Read Manhattan Nocturne Online
Authors: Colin Harrison
Manhattan Nocturne (43 page)
Hobbs: [standing slowly]: I'm cheating now, you see, cheating time. [Lies on bed.] When I am here, like this, in the dark, with the feeling of you here next to me, I actually recall the past, Miss Caroline, I go back there, I'm not destroyed by time ⦠I used to spend quite a few hours with the prostitutes in Cairo. I cannot possibly describe to you how pleasurable this was. I cannot possibly tell you how happy I am at this moment; this is all that a man such as I can enjoy anymore. I used to smoke quite a bit back then, sitting on the balconies of the brothels and watching the crowds. After my accident I found that I took very little pleasure in such things. I felt myself to be disfigured and so I set about to disfigure myself
moreâor, at least, that is how I understand it myself. It confounds me that I am alive, Miss Caroline, and yet I am now quite glad to be alive. Oh, I know what they think of me, and I understand that, but they are sort of a family now to me. I feel a certain pride that I have created jobs for these people, almost nine thousand people around the world, Miss Caroline, and there is something in that, I would hope people might agree ⦠[He is suddenly quiet, perhaps melancholy.] I was flying over what used to be Yugoslavia the other night, and the sky was clear. I could see the rocket fire below, flashes ⦠and here I was on my way to Frankfurt. They were mortaring Sarajevo. It's ⦠terribly odd, really, I don't live anywhere, my Caroline. I move about the world, but ⦠I would have to admit ⦠I never had anyone, Caroline, perhaps I should have married, but I never understood the human need for it. I was a fool. It's too late now. I can't live anywhere. I don't live anywhere. I don't know anybody ⦠All I do is fly and fly and fly. [She takes his arm and rubs it.] I do find solace in interludes such as this. You are young and willing to listen to me ⦠your very strangeness allows me to be intimate with you. I see that you are from somewhere, you have stories, you would not be here ⦠We are beauty and the beast, perhaps. [Laughs.] No, let me amend that thought: beauty and capital. How odd that these two things always seek out each other. I look upon your face and I forget myself, I forget the ⦠the flying, theâ[He buries his massive head in her breasts and she strokes it. Half a minute passes. Finally Caroline leans her head down over Hobbs, her hair curtaining the two of them. Perhaps she whispers to him, kisses the back of his head, whispers something more.] Have you always done this to men, turned them into wrecks?
moreâor, at least, that is how I understand it myself. It confounds me that I am alive, Miss Caroline, and yet I am now quite glad to be alive. Oh, I know what they think of me, and I understand that, but they are sort of a family now to me. I feel a certain pride that I have created jobs for these people, almost nine thousand people around the world, Miss Caroline, and there is something in that, I would hope people might agree ⦠[He is suddenly quiet, perhaps melancholy.] I was flying over what used to be Yugoslavia the other night, and the sky was clear. I could see the rocket fire below, flashes ⦠and here I was on my way to Frankfurt. They were mortaring Sarajevo. It's ⦠terribly odd, really, I don't live anywhere, my Caroline. I move about the world, but ⦠I would have to admit ⦠I never had anyone, Caroline, perhaps I should have married, but I never understood the human need for it. I was a fool. It's too late now. I can't live anywhere. I don't live anywhere. I don't know anybody ⦠All I do is fly and fly and fly. [She takes his arm and rubs it.] I do find solace in interludes such as this. You are young and willing to listen to me ⦠your very strangeness allows me to be intimate with you. I see that you are from somewhere, you have stories, you would not be here ⦠We are beauty and the beast, perhaps. [Laughs.] No, let me amend that thought: beauty and capital. How odd that these two things always seek out each other. I look upon your face and I forget myself, I forget the ⦠the flying, theâ[He buries his massive head in her breasts and she strokes it. Half a minute passes. Finally Caroline leans her head down over Hobbs, her hair curtaining the two of them. Perhaps she whispers to him, kisses the back of his head, whispers something more.] Have you always done this to men, turned them into wrecks?
Caroline: I love men. That's sort of my problem.
Hobbs: Men will always wreck themselves for you.
Caroline: That scares me.
Hobbs: It should. I will think of you.
Caroline: You will?
Hobbs: Yes. I will remember the beautiful young woman who was so patient with the fat old man, who let him ramble on, deluding himself that there was meaning in what he had to say.
