A Horse’s Head

11. Rollo

“You are a loser,” Merilee said, “oh you are very definitely a loser.”

He thought about that while watching the tote board for the final results. Sure enough, it was Mona Girl first, Jawbone in the place position, and Felicity showing; his Win tickets on Jawbone were worth exactly the paper they were printed on, like the New York Times bills that had been in the jacket. He thought Yes, I am a loser on this race, on this particular race, Merilee, but that does not necessarily make me an all-time loser, I am just having a run of bad luck, that’s all. But his run of bad luck seemed to take a decided downward turn in that moment because it was then that George and Henry entered the restaurant and began glomming the room in twin intensity. Oh my, Mullaney thought.

He was feeling pretty depressed just then, truly feeling like the loser Merilee claimed he was, certainly too depressed to run again. Besides, he felt he had done quite enough running in two days, thank you, what had happened to that nice quality of unexpectedness he had initiated with the twins and used to such advantage? He decided to sit this one out, so he waited calmly at the table until the twins saw him, and then waited calmly as they walked over to him. Merilee, who had also seen them by this time, said only, “Oh my they are going to kill you, you are very definitely a loser.”

He doubted very much that they would kill him in the midst of a crowded restaurant, no one was that dumb. The unexpected, he thought, that is the secret.

“Hello, boys,” he said cheerfully, “nice to see you again.”

“I’ll bet,” Henry said.

“I’ll just bet,” George said.

“I think you had better get up and come with us,” Henry said. “Kruger would like to see you.”

“I’d like to see him, too,” Mullaney said.

“I’ll just bet,” George said.

They led him out of the restaurant and then over to the chain-link fence separating the sections, paid the attendant there (very nice of them) the difference between the admission prices for grandstand and clubhouse, and then led him over to where Kruger was sitting in the reserved section down front. The horses were already in the paddock for the third race, and Kruger was watching them through his binoculars. Mullaney sat down next to him, with Merilee on his right and with the twins taking seats behind him where they could shoot him through the head if necessary. Merilee crossed her legs, distracting some of the gamblers who were watching the horses in the paddock. She did not distract Kruger, however, who kept the binoculars to his eyes without turning to look at either her or Mullaney.

“You didn’t come back,” Kruger said.

“I know,” Mullaney said.

“I trusted you, and you didn’t come back.”

“I promised to come back with the money, but there was no money.”

“So Merilee has told me,” Kruger said, still not taking the binoculars from his eyes. “What do you make of it?”

“Well, I don’t know,” Mullaney said. “I have the jacket here with me, if you’d like to look it over. You can take my word, however, that...”

“I will never take your word again,” Kruger said. “You may not realize it, sir, but you hurt me deeply last night. Give me the jacket.”

He put down the binoculars and took the shopping bag from Mullaney, who watched as Kruger carefully examined the jacket, turning it over in his hands, feeling inside the lining, searching the pockets, examining the buttons, and then finally crumpling it into a ball again and thrusting it back into the Judy Bond shopping bag.

“Worthless,” he said, which ascertained what Mullaney had suspected all along: Kruger, no more than any of his fellows, knew why the jacket was important. Only K knew. K was the key.

“If you’d tell me what this is all about,” Mullaney said, “I might be able to help.”

“This is all about half a million dollars.”

“In American money or Italian money?”

“In American money,” Kruger said.

“Was it supposed to be in that coffin?”

“Yes.”

“How’d you know that?”

“Why should I tell you anything when you’ve already broken trust with me?” Kruger said, offended, and put the binoculars back to his eyes.

“Because I may be able to help.”

“How? You’re a loser. Merilee told me you’re a loser.”

“When did she tell you that?” Mullaney said, turning swiftly to look at Merilee, who had not said a word to Kruger since they’d joined him, and who was sitting now with her legs crossed, her hands delicately clasped in her lap, her eyes on the horses in the paddock.

“Last night after your abortive love-making attempt,” Kruger said, and Mullaney felt foolish.

“Well...” he said.

“Well, that also was not very nice,” Kruger said, “making a pass at another fellow’s girl.”

“Well, I’m sorry,” Mullaney said.

“Well, you should be.”

“Well, I am,” Mullaney said, thinking he was sorry about a great many things, but not necessarily about having made a pass at Merilee. Actually, he thought, if you really want to know, Mr. Kruger, it w^as a hell of a lot more than a pass, nor was it only an attempt at love-making, it was real and genuine, bona-fide and true love-making, me inside her, abortive or otherwise, though I don’t imagine Merilee told you that. If she had told you that, you wouldn’t have generously and kindly given her three hundred dollars to squander on the nags, which largesse she promptly turned over to the loser she supposedly claimed was me; she couldn’t have thought I was very much of a loser if she was willing to trust me with three hundred dollars, what do you think about that, Mr. Kruger? She must have thought I was pretty hot stuff, don’t you think, Mr. Kruger, no matter what she said to you or even to me, a pretty interesting and exciting fellow, if she was willing to give me three hundred dollars, which doesn’t grow on trees where I come from. Think about that for a little while, Mr. Kruger, while you peer through your binoculars and examine the horses, what the hell do you know about horses, or women, or me, for that matter, a loser indeed!

