The Boy Who Followed Ripley (25 page)

Johnny answered, and said that Thurlow was taking a shower.

“Your brother wants me to come with him tomorrow, so I will,” Tom said. “I mean to America.”

“Oh. Really? Well!” Johnny sounded pleased. “Here’s Ralph. It’s Tom Ripley,” Johnny said, and passed the telephone to Thurlow.

Tom explained again. “Can you get a place for me on the same plane, do you think, or shall I try it tonight?”

“No, I’ll handle it. I’m sure I can do it,” Thurlow said. “This is Frank’s idea?”

“His wishes, yes.”

“Okay, Tom. I’ll see you tomorrow around ten then.”

Tom took another warm shower, and looked forward to sleeping. Just that morning he had been in Hamburg, and what was dear old Reeves doing at this moment? Making another deal with someone over cool white wine in his apartment? Tom decided to leave all his packing until the morning.

In bed and with the light out, Tom found himself pondering the generation gap, or trying to. Didn’t it turn up in every generation? And didn’t generations overlap, so that one could never point out a definite twenty-five year period of change? Tom tried to imagine what it was like for Frank to have been born when the Beatles were getting started in London (after Hamburg), then making their American tour, and changing the face of pop songs, to have been about seven when a man landed on the moon, when the United Nations as a peacekeeping organization was beginning to be laughed at and to be used. And before that, the League of Nations, hadn’t it been? Ancient history, the League of Nations, which had failed to stop Franco and Hitler. Every generation seemed to have to turn loose of something, and then try desperately to find something new to hang onto. Now for the young it was gurus sometimes, or Hare Krishna, or the cult called the Moonies, and pop music all the time—social protesters sang to their souls sometimes. Falling in love, however, was out of date, Tom had heard or read somewhere, but he had not heard it from Frank. Frank was perhaps exceptional in even admitting that he was in love. “Play it cool, no strong emotions” was the tenet of youth. A lot of young people didn’t believe in marriage, just in living together and having children sometimes.

Now where was he? Frank had said he wanted to lose himself. Did he mean turning loose of the Pierson family responsibilities? Suicide? Changing his name? What did Frank want to hang on to? Tom’s sleepiness put an end to his efforts. Beyond his window an owl was calling “Chou-
ette
! Chou-
ette
!” In early September, Belle Ombre was sliding into autumn and winter.

20

H
eloise drove Tom and Frank to the Moret railway station, and had offered to drive them to Paris. But she was going to Chantilly tonight to see her parents, so Tom persuaded her not to make the Paris drive besides. She sent them both off with well wishes and an extra kiss for Frank, Tom noticed.

Tom could not buy a
France-Dimanche
, the gossip sheet, at the Moret station, but it was the first thing he did when they arrived at the Gare de Lyon. It was only a little after nine, and Tom paused in the station to give the paper a look. He found Frank Pierson on page two, with the familiar old passport picture in one column instead of spread over two or more.
MISSING AMERICAN HEIR WAS ON HOLIDAY IN GERMANY
said the headline. Tom looked through the column, worried about finding his own name, but it was not there. Had Ralph Thurlow finally done a commendable piece of work? Tom felt relieved.

“Nothing alarming,” Tom said to Frank. “Want to see it?”

“No, I don’t, thanks.” Frank lifted his head with what looked like a deliberate effort. He was again in a head-hanging mood.

They joined the taxi queue and rode to the Lutetia. Thurlow was in the lobby at the desk, paying his bill, in the act of writing a check.

“Good morning, Tom.— Hello, Frank! Johnny’s upstairs making sure the luggage gets down.”

Tom and Frank waited. Johnny emerged from an elevator, carrying a couple of airline bags. He smiled at his brother. “You see the
Trib
this morning?”

They had left Tom’s house too early to see the
Trib
, and Tom hadn’t thought of buying it. Johnny informed his brother that the
Trib
said he had been found in Germany, taking a vacation. And where was Frank supposed to be now, Tom wondered, though he did not put the question.