Caroline: You're too hard on yourself.
Hobbs: I have nothing, Caroline. I wish you to understand that. I have perhaps a moment like this once every year or so, but that is all I have. Everything else is nothing to me ⦠nothing. [The two figures slowly dress, saying nothing. She is slipping on her dress and he intimates that he will help button the back of it, a task that he concentrates on, his breathing labored as his thick fingers pinch each button through its hole.] Very good. [She turns.] I would like to see you again.
Caroline: I'm not sure.
Hobbs: Fair enough. If you do want to, call my office here, ask for Mr. Campbell. [Puts on his jacket] Do you need anything? A car?
Caroline: I'm fine.
Hobbs: Let me at least get a car. [Picks up the phone.] Springfield, a car downstairs, please. Yes. All right. [Hangs up.] All set, then?
Caroline: Yes.
Hobbs: It'll just be a quick good-bye.
Caroline: Where will you be next week?
Hobbs: Next week? Perhaps Berlin. No, London first and then Berlin. [He picks up the phone again.] I'll be in the lobby in five minutes. Hmm? Yes. Fax him that. Yes. Tell the pilot we'll leave at three-thirty. Yes, five minutes or so. [Hangs up.] I'm going to give you my farewell.
Caroline: Are you flying tonight?
Hobbs: London, yes.
Caroline: Have a safe trip.
Hobbs: Thank you.
Caroline: Good-bye.
Hobbs: Call Mr. Campbell if you wish.
Caroline: I'm not sure.
Hobbs: Good-bye, then. [A door opens and shuts; his bulk can be seen going through a square of light. Caroline Crowley sits in bed, not moving. A minute or two passes. She looks out of the window and then turns back toward the camera. She walks directly toward it, quickly, her face passing out of view, reaching an arm toward it. The image goes black.]
At the Royalton, Hobbs was sitting in an immense booth. I noted a black valise at his feet. An assistant sat at another table.
“Mr. Wrenâ” Hobbs swept his hand toward my chair. “Please. I hope that this time we may be gentlemen with one another.”
I felt differently about him now; I understood him to be vulnerable and anxious just like anyone else.
“I trust you will allow me to buy you a spectacular lunch,” Hobbs said.
I wasn't interested in being charmed. “I want the name of the man who shot my son and baby-sitter,” I said.
Hobbs stared at me. “No.”
“Deal's off.” I stood up.
“Just a minute.” He beckoned his assistant, who brought with him a portable phone.
“Phone number and address, too.”
Hobbs and the assistant talked in a low voice for a minute. When he was done, he slid a piece of paper over to me. Phil Biancaniello, Bay Ridge, a Brooklyn phone number.
“You understand that I have a personal problem with him still.”
Hobbs opened his hands. “Of course.”
We ordered, and then I drew the tape out of my coat pocket and handed it across the table.
Hobbs looked at it. “Appears quite innocuous, wouldn't you say?”
Then he signaled to the assistant, who reached into a briefcase and pulled out a piece of equipment about the size of a laptop computer. It had a tiny monitor on top, and Hobbs pushed the videotape into a slot on one side.
“Where's the battery?” I said.
Hobbs was slipping on some half-frame glasses. “Oh, it's somewhere in there, the size of a pill, no doubt.” He looked at the screen, frowned angrily. “Nothing but fuzz here, sir.”
Cold fear. But then: “Rewind it.”
Which he did. The machine hummed companionably, clicked, and then began to play the tape. Hobbs plugged in an earphone, then hunched over the machine intently, so close that no one else could see what he was looking at. Our food came, several steaming vessels of it, and Hobbs did not look up. His expression relaxed, and I saw now a face that I had not seen before, one that seemed weary and contemplative. I ate my food. Hobbs had been right; it was quite good. Around us was the clatter and clink of silverware; it was a room in which almost everyone was rich or well-known in some way, and yet the dense celebrity of the room fostered a strange privacy. I noticed Larry King, William Buckley, and Dan Quayle. Hobbs was oblivious to them. Finally he unplugged his ear set and reached into his bag. He brought out a similar-sized piece of equipment and slipped the tape out of the first machine and into the other. Then he consulted a small readout. He nodded, then looked up at me. He turned the small piece of equipment around so that I could read the display. It said: ORIGINAL, NOT A COPY.
