Delicate Ape (18 page)

The driver said, “Coming with me or you going to just stand there mooning, Mister?”

Piers turned, grasping at the straw of friendliness. “Yes.” He gave a last backward glance at the doors where she had stood and where she was no longer seen. He climbed back into the cab. Why had she chosen the Metropolitan? To continue the game she’d started, to get hold of herself after the sad sound of memory and love turned to bitterness? To see the pictures?

“Where to?”

Piers considered. “Grand Central.”

The cab started. The driver winked again at his mirror. “Better get that lipstick off your face before you take the train, Mister.”

“Thanks.” He took his handkerchief and rubbed at his mouth.

“If it smells,” the driver volunteered, “get you a beer, rub some on your mouth.”

“I’ll remember that.” Piers put the handkerchief away. “Do you know Nick Pulaski?”

The driver considered. “I used to know a Mildred Pulaski once. Worked in a bakery in the Bronx. Is she any relation?”

“I only know Nick,” Piers said.

“Might be his sister. They was a big family. Lots of Pulaskis in New York. She was a pretty good-looking girl. Don’t know what happened to her. I got changed over to Manhattan. Make more money in Manhattan. The Bronx only tips a dime.”

Piers said, “How do you feel about peace?”

“What do you mean?”

“About peace. War and peace.”

“There’s not going to be any more wars.” The driver’s face was complacent. “The next big shot that tries to start a war is going to get his head bashed in like a cantaloupe.”

“That’s the way I feel,” Piers said. “But the Germans want the International troops withdrawn. They want to build aeroplanes again. After that guns, and munitions to put in them—”

The driver was vociferously obscene about the Germans.

“I agree,” Piers said. No man wanted war. No man had ever wanted war. But the apes smashed stones down on the heads of those things groping through the jungles, watched them turn to rend each other. And the apes scratched their behinds with amused fingers, a substitute for thought.

At 50th the driver said, “I think there’s a cab following.”

Piers slipped down lower on the upholstery. “Can you see who’s in it?”

“No.”

She had chosen the Metropolitan. Because there would be someone to signal there? She knew he had lost his pursuer. It was important to pick Piers up again.

“I want to see who’s in it. Any ideas?”

“Are you afraid of getting clipped?”

“No, I’m not.” Death was stalking him. And he wasn’t afraid. He had a mission to perform; he was certain of carrying it through. He had to carry it through because there was no one else to take over.

“Then I could turn down a side street and when there’s no traffic stop. But I don’t want no trouble. No shooting.”

Piers said, “I don’t carry a gun.”

“I don’t want no corpses in my back seat neither.”

“I’ll duck.” He smiled. “See what you can do”—he re-read the identification tag—“Willie.”

“Always a sucker.” Willie swung west on 47th. “But I’m curious. And obliging.” He reported, crossing Eighth Avenue, “It’s following all right. Is it her husband?”

“It isn’t a woman,” Piers said. “It’s peace.”

“Are you nuts?” The face was screwed up.

“I’m not nuts. No, Willie. It’s peace. The Germans don’t want me to show up at the Peace Conclave.”

“Well, why didn’t you say so?” His ugly face stuck forward. “I got a gun. Got a license for it, too.”

Piers said softly, “Don’t use it. Unless he attempts something funny.” His voice sharpened. “If he does, empty both barrels in the son of a bitch.”

“Don’t worry.”

The cab lost speed. “Don’t want them to know we’re tricking,” Willie reported. He stopped on the other side of Tenth, in front of a frowsty tenement with kids skating and scrapping on the sidewalk.

Piers shifted to watch the following cab. It had slowed before realizing the maneuver. Now it attempted speed but the passenger was visible as it passed. It was the moon face.

“Recognize him?” Willie asked.

“Yes. German.”

“What do we do now?”

“If you can get away from him—” He didn’t know where. “Grand Central.” It was as safe as any place. The Astor was known and the Plaza. He’d have to find a new hole. He didn’t dare use the Lucerne after taking Morgen there. Yet Grand Central wasn’t safe; it could hide too many enemies.

“I’ll get away. It may cost you.”

“I can pay.” Piers took two tens, handed them over. “If it’s more, all right.”

