Condon got out of the car, quickly. He walked toward the man. The man walked toward him.
And passed the professor by.
Condon turned and stood in the middle of the sidewalk, scratching his head, watching the guy walk away. The old man looked in my direction, shrugged, and headed back for the area by the iron gates, where he again began to pace.
At nine-thirty, I was getting restless. I was beginning to think nothing was going to happen—perhaps because I was along. I was also wondering where Wilson’s man was hiding himself; I assumed Wilson had put a man, or men, on Condon’s house, and that we’d been trailed here. But the shadow man must have been goddamn good. Because I felt alone. Just me, Condon, the night, the wind and half the corpses in the Bronx.
Condon, rocking on his heels, was standing, with his back to the iron gate.
And, now, like something in a haunted-house movie, a hand was extending itself through the iron gates toward the professor.
I sat forward, about to call out, but the professor began to pace again. He moved well away from the extending ghostlike hand, looking everywhere but in that direction.
And now the hand withdrew, only to return seconds later, with something white in it. The white thing began to flutter like a bird. A handkerchief, waving. Whoever it was, in the cemetery, was trying desperately to signal the professor, without calling out to him.
Finally Condon noticed it, and moved quickly to the gates, where he began to speak to somebody on the other side. I rolled my window down, and the window on the other side, as well, but I could hear nothing but the wind.
They spoke for perhaps two minutes, and then Condon abruptly backed away.
“No!” I heard him say.
I reached for my gun.
Then I saw a figure, a man in a dark topcoat and hat, climb up, over and down the gate and land almost at Condon’s feet. For a split second the two men faced each other, the one who’d jumped remaining in a catlike crouch.
“It’s too dangerous!” the man said, and began to run.
The guy, who was about a head shorter than Condon, ran across the street, diagonally—right in front of me, though I got no sort of look at him at all, his dark felt hat brim pulled down, obscuring his face.
A cemetery security guard had appeared at the gate—his presence, apparently, had spooked the man in the dark topcoat—and was shouting, “Hey! What’s going on?”
But Condon was ignoring that. The old boy was hoofing it across the street after the man. I had them both in sight. And I could have joined in the chase. But the professor was doing all right, at the moment. I stayed a spectator—for now.
The man ran north into the park; Condon followed, calling out to him: “Hey! Come back here! Don’t be a coward!”
The guy slowed, and turned, and waited for Condon. They were only a few hundred feet into the park. The cemetery security guard hadn’t even bothered to come out; he’d stayed inside to protect the dead. Condon and his companion were standing by a clump of trees near a small groundskeeper’s hut with a park bench in front of it.
Condon gestured to the bench and the guy thought about it, and sat. And then so did Condon.
They sat and they talked. For a long, long time.
I thought about getting out of the car and finding my way to those trees and bushes and eavesdropping. But the guy’s compatriots might be watching me, and I might queer the whole deal. And I could see both Condon and the man in the dark topcoat just fine. I could be there in seconds if trouble developed.
But it didn’t. They just sat and talked.
While I sat stewing, my gun in my lap, looking around for signs of anybody else, kidnappers, T-men, innocent bystanders, anybody. Tonight the Bronx was as dead as Woodlawn Cemetery.
Finally, after an eternity, they stood.
And shook hands.
The man in the dark topcoat turned away and walked north, disappearing into the wooded park. Condon watched him go, then walked slowly toward my car. He was smiling.
“That went well, I think,” he said, getting in.
“I’d have opened the car door for you,” I said, “but my hands are numb from the cold. You talked to that guy for over an hour.”
“There’s no longer any possibility of doubt,” he said. “We’re in touch with the right ones. Those who have the baby. It’s only a question of time, now.”
“And money. You’ll never know how close I came to following you. I should have grabbed that son of a bitch.”
“What good would that do? You’d spoil everything!”
“Maybe,” I said. “But I’m starting to think these bastards are playing us for suckers. That kid could be dead, you know.”
Condon blanched, but recovered, a silly grin peeking out under the walrus mustache. “No, no. Everything’s fine. The child’s being fed according to the diet.”
As we drove back to his home, an animated Condon told me about his meeting with the man, who gave his name as “John.” And then he told it to Breckinridge, and the next day to Lindbergh. I heard it three times, and each
