Hard Rain

by Peter Abrahams

“Why?”

  “Because that’s what I told him. Of course, any good doctor would have known it was a lie. But, as I explained—”

  “He wasn’t a very good doctor.”

  The man smiled, very quickly. It was gone in a moment.

  “Why did you lie to him?”

  “Because it made no difference in terms of your treatment. X-rays. Stitches. Tetanus shot. Painkiller. And blows on the head lead to questions, the police, etcetera. I wasn’t sure you wanted all those complications.”

  Jessie gazed across the room at the man, trying to see through to the meaning behind his words. She couldn’t. The room wobbled again.

  “Why don’t you sit down?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “The doctor thought you should spend the day in bed.”

  “But you said he was a lousy doctor. You can’t play it both ways.”

  He gave her a long look. “Suit yourself.”

  But all at once the idea of sitting was irresistible, perhaps because she was elongating again, and the room was turning white. Jessie took a few steps forward, controlled, balanced steps, she thought, and sat on the edge of the bed, not too heavily. She waited for the man to say, “That’s better.” He didn’t. He didn’t say anything at all. His gray eyes had an inward look, as though they’d gone behind the clouds.

  Jessie took a deep breath. Colors flowed back into the room. “Did you find me in the tunnel?” she asked.

  He nodded. The clouds in his eyes drifted away.

  “Are you a policeman?” Something about him reminded her of DeMarco—DeMarco was about the same height, although not quite as wide.

  “No,” he said.

  Like DeMarco, but less aggressive, she decided. So she asked, “Are you with campus security?”

  He smiled his quick smile. “Security in general.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means I’d like you to tell me what you were doing down in the tunnels.”

  “And if I don’t?”

  “Then I’ll have to fill in the blanks myself. That’ll waste time, and worse than that, I might not be able to do it.”

  “What were you doing in the tunnels?”

  “Looking for you. What do you do for a living by the way?”

  “Why do you want to know that?”

  “No reason.”

  Jessie told him.

  “I’d never have thought of that,” he said. He shook his head, smiling to himself. Then he asked, “Who hit you on the head? Pat Rodney?”

  “How do you know Pat?”

  “I don’t.”

  He didn’t know Pat. He didn’t know Mr. Mickey. “How do you know about him, then? I don’t understand your interest in all of this.”

  “All of what?”

  Jessie said nothing.

  The man rose, walked to the window, parted the curtains. Light rain dripped from a low gray sky. “When I was a kid I had a book,” the man said, still looking out the window. “It was the story of two coal miners. Bazak and Vaclav. They don’t know each other. They’re from different villages and work in different mines. Then one day they both swing their picks, and the wall between them falls down.” He drew the curtains, turned to Jessie. “It was a picture book. I still remember the look on their faces.”

  “Is that supposed to be a parable?”

  “Just a memory.” He reached into the pocket of his corduroys. “Here’s your mail. It came while you were asleep.”

  He leaned across the bed and handed Jessie an envelope. It had Appleman and Carr printed in the top left-hand corner and was addressed to her at the 1826 House. It was also torn along one side.

  “It’s been opened,” Jessie said.

  The man gazed at her unblinking and didn’t speak.

  “You had no right to read my mail.”

  He sat down in the chair. “You might as well read it too,” he said. “Otherwise we can’t discuss it.”

  Angry thoughts shot through her brain, but none of them translated themselves into effective language. Jessie opened the envelope. Inside was a letter from Dick Carr, enclosing a money order for five hundred dollars. “In going through Barbara’s papers,” he wrote in the last paragraph, “I found a file labeled with your name. It contained a memo written by Barbara on the day of her death, raising the possibility of applying for a court order to examine your ex-husband’s bank records, in hope of tracing him through recent transactions. I took the liberty of so applying, and aided by Lieutenant DeMarco’s warrant of the twentieth, was successful. Enclosed please find a copy of all Mr. Rodney’s savings and checking transactions for the past two years, as well as the contents of his safety deposit box. I hope this will be of some help.”

  Jessie hadn’t known that Pat kept a safety deposit box. Now she examined what Dick Carr had found in it.

