The Longest Second

by Bill S. Ballinger

  She called again the next day, and Delton told her that Rosemary Martin had been located; she was occupying room 944 in the Acton-Plaza, and was registered under the name Nell C. O’Hanstrom from St. Louis. After relaying this information to me, Bianca remarked thoughtfully, “What a peculiar name to use. Who ever heard of such a name as O’Hanstrom?” The name meant nothing to me; yet Rosemary Martin had expected me to recognize it, to remember it “I can’t imagine why Rosemary should want to hide,” Bianca continued. Taking a deep breath, she asked suddenly, “Vic, what was there between you two?”

  I shook my head.

  “You mean you don’t know? Or do you prefer not to talk about it?”

  Both.

  Bianca grasped my hand. I could feel the heat of her palms, the warmth of her skin as she pressed it, and the gesture made me uneasy. I attempted to draw away, but she clung to it saying, “There’s something wrong, something awful going on. I don’t know what it is—it’s all around us. I can feel it waiting to...” Abruptly she turned, then stepped away. More composedly she added, “Forget Rosemary, forget everything except that you’re starting a new life. I have a little money saved ... not much ... and I’ll lend it to you. Go away. Stay away from New York for a while. Then come back when you’ve completely regained your health.”

  I attempted to tell her that I couldn’t leave.

  “Why?” she asked. “Is it because you love me?”

  I told her no—that I didn’t love her. That I didn’t love anyone. This was true and I believed that I should tell her the truth.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, after a moment of silence. Her voice was very low. “I shouldn’t have asked you that. But you see, I love you.” She turned her head; there was moistness around her eyes. “You don’t love me. You don’t love anyone,” she glanced around the kitchen as if seeing it for the first time. And it seemed to me that she was addressing her remarks to it. “I’m not a doctor or a psychiatrist or anything, but I am a woman and I know just one thing. You’ve never loved anyone or anything in your whole life!”

  There was nothing to say. I wanted to tell her that I was grateful for her help, that I appreciated her kindness, but she continued before I had an opportunity to order my thoughts. “It’s very funny,” she said, “because the time you came here from the hospital, I felt very sorry for you. I really believed you needed help.” Half a thread of laughter caught in her throat. “There was no one to help you, no place for you to go. I remember, you were terribly thin and looked so sick.” She shook her head, as if clearing it of the memory. “A man who is sick and thin and needs help is just sheer, downright irresistible to a woman who’s sentimental. Then, having you around, being with you…” She shrugged, leaving the sentence unfinished.

  I felt embarrassed, and a little angry, that Bianca had caused this scene. I had grown fond of her, and she had been of great help to me. By forcing a rather commonplace sentiment into our situation, she had made the position untenable and I must prepare new plans. I wrote on my pad that it would be a good idea if I found another place to live. Eventually, of course, I would have moved anyway, but to move at this time was inconvenient.

  She agreed. “I suppose so,” she said slowly, “because now I know that you don’t really need help, at least, not my help. I don’t think you needed it ever. Within you there is an unbreakable will which protects you, a hardness which shields you from everything ... and everybody ... except yourself. Whatever it is that is driving you, whatever you’re looking for—you’ll find it without my help.”

  At that moment I felt that a door to another world stood before me, and by taking a single step through it, I would understand. Understand myself, the past, the present, the future. On my tongue were words and ideas which I could express and which would be understood. It was as if my brain had been thinking at a distance, translating other words and ideas for me, but not thinking as my own brain would perform. The words which I wanted to shout were no English or French or Arabic or words of an intemational language but words and phrases which to me were clear and clean, and as sharp as crystal, cutting as a razor’s edge, compact. The instant of attainment was gone, and I was back in the room with Bianca, and all that remained was the memory of a quotation from Schopenhauer: Intellect is invisible to the man who has none.

