Turning away, Terry moved to a magazine stand and bought a newspaper. He stood leaning against the counter with the paper unfolded before him. Now and then he looked up at the thin, indolent figure beyond the gate.
Passengers were emerging from the gate. A fat woman wearing silver fox, walking stiffly. A long-legged looker with red hair, eyes lighting like lamps as a young guy broke forward to meet her. A heavy man with jowls looking important in imported tweeds. And then the one. A man of medium height, carrying a brown cowhide bag. He had a thin black mustache, and he walked with a slight limp in his left leg. He turned right toward a wall of public lockers. Behind him, the thin man in cords dropped his cigarette on the floor and moved in lazy pursuit. Another man, nondescript, separated from the group outside the gate and moved in time with the thin man, parallel and a little to the rear.
The man with the limp stopped in front of the lockers, setting the cowhide bag on the floor at his feet and digging into a pocket for a coin. Behind him, the thin man and the nondescript man moved in, converging. From his place at the magazine stand, Terry could see the three of them standing suddenly immobile, frozen in a strange and lifeless tableau.
Folding his newspaper, he laid it on the counter and walked swiftly toward them. As he moved, the thin man stooped and picked up the cowhide bag. Passing them, without slowing or speaking, Terry took the bag from the thin man’s hand and went on out a side entrance into a drive that served the parking lot.
A black Oldsmobile was purring at the exit. A man was sitting under the wheel of the Olds. When Terry came out, the man opened the door, stepped out into the drive, and Terry moved into his place, depositing the bag on the seat beside him.
“Luck, Terry,” the man said, and Terry lifted a hand from the wheel in brief acknowledgment, setting the automatic transmission in action with the pressure of his foot on the accelerator.
And now the hard part was supposed to be over. Supposedly all that remained was for the fair-haired boy in the house of Sebastian to carry a cowhide bag full of heroin into a place where he was welcome. The trouble was, the boy’s hair was no longer fair. Terence Pope was no longer welcome in the home of his benefactor…
Behind the wheel, driving steadily within the established speed limits, Terry laughed softly and without humor. For a moment he wondered what had happened to Liza, but it was a thought he didn’t want to face, and he put it away.
In front of the stone, steel and glass brick stack that housed Sebastian’s apartment, he got out, carrying the bag, and went through the entrance quickly into the lush lobby. Sitting on their necks in club chairs, blending with the background, two well-dressed men followed him with their eyes to the bank of elevators. No particular interest was apparent in their attitudes.
The elevator boy, resplendent in scarlet cloth and gold braid, said, “Good evening, Mr. Pope,” and Terry moved to the back of the elevator. He stood with his shoulders touching the steel back of the box, breathing deeply and regularly, fighting for control of his pulse. In his temples, there was a sharp, rhythmic hammering.
On Sebastian’s floor, he went down to the door that opened into the hall of the huge apartment and set the bag on the floor at his feet. For a minute, he stood there listening to the soft whine of the elevator descending in its shaft, and then he took Sulla’s gun from the inside pocket of his coat. Holding the gun in position for a quick chop, he put a thumb on the button beside the door and leaned his weight against it.
When the stony-faced servant opened the door, Terry shifted sideways as Sulla’s gun chopped down. The snout of the gun struck the servant a blow on the forehead, and he spun away, folding up quietly on the asphalt tile. Stooping, Terry picked up the bag and moved past him down the hall to the door of Sebastian’s office.
Standing, listening, he heard beyond the door the hoarse distortion of Sebastian’s voice, and after a while a husky response that was Liza’s. Without waiting longer, he pushed the door open in front of him and stepped into the room, the gun in one hand, the bag hanging from the other.
Across the room, standing behind his big desk, Sebastian turned his head to face him, the bold face beneath the cropped hair settling suddenly into lines of deadly stillness.
To his left and slightly beyond him, standing with one hand resting on the top of a liquor cabinet, Liza Gray sucked breath with a sharp, aspirate whistle. The flesh under one of her eyes had gone black, shading on the cheekbone to dark yellow. Her lips were swollen, and the left line of her jaw was also swollen, showing bruises.
At least, though, she’d been saved for possible repentance and future use.
Sebastian’s voice was soft, reflective. “Well, well. If it isn’t Terry. I wasn’t expecting you, boy. I’ll have to talk to someone about it.”
Terry laughed brutally, amazed at the swift violence of his response to the marks on Liza’s face.
“If you mean Sulla, it won’t do any good. Sulla’s dead. You’re dead, too, in a way, Sebastian. As a big shot, you’re a dead duck.” He swung the bag underhand, sending it in a high arc to land on the surface of the big desk. “This is your property, I think. A guy brought it in tonight from the South.”
Sebastian’s eyes widened, then narrowed. His strong, closed face suddenly cracked open in a wash of stark fear. Then, just as suddenly, the face closed again upon a look of relief, and at that moment Terry heard the
