Power, The (18 page)

Read Power, The Online

Authors: Frank M. Robinson

BOOK: Power, The
10.52Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
Every little imperfection magnified a hundred-fold. Every little fault exaggerated out of all proportion.
Hart!
he thought.
Somewhere in the crowds behind him, giving him the special guided tour of the city. Somehow he would have to shake him … .
He stopped and looked at the display in an out-of-season fruit store and tried to blot Hart out of his mind. The apples in the window weighed a pound a piece and the grapefruit were as big as a boy’s head and the plums looked as large as oranges. A clerk was lettering a sign on the inside of the glass with white wash. The sign read:
Had enough?
He blinked and turned away. An empty alley where the delivery trucks could come up to the service entrances. A quick dodge down it and maybe into the store’s rear entrance …
He was two steps into the alley when he suddenly caught the absence of any pressure on him, the watchful waiting. The
expectant
waiting. Up the alley and he would be all alone. Death would be waiting for him at the end of it. Sudden and quick this time and just as final as John Olson’s had been.
He turned away from the alley and it was like walking in glue. Hart had insinuated himself into partial control. He staggered and people on the sidewalk stared at him, their faces carefully blank or curious or filled with disgust. Then he was back on the walk and the contact was broken.
Somewhere, a mental shrug.
I’ll have to watch it. People will stare and then some old biddy will say, “Mr. Policeman, look at that man! Isn’t that terrible?” And then a cop will run me in and five will get you ten that this time I won’t be lucky.
He walked past a novelty shop where a man was printing up headlines on phony front pages. A pause to watch the man take the paper off the bed of type and paste it in the window.
It was a two-line banner.
IT’S A LOUSY WORLD
ISN’T IT, TANNER?
 
A lousy world. Adam Hart’s world would be so much neater, so much better organized, people would be so much happier … .
He had to get away!
He ran across State Street on the tag end of a green light, cutting off most of the crowd behind him. Into the corner Walgreen’s and past the lunch counter. Something tugged at his mind and he glanced at the menu a high-school girl was holding. There were the usual late-evening specials listed and a small piece of white paper clipped to the top.
Feed the animals?
 
He circled through the drugstore, then out again and into a subway entrance. He didn’t go down to the train platforms but crossed through the passage over to the branch that ran beneath Dearborn Street. The sound of his heels echoed through the tile-lined passage and there was a tentative groping in the air behind him.
Then he ran up the exit stairs and was seeing the city as he had always seen it. The solidity and majesty of the Board of Trade building, the simple, marble beauty of St. Peter’s, the sharp lines of the Prudential building. And the people on the walks, some handsome, some homely, some marked with the signs of easy or hard living. Not all good, not all bad. Just people—for whom he suddenly felt a vast affection.
It hit him then and he almost went under. A sudden clutching at his mind, the familiar, heavy squeezing; but this time an attack designed to overwhelm him quickly.
He stumbled and leaned against the building for support, momentarily closing his eyes. The pressure dropped a little but it was still there, still grinding down on him, and he knew he couldn’t resist it for more than a few minutes. He had never thought that Hart would attempt control in public, that he would run the risk of giving himself away. But neither had he considered what Hart would do if he were desperate.
