Black-Eyed Stranger (11 page)

“God knows what'll happen to me anyway.
You
don't.”

“That's right. There's coffee. And salmon.”

“Salmon!”

“On crackers, it makes a meal. This isn't the Waldorf, sister.”

She went into the bathroom and locked the door. Across the dirty narrow window pane she could see the wild green and yellow grasses. She washed her face and combed her hair, flung open the door and said, “It's a pigsty.” She straightened the bunks, quickly, energetically, with righteous anger. She neatened the shelves. She went into the narrow rustic inconvenient camp kitchen and she fell upon the disorder there.

For the first time, with shock, she saw that there was a door in the left wall, which was the outside wall. She stepped softly and put her hand on the knob. It wasn't locked. It was only a cupboard. She sighed. Then she knew he was leaning on the wall, watching her, and she began vigorously to rearrange the things in the cupboard.

“Well, busy as a bee.”

But she skipped the chance to squabble and, turning, said seriously what she had been thinking. “You don't trust anyone. But I
do.
Sam, this is stupid. We can't wait here forever, just because you don't know what to do next. I trust my father and mother.”

“Naturally,” he said. “And Alan?”

“Naturally, for heaven's sake. Sam, will you listen to me?”

“Yes, I will,” he said quietly.

“All right. I will believe all you say. And I will do my best to protect you. I promise,” she told him earnestly, “I won't tell anyone what you've done. I don't have to tell.”

“You will protect me, sister?” He wasn't exactly amused. She couldn't read his eyes.

“Then, Ambielli will never know.”

“Too late.”

“Why do you say—?”

“I don't know. I have a hunch.” He looked so tired as to be almost ill.

“You must see that I will be guarded,
now,
” she cried. “After
this.
You must see that.”

“Yes, I see that,” he answered numbly.

“Are you … so afraid of Ambielli?”

“Yes. I'm afraid.”

“But he couldn't blame
you,
” she said softly, “if I ran away.”

“No.” His face didn't change but she knew he was sad and disappointed.

“Then, take me home, and you stay there, too. They can guard both of us.”

“Alan would love that, sister.”

“But—”

“Maybe Alan could rehabilitate me. He's got his theories. He's a moral snob, all the same.”

“What!”

“Once soiled, never quite white again. A guy who forgives with his head. Nothing moves in the heart.” He lay his head against the wood of the wall. “Look at my mouth hanging open.”

“You're so stupid about Alan,” she raged.

“And you trust him, sister.”

“Of course. Of course.”

“Well, you'd trust anybody.”

“I would
not.
” She stamped her foot like a child. “Oh, Sam, I can believe—
maybe
I can—that you were trying to do something for my sake. But I think, if you didn't senselessly hate Alan Dulain, you'd never. have gotten into this mess.”

“Maybe not. That's very shrewd. That's a right shrewd notion.”

“Isn't that true?”

“Don't nag me.”

She said, “You're tired.”

“To the bone,” he admitted. “Yeah, I'm pretty tired, sister. Dare say.”

“Coffee?”

They sat down at the table together. For a moment, it was companionable. It was almost cozy.

“Listen, sister,” he said hoarsely, “when you see your mamma, tell her, will you? I never made a pass.”

She thought, startled, we're shut in so close we're reading minds. She said, aloud, turning the subject, “Why do you keep listening, Sam? You're always listening.”

“For wolves. I've told you and told you, there are wolves,” he muttered. “There really are. I told you about Baby Hohenbaum.”

“Baby Hohenbaum,” she nodded.

“He only knows one thing. Without pay, even. The boss is God. And I told you about Ambielli. Ambielli kills. He thinks nothing of it. He's got nothing much to lose, either. He's raw. He's death walking. Sister, you can't kid around with death. It's so permanent.”

“I know.” She sucked in breath.

“So don't say it again.” His eyes shut, wincingly. “Please, I beg of you. If I could figure out
how
to take you safe home, believe me, I would do it. Glad to get rid of you. No offense.” He looked so tired! “Well, seems as though nobody's coming out here. Maybe, after today, if nobody comes, I can reconnoiter.”

