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When I heard Connelly swear under his breath, I realized he’d followed me. He rounded the bar with swiftness that bordered on running and snatched up the phone. By the time I looked back at the door to the street, the man in the dandified clothes had vanished.
I pushed outside and looked and saw a man’s figure ducking into an alley. Torn between choices, I went back inside.
Connelly was already dropping the receiver into its cradle. He stuck two fingers in his mouth and gave a piercing whistle. His voice rang with sudden authority as everyone turned.
“Any cops in here — you’re to suit up and get to the station immediately. Nothing’s happened, but we’re to patrol to make sure it doesn’t. Cop or not, if you’ve got a car and can take lads home to change so they get there quicker, wait by the door.”
This is how he sounded in Ireland, I thought. Giving directions that might make the difference between life and death.
“I’ll take you and Seamus and a couple of others,” I said.
Wee Willie had jumped up to drive. Seamus was heading toward us, his long stride marred on one side by the hitching of his bad knee. Connelly was shaking his head.
“No, you take Seamus and whoever else you can fit in. I’d best wait in case there are questions, or anyone looks to be dragging toes. I’ll catch a ride with whoever’s last out. And when you come back, take my chanter apart and put the reed up, eh?”
Seizing my shoulders, he planted a kiss on my forehead.
“We’ll be all right, Maggie.” He ducked his head to look into my eyes. “We’ll be all right.”
I wasn’t sure if he was talking about the war, or safety here at home. In that still dazed moment, he might even have been talking about the two of us.
***
By the time I returned to Finn’s, only a handful of customers remained. Wee Willie had collected family and radio. I went to the set of blackwood and ivory pipes Connelly had abandoned. Once they had belonged to my father. Smoothing my hand along the leather bag and the silken wood made me feel less alone.
In the back room, I set the valise containing the pipes on a table. I drew a breath to steady my hands. Carefully, carefully I drew off the cylinder covering the long, fragile reed at the top of the chanter. I eased the reed from its base and laid it in a nest of tissue paper in a box secured by a rubber band.
I seldom performed the delicate task. The concentration required for it had left me no room for thoughts. Now they engulfed me. The fellow with the sideburns, the snappy dresser, had been in the restaurant last night. He had turned up here. He was following me.
Where and when had I acquired him? Had he been waiting today when I came out of Mrs. Z’s? Did he know where I lived? Had I put a houseful of innocent women at risk?
I couldn’t answer. The fact he was following me, and that he wasn’t either of the men I’d surprised in Eve Tremain’s kitchen, was all my mind had strength left to grapple with.
“Closing’s in half an hour,” Rose murmured when I emerged from packing the pipes. “Stay and come up for a bite. It’s a night for company.”
I demurred, but Rose insisted until I gave in. When she and Finn had locked up, I followed them and two other regulars upstairs to their apartment. Rose cooked up potatoes with onions and bits of leftover bacon, but no one around the table ate very much. No one showed much appetite for the whiskey Finn poured for us, either. We talked more than we had downstairs. The men said the war would be over fast, now that the U.S. was in.
“Guess I’d better get that radio you’ve been wanting, though” Finn said reaching to pat his wife’s hand. “We’ll want to keep up with what’s happening.”
Eventually, I took my leave. I needed to walk. I needed to see my city and be reassured it was safe.
***
At first I walked without direction. The river still hugged the city the same as it had when the first settlers arrived. Lights blazed in The Engineer’s Club. The fancy white confection that was Market House was also alight. Chief Wurstner and the city’s entire police command would likely be working there all night.
I turned down Fourth toward the Daily News. A squad car pulled abreast of me.
“Miss Sullivan? That you?”
I couldn’t see the cop inside, but I stepped over.
“Chief Wurstner’s asking people to stay off the streets so we can keep an eye on things better.”
“Okay. I’ll get back to my car and head home.”
But I didn’t. Instead I turned into an alley. My .38 was in my coat pocket, wearing out the lining but handy if I needed it. I was only a block or so from The Pompeii where I’d found the strand of blue wool. Did I want to get my crochet out and pick the lock? Maybe there was something in the desk or files that Walt Benning had abandoned when he left town that would give me a clue to how he and Gil Tremain or someone else at C&S Signals tied together.
Stepping out on Temple, I spotted another cruiser approaching. Dayton police cars came in two patterns. The one that had stopped me was white on black. This one was black on white. They must be making rounds almost constantly, keeping an eye on the train station three blocks away. I ducked back quickly.
When I did, my ears caught a small clank of tin in the alley behind me. A garbage can. A stray cat jumping off a garbage can.
Or maybe not.
Cogs in my brain that the day’s events had disrupted started to turn again. When I left Finn’s, had I checked to make sure the stranger with sideburns who’d scooted the minute I noticed him hadn’t followed me? I couldn’t be certain. While I walked I’d had bursts of alertness during which I remembered to listen for footsteps behind me. But only bursts. Habits of self-preservation that had served me for years had been abandoned. Now I drew a breath and set about correcting my own sloppiness.
If some ordinary citizen had turned into the alley after me and stubbed his toe on a garbage can, his footsteps would continue. The alley was silent. If the sound had come from a foraging animal, in which case I had no need to worry, I’d find out soon enough.
I stepped to the mouth of the alley and made a big pretense of peeking out to see if the coast was clear. If I ran into a foot patrol, my plan would be spoiled, but I didn’t. I headed east, and as soon as I came to a shop front spaced far enough from a streetlight to give the right reflection, I ducked into the doorway. A minute later, a man’s shape emerged from the end of the alley.
He looked left and right, clearly wondering what had become of me. Wandering back out, I bent as if for a final look at merchandise in the shop window. Careful not to notice the man behind me, I moved on. My pace was unhurried. Just before reaching the corner, I limped once and took off my shoe. I didn’t hear footsteps. If anyone was following me, they were making a better job of it now. I didn’t look back.
With shoe in place again, I crossed the street. Only one car had passed me, an old bug-eyed thing whose engine wheezed. Up ahead was the alley for this block. I turned in, and immediately flattened myself against the wall.
Now there were footsteps all right, accelerating. My Smith & Wesson was out. The second I caught sight of someone turning in, I extended my foot and sent him sprawling.
It didn’t last long. He was fast as a cat. In a single motion he pivoted back on his feet. But I was mad. My forearm slammed his windpipe, rendering him unable to breathe and driving the back of his head into a brick wall with force enough to daze him.
“Move and I’ll keep shooting you until I run out of bullets,” I said. “Spread your arms.”
He shook his head to clear it and spit in my face. Somewhere he probably carried a weapon, but all I could tell was that it wasn’t in his hand. My eyes were still adjusting. I kicked his legs apart.
“Well, well. If it isn’t ‘Burns.” I could make out the caterpillars of hair crawling down his cheeks now. “Funny, you don’t look much like a poet. Or maybe you do, with that Napoleon Bonaparte hairdo.”
“What? What are you talking about? You crazy or something?”
Always a good impression to give. My free hand grabbed his belt and jerked it open. The move, on top of the blow to his head, was enough to confuse him long enough for me to shift my grip to the waist of his pants and spin him face-first to the wall.
“Keep those hands out, pal. Palms on the brick.”
I relieved him of a nice semi-automatic.
“I don’t like being followed. Who sent you?”
He sneered. “You’ll find out, and you’re going to be sorry you laid a finger on me.”
An iceberg floated into my stomach. The words, the cockiness, the way he dressed gave me a good idea who had sent him.
I gave the back of his skull a tap to make sure he slept for a couple of hours.