“I want to have a talk with him. That’s the only reason I’m doing this. For practical reasons. Tomorrow morning, as soon as he gets some food in his stomach, if he has any sense he’ll report to the district attorney at White Plains and go on through with it. Who owns this car?”
“He’s out of his head,” Heather said. “He doesn’t even know who we are.”
“I’ll tell him later. Who owns this car?”
“The company. R. I. Dundee and Company. We all use it.”
“Good. I’m working for the company too. I’ll drop you at Bedford Hills and you can hire a car to take you home. Tell them we missed the train and tried to catch it at Bedford Hills and missed it again, and I took the car on to New York. Have you got any money?”
“I have some at home.”
Hicks looked over the back of the seat and saw that Cooper was where he had put him, making no attempt to move. “You stay down,” he commanded, and started the engine, got the car turned around, and headed back for Route 22.
There was no hitch in the program. Heather had evidently abandoned her aspiration to be general manager, and about the only talking was when Hicks gave her his address in New York, without a telephone number because he had none. At a garage in Bedford Hills he arranged for a car to take her home, two dollars for the six miles, and went on his way. The passenger in the rear made neither sound nor movement. The car was in good condition and the southbound traffic light, and he made good time.
His wrist watch said five minutes past eleven as he rolled to a stop in front of the address on East 29th Street. The windows of the Italian restaurant on the ground floor were only dimly lit. Hicks got out and opened the rear door, took a look at what was there, and asked gruffly:
“Can you walk?”
Without moving Cooper said, “I don’t want to walk.”
“Nuts.” Hicks got him by the shoulder. “Listen, brother. My bed is two flights up. You can either walk to it or be taken to Bellevue, which is only three blocks away, and let them carry you.”
Cooper pulled himself to a sitting posture. “I don’t want to go to Bellevue.”
“Then upsy-daisy. Snap out of it.”
“I don’t want to go to bed.”
“You don’t have to. You can sit in a chair. Come on.”
Cooper muttered something, but showed an inclination to move, and Hicks got hold of him and helped him out. His legs supported him, and a firm grasp on his arm was all he needed to steer him across the sidewalk, into the entrance, and up the two flights of stairs.
The medium-sized room that Hicks ushered him into was neat and clean and bare-looking. The bed and dresser and table and two chairs were devoid of any pretense at embellishment, and for decoration the walls displayed a picture of Abraham Lincoln, a chart of the human body showing muscles and blood vessels, a drawing of an airplane flight cut from a magazine, all unframed, and a large framed canvas that was a brilliant splash of red and yellow. When asked, as he had been once, where he got the Van Gogh, Hicks replied that someone he had done something for had given it to him.
Hicks closed the door. Cooper looked around, focused his eyes on the bed, and staggered across and fell on it before Hicks could reach him. Hicks stood and glared down at him. He stooped for a closer look, and straightened up again.
“The unspeakable bum,” he said in a tone of disgust. “Out. Asleep. And the only bed I’ve got. I can do one of two things, undress him or toss him out of the window.”
The decision, apparently, was for the former, for he started the undressing, beginning with shoes. They were heavy brown oxfords. One was off and deposited on the floor when the sound came of voices and footsteps outside on the stairs. Someone en route for the fourth floor, Hicks thought, going for the other shoe, and had it in his hand when there was a loud knock at his door. He jerked around and called out:
“Who is it?”
The reply came, “ABCDXYZ! Open up!”
Hicks made a face. Bill Pratt of the Courier, carrying between ten and fifteen drinks.
“I’m not at home!”
“Oh, yes, you are! You must be, because we saw the light in your window. Don’t keep this lady waiting, she’s a friend of yours. Let down this barrier.”
“What lady?”
“An old, old friend. Here hanging onto me. I’ll count ten and bust the door down. One, two...”
Hicks put down the shoe, stepped on the table and switched off the light, crossed to the door and opened it just wide enough to slide through, and was in the hall with the door closed behind him and the spring lock caught.
“I was just going out,” he explained.
Bill Pratt, tall and loose-jointed, with careless clothes and a carefree face, said indignantly, “Then you can go back in again. We’re here on business.”
“That’s him all right,” said the girl.
“Do you deny it?” Pratt demanded. “Do you deny that you promised this girl a year’s subscription to the Movie Gazette and maybe a trip to Hollywood? Wait! Wait till I tell you. I met her this evening at the Flamingo. She’s a fine girl and a swell dancer.”
He looked at the girl. “My God, you’re a good dancer.”
“You met her at the Flamingo,” Hicks said.
“I did. Any objection to that?”
“No.”
“Okay. She said an inmate of an insane asylum with a card having the name A. Hicks and a string of letters on it told her this morning that if she could identify some photographs she would get a year’s subscription to the Movie Gazette. Let’s go in and sit down.”
“In a minute. So what?”
“So of course I knew it was you. I want to know two things. I want to know what kind of a gag it is, and I want enough to make at least a column, and I also want to know when her subscription to the Movie Gazette is going to start. She’s the best dancer in New York and I want to know when her subscription is going to start, and I also want—”
The girl put in, “You haven’t told him about the photograph.”
“What photograph?”
“The one I didn’t know. I told you about it.”
“I forgot that part. Tell it again.”
“There was one I didn’t know, but I know it now, because she came today to see Mr. Vail. Only I don’t know her name.”
Hicks’s eyes fastened on the girl. “She came to see Vail today? What time?”
“Around noon. Just before I went to lunch.”
“How long did she stay?”
“I don’t know, but she left before I came back from lunch.”
“Why don’t you know her name?”
“Because she didn’t give it. She said she was expected, and Mr. Vail said to send her in.”
“That’s why I know it’s a story,” Pratt said. “Let’s go in and sit down. You see, going there with that photograph, you must have known that woman was going—”
“It is a story,” Hicks admitted. “But I need a drink, and so do you. We all need a drink. Come along.”
“He was going to show me your room,” the girl protested. “The kind of a place a famous man lives in. He says you’re cuckoo.”
“Some other time.” Hicks herded them to the stairs and got them started down. “We’ve got to talk this over and we’ve got your subscription to attend to.”
“A drink is a splendid idea,” Pratt said positively. “And music for dancing. My God, she’s a good dancer.”