He clasped his hands between his legs until the knuckles cracked. He touched the soft cloth of his pale blue trousers, the perfect crease. He touched the cloth almost lovingly.
“If you had been there in Paris at the end of the war, you would understand,” Manet said. “The confusion, the deaths, the disappearances, the miraculous escapes. In a way it was so simple to become Paul.”
He looked at me. “I was only a year younger than Paul. I could have joined the Resistance. My mother said that one son was enough for France. I let her think that I wanted to join the Resistance like Paul, but that she had convinced me not to for her sake. But that was a lie. I didn’t want to join, I was never brave. I could never have faced the Gestapo.”
“Not many could,” I said. “Not many did.”
He ignored me. “The war was almost over. The heroes would get the respect, the cheers, the rewards. We had heard from Paul’s comrades that he had been arrested in early 1945. He had been sent to Germany. Perhaps to Dachau or Belsen. No one survived Dachau or Belsen.”
His eyes flinched again, remembered those days. “The last week of the war, the Germans rounded up all the men left on my street. They shot my mother. My grand-father was already dead. We had no father. They took me with hundreds of others to a place outside Paris. There were only a few Germans. The Americans were very close. The German officers saw their men melting away, trying to escape into Germany, deserting. One day the officers told their men to shoot us all, en masse. But they couldn’t shoot us all. There were hundreds and more of us, too few of them, many of us escaped. I was one of the lucky. I hid for days in an old cistern. At last the Americans came. Alone, my papers lost the day they shot us, I walked to Paris.”
The wild confusion of Paris liberated was in Manet’s face. “Some Maquis patrol stopped me far from my section. They were suspicious of a man without papers, but one of them stared at me, asked my name. I told them—Manet. The one man became excited. I realized that he thought I was Paul! He told the others. They were pleased, eager. All at once I was Paul, the returned hero.
“That one Maquis knew Paul by sight, by reputation, by background. He didn’t really know Paul. I had a beard, was in rags and filthy, and Paul and I did look much alike—the same height, hair, eyes, build. They questioned me, of course, but I knew Paul’s life as well as my own. Convinced, they passed me safely on to Free French troops who knew Paul only by his exploits.”
His eyes were bright. “I was a hero. Admired. I liked it. At first I planned to disappear fairly soon, become myself again. But then I found out that Paul’s whole cell had been arrested with him. No one seemed to doubt me. There were many who had known Paul a little who obviously believed I was him. Our whole family was dead. Paul was certainly dead. Why not be Paul? If he did come back some day, I would tell him the truth.
“So I became Paul. I was careful. I never went back to our old street. I avoided anyone who might have known Paul more than to say hello to. Finally, my real papers were found near some of those shot the day I escaped. I made my final step—I identified an unclaimed body as myself: Fernand Manet. So Fernand Manet, a nobody, was dead. Paul Manet, a hero, was alive.”
He stopped. I gave him a cigarette. He lit it. “Paul never came back. There are no records of what happened to him. I was a hero; admired and honored. Jewish companies who knew what Paul had done at Vel d’Hiv gave me good jobs. At last I hit on my present work—the hero representative abroad. No one would know Paul abroad. I do my work well. I earn my rewards.”
There was a faint hint of the fake aristocratic pride he had learned so well over the years. Perhaps his work was based on a lie, but he had done it well. He had his pride.
“But Eugene Marais did know you,” I said. “Not Paul Manet. He knew Fernand Manet.”
Manet nodded. “Yes, he guessed. We talked. I denied it, but there are small scars, a birthmark on my neck, some mannerisms I barely knew I have but Eugene remembered. He wasn’t absolutely sure, and I denied it, but what if he decided to raise the question back in France? A doubt would be enough to ruin me. I tried to pay him. He refused. I sensed that he was trying to decide what he should do. So I made the appointment to meet him that night. I took a gun. I might have killed him, I don’t know. But I didn’t kill him. When I got to the shop, the door was unlocked. He was in the back room in the chair, dead!”
“What time was it when you say you got there?”
“About midnight. A little after. I can’t be sure.”
