Those Who Walk Away (23 page)

“We must cable your parents at once. You have no objection, I trust, Signor Garrett?”

“No,” Ray said.

“And we shall also inform the private investigator, Signor Zordzi—Zord-yi. We were unable to reach him after you telephoned, but we have left a message at his hotel that you are here, and I hope he will come at once. You should stay to speak with him. Allora.” The Capitano stood behind his desk, hands behind his hips, smiling at Ray. “Where have you been for the past—” he referred to a paper on his desk—“fourteen days?”

“I have been in Venice. I stayed in rooms that I rented. I am sorry for the trouble I have caused, but—I was full of grief and I wanted to disappear for a while.”

“You certainly did that. Now tell me—about the encounter the evening before last. November twenty-third. First, where did it take place?”

“In a street near the Ponte di Rialto. I was aware that Signor Coleman was following me. I tried to run from him. This was about ten-thirty at night. I was suddenly in a street with no exit. Signor Coleman had a stone in his hand. He hit me in the side of the head. But I also hit him. I think he must have been unconscious when I left him.”

“And do you know exactly what street this was?” asked Dell’ Isola, glancing at the clerk to see if it was being taken down.

“No, I don’t. It was beside a canal. I could perhaps find it again. The Ponte di Rialto vaporetto was about a hundred and fifty metres distant.”

“With what did you say you hit Signor Col-e-man?”

“I threw the stone at him. The same stone. I had pushed him down to the ground, I think. I was—almost not conscious myself.”

“You know that Signor Col-e-man is missing?”

“Yes, I read that this morning.”

“In what condition was he when you left him?”

Ray glanced at the clerk, who was looking at him now. “He was lying on the ground. On his back.”

“No one saw you?” asked the Capitano.

“No. It happened very quickly. It was beside a small canal, a narrow—” Ray suddenly could not think of the word for walk or pavement. He passed his hand quickly across his forehead, and encountered the bandage. “I do not think anyone saw us.”

A knock sounded at the door.

“Enter,” said the Capitano.

A tall American in a brown topcoat came in. He smiled in an astonishing way at Ray. “Good morning. Good morning,” he repeated to Dell’ Isola. “Mr Garrett?”

“Yes,” Ray said.

“My name is Sam Zordyi. Your parents sent me to find you. Well—where have you been? In a hospital?”

“No. This happened night before last. As I was saying to the Capitano,” Ray began, embarrassed at having to repeat the story, “I’ve been staying in a rented room. I wanted to be alone for a while, and—Tuesday night I ran into Coleman and had a fight with him.” Ray noticed that the Capitano was listening attentively, and perhaps he understood English.

Dell’ Isola spoke to Zordyi in Italian, offering him a chair. Zordyi sat down and looked at Ray in a puzzled, speculative way. Zordyi had large blue eyes. He looked powerful and energetic.

“I better cable your parents right away,” Zordyi said. “Or have you done that?”

“No, I haven’t,” Ray answered.

“Or you, sir?” he asked Dell’ Isola. Then in Italian, “Have you told his parents—he has appeared?”

“No, signor,” Dell’ Isola took a deep breath and said, “I am wondering—Signor Garrett says he was almost unconscious from the blow that Signor Col-e-man struck him on the head. He remembers that Signor Col-e-man was lying on the ground, perhaps unconscious also. I am wondering if Signor Garrett—in his anger which I understand, since Signor Col-e-man attacked him first—if he could have done him more damage than he thinks?” Dell’ Isola looked at Ray.

“I hit him once with the stone. In the neck, I think.” Ray shrugged nervously, and felt he looked guilty. “Before that, he simply fell to the ground because I pulled his legs. Unless he fractured his skull when he fell to the ground—”

“Just what happened?” Zordyi asked Ray.

Ray told him in English about Coleman following him, about the stone in his hand—he made an oval with his fingers to show its size, the size of a large avocado—and about his getting the worst of it at first, but coming back at Coleman and leaving him on the ground.

“Where was this?” asked Zordyi.

Ray again explained as best he could.

Zordyi was frowning. “Was this the first time you’d seen Coleman? In the past two weeks?” He said to Dell’ Isola in stiff but correct Italian, “I hope that you can follow what we are saying, Signor Capitano.”

“Sissi,” said Dell’ Isola.

Ray foresaw a pit that would grow deeper and deeper before him. He said cautiously, “I saw him once in a restaurant. I don’t think he saw me.”

“Were you avoiding him? Well, obviously. Why?”

