Fallen Sparrow (9 page)

She shook her head solemn-mouthed. “No. He didn’t come to see me. There’s been no one here tonight.”

“He lives in this house?”

“I’ve never seen anyone of that description—” Her words were broken by the rasping of her buzzer.

The sweat poured out on him again. He held her arm. “Don’t answer it.” The buzzing continued. But the corridor was filled with sound, voices, doors opening, footsteps that didn’t limp. Content pushed him away and ran to fling the door wide to the confusion. He was behind her. And he saw José’s beautiful dark face peering over the stairway. It was José who screamed softly, “It is the police!” He looked about with wild panic. He must have had previous experience with a different kind of police than the New York variety.

Kit stepped back out of sight. That was whom Wobblefoot was visiting. He didn’t know if the Spaniard had seen him or if he’d know him anyway. The cop reached Content’s doorway. He said, “We got a report a man climbed up the fire escape, broke in on this floor. Hear any disturbance, Miss?” He waited with his notebook.

She supplied, “Content Hamilton.”

He looked past her.

She was faintly embarrassed. “Kit McKittrick—my—cousin.” She didn’t attempt to explain his cousinly presence at three in the morning. “There’s been no disturbance, officer. We’d have heard it. Maybe this is the wrong apartment house.”

She didn’t close the door until the blue coat was climbing to the next floor. She said, “Well.”

Kit looked at the rug. “Maybe I’d better go.” He wouldn’t let himself think that his urge for sudden departure was to get away while the police were on guard.

She told him, “You can’t go now while they’re in the house. They might suspect you’re it.”

He sat down again. The man hadn’t made an appearance to the police, not on this floor; no one in the milling hallway had that deformed walk. He stiffened at the knock. He looked at her; her eyes too were wary now. He was on his feet, his thumb in his pocket before she touched the doorknob.

José shoved in. “You are secure, Content? No one has come here—” He broke off. “I did not know you have company, no.” He looked wise. Had he been sent to make certain Kit was here, to point for a visitor, one he might have known in his native country?

Content made quick shift of him. “Yes, I’ve company. And I’m all right.” She pushed him out with no ado. “Goodnight, José.” It was she who made the door secure now. She looked at Kit out of big eyes. “He’ll believe what isn’t so. Most men do when you’re in the display business. I’ve found that out.” She lifted her chin; she looked very small. “It doesn’t matter. I can take care of myself. I just don’t want you to think he—or anyone—comes in here. I’m not that kind.”

He assured her, “I know you aren’t.” He tried to grin. “Got a drink?”

She went into the bathroom, brought back the bottle she’d furnished this afternoon; He tipped it up. She wiped off the mouthpiece, choked, and handed it back to him. “I needed one too. What’s it all about, Kit?”

His earlier doubts of her hadn’t vanished completely. But he said, “Did you ever get to wondering why I was held prisoner for more than two years after the Spanish war was over? Did you ever wonder why the United States consul couldn’t arrange my release?”

“Ab did.” She spoke proudly. “They told the state department you were dead. And when you returned, Ab wondered.”

“I escaped.” Incredibly he had escaped after years in the pit of hell. “Officially I’m still dead or missing.” An escape wouldn’t be recognized. He persisted. “Did you ever wonder why I was so important?” She hadn’t of course; he didn’t mean anything to her. He was just talking to himself to pass time until he heard those wobbling footsteps depart. He had made a mistake; he didn’t want to meet them tonight.

She said, “When you came back you wouldn’t talk about it.”

“Couldn’t.”

“Nobody knows anything about those years, Kit.”

He was strong. He could talk about it now. But there wasn’t any reason to turn a kid’s stomach. He said, “Louie knew something. Louie’s dead.”

“He did know something?” She was suddenly quick and eager.

“Yeah. Louie helped me escape.”

Her eyes stretched.

“From this side of the water. But without him I couldn’t have done it.” Bribery and corruption, and old country Lepetinos.

She asked with sudden horror, “Was Louie killed because he helped you, Kit?”

“I don’t know.” His throat swelled. “Louie was the greatest guy I ever knew. He’d have gone to hell and back for me. They couldn’t have known his part in it—not unless he told somebody—” He leaned towards her with hot eyes. “Somebody who squealed to old Wobblefoot.”

