Memory (Hard Case Crime) (30 page)

“That was a year ago.”

“They’ve got a baby?” Nick didn’t say anything, and Cole spread his hands vaguely. “I don’t remember the baby,” he said. “I don’t know if it’s a boy or a girl.”

“Never mind the baby. What about Fred?”

“What else? He’s a salesman, he tried to sell me something. A camera? Something like that. But how come I know him? I don’t know. I heard him sing one time, I remember him singing, he opened his mouth like opera singers do, that big O they make.” Cole turned, walked in a small circle on the sidewalk, and stopped where he’d started. “That’s all,” he said. “Maybe I’ll remember more when I see him. That happens sometimes, I remember more about a person when I see him.”

“You saw Fred last week.”

“That’s right, I remember that. I guess I knew more about him then, I forgot some of it.”

“Okay,” said Nick. His manner had been hard, but now it was gentle. “Okay, you did pretty good. Come on, we’ll walk and I’ll give you the rest.”

Cole fell into step with him. “I guess I need somebody to keep pushing me,” he said.

“I’ll tell the world. Fred’s a singer. He gets work sometimes with choruses, on television or making records, and in the meantime he works in a camera store in Manhattan. Their kid is a boy, and his name is Bruce, and I guess he’s about a year old now. His wife was in Robin Kirk’s class for a while, but she dropped out.”

“Robin Kirk. Acting teacher?”

“Good man.”

“Rita told me, I think. I remembered the name from that, but I don’t know what he looks like or anything. Is he going to be at the party?”

“Not Robin.” Nick said it as though the idea was inconceivable, but didn’t add any explanation.

They walked for a few seconds in silence, and then Cole said, “Was I still in his class?”

“Not for a couple of years.”

“Oh.”

“It might be a good idea to go audit the class a couple of times. It’s a part of your past, it might open up a few more memories.”

“All right, I will. You mean just go there.”

“Yeah. Here’s the house here.”

It was in the middle of a block of two-story row houses, with exterior steps to the second story, up to a shallow porch that ran across the face of the row from one end of the block to another, like a catwalk, with low brick railings to separate it into a rectangle per house. Going up the steps, Cole whispered, “Have I ever been here before?”

“Sure.” Nick was ahead, and he looked back and down at Cole, grinning happily. “You remember it, huh?”

“No.”

Nick went on up the steps, shaking his head. When Cole got to the top, Nick had already rung the bell. Nick said, “Now I know what a tragicomedy is,” and the door opened. A short red-haired girl with soft-looking breasts was there, smiling at them, telling them she was glad they could make it. Behind her, a room was full of people blocking light, talking together, and smoke rising toward a low ceiling.

Cole said, “Mattie,” because in seeing her he suddenly remembered her name, and that she was the wife of Fred Crawford, and that their child, named Bruce, was an ugly baby with red hair, looking, as infants do, as though he’d been left underwater too long.

Everybody was pleased that Cole had remembered Mattie’s name, particularly Cole, and they stepped into the party in high good spirits.

The Crawfords’ living room was long and narrow and underfurnished. An anemically modern sofa, composed of a thin wooden plank and two blue-covered foam rubber cushions, was the largest and most substantial piece of furniture in the room. Two benches served dual purposes; half covered by a square yellow cushion for seating space, and half bare, holding lamp and ashtray, the lamps with long tubular shades. Four kitchen chairs had been brought into the living room to give more of the guests a chance to sit down, but these were unoccupied, most people preferring to stand in tight talkative clusters.

Cole didn’t see Rita in his first scanning of the room, and felt relieved. He hoped she wasn’t here, and wouldn’t be coming. Several people noticed him, and waved, and he waved back. Nick said, “I’ll get us drinks,” and went off to the kitchen, which was next to the living room at the front of the house. Mattie, with a vague smile, had already drifted away, deeper into the room.

Feeling shy and exposed, because he knew these people now only slightly while they knew everything about him there was to know, he pushed one of the kitchen chairs into a corner and sat there, content to watch and listen without becoming involved. Nick found him after a while, and pushed an ice-cube clinking drink into his hand. He murmured something about a chick, winked at Cole in a distracted way, and went away again. Cole sat in the kitchen chair and sipped at his drink, and watched and listened.

