The Toff In New York (5 page)

A young man whom he had not seen before was now following Valerie and the earnest Conway. This young man had been waiting opposite the hotel. Rollison had not yet seen his face, but had a good view of the curly, reddish hair, the slender shoulders, the almost hipless body. The young man's movements were cat-like, possessing a kind of natural stealth.

At Broadway, the couple turned towards Times Square, and the hipless young man followed them.

As Rollison followed in turn, a great garish yellow-and-red taxi slowed down alongside him, and the cabby gave him an enormous wink and a gargantuan whisper:

“You okay, bud?”

Rollison gave him the thumbs up sign, and walked on. Three times, when the others were held up at traffic lights, he turned to look behind him, but he saw no sign of Mike Halloran and nothing to suggest that he was being followed.

At 45th Street, Conway and Valerie turned into a restaurant across the front of which was written in naming red: HAM ‘N EGGS. The hipless young man was then ten yards behind them; he didn't go in, but turned and went down the next street, where the restaurant boasted another window and a sign in flaming yellow.

Rollison reached the doorway.

Inside were bright lights, a spotless bar, red-topped stools, and tables for four, with high-backed seats. Cooks in starched white and waitresses in pale blue had eager, hopeful looks.

Conway had taken Valerie to one of the tables, and they were sitting down. A man was already there; Rollison could just see the top of his head.

So there was a third man.

Rollison went in and took a seat at a corner of the counter, so that he was sideways on to the trio, and very close by.

 

 

From his point of vantage, Rollison could see the man whom Valerie had gone to see; he could also see the top of Brian Conway's head, and the tip of Valerie's little white hat. When he glanced at the window, he had a view of the hipless young man, who was just outside.

His chief interest was in the man who had been waiting in the restaurant for Conway and Valerie. He liked nothing about the face and the sharp, bright eyes.

Everything else seemed so cosy.

Hunger teased Rollison as a young man wearing a spotless white smock and a white chef's hat came up and asked: “What's yours?”

“Ham and eggs,” said Rollison in the Colonel's voice.

“Eyes open or closed?”

Rollison clutched at memory, while the young cook regarded him without impatience or affection. Memory came to the rescue.

“Closed,” Rollison said, firmly.

“Want coffee?”

“You bet.”

The cook turned his back, and cracked eggs into a basin, slapped them into a small steel frying-pan, added bacon, and then started a great sizzling. A girl had ordered coffee and cheesecake for the trio in the stall. Whatever they said was very low-pitched, and Rollison heard nothing except whispers. He wished he could see Valerie's face, but he had to judge the show she was putting up from the face of the man opposite her. It was interesting, after all. Small, pale, rather narrow, with close-set bright eyes, a small, pointed nose.

He did not have the look of a big shot.

He kept looking about him, at the door, and at the hipless man, but he did not pay any attention to Rollison.

His biscuit-coloured jacket had wide shoulders; there was probably plenty of room for a gun in a shoulder-holster.

Every now and again he said: “Yeh,” and sometimes he said “Naw.” Occasionally, Valerie's voice sounded, almost angrily; anyone within range would know that they were quarrelling, but was given no inkling about the cause of the trouble.

Brian Conway contributed nothing at all to the conversation; he stayed dumb and looked miserable.

There was a sudden, triumphant sizzling sound in front of Rollison. Then the shimmering steel frying-pan, containing two eggs and some streaky bacon fried in the whites, was slapped in front of him. This appeared as if by magic. The eyes of the eggs were covered, blessedly, with a pale film of white. A crusty roll and a dab of butter were placed by this, and a huge cup of coffee. Rollison had not realised quite how hungry he was.

He did realise that it was now nearly half-past twelve, and unless things moved quickly he would not be able to use the taxi again.

He finished eating, and was about to order more coffee when Conway stood up, and all the trio made a move. The man with the close-set eyes wasn't as tall as Conway, and he proved to be painfully thin. He led the way, and Valerie, tight-lipped and obviously angry, came next. Conway looked ill-at-ease as he brought up the rear. They all went out into Broadway.

Rollison slipped a dollar-fifty on to the counter, stood up and went into the side street.

The hipless man was also on the move again.

Rollison now knew that this man had a pleasant face, if not particularly handsome or even full of character. He quickened his pace to intercept the others, and Rollison thought that he was going to call to Valerie.