“I was avoiding everyone, I’m afraid.”

“But,” Zordyi continued, “when you arrived in Venice, you saw Coleman. Mme Schneider—I just spoke with her—said you saw Coleman a couple of times. What happened then?”

Ray hesitated, was about to say they had discussed Peggy, when Zordyi said:

“What happened the night Coleman brought you back from the Lido? On the motor-boat?”

“Nothing, we—talked a little. He dropped me on the Zattere quay. I was depressed that night, so I just kept walking around. I slept in a small hotel, and the next day looked for a room to rent for a few days. I hadn’t my passport with me.”

“Where was this room?” Dell’ Isola asked in Italian.

“Is it important?” Ray asked. “I don’t want to get innocent people into trouble. The income tax—”

A smile from Dell’ Isola. “All right. We shall return to that later.”

“Did you quarrel with Coleman that night on the Lido?” Zordyi asked.

“No.” Ray realized it was not making sense. “I only failed to make him understand why—why his daughter killed herself. Maybe because I don’t understand either.”

“Coleman blamed you for it—did he?” Zordyi asked.

Ray doubted if Inez had told Zordyi that, but perhaps Zordyi assumed it, or had picked it up from the Smith-Peters. “I don’t know if he so much blamed me as wanted to find out if I were to blame. I don’t know if he came to any conclusions.”

“Was he angry?—When did he become angry?” Zordyi asked.

“He couldn’t understand her death,” Ray said rather miserably. He felt tired, the tiredness of futility.

“I’ve spoken to Coleman and a few other people about your wife. Everyone thinks she was a—an unworldly kind of girl. Unrealistic. I’m sure you felt awful about the suicide. That you suffered.”

Did that matter? Ray could feel Zordyi prodding round in a circle, trying to find the soft spot in the centre that he would strike with a single question. “I suppose I felt stupid for not foreseeing the suicide.”

“Did Coleman ever make any threats to you?” Zordyi asked briskly.

“No.”

“No statements like, ‘I’ll get back at you?’”

“No.”

Zordyi shifted his athletic bulk in the chair. “You came to Venice especially to see your father-in-law, didn’t you?”

Ray was now on guard against Zordyi. Zordyi’s job, for his parents, was finished. Why all the questions? “I had some business here in Venice also in connection with an art gallery. But I wanted to see him again, yes.”

“Why exactly?”

“Because he didn’t seem satisfied with my explanations about his daughter’s suicide—such as they were.”

“He was angry with you. Or he wouldn’t have attacked you in a street with a rock.” Zordyi smiled suddenly, a flash of healthy teeth.

“He had angry moments. He adored his daughter.”

“Not the night of the Lido? That went smoothly?”

“That went all right,” Ray said, with a calmness he felt was unnatural to him.

“Mr Garrett, where’d you get the bullet holes in your jacket? The jacket in the Pensione Seguso?”

Ray noticed that the Italian captain showed no surprise at the question. “If you don’t mind—I don’t see that they have anything to do with what we’re talking about. I’d—”

“That’s for you to tell me, I admit,” Zordyi interrupted, smiling again. “Maybe you can tell me where you got them. Here? In Venice?”

“No. They—that happened weeks ago.”

“Someone shot at you,” Zordyi said. “Was it possibly Coleman?”

“No, it was not.”

“They have nothing to do with Coleman?” Zordyi said.

“No.”

“Well—have you any enemies, Mr Garrett?” Zordyi asked with a slight smile, as if Ray’s reticence amused him. “I’m interested in protecting you, not accusing you—or suspecting you.”

“No enemies,” Ray murmured, shaking his head.

Silence for a few seconds.

Capitano Dell’ Isola asked, “Mr Garrett, what do you think could have happened to Signor Col-e-man?”

Ray hesitated. “I don’t know. I suppose—he could have suffered loss of memory—for a short time…Or he could have been robbed by someone who pushed his body—killed him, I mean, and pushed his body into the canal.” Ray shied away from saying the obvious, the most likely, that Coleman might want to hide in order to put a suspicion of murder on him. If they couldn’t think of that, why should he tell them? For an instant, Ray felt emotionally finished with Coleman. But he realized the feeling might be deceptive, or temporary, like others he had had before about Coleman.

“You hit him with the stone, you said?” Dell’ Isola went on.

“I threw it at him. I think it hit him on the neck or the ear.”

The clerk was still writing.

“He was on the ground then. Unconscious?”

“I don’t know. He had just fallen.” Ray had to force the words out.

