Memory (Hard Case Crime) (12 page)

Cole was too flustered to say anything at all. He just looked up at the Captain, and gestured vaguely with his hands.

The Captain waved his hand and said, “Oh, don’t be embarrassed about it, Paul, don’t bother yourself, I understand the way it was. I said all those things about Artie Bellman, and warned you away from him, and of course you were embarrassed to say you’d already borrowed money from him, of course you were.
I
understand that, Paul.” He leaned forward, and closed one eye with a roguish smile, and laid a finger beside his nose. “But didn’t I tell you I know everything that happens in Jeffords? Didn’t I already tell you that?”

“Yes, sir.”

Captain Cartwright straightened, beaming. “Of course I did! Don’t ever fib to Captain Cartwright, Paul, don’t every try to fib to me, I’ll catch you at it every time.” He cocked his head to one side, and studied Cole’s face, the smile still creasing his own. “Any others, Paul?”

“What?”

“Any other fibs? We’ve been chatting here for quite a while, Paul, and I must admit that now I know what an accomplished actor you are, I just can’t help but wonder. Did you tell me any other little fibs, Paul?”

“No, sir, not at all.”

“You don’t have to, you know. Not with me. I’m an understanding fellow, Paul, I think you’ll find me a very understanding fellow.” He waited, as bright and alert as a parrot, and then said, “Is there anything you want to tell me, Paul? Anything you want to change in your story, anything you want to add?”

“No, sir.” Cole had thought, for a split second, of telling the Captain about his memory problem, but he rejected the idea immediately. The faulty memory was a weakness, and something prevented him from exposing a weakness to Captain Cartwright.

O’Hare, if that was the chunky man’s name, came back into the room then, carrying a square piece of metal about a foot on a side. It was bright and polished, like a mirror, and the color of an aluminum pen, or automobile chrome. He was holding it by the edges, the way some people handle phonograph records.

“Ah!” said Captain Cartwright. “There it is! Recognize it, Paul?”

Cole looked at the piece of metal, and tried to think if he’d ever seen it before. Maybe he had, and just couldn’t remember. But if he had, and Captain Cartwright knew he had, and now he denied it, the Captain would think he was lying again. He shook his head doubtfully, and said, “I don’t know. I don’t think so.”

“Take it,” the Captain offered. “Look it over.”

Cole took the piece of metal and looked at it. He could see his own face reflected in it. He turned it over, and both sides were alike. It was about a quarter of an inch thick, and absolutely featureless. He studied it, trying to make it click something in his memory, and nothing happened at all. He said, “I’m sorry, sir. If I ever saw it before, I just don’t remember.”

“Ah, well, that’s all right. Take it back, Jimmy.”

The chunky man took it back, holding it the same way as before, and the thin man opened the door for him. The chunky man left, and the thin man closed the door again.

Captain Cartwright said, “If it’s all right with you, Paul, I’d like to hold onto this discharge of yours for a few days. No problem, of course, you’ll get it back in a day or so, but I’d just like to study it a bit more.”

“Why?”

Captain Cartwright smiled disarmingly, and shrugged his shoulders. “Just a whim,” he said. “I know you plan to go on back to New York City eventually, and— You do plan to go back, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

“That’s what I thought. But still, it won’t be for a while, not for a few weeks anyway. You weren’t planning on leaving tomorrow, for instance, were you?”

“No. I don’t have the money yet.”

“Of course not. You have to finish paying Artie Bellman back first, and then you can start putting money aside for your fare, right?”

Cole nodded.

“So there’s really no hurry. You’ll have this discharge back in plenty of time.” He smiled as easily and pleasantly as before, and handed Cole his wallet back, but held the discharge form in his other hand.

Cole took the wallet and looked at it, and out of his confusion and fright felt suddenly again that deep mournful depression that came over him every once in a while these days. He felt like crying, exactly like crying; his eyes stung, but no tears came. Not looking up from the wallet, he said, “Why are you doing this to me?”

“What’s that, Paul? I didn’t hear you.”

“Why are you doing this to me?”

