Children of the Whirlwind
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 God'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 shining, 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 pass 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
attitude, 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
passed, the ground on which he sat was wet and cold, and the misty air
was assuming a distressing kinship with departed winter and was making
shivering assaults 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.
“Hello, 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 glass 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 glass 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 Duchess'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 hell 'r' you?”
Larry whirled about. In the doorway stood a tall, bellicose young
gentleman of perhaps twenty-four or five, in evening dress, flushed of
face, holding unsteadily to the door-jamb.
“I beg your pardon,” said Larry.
“'N' what the hell you doin' here?” continued the belligerent young
gentleman.
“I'd be obliged to you if you could tell me,” said Larry.
“Tryin' to stall, 'r' you,” declared the young gentleman with a scowling
profundity. “No go. Got to come out your corner 'n' fight. 'N' I'm goin'
lick you.”
The young man crossed unsteadily to Larry and took a fighting pose.
“Put 'em up!” he ordered.