He did, in a clear voice:

“Miss Hall, can you spare me a minute?”

He was only a few yards away from the trio, and there was no doubt that Valerie and the others heard him. Valerie actually looked round. The thin-faced man gripped her arm tightly, and Conway stood between her and the hipless wonder, who called again:

“Miss Hall, can you- . . .“

Then, in front of Rollison's eyes, the fantastic happened. Swiftly, ruthlessly, brutally. Two men appeared, one from behind the hipless wonder, one from the other side of the road. Rollison was only three yards away, but powerless to do anything about it until the attack was well under way. The hipless man's call was cut short, and a fist smashed into his mouth. His legs were hooked from under him, and he fell heavily. A toe-cap cracked at the side of his head, another into his ribs. His body seemed to shake. Two couples, coming out of HAM ‘N EGGS, drew back hastily, and one of the men said sharply: “None of our business!” Another man, on the far side of the road, shouted: “What's going on?” and started across, but several cars came along and the lights were green; he had to wait. Rollison could see Valerie and the other two at the corner; they hadn't been able to cross, and he had to get close to them.

If he drew too much attention to himself by attacking the two thugs. . . .

He didn't need to.

With a final kick, which shifted the hapless hipless man along the ground, the pair turned and moved swiftly towards Broadway and the mass of people there. By then someone was shouting: “Police!” and police whistles were shrilling. Two cops, with guns in their hands, appeared on the opposite corner as the lights changed. They came rushing across. Valerie and her companions passed them going in the other direction, and Rollison put as much space as he could between him and the youth who had been beaten-up. His height enabled him to see over most of the heads, and he saw a taxi draw up, at Conway's raised hand. They bundled the girl into it.

“Bud!” Rollison groaned.

A taxi slid alongside him.

“In a hurry?” asked his cabby, with huge delight.

Rollison tumbled in. The door slammed, and the cab moved off quite as swiftly as the one in front.

“Follow that red cab,” Rollison said breathlessly.

“Okay. I got sense. I do all right?”

“You're not a man, you're a miracle.”

The cabby's grin was so delighted that it almost split the broad face in two.

“I'm not a miracle, I'm just a goddam Yank,” he said, and laughed with delight. “You want to know something? Okay, I'll tell you. I saw you go into that joint and I kept driving round the block; it was easy. You okay?”

“I'm fine.”

“You see the way they beat up that guy?”

“I saw it.” Rollison was lighting another cigarette.

“It sure is bad,” said the cabby, no longer even slightly flippant, “the things these guys will do. In broad daylight, too.” He meant that; and it was almost daylight here, anyone could be forgiven for assuming that this was a city which knew no night. “Some of these guys, they want frying. But the cops was quick. You see that? The cops was quick.”

“They really put a move on,” agreed Rollison.

“That's right,” said the driver. “They was putting a move on quick.”

He fell silent. That was not because of any great difficulty, at this stage, in keeping the red taxi in sight. They had moved two blocks and were waiting at traffic lights. A minute later, they turned into 42nd Street, and headed towards the East River. In minutes, they were out of the brightly lit section. Many shop windows were in darkness. High buildings stretched up, some of them almost out of sight. They passed the corner entrance to the Grand Central Station, and then the Commodore Hotel. There, to Rollison's relief, they turned up Lexington Avenue; had they gone straight on it would have been difficult for the cabby to follow without the men in the cab in front knowing.

On Lexington, the traffic lights were with them, they had a long, sweeping drive without having to stop, and were in the middle of a group of some thirty or forty cars; there was no danger here. The red cab kept to the middle of the road at first, but gradually it pulled over towards the right, as if it were going to turn.

Rollison's driver pulled over, too.

The red cab swung right into one of the streets. Instead of following, the driver of Rollison's cab put his foot down, and the taxi seemed to leap forward. In that wild moment, Rollison wondered if he had been fooled, if his taxi-driver worked for Conway and Halloran, and had waited until now to show it.

“You've lost . . .“ he shouted desperately.

“Sit right back!” the cabby roared. He reached the next turning, which would carry one-way traffic to the left, instead of to the right, and swung into it the wrong way. A stationary car, waiting at the traffic lights, was so close that Rollison thought they were bound to crash. They missed by a fraction. No other cars were coming, and the cabby reached the next avenue, swung into it, cut across the path of two yellow cabs and forced them over, then swung into the next turning - the street into which Valerie's cab had been taken.

