“You say you’re insecure. Now you’ve made me insecure. Obviously,
we’ve achieved the kind of relationship everyone is striving for today.”
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Fate, in the form of an orange peel, whacked me between the shoulder
blades just before I made it through the door of the dressing room. She had a
good sharp eye and a good strong pitching arm, my analyst.
I disrobed, showered, and, in defiance of the lady’s hesitant approach to
the Life Force, doused the damp flesh with Cardin’s version of myrrh and
frankincense. Then I stuck my head through the dressing-room door.
“Forgiven?”
She poked a finger into her cheek and twisted it in a gesture right out of
the back alleys of Trastevere. “A hard case, all right,” she said, “but yes,
you’re forgiven. Now come out here. There’s something I must ask you.”
I strolled out and the analyst unabashedly took stock of me. “How did
you get tanned all over like that? Do you belong to a nudist club?”
“I did. A very unusual one.” In my absence she had at least shifted the
debris on the bed to her side of it. I got under the blankets on my side and
propped myself in the same sitting position as hers. “Buona sera,
professore,” I said.
“Buona sera, signore. But there is one question —”
”Basta,” I said finnly. “Enough.” I placed the bowl of peelings on the
floor and tumbled the books beside it. “Time to return those letters to that
folder and put it on the convenient table beside you.”
While she was at this chore I reached out a foot and pressed it against
her leg. She gave a little start but the leg remained where it was. I slowly
drew the foot past her knee until it rested against a warm, velvet roundness of
thigh. She yielded to the pressure as she divested herself of the eyeglasses and
the pencil.
I said, “There’s an old joke they tell in America which applies to this
situation.”
“Yes?” said my analyst warily.
“Well, it seems there was an inspector of lunatic asylums —”
”Oh, please. You must know we don’t use such terminology any more.”
“Uno manicomio, professore. Uno manicomio. A lunatic asylum. After
all, this is a very old joke. Anyhow, this inspector walked into one of its
rooms where there was a most respectable-looking old gentleman wearing
nothing but a handsome hat. A fine Borsalino. And the inspector said to him,
‘Why aren’t you wearing any clothing?’ and the old gentleman said, ‘Because
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no one ever comes to visit me.’ So the inspector said quite logically, ‘Then,
my good sir, why are you wearing that hat?’ and the old gentleman said,
‘Because someone might come.’”
Bianca hooted. “That is funny. But you said it applies to this situation.
How does it?”
“You’re not wearing any pants,” I said.
She looked puzzled for a moment, then as the light dawned she shook her
head in self-reproach. “I should have seen what you were building up to from
the start. And it is even funnier this way because it’s so true. David, how
marvelous. Suddenly I don’t feel at all insecure. Do you mind if I turn out the
light now?”
“And leave us in darkness? In a bed this size we’ll never find each other
without a light.”
Long, long after, when we were both satiated into a hard-breathing
stupor, she did turn it out, kneeling on my chest to reach the switch, then
collapsing on me in an exaggerated torpor.
“Innamorato mio,” she whispered in my ear. “Tesoro mio. So tender.
So skillful. So powerful. And with a joke for every occasion.”
223
Iwas wakened to pitch blackness by the
ringing of the phone. I had to detach myself from my soundly sleeping partner
to answer.
“It’s Frenchy.” Costello spit it out hard. “They lost him.”
“I’ll be right in.”
My watch showed a little after five. Possibly — just possibly — before
giving the slip to the agency men trailing him, Yves had traveled far enough to
signal his destination.
Next door, the shattered remains of a bottle on a drenched and reeking
floor indicated how Costello must have taken the bad news. “An hour ago,” he
said in answer to me. “I didn’t tell you right off because they were still hunting
for him. They just now called to say no dice.”
“Where did it happen?”
“Dijon. The railroad station. He pulled up, left the motor running, went
inside. One car was right behind him down the block. The other came up in a
little while, so there they both were, waiting. Nothing to worry about, because
no trains were due through, and anyhow the car motor was running. By the time
they caught on he was gone it was too late.”
“He could still be around there, Ray.”
“Sure. If a meeting with the Dutchman was set up there, he could be
lying in an alley right now with a knife in him.”
“Then,” I said, “Yves is scratched off the list. Which happens to be the
name of the game.”
“Only we both know the Dutchman is the name of the game. One point
for Leewarden, five points for Frenchy, twenty for the Dutchman, that’s how
we’re really scoring it, aren’t we? And I’m telling you that whole business at
the station has the Dutchman’s touch. We were that close to him, God damn it.
If we —”
There was a knock on the door. I opened it to Bianca who stood there in
robe and slippers. “Mi dispiace, David. I knew you had to be here. May I
come in?”