“What did you do?”
“I … I panicked.” He licked at his lips again. “I mean, I might have gone to kill him. I had a gun. I was there, he was dead, and I had a gun! Maybe it was guilt in me, but I was in that shop alone with a gun and a dead man and I panicked. What if I had been seen? What if someone knew I had reason to want Marais dead? I decided to make it look like robbery. I grabbed objects at random, packed them in a suitcase. I left. I took the suitcase to that Salvation Army mission. Then I came home here.”
Now his ravaged eyes looked up. “Ten minutes after I got home, that Charlie Burgos called me. He had seen me. He had found Eugene dead in the shop. He knew who I was from Danielle earlier. I paid him a thousand dollars, three more thousand since. What else could I do? I would be accused of murder!”
I let him sit there in silence, sweating under that beautiful suit. Danielle was sitting on the raised step in the entrance archway to the sunken living room. Jules Rosenthal’s room, a man grateful for a hero’s help to the Jews. Down the corridor outside, the elevator stopped at the floor.
“You know,” I said, “I don’t think Eugene Marais would ever have exposed you. Not in the end. A kind man.”
“How could I know?” Manet said. “But I didn’t kill him.”
“Sure,” I said.
I heard them in the corridor just before the doorbell rang. Danielle opened the door. Lieutenant Marx and his two men came in. I waited for them standing over Manet.
“I figured you’d be here,” Marx said. “We found Charlie Burgos. What about Manet?”
“He didn’t kill Charlie, but he’s a fake, and I figure he killed Eugene Marais.”
I told him all Manet had told me. Marx listened while his men inspected the lush apartment, whistling with awe over it. When I finished, Marx looked down at Manet.
“He was dead when you got to the shop around midnight, maybe twelve-fifteen? You faked the robbery?”
Manet nodded. “I panicked, but he was dead.”
“How long had he been dead, would you say?”
“Not very long. He was … warm.”
“Did you see a package in the back room? Maybe took it?”
“I saw no package. There wasn’t a package, I’m sure.”
Marx nodded slowly. I swore.
“Damn it, he’s lying,” I said. “He has to be. He had the motive, he was there, he was paying Charlie Burgos. He killed Eugene Marais.”
“No!” Manet cried, stood up, swayed.
“No,” Lieutenant Marx said. “I believe him. We picked up the killer of Charlie Burgos ten minutes ago, Dan, and I figure the same killer for Eugene Marais.”
25
I said, “Who?”
“We identified the knife, Dan,” Marx said. “You never pulled it out, right? Touch nothing?”
“Damn it, Marx, who?”
“Claude Marais,” Marx said. “We knew he killed his brother. But with you, Kandinsky and the French making noise, and no direct evidence against him, we decided to let him go, give him rope, and watch him. We don’t apologize.”
“Claude?” I said. “No, I don’t believe it.”
“When we let him go, we put a tail on him, of course. He slipped our tail right after leaving jail. It looked like it could have been an accident—our man just missed a lucky subway train. I chewed our man out, he made a mistake. We never expected Claude would kill anyone else. We can’t cover every possibility. It was a risk.”
“Why did Claude kil
l Charlie Burgos?” I said.
“The way I see it,” Marx said, “Charlie Burgos saw two men that night at the shop. He saw Claude Marais go in first. He saw Claude come out about midnight carrying the package of diamonds. Minutes later, before Charlie had time to look in the shop, Manet showed up and went inside. After Manet came out with the suitcase, Charlie went inside the shop and found Eugene Marais dead. That gave Charlie two pigeons.”
“How did Charlie know which one killed Marais?”
“I don’t figure he did, not for sure. In fact, that can explain a lot of what else happened later,” Marx said. “Manet paid him, so Charlie must have figured Manet was the killer. I think Claude Marais held out, so Charlie figured Claude was innocent. Of the murder, anyway. But Claude had been there, had taken that package. Charlie didn’t know what was in the package, but he knew Claude was lying about being there at all. So Charlie phoned in the tip on the package to put pressure on Claude to pay him to keep quiet.
