RENDEZVOUS IN BLACK (18 page)

He happened to glance up from his paper at exactly the right moment, almost as if intuition had had something to do with it. He caught her right as she was coming in the entrance.

She'd come. The one for him. His appointee.

The way his paper instantly furled and was discarded gave that away. The way his hand went up and his hat went up. The way his already cheerful face beamed broadly. Before she had even finished clearing the revolving door and the glass between them was out of the way.

The door gave one single complete revolution behind her, empty, and then a man came in on its next turn around. So close behind her you could almost have thought he was following her. If you were the kind of a person thought things like that. But after all, people were coming in and out every minute through that door. He just happened to be the very next one after her, that was all.

He gave her a single quick glance, from behind, and then he went off to the side somewhere, to the cigar and stationery counter, and began shopping assiduously for a magazine. He didn't just ask for one by name, he looked into one, and turned whole pages of it, before going on to the next. He was a most painstaking magazine buyer.

She'd reached the boy who was waiting for her, meanwhile. Or rather, they'd split the distance between them and met halfway, out in mid-lobby.

Every girl there had seemed pretty until now. Now they all looked plain. A Kleig light had just blazed out in the middle of a lot of smoky oil-lamps. She wore her dark hair long, to her shoulders. She had a gardenia in it. Her eyes were gray; or if they were blue, it was so light a blue it seemed gray. She was very young yet, though. At least two years short of twenty, and maybe even three.

The conversation wasn't memorable. But it was vivacious, tinselled with anticipations of an evening's fun.

"Hello."

"Hello."

"Am I late?" She didn't expect any answer. She rushed on without waiting for any. It was; apparently, a form of secondary greeting really and not a question. "Did you get the tickets?"

"Yeah. They're holding them for me at the box office."

"Well, what are we waiting for?" she demanded gaily. "Come on, let's go." And took him by the arm.

They went toward the entrance and out through the door.

The man at the magazine counter, still trying to make up his mind, held one up in front of his face, as if trying to judge its texture.

The door spun around once after them, empty.

He decided he didn't want a magazine after all. He quitted the counter and went out the door himself. The counterman swore at him with noiseless lips, rearranged his display.

The taxi they'd just gotten into drove off.

He got into the next one in line as it shifted forward.

His drove off too. His went the same way theirs had, around the corner. But all traffic had to go that way, it was a one-way street.

They got out a few minutes later and about six or seven blocks away, in front of the theatre. Their taxi drove off. Another taxi came, and another, and another; but countless people always drive up to a theatre in taxis. The boy got in line, picked up his tickets, rejoined her, and they went in. The next person in the line picked up his tickets, the next one hers. Then a man along and asked for just a standing-room admission.

"I can give you a good single in the tenth row," the ticket seller suggested. "Last-minute cancellation."

"I just want to stand up in the back," the man emphasized with considerable asperity. "Do you mind?"

The ticket seller looked surprised at the gruffness, instead of gratitude, he'd drawn. He shrugged and sold him his ticket. The man went in.

Between the acts the boy and girl came out into the lobby. But so did everyone else in the audience; the place was thronged, just a sea of anonymous faces around you every which way you turned.

Froni the theatre, at half-past eleven, they went to a Chinese restaurant and dance spot. Pseudo-Chinese. The waiters were Chinese and the food was the "Chinese" food that China never knew but that Americans think is Chinese. But the band played "The Jersey Bounce" and the biggest seller at the bar seemed to be Martinis. And the man whose money was invested in it was named Goldberg.

The lights, incidentally, were dimmed so low they were almost extinct. Just a faint bluish and reddish tinge to the twilight here and there. This was for purposes of creating a devilish "atmosphere." It was, for anyone under twenty, very romantic. It was, incidentally, very innocuous at the same time. A sheep in wolf's clothing sort of a place. The next stage, in night-life experience, after the corner ice-cream parlor, and coming before the really adult clubs and roadhouses have been arrived at.

They were shown to one of the little booths along the wall, and they sat down facing each other. They couldn't see who came in and stood up at the bar and who didn't. They wouldn't have wanted to if they could.

A man came in and stood up at the bar and ordered a Martini, just to pay his rent, and then he didn't touch it. But he didn't turn around and stare at anyone; he kept his back to the room, so who was to notice that?

They got up and danced, the boy and girl.

Their food arrived.

They sat down and ate rice and fried noodles and foo yung, and things that they didn't even know the names of themselves.

They got up and danced some more.

They sat down and ate some more fried noodles and rice and foo yung. They were having fun.

The party of four in the booth next to theirs got up and left.

The man at the bar with the neglected Martini turned and accosted the head waiter.

"I'd like to order a dinner," he said. "Could I sit over there? That one, over there."

"That's for four, sir. I could give you a nice one down by the edge of the dance--"

"I want that one," the man said grittily. "I'll pay the cover for four." He put something in his hand.

"Yes, sir," the head waiter said reluctantly.

He went over to it and he sat down with his back to them. He ordered dinner.

He sat quietly, waiting for it to come.

". . . I liked the part where she turns around to him and says--"

"Gee, that was good, wasn't it? D'you suppose married people ever really act that way about each other?"

"I don't know. They don't in my house."

"They don't in mine either. My older brother's been married five years now, and I never heard him act that way to Dolores. That's his wife, Dolores."