  It was agreed that I would move on the week end, which was still three days away, but events forced me to leave before that. I waited until seven o’clock that evening before going to the hotel to find Rosemary Martin. I believed that seven o’clock would be a logical time to find her in her room, at which hour she would probably be dressing for dinner. However, when I knocked at her door, there was no reply. As there was the possibility that she might be in the room and had refused to open the door, I stood silent before it for a long time. Although I listened intently, I could hear no rustle of movement within the room.

  Returning to the main lobby, I remained uneasily by the bank of elevators which rose nearest to the location of room 944, hoping that I might see Rosemary Martin. This was by far the longest period of time that I had remained around the hotel, so after additional minutes passed I decided to return to the ninth floor and wait for her in her room. The corridor was vacant and shielding the Lock-Aid with my body, I released the spring, shooting the needle between the tumblers of the lock. On the third attempt, the lock opened, and I entered the room, closing the door behind me. The chamber was dark; in a moment my hand flicked the switch by the side of the door and the lights jumped on.

  The bedroom was oblong with two windows at the far end of the room opposite the door. A large double bed made up, but with the spread mussed as from someone lying on it, was placed on one side of the room. Across from the bed stood a chest of drawers, and next to it a dressing table with winged mirrors. A chaise longue was placed before the windows, and a reading lamp on a small table rested beside it. A door, slightly ajar, opened into the bath in which the lights were out.

  Still wearing my coat, I sat on the side of the bed and lit a cigarette. In a short time, I needed an ashtray and looked around for one. There were two—one each on the chest of drawers and the dressing table. Both of them were clean and unused, and unless Rosemary Martin had been out of the room all day, this fact seemed strange. She smoked and there should be evidence of ashes. On the other hand,

  I told myself, she might have cleaned them herself, before going out.

  As I was now standing by the chest of drawers, I opened them. They contained neat stacks of lingerie, stockings, nightgowns, and other usual items. In the bottom drawer were three handbags.

  The bags had been emptied of their contents, or the contents had been transferred to the one currently being carried. They all contained scraps of old sales receipts, match folders, bobby pins, and one held a badly creased post card. It was a very cheap, highly colored scene of the New York skyline such as is sold in nearly every drugstore in the city. There was no address and no postmark on the back of it, and it obviously had not been sent through the mail. Written on it, however, were the words “Ten o’clock Tuesday morning.” I was returning the card to the bag, when I paused and stared at it a second time. There was something very familiar about the writing, and quite suddenly I realized why this was so. The sentence was in my own handwriting. I put the card in my pocket.

  The dressing table disclosed nothing except a complete line of cosmetics. In the clothes closet, I again found something of importance. Another purse of Rosemary Martin’s was there; this one was evidently the one she was carrying. It held a compact, room key, billfold containing nearly six hundred dollars, comb, mirror, a cigarette case, lighter, and a number of receipts. Dumping the contents on the bed, I examined them carefully. Tucked into the billfold was a comer from a newspaper clipping which read:

  … early college rowing races on Lake Quinsigamond near Worcester, Mass., and on Saratoga Lake, N. Y., but the Intercollegiate Rowing Association in 1895 settled on the Hudson at Pough …

  T
hat was all the clipping had contained, except that the date “1895” had been underlined in pencil. Rosemary Martin, to the best of my memory, had never mentioned collegiate rowing; I could not understand why she should carry a clipping concerning the sport in her billfold. However, I slipped the clipping into my pocket and returned the articles to her purse, placing it back in the closet.

  As I left the closet, I heard the sound of scraping from the bathroom. Immediately the sound ceased, resumed after a moment, then lapsed into complete silence. Caution urged me to leave the bedroom, then I decided that whoever was in the bath had seen me and recognized me anyway. My knife found itself in my hand, and I approached the partly opened door warily. The sound resumed, and I thrust the door opens

  Rosemary Martin was hanging by her neck in the shower stall.

