In Sunlight and in Shadow

by Mark Helprin

  “You shot birds?”

  “Well, no, I wouldn’t do that, but I was excellent at clay pigeons, which is why I was asked to go along. I’m a very good shot, and I’m not afraid of the noise or the recoil.”

  “Why are you telling me this?”

  “I want to share equally with you.”

  “There’s a lot that you can do. Then you go to ground.”

  “But why?”

  “Because when it happens, unless you have experience, you tend to go into a daze.” She seemed skeptical, as he knew she would. “You know what a shotgun sounds like, even a four-ten? Very loud, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Most people don’t know. They think it’s like the pop they hear in the movies. It isn’t. It rattles you. It’s a little like being hit. Ever shot a deer rifle?” She hadn’t. “Much more dramatic. It makes a twelve-gauge shotgun seem minor. In a sharp action you’ve got hundreds of these concussions all at once, over and over, for minutes or hours. It’s possible to have ten, twenty, forty reports simultaneously. If you add artillery, rocket, and tank fires, the sound of the tank engines, aircraft, bombs, and the detonation of mines, it’s. . . . I think what it does is overload your voluntary capacities and throw as much as can be thrown into the involuntary nervous system. You hardly know what’s happening. Time, slow or fast, disappears. It’s like moving through a dream. But if you don’t function physically and you don’t make the right judgments, you can’t come out of it except by accident.”

  “Have you ever heard all that at once?”

  “Almost all of it.”

  “But don’t they just kill each other with a little gun, drop it, and walk away?”

  “Gangsters, maybe, but I don’t know how to do that, and neither do you. We don’t have access. I’m not an assassin. I can’t do what they do, but I can do what I can do. When I attack him, his lieutenants will be with him. They’ll be armed, some probably with Thompsons, and it will have to be planned and executed as a military action and nothing less.

  “He travels with an entourage of bodyguards. Like others of his type, he doesn’t trust anyone too intelligent or too ambitious, and surrounds himself with goons because the goons’ limited abilities constrict their imaginations and make their intentions transparent. If they get ambitious he knows immediately and quashes them. The operations aren’t as efficient as they could be, which is one reason that, to make up for the inefficiency, they’re often so ruthless and extreme.

  “Verderamé has five or six men who are always with him, some right on him, some where you can’t see them—pickets. I counted them before they beat me. I counted them at his place. They’re stupid and dangerous and they all have to go.”

  “Can you take on seven people, alone?” Catherine asked. She saw it now in a different light.

  “I wouldn’t even consider that.”

  “Who’s going to help you?”

  “I don’t know yet. There are a lot of things that have to fall into place. The first is to find out where he lives. You can’t just look it up. It’s not necessarily in Manhattan, or the city at all. We have to find out directly, which is where you can help. And because everything has to be done with extreme caution, it might take a long time.”

  “How long?”

  “Months.”

  She was astounded. “Months? To find out where someone lives?”

  “So that he doesn’t know or suspect. And during that time other things have to be prepared as well.”

  “How do you know he’s not in the telephone book?”

  “I looked.”

  “What about the city directory?”

  “I looked there, too. There was no listing under ‘gangsters.’ We have to follow him one turn at a time, sometimes with days between observations. People like him use their rearview mirrors a lot. We can’t fall into a pattern. We let him show a pattern, and then we read it. The first thing is to find out where he goes when he leaves his place. That’s going to be difficult now because it’s getting cold—fewer people on the street and no reason to sit outside. If we knew exactly when he leaves, and it probably varies, we could just be walking by. But we don’t know, so we have to figure something out.”

  When they got to the door of the apartment they heard the telephone ringing. Harry rushed to put his key in the lock, missed the first time, then got it, and Catherine ran in to pick up the phone. It was her father, who wanted to speak to Harry, who took the call while Catherine moved from lamp to lamp in the living room until their light glowed out upon the necklaces of streetlights draped across the park.

