Varden stopped the sedan before an ornate apartment building of cream-colored brick. A doorman hopped to the curb, opened the car door. He gave me an odd look, and Marlene whispered:
“It’s Mr. Smith!”
The doorman practically brushed the carpet with his palms to the elevator for us. As we rode up, Varden said.
“Some of our business associates are chaffing to see you. Shall I bring them around tonight?”
“No,” I said, “later. I’m tired.”
I didn’t miss the expression in Varden’s eyes, nor the glance he swapped with Marlene. For the first time I wondered why that fire had started in the lake cottage that night, and what was behind it. Varden’s own innate coldness caused my skin to prickle in his presence. A keen sense of warning told me not to let Felix Varden know how really helpless I was.
I let Marlene precede me into the apartment. There was a long living room, a sunken dining room with windows banked at one end. Like a Hollywood movie set, I thought.
“I’m sure we could all use a drink,” Marlene suggested.
I cut my eyes, helplessly lost, about the room. “You play hostess, Marlene.”
I watched her swing a section of the wall out to form a miniature bar. Felix Varden raised his glass in a toast:
“To the suckers!”
It took me a moment to echo it, and I saw the puzzlement deepen in his eyes. He set his glass down, drink finished. “Look, Chief, you’re acting spooky. You must be all in. I’ll chase myself now, see you tomorrow.”
As soon as the door closed, I turned to look at Marlene. How did Marlene and I live?
But I needn’t have wondered. Turning to her, I found her face was cold, as if she had dropped a mask of pretense.
“I saw the way you were looking at Felix — and he noticed it, too. I suppose now it will start all over again.”
“What will start, Marlene?”
“That’s like you, Dash. Pretending everything is just fine when thoughts are crawling through your mind. I warn you, Dash. I didn’t know what an utter ego-maniac you were when I married you, but I won’t take any more of your persecution.”
I looked at her. “What if I just got out of the whole thing?”
Her full, red lips curled. “Even Dash Smith would know better than that. The organization never lets a man go. Especially a man in your position. You wouldn’t want to land in the bottom of the river, your feet in a tub of cement, any more than I would. But I’m not afraid of what you can do to me any longer! I made up my mind while you were in the hospital that I was through taking your persecution!”
“You got any more to say?”
“No.” Her voice dropped. She sagged in a big club chair, tired, not half so beautiful under her heavy make-up. “That’s all I have to say.”
“Then I think I’ll take a walk,” I said.
I had to get out in the fresh, clean air. I was certainly jammed up in a lot of things I needed to remember. I recalled the newspaper stories about Dash Smith. They said I’d come from the wrong side of the tracks, from Eastland Street. There should be plenty of the familiar over there, perhaps something that would bring back my memory. I climbed in a taxi.
I found nothing to help my memory on Eastland Street, only that tantalizing familiarity of the teeming streets, crowded tenement buildings. I walked all the way to the end of the street, where they had tom down a block of buildings and transformed the area into a small park. I was tired from my long, slow walk down East-land. I sank on a bench, lighting a cigarette and watching squealing kids splash in a wading pool.
A little girl came wobbling down the cement walk on roller skates. She was clutching a doll in the crook of one arm, waving her other frantically to keep her balance. I grinned at her serious efforts.
As she neared my bench, she lost her battle, each skate going in opposite directions at once. She pitched forward full length on the walk.
Rushing to her, I scooped her up and set her on the bench. She was trying hard not to cry. I shook out my handkerchief to wipe the ugly cement-burn on her palm and cheek.
“Thank you so much for helping her! I’ll take her to the Park Supervisor to get the skinned places dressed right away.”
I looked up. A young woman, small, with aburn hair, hazel eyes and a chin that was nice and firm. She bent to the six-year old tot. “Now, hadn’t you better let mommy hold your hand again?”
“But I almost made it, Mommy. Didn’t I, mister?”
“A little more practice, with your mommy’s hand, and I’m sure you’ll skate rings around those other kids.”
“Mister,” she said candidly, “you broke my dolly.”
“Peggy!” her mother said.
I followed Peggy’s glance. There was the doll on the walk where my heel had crushed it in my haste to get to her. I picked up the broken toy.
Peggy’s chin quivered. “I guess I’ll have to have a dolly funeral. She was only learning her ABC’s, too.”
Over her mother’s objections, we three took Peggy’s dolly to the park supervisor for repairs. As we left his office, Peggy looked up at me. “Is he like my daddy, Mommy?”
“Peggy, you should never—”
“My daddy’s gone away for ever and ever, asleep,” Peggy told me gravely.
I shot a glance at the woman walking beside me. Her glance met mine, and there was an old pain and cold anger, a helpless anger she had not learned to accept and live with.
“We’d been married a year,” she said quietly. “Bill had a small shop. He refused to pay protection and—” she spread her hands — “the hired hoodlums of a man called Dash Smith shot Bill down inside — inside his shop.”
Chapter Two
Mind Over Mayhem
Dash Smith. Cold inside, I looked at her. But even if Sally Blanchard had ever seen Dash Smith, she wouldn’t recognize me now after Dr. Maddigan’s surgery had given me a new face.
There wasn’t anything to do, but go on trying to be natural with Sally and her daughter. I spent the afternoon with them. I wondered if in my old life, I’d ever known a time as nice.
They lived near the park with an aunt who cared for Peggy while Sally worked. I knew that I was the cause of all their heartbreak. I was behind it, my orders had caused the death of Sally’s husband. I had no right even to want to see Sally again. But I knew I did want to, more than anything in the world.
“My name is Green,” I lied. “Eddie Green.”
What would she say if I told her my name was Dash Smith? I looked at her. I knew only that the accident had changed this man they called Dash Smith, racketeer. I was already making up my mind to right the terrible wrong I had done Sally and Peggy Blanchard, even if I had no idea of how I could accomplish such a thing.
Sally put out her hand. As I held it, I took off my hat. Peggy said. “You don’t have any hair, Mr. Green!”
I felt color seep in my face. “Like your dolly,” I said. “I had an accident, too.” Until then, I hadn’t thought of the hairline scars on my face, the missing hair.
Sally smiled. “We’ve had fun, Mr. Green, and you look very distinguished.”
“Eddie,” I said.
“A very real pleasure, Eddie.”
She agreed I could come back and I spent the rest of the day thinking about Sally. I made up my mind to look up the records on Bill Blanchard, and find out what I could do — even if it meant bucking the organization.
That night, Marlene came in our Hollywood-set living room all dressed up to go out. I made the excuse of being tired. Marlene said sullenly, “I was cooped up here all day while you were out—”
“Look,” I broke in, “go out and have some fun.”