“I wasn’t doubting you could pay,” Willie said with belligerent ears. “I just didn’t know how far you were willing to go.”

“All the way.”

“That’s all I wanted to know.” He made a U turn, rolled out of the street the wrong way. Piers didn’t follow the labyrinthine trail. He sank back and rested. It must have been Morgen who set them on him again. No one else could.

They were somewhere among warehouses when Willie asked, “You in a bad spot?”

“Desperate.”

“If you want a hideout, I could maybe help you.”

“I’ve been trying to think of one. I have no friends.”

“Well, it’s my brother-in-law. He got in some trouble—he’s an Eye-talian—they’re hot-blooded. We didn’t want Josie to marry him but you know how girls are, with him flashing a big car and she’d been working in a laundry. It wasn’t murder, the guy didn’t die. Anyhow he’s hiding out. We could put you in with him. It’s safe.”

Piers repeated as if the word were in a foreign tongue. “Safe.”

“I can tell you that, it’s safe. Me and Josie run in every day or so—bring him food and the papers and a bottle—nobody’d ever find you there.”

Piers asked, “I couldn’t go in and out?”

“No, sir.” The driver shook his head with force. “No, you couldn’t do that. You might lead someone to Paulie. But you’d be safe.”

“I’m sorry.” He was. A place to sleep without fear, beside a criminal. “I’d have to be free to come and go.”

Willie’s head was doleful. “That’s too bad. You’d be safe with Paulie. Grand Central?”

He looked at his watch. After three. He said, “No. If we’re clear, take me to Central Park. Uptown, around a Hundred-and-tenth will be all right. Make it the West Side.”

Willie cocked an eye at him. “Okay,” was all he said.

There was nothing else he could do at the moment unless he chose to walk into the arms of pursuers. Willie set him down above 110th. The cabbie said, “Wait a minute.” He took a dingy card from his pocket and with a wetted stub of pencil printed on it. “If you need help again, you call up this number and ask for Willie. If it gets too hot for you I’ll pick you up and take you where Paulie is. It’d be better to stay inside than get bumped off.”

Piers said, “Thanks.” He put the card in his wallet, watched the reluctant cabman drive away.

He walked up the hill, away from the whir of tires on the drives. There was no sound where he rested but the play of children, a nursemaid humming an old song. Only one day to go; from now until tomorrow’s sundown. He must remain free, and alive for that long. He was the only barrier between the success of the apes and peace.

His death had been decreed. Morgen had warned beneath her breath. Because she knew if he came to them tonight, he would die? But she also knew he would not come. Or had her life with Hugo blinded her to the fact that there were men to whom other things were more important than ambition, greed, revenge? On the chance he did come, she would have to report the presumptive sale of his honor to the others. They would believe; they knew man only in their own ape image. Gordon would be told how small he was.

His death was more important to them than the papers now that Gordon was named, now that Anstruther was given up as lost. But for one factor. They couldn’t know but that the documents would be automatically passed on to another if he were eliminated. They didn’t know how alone he was, how helpless. Because of that, they would allow him to dangle a little longer in this life before they snuffed him out. They would prefer the treachery of paying a price before the kill. They could afford a few more hours.

There was yet the final move before tomorrow, the retrieving of the memoranda. He would be trailed threefold when he went for them. Unless Willie could help him out. He would recover the papers. True, he would have no voice in the Conclave; Gordon would see to that. Yet if David came tonight, if he could be taken to Fabian, he might yet have a chance. And if David didn’t come—voice or not, he would attend the Conclave. The galleries were open to the people. The people could see but the people could not speak. If he could do nothing else, he could give Anstruther’s words to the people, there among them. He would make the people speak.

He wasn’t beaten. He wouldn’t despair. His voice would be the voice of Anstruther and he would be heard. He had only fear to fear. It was fear which had placed him in this far corner of the park alone. Fear or wisdom. Fear that even now, Morgen, in scorn of his warning, would be baiting the trap. Fear that if he didn’t attend the proposed meeting, he would be carried there by force.

That was his only fear. Not of death, for he would not die until his time for death was given. But to be made captive, forced to divulge the whereabouts of the papers. He had no fine ideas of his bravery; there had been tortures divined of evil in the Last War which would compel a braver man than he to talk. He must remain free.

