Delicate Ape

by Dorothy B. Hughes

  He didn’t look at Morgen.

  3.

  He walked without seeing to the service stairway and he started down. Slowly, as a man dreaming, one step, two, and then he heard and he was frozen there listening. Footsteps ascending, the heavy footsteps of heavy men, the police! Someone had seen him enter, someone who recognized the man hunted, who summoned them. He whirled and he fled upward, softly as a fox runs, up, up until he was in the sky ballroom not yet open for the season. He forced open a door, closed it quietly after him, and he ran to the very edge of the roof, flinging himself flat in the deep shadow of a cornice. Not too soon for the lights came on in the deserted ballroom and he heard the words spoken.

  “—so the service elevator’s got to go on the blink when we got to finish the wiring tonight. So what do they care if we walk up. They’re going to open the roof tomorrow on account of the Peace delegates—”

  Withheld breath quivered from Piers. He didn’t know how long he lay there while the men within hammered and thumped. After the lights were out and they went away, he lay longer. When he stood his frame ached and his head was light. Blood had caked in his hand.

  He stood dark against the Broadway sky, a dwarfed figure high above the theater-bright streets. No one looked up. Not to stars, not to danger in the skies. The faces were set to the dear familiar things, the expected things. He moved unsteadily across the roof seeking a fire escape. There was none. Modern fire-stairs had eliminated their need. He had to go through the hotel again.

  He shut away thinking as he entered the dark ballroom and began his long descent to escape. With his appearance he dared not take the elevator. He didn’t hurry until the last flight and he turned his face from the workmen in the doorway. His arm scraped against the door as he pushed out into the street and he felt the trickle of blood again down his sleeve. He skirted through Shubert Alley, walked across to Eighth Avenue, south to 40th before doubling back to the subway entrance. In the grimy mirror of a gum vending machine, he saw himself. His mouth was swollen, discoloration marred his narrow face, his hair was torn. He smoothed the hair; there was little more he could do. His arm throbbed, blood was veining his left wrist into his palm. He held the arm close to him as he made his way to a phone booth in the underground. There could be detectives waiting for him.

  He called the number Willie had given. There was no one else from whom he could seek help. He had known he wouldn’t reach a cabbie at this hour of Broadway glory. Yet he had hoped. There must be a hole where he could hide until morning.

  The voice at the other end of the wire said, “Well, make up your mind. You want I should tell him to call you back or don’t you?”

  Piers said faintly, “Where can I wait for him? How can I find him?”

  “Wyncha say so before?” The voice was disgust. “If you want to see him tonight you better come up to the garage here. He’ll be in sometime.”

  Piers repeated the address, in the West 50’s, between Ninth and Tenth avenues. He climbed the stairs to the street, the 40th street exit. But his fears returned and he couldn’t force himself to take the dark streets that led across to Ninth. He turned his face again to Broadway. The pain in his arm was enervating and his steps lagged into the brightness. He moved through the crowds as in a long dream. He faltered at the Astor, turning his head hungrily at the steps. Within the doorway there was the movement of beautiful women and expensive men. He was a beggar outside the gates. He could smell the luxury within, the luxury of plenty and of peace. No one knew that beauty had been slain above their heads, that peace and plenty might yet be doomed.

  He walked on. Beneath the percussion of the street there crept the soft relentless sound of his pursuers. He couldn’t get away. If one step was silenced another caught up the sound. Follow, follow … But he wasn’t to die. He was to live. To defeat ape that Man might live. He was to live to remember Morgen. The whole fabric of the world is empty. It must remain empty for the eternity of life. Fate is inevitable. Ubi sunt … ?

  He hesitated at 49th and he leaned against the wall of the building there for a moment of strength. He dragged across the street in time to board the cross-town bus. At Ninth avenue he descended. Fear enveloped him as he stood alone there, in the desert darkness, in the silence. There were blocks he must cover to reach the garage, haunted, knowing death followed. Knowing despite the weariness that death would not reach him. He moved only because he must move; he must run from death until was accomplished what he had come to accomplish.

