'Sort of.'
'You look like you're from Cleveland.'
'I'm in disguise.'
'You a detective?'
That seemed like a reasonable explanation for following cabs around Manhattan, so Jack said, 'Sort of.'
'You on an expense account?'
'Sort of.'
'Well, sort of let me know when you sort of want to get moving again.'
Jack laughed and got himself comfortable. His only worry was that there might be a back way out of the building.
People began drifting out of the consulate at 5:00. Kusum wasn't among them. Jack waited another hour and still no sign of Kusum. By 6:30, Arnold was sound asleep in the front seat and Jack feared Kusum had somehow slipped out of the building unseen. He decided to give it another half hour. If Kusum didn't show by then, Jack would either go inside or find a phone and call the Consulate.
It was nearly 7:00 when two Indians in business suits stepped through the door and onto the sidewalk. Jack nudged Arnold.
'Start your engine. We may be rolling soon.'
Arnold grunted and reached for the ignition. Green’s Machine grumbled to life.
Another pair of Indians came out. Neither was Kusum. Jack was edgy. Still plenty of light, no chance for Kusum to slip past him, yet he had a feeling that Kusum could be a pretty slippery character if he wanted to be.
Come out, come out, wherever you are.
He watched the two Indians walk up toward Fifth Avenue…walking west. With a flash of dismay, Jack realized that he was parked on a one-way street going east. If Kusum followed the same path as these last two, Jack would have to leave this cab and find another on Fifth Avenue. And the next cabby might not be as easygoing as Arnold Green.
'We've got to get onto Fifth,' he told Arnold.
'Okay.'
Arnold put his cab in forward and started to pull out into the crosstown traffic.
'No, wait! It'll take too long to go around the block. I'll miss him.'
Arnold gave him a baleful stare through the partition. 'You're not telling me to go the wrong way on a one-way street, are you?'
'Of course not,' Jack said. Something in the cabby’s voice told him to play along. 'That would be against the law.'
Arnold smiled. 'Just wanted to make sure you wasn't telling.'
Without warning he threw the Green Machine into reverse and floored it. The tires screeched, terrified pedestrians leaped for the curb, cars corning out of the Central Park traverse swerved and honked angrily. Jack hung onto the passenger straps as the car lunged the hundred feet or so back to the corner, skidded to a halt across the mouth of the street, then nosed along the curb on Fifth Avenue.
'This okay?' Arnold said.
Jack peered through the rear window. He had a clear view of the doorway in question.
'It'll do. Thanks.'
'Welcome.'
And suddenly Kusum appeared, pushing through the door and striding up toward Fifth. He crossed Sixty-fourth and walked Jack's way. Jack pressed himself into a corner of the seat. Kusum came closer. With a start Jack realized that Kusum was angling across the sidewalk directly toward the Green’s Machine.
Jack slapped his hand against the partition. 'Take off! He thinks you're looking for a fare!'
The cab slipped away from the curb just as Kusum was reaching for the door handle. Jack peeked through the rear window. Kusum didn't seem the least bit disturbed. He merely held his hand up for another cab. He seemed far more intent on getting where he was going than on what was going on around him.
Without being told to, Arnold slowed to a half a block down and waited until Kusum got in his cab. When it rolled by, he pulled into traffic behind it.
'On the road again, Momma,' he said to no one in particular.
Jack leaned forward and fixed on Kusum's cab. He was almost afraid to blink for fear of losing it. Kusum's apartment was only a few blocks uptown from the Indian Consulate—walking distance. But he was taking a cab downtown. This could be what Jack had been waiting for.
They chased it down to Fifty-seventh where it turned right and headed west along what used to be known as Art Gallery Row.
They followed Kusum farther and farther west, past the theme restaurants, toward the Hudson River docks. With a start, Jack realized this was the area where Kusum's grandmother had been mugged. The cab went as far west as it could and stopped at Twelfth Avenue and Fifty-seventh. Kusum got out and began to walk uptown.
Jack had Arnold pull in to the curb. He stuck his head out the window and squinted against the glare of the sinking sun as Kusum crossed Twelfth Avenue and disappeared into the shadows under the West Side
