ack in his room, Malone put on a fresh shirt, checked the .44 Magnum in his shoulder holster, changed jackets, adjusted his hat to the proper angle, and vanished.
He had, he'd realized, exactly one definite lead. And now he was going to follow up on it. The Government was apparently falling to pieces; so was business and so was the Mafia. Nobody Malone had heard of had gained anything. Except Mike Sand and his truckers. They'd beaten the Mafia, at least.
Sand was worth a chat. Malone had a way to get in to see him, but he had to work fast. Otherwise Sand would very possibly know what Malone was trying to do. And that might easily be dangerous.
He had made his appearance in the darkness beneath one of the bridges at the southwest side of Central Park, in New York. It was hardly Malone's idea of perfect comfort, but it did mean safety; there was very seldom anyone around after dark, and the shadows were thick enough so that his "appearance" would only mean, to the improbable passerby, that he had stepped out into the light.
Now he strolled quietly over to Central Park West, and flagged a taxi heading downtown. He'd expected to run into one of the roving muggers who still made the Park a trap for the unwary—he'd almost looked forward to it, in a way—but nobody appeared. It was unusual, but he didn't have time to wonder about it.
The headquarters for the National Brotherhood of Truckers was east of Greenwich Village, on First Avenue, so Malone had plenty of time to think things out while the cab wended its laborious southeast way. After a few minutes he realized that he would have even more time to think than he'd planned on.
"Lots of traffic for this time of night," he volunteered.
The cabbie, a fiftyish man with a bald, wrinkled head and surprisingly bright blue eyes, nodded without turning his head. "Maybe you think this is bad," he said. "You would not recognize the place an hour earlier, friend. During the real rush hour, I mean. Things are what they call meshuggah, friend. It means crazy."
"How come?" Malone said.