Tyres squealed.

The cabby slowed down.

“Okay?” he squeaked.

Red lights at the next intersection were holding up a solitary vehicle. As they drew nearer, it proved to be a red taxi; the red taxi.

“Okay,” Rollison breathed.

The lights changed, and the two cars started off almost simultaneously. Rollison's cabby got his nose in front and kept that way for the next block, then allowed the other cab to overtake him. Had he been driving himself, Rollison would not have done this half as well. When the red cab slowed down again, outside a house in a street which led from Second Avenue to the East River, the three people in it could hardly suspect that the cab behind had followed.

As Rollison passed, he saw Valerie being helped out, and Conway already on the pavement, the other man crouching in the cab. None of them looked at him. He saw a number over the front door of the tall, narrow house: 48. He let his driver take him round the corner, and as they stopped he had another twenty-dollar bill in his hand.

The cabby squinted.

“Cheese, naw,” he said; “you paid me.”

“This is for waiting for the next hour,” Rollison said, “say opposite number 38.”

“Sure, that's okay, then,” the cabby conceded. “It's not as if I need any sleep.” He pocketed the twenty. “Bud,” he said, “you wouldn't be walking into any trouble, would you? Not like that guy who was beaten up on 47th. Ain't none of my business, but you're a stranger around here, and some of these guys”

“Just a good girl friend of mine,” said Rollison, “mixed up with the wrong boy friend.”

The cabby said: “Well, if it's okay, okay. Take good care of yourself.” He drove off, and Rollison turned away from the taxi and approached Number 48. He already knew that this was East 13th Street.

As he reached Number 48, two men leapt at him from the doorway. The light shining from it showed them to be the two who had attacked the hipless wonder.

 

 

The two men made one mistake as they fell upon Rollison; they came one at a time. Probably, the first was meant to floor the victim, the other to start the kicking and hacking process. It did not quite work out that way. The first man, hands raised as he plunged and feet ready to hook Rollison's legs from under him, felt his right arm grabbed. The world suddenly turned upside down. Rollison saw him curving a neat arc, about eight feet off the ground, but didn't wait to hear him fall; for the other man was not far away, and this other man had a knife.

Rollison shot out a leg.

The second assailant had no time to back away; at full pelt he ran into the foot which was stiff and straight, as if fastened to the end of an iron bar. The breath was driven out of his body in a long, anguished groan. The knife flickered and flashed, but he didn't let it go. Seeing him staggering back, Rollison glanced round to make sure that the first man was still on the ground and taking little notice, then went bodily into the attack. He was not simply annoyed, or just acting in self-defence. He was savagely angry, for he could see the hipless wonder in his mind's eye. Fist to stomach brought a gusty groan; fist to jaw brought a crack that sounded like bone breaking; another to the jaw tipped the man almost head over heels. This time he lost his grip on the knife and it went flying.

Then, two things happened.

A car or cab turned into the road, and the first man leapt. He also carried a knife. The faint light from the doorway showed a face which might have been a model for Epstein; as brutish as human faces come, with expression to match. As the car or cab came hurtling on, Rollison went like a bullet to meet this jungle throwback, and his left hand shot out, to grip the wrist of the knife-hand.

For a moment, they were locked together; gasping as they struggled.

Next, the brute went staggering back, and his right arm hung limp by his side; the knife dropped from his fingers, and he began to utter little whimpering sounds. Rollison went in fast and savagely again, giving himself time to smack right and left to the jaw, and put his man down. Then, he turned, to find his cabby coming from the cab, mouth wide open, eyes rounded in disbelief when he saw the pair of jungle beasts.

“Caw!” he breathed.

“Pardner,” said Rollison, breathing very hard, “it's none of your business, and you'll be crazy if you get yourself mixed up with it. But if these guys happened to get locked in the trunk of your cab, you'd qualify to belong to the State of Texas.”

As he spoke, he was bending down over the first man he had knocked out. He ran through his pockets, then moved him so that he was stretched out on his back.

“You could even take them to hospital,” went on Rollison, “and say you found them two or three blocks away.”

“Bud,” said the cabby, “it's none of my business, but you've got something. Cheese! They might gimme a reward for hospitalising the guys, eh? Okay. Give me a hand with them.”

