Midnight

Excerpt

CHAPTER I

OUT OF THE STORM

Taxicab No. 92,381 skidded crazily on the icy pavement of Atlantic Avenue. Spike Walters, its driver, cursed roundly as he applied the brakes and with difficulty obtained control of the little closed car. Depressing the clutch pedal, he negotiated the frozen thoroughfare and parked his car in the lee of the enormous Union Station, which bulked forbiddingly in the December midnight.

Atlantic Avenue was deserted. The lights at the main entrance of the Union Station glowed frigidly. Opposite, a single arc-lamp on the corner of Cypress Street cast a white, cheerless light on the gelid pavement. The few stores along the avenue were dark, with the exception of the warmly lighted White Star restaurant directly opposite the Stygian spot where Spike's car was parked.

The city was in the grip of the first cold wave of the year. For two days the rain had fallen—a nasty, drizzling rain which made the going soggy and caused people to greet one another with frowns. Late that afternoon the mercury had started a rapid downward journey. Fires were piled high in the furnaces, automobile-owners poured alcohol into their radiators. The streets were deserted early, and the citizens, for the most part, had retired shiveringly under mountains of blankets and down quilts still redolent of moth-balls.

Winter had come with freezing blasts which swept around corners and chilled to the bone. The rain of two days became a driving sleet, which formed a mirror of ice over the city.

On the seat of his yellow taxicab, Spike Walters drew a heavy lap-robe more closely about his husky figure and shivered miserably. Fortunately, the huge bulk of the station to his right protected him in a large measure from the shrieking wintry winds. Mechanically Spike kept his eyes focused upon the station entrance, half a block ahead.

But no one was there. Nowhere was there a sign of life, nowhere an indication of warmth or cheer or comfort. With fingers so numb that they were almost powerless to do the bidding of his mind, Spike drew forth his watch and glanced at it. Midnight!

Spike replaced the watch, blew on his numb fingers in a futile effort to restore warmth, slipped his hands back into a pair of heavy—but, on this night, entirely inadequate—driving-gloves, and gave himself over to a mental rebellion against the career of a professional taxi-driver.

"Worst night I've ever known," he growled to himself; and he was not far wrong.

Midnight! No train due until 12.25, and that an accommodation from some small town up-State. No taxi fares on such a train as that. The north-bound fast train—headed for New York—that was late, too. Due at 11.55, Spike had seen a half-frozen station-master mark it up as being fifty minutes late. Perhaps a passenger to be picked up there—some sleepy, disgruntled, entirely unhappy person eager to attain the warmth and coziness of a big hotel.

Yet Spike knew that he must wait. The company for which he worked specialized on service. It boasted that every train was met by a yellow taxicab—and this was Spike's turn for all-night duty at the Union Station....