Seconds

Seconds

The Cult Classic Novel

David Ely

Dedication

To Peggy

Contents

Chapter 1

I
T WAS
noon. Time to go. He stood up behind his desk, thinking that this would probably be the last time he would stand there, the last time he would cross his office to pick up his hat, and the last time he would open that door with the frosted pane which bore his name and title.

In the outer office, he paused beside his secretary's desk.

“I'll probably be a little late getting back from lunch. It's such a fine day, I may take a walk.”

“Yes, sir.”

He turned and proceeded toward the great glass wall that marked the Broadway side of the bank. Be casual, he told himself. Be ordinary. Remember, you're just going out to lunch. But it occurred to him that he did not have the vaguest notion of how to counterfeit the act of going out to lunch. Was there a special way of walking? Did one saunter or rush out hungrily or what? He had gone out to lunch every working day for more than twenty-five years, and yet now, when he had to pretend to do it, he was baffled.

On Broadway, he paused deliberately to sniff the air and eye the crowds. He supposed this was the kind of thing he usually did on those days when he was going out alone to eat. Something to show how unhurried he was, and that he was of sufficient rank not to worry about the precise time of his return.

He glanced around at the wall of glass. It did not seem quite possible that he was really never going back. The idea might be no more substantial than the exhaust that rose up from the traffic on the street, for the sun to burn away. Surely, if he were in earnest, then his demeanor would have been visibly agitated during the past few days. His associates would have divined his intentions, and at any moment they would come rushing out to seize him, with cries of: “Good Lord, man—you can't be thinking of doing
that!
”

It was amusing. Almost. Ah, it was easy enough to slip away prosaically during an ordinary lunch hour—but the rest of it . . . ! He was not at all sure where he would be going. He knew why, and he had a fairly good idea of what would be awaiting him, but he was not certain where it might be. It would be, he suspected, a complicated process. He had an address on the lower East Side, written on a scrap of paper that looked as if it had been used over and over, many times, but that would probably be only the beginning.

Again he wondered whether he should go. He had decided to go, true enough, and yet a decision no one else knew about was easily withdrawn. So easily, in fact, that there was some doubt whether it amounted to a decision at all. For another thing, his mood was wrong. He was too calm. One did not do this sort of thing without some internal evidence of emotion. Perhaps his calmness was a signal that he was not really intending to go through with it, after all.

Yet he hailed a taxi anyway and when the driver asked where to go, he drew the scrap of paper from his pocket and read the address aloud.

In ten minutes, he had alighted and was standing on a sidewalk under the inspection of men in shabby jackets and weathered caps who edged around him, eyeing his grey tailored suit, his spotless shoes, and most of all, his Homburg.

He damned them back with his banker's eyes. He was troubled and annoyed, for the address was that of a tailor shop, grey with steam from a great pressing machine. He hesitated irritably at the door, thinking that there must be some mistake. For a moment he considered turning away, although he suspected that he had by now gone too far to retreat without losing his chance forever. The people he sought had made it clear that they could not afford to have fainthearted clients.

He stepped inside. At least he would go this far. If the trail were false and ended here, so be it.

A short, elderly man with bunched cheek muscles stood up behind the counter.

“Yah?”

“Good afternoon. My name—” he could not help a slight hesitation “—is Wilson.” He held out the scrap of paper. “Perhaps you can help me.”

The old man did not take the paper. He barely looked at it. He stared at his visitor. “Yah?”

“I was given this address. Is tailoring all you do?”

“We clean and press, mister.”

“I don't mean that.”

But he was sure now. He was sure because none of the other men working there had stopped to examine him. A quick look or two, that was all. And certainly, if this were an ordinary tailor shop, the sight of a robust, greying gentleman wearing a Homburg would be worth attention. There was but one reasonable explanation: other prosperous gentlemen, similarly attired, must have preceded him from time to time, and the workmen were under orders not to gape.

The old tailor seemed to have finished his study of the suit, the florid face, and the Homburg.

“Yah, well, I guess it's another place you want. They moved out of here last year.”

