“You want me?”
“More than anything in the world.” It rang true; it was true. That the denial of that want was stronger, she wouldn’t know. Not yet.
Her lashes curved like shadows. “I am married to Caesar.”
“And there’s Gordon,” he said.
She was alert. “He is a friend of Hugo’s. And of mine. We met him at Rio, several years ago.”
“You and Hugo?”
She was defensive. “Ernst was there on business. Hugo helped me pass the time.” Her words came with difficulty. “Why didn’t you return that night?”
“The war is long ago,” he jeered.
“I waited for you.”
“In Hugo’s arms.”
Her hand touched her cheek as if he had struck her.
“I came too soon.” His voice was ugly. “I was headstrong that way. You remember?”
She was guarding her face but her sadness looked out of it. “When did you come?”
“That afternoon. I’d made a frightening discovery. I’d learned that your Brother Hugo wasn’t one of us, that he was only posing as one. He belonged to Schern’s inner secret circle.” He shrugged. “I thought he was the key that you and I had been seeking.”
She didn’t move.
“I came rushing to tell you, to save you.”
She said, “Yes.”
He didn’t have to go on; it was flagellation. “Yes. Hugo was with you. You didn’t dream I’d take the chance of coming by day. You’d warned me so starkly of the risks. Risk didn’t matter when it came to saving you. Hugo was with you. And he wasn’t your brother. You were laughing.” His ears were tortured again by the intimacy of laughter. “You were speaking without fear. I’d found what I was after.”
She began to fork her food again. “Afterwards—why didn’t you give me over to the International Court to be tried for war guilt?”
He waited long until she looked at him. “Because I couldn’t bear that you should die.”
She met his face now. “I loved you. That was why you didn’t die.”
“I didn’t die because I got out fast. In a way that even you and Schern hadn’t heard about.” He began to eat as if eating mattered.
“You were to have been executed long before that. We didn’t need you. We had your information. I created delays. While you were listening, while I was lying to Hugo, I was plotting your escape. I was going with you as we had planned.” That terrible honesty in which there was nothing but lies. “You don’t believe that, Piers.”
He said, “Let’s remember it’s all over, long ago. You’re here. I’m here. There’s no war. We disagree as to what the Peace Conclave should decide but it doesn’t matter much.”
She cried, “You must believe me. I’ve willed that you should know. After the war I waited for you to speak—or to return—”
“Then you married Brecklein. I thought it would be Schern. More important. But then he was imprisoned for five years, wasn’t he? And Brecklein’s a millionaire.”
Pallor darkened her eyes. “I married Ernst only three years ago.”
He didn’t apologize. He said, “You shouldn’t waste your time on me. I’m not important. You know now why Gordon stayed on in Washington.”
She hesitated. Her hand moved. “Yes. He called me, after I returned to the hotel last night. Secretary Anstruther is missing.” She added quickly, “No one is to know.”
“I don’t think it was news to you. You have Gordon. He’ll stand up. You don’t have to be nice to me. But you can answer one question. How important is Gordon to you?”
The surprise of the question lifted her face. “What do you mean?”
“I don’t like Gordon.” His eyes were blank. “I don’t like him at all. I don’t like him inheriting the position. It should have been mine.”
“Yes. It should have been yours.” She searched his face for cause, for treachery, for honesty. She saw only the shell of a face; nothing else was there. “What is it you want?”
He said, “What price Gordon?”
She took her time, silent while he lighted her cigarette and his own. She said then, “The Anstruther papers.”
He broke the match in his fingers. She had said what he willed her to say; she had spoken. He began gently, “You know me better than that, Morgen.”
“You asked that I bid.” Her eyes were upon him, unflinching, unmoving.
He shook his head. “Without the papers, what would the Secretaryship avail me?”
Her voice whipped. “Have you that little faith in your own power? Why would you need the papers if you were Secretary?”
He spoke after pause. “I’ve never sold out to an enemy.”