Frank said, “I know,” and looked uncomfortable.

They needed two taxis. Frank wanted to ride with Tom, but Tom suggested that he go with his brother. Tom wanted a few minutes with Ralph Thurlow, for what they might be worth.

“You’ve known the Piersons for quite a while?” Tom began in a pleasant tone to Thurlow.

“Yes. I knew John for six or seven years. I was a partner of Jack Diamond. Private detective. Jack went back to San Francisco, where I’m from, but I stayed on in New York.”

“I’m glad the papers didn’t make much of Frank’s reappearance. Is that due to your efforts?” Tom asked, eager to pay Thurlow a compliment, if he could.

“I hope so.” Thurlow showed satisfaction. “I did my best to cool it. I’m hoping there’re no journalists at the airport.— Frank hates all that, I know.”

Thurlow smelled of some presumably masculine scent, and Tom inched back into the corner of his seat. “What kind of man was John Pierson?”

“Oh—” Thurlow slowly lit a cigarette. “A genius, I’m sure. Maybe I can’t figure people like that out. He lived for his work—or money, which was like a score to him. Maybe it gave him emotional security, even more than his family. But he certainly
knew
his business. Self-made man, too, no rich father to get him started. John started out by buying a grocery store in Connecticut that was going broke, and then he went on from there, always in the food product line.”

Another source of emotional security, Tom had always heard. Food. Tom waited.

“His first marriage.— He married a well-to-do Connecticut girl. I think she bored him. Fortunately no children. Then she met another man, maybe with a little more time to give her. So they got a divorce. Quietly.” Thurlow glanced at Tom. “I didn’t know John in those days, but I heard about all this. John was always a hard worker, wanted the best for himself
and
his family.” Thurlow spoke with some respect.

“Was he a happy man?”

Thurlow looked out the window and wagged his head. “Who can be happy trying to manage so much money? It’s like an empire.— A nice wife, Lily, nice sons, nice houses everywhere—but maybe incidental to a man like that. I don’t know. He certainly was a lot happier than Howard Hughes.” Thurlow laughed. “That man lost his mind!”

“Why do you think John Pierson killed himself?”

“I’m not sure he
did
.” Now Thurlow looked at Tom. “What do you mean? Frank said that?” Thurlow’s tone was easy.

Was Thurlow sounding him out? Trying to sound Frank out? Tom also wagged his head with deliberate slowness, even though the taxi was making a heavy swerve just then to pass a truck on the
périphérique
as they sped on northward. “No, Frank said nothing. Or he said what the papers said, that it could’ve been an accident or a suicide.— What’s your opinion?’

Thurlow seemed to ponder, but his thinnish lips had a smile, a safe smile, Tom saw at a glance. “I do think suicide rather than an accident.— I don’t
know
,” Thurlow assured Tom, “it’s only my guess. He was already in his sixties. How could a man be happy in a wheelchair—for a decade—half-paralyzed? John always tried to be cheerful—but maybe he’d had enough? I don’t know. But I know he’d been to that cliff hundreds of times. There wasn’t any wind to blow him over that day.”

Tom was pleased. Thurlow didn’t seem to suspect Frank. “And Lily? What’s she like?”

“She’s another world. She was an actress when John met her.— Why’re you asking?”

“Because I suppose I’ll meet her,” Tom said, smiling. “Has she a favorite between the two boys?”

Thurlow smiled, relieved at an easy question. “You must think I know the family pretty well. I don’t know them that well.”

There Tom let the matter rest. They had exited at Porte de la Chapelle from the
périphérique
and entered the boring stretch of fifteen kilometers toward the horror called Charles de Gaulle Airport, nearly as offensive to Tom’s eye as Beaubourg, but at least inside Beaubourg there were beautiful things to look at.

