Memory (Hard Case Crime)

by Donald E. Westlake

  After breakfast he watched television, which was game shows and soap operas. Mrs. Malloy came into the living room during the soap operas, but she always left during the game shows, which she disliked. “Something for nothing. You never get something for nothing.” And she’d go back to her work.

  Cole liked the game shows; they fascinated him. They were mostly just exercises in memory, the remembering of capitals and movie stars and song titles, and he liked to watch the faces of the contestants in those seconds between question and answer when memory was being put to work. He liked the applause that greeted a right answer, and he enjoyed something like a feeling of companionship with a contestant who had just failed.

  At three-thirty, he would get ready to leave for work. He had a heavy jacket to wear now, lined with fiberglass; it belonged to Bobby Malloy and had been loaned to him by Mrs. Malloy. It was a little small on him, but warm.

  Work was work, unchanging, and after work he usually went home and to bed. Once or twice a week he would stop on the way home for coffee and a doughnut, and on rare occasions he would go along with Little Jack Flynn and some of the others to Cole’s Tavern. He always felt guilty about going to the tavern, because he couldn’t spare the money, but he needed the occasional evening of unloosening.

  He wasn’t saving any money. He couldn’t yet, not until Artie Bellman was paid back. His wallet was full of reminder notes to himself now, and one of them was a record of the payments he’d made so far to Bellman. He was afraid that otherwise he would just keep on giving Bellman ten dollars every payday forever, never knowing when the fourth week was reached.

  It was an easy life, because there was little to remember. He didn’t know if his memory was getting better or worse; he knew that he was still forgetting things, that Mrs. Malloy had given up asking him to remind her to be sure to put butter on the grocery list or start the roast at three o’clock, that every once in a while the name of a co-worker would be lost, that he sometimes did forget the address of the Malloys’ house, that there were still mornings when he woke up and didn’t remember his job till he saw the note on the door. He could remember the details of his present life better than he could the details of his past life, but that was only natural. And he’d given up the memory list again, this time for good, because the isolated names and facts written on a sheet of paper hadn’t been good memory aids at all.

  He’d thought it would be difficult to explain to Mrs. Malloy why he had reminder notes tacked up in his room, but when she’d asked him he’d just said, “I have a terrible memory,” and she’d accepted it, telling him of her husband’s terrible memory; he could never remember birthdays, not even his own, or any other family occasion.

  It was an easy life, with a simple pattern to it that didn’t strain him overly much, but he never allowed himself to sink into it completely. It was only a transition, and that was all it could be. One night, in his fourth week in town, he happened to be looking in his wallet and he saw his New York State driver’s license, and he frowned at it, wondering where it had come from. Then he saw his own name on the license, and an address: 50 Grove St., New York, N. Y. And all at once he remembered why he was here, and that his goal was to return to New York City. It had been out of his mind, completely out of his mind, and he didn’t know for how long; just that he had been thinking of this life in Jeffords as permanent, without beginning and without end. New York, his acting career, his old friends, everything, had been erased completely from his mind. Not just smudged and misted, but erased. If he hadn’t run into a reminder, like this driver’s license, he would have stayed here forever.

  It terrified him. That night he added a new reminder note to the bedroom door:

  50 GROVE ST.—NEW YORK—Look In Wallet

  But the note was enough. On seeing it, he didn’t have to look in his wallet to find out what it meant. Still, it had been close. He had been on the very edge of losing his identity completely, of falling into the hole between the tick and the tock, of falling out of space and out of time and down into gray mindless emptiness, and not even knowing that anything had happened to him.

  “That’s what a zombie is,” he told himself. “That’s what a zombie is.”

  In the fifth week, they came for him.

  It was Friday night. He’d been paid, he’d given the third payment to Artie Bellman, and now he was on his way home. Little Jack and Buddy had wanted him to come along with them, but he never went to the tavern on payday. The idea frightened him, obscurely, though he wouldn’t spend very much at the tavern anyway. But he didn’t trust himself. He didn’t like to carry money with him, more than a few dollars at a time.

