The Two Faces of January Page 6

  “Oh. Well, we’ll see about that, but—you’ll come with us tomorrow morning?”

  Rydal nodded, wordless, somehow afraid to utter another syllable of assent. “We should be getting back to Niko.”

  5

  When Chester returned to the Hotel Dardanelles a little after eleven, he found Colette in bed with tears in her eyes. The night-lamp by the bed was on. She lay on her side facing the door, her head cushioned on her bent left arm.

  “Honey, what’s the matter?” Chester asked, kneeling on the floor beside her.

  “Oh, I don’t know,” she said in the high, childlike voice she always had when she cried. “It’s just—all of a sudden it all crashes down on me. On us.”

  “What do you mean, honey?”

  She wiped her right eye quickly. “That man is dead, isn’t he?”

  “Yes, I think so. I’m sorry. But if it had to be . . . an accident like that, and it certainly was an accident, it’s lucky for us, because if he’d waked up in a few minutes, we’d never have got away. This way—”

  “I can’t understand how you’re so cool about it,” she interrupted.

  “Well, I’ve got to be. I’m not cool about it, but I’ve got to keep cool, if I—if we get out of this, honey. You don’t want me to lose my nerve, do you?”

  “No-o,” Colette wailed, like an obedient child.

  “Well, then. I’m doing what I have to do. We’ll get the new passports Thursday noon in Crete. I’m meeting the fellow at the airport as soon as he steps off the plane. And look. I brought you something.” He stood up and took the pearl bracelet out of his suit-jacket pocket. He held it under the light for Colette to see.

  She looked at it a few seconds, then, without lifting her head, extended her right hand to touch it. Her fingers turned it slightly on his palm, then she said, “It’s very pretty,” and drew her hand back under the bedclothes.

  “Ho-ney . . .” Chester was at a loss for a moment. “Real pearls and I got them for a song. Five hundred bucks American. Come on. One little smile for me tonight?” He took her soft warm face between his thumb and fingertips.

  Usually she smiled, usually she expected a kiss. Now her eyes were troubled and almost frowning. “This’ll go on your record, won’t it?”

  “What?”

  “That you killed that Greek man.”

  Chester released her, and sat on the bed, puzzled. “It’ll go on the record of Chester MacFarland, I suppose. MacFarland’s not connected with me yet.” He looked at her as if he’d just made the most logical statement in the world. “MacFarland . . . well . . . We’ll have a new name Thursday, you and I.” He waited for her to say something, and when she said nothing, he got up and started to take off his overcoat.

  “Chester, I’m worried,” she said, like a child who wants its daddy to sit down by it again.

  “I know you are, dear, but you’ll feel better tomorrow. I promise you. Rydal’s getting tickets for us, I gave him the money, and all we have to do is to be at the terminal at ten o’clock.”

  She was silent, and Chester saw that her eyes were still open, staring into space ahead of her. Chester put on his pajamas—he’d had a bath in tepid water in the tiny tub before dinner—and touched up his face with his battery rotary razor. He had a heavy beard, and it was a double bed tonight. As he knocked the water out of his toothbrush, he said in a cheerful tone, “By the way, that fellow’s coming with us tomorrow. What do you think of that? I think he’ll be rather helpful.”

  “To Crete?” Colette asked, lifting her head for the first time.

  “Yes. I offered him the trip, if he wanted to go. He wouldn’t take a cent for what he’s done, or so he told me. He may be getting something from the thousand I’m paying his friend Niko. Anyway, he’s coming; and it has the added advantage,” Chester said in a lower voice, walking closer to Colette, but concentrating on drying his hands on a face towel, “that if we’re questioned at all by the police, Rydal can say he was with us all this afternoon and that we never saw that Greek agent, but—” Chester broke off, having realized that the alibi would be unnecessary after Thursday, when they were no longer the MacFarlands and had different passports.

  “Didn’t want any money from you. Isn’t that nice of him? See, your suspicions weren’t right at all,” Colette said, smiling. She was sitting up in bed hugging her knees now.