"I guess they just made it up, for the stage, to make it more interesting."

They brought his dinner, and he still sat quiet. Eating it now.

". . . of course I like you better than Charlie Nickerson. I go out with you more than Charlie Nickerson, don't I?"

"Yeah? Well, at Betty's party two weeks ago I counted how many times you danced with him. Out of ten dances, you danced six with him and oniy four--"

"Well 1 like that! Now you're blaming me . Just because you don't know how to rumba right, I'm supposed to sit on a chair and say 'No' every time anybody comes up to me and--"

The price of his dinner was a dollar and a half. He acted as though it hadn't been worth it.

He started down the stairs--the place was on the second floor--and stopped halfway to the bottom to retie his shoelace. It hadn't come open, but he opened it first himself, and then retied it. They were standing there at the curbline, hailing up a taxi.

They got one and drove off.

He got one, a moment or two after, and also drove off.

The two taxis went in the same direction.

Theirs stopped outside a large one-family house a considerable distance uptown. Two figures got out and disappeared into the shadows of the entrance.

His stopped three or four houses away. Nobody got out.

There was a wait. A long wait. Ten or fifteen minutes' worth of wait. The doorway didn't light up. Nothing happened. Nothing that could be seen. You couldn't even tell that they were there at all, except that the first taxi, theirs, remained in abeyance at the curb.

Then one figure came back to it. The boy alone this time. There was a brief flickering of orange light as the door opened and closed.

The first cab went on.

The second one too.

"Now get in a little closer," its rider instructed. As though this was the part that really counted.

The lead cab drove north ten blocks, and east another eight, then north again, after waiting for a traffic light, for just half a block more.

It stopped finally in front of a flat building, the third one in from the corner on the east side of the street.

The boy in it got out. He paid it off. He went inside the building.

The man got out of his at the corner. He paid off too. He started down the opposite side of the street, the west side, on foot. He watched the windows carefully.

A single one lit up. On the fourth floor, on the righthand side of the building.

He crossed over, went into the entryway himself.

He only stopped there a minute, looking at one of the name cards affixed to the letter-boxes. Looking carefully at just one of them, the fourth one on the righthand side of the entrance. It read:

4-H. Morrissey, Wrn. C.

He turned and went outside again, and walked rapidly away from there. That was all.

It was a night later.

The same man had a companion now. A doorway companion. They were both loitering just inside the basement entrance to that same building, which was only a few yards away from the main entrance. It was recessed, and it was set somewhat below sidewalk level; three or four cement steps led down to it. It offered a perfect place of concealment from which to watch the sidewalk and the main entrance to the house. It had a light bulb set above it, to show the ash-collectors their way, but this had either gone out of order or been deliberately manipulated around in its socket so that it no longer conducted current.

The man's doorway companion smelled of cheap whisky and stale clothing, although nothing could be seen of him--there was only the telltale odor to classify him. He fidgeted a good deal more than the man himself. He started to light a cigarette. The man gave a chop of his hand and knocked it to the ground. The would-be user stooped down, located it, and put it back into his pocket, as if he was used to getting them from there anyway.

"Suppose he drives up in a cab?" he whispered hoarsely.

"A guy only does that when he's out with a girl. He was out with one last night. He won't be out with one tonight again. He's a one-girl man."

"Suppose he chases me himself and catches up with me?"

"Hit him in the belly, then," the man said grimly. "Foul him so that he can't. I thought you said you were an ex-pug. You ought to be able to take care of that."

"Okay, I will. I'll double him up like a pretzel."

"Make sure you get the wallet, now."

"I'm not new at this. It's the first time I'm doing it for somebody else, and not myself; that's the only difference."

There was a blur of lights down at the corner as a bus halted momentarily, then went on again along the lateral avenue that intersected there. Three people had been deposited at the stop, started going their diffuse ways. One was a girl, two were men.

"See the one with the floppy topcoat, hanging open?" the man coached. "That's your boy."

"It won't work," his companion said tautly. "The girl's heading the other way, but that other guy's coming right along behind him on this same side of the way. I can't do it with him there, he'll jump in and help him--"

"There's two chances out of three in our favor," the man said, equally taut. "He may turn in one of those first two houses. If he doesn't, then we'll put it off until tomorrow night."

The anonymous second man passed the first house.

"Even odds, now," the man in the doorway breathed.

The anonymous second man turned, went in the second house, as he came up to it. Morrissey remained alone on the sidewalk, striding for the third house, his own.

The man in the doorway let out his breath. "It paid off." He gave his companion a push, out and up the three short steps. "Get going before he gets the door open."

The shabby, hulking figure accosted Morrissey just as he reached the band of light flaring out from the doorway, said something to him in a whining undertone.

Morrissey half reached into his pocket, about to hand him something. Then he changed his mind. "No--beat it," he grunted. "You're no good, I can tell by looking at you."

He turned to go in.

The panhandler brought the edge of his hand down like a cleaver, across the back of his neck, in a devastating rabbit-punch. Then as the boy swayed and went staggering off-balance, he swung him around forward and drove his knee brutally up into his intestines. The boy gave a deep, shuddering groan and collapsed to his knees. His assailant spaded a hand deftly around to his back pocket, extracted his wallet, then let him tumble in a writhing heap. He turned and fled, disappearing around the lower corner where the bus had just stopped.