  It was the end of November. The trees had lost their leaves, and the leaves had been raked and burned, all long since. It was too cold now to be autumn anymore, but the snow hadn’t started yet. He was walking along the tilted slate squares of sidewalk, past the barren trees and the streetlights; it was just past midnight, and the street was deserted. He was a block from home when the highly polished new black car rolled slowly past him, going in his direction, and crept to a stop a few doors away. The passenger-side door opened, and a man climbed out. He was hard-looking and chunky, in a baggy suit and a wrinkled shirt and a dark tie. He stood on the sidewalk with his hands on his hips and squinted at Cole, the squint making the corners of his mouth turn up like the beginning of a snarl.

  Cole hesitated, not knowing what it was. He looked around, and the street was still deserted, the houses were all dark and silent. A man in a brand new highly polished black car couldn’t be meaning to steal his little pay; but what else was this? He stopped, a few feet away from the man, and said, “What do you want?”

  “Paul Cole?” The man’s voice was harsh, but soft, as though there were no strength in it and he had to strain his throat to make any sound at all.

  “What is it?”

  “You’re Paul Cole?” It was said impatiently; he looked slow-moving but irritable.

  Do I know him? He acts as though he doesn’t like me, as though he hates me. Maybe he knows me from somewhere, and his is one of the faces I’ve forgotten. But if we already know each other, why did he ask me if I was me?

  His only choice was to admit to the name, and see what happened next. He moved his head and said, “Yes. I’m Paul Cole.”

  The man nodded, his irritation temporarily satisfied. His right hand slipped with surprising speed into his hip pocket, and came out with a wallet, which he flipped open, saying, “Police.”

  They were between streetlights, and it was pretty dark here. Cole took a step closer, saying, “I can’t see that.”

  The man held it up higher, being impatient and irritable again, and Cole could now vaguely see an identification card of some sort. The man said, “We’re to bring you in.”

  “What for?”

  “They’ll tell you when you get there.” He stepped over to the car and jerked open the rear door. “Get in.”

  “But what is it? What do you want?”

  “They just told us, bring you in.”

  “Are you arresting me?”

  “Why? What’ve you done?”

  Cole took an involuntary step backward. “I haven’t done anything.” But he wasn’t sure.

  “You’re just wanted for questioning,” the man told him.

  “About what?”

  “You’ll find out when you get there.”

  The door on the driver’s side opened, and the driver got out of the car. He was very tall and very thin, and he was wearing a hat. He looked over the top of the car at Cole, and said, “Get in the car.” His voice was flat, and cold, and full of menace.

  Cole got into the back seat of the car, and the first man slammed the door after him. The two policemen got into the front seat, and their doors slammed one right after the other, like twin rifle shots. The car pulled away from the curb, and made a U-turn

  It smelled of new car. The back seat was firm, the upholstery felt new beneath his palm. The two
men in the front seat were dark shapes, a chunky thick-necked shape and a thin, hatted shape. No one said anything, till they stopped in front of the police station, and then the chunky man said, “All right, Cole. Here we are.”

  The police station was grimy brick. It looked like the Wilson Hotel, but with green lightglobes flanking the entrance. There were the same slate steps leading up.

  Inside, it was all old dark wood and green walls. The thin detective talked to a uniformed policeman behind a high desk, and then Cole was taken down a corridor and ushered into a room. The chunky man said, “Wait here.” They closed the door and left him alone.

  It was a long narrow room with a high ceiling, and a window high up in one of the short walls. There were exposed pipes running upward in the corners, painted the same flat green as the walls. A single white lightglobe was suspended from the ceiling on a chain, giving the room a stark cold light. The floor was thin wood strips, dark with age and grime, and the furnishings consisted of three armless wooden chairs scattered asymmetrically here and there.

  Cole was afraid to smoke, and afraid to sit down. He stood in the room, waiting, and the air felt cold and damp. He was thinking frantically, trying to remember something, remember anything, that would explain this, but he couldn’t come up with anything at all.

