Lawrence Block - Deadly Honeymoon

Until she said, “That car was here before.”

He looked up quickly. She was nodding toward a metallic-gray Pontiac that was turning west at the corner of Twentieth Street. He caught a quick look at it before another car blocked his view.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. About five minutes ago. This time it just coasted by slowly, as if they were looking for somebody.”

“Like us?”

“Maybe.”

“Did you—”

“I think there were two people in the car. I’m not sure. The first time, I didn’t pay much attention. Who looks at cars? Then the second time, just after they passed us, I remembered the car. There’s a spotlight mounted on the hood. That’s what I noticed that made me remember the car. You don’t see that many of them.”

“And the men?”

“I’m not even sure they were both men. The driver was. By the time I realized that it was the same car they had already passed us and all I saw were the backs of their heads.”

His hand went automatically to the gun, secure under the waistband of his slacks. He patted the gun almost affectionately, a nervous gesture. We are getting close now, he thought. Before we were looking for them, and now people are looking for us.

“I wish you’d had a better look at them.”

“Maybe they’ll be back.”

“Yes.” He started to light a cigarette, then changed his mind. Get up and get out, he thought. They could see into the park. This next time, they might get lucky and spot them. And then—

No, they had to stay where they were. If they could get a look at the men in the Pontiac, they were that much ahead of the game. They could not afford the luxury of running scared.

“Lublin must have sent them,” he said.

“I suppose so.”

“It only stands to reason. He doesn’t want Washburn to know that he talked, and he knows we’re going to try to get information from Washburn. So he would have Washburn’s place watched and try to head us off on the way there. It evidently took him a little while to get organized. That was good luck for us. Otherwise they would have seen us wandering around the street and—”

It was a good sentence to leave unfinished. He reached again for a cigarette, the movement an instinctive one, and his hand stopped halfway to his breast pocket. He said, “That means Washburn doesn’t know.”

“You mean about us?”

“Yes. If he knew, he would have men outside, waiting for us. But if Lublin didn’t tell him, then Lublin would have to accomplish two things. He would have to keep us from getting to Washburn, and at the same time he would have to watch the place without arousing suspicion. He would want to get to us without Washburn knowing anything about the whole play. Where are you going?”

She was standing, walking toward the fence. “To see better,” she said. “In case that car comes back.”

He grabbed her hand and pulled her back. “Don’t be a damned fool. We can see them well enough from farther back. And we can’t risk having them see us.”

He led her back across a cement walk and sat down with her on another bench. There was an extra screening of shrubbery now between them and the street. They could see through it, but it would be hard for anyone passing by to get a good look at them.

“It might not have been anything,” he said.

“The Pontiac?”

“It could have been somebody driving around the block and looking for a place to park. You sort of coast along like that when you’re trying to find a parking place.”

“Maybe, but—”

“But what?”

“I don’t know. Just a feeling.”

And he had the same feeling. It was funny, too — he half-wanted the car to turn out to be innocent, because the idea of being pursued while pursuing added a new and dangerous element to the situation. But at the same time pursuit now would be a good sign. It would mean Washburn didn’t know what was happening, which was good. It would mean for certain that Lublin’s story was true.

A few minutes later he saw the Pontiac again. Jill nudged him and pointed but he had already noticed the car himself. It was coming from the opposite direction this time, cruising uptown past Washburn’s apartment toward Twenty-first Street. It was a four-door car, the windows rolled down, the back seat empty. It was going between fifteen and twenty miles an hour.

There were two men in the front seat. At first he couldn’t get a good look at them. He squinted, and as the car drew up even with them he got a good look at the man on the passenger side. He drew in his breath sharply, and he felt Jill’s hand on his arm, her fingers tightening, squeezing hard. Then as the car moved off he got a brief glimpse of the man behind the wheel.

The man on the passenger side was thickset and short-necked with a heavy face and a once-broken nose. The man doing the driving had thick eyebrows and a thin mouth and a scattering of thin hairline scars across the bridge of his nose.

The car was gone now. It had turned at the corner, had continued west at Twenty-first Street, picking up speed once it rounded the corner. He looked after it and watched it disappear quickly from view. He turned to Jill. She had let go of his arm, and both of her hands were in her lap, knotted into tight fists. Her face was a blend of hatred and horror.

Lee and his friend. Corelli’s murderers. Their target.

They got out of there in a hurry. He said her name and she blinked at him as though her mind were elsewhere, caught up either in the memory of violation or in the plans for vengeance. He said, “Come on, we’ve got to take off.” She got to her feet and they let themselves out of the park and walked off in the opposite direction, toward Third Avenue. An empty cab came by and they grabbed it. He told the driver to take them to the Royalton.

They started uptown on Third. Jill said, “Suppose they know about the hotel?”

“How?”

“I don’t know. I’m just panicky, I guess.”

“They might know,” he said. He leaned forward. “Just leave us at the corner of Thirty-fourth Street,” he said.

“Not the Royalton?”

“No, just on the corner.”

Thirty-fourth and where?”

“And Third,” he said.

There was a bar on Third halfway between Thirty-fourth and Thirty-fifth. They got out of the cab and walked to it. He didn’t relax until they were inside the bar and seated in a booth in the rear. It was ridiculous, he knew. The Pontiac was nowhere near them, they were safe, they were clear. But he couldn’t walk in the open street without the uncomfortable feeling that someone was watching them.

There was no waitress. He went to the bar and got two bottles of Budweiser and two glasses, paid for the beers and carried them to the booth. He poured beer into his glass and took a drink. She let her beer sit untouched on the table in front of her. She opened her mouth as if to speak, then shook her head suddenly and closed her mouth again without saying anything.

Finally she said, “I don’t understand it.”

“What?”

“Lublin didn’t know who the killers were. That’s what he said, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“Then he must have been lying. Lee and the other man were in the car. They were driving around looking for us. Is there anyone besides Lublin who knows about us?”

“No. Unless someone recognized you at Lublin’s last night.”

“Who? No one could have. So Lublin had to tell them. That meant that he hired them in the first place, and that the whole business about Washburn was a lot of nonsense, and that—”

“He wasn’t lying.”

“He must have been. He—”

“No. Wait a minute.” He picked up the glass of beer and took a long drink. The beer was very cold and went down easily. He made rings on the top of the table with the cold glass.