Hamilton, Donald - Novel 01 (5 page)

     
"No, I don't guess there is,"
Branch said without looking at the man.

     
"Any place you'd like to see while
we're riding?"

     
Branch shook his head. I'll wait him out,
he thought, .if it takes until Christmas. I'll be damned if I'm going to ask
him what he wants.

     
"If there is," the big man insisted,
"just say so."

     
"All right,
Central Park
," Branch said.

     
The big man laughed. "Sure, Central
Park," he said. "But you really ought to have a girl along when you
ride in
Central
Park
."

     
Branch, still not looking at him, said,
"She went to her hotel. Do you want to stop by and get her?"

     
The big man's laugh filled the car. He
laughed as if he had heard quite the funniest thing in the world. He clapped
Branch on the knee. "I like a man with a sense of humor, Lieutenant."

     
"Just call me Mister," Branch said.
"I don't rate a title until I make Commander, sometime in
nineteen-ninety."

     
He heard the laugh roll out again and
thought, oh, put a sock in it. He found himself wondering where the money had
come from that had paid for the car, and the cigarettes, and the beautifully
cut tweed overcoat that the big man was wearing, but he could not even make a
reasonable guess. It seemed to him that ever since he had met her on the train
people had been different, so that it was a constant surprise to him that he actually
understood what they were saying, as if they should have been talking a
language quite incomprehensible to him, since he did not have the slightest
understanding of their thoughts or backgrounds. She herself was that way, and
the
Laflins
had been that way, and now this man. Only
the heavy businesslike manner of Dickerson had been familiar, like a policeman
handing out a ticket.

     
He saw the leafless trees of the park go
past the windows on either
side,
and through them and
over them he could see the buildings of
Fifth Avenue
.

     
"Lieutenant--I mean Mister
Branch," the big man said, and laughed.

     
Branch glanced at him.

     
"You don't want to get mixed up in
that stuff", big man said.

     
"What stuff?"

     
"Don't kid me, Branch," the big
man said. "Don't kid me.

     
"All right," said Branch.
"I won't kid you."

     
"I want to apologize to you,"
the big man said.

     
Branch laughed abruptly. "Go right
ahead," he said.

     
"Dickerson was a mistake," the
big man said. "He and I talked it over and we both agreed ..."

     
"That he was a mistake?" Branch
turned in his seat and laughed again. "That I want to see," he said.
"Dickerson agreeing that he was a mistake."

     
"I get what you mean," said the
big man, also laughing. "Yeah, I get what you mean, all right. Well, have
you seen enough of it? That's Fifth over that way and down there's where you
can rent a horse and buggy to ride around in. I never liked horses
myself," he said. "Suppose we go some place where I can park this
hearse and we can have a talk, if you've seen enough of it."

     
Branch nodded and shortly they were parked
in a residential section that looked like any residential section in any
moderately large city in
America
. The big man took an
envelope from his pocket and gave it to Branch. "It's all yours," he
said.

     
Inside the envelope were half a dozen
strips of film, cut to lengths of four pictures each. The pictures, even in the
negative, were unmistakable and caused a reminiscent crawling sensation to go
down Branch's neck and shoulders. Branch looked at the big man beside him, who
was carefully cutting the end from a cigar with a small nickel-plated penknife.

     
"What do I do with them?" Branch
asked.

     
"Shove them, Lieutenant," the
big man said genially. "Burn them. I told you it was a mistake." He
lit the cigar thoroughly and then, holding the match, took one of the film
strips, and put it in the flame. The film melted and curled under the heat and
then, with a hissing sound, exploded into flame.

     
"Hell!" cried the big man,
dropping it, and he brushed the fiercely blazing snake-like spiral from the
seat onto the door and stamped on it, both of them coughing in the bitter
smoke. Branch opened the door beside him and got out
The
big man kicked the flame into the street where it flared up again and burned
itself out.

     
"Well!" said the big man,
"Well, Jesus Christ!"

     
Branch said, "I'm afraid you've
scorched your upholstery."

