The Eye of the Beholder

by Marc Behm

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’m Sergeant Sheen, NYPD.’

  ‘What can I do for you?’

  ‘You dropped this.’ He showed her the silver disc.

  ‘That’s not mine.’

  ‘Yeah it is.’

  ‘Who gave you the key to my room?’

  ‘Night guy downstairs. He says you’re from Iola, Kansas.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘It’s yours.’ He tossed the disc in the air, caught it as it fell. ‘Would you walk away from the scene of an accident in Iola, Kansas?’ She was trapped against the table. He was standing before her, leaning forward, almost touching her.

  ‘Well, it’s against the law in New York, too.’

  ‘How much?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘How much will it cost me?’

  ‘Are you trying to bribe me, kid?’

  ‘I just want to know how much the fine will be.’

  ‘Five hundred dollars,’ he grinned at her. ‘What’s this stuff?’ He pointed to a bottle on the table.

  ‘Courvoisier.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Cognac.’ She removed her gloves, threw them on the sofa.

  ‘Five hundred dollars and a shot of it.’

  ‘Help yourself.’ She eased past him, walked over to a tray of glasses on the commode. ‘Make it two.’ She handed him two ponies. ‘Where did you get that ugly shirt?’

  He took off his jacket, hung it over the back of a chair. ‘Store on Third Avenue. Had a sale. I bought six of them.’ He was wearing a holster clipped to his hip. ‘What do you do for a living, Daphne?’ He filled the two glasses.

  ‘I’m a wigmaker.’ She took the wig and set it on the mantelpiece. ‘I’m in New York trying to sell some of them.’

  ‘Is that what you was doing roaming around the streets at one in the morning? Drumming up trade?’

  ‘I was just sightseeing.’

  ‘Can you show me some identity?’

  ‘Some what? Identity? Certainly.’

  ‘Your dress is ripped.’ He unclipped the holster, dropped it on the table.

  ‘It doesn’t matter. I have several dresses.’

  He drank his cognac, forcing it down in one gulp. ‘Wham,’ he said, then poured another. He gave her her pony. ‘Take it off.’

  ‘Driver’s license?’ She pulled off her dress. ‘Credit cards? What would you like?’

  ‘You know what I’d like, babe.’ He walked across the room, unbuckling his belt. He lowered his trousers, sprawled in a chair.

  ‘You sure you got five hundred?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘All right, then, I guess we can make us a deal.’ He pulled down his drawers. ‘Come here.’

  She swallowed a mouthful of cognac and moved to the table. She set the glass aside, picked up the holster, opened it.

  ‘Don’t touch that!’ he shouted.

  She turned and shot him in the face.

  She went to the sofa, put on the gloves. She picked up her dress, wiped the gun, then her pony. His glass was on the floor. She rubbed it clean. She glanced around quickly. There were no other prints anywhere, she always wore gloves in the suite. She had already decided that her luggage would have to be sacrificed. Too bad. She pulled her platinum wig from a valise, put it in her bag. She took her silver disc from the pocket of his jacket.

  She ran down the service stairs – ten floors – to the basement. She went through a dark, throbbing gallery, which echoed with the thumping of machinery, like the hold of a ship. A watchman was snoring on a cot in an alcove. She tiptoed past him, unbolted and opened a door.

  She walked up Central Park West to Seventy-second, turned into the park. She climbed a steep knoll and sat down under a tree.

  She remained there until dawn, watching the woodland’s elf denizens come and go in the moonlight around her. Three boys made love in the grass just in front of her. Two others stripped and donned tutus, then disappeared, whistling, into a dark lane.

  At five thirty she descended the hillside and took a subway on West Seventy-second to the Bronx. She rolled all the way to the Dyre Avenue terminal, then came back to 180th Street. Then she went all the way to the 241st Street terminal and came back to 149th. From there she went all the way to Woodlawn and back.

  She killed three hours this way.

  At eight thirty she had breakfast in a coffee shop on Tremont Avenue. At nine ten she put on the platinum wig and went to the bank on Jerome Avenue. She emptied Erica Leigh’s safe-deposit box. While waiting for a taxi to show up she ducked into a store and bought a suitcase. She took it with her, empty, to Kennedy Airport.

