“You don’t smoke cigars.”
“To pose with. It’d make me look very Bonnie and Clyde.”
“Which of them do you figure you’d look like?”
“Oh, very funny. Nothing like a little sexist humor to lighten the mood. Are we ready to go?”
“I think so. You’ve got the Blinns’ bracelet?”
“In my pocket.”
“And you’re comfortable with the camera?”
“It’s about as tricky to operate as a self-service elevator.”
“Then let’s go.”
And on the sidewalk I said, “Uh, Carolyn, you may not remind anybody of Faye Dunaway, but you look terrific today.”
“What’s all this about?”
“And you’re not bad to have around, either.”
“What is this? A speech to the troops before going into battle?”
“Something like that, I guess.”
“Well, watch it, will you? I could get misty-eyed and run my mascara. It’s a good thing I don’t wear any. Can’t you drive this crate, Bern?”
On weekends, New York ’s financial district looks as though someone zapped it with one of those considerate bombs that kills people without damaging property. Narrow streets, tall buildings, and no discernible human activity whatsoever. All the shops were closed, all the people home watching football games.
I left the Pontiac in an unattended parking lot on Nassau and we walked down to Pine. Number 12 was an office building that towered above those on either side of it. A guard sat at a desk in the lobby, logging the handful of workers who refused to let the weekend qualify their devotion to the pursuit of profit.
We stood on the far side of Pine for eight or ten minutes, during which time the attendant had nothing whatever to do. No one signed in or out. I looked up and counted nine lighted windows on the front of the building. I tried to determine if one of these might be on the fourteenth floor, a process made somewhat more difficult by the angle at which I had to gaze and the impossibility of determining which was the fourteenth floor, since I had no way of knowing if the building had a thirteenth floor.
I couldn’t find a pay phone in line of sight of the building. I went around the corner and walked a block up William Street. At two minutes past four I dialed the number Prescott Demarest had given me. He picked it up after it had rung twice but didn’t say anything until I’d said hello myself. If I’d shown similar restraint the night before we could have had Randy’s Polaroid without breaking and entering to get it.
“I have the book,” I told him. “And I need cash. I have to leave town. If you’re ready to deal, I can offer you a bargain.”
“I’ll pay a fair price. If I’m convinced the item is genuine.”
“Suppose I show it to you tonight? If you decide you want it, then we can work out a price.”
“Tonight?”
“At Barnegat Books. That’s a store on East Eleventh Street.”
“I know where it is. There was a story in this morning’s paper-”
“I know.”
“You feel it’s entirely safe? Meeting at this store?”
“I think so. There’s no police surveillance, if that’s worrying you. I checked earlier this afternoon.” And so I had, driving past slowly in the Pontiac. “Eleven o’clock,” I said. “I’ll see you then.”
I hung up and walked back to the corner of William and Pine. I could see the entrance of Number 12 from there, though not terribly well. I’d left Carolyn directly across the street in the doorway of a shop that offered old prints and custom framing. I couldn’t tell if she was still there or not.
I stayed put for maybe five minutes. Then someone emerged from the building, walking off immediately toward Nassau Street. He’d no sooner disappeared from view than Carolyn stepped out from the printshop’s doorway and gave me a wave.
I sprinted back to the telephone, dialed WOrth 4-1114. I let it ring a full dozen times, hung up, retrieved my dime, and raced back to where Carolyn was waiting. “No answer,” I told her. “He’s left the office.”
“Then we’ve got his picture.”
“There was just the one man?”
“Uh-huh. Somebody else left earlier, but you hadn’t even gotten to the phone by then, so I didn’t bother taking his picture. Then one man came out, and I waved to you after I snapped him, and there hasn’t been anybody since then. Here’s somebody now. It’s a woman. Should I take her picture?”
“Don’t bother.”
“She’s signing out. Demarest didn’t bother. He just waved to the guard and walked on by.”
“Doesn’t mean anything. I’ve done that myself, hitting doormen with the old nonchalance. If you act like they know you, they figure they must.”
“Here’s his picture. What we really need is one of those zoom lenses or whatever you call them. At least this is a narrow street or you wouldn’t be able to see much.”
I studied the picture. It didn’t have the clarity of a Bachrach portrait but the lighting was good and Demarest’s face showed up clearly. He was a big man, middle-aged, with the close-cropped gray hair of a retired Marine colonel.
The face was vaguely familiar but I couldn’t think why. He was no one I’d ever seen before.
On the way uptown Carolyn used the rear-view mirror to check the angle of her beret. It took a few minutes before she was satisfied with it.
“That was really funny,” she said.
“Taking Demarest’s picture?”
“What’s funny about taking somebody’s picture? It wasn’t even scary. I had visions of him coming straight across the street and braining me with the camera, but he never even noticed. Just a quiet little click from the shadows. No, I was talking about last night.”
“Oh.”
“When Randy turned up. The ultimate bedroom farce. I swear, if jumping weren’t allowed she’d never get to a conclusion.”
“Well, from her point of view-”
“Oh, the whole thing’s ridiculous from anybody’s point of view. But there’s one thing you’ve got to admit.”
“What’s that?”
“She’s really cute when she’s mad.”
By a quarter to five we were in a cocktail lounge called Sangfroid. It was as elegant as the surrounding neighborhood, its floor deeply carpeted, its décor running to black wood and chrome. Our table was a black disc eighteen inches in diameter. Our chairs were black vinyl hemispheres with chrome bases. My drink was Perrier water with ice and lime. Carolyn’s was a martini.
“I know you don’t drink when you work,” she said. “But this isn’t drinking.”
“What is it?”
“Therapy. And not a moment too soon, because I think I’m hallucinating. Do you see what I see?”
“I see a very tall gentleman with a beard and a turban walking south on Madison Avenue.”
“Does that mean we’re both hallucinating?”
I shook my head. “The chap’s a Sikh,” I said. “Unless he’s a notorious homicidal burglar wearing a fiendishly clever disguise.”
“What’s he doing?”
He had entered the telephone booth. It was on our corner, a matter of yards from where we sat, and we could see him quite clearly through the window. I couldn’t swear he was the same Sikh who’d held a gun on me, but the possibility certainly did suggest itself.
“Is he the man who called you?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Then why’s he in the booth? He’s ten minutes early, anyway.”
“Maybe his watch is fast.”
“Is he just going to sit there? Wait a minute. Who’s he calling?”
“I don’t know. If it’s Dial-A-Prayer, you might get the number from him.”
“It’s not Dial-A-Prayer. He’s saying something.”
“Maybe it’s Dial-A-Mantra and he’s chanting along with the recording.”
“He’s hanging up.”
“So he is,” I said.
“And going away.”
But not far. He crossed the street and took a position in the doorway of a boutique. He was about as inconspicuous as the World Trade Center.
“He’s standing guard,” I said. “I think he just checked to make sure the coast was clear. Then he called the man I spoke with earlier and told him as much. Those may have been his very words-The coast is clear-but somehow I doubt it. Here comes our man now, I think.”