Westlake, Donald E - Novel 32 (18 page)

           
I kept watching the screen. I said,
“What do they want?”

 
          
“Just to station themselves at windows.”

 
          
We
didn’t want cops in here. What the hell was the matter with them, why didn’t
they pick some other floor? Why didn’t they go on the roof, for Christ’s sake,
that’s where your snipers come
from.
“God damn it,” I
said. I felt like blowing up into a million pieces. “God
damn
it”

 
          
“I’m
not responsible,” Eastpoole yammered, “I didn’t know they—”

 
          
“Shut
up, shut up.” I was trying to think, trying to decide what to do. He couldn’t
refuse, that wouldn’t look right. “Listen,” I said. “They can do it, but not in
this office. Tell them that.”

 
          
He nodded, fast and nervous.
“Yes,” he said, and into the
phone he said, “Go right ahead, tell them it’s all right One of you escort them
in. But I don’t want any of them in here. Not in my office.”

 
          
I
could read the guard’s lips on that one, see him say, “Yes, sir.” Eastpoole
hung up, and so did the guard. The guard turned back to the three cops, said
something to them, and then walked around the end of the counter to lead them
in.

 
          
I
looked at the vault screen, and the girl was finally finished. Carrying a
double armful of papers like a schoolgirl with her books, she pushed the two
drawers shut and turned toward the door.

 
          
I
jabbed Eastpoole with the pistol again. “Call the vault!” I told him. “I want
to talk to that girl.”

 
          
“There’s
no phone in the—”

 
          
“The anteroom!
The anteroom!
For Christ’s
sake, call!”

 
          
He
reached for the phone. The girl was out of sight of the vault camera now. On
the anteroom camera, I saw her come through the doorway. The stack of papers in
her arms was maybe three inches thick, as thick as two ordinary books, but of
course stacked some what looser. There were maybe a hundred and fifty sheets of
paper there.

 
          
Eastpoole
was dialing a three-digit number. The guard in the anteroom turned his head
when the girl walked in, saw the stack of paper she was carrying, and jumped to
his feet to open the hall door for her.

 
          
I
kept jabbing Eastpoole in the side with the gun. “Hurry it up!” I said. “Hurry
it up!”

           
The guard and the girl were both
moving toward the camera, they’d be out of sight under it in a second. “Come
on”
I said. I wanted to shoot everything
in sight; Eastpoole, the television screens, the astronauts out in the street.
The goddam drums were pounding away down there as though I didn’t have enough
pounding from my heart.

 
          
“It’s
ringing,” Eastpoole said, still terrified, still trying to show me he was cooperating.
And just before the guard disappeared out of sight, I saw him look back over
his shoulder toward the phone on his desk.

 
          
But
he was polite, he was.
Ladies first.
He went on, he
disappeared. The girl disappeared.

 
          
“It’s
ringing,” Eastpoole said again, and from the sound of his voice and the look on
his face I thought he was about to cry.

 
          
The
guard appeared again, alone, moving toward the desk and the telephone. I
reached over and slapped my free hand down on the phone cradle, breaking the
connection. On the screen, the guard picked up the receiver. He could be seen
saying hello into it, being confused.

 
          
Eastpoole
was jabbering
,
he was going to shake himself right out
of his chair. Staring at me, he was saying, “I tried! I tried! I did everything
you said, I tried!”

 
          
“Shut
up shut up shut
up!”
The other cops
were long since gone from the reception area. Tom and the girl would be walking
through all those offices, Tom having no idea about the three cops.

 
          
Eastpoole
was panting like a dog. The six screens were all normal. I stared at them, and
bit my upper lip, and finally I said, “A phone on their route.” I looked at
Eastpoole. “What’s their route back?”

 
          
He
just stared at me.

 
          
“Damn
you, what’s their route?”

 
          
“I’m
trying to think.”

 
          
“Anything
goes wrong,” I told him, shaking the pistol in his face, “God
damn
it, anything goes wrong, you’re the
first one dead.”

 
          
Shakily
he reached for the phone.

 
          
I
stood in that corridor a long time. I must have figured out fifty different
ways for things to go wrong while I waited there, and no ways at all for things
to go right.

