Memory (Hard Case Crime)

by Donald E. Westlake

  “I just forgot, that’s all.”

  “Make me a cup of coffee, I’ll be right over.”

  The phone went dead, and Cole said into it, reluctantly, “All right.” Then he cradled it, finished his coffee, and put on his shirt. He went on with his routine, but distractedly, thinking about his impending visitor. Nick. Caricature.

  Meaningless.

  He was eating breakfast, fifteen minutes later, when there was a sharp paradiddle of knuckles on the hall door. He went over reluctantly, and opened it, and felt an overwhelming sense of relief when he recognized the face smiling there. Nick, of course!

  This was even stranger than the recognition of Helen Arndt the other day. He looked at Nick and immediately felt he knew him the way he’d know somebody like Little Jack Flynn. Not with the details, the memories of specific incidents and occurrences with this person, but just as surely and confidently as though those memories were there.

  “Hello there, you silly bastard,” said Nick, and lunged into the apartment, looking around. “What the hell you been doing with yourself?”

  “I set you a place,” Cole told him. “You want some eggs?”

  Nick spun around to frown worriedly at Cole. “What’s the matter, clown? Somebody die?”

  “No. I’ll tell you about it. Sit down there. You want some eggs?”

  In a garbled Cockney accent, Nick said, “Ye fair gi’ me the creeps. Ye’r fey, ye’r.”

  Cole went over to the kitchenette and got a second cup of instant coffee. He repeated his question about the eggs and this time Nick shook his head, but continued to watch Cole worriedly. He seemed to be wanting to make some sort of joke, but not sure he should.

  Cole wasted more time at the kitchenette, stalling the moment when he would have to sit down and begin to talk with this new person. He understood that Nick was his friend—much more than that Benny, much more sensibly the sort of person he could conceive of as a friend—and he knew that meant he was going to have to tell Nick the truth. He had promised himself after the interview with Helen Arndt he wouldn’t weaken again, and he had thought at the time it was a promise he could keep.

  But he couldn’t continue alone indefinitely. If he was going to tread carefully back into his old footsteps, he would need an ally, someone to tell him when he was on or off the path. Nick didn’t seem to have the self-centered impatience of Benny, nor the greedy self-interest of Helen Arndt. Besides, Cole felt easy in his mind about this one, sure they could still be friends in this altered present. So maybe this was the ally he’d been needing.

  Nick sipped at his coffee and said, “If you’re putting me on, you son of a bitch, I’ll kill you. If you’re trying some goddamn characterization out on me, I’ll break your silly neck.”

  Cole shook his head. “I’ll tell you everything I remember,” he said.

  He told the story again, and Nick listened silently, squinting a bit as though he could see Cole better that way, and as though in seeing Cole better he would be able to hear and understand his words better. When Cole was finished—with the little bit he remembered, it didn’t take long to tell—Nick asked a few questions which didn’t get very helpful answers, the way everybody did at this point, and then for a minute or two they sat in silence at the table, Nick nibbling monkey-like at his coffee.

  Cole got up and started clearing the dishes from table to sink, and Nick said, “You ought to see a doctor.” His tone and facial range were completely different now; with solemnity, his voice deepened and his thin face became hollowed and large-eyed.

  Cole shrugged. “It should get better,” he said. “In fact, I think it has. I didn’t remember you until just now, when you came in.”

  “Do you remember what happened to start it?”

  Cole shook his head. “Only what Helen Arndt said, about me being in a hospital. But I don’t remember it.”

  Nick said, “So maybe it isn’t getting better, maybe it’s getting worse. If it got worse, how could you tell?”

  Cole smiled wanly. “If it got worse, I wouldn’t know my own name.”

  “Then you better see a doctor.”

  “I suppose so.”

  Nick lit himself a cigarette, and said, “Why didn’t you come around? You’ve been home almost a week now.”

  “I didn’t remember anybody. I told you, I didn’t even remember you until you walked in here.”

  Nick shook his head. “No good,” he said. “You could of gone out and walked around the street. Walked into a few coffee shops. You would of run into somebody you knew, sooner or later. Don’t you have my telephone number around here someplace?”

  “I guess so,” Cole said, guiltily thinking of the little blue book of phone numbers.

  “You could of used it, just to see what would happen. You could of asked Helen to put you in touch with me, or some of your other friends. Hell, when I called up this morning, you tried to give me some phony excuse you weren’t going to be here.”

