Chapter 6

From the moment he left the motel that morning, Roger Thornhill felt an overwhelming uneasiness take hold of him. It was not merely the fear of capture by the police, nor the idea that he might run into trouble at Ilsa Gruber's apartment. It was something more than that. He had grown very fond of Nicole Jordane over the last couple of days and his reasons for sending her home had less to do with finding out information than keeping her out of danger.

She was obviously a bright and darling young woman and he knew that she would plunge headlong into trouble with him if he gave her even the slightest chance. But he was no hero and for all his calm he had displayed, he didn't know what the hell he was doing, either.

The cab ride to Ilsa Gruber's apartment filled him with worry and fear. It seemed that the driver kept looking at him in the rear view mirror and every light they stopped at, some cop was peering into the cab, taking down his description in his mind.

Roger tried to get ahold of himself. Him being insane, he told himself. You know enough about people from your work to try to merely understand that he wouldn't recognize his own mother from a fleeting glance during a busy day.

Still, he could not shake the worrisome feeling that something terrible was going to happen. He squirmed in the back seat of the car and shifted his eyes from left to right over the crowded Washington streets.

"You're from out of town, ain't you," the cab driver said, glancing over his shoulder at Roger.

"What, what," Roger almost shouted, an icy tingle of fear racing through his spine. "Why do you say that?"

"Take it easy, buddy," the driver laughed. "It ain't nothing important! I just can tell, that's all."

"How can you do that," Roger asked, trying to sound a little more relaxed.

"Ah, it's easy," the cabbie went on. He pointed out the window to the street. "It's the way you keep looking around. The city does that to people the first time they come. It gets to them, you know?"

"I imagine it does," laughed Roger, nervously. "I can see how a lot of things can happen here."

"Ain't that the truth. Everything begins and ends in this town, buddy, believe me, I know!"

"I wouldn't be surprised if you're right," Roger agreed, thinking about Vandam and the hundreds of cops that were looking for him at the moment. "I wouldn't be surprised at all."

"Well, here you are, buddy," the driver said, slowing the cab to a halt in front of a huge, new apartment complex. "That'll be five-seven ty-five."

Roger gave him a ten and told him to keep the change, the driver acted as if it were nothing special and Roger climbed out of the cab and entered the apartment building.

He asked the desk clerk to see if Miss

Gruber was in. The man stared at him as if every person that entered the building were a potential thief or worse and rather reluctantly dialed Ilsa Gruber's number on the house telephone.

I have to get this suit cleaned, Roger thought, staring at his shabby attire in a full length mirror that graced the lobby of the building. I look as if I slept in it. Which wasn't far from the truth.

"Your name, Sir," the desk clerk asked in a cold, official voice. "Who shall I say is calling."

"A close friend of Mister Vandam's," Roger replied, thinking that ought to get a rise out of her.

The clerk nodded and returned to the phone. After a brief conversation with the woman ten floors above, he nodded to Roger and directed him to a bank of elevators to the left of the lobby.

"Apartment ten-seventeen," he said then turned to his work without another word, ignoring Roger's thank you.

"Pleasant fellow," Roger muttered under his breath as he walked toward the elevator. "Kind' of man that fills you with faith in human goodness!"

He rode up to Ilsa's floor and got out, quickly finding her apartment. When the stunning, tall woman of about thirty-eight opened the door, Roger wasted no time. He pushed his way in, slamming it shut behind him and shoved the woman to the couch in the center of the room.

"Where's Vandam," he said roughly, in a menacing tone. "Talk fast, I don't have a lot of time!"

"I don't know where he is," the woman said in an irritated voice. "And would you mind telling me who you are."

"My name is Roger Thornhill and I'm wanted for murder," he said, glaring at her with the coldest eyes he could invent. "I'm a very dangerous man and if you don't start talking fm going to throw you out of that window!"

Since she had been alerted that she would probably be getting a visit from him, she merely pretended the certain amount of fear she was showing. "I don't think that will be necessary," she said lightly. "Since Leonard is supposed to be coming over some time this afternoon."

"We'll just wait, then," Roger said, sitting down on the couch beside her. "I've got plenty of time."

"Would you care for some wine, while you are waiting?" the lovely woman asked. "I was just about to pour myself a glass."

He nodded and she poured two tall glasses of wine from a decanter on the mantle over the fireplace. She carefully shielded her hands from his view and put a few drops of a sleeping drug in one of the glasses. She handed him the unaffected one as she sat down and then laughed when he immediately exchanged glasses with her.

"You are the trusting one, aren't you," she chuckled, taking a long drink from her glass.

"If I were anymore trusting I wouldn't be alive," he answered her gruffly.

She leaned back on the couch and played with his hair in an absent manner. She smiled at him and sighed. "You're rather cute for a murderer," she said softly. "One would hardly know it."

"I'm no killer," he protested. "That is why I'm going to have a talk with your Mister Vandam."

"Leonard is a bit weird," she sighed. "Everyone thinks I'm his mistress but there is nothing sexual between us. I don't think he has sex at all, it would be too much of a waste of energy for him."