As Sandy went by, Ken said quietly, “I’ll be behind you. Looks like he’s heading for the Seventy-second Street subway station.”
“Check.”
Ken’s prophecy was accurate. They boys took up positions on the station platform on either side of Barrack to make sure he didn’t leave by another entrance, and only moved in toward their quarry when a train slowed to a stop before them. They watched him board a car by its center door and then, screened by other riders, they entered the same car by the doors at either end.
The train was an express, and it rocketed its way downtown without a stop until it reached Times Square. Barrack didn’t even look up as the train stood in the station there. He was engrossed in a newspaper.
But at Thirty-fourth Street, the next stop, he made his way hurriedly out of the car. When he reached the street the boys were both fairly close behind him, and Ken cautiously dropped back another twenty feet.
Barrack walked west on Thirty-fourth Street at a rapid pace until he turned abruptly and entered a cafeteria. Sandy waited on the sidewalk until Ken came up.
“Do we go in?”
“Better not. You stand inside this doorway here, and I’ll take the one beyond the cafeteria.”
Sandy glanced longingly toward the warm steamy interior, but he didn’t argue.
Barrack was out again in less than fifteen minutes, to continue his rapid pace westward. Sandy moved out into the stream of pedestrians in his wake, and Ken fell into position behind him.