The connection was broken off. Anders turned his memo pad around for Griscom to read. He didn’t read it, he studied it.
I glanced out of the window again, toward the shadowy recess of the parked coupe. The coupe was there, but no longer parked. The car, in that brief interval, had moved forward away from the curb, its single headlight once more turned on, and it now stood idling directly at the intersection. The driver was set to roll But he didn’t roll. I saw the traffic light change, and still the driver held the car at the corner, in a nearly empty street. He had seen Griscom arrive. He knew Griscom had not yet left. Now he watched, as though triggered, expecting his man would shortly leave.
It came to me then in naive incredulity, that the driver was certain Griscom was ready to leave. Not only that, he knew the destination, the route he would take to get there. I had just overheard the trap, as the wife baited it and set the jaws. She was not on West End Avenue. She would be in a cocktail lounge or a drugstore, on the next block. It was a killer’s time-honored set-up.
I came out of the shock, as Griscom spoke to me.
“Maybe you can have that conference with your partners right now. I’ve got to drive up to Campaign Consultants. Do you want to come along? If you’re really in a hurry about this, you can sign our contract tonight.” My stunned stare into the street, and my attention, slowly returned to the room. And to Griscom. Somebody’s candidate for the greatest change and the greatest surprise there can ever be. “What’s the matter, Ravoc? One of your partners is already there, and you can get the rest of them together inside of an hour.” As I still said nothing, his voice hardened to an unconcealed threat. “Are you stalling? Did you have some wild idea you could come up here and put this off indefinitely, with a lot of conferences? Mrs. Hepworth wouldn’t like that.”
It was really up to me, and in more ways than one. If I went with Griscom, yes indeed, if I went with Griscom. Any bad accident meant for him could take me with him. But if I did not go, his troop of scavengers, surviving him, would move right along with the schedule already long under way.
It was up to me, and I hated It It is better to be a hero on the safe and winning side. This was different. Maybe Griscom was really right, and the true hero, because he was always on the winning side.
Until now. Now he seemed slated for a different role. But how would I ever answer any of these questions unless I went with him? It came to me that I might never answer them, anyway.
“All right,” I said. “Let’s go.”
Griscom opened the outer door of the office, and I stepped through it. As we walked down the corridor, and Griscom pressed the elevator button, I tried to imagine whether this would be another hit-and-run, an old-fashioned shooting, or something a little different, modernized, possibly a collision.
“Something the matter, Ravoc?”
“No,” I said. “Not a thing.”
The elevator car arrived, and we stepped inside. For a moment, but only for a moment, I looked at the intended victim, wondering whether he had ever suspected he would arrive at this particular crossroads in time and space.
But then, neither had I thought that I would.
Chapter XII
Jay Ravoc
I stepped out of the phone booth on the main-floor lobby of the building and rejoined Griscom. Haley Robbins 5 phone had not been answered. But I had reached and talked to Vincent. Stanley already waited in the offices of Campaign Consultants.
Or did he? The silvery coupe held at least one person, perhaps more. Belle Griscom, the decoy, had needed a telephone, and would hardly be a passenger. But there might be another. Even two others.
We walked out of the wide, clearly illuminated entrance together. I wondered whether my presence would make a difference in the schedule of prearranged events. It might. But there was no certainty it would. I glanced once at the gray car idling at the nearby corner, knowing we had now been plainly seen, then followed Griscom as he turned his back to it and we walked in silence to the next cross street and his own parked car. It, too, stood near the corner, nosing the same two-way avenue, but in the opposite direction. He unlocked the doors of a black sedan, and we got in. As he switched on his lights, then the dim light of the dashboard, he asked, pleasantly:
“Did you recognize our night man up there in the office?”
My attention, alert to every shadowy recess of the side-street, and to the bright but still empty avenue ahead of us, took a moment to come back to Griscom and grasp his question, another moment to see what it implied. But this was Griscom in his own element, and my reply merely echoed him, without expression.
“Recognize him?”
Our eyes briefly met and held, searching, in a study that would never give either of us a single, human glimpse of the other. Griscom raced his motor, then rolled the car forward away from the curb.
“It doesn’t matter,” he told me, as we crossed the avenue, and I braced in my seat against what might be a sudden, surging, smashing bolt of aimed steel. “He happens to be a witness to that accident in which you were involved a while back.” We were across, then, with no car even approaching us. “He’s a good man, with a fine memory. Not quite good enough to help us professionally, yet. Besides, we’d rather have him do jury work. Did you talk to him?”
“Some.”
“Tell him who you were?”
“Why should I?”
I saw the calm, superlative face tighten with something like anger. Then it was instantly gone, and his tone was again casual, but emphatic, as he said:
“That doesn’t matter, either. I’ll tell him who you were, and now that he’s seen you face to face, he’ll be able to describe you perfectly, or pick you out in a crowded courtroom, a police line-up, at a hearing, anywhere. As he remembers you, that is, among the passengers who denied hitting and killing Barna. Just in case.” I made no reply to this, though I used the moment to turn sideways on the seat, facing him, but actually intent upon the traffic. “But that won’t happen, now that you’re one of the family. We’ll take your version, that there was another car ahead of you, and forget the whole thing. More or less.”
