In the lobby, we ran into Nat, looking smug in a journalistic way.
"I've been put on the story--who could be better?--I live here. So far,
I don't quite get what's been happening. I've been talking to Danny,
but he didn't say much. I got the feeling he thinks you're involved in
some mystical, Hibernian way. Hello, McGill, what's with you?"
"He's got a theory," said Molly. "Come and eat with us and he'll tell
you all about it."
Since we decided on an air-conditioned restaurant nearby on Sixth
Avenue, we walked. The jam of cars didn't seem to be any less than
before and we saw Danny again. He was talking to a police lieutenant,
and when he caught sight of us, he said something that made the
lieutenant look at us with interest. Particularly at me.
"If you want your umbrella, Mrs. Graham," Danny said, "it's at the
station house. What there's left of it, that is."
Molly thanked him and there was a short pause, during which I felt
the speculative regard of the lieutenant. I pulled out a packet of
cigarettes, which I had opened, as always, by tearing off the top. I
happened to have it upside down and all the cigarettes fell out. Before
I could move my foot to obliterate what they had spelled out on the
sidewalk, the two cops saw it. The lieutenant gave me a hard look, but
said nothing. I quickly kicked the insulting cigarettes into the gutter.
When we got to the restaurant, it was crowded but cool--although it
didn't stay cool for long. We sat down at a side table near the door
and ordered Tom Collinses as we looked at the menu. Sitting at the
next table were a fat lady, wearing a very long, brilliant green
evening gown, and a dried-up sour-looking man in a tux. When the waiter
returned, they preempted him and began ordering dinner fussily: cold
cuts for the man, and vichyssoise, lobster salad and strawberry parfait
for the fat lady.
I tasted my drink. It was most peculiar; salt seemed to have been used
instead of sugar. I mentioned this and my companions tried theirs, and
made faces.
* * * * *
The waiter was concerned and apologetic, and took the drinks back to
the bar across the room. The bartender looked over at us and tasted
one of the drinks. Then he dumped them in his sink with a puzzled
expression and made a new batch. After shaking this up, he set out a
row of glasses, put ice in them and began to pour.
That is to say he tilted the shaker over the first one, but nothing
came out. He bumped it against the side of the bar and tried again.
Still nothing. Then he took off the top and pried into it with his
pick, his face pink with exasperation.
I had the impression that the shaker had frozen solid. Well, ice _is_ a
crystal, I thought to myself.
The other bartender gave him a fresh shaker, but the same thing
happened, and I saw no more because the customers sitting at the bar
crowded around in front of him, offering advice. Our waiter came back,
baffled, saying he'd have the drinks in a moment, and went to the
kitchen. When he returned, he had madame's vichyssoise and some rolls,
which he put down, and then went to the bar, where the audience had
grown larger.
Molly lit a cigarette and said, "I suppose this is all part of it,
Alec. Incidentally, it seems to be getting warmer in here."
It was, and I had the feeling the place was quieter--a background noise
had stopped. It dawned on me that I no longer heard the faint hum of
the air-conditioner over the door, and as I started to say so, I made
a gesture toward it. My hand collided with Molly's when she tapped her
cigarette over the ashtray, and the cigarette landed in the neighboring
vichyssoise.
"Hey! What's the idea?" snarled the sour-looking man.
"I'm terribly sorry," I said. "It was an accident. I--"
"Throwing cigarettes at people!" the fat lady said.
"I really didn't mean to," I began again, getting up. There must have
been a hole in the edge of their tablecloth which one of my cuff
buttons caught in, because as I stepped out from between the closely
set tables, I pulled everything--tablecloth, silver, water glasses,
ashtrays and the vichyssoise-à-la-nicotine--onto the floor.
The fat lady surged from the banquette and slapped me meatily. The man
licked his thumb and danced as boxers are popularly supposed to do. The
owner of the place, a man with thick black eyebrows, hustled toward us
with a determined manner. I tried to explain what had happened, but I
was outshouted, and the owner frowned darkly.