She picked up her toothbrush again, watched it slap into the palm of her hand. “Why weren’t you released after the war? Why were you so important?”

He watched her but she watched the toothbrush. “I had something they wanted. I wouldn’t give it up.”

“Why didn’t they take it?”

He said carefully, “You can’t take knowledge from a man. He has to give it to you.”

“And you wouldn’t.” Her eyes turned up to him and they were shining at his bravery.

It hadn’t been bravery. It had been stubbornness, the stubbornness of a dying man clutching the tough thin thread of life. “I wouldn’t.” He continued to make careful choice of words. But he didn’t know why he should be telling this to Content; he’d talked of it to no one but Louie. He hadn’t even told Louie what they wanted to know, where the loot was.

He said, “I wanted to live, Content. I knew they wouldn’t kill me until they had the information.” A shiver went over him and her eyes veiled. He couldn’t tell her he’d screamed for death more than once. But he hadn’t given them the knowledge. That was his only hold on life. He took a breath. “And then I escaped. Thanks to Louie.” His voice lowered to a husk. “They haven’t given up. They’ve sent Wobblefoot after me.”

She asked, “Who is Wobblefoot?”

He spoke without inflection. “He flew in from Berlin once a month—at first.” It wasn’t so bad when you could gird your loins for his coming; it was when the sound of his Junker was heard unexpectedly, more often; when you’d wake in the night and hear that deformed thumping in the prison courtyard. He could, hear it now—he did hear it now!

He warned, “Listen!”

She asked, “What?”

He half rose from the bed, crouched there, his thumbs nervous in his belt.

He whispered, “Listen. Do you hear it?”

“Someone’s going downstairs.” She spoke with matter-of-factness but her eyes were cautious as if he were crazy.

He shook his head for silence. He didn’t know what he heard. Was it only fear that had conjured again the loathsome sound? Cat-quiet he turned out the lamp, crept to the front window, stood there looking down to the street below. Content didn’t move. He stood, bidden behind the curtain, while the man made what must have been painful descent to the vestibule. He waited until he saw the wavering darkness turn on Lexington. Only then did he breathe again. He relighted the lamp. His face was wet.

Had he actually heard the steps or had the shadow of a man who could have made them drummed that percussion on his nerves? He begged corroboration, “Did you hear them?”

She began, “I don’t know what I was supposed to hear—” and then she broke off, her eyes on what must have been in his face. She whispered, “Why don’t you go to the police?”

“What good would that do? No one’s done anything to me.”

She said, “You’ll be at the ranch again if you go on this way.”

He denied it, swelling out his chest. “I’m not afraid. I’m ready to fight.” He was angry at himself for allowing her to think he feared. “I’m not afraid of anybody. But I won’t be safe until—” Until he could bring the treasure into this country, to Geoffrey and the Wilhite wing of the Metropolitan. It would be out of his hands then. They didn’t want him; they wanted what he had hidden.

She didn’t ask him to finish the sentence. “Is Ab in danger, Kit?” she inquired.

He was surprised. “Ab? No. He knows nothing of this, Content. What made you think of him?”

“I told you. He’s in dangerous work. And—”

“Yes?”

“He’s too interested in Prince Felix and the Skaases.”

They looked at each other. He asked harshly, “Was Louie too interested in them?”

She said, “I don’t know. I didn’t know Louie. But he was seen with Toni Donne.”

He didn’t say anything.

She went on. “They all arrived in Manhattan a year ago—about the time you did. Ab’s checked on that.”

He had his coat and hat on. “I’m not interested in that outfit. Not any more. I’ve got to find Wobblefoot.” He must know if it was the man. “I thought he came here to see you. I didn’t know your pet fiddler lived in the apartment too.” He asked lightly, “And when did José arrive?”

Her mouth quivered a little. “He came at the same time. Kit, he cares only for his music.”

He left on that. When her door was open, when he had the hallway to traverse, the steps to descend, the vestibule to bolt from, before reaching the street, his nerve failed. It could be a trap. The man could have returned, be waiting in the dark below.

Kit didn’t hesitate. He stalked past her silence, departed as he had arrived. He was almost to 59th when he heard the police sirens screaming. He grimaced and legged it quickly down into the subway kiosk.

