“What exciting hours you keep,” she said.
And you too, he thought. And she’s not wearing a thing under that dress, which is why she looks this soft and slow. Or the no-lipstick face does it. A real face in bed on a big, deep pillow “I didn’t come to see you,” he said without any transition.
She sat down on a couch and didn’t know what to say. But then she laughed. She took a cigarette from the boy and kept eyeing him.
“It was about the last thing I expected you to say, Mister Quinn,” and she gave a low laugh again. “Not the way you were looking at me.”
“I’m sorry.”
“So am I. Do you have a light?”
He lit her cigarette for her, watching the end of the match and nothing else.
“If Remal is here, I’d like to see him for a minute.”
She leaned back and blew smoke.
“You must have been talking to one or the other of everybody, seeing that you know exactly what goes on in my house.” She made a small pause and then, “He won’t like it.”
“I know he won’t,” and Quinn smiled.
She had not seen him smile before and had wondered, after the one time she had seen him in the hotel, how he might smile. She had speculated what a smile might do to his face which she remembered as looking still or indifferent, the eyes in particular. That’s the difference, she thought. The eyes changed. They had not been looking for anything, but now they were. And the smile? It smiles at something I know nothing about, and that’s why it bothers me She got up and said, “I’ll get him for you.” When she was by the door, she added, “I thought you were on a curfew?”
“You must have been talking to one or the other of almost everybody, too,” said Quinn.
“No. Just Remal.” She came back into the room and stubbed her cigarette out in a tray. “Quinn?”
I wish she’d go, he thought. I don’t know what to think of her. She’s less simple than anyone here “You know, it would be easier if you had come to see me. I’m much easier to see.”
“I wouldn’t come because you’re easy.”
He had said it without thinking. She started to smile but then didn’t because he was not smiling. They looked at each other with an unexpected quiet between them. Then she took a quick breath and turned away. Of course, he wants to see Remal. And I want anything I don’t know. So, of course She walked out and Quinn did not watch her. He did not have to watch her to know what she looked like, how she walked, how she felt. She feels like me, he thought. Or the way I did those first few days here-And Quinn almost felt as if he had lost something.
When she got to the bedroom she saw Remal standing on the other side of the open French doors. He stood on the dark balcony and was stretching, and at the end of the stretch he made a sound which was a lot like a purr. He is a big cat and needs a jungle. No, he is too sly and too educated but he is a big cat in bed. I like him there but nowhere else. A big cat in bed. What a way to think of a man: a cat.
“ Cheri,” she said, “it’s for you.”
He turned and when he saw her he smiled and came into the room. “For me? What is it?”
“Quinn is downstairs.”
She thought she could hear something snap when his face changed. The smile was gone, as if his thin mouth had bit into the smile and made it break into pieces, and his black female eyes became black the way Chinese lacquer is black and cold. He said nothing and walked past her, out the door.
Remal’s face had not changed at all when he walked up to Quinn, and Quinn saw the same thing there which Beatrice had seen. But he reacted differently than she had-not with a fright which was kept still with silence, but clear dislike. Remal kept standing.
“Since you left your quarters after dark, I will place you under house arrest, Mister Quinn.”
I don’t exist for him. Except as a violation of law “Sit down, won’t you,” Quinn said. He was surprised at his own calm.
“This can’t possibly take long. I’ll stand.”
Quinn shrugged. He said, “I’ll be here about one month, no more. If for that length of time you want to stand like that, look like that, then suit yourself. Except I don’t like it.”
“I’m too polite to laugh,” said Remal. “However, I will have you jailed.”
“I don’t think you can afford that,” said Quinn.
“Are you blackmailing me?”
“Of course.” Quinn got up, walked around the small table.
“And you want?” said Remal. He said it only because it was the next logical question, but not because he was really concerned. He must go, of course. Perhaps I will have him killed.
Quinn stopped walking and turned. It was suddenly all very simple. And if the mayor can feel as straight as I do now, all this can be over. It felt almost as simple as coming out of the box.
“I want you off my back,” said Quinn. “You understand the expression? I want you to leave me alone.”
“Are you leaving me alone?”
“It comes to the same thing,” said Quinn. “I want no part of your troubles. I want no part of your schemes. I’m not interested in you.”
“You make me sound like I don’t exist,” said Remal, and he thought again, I may have to have him killed.
“I wish to hell you didn’t exist, that’s a fact,” and Quinn meant it. “But while you do, I don’t want to get jumped in the dark, I don’t want your curfews. That’s what I mean by getting off my back.”
It was that simple. Quinn took a deep breath and knew this: if he gives the right answer now then he is off my back. I don’t even feel angry any more. He can be of no importance. If only he gives the right answer now Upstairs, Quinn could hear someone walking, then the sound of a chair. That’s the woman, he thought. What if Remal were not here at all “I don’t think you finished,” said Remal. “You didn’t say ‘or else’. Your kind always says ‘or else’.”
The bastard, thought Quinn. The ugly bastard “ ‘Or else’ what, Mister Quinn?”
Quinn sat down on a chair, put his arms on the table and looked at his hands. He didn’t give the right answer. He’s still on my back, no matter if I put him there or if he jumped on by himself, and now-He didn’t finish the thought. He didn’t have to. He felt the dislike creep in again, like cold fog. The straight talk is over. I didn’t know I could talk that straight, but it’s over now and back to the conniving.
He looked up at Remal, and this was the first time that the mayor really saw the other man. He had missed everything that had gone before. He might have been looking at Quinn some time back, somewhere in New York, and there would have been no difference. I’ll kill him, of course “Mayor,” said Quinn. “For my information: let’s say a man, some man who lives in the quarter, comes up to you and says, ‘Sir, give me ten dollars or I go to the authorities and tell them everything I know about your shipping business.’”
“Who knows about it?”
“Don’t be naive. Everybody does.”
Remal let that go by. He conceded the point by closing his eyes. When they came open they were on Quinn again, taking him in with great care and interest.
“What would you do if some man came up to you like that?”
“Kill him,” said Remal.
Quinn smiled. He was starting to like the game.
“Now let’s say I come up, just like that rat from the quarter.” Quinn stopped smiling and leaned over the table a little. “You think you can do the same thing to me and get away with it?”
Remal thought for a moment because he had never considered that there might be a difference.
“I’m under official protection,” said Quinn, “of official interest. I’m a citizen of another country. I’m an active case with my consulate, and then suddenly I disappear.”
There was a silence while Remal folded his arms, looked up at the ceiling. When he looked back at Quinn, nothing had changed. Neither Quinn nor Remal.