Johnny glanced sardonically at a discomfited Harry Palmer. “Want your gun back now, hot shot? I'll steady your hand for you.”
“He still killed Arends,” Palmer blustered. “You know he did.”
Jules Tremaine re-opened the bloodshot eyes he had again closed. “Gun? You were going to kill me, Harry, because of what I'd done to Madeleine?” He looked surprised. “Why?”
“Why!” Palmer shouted emotionally. “Anyone who'd do that to a woman's not fit to live, that's why!”
“But why you, Harry?” Tremaine persisted gently. “It's a bit thick you're passing yourself off as her protector, or avenging angel, either. I know she's been blackmailing you for years.”
For the first time since he had known him, Johnny thought the brash-looking little man appeared completely taken aback. Tremaine winked at Johnny gravely. “I owed him a dig for that bit about the wireless,” he confided. He transferred his attention to Palmer. “Did you suppose no one knew about your financial arrangements, old boy?”
“That was a long time ago,” Palmer said quickly, recovering. “The relationship has-changed.”
“Recently? For the better?” the Frenchman inquired significantly. He drained his glass, stooped and groped for the bottle alongside the sofa. “I'm sorry, but you people will have to excuse me now. I'm getting drunk. Disgusting, I know, but my own method of-ah-reassessing certain — ah-ambiguous assets.”
“You want a ride downtown?” Harry Palmer said abruptly to Johnny, who nodded. Jules Tremaine did not accompany them to the door. The last Johnny saw of him he had again half-filled his glass and was contemplating it in the light. “Doesn't know what he's talking about,” Palmer said jerkily with a side glance at Johnny at the elevators. “It's not like that at all now.” The elevator doors opened, and they stepped aboard. “Not like that at all,” Harry Palmer repeated loudly.
Johnny was still trying to catch up with the sudden reversal of the no-motive feeling he'd had about the aggressive little man. He wondered cynically about Palmer and Arends.
Palmer was watching Johnny's face. “Ridiculous listen drunken clown-” he was rattling off in verbal shorthand when the car stopped in the lobby. Johnny looked out at Ernest Faulkner waiting to get on. Ernest Faulkner looked in at them, obviously flustered.
“Visitin' the sick?” Johnny asked him blandly. He maneuvered the lawyer away from the elevator as he and Palmer got off.
“Is he sick?” Faulkner asked anxiously.
“He's drunk!” Palmer sneered caustically.
“Oh. He sounded-upset when he called me,” the lawyer said. “I'll-I'll see what I can do for him.” He flushed under Johnny's eyes. “Jules is my friend,” he said importantly.
“What'd he call you about?” Johnny asked.
“Really, Killain. You're the crudest-I dislike having to descend to your level and inform you that it's none of your business.” Ernest Faulkner drew a deep breath, trying to strengthen the sensitive features behind the heavy glasses. “Now if you'll kindly get out of my way-”
Johnny silently stepped aside. He watched until the doors closed behind the slender lawyer.
“Let's go, if you're coming with me!” Palmer ordered brusquely. Johnny followed him out to the curb. He thought for a minute they were waiting for a cab until a Lincoln Continental pulled slowly in to them from the traffic stream. Tiny bulked up behind the wheel, the preposterous chauffeur's cap perched squarely on top of his head.
The little man took a quick look at Johnny as they settled down in the back seat. “Listen,” he began rapidly. “It may have been the way that jerk says once, but that was a long time ago. What's a few dollars to me? At my age, what I was getting there I appreciate.” He tried to outstare Johnny. “You think I'm lying to you?”
Tiny pulled out from the curb without even a by-your-leave, and Johnny winced as the squeal of brakes and the blat of a horn sounded simultaneously from behind them. Tiny never even looked around. At the first light a cab pulled up alongside and the driver leaned over and rolled down his window. Tiny turned his head and looked at him, and the cabbie rolled his window back up without saying a word.
“I'm wonderin' what I'd hear about you an' Arends if I asked around a little,” Johnny said to Harry Palmer. “It just come to me I been takin' you on faith, man.”
“Don't you think the police have taken care of that?” Palmer snapped. He leaned forward and rapped on the glass that divided the front and back seats to within eight inches of the car's ceiling. “Let me out at the Circle, Tiny,” he called, and sat back as Tiny nodded. “He'll take you down to the hotel,” the little man added sulkily. He folded his arms and stared straight ahead at the road.
They rode in silence until Tiny pulled in at Columbus Circle. Harry Palmer got out hurriedly as though to forestall any further attempt at conversation. He trotted off without a backward glance.
Tiny started off again and headed down Seventh Avenue. “I was up t' Dmitri's d' udder day,” he rumbled from the front seat in the familiar, breathy hoarseness. “I ast 'im how he rated us. You know w'at he said?”
“No,” Johnny said shortly. He had other things than Dmitri on his mind.
“He said on da mat wit' th' strangle barred I'm six to five.” Tiny cut around a cab picking up a passenger, forcing the car in the next lane to pull up abruptly. “I tol' him he's crazy. I got t' be better'n six to five over a jerk never made his livin' at it. Right?” Johnny made no reply. Tiny evidently expected none. “Th' kicker an' th' t'ing made me laff is that crazy Rooshian's sayin' wit' nothin' barred, I'm only five t' eight. I tol' him, nuts, man, I want-”
“You're in the wrong lane,” Johnny interrupted as they crossed 50th. “You got to go east on Forty-fourth an' circle the block.”
Tiny might never have heard him. “I tol' him I can use a little of that five t' eight, mebbe more'n a little. Any time I outweigh a man fi'ty poun's an' he lays me eight t' five I got to see it.” Approaching 45th, the Continental slowed.
“Another block!” Johnny said sharply. “An' left, not right!”
“Sure,” Tiny said, and swung right on 45th.
“You goddam-” Johnny sucked in his breath as it came to him. He reached for a doorhandle. Locked. Front-seat mechanism. Tiny was watching him in the rear-view mirror as they crossed Eighth Avenue. Grimly Johnny took off his jacket, unbuttoned his collar, and rolled up his sleeves.
“'At's a boy,” Tiny approved hoarsely from the front seat. “In fi' minutes now I want t' see how mucha that eight t' five you're layin'.” Catching all the lights, the Continental sailed across Ninth, Tenth and Eleventh. It threaded its way between trucks loading on both sides of the street from narrow warehouse platforms, nosed out under the elevated highway at the wharves, turned left on the cobblestones, and almost at once turned sharp right and darted into a narrow opening that widened as the cobblestones gave way to crushed stone.
Tiny swung the big car in a circle and stopped it with the driver's side nearest the lane by which they'd entered. He got out and stretched, reached in and touched a button on the dash. “You c'n git out now, hardhead.”
Johnny climbed out on the side opposite. In this neighborhood of busy loadings and unloadings of the world's largest liners, he wouldn't have believed it possible for this still, deserted dock with its splintery planking and rotting pilings to exist. “This Palmer's idea?” he asked tightly as he came around the front of the Lincoln.
Tiny covered his nose with a massive paw. “The boss gimme th' office when ya got in th' car ya had a big nose,” he said solemnly. “I been tellin' 'im that. You go inta dry dock a while, chum, as of now.”