Ghost of a Chance (21 page)

“She put on her things and went. I could see her from where I was making the bed.”

“Was she in a hurry? Did she seem to be leaving because of the phone call?”

“Yes!” The maid looked at him in sudden surprise. “Yes, I think it was the phone call made her go.”

“Did you hear anything she said?”

“I was in the bedroom.”

“But you must have heard something. Didn’t you hear anything?”

“I heard her say something about Thirty-fourth Street. She said it slow… like you do when you’re writing something down. You know.”

Jeff and I reached the phone at the same time. It stood on a small end table beside the davenport. There was no pencil, no pad, no scrap of paper on the table. There was nothing but an ashtray and a telephone. I sat beside it, I leaned down to look under the table. There was nothing there. I looked at the davenport. There was only a hatbox. I started to shove it away when I saw the writing on its top. I said, “Jeff.”

It was only a scrawl, more doodling than writing. An elaborate number 8, a curlicue that might have been anything, then a heavily retraced 34. That was all.

“Eight… something… Thirty-fourth Street,” Jeff said.

“East or West Thirty-fourth,” I said.

“Yes,” Jeff said. “West is in the Empire State Building. And East… I don’t know. We’ll have to cover them both.” He turned to the maid. “What does Miss Kennedy look like?”

The fright sprang back into the maid’s eyes. “You said you knew her… you said…”

“Tell us what she looks like.”

“She’s… she’s tall. Taller than me and I’m almost five foot nine. She’s got brown hair, nice brown hair that’s short and kind of curly.”

“What was she wearing?”

“Her coat is black… a plain black cloth coat, and her hat is one of them fancy ones…”

There was a knock on the door and Hankins’ voice roared through it. Jeff turned the key and the detective came into the room. He looked fine; he had never looked better to me. He only had time to take one step before Jeff turned him around and started him back toward the hall.

He said, “She’s in one of two places. Did you bring anyone with you?”

“A couple of the boys are downstairs.”

We were hurrying toward the elevators.

Jeff said, “We’ll need more men. Quick.”

“I can get them. I’m using a radio car.”

The elevator dropped us to the lobby. I was a step ahead of Jeff and Hankins as we started for the street. I saw the man rise from his chair. He had been reading a newspaper and now, still reading it, he took a few quick steps. He looked strange, ludicrous, reading as he walked. The paper seemed tremendous held in his left hand; it reached from halfway up his face down almost to his knees. That was because he was short.

He was coming directly at us, the paper still before him. I saw the picture of a snowdrift on the paper and the small black hole in the middle of it. The muzzle of a gun poked through the hole. I saw the paper stiffen in his grasp.

I took three running steps and threw myself headlong at the little man’s knees, twisting sideways as I went through the air. I crashed into him as the shot rang out, and I saw Jeff in a headlong dive across me.

That was the last I saw before the blackness moved in.

Aunt Ellie was sitting in a chair beside a window. She was looking at me, smiling at me. I closed my eyes and opened them again. Aunt Ellie was still there.

“Aunt Ellie,” I said, “where are you?”

“I’m in your bedroom, dear. I hope you don’t mind, but I love to see people regain consciousness.”

I sat up; I was in my bedroom.

“Aunt Ellie,” I said, “Where’s Jeff?”

“He’ll be back. He’s in the kitchen fixing something for you. Now you lie down and…”

“What time is it?”

“What time?” She fiddled with the locket watch pinned at her bosom. “Jeffie tells me you saved your life and his. He’s tickled pink. He says…”

“Aunt Ellie, what time is it?”

“It’s twenty-five minutes to eleven.”

Jeff came into the bedroom with a tall glass of eggnog. He sat on the edge of the bed. “Drink all of it, Haila.”

“Jeff, it’s not eleven yet…”

“I’ll tell you about it while you drink this.”

I started to drink, only to start Jeff talking.

“It’s going to be all right,” Jeff said. “Hankins has Thirty-fourth Street swarming with cops. He’s got them at eight East and eight West. He’s got some people from the hotel who know Sally Kennedy. They’ll find her, Haila. And Hankins will call us the minute they do.” I drank all of my drink. I leaned back and asked for a cigarette. Except for a spot on my skull that felt as though a pneumatic drill had spent the night there, I was in pretty fair shape. Jeff’s brew and Hankins’ efficiency had made a new girl of me.