     
"My God," said the big man and
wiped his face with a large linen handkerchief. They got back into the car,
leaving the windows open. "Burn them yourself," said the big man.
"To hell with that stuff"

     
Branch put the envelope in his pocket.
"How do I now this is all of them?"

     
"It's the negatives, isn't it? And he
gave you the prints this morning." The big man was rubbing at the
blackened spot on the cushion between them.

     
"He could have made more
prints."

     
"Well, he didn't"

     
"Well," said Branch.
"All right.
And what do we do now?"

     
The big man straightened up and found the
cigar he had laid aside against the windshield, examined it, and re-lighted it
to make certain it was burning evenly.

     
"Look, Branch," he said at last.
"Look, let's put it this way. You came here to have a good time, didn't
you? You picked the best place in the world, all right, there is no place like
it, but suppose somebody made it worth your while to pass it up this time?
You've seen a little of it and you can always come back.
New York
won't run away. Next year,
say, you can do the town right. I'11 give you cards to some folks I know and
then turn this little burg inside out for you. ..."

     
"What about showing me around
yourself
?" The big man laughed his rolling laugh.
"Always kidding," he said.
"Always kidding.
That's what I like about you, Branch. I should give you my card, eh?"

     
"What about the license-plates?"
Branch asked.

     
The big man, still laughing, slapped him
on the knee. "Just for a gag, check up on them. It could give you a laugh,
maybe."

     
Branch looked at him laughing and felt a
little tired of everything being so funny. "Well," he said, "how
much is it worth to you
?.
The big man stopped
laughing. Name your own price, Branch. That way you won't be feeling I
jewed
you down."

     
"All right," said Branch,
"A thousand.

     
The big man raised his eyebrows but said
only, "One grand. Check," and took a wallet from his hip pocket and
counted ten new one-hundred-dollar bills into Branch's hand. "You'll take
the first train leaving and you won't see her again, right?" he said when
he was through.

     
"Check," said Branch, putting
the bills away in his wallet.

     
Coming into his hotel room a little
breathless, he closed and locked the door and looked around the familiar
impersonal room with a feeling of having reached sanctuary. After a moment he
took off his coat and cap, opened the window, set an ashtray on the sill, and
one after another burned the strips of film. The envelope he flushed down the
water closet in the bathroom and, standing there, he took the wallet from his
pocket and dropped the first hundred-dollar bill into the returning water,
waited until the cistern had filled, and flushed it again, watching the green
rectangle swirl out of sight into the plumbing.

HE
SAID ANGRILY, Listen, I don't give a damn what you think. Pack your bag and
let's get out of here."
 
"But," she said, "a thousand
dollars, Phillip"

     
"It was my thousand," he said.
"If I want to flush it down the drain I'll flush it."

     
She frowned with the effort of trying to
understand. "It just seems so stupid," she said.
"Just
so terribly stupid.
If you didn't want
it ..
."

     
He said slowly and distinctly, "Now,
Jeannette, listen. The man gave it to me, see. I didn't want to give it to you.
Understand? I wanted to throw it in the
johnny
and
let the water run. I only took it in the first place because the big ape was so
damned sure he could buy me." He let his voice change. "Listen, they
were brand-new bills numbered consecutively and he's got the numbers or I'm a
horse's neck. What he could do about it, I don't know but I'm not running
around with hundred-dollar bills in my pocket that I can't account for, not
after those pictures, and I don't think you'd want to either. It doesn't seem
very sensible at the moment."

     
There were tears in her eyes. "I
don't think very much of your way of being sensible, Phillip," she said in
a choked voice. Turning away, she began to fold her black dress carefully in
preparation for putting it away into the bag that lay open on the bed.

     
He stood by the door watching her.
"Can I help you?" he asked presently.

     
"No, thank you."

     
"Well," he said. "Hurry up.
I don't want to meet that lad again." After a moment he said, "He
must have some kind of racket. No honest man would flash a roll like
that."

