The Two Faces of January (23 page)

“Where did you see him here in Paris?”

Rydal took a deep breath. “On the Champs-Élysées. This morning. I spoke to him, though he wanted to avoid me. I pretended to make—”

“Why did you not shout at once for the police when you saw him?” asked the officer who was typing.

“I suppose . . . I was afraid, the same old fear. I was afraid of what Chamberlain would tell the police about me. What I wanted to do is . . . just what I've done now. Speak to the police and—”

He was interrupted by a laugh from the gendarme who had found him. “And with all your efforts to appear an Italian!”

“Very well. All right. I was afraid,” Rydal said, feeling uncomfortable. “But now it's said.”

“One question here, please,” said the typist. “I have left a space for it. Where did you stay in Athens? Did you get your false passport immediately? You were three or four days in Athens?”

“From Wednesday morning until Friday the nineteenth,” Rydal answered. “I stayed with a friend. I don't care to give the friend's name. I don't think that would be fair, do you?” He looked the officer straight in the eye.

The officer shrugged and smiled at the gendarme.

“I was innocent. I am innocent, and I think I have a right to stay with a friend, who knows I am innocent. I don't care to involve my friend.” He added more gently, “I think you can understand that.”

“We shall return to that later,” said the typing officer, poising his fingers over the keyboard again. “Now, where did you see M. Chamberlain, if you please?”

“On the Champs-Élysées near Concorde. This morning. I tried to frighten him into telling me his name and what hotel he is staying at. He refused. Then I threatened him—for a change. I told him that unless he paid me ten thousand dollars, I would go to the police and tell them the whole story and tell them that he was in Paris. He said he would give it to me. So we made a rendezvous for tonight at nine o'clock. I think Chamberlain will keep it.”

“Where?”

“At Les Halles. In the flower market.”

“Hmph!” grunted the gendarme. “A busy place. You think he will keep the rendezvous?” he asked hopefully, folding his arms.

“Yes.” Rydal smiled. He thought Chester would keep it. It was time Chester was stopped. There was no way, really, to have a showdown without dragging the police in, and now they were in. He would have his share of blame thrown at him, too, for helping Chester hide the Greek agent's body. That had been a mistake, and people had to pay for mistakes. But it would be worth it to see Chester fall.

The typing stopped.

“Who were you talking to on the telephone in that bar tabac?” asked the gendarme.

Rydal answered slowly, “Nobody. I wasn't telephoning. I was pretending to telephone, thinking you might go away if I kept you waiting.”

The gendarme nodded in a superior way, as if condescending to the stupidity of someone who thought he could be shaken off. “Dites donc!” He leaned forward, pointing a finger at Rydal. “You have had dinner Saturday night with a young woman named Yvonne . . . Yvonne . . .”

The other officer consulted a paper on his desk. “Delatier,” he said.

“Yes,” Rydal said.

“Yes. She called the police about you yesterday,” said the gendarme. “She saw your picture in the paper. She said you had a lot of money.”

“Not so much as I bragged to her that I had. I lied to her, I'm afraid.” He still had the money, in his left-hand trousers pocket. They had slapped his clothes for weapons, examined them for labels, but they had not looked into his pockets—a wadded handkerchief in one, thirteen thousand dollars in the other.

The other officer was now on the telephone, reporting the finding of Rydal Keener to the main police headquarters, Rydal supposed.

“Would you place a call to the police of Athens and keep the line open, please? . . . Thank you.”

