"I didn’t mean to stand you up tonight," she told me.
"No harm done," I said. "How are you feeling now?"
"Rotten," she said. "Were you worried about me?"
"Yes."
"It was one of those bad days. Everything went wrong. I took a couple drinks to relax, then things got worse and I took a couple more. Then I decided, ‘hell with it!’ and proceeded to drown my sorrows.
"How was the opening?"
"Interesting," I said. "Walter Carlon was there. Bruno told me he missed you."
"I’ll bet he did," she said. "I set the thing up practically singlehandedly!"
"Then you decided not to show up for it."
She looked a trifle wistful.
"I’m sorry about that now," she said. "Bruno is an awfully good person when you really get to know him well. I’ll have to call him in the morning…"
"Does it happen often?"
"What?"
"Everything going wrong."
She gnawed her lip.
"No, today was special," she said.
"In what ways?"
"I’d just as soon forget about it."
"Of course," I said.
The silence came again and I decided to wait it out.
I studied my shoe tops for several minutes before I heard a soft sob. Looking up then, I saw that her eyes were moist.
"It’s difficult, isn’t it?" I said.
"Y-yes."
I offered her my handkerchief, but she shook her head and used her sleeve.
I wanted whatever was causing this, but I did not know how to go after it. There seemed to be no handles. It could be a delayed reaction over Carl. It could be something quite different. I could not tell.
"You are a success now," she finally said.
"That is a very relative term."
"But you are, and I am glad for you."
"Thanks. I guess I chose a poor time to come to town, though. I wanted to find you happy, to take you someplace where there is laughter. I wanted—"
"You sometimes thought of me after you left?" she interrupted.
"Oh yes. Often."
She smiled weakly at this, so I went over and sat down beside her, put an arm about her shoulders. She did not resist. She began to cry again, though, and she leaned against me. I let her go on this way for a long while.
"It could have been so good," she finally said, her cheek against my chest. "…Then everything went wrong. I am born to lose, always."
It reminded me of something long gone by, but I said nothing. There followed a seizure of hiccups, then more tears.
"…It was just about perfect," she said. "Perfect…"
"Until today," I speculated.
"Until today," she agreed. "Now, both of them…Both of them!"
"Sad."
"I don’t know what to do. I really don’t."
"You are still young, pretty, employed."
"Rotting," she said. "Everything has gone rotten. To lose another. We were so close, so close to it."
"Now…" I ventured.
"Now," she said, "I feel an ancient widow all in black. Now it is over."
"Twice," I said, catching the drift with hackle-raising suddenness. "This time Claude Bretagne."
The alcohol had slowed both her reflexes and her thinking. It took several seconds before I felt her stiffen.
"How…? How did you know?" she said softly.
"I know many things," I told her. "I even know about the money. First you lost Carl, now Claude. How did this one happen?"
"I don’t know," she said. "I don’t understand what happened."
"How did you find out about it?"
"What does it matter to you?"
"A great deal," I said. "I’m in trouble, and you can help me by telling me about this."
"Will I get in trouble, too?"
"No."
"All right," she said, pushing away from me and sitting up straight. "All right."
She lit a fresh cigarette, then rose and walked to the window.
She stared out for a time, then began: "Yes, we were lovers, Claude and I. Does that make me seem wicked? To have seduced a priest? Or to have let him have his way with me? It wasn’t that way at all. We met by accident one day, in the gallery. We were showing the works of several South American artists. He came to look and we began talking about them. He knew quite a bit about South America, and I was interested. He seemed very lonely, and I was lonely, too. We began talking of other matters then, and later we had lunch together. He came to the gallery quite often after that, and each time we would go for a walk or a glass of wine. We would do something, together. This simply went on, and on. Until finally we became lovers."
She paused and flicked an ash out the window.
"The details are none of your business," she said then. "We were in love, we were happy for a time.
"I forgot about Carl. I forgot about the old days and the things we did then. Claude talked of giving up the priesthood to marry me. But there was a thing that stood in the way. For a long while, he would not tell me what it was. I knew it could not involve his feelings or beliefs so much, for he was quite radical in his views on most of the Church’s policies. Then he told me of the nature of his work, and if he left there would be an auditing of the accounts he handled. If they went into them very, very deeply, he said, there would be trouble. I was shocked. I had thought that such things were out of my life forever. He did not explain any more for a time, but he told me to trust him. I did."
Then she turned and faced me.
"You know or you have guessed this much?" she asked.
"Yes."
"What else do you know about it?"
"Very little."
"And you really need to know more to keep yourself out of trouble?"
"Yes."
"I trust you. I have always trusted you," she said. "But I must have your word if I am to tell you more."
"My word as to what?"
"That you will help me to find his killer," she said.
I thought rapidly, suppressing all physical reactions, then said, "Very well. You have my word."
She studied me for several long heartbeats.
