Cynthia

by Howard Fast

  “I mean, I really enjoyed it, Lucille. Oh, I might have snapped at you once or twice—”

  “Not really, Harvey.”

  “But that’s my neurotic problem, not yours.”

  “Of course, Harvey.”

  “And now I have a million things to do and all sorts of pieces to tie together,” I told her gently, “and I have to find out when the next jet leaves and get out to Kennedy—”

  “LaGuardia,” Lucille interrupted, just as gently.

  “What do you mean, LaGuardia?”

  “I mean that we have to get to LaGuardia not to Kennedy. The jet leaves from LaGuardia. It’s American Airlines. There was one at five but we missed that. There is another at seven and we have plenty of time to make that one, and that will get us to Toronto at eight-thirteen.”

  “Max said forty-five minutes,” I said lamely.

  “Did he? Well, that’s a sort of exaggeration. Oh, I suppose that if we have tailwinds we can make it in less than an hour, but it is scheduled for one hour and thirteen minutes.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I asked Max’s secretary to find out.”

  “When?”

  “When you were arguing with Max.”

  “Well, I never saw you leave the room.”

  “Because the door was open, Harvey, and I simply stepped through and whispered to her.”

  “You’re always whispering. You know, that’s a sneaky habit.”

  “What a thing to say!”

  “And just what did you mean when you said that we have to get out to LaGuardia?”

  “Harvey, you’re becoming truculent.”

  “I am not becoming truculent. I am perfectly calm. We have had a good day. You’ve been a good sport. I like you. You tend to dominate everything that comes your way, but I like you anyway. I suppose I am the kind of non-hero type that needs some kind of domination, so I am not complaining. But right now I have to go to Toronto—alone!”

  “And you’d leave me here. After running through this maze all day, now, when it first becomes interesting, you’d leave me here. I don’t believe it, Harvey. I just don’t believe you’re that kind of person.”

  She got a handkerchief out of her purse and began to dab at her eyes, and I said coldly, “Put it away. The tears are phony. Suppose you just tell me exactly what you want.”

  “All right. I never had so much fun in my life. I want to go with you.”

  “No.”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you know how long it would take you to go home and pack and get ready?”

  “I’m ready right now. One hour and thirteen minutes. It’s like going to Brooklyn, Harvey.”

  “No!”

  And then we argued for ten minutes, and then it took another fifteen minutes to get a cab to take us out to LaGuardia. We had time for a sandwich at the airport, and there were a few goodies with the cocktails on the flight. The jet went up and went down, and at 8:09 P. M., four minutes ahead of schedule, the plane touched the ground at Malton Airport in Toronto. It was then and only then that for some idiotic reason Lucille realized that we were in another country, without luggage, and—at least as far as she was concerned—with very limited funds. I told her, as we walked through the terminal, that she owed me $54.60.

  “What?”

  “Well, I bought two round-trip tickets. That’s what the game costs—$54.60 each. You said you wanted to play.”

  “Harvey, do you mean to say that with your pockets stuffed with expense money, you’re going to hold me up for that ticket?” She opened her purse and rummaged through it. “Anyway, I only have $12.27. So either you’ll have to trust me or take a check—if you just have the nerve to come right out and be chintzy enough to take a check.”

  “Suppose we have to stay overnight?”

  “Harvey,” she said sweetly, “where is the return section of my round-trip ticket?”

  I gave it to her and she tucked it into her purse, and then she swung around and marched off in the opposite direction, toward American Airlines reservations.

  “Lucille, where are you off to?” I called after her.

  “Back to New York. You’ll get my check in the mail.”

  “Don’t be a nut.” She kept on and I ran after her and caught up to her at the reservations desk, and I grabbed her arm and said, “Look, I trust you. Let’s forget the whole thing.”

  “Take your hand off my arm, sir,” she said coldly.

  “So I goofed.”

  “So you are the chintziest, cheapest man I have ever known, Harvey Krim, and the only reason I abide you is out of a misplaced sense of pity.”

  The girl behind the reservations counter was following all of this with great interest. “We all come up against the same thing,” she offered.

  “What do you mean, we all come up against the same thing?”

  “When does the next plane for New York leave?” Lucille demanded.

  “The male market is lousy. In about forty minutes, Miss.”

  “Do you want me to get down on my knees?” I asked Lucille.

  “Yes.”

  “I am on my knees,” I said.

  “You are not. But I will accept the apology, and you are not to mention money to me again while we are in Canada—do you understand, Harvey?”

  “I understand,” I said.

  “Good. Now let’s get a cab to the Prince York Hotel.”

  I went along with her, and I didn’t ask her why the Prince York until we were in the cab and on our way. “You know, if we were married,” I began, and then I saw her face, full of understanding and patience, and I said, “The hell with that. Fred Bronstein would bust a gut laughing. What do you mean, the Prince York Hotel?”

  “Who’s Fred Bronstein?”

  “My analyst.”

  “Well, what right has he to laugh?”

  “Why is it the Prince York Hotel?”

  “Because that’s the biggest hotel in Toronto, and it also just happens to be the biggest hotel in the world.”