Zordyi stood up. “If I may, Signor Capitano, I would like to send a cable. Or I can telephone collect.”

“Please, yes, there is a telephone in the next room,” said Dell’ Isola.

Ray stood up, too, tired of the straight chair.

“Like to speak to your parents, Mr Garrett? It’ll be about four in the morning there,” Zordyi said with a smile.

“Not just now, thank you,” Ray said. “Please tell them I’m well.”

“That head wound—”

“It’s only a cut.”

When Zordyi went out, Dell’ Isola said. “For our report, Signor Garrett, we must know the places at which you have been staying. I promise you that people concerned will not be troubled.”

Ray reluctantly gave him the name of Signora Calliuoli, whose house number he did not know, but he said it was in the Largo San Sebastiano. Dell’ Isola wanted to know the dates at which he had been there, and Ray gave them, 12-17 November.

“And at present where are you?”

“I assure you I shall keep in contact, Signor Capitano—”

“But it is necessary,” the Capitano said emphatically, his patience beginning to collapse under the weight of officialism, and under that weight Ray knew there was no hope. If he refused to tell, they would follow him home.

“He is Signor Ciardi,” Ray said. “Calle Montesino, Giudecca. Again I’m not sure of the number.”

“Thank you,” said Dell’ Isola, watching the clerk write it down. “Signor Garrett, you know the Signora Perry, an American lady?”

Ray dredged her up from memory. The Lido. The hostess the night of the eleventh. “I met her once.”

“I spoke with her. So did the American.” He gestured towards the room where Zordyi had gone. “Yesterday afternoon. Signora Perry—well, we at last learned from her that Signor Col-e-man held a resentment against you.”

The word was heavy and solid in Italian—
risentimento
.

“It was Signor Zordyi who discovered that, I confess. She did not tell us. You know, there was a suspicion in all our minds that Signor Col-e-man had killed you.”

“Yes, I know.”

“You know?—You perhaps wanted us to think that?”

Ray frowned, “No. I wanted to be myself. To forget the past weeks by getting away from my possessions—my passport.”

Dell’ Isola seemed puzzled, or dubious. “I can imagine, if Signor Col-e-man had a resentment against you, you did not like him either? You did not like him?”

“I neither like nor dislike him,” Ray said.

Zordyi came into the room then. “Excuse me. The telephone takes so long, I sent a cable. I’ll try a call later,” he said to Ray.

“We were discussing,” Capitano Dell’ Isola said, “what Signora Perry said yesterday about the resentment of Signor Col-e-man against Signor Garrett.”

“Oh. Yes.” Zordyi glanced at Ray. “It wasn’t exactly the first thing she came out with. And Mme Schneider, she also had to admit Coleman wasn’t fond of you. She’ll be glad to hear you’re all right, Mr Garrett.” He turned to Dell’ Isola and said, “Well, your next work is to find Signor Coleman.”

Dell’ Isola nodded. He asked Ray, “Has Signor Ciardi a telephone?”

“No, he has not.”

“I would like when you return to his house for you to telephone me at once and tell me the number of the house. Of course it would be on our records here,” with a gesture at his filing cabinets, “but buried under mountains of…” He trailed off vaguely.

“I can telephone you within the hour,” said Ray.

“Mr Garrett, I have a paper I’d like you to sign,” said Zordyi, pulling some papers from an overcoat pocket. “This is sort of an affidavit that you are really you.”

It was a paper from Zordyi’s company relating to missing persons, and Ray’s signature was reproduced at the bottom of the page in a box marked sample. Ray was to sign in a box underneath this, and he did. Zordyi dated the paper and signed it also.

“Are you leaving Venice at once, Signor Zordyi?” asked the Capitano.

“No, not today, anyway,” said Zordyi. “If I learn anything about Coleman, I shall tell you immediately.”

They parted, Zordyi going out with Ray. On the street, Zordyi said, “Why don’t we have lunch together, Mr Garrett? Have you time?”

Ray did not want to lunch with Zordyi, yet he realized it was rather rude to refuse. “I did promise my host, Signor Ciardi, to lunch with him today. Sorry.”

“I’m sorry, too.” Zordyi stood two or three inches taller than Ray. “Listen, you haven’t any idea where Coleman might be? Honestly?”

“I really haven’t,” Ray said.

Zordyi glanced behind him at the police station thirty yards away. “You don’t think you might have finished him off in that fight?” he asked in a low voice. “I’m asking for your own good. I’m trying to protect you. You can talk to me freely.”