“What’s that?” Jack asked.
“They always pay with a cashier’s check,” Igor said. “I’ve never seen that before. It’s okay, of course, but customers usually have established credit.”
“Is there a telephone number?” Jack asked.
“Just the address,” Igor said, which he repeated.
Jack thanked Igor for his help and hung up the phone. Taking out the phone directory, he looked up Frazer Labs. There was no listing. He tried information but had the same luck.
Jack sat back. Once again he’d gotten information he didn’t expect. He now had two sources of the offending bacteria. Since he already knew something about the lab at the Manhattan General, he thought he’d better visit Frazer Labs. If there was some way he could establish an association with the two labs or with Martin Cheveau personally, he’d turn everything over to Lou Soldano.
The first problem was the concern about being followed. The previous evening he’d thought he’d been so clever but had been humbled by Shawn Magoginal. Yet to give himself credit, he had to remember that Shawn was an expert. The Black Kings certainly weren’t. But to make up for their lack of expertise, the Black Kings were ruthless. Jack knew he’d have to lose a potential tail rapidly since they had clearly demonstrated a total lack of compunction about attacking him in public.
There was also the collateral worry about Warren and his gang. Jack didn’t know what to think about them. He had no idea of Warren’s state of mind. It was something Jack would have to face in the near future.
To lose any tail Jack wanted a crowded location with multiple entrances and exits. Immediately Grand Central Terminal and the Port Authority Bus Terminal came to mind. He decided on the former since it was closer.
Jack wished there were some underground way of getting over to the NYU Medical Center to help him get away from the office, but there wasn’t. Instead he settled on a radio-dispatched taxi service. He directed the dispatcher to have the car pick him up at the receiving bay of the morgue.
Everything seemed to work perfectly. The car came quickly. Jack slipped in from the bay. They managed to hit the light at First Avenue; at no time was Jack a sitting duck in a motionless car. Still, he hunched low in his seat, out of view, sparking the driver’s curiosity. The cabbie kept stealing looks at Jack in his rearview mirror.
As they drove up First Avenue, Jack raised himself up and watched out the back. He saw nothing suspicious. No cars suddenly pulled into the traffic. No one ran out to flag a cab.
They turned left on Forty-second Street. Jack had the driver pull up directly in front of Grand Central. The moment the car came to a stop, Jack was out and running. He dashed through the entrance and merged quickly with the crowd. To be absolutely sure he was not being followed, he descended into the subway and boarded the Forty-second Street shuttle.
When the train was about to leave and the doors had started to close, Jack impeded their closing and jumped off the train. He ran up into the station proper and exited back onto Forty-second Street through a different entrance than he used when he arrived.
Feeling confident, Jack hailed a taxi. At first he told the driver to take him to the World Trade Center. During the trip down Fifth Avenue he watched to see if any cars, taxis, or trucks could have been following.
When none seemed to be doing so, Jack told the driver to take him to 550 Broome Street.
Jack finally began to relax. He sat back in the seat and put his hands to his temples. The headache he’d awakened with in the overheated hotel room had never completely gone away. He’d been ascribing the lingering throb to anxiety, but now there were new symptoms. He had a vague sore throat accompanied by mild coryza. There was still a chance it was all psychosomatic, but he was still worried.
After rounding Washington Square, the taxi driver went south on Broadway before turning east on Houston Street. At Eldridge he made a right. Jack looked out at the scenery. He’d not had any idea where Broome Street was, although he’d assumed it was someplace downtown, south of Houston. That entire section of the city was one of the many parts of New York he had yet to explore, and there were many street names with which he was unfamiliar.