The Boy Who Followed Ripley (21 page)

Frank did as Tom told him. Tom spread the blanket over the sheets, so the bed would look a bit neater.

The bank messenger, a short, bulky man in a business suit, was accompanied by a taller guard of some kind in uniform. The messenger presented his credentials, and said he had a car waiting downstairs with a driver, but he was in no hurry. He carried two big briefcases. Tom didn’t feel like looking at the credentials, so Eric examined them. Tom did watch the first few seconds of the counting. One envelope had been sealed and still was. The paper-banded bundles of DM had not been touched in the other envelopes, but it would have been possible to slip a thousand-mark note from any or several of the bundles. Eric watched.

“Can I leave this to you, Eric?” Tom asked.

“
Aber sicherlich
, Tom! But you must sign something, you know?” Eric and the messenger were standing at the sideboard, envelopes separated, money stacks separated.

“Back in a couple of minutes.” Tom went off to speak with Frank.

Frank was in Eric’s bedroom, barefoot, holding a damp towel against his forehead. “I felt faint for a minute just now. Funny—”

“We’re going out to lunch soon. We’ll have a good lunch and cheer up, all right, Frank?— Want a cool shower?”

“Sure.”

Tom went into the bathroom and adjusted the shower for him. “Don’t slip,” Tom said.

“What’re they doing in there?”

“Counting dough. I’ll bring you some clothes.” Tom went back into the living room, found a pair of blue cotton trousers in Frank’s suitcase, a polo-neck sweater, and he took a pair of his own shorts, not finding any of Frank’s. Tom knocked on the bathroom door which was not quite closed.

The boy was drying himself with a big towel.

“How do you feel about Paris? Want to go back today? Tonight?”

“No.”

Tom noticed that the boy’s eyes were shiny with tears under a very determined and grown-up frown. “I know what Johnny said to you—about Teresa.”

“Well, that’s not everything,” Frank said, hurled the towel at the side of the tub, and at once picked it up and hung it properly on a rod. He took the shorts Tom was holding out to him and turned his back as he put them on. “I don’t want to go back just yet, I just don’t!” Frank’s eyes flashed with anger as he looked back at Tom.

Tom knew: it would be two defeats, the loss of Teresa, and being recaptured. Maybe after lunch, Tom thought, Frank would calm down, see things differently. However, Tom knew that Teresa
was
everything.

“Tom!” Eric called.

Tom had to sign. Tom did look over the receipt. The three banks were listed, the sums due each. The bank messenger was now on Eric’s telephone, and Tom heard him say a couple of times that things were
in Ordnung
. Tom signed. The name Pierson still did not appear, only the Swiss Bank Corporation number. Much handshaking upon leaving, and Eric accompanied the two men to the elevator.

Frank came into the living room, dressed but for shoes, and Eric returned, beaming with relief, wiping his forehead with a pocket handkerchief.

“My apartment deserves—a
Gedenktafel!
How do you call it?”

“A plaque?” said Tom. “As I was saying, lunch at Kempinski. Do we have to make a reservation?”

“It would be wiser. I shall do it. Three.” Eric went to his telephone.

“Unless we can reach Max and Rollo. It’d be nice to invite them. Or are they—working?”

“Oh!” Eric chuckled. “Rollo’s hardly awake by now. He likes to stay up very late, till seven or eight in the morning. Then Max is freelance—a hairdresser when certain places need him. I never can reach them except sometimes around six in the evening.”

He would send them a present from France, Tom thought, maybe a couple of interesting wigs, when he got their address from Eric. Eric was now making the reservation for a quarter to one.

They went in Eric’s car. Tom had applied a flesh-colored salve—for cuts and abrasions, the tube said—from Eric’s medicine cabinet to Frank’s famous cheek mole. Somewhere Frank had lost Heloise’s pancake from his back pocket, which did not surprise Tom.

“I want you to eat, my friend,” Tom said to Frank at the table, starting to read the huge à la carte menu. “I know you like smoked salmon.”

“Ah, I shall have my favorite!” said Eric. “There is a liver dish here, Tom—out of this world!”

The restaurant had high ceilings, gilt and green scrolls on its white walls, elegant tablecloths, and uniformed waiters who put on a grand air. A grill—another part of the restaurant—served people who were not quite properly attired, Tom had noticed while they were waiting to be shown to their table. This had meant a pair of men in blue jeans, though with neat enough sweaters and jackets, who had been told in German, somehow politely, that the grill was
that
way.

