At the end, a stout wooden door blocked his way. Clumsy with fright, he twisted the knob on another dead bolt and tugged at the door, flinching when he heard a noise far along the alley behind him. He surged out onto Eleventh Street, straining to adjust his eyes to the glare of headlights and streetlights. Breathing hard in panic, he turned left and hurried past startled pedestrians. His goal was farther west, the din of traffic, the safety of the congestion on Seventh Avenue.
And this time, he did find an empty taxi.
10
Burt Forsyth wasn’t married. He considered his apartment a place only for changing his clothes, sleeping, and showering. Every night after work, he followed the same routine: several drinks and then dinner at Bennie’s Oldtime Beefsteak Tavern. The regulars there were like a family to him.
The bar, on East Fiftieth Street, was out of tone with the expensive leather-goods store on its left and the designer-dress store on its right. It had garish neon lights in its windows and a sign bragging that the place had a big-screen television. As Pittman’s taxi pulled to a stop, several customers were going in and out.
Another taxi stopped to let someone off. Pittman studied the man, then relaxed somewhat when the man went into the bar without looking in Pittman’s direction. After using the last of his cash to pay the driver, Pittman glanced around, felt somewhat assured that he hadn’t been followed, and hurried toward the entrance.
Pittman’s gym bag attracted no attention as he stood among patrons and scanned the crowded, dimly lit, noisy interior. It was divided so that the beefsteak part of the bar was in a paneled section to the right. A partition separated it from the serious drinking part of the establishment, which was on the left. There, a long counter and several tables faced a big-screen television that was always tuned to a sports channel. Pittman had been in the place a couple of times with Burt and knew that Burt preferred the counter. But when he studied that area, he didn’t see Burt’s distinctly rugged silhouette.
He stepped farther in, working his way past two customers who were paying their bill at a cash register in front. He craned his neck to check the busy tables but still saw no sign of Burt. Pittman felt impatient. He knew he had to get in touch with the police, but his sense of danger at his apartment had prompted him to run. Once he escaped, he had planned to use a pay phone to contact the police. As soon as he’d gotten in the taxi, though, he’d said the first words that came into his mind: “Bennie’s Tavern.” He had to sort things out.
He had to talk to Burt.
But Burt wasn’t in sight. Pittman tried to encourage himself with the thought that Burt might have made an exception and chosen to eat in the restaurant part of the bar. Or maybe he’s late. Maybe he’s still coming. Maybe I haven’t missed him.
Hurry. The police will wonder why you didn’t get in touch with them as soon as you escaped.
Feeling a tightness in his chest, Pittman turned to make his way into the restaurant and caught a glimpse of a burly, craggy-faced man in his fifties with a brush cut and bushy eyebrows. The man wore a rumpled sport coat and was visible only for a moment as he passed customers and descended stairs built into the partition between the two sections of the building.
11
At the bottom of the hollow-sounding wooden stairs, Pittman passed a coat room, a pay phone, and a door marked DOLLS. He went into a door marked GUYS. A thin man with a gray mustache was coming out of a toilet stall. The man put on a blue suit coat and stepped next to a longhaired young man in a leather windbreaker at a row of sinks to wash his hands. The burly man whom Pittman had followed downstairs was standing to the left at a urinal, his back to Pittman.
“Burt.”
The man looked over his shoulder and reacted with surprise, a cigarette dangling from his mouth. “What are
Pittman walked toward him. “Look, I can explain why I wasn’t at work today. There’s something I need to talk to you about. Believe me, it’s serious.”
The other men in the rest room listened with interest.
“Don’t you realize it isn’t safe?” Burt said. “I tried to tell you on the phone today.”
“Safe? You sounded like you were giving me the brush-off. A meeting. Important people. Sure.”
Urgent, Burt pulled up his zipper and pushed the urinal’s lever. As water gushed into a drain, he threw his cigarette into the urinal and pivoted. “For your information, those important people were-” Burt noticed the two men standing at the sinks, watching him, and gestured. “Come on, let’s get out of here.”
Impatient, Pittman followed him out the door and along the hallway. They stopped at its end, a distance from the rest rooms and the stairs that led down.
Burt whispered hoarsely, “Those important people were the police.”
“What?”
“Looking for you.”
“
“Haven’t you listened to the radio? You didn’t see the evening news?”
“I haven’t had time. When I got back to my apartment, a man-”
“Look, I don’t know what you did last night, but the cops think you broke into a house in Scarsdale and murdered Jonathan Millgate.”
“WHAT?” Pittman stepped backward against the wall.
The man with the leather windbreaker came out of the men’s room, glanced curiously at Pittman and Burt, then went up the stairs.
Frustrated, Burt waited until the man disappeared. “Look,” he said quietly, sternly to Pittman, “we can’t talk here. The police might be watching me in case you try to get in touch. In fact, I have a hunch one of them’s at a table next to mine.”
“Where then? When can we talk?”
“Meet me at eleven o’clock. Madison Square Park. The entrance on Fifth Avenue. I’ll make sure I’m not followed. Damn it, what did you get yourself into? I want to know what’s going on.”
“Believe me, Burt, you’re not the only one.”
12
Pittman was so disoriented that only when he was out on the shadowy street did he realize that he should have asked Burt to lend him some money. The Metro ride from Scarsdale into Manhattan and the taxi from his apartment to the restaurant had used all his cash. He had his checkbook, but he knew that the stores open at this hour would accept checks only for the amount of purchase. That left…
Pittman glanced nervously behind him, saw no sign that anyone was following him, and walked quickly toward Fifth Avenue. There, a few blocks south, he came to the main office of the bank he used. The automated teller machine was in an alcove to the left of the entrance. He put his access card into the slot and waited for a message on the ATM’s screen to ask him for his number.
To his surprise, a different message appeared, SEE BANK OFFICER.
The machine made a whirring sound.
It swallowed his card.
Pittman gaped. What the…? There’s got to be some mistake. Why would…?
The obvious dismaying answer occurred to him. The police must have gotten a court order.
