I made gentle sounds at him. Slowly I edged my way toward him, ready to duck if he showed even the slightest sign of leaping at me. Slowly he responded. I don’t think anyone had made a friendly gesture toward him in years.
It took almost five minutes before I could get close enough to him to reach out my hand. For a moment I thought he was going to slash at it with his razor-sharp claws, but he didn’t. And then I was stroking his fur and scratching him under the chin. I finally dared to pick him up in my arms, and he weighed at least fifteen pounds if he weighed an ounce.
Outside the door, I heard two men talking. A deep voice said, “Alright, I’ll wait here. If that son-of-a-bitch shows up, he’s in for trouble!” Then there was silence. Whoever he had been talking to apparently had left. I waited a full sixty seconds before I opened the door and casually started to walk down the four steps that led to the sidewalk.
I held the cat high in my arms, my face turned away. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see the burly stranger standing with his back against the wall of the building next to the alley mouth. For a moment he stared at me and then turned away. You just don’t expect a man walking out the front door of a house with a cat in his arms to be anything more than another peaceful householder. That’s what caught him off guard. Before he could get a good look at my face, I was abreast of him, and by the time recognition took place, it was too late!
He started to raise the gun in his hand, but by then I was already flinging the big, fighting tomcat straight into his face!
Fifteen pounds of nasty-tempered, raging alley cat with claws like barbless hooks gouging at his eyes made him forget everything else in sheer terror! The man let out a scream as high pitched as the tomcat’s furious yowl and began fighting off his furry assailant.
The tom clawed with blinding speed at the man’s face, and I got a quick glimpse of a row of deep, bloody furrows suddenly appearing from his forehead to chin, and then I was gone, running down the street and around the corner into the darkness.
I ducked into the first alleyway I spotted. Halfway down, I vaulted over a broken-slatted wooden fence, finding myself in a yard littered with rusted metal cans and broken bedsprings. I finally made my way between two, narrow, old wooden houses and came out onto a street.
I walked slowly to the corner. I was two blocks away from where I’d started. Back there I could see half a dozen men gathered in a group. Lifting Reilly’s pistol, I aimed above their heads and began a rapid fire.
I wasn’t trying to hit them. I just wanted them to see the muzzle flash as I shot at them. They scattered.
Turning, I ducked away down the street, drawing them after me, but I had a head start of two blocks and no one’s going to catch me when I’ve got that kind of a lead!
Ten minutes later I was casually sauntering down Olney Street when a battered Volks pulled up alongside me.
“Can I give you a lift?” Julie leaned out the window.
I got into the car. “I told you to get the hell out of the neighborhood!”
“Not if I have to leave a friend behind.”
“You mad at me?”
I had to admit I wasn’t.
Julie’s old Volks sputtered its way back across town to her apartment. Halfway there she asked, “What do we do now, Nick?”
“Find Alexander Bradford,” I said out loud. To myself, I added silently, “...and kill him!”
Chapter Ten
How do you find a man like Alexander Bradford who surrounds himself in secrecy? A man who travels by private jet and private helicopter? A man who employs dozens of hirelings to keep the public from knowing where he is at any given moment?
Julie and I were too tired to think about it — and too tired for anything else — when we got back to her apartment. So we tumbled into bed and fell asleep immediately, her warm, small body snuggled into mine in a tight curve.
How could we find Alexander Bradford?
The answer came from Julie. She woke me at eight o’clock by jabbing me in the ribs with her elbow.
“I haven’t seen my godfather in years,” she began without introduction, “but if anyone knows where Alex is, it’ll be my father.”
I was fully awake in a flash.
“The problem is,” Julie went on, her small features set determinedly, “that I haven’t talked with him in more than a year. That’s when I broke with my family.”
“Make up with him.”
Julie considered the idea with obvious distaste. “Do I have to?”
I knew I couldn’t push her into anything. She was too strong-minded. I leaned back against the pillows and shrugged my shoulders and said casually, “It’s up to you, baby.”
“Oh, hell,” said Julie, aggrieved. “I’ve gone this far, I might just as well go all the way!”
Naked, she jumped out of bed and ran into the other room. I lit a cigarette, looking at the cracks in the ceiling, trying not to hope too hard that the breaks would come my way.
Ten minutes later Julie ran back into the bedroom. “He’s at his estate in the Berkshires,” she announced. “And Daddy told me he loved me and asked when I was coming home.”
I got out of bed and patted her on the head. “I hope you told him soon.”
“Damn you!” said Julie angrily. “I wasn’t ever going to see them again!”
As I started to put on Raymond’s clothes again, I asked her, “How long will it take you to draw a map for me?”
Julie stared at me in surprise. “What’s this map business? I’m coming with you.”
I was going to try to talk her out of it. Then I thought, what the hell, she’s old enough to know what she’s doing. After last night she had fair warning that what was happening was dangerous. Julie could take me directly to Bradford’s estate. I wouldn’t have to lose time hunting for it.
While she ducked into the bathroom to shower, I finished lacing up Raymond’s work boots. The damned rawhide thongs went from instep to halfway up the calf. I took Hugo and Pierre out of the bundle of my ruined slacks and fastened them where they belonged: Pierre taped to my groin and Hugo strapped to my forearm. Wilhelmina was still in hiding back at the trolley station. Reilly’s stubby .38 revolver would have to take her place.
A few minutes later we were barreling along U.S. Route 90, the fastest way to the western part of Massachusetts.
The Volks did its usual seventy-five to eighty mph, Matting away like a frenzied sheep. We weren’t afraid of speed traps: everyone was exceeding the speed limit.
I was sitting back, enjoying the luxury of not being behind the wheel, letting my mind wander, when Julie asked without preamble, “How did they know how to find you last night?”
I came out of my reverie. “What did you say?”
“How did they know how to find you last night?”
“I don’t think they did,” I answered. “They were after Reilly. They must have followed him to Grogan’s and were waiting for him to come out when we showed up. I was sort of an unexpected dividend, you might say.”
“How did they know about Reilly looking up Bradford and the others in the newspaper’s files?”
“Someone tipped them off.”
“You’re saying they’ve got men everywhere?”
I thought about it. “I guess so. So far they’ve kept track of every move I’ve made. I helped them for awhile. I wanted them to come after me so I could find Mr. Big. But I thought I’d shaken them off when I came out of the subway. If I didn’t lose them, then they followed me to your place and later to Grogan’s.”
“I think that’s what happened,” said Julie.