Hamilton, Donald - Novel 01 (12 page)

     
"Felt sorry for me," he
prompted.

     
She smiled a small, reserved smile.
"I don't think you really know when she is coming," she said
presently.

     
"I don't," he agreed.

     
She shifted herself along the door to
reach his other foot. "Then why did you say
... ?"

     
"When she was telling me about
Rochemont
she said the best thing was to tell them you knew
and weren't going to tell. I don't know what the theory is, but I figured she
probably knew what she was talking about."

     
Constance
Bellamann
smiled minutely again. "It doesn't work for everyone," she said.
"She thinks everyone is like her. You have to make them believe you aren't
ever going to tell and you can't do that if ... if you scream rather
easily." She put the cap on the tube. "Do you want me to try to put a
bandage on?"

     
"No, I'll fix them up at the
hotel," he said. "Did I make them believe
...
?"

     
She stood up, brushing at her dress.
"You made them believe they couldn't do it in one night, Mr. Branch,"
she said dryly.

     
He glanced at her with some resentment and
put on his socks and his shoes and stood up gingerly. The salve helped and it
was not as bad as he had expected it to be. While he put on the rest of his
clothes the girl carried the candlestick to the mantelpiece and then pulled the
fire apart with the poker.

     
When they reached the hotel he was, when
he thought about it, still able to walk as if it did not hurt; and he felt
quite proud of himself. He put the roll bandages and the tube of ointment that
he had bought at the corner drugstore into the pocket of his coat went to the
desk to ask if anyone had inquired after him, but nobody had. Out of the corner
of his eye saw the girl go out of sight up the stairs and he hurried after her,
shuffling a little in spite of himself; and caught her as she stopped in front
of her door to fumble for her key in the pocket of her brown jacket. She looked
up him slowly and he let fall the hand with which he had seized her arm.

     
"Did you find out everything they
wanted to know," he demanded savagely. "If there's anything you're
the least bit doubtful about ..."

     
She touched her lips with her tongue.
"No," she said.
"Just that you didn't really
know.
And to make sure you got back all right before somebody found
you." She turned and went into the room and he watched the door close.

HE
STEADIED HIMSELF against the wall and, the constant nagging pain of his feet
suddenly unbearable, leaned his forehead against the wall while the darkness
behind his closed eyes became red, shot through with darting black specks that
vanished like soap bubbles. He heard the door reopen and felt the girl's hand
on his arm; and he forced himself to open his eyes and look down at her small
concerned face. She had had time to remove her jacket and unbutton the neck of
her dress.

     
"Just a minute," she said, her
fingers fastening the small round buttons. "I'll help you to your room,
Mr. Branch."

     
He shook his head to clear it and
straightened up. "I'm all right," he said. He managed a grin.
"Just came all over queer for a moment. I'm all right." She let her
hands fall to her sides and he turned away from her and made himself walk away
from her down the corridor to the door of his room. As he took out his key, not
looking back, he heard the closing of her door.

     
His key would not turn in the lock. He
made himself concentrate on the problem; and he turned the key the other way,
and it turned, all right; and then he turned it back the way it had been and
tried the knob. The door opened. He gave it a small push away from him. After a
moment he reached inside and turned on the light. Then, the room empty, he went
in and closed and locked the door behind him. He crossed the rug to the bed and
sat down, glanced at the bathroom door and at the door to the closet; shrugged
his shoulders, and bent over to remove his shoes. As he struggled with the
knots that had become wet in the walk back through the woods, he was abruptly
aware that someone was standing by the closet door. He pulled on a shoe without
looking up and began to work on the laces of the second.

     
Presently she said, "Hello,
Phillip."

     
He did not raise his head. "Hi,"
he said. "It's about time you showed up."

     
She was silent while he pulled off the
other shoe and began to remove his socks carefully. Then she said, "Aren't
you glad to see me, Phillip?" Her voice sounded a bit annoyed.
"Aren't you going to look at me, Phillip?"