"How long have you known he was dead?" she asked.
"Just since you told me."
"All right," she said. "Now I know why you are a good card player. I believe you.
"About a month ago," she went on, closing her eyes and massaging them with thumb and forefinger, "he changed. In a single day. He seemed very depressed, but at first he would not tell me what was bothering him. This went on for several days. He began using my telephone to place calls out of the country."
"Where to?"
"South America. Brazil. He has a brother there."
"What did they talk about?"
"I don’t really know. I am not even positive it was always his brother he talked to. I just assumed that—as I assumed the calls themselves dealt with the money."
"Why?"
"Because he later told me he had become depressed because it seemed his superiors were growing suspicious. He began to worry about their finding him out. Then he began making plans to leave the country."
"Do you know how much money was involved?"
She shook her head.
"A large sum. That is all he told me."
"What happened next?"
"He came and stayed with me for a time while we made arrangements, long enough for him to obtain identification papers under another name. Then we made reservations at a small hotel in Lisbon. He went on ahead and telephoned me when he was safely checked in. I waited then for him to notify me when it would be safe to follow."
"Why the delay?"
"He was to obtain new papers for both of us as man and wife, under another name. These would show us to be Portuguese citizens. Since we did not know how long it would take to obtain them, I was to wait for him to call me—and to tell anyone who asked after him that I did not know where he was."
"Did anyone
show up to ask?"
"Yes. Two men. They said they were from the Vatican, that they wanted to locate him. I told them I knew nothing. That is all. They never returned."
"I see. Then what?"
"When the papers were ready, he was to make flight reservations for us, either to São Paulo or Brasilia—it depended on information he was going to obtain in the meantime. Then he was to notify me, so that I might join him in Lisbon and we could leave together."
She dropped her eyes then, turned her back on me and stared out the window once again.
"Then everything went wrong," she said.
I decided on silence, waited.
"He telephoned and said there had been a new development, and he would have to change our plans. He was going to go alone. After he arrived and dealt with certain matters, he would contact me and tell me where to meet him, what to do. He told me not to worry. Said that he would take care of everything."
"When was all this?"
"Yesterday."
"Yesterday!"
"Yes. Just a little while before you called. I was still deciding what to do when you rang."
"Did he tell you why he was doing this? Did he say what these new developments were?"
"No. He would not tell me."
"Did he sound worried? Agitated?"
"Yes. Both. But again he would not tell me why. So I decided to discover the reason for myself. I was able to get passage on a late flight to Lisbon. I took a cab to the hotel. That is were I found him…dead."
"How was he killed?"
"He was shot," she said softly, "in the head."
"How did you get into the room?"
"The man at the desk gave me a key. He had left word when he checked in that his wife would be joining him. I carried a small bag. I wore a ring. I went up and found him lying there."
"Any signs of a struggle?"
"Yes. The room was in disorder. Things were broken, thrown about…And he was lying there on the floor with blood on his face. He—he’d been shot beneath the left eye."
She raised her hands and muffled a sob.
"Was the gun there?"
"I didn’t see it. I didn’t search the room, though."
"What did you do then?"
"I was feeling scared and sick. I backed out of the room and closed the door. Then I left. I didn’t go past the desk. I took the back steps."
"Did anybody see you leave?"
"I don’t think so."
"Did you leave anything behind in the room?"
"No."
"Or take anything out of it?"
"No. I just wanted to get out."
"What did you do then?"
"I dropped the key in a mailbox and called the police on a public phone. I gave them the name of the hotel and told them that there had been a murder in Room 333. Then I hung up and returned to the airport. I caught a flight back to Rome, and it was morning when I came in. I phoned the gallery and told them I was ill. You know the rest."
"I see," I said, and I rose and crossed the room and put my hands on her shoulders and kept them there until she stopped shaking.
Then we returned to the sofa and sat there for a long while.
"What should I do?" she asked me in a faraway voice.
"Nothing, now. I have to think about it, and I’m a slow thinker. I’ll let you know tomorrow. Where…?"
"I will be here," she said. "You have not forgotten your promise?"
"No."
And we sat there until she began to yawn, which of course made me do the same thing.
"Do you think you’ll be able to sleep?" I asked.
"Yes," she said. "If I can’t, I’ll take a pill. I don’t think I’ll need one, though."
I rose, fetched my jacket.
"I left my number on the pad beside your telephone."
She nodded. She got to her feet then and accompanied me to the door.
"Be sure to bolt this thing after me."
"Yes," she said, tilting her head and studying my face, "just like the old days."
"Good night."
She squeezed my hand.
"Good night."
I went away then, counting new questions, wrong answers and funny feelings, step by downward step.