“Well done, sir.”
“I was highly motivated.”
“Indeed you were, and so was I. Now I must ask you three questions.”
“Shoot.”
“Do you know of any copies of this tape?”
“No.”
“Was Caroline Crowley sending me the tape?”
“No.”
“Who was?”
I explained who Mrs. Segal was, her innocence in the whole thing.
“Did she see the tape?”
“That's the fourth question.”
“Indeed, I think I have a few more. I think you might indulge them, as I will later indulge you at this lunch.”
“Fair enough. No, Mrs. Segal hasn't seen the tape. Who knows if her husband has, but he seems pretty scrambled.”
“He's how old?”
“He appears to be at least eighty.”
“I won't worry about him, then.”
“I wouldn't.”
“Did you show the tape to Caroline Crowley?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I figured the sooner I got it out of my hands, the sooner I could get my life back.”
Hobbs nodded.
“Your man shot my son, Hobbs.”
He picked up his fork. “I'm going to try my shrimp. Now then, last question. Did you look at this tape?”
“Yes.”
We stared at each other.
“I'm quite a lovely sight, aren't I?”
I said nothing.
“You can see why I wanted it back. A matter of privacy, I guess. A certain pride, nothing more.”
I nodded.
“Being the gentleman that I am, I have something for you,” Hobbs said. “Two things, actually.”
He reached into his bag and pulled out a videotape. Simon's writing: TAPE 15. The Fellows tape.
I took it from him.
“May I?”
I slipped the tape into his portable player. There it was: Tompkins Square Park, the protesters, the police. I hit the
fast-forward button, wanting to be sure that the key segment was still there. It was. Fellows toppled like a tree, the assailant fled. I stopped the tape, rewound and ejected it, and put it in my briefcase.
fast-forward button, wanting to be sure that the key segment was still there. It was. Fellows toppled like a tree, the assailant fled. I stopped the tape, rewound and ejected it, and put it in my briefcase.
We ate heartily then, Hobbs and I, and then followed dessert with coffee.
“And now the last thing, sir.”
This time he drew an envelope from his breast pocket.
“We've had this for quite some time, but in the spirit of all's well that ends well, I thought that I should give it back.” He handed me the envelope. There was something small and hard in it; I laid it on the table without opening it.
“As you might imagine, we gained access to Caroline Crowley's apartment. Looking for the tape, of course. I don't know whether or not she suspects this.”
“She does.”
“That doesn't surprise me. Women usually know things like that. We had a look at all her keys, searching for a safe-deposit box, another apartment, car, whatever, and we identified all of them but this one. I no longer need it and thought it should go back to her.”
I opened the envelope. One tiny key, nondescript, flat and old. Three little holes instead of one. It was toothed on both edges. I knew enough from messing around in my father's barn as a boy that this was a key to a small padlock. I had been in every room in Caroline's apartment and had seen nothing that might match it. The key was intriguing enoughâunidentifiable enoughâthat Hobbs's spooks had confiscated it. Perhaps they were amateur lock experts in their own right, if they so easily broke into apartments.
“Not a house key, I should think,” Hobbs said.
We left then, he and I, some of the other patrons watching him walk slowly, and when we stepped outside, a limo was waiting. Hobbs handed his bag to the driver and turned to me.
“Every loose end tied up, I believe, no?”
“Believe so.”
He stepped into the car and the driver shut the door. My curvilinear reflection became his face as the window went down.
“Incidentally, Miss Caroline kept the key above the refrigerator, in a cupboard.” His thick face looked up at me, green eyes bright, lips still wet from lunch. “Quite an odd place for a tiny key, I would think.”
Then he was gone.
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I called Hal Fitzgerald from the corner. “I have the tape.”
“Porter?”
“I have it.”
“Good, that's very good.”
“Just tell me where I can take it.”
“Well, let's see, uhâyou're in Midtown?”
The cops' technology was getting good.
“Yes, Iâ”
“Corner of Sixth Avenue and Forty-fourth?”
“Yes.”
“Hold on. We'll have a car come around.”
“I can bring it to you if you want.”
“No,” Hal said. “We're, uhâhold on, Porter.” He was covering the line. “No, if you'll just wait a minute there. It'll be an unmarked car. About four or five minutes.”
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