We were on Sixth Avenue, northbound, approaching Central Park. Ahead of us lay the entrance that led to the one-way East Drive, and it came to me this was the identical intersection and the same three-lane road we had once traveled so closely upon those swift, unswerving wheels of death. We idled, waiting for the lights, and I glanced through the window behind us.
Less than a block away, but rolling slowly toward us, the thing with one headlight came on. The park had been selected for the place, and my presence had changed no plans.
And my reasoning must be fantastically wrong, because it simply could not be accomplished. Once in the park we could be overtaken, crowded to the shoulder and the railing, isolated, one or both of us shot. But that could have been done anywhere. Nor would a simple job like that call for the unique advantages and handicaps of that particular car. My logic, I decided, had missed by miles. We were simply driving to the office and there, after some talk, the deal would prosaically go through.
Then the traffic lights changed, and we crossed into the park. And I glanced backward again, catching again the silvery shimmer of the following car, as it, too, turned and drifted evenly after us. That was the death car, and there could be no doubt it deliberately trailed us. And there had to be a reason. I asked, quietly:
“What did become of that silver-gray coupe we saw that night of the accident? On this same drive, by the way.”
Griscom seemed for a moment not to have heard me, attentive to something else. Then he gave me a glance of amused contempt, a shade of expression similar to a smile.
“The car that never existed, except in your imagination?”
“In whose name was it registered?”
“Nobody’s,” he assured me. “Not even if such a car should ever be found.”
“You live in Englewood, Griscom,” I said. “The car may have a phony registrati
on. But if it is ever found, I think it can be traced to you.”
He showed me a face, for a long moment, filled with somber fury.
“Why do you ask?” I did not answer, and he bluntly mocked me. “I think you know what will happen if you try to trace that imaginary automobile.” Then he turned again to the drive winding on before us, but there was irritation in his attitude, and when he spoke, in his voice. “Hell, am I getting a flat?”
I noticed, then, the vibration in the car. In my own, I would have felt and heard it before. But now, the sound and the uneven motion were pronounced. Both of us listened, estimating it, and then, as though scrawled in huge, clumsy obvious symbols on a child’s blackboard, I saw the timetable that had been drawn up for Griscom, the fate for which he was being processed.
“You’re getting a flat, all right,” I told him.
He tried the feel of the sedan some more, then began to slow, less irritated now, but more puzzled.
“It is,” he decided. “I don’t see how it could be. But it won’t take a minute. What I can’t figure out, is it the left or right rear?”
“Both,” I said.
He gave me a single glance, discounting me altogether, and veered the shivering car toward the left shoulder.
“It’s the right rear,” he said.
That meant he intended to make the change to a spare in the protection of the left shoulder. But when he got out of the car, he would automatically look at all the other wheels, and for a moment or two stop particularly to inspect the other exposed tire, also going flat. Whichever side he chose, the result must be the same, an unguarded interval, a defenseless spot, and there he would be picked off, squashed between the cars like a fly. And that was the plan. The marksman in the death car would then fade into the deep night of the park, leaving the city cops with a riddle that could never be solved—one vehicular homicide, with two cars abandoned on the scene, both of them traceable to the victim, one of them already identified with a previous killing.
Griscom continued to slow, now in the left lane, but still obviously puzzled by the contradictory impulses that shook the car in irregular waves. Before he stopped and set himself up for death, I asked:
“Griscom, did you ever, in your work, hear of a case where some air was let out of a man’s tire, then it was punctured for a slow leak? And when he had to stop and get out, he was killed by some reckless motorist behind him?”
He slowly turned to me a face no longer cherubic. It was a mask of august fury, and fear.
“It’s happened,” he said, the words clipped. “Why? It happens on special occasions, with a special set-up, and perfect timing. I didn’t think you even knew about things like that.” The speed of the car was not dropping now. Instead, he stepped it up. And with the added speed, the lurch and shudder became pronounced. “But since you do know, you must have some friends behind us. Who are they, Ravoc, and what’s the idea? If we have to change any tires, you’re elected.”
“Sure, I don’t mind,” I told him. I saw the implacable features of the sculptured face tighten against a new worry, my too easy acquiescence. Then, speaking in the coded double- and triple-talk of Griscom’s world, and finding it easy, I added, “Because I don’t think they’re my friends. They’re your friends. There is a car behind us. The one that killed Stephen Barna. The car that never existed. Have you got any enemies, Griscom?”
He had been watching his rear-view mirror, but until then the winding roadway had showed him nothing. Now, though, as we both watched, the gray and shining coupe, with its one light, came into clear view.
Griscom’s single phrase was monotonous with despair.
“That bitch.”
For an instant I thought he believed Belle must be driving the coupe, then I realized he had already, with his professional experience, penetrated more deeply into the mechanism of the action. She had baited the trap, with her phone call, and he had recognized this routine procedure at once.
“Who’s in the car?” I asked.
For long seconds, in which our sedan jolted and swayed, Griscom debated whether to reply at all. Then he reached his decision, and swung the car sharply around, bringing it broadside to any traffic there might be, virtually blocking all three lanes.
