of not breaking my rule.” At the bathroom door, she murmured: “Sometime soon, Boysie. That’s for sure. Sometime very soon.”
It took five minutes to locate Joe Siedler who was full of apologies after Boysie told his story.
“ Boysie pal, we wouldn’t have had this happen for anything. But I guess your man was right—something hanging over from the past. I’m goin’ to make sure though. I’m going to make certain that you stay in one piece. You wanna go out? Sure. I’ll have one a the boys look after you, at a distance of course. Now don’t you worry ‘bout a thing Boysie buddy, we’ll take good care of you, and I’ll be over personally, but personally, first thing in the morning just to make sure you get outa town with no bother. OK? Now you have yourself a real swell time. And don’t worry, we’ll be watching out for you. Real good.”
Boysie and Chicory dined in the Rainbow Room of the RCA Building: in a restaurant which looked as unreal as a movie set. Even the air seemed to have been impregnated with luxury—sprayed from hygenic cans. They sat at a table window, from which they could see out over Manhattan to the Hudson—a great fairyland of tiny lights and flickering neon; a huge, rising castellation pricked through with bright oblongs, twinkling in lines up to the sky; bulwarks of midnight-blue against the deep pearl of the night.
With Lobster Remoulade, Roast Long Island Duckling, and a splendid Strawberry Shortcake inside them, they took the chrome-lined elevator back to earth (Boysie had been frightened enough going up. Going down—with the drop of about fifty storeys before the brakes came on—was purgatory. But Chicory revelled in the whole business). For two hours they wandered through the streets of New York—Times Square, with its brash glare, noise, music and hukster atmosphere—the huge Camel ad puffing smoke from the painted cardboard man’s gaping mouth; then along the Great White Way, where the Broadway babies don’t say goodnight until it’s early morning.
The streets began to empty—sad wisps of steam, rising from the covers of the city’s piped heating system, wavering as a yellow cab growled past or a prowl car hovered along the kerb. On Fifth Avenue, with their reflections dancing in the high mirrors of plate glass, they touched hands and held on tight, walking inches from the spangled jewels and chic dresses safe in the display windows: silent, lonely, unwanted until the regiments took to the streets and offices and department stores and the city came alive again.
They said goodnight and kissed outside the plushiest store, Saks, on the corner of Fifth Avenue and 50th Street. Boysie felt like a seventeen-year-old. But, to be fair, that was how he always felt when a new and sensual female clawed her way into his easy heart. At a few yards distance—across the road, on the steps of St Patrick’s Cathedral—a United States Internal Security officer called Bremoy, who had the worried look of a man on the verge of his first ulcer, watched the kiss and, under his breath, snarled something about “Bastard top agents and their whores.”
Bremoy was unaware that he too was being observed. In the shadow of the fifteen-foot bronze Atlas which decorates the forecourt of the International Building, across the intersection from St Patrick’s, a young man stood biting his nails—his eyes darting between Bremoy and the osculating couple. The skin on the young man’s face was taut to the bone. It was a face like a skull.
*
Having first looked, with routine care, under the bed, in the bathroom, behind the shower curtain and in the wardrobe, Boysie locked the door. Stripping off his jacket and shirt, he ambled back to the bathroom; popped the plug into place and began to run warm water into the tub. “Love is a Many Splendoured Thing,” sang Boysie in a quavering and fraction off-key tenor. Returning to the bedroom he undressed to his jockey briefs, and was about to make
It took five minutes to locate Joe Siedler who was full of apologies after Boysie told his story.
“ Boysie pal, we wouldn’t have had this happen for anything. But I guess your man was right—something hanging over from the past. I’m goin’ to make sure though. I’m going to make certain that you stay in one piece. You wanna go out? Sure. I’ll have one a the boys look after you, at a distance of course. Now don’t you worry ‘bout a thing Boysie buddy, we’ll take good care of you, and I’ll be over personally, but personally, first thing in the morning just to make sure you get outa town with no bother. OK? Now you have yourself a real swell time. And don’t worry, we’ll be watching out for you. Real good.”
Boysie and Chicory dined in the Rainbow Room of the RCA Building: in a restaurant which looked as unreal as a movie set. Even the air seemed to have been impregnated with luxury—sprayed from hygenic cans. They sat at a table window, from which they could see out over Manhattan to the Hudson—a great fairyland of tiny lights and flickering neon; a huge, rising castellation pricked through with bright oblongs, twinkling in lines up to the sky; bulwarks of midnight-blue against the deep pearl of the night.
With Lobster Remoulade, Roast Long Island Duckling, and a splendid Strawberry Shortcake inside them, they took the chrome-lined elevator back to earth (Boysie had been frightened enough going up. Going down—with the drop of about fifty storeys before the brakes came on—was purgatory. But Chicory revelled in the whole business). For two hours they wandered through the streets of New York—Times Square, with its brash glare, noise, music and hukster atmosphere—the huge Camel ad puffing smoke from the painted cardboard man’s gaping mouth; then along the Great White Way, where the Broadway babies don’t say goodnight until it’s early morning.
The streets began to empty—sad wisps of steam, rising from the covers of the city’s piped heating system, wavering as a yellow cab growled past or a prowl car hovered along the kerb. On Fifth Avenue, with their reflections dancing in the high mirrors of plate glass, they touched hands and held on tight, walking inches from the spangled jewels and chic dresses safe in the display windows: silent, lonely, unwanted until the regiments took to the streets and offices and department stores and the city came alive again.
They said goodnight and kissed outside the plushiest store, Saks, on the corner of Fifth Avenue and 50th Street. Boysie felt like a seventeen-year-old. But, to be fair, that was how he always felt when a new and sensual female clawed her way into his easy heart. At a few yards distance—across the road, on the steps of St Patrick’s Cathedral—a United States Internal Security officer called Bremoy, who had the worried look of a man on the verge of his first ulcer, watched the kiss and, under his breath, snarled something about “Bastard top agents and their whores.”
Bremoy was unaware that he too was being observed. In the shadow of the fifteen-foot bronze Atlas which decorates the forecourt of the International Building, across the intersection from St Patrick’s, a young man stood biting his nails—his eyes darting between Bremoy and the osculating couple. The skin on the young man’s face was taut to the bone. It was a face like a skull.
*
Having first looked, with routine care, under the bed, in the bathroom, behind the shower curtain and in the wardrobe, Boysie locked the door. Stripping off his jacket and shirt, he ambled back to the bathroom; popped the plug into place and began to run warm water into the tub. “Love is a Many Splendoured Thing,” sang Boysie in a quavering and fraction off-key tenor. Returning to the bedroom he undressed to his jockey briefs, and was about to make
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