  Oh, God damn this memory!

  He waited fifteen minutes, and then the door opened and a new one came in. This one was portly, and gray-haired, and smiling. He was short, no more than five-five, and as neatly dressed as a banker. He came in, smiled and nodded, and said, “Sorry to keep you waiting, Paul. Mind if I call you Paul? Sit down, why don’t you. The smoking lamp is lit.”

  Cole sat down, more confused than ever, and lit a cigarette. The chunky man and the thin man had come into the room, too, and had closed the door again.

  The smiling man said, “Well, now, Paul, did Blake and O’Hare tell you what it was all about?”

  “No.”

  He smiled some more, and shrugged meaty shoulders. “Ah, it’s just as well. May I see your wallet a minute, Paul? Take your money out of it first, all right?”

  Cole was the only one seated, and it made him feel uncomfortable, so he stood up to get at his wallet, and then remained standing. He took the bills out and stuffed them in his pocket, and handed the wallet to the smiling man, who took it with dainty pudgy fingers, saying, “Ah, thank you. I didn’t introduce myself, did I? Captain Cartwright, that’s my name, Captain Cartwright. May I look at your cards?”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Thank you. Do sit down, Paul, I know you have been working hard, you must be tired. This won’t take long. Go on, sit down.”

  Cole sat down. He saw that the thin man had a notebook and pencil in his hands now. The notebook had a soft black leather cover, which he’d folded back. As Captain Cartwright continued to speak, the thin man made jottings in the notebook; it looked as though he were writing in shorthand.

  Captain Cartwright said, “What’s this? A New York State driver’s license, number 2962596. Paul Edwin Cole. Your middle name’s Edwin, eh? My first boy’s name is Edwin. And the address here, 50 Grove Street, New York City. Grove Street? I thought all the streets in New York were numbered. 42nd Street and Fifth Avenue, and like that.”

  “Grove Street’s in the Village,” Cole told him, and suddenly remembered the look of Sheridan Square, the Paperback Gallery and the Riker’s and the florist on the corner; his building was just off the square.

  Captain Cartwright managed to smile and frown at the same time. “The Village? What would that be?”

  “Greenwich Village.”

  “Ah! Greenwich Village! Is that where you lived? Very exciting, I’m told.”

  “I guess so.” Cole was wondering who was Blake and who was O’Hare. He thought the thin man was probably Blake and the chunky man O’Hare.

  Captain Cartwright was finished with the driver’s license now, and had found his Army discharge. “Well, well! You were in the Army, eh? Serial number US12451995. Honorable Discharge, very good. Did you like the Army?”

  “It was all right.”

  “Of course. But civilian life’s better, eh? Particularly in a place like Greenwich Village. Whatever made you decide to leave a place like Greenwich Village and come to our little town?”

  “Well...I didn’t have any money, I had to get a job, and...” It petered out there, not even the outline of an explanation.

  Captain Cartwright frown-smiled again, saying, “No jobs in Greenwich Village? You had to come all the way out here to find a job? Why, it must be a thousand miles.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Yes, sir? Oh! Oh, you mean yes sir a thousand miles, I see!” Captain Cartwright laughed as though someone had just told a good joke. His laughter subsided to his usual smile, and he said, “You don’t have any relatives here, do you?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Nowhere around here?” Captain Cartwright, still smiling, now expressed sympathy. “All back East, eh? Well, well. Curiouser and curiouser, as the fella says. Who did say that, Paul, do you remember?”

  “Alice, I think. Alice in Wonderland.”

  “Ah, yes! Alice in Wonderland, of course. Curiouser and curiouser. I like that, don’t you? And Greenwich Village, now that’s supposed to be almost a Wonderland, isn’t it? All this free love philosophy, and marijuana parties, and all. I suppose that’s exaggerated, though, isn’t it?”

  “I guess so.”