“Doing? Doing what?” Captain Cartwright seemed surprised and bewildered. “Nobody’s done anything to you, Paul. We’ve just had a little chat, that’s all, got to know one another. I told you, I like to know everyone in Jeffords, and you’ve become a resident now, haven’t you, at least for a while, so I wanted to get to know you. Now we’ve met, and we’ve had a pleasant little chat, and that’s all there is to it. We’ve gotten to know each other, and I want you to feel if there’s ever a problem of any kind, any way at all that I can help you, get you situated better in town here, anything at all, you can come to me at any time. I want you to think of me as your friend, Paul, and I mean that sincerely. You ask anyone in town, they’ll tell you Captain Cartwright will do anything in his power to help a fellow townsman in trouble, anything in his power, any time at all. I want you to remember that, Paul.”

“But why do it this way? In the middle of the night? And being picked up without anybody explaining anything or telling me anything and just—”

“Now, Paul! I realize you’re tired, Paul, but really now. Nobody
explained
anything to you? Haven’t I been explaining and explaining, the last half hour here? Isn’t that what this is all about?” Captain Cartwright rested a hand on Cole’s shoulder. “You’re just tired,” he said. “Now, we’ve had a nice chat and all, but it’s time for you to get some sleep, and you don’t want to stay
here
all night, do you?” He laughed, but the words and the laugh both had something menacing in them, or at least it sounded menacing to Cole. “You just go on home and get your beauty sleep, Paul, and if you want to talk about anything tomorrow, why just come on in, the door is always open. All right, Paul? Good night now.”

The Captain smiled and nodded, and strode out of the room, carrying the reduced laminated photostat of Cole’s Army discharge paper in his hand. Cole was left with the thin man, who said, “Can you find your own way out?” His face and voice were expressionless.

“Yes,” said Cole.

The thin man—was he Blake? Cole wanted to know, but didn’t dare ask—the thin man stood waiting by the open door. Cole got to his feet and left the narrow room and walked down the corridor to the front of the building. He glanced back, and the thin man was gone.

Up front, the same uniformed man sat stolid and half-asleep behind the high desk; above his head on the wall was a round white-faced clock, with black numbers and hands and a red sweep second hand. The clock read twenty-five minutes past one. Cole glanced at the uniformed man behind the desk, but there was no reaction to his presence, or to his leaving. He went out of the building and down the slate steps, and stood on the sidewalk a minute, looking at the car in which he’d been driven here.

There were too many things to think about all at once; he couldn’t keep them straight in his mind. Why had they picked him up? Why had they kept his Army discharge? What was the metal plate, and
had
he ever seen it before? What did Captain Cartwright really want from him?

He stood thinking, staring at the car parked in front of the station, and then some movement or some instinct made him turn his head. The thin man was standing at the top of the slate steps, by the door, looking down at him. He looked as though what he was was Cold & Merciless Competence. He said, “You’re loitering, Cole.” His voice was so thin and soft that Cole could barely hear it.

Cole looked up at him and blurted out, “Are you Blake?”

“Move on, Cole,” said the thin man.

Cole moved, starting off in the direction from which he’d been brought here, but he didn’t know this section of town at all, and before he got to the first corner he knew he was lost. He went on to the corner, and looked back down the block, and there was no one visible around the police station, which was in a cone of fuzzy yellow light by itself, plus the green globes, with darkness all around it.

The only thing to do was move. Sooner or later he would find a store open or someone walking, and he could ask directions. Or he would eventually come to a neighborhood he recognized.

He walked almost at random. It seemed to him that the car that had brought him to the police station had made more right turns than left turns, so in going back it should be just the reverse; from time to time, therefore, he came to a corner and went down the street to his left.

It was as though the town had been chloroformed. Silence, emptiness, darkness. Automobiles were standing here and there in driveways, because all-night parking on the street was illegal. When the automobile was parked back in the driveway, next to the house, it looked like the rear end of some snug bear in a warm den, but when the automobile was just barely onto the driveway, just clearing the sidewalk, so it was flanked by lawns, it made the whole section look like part of the construction around a model train layout. As though Cole could walk across those lawns—which would crackle like paper, being paper—and look in through those cellophane windows and see only make believe, no ceilings and no walls and no furnishings and no reality. As though Cole himself were one inch tall, crawling slowly across the table; and what looks like a black and overcast sky above is only the ceiling of the playroom.