     
When he looked at her she tossed aside to
a chair the fur coat she had been holding, and held herself erect for his
inspection, still wearing the striped dull-yellow suit with the ornate gold
buttons. Her hair was pinned in a snug roll about her head and her unobtrusive
lipstick was as even as ever; but the soft, loosely fitting suit was, from long
wear, a little shapeless about her narrow figure; and the yellow silk shirt was
quite limp, the collar crushed under the lapels of her jacket, and not very
clean.

     
She tugged and brushed at her skirt and
plucked at her rumpled blouse. "Don't I look simply awful, darling?"
she said, coming forward. "I feel as if I hadn't bathed for a week. Did
you think I wasn't coming?"

     
He said, "No, I figured you'd get
here eventually."

     
She stopped in front of him and looked
down at his feet. "What's the matter, Phillip?" Then she kneeled
quickly and, after a moment, looked up at him. "What did they want?"

     
"You."

     
"Poor darling.
And you didn't know. Have you got anything for it?"

     
He tugged the packages he had bought out
of his pocket and watched her, sitting on her heels, open the tube of ointment
and squeeze a quantity of the paste into her hand.

     
"What have you been doing?" he
asked.

     
"Oh," she said vaguely,
"Things." She applied the ointment gently with the tips of her
fingers and said, "It's a nuisance, darling, but it will be all right in a
week or so. You've already put something on it, haven't you?"

     
He nodded.

     
"I didn't have any money for
hotels," she said. He watched her face, correcting the picture of her he
had carried in his mind, as she talked. "I had to pawn my watch," she
said. "I stayed in the strangest places, Phillip. One night I slept in a parked
car. Last night. You walked right by me with that girl. I would have tried to
get in then but I thought maybe you were going to bring her ..." She
laughed under her breath as he moved uncomfortably. "Am I hurting you,
darling? I'm being as gentle as I can.

     
He felt the pain of her fingers and
squirmed.

     
"I'll never trust you out of my sight
again, darling," she said gaily.
"Never again.
Anyway, I couldn't get in. They were all around the hotel. But tonight they all
went off...."

     
He pulled his foot free. "All
right," he said. "You don't have to massage it. Wrap something about
it, will you, so it doesn't get all over everything."

     
She turned her face up to him, betraying a
certain curiosity. "How did it ... Did you ...?"

     
"Did I howl?"

     
"Well, I didn't mean ..."

     
"I grunted," he said. "Have
you ever had your feet toasted?"

     
She shook her head.

     
"All right," he said, "Then
don't be so damned nonchalant about it." He pulled open the box containing
bandages. "I'll do it," he said. "Get me a drink, darling.
There's a bottle in my suitcase." As she rose, on a sudden impulse, he
seized her and drew her to him and kissed her hard on the mouth. "Mrs.
Duval," he said.

     
She stood looking down at him. Presently
she rubbed her hands absently together and drew them along her hips to remove
the slipperiness of the ointment.

     
"Mrs. Haskell-
Lalevy
-Duval,"
he said. "Get me a drink, Mrs. Haskell-
Lalevy
-Duval."

     
He watched her turn slowly away and
go
to the wardrobe. Then he looked at his feet. A nuisance,
he thought, but it will be all right in a week or two! "While you're in
there," he said loudly, "There's thirty-seven hundred dollars in your
bag. A guy left it for you."

     
She came to the door and looked at him.

     
"A guy named Haskell left you some
money," he said impatiently. "If nobody's got to it, it's in with
your black shoes."

     
As she vanished again he looked down at
his feet and wondered what to do about them.
If
 
I
bandage them, he thought, I can't
get my shoes on.

     
"Did you find it?" he asked
loudly.

     
She emerged, thrusting the bills into the
pocket of her jacket. With her hands in her pockets she leaned against the
wall, watching him.

     
"What have they told you about me, darling?"
she murmured. "What did Haskell say?"

     
"He said you were a flat-faced bitch
and a tart and he didn't want any part of you."

     
She smiled briefly.

     
"He said you tried to blackmail
him," Branch went on.

