"How do they know what you said?"
His face grew livid. "Who cares? Think they worry about what I said? Some guys is poison and you're one, because you was on that redhead! Why didn't she drop dead sooner!"
I reached out and grabbed his arm and brought him up to my face. "Shut up," I said through my teeth.
"Aw, Mike, I didn't mean nothin', honest. I'm just trying to tell ya."
I let him go and he backed off a step, wiping his forehead with a sleeve. The light glistened on a tear that rolled down his cheek. "I don't know what it's about, Mike. I don't wanna get knocked off. Can't you do something?"
"Maybe."
Cobbie looked up, hopefully. His tongue passed over his parched lips. "Yeah?"
"Think, Cobbie. Think of the boys you saw. Who were they?"
The lines in his face grew deeper. "Hard boys. They were carrying rods. I think they came outa Detroit."
"Who do they work for?"
"The same guy what gets the pay-off jack, I guess."
"Names, Cobbie?"
He shook his head, the hope gone. "I'm only a little guy. Mike. How would I know? Every week I give a quarter of my take to a guy who passes it along in a chain until it reaches the top. I don't even want to know. I'm... I'm scared, Mike, scared silly. You're the only one I knew to call. Nobody'll look at me now because they know the heat's on, that's why I wanted to see you."
"Anybody know you're here?"
"No. Just you."
"What about the landlady?"
"She don't know me. She don't care, neither. How'd you find me, Mike?"
"A way your pals won't try. Don't worry about it. Here's what I want you to do. Sit tight, don't leave this room, not even to go downstairs. Keep away from the window and be sure your door is locked."
His eyes widened and his hands went to my arms. "You got an out figgered? You think maybe I can get outa town?"
"Could be. We'll have to do this carefully. You got anything to eat in the place?"
"Some canned stuff and two bottles of beer."
"It'll hold you. Now remember this. Tomorrow night at exactly nine-thirty I want you to walk out of this place. Go down the street, turn right one block, then head west again. Keep walking as if you didn't know a thing was up. Take a turn around your neighborhood and say hullo to anyone you want to. Only keep walking. Got that?"
Little beads of sweat were standing out on his forehead. "Christ, ya want me to get killed? I can't leave here and..."
"Maybe you'd sooner get bumped off here... if you don't starve to death first."
"No, Mike. I don't even mean that! But, jeez, walking out like that!..."
"Are you going to do it or not? I haven't got time to waste, Cobbie."
He sank into the chair and covered his face with his hands. Crying came easy for Cobbie. "Y-yeah. I'll go. Nine-thirty." His head jerked up, tears streaking his face. "What're ya thinking or can't you tell me?"
"No, I can't. You just do what I told you. If it works, you'll be able to leave town in one piece. But I want you to remember something."
"What?"
"Don't--ever--come--back."
I left him with his face white and sick-looking. When the door closed I heard him sobbing again.
Outside, a premature dusk was settling over the city as the grey haze of rain clouds blew in from the southeast. I crossed the street and walked north to a subway kiosk. Before I reached it the rain had started again. A train had just pulled out of the station, giving me five minutes to wait, so I found a phone and called Lola's apartment. Nobody answered. No news was good news, or so they say. I tried the office and Velda told me it had been a fairly quiet afternoon. I hung up before she could ask questions. Besides, my train was just rattling past the platform.
At Fifty-ninth I got off, grabbed another cab and had the driver haul me over to where my car was parked. I thought I saw a guy I knew walk past and I went into a knee bend fumbling for my shoelace. It was getting to be a pain in the butt playing corpse.
When I finally got the chance I hopped in and shot away from there as fast as I could. Some chances I couldn't afford, one was being spotted near Lola's place. She was one person I wanted to myself, all nice and safe.
The wind picked up and began throwing the rain around. The few pedestrians left on the sidewalks were huddled under marquees or bellowing for cabs that didn't stop. Every time I stopped for a red light I could see the pale blur of faces behind the glass storefronts, the water running down making them waver eerily. All with that same blank look of the trapped when nothing can be done to help.
I was wondering if Lola was having any trouble. The rain was going to slow her up plenty at a time when speed was essential. That damn camera! Why did Red ever mess with it in the first place?
Lola had said a job, didn't she? A place called Quick Pix or something. It had slipped my mind until now. I spotted a parking place ahead and turned into it, ready to make a dash into a candy store the moment the rain slackened. There was a lull between gusts that gave me a chance to run across the pavement and work my way through the small crowd that had gathered in the doorway out of the wet.
Inside I pulled out the directory and thumbed through it, trying each borough, but nothing like Quick Pix showed up. Not even a variation. I bought a pack of butts and asked the clerk if he had an old directory around and he shook his head, paused, then told me to wait a minute. He went into the back room and came up with a dog-eared Manhattan phone book, covered with dust.
"They usually take 'em back, but this was an extra they forgot," he explained. "Saw it the other day at the back of the shelf."
I thanked him and ran through it. The hunch paid off. Quick Pix had a phone number and an address off Seventh Avenue. When I dialed the number there was a series of clicks and the operator asked me who I was calling. I gave her the number and she said it had been discontinued some time ago.
That was that. Or not quite. Maybe they still had an office, but no phone.
One of the boys asked me if I was going uptown and I nodded for him to come along. For ten blocks he kept up an incessant line of chatter that I didn't hear until he poked me to let him out at a subway station. I pulled over, he opened the door and thanked me and ran down the stairs.
Behind me a line of horns blasted an angry barrage in my direction, and over it a cop's whistle shrilled a warning. I came back to the present with a dirty word and my mind in a spin, because on the newsstand by the subway was a pile of the late evening papers and each one screamed to the world that the police were conducting a city-wide clean-up campaign of vice.
Somebody had talked.
I stopped for another red light, yelling to a newsy to bring one over and I gave him a buck for his trouble. It was there, all right, heads, captions, and sub-captions. The police were in possession of information that was going to lead to the biggest round-up of this, that, and the next thing the city ever saw.
Which was fine, great. Just what we wanted in the pig's neck. Pat must be raving mad. The papers were doing a beautiful civic job of chasing the rats out of town. Damn them, why couldn't they keep quiet!
The light changed and I saw my street coming up. I had to circle the block because it was a one-way, then squeeze in between a decrepit delivery truck and a battered sedan. The number I wanted was a weather-beaten loft building with an upholstery shop fronting on the street. On one side was a narrow entrance with a service elevator in the rear and a sign announcing the available vacancies hanging on the door.