“Tell me about Shorty, Jeff.”

“You were rude to Shorty, dear. All he wanted to do was shoot us.”

“I only wanted to save him from the electric chair.”

“Well, you didn’t. Shorty’s in the clink now.”

My aunt said, “Jeffie!”

“Yes, Aunt Ellie?”

“Haila!”

“Yes, Aunt Ellie?”

“You know,” Aunt Ellie said, “I’ve been thinking.”

Jeff looked incredulous; she was my aunt, on my mother’s side, so I tried to look interested. I said, “Really, Aunt Ellie?”

“Yes, I’ve just been sitting here and thinking. And I’m not at all satisfied. East or west… why, that’s the most important thing. If you don’t have east or west right, you might as well not have the street. Now suppose I was to meet somebody and they said east and I went west? Why, we would never meet! It would cause a great deal of confusion. I might still be standing there, waiting and worrying. Believe me, if I made a note I would put down east or west… or anyway E or W… and make it good and plain.”

“I’m sure you would, Aunt Ellie,” I said. “But Sally Kennedy was in a hurry.”

“If I was in a hurry I would be even more careful. Suppose I went east and the person meant west…”

“Yes, Aunt Ellie, yes.”

“But, Haila, dear, 8 and a scribble and a 34… that might mean anything.”

“Sally just happened to write it down because she had a pencil. She didn’t make a note to take along with her. She expected to remember it.”

Aunt Ellie was still too busy thinking to listen to me.

“It might be 34 East Eighth Street or…”

“The maid heard her say Thirty-fourth Street.”

“Oh. Well, it might mean 8 and 34. You know, Eighth Street and Thirty-fourth Avenue… no, no, that’s not it. But Eighth Avenue and Thirty-fourth Street. That scribble might have been an and sign. Why, maybe…” Aunt Ellie giggled. “No, that’s too silly.”

She never would have forgiven me if I hadn’t asked what was too silly. So I asked.

“Why, nobody would meet anybody there. I mean at the subway stop. Eighth Avenue and Thirty-fourth Street. Nobody would…”

Jeff took his chin off his elbow. He got up from the edge of the bed and looked down at Aunt Ellie. He took a slow step toward her.

“What did you say, Aunt Ellie?”

“I said nobody would meet anyone in a subway station. That would be silly…”

“A subway station,” Jeff said. “They used a subway station for Frank Lorimer. Eight and thirty-four…” His voice rose almost to a shout. “The Eighth Avenue subway… the Thirty-fourth Street stop…”

He snatched up his coat. His hat tumbled to the floor but he didn’t stop to get it. I heard the apartment door slam. I flung myself out of bed and scrambled into my shoes. I grabbed for my coat. The door opened before I reached it and Jeff was back.

“Joyce,” he said. “He’s in front of the house. No, Aunt Ellie, don’t move! He’s watching.”

“Jeff,” I said, “did he see you?”

“No. Aunt Ellie, you stay there in that chair. Keep talking. Pretend you’re talking to us. Talk your fool head off. We’ll go out the back.”

We started out of the room.

“Well,” Aunt Ellie said, “did I ever tell you about the time I ate too much…”

We were across the living room. Jeff wrenched open the French door and then Aunt Ellie’s voice was too far behind us to hear. We climbed the rear fence into the back yard of the big commercial building behind our house. We ran through an open door into a kitchen, through a restaurant and out onto Sixth Avenue. The subway entrance was thirty feet away.

We raced down the steps. Jeff jammed two nickels into the slot and we swung through the turnstile. We missed one train by seconds; we had to wait two minutes for the next. The train rushed through the tunnel. A stop at Fourteenth Street, at Twenty-third, then we were pulling into Thirty-fourth. I saw a watch on a man’s wrist. It was eleven minutes to eleven.

We were first through the opening doors. A mass of people waiting on the platform surrounded us. For a moment we were caught helplessly in the crushing movement of the crowd. Then, as if by magic, the mob dispersed. The long white-tiled platform was quiet and nearly deserted. Jeff’s hand was on my arm.

“We’ll take this platform first,” he said. “Then the express and the downtown local.”

We moved to the track-edge of the station and turned our backs on it. I raised myself on tiptoe, searching the length of platform from end to end, my eyes darting over the people left on it.

