Serenade. Part 13

"All right, Sharp. Shoot it."

"We went to the party, she and I."

"Yeah, that drag was a funny place for a guy like you."

"He was a pixie, but he was also a musician, and I had worked for him, and when he asked us to his housewarming--"

"Are you a pix?"

"Starting up again, are you?"

"Go on, Sharp. Just checking up."

"So we went. And pretty soon one of the boys came up, and--"

"One of them pixes?"

"One of the bellboys. And I found out there was a guy downstairs waiting to see me. And I found out Hawes had put in three calls that day to the Immigration Office--"

"Then he did did turn her in?" turn her in?"

"I told you I don't know. I wasn't taking any chances. I told her what the boys had told me, and tried to get her out of there. I told her to leave, and she did, but then she came back with this sword, and they started up again this bullfight game they had been playing--"

"Yeah, we know all about that."

"And she let him have it. And G.o.ddam well he had it coming to him. What the h.e.l.l business was it of his whether she--"

"What he turn her in for?"

"That I don't know either. He had tried to tell me once or twice that living with a girl the way we did wasn't doing me any good, that it was hurting my career--"

"Your singing career?"

"That's right."

"What he have to do with that?"

"He had plenty to do with it. I don't only sing here in New York. I'm under contract to a Hollywood picture company, and he controlled the picture company, or said he did, and he was afraid--"

"Hays office stuff?"

"That's it."

"Oh, I get it now. Go on."

"That's all. It wasn't just morals, take it from me it wasn't, or friends.h.i.+p, or anything like that. It was money, and fear that the Mann Act would ruin one of his big stars, and stuff like that. All right, he went up against the wrong person. She let him have it, and now let him count up his Cla.s.s A preferred stock."

He asked me a few more questions and then went out. As near as I could tell I had done all right. I had fixed her up with a motive that anyway made sense, him trying to bust us up, and it would look a h.e.l.l of a sight better after we were married, as I knew we would be before the case ever came to trial. I had kept out of it what was really between Winston and me. I would have even told him that if it would have done her any good, but I knew that one whisper of that would crack everything wide open, and ruin her. I had anyhow made some kind of a stall about the Mann Act and the illegal entry, and they couldn't disprove it unless she told them different, and I knew they'd never get anything out of her. Around seven o'clock they gave me something to eat, and I waited for their next move.

Around eight o'clock a cop came in with one of my traveling cases, with clothes in it. That meant they had been in the apartment. I was still in evening clothes, and began to change. "You got a washroom here?"

"O.K., we'll take you to it. You want a barber?"

All I had in my pocket, after giving her the money was silver, but I counted it. There were a couple of dollars of it. "Yeah, send him in."

He went out, and the cop that was guarding took me down to the washroom. There was a shower there, so I stripped, had a bath, and put on the other clothes. The barber came in and shaved me. I put the evening clothes in the traveling case. They had brought me a hat, and I put that on. Then we went back to the room we had left.

A little after nine I was still pounding on it in my mind, what I could do, and it came to me that one thing I could do was get a lawyer. I remembered Sholto. "I'd like to make a phone call. How about that?"

"You're allowed one call."

We went out in the hall, where there was a row of phones against the wall. I looked up Sholto's number, rang it, and got him on the line. "Oh h.e.l.lo, I was wondering if you'd call. I see you're in a little trouble."

"Yeah, and I want you."

"I'll be right down."

In about a half hour he showed up. He listened to me. About all I could tell him, with the cop sitting there, was that I wanted to get out, but that seemed to be all he wanted to know. "It's probably just a matter of bond."

"What am I held for? Do you know that?"

"Material witness."

"Oh, I see."

"As soon as I can see a bondsman--that is, unless you want to put up cash bond yourself."

"How much is it?"

"I don't know. At a guess, I'd say five thousand."

"Which way is quickest?"

"Oh, money talks."

He had a blank check, and I wrote out a check for ten thousand. "All right, that ought to cover it. I think we can get action in about an hour."

Around ten o'clock he was back, and he, and the cop, and I went over to court. It took about five minutes. An a.s.sistant district attorney was there, they set bail at twenty-five hundred, and after Sholto put it up, we went out and got in a cab. He pa.s.sed over the rest of the cash, in hundred-dollar bills. I handed back ten of them. "Retainer."

"Very well, thanks."

