The Blackbirder (2 page)

He said, “Allow me.” She stood tensed as he took the key from her, opened the vestibule door. But he returned the key and stepped back. He removed his hat, bowed. He said, “I will telephone you and we will have dinner soon, Julie? Perhaps Sunday night?”

She said, “Yes, telephone me.” Perhaps she could move tomorrow, Saturday, be lost to him again. Perhaps there was no reason for this fear of him. Perhaps he hadn't noticed the waiter. Perhaps he had been genuinely pleased to see her at Carnegie, lonely in a strange land, proud to show his new prosperity to one who had known him poor.

She softened. She smiled and took his outstretched hand. “I'd be delighted, Maxl. Telephone me.”

She stepped into the dim smell of old tiles, closed the door. She looked through the half-lighted pane, watched Maxl descend the steps and walk toward the cab. He stopped and his hand went into his pocket. She smiled. He wasn't as prosperous as his pretense. He was going to pay off and go by subway from here. She liked him better.

She turned and climbed the three flights to her walk-up apartment. Third floor, left front. A small, soiled-looking room, a stained bath, a cubbyhole called a kitchenette. It was cheap and it looked cheap. Once she hadn't known that anyone could live in such a fashion. Paul still wouldn't know. The very unpleasantness made this a haven. No one would seek the niece of Paul Guille, rightfully the Duc de Guille, here. No one from the past must find her. Maxl had. By accident or design. It didn't matter. She must move on to another such place before he sought her again.

She turned on the rose-shaded lamp, walked to the front windows to draw the blinds. The taxi was gone.

Maxl wasn't gone. Under the street lamp he looked as if he'd started to run down the steep incline leading to the Drive. He looked as if he'd fallen and forgotten to get up. She knew it was Maxl. She could almost feel the fuzz on his black coat.

She pulled the shade down, down, down, and suddenly took her brown-gloved fingers away from it as if it burned. She stood there very stiff, knowing something but not able to say to herself what it was. Then a shaft opened in her mind and she did know. It was something she had to do. She had to go downstairs again to help Maxl. He wasn't dead. This was America, not Gestapo-ridden Europe. He couldn't just lie there on the walk. She must go to him. Even if his attackers were outside hovering, she must do it. It was the creed of refugees: help one another.

She left the lamp burning. She made no sound descending the three flights, but there were sounds about her: rustles and whispers, bumps and creaks. She reached the front door, put her gloved hand on the knob. She hesitated. Whether it was Nazis or anti-Nazis who had attacked him, she was on the wrong side. She had been with him.

She opened the door and crept down the steps. She turned toward the Drive, moved on dragging feet. A few steps to his shadow on the pavement. She bent over him and she stood again quickly. He was dead.

She had known that he would be dead. He wouldn't have lain face down on the sidewalk in his new coat if he weren't dead. She must run, now, quickly; not return to the dingy room. Fortunately, she hadn't removed her wraps or laid down her purse. Run, run fast. But before she ran she had to get that little black morocco book from his inner pocket. Because her name was in it. When the police found Maxl, found that book, they would come for her. He lay on the sidewalk in front of her apartment house, and in his book was the address of her apartment house right under her name.

When the police came for her, they would interrogate her. Why was she in this country? There was no reason she dared give. Had she friends, family? None. How was she here? She had no passport for Juliet Marlebone. Senora Eloyso Vigil y de Vaca's passport had been returned to Havana long ago. She could be locked up. Terror beat her hands together. She could be deported to Paris. Terror shook every fiber of her body.

Run, run fast. Even now the police might be on the way. Someone behind one of those blank brick walls might have heard a shot. She hadn't heard a shot. Someone might have seen Maxl fall, might have given the alarm. She scooped down swiftly over him.

She had to lift him to reach that pocket. He was dead weight. She couldn't budge him. Frantically she rammed her arm between the unyielding sidewalk and his hulk; she snaked her gloved fingers within the greatcoat, into the inner pocket. It took so long. She closed on the book, painfully edged it up and out. The killer hadn't taken it. He hadn't taken it. He hadn't known it was there. Or he didn't want it. It was nothing but a little book with names and addresses in it. She didn't look at it, she only felt it, thrust it down into her bag. She rose up quickly and plunged, half running, half stumbling toward the Drive. She didn't look back. She was afraid to look back.

