Chapter Eleven

TRYING to appear indifferent, Doughface Jack and Rita entered the Pennsylvania Station. They wore street clothes at Rita’s express command, and they carried luggage which had been growing heavier and heavier block by block. Suntan powder helped mask Jack’s identity. Redcaps assaulted them and wrested the bags away.

Doughface was upset. “How we gonna pay?” he whispered for the hundredth consecutive time.

“Never mind,” said Rita with a mysterious smile.

He was not at ease in this expansive place. The ceiling was too high and the other walls too far away and the crowd which milled consisted of far too many. The uniformed redcaps and trainmen and guards gave him an uneasy chill. It was all right for Rita to be so cool about all this. She hadn’t done anything and she wouldn’t be shot on sight or burned later.

He sidled up to the ticket window, the fashionable black hat well down over his face. “Gimme,” he said nervously, “two tickets to Washington, DC.”

The clerk nodded and began to pull out green slips.

“Drawing room,” whispered Rita.

“Huh? Oh—yeah—drawing room, mister.”

The agent reached for his phone and checked for a reservation. There was one and he began to prepare the slips, from time to time looking expectantly at Doughface for the money.

Doughface felt a wad of bills thrust into his hand. He blinked at them and then shoved them through the wicket. After the tickets and change had been given back to him, he pulled Rita aside.

“Whereja get it?”

“Now, Jack, don’t be cross.”

“Whereja get it?” he repeated roughly.

But she smiled at him and he melted on the instant. “A man with a diamond stick pin had it in his pocket,” said Rita winningly. “He didn’t need all that money anyway and, besides, I put the wallet back.”

“The wallet … why … Say, what … ?”

“You don’t think a beggar, and a blind beggar at that, wouldn’t learn to take advantage of New York crowds, do you?” challenged Rita.

Remembrance came as a shock to him. Here was a glamorous woman in expensive blue sports clothes—a woman who had so lately worn a sign which said, “I am Blind.”

She didn’t let him think about it. “Let’s get aboard right away before something happens.”

He followed her and the redcaps followed him and they hurried toward the gates.

Doughface Jack didn’t recognize Pellman until the doctor stood squarely before him, seemingly from nowhere.

“Geez!” said Doughface, skidding to a halt. “It’s … it’s you, Doc.”

“Yes, Jack, it’s me. Listen, fellow, don’t you think this has gone far enough?”

Doughface looked downcast. “Yeah. Yeah, but how can I stop it? The cops is all chasin’ me and the Army come out tonight. Geez, Doc, them guys is goin’ to shoot me on sight. That’s what the papers say. This is a helluva put-together. I can’t do nothin’ but run.”

Rita came back, swiftly apprehensive, without a clue to the identity of this tall youth who had confronted the tramp.

Pellman saw her and knew that she was the woman about whom the Greek had spoken. His eyes widened and he was visibly impressed by her beauty.

“Gosh, Jack, you’re a picker.”

“Look, Rita, this gent is Doc Pellman. He’s the guy that put my conk together for me and done all this.”

“Pleased to meet you,” said Rita, chilly.

Pellman’s hat was off. “Pleased to meet you, miss.” He turned to the tramp. “Listen, Jack, I think I can get a compromise for you. They’ll send you out into the county to some nice, quiet estate.…”

“Jack,” said Rita, sharply. “Don’t listen to him. It’s a trap.”

Doughface looked at her and felt the truth in what she said. “Look, Doc, geez, I’d like to help but I’ve bumped guys off. Don’t forget that, Doc. I couldn’t help it, but I did. You couldn’t get these coppers to believe I didn’t. Some of ’em seen me do it. If I turn myself in they’ll burn me for sure.”

“Now you leave that to me,” said Pellman, knowing that he was winning. “I’ll talk to the commissioner.…”

“No, you won’t!” said Rita, growing tall and arrogant with anger. “You leave Jack alone. He can’t help what he does.”

“No, of course not,” said Pellman. “But he can keep from doing it again.”

“If I was only sure.…” puzzled Doughface.

Rita was thinking fast. She felt a debt of gratitude to the little man and, more, she knew that her lot would be misery if she was cast adrift now, beauty or no beauty. She had no illusions about this world, had Rita.

She glanced around her but nobody of importance or menace was in sight.