  She bought a ticket to Los Angeles, using the name Charlotte Vincent.

  6

  She sat in the airport cocktail lounge, naked under her mink, rereading Hamlet and drinking a Gaston de Lagrange. With a red felt pen she underlined

  There’s a divinity that

  shapes our ends …

  She was alone, except for a man sitting at a corner table.

  ‘What time is it?’ he asked. She didn’t bother to answer. ‘What time is it, please?’

  There was a clock on the wall just above them. She pointed to it.

  ‘I beg your pardon, could you tell me the time?’

  ‘Ten forty.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  A few minutes later he knocked over his drink. A waiter came across the room and wiped up the mess.

  ‘Sorry,’ the man said.

  ‘That’s okay. Another one?’

  ‘Yes, please.’

  She stared at him, intrigued. He was in his fifties, lean, gray, calm. His hand groped around him. She looked down. Lying on the floor beneath his chair was a cane. She got to her feet, went to him, picked it up, placed it in his hand.

  ‘Thank you.’

  She went back to her table, sat down. He pulled out a billfold, extracted a ten, fingered it sightlessly. The waiter brought him another drink.

  ‘I’ll pay now.’

  ‘Yessir. Five sixty.’ He took the ten. ‘This is a five, sir.’

  ‘Is it? My apologies.’ He fumbled in the billfold for more money. ‘I thought it was a ten.’

  She glared at the waiter, outraged. ‘It is a ten, you goddamned fink!’

  He glared back at her. ‘Oh, yeah, so it is. My mistake.’ He walked off, boiling. The man chuckled.

  ‘Waiters are always pulling that on me,’ he said. ‘Actually, I can tell the difference between a ten and a five.’

  ‘How?’ she asked.

  ‘I fold them differently.’

  ‘Very clever.’

  ‘Peace be with you,’ he toasted.

  ‘Amen,’ she said. They drank together.

  ‘What are you reading?’

  ‘How do you know I’m reading?’

  ‘I can hear you turning the pages.’

  ‘Hamlet.’

  ‘I have it on records,’ he said. ‘Burton, Barrymore, Gielgud, Evans, Leslie Howard – everybody. A dozen albums.’

  ‘I saw it with Richard Burton.’

  ‘I’ve never seen it,’ he said matter-of-factly. ‘Why are you reading Hamlet?’

  ‘There’s a line in it that fascinates me,’ she laughed. ‘It’s like listening to your favorite song over and over again. It always takes you by surprise.’

  ‘What line?’ he asked.

  She turned the pages back to Act Two, Scene Two and read, ‘“For murder, though it have no tongue, will speak with most miraculous organ.”’

  The LA flight was announced.

  ‘That’s me,’ he said.

  ‘Me too. Can I give you a hand?’

  ‘I’d appreciate it. My name is Ralph Forbes.’

  ‘Charlotte Vincent.’

  The waiter watched them leave the lounge together. He turned to the barman. ‘Real cool,’ he grumbled. ‘She’ll probably take him for everything he’s got.’

  The Eye thought exactly the same thing.

 
As they walked through the ramp she glanced around at the other passengers.

  ‘Looking for somebody?’ Forbes asked.

  ‘I thought maybe – a friend of mine might be here to see me off.’

  He touched her wrist. ‘Easy,’ he whispered.

  She looked at him, startled. ‘What?’

  ‘Your pulse,’ he said. ‘Beating much too fast. Beware of hypertension.’

  ‘I hate flying.’

  ‘I’ll take care of you.’ He patted her arm. ‘Nothing can happen to you when you’re with me.’

  She stared at him, dumbfounded.

  They sat in the quietly humming serenity of the first-class cabin, forty thousand feet over Pennsylvania.

  She watched his profile out of the corner of her eye. He had a hooked nose and a chin like a stubborn C. There were shaving scars on his cheek.

  He unzipped a flight bag and produced a bag of candy. ‘Have one of these. They’re supposed to calm the nerves.’

  ‘No thanks.’

  ‘Some gum, then?’ He took out a pack. ‘Or how about …’ He rummaged in the bag and lifted out a red box. ‘A strawberry and cream toffee? Made in England. Canard and Bowser, London.’

  ‘Come on, Ralph!’

  ‘What …?’

