A little way along Broadway, where the snow had temporarily ceased to fall, Shaw went into a drugstore and ordered a cup of coffee. When it was handed across to him he took his time over it and enjoyed its heat, his long legs wrapped around the high stool. He watched the doorway. He saw Nosey drift past in the slush on the sidewalk and give a cursory glance into the drugstore. After that Nosey disappeared, but when Shaw came out into Broadway again he was there all right. Reading a newspaper in the entrance to an arcade and dragging at a butt-end.
Well, well! It began to look clear enough, but he might as well give the tail one more chance to clinch it. It wouldn’t do to stick his neck out if he was wrong.
Half an hour later, and another three-quarters of a mile downtown, there was no more doubt about it at all. When Shaw strolled into a picture-theatre and bought a ticket the nosey man couldn’t get close up fast enough. Shaw almost laughed aloud at the nosey man’s discomfiture as he tried to keep near without becoming obvious. Granted even that a picture-theatre was a tail’s nightmare, he’d never seen such a ham-fisted exhibition. Nosey looked a tough nut despite that cherry toper’s face, one of the strong-arm boys without a doubt — but he hadn’t much on top. That was obvious.
Shaw walked on into the auditorium.
The tail followed. He’d heard, no doubt, of back exits and was taking no chances, though how he expected to keep tabs on anyone in the darkness was a mystery in itself. But after Shaw had sat down he realized that the tail wasn’t so stupid after all, or perhaps he had a way with usherettes. At all events he got himself nicely parked in a seat directly behind Shaw, two rows back.
After ten minutes Shaw started to shift around in his seat, and yawned loudly two or three times. The film was a pretty poor one and he scarcely needed to act to make his point that he’d had enough. Even Nosey must have been bored to hell and would be glad of an excuse to leave. Shaw grinned in the darkness. He gave it another five minutes and then got ostentatiously to his feet and pushed along the row to the gangway. At the back of the auditorium he glanced round. Nosey was on his feet too, and moving.
That was good enough.
Shaw put on speed and hurried across the foyer and out into Broadway. He turned to the right and waited, his hand inside his jacket and the fingers around the butt of the Webley. Only seconds behind him, Nosey came out into the open, breathing fast, and with his eyes darting.
Shaw advanced on the nosey man and asked politely, ‘Can I help you?’
Nosey stared, taken flat aback. ‘What d’ya mean, Mac?’ he demanded hoarsely.
‘Come off it!’ Shaw’s voice was low now but hard and he was right close up to the man. ‘You know quite well what I mean. I think you and I could profit by a little talk, don’t you?’
Nosey licked his lips, his expression far from cheery now. But he still tried to bluff it out. He growled, ‘If you don’t beat it fast, mister, I’ll call a cop.’
‘Yes? D’you know, I don’t believe you will, somehow!’ Shaw laughed in his face. ‘I don’t really believe you and the cops are all that pally. And I tell you something else: There’s someone who wouldn’t like it very much if you were.’
‘What’s that? Who? I—’
‘Fleck,’ Shaw said calmly.
The chance shot went home. Fleck was the boy, all right. Nosey reacted very badly indeed to the mention of Fleck’s name, and he reacted very fast too, but Shaw was faster. He had the Webley out in a split second. Under cover of his already unbuttoned greatcoat he rammed the gun hard into Nosey’s guts. He spoke softly, but with menace. He said, ‘All right, keep your hands right by your sides… that’s right, Nosey. Now turn around and just walk. Where I tell you. I’ll be right behind you and I’m in just the right mood for shooting — when I think of what some bastard may be doing to Patricia O’Malley! That, and other things. Move, Nosey. Straight ahead till I tell you different.’
He didn’t add that he wanted the cops around no more than Nosey did, but Nosey wasn’t stopping to make the point even if he’d thought about it. Nosey just turned around and walked. He walked where he was told, which was towards Central Park. Shaw couldn’t think off-hand of anywhere else, in the bustle that was Manhattan, where they could go for a quiet chat about one thing and another, and Central Park under a thick layer of snow seemed a reasonable suggestion. After that he would consider calling on Fleck. But in the end it didn’t make any odds either way, because when they came to the entrance to a subway Nosey moved like lightning and there was a patrolman right by the entrance, as it happened, which cramped Shaw’s style quite a bit. Nosey must have been working things out in his mind as they went along and had decided to wait till there was a cop handy. Anyway, he side-stepped very neatly and got a crowd of men and women between himself and Shaw, the women loaded with shopping, and with children tagging along as well. Nosey had gone, and Shaw couldn’t risk a pointless scene and the inevitable questions that would follow.
When he got back to his hotel an hour later, Shaw found he already had a couple of visitors, and they were the last visitors in all the world that he would have expected after that interview with Admiral Clifford Pullman.…
Chapter Ten
The two men got up from a settee in the foyer and converged on Shaw — a big, efficient-looking man with a lot of five o’clock shadow round a forceful chin, and a short, dark man with a crew cut and an open-air look. The bigger of the two asked, ‘Commander Shaw?’
Shaw’s eyes narrowed but he nodded. ‘Who are you?’
The man who had spoken reached into his breast pocket and held up a card in his palm. Shaw looked at it. The card was one he recognized right away, a card that told him just who this man was, and one that would have passed its bearer into the Pentagon with no questions asked.
‘Right,’ Shaw said. ‘What d’you want?’
‘A word in private, Commander.’
Briefly, Shaw hesitated, then he shrugged. ‘Come up to my room,’ he said.
‘Thanks.’ The two men fell in behind him and followed him into the elevator. When they were in the privacy of his bedroom Shaw said sourly, ‘So you’re Commander Willoughby of U.S Navy Intelligence. ‘I don’t get it.’
Willoughby said reassuringly, ‘I’ll explain it in a minute.’ He nodded towards the other man. ‘Let me introduce Terry Cassidy. Lieutenant Commander Cassidy, also of the department. Better show the Commander your pass, Cass, and I think, Commander, we ought to see yours, just for the record.’
Cassidy produced his pass, smiling amiably. Shaw, holding up his own identity card, said, ‘Fine, but I still don’t understand why you’re here.’
Willoughby asked, ‘Mind if I sit down, Commander?’
‘Please do.’
Willoughby sat in an easy chair; Cassidy wandered across and sat on the bed. Then Willoughby said, ‘Pullman sent us.’
‘Pullman!’ Shaw shut his teeth hard. ‘I thought…’
Willoughby lifted his eyebrows. ‘What did you think, Commander?’
‘Look… how much do you know about all this?’
Willoughby answered crisply, ‘As much as we’ve been told.’
‘Uh-huh. By Pullman?’
‘Yes, by Pullman. He called my chief in Brooklyn Navy Yard this afternoon.’ The American hesitated as if embarrassed. ‘Said you might need some help sometime… told us where to contact you. My chief called you, but you were out, so he thought we’d better come right along and wait.’
A vein throbbed in Shaw’s temple. He asked coldly, ‘What’s the big idea, then? Who said I wanted any help? Yes, I know — Admiral Pullman! But Pullman told me that neither he nor his department came into this officially. He said I was on my own. So before I say any more, I’d like an opportunity of ringing the Pentagon and finding out what your Admiral Pullman thinks he’s up to!’