“Charlie had a beautiful double play. He figured Claude wasn’t a killer, we’d let Claude go, but Charlie would have proved to Claude it was better to pay him than have him talk. If we didn’t let Claude go, that would give Charlie an even tighter hold on Manet. With Claude accused, even convicted, Manet would be really safe—as long as Charlie said nothing. Only Charlie Burgos made one big mistake—he had the wrong killer. Claude killed Eugene, and Charlie Burgos was the one man who could prove it. So exit Charlie.”
It was good. Very good. Logical.
“How do you prove all that? Charlie Burgos is dead.”
“We don’t prove it, Dan, unless Claude Marais wants to tell us. Maybe he will now, we’ve got him cold for Charlie Burgos. If he won’t talk, we’ll convict him for Charlie only. But he killed Eugene too. It’s his only possible motive for killing Charlie Burgos.”
“What was on that knife that proves Claude killed Burgos?”
“French army stuff all over the blade—Thirteenth Half Brigade,” Marx said. “And Claude’s initials etched near the hilt. We already knew that Claude had a knife—a souvenir. It was in his bag the night we first arrested him, and it’s not there now. The sheath was in that condemned house, too.”
“He left a knife marked like that? Left it in the body? You can’t believe it, Marx!”
Marx shrugged. “Panic. We’ve both seen it too often, Dan. Charlie hadn’t been dead long when Danielle and those street kids found him. Claude heard them coming, panicked, and ran.”
“It takes seconds to pull out a knife. A trained man like Claude wouldn’t let go of a knife when he struck. He’d have stabbed, pulled it back out ready to hit again.”
Marx’s voice was quiet. “It was stuck hard in a rib, Dan. Took two of us to get it out. I can see him trying to pull it out when he heard someone coming. It wouldn’t come out. So then he had to leave it, run before he was discovered.”
“No,” I said. “He’s too cool, too trained.”
“Maybe,” Marx said, “but he’s a strange one. Mixed up. Maybe he wanted to be caught. We’ll ask the psychiatrists. He wanted Burgos dead, didn’t care if he was caught. To hell with the world. He’s got to be half crazy, Dan.”
“You said that about Jimmy Sung.”
“Sometimes we’re wrong, sometimes we’re right. Maybe Claude just doesn’t care what happens to him anymore, has a reason not to care. You might even know the reason, Dan.”
As I’ve said before, the police don’t miss much. Did I know a reason for Claude Marais not to give a damn anymore? Yes, I did, didn’t I? Li Marais. If he knew about us? Maybe if I’d been Claude, I’d want to be locked up too—after I’d killed a rat that had been chewing at me.
“What does Claude have to say this time?”
“Denies it,” Marx said. “But he admits the knife is his, and after he lost our man following him, he says he just went walking around. He even admits that as far as he knows, no one could have taken his knife.”
I had nothing more to say. What could I say? If it was a frame-up, I had no ideas about who. As far as Lieutenant Marx was concerned, he had his man this time. He took Paul (Fernand) Manet when he left. There was a technical charge of robbery, and a real charge of failing to report a murder. Manet’s masquerade was over.
It was late afternoon now, the sun bright on the hot city. But in her hotel suite, Li Marais sat in the dark behind the drawn shades. I sat facing her.
“Are you all right?” I said.
“Yes.”
Her smooth face was like stone again. I moved in my chair. Her eyes flickered toward me.
“No, not now,” she said. “Not this time.”
“I didn’t come for that,” I said.
She nodded faintly. “This time they will not let him go.” A light breeze stirred the drawn shades, but not her face. Motionless in the shadows, she could have been a statue in some ancient temple. “Perhaps this time he does not want them to let him go.”
“Did he do it, Li? Both murders?”
The traffic down in the street was heavy and distant. In the hotel room the city seemed far away. When she spoke, her lips hardly moved, like a graven image with a tape recorder inside.
“When they came he did not protest. He could not say what he had done since he was released this morning. He had taken money from our bank, he will not say why. When could someone have taken his knife? Since he was first arrested, I left this suite very little. I am sure no one has been here except you. He is accomplished with his knife.”
