Serenade

  "O.K., we'll take you to it. You want a barber?"

  All I had in my pocket, after giving her the money was silver, but I counted it. There were a couple of dollars of it. "Yeah, send him in."

  He went out, and the cop that was guarding took me down to the washroom. There was a shower there, so I stripped, had a bath, and put on the other clothes. The barber came in and shaved me. I put the evening clothes in the traveling case. They had brought me a hat, and I put that on. Then we went back to the room we had left.

  A little after nine I was still pounding on it in my mind, what I could do, and it came to me that one thing I could do was get a lawyer. I remembered Sholto. "I'd like to make a phone call. How about that?"

  "You're allowed one call."

  We went out in the hall, where there was a row of phones against the wall. I looked up Sholto's number, rang it, and got him on the line. "Oh hello, I was wondering if you'd call. I see you're in a little trouble."

  "Yeah, and I want you."

  "I'll be right down."

  In about a half hour he showed up. He listened to me. About all I could tell him, with the cop sitting there, was that I wanted to get out, but that seemed to be all he wanted to know. "It's probably just a matter of bond."

  "What am I held for? Do you know that?"

  "Material witness."

  "Oh, I see."

  "As soon as I can see a bondsman--that is, unless you want to put up cash bond yourself."

  "How much is it?"

  "I don't know. At a guess, I'd say five thousand."

  "Which way is quickest?"

  "Oh, money talks."

  He had a blank check, and I wrote out a check for ten thousand. "All right, that ought to cover it. I think we can get action in about an hour."

  Around ten o'clock he was back, and he, and the cop, and I went over to court. It took about five minutes. An assistant district attorney was there, they set bail at twenty-five hundred, and after Sholto put it up, we went out and got in a cab. He passed over the rest of the cash, in hundred-dollar bills. I handed back ten of them. "Retainer."

  "Very well, thanks."

  The first thing I wanted to know was whether they had got her yet. When he said they hadn't, I grabbed an early afternoon paper a boy shoved in the window, and read it. It was smeared all over the front page, with my picture, and Winston's picture, but no picture of her. That was one break. As well as I could remember, she hadn't had any picture taken since she had been in the country. It was something we hadn't got around to. There was one story giving Winston's career, another telling about me, and a main story that told what had happened. Everything I had said to the detective was in there, and the big eight-column streamer called her the "Sword-Killer," and said she was "Sought." I was still reading when we pulled up at Radio City.

  When we got up to his office I began going over what I had told the detective, the illegal entry stuff and all, and why I had said what I had, but pretty soon he stopped me. "Listen, get this straight. Your counsel is not your co-conspirator in deceiving the police. He's your representative at the bar, to see that you get every right that the law entitles you to, and that your case, or her case, or whatever case he takes, is presented as well as it can be. What you told the detective is none of my affair, and it's much better, at this time, that I know nothing of it. When the time comes, I'll ask for information, and you had better tell me the truth. But at the moment, I prefer not to know of any misrepresentation you've made. From now on, by the way, an excellent plan, in dealing with the police, would be to say nothing."

  "I get it."

  He kept walking around his office, then he picked up the paper and studied that a while, then walked around some more. "There's something I want to warn you about."

  "Yeah. What?"

  "It seemed to me I got you out very easily."

  "I didn't do anything."

  "If they had wanted to hold you, there were two or three charges, apparently, they could have brought against you. All bailable offenses, but they could have kept you there quite a while. They could have made trouble. Also, the bond was absurdly low."

  "I don't quite follow you."

  "They haven't got her. They may have her, tucked away in some station-house in the Bronx, they may be holding her there and saying nothing for fear of habeas corpus proceedings, but I don't think so. They haven't got her, and it's quite possible they've let you out so they can locate her through you."

  "Oh, now I see what you mean."

  "You going back to your apartment?"

  "I don't know. I suppose so."

  "...You'll be watched. There'll probably be a tail on you day and night. Your phone may be tapped."