But he could not justify her betrayal.

She had promised not to tell, she had promised to say only that he had escaped, and yet she had told all, or almost all, told enough to make him appear a fool. You shouldn’t do that after making love, he thought, because making love is total exposure, and it only works if you can trust the other person enough to make a complete fool of yourself. Show and Tell is for kindergarten, he thought, not for lovers.

He suddenly wondered whether Irene (who had undoubtedly known other men since the divorce) had ever told any of them, for example, that he sometimes made muscles in front of the mirror, or that, for example, he had once said “Yum-yum” while going down on her, or that, for further example, he had once lain full-length and naked on the bed, with a derby hat covering his erection, which he had revealed to her suddenly as she entered the room with a “Good morning, madam, may I show you something in a hat?” — wondered, in short, if she had ever told anyone else in the world that he, Andrew Mullaney, was sometimes a fool, sometimes most certainly a horse’s ass.

The thought bothered him.

To take his mind off Merilee’s betrayal, off Irene’s betrayal by extension, he turned back to the matter of the money again; there was always money to occupy a man’s thoughts, there was always money to take a man’s mind off the nagging knowledge that he was sometimes, perhaps often, a fool. “How did you learn about the money?” he asked Kruger.

Kruger lowered his binoculars, turned in his seat, and looked Mullaney directly in the eye. He was silent for a long time. Then, at last, he said, “I’m going to level with you, sir.”

“Please do,” Mullaney said.

“Someone in K’s organization was in my employ.”

“Who?”

“Gouda.”

“Gouda,” Mullaney repeated, thinking Where there’s cheese, there is also sometimes a rat.

“Yes,” Kruger said. “Unfortunately, he was killed in a terrible highway accident, as you may know...”

“Yes, I know.”

“Yes, I thought you knew. In any event, he had outlived his usefulness.”

“Was he the one who told you the money would be in the coffin?”

“He did more than that.”

“What did he do?”

“He was responsible for putting those paper scraps in the lining of the jacket.”

“Gouda?”

“Yes.”

“I thought maybe McReady.”

“No. It was Gouda.”

“I see. In place of the money.”

“Yes.”

“What happened to the money?”

“He delivered it to us.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“He delivered it to us.”

“The five hundred thousand dollars?”

“Well, give or take.”

“He delivered it to you?”

“Yes. I told you he was in my employ.”

“He gave you the money, and substituted paper scraps for it, is that what you’re saying?”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

“Then you already have the money.”

“No.”

“No?”

“No.”

“Who does have it?”

“K, I would imagine.”

“But if it was delivered to you...”

“It was delivered to me, yes. But apparently someone knew Gouda was working for me, someone knew Gouda would make the substitution, and someone very carefully worked out a triple cross.”

“I don’t understand.”

“The money Gouda delivered was counterfeit.”

“This is very confusing,” Mullaney said.

“Yes,” Kruger agreed.

“You mean they knew he was going to steal the money, so they...”

“Steal is a harsh word,” Kruger said.

“They knew he was going to arrange a transfer,” Mullaney said, “so they substituted counterfeit bills for the real bills, which counterfeit bills Gouda subsequently sto... transferred to you, leaving paper scraps in their place?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t get it,” Mullaney said. “Why go to all the bother of shipping the coffin to Rome if they knew there were only paper scraps in the jacket?”

“I don’t know,” Kruger said thoughtfully. “But that’s why we hijacked the coffin. When we discovered we’d been tricked, we assumed the real money was still hidden in the coffin someplace. As you know, it wasn’t.”

“Nor in the jacket, either,” Mullaney said.

“Well,” Kruger said reflectively, “it wasn’t exactly a total loss. In my line of work, even counterfeit money is worth something.” He paused. “Would you have any idea, sir, where the real money is?”

“No.”

“I didn’t think so.”

“No, I have no idea.”

“Mmmm.”

“There’s something else that’s bothering me, though,” Mullaney said.

“Yes?”

“Where’d all that money come from?”

Kruger was silent for quite a few minutes. Then he put the binoculars back to his eyes.

“Mr. Kruger,” Mullaney said, “where’d all that money...”

“I think our business is concluded,” Kruger said.

“I beg your pardon?”

“I think you will have to leave the track now in the company of Henry and George.”

“What?” Mullaney said.

“Yes,” Kruger said.

“But you said you trusted me!”

“No, I said I was going to level with you.”

“That’s the same thing!”

“Not quite,” Kruger said. “Several men were killed in that highway accident yesterday, as I’m sure you know.”

“Yes, but what’s that got to...”

