Memoirs Of An Invisible Man (61 page)

“You stay away from her, Nick. I don’t want her getting her hands on you.”

“I’m not interested in anyone but you. And if I were, I would absolutely deny it. It was only her costume that appealed to me.”

It was dizzying to be able to speak again in the presence of other people, and I decided that Halloween was my favorite holiday.

Alice slipped her hands inside my jacket and around my waist.

“I apologize for introducing you as my fiancé. It just seemed like the easiest way to put everyone off.”

“I’m delighted at the honor. I’m sorry that out of costume I’m so hopelessly ineligible.”

“You do seem to be a rather poor prospect in some ways. Out of curiosity, are you permitted to get married?”

“Permitted? As far as I know, I’m permitted to do whatever I please… But I’m not sure how it would be possible. There are usually other people around on these occasions, and they might find my appearance a bit wanting. Normally you have to meet the parents of the prospective bride. There would at the very least have to be someone to perform the ceremony. It wouldn’t be the sort of event to which you can come swaddled up as the Invisible Man.” A large spherical yellow Pac-Man caromed off us in the embrace of Cleopatra. “Or as Pac-Man.”

“Before you say that, you should have a look at some of the weddings these people have,” she said, turning her head to indicate the people around us. “Can ghosts father children?”

Into my mind came the image of a wan, infantile form, translucent, with all color bleached out like a leaf left for a winter in a swimming pool.

“I have no idea… I don’t see how…”

Alice laughed. “You know, you have a kind of will-o’-the-wispy quality. It’s just as well there’s no question of taking you seriously.” A waltz started up, and suddenly taking the lead, she set us whirling across the floor at breakneck speed.

T
he nights were painfully cold now, but after our splendid Halloween outing I was all the more determined that Alice and I should not stay holed up like fugitives in her apartment. Invitations to costume balls come only very infrequently, but I hit upon another idea. We picked out a film near the end of its run at one of the movie theaters on East Eighty-sixth Street and arrived twenty minutes early for the last showing. There were not enough people there to form a line, much less a crowd. Alice bought her ticket while I waited off to one side, and then, when no one else was going in, she stepped up, handed over her ticket for tearing, and strode through, with me right behind her. In the lobby, to avoid being crashed into, I stood against a wall, and Alice stood right in front of me with her back pressed against me, looking out across the crowd as if she were waiting for someone. Then, when the film was about to begin and everyone else was already seated, we hurried in and picked out seats off to one side. Sitting in the half-darkened theater, we both felt a childish pleasure in getting away with something that we were not meant to enjoy, and we opened each other’s clothing and embraced and caressed each other like teenagers.

We went to the movies often, and then after a while we started to attend exhibitions at museums and galleries, usually in the morning when they first opened for the day. Eventually we even began to go to concerts and to the theatre. I would try to choose unpopular times and events, but with Alice there, I found that I could go almost anywhere. It was odd when I considered that not many weeks before, my life had consisted mainly of cowering fearfully in corners. Really, the main danger now seemed to be that Alice would inadvertently give me away. At my insistence, when we were in public places, she would speak to me under her breath, almost without moving her lips, like a stage ventriloquist. With all the practice she got, she became quite good at it, but there seemed to be nothing I could say that would convince her of the importance of it, and from time to time, as we were walking down the street surrounded by other people, she would suddenly turn and speak openly to me as if we were completely alone.

“What difference does it make?” she asked. “People will think I’m talking to myself. New York is full of people talking to themselves. And why is it so important, anyway?”

“I can’t explain it to you now.”

“Well, if it really were so important, you
would
explain it to me. Nick, where do you go in the morning? What do you do all day?”

She had stopped on the sidewalk and was facing me. She was talking under her breath now, but her face was animated and she really did look like a madwoman standing there muttering to herself. A man walking along the opposite side of East Eighty-eighth Street turned and stared at her curiously.

“Nothing at all. What I do during the day wouldn’t interest you, I promise you.”