Frank did eat, aided by a couple of Tom’s jokes, dredged up, because he didn’t feel like telling jokes. He knew Frank was under a black cloud of Teresa, and he wondered if Frank suspected or knew definitely who Teresa’s new interest was? Tom could not possibly ask. Tom knew only that Frank had begun that painful process known as turning loose, turning loose emotionally of a moral support, of a mad ideal, of what had been to him embodied, and still was, in the only girl in the world.

“Chocolate cake, Frank?” Tom suggested, and refilled Frank’s glass of white wine. It was their second bottle.

“That is good here and so is the strudel,” Eric said. “Tom, a meal to remember!” Eric wiped his lips carefully. “A morning to remember too, no? Ha-ha?”

They were in one of the little alcoves against the restaurant wall, nothing so primitive as a booth, rather a romantic curve giving semi-privacy, yet enabling them to see what they wished of the other patrons. Tom had seen no one paying attention to them. And Tom suddenly realized, pleasantly, that Frank would be leaving Berlin under his false passport as Benjamin Andrews. The passport was in Frank’s suitcase at Eric’s.

“When shall I next see you, Tom?” Eric asked.

Tom lit a Roth-Händle. “Next time you have a little thing for Belle Ombre? And I don’t mean a house present.”

Eric chuckled, pink with food and wine now. “That reminds me, I have a three o’clock date. Excuse me for this rudeness.” He looked at his wristwatch. “Only a quarter past two. I am fine.”

“We can take a taxi back. Leave you free.”

“No, no, it is on the way, my house. Easy.” Eric poked with his tongue at something in a tooth, and looked speculatively at Frank.

Frank had eaten nearly all of his chocolate cake, and was pensively turning the stem of his wine glass.

Eric lifted his eyebrows at Tom. Tom said nothing. Tom got the bill and paid. They walked the one street to Eric’s car in bright sunlight. Tom smiled and patted Frank impulsively on the back. But what could he say? He wanted to say, “Isn’t this better than the floor of a kitchen?” But Tom couldn’t. Eric was the type to come out with it, but Eric didn’t. Tom would have liked a longer walk, but he did not feel a hundred percent safe, or unnoticed, walking with Frank Pierson, so they both got into Eric’s car. Tom had Eric’s housekeys, and Eric dropped them off at a corner.

Tom approached Eric’s house carefully, on the watch for loiterers, but saw none. The downstairs hall was empty. The boy was silent.

In the apartment, Tom took off his jacket and opened the window for fresh air. “About Paris,” Tom began.

Frank suddenly plunged his face into his hands. He was seated on the small sofa by the coffee table, elbows on his spread knees.

“Never mind,” Tom said, embarrassed for the boy. “Get it out.” Tom knew it wouldn’t last long.

After a few seconds, the boy snatched his hands down, stood up and said, “Sorry.” He stuffed his hands in his pockets.

Tom strolled into the bathroom, and brushed his teeth for a good two minutes. Then he went back into the living room with a calm air. “You don’t want to go to Paris, I know.— What about Hamburg?”

“Anywhere!” Frank’s eyes had the intensity of madness or hysteria.

Tom looked down at the floor and blinked. “You don’t just say “anywhere” like a madman, Frank.— I know—I understand about Teresa. It’s a—” what was the right word? “—a letdown.”

Frank stood stiff as a statue, as if defying Tom to say more.
Still you’ll have to face your family at some point
, Tom thought of saying. But wouldn’t that be unsympathetic, just now? Wouldn’t it be a good idea to see Reeves? Have a change of atmosphere? Tom needed it, anyway. “I find Berlin a bit claustrophobic. I feel like seeing Reeves in Hamburg. Didn’t I mention him in France? Friend of mine.” Tom made an effort to sound cheerful.

The boy looked more alert, polite again. “Yes, I think you did. You said he was a friend of Eric’s.”

“True. I’m—” Tom hesitated, looking at the boy who, with hands still in pockets, stared back at him. Tom could easily put the boy on a plane to Paris—insist—and say good-bye to him. But Tom had the feeling the boy would lose himself again, in Paris, as soon as he got off the plane. He wouldn’t go to the Hôtel Lutetia. “I’ll try Reeves,” Tom said, and moved toward the telephone. Just then it rang. Tom decided to answer it.

“Hello, Tom, this is Max.”

“Max! How are you? I have your wig and your drag here—safe!”