“Three men, to be exact. The police know only that a red pickup truck entered the Van Wyck Expressway, cut off the hearse, and shot three men to death. The fourth man unfortunately escaped through the bushes and brambles lining the parkway.”

“That would be K,” Mullaney said.

“Yes, that would be K. So you see, we do not wish the police to learn anything more about the accident than they already know.”

“I see.”

“We do not wish them to know, for example, that I or any of my fellows had anything to do with it.”

“I see,” Mullaney said again.

Kruger put down the glasses, turned to Mullaney, and smiled. Mullaney knew he was about to make a joke.

“Loose lips sink ships,” Kruger said.

“I think I get your meaning,” Mullaney said.

“I hope so.”

“But you have nothing to worry about. I’m in trouble with the police myself, you see.”

“Oh, are you really?” Kruger said drily, and put the glasses to his eyes again.

“Yes. So I would hardly go to them with information, you see, being in trouble with them myself, you see.”

“I see,” Kruger said.

“Yes.”

“Yes, but in any event I think you will have to leave us now.”

“You don’t understand,” Mullaney said.

“I think I understand,” Kruger said.

“I’m telling you the truth,” Mullaney said. “I really am in trouble with the police.”

“Yes, I’m sure.”

“I was arrested for burglary, in fact!”

“Take him away,” Kruger said.

“The hors-es are on the track!” the announcer said.

“Do you see anything you like?” Kruger asked Merilee, lowering the binoculars.

“Mr. Kruger, look...” Mullaney said.

“Up!” George said behind him.

“I thought the seven-horse,” Merilee said.

“Mr. Kruger, I assure you.. ”

“Let’s go,” Henry said, and prodded him with something that felt very much like a gun in a jacket pocket. Mullaney picked up his shopping bag.

“The terrible tiling though,” Merilee said, “is that I lost all my money on the last race.”

“Do you really like the seven-horse?”

“Oh yes indeed, I think he’s a cunning horse.”

“Mr. Kruger, I wish...”

“Get him out of here!” Kruger said sharply, and Henry poked him again.

“All right, don’t get tough,” Mullaney said.

“Move!” Henry said.

“All right, all right,” Mullaney said. Clutching the shopping bag to his chest, he began moving sideways out of the aisle, then stopped and turned to Kruger, who had the binoculars to his eyes again. “You haven’t heard the last of me, Mr. Kruger,” he said.

“I think I have,” Kruger answered. “Which horse did you say?”

“The seven-horse,” Merilee answered.

“Looks like a good horse,” Kruger said.

“Looks like a dog to me,” Mullaney said petulantly.

“No one asked you.”

“And as for you...” Mullaney said, turning to Merilee.

“Yes?” she answered, looking up at him.

“I am not a loser.”

“If you lose, honey,” she said, “why then you’re a loser, yes indeed.”

“Move!” Henry said again.

Mullaney moved out of the aisle without looking back at either Merilee or Kruger, feeling the hard snout of Henry’s gun against his back, and thinking how remarkable it was that you could always tell a gun by its feel, even when it was in somebody’s pocket. He could not for a minute believe they were really going to kill him, and yet they all seemed so terribly serious about this, especially Henry and George, who solemnly led him to the escalator and then down to the exit and across the wide concrete path leading to the elevated train station.

“Shouldn’t we take the car?” Henry asked.

“Kruger will want it,” George said.

But that was all either of them said, leading him silently up the steps to the change booth, and buying three tokens (very nice of them), and passing him through the turnstile, and then taking him out onto the platform where they silently and ominously waited for the train going back to Manhattan.

“Where are you taking me?” Mullaney asked.

“Someplace nice,” Henry said.

“Very nice,” George said.

“You’ll remember it always,” Henry said.

“You’ll take the memory to your grave,” George said, which Mullaney did not think was funny.

When the train pulled in, they waited silently for the doors to open, and then got into the nearest car and silently took seats, Mullaney in the middle, George and Henry on either side of him. The shopping bag with the damn inscrutable jacket rested on the floor of the car, between Mullaney’s feet.

“How should we do it?” Henry asked.

“I don’t know,” George said. “What do you think?”

“The river?”

“Always the river,” George said disdainfully.

Mullaney, sitting between them, realized they were talking about him, which he considered impolite.

“You got any better ideas?”

“We could throw him on the tracks.”

“Where?”

“In the subway. When we get back to the city. It’ll look like an accident. What do you think?”

Henry thought it over for a moment. “No,” he said, “I don’t like it.”

“Well, what do you feel like doing?” George said.

“I don’t know,” Henry said, “what do you feel like doing?”

“I saw a movie once where they were getting this guy with a laser beam,” George said.

“Yeah, but we don’t have a laser beam.”

“I know. I was just saying.”

“We could throw him off the Empire State Building,” Henry suggested. “They’ll think he jumped.”

“I never been up the Empire State Building,” George said.

“Me either.”

