Dutch Blue Error (19 page)

I hung up, wishing there was some way I could erase my speech.

I dug out a couple of my old Stan Getz records and put them on the stereo. I realized that I wanted to see Deborah badly. I padded on bare feet into the kitchen and studied my sparse collection of canned goods. No beef stew, no canned spaghetti, no hash. I settled on a can of Friend’s pork and beans. I cranked it open and put it on medium heat. Then I levered the top off the last bottle of Molson’s in my refrigerator.

The phone rang.

“I’m home,” said Deborah. “What about the stamp?”

“Hi.”

“What about the stamp?”

“Look. It’s nothing. Really. I just was concerned about you. You okay? Do you think you should be staying there tonight?”

“I’ll be fine. Darlene’s with me. She’ll stay with me the whole night.”

“Aha,” I said.

“What the hell does ‘aha’ mean?”

“Aha. The
whole
night. I get it.”

“You get
what
?”

“Come on, Deborah. I woke up. I told you, I always wake up early. You were sleeping, I was awake. So I came home to change before work, that’s all. I tried to write you a note. I couldn’t do justice…”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said.

“Can you talk?”

“Not really. Just a minute, okay?”

I heard muffled voices. Deborah said, “Hang on, will you?” to me, and then there were more voices.

Then I heard her sigh. “Okay. We can talk.”

“So about last night.”

“Don’t worry about last night. No obligation. No problem.”

“I thought, my leaving like that…”

“Why should I care about that?”

“I just figured, your not answering my calls…”

“I’ve been busy. I
do
work, you know. Anyhow, I did. I just called you.”

“Well,” I said lamely, “I assumed…”

“What? That I’d accuse you of seducing me? That my delicate feelings would be bruised because you snuck away before I woke up so I would be deprived of the privilege of lavishing a fancy breakfast on my conquering hero after he has swept me off my feet? Come off it, Coyne.”

“Oh,” I said.

“You forgetting how it happened? It was
me
who crawled into
your
bed. Remember? It was
me
who…”

“I
do
remember, Deborah.”

“Well, okay. Did you like it?”

“Yes.”

“Me, too.”

“I was thinking maybe we could have dinner together,” I said.

“I told you. No obligation. It’s all right. We’re square. Even Steven.”

“You don’t want to have dinner with me?”

“I don’t want you to feel like you have to repay me for the use of my body.”

“That’s not…”

“Yes, it is,” she said firmly. “You are so damn old-fashioned. You think you should feel guilty because we—my goodness, I was going to say ‘fucked’ but I wouldn’t want to offend—because we knew each other in a carnal sort of way. So you keep calling me, you want to make it up to me, to appease your Victorian conscience. Hey, forget it. You owe me nothing. I liked it.”

“You know,” I said after a moment, “I think you’re right. I felt, I guess, that I was taking advantage of you, somehow. And that leaving like I did just made it worse. You’re not upset?”

“Hell, yes, I’m upset. I’m upset that you can’t see me as a person, but as some character in a nineteenth-century English novel.”

“I think I’m beginning to get the picture.”

“Well, good.”

“So. How about dinner?”

“You really don’t have to do this.”

“God damn it, I
want
to do this.”

“I don’t think dinner.”

“Look…”

“I think a movie.”

“A
movie
?”

“Yeah. A movie. Anything wrong with taking a girl to a movie? Not sophisticated enough for the big-city lawyer? Don’t forget, I know you’re a closet popcorn freak, so don’t try to fool me. Anyhow, we’ll make it an Italian movie. With subtitles. That sophisticated enough for you?”

“Sure. It probably won’t compare to James Bond, but it’ll probably do.”

“There’s a little theater in Maynard. Know it?”

“Suppose I pick you up there.”

“Here? At home?”

“Sure. Make it a proper date.”

“Maybe a little fooling around before we leave?”

“No, I didn’t mean that. It would just…”

“I rather thought we’d save the fooling around for afterward,” she said. “So meet me at the theater. I really want to see the film.”

“Well, okay.”

“Know where it is?”

“I’ll find it.”

“What about the stamp?”

“Oh. That.” I hesitated. “Okay, I admit it. That was to try to persuade you to call me.”

“You lied, then, eh? No news on the stamp?”

“I did have a question which is related. It’s this. Do you know where your father kept his handgun?”

“He didn’t have a gun.”

