The Man Who Never Returned

by Peter Quinn

  “Wilkes can’t know.”

  “He has to know. This was his idea.”

  “No, it wasn’t. It was given to him.”

  “By whom?”

  “X.”

  “Fin, what are you talking about?”

  “After twenty-five years, interest in the case had diminished into occasional pieces in newspapers and magazines. X was certain the truth lay buried forever until one day, out of the blue, a call comes from L.A., a panicked voice at the other end, one he hasn’t heard in a long time. It’s the woman whose apartment the murder took place in. Someone had show up where she worked. Obviously, a cop. New York accent. She’s unnerved. He tries to calm her. She tells him that the janitor got his name. Fintan Dunne.

  “Now it’s X who’s taken aback. He knows Fintan Dunne. But he can’t imagine why he’d be interested in the Crater case. Probably a coincidence. Just to be sure, he puts a tail on him, and next thing you know, Dunne is off to Havana, where X has been working for the last several months, even books himself into the same hotel. X’s paranoia shifts into high gear. In a moment of panic, using his outfit’s mob connections, he orders a hit on Dunne. But he quickly comes to his senses and rescinds it.

  “X figures a better way to get to the bottom of the matter: It’s possible but not probable that Dunne is interested in the Crater case; more likely, his trips to L.A. and Havana were entirely innocent. It’s also true that if anybody was looking to hire someone for a last crack at the Crater case before everybody involved was dead and gone, they couldn’t do better than to hire Dunne. So, once again, he decides to act preemptively.

  “His boss is in the middle of planning the launch of a major new project and is searching for the right story to hang it on. X comes to him with the perfect candidate. A great American mystery, one emblematic of an entire era, solved at last. It’s a long shot but, says X, if anyone can deliver, it’s Fintan Dunne. Have the story ready for August 6th, the 25th anniversary of the case, when the competitors are all tied up commemorating the grim anniversary of Hiroshima.”

  “But you’re wrong, Fin. The Crater case was Mr. Wilkes’s idea.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Mr. Wilkes told me so himself.”

  “I’m sure he did. And I’m also sure that the man who gave Wilkes the idea counted on him claiming the idea was his own. He played on Wilkes’s ego. I bet he’s had a lot of practice.”

  “You mean Bud Mulholland, don’t you?”

  “Ambrose Mulholland, or to employ the full name he used in the memorials that ran in the newspapers after Mary Claire Richfield’s suicide, ‘MCR, my love now and forever, Ambrose Ignatius Mulholland.’”

  She folded her hands in front of her face, as if praying. “I need that martini.”

  He signaled for the waiter and ordered her drink, double Scotch for himself. “What do you know about the work he does?”

  “Just what I told you. Helping reporters who get in trouble. Behind-the-scenes stuff.”

  “Nothing about what he does for the government?”

  “Rumors, sure. But Mulholland’s activities were never of interest to me.”

  “They are now.”

  The waiter delivered their drinks. When he’d gone, Dunne gave her a condensed version of what Pully told him about Mulholland. Two questions, he said, remained: how willing would Wilkes be to turn in one of his own—a liaison with a powerful government agency—in pursuit of an answer to the Crater case? And at what point would Mulholland, realizing the investigation was focusing on him, do whatever necessary to stop it?

  “There’s been one murder already,” he said, “though Mulholland probably regards Fred Kipps’s death as a mercy killing.”

  “He must be off balance. He can’t have expected you to move so quickly.”

  “You can bet he’ll move fast to make up for lost time.”

  “That means we have to move faster. I’ll put off Wilkes as long as I can. You have to leave the Savoy Plaza. Lie low.”

  “I need to bring others in. Cronin at Missing Persons has to pay an immediate visit to the basement at 39 East 38th Street.”

  “What about Mulholland? What do we do about him?”

  “For now, nothing.”

  Except for the background hum of conversation from the bar and the faint murmur of an instrumental playing on the jukebox, the room was quiet.

  “This could get you fired,” he said. “That’s among the more pleasant outcomes.”

  “I know.” She dipped her fingers into her glass. “Do you like olives?”

  “Yes.”

  “Open.” She removed the olive from the glass, leaned forward and placed it delicately on the slope of his tongue.