  “You really pull no punches. Now it’s the biggest hotel in the world, only they misplaced it in Toronto, Canada.”

  “Ask the driver, Harvey,” Lucille said sweetly.

  “Jack,” I said to the driver, “how about it? Is it the biggest hotel or isn’t it?”

  “First, I am not crazy about Yanks. Second, my name ain’t Jack. Third, I got you for the five miles from the airport to the hotel but I ain’t no information center. The dame’s right.”

  “What do you mean, you don’t like Americans?” Lucille asked.

  “Look, lady, I don’t want an argument. I told the man you were right. It’s the biggest hotel in the world.”

  “Where else would he go?” Lucille whispered to me.

  “There are other hotels in Toronto.”

  “Wouldn’t he want the biggest?”

  “Maybe she wouldn’t.”

  “Why on earth should he listen to her?” Lucille asked.

  “Ah.”

  “What does that mean? ‘Ah.’”

  So it went, until finally we were at the Prince York. If it was not the biggest hotel in the world, it came close to it. Lucille asked what we should say if they questioned our lack of luggage, and I assured her that they would not question it. “A thousand people walk in and out of here every hour,” I told her.

  “But they don’t register.”

  “And what makes you think we’re going to register?” I asked, looking at her strangely.

  “Well, it’s eight-thirty, Harvey, and here we are in Toronto—oh, don’t look at me like that, Harvey. You’re a big boy and I am a big girl, and I’ve never been to Canada before. I understand that you can buy the most marvelous British sweaters here, and I want to do some sightseeing, and—”

  “And we will be on a plane back to New York tonight.”

  “I thought you came here to find your Cynthia?”

  “Maybe. And maybe the loving couple has been in and out as fast as I
intend for us to be.”

  “Well, I might as well tell you,” Lucille said smugly, “that the last plane out of here for New York leaves at nine-thirty, and it’s ten minutes to nine right now.”

  If she said, it was so. I ended the argument and suggested that she do her shopping in the enormous lobby while I found the hotel security officer.

  “Without me?”

  “Without you,” I said firmly.

  “All right, Harvey,” she agreed. “You know I am not going to argue one bit, because I’m sure they checked out, just as you said, and would you like me to call the American Consulate?”

  “What for?”

  “They would have to go there for their visas. That’s what your friend Max said.”

  “They’ll be closed up at this hour.”

  “Can I try, Harvey?”

  I humored her and said that she could try, and we arranged to meet in that part of the lobby facing the registration desk. The young lady at the desk told me that the security officer of the hotel was one Captain Albert Gustin, and when I let her know that I was a private investigator, she informed me that Captain Gustin had been with Scotland Yard; and that right now he was probably not in his office; but that I could try.

  “You know, we get a lot of international trade here, and if there is anything I can do for you, Mr. Krim—that was not your wife, was it?”

  “Oh, no—no.”

  “I think it is absolutely fascinating for a young, unmarried man to travel with his secretary. Or are you married, Mr. Krim?”

  “No.”

  “Oh?”

  “She’s not my secretary.”

  “Oh.” She thought about it for a while, and then she said, “Do you want a double? If you have no luggage, the rule of the house is that you must pay in advance. It’s such a silly, old-fashioned rule, isn’t it?”

  I took two singles, paying for them in advance and wondering how I had ever gotten into this situation and recollecting that the only reason I was here at all was firstly because of the guess of a fat lawyer and secondly because of the guess of an insane librarian.

  At the security office, at the other end of the vast, palm-fronded, Egyptian decor lobby, I had the good luck to find Captain Gustin after all. He wore tweeds, smoked a pipe, looked like John Wayne, spoke with an English accent, and had three mirrors spotted around his office, so that there was never a moment when he couldn’t see himself merely by moving his eyeballs. He explained that he happened to be available at this hour because he had a dinner date at the hotel, and when he touched his hair affectionately, I realized that he also wore a toupé. He was at least six foot-three inches, and I am not at my best with very large men. When we shook hands, the pain was only just bearable.

  “Harvey Krim,” he said, looking at my card. “You know, there are chaps like you at Lloyds, aren’t there? Get back the loot and all that. Pay off the crooks. I’m not sure I approve of any of it.”

  “We’re almost as large as Lloyds,” I said, hoping to impress him.

  He examined his lower face in a mirror and told me that I had no authority to speak of north of the border.

  “I don’t have much south of the border, either,” trying the open and frank approach.

  “Well, now—there you are. No fuss, and we shall get along quite well.” He looked at his watch. “Lovely little bird. They’re to ring me from the desk when she appears. Married man, Krim?”

  “Divorced.”

  “Ah. Puts us in the same case, doesn’t it? I hear you’re traveling with delicious baggage. All for it.”

  I thanked God that I was not large and aggressive, because if I were large and aggressive, I would have belted him and probably ended up in a Canadian can.

  “Now what’s your kick, Krim?”

  He mixed his slang and his metaphors. I told him what my kick was.

  “Nonsense. Don’t believe a word of it.”

  “What do you mean, you don’t believe a word of it?”

