“Very funny.” But Tash did not laugh.
“Are you frightened?”
“I believe I am. Now.”
“Why?”
“That blank check they took had my name and address printed on it. I wish they didn’t know who I am and where I live.”
4
THERE ARE 12.1 million people in the United States who live alone. Tash was one of them.
She was lucky enough to have the top floor of a house on Water Street, the oldest part of town, where artists and writers now flocked so they could have a river view.
Her attic floor had once been servants’ quarters. Now the landlord had knocked down partitions, cut one large, modern window in the wall overlooking the river, installed a small kitchen and a smaller bathroom, and called the whole thing a studio.
After weighing the disadvantages of climbing five flights of stairs against the advantages of a high view, he had generously decided not to charge any more rent for the studio than he did for large apartments on the first and second floors.
Tash kept her typewriter on the dining table and the dining table by the big window, so she could have the view and room to spread out her papers at the same time.
This morning her eyes kept wandering from the keyboard to the gulls that flew above the river. Why was it so hard for her to write this silly story about Vivian Playfair?
Thank heaven there was no rush about a feature story of this sort. Bill would probably hold it over for the Sunday magazine if he thought it worth printing at all, with the Governor insisting that the only interesting bits must be left out. Who wanted to read about apple trees, even if there were five hundred of them?
Toward noon Tash gathered up the pages she had typed and put them in a manila envelope. The tape of the interview went into the pocket of her suit jacket. She put a topcoat over the jacket and and buttoned it up to her clyn. No pickpocket was going to get that tape. She had a feeling she should hang on to the only proof there was that Vivian Playfair had given her a letter to mail.
Fortunately, it was one of those sunny, windy April mornings that feel colder than they look. She was glad of the topcoat as she leaned against a solid wall of wind, walking around the corner to the police precinct station house.
It was a new building, its outside planned by an architect who had allowed his fancy to dwell a little too long on Karnak and Babylon. Inside, he had throttled fancy down to something halfway between clinic and jail.
A uniformed man directed her to the detective bureau on the third floor. The door was open. As she drew near she heard three male voices earnestly discussing the baseball season.
She paused in the doorway. Two men were in mufti, one in uniform. They must have seen her standing in the doorway, yet they went on talking as if she wasn’t there, until the telephone rang.
The man in uniform reached for it.
“Yeah? Yeah! Yeah . . .”
He turned to the others. “Got to get along now.”
After he had passed Tash in the doorway, one of the men in mufti looked at her sternly as though she had kept him waiting.
“Well? What do you want?”
The moment she gave her name and the address of the newspaper, he remembered the case and his manner changed.
“Could you describe these two guys, ma’am?”
“One was tall and gaunt. Middle-aged. With a cast in one eye. The other was a boy, hardly more than a child. Light hair. Angelic face. Eyes that were not so angelic. They wore T-shirts, black leather jackets, jeans, and sneakers. No hats or caps.”
Her detective glanced across the room at the other detective.
“Sound familiar?”
“Sure does. Halcon and one of his polluelitos.”
“Al Cone?” said Tash.
“No, Halcon. The H is silent. It’s Spanish for hawk. He’s a Barlo.”
“You mean a Barloventan?”
“That’s right.”
“What else is he?”
“Just a guy we’ve known a long time.”
“And what are his polluelitos?”
That question seemed to embarrass the policeman. “His chicks. Kids who work for him. He’s what they call a chicken hawk. The kid you describe sounds like one they call Freaky.”
“Why Freaky?”
“He has some rather freakish pastimes. We don’t have a mug-shot of him, but—Hang on a minute.”
He went to a filing cabinet and came back with a manila envelope that contained several papers. He riffled through them, picked out one, and flicked it across the desk to Tash. “That him?”
She looked down at photographs attached to the same sheet of cardboard, one full face, one profile, the same number stenciled on each.
The profile was no use to her, but the full face showed a cast in one eye and a down-turned mouth that were unmistakable. There had been another face something like that in Scottish history, the face of “gleyed Argyle.” Behind that other crooked mask there had been a highly intelligent mind and a formidable will to power.
“I think that’s the man,” said Tash. “Though I only saw him for a few seconds.”
“You were lucky to see him at all. He didn’t expect that. He had the chick there to distract you, so you wouldn’t. If we can arrest him, will you identify him as the man you saw with your wallet in his hand?”
“I’d have to.”
“Why does that bother you?”
“I suppose because it puts so much responsibility on me. It would be so awful if I made a mistake.”
The detective’s sigh was purposely loud so Tash could hear it.
“People like you are always griping about crime in the streets. Then, when it strikes, you hesitate to testify—if you’re still alive. There was another case like yours last night. Purse-snatcher knocked a girl down and her head hit the curbstone. She died of a skull fracture in the hospital this morning. That could have happened to you.”
“I realize that.”
“Do you? I wonder. Ever seen