  "Can they do that?"

  "They can, and they do. There may be a dictaphone in there by now, and they're pretty good at thinking of places to put it without your finding it, or suspecting it. It's a big apartment house, and that makes it all the easier for them. I don't know what her plans are, and apparently you don't. But it's a bad case. If they catch her, I'll do everything I can for her, but I warn you it's a bad case. It's much better than she not be located...Be careful."

  "I will."

  "The big danger is that she phone you. Whatever you do, the second she rings up, warn her that she's being overheard."

  "I'll remember that."

  "You're being used as a decoy."

  "I'll watch my step."

  When I got up to Twenty-second Street a flock of reporters were there, and I stuck with them for about ten minutes. I thought it was better to answer their questions some kind of way, and get rid of them, than have them trying to get to me all day. When I got up to the apartment the phone was ringing, and a newspaper was on the line, offering me five thousand dollars for a signed story of what I knew about it, and about her, and I said no, and hung up. It started to ring again, and I flashed the board and told them not to put through any more incoming calls, or let anybody up. The door buzzer sounded. I answered, and it was Harry and Tony, on hand to tell me what they knew. I peeled off a hundred-dollar bill as they started to talk, handed it over, and then remembered about the dictaphone. We went out in the hall, and they whispered it. She didn't leave right after it happened. She went to the apartment, packed, and changed her dress, and about five or ten minutes later buzzed twice, like I had told her to. Tony had the car up there all that time, waiting for her, and he opened, pulled her in, and dropped her down to the basement. They went out by the alley, and when they came out on Twenty-third Street he got her a cab, and she left. That was the last he saw of her, and he didn't tell it to the police. While he was doing that, Harry was on the board in the lobby, and didn't pay much attention when he saw the fags going out, and neither did the guy from the Immigration Service. How the cops found it out they didn't know, but they thought the fags must have bumped into one outside, or got scared and thought they better tell it anyway, or something. Tony said the cops were already in Winston's apartment before she left.

  They went down and I went in the apartment again. With the phone cut off it was quiet enough now, but I began looking for the dictaphone. I couldn't find anything. I looked out the window to see if anybody was watching the building. There wasn't anybody out there. I began to think Sholto was imagining things.

  Around two o'clock I got hungry and went out. The reporters were still down there, and almost mobbed me, but I jumped in a cab and told him to drive to Radio City. As soon as he got to Fourth Avenue I had him cut over to Second again, and come down, and got out at a restaurant around Twenty-third Street. I had something to eat and took down the number of the pay phone. When I got back to the apartment house, I whispered to the boy on the board if a Mr. Kugler called, to put him through. I went upstairs and called the restaurant phone. "Is Mr. Kugler there?"

  "Hold the line, I'll see."

  I held the line, and in a minute he was back. "No Mr. Kugler here now."

  "When he comes in ask him to call Mr. Sharp. S-H-A-R-P.
"

  "Yes sir, I'll tell him."

  I hung up. In about twenty minutes the phone rang. "Mr. Sharp? This is Kugler."

  "Oh, hello, Mr. Kugler. About those opera passes I promised you, I'm afraid I'll have to disappoint you for the time being. You may have read in the paper I'm having a little trouble now. Can you let me put that off till next week."

  "Oh, all right, Mr. Sharp. Any time you say."

  "Terribly sorry, Mr. Kugler."

  I hung up. I knew then that Sholto knew what he was talking about. I didn't know any Mr. Kugler.

