academy expression. Hearn brought Shassad up to date on the subsequent developments.
Grimaldi and Blocker, Hearn explained, had then spent the rest of the day on their stakeout.' But toward darkness, in the early evening, Jacobus had failed to show for his twelve-hour night shift.
The day manager of the office building had telephoned him. No answer.
Eventually, the owner of jacobus's home, the man who lived downstairs, was telephoned. The landlord agreed to go upstairs and ring the front bell. No answer to the bell. But when the owner glanced inside, the light in the front hall was still on. And the body of jacobus was plainly visible, even the details, like the pool of blood he lay in.
'Ta-rif-fic Shassad grumbled. He had a terrible headache. He had counted on Jacobus to help put together the pieces of the Ryder Daniels case for him. So much for that.
He glanced at his watch. It was twenty minutes past six.
'Know what we do now?' he asked Hearn.
'Daniels, of course ' 'Damn straight,' said Shassad with disgust.
'The girl's our suspect, he knows where the girl is. At least he's got to know who the God-damn girl is. Material witness. We pick him up.'
Grimaldi looked at his superior.
'Do you want us-?'
'You two head back to the One Nine,' he said.
'We'll find Daniels.'
'If we can'' added Hearn. Shassad looked at his partner as if to ask what that meant.
'I doubt that he'll be home' suggested Hearn.
Thirty-five minutes later, Shassad and Hearn knocked on the door to Thomas Daniels's apartment. Predictably, there was no response from within.
For Thomas Daniels, there had only been one decision. Whether it was insanity, risk, bad judgment, or simply a lethal brand of curiosity, he planned to meet Leslie McAdam. He was too deeply involved in the case, emotionally and professionally, to sidestep her.
Facts, simple facts, were what he wanted. Positive identifications of the players and their rightful teams, that was what he needed what he had to have -more than anything. There was only one way: maneuver Leslie face to face with Whiteside. Force them to identify each other … or call each other's bluff. It was the most fascinating case of his life, coupled with the most intriguing woman he'd ever met. Stay away? He couldn't. Trust her one final time? He'd have to.
Accept her warning and stay away from his apartment indefinitely?
Well, yes. He'd do that, too.
Following her agitated telephone call, he quickly packed a small bag with a few changes of clothing. He set it by his door. Then, pondering his venture into Central Park eighteen hours hence, he considered his own safety. He was not trained in any form of self defense And unlike other attorneys he knew, he owned no handgun.
Foolishly perhaps, but-swept away somewhat by his predicament, he opened a kitchen drawer and pulled out a steak knife. Feeling over dramatic and even a bit silly, he wrapped the knife in a thin cloth and taped it to his left calf. Then he left his apartment.
Killing a day in Manhattan, when one is ill prepared for it, is not the easiest of tasks, particularly when cold blustery weather hampers any enjoyment of the outdoors.
He checked his valise at Grand Central Station. Then he considered his alternatives. Kill the day, but go nowhere near where anyone would expect to find him. Go nowhere where he'd ever been before.
It's your life I'm talking about, she'd said. Trust me.
He considered the reading room of the Public Library. Worth hours anytime. But he'd been there before, scores of times. A library. He went to a branch library on the Lower East Side. There he killed the morning. At lunch he ate in a nearby dairy bar.
In the afternoon, he considered a movie. But not necessarily one he'd wanted to see. He went to a second- run house on the Upper West Side, then, tiring from the vacant hours he was seeking to fill, went to another second-run house a few.plocks away. He nearly dozed off. He fought to stay awake.
Then evening. An hour walking around the city. Then dinner at a Broadway cafeteria. Another movie.
Tired, anxious, and beginning to question the necessity of what he was doing, Thomas found himself in the East Forties at nine thirty. What was he hiding from? Whom was he avoiding? He wondered. More than six more hours to kill. He was sleepy and getting sleepier.
He decided. He would go back uptown to his home block. He would cautiously try to reenter his apartment. He would then nap with the light off and go to the park at the prearranged time.
He took the subway to Seventy-seventh and Lexington. Then he walked on Seventy-seventh Street all the way to First Avenue. Then he approached his own block from the east, rather than from the west, the route he normally traveled. All this, he thought as he walked, as an outgrowth of his father's wartime business. He was marching around on a cold Manhattan night thanks to events of twenty to thirty-five years ago.
He stopped short before coming to Second Avenue. On the avenue, parked by a fire hydrant, was a car occupied by two men. They were sitting, waiting and watching. Staring toward the entrance to his building.
One of them began to turn his way. Thomas whirled quickly. He fought back his instinct to run. He resisted looking back.
Instead he walked briskly, turning again as soon as he reached First Avenue. But he knew that if he'd been spotted -by whoever it was he was avoiding -the area would be alive with people looking for him.
He hailed a taxi. He gave an address in the East Fifties. Andrea Parker's block. Why not? He had to be off the streets. He watched in the rear window of the taxi but was unable to recognize any specific car following. He had the strong sense of being pursued but his pursuers were faceless.
Arthur Sandler? How could anyone be afraid of a septuagenarian who was legally dead?
The taxi dropped him on the corner of Fifty-first and Second.
Andrea lived nearby, on the twelfth floor of a new white high rise.
Thomas hurried into a telephone booth and dialed her number. She answered.
'I have to come up,' he said.
'Tom?' she whispered.
'Yes, it's me' he said almost breathlessly.
'I'm on your block. I have to come up and see you. Now.'
She laughed coyly and calmly, as if to convey a message.
'Oh, no,' she said, without calling him by name.
'Not now.'
'Andrea, please. I'm begging you.'
'It's awfully late,' she hinted.
He glanced around and saw no one he recognized. He spent another plaintive minute, arguing with her. Begging. She refused.
'Look,' he finally said, 'you don't understand. It's crucial. There are people after me. I've got to get off the street. I just want a place where I can curl up in a corner for two hours and then go back out.'
He could hear her putting her hand over the mouthpiece of the telephone, speaking to someone with her.
'Thomas'' she began.
'Please understand.
'You I 're 'entertaining' aren't you?'
'Yes 'I don't care' he said.
'My other guest does,' she said.
'My aging nemesis Augie, right?' he asked.
'It's immaterial,' she said. It was Augie, that proved it.
'The best development of the whole Sandler case,' he said, throwing it out as bait.
'Happening right here, right now. You either let me come up or so help me you'll never hear a word of it.'
She was slow to respond. She was thinking it over.
