“But, darling, you’re my world, my life.” She kissed me. “And what will you do? You have no job—nothing. How will you live? I can’t bear to think of you going back to those cheap little jobs. Here with me you are safe. I can look after you, protect you. I can give you the world—anything you want.”
I remembered something I had read. “What does it profit a man,” I quoted, “if in gaining the world he loses his own soul?”
She looked at me strangely a moment and then kissed me hard on the lips. “Say good-bye to me gently, darling,” she whispered, her hand reaching for the light and turning it off.
I said good-bye gently, sweetly, passionately. And time whirled around past us and through us, carried us all through a lifetime together, and put us back in the little apartment in Greenwich Village at the door. I stood there awkwardly, valise in one hand like a stranger just leaving after a long, unexpected visit.
“Wait a minute,” she said, and brought me Gerro’s portrait and placed it in my free hand. “Take him with you,” she said, “because you have something of him inside you—and something of me. And all of us together mean something more than just people—more than just living. There is a brightness in you, an incandescence you have now, you’ve never had before—until tonight. I saw it fuse and harden back there in the nightclub, and I knew then, at that very moment, you were lost to me—and that nothing I could do would stop you.”
For a split second she stood there, and then she kissed my mouth hard, quickly. And I stepped outside the door, and she shut it gently. I could hear a soft sobbing sound behind me as I went down the hall and out the building.
I looked up at the sky. The stars were still blinking, but over in the east the first tinge of dawn was breaking. It was a new day coming—a bright new day. I walked toward it confidently, my mind full of thoughts about Marianne. I had no plans for today or tomorrow. They could take care of themselves.
58
I must have walked about five blocks before I realized I still held Gerro’s picture in my hand. I put it in my pocket. I was beginning to get a little hungry, and I was tired for I hadn’t slept at all that night. I saw the lights of an all-night cafeteria at the next corner and went in. I had some coffee and toast while I kicked around some ideas in my mind.
By the time I had finished I had decided to go over to a hotel and get some sleep; tomorrow I would start looking for work. I felt sure this time I would do all right. The morning was brisk and clear, and I started toward the nearest subway station. The streets were almost empty; it was New Year’s Day and not many people had to go to work. There was a man hurrying down the street in front of me. I didn’t notice him very much as he was sticking pretty close to the building line as he walked.
Suddenly he disappeared into a doorway. I walked along. A car drove slowly down the street toward me. I noticed it only because of the slow manner in which it proceeded. There was a short, staccato burst of gunfire from it as it passed the doorway the man had ducked into. Then it speeded up and turned the corner. For a second I stood there frozen in my steps. Then I ran toward the doorway. The man came bungling from it toward me. I dropped my bag and caught him. A moment passed while we stared into each other’s faces.
He recognized me. “Frankie!” he gasped, blood oozing from the corners of his mouth, “help me!” and sagged against me.
For a full minute I couldn’t think; I could only stand there stupidly staring at his quickly whitening face. The clock had turned back ten years, and again Silk Fennelli was spilling blood over my shirt front. Again, as then, I was paralyzed with fright. Ten years—ten years and the clock turned back!
Only this time I didn’t run away.
I got him to Bellevue. I left my valise there on the sidewalk where I had dropped it, put him in a cab, and got him to the hospital.
I didn’t hang around there. I beat it as soon as I had him set. I didn’t want to hang around to be questioned by the cops. Once in the street again, I lit a cigarette. Then I remembered my bag. I took a hack back to where I had picked him up, but the bag was gone. I looked up and down the street but it was gone. I laughed bitterly to myself. I should have known better than to expect to find it.
Suddenly I was tired. I went to a hotel, checked in, and went to sleep. It was nearly evening when I awoke. I sat on the edge of the bed and counted my money. All I had was about ten bucks. It would have to do until I got something. I told myself. I went down and got something to eat. I sat around for a while, read the evening newspapers, and then went upstairs to bed.