  Harry kept bringing up new editions as they came out, and the stuff that was coming in for me. They still hadn't got her. They found the taxi driver that rode her from Twenty-third Street. He said he took her down to Battery Park, she paid him with a five-dollar bill, so he had to go in the subway to get change, and then went off, carrying the valise. He told how Tony had flagged him, and Tony took another trip down to headquarters. It said the cops were considering the possibility she had jumped in the river, and that it might be dragged. The stuff that was coming in was a flock of telegrams, letters, and cards from every kind of nut you ever heard of, and opera fan, and shyster lawyer. But a couple of those wires weren't from nuts. One was from Panamier, saying the broadcast would temporarily be carried on by somebody else. And one was from Luther, saying no doubt I preferred not to have any more opera appearances until I got my affairs straightened out. The last afternoon edition had a story about Pudinsky. I felt my mouth go cold. He was the one person that might know about Winston and me. If he did he didn't say anything. He said what a fine guy Winston was, what a loyal friend, and defended him for calling up the Immigration people. He said Winston only had my best interests at heart.

  I went out to eat around seven o'clock, dodged the reporters again, and had a steak in a place off Broadway. My picture was in every paper in town, but nobody seemed to notice me. One reason was, most of those pictures had been taken while I was in Hollywood, and I had put on a lot of weight since then. I wasn't exactly fat when I arrived from Mexico. Then I had a little trouble with my eyes, and had got glasses. I ate what I could, walked around a little, then around nine o'clock came back to the apartment: All the time I was walking I kept looking back, to see if I was followed. I tried not to, but I couldn't help it. In the cab, I kept twisting around, to see what was back of us.

  There was another mountain of stuff when I came in, but I didn't bother to open it. I read back all the newspaper stuff again, and then there didn't seem to be anything to do but to go to bed. I lay there, first trying to think and then trying to sleep. I couldn't do either one. Then after a while I did drop off. I woke up in a cold sweat with moans coming out of my mouth. The whole day had been like some kind of a fever dream, chasing in and out of cabs, dodging reporters, trying to shake the police, if they were around, reading papers. Now for the first time I seemed to get it through my head the spot we were in. She was wanted for murder, and if they caught her they would burn her in the chair.

  What waked me up the next morning was the phone. Harry was on the board. "I know you said not to call, Mr. Sharp, but there's a guy on the line, he kept calling all day yesterday, and now he's calling again, he says he's a friend of yours, and it's important, and he's got to talk to you, and I thought I better tell you."

  "Who is he?"

  "He won't say, but he said I should say the word Acapulco, something like that, to you, and you would know who it was."

  "Put him through."

  I hoped it might be Conners, and sure enough when I heard that "Is that you, lad?" I knew it was. He was pretty short. "I've been trying to reach you. I've called you, and wired you, and called again, and again--"

  "I cut the phone calls off, and I haven't opened the last bunch of wires. You'd have been through in a second if they had told me. I want to see you, I've got to see you--"

  "You have indeed. I have news."

  "Stop! Don't say a word. I warn you that my phone is tapped, and everything you say is being heard."

  "That occurred to me. That's why I refused to give my name. How can I get to you?"

  "Wait a minute. Wait a minute Will you call me in five minutes? I'll have to figure a way--"

  "In five minutes it is."

  He hung up, and I tried to think of some way we could meet, and yet not tip off the cops over the phone where it would be. I couldn't think. He had said he had news, and my head was just spinning around. Before I even had half an idea the phone rang again. "Well, lad, what's the word?"

  "I haven't any. They're following me too, that's the trouble. Wait a minute, wait a minute--"

  "I have something that might work."

  "What is it?"

  "Do you remember the time signature of the serenade you first sang to me?"

  "...Yes, of course."

  "Write those figures down, the two of them, one beside the other. Now write them again, the same way. You should have a number of four figures."

  I jumped up, and got a pen, and wrote the numbers on the memo pad. It was the Don Giovanni serenade, and time signature is 6/8. I wrote 6868..."All right, I've got it."

  "Now subtract from it this number." He gave me a number to subtract. I did it. "That is the number of the pay telephone I'm at. The exchange number is Circle 6. Go out to another pay telephone and call me there."

  "In twenty minutes. As soon as I get dressed."