  On top was a clipping, slightly yellowed, from The New York Times, January 6, 1971:

  HARTLEY FRAME

  The Pentagon announced today that Hartley E. Frame, son of Sen. Edmund S. Frame (D. Va.) and Alice Frame, has been removed from the Missing-in-Action list and declared dead. The action resulted from an inspection tour of North Vietnamese prison camps by a Red Cross delegation.

  Pfc. Frame was born on October 4, 1947, in Sweet Briar Va. He attended the Hill School in Pottstown Pa. and Morgan College, Morgantown Mass. He is survived by his parents.

  The second enclosure from the safety deposit box was a sheaf of counterfoils, stapled together. Each recorded a ten-thousand-dollar payment to Eggman Cookies; each was dated March 18. They were annual payments from 1971 to last year.

  Jessie looked up, into iron-gray eyes. “I need to know what side you’re on,” she said.

  “What sides are there?”

  “I don’t know.” Jessie realized the truth of her words as she spoke them and suddenly knew the helpless look was in her eyes. “I don’t even fucking know that,” she said. And then she was crying, uncontrollably, in front of a stranger, the way she had cried “Daddy, Daddy” in her dream. The room began to tilt and spin. Jessie rolled over, buried her face in the sheets.

  She was half-aware of the man moving across the room. Then she felt him bending over her, sensed his hand moving toward her.

  But he didn’t touch her.

  He moved away. Water ran in the bathroom. He returned.

  “Here.”

  He held out a glass of water and two vials. Jessie wiped her face on the sheet and sat up. “What are those?”

  “Amoxicillin,” he read from the label. “One every four hours. And painkillers. As needed.”

  Jessie took the antibiotic, drained the glass. She was very thirsty.

  “What about the painkillers?”

  “I’m okay,” Jessie said, returning them unopened. Her head was hurting, but she needed to think clearly. The man was watching her very closely, almost as though he could gauge her pain just by looking. “It says ‘as needed,’ right?” she asked.

  “Right.” He took the empty glass, holding it in both his broad hands like a thing of value.

  “You might as well talk to me,” he said. “I already know you’re looking for Pat Rodney. I know he’s your ex-husband. I know he’s got your daughter. I know he’s with another man. I know you’re interested in Hartley Frame. I know you tried to trace him at the Alumni Affairs Office and that you questioned Alice Frame about him, not too successfully.”

  “How do you know all that about me?”

  He looked surprised. “I didn’t think you were trying to hide your movements.”

  Jessie stared at him for a moment. Then, despite the tears on her face, despite the pounding in her head, she laughed. Not loudly, not long, but a real laugh. He smiled again. “You must think I’m pretty stupid,” Jessie said.

  “I don’t.”

  “Try your name on me once more.”

  “Just call me Ivan.”

  “That’s a funny name for an FBI agent.”

  “What makes you th
ink I’m an FBI agent?” There was a new tone in his voice; if she had had to guess, Jessie would have said he sounded insulted.

  “Doesn’t the FBI guard senators and that sort of thing?”

  “I don’t guard senators.”

  “Then why are you interested in me?”

  “Fill in the blanks. Then I’ll know.”

  Jessie made a decision. She made it on the basis of little things, because she didn’t know enough about the big things to form an opinion. Little things. The glass of water. Reaching out to touch her and then not. The quick smile. The thoughtful look that had drifted across the gray eyes. It wasn’t logical. It was impulsive, intuitive, feminine—all those things that hadn’t made America great.

  “All right, Ivan,” Jessie said, “where do I start?”

  “Where you like,” he said.

  Jessie started on a Sunday afternoon in Santa Monica, with the sun a strange white ball low in the sky and a long wait for a blue BMW that never came. She told Ivan about the message on Pat’s phone, about Blue, and Spacious Skies. She told him about Pat’s blackboard, Mr. Mickey, the house in Malibu. She left out nothing—not Gato’s record store, not Philip, not DeMarco. Not Barbara. He brought her suitcase from next door so she could show him the broken barrette and the Reeboks with the blue stripes. Zyzmchuk had to get a key from the office; Jessie couldn’t find hers.

