“I dessay, but I’ve told you all I know.”
Shaw studied the man’s face critically, keeping the gun pressed into his side. After a while he said softly, “Yes, Siggings, I believe you have — now. That funny little feeling’s quite gone.”
Siggings’s eyes were wild. “What you going to do with me?”
“I’m going to chuck you out of my car and you can find your own way home. I make a habit of keeping my promises, Siggings, even to people like you. You won’t be arrested on my say-so — for one thing, I don’t want you charged, because if you were somebody would realize we’re on his tail. From now on out, you’ll keep your trap shut like a clam about all you’ve told me, and you’ll report to me immediately when you get any fresh instructions from your bosses. You’re working for both sides now, Siggings, and you’ll do well to remember not to double-cross my side. Because if you do, you’re a dead man. I give you fair warning, I won’t hesitate to leak some information about you to your Chinese friends that’ll ensure you do end up like the man with his supper hanging out. I’ll set that leak going the very moment I get any suspicion that the Dead Line people know through you that I’m on to them. But somehow I don’t believe I’ll need to do that, Siggings. I fancy you know which side your bread’s buttered!”
Dumbly, Siggings nodded. He was still looking dead scared and he said in a whining tone, “I’d feel a sight safer inside till this blows over, the way things are.…”
Shaw looked at him carefully. “Would you indeed? Bear in mind what I’ve just said — that to arrest you and charge you would tip off your bosses that you’d either talked already or were likely to do so, and that wouldn’t help you in the long run, when you come to think about it.”
“How’s that, then?”
“Think, man! For one thing, I understand you have a family?”
Siggings nodded, mouth hanging open. “Wife and kid.”
“There you are, then. ‘They’ wouldn’t leave them in peace long once you’d gone inside and were liable to talk. Your family would be held so as to put pressure on you — if you want me to spell it out for you. You don’t want them to go the same way as that West Indian, do you?”
“No, of course I don’t, but…”
“But you’d rather not risk it yourself, is that it? If you have to choose, you choose Number One?”
Siggings didn’t answer, but he looked away from Shaw’s eyes. Shaw reached across him and jerked the door open. “You’re a filthy little worm, Siggings,” he said, “and you’re fouling my car. Get out.”
Siggings was shaken with sobs again now. He said in a muffled voice, “I’ve had it whatever happens.…”
“Then you’ll just have to face it!” Shaw snapped. “God knows, you were prepared to kill upwards of two and a half thousand people aboard the New South Wales. Get out or I’ll put a bullet in you.”
Siggings got out, still reluctant. Shaw slammed the door and turned in his seat to watch him scuttle back towards the Strand, all semblance of manhood gone. When Siggings had turned the corner into the Strand, Shaw got out of the Mercedes. From now on, Siggings was going to be well worth a tail. Shaw followed him at a discreet distance and after that it all happened very, very suddenly. Siggings looked round almost unseeingly and lurched to the side of the pavement, then stepped into the road — right in the track of a London Transport Routemaster. That Routemaster was travelling fast — too fast. The driver had no time to take avoiding action. Siggings went down and one wheel passed right over his head and the bus never even lurched, it just skidded to a stop under full brake pressure. The driver scrambled out, white as a sheet. Shaw felt sorry for him, wished he could have assured him he’d only crushed a worm.
He went back to the Mercedes and drove ahead for his flat. When he reached home he rang Latymer on the scrambler. He said, “I’m flying out for New York tomorrow, sir.”
Chapter Six
The girl was sitting on a high stool at the bar and she was White; she looked as hard as nails but she had a beautiful figure — and she revealed it. She held Shaw riveted even though he’d seen much more during the floor show; but there was another and a much more important reason for his presence: it was rare to find a White girl working in cabaret in a Negro night spot and, especially considering what this place was called, Shaw was intrigued enough to stay around and try to find out more.
This, as it happened, wasn’t too difficult; they were the only people in the bar with White skins and next to the girl was a vacant stool.
Shaw made for this stool.
He said, “That was a pretty hot act I saw you in.” He looked at her glass; it was near enough empty. “What are you drinking?” he asked, letting his gaze wander appreciatively.
She looked him up and down, then let some warmth into her eyes. “Old Fashioned,” she told him, “and thanks a lot. Glad you liked the act.” Her tone was cool and somehow brittle but the voice held a touch of the huskiness that had characterized her singing. “But don’t you get a little scared, being in a minority of one around this way?”
He grinned. “It’s a minority of two, I’d say. Don’t you? Get scared, I mean?”
The girl gave a hard laugh and said, “You get used to it when the inducement’s big enough. The jigs pay good money to watch a White girl strip, and anyway I’ve worked here long enough to make any White joint list me as unemployable.”
“You mean you’re black-listed, and no pun intended… just because you’ve worked in Harlem?”
She shrugged a creamy shoulder. Shaw watched her breasts in fascination. “It’s the way of the world. Some Whites don’t like flesh that’s been eyed by jigs. Others, again, find it gives them a thrill.” She looked him over again, her eyes narrowing. “You’ve not been long in New York, I guess?”
“No,” he said, “but I’m learning fast.” He caught the Negro barman’s eye and the man wandered down the long bar, not hurrying, keeping him waiting and letting him see it.
“Yuh?” the Negro asked, using the tone that would have been used on him in any bar the other end of town. “What’s it to be, then?”
“Old Fashioned and a Scotch-on-the-rocks, please.” The barman turned away and took his time over producing the drinks.
Shaw had got into Kennedy from London Airport the day before and had checked in at the Vanderbilt. From then on he had spent his time in Harlem, which, though overcrowded, was not all that big an area; given time, the right approach was bound to bring him into contact, not to say collision, with at least the fringes of subversive activity. As a White hanging around Harlem he would soon become as obvious as a bishop in a brothel, and his intention was to establish his image as a Britisher who wanted to get into any profitable racket that might be on offer — but at first he had taken care not to appear too inquisitive. He’d cruised around as many dives as he could find and had borne the lack of welcome stoically, wondering at the flat dreariness of his surroundings, a dreariness reflected in the set, joyless faces. He’d dropped by a bowling alley and rolled a few lines; he’d sat in parks and drug stores and a public library. He had listened all he could but had overheard nothing worth while; no one spoke to him, the Negroes clammed right up when they saw him coming. And it hadn’t been only the ordinary citizens who had been displeased to see him. On that second night one of a pair of patrolmen had gripped his arm as he had been walking along a dingy, ugly block and had swung him round for a short but unnecessary pep talk on the facts of Harlem life.
“Bud,” the policeman had said, not too politely, “you want to commit suicide?”