These discussions were always a torture, and this particular one was made worse by the fact that it was ten at night in the middle of November. Alice had on an overcoat, whereas I had only the clothes I had been wearing since last April.

“Why are you here?”

“I’ve told you. No reason.”

“Everyone’s here for some reason. Otherwise why would anyone be here?” She turned her brilliant smile on me, but I could not make up my mind whether it was full of warmth or only mockery.

“Well, then, there probably is some reason, but it’s the same reason everyone else is here for, and although I’d like to stop and work it out, it’s very cold just now, and if I don’t keep moving, I’ll freeze to death.”

We walked on in silence for several blocks.

“Those are the only clothes you have, aren’t they?” she asked.

“For the time being, yes.”

They were indeed the only clothes I had and they were hopelessly inadequate for winter. I thought of the random pieces of clothing I had hidden in Basking Ridge and of the curtains and other fabric out of which I might be able to fashion some sort of outer garment against the cold. If I took Alice into my confidence, she could drive me down there tomorrow to get it all. No. Impossible. If there was one thing I could never afford to reveal to another human being, it was the existence of that store of invisible objects. I wished I could stop having this argument with myself. This had all been a terrible mistake. I should really contrive some decent explanation for Alice and say goodbye for good. But not until after winter. It was only rational to wait now until the weather was warm again.

“You’re cold all the time, aren’t you? I feel you shivering next to me. How are you going to get through the winter?”

“I was hoping you wouldn’t throw me out till spring.”

“I really ought to, you know.”

She wrapped her arms around me as we walked, perhaps out of affection, or perhaps to keep me warm. It looked quite odd, and when I saw a police car turn down the block, I had to tell her that she could not hold on to me like that.

B
y late November, it was too cold for me to be outdoors more than a few minutes at a time, and I could no longer walk to work with Alice in the mornings, but I still managed to get out when the weather was good by waiting until after rush hour and then running from the apartment into the subway and from the subway into some office building. Despite the increasing pain I experienced whenever I was outside, I felt more secure than ever in my new life. Through force of habit I still bundled up my clothes each night and kept them beside the bed, and I stayed away from the clubs, but I had long ago hidden my gun away in the furnace room of Alice’s building, since it seemed to upset her each time she felt it in my pocket, and I was no longer constantly watching for Jenkins and his men whenever I went about the city. Really — so long as Alice did not say or do something indiscreet — it was hard to imagine how Jenkins could ever find me, and I had almost stopped thinking about him at all.

In fact, it occurred to me one day, as I sat rifling through a desk in an empty law office, that I had almost stopped thinking about my past life entirely. It was all quite remote now, a jumble of memories and concerns to which I no longer had any connection. There was a telephone in front of me on the desk. Large law firms and corporations are the best places for me to telephone from, because even if I dial some number that Jenkins’s people are monitoring, the call can be traced back only as far as the
PBX
, and they can’t tell anything more than that I am on one of half a dozen floors of some vast office building. Without anything particular in mind, and knowing that it was a mistake, I picked up the telephone and dialed my old office. I would be giving away the fact that I was in New York. But Jenkins would already be working under the assumption that I was in New York anyway. And I felt an inexplicable urge to talk to someone from my former life.

Cathy greeted me enthusiastically and asked the usual questions, hoping for some exciting piece of gossip about whatever exotic life she imagined I was leading, but it seemed to me that she was no longer really interested in talking to me. She had very little news. Someone I did not know had joined the firm. As I listened to her voice, I tried to remember how well I had actually known Cathy. Not very well.

“No, there haven’t really been any calls for you for a long time. Just what’s-his-name. Dave Jenkins. I guess he’s a friend of yours? He said you’d know what it was about… He’s called several times. In fact he called just this week. He said—”

“This week?”

“He said if you called in… Can you hold on just a second? Someone’s buzzing me.”

