The Melting Man

I put some lira notes on top of the refrigerator and said, 'Don't be offended. Good information — particularly about bad characters — is worth paying for. And it isn't my money, anyway. Just tell me about Otto. Description, habits, and, maybe, present whereabouts.'

They both went into their side-splitting-giggle act, and then recovered themselves and looked a bit self-conscious.

'We don't need the money,' said Tony, 'but we'll take it on principle. Money is always something you take even if you don't need it. Money, as my old man used to say, is like music. No matter where or in what form it comes we should be glad of it. It cuts across international and cultural barriers and it is a sad person who gets no joy out of it. The other thing he used—'

'Don't start about your father,' said Mimi, shaking her head at him, smiling indulgently, and finishing again with that silent kiss.

He said something to her in rapid Italian beyond me. She blushed in a swift curtain fall from the roots of her red hair down to the point of her pert chin and said something back in Italian, and Tony squirmed in the chair and rolled his eyes behind the spectacles. It was a horrible sight. The baby burped, slipped the teat and was sick all down the front of its shawl. Tony took out his handkerchief and mopped up the mess with the loving unconcern of a devoted stepfather. In my book, there was something wrong about Tony and Mimi. I had the feeling that not only outwardly, but quietly, inwardly and even sadistically, they were laughing their heads off about me. There was, I felt, some monstrous, side-splitting joke going on so that when I left they would collapse on to the floor, rolling over and over as the pent-up mirth oozed out of them.

Tony got up and took the baby to a wicker cradle that stood on a side table. He began to tuck it away, making father noises. Without turning, he said, 'What kind of car did you say?'

'I told you. A red Mercedes 250SL. Number 828 Z-9626. 1966 model.'

He turned, smiled at me and nodded.

'That's the one. Otto brought it to me almost a month ago. I did it over for him. Only an outside job, no fiddling about changing engine numbers and so on. Just a respray and new number plates. Let me see.' He screwed up his eyes in thought, staring at the ceiling. He was a big man, bigger than he'd looked in the chair. 'Yes.' He came back to earth, having remembered, walked to his chair, patted Mimi on the bottom as he passed, and collapsed into the cane chair so that it creaked like a building about to come down in a high wind. 'Yes. I did it up cream, and the new number was something like 3243 P 38. Or it may have been 3423. But it was certainly P and 38. The last two numbers, you know, show what department a car is registered with and he particularly wanted it to be Isere — that's up around Grenoble.'

I said, 'You don't mind sitting there and telling me you did this?'

'Why should I? But you try to put it on the record — which I don't think you will — then I'd deny it. I run an almost honest business. That's as much as any garage can say.' He chuckled, and winked at Mimi. Thank God, she spared him the silent kiss on that one.

'What would he do — resell it?'

'With Otto, he could do anything. Enter it for Le Mans perhaps. Give it to his old mother for a present — if he ever knew who was his mother.'

'What does Otto look like?'

He didn't answer at once. He glanced at Mimi and I could sense the joke bubbling silently between them like a dark underground stream while their eyes lightened with merriment.

'He's four foot nothing and built like an ape. Very strong. Brown hair, long, always tossing it out of his eyes. Smart dresser. About thirty-five. Good dancer. Women fall for him, God knows why, but it never lasts because he's so selfish and unreliable with money. Still owes me for the repaint job.'

'That's all?'

'What more do you want?'

'He's got two heads,' said Mimi.

I sighed as they went into a convulsion of laughter. In fact, I was a bit annoyed. If there's a good joke going I like to be in on it.

I said, 'Anything else you've overlooked? Hare Up, forked tail, or a club foot?'

Mimi said solemnly, 'On the inside of his left thigh he's got a birthmark shaped like the cross of Lorraine.'

They both laughed again and when Tony had squeezed the last tears of delight from his eyes, he said, 'Pay no attention. Just Mimi's jokes. She's a good one for a giggle.'

I said, 'how come Otto let you walk in and take over Mimi?'

'Because he knew I was going to do it anyway, and break him in half if he made trouble. Oh, he knew it. But trust Otto to get out without trouble. A week after he took the car off he phoned, long distance somewhere, saying he was through with Mimi. Right, cara mia?

'Just like that.' Mimi began to put away the ironed clothes. 'Just phoned. Everything was over. It was not unexpected. The baby was a mistake. He never loved it. Never wanted it — but I am naturally shocked until Tony comes and says marry me. Tony is a good man.'

'The best,' said Tony. 'True love triumphs. You know what we're going to do — when the baby's a little older? Sell the garage and go to Australia. No more garage. I'm going to farm. With animals, I am good. Like with children, like with women.' He reached out as Mimi passed and held her by the left knee under the apron and they both made silent kissing motions at one another as though I were not there. He let her go and she moved over to the baby.

I said, 'Any idea where Otto might be now?'

Tony choked on his mirth, pursed his lips, gave it thought, and then said, 'Sitting comfortably somewhere without a care in the world.'

I wasn't meant to see it, but there was a mirror on the wall over Tony's chair. In it I could see Mimi's back as she bent over the cradle. From the movements of her shoulders and head, I thought she was about to have a convulsion. She just stood there, holding down a great, pulsing pressure of laughter.

I was glad to get out of the place, to get away from the homely shrine they'd built to their true love. Going down the street, heading for the nearest bottle of beer, I knew that up in the flat they were letting the laughter flow like red-hot lava. I didn't believe a word they'd said about Otto. But what they hadn't said didn't make me feel sorry for him wherever he was sitting — comfortably and without a care in the world — because always at the back of my mind was the thought of Zelia with him and Max at the Chalet Bayard.

After the beer I took a taxi to the Via Sacchi and the Palace Hotel. Lying on my bed, I put in a call to Paris and got the duty man at Interpol. I had a brief up and down with him, establishing my credentials after he'd told me that Commissaire Maziol wasn't available. I threw Guffy's name at him — told him that my bona fides had already been checked through him once, and what was the matter, weren't they interested in suppressing crime and bringing the riff-raff of Europe to book? He said it was a beautiful day in Paris, and would I make it as brief as possible. So I said in precis: Otto Libsch. Could be Otto Probst. Possible descriptions. Four feet high, strong as an ape, brown floppy hair. Or, maybe, six feet high, round happy face, steel-rimmed spectacles, fair hair, going bald. Associate Max Ansermoz — inquiry already made viz same. Otto floating around possibly in cream-coloured Mercedes 250SL. Index number — 3243, 3234, or 3423 P 38 according to latest inaccurate information, probably different number altogether, possibly car not cream, but green, blue, black or maroon. But certainly Mercedes. For a moment or two I debated dropping in the names of Mimi Probst and Tony Collard and then decided against it. They were a couple I'd like to have up my sleeve just in case anything definite came up about Otto.

Just as I was finishing, Julia came in without knocking and sat at the end of the bed. She wore a cream-coloured silk dress with a little snatch of red scarf at the throat, and I could see by the set of her mouth that she was determined to have things out with me. I looked at her watch and checked it against Mimi's — they were both the same. Otto, before taking off, or Tony, before settling in, had made it a love gift.