The sound was her breath. It was coming and going fast, an animal sound. She turned the corner of the Drive into the snagged teeth of the wind. She put her head down into it and forced her way on to 79th Street. She turned sharp there and started back up the hill toward Broadway. The hill held her back, the wind had followed her. It was like trying to hasten in a dream. She could hear the hunted sound of her breath. The lights of a cab were approaching and she shrank close to the dark hull of the buildings. But she didn't stop walking. She kept on, slowly as in a nightmare, with her heart pumping faster, faster. The cab didn't stop. It rolled down the street, turning north at the Drive.

She crossed West End without looking. right or left, particularly not looking right. Someone might be on the corner of 78th Street. Her legs ached pushing them up the hill. The crosstown blocks were always long, now they were endless. She might have been on a squirrel tread, moving but not advancing. And then she reached the crest, Broadway.

There were lights here, not as many as once there had been, the street lamps dimmed, the store windows darkened by war conditions. But more light than on the side ways. She slid her left arm out of the coat sleeve, looked down at her wristwatch. Ten minutes to two o'clock. It had been after one when Maxl left her at the door. The hours since hadn't added to one hour.

She stood there under the dull street light not looking at the watch. The palms of her gloves were dark; she touched them together, dark, sticky darkness. She had held them tensed, palm to palm, while she braced the wind and the hill and night shadow. She rubbed them frantically; the stain matted. On the right sleeve of her brown coat the dark stuff had crawled like a monstrous spider. It seemed to be crawling still. She was shaking so much that she couldn't move, but she did, darting across the half street, cowering into the downtown subway entrance. On the damp stairs she pulled the gloves from her hands inside out. Her breath was sobbing when she scrubbed them against the right sleeve of her coat. She could throw them away— but not her coat, the night was too cold.

She ran on down the steps, opened her purse and her coin purse, found a nickel, went through the turnstile. There was no one on the platform, not on the downtown or uptown side. She scurried to the bench, sat there, wishing she were numb, not palsied. Her fingers felt sticky now. A silent scream ached in her throat as she saw the dark red gumming them. They'd been clean before they delved into her purse. The notebook there inside. She fumbled the gloves back on her hands, wiped them over the purse. She opened it furtively, clicked it shut. The color of blood was inside. There were smudges on the front of her coat where the purse had lain. If she pressed it there again, that one stain was hidden.

Someone was clattering down the stairs. She froze, not daring to look. She heard the nickel's click, the thud of the turning stile. The steps moved away. From under the brim of her hat, her eyes slanted. A man, a night worker. His back turned to her, the early morning tabloid in his hands.

She rubbed her gloved fist against her coat sleeve. The worst was on the under side where her arm had slid into Maxi's inner pocket. If she held her arm close to her side, it wouldn't be noticed much. If she kept her gloved hands in her pockets, they wouldn't show. The stains didn't look like blood.

They had the smell of blood.

The roar of the local came from the tunnel. She stood, waited until the train had stopped before hurrying to it. She entered a different car from the tabloid man. There were only a few persons in the lighted interior, two men with the inevitable tabloids before their faces; one man asleep, his head swaying forward and back and side with the motion of the train. She stood in the darkened vestibule, pressed against the steel wall for support, watching blindly the dark rush of tunnel. She didn't know where she was going. She didn't know where she could go. There was less than five dollars in her purse. Even if she'd had more than that a hotel was out of the question. Without luggage, matted with blood, a girl couldn't walk into a hotel in the middle of the night. The railroad terminals— she didn't dare. She'd be watched. There were signs:
No Loiterers.
There were all-night movie theaters but she was afraid, afraid of a lighted foyer, of a ticket seller's memory.

