Fallen Sparrow (6 page)

She did eventually; she looked surprised and quite pretty with hastily smoothed hair and blurred lipstick, her dress not completely fastened. She said, “Why, Mr. Kit—I was asleep—I heard the bell and—”

He told her gruffly, “Forgot my key. Go on back. I’ll take care of my coat.” He waited until she closed the kitchen door. He listened until her maid-quiet footsteps stopped crossing the kitchen. He heard the door to the servants’ wing close before he put his overcoat on the black padded hanger, transferring that folder into his coat pocket in the dark of the closet. He returned to the heavy front door, put on the chain. For a moment he stood there listening again, waiting. He shook away the reason for the pause. The thud and slur of steps had haunted him across the width of ocean, had even limped after him into the desert wastes. But he was cured now. He wouldn’t ever hear them again.

He walked down to his own rooms, closed his door, and as an afterthought turned the key. The liquor fray hadn’t been removed. He poured a generous brandy, drank it, and then he took out the folder again and looked at it.

He had given it to Louie on his sixteenth birthday. It wasn’t a very good one; Kit didn’t have the money for a good one then. His mother had tied up Chris’ portion for him. He would not go to Geoffrey for extras; he was too beholden to Geoffrey as it was. And he didn’t want Geoffrey to be giving a present to Louie; he wanted it to come from himself. Louie would like it better that way. He’d been Louie’s hero from the day he’d waded into a bunch of bullies that were knocking the stuffing out of the half-pint Italian kid. Louie never had had any sense about how much he could handle. It had been that way all through their kid days, Louie tackling too much, never yelling uncle, but Kit somehow turning up in time to pull him through.

Only this one time, the time when his presence had been essential, Kit hadn’t turned up. He’d failed Louie; more bitterly, his failure had materialized after Louie had successfully overcome far bigger odds for Kit than Kit had ever been asked to meet for his friend. Louie hadn’t asked help but Kit should have known. He’d known for so many years, his extrasensory perceptions shouldn’t have failed him when they did.

His fingers bit the leather. Who had put it into his pocket? Someone who had taken it from Louie’s pocket. His coat had hung in the closet here, then at Tavitons’. He couldn’t quite see up-nosed Johns slipping a worn-out folder into his overcoat. But there had been others at Barby’s, too many others who could have managed it. The Waldorf. His coat in the checkroom. In the restaurant, hung on the hall tree. Whoever had put it in his pocket wanted him to find it there. Content pressing close to him on the snowy walk. Ab smashed against him in the Hamilton town car. Why not give it to him outright? Soft-footed, big-bellied Carlo, handing him his coat with wistful eyes and invitation. He drank again and his eyes narrowed. A girl brushing against him in a Pullman corridor where there was plenty of room to pass. A girl with smoky hair and swell legs who might be a girl who’d screamed on a C sharp minor ninth. Tomorrow he’d hear Toni Donne’s voice. Even if he had to buy a woman’s hat, he’d hear her voice.

Tonight he’d lock this in his bag. Whoever had slipped it to him hadn’t wanted witnesses to the transaction. There must be something important to him about it. Not for the first time, but no less poignantly for its recall, he realized that he himself might have sent Louie hurtling to death. His thumb and forefinger kneaded the revolver butt. That premise made false refugees fit, fit too well. He’d known Louie would take on any combination of gangs for his sake. He’d known Louie had never a realization of his limitations. Yet deliberately he’d invited the little guy into something that had been too much for him, the big guy. Invited him in, and walked out on him. If they killed Louie, they’d pay for it. Even if they had no hand in Louie’s death, they’d weakened Kit so that he wasn’t on deck to help out. They’d pay for that, even as the murderer would pay for his crime. He was going to avenge Louie’s death. His lungs hurt when he breathed again.

His bag wasn’t here. Not in the room or the closet or the bath. The dumb ingenue hadn’t brought it in yet. He opened the door, his left hand deep on the leather in his trouser pocket. The bag wasn’t in the foyer. His right hand was careless on the hidden gun while he searched the coat closet. It wasn’t there. He stood motionless. It didn’t matter. In his bureau was everything he needed for the night. But where was it? What had Elise done with it?