Strength was returning in the comparative peace of afternoon in Central Park. If he could but sleep here this night, under the stars. He couldn’t. He would have to return to the room which hung above Broadway, return and wait there with his last faint hope of Fabian.

When the sun was low he began to walk, southward, toward the interlocking tower of buildings. He didn’t know the miles but it was good to be on his feet, moving. He walked the length of the park and he wasn’t tired but he was hungry, a good needful hunger. If he were to be hunted this night, in hiding tomorrow, he would at least have the strength in him of dining well. The vermilion borders of a Longchamps bannered and he went in, but he couldn’t taste the food he ordered. He kept watching for someone watching him. He saw no one. It would be ironic if, now that he was prepared for flight, the shadows should be withdrawn. His importance nullified by the solidifying of Gordon’s position. No use in fathering that wish.

He wouldn’t return to the Astor until an hour when he could slip in unnoticed, unseen. He walked to Fifth, caught a downtown bus. He could ride under the distant stars in the cool of the evening, forget need of plans for a little. He wasn’t the only New Yorker with the idea of riding the stars in spring. The top deck was filled. He selected a seat downstairs near the rear door to watch for a descending passenger. He picked up an evening tabloid discarded there, began going over the columns for a possible item on Fabian. His head bent closer to the gossip column.

He read the lines twice and anger was red in him. A pairing of names. Bianca Anstruther and Hugo von Eynar. The sly insinuation that Gordon was definitely relieved over a broken betrothal. The devilish hint that wedding bells might open the Conclave. He read the notice again and he didn’t believe it more than gossip but the signature was that of a man presumed by himself and his public to be omniscient. Wedding bells couldn’t mean Gordon and Morgen. She was Caesar’s wife. It could mean only that Gordon had given the Anstruther child into the unclean hands of Hugo.

He crushed the paper tight in his hand as he pushed the button, flung himself from the bus. He was in the 30’s. He strode uptown, not wasting time standing for a cab. He’d attend that meeting tonight. He didn’t care if it did mean walking into their trap; he’d been in other of their traps and escaped. This violation was not to be allowed. He’d talked a lot of words about fighting for peace; no longer must they be empty. The disposal of Bianca might have nothing to do with peace but she was all that remained of Anstruther.

This first blow against Hugo would be the preliminary skirmish before the battle for destruction of Germany’s wicked plan. But it would count. Hugo should know tonight that all the cards were in Piers’ hand, that he intended, despite Gordon, despite Evanhurst, despite Fabian, to play them tomorrow.

At 42nd there was an empty cab waiting and he ordered savagely, “Waldorf Astoria.” Only when he was standing at the hotel desk did he know that Hugo wouldn’t be lounging here waiting for him. It was too early. The clerk repeated, “Mr. von Eynar is not in.”

He set out again, still clutching the paper, caught another cab. “The Plaza.” He’d track him through the accustomed haunts. He gave the bellboy a bill and pointed to the Persian Room. “Find out if Hugo von Eynar is in there.”

“You want to see him?”

“Yes, I want to see him.”

“What name, sir?”

Piers stared at the empty-faced boy. “John Smith.” He laughed.

The boy returned without Hugo. Piers went to the desk, asked, “Will you see if Hugo von Eynar is with Lord Evanhurst?”

The clerk stated, “Lord Evanhurst is in Washington.”

He turned on his heel. Once more and then he’d have to start guessing. He signaled the first cab. “The Astor.” The crawling delay in the side streets, surfeited with theater traffic, was beyond enduring. He paid off and he strode the remaining blocks, cut across Broadway heedless of the pinwheels of traffic. He saw none of the painted couples in the lobby, striding out for the bar. He heard nothing until he was stopped by words, by a big lump of a man in his path.

Cassidy was curious. “Where’ve you been?”

It was the first realization he had that he was walking back into the surveillance which he had carefully cleared. At the moment it didn’t matter. He said, “I’ll tell you all about it after I see—”

Cassidy didn’t let him pass. “I got something to tell you first.”

Piers’ eyes saw Cassidy then and he saw the determination in the loose face. His hand tightened over the newspapers. He said, “Please. I just want a few moments with Hugo von Eynar and then I’ll—”

“Von Eynar isn’t in there.”