VIII.
IN VIOLENT TIMES
He gave me an address on Twenty-sixth Street. "Sprovis is the name."
"All right," I said as stolidly as I could.
"Let them do the unloading. I see there's a full feed bag in the van; that'll be a good time to give it to the horse."
"Yes."
"They'll load up another consignment and drive with you to the destination. Take the van back to the livery stable. Here's money for your supper and trainfare back here."
He thinks of everything, I reflected bitterly. Except that I don't want to have anything to do with this.
Driving slackly through the almost empty streets my resentment continued to rise, drowning, at least partly, my fear of being for some unfathomable reason stopped by a police officer and apprehended. Why should I be stopped? Why should the Grand Army counterfeit pesetas?
The address, which I had trouble finding on the poorly lit thoroughfare, was one of those four-story stuccos at least a century old, showing few signs of recent repair. Mr. Sprovis, who occupied the basement, had one ear distinctly larger than the other, an anomaly I could not help attributing to a trick of constantly pulling on the lobe. He, like the others who came out with him to unload the van, wore the Grand Army beard.
"I had to come instead of Pon--"
"No names," he growled. "Hear? No names."
"All right. I was told you'd unload and load up again."
"Yeah, yeah."
I slipped the strap of the feed bag over the horse's ear and started toward Eighth Avenue.
"Hey! Where you going?"
"To get something to eat. Anything wrong with that?"
I felt him peering suspiciously at me. "Guess not. But don't keep us waiting, see? We'll be ready to go in twenty minutes."
I did not like Mr. Sprovis. In the automatic lunchroom where the dishes were delivered by a clever clockwork device as coins were deposited in the right slots, I gorged on fish and potatoes, but my pleasure at getting away for once from the unvarying bread and heart was spoiled by the thought of him. And I was at best no more than half through with the night's adventure. What freight Sprovis and his companions were now loading in the van I had no idea. Except that it was nothing innocent.
When I turned the corner into Twenty-sixth Street again, the shadowy mass of the horse and van was gone from its place by the curb. Alarmed, I broke into a run and discovered it turning in the middle of the block. I jumped and caught hold of the dash, pulling myself aboard. "What's the idea?"
A fist caught me in the shoulder, almost knocking me back into the street. Zigzags of shock ran down my arm, terminating in numbing pain. Desperately I clung to the dash.
"Hold it," someone rumbled; "it's the punk who came with. Let him in."
Another voice, evidently belonging to the man who'd hit me, admonished, "Want to watch yourself, chum. Not go jumping like that without warning. I might of stuck a shiv in your ribs instead of my hand."
I could only repeat, "What's the idea of trying to run off with the van? I'm responsible for it."
"He's responsible, see," mocked another voice from the body of the van. "Ain't polite not to wait on him."
I was wedged between the driver and my assailant; my shoulder ached and I was beginning to be really frightened now my first anger had passed. These were "action" members of the Grand Army; men who regularly committed battery, mayhem, arson, robbery, and murder. I had been both foolhardy and lucky; realizing this it seemed diplomatic not to try for possession of the reins.
I could hear the breathing and mumbling of others in back, but it didn't need this to tell me the van was overloaded. We turned north on Sixth Avenue; the streetlights showed Sprovis driving. "Gidap, gidap," he urged, "get going!"
"That's a horse," I protested, "not a locomotive."
"What do you know?" came from behind; "And we thought we was on the Erie."
"He's tired," I persisted, "and he's pulling too much weight."
"Shut up," ordered Sprovis quietly. "Shut up." The quietness was not deceptive; it was ominous. I shut up.
Speed was stupid on several counts. For one thing it called attention to the van at a time when most commercial vehicles had been stabled for the night and the traffic was almost entirely carriages, buggies, hacks, and minibiles. I visualized the suspicious crowd which would gather immediately if our horse dropped from exhaustion. There was no hope that consciousness of an innocuous cargo made Sprovis bold; whatever we carried was bound to be as incriminating as the counterfeit notes.
Disconnected scraps of conversation drifted from Sprovis's companions. "I says, 'Look here, you're making a nice profit from selling abroad. Either you. . .'
"And, of course, he put it all on a twenty-dollar ticket, even though. .
" '. . . my taxes,' he says. 'You worry about your taxes,' I says; 'I'm worried about your contributions.'"
A monotonous chuffing close behind us forced itself into my consciousness; when we turned eastward in the Forties, I exclaimed, "There's a minibile following us!"
Even as I spoke the trackless engine pulled alongside and then darted ahead to pocket us by nosing diagonally toward the curb. The horse must have been too weak to shy; he simply stopped short, and I heard the curses of the felled passengers behind me.
"Not the cops, anyway!"
"Cons, for a nickel!"
"Only half a block from--"
"Quick, break out the guns--"
"Not those guns; one bang and we're through. Air pistols, if anybody's got one. Hands or knives. Get them all!"
They piled out swiftly past me; I remained alone on the seat, an audience of one, properly ensconced. A few blocks away was the small park where Tirzah used to meet me. It was not believable that this was happening in one of New York's quietest residential districts in the year 1942.
An uneven, distorting light emphasized the abnormal speed of the incident that followed, making the action seem jumpy, as though the participants were caught at static moments, changing their attitudes between flashes of visibility. The tempo was so swift any possible spectators in the bordering windows or on the sidewalks wouldn't have had time to realize what was going on before it was all over.
Four men from the minibile were met by five from the van. The odds were not too unequal, for the attackers had a discipline which Sprovis's force lacked. Their leader attempted to parley during one of those seconds of apparent inaction. "Hay, you men--we got nothing against you. They's a thousand dollars apiece in it for you--"
A fist smacked into his mouth. The light caught his face as he was jolted back, but I hardly needed its revelation to confirm my recognition of Colonel Tolliburr's voice. The Confederate agents had brass knuckles and blackjacks, Colonel Tolliburr had a swordcane which he unsheathed with a glinting flourish. The Grand Army men flashed knives; no one seemed to be using air pistols or spring-powered guns.
Both sides were intent on keeping the clash as quiet and inconspicuous as possible; no one shouted with anger or screamed in pain. This muffled intensity made the struggle more gruesome; the contenders fought their natural impulses as well as each other. I heard the impact of blows, the grunts of effort, the choked-back cries, the scraping of shoes on pavement, and the thud of falls. One of the defenders fell, and two of the attackers, before the two remaining Southrons gave up the battle and attempted escape.
With united impulse they started for the minibile, evidently realized they wouldn't have time to get up power, and began running down the street. Their moment of indecision did for them. As the four Grand Army men closed in I saw the Confederates raise their arms in the traditional gesture of surrender. Then they were struck down.
I crept noiselessly down on the off side of the van and hastened quietly away in the protection of the shadows.