The first thing I wanted to know was whether they had got her yet. When he said they hadn't, I grabbed an early afternoon paper a boy shoved in the window, and read it. It was smeared all over the front page, with my picture, and Winston's picture, but no picture of her. That was one break. As well as I could remember, she hadn't had any picture taken since she had been in the country. It was something we hadn't got around to. There was one story giving Winston's career, another telling about me, and a main story that told what had happened. Everything I had said to the detective was in there, and the big eight-column streamer called her the "Sword-Killer," and said she was "Sought." I was still reading when we pulled up at Radio City.

When we got up to his office I began going over what I had told the detective, the illegal entry stuff and all, and why I had said what I had, but pretty soon he stopped me. "Listen, get this straight. Your counsel is not your co-conspirator in deceiving the police. He's your representative at the bar, to see that you get every right that the law ent.i.tles you to, and that your case, or her case, or whatever case he takes, is presented as well as it can be. What you told the detective is none of my affair, and it's much better, at this time, that I know nothing of it. When the time comes, I'll ask for information, and you had better tell me the truth. But at the moment, I prefer not to know of any misrepresentation you've made. From now on, by the way, an excellent plan, in dealing with the police, would be to say nothing."

"I get it."

He kept walking around his office, then he picked up the paper and studied that a while, then walked around some more. "There's something I want to warn you about."

"Yeah. What?"

"It seemed to me I got you out very easily."

"I didn't do anything."

"If they had wanted to hold you, there were two or three charges, apparently, they could have brought against you. All bailable offenses, but they could have kept you there quite a while. They could have made trouble. Also, the bond was absurdly low."

"I don't quite follow you."

"They haven't got her. They may have her, tucked away in some station-house in the Bronx, they may be holding her there and saying nothing for fear of habeas corpus proceedings, but I don't think so. They haven't got her, and it's quite possible they've let you out so they can locate her through you."

"Oh, now I see what you mean."

"You going back to your apartment?"

"I don't know. I suppose so."

"...You'll be watched. There'll probably be a tail on you day and night. Your phone may be tapped."

"Can they do that?"

"They can, and they do. There may be a dictaphone in there by now, and they're pretty good at thinking of places to put it without your finding it, or suspecting it. It's a big apartment house, and that makes it all the easier for them. I don't know what her plans are, and apparently you don't. But it's a bad case. If they catch her, I'll do everything I can for her, but I warn you it's a bad case. It's much better than she not be located...Be careful."

"I will."

"The big danger is that she phone you. Whatever you do, the second she rings up, warn her that she's being overheard."

"I'll remember that."

"You're being used as a decoy."

"I'll watch my step."

When I got up to Twenty-second Street a flock of reporters were there, and I stuck with them for about ten minutes. I thought it was better to answer their questions some kind of way, and get rid of them, than have them trying to get to me all day. When I got up to the apartment the phone was ringing, and a newspaper was on the line, offering me five thousand dollars for a signed story of what I knew about it, and about her, and I said no, and hung up. It started to ring again, and I flashed the board and told them not to put through any more incoming calls, or let anybody up. The door buzzer sounded. I answered, and it was Harry and Tony, on hand to tell me what they knew. I peeled off a hundred-dollar bill as they started to talk, handed it over, and then remembered about the dictaphone. We went out in the hall, and they whispered it. She didn't leave right after it happened. She went to the apartment, packed, and changed her dress, and about five or ten minutes later buzzed twice, like I had told her to. Tony had the car up there all that time, waiting for her, and he opened, pulled her in, and dropped her down to the bas.e.m.e.nt. They went out by the alley, and when they came out on Twenty-third Street he got her a cab, and she left. That was the last he saw of her, and he didn't tell it to the police. While he was doing that, Harry was on the board in the lobby, and didn't pay much attention when he saw the f.a.gs going out, and neither did the guy from the Immigration Service. How the cops found it out they didn't know, but they thought the f.a.gs must have b.u.mped into one outside, or got scared and thought they better tell it anyway, or something. Tony said the cops were already in Winston's apartment before she left.

They went down and I went in the apartment again. With the phone cut off it was quiet enough now, but I began looking for the dictaphone. I couldn't find anything. I looked out the window to see if anybody was watching the building. There wasn't anybody out there. I began to think Sholto was imagining things.

Around two o'clock I got hungry and went out. The reporters were still down there, and almost mobbed me, but I jumped in a cab and told him to drive to Radio City. As soon as he got to Fourth Avenue I had him cut over to Second again, and come down, and got out at a restaurant around Twenty-third Street. I had something to eat and took down the number of the pay phone. When I got back to the apartment house, I whispered to the boy on the board if a Mr. Kugler called, to put him through. I went upstairs and called the restaurant phone. "Is Mr. Kugler there?"

