Lillian and Dash (36 page)

Very late one night or early on a dark morning she called Katonah and he did pick up. “Thank God,” she said.

“You’re welcome, I’m sure.”

“How long have you been there?’

“Five weeks, six. Can’t be sure. I’m waiting for the electricity.”

“No electricity. It’s cold. Are you eating?”

“Apples.”

“Apples?”

“Apples mostly. And sourdough rolls.”

“Do you have a pencil and some paper?”

“Paper. No pencil.”

“For Christ’s sake, find one.” She waited.

“Okay.”

“Write this down. It’s Cedric’s number. Call him and have him come over.”

“Okay.”

“Promise?”

“Cross my heart.”

“Promise.”

“Absolutely.”

“I miss you.” Hammett said nothing.

When she hung up, Lillian realized that of course he couldn’t be trusted. She called Childs herself and asked him to please go over and “make things right for Hammett.” Hammett, of course, never did call Childs.

There was a great deal to be “made right for Hammett.” Childs continued his visits so that things became reasonably right—heat, a supply of food. Thereafter whenever Lillian called and Hammett answered, the conversation was
rational at the very least. Childs confirmed that Hammett had begun taking better care of himself. He was keeping himself cleaner. He did a bit of cooking now. Kept the cottage in a semblance of order. Childs paid the electric bills.

Childs had wood delivered to Hammett for winter. He left money at the market and the gas station that Hammett could draw against but which was never used fully. The cottage was full of books, and Childs had no idea how they got there or who paid for them. He did see postal wrapping paper around the place and assumed someone else was subsidizing Hammett’s intellectual life.

Lillian asked if Childs thought Hammett was writing.

“Hard to tell. There’s a different piece of paper in the machine each week. I don’t stay very long. I’m sure I make him uncomfortable.”

“It’s not you, it’s me he’s upset with. How about the drinking?”

“It might be pretty bad sometimes. Lots of bottles to get rid of. Don’t know how he gets it either. But I have a feeling he’s been a lot worse.”

“Is he a danger?’

“To himself, you mean?”

“Yes, to himself.”

“No, I don’t think so. You talk to him too. What do you think?”

“He doesn’t always answer when I call. When he does, he’s more and more like his old self.”

“So you’ve answered your own question.”

“But you
see
him. Is he old-looking? Is he broken down?”

“Old maybe, but not broken.”

The sun came out and Lillian decided to walk to Harrods to buy a scarf. The air was chill but the sun on her face felt marvelous.

The store was crowded but not jam-packed. Still, it bothered her that she was jostled near the handbag counter. Crowded in London was different from crowded in New York; space normally remained much more respected here. Lillian glared after the woman who had bumped her sideways and disappeared.

Lillian stopped to look at leather bags. The bags were wonderful, from Florence and staggeringly expensive, but wonderful. A large brown shoulder bag, soft and light, suited her perfectly. She saw herself traveling with it comfortably; it would, in fact, encourage her to travel. She switched shoulders and took a few steps with it. It felt just right and it lifted her spirits. Lillian asked the saleswoman the price. Forty-five pounds, around two hundred dollars. An extravagance she thought she could afford.

The saleswoman wondered if she’d like to see some other Italian leather goods. Gloves, wallets, sewing boxes?

Perhaps a wallet for Hammett. She hadn’t bought him anything for a very long while … since … forever.

In the showcase alongside the wallets were leather-bound notebooks. This was her immediate inclination, a notebook for a writer, until she realized that Hammett would see it
not as a gift but as an obligation. So a wallet it was. Not the long leather fold that slipped into a jacket pocket—Hammett wasn’t wearing many suit jackets these days—but a thin, stylishly black billfold for a pants pocket. Nineteen pounds.

Lillian’s check was accepted by the saleswoman, who needed a manager to sign the slip and initial the check. He asked for identification; she produced her passport. Everything was fine.

Rather than have the handbag wrapped, Lillian said she wished to carry it home on her shoulder. Might she transfer the contents of her old bag and have that one wrapped instead? Of course, madam. And the wallet, she’d like that gift wrapped as well. Why certainly. And here is your receipt. Thank you for your patronage.

Lillian felt fine, reinvigorated in fact, as she stepped out onto the Brompton Road. The chill in the air made her decide to take a cab home. A large red-faced man in a black coat and a black bowler suddenly blocked her path. “Excuse me, madam. I must ask you to return to the shop with me. There has been a discrepancy.”

“—the hell out of my way. I’m getting a cab.” Lillian was sidestepping the man when a smaller man put his hand on her shoulder. She smacked it away.

The large man said, “Not here, madam. It’s better in the privacy of—”

“Privacy, my ass. Get the hell out of my way.” Now they had her pretty well wedged between them.

“You have a receipt for your purchases?”

“Who the hell are you anyway?”

“Your receipt, please.”

“Get your goddamned hands—”

“Don’t let’s allow this to be a public situation. Just show me your receipt and you’ll be on your way. Nothing untoward.”

The
untoward
got to her. “There’s nothing fucking
untoward
. Two items, I purchased two items. This bag. This wallet. Here.” The receipt was in the bag with the wallet. She fished it out. The man looked at it carefully, nodding the whole while. Lillian expected an apology.

The man said, “The item in your coat pocket, madam, I don’t believe is quite covered by this receipt.”

Lillian put her hand in the pocket indicated and touched something that did not belong there. A pen of some sort. Her surprise quickly replaced by comprehension, Lillian put out her arms and said, “Okay, you got me. Put me in cuffs.”

“Please let’s go back to the privacy of the shop.”

Why the fuck does he call it a
shop
! It’s the most famous fucking store in the world
.

Lillian walked between the men back into the
shop
. In the elevator she said, “Just for the hell of it, why don’t you show me your identification.”

