XXI
Charles walked down the street and ran immediately into a challenge froma police sergeant.
"Where you from, mister?" the cop demanded, balanced and ready to draw.
Charles gulped and let Lee Falcaro's drilling take over. "Oh, around,sergeant. I'm from around here."
"What're you so nervous about?"
"Why, sergeant, you're such an exciting type, really. Did anybody evertell you you look well in uniform?"
The cop glared at him and said: "If I wasn't in uniform, I'd hang one onyou sister. And if the force wasn't all out hunting the lunatics, thatkilled Mr. Regan I'd pull you in for spitting on the sidewalk. Get tohell off my beat and stay off. I'm not forgetting your face."
Charles scurried on. It had worked.
It worked once more with a uniformed policeman. One of the Chicagoplain-clothes imports was the third and last. He socked Charles in thejaw and sent him on his way with a kick in the rear. He had beenthoroughly warned that it would probably happen: "Count on them toover-react. That's the key to it. You'll make them so eager to asserttheir own virility, that it'll temporarily bury their primary mission.It's quite likely that one or more pokes will be taken at you. All youcan do is take them. If you get--_when_ you get through, they'll becheap at the price."
The sock in the jaw hadn't been very expert. The kick in the pants wasnegligible, considering the fact that it had propelled him through thegate of the Michigan City Transport Terminal.
By the big terminal clock the Chicago-Buffalo Express was due in fifteenminutes. Its gleaming single rail, as tall as a man crossed the far endof the concourse. Most of the fifty-odd people in the station wereprobably Buffalo-bound ... safe geldings who could be trusted to visitSyndic Territory, off the leash and return obediently. Well-dressed, ofcourse, and many past middle-age, with a stake in the Mob Territorystronger than hope of freedom. One youngster, though--oh. It was Lee,leaning, slack-jawed, against a pillar and reading the Green Sheet.
Who were the cops in the crowd? The thickset man with restless eyes, ofcourse. The saintly-looking guy who kept moving and glancing into faces.
Charles went to the newsstand and put a coin in the slot for _The Mob--AShort History_, by the same Arrowsmith Hunde who had brightened andmisinformed his youth.
Nothing to it, he thought. Train comes in, put your money in theturnstile, show your permit to the turnstile's eye, get aboard andthat-is-that. Unless the money is phony, or the pass is phony in whichcase the turnstile locks and all hell breaks loose. His money was justdandy, but the permit now--there hadn't been any way to test it againsta turnstile's template, or time to do it if there had been a way. Wasthe probability of boarding two to one?
The probability abruptly dropped to zero as a round little man flankedby two huge men entered the station.
_Commander Grinnel._
The picture puzzle fell into a whole as the two plainclothesmencirculating in the station eyed Grinnel and nodded to him. The big oneabsent-mindedly made a gesture that was the start of a police salute.
Grinnel was Maurice Regan--the Maurice Regan mysteriously unknown toOliver, who knew the Chicago police. Grinnel was a bit of a lend-leasefrom the North American Navy, called in because of his unique knowledgeof Charles Orsino and Lee Falcaro, their faces, voices and behavior.Grinnel was the expert in combing the city without any nonsense aboutrights and mouthpieces. Grinnel was the expert who could set up amilitary interior guard of the city. Grinnel was the specialisttemporarily invested with the rank of a Regan so he could do his job.
The round little man with the halo of hair walked briskly to theturnstile and there stood at a military parade rest with a look ofresignation on his face.
How hard on me it is, he seemed to be saying, that I have such dull damnduty. How hard that an officer of my brilliance must do sentry-go forevery train to Syndic Territory.
The slack-jawed youth who was Lee Falcaro looked at him over her GreenSheet and nodded before dipping into the Tia Juana past performancesagain. She knew.
Passengers were beginning to line up at the turnstile, smoothing outtheir money and fiddling with their permits. In a minute he and LeeFalcaro would have to join the line or stand conspicuously on theemptying floor. The thing was dead for twenty-four hours now, until thenext train--and then Grinnel headed across the floor looking veryimpersonal. The look of a man going to the men's room. The station copsand Grinnel's two bruisers drifted together at the turnstile and beganto chat.
Charles followed Grinnel, wearing the same impersonal look, and enteredthe room almost on his heels.
Grinnel saw him in a wash-bowl mirror; simultaneously he half turned,opened his mouth to yell and whipped his hand into his coat. A singleround-house right from Charles crunched into the soft side of his neck.He fell with his head twisted at an odd angle. Blood began to run fromthe corner of his mouth onto his shirt.
"Remember Martha?" Charles whispered down at the body. "That was formurder." He looked around the tiled room. There was a mop closet withthe door ajar, and Grinnel's flabby body fitted in it.
Charles walked from the washroom to the line of passengers across thefloor. It seemed to go on for miles. Lee Falcaro was no longer loungingagainst the past. He spotted her in line, still slack-jawed, stillgaping over the magazine. The monorail began to sing shrilly with thevibration of the train braking a mile away, and the turnstile "unlocked"light went on.
There was the usual number of fumblers, the usual number of "pleaseunfold your currency" flashes. Lee carried through to the end with herslovenly pose. For her the sign said: "incorrect denominations." Behindher a man snarled: "for Christ's sake, kid, we're all waiting on you!"The cops only half noticed; they were talking. When Charles got to theturnstile one of the cops was saying: "Maybe it's something he ate.How'd _you_ like somebody to barge in--"
The rest was lost in the clicking of the turnstile that let him through.
* * * * *
He settled in a very pneumatic chair as the train accelerated evenly toa speed of three hundred and fifty miles per hour. A sign in the carsaid that the next stop was Buffalo. And there was Lee, lurching up theaisle against the acceleration. She spotted him, tossed the Green Sheetin the Air and fell into his lap.
"Disgusting!" snarled a man across the aisle. "Simply disgusting!"
"You haven't seen anything yet," Lee told him, and kissed Charles on themouth.
The man choked: "I shall certainly report this to the authorities whenwe arrive in Buffalo!"
"Mmm," said Lee, preoccupied. "Do that, mister. Do that."