“How do you spend your time, Mr. Ripley?” Thurlow asked. “Someone told me you haven’t a usual job. You know, an office—”

That was an easy question for Tom, because he had answered it many a time. There was gardening, he was studying the harpsichord, Tom said, he liked reading French and German, and he was always trying to improve himself in those languages. He could feel Thurlow regarding him as if he were a man from Mars, possibly also regarding him with distaste. Tom didn’t mind at all. He had weathered worse than Thurlow. He knew Thurlow thought he was a borderline crook, with the luck to have married a well-to-do Frenchwoman. A gigolo, perhaps, a sponger, loafer, and parasite. Tom kept a bland expression on his face, since he might need Thurlow’s help in the days ahead, even Thurlow’s allegiance. Had Thurlow ever fought as hard for anything, Tom wondered, as he had to protect the Derwatt name—the Derwatt forgeries, really, but of course the earlier half of the paintings were
not
forgeries. Had Thurlow slain one or two Mafiosi, as had Tom? Or was it more correct now to call them “organized criminals,” those sadistic pimps and blackmailers?

“And Susie?” Tom began again pleasantly. “I suppose you’ve met her?”

“Susie? Oh, Susie the housekeeper. Sure. She’s been there for ages. Getting on in years, but they don’t want to—to retire her.”

At the airport, they could not find any luggage carts, so they hauled everything by hand to the check-in at TWA. Suddenly two or three photographers crouched with cameras on both sides of the queue. Tom lowered his head, and saw Frank cover his face calmly with one hand. Thurlow shook his head sympathetically at Tom. One journalist addressed Frank in French-accented English:

“You enjoy your holiday in Germany, Monsieur Pierson?—Have you something to say about France?— Why—why did you try to hide?”

His camera hung big and black in front of him from a cord around his neck, and Tom had an impulse to seize it and break it over his head, but the man swung it up and snapped Frank, just as Frank turned his back on him.

After the check-in, Thurlow sprang to the fore in a manner that Tom admired, shouldering aside the press—four or five by now—like a football linesman as they made directly for Satellite Number Five escalator and the passport control that would give them a barrier.

“I am going to sit next to my friend,” Frank said firmly to the stewardess when they were all aboard the plane. Frank meant Tom.

Tom let Frank handle it, and one man was willing to change his seat, so Tom and Frank were side by side in a row that held six. Tom had the aisle seat. It was not Concorde, and Tom did not relish the thought of the next seven hours. A bit strange Thurlow had not bought first class, Tom thought.

“What did you and Thurlow talk about?” Frank asked.

“Nothing important. He was asking how I spent my time.” Tom chuckled. “And you and Johnny?”

“Also nothing important,” Frank replied rather curtly, but Tom knew the boy by now and didn’t mind.

Tom hoped that Frank and Johnny had not talked about Teresa, because Johnny seemed to have no sympathy for the department of lost loves. Tom had brought three books to read, which he had in a plaid carryall. There were the inevitable, indefatigable small children—all three of them American—who started running up and down the aisle, though Tom had thought he and Frank might escape their racket, being seated at least eighteen rows away from the kids’ presumable base. Tom tried reading, snoozing, thinking—though it was not always good to try to think. Inspiration, good or productive ideas seldom came that way. Tom woke up from a semi-doze with the word “
Showmanship!
”
strongly in his ears or in his brain, and sat up, blinked at the technicolor Western now in progress on the screen in the middle of the plane, silent to him, because he had declined earphones. Showmanship how? What was he supposed to do at the Piersons’?

Tom picked up a book again. When one of the odious four-year-olds ran for the umpteenth time up the aisle toward him, babbling nonsense, Tom stretched back and put a foot out slightly into the aisle. The little monster fell on its belly with, seconds afterward, a wail like that of a wronged banshee. Tom feigned sleep. A bored stewardess came from somewhere to set the little thing upright. Tom saw a satisfied smirk from a man seated across the aisle from him. Tom was not alone. The child was steered back to its place forward, no doubt to recover
pour mieux sauter
, as the French said, in which case Tom thought he might leave the pleasure of tripping it to another passenger.