He glanced wildly up the street. People on the walks, but no police car. Cars parked by the curb. And one that had just shouldered its way into a parking spot, the owner getting out and still holding the keys in his hand. Tanner ran up to him and tore the keys away and slid into the car. He slammed the door in the man’s face and locked it, then savagely thumbed the starter.
“Police! Where’s the cops? Goddamnit, he’s stealing my car!”
People started to run up the walk and boil out of the all-night restaurants, some of them still clutching sandwiches. The owner started to beat at the door.
He hit the starter again and the motor came alive with a roar. He pulled away from the curb, scraping the fender of the car in front of him. The man who had been pounding at the door fell away from the side.
Speed, he thought blindly. Speed to get out of there while he was still breathing, while his heart still pumped. And distance to separate him from Adam Hart … .
Already Hart’s control was slipping. He could feel himself start to breathe more normally, his heart to slow down to an average beat. He roared down Randolph, running the stop lights, and then he was out of the Loop. Far behind him he could hear the shriek of sirens.
He was still running risks, he thought. But if he had to take a chance, he would rather take it this way.
Then he caught a glimpse in the rear-view mirror. There was another car on the silvered pavement, running without lights, turning whenever he turned. He floored the gas pedal but the car behind him still clung.
Randolph and Ogden and then he was skidding through the light night traffic onto Washington Boulevard. On Washington he could feel the feeble pluckings at his mind again. Minute stirrings and shivers and then another sudden attempt at full control.
His hands froze on the wheel and he nearly drove over the curb and into the street lamps.
Somewhere, silent laughter.
Faster! Oh, my God, faster!
The night reeled by outside the car windows. The apartment buildings and the shuttered houses and the haloed street lamps.
Winking out, one by one.
He shook his head and opened his eyes wide. The lights were growing dimmer. Hart was narrowing his attempts at control, limiting it to just the eyes. The world was fading, the moon and the stars were blinking out and the lighted houses were shadows that flickered by like gray ghosts. A few minutes more and he would be driving blind, trying to thread his way out of the city in pitch blackness.
Then he had a sudden urge to turn the car and drive north. An imperative, demanding urge.
Why?
He froze to the wheel and kept straight on, the street and the city a darkening, pitch-black mist. And then, very faintly, he caught it. The faraway plaintive bellowing of a train whistle. Somewhere ahead was a train crossing, the red light winking and the wooden arms down and the alarm clanging away.
He caught himself swerving at the intersections as something tried to force him into the side streets, away from the crossing far ahead.
Then he was driving in pure blackness, the bellowing of the train whistle hammering his ears. A jar and a splintering noise and the sound of his tires thrumming across the rails. Then the bellowing was behind him and drawing away. He kept the gas pedal to the floor and prayed.
The yellow street lamps flared briefly like candles that had just been lit, guttered for a second, then swiftly grew to brilliant luminescence. The stars flickered into view and the houses along the Boulevard settled back into sight like objects at the bottom of a muddy but clearing stream.
The freight was a long one, it was going to hold up traffic for minutes. He was blocks away from Hart now and he knew that he was free for the rest of the evening. There were still problems, of course. There were the police, who would be looking for a stolen car. Which meant that he would have to ditch it, and soon.
And there was the minor question of where he was going to spend the night.
 