  She also showed him the picture of Kate at the beach, standing like a stork. He put on glasses to look at it. “Just for close-up work,” he muttered, so low and quick she hardly heard him. Then he studied the picture for a long time—much longer, she thought, than necessary for just the memorization of Kate’s image. He handed it back without a word and took off his glasses.

  At the end, Jessie was exhausted. Her head ached; she didn’t have the strength to get off the bed. But she felt a strange relief. She had emptied her mind into his.

  Ivan sat for a while, the thoughtful look in his eyes. Then he said, “Was Mickey, or Mr. Mickey, the man in the tunnels?”

  “I don’t think so. The man in the tunnels wasn’t big enough. And Mr. Mickey’s not bald. But who else would have been trying to kill me?”

  “Whoever it was didn’t try to kill you.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  Zyzmchuk thought of her bare torso, the sweater pulled up over her breasts. He probably should have had the doctor examine her for signs of sexual penetration, probably still should. But he just said, “Because you’re not dead.”

  She was watching him. She had eyes he didn’t want to lie to. “Is that the whole reason?” she asked.

  “What else would there be?” It was an evasion, not a lie, but it brought the helpless look briefly to her eyes, and he wasn’t happy with himself for that.

  “I don’t know,” she said.

  Zyzmchuk rose briskly, rubbing his hands, trying to kindle optimism in the air. “Tell me about the words on the blackboard.”

  “They said ‘Make hay while the sun shines.’ In phonetic Arabic.”

  “But what were the exact words?”

  What were they? Jessie remembered Philip, thinking they were French: You something the you. “Toi giet la toi.”

  “Spell it.”

  She did.

  “What makes you think that’s Arabic?”

  “Mr. Mickey told me.”

  “It’s not Arabic.”

  “What is it?”

  “Let’s find out.” Ivan picked up the phone, dialed. “Hello, Grace,” he said. “I need a translation.… The phrase is ‘toi giet la toi.’” He gave the spelling and hung up.

  Ivan sat in the easy chair. Jessie sat on the bed. A minute went by, then another. The phone rang. He picked it up. “Zyzmchuk,” he said; this time Jessie caught the name. He listened for a few moments and put down the phone.

  He looked at Jessie. “‘Toi giet la toi’—there are accents, apparently—is Vietnamese,” he said. “It means, ‘I kill, therefore I am.’”

  Jessie thought of the words in the tunnel and the song she’d heard at Erica McTaggart’s: “Descartes Kills.” “I—I’m not sure I understand.”

  Ivan rose from the chair and came toward her. He held out his hand. “Bazak,” he said, “meet Vaclav.”

  Jessie reached out. They shook hands.

  30

  Ivan Zyzmchuk, sitting at the desk in room 20 at the 1826 House, opened Gerald Brenner’s passport. Jessie looked over his shoulder as he turned the pages.

  Gerald Burton Brenner. A bald man with a round head and a big, loose smile. Born Oakland, California, 1951. He’d done a lot of traveling—Hong Kong, China, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, all in the past year. The most recent stamp was Thai: he’d entered Bangkok October 29, left on November 1.

  “Seen him before?” Zyzmchuk asked.

  Jessie examined the photograph. “No.”

  “Could he have been the man in the tunnel?”

  “It was dark so I can’t be sure, but I think the man in the tunnel had a different shape of head—longer and narrower.”

  He turned to her. “How many bald men can there be?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “One bald man at the car dealer, identified as your ex-husband. A second bald man in the tunnels and, let’s assume, driving the van. You heard his voice. It wasn’t your ex-husband’s.”

  “No.”

  Zyzmchuk’s index finger traced the outlines of Gerald Brenner’s smile. “So is this baldy number three? Or is that stretching things a little?”

  “Do you mean you don’t believe me?” For a moment Jessie had a sickening feeling they’d swung suddenly onto the same detour she and DeMarco had taken.

  But Zyzmchuk said, “Not at all,” and turned back to the passport. On the last page he found Gerald Brenner’s address in San Jose, California; his next of kin, Ginny Brenner, wife; and a phone number.