“I hate to go someplace I ain’t never been,” George said.

“Me too.”

“So what do you want to do?”

“I don’t know. What do you want to do?”

“We could just plug him,” George said.

“Yeah, I guess,” Henry said.

“That’s such a drag though.”

“Yeah.”

“What do you think?”

“I don’t know. What do you think?”

“I read a book once, they had it fixed so it looked like the guy took an overdose of heroin.”

“Yeah, but then we got to look up Garafolo, and maybe he won’t even be holding, and then we get all kinds of heat from the narcotics dicks, it ain’t worth it.”

“Yeah.”

They had passed perhaps three station stops by now, and were pulling into another one — Grant Avenue, Mullaney noticed. He thought he had better get the hell out of here quick because whereas it had not occurred to either Henry or George as yet, a very neat way of dispatching him would be merely to stomp him to death right here on the train. The way things were these days in New York, no one would pay the slightest bit of attention. He wondered when they would hit upon this best of all possible solutions, and saw the train doors opening, and calculated how long it would take him to reach those doors, and realized they could shoot him in the back before he’d run more than two feet from where they were sitting. The doors closed again, the train was once again in motion.

They changed trains at Euclid Avenue. There were a lot of people in the new car, reading their newspapers, or holding hands, or studying the carcard advertising, or idly gazing through the windows as the train clattered from station to station, making its way toward Manhattan. Mullaney wondered what would happen if he stood up and announced that the two men with him were at this very moment discussing ways and means of killing him, and guessed that everyone in the car would simply applaud and wait for him to pass the hat. He glanced across the aisle to the other side of the car, where a fat dark-haired woman sat with her button-nosed little daughter, and then looked beyond them through the open windows, watching the apartment buildings as they blurred past, wondering what part of Brooklyn they were traveling through. He suddenly realized he would be leaving the train by the doors on his right, in the center of the car, and he decided he ought to know how long it took for those doors to open and then close again. So he began counting as soon as the train stopped at the next station, one, two, thr... the doors opened, four, five, six, seven, they were still open, people were moving out onto the platform, others were coming in, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, the doors closed, the train was in motion again. Well, that was a very pleasant exercise, Mullaney thought, but I don’t know what good it will do me when the time comes to make my break.

“What we could do,” George said, “is throw him in that big garbage-burning thing they got on the East River Drive.”

“I can’t stand the smell of garbage,” Henry said.

“Me neither.”

“Hey, you know what?” Henry said.

“What?”

“We could take him to that little park they got there outside the U. N. building, you know that little park I mean?”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, and walk him over to the river where that thing juts out over the water, you know where I mean?”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, and hit him on the head and just dump him over the side there.”

“Well, that’s the river again, ain’t it?” George said.

“Yeah.”

“I mean, that’s just the damn river all over again.”

“Yeah.” Henry seemed crestfallen. “Well, what do you want to do?”

“I don’t know,” George said. “What do you want to do?”

“Gee, I don’t know,” Henry said.

Mullaney heard the sound of an alto saxophone, and thought at first that someone in the car had turned on a transistor radio. New Yorkers were all so musical, always singing and dancing wherever they went, just like Italians, gay and light-hearted and singing, dancing, playing all the time. But as he turned toward the sound, he saw that a live musician had entered the far end of the car and was making his way, step by cautious step, toward where Mullaney and his potential assassins were sitting.

The man was blind.

He was a tall thin man wearing a tattered maroon sweater similar to the one Mullaney had worn all through college, dark glasses on his nose, his head carried erect, as though on the end of a plumb line, the saxophone mouthpiece between his compressed lips. The saxophone was gilded with mock silver that had worn through in spots to reveal the tarnished brass beneath. A leather leash was fastened to the man’s belt and led to the collar of a large German shepherd who preceded the man into the subway car and led him step by step up the aisle, sitting after each two or three steps while the man continued playing a song that sounded like a medley of “You Made Me Love You” and “Sentimental Journey.” The man, though blind, was a terrible saxophonist, miskeying, misphrasing, producing squeaks in every measure. The German shepherd, dutifully pausing after every few steps into the car, walked or sat at the man’s feet in what appeared to be a pained stupor, a glazed look on his otherwise intelligent face. The blind man sw^ayed above him, filling the car with his monumentally bad music while on either side people rose from their seats to drop coins into the tin cup that hung from his neck, resting somewhere near his breastbone, its supporting cord tangled in the leather strap that held the saxophone. The dog was similarly burdened, carrying around his neck a hanging, hand-lettered placard that read:

