“Of course, I wasn’t looking where I went,” he said, regally taking the blame again. He looked solemn. “A tragic affair, poor Eugene. A stupid way to die. A cheap robbery.”
“How do you know it was cheap?”
“The police have been to me, of course. Almost a week ago. I had not expected any further interrogation.”
The police had dug Manet out after Jimmy had been arrested then. Part of their doubts.
“Things have changed,” I said. “You knew Eugene Marais in Paris?”
“Our families were acquainted a long time ago. I, myself, did not know Eugene or Claude in those days.”
“The hero days?”
“One did one’s best, Mr. Fortune.”
“Did Eugene Marais do his best then? In the Occupation?”
“In his way.” He sat down now in a mammoth red womb chair, crossed his legs like a general being interviewed, indicated a chair for me to sit in. “Eugene was a quiet man, a shopkeeper. He was not a man to do much in action. Most men are like that, eh? The vast bulk of the world, the citizens.”
“You met Eugene here through Claude Marais?”
“Yes.”
“How did you meet Claude?”
“On business in San Francisco, Mr. Fortune. I represent many French companies abroad, public relations I suppose you would say. Claude Marais is quite different from Eugene, is well known in French circles. I considered that we would have mutual business interests, could cooperate.”
“What business?”
“Wines, gourmet foods, perfumes, clothes.”
“Two heroes for France?”
“If you like. I thought Claude could be an asset to some companies I represent. Unfortunately, when we met again here in New York, Claude thought otherwise.”
“So you had a fight? At the Balzac Union?”
“He hit me, I do not brawl,” Paul Manet said coldly. “Claude is a sick man, bitter against his own country, denying its truth and glory. He is no true Frenchman now. A shame.”
“You’re sure it wasn’t a business fight? Some other business than wines or foods or perfumes?”
“I’m sure, Mr. Fortune.”
“What did you talk to Eugene Marais about?”
“Paris, the past, the old times. Nostalgia, I suppose.”
“Vel d’Hiv?”
“Perhaps it was mentioned.”
“But you didn’t like to talk about it?”
He thought a moment or two. “Do you know about Vel d’Hiv?”
“Yes. July 16, 1942. The roundup of Jews.”
“Then you know why we don’t like to talk about it. As a Frenchman, I am not proud of that night, or of what came after.”
“But you were a hero, a fighter.”
“I saved a few poor people, helped, resisted the Gestapo. To fight the Nazis then was not special heroism, a duty. No risk was too great, one did not have to decide much. All who could fought, helped. If I did more than many, I am happy, but it was long ago. Do you talk often of your past record, Mr. Fortune?”
“Not often,” I said, “but I don’t trade on it, either. I don’t live off my reputation from the past.”
I saw his anger again, quick and belligerent. Taller in the mammoth modern chair, menacing.
“Meaning that I do that?”
“You ‘represent’ French companies-only French, right? And ‘represent’ means you’re a front man, a glad-hander, someone who gets respect for his employers not for how good their wares are, but for who and what he is. Did they hire you for your business knowledge, Manet, or for your heroic name? I’ll bet you always live in apartments as plush as this one, and you never pay rent, right? A Jules Rosenthal everywhere to lend you his pad because you’re a hero. A Balzac Union to roll out the red carpet for you. Not because you’re really important, but because you were once a hero of France. A monument. A legend. I wonder what you’d be doing if you hadn’t been a Resistance hero? Selling salami in some Paris shop? A factory hand?”
“You insult me, Mr. Fortune.”
“Your military honor, Manet? When were you ever a soldier? You were a Resistance hero, a Maquis. Why the soldier act?”
Manet said, “Leave, Mr. Fortune, please. You are a cripple, I do not want to hurt you.”
“Like you hurt Claude Marais? Maybe he didn’t think you were a real soldier either. He was, right? Maybe that’s what the fight was about. Or maybe he just didn’t think much of a man still trading on his heroics of thirty years ago.” I lit a cigarette, blew smoke into the palatial room. “If there were any heroics thirty years ago.”
The silence that came down over the vast, expensive room was like the heavy, airless, yawning silence that comes in the hour before a hurricane explodes in all its fury.
“Did Eugene Marais know something about your past you never wanted anyone to know, Manet?” I said, smoked. “Facts about Paul Manet that would ruin his nice, soft existence?”
He took a deep breath, let it out. “You can check into the record of Paul Manet as far and as wide as you want, Fortune. You will find nothing hidden there.”
“Maybe I’ll have to do just that,” I said. “Where were you the murder night, Manet? You left the pawn shop around five-fifteen in your car, where did you go the rest of the night?”
“For a drive, dinner at Le Cheval Blanc with businessmen, drinks with another businessman, and to bed here.”
“What time did you leave that last businessman?”
“About eleven, I believe. Despite your image of me as a kind of business gigolo, I work very hard. I need my sleep on most nights.”
“So you were alone after eleven P.M.? Or did you have an appointment with Eugene Marais at the pawn shop?”
“I was alone in my bed. Now you can-”
I heard a telephone receiver go down somewhere in the big apartment. Paul Manet wasn’t alone. There were footsteps in the next room. Light steps, and the door opened. Naturally, I wasn’t carrying my old gun. Luckily, I didn’t need it. I saw a bedroom through the opened door, and Danielle Marais came out.
“Mr. Manet was my father’s friend,” the heavy, petulant girl said. “You can’t accuse him.”
“Was he a friend?” I said. “Or maybe only of Claude’s, until they had a falling out?”
The long, dark hair of the dead Eugene’s daughter was coiled up in a chignon, and she wore a new, green cocktail dress that had not come off some rack in Macy’s. Her big, adolescent breasts stretched the sleek dress that was too old for her, too slim for her heavy body. But it did something for her, if you liked heavy, erotic nineteen-year-olds.
“You think Mr. Manet has to rob cheap pawn shops?” Danielle sneered. She wasn’t a pleasant girl, but she was still young.
“There wasn’t any robbery,” I said. “It was a cover for the murder. They let Jimmy Sung go. Now they’re looking for another motive. I think your father knew something Manet there didn’t want known. Or maybe it was something else. Where’d you get that dress, Danielle?”
“From Charlie Burgos, of course,” she snapped, and swung in a slow circle preening the new dress for me.
“Where did Charlie get that kind of money?”
“He works!”
“At his kind of pay that dress is a year’s savings.”
“What do you know?” she sneered, but she stopped giving me the show of her dress.
She stood in the room as if uneasy, a girl trying to be a woman and not making it. She seemed almost confused.
“What money does Charlie have, Danielle?” I said.
She chewed at her full lips, a habit she had probably found right after she stopped sucking her thumb. It was Paul Manet who answered me:
“I gave her the dress. Eugene Marais was a friend of mine, no matter what you think. I wanted to cheer Danielle up.”
“A dress for a friend of the family?” I watched Danielle. She was grinning. “How long have you two known each other? Did Eugene and Viviane Marais know you knew each other? Maybe they didn’t like it?”
“We only met after Dad was dead!” Danielle said hotly. “Mother thinks I’m a child, but I’m not a child anymore. See?”
She pulled her dress flat over her thighs and belly, outlined her body, and arched her back to show me her full breasts. It only showed what a child she was.