Memory (Hard Case Crime) (29 page)

Cole took it off and showed it to him. The man took it, fingered it, listened to it tick, looked at the back of it for inscriptions, tugged at the expansion band a bit, and said, “Five dollars.”

“Oh, no. I need more than that, no, never mind.”

Cole had reached out to take the watch, but the man ignored his hand, and kept the watch himself, touching it all over with his fingers. “You want to pawn? Not sell? Pawn? Five dollars. What if you never come back, never claim the merchandise? What then, eh? Come here.”

He still had the watch, so Cole had no choice; he followed him deeper into the store, to a far wall, where the man waved his arms and said, “See?”

Nails studded a large green rectangle of wall, and watches hung from all the nails, two or three watches per nail. Many of them had expansion bands, catching what little light there was, reflecting it back in muted glitters.

The man said, “What do I need with another watch? You pawn it, you don’t claim it, what then? If you wanted to sell, now, that would be a different story.”

Cole didn’t understand what he meant, but he said, “What would you give me if I sold it?”

“Well, now.” He went through the same inspection all over again, Cole’s watch turning and turning in his fingers. His head was cocked to one side, and behind the thick lenses his eyes were slowly and steadily blinking. He said, “Mmm. Twelve-fifty. Yes.”

“All right,” Cole nodded. “All right, I’ll sell it, then.”

“That’s a different story.” The man whisked his arm out, and Cole’s watch was hung on one of the nails, where it swayed a bit, and then stopped.

Cole followed him again, around the end of a display case to a narrow crowded counter. The man had papers to fill out, had to have Cole’s name and address, and then he gave Cole a crisp new ten dollar bill, two crisp new singles, and a shiny half dollar. “A pleasure to do business with you. Anything you want, buy or sell, always be happy to deal with you.”

Going out, Cole passed the wall of watches. He stopped and studied them a minute, but he couldn’t find his own; there were too many of them there, all crowded in together.

He saw the man peering at him, white circles of light on his lenses, so he gave up looking for the watch, and left the shop. He walked homeward, adding up numbers in his head; forty dollars, and ten dollars, and twelve dollars and fifty cents. But the numbers didn’t yet add up to seventy-five, so he would have to find something else to sell. In different places, though. He didn’t want to meet either of these people again.

He went back to the apartment, and felt such relief at being safely indoors again that he decided not to try to sell anything else until tomorrow. It was nearly four o’clock anyway; if he went back out, he’d be caught in the rush hour.

Something looked funny, looked wrong. He frowned at the living room a minute, and then realized what it was: the bookcase. It was only a little more than half full now, and it had been almost completely full before. His world was such a narrow one now, so ritualized and so dependent on physical symbols of the past, that this dislocation bothered him all out of proportion to its actual effect on the appearance of the room. After he hung up his coat, he knelt in front of the bookcase and switched the books around, moving handfuls of them this way and that, trying to give it more of the proper appearance. He could get it to seem more full, but still it wasn’t right; there had been hardcover books on the lower right before, and now there were paperbacks there. But there was nothing he could do about that.

Having rearranged the books and put a record on, it seemed natural to continue around the room, straightening up, cleaning. His routine had been disrupted today, by the trip to the Unemployment Insurance office and the time spent selling the books and watch, so the apartment wasn’t even half cleaned yet. Soon he was back in the normal pattern again, scrubbing and dusting, whispering dialogue to himself.

On New Year’s Eve, he went to Fred Crawford’s party. Nick came by for him around eight o’clock, and had to remind him he’d been invited. Fred Crawford lived in Brooklyn, so they rode the subway endlessly southward from the Village. Because of the noise of the subway, they couldn’t talk together during the trip, and Cole sat silent and apprehensive, wondering if going to this party was a mistake.

Today had been strange from the beginning. It had started, while he was still eating breakfast, with another call from Helen Arndt. This time she didn’t ask him to come to her apartment for dinner; instead, she wanted to know why he hadn’t yet got in touch with the doctor she’d recommended. He said that he’d forgotten about it, he’d lost the doctor’s name and phone number, he was sorry, and she gave him the name and address and phone number again. He promised to call the doctor at once, and make an appointment, without intending to at all. What did he need from a doctor? More, what could a doctor do for him? He needed time, that was all, time and to be surrounded by the familiar. But he couldn’t explain that to Helen Arndt.

