Scarlet Imperial (7 page)

He said, “I actually didn’t hear a word the bastard said. I was too busy trying to keep from falling on my face till after he was gone.” He pushed aside the fruit. “I’d better get out before he shows up.”

She couldn’t let him go. She had to keep him here until Towner had the Imp. She said, “He won’t come while I’m at work. If he does he won’t get upstairs. The doorman will tell him I’m not here.” She asked, “He’d have to have a warrant to search, wouldn’t he? And he couldn’t serve it on the elevator man. It would have to be served on me, wouldn’t it?”

“I daresay.” He was thoughtful.

She couldn’t go to the office and leave Gavin here with the Imp. But she could pretend to get ready to go. Delay it until word came from Towner. The rain was a good delay. She said, “You should stay in bed today. If you refuse to have a doctor.”

He smiled briefly. “I’ve a little job to be about myself.”

“You can’t.” She repeated more quietly, with satisfaction, “You can’t.” She had remembered. “Not until you get some clothes.”

His look was a question.

“Your shirt and suitcoat are soaked with blood.”

“That’s why I couldn’t find them.”

“They’re in the hamper with the towels. I don’t know what to do with them.”

“I’ll get rid of them.”

“You can’t phone for clothes. I don’t want men’s clothes delivered here. Besides—”

“Curiosity. Questions.”

She nodded. She was thinking. “I’ll have to bring what you need. When I return from work.” It was right that she should be curious. She didn’t glance at him as she asked, “What did you do with Hester?”

He said, “I put him in the park.”

“No!” The exclamation came so quickly from her that his eyebrows winged. The man on the bench. Sitting there, unmoving, in the heavy rain. Hours after he’d—he’d been got rid of. Within her cold stabbed suddenly. Gavin wasn’t telling the truth. He hadn’t taken the man into the park. He hadn’t been out in the rain when he came up the service stairs.

She looked at the crust of toast on her plate. She said, “I don’t see how you could move him—with your shoulder.”

He didn’t respond and she had to lift her eyes to him. He was turning his coffee cup in his hand. He said, “It wasn’t he who shot me.”

This time the fear crawled into her eyes.

He still watched his coffee. He was speaking to himself and his face wasn’t pleasant. “I’d like to know who it was.”

She pushed back her chair. It didn’t scratch; Aunt Hortensia’s chairs were rubber-tipped, her linoleum highly waxed. But it sounded in the silence. She said, “I’m going to dress now. You go back to bed and I’ll bring you some clothes tonight.” She carried dishes to the sink. “You won’t be disturbed, the maid doesn’t come on Fridays. You’d better write down your size.”

She went quickly to her own room, closed the door. She’d have to go to the office now or pretend to go. He couldn’t leave the house without clothes. He couldn’t take the Imperial away. If he did, he’d have only a cake of soap. She didn’t believe he’d investigate the package. He trusted her.

She heard the door open this time and she swung to face it. He stood there, a paper memorandum in his hand. He started to speak but he broke the words. His eyes had become the flat blue disks. He said, “I’ve seen you before.”

She was silent, she remained there unmoving as he came across the room and stood in front of her. The paper drifted to the floor as his hands pushed back her hair roughly, framing her face. She didn’t flinch; her own eyes were steady. He said, “In HongKong.”

She put on a mask of bewilderment. Her lie was quiet. “I’ve never been in HongKong.” He dropped his hands. She stooped and picked up the paper before he could. He’d written his sizes on it.

He shook his head. “Maybe I’d better stay on my back today. I’m getting nerves. I apologize.” He went away.

She let her breath out slowly. She’d better dress; hide herself behind secretarial disguise. She put on a plain black wool, added a small strand of pearls. Only Towner knew they were real. Part of a treasure she had helped him recover. She pulled back her hair, netted it in a snood. She even put on the amber-rimmed glasses. The perfect secretary. Her small black hat, the black silk belted raincoat, rubber boots over her plain pumps, umbrella, purse.

Gavin Keane wouldn’t risk answering the phone today. Not with nerves. If Towner couldn’t reach her here, he’d call the office. He’d expect her to be at the office. She couldn’t let Towner come here anyway unless Gavin was gone. She wouldn’t risk Towner’s safety with someone like Gavin Keane.

Gavin was in the living room, looking down at the park, standing where he couldn’t be seen if someone were looking up. He turned at her entrance. He said, “I don’t like staying here.”

