Memoirs Of An Invisible Man (41 page)

In spite of myself, I felt a wave of gratitude for his compliment.

“Time works in my favor,” I said. “I’m getting better at being out here.”

“We’re really only getting started, Nick. Of course, you bought some time by going into the private clubs. We didn’t anticipate that at all. It was a good idea. Perfect for you and difficult for us.”

“I’m surprised that you get so much cooperation from them.”

“We didn’t at first. They were quite uncooperative. But we were eventually able to show them that they have quite a serious security problem. Usually they can tell when you’re there — or at least when you’ve been there. Especially now that we’ve got them watching for this kind of thing, I don’t think they’ll be a viable option for you much longer. You know, you surprised us from the start. We assumed you would take someone into your confidence.”

“I decided I couldn’t risk it.”

“You were right. We’d have had you right away.”

All very collegial. Friendly opponents discussing the tactics of the game. A van pulled up and double-parked in the next block. I had to stop this, get away.

“I’ve got to go now. Busy day for me. I’m kind of on the run.”

“Nick, just one more thing before you go.”

“Yes?”

“Nick, you have this number. If there’s ever anything you need. Or if you want to talk about what things will be like for you when we get together, please call me. I want to help you.”

“That’s great. See you around.”

A car with tinted windows was pulling up across the street even though the light was green. I slid the receiver onto the cradle and walked east.

My conversation with Jenkins had left me shaken. My threat had been pointless. I knew it, and he knew that I knew it. And it was clearer to me than ever now that I had to get out of the clubs. Of course, Jenkins had wanted to overwhelm me with the hopelessness of my situation, but he was right. The noose was tightening around me, and I could see that if I went on as I was, they would get me soon.

Resigned to the fact that I had to try something new, no matter how unpromising, and reasoning that a hotel would be the closest thing to what had worked for me so far, I set out at once for the Plaza, which was at least large and familiar. As I came within sight of the entrance, my heart fell. Vast numbers of people were crowding in and out, and I knew that it would only be worse inside. Nothing to do. Push on. When there was a brief lull, I scurried through the entrance in the ample wake of an exceptionally fat woman and hurried across to the reservation desk, where I planned to study the allocation of rooms.

There were far too many people, staff and guests, on both sides of the counter, all moving unpredictably, so that all my attention had to be devoted to avoiding collisions. Telephones were ringing; the people behind the desk were punching computer keyboards. It was incomprehensible and dangerous. I had to get off the ground floor and away from all the crowding and movement. If I got to the upper floors, I might learn something by watching the maids cleaning rooms.

I hurried through the lobby and past the Palm Court. The safest route past the floors of ballrooms and meeting rooms would probably be up the broad public stairways, where I would be able to dodge around the human traffic. Everywhere there were clusters of people, sometimes standing around, sometimes moving, and I felt increasing panic.

Eventually I found myself in a long corridor covered with carpeting which showed an unpleasant little depression under each step I took. I stood there for ten minutes, watching as doors to rooms opened at random and people emerged and walked to the elevators. A large metal cart holding fresh linen and cleaning equipment suddenly filled one end of the corridor and forced me to retreat before its approach. Then, in front of me a door opened and a large family of Indians or Pakistanis thronged out and headed toward me from the other direction. Trapped, I turned back in desperation toward the cart and tried to judge on which side I had the best chance of slipping by. Choosing left, I flattened myself against the wall and stood there as the woman pushing the cart slammed its edge into my knee, and then, apparently thinking that a wheel must be caught, gave it another nasty shove before I was able to struggle past.

Hopeless. And it would probably be just as busy in the middle of the night. As I fled down the stairs towards safety, I was temporarily forced back up a flight by a phalanx of Japanese tourists marching up towards me in formation, but I eventually regained the ground floor. There, a large man in a green suit, who was surely a salesman, swung a metal case filled with samples of some particularly heavy widget into the same knee, sending me reeling into an elderly woman. As I escaped out onto Fifty-ninth Street, I could hear her vilifying the man with the case.