     
She turned her head quickly, "Oh, Mr.
Sellers isn't a ...." Then she stopped.

     
"Oh," said Branch, "You
know him?"

     
"Of course I know him," she said
irritably over her shoulder. "Do you think he'd be worried about me if I
didn't know him?"

     
"Well, what is he, then?"

     
"I don't know what he is," she
said, and went away from him into the bathroom to get her toilet articles.
Returning, she said with a sudden mechanical smile,
I'n
sorry, Phillip. It's so hard, when you've been afraid for years, to trust
anyone. Actually Sellers was something of a ... a business associate of my
father's. My father would send him goods that, because of the wartime laws here
in
America
, could not be brought in by
legal... Well," she said, flushing a little, "Sellers smuggled them
in, really. I don't see why I should talk around it; the American women were
ready enough to buy. You are probably right that Sellers is a racketeer,
although I don't know what he is doing now. During the war he had quite an
organization in the Eastern ports, and when it was decided that I should come
over here, it was Mr. Sellers who helped me get to the people in
Evanston
where I was going to stay.
It was quite melodramatic, really. Like an underground. Only now Father is dead
and the war is over and Mr. Sellers doesn't want to be reminded ..." She
smiled and shrugged her shoulders. "I was not very clever. I was so sure that
he would help me that when he said he wouldn't... when he acted as if I were
a...a beggar. I lost my temper and threatened him. He thought I would try to
blackmail him, I guess."

     
"That's why he had your room
searched?"

     
"I suppose so, to see if I had any
papers that might involve him." She patted her hair into place. "Will
you close my bag for me, Phillip? It's a little full." He went past her
and put his knee on the suitcase to close if and she said, "It was rather
a silly performance on my part. But I simply couldn't help myself. I had been
so sure that everything would be all right if I could speak to him, and then to
find that he would not even lend me the money...."

     
Branch said, "Well, let's go. Get
your coat. Here." he said as she came back to him, "for the
bill."

     
She fingered the two fives he had given
her. "Did you ... get to the bank?"

     
"Yes," he said without
expression.

     
"Can I
... ?"

     
"Later," he said.

     
"Does it give you pleasure to make me
feel cheap, Phillip?" she murmured and, drawing her coat about her she
went ahead of him out of the tiny room. He picked up the two bags and followed
her, waited while she settled at the desk, and they took a taxi to the station.

     
"How did you happen to join the Navy,
Phillip?" she asked him idly as they sat waiting for the train to move.
1 mean, why not the Army?
Do you like boats?"

     
"I used to sail all the time when I
was a kid," he said. Through the window beyond her he could see the people
hurrying along the platform. Whenever a man came
who
was taller than the rest he felt himself contract a little inside. "A
couple of the boys and I got together and bought a sailing dinghy in
Chicago
. Sail around the harbor.
Makes us feel salty as hell..."

     
She said, "But if you knew about
boats it would seem to me they would have... It seems rather wasteful."

     
He shrugged his shoulders, still watching
the window. "I guess they figured they could make sailors faster than they
could make engineers, starting from scratch. After all, it took me four years
to get my degree. And, as the Commander loves to point out, somebody's got to
do the work." he grinned briefly at the girl beside him. "What's the
name of this place
we
re going?"

     
"Queen's Harbor," she said after
a moment's hesitation.

     
"Never heard of
it."
As the train began to move he let himself relax, and he looked
at the girl again, she looking out the window away from him, and he began to
feel a little reckless and adventurous. It was a feeling he had not had since,
as an ensign in a brand-new uniform, he had boarded the train for
Tucson
,
Arizona
, quite sure that he was
going to war. Jeannette
Lalevy's
face was clear and
lovely in profile and everything he had ever known was a long way away and
nobody he knew would ever learn of this journey and he would never tell them.

     
He took off his cap and rose to put it,
and his raincoat, into the baggage rack. "Want to get rid of your
coat?" he asked her.

     
She shook her head. "
lt's
a little chilly."

     
"I hadn't noticed it," he said.
"I thought it was too warm,
myself
."