“What’s she saying?” Costello asked me.
“That she’d like to join the party. Any objections?”
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“Not as long as you two knock it off with the Italian and stick to
English.” He took notice that he was presenting himself to the lady in a pair of
drooping underwear shorts and a wristwatch. “And if you let me get on a pair
of pants.”
“If you think it necessary,” said the lady. She leaned against the wall,
arms folded on her chest, while Costello got into his trousers. Then he nodded
at her with what could only be. interpreted as admiration. “I wanted to tell
you. That was one hell of a letter you wrote for little Marie. I was there, so I
know.”
“Thank you,” said Bianca. “But now I must tell you a thought I had about
those people.”
“Not now,” I said. “First we have a little crisis to attend to.”
“A crisis? A trouble?”
“So it seems.” I gave her the gist of it. “In any event” — I aimed this at
Costello — “we’re left with three areas to keep under surveillance day and
night. The Mazarin, Vahna’s place, and Chouchoute’s. Then, if either Yves or
Baar shows up —”
”But,” Bianca cut in, “that is what I must tell to you. David, what if Yves
killed Kees Baar soon after the robbery in Luxembourg? What if he is already
dead?”
“Kees Baar?”
“Think, David. You met all the others these past weeks. You spoke to
them. You saw with your own eyes that they exist. But for Baar you have no
such evidence.”
“Look,” I said, “I appreciate your scientific approach —”
”No, you do not, because you want Kees Baar to exist. You want that
with desperation. But please. Try to see it as I do, from a little distance.”
I reined in my temper, “All right, and what do I see? The murder of an
American named Gardiner Fremont that took place when everyone but Baar
was accounted for. The murder of Simon Leewarden when everyone but Baar
was accounted for. Eliminate Baar as their killer, and who does that leave in
his place?”
“A paid assassin. Is it so difficult for Marie-Paule to find one? At this
moment there is such a one with his knife out for you.”
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Costello said, “We know that. But Marie? What gave you the idea she
was the one behind him?”
Bianca shrugged. “Last night I read the letters again and considered all
the events that followed after them. It came to me that Kees Baar never
appeared in any event. But Marie-Paule? Who, of a sudden, has a fortune to
spend on the buying of brothels? And if it is the stolen money, why is it now in
her hands?”
Costello looked at me. “The Dutchman dead?”
“I’ll believe it when I see it,” I said.
“Not even then!” Bianca said fiercely. “You made his destruction the
whole meaning of your life, and you will not be cheated of it, will you?”
It was cold and gray here on Square Nine. Now, alarmingly, there was a
siren call to the light and warmth this woman offered.
No.
Because sharply outlined in the cold grayness were the images of
Anneke accusing and Kees Baar gloating, and all the light and warmth in the
world couldn’t dispose of those images. Only I could.
I said in Italian, “I’m sorry, signorina. You specialize in clever argument
and cut-rate psychotherapy. I can do without either.”
Too late, I knew I shouldn’t have said it.
“Hey,” Costello said, uncomprehending but reproachful. He took in the
stricken expression on the lady’s face, the sudden high color in her cheeks. “If
this is too private for me —”
”I think it is,” I said. “I’ll see you later.”
Back in the bedroom the lady immediately curled herself up on the bed,
knees to chin.
“Molto interessante,” I commented. “The fetal position. Regressive
behavior under stress. Now what would you prescribe for that, doctor?”
“Just leave me alone.”
I sat down beside her. When I placed a hand on her arm she flung it off.
“No,” I said. “Don’t do that.”
“I choose to do it.”
“Obviously. But let’s come to an understanding about this one thing. No
matter the feelings of the moment, when either of us reaches out a hand to the
other it must never be rejected.”
226
No response.
I waited.
Slowly Bianca twisted around to face me. “Is that how it was with you
and Anneke?”
“After she taught it to me. I’ll admit I wasn’t the fastest learner in the
world.”
“I see. You know, the little time I had with her she impressed me as a
very gentle and forgiving soul. Was she?”
“Always.”
“Well, I’m not.” Bianca draped an arm around my neck and drew me
down on her, straightening out those long legs so that I was half lying on her.
“I’ll forgive you, but I must also inform you that you have a vile temper. And a
vile mouth. And that your arrogance is almost frightening.”
“And to think that’s my good side.”
“No, your good side is that when you insult me publicly, at least you do
it in a language that an outsider can’t understand.”
“Costello? Far from an outsider. Already your devoted admirer. He
should have done wonders for those insecurities.”