The blind man had reached the center doors of the car now. The dog dutifully sat again with that same pained and patient expression on his face, and Mullaney wondered why a nice-looking animal like Rollo would wear a sign asking people not to pet him. The train had pulled into another station, and people were rushing in and out of the doors, shoving past the blind man, who immediately stopped playing. But as soon as the doors closed and the train was in motion again, he struck up a lively chorus of “Ebb Tide,” and then modulated into “Stormy Weather,” which he played with the same squeaking vibrato and fumbling dexterity while the dog continued to look more and more pained. They were still coming up the aisle, slowly making their way toward where Mullaney sat. He had not thought to count the time it took for the train to go from one station to another, that was his mistake, he now realized, he had counted the wrong thing. The blind man and Rollo stopped, the swelling sound of the saxophone drowned out the speculations of Henry and George (they were debating the possibility of garroting Mullaney) and filled the car with horrendous sound. Coins continued to rattle into the tin cup, music lovers all along the car reaching gingerly into the aisle and dropping pennies, nickels and dimes in appreciation as Rollo and the blind man moved a few steps, paused, moved again, paused again, they were perhaps three feet away from Mullaney now. The dog is probably vicious, he thought, that’s why you’re not supposed to pet him, he’s a vicious dog who’ll chew your arm off at the elbow if you so much as make a move toward his head. The train was slowing, the train was pulling into a station, Rollo and the blind man were moving ahead again, two feet away, a foot away, the train stopped, and the dog sat in the aisle directly in front of Henry.

Mullaney begged the forgiveness of polite society, he begged the forgiveness of God, he begged the forgiveness of tradition, but he knew he had to save his life, even if the only way to do it was to take advantage of a blind man. He began counting the moment the train stopped, one, two, three, the doors opened, he had eleven seconds to make his move, win or lose, live or die. He suddenly grabbed Henry’s right arm, cupping his own left hand behind Henry’s elbow, pushing his own right hand against Henry’s wrist, creating a fulcrum and lever that forced Henry out of his seat with a yelp. The dog was sitting at Henry’s feet, and Mullaney, counting madly (five, six, seven, eight, those doors would close at fourteen), hurled Henry directly at Rollo’s pained magnificent head, saw his jowls pull back an instant before Henry collided with the triangular black nose, saw the fangs bared, heard the deep growl start in Rollo’s throat, nine, ten, eleven, he bounded for the doors as George came out of his seat, drawing his gun, twelve, thirteen, “Stop!” George shouted behind him, he was through the doors, fourteen, and they closed behind him. Through the open windows of the car, he could hear Rollo tearing off Henry’s arm or perhaps ripping out his jugular while the blind man began playing a medley of “Strangers in the Night” and “Tuxedo Junction.” George was across the car now and leaning through a window as the train began moving out of the station. He fired twice at Mullaney, who zigzagged along the platform and leaped head first down the steps leading below, banging his head on a great many risers as he hurtled down, thinking this was where he had come in, and thinking By God, he missed me! He heard the train rattling out of the station, and was certain he also heard applause from the passengers in the car as Rollo eviscerated poor Henry. He got to his feet the moment he struck the landing, began running instantly, without looking back, thinking I’m free at last, I’m free of all of them, and running past the change booth and then bounding down another flight of steps to the street, not knowing where he was, Brooklyn or Queens or wherever the hell, thinking only that he had escaped, finding himself on the sidewalk, good solid concrete under his feet, glancing up at the traffic light, seeing it was in his favor, and darting into the gutter.

He was halfway to the other side when he realized he had left the Judy Bond shopping bag on the train.

He stopped dead in the middle of the street and, as cars rushed past him in both directions, thought that Merilee’s estimation had been correct, If you lose, honey, why then you’re a loser, yes indeed. He had felt like a winner not a moment ago when he’d eluded the twins, but here he was bereft of the bag that still contained the jacket that held the clue to half a million dollars. He thought Well, the hell with it, easy come, easy go, and was almost knocked flat to the pavement by a red convertible that swerved screechingly away from him, the driver turning his head back to shout a few swear words, thereby narrowly missing a milk truck that went thundering past from the opposite direction. He did not think it would be a good idea to get hit by a moving vehicle as that might attract the attention of the police; there was still a Burglary One charge hanging over his head. So he stood exactly where he was, unmoving in the center of the street, waiting for the light to change again, and the traffic to ease.

When it did, he walked back to the curb and thought The hell with the jacket, I have had enough of this chasing after pots of gold at the ends of rainbows, and then was inordinately annoyed once again by the jacket’s obstinacy. He liked to think of himself as a system player, and surely such a player was capable of piercing whatever stubborn disguise K and his fellows had concocted. The best system he had ever devised was based on the Martingale double-up or progressive system that expounded the theory of doubling your bet each time you lost, betting four dollars if you lost two dollars, for example, and then eight if you lost the four, and sixteen the next time out, and so on until — when you finally won — you were getting back all of your previous investment plus a two-dollar profit as well. Securely based on this premise, his own system (which he was thinking of putting into soft covers as Mullaney’s System, if he could only find a publisher) was a variation of the theme, a sort of double-up retreat system, a sort of progressive-regressive system wherein he doubled his bet only four times if he was losing, and then began a process of reversal, halving his bet, and then quartering it, until he was back to betting only two dollars, after which he once again began doubling. The theory worked on the basis of simple gambling common sense: Mullaney knew that a run of bad luck could sometimes outlast even a very large bankroll. So he premised his system on the hope that enough winners, small or large, would come in over the progressive-regressive long run to allow a steady profit, enough to keep him in franks and beans, enough to keep him alive and betting.