  He kept close to the wall, feeling his way forward, not daring look back to see what might breathe against his neck. He was wet with weakness but his fear moved him, one block, another, down the endless tunnel of loneness and shadow. He watched cautiously the intersections until he saw the dark bulk of the garage half way down and across the block. He fled towards it, moving too fast now, breaking into a half run as he covered the dark street. Up three steps, and he stumbled through the open door.

  A small light burned in the dingy office. There were three men there, three mongrel men. Piers tried to speak but his throat was closed.

  The man with grease smudged on his stubbled chin demanded, “Whatcha want?”

  Piers recognized the voice of the phone. He could speak now if hoarsely. “I want Willie.”

  “You the guy what called him up?”

  He nodded and he put his back against the wall to steady himself. He saw a man pass the open door, disappear into the dark beyond. He began to tremble.

  The smallest man with a cab-driver’s cap hung over his crumpled ear rolled towards him. “Looks like you got trouble.”

  His speech came with difficulty. “Willie said—if trouble—come to him.”

  “Jeeze, he’s shot!” the second cabbie said sharply.

  “Nothing.” He let them put him in the scarred wooden chair away from that open door. “A scratch.”

  The boss said, “We don’t want no trouble with the cops, Mister.”

  “What’s the matter with you, Bull?” the first cabbie demanded. “He’s a friend of Willie’s.”

  “It isn’t the cops,” Piers said.

  “How do we know, Jack?” Bull demanded of the first cabbie in return. “We don’t want no trouble.”

  Piers found the dirty card. “Willie gave me this.”

  The three examined it.

  “I’m all right.” As long as he was out of the dark, safe with other men. “I could use a drink. And some food. I’m hungry, that’s all.” Dinner seemed dreams away. He brought two tens out of his pocket. “Any place around you could get me some food and a bottle of brandy?”

  Jack said, “I’ll take care of it.” He took the money and he went out whistling. Piers didn’t know if he’d return with the police or not. If so he would have to be taken; he hadn’t the strength to move.

  Bull was still dubious. “You better wash your face. If the cops should be hanging around—Sammy, you show him.”

  Piers’ head was light as he felt his way after Sammy to the miserly washroom. He splashed his face. His left arm was too stiff to move it but he washed away the blood from his hand and wrist as he could. Sammy led him back to the room. He sat down in the chair furthest from the door.

  Sammy’s curious eyes, Bull’s suspicion watched him. He didn’t care. He sat there silent until Jack returned. The little cabman was alone. He had a bucket of coffee in his hand and a sack of hamburgers. From his back pocket he took a bottle of brandy. The change clinked on the table. “There you are, Mister.”

  Piers opened the bottle, took a stiff slug. He passed it to the next man. He began to eat hungrily. He spoke through a mouthful, “Help yourselves. This is all I needed. I’ll be all right. Willie’s sure to come in?”

  Bull wiped the mouth of the bottle with his forearm. “He’ll be here. Maybe two o’clock—three—”

  It wasn’t yet one o’clock. Piers ate the second hamburger more slowly. Sanity was returning to him and courage.

  Jack grinned through a bi
te. “How does the other guy look?”

  Piers said solemnly, “I should have killed him. He tried to kill me.” Death was too good for Hugo. He should suffer torment worse than death.

  “What was the trouble? A woman?” The curiosity was idle.

  “Yes.” He cried it from the depths, “Yes. He killed her.” And I killed her. She whom we loved, we have slain.

  Bull’s lip jutted out and he stood tall. “I told you we don’t want to get mixed up in no trouble with the cops. Killing’s trouble.” His head jerked to the door.

  Piers’ fingers gripped the warped table. He spoke from his desperate need. “You can’t put me out now. Willie told me to come here. He’s the only one I can trust to help me. I must have help. This man is a killer.”

  “We don’t want no Valentine massacres here.” Bull’s neck muscles were dark and thick. “Sorry, Mister.”

  Sammy squeaked as if a gun covered the room. “We’ll tell Willie where to meet you. Where?”