“Another day?” she exclaimed in dismay.

“Another night,” he said. “Sister, I'm confused. I freely admit it.” He reeled in the chair. “I had no business thrusting an oar in. Not my style. Nor my habit. A reporter, I said to your mamma, is one who sees what's going on. Watches, you know? Looks on. Well, I'll tell you, that's more my style.” He rubbed his face. “No man of action, I. No hero. You don't believe in the wolves, though. Not yet. That's the trouble.”

She thought, he's getting so tired and confused, before he knows it, he'll let me go.

And by that close magic he answered her thought. “No, I won't let you go. I can't trust you yet.”

“Ah, why?”

“You're too inexperienced, too romantic.”

“Sam …”

“Alan said so. And the difference between Alan and me is this, sister. I tell
you.
Alan tells
me.
That's the difference.”

“Alan,” she said severely, “is a fine person. He is very intelligent and well informed, and he is heading for all kinds of important good works, and his ideal is service to mankind. I don't like the way you talk against him.”

“Good works, eh?” Sam looked wild. “Oh, yes. A do-gooder. He's going to do this sorry world a lot of good. But not in my dictionary, he doesn't. Listen, shall I tell you the way for a man to do good? I don't claim I
do
it, you understand, but I
know.
You're born and you grow. You live and learn, and you take out of yourself what it is you've got and you lay it on the line and you offer it. Out of yourself, what you can do, for other people to use if they can.
This
is service. See? See it?”

She felt as if he were shaking her, as if her head bobbed.

“That's the good you can do, sister. And I was a darned bright audience, I was really that, and maybe I never should have left my seat.” His voice rose from the mumble. “All right. But I know it's doing no good, sitting up, telling all the other little people how
they
should behave. No, no. Rehabilitating the poor dumb clods. And how do you know when they are rehabilitated? It's when they think just like Alan thinks. Otherwise, they're out of line. See it?

“Yes, yes, sure,” he snatched it out of her mind, “he wants to be a teacher. And we got to have them, and some men are teachers and that's what they've got to give. But let me tell you this, sister. A decent teacher
listens.
If he can't listen, he goes out of date so fast it knocks him silly. He has respect.

“But Alan, he doesn't listen. He can't hear. He's got no respect.” Sam pounded the table. “I tell you, you've got to have respect,” he shouted. “How can a man set himself up, he knows all the answers. How
can
he? He can say to me, ‘this I've found,' or, ‘this seems to me.' And maybe he can sell something. But not to me, unless he's got respect. Respect, I say. That he might hear something out of the
other
people.”

“But, Alan—”

“Doesn't even respect you, sister.” Sam sagged. “Oh no, he doesn't. He tells me,
me,
you understand, behind your back, confidentially, how young and foolish you are.”

“I suppose
you
respect me,” she cried, startled and angry.

“I do. Yes, I do. I tell you you're a fool kid. That's my opinion. But I listen. Sister, you can tell. Some things, you've got. I'm tuned. I hear.”

His hand moved toward hers but didn't touch. She thought, he hasn't touched me, and marveled, not counting the violence long ago.

“Things I … say?” she faltered.

“Not with the voice.” He rose, stumbling. “So I should weep over you.” He rubbed his eyes. “Because you're cute or something. I think I'm delirious. Going to sleep. Don't try to get the key. Don't run away. I'll sleep. Then, think. You know? Think better. Think of something.”

“It's a good idea,” she said mechanically.

He slept, at once, with no transition. He lay on the bunk, heavy and gone. She felt a little lost, a little lightheaded, as if some steady drag were cut away.

She moved softly back into the kitchen and worked a little more at the task of putting it in order. Her mind was absent. Her mind was trying out the idea that all Sam told her was true. If he had heard Ambielli in the restaurant, if he had told her father and Alan and beenuncertain of their belief, if he had been so frightened for her, and she so patently a fool, and if Ambielli was so dangerous, then, of course, he was confused and frightened now.