     
She said slowly, "For three years he
has been paying his income tax with my money and I have kindly been allowed to
earn my keep around the house.
Washing dishes.
Tending the children.
Mending for his
wife.
While he banked the checks as they came in and burned the letters.
No, he would say, smiling and pinching me, no, there's no mail, baby, but don't
worry, well take care of you. Now he's afraid I will implicate him. He thought
Sellers would stop me, but Sellers did not, so now he pays me my money so that
I will not be angry with him. So that, in case I am caught, I will not feel it
necessary to volunteer unnecessary information."

     
"How did you
nd
out?"

     
"Louis must have guessed there was
something wrong. He sent a letter by another route."

     
"That's your husband, right?"

     
"Yes," she said. "He's
coming here. They want to kill him."

     
"Why?"

     
Leaning unmoving against the wall she
thrust her fists deeper into the pockets of her jacket. "Don't be a fool,
Phillip."

     
"All right," he said.
"All right.
But what was his particular angle?"

     
"I don't know," she said.
"I never asked him."

     
He watched her smooth self-contained face
with suspicion.

     
"I don't," she insisted.
"What difference does it make? He had to, to live.
To
keep all of us alive.
When it got too bad he helped Father smuggle me
out of the country. He got me out and Father arranged it on this side. The
Maquis
killed Father when the Americans came."

     
"But Louis escaped?"

     
She nodded.

     
"And now he's coming here?"

     
She nodded again. "Yes," she
said bitterly. "Those who stayed, who made the best terms they could, who
kept France alive; they are now dead or in prison or hiding; while the ones who
had apartments in London or New York-"

     
"Or
Evanston
," Branch murmured.

     
"Yes," she said. "But it's
the least I can do, isn't it, to help him?"

     
"God, I don't know," he said.
"Don't ask me what's the least you can do. I don't know."

     
She came forward stiffly with that
long-legged walk she had, her hands thrust deeply into her pockets, and stood
looking down at him. "Do you want me to leave, Phillip?"

     
He said angrily, "For Christ's sake
sit down and relax. You make me nervous stalking around like that." He
felt the bedsprings yield to her weight, but he did not turn his head to look
at her. "Look," he said, "I don't like to have my feet burned.
It annoys me."

     
"Yes, Phillip," she murmured.

     
"That bastard got a kick out of
it," he said.
"That
Laflin
bastard.
He was holding me and every time it got to me I could see him
grin like a hyena. He was having a swell time.... I don't like that," he
said angrily, turning to her. "If they feel they have to know something
bad enough to do that, all right, but damned if I can stand anybody's enjoying
it." He stared at her for a moment. "On the other hand," he said
harshly, "it's not worth getting court-martialed for, if you know what I
mean. It's not worth landing in jail for."

     
Her evenly colored mouth smiled a little
in her smooth face. "You mean, you would like revenge, Phillip, but you
don't want to take any risks."

     
"Listen," he said, "I want
to beat hell out of the bastard. I'd kill him if there wasn't a law against
it."

     
"But you won't."

     
"You've got four thousand
bucks," he said irritably. "What the hell do you need help for?"
He laughed. "You see what a lot of good I am for protection," he
said, gesturing towards his feet.

     
She put her long-fingered hand on top of
his hand. *You can run a boat, Phillip," she said.

     
He could feel her fingers moving gently,
stroking the back of his hand, she looking down at them and not watching his
face at all. It occurred to him that the other girl had also brought up the
subject of boats. Anything that floats, he had said, I can handle it. "How
do you know I can run a boat?" he asked.

     
"You told me," she said.
"When I asked why you had joined the Navy. You said you had sailed boats
all your life."

     
"I sure hand out a lot of free
information about myself," he said. "Well, I'm not going to."

     
Her shoulders moved in a minute shrug.
"All right, darling."

     
"Cut it out," he said.
"Darling, darling, darling.
 
What about this Louis guy?"

     
She looked down at her hands, now folded
against her yellow wool skirt. "That's different," she said. "It
was partly for me that he did what he did, and he is my husband. I am quite
fond of him and I owe him a great deal, perhaps my life. But-" She shrugged.
"After three years ...