She suggested again, “Will you let me call the doctor?”

He said, “No.” It was definitely no. He came to her, handed her a fold of bills. “Better get brown.”

She put them into her handbag. “There’s food in the icebox.”

He walked with her to the front door, but he barred her from opening it. The cold touched her spine. She held her umbrella tight, as if it could become a weapon.

But he said only, “I want to see Bry. Tell him.”

She asked quickly, “Is it safe?”

He considered it. “Tell him to come when it’s safe.” He added, “It had better be when you’re here. I’m not opening up today.”

She nodded. He stood hidden behind the door while she opened it. She picked up the morning paper, handed it in to him. She said, “Stay in bed.”

The door closed at once, closed tight. She rang for the elevator. The day operator was a small dark man, a paid performer not a friend. She wouldn’t have to explain to Richards and Franz. They’d believe Gavin left after they went off duty. Late as that had been. She said, “Good morning, Clarence.”

He returned, “Good morning.”

There were no questions. The day doorman was another uniform, correct, detached. He said, “Good morning, Miss Williams.”

“Good morning, Davis.” The rain poured down this second day, flat, leaden rain. And in the Park on a bench facing the house sat a man. She drew back from the door. “I believe I’ll take a cab, Davis. Do you think you could get me one?”

“Yes, Miss Williams.”

He stepped out under the canopy. She saw his mouth shaped in a whistle. It might take a few moments but there were always cabs near the Square. She didn’t want to pass that rain-drenched shape on the Park bench.

A yellow cab was brightness at the curb. She ran out, called, “You’re wonderful, Davis,” as she climbed in.

The driver remarked paternally, “Late again?”

She saw his name card, Tomasi. A square yegg-like face. She’d ridden with him before. Frequently, those first weeks of work when she overslept.

She settled back. “No one should have to go to work in such filthy weather.”

The cab turned at the northwest corner. She glimpsed the man on the bench. He hadn’t moved.

“It makes the trees to grow,” Tomasi informed her. “And all the green things we eat. And the flower carts. You hadn’t ought to gripe about rain.”

“If I were a cab driver I wouldn’t.” She lit a cigarette, relaxed. They were out of the Square, heading up Fifth. She could relax. For these few safe moments with Tomasi.

As he jockeyed past a lumbering bus, she pushed out the cigarette in the ashy container. That man on the bench wasn’t watching for her. She wasn’t known in this; she was accidental. It was Gavin he was waiting for. Gavin knew; he’d seen from the window. As long as the man was rooted on the bench, Gavin couldn’t come out. Not until he was able to protect himself.

The driver turned east on Forty-sixth street, north again on Madison and stopped in front of her office building. She paid him, said, “You’re a life saver, Tomasi. I’m not terribly late. And I’m dry as Sahara.” She didn’t put up her umbrella for the swift cross into the building. Waiting for the elevator, she had almost unbearable reluctance to go up to the office. It wasn’t fear. This wasn’t last night; it was today. The building was modern as antisepsis. Danger couldn’t be lurking in the upper corridor, in the office luxury of Bryan Brewer.

It wasn’t fear, it was an unwillingness to face Bry, to be questioned by him. To lie to him. Because she couldn’t answer his questions. Because she had no intention of allowing Gavin Keane to see him until she and the Imp were safely away.

She walked forward up the twelfth floor corridor to the chaste lettering on the opaque window. Bry was there before her, the door was unlocked.

He lunged up from where he was sitting in her chair at her desk. He said, “You’re late. I was afraid something had happened to you.”

He didn’t look as if he’d been to bed. His hair was in place but there was weariness under his eyes, his jaw was shadowed.

She said, “I’m always careful crossing streets,” as if that interpretation were the right one. “It was raining so hard I waited for a cab.” She hung her coat, hat and umbrella. The routine of a secretary. She closed the closet, came casually to her desk. She could maintain the pose but it wasn’t easy in the face of his penetration.

He asked, “Did Gavin Keane ever get in touch with you?” He moved around the desk and she took her place.

Her eyebrows lifted surprise. “Didn’t you find him?”

“No.” He was abrupt but not out of annoyance, out of anxiety. “I came back to your place last night hoping. You must have been asleep.”

“Did you find the package?” She’d been scrubwoman when he rang; he would never know.

Again he said, “No.”