  “I have no place to go.” Grayness ate into his face. “Only to death. I can’t die, not yet.”

  Sammy’s hand described what might have been a cross. Bull stood, an unyielding mass. Jack said, chewing, “Why not wait till Willie shows up?”

  “You shut your face,” Bull threatened. “I’m not having no cops here. Once they get on you they never get off. I know.”

  Piers made a last hopeless try. “Do you know who Secretary Anstruther is?”

  “What’s that got to do with it?”

  “Do you?” he insisted.

  “Who don’t?” Bull said. “He’s Secretary of Peace.”

  Piers spoke carefully, as to a child. “The man who attempted to kill me tonight, who will if he can kill me before tomorrow, is the man who murdered Secretary Anstruther.”

  The three faces turned to him with something like fear, fear of his madness. He met their eyes in turn hoping the truth could be seen in his through the pitiful admixture of hopelessness and fright. And then anger rose in him at their open rejection of his word. He demanded, “Do you want peace?”

  “We got peace,” Bull said.

  “Not if Germany has her will in this Conclave. Not if the International Army is withdrawn.”

  “Who’s that nutty?”

  Piers said, “The Germans killed Secretary Anstruther.” He wiped his thin hand over his forehead. “They tricked him into a plane and they shot him in the back.”

  There was silence. Jack rubbed his nose. “What’d they want to do that for?”

  Piers saw the wink to the others, humor the madman. “Because Secretary Anstruther believed that the peace terms should be carried out as written, that Germany should remain under the protectorate for fifty years.”

  “And if they bump off Anstruther,” Jack explained just as if he believed, “then they don’t have to, is that it?”

  Piers said, “That happens to be it. The man who will take the Secretary’s place is friendly to Germany. As is Lord Evanhurst, head of the English Commission.”

  “Where do you come in?” Bull’s chin stuck out. He played the game, but grudgingly.

  “I’m the man who saw the hole in Anstruther’s back. I was flying after him, carrying his dispatches which he’d left behind.” That was good enough. “I found him dead. The Germans know I have those papers. If they can kill me tonight, I can’t present them to the Conclave tomorrow.”

  “There’s one thing smells.” Bull’s mind was working. “Nobody’s saying Secretary Anstruther’s dead, only that there’s something funny about him not turning up. If Secretary Anstruther was dead there’d be headlines all over the papers.”

  “There will be,” Piers said. “After the Conclave. Anstruther’s successor didn’t want it published until after the Conclave. If it had been the delegates might not have convened. And Germany wouldn’t be released from the protectorate at this time.”

  “Who are you, Mister?” Sammy’s mouth was round and greasy.

  “I’m Piers Hunt. You’ve never heard of me.”

  “I heard of you.” Bull thrust forward. “You’re the guy Winchell’s daring to come out and talk. You heard it, Sammy, the special broadcast tonight.”

  Piers continued, “I’ve worked with Secretary Anstruther for twelve years, ever since peace was declared. In Europe and in Africa.” He hesitated. “I haven’t dared talk before tomorrow.”

  “I’m getting it,” Jack nodded. “If you get bumped off you can’t throw a monkey wrench tomorrow. Is that it? You’re going to go to the Conclave tomorrow and tell all about Secretary Anstruther, that it?”

  “That’s it,” Piers said. “That’s why I want to live until tomorrow. To keep Germany from starting another war. If you’ll only let me stay until Willie comes, he’ll tell you I’m speaking true. He has seen one of the Germans who followed me.”

  Jack said, “Guess we’d better take in the Conclave tomorrow. Sounds like a good show.”

  They still didn’t believe. Their interest was caught but that was all. Impassionedly he beat against their doubt. “It is important you go tomorrow. Important that you crowd the galleries with men who want peace.” It didn’t matter if they thought he was insane as long as they would be there. Surely they would go; they wouldn’t miss finding out for themselves just how crazy this man was who declared Anstruther’s death. Not these three alone, their friends and neighbors, curiosity engendered by newspaper and radio would guide them. If they would be there, even if he did die too soon, peace would have a voice. With man present, man who believed in peace, who was not afraid to demand peace, there would be peace. And he would have won no matter what happened. Watkins must be right; Man could speak.