“An expert,” I said. “He shouldn’t have hit a rib.”
“He has not used his knife in many years.”
“Li?” I said, “could he have killed Eugene? We know the exact time now: between eleven P.M. when Jimmy Sung left, and about twelve-twenty when Charlie Burgos must have found him dead. You said that Claude was here with you the night Eugene was killed—from before ten P.M., until he left about three A.M. Were you lying? The police have to think you lied. If you were telling the truth, we’ll go on fighting.”
“I did not lie. I did not tell the truth.”
“Not both, no. Li, I’ve got to know—”
She stopped me without moving. A silent force that filled the dim room. “To me he was here all the time that night. He was here when I went to sleep at eleven-thirty. He was here when I woke up at three A.M. to find him dressed and ready to go out. I did not question that he had not left. But we are not husband and wife, you understand? I was in bed in the bedroom. Claude was here in the living room on the couch. The door between us was closed. I was asleep.”
I understood the police now. Had Claude left this suite for very long, Li might have awakened and missed him. But he could easily have slipped out briefly. Ten minutes to the pawn shop at a fast walk, ten minutes back. I had been gone from the lobby by eleven-thirty that night. Claude could have gone to the pawn shop, killed Eugene, and been back in his suite by twelve-thirty or so. Easily, and Li not waking up at all.
“Is he sick, Li?”
“Yes. Of many things.”
“Then you think he did it? Killed them?”
“No, he did not kill them.”
“How do we prove that? How do we even know?”
“You cannot prove it.”
“Can you know, Li? Can you really be sure?”
“I am sure,” she said. She was the way I had first seen her that day in the pawn shop with Claude and Eugene—small, hardly there at all, almost translucent. “I remember the knife the evening we were here when he was first arrested. It was in his suitcase as it always was. I saw it. I do not remember seeing it again. I remember the hat badge that was found in the register. I remember it on his bureau among loose cuff links and old keys. I remember I saw it.”
“On what bureau did you see it? When?”
“In the bedroom. Earlier that same day it was found in the register. His hat badge.”
“That’s bad for him, Li.”
“Yes, bad.”
“What can we d
o, Li? They have the circumstances for Eugene, the knife for Charlie Burgos. Motive for both, and one killing proves the other.”
“You can do nothing, Dan.”
I heard something in her voice? What? Her voice that dismissed all effort to help Claude. Why?
“If Claude didn’t kill them, Li, he’s being framed. Who by, and why?”
For a moment she didn’t answer me. Then, “His uniform is in our closet. The image of France. I do not know why he kept it. For me, perhaps. I married him in it. Soon after we came here, Viviane asked him to wear it to the shop for Danielle. Once. With its medals, its boots, its beret, its èlan. I remember how all the people stared. A French soldier.”
I waited, but that was all. I sensed that she was telling me something. What? I sensed that she was going to do something. What?
“Li? What are you going to do?”
“Wait,” she said. “I am going to wait.”
“Li,” I said, “I’ll go on trying. I’ll work on.”
“Yes,” she said.
The bedroom door was open, the bed ready. I had lost one woman this summer. We were both alone now, but somehow I knew that the bed was not ready for me this time.
“You want me to go, Li?”
She didn’t answer, fading away from me in the hot room, going from translucent to transparent, vanishing. Into another world, an alien world, where I couldn’t follow. Into an alien world where she would do something, but where I did not know what it would be. I sensed her slipping away, and her purpose, and there was nothing I could do except try to prove that Claude Marais was innocent. If he was.
26
I sensed that if I was going to help Li, I had to do it fast. Prove Claude innocent or guilty once and for all, and fast.
I looked for witnesses. All that evening and night. For anyone who might have seen someone else at the pawn shop on the night Eugene Marais died. For anyone who had seen someone else at the condemned house of Charlie Burgos this morning. I knocked on doors, buttonholed shopkeepers, and all I found was a woman who had seen a man at the condemned building around noon today. A shabby man with one arm. Me.
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