He turned on one lamp in the living-room. Fourteen floors above the street; no one could look through Venetian blinds anyway. Geoffrey’s built-in bookshelves with their arched nicety of detail. On this wall, at this angle, no one could watch through the kitchen door. He listened. There was no sound. He reached high. The top shelf—folios, firsts, rarities—no dumb maid allowed to handle; Geoffrey himself dusted here but not often. And not while in Florida. His eye caught the lettering John Donne. He opened the folder, laid it between poems, replaced the book, all in one swift gesture. He wouldn’t forget where he’d stashed it. He made noise now, put a green gum drop in his mouth, took a recent book from the table without looking at it, turned out the lamp. He listened. No sound. He’d stopped trying to hear those lurching steps for months now; he mustn’t start again. He lighted the corridor before walking to the front door to darken the hallway. He kept his hand on the gun while he moved through the prickly half-dark, back to his own rooms. As soon as he’d locked the door, he poured another stiff brandy and swallowed it.

Why would anyone here palm his grip? What would they think to find in it? They wouldn’t find what they expected. They wouldn’t expect dirty laundry, a couple of detective mags, razor and stuff.

He began to go over Content’s story while he undressed. He didn’t know if one word of it was true. She’d always dramatized, always been an unmitigated liar, an excitement eater. Even when she was a kid she’d made trouble for trouble’s sake. There could be reason to make it now. She’d always been jealous of Barby. If she could get Otto into trouble, she could kill off a lot of birds. Why should she drag Toni Donne into it? Simple, Mr. Watson. Toni and José. Living together in the Prince’s Parisian palace. Content wouldn’t care about sharing her refugee.

He’d been a fool to lap up Content’s yarn as he had. She was down there at Number 50 now laughing in the faces of the fools who believed in her songs, snickering at the fool who’d believed her wild-eyed dramatics. That was Content.

He’d see her soon, yes. He’d see her tomorrow and knock out of her what was true and what was false in what she’d told him. Two things were true. Someone had put Louie’s folder in his overcoat. Someone in this apartment had done something with his grip. He put the book on his bed table and turned out the light. He’d see Toni Donne too. He’d get her to say, “I beg your pardon.”

“W
HERE’S MY BAG
?”

Elise didn’t look pretty this morning; she looked as if she’d had a hard night, and Geoffrey’s idea of mob cap and hairdress for servants might account for his trouble with housemaids.

The dishes on the tray rattled as she set it on his bed table. “In the hall closet, Mr. Kit.” It hadn’t been.

“Where was it last night?”

“Last night?” Her face expressed nothing but dumbness. “I put it there after you went out, sir. I’ll get it.”

He waited until she opened the blinds and departed before examining it. There was nothing missing, nothing anyone would want. Maybe things were thrown in the way he’d thrown them. Who in this house would want to examine his luggage? And why? He didn’t want his trunk examined until he’d gone through it. He didn’t want letters read. Nothing dangerous in them, not in America. It couldn’t be that they were after him now. He’d escaped more than a year ago. And what could they do here? They’d had better than two years in which to kill him. They could never do again to him what they had. He wiped the stickiness from his palms on his pyjama legs. And he returned to the bed, slipped the automatic from under his pillow. It fitted in his dry palm. That was one thing he’d learned during those hellion months of sickness, occupational therapy, how to build a gun, one you could hide in your hand but that was as deadly as a sub-machine gun. He’d learned something better during the months of convalescence, how to shoot to kill. He could plug the center of a cross on a tin can at forty yards, left hand or right. A man would be an easier target. No one would ever push him around again.

He swallowed breakfast while he dressed. It was ten o’clock. He called the bank, arranged with the trustees to borrow ahead on his allowance. He’d need money for running expenses. The apartment sounded deserted as he went into the foyer. The ubiquitous Elise materialized when he took his coat from the closet. He said, “I won’t be in to lunch.”

He’d pay a call on Toni Donne. But he wouldn’t let her know what it was all about yet. He could act the playboy fool as well as the next; he’d observed plenty of them in his years as Geoffrey Wilhite’s stepson. If she’d accept that valuation, he’d be a step further. He didn’t want her or any of her friends thinking he was tending to business. He caught a cab, paid off at 57th. Det’s was somewhere between Fifth and Sixth. He found it. No hats in the austerely elegant windows, only a bunch of purple silk flowers and some gray veily stuff. He went inside. He was alone in the mauve and gray satin mirrored box. No hats here either. Det knew how to sell them. He took off his overcoat and flung it over one gilt and gray satin chair, sat down gingerly on another. He began to whistle.

