Children of the Whirlwind Part 13

He did not pause to reconnoiter. Time was of the essence of his safety, risks had to be taken. He plunged out of his hole--around the first corner--around the next--and thus wove in and out, working westward, till at last, on turning a corner into a lighted street, he saw possible relief in two stray taxicabs before a little East Side restaurant, one of which was just leaving.

"Taxi!" he called breathlessly.

The chauffeur of the moving car swung back beside the curb and opened the door. But even as he started to enter he saw Little Mick and Lefty Ed turn into the street behind him. However, the brightness of this street ill-accorded with the anonymity with which their art is most safely and profitably practiced, so Larry got in without a bullet flicking at him.

"Forty-Second Street and Broadway," he called to the chauffeur as he closed the door.

The car started off. Looking back through the little window he saw Lefty Ed enter the other taxicab, and saw Little Mick standing on the curb.

He understood. Little Mick was to send out the alarm, while Lefty was to follow the trail.

Let Lefty follow. At least Larry now had a few minutes to consider some plan which should look beyond the safety of the immediate moment. He was well-dressed, albeit somewhat wet and soiled; he had money in his pockets. What should he do?

Yes, what should he do? The more he considered it the more ineluctable did his situation become. By now Gavegan had sent out his alarm; within a few moments every policeman on duty would have instructions to watch for him. He might escape for the time, at least, these allies of his one-time pals by going to a hotel and taking a room there; but to walk into a hotel would be to walk into arrest. On the other hand, he might evade the police if he sought refuge in one of his old haunts, or perhaps with old Bronson; but then his angered pals knew of these haunts, and to enter one of them would be to offer himself freely to their vengeance.

There were other cities--but then how was he to get to them? He saw Manhattan for what it was to a man who was a fugitive from justice and injustice: an island, a trap, with only a few outlets and inlets for its millions: two railway stations--a few ferries--a few bridges--a few tunnels: and at every one of them policemen watching for him. He could not leave New York. And yet how in G.o.d's name was he to stay here?

He thought of Maggie. So she wanted the life of dazzling, excitement, of brilliant adventure, did she? He wondered how she would like a little of the real thing--such as this?

As he neared Forty-Second Street he still was without definite plan which would guarantee him safety, and there was Lefty hanging on doggedly. An idea came which would at least extend his respite and give him more time for thought. He opened the door of his cab and thrust a ten-dollar note into the instinctively ready hand of his driver.

"Keep the change--and give me a swing once around Central Park, slowing down on those hilly turns on the west side."

"I gotcha."

The car entered the park at the Plaza and sped up the s.h.i.+ning, almost empty drive. Larry kept watch, now on the trailing Lefty, now on the best chance for execution of his idea--all the way up the east side and around the turn at the north end. As the car, now south-bound, swung up the hill near One Hundred and Fifth Street, at whose crest there is a sharp curve with thick-growing, overhanging trees, Larry opened the right door and said:

"Show me a little speed, driver, as soon as you pa.s.s this curve!"

"I gotcha," replied the chauffeur.

The slowing car hugged the inside of the sharp turn, Larry holding the door open and waiting his moment. The instant the taxi made the curve Lefty's car was cut from view; and that instant Larry sprang from the running-board, slamming the door behind him, landed on soft earth and scuttled in among the trees. Crouching in the shadows he saw his car speed away as per his orders, and the moment after he saw Lefty's car, evidently taken by surprise by this obvious attempt at escape, leap forward in hot pursuit.

Larry slipped farther in among the trees and sat down, his back against a tree. This was better. For the time he was safe.

He drew a long breath. Then for a moment what he had just been through this last hour came back to him in an almost amusing light: as something grotesquely impossible--much like those helter-skelter, utterly unreal chases which, with slight variations of personalities and costumes, were the chief plots for the motion-picture drama in its crude childhood. But though there seemed a likeness, there was a tremendous difference. For this was real! Every one was in earnest!

Again he thought of Maggie. What would she think, what would be her att.i.tude, if she knew the truth about him?--the truth about those she had gone with and the life she had gone into? Would she be inclined toward HIM, would she help him?...

Again he thought of what he should do. Now that he commanded a composure which had not been his during the stress of his flight, he examined every aspect with greater care. But the conclusions of composure were the same as those of excitement. He could not gain entrance to one of the great hotels and remain in his room, unidentified among its thousands of strangers; he could not find asylum in one of his old haunts; he dared not try to leave Manhattan. He was a prisoner, whose only privilege was a larger but most uncertain liberty.

And that liberty was becoming penetratingly uncomfortable. An hour had pa.s.sed, the ground on which he sat was wet and cold, and the misty air was a.s.suming a distressing kins.h.i.+p with departed winter and was making s.h.i.+vering a.s.saults upon his bones. At the best, he realized, he could not hope to remain secure in this cultivated wilderness beyond daylight.