They did. Store detectives. Hammett once held such a job, briefly. He quit. He identified too closely with the shoplifters.

In an upstairs office, she sat before a desk with the detectives standing behind her by the door, hats in hand,
apparently waiting for someone important. The store manager entered, a Mr. Kittle, and offered to shake her hand. He was accompanied by another man in a tan raincoat who remained nameless.

Mr. Kittle asked to see
the item
. Lillian handed him a beautiful silver pen, an
item
she might have bought had she seen it in the showcase.

Kittle dismissed the two cops and said, “Since you possess no receipt for this item, Mrs. Hellman, I must assume it to be confiscated.” He paused for a response. She offered none.

“We would never wish to accuse publicly someone of your renown of—”

“Who he?” Lillian threw a thumb back over her shoulder without turning.

“—the theft of an item from Harrods.”

“I said, ‘Who he?’ ”

“I’m not important. I’m only here to witness the proceedings and make sure there is justice done in case …”

“In case what?”

“In case things begin to spin out of control. We wouldn’t want a mere misunderstanding to grow into some mad cause célèbre by misjudgment or mischance.”

“I’m sure
we
wouldn’t. By the way, you’re not the little
putz
who put this thing in my pocket downstairs? No, you wouldn’t be. You’d have used a woman for that, wouldn’t you?”

The man behind her said calmly, “Please consider your practical options, Miss Hellman.”

She said, cutely, “It looks like this poor little un-American Jew-girl doesn’t seem to have a great many options against big, strong British gentlemen like yourselves. Still, I’m inclined to go the
Please-call-my-lawyer
route.”

“Be very, very sure about that decision,” the voice said. “Harrods also has a very big stake in the situation. When I entered the store I was stopped by a reporter from the
Telegraph
who wondered what I was doing here. In terms of public opinion, the press trumps the law in England, I’m afraid.”

Lillian realized then that un-Americans like her not only had to fight Congressional committees, the FBI, the Internal Revenue Service, various other governmental agencies, and professional reputation spoilers, the blight had spread to foreign governments as well. Word had gone forth from some office in Washington to another office in Whitehall—
Get her!
And on the first floor in crowded Harrods on a busy shopping day, they did just that. Hammett’s
Crooks and Cops
were of course one and the same, only now internationally so. Amazing. Disgusting. Yet impressive in its way.

Since she had nothing to do that afternoon, Lillian opted to stay silent, curious to see what would ensue. Evening came. The mystery man said, “Fifteen minutes more, I’m afraid, Miss Hellman. We can place you under arrest formally. I can then call my friend at the
Telegraph
.”

“Or, of course,” said Mr. Kittle, “you may offer to repurchase the item.”

“As a souvenir of my memorable visit to Harrods?”

The voice behind said, “Of your visit to the United Kingdom, I believe.” A threat.

Lillian recalled Chaplin’s comment:
So why then aren’t you with him now?

F
INALLY
, D
ASHIELL
H
AMMETT
was Lillian’s United States of America.

She returned to him after an enforced absence of sixteen months. Foolishly, she chose to surprise him at the cottage in Katonah. The visit was not impetuous. She called Childs first to get an idea of what shape Hammett was in then. Childs said, “He’s skinny and he’s drinking. It’s not really awful, but what he needs more than anything is a good home-cooked meal and some conversation.”

Lillian called Katonah from her New York apartment. She simply wanted to be sure he was there. They had talked a bit about their lost years over the phone, not in any great detail and not where they could see what they were saying. She intended to tell him her Harrods story at length and in depth.

They needed hours and hours across a table, across a sofa and even a bed, to be Lilly and Dash again, if that were ever possible. She doubted it could happen quickly.
He doubted it could happen at all. Perhaps something new could be created.

His voice on the phone was deep, resonant, without slur or interruption. He had just started the day’s drinking. Lillian said, “Before we were so rudely interrupted,” and immediately wished she hadn’t.

“Where in the world are you?”

“The city.”

“I’ll bet you miss London more than I miss London.”

“I’ll take that bet and raise you ten. Tell me, young man, how’s your health?”

“My health is fine. I just don’t know where I put it.”

“Yuk, yuk, yuk.”

“Actually, it’s my gun shoulder, it’s sore as hell.”

“What’ve you been shooting?”

“Haven’t been. That’s the problem.”

“How bad?”

“More than annoying.”

“See a doctor?”

“Only doctor I know is a Commie, so how can I trust him?”

“I know a reliable true-American doctor. Interested?”

“It’ll pass. Rheumatic condition, I think.”

Lillian asked with unconvincing casualness, “So what’re you doing up there all alone, as if I didn’t know.” She hoped he was writing a Spade script at least, or a family memoir at best.

He said, “Reading.”

“Marx or Lenin?”

“Mao Tse-tung.”

“Who?”

“Actually, Lao-tzu.”

Lillian had already planned the home-cooked meal—fried chicken, potato salad, coleslaw, chocolate mousse—and a trip to Katonah even before she said, “You interested in coming down here? We can play a game of rescue-one-another like in the old days.”

“That’s the best offer I had since Mayer bought
The Thin Man
.”

“We could dress up like Nick and Nora, thirties-style, and do the town. Sound good?”

“Only if you let me pick up girls.”

“Let you? I’ll solicit.”

“I’m on the next train.”

“No. You stay right where you are.”

Lillian hadn’t worn an apron for well over a year, hadn’t done any real cooking in all that time, and certainly had not been this happy while not doing it. She was humming quietly as she mixed the batter for fried chicken that she had learned in her aunts’ kitchen from Sophronia as a girl in New Orleans. Surprisingly, Zenia didn’t know it, so Lillian taught it to her at Hardscrabble. Oh, Hardscrabble. The loss still throbbed.