  He chewed—piquant, pleasant taste, trace of gin; swallowed. “What now?”

  “Let’s go to the bar.”

  There were only a few other patrons. Carlos, the bartender, greeted Nan Renard by name, served them their drinks and stood by the window. In the aquarium behind the bar, the fish moved slowly, gliding up and down; two miniature sharks traveled side by side in mellow circuits. One by one the other patrons left.

  Rain suddenly lashed the front window. Carlos peered at the watery blur; a smudge of pink neon sign blinked across the street. He turned out the front lights and locked the door, ambled back to where they sat. “Take your time, Miss Renard. Enjoy your drinks. But tonight very slow. Once you finish, I close it up.” He turned back to the window. “Few weeks ago was the snow. Now rain. A good sign. It means adios, winter.”

  “Yes, Carlos,” she said. “Let’s toast that: Adios, winter.”

  When they left, the downpour had diminished to drizzle. “How about a nightcap?” she said.

  “At the Stork?”

  “My place.”

  He glanced both ways, west toward his hotel, east toward her building. He thought of the reasons not to: didn’t need another drink; what could/would follow, complications, expectations, implications; Roberta. A taxi raced west on 59th Street, swish of tires over drenched, glistening asphalt, speeding recklessly before the light at the corner changed to red. “Why not?”

  She put her arm in his. Neither said anything. The doorman nodded a neutral acknowledgment when they entered. They rode the elevator to her floor. She stabbed at the lock several times with her key. Giggling softly, she handed it to him. “Here, steady Eddie, you give a try.”

  He slipped it in on the first try, opened the door, entered, and groped for the light switch on the wall. Before he could find it, she reached past, covered it with her hand. The door shut behind her. Darkness surrounded them. Sound of her breathing—feel of it on his neck—told him where she was. Uninvited, the reasons not to were back. “Nan,” he whispered, “maybe if we …”

  Her upright finger formed a cross with his lips. “No maybes, no ifs, not tonight. I knew the first time I saw you, in Mr. Wilkes’s bedroom. Like it or not, I thought, it’s going to happen.” She rushed her lips across his cheek until they reached his lips. He kissed her. Hard. Pressure of her lips on his: harder. Flicker of her tongue on his; his on hers. Mouths splayed, incapable of speech.

  Eyes adjusted to the dark, they went into the living room, threw their coats on the sofa. He pulled her close, glided the zipper down the back of her dress. She pulled off his tie, undid the buttons on his shirt. She took his hand, pulled him into the bedroom. “One minute,” she said. She went into the bathroom.

  He undressed, got into bed. Out the window, lights on the Queensborough Bridge traced the graceful sweep of its supporting cables, the middle curve stood against the night sky like a gigantic version of the Steeplechase-Jack smile in the portrait on Stella Crater’s wall. Too late for caution, too early for regret. A thought darted across his mind like a mouse into a hole: Grow up, Fin. It went as fast as it came.

  The door to the bathroom opened. She was framed in the light: long, shapely legs enmeshed in black nylons, fastened to red garters that hung from a front-laced black corset. She wa
lked to the bed, pulled on the laces, revealing the upward tip of her breasts, erect nipples. She pulled back the covers.

  Adios, winter.

  He opened his eyes. No idea of how long since they finished. Bridge lights, bright in the distance, like the constellations in the zodiac—Aries, Leo, Virgo—traced the great, wide smile. He rolled over. She was lying on her side, awake. They kissed. She straddled him. He ran his hands up her firm, flat belly, rubbed her breasts, took the nipples between thumb and forefinger. They made love again.

  Dawn: he woke again. She wasn’t in the bed. The bathroom door was closed. She came out wearing a robe, and beckoned as she let it drop to the floor. He followed her into the shower. “I like my men clean all over.” She opened an unlabeled vial—shampoo especially made for Mr. Wilkes, she explained, “frightfully expensive.” He almost asked her what Wilkes’s shampoo was doing in her shower, but didn’t. She lathered his hair, ran her hand down to his crotch, stroked him. “Stop,” he said finally, “or I’ll finish right here.” She smiled, kept stroking, “That’s all right, Fin, come, come, go ahead and come.”

