Bahr nodded. "Conroe knows how to pick them. He's supposed to meet her
later. This is her first show for the evening. Then she has another at
ten and another at two. He's supposed to take her home." He glanced
around the room carefully. "Watch yourself," he muttered, and silently
slipped away from the table.
The girl was nervous. Jeff sat close enough to see the fear in her
face as she whirled around the floor. The music had shifted into a
slow throbbing undertone, as she started to dance. She moved slowly,
circling the floor. Her hair was long and black, flowing around her
shoulders, and her body moved with carefully calculated grace to the
music. But there was fear in her face as she whirled, and her eyes
sought the faces on the fringe of the circle.
The music quickened imperceptibly and Jeff felt a chill run up his
spine. The upper part of the shimmering gown slipped from the girl's
shoulders, and slowly the tempo of the dance began to change from the
stately rhythm it had a moment before. The throb of the music became
hypnotic, moving faster and faster. Jeff's hands trembled as he tried
to draw his eyes away from the undulating figure. There had been
nothing to mark the change, but suddenly the dance had become obscene
as the music rose--so viciously obscene that Jeff nearly gagged.
He felt the tension in the crowd around him. He heard their breathing
rise, felt the desperate eagerness in their hard, bright eyes as they
watched. The nervousness had left the girl's face. She had forgotten
her fear, and a little smile appeared on her face as her body moved in
abandon to the quickening beat.
Slowly she moved toward the tables, and the spotlight followed her,
playing tricks with her hair and gown, concealing and revealing,
twisting and swaying.... Jeff felt his body freeze. He fought to move,
fought to take his eyes from the writhing figure as she drew closer and
closer--
And then she was among the people, moving from table to table, never
slowing her motion, graceful as a cat, twisting and twirling in the
flickering red light. In and out she moved until she reached Jeff's
table, her face inscrutable--a peacefully smiling mask. With amazing
grace she leaped up on the table top and gave Jeff's glass a kick that
sent it spinning onto the floor with a crash. And then the red light
hit him full in the face--
"Get out of the light!"
Like a cat he threw his chair back and struck the girl, knocking her
from the table. Someone screamed and the light swung to the girl, then
back to him. The table went over. He rolled out of the light, twisting
and fighting through the stunned and screaming crowd. His gun was in
his hand, and he frantically searched the shouting room with his eyes.
"Get him! There he goes!"
He heard Bahr's voice roar from the side of the room. Jeff swung
sharply to the sound of the voice. He saw the tall, slender figure
crouched with his back to the bar, eyes wide with fear and desperation.
There was no mistaking the face, the hollow cheeks and the high
forehead, the graying hair. It was the face he had seen in his dreams,
the twisted lips, the evil, ghoulish face of the man he had hunted to
the ends of the earth. For a fraction of a second he saw Paul Conroe,
crouched at bay, and then the figure was gone, twisting through the
crowd toward the door--
"Stop him!" Jeff swung savagely into the crowd, screaming at Bahr
across the room. "He's heading for the street! Get him!" The gun kicked
sharply against his hand as he fired at the moving head. Rising for
an instant, it disappeared again into the sea of heads. A scream rose
at the shot. Women dropped to the floor, glasses crashed, tables went
over. Someone clawed ineffectually for Jeff's leg. Then, abruptly, the
lights went out and there was another scream.
"The door, the door--Don't let him get out--"
Jeff plunged to the side of the room, wrenched open the emergency exit
and plunged down the dark, narrow walkway to the street. He heard shots
as he ran. Turning the corner of the building, he saw the tall figure
running pell-mell down the wet street.
"There he goes! Get him!"
Ted Bahr hung from the door. He gasped as he held his side, his face
twisted in pain. "He hit me," he panted. "He's broken away--" A jet
car slid from the curb and whined down the street toward the fleeing
figure. "He can't make it--I've got men on every corner in cars.
They'll get him, drive him back--"
"But where's he going?" A sob of rage choked Jeff's voice. "She sold us
out, the bitch. She fingered me when she saw him come in--" His whole
body trembled and the words tumbled out, almost incoherent. "But he
must know the streets are blocked. Where's he running?"
"You think I'm a mind reader? I don't know. There are no open buildings
in the whole block but this place and the Hoffman Center. He can't
go anywhere else and he can't get out of the block. We've got every
escapeway sewed up tight. He'll have to come back here or be shot down
out there."
They watched the gloomy street, tears of rage in Jeff's eyes. His hands
shook uncontrollably and his shoulders sagged in exhaustion and defeat.
The tavern door had burst open and people were crowding out. Jeff and
Ted Bahr moved back into the shadows of the alleyway and waited and
listened.
"There's got to be a shot!" Jeff burst out. "He couldn't have slipped
through." He turned to Bahr frantically. "Could he have gone into the
Center?"
"On what pretense? They'd throw him to the Mercy Men--or the
booby hatch, one or the other. He'd know better than to try." The
sandy-haired man sank down on his haunches and gripped his side
tightly. "He'll be back or we'll hear the shooting. He couldn't have
slipped through."
A three-wheeled jet car slid in to the curb, and a man came up to them,
eyes wide. "Get him?"