When they got to New York, it was early afternoon. Tom craned to look out the window, thrilled as always by the Manhattan skyscrapers made hazy as an Impressionist painting now by fluffy white and yellow clouds. Beautiful and admirable! Nowhere in the world did so many buildings stretch so high in such a tiny area! Then they were down with a dull thud, moving like cogs again, passports, luggage, frisking. And then the rosy-cheeked man whom Frank identified to Tom as Eugene, the chauffeur. Eugene, rather short and balding, looked happy to see Frank.

“Frank! How
are
you?” Eugene seemed friendly and at the same time polite and correct. He had an English accent, and wore ordinary clothes with shirt and tie. “And Mr. Thurlow. Greetings!— And Johnny!”

“Hello, Eugene,” Thurlow said. “And this is Tom Ripley.”

Tom and Eugene exchanged a “How do you do?” then Eugene continued, “Mrs. Pierson had to go to Kennebunkport early this morning. Susie wasn’t feeling well. Mrs. Pierson said either to come to the apartment and stay the night, or we can take a copter from the heliport.”

They were all standing in bright sunshine, luggage on the pavement, hand luggage still in hand, at least Tom’s was.

“Who’s at the apartment?” Johnny asked.

“No one just now, sir. Flora’s on vacation,” said Eugene. “We’ve rather closed the apartment, in fact. Mrs. Pierson said she
might
come down midweek, if Susie—”

“Let’s go to the apartment,” Thurlow interrupted. “It’s on the way, anyway. All right with you, Johnny? I’d like to phone the office. I might have to drop in there today.”

“Sure, it’s okay. I also want to look at my mail,” said Johnny. “What’s the matter with Susie, Eugene?”

“Not quite sure, sir. Sounded as if she might’ve had a slight heart attack. I know they sent for the doctor. This was at noon today. Your mother telephoned. I drove down yesterday with her and we stayed the night at the apartment. She wanted to meet you in New York.” Eugene smiled. “I’ll just go get the car. Back in two minutes.”

Tom wondered if it was Susie’s first heart attack. Flora, Tom supposed, was one of the servants. Eugene returned, driving a large black Daimler-Benz, and they all got in. There was even room for their luggage. Frank sat in front with Eugene.

“Everything’s okay, Eugene?” Johnny asked. “My mother?”

“Oh, yes, sir, I think so. She’s been worried about Frank—of course.” Eugene drove stiffly and efficiently, reminding Tom of a Rolls-Royce brochure he had once read, informing drivers that they should never rest an elbow on the windowsill, because it looked sloppy.

Johnny lit a cigarette and pushed something in the beige leather upholstery which caused an ashtray to appear. Frank was silent.

Third Avenue now. Lexington. Manhattan looked like a honeycomb compared to Paris, little cells everywhere, buzzing with activity, human insects crawling in and out, carrying things, loading, walking, bumping into one another. In front of an apartment house with an awning that extended to the curb, the car came to a quiet stop, and a smiling doorman in a gray uniform opened the door of the car, after a touch of his fingers to his cap.

“
Good
afternoon, Mr. Pierson,” the doorman said.

Johnny greeted him by name. Glass doors, and then they rode up in an elevator, while the suitcases went up in another elevator.

“Anybody got the key?” asked Thurlow.

“I have,” Johnny said with an air of pride, and pulled a key ring from his pocket.

Eugene was putting the car away somewhere.

The apartment was marked 12A. They went into a spacious foyer. Some of the chairs in the big living room bore white protective covers, the ones nearest the windows, though the windows now had their venetian blinds down and closed, so that one needed electric light to see properly. Johnny took care of both—smiling as if he were happy to be home, if this were home—slid the blind cords so that more light came in, then turned on a standing lamp. Tom saw Frank lingering in the hall, looking through a stack of some dozen letters. The boy’s face remained tense, a bit frowning. Nothing from Teresa, Tom thought. But the boy’s step into the living room was almost a saunter. He looked at Tom and said: