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

Once safely in through the rear door of that newsstand, where they had the entire lower level spread out in front of them, but where they were protected, in turn, from any save the closest and most unobstructed observation by stacks of newspapers, and by attendants who were making change for cigarette and candy purchases, Calhoun began to feel savagely confident of himself Ч ice-cold inside, solid as rock. Commuters were filing through onto an open platform just right of the newsstand; and other people, while waiting for other trains, sat on marble benches against the wall and read their papers. There was one gate over which the destination was being marked up, and the man in the dark glasses stood a few feet away from it. The train was an 11:40 Westchester local. Calhoun took thought with himself about it; and Calhoun got an idea. Suppose, he muttered at Donnelly, they could turn up a few facts about this fellow right now Ч his name, where he was going?

Donnelly hesitated for a moment.

УI donТt know,Ф Donnelly said. УHeТs not to see us, Calhoun Ч or to suspect us. Can you manage that part?Ф

Calhoun lifted his right forefinger without a word, but grimly and significantly; then he called his office upstairs on the newsstand telephone. Shortly afterward, outside the stand but in back of it, he held a brief conversation with one of the conductors on the 11:40.

УIn a minute,Ф he informed Donnelly, after the conductor had gone off again. УHereТs the way it is. Most of these fellows are regular commuters out of here Ч on the late trains, anyway; so they have monthly tickets with their names on them. ThatТs the angle, understand. I thought we should check on it.Ф

They waited, and then the conductor reappeared presently. Following CalhounТs instructions, he had taken a guarded look at the man wearing the dark glasses; but he admitted uncomfortably now that he was unable to place him Ч by name, at least. Three or four times a week, however, he caught the 11:40 out of here up to Dover Village. Did that help?

Calhoun, who thought it did, glanced at Donnelly; and Donnelly gave him a very slight nod, which might have meant anything, before availing himself of the telephone.

УThanks,Ф Calhoun told the conductor fervently. УThanks a lot, Walter. And listen. Get the name for us on the train, when you look at his ticket, but donТt let him see that youТre getting it. And donТt talk to him. Understand? DonТt start any conversation with him. Now come over here. See that little guy with the pop eyes standing just this side of the information booth? Tell him Donnelly wants to talk to him for a minute. And tell him where.Ф

So Mike Frost received his instructions from Donnelly; and at half past eleven, ten minutes before the Westchester local would leave Manhattan Depot, and more than an hour before it was scheduled to arrive at Dover Village, two police cars nosed quietly out of the vehicular tunnel upstairs into mid-town traffic.

CalhounТs small coupe, which he was allowed to park at one end of the cab platform, trailed them. He had the girl with him. Dover Village, Calhoun informed her, was just eight miles inland from North Rhinehill; and so it must have been very convenient this afternoon.

УJust about perfect,Ф he declared grimly, hunching his big shoulders into position over the steering wheel. УBut we got them now, you understand; and we got them good.Ф

Frances put her head back against the seat, feeling nothing at this moment, and not quite sure that she was ever going to feel anything again. Ahead of them the first police driver touched his siren. They raced west, eventually swinging up onto the West Side express highway where the big police cars pulled farther ahead of them every moment; and where Calhoun, making a not too effective attempt to reassure her about little Tony Murchison, rumbled that of course the third one of the gang, the driver, must have taken the boy to Dover Village this afternoon. That was why they had split up, so that no one in Dover Village would remember the three of them riding around together. Now how did she feel? Any better at all?

УAll right,Ф Frances said. But her voice seemed to be oddly detached from her; she listened to it, as if idly, while it asked Calhoun why that man in the dark glasses had ever been stupid enough to come back to the cab platform. She had hoped he would, Frances said Ч prayed he would; but somehow she had never been able to quite believe that he would.