He never left the chair. From time to time, Nick or Mattie or Fred Crawford would bring him a fresh drink, and stand by his chair to chat with him for a minute or two before hurrying off again. These brief chats were like duty visits to a friend in the hospital, and Cole choked on gratitude, being silent and morose when one of them tried to talk with him. Mattie and Fred, of course, had the whole party to concern themselves with, and Nick seemed mainly to be trying to seduce a girl who had come to the party with another man, though whether Nick was serious about it or just killing time Cole couldn’t tell.

At one time or another, nearly everyone at the party came by to talk with Cole, curiosity and sympathy glittering on their faces. Cole tried to rouse himself from his apathy, and pay attention and detect individual reactions to him, but the struggle was too hard. He was bowed down by the feeling that he was a freak, a curiosity; in the eyes that turned from time to time to look at him he saw no acknowledgement that he was still a person. Rita was there; he saw her after a while, and occasionally caught further glimpses of her, but he never saw her look in his direction.

One time when Nick was standing near him, having just brought him a fresh drink, he said, “Are the parties always like this?”

“Like what?”

Cole shrugged. “Talking and everything.”

“Sure. Nothing coming back?”

“Just little bits, like always. Edna would like this.”

“What?”

“She’d be thrilled, you know it?”

Nick was frowning at him. “Who?”

“Edna,” said Cole, as though it were obvious, and suddenly realized what he was doing. The plane of reality had shifted, this world and the stopgap world were bleeding together, obscuring what few outlines did exist. It was the alcohol doing it, so it was a temporary thing, but it frightened him just the same.

Nick was saying, “Edna who? What are you talking about?”

She’d sit here the way I’m doing, he thought, but he said, “Nothing. I made a mistake.”

“You okay, Paul?”

“I’m fine. The booze is getting me, that’s all.”

“New Year’s Eve comes but once a year.” Nick grinned and winked. “Be seeing you, buddy.”

A little while later a girl came over, pulling a kitchen chair with her, and sat down in front of him. She said, “Hi.”

“Hi,” he said, trying to remember her. She was pixieish, small and well-built, and slightly drunken in a high and happy way. He couldn’t get a name for her at all.

She said, “You’re the amnesia boy, right?”

“That’s right. I don’t remember your name.”

She laughed. “Doesn’t surprise me at all. You never met me before.”

“Oh.”

“I came with Bobby Loomis. You remember him?”

“I’m not sure.”

She wave negligently. “That’s him over there, trying to put the make on our hostess. He’s a shmo.”

“Oh.”

“You really got this amnesia, huh?”

He nodded. He thought her manner was probably offensive, but he wasn’t offended. He was like the self-conscious man on roller skates; knowing for
sure
that everybody is staring at him, he doesn’t have to worry about people staring at him anymore. This girl openly displayed the attitude he felt hidden behind the eyes of all the others here, so he was more relaxed and comfortable with her. He said, “Yes, I’ve really got it.”

“Did you try a blow on the head?”

“A what?”

“Like in the books. One blow on the head, blackout. Another blow on the head, and it all comes back.”

“I don’t think this is the same thing.”

“Oh.” She shrugged carelessly. “Just a suggestion. Anyway, it isn’t really amnesia, is it? You can remember
some
things. If I told you my name, you’d remember it, wouldn’t you?”

“For a while.”

“Just for a while?” She pouted. “For how long?”

“A few days, maybe. Maybe not even tomorrow morning.”

“What if I did something terrible? If I took off all my clothes, or spilled my drink on your head, or set fire to the house.”

He smiled faintly. “I guess I’d remember it a couple days longer,” he said.

“Well, my name is Judy Fitzgibbons. You got it?”

He nodded.

“Then say it.”

“Judy Fitzgibbons.”

She looked thoughtfully at her drink. He told her, “Don’t do it.”

She laughed again, and said, “I’m just teasing.” But he knew she’d been thinking about it seriously. She studied his face, and said, “What would you do if I did?”

“Hit you, I guess.”

“Then Bobby Loomis would come over and hit
you
.”

There was an aura of brittle danger about her. He was beginning to feel tense again, in a different way, and he wished he’d been able to bring Edna along. He’d wished that before, because she would be so fascinated by this party, but now he wished it because she would be a defense against this girl.

I’ve got to stop thinking about that time. That’s stupid, wasteful.

