Serenade - James M. Cain [75]
I hung up. In about twenty minutes the phone rang. "Mr. Sharp? This is Kugler."
"Oh, hello, Mr. Kugler. About those opera passes I promised you, I'm afraid I'll have to disappoint you for the time being. You may have read in the paper I'm having a little trouble now. Can you let me put that off till next week."
"Oh, all right, Mr. Sharp. Any time you say."
"Terribly sorry, Mr. Kugler."
I hung up. I knew then that Sholto knew what he was talking about. I didn't know any Mr. Kugler.
Harry kept bringing up new editions as they came out, and the stuff that was coming in for me. They still hadn't got her. They found the taxi driver that rode her from Twenty-third Street. He said he took her down to Battery Park, she paid him with a five-dollar bill, so he had to go in the subway to get change, and then went off, carrying the valise. He told how Tony had flagged him, and Tony took another trip down to headquarters. It said the cops were considering the possibility she had jumped in the river, and that it might be dragged. The stuff that was coming in was a flock of telegrams, letters, and cards from every kind of nut you ever heard of, and opera fan, and shyster lawyer. But a couple of those wires weren't from nuts. One was from Panamier, saying the broadcast would temporarily be carried on by somebody else. And one was from Luther, saying no doubt I preferred not to have any more opera appearances until I got my affairs straightened out. The last afternoon edition had a story about Pudinsky. I felt my mouth go cold. He was the one person that might know about Winston and me. If he did he didn't say anything. He said what a fine guy Winston was, what a loyal friend, and defended him for calling up the Immigration people. He said Winston only had my best interests at heart.
I went out to eat around seven o'clock, dodged the reporters again, and had a steak in a place off Broadway. My picture was in every paper in town, but nobody seemed to notice me. One reason was, most of those pictures had been taken while I was in Hollywood, and I had put on a lot of weight since then. I wasn't exactly fat when I arrived from Mexico. Then I had a little trouble with my eyes, and had got glasses. I ate what I could, walked around a little, then around nine o'clock came back to the apartment: All the time I was walking I kept looking back, to see if I was followed. I tried not to, but I couldn't help it. In the cab, I kept twisting around, to see what was back of us.
There was another mountain of stuff when I came in, but I didn't bother to open it. I read back all the newspaper stuff again, and then there didn't seem to be anything to do but to go to bed. I lay there, first trying to think and then trying to sleep. I couldn't do either one. Then after a while I did drop off. I woke up in a cold sweat with moans coming out of my mouth. The whole day had been like some kind of a fever dream, chasing in and out of cabs, dodging reporters, trying to shake the police, if they were around, reading papers. Now for the first time I seemed to get it through my head the spot we were in. She was wanted for murder, and if they caught her they would burn her in the chair.
What waked me up the next morning was the phone. Harry was on the board. "I know you said not to call, Mr. Sharp, but there's a guy on the line, he kept calling all day yesterday, and now he's calling again, he says he's a friend of yours, and it's important, and he's got to talk to you, and I thought I better tell you."
"Who is he?"
"He won't say, but he said I should say the word Acapulco, something like that, to you, and you would know who it was."
"Put him through."
I hoped it might be Conners, and sure enough when I heard that "Is that you, lad?" I knew it was. He was pretty short. "I've been trying to reach you. I've called you, and wired you, and called again, and again--"
"I cut the phone calls off, and I haven't opened the last bunch of wires. You'd have been through in a second if they had told me. I want to see you, I've got to see you--"
"You