  “Guesswork and romantic nonsense. Mafia! Haw! Utter nonsense. No such thing as the Mafia. You Yanks love your bit of adventure. Can’t stand to confess that you’re ridden with gangsters, so you push this Mafia bit.”

  “You mean there’s no Mafia then?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “I invented it?”

  “Not at all, Krim. For heaven’s sake, don’t take umbrage. You go along with the crowd.”

  “I weigh one fifty-three, stripped,” I said.

  “Oh? Not really in shape at all, are you. Good regular workouts would be a cure for that.”

  “Did I also invent Valento Corsica, alias Count Gambion de Fonti?”

  “Come now, Krim,” he said. “You are peeved, aren’t you? Kind of indicating that if I were your weight, we might get along differently. Not at all. I consider you the best of good fellows. Let me put the matter to rest.” He picked up the telephone, and said into it, “Gustin here. Go over our files on registration for the past ten days and see whether you can’t come up with a Valento Corsica or a Count Gambion de Fonti—” He turned back to me, “How do you spell those foul names, Krim?” I told him, and as he listened he spoke into the phone and watched himself in the mirror simultaneously. He had gifts, no doubt about it. “That’s the good chap,” he said into the phone; and while I never pretended to be a Henry Higgins, I decided on the moment that he was no more British than I was. He put down the phone. “Won’t take but a minute or two.”

  I thanked him. “Good of you to cooperate.”

  “Not at all. Like Toronto?”

  “Well, since I have been here less than two hours, and practically all of it spent in a cab and in this hotel, I’m not in any position to say.”

  “Good. Good. You chaps do have a sense of humor.”

  “I’m pleased to hear that,” I said. “But I don’t think your man will find either of those names on the register.”

  “Why not? You said he married under the name of de Fonti.”

  “Did I? But even if that is the case, he’d have no trouble convincing his bride that a count should travel incognito.”

  “Aren’t you stretching the point, old chap? I am sure that if Count Gamby or whatever the devil his name is should come to the hotel, he would register properly. Why not?”

  “I told you about the Mafia,” I explained patiently and politely.

  “There you go again.” The phone rang, and he picked it up and said, “Right. Right. Right. Right. Shan’t be a moment.” Back with the telephone, and he explained to me, “No names, not here—not at all. Afraid you’ve had a wild goose chase for it, old chap. Wish I could take you into the bar for a couple, but the bird is here. Do come and take a peep at her.”

  “Aren’t you at least going to check on how many couples of fit age and appearance registered here? Description? Accent? We could talk to the desk clerks—”

  “My dear chap,” he said, “you do take yourself seriously. But you are not a member of Interpol or even of the New York City Police. We can’t turn the house upside down for you. It is the biggest hotel in the world.”

  I followed him out of the room to where the “bird” waited. She was a bleached blonde in her forties with two important recommendations—a size forty bust and height. John Wayne licked his lips over her as if he had never seen a woman before, and they waltzed out of there in great style. He didn’t bother to say goodby to me.

  I occupied a chair facing the desk, and I waited and waited. I got the local papers and the evening papers from New York, and I waited again. I read Walter Lippman, James Reston and Max Lerner, discovered that the world was both a sorry mess and a very sex-ridden place, and I waited some more.

  I went to the desk and asked about a message.

  “I’ll look in your box, Mr. Krim. Shall I also look in Miss Dempsey’s box?”

  No messages.

  I returned to the chair and waited. A member of John Wayne’s security force approached me and asked whether he had not seen me bef
ore?

  “Sure. You saw me in Gustin’s office. You were sitting in the front room, typing. I’m an insurance investigator. My name is Harvey Krim.”

  “Got it. Anything I can do for you, Mr. Krim?”

  “When does the American Consulate close?”

  “Who knows? Five, six, seven—sometimes they work later, I suppose. They’re closed now, of course.”

  I thanked him and I waited. It became ten o’clock and then eleven o’clock. The movement in the lobby died away. I could have gone up to the room I had paid for, but by now I was too nervous, too frightened to leave the lobby. Instead, I reviewed in my mind all the things that could happen to a decent girl I had dragged into this mess with the Mafia—a simple, uncomplicated girl who lived her life among books and had nothing to do with this corrupt and dirty piece of mankind that constituted my business affiliation and area of work. Of course it was all my fault. I even decided that Gustin could be one of them. Then he’d go after the girl, which was quite obviously my Achilles’ heel. Maybe she had a mother. They’d fish her up out of the river, and out of common courtesy, I would have to bring the news to her mother. Funny, but I had never asked Lucille about her mother. What would I say? That Lucille adored me, and for that reason I had lost her in a foreign city?

  It was just ten minutes past midnight when I found her. She came walking into the hotel, clinging to the arm of a man who was at least ten years younger than I—which meant younger than she—and a good deal better looking, if you like the superficial, so-called clean cut-American-boy type. Half a block away, on the other side of the lobby, they stretched their parting to at least five minutes, and then he leaned over and kissed her cheek. And when she got to where I was she had the gall to say, “Poor Harvey. You look so tired and worried.”