“My suitcase is gone.”
“All right,” she said, “all right, now let me see. Oh, God, he could have gone anyplace. You’re on Seventy-fourth... let me see, let me see. He’ll probably try the Union Floor first. Do you know where that is, Bud?”
“Yes.”
“He’ll probably stop to hock the bag, but he can do that any place. And then he’ll head for the Union — that’s closest to where you are — and he’s bound to meet someone there who’s holding. How much of a head start does he have?”
“About a half hour.”
“Oh, then you’d better leave right away, Bud. Take a cab, will you? And when you find him, stop him — if it’s not too late. Stop him even if you have to hit him.”
“Hit...?”
“Go, Bud, please. I’ll be waiting to hear from you. Call me, won’t you? Either... either way.”
“All right,” he said. “Good-by.”
He hung up, checked his wallet to see if he had enough money for a cab, and then locked the apartment and left. He ran all the way up to Columbus Avenue and finally hailed a cab on Seventy-second Street. “Fiftieth and Sixth,” he told the cabbie, and then he sat back and tried to relax, telling himself there was nothing he could do until he found Andy. And even then, even after he found him, there might be nothing he could do. The streets were not very crowded, and he was grateful for that at least. He looked through the cab windows, watching the late-arriving executives in their gray pin stripes and black Homburgs. What had Andy been wearing? Had he taken the sports jacket with him? He hadn’t even thought to look. Did Andy have a hypodermic? No, no, he didn’t. He’d have to get that, and unauthorized possession of a hypodermic was illegal, so where... one of his friends, maybe, or maybe even his contact — what had he called him — the Man... There was a title for the son-of-a-bitch, all right. The Man, in capital letters... like God. Hell, he could get a hypodermic, no question about it. If he could get the heroin, he could get the hypo to go with it. Jesus, was it as easy as all that? Did you just go up to someone and hand him some money, and there you were? Was that all there was to it? Did he already have the stuff? Was he crouched in an alley someplace, right this minute, now, with the needle poised over his vein, the drug ready to enter his blood stream? Or would he go to an alley, no not an alley, someone’s house, maybe, or someplace where he wouldn’t look furtive or suspicious, oh, Jesus, why the hell was this all like some Grade-B melodrama, what was there about the entire subject of drugs that made it sound like purple passages from a cheap paperback? The illegality of it? In a country like America, where crime was synonymous with adventure and suspense, was that what made drug addiction sound so exotic? What the hell exotic was there about Andy? What the hell was Andy but a little man, like all the other little men who plodded to their offices every morning, the ant complex, oh, Christ, I’m getting the ant complex, but how was he any different, except that he took drugs, and did even that set him apart? If he chewed licorice or betel nut, would anyone give a good goddamn? If he—
“This it?” the cabbie asked.
“What?” He looked through the window, recognizing the drugstore on the corner. “Yes, yes right here’ll be fine,” he said.
He stepped onto the sidewalk, taking out his wallet, thinking Andy can be shooting his arm full of heroin in the time it takes me to pay off a goddamn cab driver. He paid the cabbie, and then he looked up and started down Fiftieth Street, and then he stopped cold in his tracks and did a classic double take, staring across the street.
Andy!
He saw him, and the name registered on his mind, and he opened his mouth to yell, and then he saw what Andy was doing. Andy was getting into a cab. He shook his head for a moment, as if to clear it, and then the name bubbled onto his lips, “Andy!” but the cab door slammed shut on his outburst, and he saw the cab pull away from the curb and head for Seventh Avenue. His own cab pulled away at the same instant, and he made an abortive stab at the door handle, swore, and then immediately, involuntarily, shouted, “Taxi!”
This is a goddamn Marx Brothers movie, he thought. Twelve midgets are going to climb out of the next cab that stops. Twelve midgets, each carrying hypodermic syringes. Oh, Jesus, this can’t be real.
“Taxi!” he yelled again, and a cab pulled up in front of him, and he climbed in hastily. “Follow that cab,” he said, and he almost laughed aloud at the absurdly urgent tone of his voice.
This is ridiculous, he told himself, but this is real. Either I’m crazy, or this is real. I am in reality sitting in a cab which is following another cab, and there is a drug addict in that other cab, and that addict’s name is Andy Silvera, and my name is Bud Donato, and this is all real. It’s all crazy, too, as crazy as a son-of-a-bitch, but it’s real, I’m going nuts, I must be going nuts.
He leaned forward, looking through the windshield, watching the retreating rear of Andy’s cab.
“Can’t you hurry?” he said.
“Relax,” the cabbie answered. The cabbie was used to these jerks who piled into his load like a house on fire.
“For God’s sake, don’t lose him,” Bud said.
“You going to pay the fine if I—”
“Hurry,” Bud said. “Please hurry!”
“Always rushing around, everybody always in a goddamn rush,” the cabbie said, but he sighed and pressed his foot tighter against the accelerator. There seemed to be more traffic in the streets now. Where the hell did all the traffic come from all of a sudden? All we need now is a truck coming across our path, Bud thought, just like in the movies, and we’ll squeeze past, or maybe carom up onto the sidewalk and crash through a plate-glass window and then come out with the steering wheel disconnected and in our hands, didn’t Abbott and Costello pull that routine once?
He could see Andy’s cab up ahead, and then the cab suddenly stopped, and he thought, Good, a red light, until he saw the door open and Andy stepping out. He looked past the cab and past Andy, trying to ascertain his whereabouts, and then he suddenly realized where they were. Central Park. Andy was heading for the park. He was—
“Anyplace here,” Bud said. “Pull over, can’t you?”
“With this traffic? Jesus, Mac—”
“Just let me out then. Here.” He handed the cabbie a dollar bill and shoved open the door.
“Thanks, Ma—” the cabbie said, surprised, and Bud slammed the door shut on his voice and then backed up against the metal side of the cab when another car shot past him. He gingerly danced his way to the sidewalk and then rushed to the corner, crossing Central Park South. He could see Andy up ahead now, walking briskly, just entering the park.
“Andy! Hold it!” he yelled, running across the street, trying to watch the oncoming traffic and Andy at the same time. This is insane, he told himself. This is some kind of goddamn nightmare, and I’ll wake up any minute — are my pants on? — I’ll wake up laughing to beat all hell.
“Andy!” he yelled again, and this time Andy heard him, and this time Andy stopped and turned, recognizing Bud. He seemed to hesitate for a moment, and then he whirled and began running, and then he stopped and looked back at Bud once more, and then he broke into a fast trot, running deeper into the park.
A horn tooted, and Bud pulled in his backside, almost slamming into the fender of a parked car. An old man on the sidewalk selling salted pretzels started laughing insanely, and Bud glared at him heatedly and then ran to the park entrance. He could still see Andy up ahead. Andy had stopped again, several feet away from a water fountain. He was staring across the distance that separated him and Bud, staring indecisively. And then, as if he had made up his mind for the last time, he whirled and ran swiftly, turning the bend in the path, turning. Oh, Christ, I’ll lose him, I’ll lose him around that bend.