Thus far, the system hadn’t worked too well.

But a man who had devised such a scheme, a man who had painstakingly figured it out with pencil and paper, was surely a man who possessed the intelligence and ingenuity to crack the jackets stubborn facade. Determined, he clenched his fists and marched up the steps to the subway platform, mindful that George or even poor Henry might get off at the next station stop, double back, and shoot him on the spot; well, those are the chances you have to take, he thought, if you want to get anywhere in this world.

The woman in the change booth was a very healthy person wearing a green eye shade and a tan cardigan sweater, the sleeves of which had been cut off raggedly at the elbows. She had muscular forearms that rippled with power as she arranged small piles of tokens on the counter top. One of her arms was tattooed with the name MIKE in a heart pierced by an arrow. Her hair was up in curlers, so Mullaney figured she was preparing for a heavy date later on that night.

“Excuse me, ma’am,” he said, “but...”

“Miss,” she corrected. She did not look up from arranging her little piles of tokens.

“I left a shopping bag on the train...” he said.

“Lost Property Office,” she answered without looking up.

“Thank you.” He started to walk away from the booth, turned, went up to the cage again, and said, “Where is that, miss? The Lost Property Office?”

“Phone book,” she said without looking up.

“Thank you,” he said. He found a telephone booth alongside the newspaper stand at the rear of the station, and quickly searched the Manhattan directory. He tried Interboro Rapid Transit System first and found Interboro Time Clock Co and Interboro Trucking Co Inc but nothing in between. So he decided to try Brooklyn Manhattan Transfer and found Bklyn Mchy Warehse Corp and Bklyn-Manhatn Trial Counsel Assn Inc, but nothing between those two, either. So he looked up Independent Subway System and found Independent Subway Call NY City Transit System ULstr 2-5000, which he called, but got no answer. He began leafing through the telephone book again, thinking there might be a listing for the Lost Property Office under New York City Transit System, but all he found was a listing for NY City Transit Police Patrolmen’s Benevolent Assn, which he did not think would help him. He closed the book and walked back toward the change booth. The woman was still arranging tokens. She had made perhaps thirty little piles of tokens already.

“Excuse me,” he said.

“Yes?” she said without looking up.

“I can’t find it in the telephone book.”

“New York,” she said, “City of.”

“I beg your pardon.”

“New York, City of,” she said.

“Oh, thank you,” he said, and went back to the telephone book and found, just three pages before the Transit Police Patrolmen s Benevolent Association listing, a thousand or more New York City listings, including frequently called numbers like City Prisons and Hack Licenses and Rent & Rehabilitation Admin and — I’ll be damned, he thought — a listing under transit authority for Lost Property Office, MA 5-6200; he supposed a lot of people were losing things in the subways nowadays. He fished into his pocket for the dime again, dialed the number, and let it ring ten times before hanging up. He retrieved his dime from the return chute, went out of the booth, and back to the woman in the sawed-off cardigan. There were perhaps forty or fifty little piles of tokens on the counter now.

“Excuse me,” he said.

“Yes?” she said without looking up.

“I called them and there was no answer.”

“Who?” she said.

“The Lost Property Office.”

“That’s right,” she said, “they’re closed on Saturdays.”

“Oh,” he said. “Well, what am I supposed to do about my shopping bag?”

“Go fight City Hall,” she said, and continued piling tokens. “Thank you,” he said.

“Don’t mention it,” she answered.

He walked away from the booth. Well, that’s that, he thought. I tried. I really tried, so the hell with it. Well, he thought, you haven’t really tried until you’ve exhausted every possibility, there is half a million dollars at stake here, or have you forgotten that? He reached into his pocket, extracted his remaining money and — spreading it on the palm of his hand — began counting it. He had exactly a dollar and fifteen cents in change. He wondered how far that would take him, and decided it would take him quite far enough. He went down the steps to the street, hailed the first taxicab he saw, and said to the driver, “Follow that el.”

“What?” the driver said.

“Follow that el.”

“You mean follow them tracks up there?”

“That’s right.”

“To where?”

“I don’t know yet. I’m looking for somebody.”

“Who’re you looking for?”

“I’m not sure. Somebody with a shopping bag.”

The driver studied him silently for a moment. Then he said, “I got to have a destination, mister. I got to write down a destination on my call sheet.”

“Okay, write down Radio City Music Hall.”

“Is that where you’re going?”

“No, but you can say that’s where I’m going. Then I’ll change my mind as soon as I spot whoever has my shopping bag. I’m allowed to change my mind.”