“He did,” said Bianca soberly. “He understood what I was trying to tell
you about Kees Baar. He could see the logic of it. You’re past all logic. The
way the Church needs Satan to war against, you need Kees Baar.”
“Bellezza, you forget too easily what he’s done to me.”
“No. I hate him bitterly for what he’s done to you. But I hate him even
more for what he’s doing to you now. Controlling your life. Directing you
down the road you’re taking. Why can’t you just tell yourself he’s dead and
beyond reach?”
“Because,” I said, “he isn’t. And, since I’m not quite as simpleminded as
Signor Costello, I’m not buying your kind of logic. I think there’s more to it
than meets the eye.”
“How?” She was too ingenuous about it.
I said, “You were violently opposed to what you called my vendetta.
Suddenly you changed sides, you actually became my partner in it when you
wrote that letter. Now, just as suddenly, you’ve changed sides again.” I
released her arms from around my neck and sat up to see how she was taking
this. “What made you do it? There must be some reason.”
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“There’s a good chance Baar is dead.”
“Not that good a chance. What made you do it? The truth.”
She closed her eyes. “I woke up and you were gone. I started
thinking —”
”Yes?”
“If Baar isn’t dead —”
”We’re making progress,” I said.
“I’m not saying he isn’t, I’m just conceding the possibility. But if he
isn’t, in the end it will come down to you and him alone, face to face.”
“It will.”
She opened her eyes very wide. “Don’t you see? He must know that too.
He must know that if he doesn’t kill you, you’ll certainly kill him!”
“But you understood that all along.”
“I didn’t! I’ve been telling myself that if he could stay at a distance from
you, sooner or later you’d give up your obsession. But now that I know so
much about both of you I don’t believe that any more.” She sat up, planted a
hand on each side of my face, and gave me the full power of those eyes.
“Listen to me. You have enough evidence against Baar to put him in jail for
life. You must go to the police with it.”
“Only if I’m ready to openly admit that I’m Jan van Zee who traveled
under a false passport and committed some crimes of his own. In that case,
Baar might possibly wind up in jail, but I certainly would. And under any
conditions this is not police business.”
“Meaning you’re determined to end up either a murderer or a corpse!”
I drew her hands from my face and took a tight grip on them. I said, “It’s
obvious that this arrangement isn’t working at all. We can’t stay together under
these conditions. I’ll get you a place somewhere safe. Harry can stay on as
your bodyguard, and I’ll hire some agency men to back him up.”
She sat there, very white of face, bringing herself under control. Then
she said calmly, “It’s true, of course. I have been making difficulties. That was
wrong of me.”
I waited.
“No,” she said, “there’s nothing to be suspicious about. Baar may
already have been disposed of by his fri
ends. I’ll comfort myself with that
thought. Meanwhile, as long as you restrain your temper and your tongue, I’ll
228
be the ideal lover. Forbearing, passionate on occasion — that comes easily as
you must have observed last night — humorous when the light touch is called
for, and yes, I think I’ll try to give up smoking again.”
“Very funny.”
“Not altogether. Do you know how I feel about you?”
“I’m not even sure you do.”
“Then consider, signore, that whoever you choose to be, I am
hopelessly, painfully, happily in love with you. Now if you have the courage,
tell me your feelings for me.”
“Confused.”
“You’re not as brave as you look. Try again.”
“My God,” I said, “how long have we known each other? Two days?”
“Eighteen years and three months. And too many of them wasted. I’m not
wasting any more by saying good-by to you now and setting up house in a
fortress surrounded by armed guards.”
“If anything happens to you —” I said.
“Ah, so there it is at last. I’ll settle for that. And look, it’s getting light.
Open the shutters and we can lie down and watch the sunrise together.”
I opened the shutters on a downpour. We fell asleep watching it together
and slept until noon.
229
At the lunch table she maintained the
same placid mood even while explaining that mama and papa had never
accepted her independence and that poor Umberto had to act as her gobetween.
“That reminds me,” she said. “I must phone him and tell him your gift
will soon be on the way. You can’t imagine what it’ll mean to him. He’s a
splendid doctor but a terrible administrator, and this business of scrounging
for pennies to maintain the clinic is simply beyond him. He’ll find it hard to
believe his troubles are over. He’ll heap blessings on you.”
“It was supposed to be a bribe,” I reminded her.
“So it was,” she said equably. “You see how God moves in mysterious
ways?”
She reported after the call, “He was grateful almost to tears. And he
insists on paying you an honor I’m not sure you’ll appreciate all that much. But
there’s no changing his mind about it.”
“About what?”
“The clinic is to be renamed after you. It’s never really had a name of
distinction anyhow. It is now to be La Clinica David Hanna Shaw. What do
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