“Charley, of course. Who else could handle it?” He gave me a steady, measuring gaze. “But don’t let this give you any wild ideas, Ravoc. Charley and I had a little difference, nothing serious. Nothing we can’t settle between ourselves. And we still want you. Both of us. Now, suppose you go back, and tell him I understand the situation, and we need a lift.”
It was a command, not a question. He leaned across me, and unlatched the door on my side. It swung open. I stepped out. I began to walk back, on a shoulder of the road, over the drive we had just journeyed.
I came upon the one-eyed juggernaut, crawling along in back of the first bend. Its driver was intent upon the road, and did not see me until I stepped to the side of its gray, bright, luminous body. The face was that of Talcott, heavy and dark, and it was evident that my face, too, was known to him.
As though resuming an old conversation, I said:
“Hello, Charley. It’s a lucky thing you happened to be passing. Somebody let the air out of Fenner’s tires, and we need a lift.”
Talcott thought this over, then thought it over again, and again. Finally, he asked:
“Does Fenner know I’m here?”
“Of course. And we both know why. But Fenner says he understands the situation, and so will you. Now, how about that lift?”
Talcott reached over and opened the door of the death car. He was matter-of-fact, and also amused. He sounded a series of wordless chortles, apparently discovering another and still jollier thought as soon as the last one had been subdued.
“That bitch,” he remarked, not with anger, but rather in admiration. “She crossed them both.”
I stepped into the gray car, slowly decoding his remark. The reference must be to Belle Griscom; she had already doubled-crossed Fenner and one other, and that other could not be Talcott.
“Belle’s good,” I said. “But I wonder why?”
He sounded another hearty laugh, not at anything I said, but at me. He let the car roll slowly ahead, around the bend. I got the impression Talcott laughed at everyone, and on every occasion, but never gave to any query, under any circumstances, or to anyone, the semblance of a direct reply.
Around the turn in the drive we came upon the slewed sedan. Talcott brought the silvery car to a smooth halt well before it. We saw the driver’s door of the dark sedan open, saw Griscom step out and wave to us, standing there.
Talcott chuckled and put his own hand out of the window of the coupe, and with lazy indifference, beckoned for Griscom to make the first approach. Almost at once, he did.
Standing in the road at Talcott’s side of the car, looking inward but ignoring me, Griscom imperturbably said:
“You owe me a couple of tires, Charley.”
Talcott vented a raucous laugh.
“Sure. But you can collect from Belle. She’s got plenty of spares. All of them flat.” His fat mirth mounted, engulfing us, then it abruptly ceased. “We’re all going to Ravoc’s office for a conference, aren’t we? All right. Get that crate of yours out of the way, Fenner. Just leave it here, up against the railing. Pick it up tomorrow.” He watched, almost in disappointment, as Griscom merely turned and retraced his way to the black sedan. While Griscom maneuvered the disabled car to the side of the drive, he remarked, “Great guy, Fenner. But no sense of humor.”
“I’ve noticed,” I said. “But what does he want?” My answer was another symphony of chuckles and snickers and sounds of stifled amusement. But that was all. He was watching Griscom, who now got out of his car, and came back toward us. And while he studied Griscom, I looked around at the interior of the car.
This was the car I wanted. This was the car I could use. This was the car that at last I nearly, very nearly had.
Chapte
r XIII
Jay Ravoc
It was about midnight when the three of us silent except for occasional sounds of obscure amusement that issued from Talcott, turned into the familiar entrance of Campaign Consultants. Only the lower floor of the building was lighted, though my own office was darkened, and I now knew that Stanley Thornhill was surely in his, upstairs. And I saw that Vincent must have arrived, the door of his office at the rear of the building standing open, and showing light.
I led the way into my office, pressed the switch for the soft overhead light, lit a floor lamp, then turned on the light at my own desk.
“Be seated, gentlemen,” I said. I indicated one chair already beside the desk, another in front of it, and then I drew forward two more from the wall. “I’ll bring my partners. If you’ll excuse me?”
The stereotyped question drew a response. From Talcott. Another wordless surge of aimless, scathing jollity. They were seating themselves, when I left.
I went first to Stanley. The stairs were closer and also faster than our automatic elevators. I mounted the steps of the heavily carpeted stairs, past the streamers, the posters, DISASTER STRIKES DISASTER, THE BLIND ARE WATCHING You, LET THE SLUM CHILD BREATHE, these living tokens of the firm’s past, campaigns almost forgotten, though some of them I had directed myself. And although I had forgotten much of the humdrum effort, even the hectic hours of this or that minor crisis, I knew that the result of the effort and the strident urgency was still in play, in use, that with some of these institutional drives they would continue to be the lifeblood filling a human need for a long time to come. And among the streamers and banners, I saw that a place had been made for our new client. Near the top of the flight of stairs I saw a bold new poster: THE GENEROUS HEART GROWS RICH IN GIVING. Vincent’s idea, no doubt. A good one. And how rich, how very rich it grows. Yes, yes indeed.
The Generous Heart Page 18
