‘It’s 106-12 Longmans Avenue, apartment fourteen.’
‘Your name, si —’
He hung up.
Returning to the Ford, he sat in the back seat, feeling clever. In the front seat he might be seen, but back here in the shadows and the darkness he could observe without fear.
Barely two minutes after his phone call a green-and-white prowl car shot around the corner and braked to a stop in front of her building. It stopped so hard it rocked a while on its springs, and two uniformed policemen clattered out and hurried into the building and out of sight.
His imaginings took him thirty times around the world.
The stranger came out, alone. He looked this way and that, and walked off down the street.
In the back seat of the Ford, he stared and ground his teeth and punched his hands together. What was wrong, what was wrong? Why did they let him go? With the dead body there, with all those guns in the closet, surely he hadn’t been able to explain it all away so readily. Why had they let him go?
Or had they let him go?
What was this stranger? For the first time, it occurred to him to wonder what sort of man would have two suitcases full of money hidden carelessly in a closet, what sort of man would have pistols and machine guns on that closet floor, what sort of man would move with that square inflexible gait.
He followed because he was afraid to let the stranger out of his sight. He followed on foot because the stranger was on foot. Hurriedly he locked the doors of the Ford and then went off after the stranger, watching from a block back how the stranger planted his feet, how his arms swung like lead weights at his sides.
He trailed the stranger to the taxicab garage and beyond, until he saw that someone else was following the stranger too, a short, heavy man in a mackinaw, and then he hung farther back to wait and see.
When the stranger and the man in the mackinaw had their eerie conversation, he was close enough to hear without being observed. He heard them mention the name Kifka, and it seemed to him he could vaguely remember Ellen having mentioned that same name at one time or another. But aside from that lone name, the conversation had little meaning or interest for him.
Then the conversation ended, and the stranger went on, and the man in the mackinaw followed, until the stranger got into a taxi and went away and left the man in the mackinaw standing on the curb.
As soon as he was sure the taxi was out of sight, he came forward and talked with the man in the mackinaw and found he was unimportant, ineffectual, and harmless. But he did know the man Kifka’s address; in that he had been lying to the stranger.
‘Show me where he lives,’ he said.
‘Sure. Sure.’ He was a weasel in a mackinaw, and his name was Morey.
He and Morey rode another taxi, and left it two blocks from Kifka’s address. It was awkward bringing Morey along, but he was afraid Morey might otherwise go to Kifka’s place himself and warn the stranger of the man who was following him. It was best to bring Morey along.
Morey was full of questions until he showed him the gun and said, ‘Shut your stupid face.’ Then Morey was quiet. They crouched together in the driveway across from where Kifka lived, and waited. Morey had pointed out Kifka’s windows, and they were all lit up.
The stranger had to be taken care of and then everything was done, and it was back to Mexico forever, this time with two suitcases full of money. It might be a little tricky getting the money across the border, but ways could be found. The spare tire full of cash instead of air, for instance. There were always ways.
He was dreaming of Mexico, and money, and didn’t at first see the stranger come out the doorway across the street and start down the steps. When he did, he jerked his arm up, the heavy gun pointing, and Morey, the stupid one, shouted, ‘Hey!’
He turned the gun and blew Morey’s loud head off. He didn’t think about doing it, he just did it..
But it was too late to change anything. Across the way, the stranger was leaping for cover. He pushed Morey’s falling body away and fired twice at the stranger, but missed both times.
And then the stranger shot back, and something stung his earlobe, like touching it for just a second with an electric wire.
He’d never had anyone shoot bullets at him before. It was terrifying. It was more frightening than he could have imagined.
He ran.
When he finally calmed down, he realized he shouldn’t have run, that was the last thing he should have done. He’d lost the stranger now; the hunter could very easily at this point become the hunted.
He had to know where the stranger was, he had to. It was necessary that he be behind the stranger, able to see without being seen, because the alternative was horror. If the stranger was not at all times in front of him, he would never know if he was behind him.
He thought of fleeing to Mexico, right now, forgetting everything and only getting away from here, but he just couldn’t do it. In Mexico, in Europe, anywhere on earth it would be the same; he was too afraid of the stranger to permit him to stay alive.
But the mistake had already been made. He went back, and Kifka’s windows were now dark. The stranger bad gone, of course, no telling where.
Behind him? He kept looking over his shoulder. Tendrils of ice kept creeping inside his coat to touch his spine. The back of his neck ached. His hands wouldn’t stay still.
He went back to the rented room, taking a devious route, doubling back time after time, making wick-detours around all pools of darkness. It didn’t seem he’d been followed, but there was no way to be sure.