The man who called himself Wilson waited confidently. The old man lied, of course. They employed him as a scout, to give advance warning by telephone of any caller who seemed suspicious. It appeared unduly secretive, and yet doubtless they had ample reason to be careful.

“Here's where it is. I got it wrote down.”

“Thank you very much.”

It was another scrap of paper, quite like the first. Wilson glanced at it and tucked it into his pocket.

“Goodbye,” he said.

“Yah.”

He walked along the street toward an intersection, to flag a taxi. The back of his neck itched, as if the old tailor's gaze were tickling it, and he felt a slight chill—unaccountable, for the day was warm and he was actually perspiring.

He patted his face with his handkerchief. Ah, he thought, why not give it up? Go back to the office. Forget about it. That little chill—it might mean a fever. He ought to consider his health. In any case, he was too old for this sort of thing. Five years ago, perhaps, he could have managed it.

“Taxi!”

He raised his arm commandingly and a cruising cab swerved obediently toward the curb.

Behind him there was a derisive laugh. Startled, he turned and saw a youth and a girl lounging arm in arm against a building. The young man, sneering at him openly, made a boorish remark about the Homburg.

Fortunately the cab had arrived. Wilson stepped in and slammed the door. Such an impertinence would never have happened on Wall Street. Perhaps it served him right for wandering about parts of the city where there were young hoodlums instead of respectful little clerks.

“Where to, mister?”

“Oh.” He found that he held the second scrap of paper in his hand and that he was reading the address aloud. The insulting behavior of that youth had rattled him, evidently. Even so, it would not be too late to turn back to the office which he had, so tentatively, abandoned less than an hour before.

The second address proved to be that of a dilapidated warehouse near the fish market, an odorous area filled with giant trucks and strewn with refuse.

“You sure this is what you want, mister?”

Habit answered: “Of course.” Wilson was not accustomed to make mistakes.

He got out in front of a battered door marked “Office.” The driver waited, presumably for his fare to admit his error and climb back in.

Annoyed by the driver's presumption, Wilson did not hesitate, but peremptorily twisted the knob and stepped inside. It was a badly lighted place, where dusty boxes were haphazardly stacked, and it smelled, not unpleasantly, of ink.

“Hello there!”

He looked around, impatiently searching for someone to report to. The dust bothered him; he fretted lest it smudge his suit. If he were actually going back to the bank, it would be vexing to have to daub at his clothing with a dampened handkerchief, and besides, old Mr. Franks, the senior vice president, would be bound to call him in about some trifle or other, and Mr. Franks looked at one's personal appearance with an examiner's eye.

“Ah, Mr. Wilson!” From the dim interior of the warehouse hurried the figure of a bulky man, bald as an onion. He hastily completed the process of wiping his hands with a paper towel and thrust the towel into his hip pocket. “I'm sorry, sir, to have kept you waiting. But—” He cleared his throat apologetically. From a distance came the lugubrious sound of a toilet filling.

“Quite all right,” said Wilson, coldly. He looked with distaste around the little office, which merged on an uncertain basis with the larger spread of the main section of the warehouse. “Surely, this isn't—”

“Oh, no.” The bulky man smiled in apology. Then, with a worried look, he went hastily to a window. “Your taxi, sir, it's still . . . Ah,
now
it's going. That's good.” He turned and inclined his head deferentially. “No, sir. We have one more stop to make, sir.”

“We both go?”

“I'm your guide, Mr. Wilson.” The man was dressed in dungarees and a blue shirt, which was stained with perspiration. His white arms, bared to the elbows, were muscularly thick, and his hands were ridged with calluses, but his manner suggested that he had spent many years as someone's butler or valet.

He glanced at Wilson's suit. “We, um, go as workmen, sir. I'm afraid you'll have to slip a coverall over your clothing, sir, and exchange your hat for a cap.”

Wilson stirred suspiciously.

“I know it sounds unnecessary, sir,” the man went on, “but we must go in through a delivery entrance. It's a precaution, sir. You don't want to be recognized going in, because . . .” He cleared his throat and smiled appeasingly. “Because you won't be coming out, sir. That is, you won't be
seen
coming out. It's an inconvenience, Mr. Wilson. You're right about that. But only a minor one, sir. And temporary.”

