Montgomery and the boys hesitate slightly and then they start to go back to the anteroom. Moses gives me his earthquake look and turns away and the crowd parts like a San Francisco chasm as he makes his way back to his platform. I then turn back to face the bar and the bartender who had me covered has discreetly replaced whatever he was carrying and he's look-ing at me, standing rigid, while Agnes uses his body to pull herself up off the floor. When she sees me, she goes for the nearest broken glass and picks it up but the bartender grabs her by the other wrist so that all she can do is make sweeping movements with the glass that stop a foot or so short of me. And as she makes these movements, she shrieks obscenities at me but I turn away and begin to make for the door. As I'm doing so, I hear Agnes grind the glass into the countertop and scream out.
“Next time he'll get it in the balls, Christ help me.”
Murdock's still up when I get back. The bottle's a quarter the way down since last time I was home and he's sitting in the same chair with his feet up watching a movie on T.V.
“Have a good time?” he says, not looking away from the set.
I go over and stand a little behind his chair and I look at the screen. A car chase is taking place, a lot of patrol cars after a car full of hoods.
“I had some fun, yeah,” I tell him.
“That's great,” Murdock says.
“Yeah,” I tell him.
I watch the movie for as long as it takes for the hoods to overturn against the studio street lamppost and then I tell Murdock I'm going to bed. I go through to my bedroom and while I'm taking my pants off, I can hear the movie being wound up, the martial music, the stern voice pronouncing on the futility of crime in the face of our vigilant law enforcement agencies.
“The same deal,” Fleming says. “Only today they've been to the movies. A couple of Disneys.”
“And the girl?” I ask him.
“Almost the same. She goes out an hour or so after him and takes a cab and wanders around the stores, finishes up at the boutique only this time she buys something without bumping into the guy and starting a lifetime's friendship.”
“What does she buy?”
“Some kind of evening dress. They boxed it for her; she took it on approval.”
“What was the box like?”
“The box? Well, it was long enough to take the dress without folding it up. I guess they wrapped it that way so if she takes it back, there's less chance of getting it all creased up.”
“Yeah,” I tell him. “Well, keep up the good work.”
Before he can make his joke, I put the receiver down.
“I want you to cover Mercer Street and Grove Street,” Draper says. “Then when he's passed through those, you drive ahead through the back streets and cover him getting out at the campus. Bolan's got everything tight and you just keep hanging in looking for faces, anything. We got the guy who sent the note, but like I say, this thing might have caught on like streaking become a national pastime. And since you didn't manage to fall over our own local chapter member, you stay awake this time, will you?”
“We'll sleep only in shifts,” I tell him. “When it's Murdock's turn, I'll nudge him and he can take over.”
“Joke about it,” Draper says. “I hope you're still in a joking frame of mind in a couple of days' time.”
“We will be,” I tell him. “Good old Jimbo's in there pitching for us.”
The evening call comes through and it's like before. Both back home. I make tomorrow's arrangements and I pass this news to Murdock. Murdock as usual thinks about it for a while and then asks the question I expected he'd have asked before this late date. “Why,” he asks, “don't we cover them around the clock just in case they don't play it the way we think they are?” Wearily I tell him that none of them are going to chance being fallen over by us until the last minute they have to. Murdock puts up a few arguments against what I've told him but in the end he accepts what I've told him because he's not got any better ideas himself. I wish I had because I hope to Christ I'm right; I'd hate to see Styles walk away from this after everything that's happened.
“Feel like some poker?” Murdock says.
I look at my watch and shake my head.
“No,” I tell him. “I'm going to have an early night.”
I walk through into the bathroom and start to run my tub. I get my robe from the bedroom and go back into the bathroom then in comes Murdock as I'm climbing in the tub.
“You're turning in early?” Murdock says.
“That's right,” I tell him, sinking down into the warm foamy water and closing my eyes.