  “What d’you say?” he said.

  “What do you say?” Jessie replied.

  She saw the quick smile. “Strike,” he said, picking up the phone. “Strike, strike and strike again. Marshall Zhukov, or one of that crowd.” He dialed the number in Gerald Brenner’s passport, then held the receiver so Jessie could listen too.

  The call was answered halfway through the first ring. “Hello?” a woman said, sounding small and faraway.

  “Gerald Brenner, please.”

  There was silence on the other end. Then the woman said, “Who is this?”

  “I’m a friend of Jerry’s from Auckland. I’m in the States for a few days and thought I might look him up.”

  After another silence, the woman said, “What’s your name?”

  “Vaclav.”

  “I don’t remember him mentioning you.”

  Zyzmchuk turned the pages of the passport until he came to the New Zealand stamp. Jessie noticed how unhurriedly his fingers moved.

  “We only met in July,” Zyzmchuk said. “But we seemed to hit it off. Are you Ginny?”

  “Yes.” Static buzzed in the line. Jessie could barely hear the woman say, “Did he mention me?” The connection seemed to be breaking and so, thought Jessie, did Ginny Brenner’s voice.

  “He did,” Zyzmchuk said.

  The woman began to cry. “Oh, Mr. Vaclav, something horrible has happened. Jerry’s dead.”

  “No. What happened?”

  “He was killed. Murdered. In Bangkok. He’s been missing since the end of October, but they only found his body two weeks ago.” She sobbed small, faraway sobs. “He—it was floating in one of the canals.”

  “But—why?”

  “They say it must have been robbery. Jerry made a big sale over there on the thirty-first, and apparently there was some celebrating. No one saw him after that.” Ginny Brenner’s voice broke again.

  “I’m very sorry,” Zyzmchuk said. “Is it absolutely certain?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “That it was Jerry.”

  “Oh, yes. The—he was identified by the company�
��s Bangkok subagent.”

  “This is terrible news.”

  “I know,” said Ginny Brenner. “I know.”

  Zyzmchuk said good-bye and hung up.

  Jessie backed a step or two away. “You were very good at that,” she said.

  Ivan Zyzmchuk was still for a moment. Then his head turned toward the photograph of Kate at the beach, which lay on the desk. He looked at it, then at Jessie. He wasn’t angry, not even annoyed. “Are we going to discuss means and ends?” he asked.

  “No,” Jessie said, then added, “Not about this.”

  Zyzmchuk laughed, a full sound that, like his voice, seemed to rise from somewhere deep in his body. “My kind of ethics,” he said. His eyes found hers for a moment, glanced away. “Do you feel up to a drive?” he asked.

  “Where? Spacious Skies?”

  “Bull’s-eye,” he said. “You don’t need me at all.”

  Yes, I do, Jessie thought. But she didn’t say it.

  She got off the bed. White fog crept round the edges of her vision; the room started to play its tricks again.

  “Sure you’re all right?”

  The question reached her through wads of cotton batting. She sat back down on the bed. “Just give me a minute,” she said.

  Jessie took a few deep breaths. She felt the gray eyes on her profile. Okay. Now. Slow and easy.

  She stood up. Her vision stayed clear. The room stayed still.

  “Let’s go,” Jessie said.

  “Take one of these first.” He was holding out the painkillers.

  Jessie shook her head. “I have to be smart.”

  “Take it for me.”

  “For you?”

  “Yeah. It’ll bring you down to my level. And I’ll feel better.”

  Jessie took the pill.

  They went to the parking lot. The cold found her weak spot right away, tracing the outline of her wound like an icicle tip. “Is this the kind of car the FBI hands out?” she asked, as he opened the door for her.

  “Too fancy for the FBI,” Zyzmchuk replied. “It’s on loan from the White House.”

  They drove north, Zyzmchuk at the wheel, Jessie beside him in the passenger seat. Late afternoon: the sky hard blue, the earth gold, with the occasional blaze of a still-red tree.

  “Do you have any children, Ivan?”