She opened the desk drawer and looked into it as if she couldn’t believe the box wouldn’t be there. She said, “I wonder what could have happened to it.”

“Gavin must have it.” He had nothing to base it on but his hope. “I’ve been calling the hotels.” He flung himself into the chestnut leather chair, rested his head wearily back against it. “He isn’t registered. He was to be here yesterday.”

She interrupted gravely. “He was here, Mr. Brewer. He came in the afternoon. I didn’t know where to reach you.”

He shook his head. “I had to go to Washington. I thought I’d be back early but I was delayed. He didn’t say where he was stopping?”

She said, “He only said he’d be in later. For the box. I waited until past six—”

“If you’d only taken the box home with you.” His exhalation was a groan.

“But I wouldn’t think of doing that, Mr. Brewer.” She hated herself for her deception with him. He wasn’t like the others she’d deceived; he was decent and unaware. She had no choice. But he could be warned of the danger. She added, “Anyway I would have been afraid to after the messenger came for it.”

“Messenger?” He sat up and panic slanted across his face.

She told herself it was only his fear that something he’d ordered had disappeared; it was a business matter. He couldn’t have any other interest in the luckless Scarlet Imperial. But why had none of the correspondence passed through her hands?

She continued, “He wasn’t a real messenger. He was only posing as a messenger.”

“You didn’t—”

“I didn’t tell him it was here.”

He rubbed his temple. “Damn it, a man can’t just vanish into empty air.”

She was quiet. “Sometimes men do—only it isn’t empty air.”

He rejected the implication with a dark frown. “Why did you think the messenger wasn’t a messenger?”

She answered, “Because of his shoes. They were broken. As if they hadn’t had work in a long time.”

He came out of the chair and began to pace the room. She watched him in silence. He stopped abruptly at the desk. “Who was the man at your apartment last night?”

She didn’t want to answer him. She knew it would increase his disturbance. But he waited. He had a right to know. He should be put on his guard. He too might be questioned. Her voice was even. “He was from the F.B.I.”

“F.B.I.?” It didn’t increase his fear; he was puzzled. “What did he want?”

“He was looking for a man.”

“Gavin Keane!” It came too fast. He knew Gavin Keane hunted with the hounds of danger.

“No,” she denied. “The name was Hester. Renfro Hester.”

The name meant nothing to him. “Who is Renfro Hester?”

She said, “I don’t know.” She was blunt. “But Hester had come to my apartment looking for Gavin Keane.”

He was frightened again. “Someone knew Gavin Keane was going to your apartment.” He began to pace anew. “Look here,” he began. He came back to her at the desk. “I know you’re wondering what this is all about.”

She could answer, “Yes,” in all honesty. Even if she knew far more than he, she didn’t know it all.

He found it difficult to continue. He said, “Frankly the less you know the better.”

She lifted her eyes to him. “Is the box that dangerous?”

“Yes.” He’d retreated somewhere within himself, within memory. “Yes, it is. It has a bloody history.”

She spoke sharply. “I shouldn’t think you’d have anything to do with it then.” He shouldn’t have touched this affair. He wasn’t fitted for this kind of thing.

He told her, “A client wanted it, wanted it badly. He was willing to pay a collector’s price for it. I knew I could get it for him.”

Bryan Brewer bought and sold rare objects. He didn’t trace the history of the objects. He bought from responsible, reliable sources. There was no transaction in his files, and she’d finecombed through them during his frequent out of town trips, feeling low and dishonest. He wouldn’t deal with a thief. Not with a murderer and a thief. But there was nothing in his files about the Scarlet Imperial. Not one letter, not one line. Yet he had a client for it and he knew from whom he could obtain it. Why were there no records on it?

She said slowly, “You knew where you could get it.” He didn’t appear to notice her disturbance. He said, “Yes. From Gavin Keane.”

He knew the Imp was dangerous; did he know it was stolen? He couldn’t know that. He wouldn’t touch it if he knew. She couldn’t ask the questions she wanted to ask; she couldn’t give away her knowledge. How had Gavin Keane come by the Imp?

Bry strode into his own office but he didn’t close the door tightly. She could hear him at the phone, doggedly calling down the endless list of hotels. She could hear the hopeless replacing of the phone as the answer to his question was never the hoped-for one. He could ask her to make the dreary calls but it was as if he alone could handle anything this important. That, and because he must be active, not twiddle his mind and wait.