19

At a quarter to 9 Rydal was driven by two police officers—one the gendarme who had found him—to Les Halles. Their car was a plain black Citroën. Rydal was very nervous, and at the same time simply tired. He was actually drowsy during the ride. He had not told the police Chester had shaved off his beard and moustache. They had asked, “
He has a beard and a moustache?” and Rydal had replied, “Yes,” at once, then had started to correct himself, and hadn't. He supposed he had thought it would make himself seem uncertain about it, make his story of seeing Chester in Paris seem untrue, if he had corrected himself. But that wasn't it, Rydal knew. Telling the police he was clean-shaven now seemed to be stacking the cards too much against Chester. This way it was more sportsmanlike. Maybe that was it. At any rate, he hadn't corrected himself. And he had been very emphatic, too, in saying that Chamberlain was clever about spotting the police, in plain clothes or not, so they had best keep a certain distance until they were sure they had him. “Oh, yes? How did he become so clever about police?” they had asked. Rydal didn't know, but he was. After all, Rydal thought, the police were going to keep their eye on
him,
mainly, and naturally they would see any person to whom he spoke, and who handed him anything—an envelope, a news
paper—that contained the ten thousand dollars. What would it matter if Chester had a beard and moustache or hadn't?

“Not too close,” Rydal said as he saw the first flower-pots along the pavement ahead. “Let me out here. No, over there. To the left.”

The car slowed down and swung to the left in the broad street. It was raining. The lights of the market made blurred yellow paths across the shining black streets, and the occasional shimmers of red lights reflected in them suggested to Rydal spilled blood.

“Into that little alley,” Rydal said, annoyed now. “If he sees me getting out of this car, he'll know something is up.”

“Very good, m'sieur, very good,” the driver said with mock patience.

Rydal and the gendarme in plain clothes got out at the same time, from the right side of the car. The gendarme had his hands in his overcoat pockets, where there was no doubt a gun. He looked awfully much like a gendarme in plain clothes with a gun to Rydal.

“Let me go ahead,” Rydal said to him. “Four meters—six meters ahead is not too much.”

“Ah?” The gendarme wagged his head dubiously.

The other man was getting out of the car, too.

Rydal turned and crossed the street towards the pavement that was bordered with plants and flowers. Trucks presented their open back ends to the pavement, their floors full of plants and small trees with roots tied up in burlap, and in a few trucks a man or a woman slept on sacking, tired after a long day that had begun early in the country. Rydal did not look for Chester at first. He walked along casually, hatless now, his head mostly down as he looked at the greenery.

“Hey, ivy here! Very cheap!” cried a woman's piercing voice. “Hyacinths in bloom! Take one to your girl! Take your choice, m'sieur!”

The leaves of rubber plants were glossy and bright in the market lights, and there was a pleasant smell of rich, rain wetted earth. The ivy seemed to glory in the cool moist air, the flowers looked bursting with happiness and vitality, and Rydal was sorry to think of any of them being taken into gas-heated Paris apartments. Rydal stopped and looked back, looked first at some chrysanthemums, then for the gendarme. The gendarme was fifteen feet or more behind him, one hand in a pocket now. Frowning, Rydal passed a hand across his hair, and went on.

He saw Chester, and his scalp prickled. Chester was about to turn at the corner on the broad pavement, and he was coming towards Rydal. Chester carried a newspaper-wrapped pot at the top of which some red blossoms showed. An intelligent prop, Rydal thought. Chester was twenty feet away, looking now at the plants on either side of him, then glancing straight in front of him.

Rydal slowed, idling. He stood erect, but looked down at a banked display of cacti in small pots on his right.

“Three for five francs, m'sieur,” said the man. “This kind makes a pretty pink blossom.”

Rydal hated what he was doing. He was balking. He wanted to take one gigantic leap, leap over the cactus display and through the brick wall behind it and disappear.
Remember Colette,
he thought.
Chester is a crook. He cheats honest men.
But there wasn't time to remember Colette, or to think about Chester's dishonesty. Rydal turned from the cacti and drifted on. Chester saw him now. Rydal half closed his eyes and gave a shake of his head, a faint shake which he finished with a tilt of his head to the left, a rubbing of his left ear, as if he had got water into it.

Chester passed by him.