УDidnТt I tell you?Ф Calhoun growled, Tough Willie Calhoun then to the life, because that was just the way he felt when he thought of the little man in the gray overcoat. УYella and jumpy. He had to come back to catch his train; and then he couldnТt resist taking a look for himself. He thought he was pretty cagey about it. They all do. The crummy, rotten Ч Ф

He stopped there. But the tone he employed, the expression of his mouth, the deep, tight lines around his bulldog jaw and square chin, conveyed to her an overpowering quality of physical ruthlessness and undersurface violence. Something broke in her after the intolerable strain of those fifteen minutes in the starterТs office, when neither she nor Mr. Murchison had known what was going on outside; and she put a hand up to her eyes and kept it there.

Calhoun, who was groping for something else to say to her, and who could not find it, decided correctly enough that she must be thinking about the child. She knew him; and of course that would make everything ten times more difficult to endure. He kept his eyes on the road, not on her, and began to think about the boy also. Was he still alive and unharmed? Calhoun was not sure; but Calhoun pictured him now in a strange room up in Dover Village, perhaps whimpering in his sleep, and the redhead coming in at him quickly, with hand uplifted. Was he going to stop, the redhead would ask him. Was he? Was he? BeforeЕ

Calhoun muttered a few words to himself Ч savage words in a savage tone; and Frances heard them. Getting excited now, she thought drearily, all nervous and tensed up like a fighting animal. They rattled and banged past the Medical Center, the two police cars away out of sight now, and past the intricate approaches to George Washington Bridge, glittering over them in great sweeps and whorls of light. She did not say anything more to Calhoun; and of course what she wanted, and what Calhoun was uncomfortably aware that she wanted, was a kindly and understanding person with a quiet voice and a very gentle manner. Calhoun did not think that he was equipped to manage that very well. Calhoun did not believe that he could even begin to try for it.

Now Kingsbridge and Van Cortlandt Park dropped in back of them. Woods and fields appeared, high banks of snow, scattered colonial homes; an underpass now and again, where the motor noise was gathered up and flung back at them, and then absorbed instantly into open country, into the darkness and desolation of a bone-bitter February night. At twenty minutes past twelve, not too far behind DonnellyТs time, they slithered around on the traffic circle at Dover Village; and presently Calhoun located the police cars at the far end of the railroad station, parked there behind a freight office and a freight loading dock. One of DonnellyТs men trotted over to them.

УWe got his name,Ф he informed Calhoun hurriedly. УCarl Rothman. They phoned it through to the state troopers up here from along the line, and one of them happened to know the guy. WeТre going right up to the house, Willie. Keep after us.Ф

So Calhoun drove in back of the police cars past a village green, where only the brightly lit Dover Village tavern showed signs of weekend activity and jollification; up a steep hill, where his back wheels spun helplessly on ice for a moment; and then, over the hill, onto the circular concrete approach of the Dover Village high school. At this point the railroad station was a quarter of a mile below them, with the road curving around to it in an irregular arc fringed by trees, by open and snowy fields, and by scattered suburban residences.

There was a conference around DonnellyТs car, this one attended by some of the state troopers who had been keeping the Rothman house under observation for the past few minutes. It was decided that the secretary would sit this part out in the police sedan, with Tony MurchisonТs father; and Calhoun, who had to give her those orders Ч give her the worst job of all, in his estimation Ч decided at once that he could not afford any open expression of sympathy. She looked much worse now than when they had left Manhattan Depot; and so Calhoun, after getting her out of the coupe, shook her bodily by the two arms.

УWake up,Ф he growled at her Ч very tough there, very menacing. УWe donТt want any noise or commotion around here. Wake up! Are you okay, or arenТt you?Ф

УLeave me alone,Ф Frances whispered painfully. УDonТt touch me again. DonТt put your hands on me.Ф

Savages, she thought. Who among them had mentioned Tony Ч had ever expressed any sort of personal concern for him? Never a thought for that child; never a word. So she shrank away from Calhoun, who was rather worried about her, but who only made another menacing gesture from her to the police car; and who then vanished like a shadow back toward Maple Avenue.

His position there was with George OТMara at the lower end of the street, near some woods, with the Rothman house up on the slope about seventy or eighty feet distant. It was a small wooden house, isolated at the west end of the school playground; and it was dark too, all dark, so that it did not seem to Calhoun that there was anybody at all in there.