  “I forgot to add, Harry, and I don’t know why—well, I do know why: it was Catherine’s declaration that threw me off—that I know you’re not interested in finance, and I can’t blame you. I wasn’t either. I am now, but it’s only because once I had made the decision to enter the firm I was broken to it like a horse. You’re old enough and you know other ways, which is just the point. We’re a financial house, the war’s over, Europe will get back on its feet, and most of the world will be open to American trade and investment. It’s really going to take off. Nobody except missionaries knows anything, really, about the rest of the world.

  “Every major firm will need as much foreign intelligence as it can get. Lots of it will be contracted out, but who’ll mind the contractors and weigh what they say? There’ll have to be in-house departments to supervise, check, and interpret what’s received, and to make their own independent or blended assessments. The position, or positions, will be very important. With a couple of thousand brokers, mistakes tend to balance out and the risk is divided and fragmented. But if a company decided to build a steel mill in, let’s say, Greece, everything would ride on the assessment not only of the country but of the region, and the great powers and their motives and likely actions. Build a steel mill in Greece, and you’d better goddamned well know the domestic situation, the military balance with Turkey, the naval developments in the Mediterranean, and Soviet, British, and American capabilities, potential, and policy.”

  “I think I know what you’re driving at, Billy.”

  “I’m sure you do. We need such a department, and at the moment neither we nor anyone else has one to speak of. You have academic training, foreign languages, and during the war you were at the tip of the spear. There’s a place for you. You can start the department, run it, hire the people you need. You wouldn’t have to worry about working for me, for two reasons. First, I’m not going to last forever. I might retire, I most certainly will die. Second, by necessity you would have to have complete independence or your advice would be worthless. And third (although I didn’t say three reasons), if your advice did prove to be worthless you’d be out of that job. So it isn’t nepotism: you’d have to perform, and it’s a demanding task.

  “I’d make sure that you’d have your own untouchable budget, total insulation, total protection, and that you’d be judged only by the accuracy of your estimates. You could go get a Ph.D. if that would help. Good strategy comes from knowledge and genius, not from punching a time clock, and the higher the level of thought the more necessary is relaxation. That’s why I fish and play golf. At least it’s a good excuse.

  “When Catherine owns the firm, you will, too, and then your descendants. Not only do you have an interest and a stake, but a job, if you want it.”

  Harry thought for a moment. “Thank you, Billy, but I want to keep my business alive, and because my father is dead, my obligation to him is never-ending. I am grateful, very much so.”

  “We’ll hold the position for you as long as we can manage. Think about it. Don’t feel rushed. Do what you have to do.” The last was difficult for Billy to say.

  It was a day of clear October sunshine. All the way from 93rd Street to Little Italy they said almost nothing, but each step they took brought them closer to one another. Though it was against Harry’s every impulse for Catherine to assume the risk, once she had insisted and he had relented, sharing even the l
esser part of the danger intensified his love and respect for her, which then shone back. One loves one’s comrades-in-arms in a deep and everlasting way, but when one’s comrade-in-arms is also the woman one loves, there is no limit.

  On Prince Street they walked past Verderamé’s and Harry identified it under his breath. At the corner, they turned right and Catherine broke off to go back uptown. Harry circled and ended up at a shoe repair shop almost directly across the street from the private club where he had met the man he was going to kill. All the way from 93rd Street, the sole of Harry’s right shoe had been flopping, because before leaving he had cut the outer edge toward the front. It was four o’clock when he walked in. The cobbler was dark and heavy, his eyebrows joined together in matrimony. “Can you fix this?” Harry asked after removing his shoe.

  “Do you want to resole both?”

  “How much?” All the while, Harry was watching the door across the street.

  The cobbler turned in the tight space in which he worked, and held up a pair of soles bound together with twine. “High quality, three dollars for the job.”

  “Okay.” Harry took three dollars from his wallet while the cobbler wrote out a ticket.

  “When would you like to pick them up?”

  Harry stared at the cobbler, who looked Harry over, leaned across the counter to see more clearly, and realized that Harry was carrying only a newspaper. “Can’t you do them today?” Harry asked.

  “Ooh, wha?” the cobbler said. “I close in an hour. Here.” He tried to hand back the shoes, but Harry wouldn’t take them.