“That’s true, you’re allowed to change your mind.”

“Okay, so write down Radio City.”

“How you gonna find this person with your shopping bag?”

“Well, I don’t know. I’ve got to keep my eyes open until we catch up with the train.”

“What train?”

“The one up there heading for Manhattan.”

“Mister, there are a hundred trains up there heading for Manhattan.”

“Yes, but this one just left about five minutes ago. I’m sure we can catch it.”

“Mister,” the driver said, “I’ll tell you the truth, I was just on my way in to the garage, you know? So why don’t I just help you get another cab, huh?”

“No, this’ll be fine,” Mullaney said. “Here,” he said, and handed the driver his dollar and fifteen cents. “This is all the money I’ve got. Just keep driving until the meter hits ninety-five cents, and keep the twenty cents for your tip. If we haven’t caught up with the train by then or found my shopping bag by then, well, that’s that, we tried, right? We can’t go looking all over the city for that pot of gold, now can we?”

“Not on a buck-fifteen, we can’t,” the driver said.

“Right, so let’s get moving, right?”

“This won’t take you to Radio City,” the driver said, pocketing the money and throwing the cab into gear.

“I know, but that’s okay because I’m not going to Radio City, remember?”

“Yeah, yeah,” the driver said.

“You forgot to throw your flag,” Mullaney said.

“Yeah, yeah,” the driver said.

“Do you know what time it is?” Mullaney asked.

“Quarter to four,” the driver answered. “You know, don’t you, that the minute I throw this flag, you got thirty-five cents on the meter right off.”

“Yes, I know that.”

“What I’m saying is this money ain’t gonna take you very far. I mean, I don’t know what kind of manhunt you got in mind here, but this money ain’t gonna take you very far at all, if you know what I mean.”

“Well, that’s a chance I’ll have to take, right?” Mullaney said. “Life’s full of little chances one has to take, right?”

“If you say so, mister,” the driver said, and lowered the flag, starting the clock on the meter.

“Please drive as slowly as you can,” Mullaney said. “I have to look at the people. One of them may have my shopping bag.”

“Mister, do you know how many people live in the borough of Brooklyn?”

“How many?”

“I happen to live in the borough of Brooklyn myself,” the driver said, “and so I know whereof I speak. There happens to be 2,018,356 people living in this borough, and on a Saturday afternoon like this, with the sun shining and it so nice out, I’ll bet you half of them are out here in the street. And I’ll bet you furthermore that half of them that are out here in the street are carrying shopping bags. Now how do you expect to find...”

“Slow down, slow down,” Mullaney said.

“... a person carrying your shopping bag?”

“It’s a very special shopping bag,” Mullaney said.

“Oh? It has your name on it or something?”

“No, it has Judy Bond’s name on it.”

“Who’s Judy Bond? A relation to James Bond perhaps?” the driver said, and burst out laughing. Undoubtedly thinking Mullaney had not heard him, he said again, “A relation to James Bond perhaps?” and laughed again. “You now have forty-five cents on the meter, mister.”

“I see it,” Mullaney said.

“That’s almost half your ride,” the driver said.

“I know.”

The streets, as the driver had observed, were thronged with people, but Mullaney could not see anyone carrying a Judy Bond shopping bag. He was desperately hoping that the shopping bag was still on the train, and that he could catch up with the train before his meter money ran out. (The meter now read fifty-five cents, he noticed with rising despair.) He would then board the train (What would he use for fare? he suddenly wondered), retrieve the bag and figure out a way of tricking K into revealing the jacket’s secret. That was his biggest hope, and he was gambling that his money would not run out before he could realize it. (The meter now read sixty cents.) But the possibility also existed that someone had picked up the shopping bag, disembarked from the train, and was at this very moment hurrying homeward with a supposed treasure trove, little suspecting that all the bag contained was a jacket with a torn lining. So he kept his eyes on the pedestrians scurrying past, shifting his attention from them to the meter and then back again, and suddenly hearing a siren somewhere up ahead.

He leaned forward tensely and peered through the windshield, noticing from the corner of his eye that the meter now read seventy cents and thinking I’ll never make it, all is lost. There was a crowd of people milling about the steps of the elevated station stop ahead. An ambulance was parked at the curb, and the police car he had heard was just pulling up beside it.

“Slow down,” he told the driver.

The driver obediently slowed the taxi as they came abreast of the ambulance. Two attendants were coming down the steps of the platform, carrying someone on a stretcher. Mullaney could not see the person on the stretcher, but he recognized George walking beside it, a grave, pale look on his face. That will be poor Henry on the stretcher, Mullaney thought, and grinned ghoulishly, figuring he would not have to worry too much about either of the twins for the rest of the day, what with hospital emergency rooms and all that. Even Kruger seemed only a remote menace now that his musclemen were out of the action. Still grinning, he said to the driver, “Scratch two.”