 
          
For instance.
It was true that Joe could keep an eye on Miss
Emerson through the television screens in Eastpoole’s office, but what good
would that do me if she decided to blow the thing to the guard in the anteroom
after all? Joe would see her do it, he’d know what was going on, but he didn’t
have any way to get in touch with me to warn me. For all I knew, it had already
happened, and Joe was out of the building by now, leaving me to stand here and
wait to be picked up.

 
          
Or
say she didn’t do it on purpose, Miss Emerson, but her nervousness made her do
or say something that got the guard suspicious. Same result; me standing out
here as though I was waiting for the bus.

 
          
The bus to Sing Sing.

 
          
Would
Joe clear out, if that happened? If the roles were reversed, and I was the one
in Eastpoole’s office and saw it all going wrong on the television screens,
what would I do?

 
          
I’d
come looking for Joe, to warn him. And that’s what he’d
do,
too, I was sure of it.

 
          
Aside
from anything else, it wouldn’t do Joe any good to get away and leave me here.
Even if I never said a word, how long would it take the investigating officers
to get from me to my next-door neighbor, who was also my best friend and also
on the force? They’d have us both booked by nightfall.

 
          
Where
was she, what was taking so long?

 
          
But
Joe would come looking for me, I was sure of that.

 
          
Which didn’t mean he’d find me.
He didn’t know the route
from Eastpoole’s office to the vault any more than I had. I’d followed Miss
Emerson, that’s all.

 
          
That
would be beautiful. Everything gone to hell, me standing here not knowing about
it, and Joe running back and forth all over the seventh floor looking for me.
That would be too ridiculous to believe, and if that’s the way it went we’d
almost deserve to be caught.

 
          
What
was she
doing
in there?

 
          
I
looked at my watch, but it didn’t tell me anything, because I didn’t know what
time she’d gone in. Maybe five minutes ago, maybe ten. It seemed like a week.

 
          
The parade.
If she didn’t get a move on, we’d miss the
parade, and that would screw things up all over again.

 
          
You
spend your life waiting around for women, I swear to God you do. You’ll be late
for church, late for the movies, late for dinner, late for the parade, late for
everything. You sit out in the car and honk the horn, or you stand in the
bathroom doorway and say, “Your hair looks all
right*
¹
Or
you stand around
looking at your watch, in the middle of committing a felony. Nothing ever
changes, men just wait for women and that’s all there is to it.

 
          
A
door opened, farther down the hall. A girl came out, carrying a thick manila
envelope. She was short and dumpy, in a plaid skirt and a white blouse, and she
looked like the kind of girl who would go on working when everybody else in
lower Manhattan was watching the parade. I stood there, clenching my teeth,
watching her walk toward me. She gave me a neutral smile on the way by, walked
on, and went through another doorway and out of sight. I exhaled, and looked at
my watch again, and another minute had gone by.

 
          
I’d
looked at my watch twice more before the anteroom door opened. I was standing
back against the wall to one side, soT couldn’t be seen from inside the room,
and it’s a good thing I was, because apparently the guard had come over to open
the door for her. “See you again,” I heard him say, with that smile in his
voice that men have when talking to a good-looking woman.

 
          
“Thank
you,” she said. Her voice seemed to me too obviously frightened, but he didn’t
make any connections from it; at least, not that I could tell.

 
          
He
probably thought it was her period. Any time a woman acts upset or nervous or
weepy or anything at all out of the ordinary, everybody always takes it for
granted it’s her period, and pretends not to notice.

 
          
She
came out to the corridor and gave me a haggard look, and the guard closed the
door behind her. I heard his phone ring as the door was closing. Let it be
nothing, I thought.

           
She had a stack of documents in her
arms, held against her chest. I nodded at them and said, “All set?”

 
          
“Yes.”
Her voice was very small, as though she were talking from a different room.

 
          
“Let’s
go, then.”

 
          
We
headed back for Eastpoole’s office, retracing the same route as before. Parade
noises still thumped in through the open windows, employees were still jammed
at all the windows with their backs to us, everything moved along exactly as
before.

 
          
At
the end of one corridor there was a closed door. I’d opened it for her the last
time, coming through, and now that her hands were full there was even more
reason to do so. I did, and we stepped through into the next office, and I’d
gone another pace or two when I suddenly thought about fingerprints.