Rydal walked on to the corner where he had first seen Chester. He was strangely relieved, as if he had successfully hurdled a dangerous crevasse that he had had to cross. But he listened tensely for a sound of commotion behind him. He yearned for the darkness around the corner. It was a darker street, a back street. At the corner, Rydal quickened his step slightly. For a few seconds, very few, he would be out of the sight of the gendarme. At the same time, he did not want to rouse the attention of anyone on this side of the block by running. Rydal gave himself about twelve steps, about five seconds, and then he dove, headfirst and horizontal, into the back of a truck. He held his breath, his eyes shut, expecting a voice. Nothing happened. He opened his eyes. The truck was empty and black, except for the little window in the back through which a driver could look when he drove. Rydal's hands felt dirt crumbs, moist newspapers, some small flower pots.

Just then a hurdy-gurdy started playing, very near. It played “La Vie en Rose”.

. . . il me parle tout bas

je vois la vie en rose. . . .

Rydal crawled on his belly farther into the truck. Now his hands struck cloth, and he paused, afraid he had touched the cover of someone sleeping. It was just a pile of dark cloth for shading plants, perhaps, at the back of the truck on the floor. Rydal crawled into the corner and pulled it over him, over his head and feet. He lay still. He was just in time, for a flashlight shone then into the truck. He could see its glow through the cloth.

. . . ça dura pour la vie-e-e. . . .

Rydal almost smiled. He hoped not!

“Non,”
grunted a voice, and feet hurried off.

Rydal listened. Then he looked. There was only a dark wall across the pavement behind the truck. The only light came from the right, making a triangle at the left on the truck's floor.

Then suddenly a man's figure appeared, a man in a cap who shoved the dropped flap of the truck shut with a crashing, proprietary impact, and Rydal heard a bolt slide. Whistling, the man approached the front of the truck, his shoes clanked on the truck's metal steps, the engine started.

What luck! Rydal smiled and sighed.

The man drove like a demon. Rydal was tossed entirely into the air every few seconds. It crossed his mind that this man was running away from something, too. But Rydal could hear his whistling and singing over the noise of the motor. Rydal made his way to the rear of the truck and crouched behind the three-feet-high door. They were still in traffic, so that when the truck paused for a light, the head lights of a car behind glared against the back of the truck. Once at a stop, a street-lamp illuminated a street name brilliantly: rue de Belleville. Rydal couldn't have cared less.

The driver made a left turn that rolled Rydal against the truck's right wall. Rydal huddled behind the short door again. They were now in a district with less lights. The truck stopped for a red. Rydal jumped out. His rubber soles made a slapping noise on the street, but he doubted if the driver heard. Also, a man and woman walking under an umbrella saw him, but so what, Rydal thought. People rode trucks sometimes, drivers let off their workers here and there, and his clothing was not so good that he couldn't be taken for a truck-driver's assistant. Besides, it was dark. Besides, the man and woman walked on. Besides, he was free!

Rydal smiled into the rain as he walked down a street. It was just a
street,
in Paris. He didn't know its name. It was a medium-sized street, and a
sens unique,
he saw. A bar-tabac's slanting red cylinder glowed a hundred yards ahead. Rydal whistled “La Vie en Rose”. He went into the bar-tabac, his coat collar up, his hair wet and purposely mussed, and such a cheerful expression on his face, he felt, that it would not be easy for people to see any resemblance to the earnest young man called Rydal Keener in the newspaper photograph. But it was unfortunate, he thought, that the police, due to wanting to capture Chester tonight, had not announced to the public that Rydal Keener had been apprehended. That would have given him the best protection of all. He bought a slug for the telephone.

Then he called the Hôtel Élysée-Madison, whose number he remembered.

M. Wedekind was not in.

“He has not checked out, has he?” Rydal asked.

“No, m'sieur.”

“Thank you.” No, of course he hadn't checked out. Not enough time had passed. Hardly fifteen minutes had passed since he had seen Chester. Yet hours ago, Rydal had thought Chester might have decided to check out just after his telephone call this afternoon. He wondered if Chester would be afraid to go back to his hotel for his possessions, thinking that he, Rydal, had told the police where he was staying? That was possible.

