So he was meeting someone. I watched the door, too. An influx of noontime drinkers gradually filled the bar and a number of the booths. I wished that Hawk would leave so I could follow him, corner him, and ask him a question or two about Hazel's money.
It took me by surprise when he left his bar stool suddenly. I'd seen no indication that he knew anyone who'd entered. He sauntered toward an empty booth, every movement of his stocky figure an exercise in body control.
He seated himself in a booth halfway down the room. He waited, then took a wrapped package from under his jacket and placed it on the booth seat with his body between it and the open floor space so that bystanders couldn't see it. The package was the right size and shape to contain three or four hundred bank notes, and I thought again about Hazel's money.
When Hawk stood up and left the booth, I could see the package still on the seat. He walked toward the door with his eyes on the back bar mirror. Then a girl stood up two booths away and moved to Hawk's booth. I watched her pick up the package and put it in her large handbag. Hawk continued on out the door.
It presented a dilemma. It was Hawk I wanted, or did I?
Erikson would undoubtedly want to know the girl's tie-in. I decided to stick with her. With luck, now that Hawk had established that he used the Alhambra, I could pick him up there again.
The girl seemed to be in no hurry. The waitress brought a tiny glass to her booth which contained a golden liqueur. The waitress spoke to her familiarly, so the girl was no stranger. In appearance she was a knockout. She was tall and ivory skinned, slender but by no means thin. Her hair was raven-black and arranged in sophisticated swirls on her small head. A tiny mole or birthmark dotted her right cheek.
Her dress was an explosion of bright colors in a Gauguin-style print. It was longer than the mini-skirted mode, but two lengthy side slashes permitting a showing of frothy lace underneath gave it a distinctly Oriental look. The stand-up collar of the dress imitated Chinese mandarin. The ensemble did well by her exotic appeal.
She drank her liqueur leisurely while I studied her. What connection could a beauty like this have to a machine gunner like Hawk? When I followed her from the lounge I'd have to be careful that he wasn't lurking outside somewhere to make sure she reached her destination safely with the package he'd left for her in the booth.
I was ready when she picked up her handbag. I left a bill on the table and followed her outside. Her walk was not the long, free stride of an American girl; she took short, dainty steps which rolled her hips above the fulcrum of her pelvis. The hips were indisputably not as slim as the rest of her. She crossed Lexington and headed north. I stayed on my side of the street and paralleled her. I watched each doorway on both sides of the street, but there was no sign of Hawk.
After four blocks, the girl turned right, toward the East River. I remained on the opposite side of the street. At once there was no secret where we were going; at the far end of the street I could see the massive glass tower of the UN building. Now that I thought about it, the UN building helped to explain some of the odd costumes and foreign features I'd seen in the Alhambra. Evidently the cocktail lounge was where some of the UN swingers liked to do their partying.
I had never seen the UN buildings at close range. There were four major ones, the most impressive of which was the Secretariat which looked at least five hundred feet high. I had never seen so many windows. Two sides of the building were green-tinted glass in which I could see passing clouds reflected. An impressive fountain fronted the Secretariat, and UN guards stood at the gates.
The girl walked toward a white stone building with a domed roof and gently curved wall ridges at the top. I recognized it from pictures as the General Assembly Building. Buses were discharging school children at the entrance. Off to the side, in front of the fountain at the Secretariat, the flags of the UN nations snapped in the breeze.
We walked along, still in tandem. There was no question now that the girl was going to enter the General Assembly Building. I closed the gap slightly. We entered a large lobby, a vast open area. At the left, standing alone at the far end of the lobby, was a bronze statue of a Greek god atop a tall, cylindrical block of marble. Three balconies overhung the lobby area.
The girl spoke to several people as she pushed her way through the throngs of people. I remembered reading somewhere that the UN employed more than four thousand international civil servants. The girl walked under the first balcony overhang to a doorway on which a UN PERSONNEL ONLY sign in four languages was hung. Before I realized what was happening, she disappeared inside the door. A UN guard eyed me up and down as I stood there irresolutely for a moment. I turned away.
Now I'd lost both the girl and Hawk. I walked through the cavernous interior until I found a bank of pay phones.
"I blew it," I told Erikson after giving him a rundown on events. "I thought I could stay with her. I didn't count on anything like this."
"The UN is ideal for a package drop," Erikson replied. "The girl may only be a courier for the transfer of the package. From your description, though, she could be one of the girl guides. I'll have photos of the entire guide personnel shipped to the office here and you can take a look. Can you make it in an hour?"
"I'll be there."
I was outside when I remembered I'd stood Chryssie up on my offer of breakfast if she made it to the Alhambra.
But there was nothing I could do about it.
I had more on my mind than a flaked-out flower child.
A stranger answered my knock at Erikson's office door. He was a broad-shouldered six-footer, young and well tanned. "I'm Jock McLaren, one of the hired hands," he said. "The boss wanted you to have this." He handed me what looked like a credit card. "In case you ever have to come here late at night," he explained. "It'll identify you. Because of the all-hours nature of the work of most of the building's renters, it's not locked at night. Have a seat till the man's free."
He went to the desk in the tiny office, put on a pair of earphones, and started tap-tap-tapping a typewriter as he transcribed a tape I could see on a recorder. I wondered what his position was in Erikson's organization. Despite what he was doing, I knew it wasn't strictly as a typewriter jockey. In the brief second we'd shaken hands, I'd noticed scars on the back of his right hand that had been induced with malicious forethought.
Quite a few minutes went by before Erikson opened the door of the inner office and beckoned me. "The UN files on the girl guides aren't here yet," he said. "Wait in the equipment room. I have some phoning to do."
I started to heat up at the way he was wasting my time. I almost asked him if I was in or out of this operation. Then I realized I'd never committed myself to going along with it. It was Erikson's show, and I really didn't care how he managed it as long as I had a shot at recovering Hazel's money.
"It shouldn't take long," Erikson continued as he pressed the corner of the Emmett Kelley picture and the apparently solid section of wall swung out, disclosing again the inner room with its shelves and benches of sophisticated gear. "Don't turn on the television monitor."
He closed the panel when I was inside. I was tempted to turn on the monitor just because he'd forbidden it, but I knew he'd probably have some kind of signal in his office to let him know when it was in use. I started to sit down on the same padded stool when I thought of the studio next door in which I had seen the nude models being photographed.
I turned out the light in the equipment room, went to the door in the dark, fumbled for the bolt and found it, eased it back, and cracked the door open silently. It was dark on the other side of the door, too, and for a second I thought the studio was empty. Then from the darkness I heard a voice that sounded like the blonde with the frosted hairdo who had been so reluctant to strip in a crowd. "You haven't done a thing for me, yet you want something for nothing," she was saying.