She couldn't leave town until morning. She must have more money; she must get rid of the blood-stained clothes first. Lucky she'd been foresighted about putting her funds into a savings bank. There'd be no questions asked when she withdrew it. A large check offered by a haggard young girl would be questioned. Particularly one with blood on her garments. Her face mirrored in the half-lighted pane of the door was more than haggard. It was the face of a tortured ghost.

Where could she go until morning? Where could she hide? The train pulled into Times Square. Without volition she left it. The vast underground cavern was curiously empty at this morning hour. She wasn't lost in a throng as she would be during the day and early evening. She was someone to be remembered by the other stragglers. She took the next train that came along. It didn't matter where she was going. She was too tired to remain longer on her feet. She crept into the lighted interior, sat in a corner, hugging her purse and arms close against her, tucking her gloved hands under her elbows. There were two other night-weary passengers. They didn't look at her.

She rode to the end of the line. She didn't know where she was: Brooklyn, Flatbush, Queens— it didn't matter. When the guard came through, she said, “I slept through my station.” She moved wearily, paid another nickel, and began the long ride uptown.

She rode until her watch said seven o'clock. Sometimes she dozed from sheer weariness but she was afraid. The jerk of the train entering a station was the jerk of the arm of the law. Always it woke her. She was sly in her terror, leaving trains at odd stations, waiting, sometimes an hour, for the next car. Only once was she spoken to and that by a drunk. He might have caused a scene, remembered her later, but she wasn't alone on the platform then. Two men stared at him and he swaggered away.

At six there were more persons coming into the trains. She stood then and whenever anyone looked at her, she left the train at the next station. When her watch said seven, she waited for Times Square again. She shuttled to Grand Central, climbed the stairs, entered the women's room on the upper level. She didn't look at anyone; there weren't very many women there. Her face in the mirror was gray; even her lips were gray. Under her eyes were slate-gray circles.

She used a machine for towel and soap, laid the packet on the ledge, and stripped the gloves from her hands. The palms were stiff now. She thrust them into her bag quickly and closed it. She scrubbed her hands, her face, her hands again. She could still feel the stickiness on her fingertips. She reopened her bag, forced her fingers inside, found lipstick and a comb. Her dark hair was lank about her face. She tucked it behind her ears, pulled off her hat suddenly and thrust it up beneath the crown. The hat didn't look right but it was better that way.

She couldn't sponge at her coat, it might run red; she couldn't remove articles from her purse, examine them for caked blood. She wasn't alone here. She was afraid to lock herself inside a private dressing-room; someone might become suspicious of the stains. She washed her hands again before she left the room.

She went up the ramp to 42nd Street. At the door she bought two tabloids and the
Herald Tribune.
She put the papers under her arm, crossed the yet quiet traffic of the street, went down into the Automat. She had to open her purse again but she knew the bills in the zipper compartment were unstained. She laid the dollar on the counter, swept the two quarters and ten nickels into her ungloved hand, carried them to her tray.

Out of sheer weariness she dared the steam table for scrambled eggs and bacon. Toast and fruit juice went with it on the special. For a nickel the slot filled her cup with strong steaming coffee. She carried her tray to the farthest corner. She wasn't hungry for food but she was weak. She finished the last crust before she opened the papers.

There wasn't much in the
Herald Tribune,
a small item, the body of Maximilian Adlebrecht found on West 78th Street early this morning. Identified from letters on him. The tabloids were more lurid but they didn't know much more. Not in these early editions. The man was shot twice in the back at close range. She hadn't heard shots. The body was described as about 24 years old, well-dressed, $25 in a billfold, no robbery. The janitor of her house had found him about 3:00 a.m., turned in the alarm. The janitor with an unpronounceable Polish name was being held for further questioning. There was nothing about a dark girl who lived in that apartment house.

The day in New York didn't begin until nine o'clock. She could do nothing until then. An hour to wait. She was awake now although her eyes felt as if pins held them open. She sat there while the room filled, refilled, over and again, ignoring each pointed look at her continued occupation of a chair. She sat behind the opened newspapers, reading every readable word. She read for an hour. When she left, the
Tribune
and the
News
remained on her chair. She carried the less bulky
Mirror
folded beneath her purse. It helped hide the stains that were not coffee stains.