"Walsh, Thomas - Nightmare In Manhattan" - читать интересную книгу автора (Walsh Thomas)

УStop it,Ф Calhoun said, fixing her with steady and sensitive gray eyes, much more sensitive, indeed, than she had thought them last night. УAnd donТt worry about that cheap, yellow Ч well.Ф He nodded at her. УDo you think heТs going to get away with anything in here if I get so much as one look at that ugly puss of his? Do you?Ф

It was true that Tough Willie Calhoun was now looking and conversing tougher than ever; but Frances discovered something new about that. He had in him, at this moment, and for her, a very solid and reassuring masculine comfort. She knew that she was physically afraid of the big redheaded man; and she knew that Willie Calhoun was not, and never would be. Upstairs, on the west balcony, he took the time to indicate to her two of DonnellyТs men Ч one in civilian clothes, one in railroad uniform Ч who were to share this part of the watch; and then he gave her some very quiet and sensible advice.

The whole thing was nothing to get excited about, Calhoun said. Of course it might look dangerous and complicated at first, but it wasnТt really. If she saw the big fellow come in up here, all she had to do was to wave at DonnellyТs men with her right hand. That was simple enough, wasnТt it?

УOh, yes!Ф She nodded at him; but then she shivered. Willie Calhoun Ч Tough Willie Calhoun Ч understood that also. He sat down with her for a few minutes, and he told her that she was going to do all right on this thing. Why? Because he knew she was. It was all kind of a business, he said, but all she had to remember was that the thing to do was to watch yourself from in back somewhere; you had to know what you were doing every minute, and why you were doing it. Perhaps some people couldnТt manage it, but she could, and he knew it. She had struck him as that kind of a girl.

He seemed quite serious.

УI wish I knew it,Ф Frances declared miserably. УI wish I thought it.Ф

УNow IТll tell you something,Ф Willie Calhoun said, in his old manner, and using his old phrase. УYouТre going to find out tonight just what kind of a girl you are. Wait and see. YouТre going to be looked out for, remember. ThereТll be a lot of people watching for those fellows Ч me, too. YouТre not going to be alone up here for so much as half a second.Ф

She was fine then, she almost believed him, she almost felt like the sort of girl Willie Calhoun said she was; but then at a quarter of six, when he had to go away and leave her up there, she missed the broad shoulders, the bulldog jaw, the stubborn, homely and dependable face, in a way she would not have believed possible an hour ago.

Behind her, at the other end of the concourse, the model railroad chugged and whistled on its treadmill journey. She knew a small boy who would have studied the cars and the engines very carefully, very seriously; but she must not think of him now. If she did, Frances demanded of herself, and in the most natural and instinctive way, what idea would Willie Calhoun have of her?

She took one very long breath, held it, and felt better and more comfortable; and then exactly as Willie Calhoun had advised, she began to watch the street doors, and also to watch herself very carefully from in back somewhere.

Ten minutes to six came.


Downstairs in the information booth Willie Calhoun, dressed in a blue railroad coat, busied himself by walking around inside the counter and distributing timetables. At a desk under the golden clock George OТMara, also in railroad uniform, concealed under a freight atlas an open phone that was connected through to Captain RousseauТs office on the concourse balcony.


Donnelly was in that office with Lieutenant Nolan, two or three other men and Captain Rousseau.

УFive minutes of six,Ф Nolan said. УMaybe weТd better send Murchison out. All right, Arthur?Ф

Donnelly, who was sitting back in the swivel chair with closed eyes, gave a brusque nod without opening the eyes. A detective sergeant who was standing in back of them cleared his throat quietly and settled himself with folded arms. No one else said or did anything. Six oТclock came.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

PART THREE
CalhounТs most persistent worry in Manhattan Depot at six oТclock Saturday night was not the twenty or twenty-five thousand people who were then in one part or another of the station area, but the very complicated interior arrangement of the station itself. There were almost numberless street approaches, some of them offering direct access from the surrounding neighborhood, and others that wound in crookedly toward the main concourse, if one knew the way, from under hotels and office buildings, through stores, and from a honeycomb of subway platforms, all with terminal connections, where trains pulled up minute after minute from Long Island, the Bronx, the West Side and lower New York.

It was possible, in addition, to approach the concourse through an involved network of subterranean walks from three blocks north, or one east, or one west. Cabs arrived in an unending stream at all the principal street entrances, at the vehicular tunnel downstairs, and at the open-air platform just west of the balcony overlooking the concourse Ч Frances KennedyТs position. So all these presented innumerable ways, even to Calhoun, of slipping unobserved into a particular area of Manhattan Depot; but at the same time there were only seven public approaches to the information booth in the main concourse.

There was the escalator on the east; the two passages leading away under it; the stairs and two more passages on the west; and the tremendous ramp on the south that led up to the main waiting room and street entrance. The north wall of the concourse, lined from end to end by the track gates, was not considered a very feasible means of entry. Early morning through twelve noon were the busiest arrival hours at Manhattan Depot, as the time between four p.m. and nine made up the busiest departure hours; and now, consequently, if outgoing trains were leaving from behind the track gates immediately adjacent to the main concourse, the few incoming ones were shuttled down to the lower level, or over to what was called the arrival station in the far northwest corner of the depot.

From either area an interior approach would have to be made to the concourse and the information booth, and these approaches were all covered by neighbors of the Rothman brothers whom Donnelly had located in Dover Village. If Louie Rothman attempted to enter Manhattan Depot tonight he should be recognized at some point or other by people who had known him for many years; but for the other one, for the big redheaded man in the brown overcoat, DonnellyТs lines had to be thinned out considerably.

There were only four people who could be relied upon to identify him, and each of these had to be placed in a different station area. Conductor Goggins was posted east, near the foot of the escalator, and between the passages on that side; Eddie Mather south, by the main ramp; Frances west, near the upper taxi-cab platform and the avenue entrance; and Calhoun, as a sort of safety man, in the center of things at the information booth.

Others of DonnellyТs men moved back and forth through the concourse, singly and in pairs, from five-thirty on; and what might be termed a flying squad of immediately available reinforcements were spaced lounging upstairs at the balcony rail, from where they could overlook the information booth and all the possible approaches to it. The arrangements had all been put into effect by five-thirty. They were to remain in effect until the redhead or the second Rothman brother showed himself, or until other conditions warranted a concentration in strength at one particular depot sector.


Now five after six ticked away.