I hear Murdock flip down the lid on the toilet seat and sit down on it and then he says to me, “Now if I was smart I'd run out and get a photographer. I'd bring him in here and I'd hold a large clock above your head and he'd take your picture and I'd be worth a fortune.”
“You're already worth a fortune,” I tell him. “You're worth a fortune because you've taken what I've taken. We're about even-Stephen on that score.”
“Yeah,” Murdock says. “If I ever go back to her in about twelve months' time, my old lady's going to get one hell of a surprise.”
“Won't she just.”
I begin soaping myself and after a while I say to Murdock, “How come you never told her?” I'm looking at him now and he makes a face and sort of shrugs. “Well, how is it she never asked you how you got to be able to afford things on your pay?”
“I was careful,” Murdock says. “I never went over the top. I stashed it, like you. And that's the funny thing. All this time, Joyce, she's done her best to make things work out on what I get. She's really worked at it, you know what I mean? And she never knew because I didn't want her to. All these years she's given her best and I never let her know what I'd got cooked up for us in the future. Just selfishness really. I just never wanted her to know. So she's given all that, her youth, and all the time we've had the bread. Now sometimes I think maybe I can't even tell her. Maybe if I tell her, she'll pick up a meat cleaver and split me down the middle and all she'll be able to collect is a manslaughter rap.”
“You tell her,” I tell him. “You tell her, and while you're telling her have a big suitcase with the money in it on the kitchen table; open it in front of her and let her see how good it looks. Just do that and you'll have no problems.”
“You really know a lot about women, don't you, Roy?” Murdock says after a while.
“I know all I need to know,” I tell him. “I know they think from between their legs, and where their brains are supposed to be is just a jumble of dollar signs.”
“And that's all,” Murdock says.
“Like I say,” I tell him. “That's all I need to know. If there's anything else, it doesn't make any difference. The important things are like I've said. These are the things you're up against if you want to handle them.”
Murdock gets up off the toilet seat.
“Well,” he says. “Thanks for the advice. I'll bear in mind what you've told me. I only wish we'd discussed it sooner then maybe I wouldn't be in the jam I'm in.”
I don't say anything to him. I just let him leave the bathroom on the crest of his own great natural sense of humor and carry on with soaping my dick.
I wake up and feel worse than usual. My first thoughts are I can't understand it. No booze last night, nothing, and I feel terrible. I get out of bed and look in the mirror and I look like I feel, that is, worse than usual. So I walk out of the bedroom in the direction of the bathroom, but the bathroom door's shut and beyond it I can hear the running of bath water and Murdock's less than average voice trying to catch the notes on “For the Good Times.” So I turn to the kitchen and at least there's one thing, the coffee's brewing, so I turn up the light and sit down at the kitchen table and wait for the coffee to heat up. Murdock's out of the bathroom before that happens and he comes into the kitchen like a member of the class of â74 and takes over with the coffee and takes two cups and sets them out and pours.
“Now,” he says, looking around. “There's the icebox. And what do we have in it, I wonder? Because this baby is just in love with the idea of starting the day out right again.”
Jesus, I think to myself. Murdock is no longer interested in living. Murdock opens the door of the icebox, bends over and peers inside.
“Eggs, bacon, yeah, that'll just about do it,” Murdock says, taking out what he wants and straightening up. “Can I fix any for you?”
I look at Murdock and that tells him all he needs to know, and while he's throwing eggs and bacon into the pan, I get up from the table and take my coffee through into the bathroom.
The city's not exactly what you'd describe as being expectant but it has a different feel to it. It's a little tighter, not quite so sloppy. The day is clear and knife-edge clouds in the sky add to the general sharpness of the day's atmosphere.
I check out the squawk-box on Fleming. He answers right away.
“Came out five minutes ago,” he tells me. “And he's taking the same route as always.”
“And the other one?”
“As usual, no sign this early.”
“Call me when the other one shows.”
“Sure.”
The equipment cuts out and Murdock says, “Business as usual?”
“As usual,” I tell him.
