I couldn't make anything work. He could be some construction roughneck off one of Prager's projects, he could be a healthy young stud Beverly Ethridge liked to have around, he could be pro talent Huysendahl had hired for the occasion.
Fingerprints would have given me a make on him, but my mental reflexes had been too slow for me to take advantage of the opportunity. If I could find out who he was I could come up around him from behind, but now I had to let him make his play and meet him head on.
I guess it was about twelve thirty when I paid my tab and left. I eased the door open carefully, feeling a little foolish, and I scanned both sides ofNinth Avenue in both directions. I didn't see my Marlboro man, or anything else that looked at all menacing.
I started toward the corner ofFifty-seventh Street , and for the first time since it all started I had the feeling of being a target. I had set myself up this way quite deliberately, and it had certainly seemed like a good idea at the time, but ever since the Marlboro man had turned up things had become very different.
It was real now, and that was what made all the difference.
There was movement in a doorway ahead of me, and I was up on the balls of my feet before I recognized the old woman. She was in her usual spot in the doorway of the boutique called Sartor Resartus. She's always there when the weather's decent. She always asks for money. Most of the time I give her something.
She said, 'Mister, if you could spare—' and I found some coins in my pocket and gave them to her.
'God will bless you,' she said.
I told her I hoped she was right. I walked on toward the corner, and it's a good thing it wasn't raining that night, because I heard her scream before I heard the car. She let out a shriek, and I spun around in time to see a car with its high beams on vault the curb at me.
Chapter 10
I didn't have time to think it over. I guess my reflexes were good. At least they were good enough. I was off balance from spinning around when the woman screamed, but I didn't stop to get my balance. I just threw myself to the right. I landed on a shoulder and rolled up against the building.
It was barely enough. If a driver has the nerve, he can leave you no room at all. All he has to do is bounce his car off the side of the building. That can be rough on the car and rough on the building, but it's roughest of all on the person caught between the two. I thought he might do that, and then when he yanked the wheel at the last minute I thought he might do it accidentally, fishtailing the car's rear end and swatting me like a fly.
He didn't miss by much. I felt a rush of air as the car hurtled past me. Then I rolled over and watched him cut back off the sidewalk and onto the avenue. He snapped off a parking meter on his way, bounced when he hit the asphalt, then put the pedal on the floor and hit the corner just as the light turned red. He sailed right through the light, but then, so do half the cars inNew York . I don't remember the last time I saw a cop ticket anybody for a moving violation. They just don't have the time.
'These crazy, crazy drivers!'
It was the old woman, standing beside me now, making tsk sounds.
'They just drink their whiskey,' she said, 'and they smoke their reefers, and then they go out for a joy ride. You could have been killed.'
'Yes.'
'And after all that, he didn't even stop to see if you were all right.'
'He wasn't very considerate.'
'People are not considerate any more.'
I got to my feet and brushed myself off. I was shaking, and badly rattled.
She said, 'Mister, if you could spare…' and then her eyes clouded slightly and she frowned at some private puzzlement. 'No,' she said.
'You just gave me money, didn't you? I'm very sorry. It's difficult to remember.'
I reached for my wallet. 'Now this is a ten-dollar bill,' I said, pressing it into her hand. 'You make sure you remember, all right? Make sure you get the right amount of change when you spend it. Do you understand?'
'Oh, dear,' she said.
'Now you'd better go home and get some sleep. All right?'
'Oh, dear,' she said. 'Ten dollars. A ten-dollar bill. Oh, God bless you, sir.'
'He just did,' I said.
ISAIAH was behind the desk when I got back to the hotel. He's a light-skinned West Indian with bright blue eyes and kinky rust-colored hair. He has large dark freckles on his cheeks and on the backs of his hands. He likes the midnight-to-eight shift because it's quiet and he can sit behind the desk working double-acrostics, toking periodically from a bottle of cough syrup with codeine in it.
He does the puzzles with a nylon-tipped pen. I asked him once if it wasn't more difficult that way.
'Otherwise there is no pride in it, Mr. Scudder,' he'd said.
What he said now was that I'd had no calls. I went upstairs and walked down the hall to my room. I checked to see if there was any light coming from under the door, and there wasn't, and I decided that that didn't prove anything. Then I looked for scratch marks around the lock, and there weren't any, and I decided that that didn't prove anything either, because you could pick those hotel locks with dental floss.
Then I opened the door and found there was nothing in the room but the furniture, which stood to reason, and I
