Dark Passage (19 page)

Irene smiled. “You know, it’s odd. I ought
to get irritated. I ought to get irritated at a lot of things you
say. Or maybe it's because I know what you really mean to say. You
say we should sit here and feel sorry for Madge and what you really
mean is we should sit here and check Madge off the list and get
onto Bob.”

Parry started toward the window, changed
his mind, went over to the radio-phonograph and ran fingers along
the glazed yellow surface. He said, “When does Bob come into
it?”

“About a month or so after I became
friendly with Madge. Of course she told me all about him, what a
cad he was, what a beast, what a skunk, and I think she went at
least halfway through the zoo. I saw a way of maneuvering the
situation and when I saw his name in the telephone book I did a
very rotten thing. I called him up and told him I was a friend of
Madge’s and I was curious to see what he looked like and what he
amounted to. He was peeved at first but I put some comedy into it
and after some twenty minutes of fencing he agreed to give me a
dinner date. I told Madge about it and she got a kick out of it and
later I told her about the dinner date and she got a kick out of
that, too. But then when there were more dates and she walked in on
one of them she stopped getting a kick out of it. She saw I was
having a definite effect on Bob and that was when she began to
bother me. You know, the subtle approach. An insinuation here and
there, a dig, a statement that I could take two ways. She never
came out in the open and demanded that I stop seeing Bob. That
isn't her method. When I told Bob about it he said I shouldn't give
it another thought. He said Madge is happy only when she is
pestering people. He told me to get into the habit of shutting a
door in her face, but I couldn't get myself to do that.”

“Did Bob ever talk about Gert?” He wasn’t
sure why he was asking that.

“He said she was a plague. He said he
pitied you.”

“How did he know she was a plague? Did
Madge tell him that?”

“No. That was his own opinion.”

“Based on what? Maybe I’m going to find
out something. I didn't know Bob was closely acquainted with
Gert.”

“He was seeing her.”

“Oh. So he was seeing her. You mean he
admitted that?”

Irene nodded. “He was seeing a lot of
her.”

“Because he wanted to?”

“I can’t say for sure. He didn't go into
it with me.”

“What do you think?”

“I think Gert was trying to lasso
him.”

“Let’s come back to Madge. Did Madge know
about Gert and Bob?”

“I asked Bob about that and he said no. He
said he wasn’t seeing Gert during the time Madge had that man
watching him. There was no way Madge could know. They were meeting
each other in out-of-the-way places. They were very
careful.”

“You mean Bob Rapf admitted that to
you?”

“He admitted the technical side of
it.”

“The technical side,” Parry murmured. “And
did it give you anything to work with?”

“No,” Irene said. “there wasn’t enough of
it. And it was only one side. Anyway, by that time I wasn't working
on it any more. I was beginning to feel that there wasn't any way I
could help you.”

“Only one side,” Parry murmured, again
looking at the floor, “—only one side, and it’s the technical side.
All right, let's stay technical. Let's put it in numbers. Did he
say how many times a week he was seeing Gert?”

“I didn’t ask him that. I didn't see where
it mattered.”

“I don’t see either. But I'm trying to
see. During those last two months before she died she was out three
or four nights a week. I never asked where she went, because by
that time I didn't give a hang where she went. I don't know, there
could be an opening here. Three or four nights a week, and if I
could know definitely she was spending all those nights with Bob
Rapf I might have something.”

“And what would you do with
it?”

“I don’t know. This sort of thing is out
of my line. Those last two months. You see what I'm getting at? I
want to know what she was doing those last two months. That's the
keyhole, and now all I need is the key.”

“I’m afraid that's out, Vincent. It's too
late for the key.”

“Because I’m in no position to go
hunting?”

“Because the key is Gert. Only Gert could
tell you what she was doing those last two months, those three or
four nights a week when she was out. You can’t build anything from
what you've got now. You have no way of knowing there was anything
important between Gert and Bob. Or Gert and anyone. So you can't do
anything with that. You've got to find something else. Maybe if you
could take yourself back to those last two months you could find
something.”

“Make it four months. The last four
months. But there’s nothing in that except trouble and heartache,
knowing everything was ruined, the way she wouldn’t let me touch
her, the way she made me sleep in the living room those last four
months. Were you there that day when they got that out of
me?”

“Yes,” she said. “I was there every
day.”

“And you remember when they asked me about
other women? You remember the way my lawyer objected and the
prosecution claimed it was necessary to establish the factor of
other women or perhaps one woman in particular, and you remember
what I said?”

“I remember you said there was nobody
special. You said you were with other women now and then. They
asked you for the names of those other women and you said you
didn’t remember. The prosecution said it was impossible for you not
to remember at least one or two of those names and you said you
didn't even remember one. I knew you were lying. Everybody in that
courtroom knew you were lying. You made a big mistake there,
Vincent, trying to protect those other women, because you should
have been thinking only of your own case. What you should have done
was to say that you remembered but refused to give those names in
public.”

“I know,” Parry said. ” My lawyer bawled
me out for it afterward. But afterward was too late. Anyway, it
wouldn’t have mattered. I didn't have a chance, no matter which way
you look at it. And if I start with the what I should have dones
and the what I should have knowns all I'll get out of it is a bad
headache. My whole case was built around the theory that it was an
accident, that she fell and hit her head on the ash tray. That was
really the big mistake. But why go back to it? Why try to do
anything about it? It's too late. It's much too late. I can't hang
around even though I've got this new face, and besides I don't have
the brains for that sort of thing. I don't know how to go about it.
There's only one thing for me to do, and that's to get out of this
town as fast as I can.”