“I beg your pardon?” the driver said.

“Drive on,” Mullaney said, grinning. “And remember that a horse race isn’t over until all the photos arc in.”

“Your particular horse race is gonna be over in exactly twenty cents,” the driver said.

“Be that as it may,” Mullaney said.

“Are you a cop?” the driver asked instantly.

“Oh no indeed,” Mullaney said.

“Mister, there is now eighty cents on the meter.”

“Yes, yes,” Mullaney said, “well, that’s the way it goes, you cannot win them all.”

“Did you say a Judy Bond shopping bag?” the driver said.

“Yes. Why?”

“Because I just saw a girl carrying one.”

“What! Where?”

“Up ahead there. You want me to pull over?”

“Yes, where is she? Where’d you sec her?”

“Right over there, oops,” the driver said, “she’s gone.”

“Let me out,” Mullaney said.

“One moment please, sir,” the driver said, and put his hand on Mullaney’s arm.

“Look, I can’t afford to lose that...”

“The fare is only eighty cents whereas you gave me ninety-five cents plus a twenty-cent tip,” the driver said. “Now twenty cents is a more than sufficient tip on an eighty-cent ride, so if it’s all the same to you, I would like to give you fifteen cents change.”

“Fine, fine,” Mullaney said. “Only please...”

“One moment please, sir,” the driver said, and reached over for his change dispenser, pushing a lever in the dime section, and another lever in the nickel section, and then presenting both coins to Mullaney.

“Thank you,” Mullaney said. “A girl, did you say?”

“Yes. Carrying that shopping bag you were talking about.”

“Thank you,” Mullaney said, and jumped out of the cab. He began running in the direction the driver had indicated, but he saw no one, male or female, carrying a Judy Bond shopping bag. He saw a lot of old women carrying plain old brown shopping bags or A&P shopping bags, and one earning an Abraham & Straus shopping bag, but he did not see anyone carrying his shopping bag, the bag containing the goddamn jacket.

The trouble with New York City, he thought, is that there are too many people living here, and they all look exactly alike. Also, he thought, if you want to get right down to it, all the various boroughs of the city look exactly alike, too, with the possible exception of Manhattan and Staten Island. Take this sidewalk along which I am now running, pushing my way through the baby buggies and the kids roller skating and the old ladies gossiping and the teenagers giggling, take this street in the shadow of the elevated structure (whatever street it may happen to be, I haven’t the faintest idea), but take it and add up all the butcher shops on it, the delicatessens and grocery stores, add up the shoemakers and dry-goods stores and luncheonettes, the record shops and jewelers and vegetable stands, the photography joints, and furniture stores and bakeries, add them all up and you no longer have a street in Brooklyn in the shadow of the elevated structure, you also have a street in Queens in the shadow of the el, and a street in the Bronx in the shadow of the el — they are all different and yet they are all the same. I could be searching for that girl with the Judy Bond bag on any one of those other streets as well (I never dated a girl from Brooklyn, what a pity, the Bronx is so very far away, my dears, the opposite end of the earth).

But identical.

Goddamn bloody well identical, he thought, and suddenly was stricken by a revelation so clear and so sharp that he almost forgot all about the shopping bag, stopped dead in the center of the sidewalk and allowed himself to be jostled by the crowds passing by, stood glassy-eyed and amazed and thought I’ll bet by Christ there are streets in the shadow of the el in Rome, or London, or Paris, not literally in the shadow of the el because they probably haven’t got elevated structures such as these beauties that support our transit-system tracks, but I’ll bet it’s the same there, I’ll bet the people look exactly the same there. I’ll bet even in Yokohama — which has got an elevated structure because I once saw a movie — I’ll bet even there everybody looks exactly the same, oh my God I feel like a carbon copy.

Is it this way in Jakarta? he suddenly wondered.

He saw his shopping bag going around the comer in a flurry of Saturday-afternoon humanity, a boy on a skateboard rushing past, two old ladies carrying groceries, a man wearing a straw hat and drinking beer from a bottle, he saw only the disappearing end of the bag as it rounded the comer and did not see who was carrying it, saw only a portion of a word, IKE! and hurried to reach the comer, almost knocking over a man carrying a Christmas tree, a what? turning to look back at the man — sure enough, he was carrying a goddamn Christmas tree in the middle of April — ran past the gardening shop on the comer, saw pines and spruces potted in tubs (is there Christmas in Jakarta? he wondered), said, “Excuse me,” to a lady in slacks and high-heeled pumps, suddenly transported to Brentwood in Los Angeles 49, California, where Irene’s aunt lived and where they had spent the entire summer of 1962 watching middle-aged ladies in gold #lame pants and sequined slippers shopping in supermarkets, all the same, all the same, reached the comer, turned the comer, saw a row of empty lots, a single huge apartment house — but not his shopping bag.

His shopping bag, carried by a girl he had not yet laid eyes on, had disappeared.