  ‘Chewing gum, candy!’ She laughed. ‘I hope you don’t think I’m a little girl. I mean … I’m not.’

  ‘I’m quite aware of that.’

  ‘Good. I was afraid you were going to offer me a comic book next.’

  He unwrapped a toffee, ate it. ‘You’re about –’ He hesitated. ‘Twenty-five?’

  ‘Yes. About.’

  ‘And very big indeed. As tall as I am.’

  ‘What else am I?’

  ‘You’re wearing a fur coat.’ He touched her shoulder. ‘Aren’t you going to take it off? You’ll roast.’

  ‘No, I’m fine. Tell me more.’

  ‘You smoke foreign cigarettes.’

  ‘Gitanes.’ She opened the gold case, offered him one. He accepted it with deft fingers. She lit it for him.

  ‘You’ve been in a swimming pool recently,’ he said.

  ‘How did you know that?’

  ‘Your hair.’ He sniffed. ‘Chlorine. It’s even stronger than the cognac you’ve been drinking.’

  She took a piece of gum, unwrapped it, chewed it.

  ‘I hope you’re not offended, Charlotte …’

  ‘No, no.’

  ‘You are.’

  ‘Of course not.’

  ‘I’m impossible!’ His hands moved clumsily, upsetting the flight bag, spilling candy and gum. ‘Imagine telling a woman her breath stinks!’

  She gathered up the bags and packages, put them back into the bag. Lying on her lap were five one-hundred-dollar bills, held together with a paper clip.

  ‘It’s my beak,’ he said, pinching his hooked nose. ‘It leads me on. I can smell impending rain, earthquakes, hurricanes, forest fires, changes of temperature … Once, when I was a little boy, down in Tijuana, I – it – saved my mother’s life. We were picnicking out in the woods and I smelled a snake in the bushes. A grisly odor! Primeval! Awful!’

  ‘How …?’ she began to ask, then hesitated.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Please!’ He put his hand on her arm.

  ‘How long have you been like this?’

  ‘Always.’

  The plane lurched wildly. Someone in a nearby seat yelped.

  He squeezed her arm. ‘Don’t be afraid,’ he whispered.

  ‘I’m not afraid,’ she said, and put the money into his flight bag.

  The Eye was sitting in an aft seat, finishing all the crosswords in his paperback. All except Number Seven. Fuck it. He put it away and opened a morning paper. The headline was impressive, but the facts were scanty. POLICEMAN SHOT IN HOTEL SUITE. Irwin Sheen. Forty-six years old. Vernon Boulevard, Queens. Divorced wife. Two sons, eighteen and twenty-one. His own gun. Daphne Henry. Twenty-some years old. Iola, Kansas. Present whereabouts unknown. Sought for questioning.

  There was no reference to the unknown guest in the room next to hers who disappeared at the same time she did, but he knew he was being ‘sought for questioning’ too. The cops would never let a coincidence like that pass without an investigation. Fuck it. He’d registered at the Park Lane under an assumed name. He’d used another name when he bought his plane ticket. Daphne Henry never really existed. Neither did Erica Leigh. Neither did he.

  He rang the stewardess and ordered a cognac.

  Fuck it.

  They came out of the airport building and stood in the warm sunshine. Forbes touched her.

  ‘You’re still wearing your mink? Take it off, for God’s sake!’

  ‘I can’t.’ She smiled.

  ‘Why not?’

  A uniformed chauffeur walked up to them.

  ‘Good morning, Mr. Forbes.’

  ‘Is that you, Jake?’

  ‘Yes, sir. Sorry I’m late.’

  ‘That’s quite all right. I’m in good hands. Jake, this is Miss Vincent. We’re dropping her off at her hotel.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  The Eye watched them drive away in a Bentley.

  She stayed for three weeks at the Beverly Wilshire. She bought a new wardrobe and a car. An MG. She had lunch with Ralph Forbes almost every day. They went out together every night.

  He lived in a chateau on Benedict Canyon. His grandfather had come to California in the 1900s and had made a fortune in orange grove real estate. There was a street named after him in downtown LA. His son had married a girl with oil money. Ralph had a factory in San Bernadino – Forbes Sportswear, Inc. There was a Forbes Cosmetics in Burbank, owned by his sister, Joan. There was a Forbes Gallery on Sunset, operated by his brother Ted. Another brother, Basil, was a TV vice-president. Their uncle was a DA.

