Mutters.

Vantagio shouted up to the balcony, “Mama Sesso! You hear that?”

A big, heavy-breasted woman, black-haired, muscular, mustached, shouted, “I’m here, Signore Meretrici!” And she came forward to the rail and looked down.

“As Chief Madame,” shouted Vantagio, “you’re going to see that enforced and that all the other madames enforce it!”

“I got it, Signore Meretrici. If they don’t do what the young boy tells them, out they go.”

“No, no, no!” cried Vantagio. “You’re to keep them off him! He’s a kid. Jail bait! They could get us on a morals charge!”

Mama Sesso nodded severely. “I a-got it, Signore Meretrici. I a-seen what the boy do on-a the close circuit TV. He save-a you life. He’s-a faster than a-Cesare Borgia! He’s a-good to have around. Maybe he save-a all-a our lives next. La Santissima Vergine send-a him. If they don’ do right by the young boy, out-a they go!”

“Right!” said Vantagio.

Some madames swatted their palms together and the assemblage began to disperse, several sets of lovely eyes remaining reluctantly on Heller. Did they suppose, I thought disgustedly, that he was something to eat? He was far too young for their general taste!

A uniformed attendant came up and struggled with Heller’s baggage. Heller helped him, and because the elevator was jammed, they walked up to the second floor on thickly carpeted stairs.

Vantagio led the way down a long hall and they came to a small room. It was plain but it was clean-almost sanitary. The iron bedstead was white and so was the chest of drawers. The bathroom was small but modern. All strictly utility.

“How’s this?” said Vantagio.

“Fine,” said Heller.

Some of the women had followed down the hall. But Vantagio peremptorily ordered them away. He got out some old cards and a ball point. Using the back of one, he wrote an address on it.

“Now, this,” he said to Heller, “is a tall man’s shop. You go out and buy yourself a summer suit you haven’t grown out of. And get something besides baseball shoes! You got dough?”

“Lots,” said Heller.

“Good. But you wash up and when you come down, bring any excess dough and I’ll give you a small personal safe with your own combination. We want to keep this an honest house!” He left.

Heller stowed his things, washed up, checked the lock on his door and then went down with the fifty thousand in the paper sack his breakfast had come in.

Vantagio showed him the battery of private safes and how to open one. It seemed UN people carried documents and things around they wanted stowed for the few hours they might be there.

Heller mastered how to change the combination and then changed it so fast I couldn’t read it off! But it would be impossible to get near it or even get to his baggage. My interest in stealing it was purely academic. It punched through how protected he was now!

He left the Gracious Palms on foot, happy I suppose to have some exercise. I wasn’t happy. He had more guns pointing at him now than I could easily count. The Faustino mob knew his face and he had killed three of their men, one of them maybe a lieutenant of the mob! And add in Police Inspector Grafferty. He had seen Heller face to face and cops remember things — that’s their trade: mentally cataloguing who to shoot down next!

Shortly it did not help my morale a bit to receive the day’s report of Raht and Terb. It read:

Went to whorehouse and got (bleeped) and they stole his baggage. He’s probably broke but seems safe.

I could have killed them!

Miles from the UN area, and now in the garment district, Heller was clickety-clacking along, on his way to I knew not where but, if I knew Heller, up to no good.

It was evidently a hot midday in New York and people were slouching along, mopping their faces and carrying their coats over their arms. One would have thought that they would have glanced at Heller but New York is a peculiar place: practically nobody ever looks at anybody no matter what they are doing — including rape and murder. Even dead bodies can lie on the street until the sanitation department gets a complaint — and answers it if they happen to have any appropriation that month. So Heller was attracting no attention.

Wait! I was wrong!

Heller glanced back and I saw someone quickly turn. Was it Raht or Terb? I got the other screen working and stilled it. No, it wasn’t Raht or Terb. It was too brief a glimpse to make it out. But someone had noted his departure.

They push delivery carts of racked clothes through the streets of the garment district at a mad pace and Heller was dodging these. He had come to a shop. The sign said:

Heller was shortly involved in trying to purchase something that fit. It was off-season — too late for summer clothes to be in demand, too soon for winter clothes — and because business was bad, the shop was dedicated to making it worse.

He found a dark blue suit of summer weight. He couldn’t find a normal shirt — they all had collars of twenty-five or so inches and girths of sixty. Finally he located three drip-dry cotton ones. They had Eton collars! These are the kind the undergraduates wear in England!

The real tailor that did adjustments was on vacation and the helper he had left behind botched the suit alteration. He adjusted the coat sleeves and pants cuffs too short again!

But Heller dressed anyway. He was now in dark blue with an Eton collar and he looked younger than ever!

He presented the store with the red-checked jacket and the blue-striped pants. And because those clothes were bugged, I bitterly surmised that Raht and Terb, who were depending on those bugs, would now stake out the tall man’s shop!

He couldn’t find any shoes he liked so he kept the baseball spikes on, popped his red baseball cap on the back of his head and was shortly engaged again in what seemed his favorite pastime: examining fenders of parked cars.

In peripheral vision, I saw the figure again. He was being tailed!

But Heller? Did he take evasive tactics? Run through a large store with two entrances? Dash into a crowd? Not Heller! He didn’t even inspect the street behind him! Amateur!

He knelt down by the fender of a very modern car and bent it with his fingers — an easy thing for anybody to do. Then he looked around quickly to see if the unintentional act of vandalism had been noticed. Apparently to make sure he covered it up, he stood, turned, folded his arms and sort of lounged back against the fender. It really buckled!

He walked off. And then, abruptly, began the craziest series of actions I had yet seen him engage upon.

He caught a cab. Breathlessly, he said to the driver, “Quick! Take me to the bus terminal! Five-dollar tip!”

They went westward. No especially hurried ride. Heller got out at the Port Authority Bus Terminal and paid the driver.

Immediately, he got another cab. He leaped in and said urgently, “Quick! Take me to the Manhattan Air Terminal! I’m late! Five-dollar tip!”

Aha! I thought I understood at last! He had noticed the tail and was shaking it!

Cross-town rides are slow and it was very uneventful.

At the Manhattan Air Terminal, he paid the driver and got out.

Then Heller walked along a line of cabs, looking at their fenders. He found one with some bashes. It was a Really Red Cab Company hack.

Heller leaped in. “Quick! I have to be at Broadway and 52nd Street in two minutes and nineteen seconds. There’s a five-dollar tip!”

Disregarding other drivers’ protests that it was not his turn to go, the cabby zipped out of line, screamed into high gear. He cut a corner, bashed a car out of his way, ran a red light, sent a works-in-progress sign skyrocketing and stopped at Broadway and 52nd Street. Heller looked at his watch. It was two minutes!