  “Yes, I suppose it must be. Still, a kind of Wonderland, really. Now, why would you leave Wonderland, I wonder? Wonderland I wonder! Listen to me!” Captain Cartwright chortled. Then all at once he turned serious. His eyes still twinkled, there was still a chuckle trembling at the corners of his mouth, but it was clear he intended his expression now to be serious. He said, “You weren’t in any trouble, Paul, were you? Trouble with a girl, trouble with the police, nothing like that?”

  Cole shook his head. “No, sir.” But his attention was distracted for a second, as he remembered the easy way he’d answered Captain Cartwright about the quote from Alice. There hadn’t been any hesitation, any fumbling awkward search through a foggy memory, nothing at all, just the answer.

  “Never any trouble with the police, Paul?”

  “No, sir.”

  Captain Cartwright let his expression relax into a sunny smile. “That’s good, Paul!” he said. “I’m glad to hear that. But I still don’t quite understand why it is you—tell me now?”

  “What?” Cole blinked and looked up, not knowing what had happened. In the middle of Captain Cartwright’s question, he’d turned the Captain’s voice off completely, not intentionally but effectively, because he’d been thinking about his answer to the question about curiouser and curi-ouser. He’d been asked the question, and the answer had popped right into his mind. Was that the way it worked? If his memory was asked a direct question, out would come answer? But he did ask his memory direct questions all the time, and more often than not no answer at all came out. It was just that his memory was erratic; it retained a few odd bits of disconnected and useless information, and Captain Cartwright had happened to touch one of the few remaining buttons that worked.

  But in thinking about this, he’d lost the thread of the Captain’s question. He said, “I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you.”

  “Didn’t hear me?” Captain Cartwright smile-frowned, and looked at Blake and O’Hare. “He didn’t hear me,” he said.

  The thin one—Blake?—looked at Cole and said, “I heard the Captain.”

  “I’m sorry. I’m tired, I just got off work. My mind was wandering.”

  Captain Cartwright shrugged and spread his hands. “That’s possible, boys,” he said, pleasantly, judiciously. “He’s answering right along, bright and cheerful, and when we get to the sixty-four thousand dollar question it just happens that his mind starts wandering. Nothing impossible about that, boys.” Captain Cartwright smiled broadly, and came a step closer, and leaned forward.
He said to Cole, “Would you like me to ask it again?”

  “Yes, please.”

  The chunky man—O’Hare, maybe—said, “He’s polite, you notice? He says please.”

  “Paul’s a good boy,” Captain Cartwright said, as though defending Cole against an unprovoked attack. “He’s tired, that’s all. If you lazy bums worked in the shipping department down at the tannery, you’d be tired, too.” He nodded triumphantly at Blake and O’Hare, then turned his attention back to Cole. “You ready now, Paul? I’m ready to ask it again, you with me now?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “There you go, Paul. Now here’s what I said, I said, ‘How come a smart young man like yourself should leave an exciting place like Greenwich Village to come live in this little dinky town a thousand miles away where you don’t even know a soul?’ That was more or less what I said, Paul. You get it that time?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “That’s fine, Paul. And what’s the answer?”

  Cole hesitated, trying to get his thoughts in order. He wanted to answer, but the answer was complicated, more complicated than Captain Cartwright suspected, and he couldn’t for a second or two decide where to start. Then Blake, the thin one, said, “Answer the Captain, boy.”

  Cole said, “I lost my job with the show.” Then he shook his head. He’d been flicking his cigarette ashes on the floor, because O’Hare was smoking and that’s what he was doing, but now Cole’s cigarette was too short to smoke anymore and there weren’t any ashtrays in the room. He said, “What can I do with this cigarette?”

  “What the hell kind of answer is that?” O’Hare demanded. “You can shove that cigarette up your ass.”

  “Now, gently, Jimmy, gently,” said Captain Cartwright. “You know I don’t like that kind of talk. And Paul, you just drop that cigarette on the floor and step on it and forget about it, and then you tell me what in the world you’re talking about. You lost your job with what show?”

  Cole got rid of the cigarette. He said, “Look in the wallet there, you’ll see my union cards. I’m an actor.”