*
I was awakened by the ringing of the telephone before I was ready to get up. But then, if there had been no telephone, I still would not have been ready to get up. I never am. Consciousness is a cold statue in a pigeon-infested park, scoured each morning by the mysterious and not altogether benign processes of certain bodily fluids whose existence I resent daily. Asked by a psychologist I once knew what animal I would most prefer being if I could not be a man, I immediately replied, "A tapeworm." He had asked me before I’d had my morning coffee.
Between obscenities, I snatched up the receiver and told the caller to go away.
"Did I awaken you, Ovid?" came Bruno’s polite voice, with the smugness of one who has been up for hours and is proud of the fact.
"No, but you interrupted my jai alai game."
He chuckled, then asked me whether I would join him for lunch.
"All right," I said. "It’s the least you can do."
"Fine. I will pick you up at the hotel at one o’clock."
"Good. See you then."
"Goodbye."
"Goodbye."
My fluids refused to reverse their mysterious and ungentlemanly actions, so I staggered off to the bathroom to start the day on a clean foot. By the time I had finished my work, so had they. So I dressed myself and went out for coffee and rolls.
Eating and meditating, I organized my thoughts around my mission and the information I had so far collected. I would have to beat it all into shape and get it to the man at the embassy before too many hours passed. My own status would doubtless be influenced by it. I hoped that upon checking my report with Portuguese authorities, someone would be satisfied that I had done everything asked of me by locating the priest, would thank me in a cold, stiff fashion, so that I could feel ever more resentful, and tell me I was off the hook and could go home now. If such were the case, certain things about this business would always bother me; but then, I’ve learned to live with the fact that lots of things do and more doubtless will. As for my promise to Maria, it would be kept to the letter, when my report stimulated further investigation requiring the apprehension of Claude’s killer.
Enough to somewhat brighten my morning, there. I decided to leave it at that and take a walk, while I made up my mind as to the things I was going to say and the manner in which I was going to report them.
Later, I telephoned the embassy, and after two rigmaroles and one wait got to talk to the security officer, who was named Martinson. I began telling him the story I had heard and he interrupted and told me he did not want to hear it over the telephone, that I should come to the embassy immediately and report in person. I told him that was impossible, but that I could make it later in the afternoon or in the evening. He asked me why.
"I can’t tell you over the telephone," I said, with perverse delight.
So we made arrangements to meet in the early evening at his apartment, which bore a respectable address on the Via Veneto. He sounded as if he had correctly assumed that I was putting him out on purpose.
Why not? He was just another arm of my persecutor, so far as I was concerned, to be jostled whenever I could get away with it. Besides, I’d be damned if I’d miss that free lunch with Bruno. He liked good restaurants and good food, and he might have some interesting shop talk or gossip.
I telephoned Maria then, sympathized with her over her hangover and told her that I would be in touch with her later in the evening. She made affirmative noises to this, which I took as a good sign.
Then I strolled, slowly, back toward the hotel. The sun was warm and cheerful in a smooth, kind sky. Upon reflection, I noticed that I was almost happy.
*
"…and so, what do you hope to find in Brazil?" Bruno was asking me, having ju
st finished a ten-minute rundown on the current state of the arts in that country.
At his last word, I removed my gaze from the rear of the retreating waitress and executed a small shrug I had learned in Naples.
"A change of scene, romance, exercise…Who knows?" I said, toying with my wineglass. "Perhaps this trip will hold me for a time. I may not even need to go to Brazil."
"Oh?"
He raised his glass, sipped from it and lowered it slightly.
"Then you will be returned to New York soon?"
"Possibly," I said. "It depends on so many things. I do not know for certain yet."
"But it is likely to be within the next few weeks?" he persisted.
"I simply do not know."
"Damn it!" he said. "You are just as secretive now that you are a legitimate businessman as you were in the old days!"
I smiled before I shrugged this time.
"You misread me," I said. "I can’t tell you what I don’t know myself."
"I inquire," he said, "because there is something I wish to ask of you. If you were going back again soon, I wondered whether you would be interested in taking Gladden’s unsold works, exhibiting them and keeping them on consignment for a time?"
I sipped my wine and thought about it.
"What about your own operation there?"
He shook his head.
"It is a matter of space and time," he said. "We are filled to the brim and booked solid with exhibits. It would be close to a year before we could set him up properly."
"So? He may be worth more in a year’s time."
Bruno frowned.
"You know there is more to this business than the commercial end of things," he said. "Paul Gladden is ready for a good exhibit in New York. He is an artist, not a piece of merchandise. I want to see him receive the recognition he deserves. You have been building a solid reputation in recent years. Since I cannot give him that publicity at this time, you would be a good choice. Are you interested?"
"What sort of terms are you thinking?"
"For me?" he said. "Nothing. At the moment, I am only interested in furthering Mister Gladden’s career. I like his work, I like him personally. I feel that one day soon he will be acknowledged as one of the great ones." He smiled at this. "Perhaps then, he will remember that I helped him along a bit," he finished.
"In other words, I would handle his works on a straight percentage basis—no strings attached?"
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