Beyond the fact that we’d lost a long-time member, I had to let everybody know that they might be in danger, and that it was impossible to guess with any degree of certainty just how real that danger might be. Abie—I called him that in the meeting, because that’s how they knew him—was at once a coldly logical being and a homicidal maniac. Just as I couldn’t say if he’d left town or pretended to leave town, neither could I tell if he’d killed his sponsor as an opening skir-mish in a one-man war on New York AA or simply to send me a personal message. I felt like the goddam government, raising the Alert 260
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level from Yellow to Orange. Stop being Careful, I was saying, and start being More Careful. And rest assured that we’ll let you know when it’s time to be Extra Careful.
I didn’t stop in at the Flame afterward. I hadn’t left Elaine alone, TJ
was with her, but all the same I was anxious to get home.
Walking the couple of blocks, I kept having the feeling someone was watching me. I looked around, but nothing caught my eye.
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The bastard’s wary.
You can see it in his walk, see it in the way he keeps looking this way and that way. Maybe he can sense that he’s being watched, followed.
Maybe it’s just an indication of the level of his anxiety.
And he’s armed, too. You can’t see the gun, but you know just where it is—tucked into his waistband on the right hip. His sport shirt, worn outside his trousers, hangs down far enough to cover it, but when you watch him it’s no trick to pinpoint its location because of the way his right hand hovers nearby, ready to reach for the gun should the occasion arise.
And would he be fast enough? The man’s in his middle sixties, and isn’t likely to have the reflexes of a teenager. He’s on edge, he’s undoubt-edly visualizing quick draws in his mind, but suppose you rush him, suppose you run hard at him from the rear with the knife open in your hand.
How long will it take him to register the sound of approaching footsteps?
How quickly will he turn, how swiftly can the left hand draw the shirttail aside while the right hand yanks the gun free?
There are other people on the street, but you can forget about them. By the time they figure out what’s happening in front of their eyes, it will be over and done with, and you’ll be around the corner while he’s bleeding into the pavement.
You could do it. Care to give it a try?
No, not just yet.
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.
.
.
Perhaps he should have bought a ticket. A reserved seat on the Metroliner to Washington, say. In a name they’ll recognize, Arden Brill or Alan Breit or Arne Bodinson.
But would they even check ticket sales? And would they attach much significance to such a purchase if they even managed to spot it?
Probably a waste of time. A waste of money, too.
He has money to waste, if it comes to that. His wallet holds a fresh supply of cash, courtesy of the late William the Silent, who hadn’t been so silent after all. Old Bill had given up his ATM card and the PIN number when it was clear nothing else would save his life. That didn’t save it either, of course, and he couldn’t have thought it would, but it’s hard to think clearly when someone has you pinned to the floor and keeps on sticking a knife into you.
With the PIN revealed, he’d used the knife one last time. Then he’d withdrawn it, and shortly thereafter he’d made another withdrawal, this for $500 from Bill’s account. That, plus the cash Bill kept in his sock drawer, has improved his financial position considerably.
Money won’t be a problem.
But he needs a place to stay. He’ll want to sleep, and he could use a shower.
And he needs a way to get at the Scudders.
A smile comes to his lips, the cautious half-smile he practiced in the rear-view mirror in Virginia. Two birds, he thinks. And he knows where to find a stone.
The man’s name is Tom Selwyn. He’s a few inches over six feet in height, and must weigh well over 250 pounds. He carries the weight well, and is the sort of fat man who’s inevitably described as being light on his feet.
No doubt he’s a good dancer, although one’s not likely to find out. While the jukebox holds a decent selection of jazz and standards, there’s no dance floor in the dimly lit Fifty-eighth Street bar.
“Alden,” Tom Selwyn says. “Alden. As in Miles Standish’s very good friend?”
Now there’s a thought. “As a matter of fact,” he says, “my mother, who All the Flowers Are Dying
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would never forgive me if I didn’t at once point out her membership in the DAR—”
“I can well imagine.”
“Well, she managed to find a genealogist who was able to establish a direct line of descent from John Alden and Priscilla Mullins”—now how did he manage to summon up that name?— “to herself, and hence to me.