The job took a fraction under two minutes; the first man was put in the taxi's trunk, which Rollison knew as the boot; and the other on the floor in the back of the taxi. This man's right arm was broken, but the other did not seem to be badly hurt. The cabby was in a tearing hurry to get off.

“I'll be back,” he flung over his shoulder. “Don't go far, bud.”

Rollison watched him drive off, smiled, and said in a curiously mild voice:

“Bless your stout heart. Bud.”

Then, he turned towards Number 48, putting into his own pockets everything he had taken from the men's.

The street door was still ajar, and Rollison stepped in and closed it. The house was silent. Light came from a ceiling light in the hall, which was narrow with a flight of stairs leading off at one side. Men's hats, some plastic raincoats and some oddments were on a hallstand. The door by the side of the hallstand was closed. A black card hung from a nail, reading: Ask Here. He didn't, but started up the stairs. They were carpeted, but nothing could stop them from groaning. He kept to one side of them, close to the wall; that way, he kept the sound to a minimum. As he neared the next landing, he saw that passages led both ways; short, narrow, ill-lit. At the end of each was a door, and beneath one door a strip of light. He approached the door which was in darkness, taking out a penknife which had several odd blades. One was a skeleton key. He used it, swiftly, the sharp, dexterous turns making little sound. He knew that he was piling risk on risk; things he could get away with in London, where he knew the police, might run him into outsize trouble in New York; but this wasn't the time to be fainthearted.

He opened the door.

Silent darkness greeted him.

He closed this door and approached the other, and then went to the lighted apartment; as he drew nearer, he heard the drone of radio or television, and didn't think it likely that Brian Conway or the others were sitting back and having fun.

They might have the radio on, to drown any sound.

He used the key again, as deftly as before, but this time opened the door much more cautiously. Light came through; and beyond was another open door, showing a television set and the feet of a man and a woman sitting just out of his line of vision.

He went out.

The two doors on the next floor led to empty rooms.

On the third floor, one door looked to be in darkness, the other had light round it, but no sound came. Rollison used the key again, quickly but very cautiously; for this was the top floor of the building - if he judged it rightly, the third floor back. There was nowhere else for Valerie to be.

Valerie Hall didn't like any of what happened.

From the time they had bustled her into the taxi, on Broadway, she hadn't liked it at all. There'd been too much haste, and the grip on her arm had been much too tight. When they'd got in the taxi, Conway had sat one side of her and the stranger the other; and both men had held her arms, and looked ready to clap a hand over her face. They had been breathing hard and interested in something happening in the street, which Valerie hadn't noticed.

She was more scared then ever, in case anything had happened to the man Rollison. But she didn't spend much time thinking about Rollison, then, except to remember what he had advised her to do.

She relaxed, and sat back.

The others relaxed, too.

The narrow-faced man had called an order to the driver - 48 something street. Now, they travelled very fast. At first other traffic was close on their heels, some cars actually passed them. Lights were vivid at first, but soon became much less powerful. Valerie could look down streets which were almost in darkness. As the lights dimmed, her hope dimmed too, and her fears rose. Rollison's first advice had been best - stay indoors.

She knew that she couldn't have done so.

Now and again, the man with the narrow face looked round, obviously to find out whether they were being followed. Conway's manner had changed, and now he kept patting her hand, and saying:

“It's okay, Val, it's okay.”

She didn't like his touch; or him.

She liked the narrow-faced man much less.

He had been waiting in the restaurant, where Brian Conway had said that he would be, solitary, dark, oddly frightening; a man who looked as if he could be really bad.

They had talked a lot about ‘dough' and ‘Wilf', keeping their voices low. Valerie had fought hard to make sure that she didn't raise hers. She had been determined not to hand over the diamonds or the money until she had seen Wilf, but at heart she had known that she might have to; she would do anything to give Wilf a chance. Conway had tried to make her less adamant, as if he was frightened of the narrow-faced man. Perhaps he was.

Valerie had told herself that she hadn't a hope of gaining her point, that she might even be putting Wilf in great danger by holding out.

Then, abruptly:

“Okay, okay,” the narrow-faced man had said, “you can see him. Okay.”

So, they'd left the restaurant.

Valerie hadn't seen Rollison anywhere near.

