“She was the last person to talk about herself. I think I got the idea she went to university. But it wasn’t from anything she said, it was just the crests on the book ends she has in there. She wasn’t a Niagara of information. More coffee?”
“Nope. Gotta run.” Martha walked me to the door, tried to keep a yellow cat out with her leg as she opened the screen door for me. I angled out, leaving the cat pouting on the porch.
“So long, Cooperman. If you find that tramp, tell her to remember her friend and to hell with the back rent.” That came through the screen at me as I reached the car door.
From a pay-phone in a candy store the size of a three-hole outhouse, I phoned the hospital. Frank Bushmill had been discharged. Then instead of driving back to my office by way of the high-level bridge, I went down the hill to the canal. To my right, as I approached the bridge, somewhere up in the gloom, stood the mansion erected by the canal’s builder. I guess he could stand outside on his widow’s walk at the top of the Victorian turret above the main entrance and count the profits lock in and out of the system, a bit like my father sitting behind the cash register watching the customers pull out the suits and dresses from the racks.
On the other side of the road, and on a street parallel to it, I could make out several good frame houses dating from the last century. They’d been built for the nobs of yesteryear who wanted to watch their goods move up and down the canal. Now they were full of three and four families each. They were the sort of houses you pay admission to get into at one of those pioneer villages in the States. Someday they’d be flushed out and made comfortable for the nobs again. The car went clunk, clunk, clunk over the bridge; the black water ran dark and close underneath, sliding away toward the lake. It was dark now and the night air was heavy with suphur; white froth from the papermills glowed on the surface of the water tempting the authorities to lay a legal action against the polluters. The road began to climb now, under the dark girders of the high-level bridge, circling around at the top and joining St. Andrew Street where Ontario Street made a large well-posted intersection.
At the United, the counter was clear. One of the girls was perched on a stool, her knees bracing a folded newspaper. She frowned at a crossword puzzle.
“What’s a six-letter word for Spanish wine?” she asked.
“Port,” I suggested.
“Can’t count. You going to have your usual?” I bought a paper, flipped through it, but found nothing new on any of the far-flung fronts I was trying to cover all at once. I turned to the back of the paper and began scanning the want ads. Under “Position wanted” I had begun to notice that the Beacon had started letting in the sort of ad that it would have discouraged a few years ago. I wondered whether the decent family papers were starting to get corrupted by the intellectual papers with the wild ads I’d heard about. One ad read:
WASP seeks opportunity part-time in public relations, experienced in French and Greek.
It sounded lewd to me. Maybe it’s my dirty mind.
That reminded me of Dr. Andrew Zekerman and his money-making schemes. What did he hold over Chester and Ward? What did he have on Hilda Blake? Was it connected with the death of her sister and the chemistry hot shot, Corso? I patted my pocket with the laundry ticket in it. It was the master key that was going to unlock all the hidden doors.
I paid my check and got into the car. It was early enough so the parking on the street was limited. I turned off into the lane which separated my building from the former home of a dead bank. It has been a long time since a bank went under, or belly up, as they now describe it, but the shock of seeing huge square stone letters spell out the name of a bank that can’t measure its assets in paperclips makes a fellow think. My headlights picked out other letters on the fieldstone front of the factory: “Rutledge Textiles.” The letters were large, old-fashioned and wooden, gilded and unilluminated except by the lights of my car. Above the door a plaque had been fixed into the stonework reading “Established 1868.” A dark, fortress-like place, it had been built so far from the street in order to take advantage of the hydraulic power which first ran the machines inside. Yellow light seeped from the heavily-grilled windows. I turned off the lights, got out and locked the door. The papermills were heavy on the night air even here, about twenty feet above the canal. I could hear the low rumble of whatever was going on inside the factory, as I turned and started to walk up to street level.
I’d taken only a half dozen steps from my car, when I saw two heavy figures walking toward me. I knew they were big because with each step they took, they blocked out more of the streetlight coming from behind them. As they got closer it was becoming a very dark alley. I didn’t like the way they were closing on me; black unfriendly silhouettes. I turned back, thinking to make for the wooden stairs that led down to the front entrance of Rutledge’s. The steps were better lit than the alley, I thought I might do better in the light. Coming up the wooden steps at about the same speed as the two palookas were walking toward me, but with a big unfriendly grin on his kisser, was another out of the same package. He was wearing a light ski-jacket and his muscles made the cloth stretch tight in far too many places. He was looking right at me, coming up steadily. I thought of getting back into my car. Even if I couldn’t get it backed up and out of there, I could at least lock the windows and doors. Not a very good idea. Not only were these three not very respectful of private property, from the looks of them, but I could see on the ground a dozen or so ways to break a car window open. Besides, I knew I wouldn’t even have time to get my keys out before they had me. My only chance of escaping them seemed to be the well-lit front door of Rutledge’s. Once inside, I thought, I would be safe. But I couldn’t head there directly. The guy on the steps would be waiting for me having caught his breath from running down only a dozen steps. No, I had to allow him to get to the top before I made my move.
I walked past my car, slowly, as though I hadn’t anything better to do than to examine the back of my office building. I looked over my shoulder, casually, I hoped. The two from the alley had turned after me. The one in the ski-jacket was about three steps from the top of the stairs.
To my right, the bank sloped away down the factory and the canal. To my left, stood the haggle-toothed backs of the stores of St. Andrew Street, some longer than others, some with their back ends supported by steel girders. Everywhere I looked I saw the black metal of fire escapes hanging just out of reach. Ahead of me the path narrowed. I had about a hundred yards to go before my way was finally blocked by two large bulk loaders. I saw what I would have to do. I would continue to walk slowly until I got to the loaders, then cut down the bank where I would try to lose myself in the bushes and stunted trees. When my way was clear, I’d head towards the front door of the factory. Not a great plan, but my own. Once behind the door of the factory, I would be safe enough. There would be people, a telephone, maybe even a few security men.
I had already begun to think I was sitting pretty, when I was sapped by the sudden thought that the front door might not be open at this hour. I could hear the low murmur of the machines. There had to be a good chance that the door would not be locked. I tried praying, like the time I tried to rescue my Saturday allowance, which had fallen through a grating, with a wad of gum on the end of a piece of string. On that occasion, now that I thought of it, a passing stranger asked what the trouble was and when I told him, gave me the money from his wallet. I didn’t see him standing near the door of Rutledge Textiles.
I made my move suddenly. I leapt from the packed earth of the path over the edge of the embankment and soon I was rolling among the empty wine bottles, broken glass, damp cardboard and other garbage of the slope. I came to rest against a tree trunk, and nearly lost an eye trying to climb through the thicket of fresh shoots that grew out of a nearby stump. The ground was all give, with no sure bottom to it. Sticks, stones and mulching leaves were hard going. There was nothing sure to get my feet on. Every step was its own hard-luck story of scraped ankles, twisted knees, ripped trousers and gouged eyes.