The girl was saying, “You know, you’re lucky in a way.”

“I am?”

“Being able to forget things. Not having all sorts of old problems around to make you depressed.”

“I never thought of it that way,” he said.

“Oh, well.” She sighed offhandedly. “Would you get me a new drink? Vodka and water, just tap water.”

“All right.”

He took her glass and his own and pushed through the press to the kitchen. The party had reached that inevitable stage where the guests were gradually shifting from the living room to the kitchen; at the moment, they were about evenly divided between the two rooms. Moving through and around the talking clusters, Cole made two fresh drinks, adding ice cubes to both from a bowl of them in the refrigerator. He carried them back, gave one to the girl, and sat down again. It was the first time he’d left the chair since coming to the party, and no one had paid any attention to him. He’d been here long enough, he decided, for his curiosity value to have waned.

The girl said, “I’ve been thinking about that. About having a really terrible terrible memory. I mean, you can remember enough to get around, can’t you? You always know who you are and where you live and like that.”

He nodded.

“And I guess you can leave notes around for anything important you want to remember, like parties and going to work and all.”

“I do.”

“You do? There, you see? And I figured it out!” She seemed very pleased with herself all of a sudden. “How do you like that,” she said, more to herself than to him.

There was nothing for him to say. He sipped at his drink instead, wishing she’d go back to Bobby Loomis.

But she said, with a kind of negligent wistfulness, “I bet that would be wonderful, I really do. There are just all
sorts
of things I’d sooner forget, and don’t you ask what sorts of things they are.”

“I won’t.”

“I actually envy you, do you know that?”

“You shouldn’t,” he said. Into his mind came an image of metal, square and shiny, but it was gone again before he could understand it.

She said, “Do you remember my name?” There was a challenging smile on her face, and her eyes were bright.

He felt a moment of panic, and then the last name came to him and he said, “Fitzgibbons.”

“Straight A. And what’s my first name?”

It was gone, hidden in the shadows behind the name Edna. Or
was
it Edna? He tried to think if he had remarked on a coincidence when she’d told him her name, but he couldn’t be sure.

“Well?” The aura of danger was around her again, like a faintly shimmering yellow-green light.

He took the plunge. “Edna?”

“Wrong,” she said, very coldly. “F minus.” She got to her feet. “The name is
Judy
, my friend. Judy Fitzgibbons. And you won’t forget it.”

He saw the sudden tension in her, and understood it, and jumped up from the chair, slapping at her forearm as her hand came around with the drink. Glass and all shot out of her hand, missing him and crashing into the wall. Her face winced into a grimace of pain but she didn’t cry out; her right hand clutched her left forearm where he’d hit her.

“Cut it out!” he said, trying to keep his voice low but meaningful.

Instead, she tried to slap him, backhanded, and in warding the blow off, he hit her other forearm. She jumped at him then, and he pushed her off, shoving out with both hands high on her chest. She staggered backwards, running into one of the clusters that hadn’t yet moved to the kitchen, and a bull roaring made Cole look off to the right, where he saw the chunky young man identified as Bobby Loomis running toward him with cocked fists and enraged face. Because most of the partygoers were in the kitchen now, there was clear floor between them, nothing in the way to hinder Loomis or slow him down.

Cole saw him coming, and a feeling almost like pleasure came over him. For a week now, a throbbing rage had been building in him, without his recognizing it as more than the depression and frustration and impatience that made up his normal state, but all at once it was on the surface. The insoluble stupidity with Rita, the aimlessness and lack of progress of his days, the impassive cruelty of the doctor, the guilty curiosity of the partygoers who had looked on him like a fetus in a jar, all fused and found animation in the angry red-faced boob blundering toward him.

The body remembered where the mind forgot; somewhere, Cole had learned at least the rudiments of boxing. Without conscious thought, he turned his left side toward Loomis, cocked his right fist at his chest, and stuck out his left. Loomis came in charging, arms out as though to wrap him in a bearhug; Cole jabbed him three times in the face and moved to his left. His right feinted, and his left jabbed out over Loomis’ belatedly protective hands to scrape cheekbone. His right foot came forward, his body angled left, and his right crossed to Loomis’ midsection. Loomis, who hadn’t stopped his blundering forward motion, staggered over Cole’s chair and ran into the wall.