HE
abandoned the car near the city limits and then walked long blocks back to a park that was comfortably crowded with people sleeping out in the open. There would be bugs and he’d get grass stains and the air was still enough so he would hear every little whisper. But it was safer than a hotel room and not as stuffy and the air didn’t smell of cheap disinfectant.
He walked through the lanes of the park and paused at the other side. Beyond was a strip of clay, strewn with tin cans and crumpled cardboard boxes, bordering a drainage canal. There was a sharp slope and then a narrow, grassy ledge just above the surface of the water. Shadowed and safer, perhaps, than the park itself.
He slid quietly down the slope and lay down on the dried grass. He stared at the moon and the stars overhead and then dozed off and slept fitfully until dawn.
He woke up with the birds, in the early morning when the sky is a candy pink. He yawned and got to his feet and walked through the park until he came out on a business street. He was still miles away from the Loop and the ten-o’clock rendezvous with Grossman.
Early on a Thursday morning.
How much longer can I last?
He glanced at two factory workers boarding a bus and felt in his pocket for money. A few coins, but not enough.
He shrugged and started walking.
It was a warm morning and he walked slowly and watched the city wake up. People in the parks and on the fire escapes, stretching in the early morning sunlight and hawking and spitting and scratching themselves. The women in dirty bathrobes, their hair in curlers and their tired faces sagging at the edges. Fat men in pajamas too small for them and skinny men in shorts and T shirts looking at the world as if it were a suit they had bought at a second floor walk-up and they were just getting a good look at it in the daylight.
The homely little people who made up ninety-nine per cent of the world, who made all the mistakes and committed all the crimes and regretted everything they had ever done which had given them a little pleasure in life. The decent little people who were kind to strangers and deprived themselves of necessities so their kids could have the luxuries and who got their heads shot off in the once-every-generation war. The poor slobs who lived in ratty little apartments that smelled of stale cooking and human sweat or were making payments on cheesebox homes with sprung door-frames and commodes you could hear all over the house whenever somebody flushed them.
Most of them were neither sinners nor saints but a fine combination of both—carefully mixed and blended so only the most expensive psychiatrists could ever untangle them. There were the few who would plant grass and flowers in their back yards year after year even though they knew flowers would never grow on a diet of broken glass and city soot, there were the few who would become interested in, the arts without becoming phonies, and there were always the kids who could be enthusiastic about life despite being raised in garbage cans.
They were the few who stood to lose the most if Adam Hart were running things. Most people would be perfectly willing to turn the world over to Hart and say, “Here, you run it for a while.”
But how the hell could he be so sure that Hart wanted it?
It was ten o’clock when he made the Loop and walked into the library. Grossman and Nordlund weren’t there.
They weren’t there at eleven.
They weren’t there at noon.
At one o’clock Nordlund walked in. It took Tanner a minute to recognize him. The white ducks and the linen shirt had disappeared. The moccasins had been replaced by black shoes and he was wearing a lightweight blue-serge suit that made him look five years older. He had dyed his hair brown and maybe it was only the lighting but the lines in his face looked deeper.
“I stole the suit,” Nordlund said dryly. “It’s the first thing I ever stole.”
“It won’t be the last. Where did you stay last night?”
“In a car—the kind where the front seat folds down to make a bed.”
Nordlund was resourceful, Tanner thought. He was going to be handy to have around.
Nordlund suddenly realized that Grossman wasn’t there. “Where’s Karl?”
“I was hoping that he’d be with you.”
The Navy man looked concerned. “I haven’t seen him since we separated last night.”
Scratch another one, Tanner thought grimly. Karl wouldn’t have been late, something must have happened to him. To the best of his knowledge, the police hadn’t been looking for him, which left—Adam Hart.
“What do we do now, Professor?” Nordlund asked expectantly.
Tanner felt tired. His muscles ached from lying on the ground, and he had slept all night in his clothes and knew he smelled. He wanted a shave and a shower and he wanted to sleep between clean sheets for once—sleep soundly without worrying about the night’s sleep being his last. And he was tired of playing George and having everybody else let
him
do it. Quite a few other people had a stake in what was happening, too.
“How good are you at playing Sherlock, Commander?”
“Detective? I could give it a try.”
To Nordlund, Tanner thought, life had probably been one old college try after another and it had always paid off for him. He wondered if the man actually knew what he was up against. Then he was annoyed with himself for getting annoyed. At least Nordlund was resilient, he hadn’t been beaten down.
But then, he hadn’t been running for two weeks, either.
“There are only two committee members left, Commander. One of them is it. We don’t know much about either one, particularly what they’ve been doing these last two weeks. I think we ought to find out. You take DeFalco, I’ll take Van Zandt. Find out as much as you can about what he’s been doing and we’ll meet out in front tonight—say about eleven.” He hesitated. “Be careful—you’ll be doing good if you can just stay alive that long.”
After Nordlund had left, Tanner went to the newsstand outside and bought all the early editions of the afternoon papers. He took them back to the library reading room and spread them out on one of the tables. If something had happened to Grossman, there was an off chance the papers would have a story on it.
They didn’t, but two other stories caught his eye. One was a page one story on himself—the usual killer-at-large stuff—with detailed descriptions of the murder and a two-column cut of John Olson. It was old news but it was being played up big. There was no photograph of himself.
The other story was a science feature about the Man of Tomorrow. It was well done and scientifically accurate. But then, he thought, it should have been.
It was written by Professor Harold Van Zandt.
 