"Hold the line, I'll see."

I held the line, and in a minute he was back. "No Mr. Kugler here now."

"When he comes in ask him to call Mr. Sharp. S-H-A-R-P."

"Yes sir, I'll tell him."

I hung up. In about twenty minutes the phone rang. "Mr. Sharp? This is Kugler."

"Oh, h.e.l.lo, Mr. Kugler. About those opera pa.s.ses I promised you, I'm afraid I'll have to disappoint you for the time being. You may have read in the paper I'm having a little trouble now. Can you let me put that off till next week."

"Oh, all right, Mr. Sharp. Any time you say."

"Terribly sorry, Mr. Kugler."

I hung up. I knew then that Sholto knew what he was talking about. I didn't know any Mr. Kugler.

Harry kept bringing up new editions as they came out, and the stuff that was coming in for me. They still hadn't got her. They found the taxi driver that rode her from Twenty-third Street. He said he took her down to Battery Park, she paid him with a five-dollar bill, so he had to go in the subway to get change, and then went off, carrying the valise. He told how Tony had flagged him, and Tony took another trip down to headquarters. It said the cops were considering the possibility she had jumped in the river, and that it might be dragged. The stuff that was coming in was a flock of telegrams, letters, and cards from every kind of nut you ever heard of, and opera fan, and shyster lawyer. But a couple of those wires weren't from nuts. One was from Panamier, saying the broadcast would temporarily be carried on by somebody else. And one was from Luther, saying no doubt I preferred not to have any more opera appearances until I got my affairs straightened out. The last afternoon edition had a story about Pudinsky. I felt my mouth go cold. He was the one person that might know about Winston and me. If he did he didn't say anything. He said what a fine guy Winston was, what a loyal friend, and defended him for calling up the Immigration people. He said Winston only had my best interests at heart.

I went out to eat around seven o'clock, dodged the reporters again, and had a steak in a place off Broadway. My picture was in every paper in town, but n.o.body seemed to notice me. One reason was, most of those pictures had been taken while I was in Hollywood, and I had put on a lot of weight since then. I wasn't exactly fat when I arrived from Mexico. Then I had a little trouble with my eyes, and had got gla.s.ses. I ate what I could, walked around a little, then around nine o'clock came back to the apartment: All the time I was walking I kept looking back, to see if I was followed. I tried not to, but I couldn't help it. In the cab, I kept twisting around, to see what was back of us.

There was another mountain of stuff when I came in, but I didn't bother to open it. I read back all the newspaper stuff again, and then there didn't seem to be anything to do but to go to bed. I lay there, first trying to think and then trying to sleep. I couldn't do either one. Then after a while I did drop off. I woke up in a cold sweat with moans coming out of my mouth. The whole day had been like some kind of a fever dream, chasing in and out of cabs, dodging reporters, trying to shake the police, if they were around, reading papers. Now for the first time I seemed to get it through my head the spot we were in. She was wanted for murder, and if they caught her they would burn her in the chair.

What waked me up the next morning was the phone. Harry was on the board. "I know you said not to call, Mr. Sharp, but there's a guy on the line, he kept calling all day yesterday, and now he's calling again, he says he's a friend of yours, and it's important, and he's got to talk to you, and I thought I better tell you."

"Who is he?"

"He won't say, but he said I should say the word Acapulco, something like that, to you, and you would know who it was."

"Put him through."

I hoped it might be Conners, and sure enough when I heard that "Is that you, lad?" I knew it was. He was pretty short. "I've been trying to reach you. I've called you, and wired you, and called again, and again--"

"I cut the phone calls off, and I haven't opened the last bunch of wires. You'd have been through in a second if they had told me. I want to see you, I've got to see you--"

"You have indeed. I have news."

"Stop! Don't say a word. I warn you that my phone is tapped, and everything you say is being heard."

"That occurred to me. That's why I refused to give my name. How can I get to you?"

"Wait a minute. Wait a minute Will you call me in five minutes? I'll have to figure a way--"

"In five minutes it is."

He hung up, and I tried to think of some way we could meet, and yet not tip off the cops over the phone where it would be. I couldn't think. He had said he had news, and my head was just spinning around. Before I even had half an idea the phone rang again. "Well, lad, what's the word?"

"I haven't any. They're following me too, that's the trouble. Wait a minute, wait a minute--"

"I have something that might work."

"What is it?"

"Do you remember the time signature of the serenade you first sang to me?"

"...Yes, of course."

"Write those figures down, the two of them, one beside the other. Now write them again, the same way. You should have a number of four figures."