She came from behind the mauve curtain, descended the three gray velvet steps as if she were doing a number. He’d been correct. Her legs were all right.

She said, “Yes?” Her voice was husky but hard to tell with one word. She looked like a solemn school girl in the matching gray dress, the kind of girl at whom Content would have thrown ink balls at Miss Austin’s.

“Is my mother’s hat ready? Mrs. Geoffrey Wilhite.” He lighted a cigarette.

Her black brows were lifted. “Mrs. Wilhite has no hat on order, Mr. Wilhite.”

He let his smile spread slowly. “McKittrick’s the name. Kit McKittrick. Didn’t I see you at the Waldorf last night?” He knew the rules, the way to go about dating up any babe in a shop.

She folded her hands quietly together, said, “Yes.” That was all of that. Her hauteur was professional. “You must have made a mistake in the shop, Mr. McKittrick.” She spoke the name as if it were not familiar to her. She half turned to go.

He made his voice gayly intimate, “What time do you go to lunch?”

“I don’t go out to lunch.”

He laughed noisily. “You can’t tell me Det starves you.”

She said, “I eat in the work room.” She was beginning not to like him. He had never wasted time on cold shoulders, too many were warm. But he ignored her attitude, the way a Benedict or Justin would have. “You wouldn’t object to varying the routine for once, would you? It’s only a step to the Plaza. Much better food than a work room. Better company too.”

She repeated, “I do not go out to lunch. Good morning.” She had one foot on the stairs and she wasn’t hesitating.

He stated slowly, insolently, “I want to see some hats.”

Fury was in her eyes but she spoke with well-trained modulation. “Yes, sir. What sort of hats?”

“I want to see all sorts of hats. Silly hats. Frump hats. Just hats. Lots of hats.”

Her voice was cold as she echoed, “We do not have ‘lots of hats.’ Madame Detreaux creates them to suit the taste of the individual customer rather than for stock.”

“Madame Detreaux,” he mimicked, “makes up plenty for customers with dough and without individuality, the kind that don’t want to hang around waiting to suit their taste. Trot them out, sister.”

Her eyes flickered dark flame on him and he grinned. She drew a curtain, slid glass patchwork doors, selected a wad of black with sick-looking green feathers shooting from it.

He studied it. “Mm,” he said. “Too tailored. Let’s have another.”

She brought out some sort of red brim with blue and white mirrors pasted on it. He repeated, “Mmm. Let’s see it on.”

“What is that?” She’d been startled out of her icy armor.

He gestured ashes to the rug, raised his eyebrows. “Do you mind modeling that one, Miss?” He used Barby’s best inflection.

She controlled herself but the effort was obvious. She actually made the hat seem like something. He looked at her legs. “Not bad. Let’s see some more, sister.”

They lay on every chair, every table, flowers and feathers and fluff, gewgawed geometries. Her cheeks were scarlet, her hair disturbed.

“Not bad,” he repeated for the somethinged time to her legs.

She snatched off the coil of red and purple pansies. Her lips trembled and the hands holding the Detreaux-inspired garden shook. “Just what do you want?” Her voice was tight as wire.

“I want to eat lunch.”

She said with faint hope, “Good afternoon, Mr. McKittrick.”

“With you.”

Her long fingers spread on her dress. She repeated stubbornly, “I do not go out for lunch.”

He sighed, lit another cigarette. “Let’s see some more hats, sister.”

She stood there, hating him in every fibre. Her voice trembled, “Don’t call me sister again.”

“You haven’t told me your name.”

Her mouth opened, closed. They had both heard the steps behind the curtain. Det must have smelled a customer; she couldn’t have heard voices. She was as dumpy as ever and as smart in her gray knit and sleek silver head. She peered from behind her glasses and came down the steps her arms wide.

“It’s my brave broth of a boy come back to see his old Annie.” She clasped him, rocked him, and he watched Toni’s eyes go wide before she turned and vanished up those steps. “And looking yourself again, so handsome and fine.” She released him with broad suspicion, “And what are you doing in a salon de chapeaux, my fine young spalpeen?” Her eyes didn’t, they couldn’t, miss the display of hats.

“And what would I be doing but waiting to see my Annie O’Rooney, the Duchess of Detreaux?”