I tried to sleep again but I couldn’t. I was all slept out. I lay there in the dark tossing and turning and thinking. Finally I got out of bed, put on my trousers, and sat near the window smoking.
Ten years! It was queer. Fennelli hadn’t changed much in ten years, but I knew I had. I wondered how he recognized me so readily. Maybe it was something about the way I looked; maybe it was the situation. I don’t know. I couldn’t understand. I went back a long way. For the first time in a long while, I thought about the folks and wondered what they were doing and where they were, and about the kids I used to know—Jerry and Marty and Janet. What had happened to them? But it was such a long time ago it was hard to remember.
I remembered breakfast with the folks: the smell of the rolls, slightly warm from the bakery after I had just brought them in—the way my aunt would smile at me. I remembered high school and the kids laughing as we crossed the big yard going home. I remembered so many things, and all of a sudden I began to feel old and tired.
I went back to bed and stretched out. My tiredness left me, and I was wide awake again. I tossed and thought about Marianne, and about how she would sense that I couldn’t sleep and come into my bed and lie down beside me and we would talk and I would feel her warmth near me and I would become quiet and begin to relax and she would fall asleep and carelessly throw one long white leg over mine and then I would begin to fall asleep.
But Marianne wasn’t here and I couldn’t sleep. I could see her standing in the doorway waving good-bye. I could hear her voice, low and husky and controlled. What was it she had said? I tried to remember. And then I heard it and saw her say it, the shadow of the door half falling on her face.
“There’s something of Gerro in you—and something of me and all the other people you have ever known. But mostly there is you….”
But what about me? I had never turned to look inside myself. What about me? Of all the people I knew, I knew myself least of all. Why did I do things? What did I want? Why was I content to drift, never really searching for an answer to myself? I wondered. What did I want? Money? Love? Friends? Respect? I searched through my mind for the answer, but none was forthcoming.
I had read a lot while I lived with Marianne. She had quite a few books, and I had devoured them—Some good, some bad—but the answer wasn’t in them. What did people think about me? What was there in me that they liked? Why did they take me into their homes and hearts when I had so little to give in return?
I missed Marianne. During the day I had slept. I had been exhausted. But now, with the night, came a new, a peculiar feeling of loneliness. I longed to go to the phone, pick it up, dial her number, and hear her low, soft voice answer: “Hello, darling.”
“Hello, darling!” But I couldn’t do that. You can never go back. That was something I learned a long time ago. You can never go back—Never! At last I fell asleep. Marianne, Marianne, even my sleep was filled with you! My night was warm and alive with you. Would you ever let me go?
I woke up. The sun, streaming through the window, had hit my face. At first I threw my arm over my face, reluctant to get up and face the reality of the day. But bit-by-bit I came alive. I could feel it surging through my legs and up my body to my mind. I could feel the thoughts coming, stronger and stronger. This is tomorrow. This is today—your day. Get up. You’ve got to face it.
I went down the hall to the shower, and then came back to the room and dressed. I handed in m
y key at the desk as I left. This was too expensive a place for me with my pocket. Two dollars a day was too much. I would have to go back to the Mills Hotel. It was more my speed.
I bought a morning Times and glanced through the want ads. I didn’t know what kind of a job I wanted, but there wasn’t anything likely in the papers. I took a trip up to Sixth Avenue to the agencies, but no luck there. I wasn’t worried. I felt sure I’d get a break. This was tomorrow and it was mine.
Two months later it was still tomorrow. But I was beginning to wonder if it was mine. I was beginning to wonder if I would ever have the tomorrow I had promised myself. It was early March and still bitter cold. My new heavy, warm coat had long since gone the way of my watch and everything else I could hock. I hadn’t eaten a square meal in weeks. I had stood in bread lines, soup lines, work lines—all kinds of lines—but I hadn’t worked, not even a day.
