"Not today," said Kintyre, surprised.
"Were you planning to?"
"Why--yes. I thought I'd drop around this afternoon. She told me she
didn't feel up to working for the rest of this week."
"It might be better if she did," said Clayton. "She'll sit at home and
grieve, or go out and laugh more than she means. Drinking too much in
either case."
"You seem to know her pretty well," said Kintyre. He felt a bit
annoyed, he didn't know why.
"I met her a few times is all. But she's pretty transparent, under all
that careful sophistication, isn't she?" Clayton stirred his coffee,
focusing on the spoon as if it were some precision instrument. "A good
kid."
"She's all right," said Kintyre.
"I suppose you feel an obligation toward her?"
Kintyre bridled. "I didn't mean to keyhole," said Clayton hurriedly.
"I just couldn't help wondering what'll become of her. Somebody has to
help her over the hump. She'll never make it alone."
Against his own principles of respect for privacy, Kintyre found
himself speculating. Where had Clayton picked up such intuitions? His
first wife, whom he had loved, seemed by his few chance remarks and
his _Who's Who_ biography to have been the conventional helpmeet of
a conventional young man in the thirties: grocery clerk, salesman,
pitchforked down by the Depression, up again via WPA to construction
foreman to warehouse foreman to minor executive. Finally she got
tuberculosis, with complications, and took a couple of years to die.
The medical bills ruined him; he parked the three children with
relatives for years. Afterward, on the way up once more in the defense
boom and the early war boom, he married the boss's daughter. He got to
be general superintendent of an aircraft plant before he learned what
a bitch she was. The divorce cost him that job and his savings. He
applied for an Army commission and got one in 1943.
Kintyre knew little else; his information was only the gossip one is
bound to encounter. Clayton had been a fairly large figure in Italy
when Kintyre went over for the second time.
"Eh?" he said, pulled back to awareness.
"I asked if you wanted to take her out tonight," repeated Clayton.
"Uh--"
"Somebody ought to." As if he had heard Kintyre's thoughts, Clayton
said with an enormous gentleness: "She reminds me a lot of my daughter."
Clayton had never had any great chance to be a father, reflected
Kintyre. After the war, his kids ended up in exclusive boarding schools
while Dad was overseas reaping the money to keep them there. Now
they were grown. The girl had been graduated last year and was still
making her Grand Tour. Clayton sometimes bragged about her, in clumsy
generalities: he scarcely knew her as a person. The second son was also
worth a cautious boast or two, apparently a solid-citizen type, an
engineer; he and his father doubtless exchanged very dutiful letters.
The older boy, you didn't hear much about. You got an impression of
a sinecure in the firm's New York office and divorce number three
currently going through the mill.
Kintyre wondered, suddenly, if he had ever known anyone more alone than
Clayton.
It came to him that an answer was expected. "No," he said, "I have
another engagement this evening."
"Not one you could break? She does need help."
"So does Miss Lombardi. Bruce's sister. I have some news for her that
could make a big difference."
Clayton paused a moment. Then he grinned. "Well, in that case," he
said, "d'you mind if I squire Miss Towne?"
Kintyre looked up, startled. He had been slipping into a mood of utter
oleaginous sentimentalism. Pity Clayton? The hell! You wouldn't think
the man was past forty. He sat there with more life in his eyes than
two buccaneer captains.
"Good heavens, no," exclaimed Kintyre. "Why ever should I?"
_Margery could do a lot worse_, he thought. He knew his eagerness
was chiefly to get rid of whatever responsibility he bore for her.
Nevertheless--_A lot worse!_
11
It was after four when Kintyre entered Margery's apartment. She had
neglected its housekeeping, and the air was acrid with smoke.
Slacks and sweater emphasized her figure. He had almost forgotten how
good it was. When she sprang from the couch and into his arms he found
himself kissing her without really having intended to.
"Oh, God, Bob," she whispered. "You came. Hold me close, kiss me again,
I need it."
Her nails dug into his flesh, painfully, and her lips were tense
against his. And yet it was but little a sexual passion, he realized;
she was altogether forlorn.
"Rough?" he asked. He freed one arm and rumpled the short coppery hair.
"Reporters," she said. "Waiting at the door when I came home today.
Like flies around a corpse."
The phone rang. She left it alone; the bell had been turned down. "Most
likely someone else panting to pry," she said.
"How--oh, yes," said Kintyre. "The burglary would put them on to it. Or
just asking around. You didn't really think your connection with Bruce
would escape discovery forever?"
"It'll be smeared over every newsstand in the area. Big black
mouth-licking headlines." She raised reddened eyes. "I was at the
service this morning. It was all so calm and--I don't know--so right.
Even for him." She pulled herself away, picked up a handkerchief and
blew her nose. "Excuse me. I can't help it. That was the only sane part
of the day. His parents were there, of course, that decent old couple.
I didn't have the nerve to talk to them. And now they'll see! They'll
know that every moron in town knows their son they were so proud of
was, was, with me!"
She fell into a chair, coughing. The phone stopped its petulance.
