Time and Again (42 page)

Except that there was nothing funny about them. They were absolutely real, and I knew that if they caught us, we could end up in Sing Sing prison. Neither driver nor conductor had seen them, though a couple of passengers had turned as Julia and I had, to stare back at them. At Grand Central Station just ahead the car would stop, I was sure, and they'd catch up with it in seconds. I was sliding from my seat toward the aisle, a hand on Julia's wrist; and looking as serene and innocent as I could manage, I walked on toward the front of the car, Julia right behind me. We passed the conductor, I smiled at him vaguely, then we stepped out onto the open front platform.

Directly before Grand Central Station, high over the center of the street, stood the little wooden gabled building of an El station, stairs leading up to it from each side of Forty-second Street. It was a spur line apparently, leading to the main line of the Third Avenue El, I supposed, and I had only one vague plan, if it could be called even that. There were four flights of steps leading up to that station, two on each side of the street, and the station stood directly at the end of the spur-line track. Any one of the four flights could be reached through the station, and if we ran up one of those flights we had an exactly even chance — two cops, each coming up one flight of steps after us — of running down one of the other two flights and escaping them.

It was all I could think of, and standing on the platform, I murmured, "Jump off and run when I do," and Julia smiled and nodded as though at a casual remark of mine. I was watching the driver, I saw his mittened hands draw back on the reins, felt my body lean slightly forward as the car began to slow; then I nudged Julia, and we jumped off and ran hard. Down the center of the street alongside the horse, then cutting before him, ducking between two wagons, one of them piled high with barrels, up onto the sidewalk, and then pounding up the stairs two at a time, Julia in the lead and running as fast as I was.

People coming down paid us no particular attention, merely stepping aside to let us pass, and I realized that people running up or down these steps at Grand Central were no unusual sight. I heard shouts behind us, turned at the top of the flight, and saw the taller of the cops hit the first step — he was moving faster than I'd thought — then we ran on into the station. Inside we walked. I put on a smile as we approached the ticket booth, pulling two nickels from my pocket. Julia was tugging at my sleeve, I looked at her, she gestured with her chin, and as we stopped and stood waiting while the man in the booth leisurely tore two tickets from his roll, I looked out and saw a one-car train standing on the track, engine first with its front end nearly touching the station house here at the end of the single track. Inside the car an old man, his clasped hands and chin resting comfortably on the top of his cane, sat quietly waiting till it was time for the train to start. At the far end of the car the conductor sat staring out the window toward the other side of the street. It was momentarily tempting but as I took our tickets I shook my head at Julia. To be caught inside that car, a cop entering at each end, just couldn't be risked.

We walked quickly out onto the platform, and passing the engine, I turned to look back toward the head of the stairs we'd come up, and saw the helmet rising into view, then the cop's face, and saw his head turn and catch sight of us. Then Julia and I ran along the platform toward the stairs at its opposite end, and as we passed the car, I heard the conductor slam the waist-high metal gate of its open platform. The tiny steam engine behind the car tootled, and I turned to see its miniature drive-shaft move; then the car was rolling past us and Julia moaned — we could have been on it!

But it was too late now.
Chuff-chuff, chuff-chuff
— the engine, moving backward behind the car on this return run down the single track, was picking up speed, the conductor at the back of the car slamming the back-platform gate closed, and the second cop's helmet rose into sight at the head of the stairs we were racing toward. They'd outguessed us. I swung around, and the other cop, belly jouncing, a hand holding his helmet on, was running along the platform toward us not fifty feet away.

I've never really been one of the people who think fast in an emergency. I think fast enough, that is, but usually what I think of is the wrong thing to do. This time, hardly thinking at all, I did precisely the right thing. Both cops running toward us now, I turned to Julia beside me. My arms, swinging in toward her waist like giant claws, gripped her, raised her high off her feet, and dropped her down on the other side of the waist-high gate on the rear platform of the car rolling past us. Then — the short cop grabbing at me, his hand raking down the back of my coat as I turned — I jumped into the open doorway of the engine cab as it passed, swung around fast, and the cop running at me ran his face right into the heel of my hand. He staggered, then stood staring after us as we rolled past the end of the station platform.

