Читать книгу The Fourth Postman - Craig Inc. Rice - Страница 9

Malone tried his office door. It was locked.

He breathed a long sigh of relief. Maggie had gone home early.

He looked down at the mutt and said, “Best luck I’ve had today.”

Maggie would never have approved of the telephone calls he was about to make. Not with finances in their present state. He doubted that she would have approved of the mutt, either.

He opened the door, switched on the lights and said to the mutt, “Make yourself at home.”

There was a folder on his desk, marked “MR. MALONE. IMPORTANT.” He opened it, glanced at it, saw the words “Mr. Malone, the building agent called about the office rent and…” He closed the folder and stuffed it in a desk drawer. The mutt curled up at his feet and went to sleep. Malone sighed, picked up the phone.

Nearly an hour later he pushed the phone away, rose and walked to the window. The snow had stopped falling and had given way to a mist that was turned a lurid orange by the reflected light from electric signs. He looked at a dismal vista of roof-tops and wondered if there was a moon, somewhere too far away to be seen.

There was something about this case he didn’t like, and he didn’t know for sure what it was.

“The trouble with me,” he said to the mutt, who had come over to look out the window with him, both front paws on the sill, “is that I hate to see unpleasant things happen. Even to people.”

Unpleasant things were going to happen, and he knew it. To people he liked.

At that moment the mutt gave out with a long, sorrowful howl.

“Damn you,” Malone said. “Let’s don’t both of us be superstitious.”

He turned away from the window, thinking. There was nothing, now, he could do till morning. Except, of course, go home and get a good night’s sleep. He looked at the desk clock a friend in the city hall had given him last Christmas. Too late for dinner, and too early to go to bed. Not enough cash on hand to get into a poker game.

The mutt looked up at him and whined hopefully.

“Don’t worry,” Malone told him reassuringly. “We’ll go somewhere and do something.”

It occurred to him that perhaps if he explained his prospects to Joe the Angel, he still might be able to manage that poker game. Not that right now he felt like engaging in a poker game. But it would be something to take an unpleasant premonition out of his mind. And besides, with only reasonably good luck, he wouldn’t need to worry about his retainer from the Fairfaxx family until another day.

The night elevator man said, “Say, Malone, there was a cop here looking for you.”

“I hope he found me,” Malone said. He walked through the lobby, past the closed magazine stand, and paused just inside the door to the street.

Von Flanagan was looking for him. Malone wasn’t sure just why. But he didn’t want to become involved with the police department right now. Not until he’d had a good night’s sleep.

He pushed open the door, glanced out into the street, and drew back.

He felt a sudden sense of fear, a feeling of terror. Through the glass doors he could see the pale snow beginning to fall again. Out there was a street he had seen a hundred, and a thousand, and a thousand-thousand times before. Now, suddenly, it frightened him.

The mutt whimpered.

“Are you a dog or a mouse?” Malone asked indignantly. He kicked the door open and strode out into the white-streaked darkness. For just a moment he paused, then he turned in the direction of Washington Street. The mutt, complaining softly about the snow underfoot, followed close at his heels.

Half a block later the mutt let loose a low, ominous growl. Malone slowed down, glanced in a reflecting store window. He walked on, glanced in another window. As he reached a third window, there was another low-pitched growl from the mutt.

There was no doubt about it. He was being followed.

The fourth reflecting store window revealed that he was being followed by a man or woman who was extremely tall and extremely thin, and clad in black. Malone walked a little faster, and the mutt scuttled in front of him.

“Perfect nonsense,” Malone told the mutt. “There’s nothing to be afraid of.”

Another glance in a store window showed a black-clad monster moving through the gently falling snow. About nine feet tall, Malone estimated. He quickened his steps. The mutt began to trot. The monster kept right up with them.

Malone made a quick turn into an alley near the Sherman Hotel to see if the following monster would pass by. He waited there a good five minutes, the mutt quivering at his heels. Then he poked his head gingerly around the corner. There was a dark shadow down the street.