“You’ll need more money.”

“What you given me already is
plenty.”

“Where will you go?”

“I told you I don’t know.”

“You do know but you won’t tell
me.”

“All right, I do know. Why should I tell
you?”

She got up from the sofa. She walked
across the room, turned when she came to the wall. She leaned
against the wall. She said, “Do you think I’d ever change my mind?
Do you think I'd ever let them know where you were?”

“You might.”

“And that’s why you won't tell
me?”

“That’s why.”

“That’s not why. You won't tell me because
you think I'll come there. You think I'll follow you.”

“You’d be crazy to follow me.”

“Was I crazy to pick you up on that road?
Was I crazy to let you stay here?”

“Yes.”

“And if I was crazy enough to do that, I’d
be crazy enough to follow you. Isn't that it?”

“I guess so. I don’t know.” He glanced at
the wrist watch.

She took herself away from the wall. She
folded her arms, as if she was standing in the cold. She looked
very little, standing there. She said, “You do know. You know you
could trust me. You know I’d never say anything. But you have a
feeling I'd follow you if you told me where you were going. And you
don't want me to do that. You don't want me there. You don't need
me there. Isn't that the way it is?”

“I guess that’s the way it is.”

She smiled. She went into the bedroom.
When she came out there was money in her hand. She gave the bills
to him, one at a time, and it added up to a thousand
dollars.

He stood there with the money in his open
hand. He said, “I really don’t need this.”

“You’ve got to have something. What you
have isn't enough.”

“All right, thanks.” He put the money in
his pocket.

She said, “Shall I call a
taxi?”

“Please.”

He felt light, he felt unfettered. She was
going to call a taxi and he could walk out of here and get in a
taxi and go wherever he wanted to go. He had his new face. He could
do whatever he wanted to do. It was as if he had been stumbling
along a clogged and muddy uncertain road, and all at once it
branched off to become a wide and white concrete road, smooth and
clean, and stretching away and away and away.

She was calling a taxi. He lit a
cigarette.

She put the phone down. “Forty minutes,”
she said. “We’ll have time for breakfast.”

He smiled at her. She was a very dear
friend. She was going to make breakfast for him. He said, “That’ll
be fine. I'm anxious to see.”

“To see what?”

“How it feels to eat with a knife and
fork.”

She laughed brightly and went into the
kitchen. He opened the lid of the phonograph. The black roundness
was there, waiting for the needle. It was Basie again, the same
Basie he had been using for the past four days, concentrating on
the trumpet take-off, the wailing. It was Sent For You Yesterday
And Here You Come Today. He turned the lever, lowered the needle,
and there was the melancholy beginning, the rise of reeds and brass
and the continued rise and the sudden break and Basie’s right hand
touching against not many keys but just the right keys. And he had
almost eighteen hundred dollars in his pocket and he was very rich
and he had this new face. And he was going to have a nice breakfast
and then he was going to get in a cab and go wherever he wanted to
go. And Basie was giving him just the right notes and everything
was just right.

The record was ended. He played it again.
He played it a third time. He selected another Basie. He kept on
playing Basies until she called from the kitchen, telling him that
breakfast was ready.

It was a very nice breakfast. The orange
juice was just right, the scrambled eggs were just right, and the
coffee. And he enjoyed using a knife and fork again. He enjoyed
chewing on food, and the feeling of his new face.

He insisted on helping with the dishes.
She let him dry them. They had cigarettes while they worked on the
dishes. And when they were in the living room again they had more
cigarettes. They were talking about Basie, they were talking about
Oregon. She liked Oregon. She said the grass was a special shade of
green up there. And she liked the lakes up there, the canoeing and
the fishing and the hiking through country where there were no
houses and everything was quiet and green for miles and miles. She
had made many water colors of the Oregon country. She asked him if
he would like to see some of her work. He said yes, and she went
into the bedroom and he heard her searching for the paintings. Then
she was coming into the living room and she had a large packet tied
with string. She started to untie the string and the buzzer
sounded.

She looked up. She said, “Your
taxi.”

“Yes.”

The buzzer sounded again.

She said, “It sounds very final, doesn’t
it?”

“Yes.”

“You’re all right now, Vincent. They can't
get you now.”

“I’ll need a new name.”

“Let me give you a name. Even though
you’ll change it later let me give you one now. To go with your new
face. It's a quiet face. Allan is a quiet name. Allan
and—Linnell.”

The buzzer sounded.

“Allan Linnell,” he said.

“Good-by, Allan.”

He was going toward the door. He turned
and looked at her. She was all alone. He had a feeling she would
always be alone. She would always be starved for real
companionship.

The buzzer sounded again.

She would be all alone here in her little
apartment. Her father was dead, her brother was dead, she really
had nobody.

The buzzer sounded.

“Good-by,” he said, and he walked out of
the apartment.

The rain was flooding the street as he
hurried toward the taxi. His eyes were riveted to the open door of
the taxi. That was all he wanted to see. And when the door closed
all he wanted to do was sit back and shut his eyes and shut his
mind. But as the taxi started down the street he turned and looked
through the rear window. He looked at the apartment house, at the
third row of windows. And he saw something at one of the windows.
He saw her standing there at the window, watching him go
away.