Memory (Hard Case Crime) (44 page)

He smiled, tentatively at first, reluctantly, but finally with full pleasure and relief. The memory wasn’t coming back! No longer would he have to wait here, no longer struggle to be someone he wasn’t, no longer expose himself to people who could feel for him only combinations of pity and impatience and disgust. If his memory was gone forever, he was
free
.

And Edna? What had kept Edna in his head after all this time, out of all the separate facts and elements that had entered his broken memory?
He
had kept her there, wasn’t that obvious?

He was thinking thoughts now that had been trembling on the brink of consciousness for weeks, that he had been all unwittingly forcing down out of sight—because he’d been so mistaken about who and what and why he was—and which had finally become so strong that they
had
to force their way to the surface. The relief was incredible; he felt so
light
.

Edna. She isn’t pretty, she isn’t self-confident or self-assured, she’ll never be very smart. But say all that and you have said nothing, nothing, nothing. She is mine if I want her, and I do want her, more than anything else in the world that it is possible for me to have, and that is all there is worth saying. Who cares if it’s a feeling that can be called love, or if it’s only a lot of smaller feelings in combination, the result is still the same.

It was so easy, once he started, once he began to look at himself. All he had to do was make the first small step, to acknowledge that his memory was never going to improve, and all the rest followed naturally and inevitably and beautifully. It seemed to him that he had trembled on the brink of that first small step time and time again, with Helen, with the doctor, with everybody, but it had taken a whole series of shocks—the acting job and all the other things he could no longer remember—and then some time for his mind to absorb their implications, before the first step could be taken.

Everything opened from there like a flower. He finally understood why Edna was still in his mind. He finally understood how he could get off this treadmill and find some tiny dance step of his own to perform in blessed peace and oblivion. He finally understood what there was still to do with his life.

He wouldn’t be going to work today, that was the first thing. Not today, or tomorrow, or ever again, not with the moving company. No, and he wouldn’t be living in this barren cold apartment any more, this apartment stripped of the old Paul Cole but not furnished with the new Paul Cole because the new one hadn’t been born until just this minute.

He would go back to that town, that was the first thing. Now, today. He would go back there, and see Edna, and explain everything to her, and try to get her forgiveness, and he was sure she would forgive him. He’d live, for a while at least, with the Malloys, and he’d work again in the tannery. Instead of searching for someone to be, he would relax and be whoever he was.

If he managed to get a bus this morning, he should be there by tomorrow sometime. He no longer had his suitcase or canvas bag—he must have pawned them somewhere, he couldn’t remember—but he could get another bag, and there wasn’t that much he wanted to take with him anyway. He had over forty dollars, and if that wasn’t enough to get him where he had to go he could always pawn something else.

Where he had to go. Startled, he realized he didn’t remember the name of the town. How was he going to go there, if he didn’t know the name of it?

He hurried over to the desk and started going through it, reading every scrap of paper he came across. Surely, somewhere, somewhere, somewhere he’d written down that name, a name as important as that.

Nothing. Nothing, and again nothing. One folded scrap of paper tucked away in a corner of a desk drawer read:
542 Charter St.
He frowned at it, and then recognized it; that was where he’d lived with the Malloys. The street address, but not the city. Why hadn’t he written the name of the city? How stupid could he have been?

This scrap of paper had been with a few others in the same drawer, all obsolete notes he’d pulled from his trouser pockets at one time or another and stashed away here for some forgotten reason. None of the other notes made any sense to him, nor did any of them mention the name of the town.

What about the notes on the walls? He read them, but they all referred to matters here in New York. He went through the pockets of his clothing in the closet, but there was nothing in them either.

He went back to the desk, went through the whole territory again, desk and walls and pockets, went out to the living room and looked despairingly this way and that, looking for someplace more to search, and there was nothing. 542 Charter St., that was all.

On the third time through, searching the same places all over again, he picked up a tax form, and saw Helen Arndt referred to, and then he realized there was a way to find out. Helen would know; it was as simple as that.

He phoned, but it was too early and no one answered. Burning with impatience, he dressed, and put clothing out on the bed to be packed, and made himself some breakfast. Finally it was nine o’clock, and he called again, and this time got a female voice that told him Miss Arndt hadn’t come into the office yet but was expected any minute. He said he’d call back, and then sat at the desk, watching the clock, smoking nervously, until it was nine-fifteen, and this time when he phoned she was there and he was put through to her. He told her who he was, and she said, “Oh. What’s the problem?” Her manner was cold and abrupt.

“I need some— There’s a piece of information I need.”

“Oh?”

“I want to know the name of the last town I was in with that touring company. I was with a touring company, wasn’t I? When I got hurt?”

“The name of the town where you had the accident?”

“Yes. You’d have it there, wouldn’t you?”

“What is it? Taxes?”

It was simpler to agree. “Yes.”

“I’ll look it up. It’s Deerville, I know that much. Nebraska, or Kansas, or Iowa, I’m not sure. Deerville. I’ll look up the state.”

“Thank you.”

She came back on the line a minute later and told him the state, and he wrote it down and thanked her again. She said, “Any time,” brusquely, and broke the connection.

Next he phoned the Port Authority Bus Terminal, and learned that a ticket to Deerville would cost him thirty-five dollars and twenty cents. He wrote everything down, and when the call was finished he counted all his money. Including a little change, he had forty-six dollars and fifty-five cents. In addition, there were three dollars and change in the checking account, which he could withdraw on the way uptown, so he’d have almost fifty dollars. Fifteen dollars left over, after the bus ticket, to last him until he started working again. He could do it, he could leave here today.

But there was still a bag to buy. Well, why not take the record player out and pawn it? Then he could buy some sort of suitcase or bag in the same pawnshop. Yes, and stop off at the bank to close out the account. Then come back here and pack, and leave forever, and go off to catch his bus. By tomorrow night he’d be with Edna again.