Last night I had slept in a hallway. I was chased early in the morning, when I was cold and damp and chilled and miserable, by the super as he came to clean. I could still hear his hearty, full-voiced threats muttered in some guttural, foreign-sounding English. He stood there waving his broom at me. “You bums!” he had shouted. I scurried from the hall like a thief. I had only been stealing a night’s rest—a little peace.
I was hungry. I was cold. Automatically I reached for a cigarette, but I didn’t have any. I walked along the curb looking for a butt. At last I snagged one. A man came walking down the street. He looked like he’d be good for a little tap. I watched him come toward me and then walk past me while I stood there motionless, frozen to the spot. After he had gone I was bitter with myself. Why didn’t I tap him? There’s nothing to it. All you have to say is: “Mister?” with a little whining sound in it. You didn’t have to say any more; they knew the rest. But I couldn’t bring myself to do it—not anymore. There was something inside of me that seemed to stop me. I couldn’t do it. The man turned the corner. I walked on.
Fool! I kept saying over and over to myself. Fool! Fool! Aren’t you ever going to learn? Stop kidding yourself. You’re nothing special, no more than anyone else. Beg. Plead. Kiss an ass or two. That’s the way to do it. That’s the way to get along.
Go back to Marianne—Marianne. She’ll take you back. You’ll be comfortable again. Warm and full of food and a woman. God, what a woman would feel like just now! I began to laugh. Which would you rather have, I asked myself, a woman or a steak? I laughed again. My mouth watered as I could smell a steak sizzling as real as that lamppost ahead.
I stopped in front of that door again and pulled the bell. I wondered what I could say to her. “Marianne, I’m hungry and tired and cold. Please let me in. Please take me back. I won’t ever go away again—not anymore. Please, Marianne, please.”
What if she would say: “No! Go away!” But she couldn’t. She was mine. Didn’t she say so? After an age, the door opened.
“No, Miss Renoir doesn’t live here anymore. She went home to Haiti last month. I’m sorry.”
The door closed. I stood there staring at it and then walked out. I crossed the street and began to walk uptown. I felt tall—terribly tall—like that time I had been tight, only taller. I laughed, thinking I was so big now I could look into second-story windows as I walked by, and surprise the people. My head began to float through the air, and pretty soon it was pushing its way through the clouds. But the clouds were damp and dark and I couldn’t see and it was only a matter of minutes before I stumbled and began falling. And then it was night—New Year’s Eve—and I was strong and a million stars were out, all of them winking and blinking only at me. This was tomorrow—my tomorrow!
59
They put me in a bed in a long, gray room with about forty other beds in it. The doctor came around in the evening and looked me over. The nurse was with him. He stood at the side of the bed and looked down at me. “How do you feel now?” he asked.
“Better,” I answered.
“This not eating is a bad business,” he said with a wry attempt at humor.
He wasn’t telling me anything. I didn’t answer.
He turned to the nurse. “Better send for the registrar. We’ll keep him here for a day or two.” He turned to me and spoke again. “Take it easy for a while. Is there anything else you want?”
“Smokes?” I asked, afraid it might be too much to ask for.
He fished down into his pocket, dragged up a half-used package of Camels, and tossed them on the bed with some matches. “Keep them. But don’t let the nurse catch you. And don’t burn the place down,” he shrugged his shoulders expressively and looked around the room, “even if it looks like it should be.”
He walked off and the nurse followed him. He looked like a nice young kid. I was sorry I didn’t think to thank him for the smokes. I waited until they left the ward before I lit a cigarette, and then leaned back puffing it slowly. Cigarettes from a package have a better flavor than those you snag from the street.
The cigarette burned down, and I put it out in a plate on a stand next to the bed. I then leaned back against the pillows and enjoyed their comfort. It was amazing how good you can feel with a full belly and a soft bed and the tender, acrid smoke of a cigarette still in your nostrils. I shut my eyes.
A voice beside the bed spoke softly, “Are you awake?”
