She wanted to be seen, waved to. Wanted her existence testified to by the eyes of others. So that she’d know that maybe she did really exist after all. The normal need.
“They’ll see you, Marty,” I said. I smiled. After all, I’d been with this woman for a long time.
“Come to bed,” she said. “Once more, Dan. For us.”
“I don’t think so,” I said. “No.”
I wanted to, yes, then why did I say no? Because it would make it harder? No. To hurt her, to attack her. Deny myself, refuse her, not let her be nice to me. Make her guilty so I could feel better. People are made of that irrationality.
She got up and dressed. When she was dressed, I wanted her back in bed even more. I’m as irrational as the next person.
“Will you be all right?” she said.
“I’ll be fine.”
“I’ll… I’ll call you.”
“Sure,” I said.
She went out of the bedroom, and out of the apartment. Out of my life. I lay down, and closed my eyes.
They began, the thoughts. The plans for revenge, the schemes of victory. The scenes where I stopped her, where I appeared at the wedding to stand between her and him, and she came to me. The dreams where she ran to me, and we were married, and lived in a big house and
…
I was dressed, and on the cool night streets. Walking. Uptown, that’s where a Kurt Reston, director, would live. On my way to find his house, his pad, to show her how much more of a man I was. Take her away. All our years had to mean…
I was in a bar. Naturally. What else does a man do when his woman has gone? He gets drunk, of course. Very drunk. He gets drunk and laughs with strangers and watches late-night TV above the bar and tells war stories. Strangers are very nice people in bars, and they are interested in how I lost my arm. First the arm, then the woman, then…
Claude Marais was a drifter. Do drifters kill? Not their brothers. Drifters don’t have brothers. Of course they kill, especially their brothers. And wives…
Sun. Cool. Daytime taverns are oddly quiet and cool and dim. Lazy, a sense of endless time…
Dark. I’m glad you asked how I lost my arm. It’s a long story. The war, you know? We were up near the Meuse River, that’s in France, and this Tiger tank came. I saw its shadow in the fast water, the shadow of the Tiger. So, I had the shadow of a bazooka, and I shot that Flying Dutchman…
Roaches on a ceiling don’t like the sunlight, their thin feelers quiver uneasy…
She had a nice face above her glass, blonde and raped at fourteen by some uncle her father beat her for enticing. Old, at fourteen. Come on, Dan, honey, I’ve got a nice place and we can talk. Fourteen is getting old in Saigon. I don’t know anything about Saigon, I’m studying to be an artist. I never saw a man with one arm so close… honey…
Sure Claude Marais did it. What else? Only no one saw him, did they? No one saw Eugene Marais refuse to give him that package. No witnesses. She had a nice face, old and dark-haired, and where the hell was I now…?
The Oriental women are so small in the dark.
20
A familiar room, and hot. Too hot. The hot spell had broken, then why was it so hot? And if I was in my own familiar room with Marty in bed beside me, asleep and small, then…? In bed with me? Marty? I touched her, kissed her.
Li Marais looked up at me, sleepy but waking fast, not smiling as I touched her. “How are you, Dan?”
I lay back on the pillow. “Tell me. How did I get here?”
A familiar room, but not my room. The bedroom of the suite in the Hotel Stratford. Soft sun, so morning, and too hot.
“How long have I been?” I said.
“Only since last night, Dan. You came here with me last night. I found you in a bar,” Li said, watched me.
“No, I mean how long since-?” I was going to say since Marty left me. I said, “Since they arrested Claude?”
“A week,” Li said. “One more day.”
That explained the heat-another hot spell on the city. I had missed the relief. A drunk binge. Booze, and how many strange women? The standard answer for a middle-aged roustabout. One week and a day, the exact time. She would be married, Marty. All over. My subconscious planned well, with precision. The next step: pack a bag and go. Or work?
“Claude’s still in jail?” I said. “Nothing new?”
“He is in jail. There is nothing new. The French Consul, the Balzac Club, they are helping. I have engaged the lawyer, Kandinsky. They have not made a full charge, but he is in jail.”
“You found me in a bar? For me, or for him?”
“For him, and for me,” Li said. “Not for you. For myself, I was so alone. I found you.”
I sat up, lit a cigarette. “I make you happy, Li? Even drunk? Did I tell you why I was drunk?”
“You make me happy. You told me, yes. I am sorry.”
“If I make you happy, what do we care about Claude?” I made it brutal. To find out. Or was I feeling brutal?
She didn’t flinch. “Eighteen years I have loved Claude. He does not love me now, loves nothing. But he is innocent. He could not kill Eugene. He did not want the diamonds. He would have given them to Gerd Exner, there was no hurry, he did not go back to the pawn shop that night. After all our years across the world we came here, and Claude found Eugene. He found for Eugene an admiration, yes. What in the past had been bad in Eugene, Claude now saw was good. A simple man who knew life and did what he could without need of credit, or glory, or purpose. An honest man enduring his obligation to live. That is what Claude said of Eugene. Would he kill Eugene for diamonds?”
“He was going to give Gerd Exner the diamonds? All of them? Break with Exner?”
“Yes, I know that. I was afraid of Exner, I hired you, but I was wrong. Claude was not returning to our past life.”
“How do you prove it, and did Exner know it?”
“I don’t know.”
Under the thin sheet she was small, slim, but not thin. A full woman. Mine? Stay, pack no bag? How did I know?
“The police have all the circumstances against Claude. No more than that. But we have nothing, either. Empty time where Claude was alone. How do we prove him innocent, Li?”
“He did not go back that night. He was here, with me,” she said. “The police do not believe me.”
“What time, Li?”
“From nine-thirty until past three A.M. ”
“Not good enough.”
“Eugene would not have waited until past three A.M. If he had been alive by then, he would have gone home.”
I believed that. Even the police would agree, but how did we know Claude had been with her until 3:00 A.M. The wife? No, the police could not believe her. Did I?
“All right, say Claude is innocent. Who got the package from the shop after Jimmy Sung left, and who put it in this suite? Why? Not Exner, he wouldn’t give up the diamonds. Who would give up a fortune just to frame Claude?”
“To escape capture for murder, Dan, what are diamonds?”
It was a good point. “What about that hat badge? How would someone get it? Was this room burglarized, broken into?”
I didn’t add that one person could easily have gotten the badge and put it into the register-her.
“No, no one came here that I know of. No signs of entry.”
She could have said yes, covered herself.
“Someone tipped the police to look here for the package,” I said. “Maybe Claude is innocent, maybe he’s guilty. I’ll try to find out-for you. Don’t use me, Li. Don’t play with me.”
She was silent. Then she moved under the sheet, touched her own body. “We are we. I must save Claude, he did not hurt Eugene. I must free him, but he does not need me. In jail he does not care, he smiles. He is alone. I need you, Dan, but I must help him. Then-?”
She kissed me. It was a real kiss. But, of course, I was thinking of myself.
Lieutenant Marx watched us as we sat down. Li perched on the hard chair in the squad room office. I faced Marx. He must have known about Marty, the police don’t miss much, but he said nothing.