He couldn’t stop smiling.

There was snow everywhere along the route, so the bus was always behind schedule. Cole had to make changes at Chicago, and again at Lincoln. He missed his connection at Lincoln because his bus had run into a snowstorm through Iowa, and he had to wait six hours for the next bus to Deer-ville. Though he had no way of knowing it, this was a different bus company and a different route from the one he had taken when returning to New York and, despite the bad weather and the missed connection, it proved to be somewhat quicker.

To while away the time, he started a list of names, any name he could remember from the town. Edna, of course, and Malloy, and 542 Charter Street. Then other isolated names began to come to him, now he was trying to remember the town; someone named Black Jack, and someone named Bellman. A bar named Cole’s Tavern? No, he must be making that up. Still, just in case, he wrote it down.

The thought of his coming meeting with Edna was somewhat embarrassing, because he could still remember how he’d treated her when he’d left the town. But the first meeting would be gotten through someway, and then everything would be good again.

Two days on the road. A little after three o’clock Thursday afternoon, the bus pulled to a stop at the storefront depot in Deerville. Cole got down from the bus and stood smiling at the depot, recognizing it. When he was waiting for his bag to be unloaded, he tried to decide whether to call the Malloys first or just go straight to the house and surprise them. It would be better to go straight there, Mrs. Malloy would get a kick out of it that way, opening the door and him just standing there.

But he knew he wouldn’t be able to find his way around without help; he hadn’t been able to find his way around too well while he was living here, and now he’d been gone a while. When he got his bag he went into the depot and asked directions to Charter Street.

“Charter Street? You go down here to the second traffic light, turn right. Fourth block up is Charter. It starts there and goes east. This side it’s Raymor Street.”

“Thank you.”

It was a long walk. It wasn’t snowing here now, though the sky was grey and overcast, but it had snowed heavily just recently; a hip-high ridge of snow separated the sidewalk from the street. Cole walked along, carrying his bag and repeating the directions over and over in a whisper, so he wouldn’t forget them. He didn’t recognize anything he passed, but that was only to be expected. He was surprised he’d recognized the bus depot. But he’d know the house when he came to it.

He found Charter Street, and the first house on the right was number 4, so he still had a long walk ahead of him. He rested a while in front of number 4, putting his bag down, flexing his fingers, and lighting a cigarette. Then he walked on.

516

518

520

522

524

It wasn’t the right house.

He stood frowning at it, not understanding. The house was wrong, all wrong. It was a two-family gray clapboard, with porches upstairs and down, neither porch enclosed. It wasn’t the right house at all.

He looked up and down the block, trying to figure out what had happened. He
knew
the address was right, 542 Charter Street. It was where the Malloys lived, he
knew
that.

Could he be wrong? Could it be somebody else’s address? Maybe Edna’s. But this wasn’t her house either. His memory of her house was so vague as to be almost non-existent, but he knew that this house wasn’t it. Besides, he was
sure
. 542 Charter Street was
home
.

Why else would he have had it in a note? Why should he remember it as being the address of the Malloys’ house if it wasn’t? His memory lost things, but it didn’t mix things up.

He went up the walk and stood by the stoop, staring up at the two doors. This just wasn’t the right house, and he couldn’t understand it, he couldn’t begin to understand it, or think about what to do next.

The right-hand door opened and a woman stuck her head out. “What do you want?” She was suspicious of him, ready to duck back inside and slam the door again if he made a wrong move.

He said, “I’m looking for the Malloys.”

“Nobody here by that name.”

“Did they—” He looked up and down the street, trying to understand. “Did they change the numbering on this street?”

“Not since I’ve been here.”

“Did you just move?”

“Been here twelve years. You’ve got the wrong street.”

“Is there another Charter Street in this town?”

“Of course not. Why should there be two Charter Streets in the same town?”

“They ought to be here,” said Cole. He looked across the street, up and down in both directions, recognizing nothing, and while he was turned away the woman went back into her house and shut the door.

He had to find a phone book, that was all. He should have done that in the first place, called the house from the bus depot. He turned away and retraced his steps; three or four blocks back there’d been a small grocery store on a corner, and they might have a phone booth.

There was no phone booth in the grocery store, but the proprietor let Cole look at the directory. Cole held it in his hands, frightened, afraid of what he would find or what he wouldn’t find, and then he turned to the M section and found the group of Malloys listed there.

There was no Malloy anywhere on Charter Street.

What was his first name, what was Mr. Malloy’s first name? He’d remembered it last night, he’d written it down on the list. Matt! Matt Malloy, that would be Matthew Malloy, that would be Malloy, Matthew.

There was no Malloy, Matthew in the Deerville telephone directory.

“They’re changing the set,” he muttered. He could visualize the Malloy house now, with broad white X’s painted on all the windows, and swarming around were the black machines and the men in yellow helmets.

The proprietor said, “What?”

“I don’t know what’s happening.”

The proprietor watched him warily.

What next? The Malloys had disappeared, they’d never existed. He couldn’t find Edna direct, he didn’t know her last name. He didn’t know anyone else’s address.

The tannery. There’d be people there he knew, and they could tell him what had happened. He turned to the proprietor, saying, “How do I get to the tannery?”

“The what?”

“The tannery. The factory where they— The
leather
plant, the
tannery
!”

“Take it easy, will you? There ain’t no tannery around here.”

“Where, then? The other side of town?”

“There ain’t any tannery in this town at all.”

“But there
is
! I used to
work
there! God damn you, God
damn
you, what are you doing?”

“You back off there! I’ll call the police, I swear to God. You get on out of here.”

“I used to work in the tannery, I
know
I did.”