My knee hurt and my morale was plummeting. But I desperately needed to find someplace to go, and I had another, even more inane scheme. I had conceived the idea of slipping into Bloomingdale’s and waiting for it to close. Which should give you some idea of my mental state. I think I had some sort of vague notion of living in the furniture department. I knew there was a gourmet food department, and I thought that there was also some sort of restaurant or lunch counter somewhere, although I could not remember with certainty ever having seen it.

As I walked across Fifty-ninth Street, I tried to figure out how I would hide from the security guards during the night once I had filled my stomach with food. There would doubtless be sun lamps. (Small Appliances.) And what would I do during the day? No point in speculating. I would push on and figure it out as I went along. I had to try something. And this plan had one undeniable virtue: Jenkins would never anticipate it. I should have considered the reasons for that.

The Lexington Avenue entrance was out of the question. Masses of people swarming in and out. But I slipped in through a door on Fifty-ninth Street without much difficulty and made my way up a short flight of stairs to the main floor. There I found myself in a vast maze of narrow aisles and perfume counters thronged with erratically moving people.

I worked my way cautiously across it. I saw at once that this idea too was ridiculous. Everywhere there were middle-aged women ambling through the aisles in random paths and fantastically made-up salesgirls suddenly popping out from behind their counters. But I was determined to push on. I had nothing better in view.

I had to get off the main floor and up to someplace quieter and more comfortable. As I watched for a clear path, I tried to remember where the stairs were. Over by the elevators, probably. Seeing an opening, I darted past a series of cosmetics counters, their mirrors untouched by my presence, and reached an open area at the base of an escalator.

I watched as two matronly women climbed onto the moving stairs in front of me and glided slowly upward. I tried to think if there was any reason for me not to use escalators. Looking around and seeing no one else approaching, I took hold of the handrail and stepped on. I climbed quietly up until I was riding four or five steps beneath the women, watching them all the time. I would have to be particularly careful at the top. If there was any congestion and the women stopped right after stepping off, I would sail right into them.

As I brooded about potential problems ahead, I became aware that someone was coming up the escalator behind me. Well, that was one unpleasant thing about escalators: you could feel the other people moving on them. I turned and saw a young person — a man or a boy, I think, although other possibilities could not be ruled out — bounding up the stairs two at a time. He had spiky, bright green hair, matching green sneakers, and around the rest of his body, loose-fitting black trousers and a black shirt. His skin was chalky white, and his eyes seemed to be fixed open in a blank, crazed stare. I fled upward before him until I was right behind the women.

“Excuse
me,” he began chanting maniacally as he closed in on us. “Excuse
me.”

Both women turned. There was another bad thing about escalators: their narrowness. Still I hoped, utterly unrealistically, that I might somehow slip past the women unnoticed, by pushing through in the confusion as the women moved aside to let the young thing pass. But just as I edged forward into what looked like an opening between the woman on the left and the escalator wall, she decided to make room on the other side and stepped into me. As we collided, she let out a startled shriek and recoiled upward, blocking my path and almost knocking over her friend.

The young man paused momentarily, and, assuming that he was the cause of the shriek, smiled eerily and said, “Ladies,
please.”
The woman who had collided with me threw her hand out to catch her balance and thrust it into my face. She shrieked again. There were people appearing at the top of the flight, staring down at us.

“There’s something
here!”
the woman was crying.

I grabbed hold of the handrail and hauled myself over it and up onto the metal strip that slanted down the length of the escalator flight.

“They’re absolutely everywhere nowadays,” the other woman was saying. “Not just here. I have a niece at Chap—”

I felt myself slipping irresistibly down the smooth stainless steel surface, while at the same time the rubber handrail to which I clung pulled my hand upward, until I lost my grip and went spinning head first downward as if I were on a children’s slide. My shin struck some sort of strut, slowing me down enough so that I could get hold of the rail again and pull myself over and back onto the stairs. Struggling ridiculously against the upward movement of the escalator, I managed to regain the ground level.