I was left on hold. I should hang up. It had been completely wrong to make this call.

“Isn’t that amazing? That was Dave Jenkins! He said to tell you it was extremely important and you had the number. Isn’t that an incredible coincidence?”

“Yes it is, Cathy. Thanks. I have to run now.”

I should not call him. I could not possibly learn anything of use. Whatever Jenkins told me would be carefully calculated to his advantage, and anything I said could only help him. I had already needlessly let him know that I was still alive and still in New York. I was only encouraging him. And in addition, to be perfectly honest, the sound of his voice is frightening to me. And yet I wanted to hear it. I felt impelled to call him and find out what he had to say to me.

I dialed the number, and just as always, it was answered on the first ring by the silky, earnest voice.

“Hello, Nick. How are you?”

“Swell. I’ve missed you. You called?”

“Nick, that was an extremely foolish and unfortunate thing you did when you destroyed government property in my office.”

“Gosh. I’m sorry if I showed poor judgment.”

There was a pause.

“Nick, I’m asking you — I’m begging you — to listen carefully to what I have to say and to take it seriously. This is the most important thing anyone has ever told you. I want to help you, Nick, and I’m very much afraid that this is the last chance I have. You’ve put me in a corner. You’re going to have to surrender immediately. If for any reason you don’t, we have no choice but to kill you.”

“That’s your important message? Gee, I’m glad I called. I have to run now—”

“Nick, this is deadly earnest. I want to be sure you understand the position you’ve put yourself and us in. Before, we could afford to wait. We
preferred
to wait rather than to put you at physical risk. But by destroying that evidence, you’ve placed all of us, and indeed an entire organization — a vital organization — in grave political danger. We need you now to assure our own survival. If not alive, then dead.”

“You mean you guys might get in trouble? Gosh, I never thought of that. I hope it won’t in any way interfere with your work with me.”

“Nick, I don’t like this any more than you do—”

“I’m almost certain you’re mistaken there.”

“And I beg you to come to your senses now. You’re leaving me with no choice.”

“I really have to go. You know how it is when we let these telephone conversations drag on.”

When I walked out of the building, Morrissey and Gomez were already climbing out of a grey car parked at the curb. This was the first time I had seen any of them since my visit to their offices, and looking at them, I imagined, at least, that they were grimmer, more desperate. After all, I had hurt them badly. In fact, I seemed to be winning. They were under attack from the people they worked for, and at the same time their chances of catching me were decreasing all the time. This was almost certainly the first trace they had had of me in months. How could they ever find me now? As long as Alice didn’t give me away.

Still, the conversation with Jenkins left me uneasy. He had sounded just as deadly earnest as he claimed to be. Of course he had wanted to frighten me, but the fact was he had succeeded. I believed him when he said that he would try to kill me. And the fact that these people could trace my call and arrive in less than ten minutes meant that they were still able to devote their full attention to me. I had to be careful not to grow complacent and careless while they gradually tracked me down again. I had hurt them before by striking out directly at them where they had least expected it. But having done that once, I could never do it again. I could never risk going near them again. I was back to where I had been before. I had to keep moving and hope that I could stay ahead of them. I wondered again how long I dared stay with Alice.

I brooded about Jenkins for several days. Although it was true that I could not go near Jenkins himself, I reasoned that it might still be possible to outflank him once again by going after his superiors. I might find some way to undermine his efforts further or I might at least learn something useful about what he was doing.

“Alice, I’m going to be away for a couple of days.”

“Where are you going?”

“I can’t say. There’s something I have to do.”

“Why can’t you say? You have your gun again. Is it dangerous? Will you be back?”

“I’ll be back, almost surely. I seem to be incapable of staying away.”

I boarded the Metroliner to Washington, choosing one in the middle of the day that was fairly empty. I hated attempting this expedition in the late autumn weather, but with each passing hour I saw more clearly that Jenkins had been exactly right. I had left him no choice. I had to do everything I could to defend myself.