They found a taxi.
Almost beside the hotel there was a shop window of twinkling objects, glowing with gold and silver lights like a German Christmas tree. Jonathan drifted towards the window. It was mostly tourist trinkets, he saw with disappointment, but then he noticed a gyroscope poised at a slant against its square box.
‘I want to buy something for my son,’ Jonathan said, and went into the shop. He pointed and said, ‘Bitte’, and acquired the gyroscope without noticing the price. He had changed two hundred francs at the hotel that morning.
Jonathan had already packed, so all he had to do was close his suitcase. He took it down himself. Reeves stuck a hundred-mark note into Jonathan’s hand, and asked him to pay the hotel bill, because it might look odd if Reeves paid it. Money had ceased to matter to Jonathan.
They were early at the station. In the buffet, Jonathan didn’t want anything to eat, only coffee.
So Reeves ordered coffee. ‘You’ll have to make the opportunity yourself, I realize, Jon. It may not work out, I know, but this man we want… Stay near the restaurant car. Smoke a cigarette, stand at the end of the carriage next to the restaurant car, for instance …’
Jonathan had a second coffee. Reeves bought a Daily Telegraph and a paperback for Jonathan to take with him.
Then the train pulled in, daintily clicking on the rails, sleek grey and blue – the Mozart Express. Reeves was looking for Marcangelo, who was supposed to board now with at least two bodyguards. There were perhaps sixty people getting on all along the platform, and as many getting off. Reeves grabbed Jonathan’s arm and pointed. Jonathan was standing with suitcase in hand by the carriage he was supposed to enter, according to his ticket. Jonathan saw – or did he? – the group of three men that Reeves was talking about, three shortish men in hats climbing the steps two carriages away from Jonathan’s and more towards the front of the train.
‘It’s him. I saw the grey in his hair even,’ Reeves said. ‘Now where’s the restaurant car?’ He stepped back to see better, trotted towards the front of the train, and came back. ‘It’s the one in front of Marcangelo’s.’
The train’s departure was being announced in French now.
‘You’ve got the gun in your pocket?’ Reeves asked.
Jonathan nodded. Reeves had reminded him, when he went up to his hotel room for his suitcase, to put it in his pocket. ‘See that my wife gets the money, whatever happens to me.’
‘That’s a promise.’ Reeves patted his arm.
The whistle blew for a second time, and doors banged. Jonathan got on the train and didn’t look back at Reeves who he knew would be following him with his eyes. Jonathan found his seat. There were only two other people in the compartment, which was for eight passengers. The upholstery was dark red plush. Jonathan put his suitcase on an overhead rack, then his new coat, folded inside out. A young man entered the compartment, and hung out of the window, talking to someone in German. Jonathan’s other companions were a middle-aged man sunk in what looked like office papers, and a neat little woman wearing a small hat and reading a novel. Jonathan’s seat was next to the businessman, who had the window seat facing the way the train was moving. Jonathan opened his Telegraph.
It was 2.11 p.m.
Jonathan watched the outskirts of Munich glide past, office buildings, onion towers. Opposite Jonathan were three framed photographs – a chateau somewhere, a lake with a couple of swans, some snow-topped Alps. The train purred over smooth rails and rocked gently. Jonathan half closed his eyes. By locking his fingers and putting his elbows on the armrests, he could almost doze. There was time, time to make up his mind, change his mind, change back again. Marcangelo was going to Paris like him, and the train didn’t arrive until 11.7 p.m. tonight. A stop came at Strassburg around 6.30 p.m., he remembered Reeves saying. A few minutes later, Jonathan came awake and realized there was a thin but regular traffic of people in the aisle beyond the glass-doored compartment. A man came partway into the compartment with a trolley of sandwiches, bottles of beer and wine. The young man bought a beer. A stocky man stood smoking a pipe in the aisle, and from time to time pushed himself against the window to let others pass him.
No harm in strolling past Marcangelo’s compartment, as if en route to the restaurant car, Jonathan thought, just to size up the situation a bit, but it took Jonathan several minutes to muster his initiative, during which time he smoked a Gitane. He put the ashes into the metal receptacle fixed under the window, careful not to drop any on the knees of the man reading office papers.