Then she called again, two hours later. She was mock-severe with him, play-acting at being the overly protective type. She told him she had checked again with the doctor, and learned that Cole still hadn’t called, and so she’d made an appointment with him for this very afternoon, at three-thirty. “Now, you go,” she said. “You hear me, sweetie?”

“All right. I will.”

“I’m serious about this, honey. You go see that doctor, or you’re in trouble with me.”

That he didn’t want. Helen Arndt was his agent, his one remaining contact with the reality of his professional life. The last thing in the world he wanted was to alienate her. So he promised again to go to the doctor, and this time he meant it.

With the aid of a special note, and the alarm clock, he remembered to leave the apartment in time, and to keep the appointment with the doctor, who turned out to be a tall heavyset man with gray hair and tortoiseshell glasses and a permanent secret smile. His name was Bertram Edgarton, and his manner was cultish, an outer phlegm implying an inner activity of computer-like speed and power.

He asked no questions, beyond the initial request for Cole to state his problem. Cole stated it, in his usual fumbling way, because no matter how often he explained what had happened to him and what he was like now the words and the facts never came easy for him. He had to search the same compartments for the same fragmentary answers every time.

People usually helped this process by asking questions, helping him in his search for particular answers, but Doctor Edgarton was silent, sitting as heavy in his chair behind the desk as if he had grown there, his flecked eyes on Cole’s face. Cole bumbled and fumbled, trying first to explain his condition, and then to explain why he hadn’t sought medical help before, and then he was just trying to fill the silences. But soon he was repeating himself, and then contradicting himself, and finally he just stopped and sat looking sullenly at the doctor, who at last roused up and said that X-rays would have to be taken. He made a brief phone call, and gave Cole a slip of paper containing an address and a date and a time. “After the X-rays,” he said, “we’ll see.”

Riding along in the screaming subway now, he wondered what good the X-rays would do, what good the doctor could possibly do. X-rays, a rich doctor; it would cost money. The doctor had told him not to worry about paying yet, but still, he would have to pay sometime. Yesterday he’d sold his suitcase and a summer suit and a pair of shoes to make up the money for his rent; he had less than three dollars in cash, so money was much on his mind.

Nick rapped his knee, and motioned that theirs was the next stop. Cole nodded and stood and groped to the door. The car was full enough to have several standees, and since this was New Year’s Eve it seemed that most of these people must also be on their way to parties, but their faces were closed and stolid and indrawn, no different from the rush-hour faces on their way to work.

Cole’s face was reflected dimly in the glass of the door, and studying it he saw that he too bore the same expression. He tried a smile, his face close to the door so no one else could see it, but it felt strained and looked ghoulish. He turned away, and looked at the advertising posters instead.

The train shuddered to a stop, the doors slid back away from each other, and Cole stepped out onto the platform. Nick motioned, saying, “This way,” and they walked together to the end of the platform where the concrete stairs were. Beside them, the train jolted forward, and then rushed away as though racing a deadline to the junkyard.

When the noise of the train was gone, Nick said, “Most of the crowd you met already. I mean met again, since you’ve been back. If there’s anybody there you didn’t meet, they’ll know about your memory so you won’t have to go through that all over again.”

“Good.”

They went up the stairs to the street, and paused there to light cigarettes. Too casually, Nick said, “Rita’ll be there.”

Cole shook his head. Rita was something he had done stupidly, but he had no idea yet what the right thing or the bright thing would have been. In his mind was the idea that when he was his old self again he would not only know what he should have done last Thursday night, but also how to make up for it. He wanted to see her again—a note about her was now prominent in his bedroom—but not yet, not while he was still stupid.

Nick had taken a step away from the subway entrance, but Cole hadn’t moved, and now Nick looked back at him, saying, “What’s the matter?”

“Maybe I’m not ready for a party.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I’m not sure—”

“Rita, huh?” Nick looked around the intersection, and pointed across the street. “Let’s have a cup of coffee.”