She wondered, as he wondered, how could he take her home? She thought, those cruel and revengeful men will be like hornets, watching my house, all ready to swoop and sting us both to death. Especially Sam. Or, she thought, they are looking for Sam. They know he knew. Maybe he is the only one who could have stepped between.

She, too, began to think they might have callers, here. She looked up at the narrow kitchen window, and a shudder shook her all up and down and her heart swelled lest she see a face, eyes peering through the grasses from the high ground.

She thought, but I needn't be Katherine Salisbury. I don't look very much like her. If I'm some other girl, then Sam didn't do it. She thought, that's crazy. That's impossible. And she knew what Sam had meant. If they were to come after him, then she must run away and hide herself.

In a little while it occurred to her that since she looked so different, it would be simple and safe for her to go home by herself. She thought she would tell Sam when he woke. Perhaps he hadn't thought of it.

Then she knew he had thought of it, but not until she tried out belief in him, tried
listening,
could he trust her.

But now he would. And, rubbing an old rag over the worn sink, dreamily, she fell to thinking. They always teach us patterns. But they should tell us. There are odd things, and inconsistent things, and things that do not fit. They can lead to unpredictable deeds, done for unguessable reasons, by unexpected people.
You never know,
she reflected,
when you may meet a black-eyed stranger.
Around the corner, at a party, in a crowd, looming up, breaking the pattern open, warping all the threads.

Why, Ambielli, who had his plans, thought he knew his fortune. But there was a black-eyed stranger in his cup.

And even Sam. Even, she thought, a wild, stray turn of your own heart, that you can't explain, can be like a black-eyed stranger, the upsetting chance.

Chapter 11

FRIDAY wore away. Alan was told that Martha Salisbury had collapsed. Actually, she walked in her room, up and down and around, and she was only wearing Friday through.

No one was told what Charles Salisbury's errands were, that day. Quietly he went about them, doing what he had to do. His losses would cut deep.

Martha did not receive Alan Dulain, and Salisbury took care to cross the boy's path only briefly. The father was irritable with strain, and he knew, vaguely, that he contributed to a picture of a disintegrating despair. But he could not help that. When Alan left him for the last time, in early evening and marched away, face pinched, head high, shoulders squared, Salisbury thought, poor kid. But he did not think it long.

At nine o'clock, having sent for the car but driving himself, he set out on the journey. He did not think that the men Alan called his private people would be watching the apartment. Nevertheless, he did his amateur best to note whether or not he were followed and concluded not.

The words penciled on the piece of brown paper, mysteriously found wrapped around the soft mass of Katherine's scarf, were now engraved upon his brain. They were his hope. He knew exactly what he was to do and he intended to do it, exactly. He would act in good faith. Nothing would fail by fault of his, now.

He was alone. He had told no one but Martha. He had the money exactly as he was supposed to have it, old bills, in a manila envelope, addressed to Smith, lying at his side on the seat, unsealed. He left on time and on the dot of the instructed hour he swung uptown. He drove slowly, careful to obey every least regulation, lest there be an unforeseen delay.

It had been a long time, he reflected, since he had gone forth with his teeth biting his heart back, with the need to call out such reserve of strength merely to keep himself steady. It had to be done and done just so. This journey was his effort and his alone. If she were still alive, hope lay in obeying. If she were not, it made little difference that the police would come into it a little late. No, he would lock mind and imagination and emotion. He would meticulously obey.

But if, as the note promised, all went well and she returned in eighteen hours, as it said,
when he got his girl back,
then how he would strike! With thunder and with lightning, with the Law, with all other grim power he could muster, he would rip them from whatever hole they thought to hide in, were it to take a hundred years!

But not now. Lock down the lid of now against all that.

He took the turn, up the hill, in Van Cortlandt Park. He came out on a broad avenue, rather bare of traffic. On this he kept northward, proceeding sedately but steadily down the inside lane, for he had a left turn coming, although he was still at least two miles below the designated side road. He pulled up for a red light and sat reading the note again, not from paper, but as it lay printed in his head.