“Sure, Jack,” Pellman was saying, “I’ll see that you get a break. You just come with me.…”

And Doughface Jack was weakening. “Y’got a promise from the cops?” he begged.

“Well,” hesitated Pellman, “not exactly, but I can be pretty certain.…”

She stopped listening to him, thinking rapidly. And then she did a most unexpected thing. She rushed forward, almost knocking Doughface down.

“LOOK OUT!” she screamed. “THEY'RE GOING TO SHOOT!”

And Doughface Jack’s excited state of mind caused him to guess at a hundred troopers behind every pillar. A guard rushed forward, attracted only by the scream and Doughface multiplied him to a thousand.

With understanding, Rita dodged behind a nearby pillar almost before Doughface recovered. The tramp wanted to run, he started to run and Pellman, so close to success, did a foolhardy thing. He touched Jack’s coat.

Doughface whipped around. Pellman staggered and began to sink down. The guard was coming faster and, seeing a man begin to fall, jerked out his gun and fired a wild shot at Doughface, high over his head.

Doughface glared in that direction, crouched to sprint away. The guard collapsed and skidded to a halt.

The milling crowd all faced toward the tramp and the two fallen men, and for an instant, Pennsylvania Station was hushed.

Another guard started forward from the press. He dropped. Behind him a patch of the crowd went down. The others stood for an instant and then an intelligent man in their midst knew and screamed, “IT'S HIM! IT'S THE MAN WITH THE EVIL EYE!!”

Doughface glared after them. Few reached the door. The great marble blocks of the floor were covered with baggage and limp humans.

From the doors above the floor level a torrent of drab uniforms began to spew, flowing down. Doughface was breathing hard as he watched them. He thought he was trapped.

Sudden fury shook him. Why couldn’t the fools let him be? Why did they have to keep leaping at him and hounding him and …

The OD flow turned into an avalanche. Weapons and hats and men cascaded down the steps, intermixed until there was no distinguishing anything.

The supply at the top ceased. A mountain was stacked up on the marble. An olive drab mountain marked here and there with bayonets.

Rita reached around the pillar and beckoned to Doughface. “Come on!”

They started for the train platform. But the noise above had already been heard and the news had spread. Not a switch-engine, not a porter was there to tip his cap and present his palm. Not an engineer or brakeman or conductor remained in sight or at his post.

Doughface halted on the platform.

“Geez,” he almost wept, “we can’t drive no engines no more’n we can drive a car. We got to get out of here, but …”

Rita was thinking fast again. She pulled at Doughface and raced up the steps again. Nothing had changed in the devastated waiting room. They picked their way, baggage in hand, across the sprawled and groaning people.

“Where ya goin’?” begged Doughface.

She did not answer but kept walking.

They reached the taxi lane but no drivers were there. Rita’s flashing eye lighted upon a limousine which stood on the line, engine barely audible. She went swiftly toward it and looked into the front seat.

There, under the wheel, was a chauffeur. His eyes rolled white as he saw her and he tried to cower back.

 “Get up,” said Rita commandingly. “Who owns this car?”

“Miz Morgan Depeister,” chattered the chauffeur. “Who … who you?”

“I want to help you,” said Rita. “Sit up. Everything is all right now.”

The man sat up. He saw Doughface but he didn’t understand—not yet.

 “Do you know who this is?”

“No’m,” he replied, still too frightened to think.

“This,” said Rita calmly, “is the man with the Evil Eye.”

“Yassum. But I’se … HUH?” he choked suddenly. His eyes rolled back into his head and he seemed about to keel over. Rita jerked him upright by the scruff of his neck.

“You aren’t dead—yet,” she said coldly. “But you’re going to be if you make one false move. Now listen. We are on our way to Washington, DC and you are going to drive us there.”

“B-B-B-But Miz Morgan Depeister …”

“Did you hear me? This is the man with the Evil Eye.”

The chauffeur gulped. Sweat stood out on his forehead.

“Now,” said Rita, “are you driving us to Washington or aren’t you?”

“Yes,” whispered the chauffeur limply.

“Doughface,” said Rita, “would you help a lady into her limousine?”

Doughface Jack grinned and took her arm. They settled back in the seat, pushing the luggage out of their way.

“James …”

“My name is Sam,” quavered the chauffeur.

“James,” said Rita, “the White House, please.”