Her voice was quiet. “It is better to have a price, than to die.”
He set each half of the broken match carefully on the oaken shield that lay between the woman and himself. The words came slowly. “You believe I am to die?”
She was silent.
“Like Anstruther.” The smile hurt his mouth. “You are not the only ones who want the papers, you know. Gordon needs them badly.” He kept smiling. “I know, if he doesn’t, that he’ll never lay eyes on them if his dear friends get in first. His price might be better. All of your heads. That might be as good as his head.” He touched the table. “And he isn’t the only one. Fabian wants those papers. I daresay Evanhurst would like them. Even the New York Police Department wants them.”
She said with certainty, “But not one other can give you Anstruther’s place. The position you should have had, that you intended to have.”
He set his face. “What proof can you give me? Unless I see Gordon’s head on the platter I wouldn’t close any deal with you and your friends. I’d have to know it was certain.”
Her lips moved with something like scorn. “You will sell out for that?”
“‘O, Opportunity, thy guilt is great!’” he repeated softly. “Every man has his price just as every woman makes mouths in a glass. That was said long ago. And I tried to tell it to you on Sunday night.”
She was rigid. “It is well for you that you lowered the price.”
“Gordon might think I’d upped it.” His eyebrows slanted. “I want a meeting with all of you, Gordon present. I want confirmation before I sell.”
“I’ll tell Schern.”
“And Hugo.”
She gathered her gloves, her navy purse. “I shall tell Hugo.”
“Tomorrow is Sunday.”
She understood. “Tonight. The Waldorf. Late, say midnight.”
“The witching hour.” His lips curved without mirth. “A trap won’t work. Cassidy will be behind me, you know. There’s no good Schern thinking he’ll take the papers without paying my price. No matter how many fat-bellied men and small rats with decayed teeth he sends after me. And you might mention, if I die, no one of you, nor Gordon, will ever lay hands on those papers.”
They met face to face, each leaving the opposite oaken bench. He said, “Morgen—” and he put his arms around her and his mouth on hers. They held each other and no one cared. The old women cared only for the black poodle, the man at the bar only for his glass, the attendants only to be at rest. They held each other as alone, as undisturbed, as once they had been in the burning fragments of Berlin. They parted as simply as they had come together.
She pushed the hair from her cheek. “Don’t play at love, Piers.”
“I’m not playing that it’s love.” He moved at her side. “I may have to go underground at any time. If I do I’ll somehow manage to get to you.” He opened the door and they left the old and cool room for the heat of the pavement. “There’s our driver.”
The cabbie was parked outside, his head on his shoulder, the radio singing. He opened the door for them. “Where to?”
Piers turned to her.
“It doesn’t matter,” she said. She had wrapped a dream about her. “The Metropolitan,” she decided.
“Museum?” The driver’s nose puzzled.
/> “Please.”
Piers nodded. He didn’t touch her. He knew too well how this could all be part of the evil charm.
He laughed. “I’m glad you came today, Morgen.”
She spoke under her breath. “Why?”
His jaw was set. “Gordon’s out to get me. I’m going to get him first.”
The driver took the transverse across the park, circled to the Museum. He had muted his radio as if he sensed a wrongness in song at this time. Piers helped her to the walk. They didn’t touch hands.
She said, “When you were young I knew ruthlessness was a part of you. Peace hasn’t changed that. You must be careful. There are others as ruthless as you and more desperate.”
He threw back his head and laughed out loud. “I’m not afraid.” And the sun on his bared head turned chill as he watched the music of her walk up the steps, through the tall doors. He watched her vanish and the chill encompassed him. He knew with a sudden prescience what had escaped him until now. His price would be met. It wasn’t too high. After he was dead, Gordon would automatically be restored to power. Either way, with or without the papers, he was marked for death before sundown tomorrow.
3.
The driver said, “Coming with me or you going to just stand there mooning, Mister?”