Kintyre said: "After all, pony, it's no crime in this state. Nor is it
a very black sin in the Church. I wouldn't be at all surprised if the
Lombardis got in touch with you in the friendliest way. If you loved
Bruce too--"
"Did I?" She didn't look at him. "I liked him, yes, but love? Not in
the usual sense of the word."
"Which is a pretty neurotic sense anyway, if you're past adolescence,"
said Kintyre in his driest voice.
She had regained her balance. She reached for a compact and began
repairing her makeup. "Bob," she said, "for an intelligent man you can
make some of the stupidest remarks on record."
Kintyre smiled. "At least I riled you out of a tailspin." He wandered
across the room to the coffee table. An empty cup and an ashtray
overflowing with lipsticked butts rested by the long cardboard boxes
where Bruce had kept his letters. They were open, and one of the sheets
lay out.
Margery came over and took his arm. "I was going through it," she
said, suddenly anxious for the everyday. "Mostly it was business
correspondence, official papers, that sort of thing. But there's one
file in Italian. Maybe you can tell me what it means." The phone
buzzed. "Shut up, God damn it!"
Kintyre sat down, taking out a cigarette for himself. He did not quite
like reading a dead man's mail. But doubtless it had to be done. "I'll
make some more coffee," said Margery. She went out to the kitchen;
his eyes shifted in her direction and he felt the animal pleasure of
watching her walk. It was possible--once more, after a decent interval?
Then he realized that the lilt within him was because he would be
seeing Corinna.
He bent his attention to the file. Sloppy in many other respects, Bruce
had been meticulous here. If it was likely to have any future value at
all, he typed his own letter, making a carbon for himself, and kept the
reply, folded. The section indexed _Luigi Lombardi_ held at least a
year's worth of mail.
Luigi. Oh, yes, the uncle in the secret service, amateur scholar--hoy,
there! L. L., of course. Kintyre felt chagrined. So much for that
mystery. Bruce had only been noting those sections where he would be
making an acknowledgment of his uncle's help.
Kintyre began leafing through. No point in reading every word about
Aunt Sofia's arthritis or Cousin Giovanni's marriage. But there were
pages, where Luigi described exactly what he had looked into for Bruce,
that had not yet been transcribed. Those should be preserved, they were
essential to the completion of the thesis.
Nothing else had occurred to Kintyre than that it would be finished and
published, under Bruce's name.
Yes. Here was that reference to the Milanese archives. It concluded:
"... would like to look through the libraries and store-rooms of
the older aristocratic homes in this neighborhood. Quite possibly a
contemporary reference exists, in a letter or diary. But the time and
the introductions are not available to a poor policeman. Why do you not
ask your rich American friend Clayton to have it done?"
Bruce's reply was grateful, but forebore to answer that faintly
sarcastic question. Uncle Luigi took it up next time. Kintyre
remembered the man, how he tried hard to be fair but was unable to
refrain from cracks about Americans. It was only natural, if you were
the patriot of a poor country: a form of self-defense.
"... Not another Medici. Do you seriously believe he cares about these
old books? It is his particular camouflage, to get him among people of
breeding who can be useful. His real friends are a coarser sort, if
indeed he has any friends except his bank accounts."
Bruce protested: "... He had to make his own way in a world of fists.
I think he has done very well, not only as a financier but as a human
being. You cannot safely compare him with your own postwar newly-rich.
From what I hear, many of them are crasser than any American parvenu
ever dared to be. But let us not exchange ritual insults."
Uncle Luigi answered a query about the Sicilian terrain and twisted
it around to his particular obsession: "... if you believe his
standardized success story. Use your reason, my nephew. Clayton was
an Army officer in this country during the last two years of the war.
After his discharge, he came right back here. It is uncertain what he
did in the next couple of years. Out of a slightly malicious curiosity
I checked with the appropriate bureau, and he was registered only as
a visitor, who went in and out of our borders. Then suddenly, in 1949,
he applied for his business permits. He had obtained the American
agency for that new line of motor scooters. Since then, his rise has
been somewhat swifter than can be accounted for merely by pyramiding
profits. What follows from this, Bruce? (And again I ask why your
father had to become so American that he visited that name upon you.)
Why, since he had only his military pay during the war, and on his
civilian return had no source of income within Italy for two years--he
must have been drawing on a considerable capital in America! Our
records show him obtaining most of his lire for Swiss francs. Evidently
he deposits his dollars in Switzerland, which you know has a free money
market, converts them to other currencies as needed, buys goods, and
ships those to America to earn more dollars. Therefore all this story
he has told you (what is your phrase, from rags to Algernon?) is so
much pretentious hokum. Clayton started as a rich man."
Margery came in with coffee. "What are you finding out?" she asked.
"Mostly gossip," said Kintyre. He repeated the gist to her.
"Oh, I remember that. It was several months ago." She sat down on the
couch beside him. "Bruce was furious. He thought the world of Clayton.
He wrote to Indianapolis and Des Moines and so on. It took him weeks to
check everything, through local newspaper offices, old friends, that
kind of reference. It's perfectly true, though. I doubt if Clayton had
a thousand dollars left to his name when he joined the Army.