* * * * *
One of the waiters came up to the owner and tapped him on the shoulder
and started to tell him about the air-conditioner, thus creating a
momentary diversion, which did not, however, include the fat lady.
"He must be drunk!" she told her companion, who nodded contemptuously.
A man carrying a stepladder came down the aisle from the back, his eye
on the air-conditioner, but not, it seemed, on the stepladder, which
bumped the owner of the restaurant on the shoulder just as he was
turning back to me.
It was not a hard bump, but it threw him off balance, so that he more
or less embraced the waiter. Then he turned around and it was obvious
he thought I had struck him. The room was now divided into two groups:
ourselves and our audience, and those who were too far away or intent
on other matters to have noticed the fracas, the chief of these being
the man with the stepladder, who was paying undivided attention to the
air-conditioner. The owner was very angry with me.
"Mister, I think _you'd_ better leave!" he said.
"He will not!" Molly said. "It was an accident, and _you_," she added
to the fat lady who was about to interrupt, "keep quiet! We'll buy you
some more soup!"
"Maybe it was an accident like you say," the owner declared, "but no
one's going to push me when my back is turned! Out you go, mister! The
drinks are on the house."
"We haven't had any drinks yet," I said. "There was salt in them."
"What d'you mean, salt? My bartenders--"
The air-conditioner suddenly let out a loud whirring and I glanced
up. The stepladder which the man was on began to slide open like an
acrobatic dancer doing a split. I stepped past the angry restaurateur
and put out my hand to stop it, but as I did, the extension-bar that
was supposed to hold it together parted and it came down with a rush,
knocking over several tables. The repairman pulled part of the works
out with him as he fell and the fan-belt broke. The motor raced and
black smoke poured out.
"What're you trying to _do_!" the owner yelled at me over the loud
whine of the machinery. "Goddam it, haven't you done _enough_ already?"
I took two steps back, in dismay at what I was accused of, and stepped
on the skirt of the fat lady's green evening gown. She in turn took two
steps and was, as it were, laid bare.
The previous hubbub was as nothing to what now resulted and the smoke
was becoming thicker. Then the door opened and, to my horror, Danny and
his lieutenant came in, and I was the first thing their eyes fastened
on. Everyone started shouting at once and pointing at me.
Then the sprinkler system went on.
* * * * *
The cell was clean, although very hot, and I was not treated badly.
There was, in fact, an air of superstitious respect, almost. A cop gave
me some magazines and, against regulations, a late paper, but it was
not late enough to carry the story of the restaurant mob-scene. In it,
however, was a garbled account of our traffic jam and a reference to
the six elevators simultaneously and unaccountably stuck in the I.T.V.
Building, but no connection was suggested.
My mind was in too much of an uproar to read, and I paced up and
down. It seemed hours since McGill had called my lawyer Vinelli; some
fantastic mishap must be holding him up, I thought. Then I happened to
bump into the door of the cell and found the lock hadn't caught.
More of the same! But there didn't seem any point in trying to escape.
Where would I go? Besides, I would have to leave through the desk room,
where there would be at least the desk lieutenant and a sergeant on the
phone. I began to wonder what effect it would have if I were to call
out and tell them.
"Hey!" I shouted, but my voice was drowned out by a blast from the
radio in the squad room. It died down immediately; someone must have
hit a loud spot on the dial. I had an idea.
"Hey!" I shouted again, and again was drowned out. I opened the barred
door and looked up and down the corridor. No one was in sight. Without
making any unnecessary noise, but not stealthily, either, I walked as
naturally as I could past the door to the squad room, where all heads
were turned away, listening to the sensational pronouncements of Bill
Bart, the radio gossip.
"... and in your commentator's view, this man is dangerous! After
attacking a woman and setting fire to a restaurant, he was arrested and
is being held for investigation, but I predict that the double-domes
and alleged scientists will come up with some more gobbledegook and
we ordinary citizens will be left in the dark as to why or how Graham
is causing all this trouble. So far, fortunately, no one has been
seriously injured, but I predict...."