Piers turned, grasping at the straw of friendliness. “Yes.” He gave a last backward glance at the doors where she had stood and where she was no longer seen. He climbed back into the cab. Why had she chosen the Metropolitan? To continue the game she’d started, to get hold of herself after the sad sound of memory and love turned to bitterness? To see the pictures?
“Where to?”
Piers considered. “Grand Central.”
The cab started. The driver winked again at his mirror. “Better get that lipstick off your face before you take the train, Mister.”
“Thanks.” He took his handkerchief and rubbed at his mouth.
“If it smells,” the driver volunteered, “get you a beer, rub some on your mouth.”
“I’ll remember that.” Piers put the handkerchief away. “Do you know Nick Pulaski?”
The driver considered. “I used to know a Mildred Pulaski once. Worked in a bakery in the Bronx. Is she any relation?”
“I only know Nick,” Piers said.
“Might be his sister. They was a big family. Lots of Pulaskis in New York. She was a pretty good-looking girl. Don’t know what happened to her. I got changed over to Manhattan. Make more money in Manhattan. The Bronx only tips a dime.”
Piers said, “How do you feel about peace?”
“What do you mean?”
“About peace. War and peace.”
“There’s not going to be any more wars.” The driver’s face was complacent. “The next big shot that tries to start a war is going to get his head bashed in like a cantaloupe.”
“That’s the way I feel,” Piers said. “But the Germans want the International troops withdrawn. They want to build aeroplanes again. After that guns, and munitions to put in them—”
The driver was vociferously obscene about the Germans.
“I agree,” Piers said. No man wanted war. No man had ever wanted war. But the apes smashed stones down on the heads of those things groping through the jungles, watched them turn to rend each other. And the apes scratched their behinds with amused fingers, a substitute for thought.
At 50th the driver said, “I think there’s a cab following.”
Piers slipped down lower on the upholstery. “Can you see who’s in it?”
“No.”
She had chosen the Metropolitan. Because there would be someone to signal there? She knew he had lost his pursuer. It was important to pick Piers up again.
“I want to see who’s in it. Any ideas?”
“Are you afraid of getting clipped?”
“No, I’m not.” Death was stalking him. And he wasn’t afraid. He had a mission to perform; he was certain of carrying it through. He had to carry it through because there was no one else to take over.
“Then I could turn down a side street and when there’s no traffic stop. But I don’t want no trouble. No shooting.”
Piers said, “I don’t carry a gun.”
“I don’t want no corpses in my back seat neither.”
“I’ll duck.” He smiled. “See what you can do”—he re-read the identification tag—“Willie.”
“Always a sucker.” Willie swung west on 47th. “But I’m curious. And obliging.” He reported, crossing Eighth Avenue, “It’s following all right. Is it her husband?”
“It isn’t a woman,” Piers said. “It’s peace.”
“Are you nuts?” The face was screwed up.
“I’m not nuts. No, Willie. It’s peace. The Germans don’t want me to show up at the Peace Conclave.”
“Well, why didn’t you say so?” His ugly face stuck forward. “I got a gun. Got a license for it, too.”
Piers said softly, “Don’t use it. Unless he attempts something funny.” His voice sharpened. “If he does, empty both barrels in the son of a bitch.”
“Don’t worry.”
The cab lost speed. “Don’t want them to know we’re tricking,” Willie reported. He stopped on the other side of Tenth, in front of a frowsty tenement with kids skating and scrapping on the sidewalk.
Piers shifted to watch the following cab. It had slowed before realizing the maneuver. Now it attempted speed but the passenger was visible as it passed. It was the moon face.
“Recognize him?” Willie asked.
“Yes. German.”
“What do we do now?”
“If you can get away from him—” He didn’t know where. “Grand Central.” It was as safe as any place. The Astor was known and the Plaza. He’d have to find a new hole. He didn’t dare use the Lucerne after taking Morgen there. Yet Grand Central wasn’t safe; it could hide too many enemies.