I opened them quickly. A girl was sitting near my bed, a pad and pencil in her hand. “Yes,” I answered.
“I’m Miss Cabell,” she said. “I didn’t want to bother you if you were asleep, but we have to fill out these forms.”
“It’s O.K.,” I answered. “Go ahead.” There was something familiar about her. She wore a brownish salt-and-pepper suit, very mannishly tailored, white blouse, and large horn-rimmed glasses.
“Your name, please?” she asked, and added apologetically: “There wasn’t anything in your clothes to tell us.”
“Kane,” I answered, still slowly trying to place her, “Francis Kane.”
She wrote the name down. “Address, please?”
“None.”
“No home address?”
“No,” I said. “Make it New York City.” I was beginning to feel a little irritated. There was something about this girl. I knew her, and it was one of those things that stood right at the edge of your mind and you couldn’t get it out.
“Age?” she asked not looking up from the pad.
“Twenty-three.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I meant when were you born? What date?”
“June 21st, 1912.”
She said, almost to herself: “Sex, male; color, white; eyes, brown.” She looked up at me, “Complexion, dark; hair, gray black.” She stopped. “You seem young to have such gray hair.”
I answered shortly: “I worry a lot.”
“Oh!” she said, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be impertinent.”
“It’s all right.” I said. “Forget it.”
She continued, “Your height?”
“Five nine.”
“Weight?”
“One forty when I weighed myself last,” I answered.
She looked at me and smiled. The smile did it. It was a familiar smile—Marty. I knew her now—Marty and Ruth—Ruth Cabell. I hoped she didn’t remember me. I didn’t want anyone to see me like this.
“That must have been a while ago. We’d better make it one fifteen.”
“As you like,” I said, trying to keep the excitement out of my voice.
“Where do you work?” she asked.
“I don’t,” I answered. “I’m unemployed.”
“What kind of work do you do?”
“Any kind,” I said, “that is, any kind I can get.”
“Where were you born?”
“New York.”
“High school or any education?”
I almost dived into that. If I’d have said Washington High, she would have had me spotted.
“No,” I answered.
“Sure?” she asked.
I n
oticed she wasn’t writing this down. There was a little glint of excitement in her eyes. “I should be,” I said.
She got up and walked to the foot of the bed and looked right into my face. I looked back at her. “Francis Kane,” she said to herself, reflectively. “Frank Kane. Frankie, Frankie, don’t you remember? I’m Ruth, Marty’s sister.”
Remember? How could I forget? Poker faced, I replied, “I’m sorry, miss, you’ve got me mixed up with somebody else.”
“No, I haven’t,” she said half angrily, walking up the side of the bed to me. This was more like the old Ruth that I knew, that little show of temper. “You’re Francis Kane, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” I admitted, shaking my head.
“Then I’m right. I must be right.” She took off her glasses. “Look, you went to George Washington High School with my brother. You were in the orphanage—St. Therese. You must remember.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “You’re mistaken. I never went to any of those places. I don’t know your brother.”
“But your name is Francis Kane. You must be,” she insisted.
“Miss,” I said, trying to act patiently resigned, “the name’s not an unusual one. There must be quite a few of them.” I tried another tack: “Besides, what did this guy look like? Not much like me, I’ll bet.”
She looked at me for a few seconds before she answered. Then a little doubt crept into her voice. “No,” she answered, “not much like you, but that was eight years ago.”
“See?” I said, a slight note of triumph in my voice.
“No,” she said, “I don’t. I don’t see at all. You must have forgotten. You were sick. You could forget, you know. It’s happened before.”
“A man doesn’t forget his friends,” I said, “no matter how long it’s been since he’s seen them.”
She sat down again. “But maybe you had a touch of—” She hesitated at the word.
“Amnesia?” I filled in for her and then laughed. “No, I don’t think so.”
Harold Robbins Organized Crime Double Page 34