     
The movement of the train threw him
against her as he sat down and there was a crackling sound as of paper from the
pocket of her fur coat.

     
"Sorry," he said. "What's
that in your pocket?"

     
"I don't know." She pulled out a
brown paper bag and looked at it and laughed. "Oh," she said.
"The stockings I bought, remember?
t
must have
been carrying them around ever since...."

     
He sat very still and did not look at her
because she was lying to him. It was quite unimportant, but the bag had been lying
on her dresser the previous evening.

     
"I'll put it in your suitcase,"
he said, taking it from her.

     
She said, "Oh, never mind. I'll put
it in later," and he let her take it back and put it back in her pocket.
He sat beside her and looked at the double row of heads before them.

     
Jeannette
Lalevy
ran her gloved finger along the window sill. "This car is positively
filthy," she said.

     
"Yes," he said, "they're
getting worse all the time."

     
"The one from
Chicago
wasn't bad."

     
"No," be said. "It was all
right."

     
"What's the matter, Phillip?"
she asked. "Are you still worried about Mr. Sellers?"

     
"What are we going to do in
Queens
Harbor
?" he asked.

     
"I don't know," she said.
"It depends."

     
He said dryly, "It always depends,
doesn't it?"

     
"What do you ...?"

     
"That's what you told me before.
When we were coming into the station."

     
She laughed. After a moment she said,
"Phillip."

     
He glanced at her. The light from the
window fell across her flat cheekbones, dividing her face into a pattern of
light and dark, so that he could not see her expression.

     
"Yes," he said.

     
"When can I ... Could you give it to
me now?"

     
"What's the matter, don't you trust
me?"

     
"Sometimes..." She moved in her
seat, settling the brown fur coat about her. "Sometimes I wonder why I
thought I liked you, Phillip."

     
"You'll get it," he said.
"Just don't rush me. I want to. .."

     
"What?" she demanded.

     
"I want to find out a little more
about
it
." he said.

     
"I'm not going to blow up anything,
dear" she said. "I'm not going to sabotage anything. If that's what
is worrying you."

     
The term of endearment gave him a feeling
that was half embarrassment and half pleasure. "Well, what the hell are
you going to do?" he demanded. "What's it all about, anyway?"

     
"I can't tell you," she said.
"Don't you understand? I can't tell you. You wouldn't like it, darling.
You wouldn't understand."

     
"I wouldn't like it," he said,
"But I'm supposed to give you two hundred bucks to do it with
nevertheless."

     
She was silent and he said irritably,
"What's all this dear darling business."

     
She patted his hand, smiling. "I
won't do it any more if it embarrasses you."

     
The rhythm of the train changed slightly
and continued to change,
Like
a
victrola
record running down, and she glanced at the window.

     
"We're stopping," she said.
"How far have we come?"

     
He reached for the timetable he had picked
up in the station.

     
She said, "Oh, never mind," and,
looking out, "Why do towns always look so dirty from the railroad
tracks."

     
"Maybe the trains have something to
do with it," he suggested.

     
"You'll like Queen's Harbor,"
she said, settling back. "It's
Like
an old French
fishing village. I don't know much about boats myself," she said,
 
"But when I was there I loved to watch
the oyster boats coming in. ..."

     
"When was that?" he asked. The
stopping of the sound of the train made every sound in the car much louder, and
they were instinctively talking in half-whispers.

     
She said, "There's only one hotel
that's any good. The Manor House.... Excuse me a minute, please." She
gathered her coat about her and crowded past him, and presently she was back,
saying disgustedly, "It was closed."

     
"They always close them when they
come to a town," he said. "Where have you been all your life?"

     
"Well," she said, "I hope
they start pretty soon, then.
Before I have an embarrassing
accident."

     
"
Tsk
,
tsk
," he said.

     
She straightened up, sitting on the arm of
the seat, and they watched the porter rolling a ponderous wagon of luggage past
the window.

     
"I wish I knew who was getting
on," Branch said uncomfortably.