“I wanted to telephone this morning and I was—stuck, ja? Not home was I. Then by Eric an hour ago nobody was home. So last night? The boy?”

“He’s here. He’s okay.”

“You got him? You are not hurt, nobody is hurt?”

“Nobody.” Tom blinked away a sudden vision of the Italian type with the smashed head on the ground in Lübars.

“Rollo thought last night you looked wonderful. I was almost jealous. Ha!— Is Eric there? I have a message.”

“Not here because he has a three o’clock date. Can I take a message?”

Max said no, he would call back.

Tom then consulted the telephone book for the Hamburg code, and dialed Reeves’s number.

“’Allo?” said a female voice.

This was Reeves’s
Putzfrau
and part-time housekeeper, Tom supposed, a figure more portly than Mme. Annette, but equally dedicated. “Hello—Gaby?”

“Ja-a?”

“This is Tom Ripley. How are you, Gaby?— Is Herr Minot there?”

“
Nein, aber er—
I
hear
something,” she went on in German. “One minute.” A pause, then Gaby came back and said, “He comes in just now!”

“Hello,
Tom
!” said Reeves, breathless.

“I’m in Berlin.”

“
Berlin!
Can you come and see me? What’re you doing in Berlin?” Reeves’s voice sounded gravelly and naïve as usual.

“Can’t say now, but I was thinking of coming to see you—even tonight, if that’s all right with you.”

“Of course, Tom. You’ve always got priority and I’m not even busy tonight.”

“I have a friend with me, an American. Could you possibly put us up for one night?” Tom knew Reeves had a guest room.

“Even two nights. When’re you arriving? Got your plane tickets?”

“No, but I’ll try for this evening. Seven, eight, or nine. If you’re in I won’t ring you again, just turn up. I’ll ring you if I can’t make it. Okay?”

“Okay and I’m
very
pleased!”

Tom turned to Frank, smiling. “That’s settled. Reeves is glad to have us.”

Frank was sitting on the smaller sofa, smoking a cigarette, unusual for him. The boy stood up, and he seemed suddenly as tall as Tom. Had he grown in the last few days? That was possible. “I’m sorry I was in the dumps today. I’ll pull out.”

“Oh, sure you’ll pull out.” The boy was trying to be polite. Maybe that was why he looked taller.

“I’m glad about Hamburg. I don’t want to see that detective in Paris. Good
Christ
!” Frank whispered the last, but with venom. “Why don’t they both go home now?”

“Because they want to be sure you’re coming home,” Tom said patiently.

Tom then telephoned Air France. He made two reservations for a takeoff at 7:20 p.m. for Hamburg. Tom gave their names, Ripley and Andrews.

Eric arrived while Tom was on the telephone, and Tom told him their plans. “Ah, Reeves! A nice idea!” Eric glanced at Frank, who was folding something away in his suitcase, and motioned for Tom to come into his bedroom.

“Max rang up,” Tom said as he followed Eric. “Said he’d ring you back.”

“Thank you, Tom.— Now this.” Eric closed his bedroom door, pulled a newspaper from under his arm, and showed the front page to Tom. “I thought you should see this,” Eric said with one of his twitching smiles, more full of nerves than amusement. “No clues, it seems—now.”

The front page of
Der Abend
had a two-column photograph of the Lübars shed with the Italian type just as Tom had seen him last, prone, head turned slightly to the left, and the left temple a darkened mass of blood, some of which had run down the face. Tom read quickly the five-line comment below. An as yet unidentified man wearing clothing made in Italy, underwear made in Germany, had been found dead early Wednesday in Lübars, his temple crushed by blows of a blunt instrument. Police were trying to identify him, and were making inquiries among residents of the region to find out if they had heard any disturbances.

“You understand it all?” asked Eric.

“Yes.” Tom had fired two shots into the air. Surely a resident was going to remark hearing two shots, even if the man had not been killed by a bullet. Some neighbor might describe a stranger with a suitcase. “I don’t like to look at this.” Tom folded the newspaper and put it on a writing table. He glanced at his watch.

“I can drive you to Tegel. Plenty of time,” said Eric. “The boy really doesn’t want to go home, does he?”

“No, and he had some bad news today about a girl he likes in America. The brother told him that she has a new boyfriend. So there’s that. If he were twenty, it might be easier for him.” Or would it? Frank’s murder of his father was keeping him from going back home too.

17

A
s the plane began its descent to Hamburg, Frank waked from a doze and caught between his knees a newspaper that had nearly slipped to the floor. Frank looked out of the window on his side, but they were still too high for anything but clouds to be visible.