At last Jonathan got up and walked forward. The door at the end of the carriage was sticky to open. There was another pair of doors before he reached Marcangelo’s carriage. Jonathan walked slowly, bracing himself against the gentle but irregular swaying of the train, glancing into each compartment. Marcangelo’s was instantly recognizable, because Marcangelo was facing Jonathan in a centre seat, asleep with hands folded across his abdomen, jowls sunk into his collar, the grey streak at the temple flowing back and up. Jonathan had a quick impression of two other Italian types leaning towards each other, talking and gesticulating. There was no one else in the compartment Jonathan thought. He went on to the end of the carriage and on to the platform, where he lit another cigarette and stood looking out the window. This end of the carriage had a w.c., which now showed a red tag in its circular lock, indicating that it was occupied. Another man, bald and slender, stood by the opposite window, perhaps waiting for the w.c. The idea of trying to kill anyone here was absurd, because there were bound to be witnesses. Or even if only killer and victim were on the platform, wouldn’t someone very likely appear in a matter of seconds? The train was not at all noisy, and if a man cried out, even with the garrotte already around his neck, wouldn’t the people in the first compartment hear him?
A man and a woman came out of the restaurant car, and went into the carriage aisle, not closing the doors, though a white-jacketed waiter at once did this.
Jonathan walked back in the direction of his own carriage, and glanced once more into Marcangelo’s compartment, but very briefly. Marcangelo was smoking a cigarette, leaning forward fatly, talking.
If it was done, it ought to be done before Strassburg, Jonathan thought. He imagined quite a lot of people getting on at Strassburg to go to Paris. But maybe in this he was wrong. In about half an hour, he thought, he ought to put on his topcoat and go and stand on the platform at the end of Marcangelo’s carriage and wait. And suppose Marcangelo used the loo at the other end of his carriage? There were loos at both ends. And suppose he didn’t go to the loo at all? That was possible, even though it wasn’t likely. And suppose the Italians simply didn’t choose to patronize the restaurant car? No, they would logically go to the restaurant car, but they’d go all together, too. If he couldn’t do anything, Reeves would simply have to make another plan, a better one, Jonathan thought. But Marcangelo, or someone comparable, would have to be killed, by him, if he was to collect any more money.
Just before 4 p.m., Jonathan forced himself to get up, to haul down his topcoat carefully. In the aisle, he put on the topcoat with its heavy right-hand pocket, and went with his paperback to stand on the platform at the end of Marcangelo’s carriage.
11
WHEN Jonathan passed the Italians’ compartment, not glancing in this time, he had seen out of the corner of his eye a confusion of figures, men pulling down a suitcase, or perhaps struggling playfully. He had heard laughter.
A minute later, Jonathan stood leaning against a metal-framed map of Central Europe, facing the half-glass door of the corridor. Through the glass, Jonathan saw a man approaching, bumping the door open. This man looked like one of Marcangelo’s bodyguards, dark-haired, in his thirties, with the sour expression and the sturdy build that ensured he would one day look like a disgruntled toad. Jonathan recalled the photographs on the jacket of The Grim Reapers. The man went straight to the w.c. door and entered. Jonathan continued to look at his open paperback. After a very short time,
the man reappeared and went back into the corridor.
Jonathan found that he had been holding his breath. Suppose it had been Marcangelo, wouldn’t it have been a perfect opportunity, with no one passing from the carriage or the restaurant car? Jonathan realized he would’ve stood just where he was, pretending to read, if it had been Marcangelo. Jonathan’s right hand, in his pocket, pushed the safety on and off the little gun. After all, what was the risk? What was the loss? Merely his own life.
Marcangelo might come lumbering forward at any minute, push the door open, and then — It could be like before, in the German underground. Couldn’t it? Then a bullet for himself. But Jonathan imagined firing at Marcangelo, then tossing the gun at once out the door by the w.c, or out the door’s window which looked as if it opened, then walking casually into the restaurant car, sitting down and ordering something.
It was quite impossible.
I’ll order something now, Jonathan thought, and went into the restaurant car, where there were plenty of free tables. On one side, the tables were for four people, on the other side for two. Jonathan took one of the smaller tables. A waiter came, Jonathan ordered a beer, then quickly changed it to wine.
‘Weisswein, bitte.’ Jonathan said.
A cold quarter-bottle of Riesling appeared. The cluckety-cluck of the train sounded more muffled and luxurious here. The window was bigger, yet more private somehow, making the forest – the Black Forest? – look spectacularly rich and verdant. There were endless tall pines, as if Germany had so many it did not need to cut any down for any purpose. Not a scrap of debris or paper was to be seen, nor was any human figure to be seen caring for it, which was equally surprising to Jonathan. When did the Germans do their tidying? Jonathan tried to summon courage from the wine. Somewhere along the line he had lost his momentum, and it was just a matter of getting it back. He drank off the last of the wine as if it were an obligatory toast, paid his bill, and pulled on his coat, which he had laid on the chair opposite. He would stand on the platform until Marcangelo appeared, and whether Marcangelo was alone or with two bodyguards, he would shoot.
