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What the hell?
Then he remembered.
Backwash from the sub’s screws.
Thanks, guys!
He looked back, but the big boat was gone in the dark or the depths…or both.
And he suddenly felt very alone.
He rode the rush from the backwash. Then, when it had died out, he began paddling again.
Ten minutes later, he felt the rubber boat’s bottom hit sand.
[ TWO ]
Gramercy Park Hotel
2 Lexington Avenue
New York City, New York
1315 8 March 1943
When the taxicab pulled up outside the hotel, the driver saw that he was going to have to wake up the passenger in the backseat. The guy had fallen asleep almost as soon as he had gotten in at the corner of Fifth Avenue and Eighty-third Street.
“Hey, buddy!” the cabbie said, looking in his rearview mirror. “This is it.”
Eric Fulmar rubbed his eyes, opened them, and yawned.
“Great,” he said, and looked out the window. “Thanks.”
He paid the fare and got out and went through the revolving door of the hotel.
Heading for the elevator, he passed the front desk, then stopped and went back.
“Good morning,” he said to the desk clerk. “Any messages for suite six-oh-one?”
The clerk turned and checked one of the cubbyholes in the wooden honeycomb behind him and retrieved two yellow sheets.
He looked at them, then turned and held them out to Fulmar as he made an unpleasant face.
“A couple for you, Mr. Canidy,” he said curtly.
Fulmar nodded.
He didn’t think it was important to correct him.
And he was too tired to give a damn about whatever bug was up this guy’s ass.
“Thanks,” Fulmar said.
Fulmar read the messages as he took the elevator up.
One was from housekeeping, saying that they were sorry but that they were going to have to place an extra charge against the room for the cleaning of the “oily” towels.
That probably explains why the guy made a face.
