Pursuit Page 4

every agedwrinkle. It was the man he'd stumbled into when he dashed out of hisapartment.

  But the fear there matched his own so completely that he dropped thebottle. The other man stood trembling, gasping for breath. Then hegathered himself together, though his pudgy hands still clenchedtightly, showing white knuckles.

  "Will," he repeated. "You must believe me. I know about you. I want tohelp you--if there's any help for you, God forgive us both. And Godhave mercy on Earth. It's worse than you can believe--and different.It's...."

  Horror washed over the old man's face. He stood, fighting withinhimself. Hawkes felt his own back hairs lift, and he drew back. For asecond, the fat man seemed to waver before him, as if his body wasonly a projection. Then it quieted.

  "It--it almost had me for a second."

  He turned back to Hawkes, trying to control the quivering muscles inhis face. But his victory was still incomplete when he suddenly leapedup.

  "Get back, Will. Oh, God, O God!"

  He leaped outwards, his fat old legs pumping savagely. Then the airseemed to quiver.

  Where he had been, there was only a dark cloud of smoke, spreadingoutwards in a rough equivalent of his shape. A spurt of steam leapedupwards savagely, and the smoke seemed darker. It began to drift onthe air, touched a building, and left a spot of smudginess, before itdrifted on, getting thinner with each gust of wind. It was as if everyatom of his body had suddenly disassociated itself from every otheratom.

  * * * * *

  Hawkes found his fingernails cutting his palms, and there was bloodflowing from his bitten tongue. He heard a hacking moan in his throat.He struggled against something that seemed to be holding him down, andthen leaped at least ten feet, to land running.

  The alley was twisted and narrow. He shot down it and around a corner.An ice-house stood there, and he barely avoided the loading trucks. Hewas back near the apartment building where he'd found the girl, and hedoubled to a door that showed. It seemed to be locked, but somehow, hegot through it. He seemed to melt through the door, though he wasn'tsure whether his lunge smashed it or whether his fingers had foundthe latch in time.

  He ducked around loose-hanging electric wires, under twisted pipes,and across a pile of coal around a hot-water heater. He twisted andturned, to come into complete darkness, and halt short, listening.

  The fear was going--and there were again no sounds of pursuit. But hecouldn't be sure. He'd heard no sounds when the fat man had leapedout, but they had been there.

  Silently and thickly, he cursed. To find a man who seemed to be hisfriend, and who knew about him--and then to have them kill that manwith such horrible efficiency before he could learn what it was allabout!

  He gagged in the darkness, almost fainting again.

  Then, slowly, it was too much. For the moment, he could run no more,and nothing seemed to matter. He understood his sudden bravado nobetter than the unnatural cowardice that had been riding hisshoulders, but he shrugged, and moved forward.

  The dark passage led out to steps, that carried him up to thesidewalk, in front of the building. Ellen Ibanez--or Bennett--was lessthan five feet from him, and her eyes were fixed firmly on his face.

  IV

  She seemed surprised, but tried to smile. "I thought I left youasleep, Will," she said, in a tone that was meant to be bantering."'Smatter, the fuse blow?"

  He accepted the excuse for his presence in the basement. "Yeah, itdid. You left the iron on. I wondered what happened to you?"

  "Nothing. Just shopping. There wasn't a bit of food in the place--andI must say, Will, you aren't much of a housekeeper. I bought pounds ofsoap!"

  He followed her up the stairs, and his key opened the door. He wasstill operating on the general belief that they'd be least likely tospot him where they had already found him once. If the girl had tippedthem off, then they had it figured out that he had run off, andprobably wouldn't be back.

  He hoped so, at any rate.

  She was talking too briskly, and she was too careful not to mentionthat the iron was cool, with its cord wrapped neatly around thehandle. He offered no explanation, but let her babble on about thestrange coincidence of his being _the_ Will Hawkes, and how she'dalmost forgotten the childhood days.

  "How come the Ibanez?" he asked, finally.