  I jumped into my clothes, ran up to a drugstore, and called. Whether they were around the booth, listening to me, I didn't care. They couldn't hear what was coming in at the other end. "Is that you, lad?"

  "Yes. What news?"

  "I have her. She's going down the line with me. I'm at the foot of Seventeenth Street, and I slip my hawsers at midnight tonight. If you wish to see her before we leave, come aboard some time after eleven, but take care you're not detected."

  "How did you find her?"

  "I didn't. She found me. She's been aboard since yesterday, if you had answered your phone."

  "I'll be there. I'll thank you then."

  I went back to the apartment, cut out the fooling around, and began to think. I checked over every last thing I had to do that day, then made a little program in my mind of what I was to do first, and what I was to do after that. I knew I would be tailed, and I planned it all on that basis. The first thing I did was to go up to Grand Central, and look up trains for Rye. I found there was a local leaving around ten that night. I came out of there, went in a store and bought some needles and thread. Then I went down to the bank. I still had over six thousand dollars in hundred-dollar bills, but I needed more than that. I drew out ten thousand, half of it in thousand-dollar bills, twenty-five hundred more in hundreds, and the rest in fives and tens, with about fifty ones. I stuffed all that in my pockets, and went home with it. I remembered about the two shirts I had worn out of the hotel in Mexico, and pulled one just like it. I took two pairs of drawers, put one pair inside the other, sewed the bottoms of each leg together, then quilted that money in, all except the ones, and some fives and tens, that I put in my pockets. I put the drawers on. They felt a little heavy, but I could get my trousers over them without anything showing. Tony came up. They had got out of him how he had called the taxi, and he was almost crying because he had squealed. I told him it didn't make any difference.

  When dinner time came, instead of going out I had something sent in. Then I packed. I shoved a stack of newspapers and heavy stuff into a traveling case, and locked it. When I dressed I put on a pair of gray flannel pants I had left over from Hollywood, and over my shirt a dark red sweater. I put on a coat, and over that a light topcoat. I picked out a gray hat, shoved it on the side of my head. I looked at myself in the mirror and I looked like what I wanted to look like, a guy dressed up to take a trip. After drawing the money, I knew they would expect that. That was why I had planned it the way I had.

  At nine thirty, I called Tony, had him take my bag down and call a cab, shook hands with him, an
d called out to the driver, "Grand Central." We turned into Second Avenue. Two cars started up, down near Twenty-first Street, and one left the curb just behind us as we turned west on Twenty-third. When we turned into Fourth, they turned too. When we got to Grand Central they were still with us, and five guys got out, none of them looking at me. I gave my bag to a redcap, went to the ticket office, bought a ticket for Rye, then went out to the newsstand and bought a paper. When I mixed with the crowd at the head of the ramp I started to read it. Three of the five were there too, all of them reading papers.

  The redcap put me aboard, but I didn't let him pick the car. I did that myself. It was a local, all day-coaches, but I wanted one without vestibule. It happened to be the smoker, so that looked all right. I took a seat near the door and went on reading my paper. The three took seats further up, but one of them reversed his seat and sat so he could see me. I didn't even look up as we pulled out, didn't look up as we pulled into a Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street, didn't look up as we pulled out. But when the train had slid about twenty feet, I jumped up, left my bag where it was, walked three steps to the car platform, and skipped off. I never stopped. I zipped right out to a taxi, jumped in, told him to drive to Grand Central, and to step on it. He started up. I kept my eyes open. Nobody was behind us, that I could see.

  When he turned into upper Park, I tapped on the glass and said I was too late for my train, that he should go to Eighth Avenue and Twenty-third Street. He nodded and kept on. I took off the hat, the topcoat, and the coat and laid them in a little pile on the seat. When we got to Eighth and Twenty-third I got out, took out a five-dollar bill. "I left some stuff in the car, two coats and a hat. Take them up to Grand Central and check them to leave them. Leave the three checks at the information desk, in my name, Mr. Henderson. There's no hurry. Any time tonight will do."