The doorman nodded and went back to the lobby. In the rear-vision mirror Retnick saw Dixie climb into a cab that had pulled up for the red light. “Pick up the first Yellow that passes us,” he told his driver.
“All right.”
They followed the Yellow across town to the Pennsylvania station, and the driver said, “They’re heading into the back tunnel. You want to go down?”
“Let a couple of cabs get ahead of us,” Retnick said. When they stopped for a light he gave the driver a bill and waved the change.
“I hope this is where she told you she was going,” the old man said, looking back at Retnick.
Retnick smiled slightly. “She’s running true to form.”
In the brightly lighted tunnel Retnick waited until Dixie had paid off her cab and started for the revolving doors that led to the station. Then he went down the ramp and signaled a Red Cap. “I’ve got a job for you,” he said. “It’s worth five bucks. Okay?”
“Sure, if it’s legal,” the Red Cap said.
“Come on with me.” Inside the vast waiting room Retnick saw Dixie heading for the coach ticket windows. He pointed her out to the Red Cap and said, “Find out where she buys a ticket to. I’ll wait here.”
Retnick was able to follow Dixie’s bright red hair through the crowd without difficulty. He saw her stop briefly at the ticket window, and then hurry toward the train shed with short quick steps. The Red Cap came back and said, “She’s going to Trenton, sir. At least she bought a ticket there.”
“Thanks very much,” Retnick said, and gave him his money.
“Thank you, sir.”
Trenton, Retnick thought, as he walked toward a rank of telephone booths. Was that where Red Evans had holed up? If so, one small part of the problem was solved. But the greater part remained: to establish who had paid him to do the job. Even then Retnick knew he might be no closer to the man who had killed Ventra. He was suddenly swept with a sense of oppressive futility. And when it was all over, when he had proved that a cop named Retnick had been framed, what the hell would it mean? Where would he be? Still sitting in a cheap bedroom, or standing at a cheap bar, as isolated from humanity as he was right now. For a moment or so he stared at the crowds passing him, experiencing a curious bitter loneliness. Some of the people looked happy. He wondered what they knew. Or what they didn’t know. Finally he shrugged and stepped into a telephone booth. He called Kleyburg at the Thirty-First, and got through to him after a short wait. “You said to yell if I needed anything,” he said.
“Sure, Steve. What is it?”
“Take this down.” Retnick gave him Dixie Davis’ name and address. Then he said, “I’d like to know all about her. Where she works, what her days off are, who she sees, and so forth. Is that possible?”
“I can manage it. She lives in the Twentieth, but I’ve got some friends over there. Between us we’ll get a fix on her. Look, I’ll have to cut this short. We’re busy today.” He hesitated, then said, “Maybe you haven’t seen a paper.”
“No, what’s up?”
“They found old Jack Glencannon’s body a couple of hours ago. On a siding just off Twelfth Avenue.”
“What happened to him?”
“Nobody’s sure yet. But it looks like a homicide.”
Retnick sat in the booth for a moment or so, staring at the bustle and commotion in the cavernous station. There was a hard little smile on his lips. This would tighten the screws on Nick Amato, whether he was responsible for the old man’s death or not. The papers would set fires under the cops and unions now. The pot would boil and the public would want a victim or two tossed into it. That was fine. Let them all burn.
7
At four o’clock that afternoon Retnick stood watching the entrance to the North Star Lines terminal. It was almost dark then; the snow had stopped falling but a damp heavy fog swirled in massive clouds off the river. Floodlights, mounted on the piers, picked up shifting gleams on the surface of the water, and the moan of fog horns was a threatening sound above the rumble of traffic. Retnick smoked one cigarette after another, and kept his eyes on the entrance to the North Star Lines. Finally the little Irishman, Grady, appeared, leaving work with a group of longshoremen. This was the man Retnick wanted to talk to, Grady, the winchman whose job Red Evans had taken over. The men crossed the street, their figures black and clumsy in the gray fog, heading for the welcoming yellow gleam of Tim Moran’s saloon. When they disappeared inside Retnick lit another cigarette and settled down to wait.
It was six when Grady came out of Moran’s. He was alone now, and his step was brisk but slightly unsteady as he started uptown.
Retnick followed him through the darkness for a block or two and came up behind him in an empty stretch of the avenue. He put a hand on Grady’s arm and crowded him against the brick wall of a warehouse. “I’ve been looking for you, Grady,” he said.
Grady was slightly drunk and he didn’t quite understand what was happening. “What’s the matter with you now?” he said, blinking at Retnick. “Let me by. What kind of funny business are you pulling?”
“I was a friend of Frank Ragoni’s,” Retnick said.
“Sure we were all his friends,” Grady said. His mood changed and he sighed. “It was a dirty shame, a dirty shame. Him with a family and everything.” He stared up at Retnick, a frown twisting his small, flushed face. “You were at the pier this morning, weren’t you?” he said. “You’re Retnick.”
“That’s right. I want some answers. You got sick and Evans took your job. Did somebody tell you to get sick?”
Grady shook his head quickly. “No, it’s God’s truth I had the flu. I couldn’t get out of me bed.”
“And while you were sick Red Evans took your winch,” Retnick said. “That’s right, isn’t it?”
“Yes, that’s right,” Grady said, nodding vigorously.
“And Evans dropped a load on Ragoni. It missed by an inch. That’s right, isn’t it?”
Grady shrugged and smiled weakly. “I wasn’t there, you know. But that’s what I heard.” He looked up and down the dark street, wetting his lips. “My old lady is waiting supper for me. I’d best be going.”
“Don’t be in a hurry,” Retnick said. “Do you know why I went to jail?”
“Well, they said you killed a man, but I never put any stock in that.”
“Put some stock in it,” Retnick said staring into Grady’s watery blue eyes. “Why did you stay off the job?”
“It was the flu, I told you.”
“Will you stick to that when the cops get to you?”
Grady looked up at Retnick and a strange fear claimed him completely. He began to breathe rapidly. “They told me not to shape for a week,” he said, catching hold of Retnick’s hands. “They said I’d get myself killed.”
“Was the hiring boss in on it? And Brophy?”
“I don’t know, I swear to God. Nobody talks about it.”
“Amato is ready to take over your local, eh?”
“It’d be worth your life to stand up to them now,” Grady said, glancing anxiously up and down the dark street. “Old Union Jack, himself, is dead, you know. Happened today. Who knows who’ll be next? Hah! Ask Joe Lye. Or Hammy. Or Dave Cardinal. They can tell you maybe.” Grady smiled shakily, trying to coax sympathy into Retnick’s bitter eyes. “I... I didn’t feel good about laying up pretending to be sick. I knew they were after somebody. But what could I do? A man can’t stand up alone to them killers, can he? My boy is in the Army, and there’d be no one to look after the old lady if something happened to me. You see how it was, don’t you?”