Rydal wondered, in fact, just what Chester would make of his giving him the warning at the flower market? Wouldn't Chester assume that the police had found Rydal Keener and were using him to catch Philip Wedekind? Or at very least that the police were watching him? Of course Chester would.

He walked on at a moderate pace, getting soaked and not caring at all. He walked in the general direction of the center of the city, which he knew by instinct. Now he recognized a couple of street names, Faubourg du Temple and then the avenue Parmentier, not because he had been here before, but because he had used to pore over maps of Paris and Rome and London as an adolescent. He knew vaguely he was in the north-east of Paris, because old “potatoes Parmentier” had been in the upper right of his folding
plan de Paris.
He grew bored with walking, and took a taxi to the Seine.

The driver asked him where on the Seine.

“Vicinity of Notre Dame,” Rydal said in a careless tone.

Then he walked along the Quai Henri IV towards the Île Saint-Louis. He had walked along here more than a year ago, and he remembered being aware of the formal and cold atmosphere of the straight-fronted houses that faced the river. Formal, elegant, cold, unfriendly, he had thought. And neither they nor he had changed, really, but now the neighborhood seemed happy to him, even in the rain and in the dark. He was free. He could not go back to his hotel for the rest of his clothes or his notebook of poems or his few books, and he was being sought by the police at this minute, and he was without a passport or identification. But he had thirteen thousand dollars in his pocket, and he was free, as only a nameless person of his time could be free. It would not last long, he knew. But for these few hours, he would have it—freedom—he would savor it, he would rejoice in it, and he would never forget it. It was like being suspended in some element that did not really exist on earth, like the element in which angels flew, or spirits communicated with one another.

He looked at his watch. It was 10:15. He had been free for about an hour.

No, Chester would probably not go back to his hotel, he thought. Chester carried his passport at all times, and he probably carried all his money on him now. It would be typical of Chester to hazard taking a plane to the States using his Wedekind passport. In fact, what else could he do? Was he possibly at Orly or Le Bourget this minute? A passenger without luggage? Rydal rested his forearms on the parapet beside the Seine and looked at the illuminated façade of Notre Dame. Its design was complex, heavy, immobile, yet somehow floating, a work of art that seemed to him perfect, and it occurred to Rydal that it ought to be one of the Seven Wonders of the World, instead, perhaps, of the ponderous Pyramid at Gizeh. He was smiling, his eyes half closed as he looked at the cathedral's mysteriously weightless mass, and then a frown tightened his brows. Why had he let Chester go? Chester wasn't gone, of course, wasn't free, because Rydal knew his alias, and all he had to do was tell it to the police. He pushed himself away from the embankment and walked on. At the Pont Neuf, he crossed to the Left Bank, and walked through the rue Dauphine to the boulevard Saint-Germain. He passed a gendarme as he crossed a street, and Rydal simply glanced at him, as any person might have, without a change in his speed of walking. But by now, Rydal thought, every gendarme on street patrol must have been notified of the “escape” of Rydal Keener. Rydal went into the first café he saw on Saint-Germain. He called Chester's hotel. It was a compulsion. He knew as he waited for the hotel to answer that if Chester was not in, he would go to the hotel and wait for him. He would wait indefinitely in the lobby, he knew. He would take a taxi directly there. And if he waited mysteriously in the lobby for an hour or two, Rydal had no doubt that the hotel personnel would notice him, would see that he was or looked like Rydal Keener, would call the police to come and take a look at him—and he would be back where he was before, only without the appointment with Chester.

“I should like to speak to M. Wedekind, if you please.”

“Oui, m'sieur.”

Rydal waited a whole minute. Longer, he thought. “He's out?” Rydal asked.

No one answered him.

Then Chester's voice said hoarsely, “Hello?” He sounded breathless.