‘I think you’re in the wrong apartment,’ the woman said coldly, not that I could expect her to have been suddenly flooded with cheer.
‘I think it’s you two who are in the wrong apartment,’ I replied.
‘What do you mean, the wrong apartment? It’s ours; we bought it.’
There was a silence for a moment. I looked through the window at the spectacular view down onto the 59th Street Bridge and the East River, at the maze of lights that stood still and the maze of lights of the traffic that moved, like the greedy eyes of foraging insects.
‘Bought it?’ I echoed.
‘Would you mind turning your eyes away, Mister,’ the woman said.
‘It’s all right,’ I said, ‘I’m not bothered by your appearance.’
The man opened his mouth again. ‘Look,’ he said, then he appeared to forget what he was going to say next.
‘Tell him to go away, Myron,’ said the woman.
‘When did you buy it?’
‘Just get out of here,’ the woman said.
‘My wallet’s in my jacket — over by that door,’ the man said.
‘I’m not a burglar; I’m a friend of Mary-Ellen Joffe. I’m her goddam boyfriend. Eight days ago she was here and now she’s vanished, lock, stock and barrel; she never told me she was selling this apartment.’
‘You want to see the fucking deeds?’ yelled the woman, ‘because I don’t happen to have them on me.’
‘I believe you,’ I said. ‘Did she leave a forwarding address?’
‘No, she didn’t leave a fucking forwarding address; she didn’t even leave a fucking single light bulb in a socket.’
I retreated to the corridor. I double-checked the floor and the apartment number; there was no mistake. This was Sumpy’s apartment. It didn’t make any sense. I couldn’t believe Sumpy could have up-sticked and vanished; and yet everything that was going on right now was bizarre, although this was one item that I didn’t think needed to be on the agenda. I had to know whether she had really gone, or whether she had been killed and now someone was trying to stamp out all traces that she had ever existed.
I left the apartment, walked down the street and entered the first telephone booth I came to. There was a long list of Joffes in the directory and a corner smoke-shop grudgingly converted my five-dollar bill into a supply of dimes. On the eleventh call I struck Sumpy’s mother; a charming-sounding woman, with a strong, educated voice that came from several generations of money. She didn’t know her daughter had sold her apartment and moved out and was a good deal more amazed at the news than I, since her husband had only bought Sumpy the apartment six months before. She suggested I came straight round if I didn’t mind. I didn’t mind; I didn’t have anything else to do. Mrs Joffe gave me the directions; they lived a short way up town close to the Guggenheim.
I left the booth deep in thought and stumbled on the step; there was a sharp crackle by my left ear — unmistakable. It was a sound I had heard before, too many times for my liking, and one I could never forget. It’s odd how being shot at can stick in the mind. I flung myself onto the sidewalk, rolling as I went, swivelling my head and trying to think logically at the same time, and work out which direction the bullet had come from.
The sound of clattering footsteps solved that problem for me; I could see the shape of a man sprinting off down the sidewalk. I made to reach for my gun then thought better of it. I’d already been to one Manhattan police station for shooting a man — Orchnev; if I ended up back there again it wouldn’t look too good. It is, after all, the duty of law-abiding citizens in most civilised parts of the world to be able to accept being shot at without shooting back. A British agent arrested for a shoot-out in Manhattan wouldn’t go down much of a treat with the CIA; they wouldn’t need to telephone Whitehall — the sound of their voices would carry that far and it would be all Scatliffe needed to have me spending the rest of my days searching for enemy agents behind dustbins in John O’Groats.
So instead of going for my gun I started sprinting too. The man turned the block looking over his shoulder, and seemed to falter for a split second when he saw I was following; he dived down an alley and I followed. He was running very fast indeed and I was stretched just to keep pace, let alone catch up; he ran out of the alley, crossed a sidewalk, and ran straight out across 1st Avenue. As I reached the sidewalk there was a mighty crash as I sent a Frankfurter stand and its operator reeling; water, steam, buns, mustard and a stream of oaths rolled around me.
I flung myself back onto my feet and tore out into the road, cars and taxis and buses hooting and screeching. He turned down the sidewalk on the far side, sprinting and weaving in and out of the pedestrians; I did likewise but was less adept and side-swiped three pedestrians in a row before I got the hang of things.
He carried on interminably down the sidewalk and we covered at least a mile at full sprint; my lungs were sore and bursting, my stomach pinched in a vicious stitch, but I was going to get him, I was going to get that bastard, I didn’t care if I had to run all night. He weaved straight back over the road again. I followed. Blurs of shiny metal, lights blazing in anger came at me from all directions and passed me, or I passed them, and somehow the deathly crunch didn’t come. Back across the road again, the same dazzling nightmare, then off to the right, down a dim street, sprinting now off the sidewalk down the middle of the street itself. Over a junction, past a steaming subway vent, on down an even darker road, past offices deserted for the night, a few parked cars.
He stopped, turned around, brought two pieces of metal hastily together, stiffened his arms out at me. I crashed onto the ground a split second before a tiny spurt of flame shot out in front of his arms, then another spurt of flame and a small chunk of road flew up and struck my hand hard; and now he was hesitating, half-aiming, half-deciding whether to start running again. I made his mind up for him by scrambling to my feet and lunging forward; I was inches from him. He swivelled and tried to break into a run. I could almost grab the back of his jacket but not quite. He was very tall indeed, a good 6½-footer. He was trying to snap the gun in two again, evidently realising the lack of wisdom in sprinting down a New York street clutching a rifle. I hurled myself at him in a flying rugger tackle, clamping my arms around his knees, and he came down with a heavy crash. I thought he was stunned, until a clenched fist, heavy as a lifting weight, crashed onto the end of my nose.
As light alternately flooded into and ebbed out of my head I was vaguely conscious of my quarry wrenching out of my grasp; lurching to his feet, and starting to run once more. I dragged myself up onto my feet and stumbled on after him. I had lost all track of where we were; I was riveted to the back of the fur-collared anorak on the dark hulk in front of my eyes. I ran, increasing the pace as my head cleared. Already my nose was swelling and there was a clammy damp fluid running over my lips and down my chin. I was dimly conscious of the people we passed, some turning or half-turning out of a vague interest, but most ignoring us.
We ran in between garbage bags, in between lines of parked cars, sometimes on one side of the road, sometimes on the other, sometimes it seemed we ran down both sides. We crossed street after street, my legs moving mechanically now, all physical strength drained from my body; my brain had taken over, forcing the muscles to keep those legs moving forward, to keep shoving one leg out in front of the other. I wondered if he too was tiring, or whether he could go on for miles more. We were running past some warehouses then he turned down yet another alley. As we lumbered down towards the end I could see he had a choice of either turning left or right; as we got closer I realised he could only turn right — there was no left. As we got closer still to the end I realised there was no right turn either; all that there was at the end of this alley was a high wall linking two buildings.