Tom finished a cigarette covertly. The stewardesses bustled up and down the aisle, collecting last glasses and trays. Tom saw Frank lift the German newspaper from his lap and look at the picture of the dead man in Lübars. To Frank it would be just another newspaper photograph. Tom had not told Frank that his date with the kidnappers had been in Lübars, he had simply said that he stood the kidnappers up. “Then you followed them?” Frank had asked. Tom had said no, he had got on their trail via the gay bar and the message passed to the kidnappers by Thurlow to ask for Joey there. Frank had been amused, full of awe at Tom’s daring—maybe his courage too, Tom liked to think—in crashing in on the kidnappers single-handed. Tom had found nothing in this newspaper about any of the three kidnappers having been caught in the vicinity of Binger Strasse or anywhere else. Of course no one but Tom knew them as kidnappers. They might have criminal records and no fixed addresses, but that was about it.

Their passports were rather quickly glanced at and handed back, then they got their luggage and took a taxi.

Tom pointed out landmarks to Frank, what he could see in the gathering darkness, a church spire that he remembered, the first of the many filled-in canals, or “fleets,” which had little bridges over them, then the Alsters. They got out in the upward sloping driveway leading to Reeves’s white apartment house, a large, formerly private house which had been partitioned to make several apartments. It was Tom’s second or third visit to Reeves. Tom pressed a button downstairs, and Reeves at once let him in after Tom said his name into the speaker. Tom and Frank went up in the elevator, and Reeves was waiting outside his apartment door.

“Tom!” Reeves kept his voice low, because of at least one other apartment on the same floor. “Come in, both of you!”

“This is—Ben,” said Tom, introducing Frank. “Reeves Minot.”

Reeves said “How do you do” to Frank, and closed his door behind them. As ever, Reeves’s flat struck Tom as spacious and immaculately clean. Its white walls bore Impressionist and more recent paintings, nearly all in frames. Rows of low bookcases, containing mostly art books, bordered the walls. There were a couple of tall rubber plants and philodendrons. The two big windows on the Aussenalster’s water had their yellow curtains drawn now. A table was set for three. Tom saw that the pinkish Derwatt (genuine) of a woman apparently dying in bed still hung over the fireplace.

“Changed the frame of that, didn’t you?” asked Tom.

Reeves laughed. “How observant you are, Tom! Frame got damaged somehow. Fell in that bombing, I think, and cracked. I prefer this beige frame. The other frame was too white. Look now, put your suitcases in here,” Reeves said, showing Tom to the guest room. “I hope they didn’t give you anything to eat on the plane, because I have something for us. But now we must have a glass of cold wine or something and talk!”

Tom and Frank set their suitcases in the guest room, which had a three-quarter bed with its side against the front wall. Jonathan Trevanny had slept here, Tom remembered.

“What did you say your friend’s name was?” Reeves asked softly, but he did not bother to be out of the boy’s hearing as he and Tom went back into the living room.

Tom knew from Reeves’s smile that Reeves knew who the boy was. Tom nodded. “Talk to you later. It was not—” Tom felt awkward, but why did he have to hide anything from Reeves? Frank was in a far corner of the living room now, looking at a painting. “It was not in the papers, but the boy was just kidnapped in Berlin.”

“
Ree-eally?
” Reeves paused with the corkscrew in one hand, a wine bottle in the other. He had an unpleasant pink scar down his right cheek almost to the corner of his mouth. Now with his mouth open in surprise, the scar looked even longer.

“Last Sunday night,” Tom said. “In Grunewald. You know, the big woods there.”

“Yes, I do. Kidnapped how?”

“I was with him, but we were separated for a couple of minutes and— Sit down, Frank. You’re among friends.”

“Yes, sit down,” Reeves said in his hoarse-sounding voice, and drew the cork.

Frank’s eyes caught Tom’s, the boy nodded his head as if to indicate that Tom could tell the truth if he wished. “Frank was released just last night. The men holding him gave him sedatives and I think he’s still a bit drowsy.” Tom said.

“No, I hardly notice it now,” Frank said politely and firmly. He got up from the sofa he had just sat down on, and went to look more closely at the Derwatt over the fireplace. Frank shoved his hands in his back pockets and glanced at Tom with a quick smile. “Good, yes, Tom?”