T
WO WHITE SLIPS ON
the foyer table. Mr. Hamilton called 9
P.M
.;
Mr. Hamilton called 10:30
P.M.
The handwriting was too good for a not-quite-bright maid servant. No one but Elise could have written these memoranda. He opened the door into the kitchen. The girl was stewing something over the electric stove. Not his lunch. He asked, “Where’s Lotte?”

Elise’s shoulders jumped. “Oh, Mr. Kit. She has not come back yet.” She was backing to the white kitchen table. “She didn’t know you were returning, sir.” She asked helplessly, “Should I fix your lunch now?”

“I’m going out.” He waggled the papers. “Did Mr. Hamilton leave any message?”

“No, sir.”

“Where did he call from?”

She hesitated ever so slightly, her fingers on the lurid pages of the opened magazine. “They said—Washington calling.”

He saw it then. Was she trying to push it between the pages? A baggage check. He picked it up from under her limp fingers. “My trunk’s come.”

“Yes, sir. I forgot to tell you. I had it put in the trunk room. If you’ll leave your keys, sir, I’ll unpack for you.”

She didn’t seem to expect such luck. If she’d been put here to watch him, she wasn’t the best operative. Yet who else could have gone through his bag? Lotte hadn’t been in the apartment since his arrival. And Lotte wouldn’t lay a finger unbidden.

“I do my own unpacking.” He left the kitchen. He did his own preliminary unpacking at any rate. She could take care of it after he removed what might interest her or her extra-curricular employers.

First Ab. Old Merrill reported Mr. Abner had not returned. In Washington it would be the Wardman Park or the Mayflower. Even on a business junket Ab would stop where his kind always stopped. A safe place. Kit was right on the Wardman Park. Ab was out; Kit left his name. The basement next. He’d have the trunk sent upstairs when he was through with it.

There was another new operator in the elevator this morning. He didn’t run the cage up after dropping Kit to the basement; he stood shouldering the dingy wall, his fingers holding match and cigarette. Kit could feel the lidded eyes follow his back down the concrete corridor to the locker room grilled door.

Kit swaggered his courage. The janitor wasn’t around but the gun was in his pocket. Because he thought he’d heard that limp again, he mustn’t get jittery about everyone, maids and men. His fists relaxed. He opened the grille with Geoffrey’s key, restraining the urge to turn sidewise and make certain the operator was watching. He found the Wilhite number, his trunk standing outside. He put the key in the lock, swung it open. The Luger was in the lower drawer with his shoes. He stooped, covering the transition with his top coat, transferred this gun into his hip pocket. He heard steps on the concrete and he froze there in the crouch. They were approaching the open grille. He laughed soundlessly and he stood upright. The janitor certainly. And if not, he had nothing to fear. Not on Park Avenue.

He didn’t turn although his heart pounded like a furnace while the steps came behind him. He didn’t turn until he heard her nasal, “I’d be glad to help you, sir.” He faced her. There was no more expression on her face than ever. He laughed out loud then, laughing not at her but at the stupidity of whoever had hired her to work for the Geoffrey Wilhites.

“That’s a good girl, Elise. I’ll take a few things I want, then you have the trunk sent up and do the rest.”

He saw the elevator operator ambling over, as if the man weren’t very interested, only normally curious, and enough bored at piloting a cage up and down all day not to miss the opportunity of meeting a maid in the house. The man said, “Want me to have that sent up, Mr. McKittrick?”

He shouldn’t have known Kit’s name but he could have; he knew the Wilhite floor, and doubtless part of the service was teaching new employees to identify the residents. It could have been that.

Kit said, “Soon’s I get some stuff.” The two of them were between him and the grille exit, but they wouldn’t start anything here even if their eyes were flat and their quietness electric. He didn’t turn his back to go through other drawers; he stood sideways where he could watch the man’s nervous jerking at his cigarette, the girl’s fingering of her fingers. Leave the shoulder holster; let them know he stood ready to protect himself. He found the letters, only a few, and of the few not many important. He said, “Yeah.” He let them see what he removed; he flaunted the packet in their watching faces; he made them watch while he thrust it carelessly into the deep pocket of his overcoat, the pocket where Louie’s billfold had been stashed. They didn’t know these letters wouldn’t show up again. They’d be ash before he returned to the apartment. He wanted to laugh at the two of them but he didn’t. He said, “That’s all. You can take over the rest, Elise. Run me up now, fellow?”