We drive around for a while, taking in all the obvious and supposedly subtle signs of Bolan's security operation and having a few laughs. About an hour or so before my brother's due to arrive at the station, we drive my car over to within a street or so of where Draper's told us to be when the motorcade comes through. We sit there and smoke cigarettes watching the people going by. The sun rises a little higher in the sky and about half an hour before the arrival's due, Fleming comes back on the airways.
“Two things. First, he's unloaded the kid. Took him to the park, walked around a while, then went to the south gate and there's a car waiting driven by another black woman. The kid gets in the back of the car, the car takes off, the guy starts strolling through the park, but even though he's strolling, he doesn't have to put on a great burst of speed to get to any of those parts of the route.”
“And what's the other thing?”
“The other one's out a little earlier. Obviously the item wasn't suitable.”
“Why?”
“She's taking it back.”
“Like before?”
“All tied with a ribbon.”
“Tell Copeland to make sure and keep with her.”
“He will.”
I put the set down and tell Murdock.
“That's nice,” he says. “We're covering the first part of the route while the good-looking nigger strolls over to somewhere in the downtown section and makes the hit. By the time we get there, we run into the ambulances coming back.”
Murdock switches on the ignition but I put my hand on his arm.
“Just wait a while,” I tell him. “We got time.”
“How much time exactly do you think we've got?”
“At least until Fleming gets back to us again.”
“And, of course, you know when that'll be.”
“I've a pretty good idea it'll be inside of the next fifteen minutes.”
“Oh, well that's fine then. I can relax.”
“You do that,” I tell him, and light up a cigarette. I look toward the end of Maxwell Street to the intersection across which the motorcade's going to pass. There's a few people wandering around obviously taking up early positions for their rubber-necking, but there's not exactly anything you could call a thronging crowd. We sit there a little longer with Murdock doing everything with his hands except jerk himself off and as I'm throwing my cigarette butt into the street, Fleming comes back on the set again.
“This is what you want,” Fleming says. “He's near Weaver Street, the park side. But the other one, she went back to the boutique and she's in there a few minutes when who should show up but the boyfriend, the denim guy, only this time he's in his car. He parks outside the boutique and out comes the girl, still with the box, and she gets in back and he begins to drive.”
“Copeland still with them?”
“Yeah.”
“Where are they now?”
“Weaver Street.”
I whistle and repeat the name.
“I'm on my way now. Keep hitting me with their progress.” I don't have to tell Murdock what to do because he's already pulled away from the curb and begun to make for Weaver Street. I look at my watch. In five minutes my brother's train will be pulling into the station, and it's going to take us just over that time to get to Weaver Street. Murdock must be thinking along the same lines because as he drives he says, “You couldn't let us have an extra five minutes could you.”
“Sure,” I tell him, “if I'd known where we were supposed to be.”
Fleming comes back on the equipment.
“The girl's walking. They guy dropped her and took off. She's on Weaver walking north carrying the box. The other guy's still on the park.”
“What's the exact location of the girl?”
“Hold it.” Jack comes back on again. “She's just waiting to cross the street on the opposite corner to where Fitch's Department Store is.”
I cut Jack out and tell Murdock to get into Grafton Street, the one that runs behind Fitch's parallel to Weaver Street. When Murdock's back of Fitch's, I get back to Jack.
“Where is she now?”
“Hold on.” A short wait. “She's crossed over; she's about ten yards in from Fitch's corner.”
“Drop me here,” I tell Murdock, picking up the equipment. “Drive to the next intersection and get out and wait for her on Weaver but for Christ sakesâ”
“You think you got to tell me?” he asks as I slam the door. I hurry along the south side of Fitch's and slow down when I turn the corner to start going north after the girl. But I'm not slow enough not to make her; there she is in front of me about thirty yards ahead still floating in her cheesecloth, holding the dress box, walking behind the single file of rubbernecks on the edge of the pavement. I keep my eyes fixed on her and call up Pete as I walk.