He turned back. The girl was getting out from behind the table, pale but calm. Rome saw Larrimore, after a frozen pause, run heavily for the arched doorway that led into the bar. He did not look back at the girl.
Rome took the girl’s arm and hurried her toward the door. He raised his voice. “Clear this room, folks. We may have an explosion in here. Get moving.”
Rome pushed the girl hurriedly toward the front door. He cleared the bar, herding everyone through the main door. They stood out in the night, awed, chattering, looking uneasily at the Sutton Inn.
A big man in a white jacket with a red carnation in the lapel took Rome aside. “I’m Proctor, the manager here. What’s the idea of this?”
“You heard about the bomb.”
“Yes, of course. Is it in that girl’s purse?”
“I didn’t look. It could be.”
“What kind of a police operation is this? Why didn’t you look?”
“My friend, if it’s there, it’s due to go. I couldn’t look without moving it. I couldn’t move it without helping it along. I’m no hero.”
“If this is a false alarm there’s going to be some trouble.”
Brian Rome walked away from him. He saw the Kimball girl and Larrimore standing a dozen feet from the others. He went over to them. “Miss Kimball, I didn’t want to waste time asking questions in there. Did you leave the Shannon Building at about five?”
“Yes, I did.”
Rome could hear Proctor apologizing to the ousted customers, telling them to forget about their dinner checks.
“Was a woman knocked down getting out of the elevator you were on?”
“Why, yes! Some man in an awful hurry knocked her down.”
“Do you know where that man was standing in the elevator?”
“I think he must have been standing behind me. He pushed me out of the way when he left.”
“Could he have put anything in your shoulder bag?”
“I guess he could have.”
Proctor came over. “Can we stop this nonsense now?”
“We’ll wait a while,” Rome said.
Larrimore moved closer to Rome. “I’d like to go in and take a look in that purse, officer.”
“Don’t be a damn fool,” Rome said.
“Somebody should make sure. Then we wouldn’t be standing out here like a bunch of...”
“We’re making sure by standing out here. Nobody is going in. If you’re trying to show off for the girl, forget it.”
Larrimore looked toward the main entrance. Rome saw that he was biting his lip. He looked tense and nervous.
“I think I left my lighter in there,” he said, much too loudly, and started toward the door. Brian Rome caught him just as he reached the door. Larrimore struggled, a bit weakly for so large a man. Just as Rome started to haul him back, the explosion came. It was like a deep heavy cough. It made a pressure on Rome’s ears. After it was over the tinkle of glass falling from the windows seemed to last a long time. Rome ran inside with the manager at his heels. The table and bench and wall were scorched and blackened. Plaster had fallen from the ceiling in two small places. Every window was blown out.
The tablecloth and the upholstery of the bench smoldered. Proctor brought a heavy fire extinguisher and deftly trained the stream on the smoking fabric. When he was through he looked at Rome and smiled and flushed.
“Sorry I was such a damn fool.”
“I could have been wrong. I thought I was wrong.”
Brian Rome walked out to the car and called in. Then he hung the hand mike on the dash and just sat there. From the shadows he heard the heavy insistent voice of Larrimore. He got out of the car and walked toward the voice. Jane Ann Kimball stood with her back against the building.
“Look,” Larrimore said, “you’re upset. I’ll take you home.”
“Go away, Bob. Please. Just go away.”
“You haven’t any right to treat me like this! Okay, I was scared. But I didn’t stay scared. I was ready to go back in there.”
“Just go home, Bob. Go away.”
“You’re not going to get away with it,” Larrimore said. He took the girl’s arm and began to pull her forcibly toward the parking lot.
“Hold it,” Rome said. “I have some questions to ask Miss Kimball.”
“Well, ask them and get it over with.”
“I’m taking her downtown with me, Larrimore.”
“I’ll drive her down.”
“Sorry. You run along.”
“This is pretty damn high-handed.”
“Run along.”
Larrimore looked at them indignantly and then strode off. They heard his car door slam. He drove out of the lot onto the boulevard.
“Thank you,” the girl said.
“You better go back inside and phone your mother before the police reporters get here and tie the phones up. She’s worried about you.”
The girl went in obediently. He leaned against the car and smoked a cigarette. She came back out in three or four minutes.
“I shouldn’t have tried to tell her that it was in my purse. She gets confused. I’ll have to tell her when I get home. Do we go downtown now, Lieutenant?”
“No. No more questions. We know all the answers.”
“Except... except why a man would want to do that to me.”
“We won’t ever know that.”
“He didn’t even know me. I... I better call a taxi.”
“Get in. I’ll take you home.”
He turned out onto the boulevard, driving slowly. After a long time she said, “I haven’t even thanked you.”
“Then go ahead.”
“Well... thanks.”
“You’re welcome. Now that’s over.” She laughed, with just the faintest afterimage of hysteria in her tone, and then became silent again.
When she spoke again her voice was defensive. “It wasn’t that I wanted him to shield me with his body or fall on the bomb or anything. It’s just... he talked all evening about undying love and so on. He wants to marry me. Then he ran like a rabbit. I ought to try to understand, instead of feeling... well, contemptuous.”
He stopped in front of the apartment. He felt as if a grayness, a lifelessness had slowly seeped through him. The girl was not a mystic creature, not the magic one he had imagined. She was tall and pretty, and she had her own troubles. They had merely met in this odd way, and it would properly end here. She would be grateful that he had saved her, and had in saving her taught her something about Larrimore that she had sensed but not seen clearly. He knew that he in turn would think of her — not often, and not as a special person, not as the very special person he had thought about before he had found her — but rather as a strange police problem solved during an evening when fatigue had distorted the look of everything.
They got out of the car and she said, “Thanks again, Lieutenant.”
He took her extended hand. “I’m glad we didn’t miss.”
“So am I. Well... goodnight.”
He said goodnight to her and watched her go into the lighted foyer. She stood silhouetted against the light. She stood there, alive and whole and unmarked.
He wished in that moment that it could come out a better way, that somehow this could be the girl to ease loneliness. He thought he might see her again, take her out. She could hardly refuse. Then he shrugged and got back into the car. When it happened, you should know at once. And it had not yet happened. He drove slowly down through the city toward headquarters, toward the reports to be filled out, toward the good time of leaving with Dumont and having coffee and sitting quietly and thinking with quiet satisfaction of how, once more, they had done a job.