  “Can you loan me a pair?”

  “I’m not an ice-skating rink.”

  “You see,” said Harry, as if he hadn’t thought it out, “I’ve got to go to a dinner, and I can’t go looking like a bum.”

  “Then you’d better not go.”

  “Thanks. It’s for a job. I won’t get the job if I don’t go.”

  “Go home and get another pair of shoes,” the cobbler said. “I’m not your mother.” Harry just looked at him. “You don’t have another pair of shoes? Buy one.” Harry remained immobile. “You can’t afford to?”

  “I have five dollars, that’s it. I’ll give you that if you do it right now.”

  “I’ll do it for three,” the cobbler said, “because the glue won’t dry.”

  “Do the best you can. If I get the job, it’ll be well worth it. Take the five dollars. I insist.”

  As the cobbler got to work, Harry sat on the shoeshine stand and opened up the newspaper, over which he stared at Verderamé’s door, although now and then he did glance at the brassiere ads and movie announcements. He was afraid to start reading, lest he miss what he was there for. An upcoming movie, Dear Ruth, with William Holden and Joan Caulfield, was announced in a full-page ad as if it were the second coming of Christ. The names William and Joan sat above their last names in tiny letters, but the last names were in enormous block type, Holden’s first, so that when Harry glanced at the page—all he could afford was a glance—it looked like the movie starred someone named Holden Caulfield, writ large. He wondered if anyone had that name and would be shocked to see it. It seemed genuine, the name of someone Billy and Evelyn might know. Then he turned the page and forgot about it.

  At Copeland Leather, machinery had to be clear of oil. Oil from a spurt or a leak, from touching a surface, or from a hand that had touched an oil-covered part could stain even highly waxed leather, leaving a kind of birthmark or dark cloud. Birthmarks on people had to stay, and were often the stimulus of character or the sign of beauty, but they were unacceptable on wallets and briefcases, which, so adorned, would not sell except to eccentrics. When leather was cut, the surface was pale and absorbent, and even a little stain had to be avoided before waxing or dying, for when it was covered it would only darken. Nor was the thread, imbued with paraffin, entirely immune. Thus Copeland Leather was rich in rags—delivered and taken away by a rag trader—with which every machine and every surface near every machine were wiped down assiduously until, for example, the heavy sewing machines shone silver wherever they were constructed of chrome or stainless steel, and were a flawless, grime-free, deep black wherever they were painted, although the polishing and cleaning had removed the brand names leafed in gold across their metal flanks and backs. The habit spread to other areas. Copeland Leather was the cleanest manufacture Harry had ever seen. People visiting the loft might think of the Columbian Exposition and its shiny engines, the Royal Navy, or the gleaming palaces of the rich, where a finger run across the most obscure molding would collect no dust.

  The cobbler’s shop was the opposite. Shoe polish, oil, wax, machine grit, and dust from leather, rubber, and steel nails covered everything in black or brown, with the steel sparkles from the nails everywhere like mica in rock. Where there was light, the silvery parts of the machines flashed through the oil on their surfaces, sometimes radiating a refraction broken up into more millions of tiny lenses than there were windows in Manhattan.

  When the cobbler finished, he said, “The glue’s not dry. It should dry for a day but I’m usually closed by now. They have new glues, but leather is porous. . . .” At this moment, the door across the street swung open and, though it was still too warm for overcoats, men in hats and overcoats spilled out as if in a fire drill. The first two went left and right, scanned the street, and stayed in position while Verderamé, preceded and followed by guards, came down the few steps and turned right on the sidewalk. Then they all briskly walked away.

  Coughing violently, Harry excused himself, jumped from the shoeshine stand, and stepped outside in his socks. Still making the motions of coughing so the cobbler could see them through his window, but with no sound, Harry watched as the overcoats sailed up the street and went right. This was all he needed to know that day. The picture would be built painstakingly piece by piece. But a few minutes later he was pleased when, as he was looking to see if another perch was available for looking up the street where they had turned, two cars appeared. One was a polished black Cadillac, and the other a humpbacked Nash. The bodyguards were recognizable in the front seats of both cars, as was Verderamé himself in the back seat of the Cadillac, where he was reading a newspaper. They went down Prince Street all the way to MacDougal, where they doglegged out of sight.