There weren’t many women. Two giggling girls in polo coats and bobby socks punching at a chewing gum machine. A tiny, lost-looking girl with a bulging suitcase puzzling over the arrowed signs painted on the walls. A red-headed woman powdering her nose at the mirror above a chocolate dispenser. Down at the far end of the platform, a placid, middle-aged woman sitting on a bench, her hat and purse beside her. In front of the magazine stand another woman, her back toward us. She turned and we could see that she was old, very old, her face a network of wrinkles, her hair snowy white.

That was all. No Sally Kennedy. No one who could possibly be the girl we were seeking.

We about-faced to glance across the tracks at the center platform. There were more people there. An express pulled in and cut them from our view.

We started for the stairs to the underpass. I took one last searching look up and down the local platform. The girl with her suitcase was still there, the two gigglers. At the far end of the platform, the woman on the bench. And not far from her a girl.

We both started forward at the same time. Only a few feet from the bench stood Sally Kennedy.

Even so far away we could tell it was she. The tall, slim figure, the sleek black coat. And, as we came closer and could see her face, we knew for sure. The brown hair, short and curly, cropping out from under a bright green hat.

A train roared in beside us and we started running. It was no good. The train stopped, its doors slid open. The crowds spewed out of the cars, swallowing us in their midst, swallowing Sally Kennedy, too.

I caught a moment’s glimpse of her. She was standing beside the bench, holding onto it with one hand, the other fumbling with her purse. I saw her bend down over the woman on the bench, I saw her lips move as she spoke to her.

A man brushed against me, blocking my view. The crowd milled about us; we had to fight not to lose ground. Jeff threw his shoulder against the wall of people and we moved slowly forward. Then the crowd thinned and cleared. I could see the bench again, the woman sitting on it. But Sally Kennedy was gone.

Jeff had seen that, too. He was swearing under his breath as he stared about him, searching.

“Jeff! That woman on the bench, she spoke to Sally.”

The woman looked startled as we converged upon her and shot out our question. Then she smiled.

“Yes,” she said. Her voice was sweet and rather high. “I know who you mean. She asked me how to get to Fifty-ninth Street. I told her she’d have to cross to the other platform, that this was the downtown side.”

Jeff grasped my hand and pulled me toward the stair. We ran down into the tunnel that was the underpass. “You take the local platform, Haila, just in case… I’ll take the express.”

He was up the center stairway and out of sight. I ran on to the end of the tunnel. I took the flight of stairs there three at a time. But I was too late.

The train was already in, its passengers pushing into the cars. I raced across the platform and pushed in with them. The door started to slide closed behind me before I realized what I had done.

The girl had not been Sally Kennedy; we had been wrong. She would not have come downtown to Thirty-fourth Street only to ride back to Fifty-ninth. She would have come to meet someone, she would have waited until… I turned and struggled toward the door. I had to get out; our search had to begin all over again.

The door was almost closed. I lunged and stuck out my hand. The rubber buffing of the door slapped against it. I pushed with all my might and squeezed out of the car. Behind me the door closed with a jar, as if outraged by my interference.

The train moved out of the station, uncovering an express that stood between me and Jeff. I scanned the platform I was on. There were a lot of women, women with coats of all colors and hair of all colors. But no tall girl in a black coat with brown, curly hair.

There were no trains at all in the station now. I looked across the island that was the middle platform. Jeff wasn’t on it. Across all four tracks I could see the uptown local side. I saw the middle-aged woman still on the bench, but I couldn’t find Jeff. He might be in the underpass, coming to meet me.

I started to turn toward the stairs, and stopped. My eyes were drawn back to the woman on the bench. What was it about her? I had looked at her several times, I had talked to her. There was nothing to make me hesitate now and yet… there
was
something. There was something about her that held me there, rooted to the spot.

I stared across at her so intently that my eyes burned. I gritted my teeth in an effort to think… to know what it was that had attracted my attention and this feeling of great urgency. The woman still sat quietly where we had first seen her. She had removed the purse from the seat beside her, she had put on her hat. She had…

I knew then. I looked frantically for Jeff.

The woman was wearing a red hat. A bright red hat festooned with tiny, jet-black feathers. A hat that I had seen one time before. It had been sitting perkily upon the coffee table in Sally Kennedy’s hotel room.