“All right.” Any delay was welcome.

The store was diagonally across the street. This was a dim and musty neighborhood, the streetlights yellowish, not strong enough to show anything clearly. The intersection was occupied at the corners by a dry cleaner, a bar, a small clothing store, and the candy store they were walking toward, with squat brick row houses radiating away in four directions.

Three high school boys in dark clothing, looking angry and morose, stood on the sidewalk in front of the candy store, watching Cole and Nick with a kind of bitter hopelessness. Cole and Nick passed them, and went on inside.

The magazine rack was to the left, the phone booths in back, the counter on the right. They sat down at the counter, and Nick asked the thin old man behind it for two coffees. Nick paid, and for a minute they sat in silence, till Nick said, “Something went wrong with you and Rita, huh?”

“Yes.”

“You want to talk about it, or no?”

“I don’t understand it, that’s all. We didn’t know each other, and we made each other nervous. She said she didn’t want to see me anymore.”

“You make a pass?”

“No.”

“Maybe you should of.”

“I don’t know.”

Nick stirred his coffee, frowning thoughtfully. Then he shook his head and said, “You’re a real problem, Paul. You’re a first-rate clown.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Say that again and I’ll get you lost in Jersey someplace.” Nick drank coffee, and put the cup back down on the saucer too hard. It made a sharp noise, and coffee slopped over onto Nick’s fingers. He cursed, and dried his hand with a paper napkin. Watching himself, watching his hands, he said, “Forget that. That Jersey crack. That wasn’t fair.”

“I feel the same way sometimes,” Cole told him. “Impatient. I get so impatient with me I want to throw me away and start all over again.”

“We’re all clowns,” said Nick. “All God’s chillun been nuffin but clowns.” He swung around on the stool to face Cole. “There’ll be sixteen, eighteen people there,” he said. “They got a four-room apartment. You want to keep away from Rita, it’s the easiest thing in the world. Same if she wants to keep away from you. She’s got to know you’re coming, so if she really doesn’t want to see you again she just won’t show up.”

“Maybe.”

“Maybe shmaybe. You got troubles enough, you silly bastard, without making up extras.” Nick was getting more and more impatient with him.

Cole shrugged. “I guess so.”

“That’s all you ever say, damn you. I guess so, I suppose so, I’m sorry, I don’t know. Get with it, will you?”

“All right. I’ll get with it.”

“Good man. Drink your coffee.”

“I don’t want it.”

“Then let’s go.”

They left, and passed the three high-schoolers again, and Nick led the way down the street to the right. “It’s two blocks down,” he said.

They walked in more relaxed silence now, Cole feeling relieved about the Rita problem. It hadn’t been solved, but Nick had assured him it could be evaded, which was just as good. They crossed one intersection, and then Cole said, “What’s his name again?”

“Who?”

“This guy, at the party. The one whose house it is.”

“Oh. Fred. Fred Crawford. You met him last week, remember? Christmas Day. First guy we ran into.”

Cole nodded, remembering. “Tall, blond hair. He’s got kind of a paunch, but he’s thin.”

“That’s the one.”

“Tell me about him.”

Nick hesitated, and then said, “You first. Tell me what you remember.”

“I don’t remember anything.”

“You aren’t even trying.”

Cole stopped, and frowned as though he were in pain. “I don’t know what’s the matter with me,” he said. “It’s like I don’t have the energy.”

“Force yourself. Tell me about Fred Crawford.”

They stood facing each other on the sidewalk. Slowly, Cole said, “I remember what he looks like. I just told you that.”

Nick nodded. “Right. What else?”

“He’s married?”

“You asking or telling?”

“I’m trying to remember her. Red hair?”

“That’s up to you.”

“Well, let me know when I’m right, for God’s sake.”

Nick shook his head. “This isn’t Twenty Questions,” he said.

Cole shook his head like a boxer shaking off a daze. “I’m really trying, Nick, I really am.”

“Good.”

“His wife has red hair. She’s—she’s short and kind of heavy. Wait a second, she’s pregnant.”