Twenty minutes later, the narrow-faced man opened the door of a room in a dark, gloomy building a long way from Times Square. There was a smell of stale cooking, and a sickly smell of paint. The stairs creaked. There was dust on window-ledges and on the banisters. She was in front of both men, and they came up single file. She could easily have screamed. The sight of lights beneath some of the door didn't reassure her. She was hopelessly confused; there was the hope of seeing Wilf as well as fear that she would not, fear that this was simply a trick.

The narrow-faced man had opened a door with a key, and thrust it back.

“Listen, you're on the level, aren't you?” Conway asked, in a timid-sounding voice. If he knew the man, would he be so timid? Was there any chance that she and Rollison were wrong about him? Or was this just part of the act?

The narrow-faced man gave a one-sided grin.

“Sure,” he said, “this is on the level. It's on my level.” He slid his right hand to the inside of his coat, and before Valerie realised what he was doing, he produced a gun. He didn't point it at her or at Conway, just held it casually. “Sure,” he repeated; “you don't have to worry. Inside.”

“Listen, you said . . .“ Conway breathed. Was he genuinely frightened?

“I don't have to listen,” the narrow-faced man said. “Inside.”

They went in.

The only light was the one which the man had switched on. There was no sound. When the door closed it seemed to shut them off from the world. They were in a tiny lobby, with arched doorways without doors leading off it in two directions. The narrow-faced man manoeuvred so that both of them were in front of him, and then said:

“Put on that light.”

Conway obeyed.

He was nervous - wasn't he? It wasn't just pretended.

Valerie looked round a sitting-room, with some armchairs, a threadbare carpet, a table against the wall. The only hint of luxury was in the big television which filled a corner. Compared with the suite at the Arden-Astoria, this was a slum apartment. It was empty; of course it was; but Valerie couldn't stop herself from saying:

“Where - where is he?”

“You want to see your brother?” sneered the narrow-faced man. “Okay, you can see him.” He went to a small bureau in another corner, and picked something up, brought it across and thrust it into Valerie's face. “That him?”

It was an enlargement from a coloured snap of Wilfred Hall, taken while he had been here in New York. It couldn't have been a better likeness. Smiling, nice-looking, strong, healthy, and radiating a kind of confidence. He was their father all over again, the true son of the man who had built up the Hall millions half-way round the world.

Valerie hadn't seen him for three months.

She looked up into the narrow face. Had Rollison seen her then, he would have recognised most of the emotions which chased one another.

“I want to see him in the flesh,” she said, very firmly, “and until I do . . .“

The narrow-faced man said smoothly, nastily: “Don't get me wrong, sister. You're not seeing your brother until we're ready to show him, and that's not now. Where's the dough and where are the jewels?”

“I'm not giving them to you until I've seen Wilf,” Valerie said. By some miracle, she managed to keep her voice steady, to sound determined. She stared at the man, defiantly. She felt her heart thundering with such fear that she could hardly breathe, but didn't drop her eyes. “You said”

“Val,” muttered Brian Conway, “take it easy; don't make him mad.”

“That's good advice,” the narrow-faced man said; “why don't you take it? And you'll sure make me mad if you don't hand over. Come on, sister.”

He put out a hand; it was long and narrow - and dirty. Even palm upwards, the tips of dirty nails showed. Yet it was very steady, with the fingers curled slightly upwards, like a claw.

“Val, I told you not to come,” Conway muttered; “I warned you what would happen. You'd better hand over; this guy doesn't care whether you're a girl or not; he wants the jewels. Don't be crazy, Val; don't get yourself hurt.”

She blazed up at him.

“You snivelling little coward, what do you think you are to tell me what to do? Why don't you do something, instead of standing there looking as if you'll melt into the floor? If there's one thing I can't stand it's a coward! That's what you are, a hopeless, helpless, snivelling coward; if you had half Wilf's guts you'd wade into this beast.” Her eyes were blazing and her fists were clenched and she shook them at Conway, not at the narrow-faced man, who had first been startled, and now began to grin as if this was a great joke. “Why, I've seen braver men than you crawl” Valerie cried, and took a step forward as if to strike Conway. “Why don't you do something?”

Conway thrust out a hand defensively.

“Val . . .“ he began.

Then, she sprang round towards the narrow-faced man and struck the gun out of his hand.

He was taken completely by surprise, and as the gun fell and he backed away, Valerie jumped towards the door.