  The body rotated slowly, and the heel of one mule scraped gently against the side of the stall. I turned on the light and in the glare of the white tiles I was reminded of a morgue As she turned on the end of a leather belt, I could see that she had been dead for some time and her features were bloated and distorted with the disfigurations of strangulation,

  Her neck had not been broken. This point, combined with another, troubled me. She had not tied her hands, and it is very difficult for a person to strangle herself to death deliberately. After losing consciousness, self-preservation causes a person to fight the rope, to tear free. I was sure that these points would not be overlooked by the police either.

  I thought to myself, why did this have to happen now? I felt no particular sorrow that Rosemary Martin was dead. Whatever our relationship might have been in the past, I was sure that it had been one of convenience and selfishness for us both. I had lost precious time and information through her death; and the suspicion of her murder would bring the police to my door.

  Returning to the bedroom, I examined the mussed bed, and it seemed to me a certainty that she had been strangled there, and then removed to the other room. In the closet found a pair of walking shoes, and I removed the laces and knotted them together. With this heavy cord, I tied her hands loosely behind her back, using a knot on one wrist and a slip knot on the other—such as a person tying it herself would be compelled to do.

  My concern, an anxious one, was to escape from the hotel without being seen by anyone who might later tell the police. I carefully wiped away my fingerprints from both rooms with the aid of a bath towel. At the closet, I opened the purse again and removed five hundred dollars from it. I needed the money now, and I was convinced that Rosemary Martin needed it no longer. Deliberately, I took the time, forcing myself to check carefully that I had left nothing behind me. With the post card and clipping in my pocket, the dead cigarette flushed down the drain, I looked out into the corridor.

  A couple was approaching down the hall, and I closed the door, waiting patiently for them to pass. After a few more minutes, there was no one in sight. Hurrying to a fire stairway, I descended to the sixth floor, where I returned to the main corridor and rang for the elevator.

  Once I was on the street, without incident, I took a deep breath of the evening air.

  20

  “THE eyes check,” said Burrows. “Blue.”

  “Sure,” agreed Jensen, “and the weight isn’t bad either.’

  “One sixty in 1942,” Burrows glanced at his note, “and Gorman says one eighty-five now.”

  “That’s not too much difference after all these years. How many guys you know weigh the same as they did in the war? Twenty-five pounds isn’t too much if a guy’s taking it easy and living it-up a little.”

  “The stiff didn’t look fat though,” Burrows remarked. “If he weighed one hundred and sixty pounds then, wouldn’t one eighty-five look a little heavy ... like he’d gone a little to fat?”

  “I don’t know,” Jensen said honestly. “I agree the stiff didn’t look fat ... just good and husky. I’d say that if Pacific had been a real skinny guy ... one twenty-five, one thirty, something like that, he might’ve looked like a tub at a hundred and eighty-five pounds. But in 1942, Pacific was just twenty-two years old. The war, regular meals, and the heavy work filled him out.”

  “I guess you’re right. It did to a lot of men. Pacific might put on twenty-five pounds and not look fat.” Burrows got up from his desk and walked over to the window. He looked out for a moment then returned to Jensen and sat down again “If Pacific was twenty-two when he got drafted, that would make him around thirty-seven, thirty-eight now.”

  “Yes. Gorman said the stiff was anywhere from thirty-five to forty-five years old.”

  “That would put Pacific right in the middle of Gorman’ guess.”

  “Sure,” agreed Jensen. “What’s wrong with that?”

  “Nothing,” Burrows replied slowly, “but it’s that old spread again. Everything is spread.”

  “The eyes are blue, the fingerprints check. There’s no guess or spread about them.”

  “Damnit!” Burrows exploded impatiently, “I wish Gorman would get his report finished and tie this up. You can say what you want to about it, but five eleven and six one or two is a hell of a spread; thirty-seven and forty-five is another spread; one hundred sixty and one hundred eighty-five pounds is just more of the same thing. I feel like I’m talking about two different guys entirely.”

  “Except for the Army,” Jensen replied patiently.

  “Sure. Except for the Army.”