Jonathan tugged at the carriage door, sliding it open. He was back in the prison of the platform, leaning against the map again, looking at the stupid paperback … David had wondered, did Elaine suspect? Desperate now, David went over the events of... Jonathan’s eyes moved over the print like an illiterate’s. He remembered something he’d thought of before, days ago. Simone would refuse the money, if she knew how he had got it, and of course she’d know how he had got it, if he shot himself on the train. He wondered if Simone could be persuaded by Reeves, by somebody, convinced – that what he had done wasn’t exactly like murder. Jonathan almost laughed. It was quite hopeless. And what was he doing standing here? He could walk straight ahead now, back to his seat.
A figure was approaching, and Jonathan looked up. Then he blinked. The man coming towards him was Tom Ripley.
Ripley pushed open the half-glass door, smiling a little. Jonathan,’ he said softly. ‘Give me the thing, would you? – The garrotte.’ He stood sideways to Jonathan, looking out the window.
Jonathan felt suddenly blank with shock. Whose side was Tom Ripley on? Marcangelo’s? Then Jonathan started at the sight of three men approaching in the corridor.
Tom moved a bit closer to Jonathan to get out of their way.
The men were talking in German, and they went on into the restaurant car.
Tom said over his shoulder to Jonathan, ‘The string. We’ll give it a try, all right?’
Jonathan understood, or partly understood. Ripley was a friend of Reeves. He knew Reeves’ plan. Jonathan was wadding the garrotte up in his left-hand trousers pocket. He pulled his hand out and gave the garrotte into Tom’s willing hand. Jonathan looked away from Tom, and was aware of a sense of relief.
Tom pushed the garrotte into the right-hand pocket of his jacket. ‘Stay there, because I might need you.’ Tom went over to the w.c, saw it was empty, and went in.
Tom locked the toilet door. The garrotte wasn’t even through its loop. Tom adjusted it for action, and put it carefully into the right-hand pocket of his jacket. He smiled a little. Jonathan had gone pale as a sheet! Tom had rung up Reeves the day before yesterday, and Reeves had told him Jonathan was coming but would probably hold out for a gun. Jonathan must have a gun now, Tom thought, but Tom considered a gun impossible in such conditions.
Stepping on the water pedal, Tom wet his hands, shook them, and passed his palms over his face. He was feeling a bit nervous himself. His first Mafia effort!
Tom had felt that Jonathan might botch this job, and having got Trevanny into this, Tom thought it behooved him to try to help him out. So Tom had flown to Salzburg yesterday, in order to board the train today. Tom had asked Reeves what Marcangelo looked like, but rather casually, and Tom didn’t think Reeves suspected that he was going to be on the train. On the contrary, Tom had told Reeves that he thought his scheme was hare-brained, and had told Reeves that he might let Jonathan off with half the money and find someone else for the second job, if he wanted to make a success of it. But not Reeves. Reeves was like a small boy playing a game he had invented himself, a rather obsessive game with severe rules – for other people. Tom wanted to help Trevanny, and what a great cause it was! Killing a big shot Mafioso! Maybe even two Mafiosi!
Tom hated the Mafia, hated their loan-sharking, their blackmail, their bloody church, their cowardliness in forever delegating their dirty work to underlings, so that the law couldn’t get its hands on the bigger bastards among them, never get them behind bars except on charges of income tax evasion or some other triviality. The Mafiosi made Tom feel almost virtuous by comparison. At this thought, Tom laughed out loud, a laugh which rang in the tiny metal-and-tile room in which he stood. (He was aware too that he just might be keeping Marcangelo himself waiting outside the door.) Yes, there were people more dishonest, more corrupt, decidedly more ruthless than himself, and these were the Mafiosi – that charming, squabbling batch of families which the Italian-American League claimed did not exist, claimed were a figment of fiction-writers’ imagination. Why, the church itself with its bishops making blood liquefy at the festival of San Gennaro, and little girls seeing visions of the Virgin Mary, all this was more real than the Mafia! Yes, indeed! Tom rinsed his mouth and spat and ran water into the basin and let it drain. Then he went out.
There was no one but Jonathan Trevanny on the platform, Jonathan now smoking a cigarette, but he at once dropped the cigarette like a soldier who wanted to appear more efficient under the eyes of a superior officer. Tom gave him a reassuring smile, and faced the side window by Jonathan.
