I stepped out of the booth. A car was coming along this side of the street. I stopped, waiting for it to go past before I crossed. Then, as it passed a street light, I saw it was a police cruiser. I turned and started walking slowly along the sidewalk with my back to the oncoming lights. It came abreast of me. Then it stopped. My back congealed with sudden fear.
“You looking for somebody out here?” a voice asked.
It was all right; they couldn’t see my face in the darkness. I fought to make my voice sound casual. “No. Just taking a walk, officer.”
“In the rain? Where do you live?”
Before I could answer, a beam of light splashed full in my face. I tried to turn away, but it was too late. “Hey!” the voice barked. “Come back here!”
I heard the car door slam behind me, and running footsteps. The one still in the car was. trying to hit me with the spotlight. “Stop, Foley! We’ll shoot.”
I’d never make it to the corner alive. And if I did, the other one was following me in the car. I saw an opening between two concessions on my right, and shot into it. The rear of the buildings were in deep shadow, but I could make out the dark tracery of the Ferris wheel and some of the other rides. I cut sharply to the left, ran another fifty feet, and froze against the wall. Just beyond me was another corner. I inched quietly around it just as he shot into the open at the rear of the concessions, swinging the beam of the flashlight.
“Joe!” he yelled. “Drive on around and cover the street in back so he can’t get to the next block. And call in.”
The car went ahead and turned the corner. The one who was afoot had run-on back and was throwing the beam of his flashlight in wide arcs around the Ferris wheel. I slipped quietly along the narrow passage between two small buildings, and peered out into the beach boulevard. The Oldsmobile was gone. She’d managed to get away while they were occupied with me, and they probably hadn’t even noticed her. There was only one car in sight, some two blocks away. I shot across the street and over the edge of the far sidewalk. I landed on the sand, lost my balance, and fell. I was near one of the amusement piers, and the long expanse of beach stretched ahead of me, black and deserted in the rain. I got up and ran. I could hear sirens wailing behind me as police cars began pouring into the area. I ran until my side hurt and breathing was an agony.
I sat down at last with my back against the concrete of the seawall. Rain drummed on the brim of my hat. Now they knew I was back in Sanport. And I’d lost Suzy. I didn’t know her address or her phone number, and even if I could find another outside phone booth and look it up in the book, I couldn’t call her. I had a hundred and seventy dollars in my pocket, but I didn’t have a dime.
Five
My teeth began to chatter as water penetrated my clothes. I had to find some place to get out of the rain, and unless I discovered a hiding place before daybreak they’d have me. Every cop in town was alerted by now, and my description would be broadcast over the radio. With this black eye and the stubble of ginger-colored beard to give me away, I couldn’t move a foot without being recognized.
How about a hotel, a skid-row flophouse? No. That would be suicidal. I still had a key to my own apartment in the Wakefield, but they’d have that covered front and rear. Maybe I could find my way to the railroad yards again and catch another freight. I fought down an impulse to cry out or laugh. I must be going crazy. That would put me right back where I’d started forty-eight hours ago. I was going around and around in an endless circle in a nightmare. I was a mechanical rabbit running forever in front of a pack of hounds along a dark racetrack in a rain that had been going on since the beginning of time. I thought of the bridge of the Dancy, and hot coffee, and my own room and the rows of books, and the poker games in the steam-heated messroom.
I tore my mind away from the picture, and then I was thinking of Suzy’s apartment, and of warmth and safety, and of Suzy herself. I swore wearily. Jesus, I’d been so near. Then I sprang up. What the hell was the matter with me? I could still get there. All I had to do was find another telephone booth and look up her address. I didn’t have to call her. The whole night was ahead of me—it couldn’t be much after eight—and I could-make it on foot. I wouldn’t be able to ask directions, but I knew the city fairly well, and the chances were it would be on a street I’d recognize. And if it weren’t, maybe the directory would have a map in it. I’d forgotten, but some of them did.
The first thing to do was get clear of this area—get miles away. They’d be searching it block by block. I walked westward along the beach. Now and then a car went past on the roadway to the right and above me. I stayed out of the range of their headlights. After a long time I crossed the road and struck inland. I found a shell-surfaced country road following a sluggish creek. Rain kept falling. The topcoat was soaked now and heavy. I was seized with uncontrollable fits of shaking that lasted for minutes at a time. Whenever I saw a car coming, I dived off the road and hid.
Far off to the left I could see beacons flashing. That would be the International Airport. Then there were more lights up ahead. I was approaching the highway that came into Sanport from the west, from the direction of Carlisle. I began to pass more houses, and then I was in a suburban housing development. Few cars were moving, and there were no pedestrians. Some of the houses were dark. That seemed strange, until I had to pass another unavoidable street light and looked at my watch. It was eleven thirty-five. I’d been walking for at least three hours. In another seven, or a little more, it would be daybreak. I wondered if I could keep going that long, or if I could even get to her place in that length of time. It might be clear across town, ten or twelve miles from here. I saw a police car up ahead, and ducked down a shadowy side street. A dog barked at me. My teeth chattered again, and I clenched my jaws to stop them. I turned again, still going toward the highway. I had to find a telephone booth, and there wouldn’t be one in this area.
Then I located one, in the edge of a suburban shopping center. A service station on the corner was closed, with only a single bulb burning in back of the glass front wall of the office, and around at the side of it was a booth standing invitingly open. The streets were deserted except for a few cars near the movie house still open down in the next block. I took another quick look around and crossed to the station driveway. When I stepped inside the booth and closed the door, its light came on. I felt as if I were standing naked on a large stage before an audience of thousands. I grabbed for the directory, dangling from its chain, and fumbled through it with hands that shook uncontrollably. Water ran off my hat onto the pages.
Parker . . . Parkhurst . . . Patterson . . .
Patton . . . Here we were.
Patton, Robert . . . Patton, R.H . . . Patton, Stewart . . . Patton, Stephen R. . . . Patton, Victor E. . . . There was no Suzy Patton listed.
Of course there was. There had to be! I ran a trembling finger down the column again. I shook my head. Then, for some insane reason I couldn’t fathom, I was counting them. There were thirty-seven Pattons, but there was no Suzy Patton, and there wasn’t even an S. Patton or an S. Anything Patton. I dropped the phone book and rubbed a hand harshly across my face.
Suzy Patton was a pen name, or she had an unlisted number. In a city of six hundred thousand— I started to laugh. My head felt queer. I chopped off the laugh and pushed out of the booth, and when the rain hit me in the face my mind cleared a little and I was only freezing cold and chattering. I went on walking. There was nothing else to do. If I stopped, I’d probably freeze. Well, at daybreak they’d pick me up and I’d be in a nice warm interrogation room with a white light in my face and then just before I cracked and went insane I could sign a statement and go to sleep.