Cole was getting exhausted when he finally saw a light ahead of him, some light other than the steady march of streetlights. It was on the other side of the street, a few blocks away. He hurried toward it, hoping it was some sort of landmark he would recognize, and when he was within a block of it he could see it was the bus depot. He smiled with relief; from here, he could find his way with no trouble at all, first to the tannery, and then from the tannery on home.

He came closer, and was just about to cross the street to the depot side when he stopped in his tracks, seeing the highly polished brand new black car parked in front of the depot, in the bus zone. It didn’t necessarily have anything to do with him. The car could be there for another reason entirely. In fact, there was no way they could have known he’d be coming by here.

But he turned around anyway, and went the other way, gong around the block and coming out on Western Avenue a block farther from the tannery. He walked down Western Avenue, and when he crossed the next intersection he looked down to his left and saw the black car still parked in front of the depot. He hurried a bit, and lit a cigarette to calm his nerves.

From there, it was just walking, with the direction known. Cole ran the last block, fumbled with the key, and when he was at last on the dark enclosed porch with the door shut he suddenly felt so weak he could barely stand. He stumbled across to the porch sofa and sank down on it, breathing in open-mouthed gasps like a man about to faint.

It was beautiful here. Through the windows was the empty street, with a circle of light to the left and a circle of light to the right. No motion, no sound. Around him, the dim bulks of porch furniture. Behind him, the house, solid and silent. Beautiful. It was good to be home.

After a minute he got to his feet and went into the house and up the stairs. He didn’t have to strain to be quiet; the whole house was cushioned, soft, muffled. His feet made no sound on the stair carpet.

He closed his bedroom door before turning the light on, and the sudden brightness hurt his eyeballs. Squinting, he read the clock; twenty-five minutes past three. He didn’t know how long he’d been held in the bare narrow room at the police station, or how long he’d wandered before finding his direction. Long times, long times.

He undressed quickly, and switched off the light, and climbed into bed. Friday was the day Mrs. Malloy changed the sheets, and the bed was crisp and clean. Beautiful. It seemed to him that everything was beautiful. He closed his eyes, and smiled, and slept.

He was not really watching television. He was facing the screen, but he was thinking about Captain Cartwright and last Friday night, wondering again if he should talk to Matt Malloy about it. It was now Monday, two o’clock in the afternoon, and he’d been worrying the question off and on all over the weekend. Captain Cartwright had said he knew Matt Malloy, and it might be that Matt could tell him what Captain Cartwright had wanted him for, but on the other hand Captain Cartwright was a policeman and it might be that Matt wouldn’t want Cole to stay on here if he knew Cole had been questioned by the police.

But he couldn’t get it out of his mind. Why had they taken him? Why had they done it so nastily? Why had the Captain kept his Army discharge? What was that square of bright metal, and where should he know it from?

It was the square of metal that bothered him most of all. Had he seen it, the Captain had wanted to know, had he seen it?
Had
he? He could remember it now, see it in his mind more clearly than anything else; bright, square, metallic, reflecting his own wondering face. Had he ever seen that piece of metal before? He couldn’t guess, he couldn’t begin to guess.

So strange. There were so many things lost from his mind, that he wanted back and needed back; and here was one thing he’d prefer not to think about, and it stayed with him doggedly. Portions of the interrogation itself had faded—some of the Captain’s questions and his own answers, the names of the other two men, some of the physical look of the room where they’d questioned him—but the fact of it was still clear in his mind. And clearest of all, the square piece of shining metal, reflecting his face.

When the doorbell rang, Mrs. Malloy called from the kitchen, “Answer that, will you, Paul? Please? My hands are in water.”

He called that he would, and left the living room, opening the front door and going out on the porch. The venetian blind was shut most of the way over the porch door, so he couldn’t see the visitor clearly, just a stocky male shape.