“He had one when I was with him.”

“I’m sure he didn’t own a gun.”

“Oh, well,” I said.

“Why? What about a gun?”

“The police are looking for a twenty-two caliber pistol. When I met your father, he said he had a twenty-two in his pocket. Albert Dopplinger was killed with a twenty-two.”

“But I thought…”

“Sure. Albert was killed after your father. It just seemed there might be a link.”

“Well,
of course
there’s a link,” she said. “Somebody killed him, then he killed your friend Albert, then he broke into my house.” Her voice went low and dramatic. “Will he bash my head in, do you think, or will he shoot me?”

“Jesus, Deborah.”

“Fear not. Darlene will protect me. Believe me, she is fearsome. Speaking of which—or of whom—she’s coming back in now. So I better hang up. See you.”

“Maynard. About nine.”

“Yes.”

Deborah was waiting for me in the lobby of the theater in Maynard. She hugged a big cardboard bucket to her chest. When she saw me she held up the bucket and grinned. “Popcorn. I’ve got the tickets. It’s about to start. Let’s go in.”

The film had no plot that I could discern. The scene kept shifting from idle rich, middle-aged Italians lounging aboard a yacht moored in the deserted cove of a tropical island to black-and-white flashbacks of a World War II internment center. First we were treated to close-ups of lush flesh, all bronze and copper, strapped into bikinis. Then a sudden shift to protruding ribs, empty eyes, and fingers picking at scabs. Peeled fruits—papayas, mangoes, bananas—slipping between shiny red lips. An infant with a distended belly sucking at a flaccid breast. Beringed fingers languidly wandering over fat thighs, brushing blond hair, gripping a wet cocktail glass. Shaved skulls and toothless grimaces.

All overlaid with a heavy Wagnerian score.

Afterward we had coffee at Deborah’s kitchen table.

“It was a sad film, didn’t you think?” she said.

“It was a sad excuse for a film.”

“Not enough action for you?”

“I just don’t like having my symbols crammed down my craw, that’s all. Every Italian film I’ve ever seen seems hellbent on expiating the great Fascist guilt.”

She shrugged. “The popcorn was good.”

“The popcorn was the second-best I’ve had recently.”

“You going to stay for breakfast this time?”

“Maybe. Maybe not.”

“Up to you,” she said.

I woke up in the gray dawn to the honking of migrating Canada geese. I pictured the big wedge in the sky on its southward journey. Hudson Bay to Chesapeake Bay. Rain pattered gently outside, dripping onto the roof from the pines that towered over it. A soft breeze soughed through the branches.

Deborah lay on her back beside me, her black hair fanned out over the pillow. She breathed through her mouth. Her head was turned toward me. Her hand rested lightly on my thigh. I lifted myself onto my elbow and bent over to kiss her forehead. Her silver eyes snapped open.

“You leaving?”

“Go to sleep,” I said.

“Call me sometime,” she mumbled, her eyes falling shut.

“I’m staying for breakfast,” I said. The clamor of the geese had faded into the damp dawn. The rain still sifted through the pines. I lay back into Deborah’s warm bed and slept.

Z
ERK AND I WORKED
late on Thursday. The paperwork had been piling up, and I wanted to clean it away before the weekend. Deborah and I were driving to the Cape on Saturday. We’d take potluck at whatever restaurants might still be open and find a room in an old country inn. We’d see how many lighthouses we could find, we’d walk the beaches with our shoes in our hands, and we’d make love several times. I didn’t want to have to worry about my business.

I ran out around seven o’clock and brought back ham and Swiss cheese sandwiches and coffee while Zerk typed in the blanks on a couple of wills. While we ate, I grilled him on Massachusetts contract law. I told him I thought he was ready to take the bar exam any time. Then we went back to work.

At nine o’clock I said to him, “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

“We’re nowhere near done,” he said.

“Fill your briefcase. We’ll take it to my place.”

He shrugged. “Sure.”

He followed me in his own car. When we got to my apartment building on Atlantic Avenue I told Jerry, the guard at the gate to the underground parking garage, that a man in a yellow Volkswagen would be right along. His name was Garrett, he was my associate, and he should be allowed to park in the visitors’ section. Then I rode down the ramp, and when the bar lifted I drove in, circled around a couple of concrete pillars, and tucked my BMW into my reserved parking slot.