Across the little engine cab from me, the engineer, leaning out his window to stare down the track ahead, had neither seen nor heard me jump on, over the rattle and rapid
huff
of his engine. Standing there in the engine's open doorway, I was completely oriented; I knew I was directly above the center of Forty-second Street, moving east just past Grand Central Station. The sketch — just below — is one I've made showing our train just after leaving Grand Central Station and the El platform. Third Avenue, toward which we are moving, is off to the right, and that's Forty-second Street below our train.

I looked up and saw only the gray and empty winter sky in the space I'd always before seen filled by the soaring needle-spired tower of the Chrysler Building. I glanced down, and where the base of the Chrysler Building belonged stood the round little red-brick-and-white-stone tower you see in my sketch, no more than a dozen feet taller than our tracks. And in that moment — the moment of my sketch — moving through this partly familiar yet utterly strange and now suddenly hostile city, I felt a rush of homesickness nearly overwhelm me; I had to close my eyes for a moment to fight it off.

Within seconds we were slowing down, backing in between the twin arms of the station platform at the other end of the two-block spur line. It wasn't impossible that the two cops could hurry along Forty-second Street for those two blocks, even commandeering a carriage or wagon for all I knew, and I stood in the doorway of the engine cab staring ahead at the Third Avenue line, hoping a train we could transfer to would be just coming in. But there was none even in sight, and the moment the wooden floor of the station platform appeared beside me, I hopped off the engine — I don't think the engineer ever did see me — and let my own momentum carry me trotting forward to the slowing car just ahead. Julia was standing at the gate, the conductor right behind her. "That's against the law, you know!" he said angrily to me. I wasn't sure whether he meant lifting Julia over the gate or riding the engine, and I said I was sorry, and handed him our tickets. Then — I wanted to yell at him to open the gate but was afraid if I did that he'd be deliberately slower than ever — he got out his punch, carefully punched both tickets, handed them back to me, and I thanked him. And only then did he open the gate and let Julia off. Then we ran for the stairs.

I think the two cops could have been there if they'd really tried, waiting for us to step down off the stairs onto the walk at Third and Forty-second. But they'd have had to move faster than they'd done in some years, and no one grabbed us. But across the street a cop walking his beat looked into a saloon over the tops of the two waist-high latticed doors of the entrance, then strolled to the curb at the corner, and stood, skillful as a professional entertainer, bouncing and twirling his club at the end of its thong. I had the feeling that he'd given far more time to club twirling than crook catching, and as we turned and walked south on Third Avenue, moving away from him as fast as we could without obviously hurrying, I was glad that this was his beat. Julia was looking at me questioningly, and I understood. Were our photographs in his helmet, too? I shrugged; if not, they would be soon. Every cop in the city would have them, to be passed on to the next shift, and with extra cops and probably plainclothesmen out, too. The reward Carmody had almost openly offered Byrnes would be big if we were caught and convicted, or "killed while escaping"; it wouldn't matter which. Because Byrnes was clever: Our «escape» and flight, of course, would be accepted as confession.

The cop on the corner was half a block behind now and hadn't even glanced at us. But the next one could be different, and if he wasn't, then the one after that. We simply could not walk through the streets for block after block; we'd be caught within minutes. And any public transportation would be as bad. We had to get off the streets right now: into a hansom, it occurred to me longingly, where we could sit back and move unseen through the streets with time to think. But Byrnes knew the problems of people trying to hide; it takes money, and he had ours.

"Julia, have you any friends who'd hide you for a few days, lend you some money?"

"In Brooklyn, yes; we lived there up until two years ago. But the only friend here I could ask to do that lives at Lexington and Sixty-first, and —»

"Too far, too far!" I got rattled. "Where are we, Julia, Forty-first? What's the nearest bridge? Maybe they aren't guarding them yet, and we can still —»

"Si, there's only one bridge, Brooklyn, and it's way downtown."