“Isn’t it?” said Tom with satisfaction. He loved the dusty pinkness of it, suggesting an old lady’s bedcover, or maybe her nightdress. The background was murky brown and dark gray. Was she dying or simply tired and bored with life? But the title was “Dying Woman.”

“Woman or a man here?” Frank asked.

Tom had just been thinking that Edmund Banbury or Jeff Constant at the Buckmaster Gallery had probably given the picture its title—often Derwatt hadn’t bothered with titles—and one could not really tell if the figure was male or female.

“ ‘Dying Woman,’ it’s called,” Reeves said to Frank. “You like Derwatt?” he asked in a tone of pleased surprise.

“Frank says his father has one at home—in the States. One or two, Frank?” Tom asked.

“One. ‘The Rainbow.’ ”

“Ah-hah,” said Reeves, as if he could see it before his eyes.

Frank drifted away toward a David Hockney.

“You delivered a ransom?” Reeves asked Tom.

Tom shook his head. “No, had it and didn’t deliver it.”

“How much?” Reeves smiled as he poured wine.

“Two million American.”

“Well, well.— And now what?” Reeves nodded toward the boy who had his back to them.

“Oh, he’s going back home. I thought if we could, Reeves, we’d stay tomorrow night also with you, and leave Friday for Paris. I don’t want the boy to be recognized in a hotel, and another day’s rest would do him good.”

“Certainly, Tom. No problem.” Reeves frowned. “I don’t quite understand. The police are still looking for him?”

Tom shrugged nervously. “They were
before
the kidnapping, and I’m assuming the detective in Paris has notified at least the French police that the boy’s been found.” Tom explained that there had been no police anywhere informed of the kidnapping.

“You’re supposed to take him where?”

“To the detective in Paris. He’s employed by the family. Frank’s brother Johnny is there with the detective too.— Thank you, Reeves.” Tom took his glass.

Reeves carried another glass to Frank. Then Reeves went into his kitchen, and Tom followed him. From his refrigerator, Reeves produced a platter of sliced ham, cole slaw, and a variety of sliced sausages and pickles. Reeves said it was Gaby’s production. Gaby lived in the building with some other people who employed her, and she had insisted on coming in at seven this evening after her late shopping to “arrange” what she had bought for Reeves’s guests. “I’m lucky, she likes me,” Reeves said. “Finds my place more interesting than where she sleeps—in spite of that damned bomb here. Well, she happened to be out at the time it hit.”

The three sat down at the table, and talked of other things than Frank, but it was still of Berlin. How was Eric Lanz? Who were his friends? Had he a girlfriend? A laugh from Reeves along with the question. Had Reeves a girlfriend, Tom wondered. Were Reeves and Eric so lukewarm, girls and women just didn’t matter? It was nice to have a wife, Tom thought, as the wine began to warm him. Heloise had once said to him that she liked him, or had she said she loved him, because he let her be herself, and gave her room to breathe. Tom had been gratified by her remark, though he had never thought about giving Heloise Lebensraum.

Reeves was watching Frank. And Frank was looking extremely sleepy.

They got Frank to bed by a little after eleven. Frank took the guest room bed.

Then with another bottle of Piesporter Goldtröpfchen, Reeves and Tom installed themselves on the living room sofa, and Tom narrated the events of the last days, even the first days, when Frank Pierson, working as part-time gardener, had looked him up in Villeperce. Reeves laughed at the drag bit in Berlin, and wanted every detail. Then something dawned on Reeves, and he said:

“That Berlin picture then—in the papers today. They said Lübars, I remember.” Reeves leapt up to look for his newspaper, and found it on a bookshelf.

“That’s it,” Tom said. “I saw it in Berlin.” Tom felt sickish for a moment, and set his wineglass down. “The Italian type that I mentioned.” Tom had told Reeves that he had only knocked the man out.

“No one saw you? You’re sure? Getting away?”

“No.— Shall we wait for tomorrow’s news?”

“The boy knows?”

“I didn’t tell him. Don’t mention Lübars to him.— Reeves, old pal, could I trouble you for some coffee?”

Tom went with Reeves into the kitchen, not wanting to sit by himself. It was not pleasant, the realization that he had killed a man, even though the Italian type was not the first. He saw Reeves glance at him. There was one thing he had not told Reeves, and was not going to tell him, which was that Frank had killed his father. Tom took a little comfort from the fact that though Reeves had read about Pierson Senior’s death, and the question of suicide or accident, which had not been answered, Reeves had not thought to ask Tom if someone could have murdered Pierson Senior by pushing him over the cliff.