  "Stage name! I tried to make a go of the musicals, but it wasn't myline, I found. But the name stuck."

  "And where'd you learn how to drug coffee that way?"

  She didn't change expression. There was even a touch of a twinkle inher eye. "Waitress in a combination bar and restaurant. You needed thesleep, Will. And I guess I still feel as much of a mother to you as Idid when you used to get hurt, so long ago."

  She had things out of the bags now, and he saw that she had been doinga lot of shopping. There had still been time enough to call the slimyoung man, though--or, he suddenly realized, the fat man. He had nomore reason to believe her an enemy than a friend. Then he correctedthat. If she'd known enough to call the fat man, and had been hisfriend, she could have told him things. She'd denied knowing anything,though.

  He couldn't understand why he trusted her--and yet, somehow, he did.Even if he knew she'd called them, he would still have to trust her.He was sure now that she was lying, and that she had been the girl atthe door--but that meant she'd been with the fat man. And the fat manhad seemed to be his friend. Or, had the man been set to lure him out,but miscalculated, and gotten only what had been meant for him?

  His head was spinning, and he gave it up. He was a fool to trust hersimply because the fear feeling subsided around her--but he hadnothing better to do than to follow his hunches, and then try to playthe odds as best he could.

  * * * * *

  "Cigarettes," she said, handing him a pack of his brand. "And for me.Shoe dye--your shoes need it, and I couldn't find a shoe store. I didget a shirt though, and a tie. You'll find a hat in that bag. Sizeseven and a quarter?"

  He nodded gratefully, and went in to change. His old shirt had caughtmost of the cat's blood, and he needed a fresh one. There were acouple of spots on his trousers, but they'd do. And the sports jacketmatched well enough. He daubed the dye onto his shoes--one of thecombined polish and dye things.

  "Cold-cuts all right?" she asked, and he called back a vague answerthat seemed to satisfy her. He was staring at the shoe dye.

  It worked fairly well, when he experimented. He daubed it onto hishair with a wisp of cotton. His hair began to mat down, but he foundthat combing it out as he went along removed the worst of the wax andstill left some of the color. It worked better than it should havedone.

  He found a bottle of something that smelled of alcohol and belonged inher cosmetics, and began removing most of the mess. By being careful,he got the wax and most of the dye smell off, while leaving his hairdarker.

  "Better wash up," she called.

  There was a razor among the things she had bought. He daubed some ofthe dye on his upper lip, where the stubble of a mustache was showing.It was easier there, if it didn't wash off in soap and water.

  Some of it did, but when he finished shaving, he felt better. Itwouldn't pass close inspection, but he now seemed to have darker hair,and the dye had exaggerated the little beginning of a mustache enoughto make some change in his appearance.

  He waited for her to comment, but she said nothing. He waited for herquestions about what he was going to do, and her explanations that ofcourse he couldn't stay there. She merely went on talking idly, whilethey ate. It didn't fit.

  Finally he stood up and began taking down the rope that was strung upover one end of the room, to use as a clothes line, he supposed. Shelooked up at that. "What--"

  "You can fight, if you want to," he told her. "Or you can saveyourself the headache of being knocked out. Take your choice. Peopledon't pay much attention to screams in a place like this. And I'm notgoing to harm you, if you'll take it easily."

  "You mean it!" Her eyes were huge in her f
ace, and there was a touchof fright now. She gulped visibly, and then seemed to go limp. "Allright, Will. In the bedroom?"

  He nodded, and she went ahead of him. She didn't struggle, until hewas about to gag her. Then she drew her head aside. "There's money inmy bag, if you're going out."

  * * * * *

  He swore, hotly and sickly. If she'd only act just once as a normalfemale should! Maybe Irma had been a hysterical, cold-blooded fool,but she couldn't have been that much different from other women--eventhe books indicated Ellen should be anything but so damnedcooperative!

  "If you'll tell me what's going on, I'll still let you go," hesuggested, drawing her hands tighter together.

  "I can't, Will. I