  “No. Except—” Chester was beginning to think he was a fool, inviting a potential blackmailer—he was still a potential one—for no really good reason to stick with them. After Thursday, Chester could conceive of no possible service Rydal Keener could render. And why hadn’t Rydal pointed that out? He was a very intelligent young man, Chester was sure. He looked at his wife’s brightened face. All sign of tears was gone now. Chester moved towards his Scotch bottle on the bureau top. “Like a nightcap with me?”

  “No, thanks. What I’d really like is a big glass of cold milk.”

  “Want me to try?” Chester put the bottle down and started for the telephone.

  “Um-m, no,” Colette said, shaking her head. She was staring in front of her again, and thinking of something else. “I hope he’s getting something out of that thousand.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I think he deserves it. He also needs it. Did you notice his shoes?”

  “Yes, I noticed them.” Chester sipped his drink and frowned. “I just realized that we don’t really need him after Thursday. Not unless something happens that we can’t get the passports and we have to say our own were stolen or something like that. He offered to say he’d been with us all afternoon, you know.”

  Colette gave a faint laugh, no more than her breath against her upper lip, and Chester felt she had realized this minutes ago. Chester often felt that Colette’s brain was better than his, better in the sense of being more direct and therefore quicker.

  “Well, he speaks Greek, so that’s bound to be a help,” she said. “Besides, he’s a very nice fellow, you can see that.”

  “Can you? I hope so. Shall we turn the light out now?”

  “Yes. He told me he was from Massachusetts.”

  “Oh, and so what? I know a lot of crumbs from Massachusetts.”

  “Well, he certainly doesn’t look like a crumb!” She snuggled into the curve of his arm, her head against the swell of his chest.

  “You were talking about his shoes.”

  “Oh, the hell with his clothes,” Colette said. “You can see he’s got nice manners. He may come from a poor family, but it’s a good family.”

  Chester smiled indulgently in the darkness. It was one of the things he’d never argue with Colette about. She was essentially a Southerner, he supposed. A pipe began to clank mysteriously in the bathroom. Then an angry voice shouted something that sounded as if it came through several walls, and was answered by a woman’s shriller voice.

  “Kee-rist! I hope that doesn’t keep on all night,” said Colette.

  “Hope not.” She was in a better mood, and the fact the young man was coming with them had picked her up, Chester realized. He had thought he might have to do some persuading to make her agree to his coming. It was funny. Then he stiffened a little, remembering the way they had been looking at each other when he walked in from the bathroom with his suitcase tonight. So. Maybe. Maybe that was why the young man hadn’t pointed out that his services as an alibi-provider wouldn’t be needed for very long. Chester squirmed a little. The young man now had him by the short hair, too, if he wanted to stay on. Maybe he was after bigger money than a few hundred dollars or a thousand.

  “S’ matter, darling? Am I heavy on you?”

  “You’re never heavy on me,” Chester said. He was uneasy. He was thinking, as he had been thinking off and on all evening, that the Hotel King’s Palace employees might find the body as early as 5 a.m., the police mig
ht have the trains and buses checked by 7 a.m., and start on the Athens hotels. They could be picked up at 8 a.m., before they were even out of the Hotel Dardanelles. Or was he feeling over-pessimistic because it had been such a long, horrible day? He had ordered a beefsteak for dinner and hardly been able to touch it. And Colette said he was acting cool about it! He lay awake a long time after Colette had fallen asleep, until his arm grew cramped, and he gently pulled it through the little gap her neck made at the bottom of the pillow, and turned over.

  Chester awoke first at 7:30 and ordered breakfast. “American coffee and toast and marmalade. Buttered toast . . . Oh, all right, butter on the side, yes. . . . No, the milk aside from the coffee. Not in the coffee. Understand? . . . No, I never said anything about French coffee. American coffee. . . . All right, if the milk comes in it, it comes in it. Just make it quick, will you? And have our bill ready, if you will.” He hung up. “Whew!”

