After watching for a couple more minutes, Philips walked in under the archway acting as if he were a little drunk. The three bums eyed him for a moment and, deciding he meant no harm, went back to their cards.
“Any of you guys want to earn ten bucks?” said Martin.
For the second time, the three derelicts looked up.
“Whatta we have to do for ten bucks?” asked the youngest.
“Be me for ten minutes.”
The three bums looked at one another and laughed. The younger one stood up.
“Yeah, and what do I do when I’m you?”
“You go up to the Cloisters and you walk around. If anybody asks you who you are, you say, Philips.”
“Let me see the ten bucks.”
Philips produced the money.
“How about me?” said one of the older men, getting to his feet with difficulty.
“Shut up, Jack,” said the younger. “What’s your whole name, mister?”
“Martin Philips.”
“Okay, Martin, you got a deal.”
Taking off his coat and his hat, Philips made the man put them on, pulling the hat well down. Then Martin took the bum’s coat and reluctantly put his arms into the sleeves. It was an old shabby chesterfield with a narrow velvet lapel. In the pocket was part of a sandwich without a wrapper.
Despite Martin’s objections, the other two men insisted on coming along. They laughed and joked until Philips said the whole deal was off if they didn’t shut up.
“Should I walk real straight?” asked the younger fellow.
“Yes,” said Martin, who was having second thoughts about the masquerade. The path approached the courtyard below the main driveway. There was a steep incline just before the cobblestoned area with a bench at the top for tired pedestrians. The stone wall bordering the entrance ended abruptly at the intersection. Directly across was the main doorway to the Cloisters itself.
“Okay,” whispered Martin. “Just walk over to that door, try to open it, then walk back, and the ten spot is yours.”
“How do you know I’m not going to just run away with your hat and coat,” said the younger fellow.
“I’ll take the chance. Besides, I’d catch you,” said Philips.
“What’s your name again?”
“Philips. Martin Philips.”
The tramp pulled Philips’ hat even lower on his forehead so that he had to tilt his head back to see. He started up the incline but lost his balance. Martin gave him a shove in the small of the back and he pitched forward and catwalked on his hands and feet up to the level of the drive.
Martin inched up the incline until his eye line was just above the stone wall. The tramp had already crossed the roadway and had reached the cobblestones, the irregular surface momentarily causing him to lose his balance, but he caught himself before he fell. He skirted the central island, which served as a bus stop, and made his way over to the wooden door. “Anybody home?” he yelled. His voice echoed in the courtyard. He stumbled out into the center of the yard and shouted: “I’m Martin Philips.”
There was no sound except a light patter of rain, which had just begun. The ancient monastery, with its roughhewn ramparts, gave the scene an unreal, timeless quality. Martin wondered again if he was the victim of a giant hallucination.
Suddenly, a shot shattered the quiet. The tramp in the courtyard was lifted off his feet and dashed to the granite paving. The effect was the same as a high velocity shell hitting a ripe melon. The entrance of the bullet was a surgical incision ; the exit was a horrid tearing force that took away most of the man’s face and scattered it over a thirty-foot arc.
Philips and his two companions were stunned. When they realized that someone had shot the tramp, they turned and fled, falling over each other down the precipitous incline that fell away from the monastery.
Never had Martin felt such desperation. Even when he’d run from Werner’s, he hadn’t experienced such fear. Any second he expected to hear the rifle again and feel the searing pain of a deadly bullet. He knew that whoever was after him would check the body in the courtyard and immediately realize the mistake. He had to get away.