It was entirely silent for a moment except for the sound of rain lashing against the windows. Gay was staring at Mulhearn as if he had just awakened from a bad dream, Sanin was gazing expressionlessly at the table, and Nagel stood restlessly near the door.
Then Sanin stood up so swiftly that his chair toppled over and crashed to the floor. He turned his green-white face to Gay.
They were all looking at him. A strange expression twisted Mulhearn’s chubby face and he spoke as if to himself: “Who could have known that that would get her?”
Sanin almost screamed: “Well — say it! And it’s true, it’s true — I did it, I’m to blame, but I didn’t know it would turn out like this...”
He stood very straight, his face itching convulsively, went on in a metallic sing-song monotone: “This afternoon she told me she couldn’t go through with it, that she wouldn’t sail tonight. I was desperate — insane with grief — I love her and it was like the end of my life... My one idea was that if I could get her aboard that ship — away from this country — it would all be all right. I called a friend of mine, a countryman, and told him to call her and say you needed her, to come to his place. I knew she’d go. Then he was to take her aboard the ship just before it sailed...”
Sanin’s voice had again almost risen to a scream: “It was crazy, crazy — but I was a crazy man!” His knees buckled suddenly and he sank down to the floor with his arms and head and the upper part of his body on the table, buried his face in his arms, sobbed brokenly: “I love her...”
Mulhearn had risen. They were all staring at Sanin and there was no sound.
Then Gay was beside Sanin, shaking his shoulder. He said softly, swiftly: “Who was the man? Where does he live?”
Sanin didn’t answer for a moment and Mulhearn shouted: “Speak, man — there’s no time to lose!”
Sanin said hoarsely: “Drovna — he lives at 411 East 39th — I’ve called him a dozen times but there’s no answer...”
Gay snapped: “Wait here, Mulhearn — I’ll call you.”
He darted to the door, out; Nagel a step behind him.
Sanin moaned: “Drovna was my good friend. I cannot understand...”
Mulhearn glared down at him and his pale blue eyes narrowed slowly, his jaw set. He very methodically unbuttoned his coat and vest and took them off, rolled up his sleeves.
Traffic was heavy, it was nearly ten when the cab pulled up in front of four-eleven and Gay and Nagel jumped out into driving, slashing rain.
Gay told the driver to wait and they ran across the sidewalk, ducked under the awning of the delicatessen that occupied the ground floor of the narrow four-story building.
Nagel grumbled: “I don’t know what good comin’ here is — they’ll be long gone by now...”
Gay didn’t answer.
They went into the shallow hallway next to the delicatessen and Gay lit a match and looked at the mailboxes.
“Third,” he said, and they went swiftly up two flights of stairs.
They listened carefully, with their ears close to the door; then Gay twisted the knob, pushed, hammered on the heavy panel. No one answered; there was no sound from inside. He went as far back from the door as he could in the narrow hall and crashed his shoulder against the heavy oak but it stood. The second time it gave a little, and the third; the fourth time, it flew open and he stumbled to his knees on the threshold of a small brightly lighted room.
There was a slight swarthy man lying on his side on the floor near an overturned card table. His eyes were closed and his legs were drawn up, and the tan carpet beneath him was darkly stained.
Gay got up, crossed swiftly and knelt beside him. Nagel turned in the open bedroom doorway, said: “Nobody else.”
“Get a doctor,” Gay spoke over his shoulder. “I think there’s one on the second floor.”
Nagel trotted out of the room.
The swarthy man had been stabbed several times. Gay found a bottle of brandy in the kitchen and poured some of it between his lips; he moaned and tried to put his hands up to his face.
Gay leaned close, whispered: “Take it easy...” Then: “What happened? Where’s Miss Arno?”
The man opened his eyes and stared up at him glassily. “They took her away...”
“Who?”
The man moaned again and tried to roll over on his back. Gay cradled his head on his arm.
“Frank,” he murmured, “and another man. I had them to help if she was hard to handle — I thought they were all right. I told her about David getting me to do it — she thought it was funny — she took it all right...”
His face was suddenly old with agony, he gasped: “Everything was fine until about eight o’clock. We played cards — the four of us... She didn’t try to get away. Then Frank’s friend stuck a knife in me — she screamed and they gagged her — they stabbed me again. I—”
He had risen to one elbow and he went limp suddenly, there was blood on his mouth.
Nagel came in followed by a short bespectacled man in a plaid dressing gown carrying an instrument case. The short man shook his head, clucked, said: “Drovna again! Vun day it’s a cold in d’ haad — naxt day it’s gollstones...”
He squatted beside Drovna, put down his case and made a hurried examination.
“This time” — he raised his eyebrows significantly — “it’s sahmthing!”
Gay watched anxiously as he ripped off Drovna’s shirt. Asked: “Do you think he’ll be all right” — he glanced at his watch — “in a little while?”
The doctor shook his head slightly without looking up.
Gay turned to Nagel. “I’m going over to Eleventh Avenue,” he said. “I want you to stay here until I call you.” He crossed to the telephone and scribbled the number on the back of an envelope. “I’ll tell you to bring it to a certain place. Never mind what I say — as soon as I call, leave the receiver down, and get to another phone and trace the call; then come there and come as fast as you can. You can bring the US Marines if you want to but make it fast...”
Nagel’s face was a pink diagram of disapproval. He said: “Johnnie — you’ll never make it. These guys are out for blood. Let’s call copper...”
“Can’t.” Gay picked up the instrument case, held it at arm’s length and examined it critically. “If they think there’s anyone with me they won’t pick me up. The Law’d be a cinch to show out of turn.”
He tipped the case suddenly and dumped its contents gently on the floor. The doctor lifted his eyebrows to twin questioning V’s.
Gay smiled at him. “Hope you won’t mind my using this,” he said. “I’m meeting some gentlemen who expect me to have a hundred thousand dollars in currency — this’ll make it look possible.”
The doctor stuck out his lips. “That’s a lot of money...” He shrugged slightly, bent again over Drovna.
Gay went swiftly to the door, turned to Nagel. “Stand by that phone,” he said emphatically.
The doctor spoke without looking up: “See you gat my case back — it’s my Sunday vun...”
Nagel said: “Don’t do it, Johnnie. If you had the dough it’d be tough enough, but without the dough it’s murder. You haven’t got a Chinaman’s chance...”
Gay had gone.
A ferry whistle tooted far out on the Hudson.
Gay stood in the partial shelter of a warehouse and turned his back to the wind and rain. It was twenty minutes to eleven; several cars had passed him but none had stopped. He stood close against the building and lit a cigarette.
Then, across the wide deserted expanse of Eleventh Avenue, a car without lights swung suddenly out of the pitch darkness between two wharves. It swerved diagonally between pillars of the viaduct, slid to a stop at the curb.
Gay picked up the case and crossed the sidewalk. There were three men in the car — the driver, and two in the tonneau.