were down on the sidewalk again.
“Who? Mike? He’s an old, old friend. Known him longer than...well, probably longer than anyone. We were in reform school together.”
“Reform school?”
“There’s a lot you don’t know about me,” Charley said. “Bet you never would’ve guessed I was in reform school.”
“No, actually I would have guessed that,” Tricia said. “I just wouldn’t have guessed you had any old friends.”
“Ouch,” Charley said. “You’d think you’d be nicer to me after we spent the night together.”
“We didn’t spend the night, we spent ninety minutes.”
“Still and all,” Charley said. He reached into his pocket, pulled out an apple and something wrapped in a napkin. He held the apple out to her. “A present from Mike.” She took it. He unwrapped the last remaining bites of his sandwich. “So, where are we meeting this friend of yours?”
Through a mouthful of Granny Smith she said, “The Stars Club.”
“That’s funny,” Charley said, “it almost sounded like you said ‘The Stars Club.’ ”
She swallowed. “I did. Heaven will meet us there after the last match ends. She works there nights.”
Charley stopped walking. “Are you out of your mind? Tricia, we can’t go there. Nicolazzo owns the place. He could be there, for all we know. And even if he’s not, he’s certainly got people there, they know what you look like, they’ll recognize you as soon as you walk up to the front door.”
“So we won’t go to the front door,” Tricia said, thinking of Erin saying, There have got to be at least three exits from this building, maybe more. Three ways out meant three ways in.
She walked on for a few steps, saw Charley still standing where she’d left him. “You coming? Or are you leaving me to do it alone? Because I will. Come or don’t, it’s up to you, but I’m going.” She didn’t wait for an answer, just walked off, and it took half a block before Charley caught up with her.
“Damn it, Tricia, I don’t want you to get hurt.”
“You mean you don’t want you to get hurt,” Tricia said.
“That, too.”
“Well, I don’t see that we have a choice, Charley. We need to get Coral and Erin, and we need weapons to do that, and the one person who can give us what we need is at the Stars Club. So that’s where we’re going.”
They walked the rest of the way in silence. Charley threw out the napkin when he’d finished his sandwich and Tricia did the same with the apple core a block later. Empty-handed, they made their way to the rear of the building the Stars Club was located in. They searched along the unlighted brick wall for the outlines of a service entrance and did find one metal door, but it was locked. There were two narrow windows, but both were covered with formidable iron grillwork so that even if opening them had been possible it would have been no use.
Rounding the corner, they saw a side door swing open and ducked back into the shadows as a group of people spilled out. At least two of them looked like fighters, taller and bulkier than the rest and muscular even under their coats. The rest looked like trainers, managers, miscellaneous hangers-on. There was lots of laughter and high-spirited talk about what after-hours bar would still be serving at 2AM, and then some about how it wasn’t really 2AM yet, was it, and how no, it wasn’t, but it would be by the time they made it to the nearest bar. As the last of them exited the building, the door slowly began to swing shut.