  Colette was awake. “Trouble, honey?” She smiled and sat up, ran her fingers through her hair and stretched her arms up, her fingers splayed and arched backward, like her spine. She took a quick bath, shrieking at the coolness of the water, while Chester shaved at the basin. “Draw one for you, dear?” she asked as she washed the tub out with her sponge.

  “Thanks. Not taking time this morning.”

  He did not sit down for his grey-colored coffee, and did not eat any of the round rusklike stuff that passed for toast, though Colette got through several of them, dunking them quickly to soften them, then spreading them liberally with orange marmalade.

  “Smell this butter, Ches,” she said through a laugh, holding up the butter plate to him. “Smells just like a wet sheep.”

  Chester sniffed, agreed with her, then went on about his business, which at that moment was sneaking a fortifying drink in the bathroom. Colette didn’t like him to drink in the early morning.

  They were at the Olympia Airlines by a quarter to 9. Rydal had told him he would purchase the tickets in the name of Colbert. Chester checked their luggage, and was not required to give a name, though he was asked which flight he was on. Chester said the Iraklion flight at 11:15 (the time had been set back a half hour, he had seen on a black board). Then Chester went out into the street with Colette. He wanted to take a little walk, to get out of the airline office, which was such a likely spot for the police to look for Chester MacFarland, he thought, though the airport itself was an even more likely spot.

  The time dragged. Chester checked an impulse to go by the American Express, as he had been doing twice daily, to see if he had any mail. He couldn’t claim Chester MacFarland’s letters now. And he couldn’t sign Chester MacFarland to any of the five or six thousand dollars’ worth of traveler’s checks in his suitcase. He wondered if Rydal Keener could come up with an idea as to how to get rid of them without taking a total loss?

  “Darling, look at those shoes!” Colette said, dragging him by the arm towards a shop window.

  Chester stared into a window full of reddish-brown shoes, all very pointed and arranged in concentric semicircles, so that they all seemed to be pointing at him. “Yes. Sure there’s time,” he said automatically to her question, and then he saw her dark-clad figure in the mink stole take a jolt, bend sideways, as the door resisted her.

  She came back opening her arms, her pocket-book swinging out. “Closed, the fools! They could’ve made a sale. Nine-thirty!” She was lively as a little bird.

  Chester was secretly glad the store had been closed. He steered her back towards the danger spot, the Olympia Airlines office.

  “There he is,” said Colette, pointing with a hand sheathed in a light-grey suede glove. Then she waved.

  Rydal saw her, and gave them a wave back. He was walking towards them on the pavement, carrying a brown suitcase. He held up a finger, apparently wanting them to wait where they were, then disappeared into the Olympia office. People were getting out of taxis in front of the place now, and porters were bustling about with luggage.

  “He’s going to get our tickets,” Chester said.

  “Oh. Well, we’ve got to go in some time.” She tugged at his arm, then stopped, waiting for him to move. “Shouldn’t you give him some money for the tickets?”

  “Gave him some last night for ours. In cash,” Chester said. “He’s buying his own.” Chester walked towards the airline office doors, his feet almost dragging.

  They found Rydal among a crowd of twenty or thirty people who were standing about beside their luggage in the office. Rydal greeted them with a lift of his head, and Chester and Colette made their way towards him, stepping around suitcases and laden porters.

  “Good morning,” Rydal said, and with a nod at Colette, “Mrs. Colbert.”

  “Good morning,” Colette said.

  Rydal glanced around at the people, then said to Chester, “They found him this morning around seven.”

  “Yes?” asked Chester, his scalp tingling as if he had not been prepared at all. “How’d you hear?”

  “There’s a radio in my hotel lobby. I waited for the nine o’clock news, and there it was.” He looked at Colette.

  His coolness was almost like contempt, Chester felt. No skin off his nose what had happened, of course, no skin at all. Yes, definitely, Rydal Keener had a cocky, top-dog manner. But now was no time to worry about it. After tomorrow noon, if the fellow asked five thousand dollars to disappear, fine, pay it, and say good-bye.

  “Here’s your ticket,” Rydal said, handing it to him.

  “Where’s hers?” asked Chester.