  His eyes closed. He went to sleep sitting upright there in the scarred chair, the others still asking questions. He awoke to Willie’s voice. “Looks like trouble caught up. That German scrub?”

  It was two-thirty in the morning. Piers said, “His boss.”

  Bull wasn’t hostile now. Willie must have talked while Piers slept.

  Willie asked, “Where you want to go, Mister?”

  “I’m hiring your cab, Willie.” He took out his billfold. “From now until tomorrow afternoon, until you deliver me at the Halls of Peace tomorrow.” He counted out two hundred dollars. “Is that enough?”

  Willie whistled. “You buying or renting?” He stuck the money in his pocket.

  “You know it’s dangerous?” Piers said.

  “Where do we go?”

  He said, “At eight in the morning I must be at the Thirty-third street postoffice. Until then it doesn’t matter.” He counted fifty dollars three times on the table. One for Bull, one for Sammy, one for Jack. Like buying votes in an election, votes for peace.

  “What’s that for?” Bull demanded.

  “For what I’ve said. Fill the galleries tomorrow. Bring your friends. I want Nick Pulaski, too—he’s for peace. Call him at the International Building. Tell him to bring his friends. Bring everyone who will shout for peace.”

  “For fifty smackers I’ll fill them galleries single-handed,” Sammy grinned. “How do we report to you?”

  “You don’t.”

  “Then how you know we’ll be there?” Jack shook his head.

  “I will know.” He would know. And he’d be in the galleries with them, somehow from the galleries he too would be heard.

  He turned to Willie. “I don’t know where we’ll hide until morning. They’re on my heels now.”

  “We could go to my apartment,” Willie said. “There’s a couch where you could catch a snooze.”

  Bull wiped his forearm under his nose. He spoke as he folded away the fifty. “Whyncha go upstairs and lie down in my room till morning? If you go home, Willie, you’ll never make it back in time. Not the way you sleep. I’ll wake you when I go off duty at seven.”

  “What you say, Mister?” Willie pursed his mouth.

  Piers said, “I’d be grateful.” Grateful for any place to lay his head, for a little rest, fo
r not having to step out into the terrors of the night again.

  “It ain’t fancy,” Bull apologized. “Not very clean. I’m not much hand at housekeeping.”

  “It is safe?” Piers hesitated.

  “Nobody can get up there without getting by me.” There were knots in his powerful arms. He led the way up the iron staircase into the loft of parked cars. The sleeping room was half as big as the office. Bull said, “You can lie on the cot. Willie, you fix up the chairs for yourself.”

  The window was small, looking down to an alley. No one could climb the blank wall. Someone was shadowed in the alley waiting. Piers drew back. He moved to the cot and he sat down.

  Bull said, “You’ll be safe. I’ll wake you at seven.”

  “Thanks more than I can say.”

  Bull went out. Piers said, “Push your chair against the door, Willie.”

  “Scared?”

  He nodded. He winced as he lay down.

  “You ought to have a doctor look at that arm. Don’t pay to let them go. Infection’s bad. My brother-in-law—”

  “Tomorrow.” He closed his eyes. No one could get by Bull. No one could get by Willie in the chair. No one could climb through the little window. But his dreams were troubled and he walked on the top of the waters of sleep.

  4.

  He heard the knocking while Willie snored on. He jerked up. “Who is it?”

  “Seven o’clock. You guys in there, it’s seven o’clock.”

  Piers said, “We’re up.” He said, “Come on, Willie. We have to move on now.” His clothes looked as if they’d been slept in; every bone, not only the wounded one, ached.

  Willie yawned. “Jeeze,” he said. “I forgot to call the wife.” He opened the door to Bull. “I forgot to call Mame. She’ll be maddern a wet hen.”

  “Two hundred smackers’ll get her over the mad fast.” Bull led them down the stairs to the washroom.