I nodded, glancing at store windows we passed, trying to see whether they reflected anyone following or about to challenge us. More than ever before, I was realizing that Manhattan is an island and not a very big one, either; you can walk its circumference in a day. "I don't want us to be trapped sitting on a ferry like a couple of pigeons. We need
money,
dammit! To hole up in a hotel where they can supply our meals. Suppose we telephoned your aunt — " I stopped.

"Did what?"

"Never mind."

But she'd heard me. "I don't know anyone who has a telephone. Or who has even seen one."

"I know, I know!"

"We could send a messenger boy; there's an office near here."

"But we'd have to wait there for the reply?"

"Yes."

"When the boy came back, the cop that I'm certain must be watching the house would be right along with him. God, how I wish there were movies! Between us we probably have the price of a cheap one, and we could sit and wait till dark."

"Movies?"

I'd lose my mind if this kept up. I said, "We've got to separate, Julia. Till dark. They're looking for the pair of us; let's not make it easy for them. It'll be dark in forty minutes, an hour at most. And I'll try to sneak in and out of the house then; I've got money in my room. Meet me in a hour and a half at — where's the nearest good place from the house? — in Madison Square. Walk through it as though you're going somewhere, and I'll follow you out. If I'm not there, try again in half an hour. Then give me up, and" — I shrugged — "do your best. Okay?" Before she could answer I looked at the windows of a store we were passing; the entranceway passed between double display windows, one pane of each set at a 45-degree angle to the walk. It reflected the half block or so behind us and I saw a man running silently toward us. He was in plainclothes, wearing a derby and a long topcoat, but nothing could disguise the truth that he was a cop. He was running on his toes without a sound, and he was about the length of a football field behind. Without turning around I spoke quietly and very rapidly. "Julia. You must run. To the corner, and around it, and keep on. Do it now,
now!"

She didn't hesitate or waste time looking back, but gathered up her skirts and ran. I turned and walked straight out into the street. There I turned to face the sidewalk and stood waiting. And now the man running toward us had a choice to make between me or going after Julia, leaving me behind his back, and not sure what I'd do. He had to choose me, and he did it cleverly, running right past me as though going for Julia, as I thought he was for a moment. Then he whirled in a fast right-angle turn and came at me. But I'd picked a metal pillar of the El tracks to stand near, and I stepped over to it. For a moment or so we stood, both of us balanced on our toes, the pillar between us, trying to out-feint each other. Then he lunged, I shoved off hard from the post, and he was after me.

But he could shoot and probably would if I began outracing him, and at this distance he wouldn't miss. Running on was pointless, and I did the only other thing left to do. I whirled and literally threw myself at his ankles in an action he may not ever have seen before — a football tackle, though this was from the front. I'd played a little football in high school before the players got too big for me. And now I hit his shins with my left shoulder, my arms wrapping tight around his knees in a tackle so illegal it would have drawn a hundred-yard penalty — and he went right on forward over my shoulders and down onto cobbles. I thought my shoulder was broken — the numbness reminded me of why I'd had to quit the game — but I was up right away and running in the opposite direction. I looked back; he was still lying on the street. Fifteen more running steps right down the middle of the street, wagon drivers turning to stare, then I looked back again. He was on his knees, turning to face me and pulling a big nickel-plated revolver from his back pocket. I stayed on the side of the line of pillars opposite him, and kept glancing over my shoulder in a series of fast peeks. Using both hands, he was aiming carefully; he wanted me, all right. I slowed suddenly, then sprinted, trying to throw his aim off; he fired, and the bullet struck a pillar, making a surprisingly loud clang. People stood frozen on the walks, but none of them seemed to want to come out into the street. At the corner I turned and ran east in the direction opposite from Julia's, and the gun roared again, and I mentally examined myself and decided I hadn't been hit.