“I’ll get away. It may cost you.”
“I can pay.” Piers took two tens, handed them over. “If it’s more, all right.”
“I wasn’t doubting you could pay,” Willie said with belligerent ears. “I just didn’t know how far you were willing to go.”
“All the way.”
“That’s all I wanted to know.” He made a U turn, rolled out of the street the wrong way. Piers didn’t follow the labyrinthine trail. He sank back and rested. It must have been Morgen who set them on him again. No one else could.
They were somewhere among warehouses when Willie asked, “You in a bad spot?”
“Desperate.”
“If you want a hideout, I could maybe help you.”
“I’ve been trying to think of one. I have no friends.”
“Well, it’s my brother-in-law. He got in some trouble—he’s an Eye-talian—they’re hot-blooded. We didn’t want Josie to marry him but you know how girls are, with him flashing a big car and she’d been working in a laundry. It wasn’t murder, the guy didn’t die. Anyhow he’s hiding out. We could put you in with him. It’s safe.”
Piers repeated as if the word were in a foreign tongue. “Safe.”
“I can tell you that, it’s safe. Me and Josie run in every day or so—bring him food and the papers and a bottle—nobody’d ever find you there.”
Piers asked, “I couldn’t go in and out?”
“No, sir.” The driver shook his head with force. “No, you couldn’t do that. You might lead someone to Paulie. But you’d be safe.”
“I’m sorry.” He was. A place to sleep without fear, beside a criminal. “I’d have to be free to come and go.”
Willie’s head was doleful. “That’s too bad. You’d be safe with Paulie. Grand Central?”
He looked at his watch. After three. He said, “No. If we’re clear, take me to Central Park. Uptown, around a Hundred-and-tenth will be all right. Make it the West Side.”
Willie cocked an eye at him. “Okay,” was all he said.
There was nothing else he could do at the moment u
nless he chose to walk into the arms of pursuers. Willie set him down above 110th. The cabbie said, “Wait a minute.” He took a dingy card from his pocket and with a wetted stub of pencil printed on it. “If you need help again, you call up this number and ask for Willie. If it gets too hot for you I’ll pick you up and take you where Paulie is. It’d be better to stay inside than get bumped off.”
Piers said, “Thanks.” He put the card in his wallet, watched the reluctant cabman drive away.
He walked up the hill, away from the whir of tires on the drives. There was no sound where he rested but the play of children, a nursemaid humming an old song. Only one day to go; from now until tomorrow’s sundown. He must remain free, and alive for that long. He was the only barrier between the success of the apes and peace.
His death had been decreed. Morgen had warned beneath her breath. Because she knew if he came to them tonight, he would die? But she also knew he would not come. Or had her life with Hugo blinded her to the fact that there were men to whom other things were more important than ambition, greed, revenge? On the chance he did come, she would have to report the presumptive sale of his honor to the others. They would believe; they knew man only in their own ape image. Gordon would be told how small he was.
His death was more important to them than the papers now that Gordon was named, now that Anstruther was given up as lost. But for one factor. They couldn’t know but that the documents would be automatically passed on to another if he were eliminated. They didn’t know how alone he was, how helpless. Because of that, they would allow him to dangle a little longer in this life before they snuffed him out. They would prefer the treachery of paying a price before the kill. They could afford a few more hours.
There was yet the final move before tomorrow, the retrieving of the memoranda. He would be trailed threefold when he went for them. Unless Willie could help him out. He would recover the papers. True, he would have no voice in the Conclave; Gordon would see to that. Yet if David came tonight, if he could be taken to Fabian, he might yet have a chance. And if David didn’t come—voice or not, he would attend the Conclave. The galleries were open to the people. The people could see but the people could not speak. If he could do nothing else, he could give Anstruther’s words to the people, there among them. He would make the people speak.
Delicate Ape Page 14