  Clean and dry, he got back in bed. She dressed hurriedly. Didn’t want to be late for an early appointment, she said, but no need for him to leave. She’d call him at the hotel. She bent down, kissed him, nuzzled his hair with her nose, smiled. “You have Mr. Wilkes’s scent.”

  “The scent of money?”

  “Destiny. I like it.”

  He was glad she told him to stay. Too late to undo, doubt or second guess what they’d done. But for now, before doubt, regret, remorse, this was enough: void, inertia, body at rest content to stay at rest, the lack of desire that follows the culmination of desire. He lay on his back, folded his hands on his chest, the posture of the dead. The John Garfield way. He went back to sleep.

  He walked back to the hotel. Brisk, clear, sunny day. Very unlike the mood that settled over him. He stopped at Schrafft’s for a pot of tea and a turkey sandwich. Sat in a corner, away from the sunshine, smoked, moped, brooded. He’d violated all his own rules. Crossed a line he shouldn’t have. He knew better. But how often did knowing better translate into acting better? Not often enough. Working with Nan in the days ahead would be inevitably complicated by last night.

  Roberta had tried to save him from himself with that simple advice: Grow up, Fin. But he didn’t listen because deep down, though he hadn’t admitted it to himself, until now, he blamed her for his discontent. It was his idea to retire, not hers, and he’d been surprised when she’d gone along. Unconsciously, he supposed, he’d expected her to talk him out of it. Instead, she went to Florida, scouted ahead, bought the house, and when they left New York, she was the one who traveled smoothly into their new life.

  In good manly fashion, he’d behaved like a boy. He didn’t voice any qualms, didn’t talk to her about his doubts, but grew petulant, moody, restless, like an adolescent, until it brought him to this moment. The thought of her with Felipe came to him as a sharp pain. He’d been denying it because he couldn’t admit he was the cause.

  The possibility of losing her was more than he could bear. But Jack Lynch’s advice from ten years ago—It’s your wife’s forgiveness you should ask for. Make it up to her when you get home—wouldn’t be good enough this time. He hadn’t been away at war. He’d been proving to himself that he hadn’t lost anything, that he was as good as he’d ever been, that retirement was a silly mistake. In the process, he’d called into question their future. Forgiveness would no longer be enough. Now, if she’d let him, he’d have to figure out how to rebuild what he’d destroyed.

  Only one message at the desk: Please call Mr. Louis Pohl. Urgent. The only urgency he felt was to lie down. He sat on the bed, took a pad and pencil from the night table, tried to draft a note to Roberta. Couldn’t. Put the pad back in the drawer, beside the Bible. A time for everything under heaven, for contentment, for contradictions, for contrition. On the verge of breaking open the biggest case of his life, he was sorry he’d gotten involved.

  Dunne chalked up blurred vision and slight dizziness to a mild hangover. Napped for half an hour and awoke wearier than when he fell asleep, as though he were coming down with something. His stomach began to cramp. The phone rang. It was Crow. Von Vogt had called to tell him about the encounter with Brophy’s bat. “You all right?”

  “Fine.” The wheeze in his voice was pronounced.

  “You don’t sound fine.”

  “Nothing a good night’s sleep won’t cure.”

  The cramps worsened. He was sweating. On the way to the bathroom, he had to lean against the wall for support. He called the front desk. The receiver trembled in his hand. Asked that the house doctor be sent to his room. No recollection of the answer. He must have passed out. Suddenly, someone was pressing on his chest; nearby, wearing his funeral director attire, the front desk clerk shouted in the phone. “Yes, this is an emergency. Send an ambulance immediately.”

  What followed was a blur of conscious and unconscious moments; doctors and nurses in hurried conversations; glaring lights, pitch darkness, Roberta and Felipe shaking their heads, Mulholland in gray fedora, gray herringbone coat, black galoshes over black shoes, New York Standard under his arm. Welcome to the North Pole, Fin. Did he dream the priest in his purple stole? He was sure he felt the pieces of oil-rich cotton wool touch him softly, eyes, mouth, nose, palms, bottoms of his feet; saw candles, crucifix; heard the Latin words of the Last Rites.