My shin hurt horribly, and I hobbled desperately out across the floor without looking, wishing I could get someplace where I could scream. Almost at once I found myself trapped again between a couple coming toward me and a uniformed security guard who had somehow appeared behind me. Once things start going badly and you get banged around a bit, you begin making mistakes and everything rapidly comes apart. You have to get clear and collect your wits.

I climbed into an opening under a cosmetics counter where it was hinged to let the salesclerks pass. Huddling there, I could hear the woman sobbing at the top of the stairs and see people flocking to the base of the escalator to find out what was happening. Rest for a moment. Calm down. Watch the long black legs of the salesgirl swishing back and forth, in case she decides to walk into the aisle and crashes into me. There had been a time when I would have enjoyed the proximity of those legs. The whole idea had been ridiculous. Come to think of it, I had always disliked the crowds at Bloomingdale’s — as with so many things, this was only a difference of degree. When I saw my chance, I crawled out into the empty aisle and made my way out onto Fifty-ninth Street.

As I walked up Third Avenue, I once again stared longingly at those vast ranges of apartment towers. The greatest concentration of hiding places in the world. People would be going off on summer holidays now, leaving more and more of them empty. The trouble was I needed places with public access where I could get in and out. I had pretty well ruled out hotels and department stores. And private clubs. As summer came on, the clubs were getting emptier and emptier. From Friday midafternoon until Monday morning they would soon be deserted entirely, and I could see that Jenkins might very well close one off without inconveniencing anyone but me. Already, I was terrified every time I opened a door in one of those places at night, half expecting to find them waiting for me on the other side. He was wearing me down. New locks were appearing everywhere, especially in the kitchens, and it was getting harder and harder for me to get at food. I was often eating leftovers now, half-eaten sandwiches or unfinished dinners on plates left out in pantries.

I should get out of New York altogether. Jenkins was everywhere here. Let him try to figure out where I had gone. The trouble was that other cities were so small, and I didn’t know them the way I knew New York. I began to think, though, about Boston and Philadelphia. Suburbs were hopeless: no way to get around; no way to get food; no public spaces. Things are difficult when you cannot drive or carry money. Perhaps there was some way to survive in the country. I could go on a camping trip for the rest of my life. A cold and lonely prospect. New York was the best place for me. If it weren’t for Jenkins.

Then, two nights later, I came down into the kitchen of the Arcadia Club at 2:00 a.m. and found, sitting out in plain view, a large slice of cake. It was of a sort that would be particularly appealing to me, white with vanilla icing, sweet, and easy to digest. Next to it, sprawled inert on the marble tabletop, lay a large rat, its mouth slightly open, exposing the rows of sharp little teeth. As I stared, its legs twitched once. Whether it was dead, dying, or only drugged, I cannot say.

I knew that I would never eat another bite of food in one of these clubs. I spent a sleepless night on a couch near the entrance, waiting for the first opportunity to get out of the building, and as soon as the morning staff began to arrive, I fled into Central Park.

I had made up my mind to leave New York. I had to get away from Jenkins. Even if I managed to avoid capture, I could not go on living in this state of constant anxiety. Anxiety and hunger. I had to be in a city to have any chance at all, and I tried glumly to calculate whether I would stand a better chance in Boston or Philadelphia. But the vision of that rat kept crowding everything else out of my mind. Fear and loathing. Damn Jenkins. Always knew every move I made. Wherever I went, he was right behind me. But he was wrong about one thing: I could kill him. Although it wasn’t clear that I ought to. What I ought to do was throw him off the track somehow. Particularly now when I was about to set off in a new direction.

I walked over to Central Park West and found a pay phone on a corner with a good view. Balancing the receiver on top of the box, I dialed Jenkins’s number. It rang three times before he answered. The last time he had picked up on the first ring.