Alongside Night(44)

“But I already ordered.”

“Emergency. I walked into a trap.”

She nodded. Elliot helped her with her Genghis Khan, then donned his own overcoat. “Don’t forget the Times,” she reminded him, lifting her travel bag. He slipped on his gloves and took it.

At the door Lorimer stopped to cancel their order. “Is anything wrong?” the maitre d’ asked.

“We were never here, eh, comrade?” she said softly. He nodded. “Good luck, tovarishchi.”

Lorimer stuffed a bill into his hand. “For the workers …”

Elliot and Lorimer pushed out onto the crowded street, starting downtown at a moderate clip. “How did you know he was red?” Elliot asked.

“I have a sixth sense about it,” she said. “I get it from my father. Well, where to now?”

“If you don’t mind, to the rooming house. I seem to have lost my appetite.”

“The rooming house? Wasn’t that the trap?”

Elliot shook his head. “My friends.”

“Oh! I’m sorry.”

“Let’s not even think about it,” he said.

After a few minutes’ conversation, Lorimer convinced him that starving would not do either of them any good. Elliot was forced to agree with her logic. In ten minutes they were in front of Grand Central Station, where almost two dozen cars were lined up—some undistinguished, others carrying the in- Alongside Night 145

signia of telephone taxi services unlicensed for street pickups. Removing his gloves, Elliot handed Lorimer the Times, approaching the first driver seated at the wheel of a red Nissan electric compact. “How much to West Eleventh Street?” Elliot asked while giving him the ring banner, the Morse Code letter A.

Though he wore a gold wedding band, the driver did not touch it. “Seven thousand blues, buddy. Hop in.”

“No thanks.”

They bypassed the second car entirely; the driver was wearing gloves. A full-sized Checker, black and unmarked, was in the third position; the driver was female and ringed. Elliot twirled his ring once forward and once back, repeating his question. The driver twirled twice toward Elliot and once back—the correct response, U—and said, “That depends on what you’re payin’

with.”

Elliot and Lorimer climbed into the car, shutting the door.

“Do you take euros?” Elliot asked.

“Sure do. One’ll cover it. What’s the street number?”

“I’m not certain,” said Elliot. “A restaurant—Manrico and Pagliacci.”

“Got it.” She stuck her hand out the window, flooring the accelerator, then picked up the microphone to her transceiver and in code gave her coordinates and destination to a base station known as Egotripper.

While they held on for dear life, the Checker turned left onto Fifth Avenue, hit green lights all the way down, turned right on Eleventh Street, and within a scant five minutes deposited them in front of the restaurant. Manrico and Pagliacci’s specialized in Italian cuisine set to operatic videodiscs—though not exclusively Italian opera. After they had again ordered—once more from eurofranc menus—Elliot directed his attention to the screen, in a mo-146

Alongside Night

ment recognizing it as the Metropolitan Opera recording of the modern masterpiece Die Achselnzucken des Atlas. It was the final act of the seven-hour-long opera, in which Johann, the unseen hero, was singing his fifty-eight-minute Radiorede aria.

After two orders of antipasto, manicotti, cappuccino, and pastry—the last two accompanied by the grande finale—the couple started walking east to the rooming house. Elliot’s left arm held both the newspaper and Lorimer’s arm, his right was in his coat pocket holding his revolver. Though they were passing through slum and semislum neighborhoods—their obviously affluent appearance drawing a hostile stare or two—they were unmolested. Elliot wondered if perhaps the local predators had moved uptown or west in search of choicer game.

The buildings on Eleventh Street east of First Avenue were old but not dilapidated; most were sandblast-clean, the street in front of them unlittered, garbage tightly in cans. They passed several armed private guards patrolling the street and an open storefront with a sign, repeated in four other languages, that said, “TOMPKINS SQUARE PARK COMMUNITY ASSOCIATION—Security Officer on Duty.” If Elliot had not known better, he could have mistaken the block for one in the West Eighties off Riverside Drive. Between Avenues B and C was a building numbered 635

East Eleventh Street, several steps up to a door with another sign, reading, “ROOMS FOR RENT—No Dogs or Welfare Parasites.” Elliot pressed the door buzzer; in a short while a man’s voice asked over an intercom who was there.