  His first awareness of the incision in his neck and the tube inserted in his windpipe was hearing the loud purr of the air pump next to his bed. A trio of grave faces loomed above: Crow, Dr. Rossiter, the third—a woman—with short black hair, lovely face. Who? It came to him: assistant pathologist Linda DeMarco. Another illusion, he thought, as if he were lying in the morgue about to witness his own autopsy. But her hand touched his forehead, cool and real. She flashed a light in his right eye, then his left. “Severe contraction of the pupils,” she said. She took a sample of blood. Crow and Rossiter stood in the corner. She barked at the nurse beside her, “Right now, begin the atropine injections, right now.”

  The sweating stopped. He sat up. But soon the dizziness returned. He lost consciousness. He didn’t know for how long. She was hovering over him. “It’s as if he got another dose of the toxin.” She was speaking to someone behind her who he couldn’t see. Her face came so close to his that he felt her exhalation on his eyelids. She sniffed around his head the way a dog would, put her nose into his hair, pulled back the bedclothes and smelled his crotch.

  She stood erect. “Smell that?”

  Rossiter stepped from behind her. “Smell what?”

  “His hair.”

  He leaned down, sniffed. “Garlic?”

  “Organophosphate. It’s on his pubic hair as well.” She turned her back to him, said to someone in the background, “He’s to be shaved from head to toe. Now.”

  Dunne wasn’t sure if the man who did the cutting and shaving was a male nurse or a barber, but he was thorough and quick, using scissors and straight razor on head, arms, legs, chest, crotch, not worrying about the occasional nicks he inflicted. Afterwards, they carried Dunne to a large tub filled with hot, soapy water, rubbed, scrubbed, rinsed and dried. An injection of sedatives put him in a deep, restful sleep.

  When he woke, the tube had been removed from his throat, and the breathing machine was out of the room. He was able to sit up. Had a cup of tea. Not long after, Crow’s head poked around the door. “Nice to see you’re back from the netherworld. For a time, it looked as though Charon was about to ferry you across the Acheron.”

  Alarmed by their last phone conversation, Crow explained, he’d stopped by the hotel and learned that “an ambulance had already taken you to the hospital.” Doctors had diagnosed “acute respiratory distress” but seemed at a loss about the cause or how to reverse it. For a while it was touch and go. Crow called Rossiter and asked him to recommend someone. Rossiter came in person and brought Dr. DeMarco wi
th him. “She’s the one saved your life, Fin. No doubt about it, you’d have been a goner without her. Her only question is how you managed to get a fatal dose of organophosphates in your hair.”

  “Organo what?”

  “I’ll let her explain.”

  Dr. DeMarco stopped by later. After examining him, she mentioned that the lack of any discernible cause for his distress was what made her suspect some sort of poison was at work. But it was unclear at first that, instead of being ingested, it was being absorbed through the skin.

  “The garlicky smell tipped me off. Disguised but not obliterated, it told me I was dealing with organophosphates.” Developed by IG Farben, she said, the German chemical cartel, for deployment in World War II, the Nazis refrained from using them, afraid of the retaliation the Allies might inflict. They were manufactured as a nerve gas under various names, Tabun, Sarin, Soman, and increasingly used in insecticides, in DDT and the like. More and more cases of poisoning were showing up among farm workers. “So tell me, Mr. Dunne, how did you manage to work such a potent toxin into your hair?”

  “Guess I used the wrong shampoo.”

  “I searched your bathroom and sent shampoo, soap, lotions to the lab. Nothing.”

  “Showered at a friend’s. Maybe I mistook insecticide for shampoo.”

  “Not likely. What you used was a highly concentrated form of organophosphates. Laced with perfume and a gel, it was intended to ensure the compound remained on your skin as long as possible—in other words, to kill you in as subtle, sophisticated fashion as possible. Can you think of anyone who wants you dead, Mr. Dunne?”

  “I’d rather not.”

  “You better. The shampoo is still out there. The next victim might not be as lucky.”

  The day he was being discharged from the hospital, he sat dressed in his room reading a copy of Readers’ Digest. The feature piece was on the U.S twenty-five years from now, in 1980. Predictions included coast-to-coast highways, atomic cars, dishwashers, submarines, jet planes and trains, artificial hearts, lungs, limbs—better than the originals—the same dreams touted at the 1939 World’s Fair, but new and improved for a world that had come close to destroying itself in the six years that followed.