 
He had a long time to kill before nightfall, he thought. He could spend some time trying to find out what had happened to Grossman but he had a hunch he wouldn’t have much success. It would be more profitable to check up on one Harold Van Zandt, jealous colleague, unhappy husband, and bitter ex-Army officer. And each and every one of them could be a pose.
He made the long walk to Van Zandt’s house and strolled casually by on the other side of the street. The house on the corner was quiet and placid in the hot afternoon sun, apparently nothing or nobody moving behind the chintz-curtained windows. Susan’s two boys were playing stick ball in the middle of the street but they were far too busy to notice him.
For the first hour nobody went into the house and nobody came out. Then a delivery boy drove up in a pickup truck and wrestled a huge box of groceries around to the back. He was gone for a few minutes and then came back whistling and counting some bills he had in his hands. Tanner watched him drive away. He’d be making other deliveries in the neighborhood and chances were the next one wouldn’t be far away.
It wasn’t. It was right in the next block.
The kid was perhaps seventeen, with a sallow face and hunched shoulders and wearing a dirty white apron with a green smear of celery leaf still clinging to it. When he talked, the gold braces on his teeth bobbed up and down and glinted in the sun.
“Yeah, they’re regular customers. I deliver maybe once, twice a week. What’s it to you?”
“What do you know about them?”
The boy climbed into the truck. “What the hell you trying to pull?”
Tanner took out his wallet and flashed his Naval Intelligence card. The boy shrugged. “All right, what d’ya want to know? But I’m warning you, I don’t know a helluva lot.”
“How long have you been delivering to them?”
“About a month. I got the job a little before school was out.”
“Do they seem different at all from when you first started?”
The boy unwrapped a stick of chewing gum and folded it into his mouth. “I don’t know. The old lady has always been pretty decent to me. Gives me coffee and tips me every now and then—she’s getting pretty regular about that lately. I guess the old man is a holy terror. He used to be in the Army or something and he runs the house like he was running a division. They really snap to when he hollers. All he ever says to me is ‘Put it here’ or ‘Put it there.’”
“Did you know John Olson when he lived with them?”
The boy’s eyes opened wide for a moment. “I heard about him, I read about it in the paper. I never met him at all.”
“Did the Professor and his wife ever mention him?”
“Yeah, the old lady once complained that he was nuts about strawberry jam and she was having to shell out too much for it. Outside of that, I don’t remember either one of them ever saying anything about him.”
“And they haven’t changed a bit since Olson was killed?”
The boy shook his head. “I wouldn’t say so. The house looks a lot different, though.”
“How do you mean?”
“You know—new refrigerator and they got new linoleum on the floor and a freezer on the back porch. If you were me, you’d notice those things a lot. They’ll be taking more frozen stuff now and less canned goods. Easier stuff for the store to pack.”
Tanner started to walk away. “Thanks for your trouble.” Olson had died and now the Van Zandts were living it up … .
The man in the local meat market was less cooperative. He was a big, hefty German, balding and with arms that Tanner couldn’t have spanned with both hands.
“Yeah, she buys her meat in here all the time. Good customer, they got a family.”
“She been buying more than usual lately?”
The butcher looked at him as if he were a pork chop in the display case. “You the police? If not, go peddle your papers some other place or I’ll call the cops.”
Tanner shrugged and walked out. He got more for his money at the beauty shop two blocks away.
The owner was a thin, hawk-nosed woman with graying hair neatly coiffed in bangs and a print dress that looked loose and comfortable.
“Susan Van Zandt? Oh my yes, she’s one of my very steadiest customers. A really wonderful woman—you know she’s married to a professor at the university. Why do you ask?”
Tanner lowered his voice to a confidential tone. “I’d like some information.”
“Well, really, we’re not in the habit of giving out information … . Is something wrong?” The birdlike eyes were glittering with curiosity.
“Should there be?”
A flutter of her hands and a quick glance at the curtained booths behind her where the dryers were. “Well, I really don’t know. Just what was it you wanted to talk about?”
“I wondered if there has been any change in Mrs. Van Zandt. How she dresses, how she acts, that sort of thing.”
A pursing of the mouth. “She’s a really stunning dresser.” Pause. “She didn’t
use
to be, you know. She has a difficult figure to dress exactly right. Sort of an in-between—not slim and not exactly a stylish stout. You can get fitted, of course, but it costs a little more—special tailoring—and I imagine the Van Zandts didn’t have the money.” Another pause. “Apparently
that’s
changed now.”
“How do you mean?”
“My dear, you don’t have to look at the labels to know where a woman is buying her clothes! I don’t know how she does it but she’s spending at least twice as much for her outfits as she used to. And when she comes in here! It used to be just a wave and a set and now it’s everything!”
Tanner nodded agreeably and made little notes on a sheet of scratch paper. “You’re being very helpful. How would you say she’s changed personally?”
A slight frown. “Well, you know, I think there was a time when she and the Professor didn’t get along very well. Sometimes she used to come in here and actually be
mean
to the girls. She’s much different now. So self-assured, so confident, so … well,
content.
”
The same shiver went through Tanner that went through him when he scratched his fingernails across a blackboard. He folded the scrap of paper and put it away.

Other books

Tinhorn's Daughter by L. Ron Hubbard
Depravity by Woodhead, Ian
Seventh Heaven by Hoffman, Alice;
Out of Alice by Kerry McGinnis
It Was You by Ashley Beale
Mystic Hearts by Cait Jarrod
Bring Back Her Body by Stuart Brock