Patterson was nodding his head attentively. He grinned. “No romance without the finance, eh? Well, we all pay them for it, one way or another.”
Patterson had even white teeth, deep dimples. Diener thought, he could be a movie star, or on TV. A big shot. I wonder why he stays just a cop? He’s the kind of guy everybody likes, right off, man or woman...
Aloud, Diener said: “But with me it’s always been just streetwalkers. ‘Five dollars, please.’ Wham! Bam! ‘Thank you, ma’am!’ I guess that’s why I call up all those models out of the magazines when I can find their names in the phone book. They don’t know what I look like, and I feel, you know, bolder...”
Patterson’s eyes were thoughtful. The big man sipped his beer and asked, “Where do you work?”
Diener told him the name of the restaurant chain that employed him and the location of the store he worked in.
“What d’yuh do?” Patterson asked, and after Diener told him that he was a short order cook, “What shift you got?”
“Midnight to eight,” Diener said.
Patterson sipped his beer silently for a minute. Abruptly, he said: “Linda Land’s my first cousin. She’s been getting phone calls from some creep who says he wants to marry her. Sometimes he even hangs around the entrance of her apartment building. He’s threatened to throw acid in her face if she doesn’t see him. She had a police guard for awhile, but nothing happened and it was taken off.”
“I never did — said — anything like that,” Diener choked, panic charging at him again.
“That’s why I was there tonight. Hoping that guy would call up and I could set up a trap for him. But you showed up instead.” Patterson drummed his fingers irritably on the table, his eyes growing hard. “You know I could get you a sixer on Riker’s Island for tonight’s work, don’t you? How would you like shoveling stiffs into pauper’s field for six months?”
“Lieutenant — uh, lieutenant,” Diener began, but whatever he was going to say clogged and died in his throat.
“That’s what you’re going to get, and I’ll see to it personally. Unless you help me out.” His hard eyes caught Diener’s and held them. “This creep, whoever he is, wouldn’t have the guts to try anything with Linda unless she was alone. But, by God, I can’t be with her every minute of the day. That’s where you could help.
“I’ll give you a chance, Elroy. You seem like a pretty good guy. I like you. Whenever anything comes up where she has to leave the house, and I can’t be with her — you could keep her company.” Patterson leaned his big body across the table until his face was inches from Diener’s. “Now is that such a hell of a lot to ask, when I’m saving you from doing a six month’s bit?”
Relief seeped through Diener. He thought of the warmth in Linda’s eyes and a tingling excitement began to grow in him. “Hell, you can count on me for that. It’ll be a pleasure.”
Patterson smiled. “Just stay home where she can get you on the phone.” Suddenly, he held out his big hand to Diener. “Let’s shake on it.”
The call came the next night at five-thirty. The landlady called through the door: “Phone for you!” Diener dashed to the wall-box.
“Elroy?” It was Linda’s voice. She was breathless. “Thank God!”
“Where are you? What’s the matter?” The sound of his name on her lips had been like the clash of cymbals to Diener.
“I’m at the Rouge et Noir. It’s a restaurant.” She gave him an address in the East Sixties. Her voice grew hushed with fear. “Elroy, he’s outside, waiting for me. I saw him. I’ve been trying to phone my cousin Tim, but he’s on duty somewhere.”
“I–I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”
“Thank God you’re coming!” Her voice was on the thin edge of hysteria.
Diener delayed long enough to don his last clean shirt and his freshly pressed suit. There was a singing elation in him as he dashed out of the room with the worn raincoat under his arm.
Diener flung two dollar bills at the cab driver and stepped out into the rain that had been falling steadily since noon. The Rouge et Noir was the second door from the corner. A short flight of stairs between two potted evergreen plants led down to a canopied entrance. It was in the dim shadow of the awning that he found Linda. Her face was pale beneath the Hood of her rain cape.
“I think he’s up there on the sidewalk waiting for me to come out.” Her arms trembled beneath his hands. “Move over there and watch for him. A gray-haired man about fifty. In a blue trench coat.”
Diener went to the opposite end of the canopy. Shrugging into his raincoat, he was aware of leaded windows to his right, with smartly dressed women and successful-looking men talking across the candle-lit tables behind them.
Diener felt uneasy. Patterson had said “that creep” would never try anything against Linda unless she were alone. But how could he be sure? Diener’s flesh crawled at the thought of acid splashing into his face. Above them, pedestrians were streaming by. Cabs crept along in the slow crosstown traffic. “Let’s get out of here,” Diener called to the girl hoarsely.
The girl held her wrist watch close to her face as she bent toward the light from the restaurant windows. “No! Wait a few minutes!”
A cab angled to the curb. Diener saw the passenger leaning forward to pay the driver. Diener moved closer to Linda. “Let’s take that cab and get out of here,” he pleaded. Then he saw the man as he stepped out of the cab. A man carrying a light suitcase. A man about fifty, with gray hair showing under his homburg. A man in a blue trench coat.
Diener felt the girl behind him, her arms going around his waist. “Him! Him! It’s him!” she breathed against his ear. The cab began to slide off. The man in the trench coat bent to pick up his bag, and saw them. A smile touched his face. “Linda!” he called.
Something between Diener’s arm and side spat flame and noise twice. Utter disbelief showed on the gray-haired man’s face. Then the man spun slowly on his right heel and crumpled backwards into the gutter. A tall cop in a rain-wet slicker that shone like a gun-barrel charged savagely around the cab. The girl behind Diener pressed something hot and metallic into Diener’s hand.
The oncoming cop slipped at the wet curb and went to his knees. He roared a curse and flame blossomed from his hand. Diener heard glass tinkling behind his shoulder. The uniformed cop’s face was that of Lieutenant Timothy Patterson. Naked murder blazed in his eyes. Diener whirled away from Linda, into the restaurant.
He saw a blur of startled faces, men half-raised from their chairs, women with hands at their rounded mouths. Then he was tearing between the tables, away from the man behind him. A hand snagged his coat and he slashed at the face above it with the hot weight in his hand.
Behind him, above the screams and babble, he could hear Patterson’s roar: “Get down, damn it! Get out of the way!”
Diener was at the end of the room. Swinging doors to his right. The kitchen — no escape there. At his left, the entrance to a dim, oak-paneled bar. More startled faces gaping at him, but beyond them Diener saw a door and the blessed crowds of Madison Avenue. Head down, he plunged for the bar and the outside.
The cool rain struck his face. He heard a woman scream. Then he was dashing heedlessly into the traffic. Horns blared wildly and tires screeched, but he was across the avenue and around the corner. Diener thrust the gun into a pocket and sprinted down the long block to Fifth Avenue and the dark immensity of Central Park.