  Rydal glanced around the babbling crowd, and said in a low voice, “I thought it was better to buy your wife’s and mine under Colbert, and yours under another name, Robinson. She and I ought to sit together on the plane, and you should sit alone. Don’t worry about the names. You probably won’t be spoken to. No passports involved, you know.”

  Chester was vaguely piqued, and not able to say anything for a moment.

  “If they’re looking for you now,” Rydal went on, “on planes, for instance, they’ll be looking for a man with his wife. I thought it might be a slight advantage this way, that’s all.”

  Chester nodded. It made sense, and the flight was only a two-hour affair. “Okay. That’s fine,” said Chester.

  “Looks like the bus is loading now. Did you check your luggage over there?”

  Chester went off and claimed his and Colette’s luggage.

  Then they boarded the bus, and, as it happened, all had to sit separately. The long bus tooled smoothly past the National Gardens and made a curve around the tumbled and standing columns of the Temple of Olympian Zeus, where Chester had taken snapshots of Colette, and an Italian stranger had taken snapshots of both of them with Chester’s camera only yesterday morning. The film was still in Chester’s Rolleiflex, and he supposed he would get it developed in Iraklion, leaving them in a name he did not yet know. The back of the seat in front of him pressed against his knees. He looked down at something rolling under his shoe, and found a pale, flesh-colored, cheap-looking fountain pen. A ball-point. Made in Germany, it said on the barrel. Trying it on the back of his hand, he saw that it wrote, in blue ink. Maybe it was a little sign of good luck.

  At the airport they had time for an espresso at the small bar which also served liquor. Chester ordered a brandy with his coffee. He was nervous. The loud speaker kept bawling things out in Greek, French and English, plane departures and arrivals and weather conditions and calls for people, and he was half expecting an announcement of the discovery of the body in the Hotel King’s Palace. Rydal left his coffee to go and buy a newspaper. It was all very confused and noisy. Only Colette looked calm, sitting with her legs neatly crossed on the high stool at the bar counter, looking about at the people seated in the deep leather chairs among tall potted plants, behind newspapers, behind thin screens of cigarette smoke. Rydal came back, scan
ning a Greek paper as he walked, bumping into one or two people.

  He shook his head at Chester and smiled slightly, offered Colette a cigarette, which she declined, then finished his coffee.

  They boarded the plane, Rydal and Colette going ahead, Chester following, with four or five people between them. Immediately upon leaving Athens they were over water, and then over a woolly, level field of clouds, the blue sky lost. Chester thumbed through his Guide Bleu, trying to concentrate on the pages on Crete. The maps of Knossos looked undecipherable and uninteresting today. Behind him, he heard over the roar of the plane’s engine a man and women laughing and talking in Greek. Farther behind him and across the aisle, Rydal sat with Colette. He wondered what they were talking about. Pleasantries, probably. Colette had her moods. He had never seen her so disturbed as last night, yet it had passed in a matter of minutes. Murder. Well, that was certainly a bad thing, and it was really a wonder she hadn’t been more upset than she was. It was a second-degree murder, Chester reminded himself, even merely manslaughter. Certainly. Unpremeditated and an accident. No, they couldn’t give him a life sentence for that! What disturbed him was that they were on his trail at all, and that the death of the Greek agent hadn’t solved anything, had only made the situation worse, had gained them only a few hours’ time, nothing more.

  Chester took his flask, which he had providently filled, from the duffel bag between his feet, pocketed it, and went to the men’s room at the back of the plane. Colette sat with her head back against the white-aproned pad on the back of her seat, her eyes closed. Rydal stared out the window.

  The passengers had barely finished a snack of cold cuts, when they landed. The Iraklion airport presented a simple, barren picture: a flat field along the water, a building like a long, low box, a few empty American Air Force buses and a handful of blue-uniformed American Air Force men standing about. All the passengers were soon on a rather shabby bus heading, presumably, for the city. There were one or two stops at what Chester took to be villages or farm communities, and then, at a spot that looked no bigger or more important, all the passengers started to get off. They stepped out into a dusty, creamy-pink street which sloped down towards the white-capped sea, three or four streets away.