  Catherine, who had never had her hair done, had it done the next day at the junction of Sixth Avenue and Prince, where she sat under the dryer and pretended to read Town and Country while she watched traffic out the window. There was nothing to report, and she went back the next day to have her hair cut. “How much would you like me to take off?” she was asked.

  “About an eighth of an inch. Subtle differences can really change a look.”

  “They can,” the hairdresser said.

  “But to really change a look, you have to be bold.”

  “Absolutely!”

  “Don’t you think the new styles this year herald a wonderful change?” Catherine asked.

  “Yes. After all those years of war—drab, drab, drab—they certainly do, but it’s almost too late. Anyway, it’s about time.”

  “I favor the classic, unchanging look,” Catherine stated. “Do you?”

  “Of course I do. It’s classic, it’s timeless, it’s chic, it’s elegant. Give me that any day rather than all that ridiculous experimentation.”

  “Oh damn,” Catherine said. “They went by and my hair’s wet.” They had turned up Sixth Avenue.

  “Who went by?” the hairdresser asked.

  Catherine’s eyes darted. She had given too much away. “The Pygmies.”

  “The Pygmies?”

  “Yes.”

  “What Pygmies?”

  “Pygmies from the Congo. Or someplace. They’re chasing me.”

  “Oh,” the hairdresser said.

  Catherine rose from her chair, her hair still dripping, and rushed out the door.

  “You’ve already paid!” the hairdresser shouted out after her. “Come back a
nytime you’d like! I’ll cut it!” And then, “She took the smock. Bitch!”

  Not quite as raggedly over the following weeks, they reconstructed Verderamé’s route. They didn’t want to use automobiles until they had to, and after long waits, patronizing businesses using various pretexts, and chilling exposure to the elements, they were able to trace Verderamé’s way home, up Sixth Avenue, west across 14th Street, onto the West Side Highway, over the Henry Hudson Parkway through Riverdale and on to the Saw Mill River. It was in December when they finally got to use a car, but only Catherine, who waited by a public phone in Riverdale. When it rang, it was Harry, who was in a telephone booth on Riverside Drive and 145th, where he had seen the two cars pass. He had timed how long it would take to get to where Catherine was waiting, and when she should turn north onto the highway, driving slowly until she saw Verderamé in her rearview mirror. This she did and then picked up speed so as to keep them behind her all the way until they would turn off. They would never think that a car in front of them was following them. Even after dark, Catherine was able to keep track of them because they drove closely together and the Cadillac had widely spaced, powerful headlamps. Every mile was a step closer to the goal, and she went steadily north, past Hawthorne Circle, onto Route 9A, across the Croton River, and toward Peekskill, holding her breath at every juncture. Verderamé’s cars moved at a steady rate until they turned off at Croton.

  Catherine was ecstatic. When she got back to New York, with great excitement she told Harry that she had made them, without their knowledge, for almost fifty miles. After a week had passed—among other things, Catherine had her performance schedule—she parked pointing north on the street in Croton where Verderamé had turned off and continued in that direction. There she waited until he passed her, and then followed. As he turned onto a small, rural road, she continued straight. They waited ten days. By this time it was the end of January, and in late afternoon it was, if not light, lighter.

  Harry used his false identity to rent a pickup truck. He drove up the road into which Verderamé had disappeared, and at the first junction parked and began to cut fallen wood. He was dressed like a farmer, in a watch cap that made it difficult even for Catherine to recognize him. Cutting half a truckload of wood, he worked until dusk, hoping, because a farmer would not be cutting wood in the dark, that Verderamé would come by before then. But not a single car passed, and he had to leave. Because he hadn’t been seen by anyone, he was able to return the next day in the same guise, his truck bed empty after he had surprised the Hales with a gift of unseasoned wood to keep in the garden shed for the next season’s fires.