‘Did they go by, by any chance?’ Tom had not wanted to peer through the two doors into the restaurant car.
‘No.’
‘We may have to wait till after Strassburg, but I hope not.’
A woman was emerging from the restaurant car, having trouble with the doors, and Tom sprang to open the second for her.
‘Danke schön,’ she said.
‘Bitte,’ Tom replied.
Tom drifted to the other side of the platform and pulled a Herald-Tribune from a pocket of his jacket. It was now 5.11 p.m. They were to arrive at Strassburg at 6.33 p.m. Tom supposed the Italians had had a big lunch, and were not going to go into the restaurant car.
A man went into the lavatory.
Jonathan was looking down at his book, but Tom’s glance made Jonathan look at him, and Tom smiled once more. When the man came out, Tom moved over towards Jonathan. There were two men standing in the aisle of the carriage, several yards away, one smoking a cigar, both looking out the window and paying no attention to him and Jonathan.
I’ll try to get him in the loo,’ Tom said. ‘Then we’ll have to heave him out the door.’ Tom jerked his head to indicate the door on the lavatory side. ‘If I’m in the loo with him, knock twice on the door when the coast is clear. Then we’ll give him the old heave-ho as fast as poss.’ Very casual
ly Tom lit a Gauloise, then slowly and deliberately yawned.
Jonathan’s panic, which had reached a peak when Tom had been in the w.c, was subsiding a little. Tom wanted to go through with it. Just why he did was beyond Jonathan’s power to imagine just now. Jonathan also had a feeling that Tom might intend to botch the thing, and leave Jonathan holding the bag. And yet, why? More likely Tom Ripley wanted a cut of the money, maybe all the rest of it. At that moment, Jonathan simply didn’t care. It didn’t matter. Now Tom himself looked a bit worried, Jonathan thought. He was leaning against the wall opposite the w.c. door, newspaper in hand, but he wasn’t reading.
Then Jonathan saw two men approaching. The second man was Marcangelo. The first man was not one of the Italians. Jonathan glanced at Tom – who at once looked at him – and Jonathan nodded once.
The first man looked around on the platform, saw the w.c. and made for it. Marcangelo passed in front of Jonathan, saw that the w.c. was occupied, and turned back and returned to the carriage aisle. Jonathan saw Tom grin and make a sweeping gesture with his right arm, as if to say, ‘Dammit, the fish got away!’
Marcangelo was in plain view of Jonathan, waiting just a few feet away in the aisle, looking out the window. It occurred to Jonathan that Marcangelo’s guards, who were in the middle of the carriage, wouldn’t know that Marcangelo had had to wait, so that this extra time would arouse their anxiety sooner if Marcangelo didn’t come back. Jonathan nodded slightly at Tom, which he hoped Tom would understand to mean that Marcangelo was waiting near by.
The man in the loo came out and returned to the carriage.
Now Marcangelo approached, and Jonathan gave a glance at Tom, but Tom was sunk in his newspaper.
Tom was aware that the dumpy figure entering the platform was Marcangelo again, but he did not look up from his newspaper. Just in front of Tom, Marcangelo opened the door of the w.c, and Tom sprang forward like a person who was determined to get into the toilet first, but at the same time he flipped the garrotte over the head of Marcangelo whose cry Tom hoped he stifled as he dragged him, with a jerk of the garrotte like a boxer’s right cross, into the little room and closed the door. Tom yanked the garrotte viciously – one of Marcangelo’s own weapons in his prime, Tom supposed – and Tom saw the nylon disappear in the flesh of his neck. Tom gave it another whirl behind the man’s head and pulled still tighter. With his left hand Tom flicked the lever that locked the door. Marcangelo’s gurgle stopped, his tongue began to protrude from the awful wet mouth, his eyes closed in misery, then opened in horror, and began to have the blank, what’s-happening-to-me stare of the dying. Lower false teeth clattered to the tiles. Tom was nearly cutting his own thumb and the side of his forefinger because of the force he was exerting on the string, but he felt it a pain worth enduring. Marcangelo had slumped to the floor, but the garrotte, or rather Tom, was holding him in more or less a seated position. Marcangelo was now unconscious, Tom thought, and it was impossible for him to be breathing at all. Tom picked up the teeth, dropped them into the toilet, and managed to step on the pedal which dumped the pan. He wiped his fingers with disgust on Marcangelo’s padded shoulder.
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