The car clock read 8.25. ‘That clock correct?’
‘Er — no, sir… usually keep it half an hour fast, but right now it’s stopped altogether… couple of months now…’
‘Got a watch?’
‘No — I, er, don’t carry one… you know, muggings… I don’t take any valuables with me when I go out.’
‘What do you do with your nuts — leave them in a glass of water?’
If Henry C. Timbuck had a sense of humour he was doing a good job of concealing it. He ignored my remark, gritting his teeth and pursing his lips; half his face said that no way was he going to lower himself to laughing with a hijacker; the other half said that he was having the most exciting time of his life.
I looked around for the radio. Couldn’t see it. There was just the tape deck, tinkling out the Chopin. It was getting on my nerves. I ejected the cartridge. ‘Where’s the radio?’
‘Oh — I had it taken out; gets me down; so much bad news — all the time, whenever you turn the radio on; listen to a nice programme, nice music, nice talking, nice show — on comes the news: murder, rape, air crash, bombs. Why do they go and put nice programmes on then spoil them with the news?’
I didn’t have the time right then to explain to Henry C. Timbuck how the world worked. I quietly cursed my luck in picking what must have been the only automobile in the United States of America that didn’t have a radio in it.
I reckoned it was a good fifteen minutes since my exit from the bogus police car. I had been with Timbuck for about five minutes. If the crew that had been sent to grab Sumpy weren’t already at her flat they couldn’t be far away. I had to get to her before they did.
‘Sir, I don’t exactly know who you are,’ said Timbuck, ‘and I’ll go along with anything you want. You can have all my money — I don’t have much on me, but I’ll gladly write you out a cheque…’
He was silenced by an appalling clatter that started somewhere at the back of the car. He started slowing down.
‘Don’t slow down!’
‘But that noise —’
‘It’s nothing.’
‘It sounds like something’s falling off.’
‘Accelerate.’
Reluctantly but obediently he obeyed me. ‘I’m, er, very fond of this car — it’s the first car I’ve ever had.’
His voice was beginning to drive me crazy.
‘You’re from England, aren’t you? I can tell. I, er, had a friend from England once, used to come and stay with me — mostly at Christmas; he had a dry-cleaning business in Cardiff — guess that’s not really England.’
The more he talked the slower and more erratic his driving became. I finally couldn’t stand it any more. ‘Pull over and stop — we’ll have a look at the rear end.’
‘Thank you, sir.’
We swerved over onto the hard shoulder and came to a violent halt. He pushed the gear shift up into park. ‘I won’t be a second, really I won’t.’
Henry C. Timbuck hopped out of his car and ran off round to the back. Before my ass had even hit the seat his had vacated, I had that shift down into Drive and the gas pedal flat on the floor; I left poor old Timbuck behind in a shower of gravel and rubber. I got behind the wheel, and the seat-belt buzzer screeched, and the warning lamp flashed on and off. Keeping my foot flat on the floor I grappled with the harness for a few moments before giving it up. I needed a call-box in a hurry. One came up at a gas station a couple of miles on.
It rang. Once. Twice. A third time, fourth, fifth, hell. Then, ‘Hallo?’ It was Sumpy’s voice. She sounded anxious. ‘Where are you, Max?’
‘Are you okay?’
‘Yes, I’m okay. I’m fine. I’ve had a nice time.’
‘Can you talk?’
‘What do you mean. Max? Of course I can talk. Are you okay? You really sound terrible.’
I was slightly relieved. She didn’t sound as if there was any large goon holding a gun at her head — at the moment. And yet there was something in her voice, something that was different to the normal Sumpy, the sweet soft girl with the deliciously rude mind. I couldn’t figure out what it was. Roadside call boxes are not the best places for conducting voice analyses.
I was dead worried. Any moment someone was likely to come bursting into her apartment. I had to gain some time to get over there. ‘Sweetheart, listen to me closely and do exactly what I say. Lock and bolt your front door, take off all your clothes, take your handbag into the bathroom, lock the bathroom door, get in the shower and don’t come out to anybody, nobody, until you hear me.’
‘Are you feeling horny, Max?’
‘I’ll keep you guessing; but do as I say — you must — and do it now. Okay?’
‘Okay.’ She sounded dubious.
‘You sound like you don’t want to.’
‘No. I will… it’s just that, er, the police are sending someone around… want me to make a statement… something like that… about last night.’
Her words shot through my body like a bolt of lightning. It was just possible the police did want a statement but Supertypist had assured me when we had finished at the station that as far as they were concerned the matter was closed. Whoever was going to Sumpy’s apartment wasn’t from the police, however good his connections in the station at the Midtown Precinct North.
‘Just get in the shower. I’ll be with you in five minutes and I’ll let them in.’
‘Okay, Max.’
‘Bye.’
I flung myself out of the booth and back into the car. The rear tyre had gone flat and the shape of the rear end wasn’t going to put much joy into Timbuck’s life when he got to take a closer look at it.
In spite of that flat tyre and the Sunday evening traffic I covered the George Washington Bridge, half the length and the entire width of Manhattan in twelve minutes flat, and abandoned the wreck a block away from Sumpy’s Sutton Place apartment building. I ran down and round towards the front of the building. There was a large Chrysler parked right by the entrance with two large hulks in the front. Even from a fair distance they looked like close cousins of the goons to whom I’d so recently taken such a dislike.
I ducked into the building through a side door which was open and ran round to the elevators. All four of them were progressing upwards from fairly low floors. The elevators in this building weren’t fast and I decided to get up by foot. I wanted to beat them up to Sumpy’s floor in case she was about to be put in one and brought down. I started sprinting up the forty-two flights to Sumpy’s floor, wishing to hell more New Yorkers would copy Londoners and live in basements. Fit though I was, my tiredness was getting to me, my heart was banging, and my lungs searing; I seemed to be eternally snatching at the rail, rounding the sharp corners, running up more steps; I was never going to reach the top.
There was a terrible screech, a thump, and I was sprawling up the stairs, completely entangled in an elderly couple that I’d bowled over backwards like skittles — he with his astrakhan coat over his dinner jacket, she dressed to kill in her finery — and a brace of Pekinese dogs, one yelping, the other barking and snapping. I disengaged myself, muttering winded apologies, and continued my onslaught up the staircase.
Finally I saw the number 42 painted on the wall. I stopped to try and gather my breath, then cautiously looked out into the corridor. It was rich-looking, with mock Persian broadloom and thick, dark, handsome wood doors to the apartments. Hovering between the elevators and Sumpy’s closed door was an extremely large goon. He was trying, extremely unsuccessfully, to look nonchalant, as though he were waiting for the elevator — but the elevator button wasn’t lit.