“What was it made the boy run away?” Reeves asked. “Upset by his father’s death?— Or maybe the girl? Her name’s Teresa, you said?”

“No, I think the Teresa situation was all right when he left. He was writing to her from my house. It’s only yesterday that he heard she has a new boyfriend.”

Reeves chuckled in an avuncular way. “The world is full of girls, even pretty ones. Certainly Hamburg is! Shall we try to distract him—take him to a club? You know?”

Tom said as lightly as he could, “He’s only sixteen. It’s hit him pretty hard.— The brother’s a bit thick-skinned, or he wouldn’t have blurted it out as he did—now.”

“You expect to meet the brother? And the detective?” Reeves laughed as if at the word “detective,” as he might laugh at anybody whose job it was presumably to try to track down crime in the world.

“I rather hope not,” Tom said, “but I may have to put the boy right in their charge, because he’s not keen to go home.” Tom was standing in the kitchen with his coffee. “I’m getting sleepy, even though your coffee tastes great. I’m going to have another cup.”

“Won’t bother your sleep?” Reeves asked hoarsely, but with the concern of a mother or a nurse.

“Not in my state. Tomorrow I’ll take Frank around Hamburg. One of those boat rides around the Alster, you know? I’ll try to cheer him up. Can you meet us for lunch, Reeves?”

“Thanks, Tom, but I have a date tomorrow. I can give you a key. I’ll do it now.”

Tom walked out of the kitchen with his cup. “How’s business been?” Tom meant the fence business, and a little bit of legitimate talent-scouting among German painters, and some art-dealing, the latter activities being Reeves’s front, at least.

“Oh—” Reeves put a ring of keys into Tom’s hand, then cast an eye around his living room walls. “That Hockney’s—on loan, I might say. Really it’s stolen. It’s from Munich. I put it on the wall because I like it. After all, I’m very careful about the people I let
in
here. The Hockney’s being collected very soon.”

Tom smiled. It struck him that Reeves led a delightful life in a most pleasant city. Something was always happening. Reeves never worried, he always bungled through even the very awkward moments, once for instance when he had been beaten up and tossed unconscious out of a moving car. Reeves hadn’t suffered even a broken nose on that occasion, which had been in France, Tom remembered.

When Tom crept into bed that night, Frank didn’t stir. The boy was facedown with his arms around his pillow. Tom felt safe, safer than in Berlin. Reeves’s flat had been bombed, maybe burgled, but it felt as snug as a little castle. He might ask Reeves what kind of protection he had, besides perhaps a burglar alarm. Did he have to pay off anybody? Had Reeves ever asked the police for extra protection, because of the valuable pictures he sometimes dealt with? Not very likely, Tom thought. But maybe it would be rude to inquire into Reeves’s safety measures.

A gentle knock awakened Tom, and he opened his eyes and realized where he was. “
Herein?
”

Gaby came in, heavy and shy, talking in German, carrying a tray of coffee and rolls. “Herr Tom . . . we are so glad to see you again after such a long time! How long has it been? . . .” She spoke softly because of Frank, still asleep. Gaby was in her fifties, with black straight hair done in a bun behind her head. Her cheeks were rather blotchily pink.

“I am so glad to be here, Gaby. And how have you been?— You can put it here, that is fine.” Tom meant on his lap. The tray had legs.

“Herr Reeves has gone out, but he says you have the keys.” She looked, smiling, at the sleeping boy. “There is still more coffee in the kitchen.” Gaby spoke stolidly, giving the facts, and only her dark eyes showed liveliness and a childlike curiosity. “I am here another hour—not quite—in case you want something.”

“Thank you, Gaby.” Tom wakened himself further with coffee and a cigarette, then went off to take a shower and shave.

When he came back into the guest room, he saw Frank standing with one bare foot on the sill of the window which he had opened. Tom had the feeling the boy was about to jump. “Frank?” The boy hadn’t heard him come in.

“Great view, isn’t it?” said Frank, both feet on the floor now.

Had the boy shuddered, or had Tom imagined it? Tom moved to the window and looked out at excursion boats plowing toward the left on the Alster’s blue water, at a half dozen little sailboats scooting about, at people strolling on the quay beside the water. Bright pennants flew everywhere, and the sun shone. It was like a Dufy, only German, Tom thought. “You weren’t thinking of jumping out just now, were you?” Tom asked as if he were joking. “Only a few stories here. Not very satisfying.”