"Bruce hadn't gotten around to it yet, but he was going to assemble the
facts, with clippings and personal correspondence, and send it all to
Luigi in one devastating package. Especially after the last couple of
letters he got. Luigi said there was no evidence Clayton had floated
a loan to get his start, and wondered if he mightn't have done some
currency black marketing. Bruce really blew his top at that."
"Oh?" said Kintyre. He should be on his way soon, he thought, and use
the short time until then to be good to Margery. But a certain sense
of the chase was on him. Trained to scan reading matter, he found the
passage he wanted in a few minutes. Bruce's anger spoke through a cage
of civilized words:
"... I am not one of our radical rightists, but I too resent this
eternal meddling which is the modern idea of government. It would not
surprise me if Clayton profited originally on the free exchange, when
the postwar official rates were so ludicrously unreal. Who didn't, in
those days? But if so, I say he did you all a service! I swear you
could double your production over there simply by abolishing those
medieval frontiers and restrictions, and putting the customs men to
useful jobs!"
Luigi, after the inevitable reference to American tariffs, wrote: "The
problem is more serious and urgent than you understand. One hears less
about it than about your similar troubles, but we in the old countries
are having our own postwar crime wave. And some of these syndicates
are--not mere black markets, not mere smugglers of an occasional
perfume bottle--but dealers in narcotics, prostitution, gun-running,
extortion, blackmail, counterfeiting, corruption, and murder.
"Yes, I blame your government in part. We watch the criminals they
deport to us, but we cannot forbid everyone to come talk to them. There
is influence, there is advice. From the Communists these syndicates
have also learned much, including the cell type of organization. We
can arrest a man here and a man there, but he can only lead us to
a few others. Sometimes we think we have identified an organizing
brain, but it does not always follow that he can be seized. Not even
in this country, where the police have a latitude that I am sure your
Anglo-Saxon mind would be shocked by. I name no names, but now and
again something rises to the surface, a scandal, the corpse of a
young woman who belonged to a proud family, a member of the parliament
seen in dubious places--and nothing comes of it. The newspapers are
forbidden to follow the story to its end; everywhere protecting hands
are reached out.
"Give us time, we will settle with these latter-day _condottieri_.
Meanwhile, I could wish your Clayton were more circumspect in his
choice of friends. He associates somewhat (not very much, to be sure,
and there are business reasons) with a dealer named Dolce. And Dolce
is a hard man from the slums of Naples. One of _his_ associates is the
deported Italian-American criminal chief named--"
Bruce's reply to this was a single explosive line: "And you used to
wring your hands at me about Senator McCarthy!"
Kintyre put the box aside. He had been translating as he read, in a
rapid mutter. "That's the end," he said. "Bruce wrote that two weeks
ago, and I guess the uncle hasn't replied yet."
"Clayton," said Margery on a note of horror. "Do you think maybe--?"
"That he's a crook? No. I don't know much about it, but I should
certainly imagine that anybody who wanted to keep an import license
would have to keep his nose pretty clean. If Clayton started hanging
around with, oh, say Chicago gunmen, the FBI would be on his tail in a
matter of weeks."
"But couldn't he--"
"Forget Clayton. He's alibied for every minute of that weekend. As for
hiring professionals, look, pony, suppose you wanted such a job done.
How would you find the pros?"
"Why--" She hesitated, lifting a small hand to her chin. "I don't know."
"You're a law-abiding citizen, so you don't know. Clayton is also
reasonably law-abiding. He's got to be. The Italian police might
conceivably not be aware of it if Clayton were doing something
illicit. Over there, he could operate internationally. But the United
States is another proposition. We talk about our free enterprise, but
the plain fact is that an American businessman is required to operate
in a goldfish bowl, under innumerable petti-fogging regulations.
So, I repeat, Clayton must be more or less straight. Even if the US
government was unable to indict him for anything, they could rescind
his various licenses, virtually by fiat.
"How, then, would he get in touch with an assassin? Walk into a tough
bar and ask? Large laugh." Kintyre threw away his cigarette stub. "Oh,
sure, given enough time, you or I or anyone could locate a murderer.
But this job must have been done on short notice. There was nothing in
Bruce's previous life to bring it on. You know how burblesome he was;
could he have kept from you, for weeks, the fact that he knew something
big? Of course not. Nor from me, or any of his associates. Ergo, it was
something he blundered onto lately, probably without even realizing its
significance. The person who was threatened by this had to react fast:
find his killers and get them here, or do the job himself, within days.
That lets Clayton out."
Margery nodded, a trifle overwhelmed. "I'm glad," she said. "I like
him, the little I've seen."
"Yeh." Kintyre thought a couple of hours back. "Me too."
She smiled. "But there's still something that he isn't telling. I'm
curious to know what."
"You may have your chance to find out tonight," said Kintyre. "I saw
him and he mentioned he would call up and ask for a dinner date."
"Oh!" She looked at him, round-eyed. "And I haven't been answering!"