With the coming of morning he would certainly be the prey of either his pals or the police. And if they did not beat him from his hiding, plain mortal hunger would drive him out into the open streets. If he was to do anything at all, he must do it while he still had the moderate protection of the night.

And then for the first time there came to him remembrance of Hunt's rapid injunction, given him in the hurly-burly of escape when no thoughts could impress the upper surface of his mind save those of the immediate moment. "If you're trapped, call Plaza nine-double-o-one and say 'Benvenuto Cellini.'"

Larry had no idea what that swift instruction might be about. And the chance seemed a slender, fantastical one, even if he could safely get to a public telephone. But it seemed his only chance.

He arose, and, keeping as much as he could to the wilder regions of the park, and making the utmost use of shadows when he had to cross a path or a drive, he stole southward. He remembered a drug-store at Eighty-Fourth Street and Columbus Avenue, peculiarly suited to his purpose, for it had a side entrance on Eighty-Fourth Street and was in a neighborhood where policemen were infrequent.

Fortune favored him. At length he reached Eighty-Fourth Street and peered over the wall. Central Park West was practically empty of automobiles, for the theaters had not yet discharged their crowds and no policeman was in sight. He vaulted the wall; a minute later he was in a booth in the drug-store, had dropped his nickel in the slot, and was asking for Plaza nine-double-o-one.

"h.e.l.lo, sir!" responded the very correct voice of a man.

"Benvenuto Cellini," said Larry.

"Hold the wire, sir," said the voice.

Larry held the wire, wondering. After a moment the same correct voice asked where Larry was speaking from. Larry gave the exact information.

"Stay right in the booth, and keep on talking; say anything you like; the wire here will be kept open," continued the voice. "We'll not keep you waiting long, sir."

The voice ceased. Larry began to chat about topics of the day, about invented friends and engagements, well knowing that his stream of talk was not being heard unless Central was "listening in"; and knowing also that, to any one looking into the gla.s.s door of his booth, he was giving a most unsuspicious appearance of a busy man. And while he talked, his wonder grew. What was about to happen? What was this Benvenuto Cellini business all about?

He had been talking for fifteen minutes or more when the gla.s.s door of the booth was opened from without and a man's voice remarked:

"When you are through, sir, we will be going."

The voice was the same he had heard over the wire. Larry hung up and followed the man out the side door, noting only that he had a lean, respectful face. At the curb stood a limousine, the door of which was opened by the man for Larry. Larry stepped in.

"Are you followed, sir?" inquired the man.

"I don't know."

"We'd better make certain. If you are, we'll lose them, sir. We'll stop somewhere and change our license plates again."

Instead of getting into the unlighted body with him, as Larry had expected, the man closed the door, mounted to the seat beside the chauffeur, and the car shot west and turned up Riverside Drive.

One may break the speed laws in New York if one has the speed, and if one has the ability to get away with it. This car had both. Never before had Larry driven so rapidly within New York City limits; he knew this, that any trailing taxicab would be lost behind. At Two-Hundred-and-Forty-Fifth Street the car swung into Van Cortland Park, and switched off all lights. Two minutes later they halted in a dark stretch of one of the by-roads of the Park.

"We'll be stopping only a minute, sir, to put on our right number plates," the man opened the door to explain.

Within the minute they were away again, now proceeding more leisurely, in the easy manner of a private car going about its private business--though the interior of the car was discreetly dark and Larry huddled discreetly into a corner. Thus they drove over the Grand Boulevards and recrossed the Harlem River and presently drew up in front of a great apartment house in Park Avenue.

The man opened the door. "Walk right in, sir, as though you belong here.

The doorman and the elevatorman are prepared."

They might be prepared, but Larry certainly was not; and he shot up the elevator to the top floor with mounting bewilderment. The man unlocked the door of an apartment, ushered Larry in, took his wet hat, then ushered the dazed Larry through the corner of a dim-lit drawing-room and through another door.

"You are to wait here, sir," said the man, and quietly withdrew.

Larry looked about him. He took in but a few details, but he knew enough about the better fittings of life to realize that he was in the presence of both money and the best of taste. He noted the log fire in the broad fireplace, comfortable chairs, the imported rugs on the gleaming floor, the shelves of books which climbed to the ceiling, a quaint writing-desk in one corner which seemed to belong to another country and another century, but which was perfectly at home in this room.

On the desk he saw standing a leather-framed photograph which seemed familiar. He crossed and picked it up. Indeed it was familiar! It was a photograph of Hunt: of Hunt, not in the shabby, shapeless garments he wore down at the d.u.c.h.ess's, but Hunt accoutered as might be a man accustomed to such a room as this--though in this picture there was the same strong chin, the same belligerent good-natured eyes.

Now how and where did that impecunious, rough-neck painter fit into--

But the dazed question Larry was asking was interrupted by a voice from the door--the thick voice of a man:

"Who the h.e.l.l 'r' you?"