Malone nudged the mutt and said, “Let’s go!” It wasn’t far to Joe the Angel’s.

The something followed. Experimentally Malone slowed down. The something slowed down with him. Malone speeded up, and so did his follower.

The lights were bright on LaSalle Street, and people were walking and chattering on the sidewalks. Malone reminded himself that he had been followed before, by experts with lethal intent. But never before by a thing.

He didn’t dare look behind him.

At last he turned one more corner, saw the lights of Joe the Angel’s bar, and ran like a rabbit.

The mutt was ahead of him by the time they reached the door. Malone slammed it shut behind him, caught his breath, slid onto a barstool and said, “Joe, I’m being followed.”

Joe the Angel leaned over the bar and said, “By the dog-catcher?”

“By a monster,” Malone said, still breathing hard. He closed his eyes for a moment.

Joe slid a drink in front of him and said, “By the cops, too.” He added, “Nice little dog. Where you steal him?”

“He stole me,” Malone said. He gulped his drink and said, “Give him a saucer of beer. On me.”

“On me,” Joe said. “For the little dog, a drink on the house.” He patted the mutt and said, “I would like a little dog like that. Malone—”

“We’ll talk about it later,” Malone said. He shoved his glass across the bar. “And Joe, will you see if there is anyone—outside?”

Joe nodded reassuringly, refilled Malone’s glass, walked to the door and peered out. Suddenly he slammed the door shut and hurried back to his post behind the bar.

“Someone standing,” he told Malone.

“Standing?” Malone said.

“Watching,” Joe the Angel said. “Big. Tall.”

“How tall?” Malone asked, not really wanting to know.

Joe the Angel stretched his arm up and said, “So tall.” He poured a drink for himself and said, “All black. Malone, you go home now, and I will take care of the little dog ”

“I will not go home now,” Malone said, “and I will take care of the little dog.”

“The police, too,” Joe the Angel said. “They want to know—” He looked around the bar, made sure that no one was listening, and said softly, “You are in trouble, Malone.” He nodded toward the phone booth where a very ordinary-looking man in a tan overcoat was making a phone call.

“That’s no novelty,” Malone growled. He too had recognized the man in the tan overcoat, who obviously was now calling von Flanagan to say “Malone is here.”

Joe the Angel poured beer in the mutt’s saucer and said, “Malone, I am your friend. Drink up and go home.”

“See if the tall someone is still outside,” Malone told him.

Joe took a quick look, and nodded. He glanced anxiously toward the phone booth.

“I wish I knew why von Flanagan wants me,” Malone said. He downed his drink and said, “Or maybe I’m glad that I don’t know.”

“When he was here looking for you,” Joe volunteered, “he says you stole something from the scene of a crime.”

Malone scowled. He couldn’t remember stealing anything from the scene of a crime, or from anywhere else.

At that moment the man in the tan overcoat emerged from the telephone booth and sat down in the back room, next to the rear door. Malone and Joe the Angel looked at each other helplessly.

The mutt chose that instant to snap at the ankle of a stranger who was lingering over a short beer. The stranger aimed an inaccurate kick at the mutt. Malone promptly aimed an unpleasant and possibly accurate name at the stranger, who immediately hurled the remains of his beer at Malone.

Thirty seconds later Joe the Angel’s City Hall Bar was the scene of a small-sized riot, with every customer joining in impartially and joyously. The man in the tan overcoat rushed back to the telephone booth, and Malone seized that opportunity to escape through the rear door.

He paused to pat the mutt and say, “Nice quick thinking, chum,” and then headed down the alley.

Von Flanagan was looking for him. It was something that could be straightened out in a hurry, but he didn’t feel like wasting time with von Flanagan right now. And out in front of Joe the Angel’s a monster, probably eight feet tall, was waiting for him. Or, if not a monster, a someone. Right now, either one was bad enough. The little lawyer had no idea why anyone should be following him, but at the moment he didn’t want to know.

He decided that the safest place to head for right now was Jake and Helene’s apartment.

At the end of the alley he hailed a passing cab, got in fast and said, “The Ambassador West.”