  Charlotte Vincent met them all. She was really coming out in the open now, but very demurely. Nonetheless, the Eye was worried. If she planned to follow her usual procedure, she wouldn’t get far this time.

  In October she rented a small house on Oak Drive. She furnished it sparsely, like an ascetic’s temple, room by room – a few chairs, two paintings, some rugs, a bed, a table with benches, a settee, a rocking chair. Ralph gave her a three-hundred-dollar Dual 1249, and she began buying records. Bach, Verdi, Ravel, Shakespeare, Chopin. Ted Forbes was responsible for the paintings – a Thomas Eakins and a William Parker. Joan Forbes gave her a case of champagne. One evening they all had dinner there together – Ralph, Joan, Ted, Basil, and Charlotte. Charlotte cooked a navarin aux navets nouveaux and served a tarte au citron meringuée for dessert. Afterwards they went to a movie in Hollywood. Ralph and the chauffeur, Jake, brought Charlotte home at midnight and left her at the door. She sat up all night in the living room, smoking Gitanes.

  There was nowhere in the neighborhood where the Eye could hide, so he moved into a rooming house on La Cienega, two blocks away. He had a car now, too, but since he couldn’t drive up and down her street a dozen times a day without attracting attention, he became a nanny.

  He bought a wig. And a dress, a pair of pumps, a cape, and a bonnet. And he trudged back and forth along Oak Lane and Oak Drive every morning and afternoon, pushing a baby carriage containing a make-believe infant past her house.

  At first he felt grotesque, like an ungainly transvestite. But there were several other nursemaids meandering through the streets with strollers, and he looked no more outlandish than they did. He blended into their procession, being careful never to approach any of them too closely.

  Then faraway memories stirred. He began to imagine he was a father again, that the empty bundle in the buggy was little Maggie. She was four months old, wrapped in bright wool, unsmiling, staring at him with wide, solemn, azure eyes. Long-forgotten images and aromas came back to him … his tiny, almost inexistent daughter in her crib, in her bath, in lamplight, in darkness … her baptism, her tantrums, her bottles and powders and ointments,
her fevers, her sleep, her wakings … It had passed so quickly, all that! He had hardly known her. There really hadn’t been time enough for remembrances.

  Then one day she was gone.

  But now she had returned. He’d found her again, as he always knew he would – in Beverly Hills of all places! She grew older … six months, ten months, fifteen months … her wrinkled red newborn rawness vanished, she became smooth and shining, golden and solar. She began repeating the words he taught her: tree … street … hand … daddy … sky …

  He bought her a rattle and a rag doll in a shop on Wilshire.

  He knew he was gone fucking nutty, but he didn’t care. His happiness was too acute; it anesthetized everything else.

  He made a pact with her, a covenant that was the crowning point of all this madness. He asked her to promise him she would haunt him when she died – as often as she liked, but at least just once, so he would know she was dead and could stop searching for her. She told him she would. They even picked a spot for the encounter – under an oak tree somewhere, at twilight, just before the lonely nighttime came.

  And all the while he watched Charlotte. He saw her washing her car, opening and closing blinds, returning to the house carrying shopping bags, walking through her rooms, standing in the yard with her hands on her hips.

  At night he discarded his disguise and crouched behind her garage, peering through her windows.

  One night Forbes visited her and didn’t go home.

  They sat on the settee, watching TV together until eleven o’clock, then she led him into her bedroom.

  The Eye slept in his car and dreamed of the corridor lined with doors. In one of the classrooms a choir of children’s voices sang a carol. He moved to a door and listened. He was afraid to open it, because he knew it would only lead him out of the school into other dreams. He rapped on it.

  Maggie! he wailed. But maybe she didn’t like to be called Maggie. Children often resented their names. Margaret! he shouted. No, this would never do! He was making too much noise. Someone would come and throw him out. He walked on, passing through an open gate. Now he was in a graveyard filled with goats. An old shepherd in a ragged confederate uniform sat on a tombstone, watching him.

  You never did turn in that Minolta XK, he said. Baker’s going to be tear-assed if he loses one of his cameras.

  Is there a school around here anywhere? the Eye asked.