I grabbed my briefcase, slung my topcoat over my arm, locked up the car, and went to the elevator. Zerk would have to park on the other side of the lot, and it would take him a couple of minutes to walk across to the elevator. I poked the
UP
button and waited for the box to slide down the cables to me. I leaned against the cement wall, sighed deeply, and lit a Winston.

When the soft voice murmured into my ear, I felt as if a spider was crawling up the back of my neck. I had heard that voice before. Most recently it had said, “Sorry, pal,” shortly before I tumbled into an unwelcome chloroform sleep. It took me a moment to remember the other time I had heard it.

“Just relax, Mr. Coyne,” the voice said. “I’m going to be going along with you.”

He had a narrow, sly face and a neatly trimmed black beard salted with gray. Both of his hands were thrust into the side pockets of his coat. One of the pockets bulged.

“Why, it’s Mr. Schwartz,” I said. “Haven’t seen you since Shaughnessey’s wake.”

He smiled and inclined his head. “I’m flattered that you remember me.”

“Friend of Francis Shaughnessey is a friend of mine,” I said. “What can I do for you?”

“Take me to your apartment. And don’t try anything, please. This is a gun in my pocket.”

“This is really tacky.”

His smile was decidedly hostile. “I’m sorry if my style offends you. Perhaps I lack imagination.”

The bell on the elevator chimed. As the doors slid open I saw Zerk hurrying toward us.

“Get in,” said Schwartz. One hand grabbed my arm to steer me. The other remained in his coat pocket.

Zerk hurried to the elevator and raised his hand. I swiveled quickly away from him and stepped in. Schwartz followed me. I turned to face the open door with Schwartz standing close beside me. I felt the gun poking into my waist. As Zerk approached the elevator the door slid shut. I looked away from him. Schwartz jabbed the button for the sixth floor. My floor.

“What do you want?” I said to him, as I felt the lift of the elevator.

“The stamp, of course:”

“You?”

“Yes, Mr. Coyne. It is I who knows that your client, Oliver Hazard Perry Weston, owns the Dutch Blue Error. And I believe I am correct in deducing that you are in possession of the duplicate.”

I nodded. “Clever you.”

Schwartz chuckled dryly.

“Is that the same gun you used to assassinate Albert Dopplinger?” I said.

Schwartz snorted. “I fail to be amused by your circumlocutions, Mr. Coyne. Clearly you were the one who murdered the poor man. I was witness to it, as you no doubt have discerned. A piece of knowledge I am prepared to barter for the stamp.”

“You needn’t have broken into the girl’s house,” I said.

“A forlorn hope, I concur. I should have thought of you sooner.” Schwartz nudged me again with his gun. “This time I will make no mistake.”

“Watch out, boys. I think he means business.”

“You’re quite witty, Mr. Coyne.”

“Thank you.”

The elevator lurched to a stop at the sixth floor. Schwartz and I stepped out.

“Just act natural, Mr. Coyne,” he said, his voice low and conspiratorial. “We’re just coming home after a long day at the office.”

“I think I’ve seen this movie already,” I said.

I turned right to walk to my apartment at the end of the corridor. Schwartz was right behind me.

It all fit together. I hoped to find the lie that Charlie McDevitt told me to look for. Someone had murdered two men for a rare stamp and had not found it. He was still looking for it. He thought I had it. Schwartz, I knew now, was that man. He would keep murdering until he found it. Deborah was next. No. He would kill me next.

My only hope was Schwartz’s assumption that I had the Dutch Blue Error. Perhaps he wouldn’t let me die until he had the stamp.

But Schwartz didn’t have the stamp himself, and that confused me. It meant that somebody else did. And that meant there was another lie I had to discover.

As Schwartz and I arrived at the door to my apartment, I saw Zerk emerge from the door of the stairwell at the far end of the corridor. He turned and walked in our direction. I took the keys from my pocket, fumbled with them at the door, then dropped them.

“No tricks,” hissed Schwartz.

As I bent for the keys I glanced in Zerk’s direction. His face was impassive as he walked toward us, toting his briefcase. A tired young executive after a long day at the office. He glanced casually at me and Schwartz, not a trace of recognition in his eyes. From my bent-over position I darted a quick glance back over my shoulder toward Schwartz. My eyes begged Zerk not to stop, not to recognize me, not to speak. Go call a cop, my glance screamed at him. Stay away from this man with a gun.