“Well, all right.”

“Very good, sir.”

The man hastened off into the main part of the warehouse. In a few moments, he returned carrying a large stained coverall formally over one arm, holding the collar with his other hand, as if the garment were an evening suit.

“This should fit you well enough, sir.”

Wilson stepped into the capacious legs of the coverall, and adjusted the upper portion to his arms and shoulders.

“Your hat, sir.”

He passed the Homburg to the bald man and received a cloth cap to wear.

“And, if you don't mind, Mr. Wilson, a little dust on your face.”

“Eh?”

“If you could rub a little dust on your face. You look too cleanly for your new outfit, sir . . . Very good, sir. That's quite enough . . . If you would follow me, sir?”

They walked into the interior of the warehouse, wary of the heaps of grimy cartons.

Wilson tried to joke, to cover his sense of indignity. “I must say I, um, feel like a character in a play, or something.”

“It
is
unusual, sir,” the respectful voice replied. “Yes, all the gentlemen are rather taken aback by this part of it, I must say, and I don't blame them.”

The shape of a truck appeared in the shadows.

“Have you . . . escorted many gentlemen, then?”

“Quite a few, sir. Let me just get these doors open—” The bald man grunted as he forced the handle up and pulled the double rear doors apart. “If you wouldn't mind stepping inside, Mr. Wilson. There's a sort of bench along one side. You'll be comfortable enough for a short ride, I think.”

“Wouldn't it be better if I rode up front, beside you?”

“The gentlemen are asked to ride in the back, sir, I'm afraid.”

“I see.” Wilson pursed his lips. If the man's attitude had been in the least abrupt, he would have refused; but as it was, the request seemed modest enough. “All right, then.”

He swung himself up, gasping from the unaccustomed effort. “Oh, my hat.”

“I have it, sir.”

“Well, all right.”

“Very good, Mr. Wilson.”

The doors swung shut. There was a rasp and a click as the handle snapped down, and Wilson, feeling his way toward the bench, realized that he was, in effect, locked in. There was no window, either. He was penned up like a steer. It occurred to him that he should protest. An important client should hardly submit to being hauled around the city in such an unseemly fashion. It set a bad precedent for subsequent relationships. But on the other hand, he reflected, he had clambered into the truck voluntarily, and he could not now demand to be let out without risking . . . well, risking refusal, for that deferential guide of his would undoubtedly keep him there, lacking the requisite authority to do otherwise. The man had his orders, after all.

The engine rumbled. The truck moved slowly forward, and Wilson, leaning back for support against the joggling motion, realized that his position had become, almost against his will, more and more ambiguous. First, he had set out by taxi without seriously intending to do more than inspect the premises at the initial address—at least, it seemed that those had been his intentions—and then he had somehow entered the tailor shop, and although he subsequently had determined to return to the office, it had been almost by a perverse little accident—the jeering of that young criminal—that he had been flustered into going to the second address; and now, having acquiesced in the courteous instructions of his guide, without really having given adequate thought to what might be involved, here he was wearing a cloth cap and a dirty coverall, with his face smudged by dust.

Oh well, having gone this far, he decided, it would be foolish not to follow through with it, at least to the point where his curiosity would be satisfied. That would take perhaps an hour or so, at the most. Then he could stop somewhere to wash up, and return at his leisure to the bank. It would all make a good story—although he would be unable to tell it, of course. Yes, that was the way to look at it; not that he had somehow gotten himself into a cap and coverall and locked into a truck bound for Lord knew where, but that he was having a bit of diversion on his lunch hour.

I
t was not an unpleasant ride. For the first time in years. Wilson experienced the sensation of irresponsibility. Shut up in darkness the way he was, he clearly had no control over the immediate events which affected him, and he decided, with surprising readiness, not to bother about them. Did they transport all of their clients this way—in effect, blindfolded—in order to keep their location a secret? Very well, if that's what they wanted. He did not care one way or the other. With his arms folded across his chest in quiet dignity, Wilson sat in repose, waiting.