 
          
Now,
that would be smart. The most basic thing in police procedure is fingerprints,
every six-year-old boy in the country knows about fingerprints, and I was about
to go off and leave prints all over two doorknobs; the one going and the one
coming.

 
          
“Hold
it a second,” I said.

 
          
She
stopped, giving me an uncomprehending look. I went back to the door and smeared
my palm all around the knob, then pulled it open and leaned out to do the same
thing on the other side. I rubbed it good, and was about to shut the door again
when movement attracted my attention. I looked down at the far end of the
corridor, and one of the guards from the reception area was coming in, followed
by three uniformed cops.

 
          
I
ducked back into the room and shut the door. I was sure they hadn’t seen me. I
rubbed the inner knob again, then turned back to Miss Emerson, took her by the
arm, and started walking fast. She was startled, mouth open, but before she
could speak I said, low and fast, “Don’t do anything, don’t say anything. Just
walk.”

 
          
The
windows were on the right, lined with employees. Band music was loud, making
our own movements silent. Nobody saw or heard us.

 
          
There
was an alcove on the left, full of duplicating equipment; a row of filing
cabinets partly shielded it from the main area of the room. I turned that way,
steered Miss Emerson in there. “We’re going to wait here a second,” I said.
“Crouch down. I don’t want you seen over the tops of the cabinets.”

           
She crouched a bit, but apparently
found that too uncomfortable because a second later she shifted position and
knelt instead. She knelt in a prim way, back straight, like an early Christian
martyr about to get it. She watched me, wide-eyed, but didn’t say anything.

 
          
I
hunkered down, and peeked around the edge of the last filing cabinet. I’d let
them go past me, and then follow. That way, if they were headed for Eastpoole’s
office I’d at least be behind them, where I might be able to do some good.

 
          
Did
Joe know about the cops being here? He’d have
to,
he
would have seen them come in.

 
          
What
was he doing now? Had my worst fears come true, was Joe wondering around these
offices somewhere looking for me?

 
          
God
damn it, what a mess.

 
          
I
could smell the secretary. Fear was making her perspire, and the perspiration
was mixing with whatever perfume or cologne or something she had on, and the
result was a half-musky, half sweet scent that brought back the whole sexual
thing all over again.

 
          
I
didn’t have time to think about that I was doing some sweating myself right
now.

 
          
The
guard and three policemen appeared. Past them, a phone rang on one of the
desks. The cops all stopped, right in front of me, to talk things over.

 
          
On
the second ring of the telephone, a girl at one of the windows turned around
reluctantly, gave an exaggerated sigh, looked long-suffering, and strolled over
to answer it.

 
          
The
cops had decided one of them would stay in this room. While the others walked
on, he went over and forced a place for himself at one of the windows, looking
out.

 
          
Meanwhile,
the girl had answered the phone. “Hello?” She paused,
then
looked more alert and on-the-job. “Mr. Eastpoole?
Yes, sir.”
Another pause.
She looked around, and shook her head.
“No, sir, Mr. Eastpoole, she hasn’t been through yet.”
Another
pause.
“Yes, sir, I certainly will.” She hung up, and hurried back to
the window.

 
          
Now
what? How the hell was Eastpoole making phone calls? Where was Joe? What was
going on?

 
          
And
I didn’t need that cop at the window, I really didn’t.

 
          
Well,
I had him. Straightening up to look over the top of the filing cabinet, I saw
him standing there, having taken a window for himself, and he was looking out,
his back squarely to me. If he’d only stay like that, there was still a chance.

 
          
I
hunkered again, and turned to Miss Emerson, “Listen,” I said. “I don’t want a
lot of shooting.”

 
          
“Neither
do
I
,” she said. She was so sincere it was almost
comic.

 
          
“We’re
just going to get up and walk,” I told her. “No trouble, no fuss, no attracting
anybody’s attention.”

 
          
“No,
sir,” she said.

 
          
“Okay.
Let’s do it.”

 
          
I
helped her up from her knees, and she gave me a quick nervous smile of thanks.
We were developing a human relationship. We came out from behind the filing
cabinets and walked down the length of the office, and out, without being seen.