  “Time changes everything,” explained Jensen. “Look at the Army record. It says Pacific’s hair was brown, not dark brown, or anything else, just brown. On your own report you described it as light brown. If I’d been making out that report, I’d have said sort of sandy with gray in it. We’re all talking about the same guy, but everybody talks a little bit differently from everybody else. It doesn’t mean anything. Once he had brownish hair, now it’s got a little gray in it.”

  21

  I MOVED from Bianca’s that same night. Rosemary Martin was dead, and because she was dead it was logical that I leave the house at once. Rosemary Martin, Merkle, Santini, Doctor Minor ... all the persons who had crossed my life since the day I had regained consciousness in the hospital meant nothing to me. But when the time came to say goodbye, I was not so convinced regarding my sentiment toward Bianca Hill for there was a generosity of spirit within her which I recognized to be unusual. The rest of the world, and the people in it, existed only to prove my own reality. They were shadows which passed me each day, in a world made of present fragments and fleeing hours. I knew only that each man is a product of the whole of humanity; the seed which is passed down from ten thousand grandfathers; his present, his virtues and vices, are the product of his past.

  I had no present, because I had no past.

  It was impossible for me to explain this to Bianca. Bianca read my explanation silently. It was only about Rosemary though I did tell her I felt I owed her that—and I knew that when Rosemary’s body was found the police would question Bianca, and Bianca knew I had been looking for Rosemary. When I told her that I was leaving, she began to cry. Her face shadowed, and she no longer held back her tears.

  “Vic, Vic,” she spoke softly, “what will you do? Where will you go? Whoever tried to kill you before will certainly try again!”

  I pointed out that my unknown assailants could have killed me many times over, but had not. They wanted me alive—at least for a while.

  Then she said, “Rosemary, poor Rosemary...” I touched her shoulder, a gesture of sympathy which I thought might help her, and she stopped her crying after a moment, and said with determination, “I don’t believe that she killed herself!” I had to agree with this, although I did not tell her so. She repeated, “Vic, I just don’t believe it!” Then I saw her eyes begin to cloud with doubt as she looked at me, and I knew that she was thinking that I might have killed Rosemary Martin. I said nothing, and permitted her to wrestle with her doubts. Then her fear passed, and she attempted to regain her composure. “Rosemary knew something that you
’ve forgotten. She knew you from the past.”

  I nodded. Bianca’s observation had been obvious. I left her, and went upstairs to pack my few belongings in a suitcase which I had to borrow from her. As I prepared to leave, she said, “But why go now? You can’t escape them. You’ll be as safe here as you will anywhere.”

  With my pad, I attempted to make plain that Rosemary Martin would be identified, and very soon the police would be checking with Bianca regarding the time the two women lived together. I did not want to see the authorities again, to be hampered by them or their questionings. When they inquired concerning me, Bianca was to say that I had moved away, and she did not know where I had gone. This would be true because I had no idea where I would stay.

  After she had agreed to this, I made one last request. I asked her not to tell the police that I had known Rosemary Martin in my past, nor that I had called on her at the hotel. I did not ask her to lie about this, because Bianca was a very poor liar. I merely told her not to volunteer the information. The police, I knew, would attempt to locate me, but it might take them time to do so without this added motive.

  With my suitcase, I walked to the door. As I stepped over the threshold, Bianca called to me. “Vic! If you need help always call me!”

  “Yes,” I told her. For an instant something about her touched my heart.

  On Eighth Avenue, near Fourth Street, is a Spanish hotel named the Castillo. I didn’t know it was there until I passed it, carrying the suitcase. It was a shabby place with a linoleum-covered lobby containing a few chairs and scattered tables. Along one end was a long counter which advertised that it was also a travel agency to Puerto Rico, Cuba, and South America. I decided it was a racket hotel which specialized in flying native labor back and forth—and fleecing them. If I was correct in my surmise, then everyone in the hotel minded his own business, and it would be a good place for me to stay. I went in.