  “I forgot it was Christmas.”

  “Sure. You’ve been hiding out, that’s what you’ve been doing. The only reason you went to see Helen was because you had to, you told me so yourself. You’re a silly ass bastard, you know that?”

  Cole shrugged, not knowing what to say.

  But Nick persisted. “Why, Paul?” he asked. “What silly ass idea you got in your head?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t want to see anybody till I was better, I guess.”

  “Brilliant. Old go-it-alone Cole, huh?”

  “I guess so.”

  “Won’t see a doctor, won’t see your friends, won’t do anything but sit around here and wait for your idiot mind to go out like a candle.”

  “I’ll see a doctor,” Cole promised. He was embarrassed now, with an obscure feeling of having been ungrateful about something, of having hurt Nick’s feelings some way.

  Nick said, “Tomorrow. Go tomorrow.”

  “I can’t tomorrow.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t have enough money. I don’t even have enough to pay the rent next week, and the unemployment insurance people don’t pay any money for the first week you’re out of work.” That had been another unpleasant interview. He had asked the woman in the unemployment insurance office how they expected him to survive for the two weeks until his thirty-seven dollars a week started being paid to him, and she told him flatly that was none of her concern, had him sign the yellow form, and dismissed him simply by turning her attention to the next person in line.

  Nick shook his head with mock sadness that seemed to cover real irritation. “You’re a lulu, you silly bastard,” he said. “You go away, and you tell him to bill you. Helen’ll give you a recommendation, won’t she?”

  “I guess so.”

  “So go tomorrow. Right?”

  Cole nodded. “All right, I will.”

  Nick stood up and stuck the cigarette in the corner of his mouth. “Get your coat on,” he said.

  “Where we going?”

  “Around. See who’s doing. Lot of people gone home for the holidays, but there’s still some around.”

  “Nick, I don’t think I ought to—”

  “Just put your coat on, clown. You don’t think at all, period.”

  “Maybe I ought to,” said Cole. He felt excited at the prospect, and frightened of it, too, like a man getting out of prison after twenty-five years.

  They put on their coats and went out. The weather was good for Christmas Day this year, clear and cold, and few pedestrians were moving on the sidewalks. Nick led the way; they crossed Sheridan Square and headed east.

  The first coffee shop they entered was nearly empty; a few solitary people sat at tables reading books or just stirring coffee. Nick looked around and said, “Nobody here. Come on.”

  “Let’s have a cup of coffee here anyway.” Fear was beginning to overcome excitement now; who were his friends, what were they like, what would they think of him once they knew the truth?

  But Nick
said, impatiently, “Come on, clown. We’re not here for coffee.” He pushed his way back out to the sidewalk, and Cole had no choice but to follow him.

  At the second coffee shop, Nick recognized a group of four people at a table near the rear. He shouted, “Hola!” and advanced, waving his arms. They all shouted back, and shouted also, “Hey, Paul! When’d you get back?”

  Two more chairs were dragged over to the table, and they sat down. Nick said, “You’ll have to excuse Paul, he’s had an accident.”

  They all started asking questions, and Cole stammered, “Let Nick tell it. You tell them, Nick.”

  “Sure.” Nick seemed to take a proprietary air in him, or maybe a showman’s air, displaying an unusual exhibit. He told the story Cole had told him, and told it much better.

  While Nick was talking, Cole studied the faces of the four people at the table, seeing if he remembered them. Two were named Ed and Frances, he knew that. He remembered their faces, and could put first names to them, but could remember nothing more about them at all. The other two he knew were married, but even their names escaped him. He had the feeling he’d been to their apartment, probably more than once, at parties in their apartment.

  Nick had finished telling the story, and all four of them were offering him sympathy and looking at him with fascination and curiosity, as though they’d never seen him before. Nick turned to him and said, “You remember these people?”

  “You’re Ed and Frances,” he said, pointing. “But that’s all I remember. And I remember you two are married—”

  They laughed, and the man said, “I’m glad of that. Just keep it in mind.”

  “I’ve been to parties at your house, haven’t I?”

  “Check. But you don’t remember our names?”

  Cole shook his head. “I’m sorry.”

  The man named Ed said, “Are you two putting us on?”

  “Honest to God,” Nick said. “I thought it was a gag at first, too, but it isn’t. It’s straight poop.”

  “I’m Fred Crawford,” said the other man. “You remember now?”

  “You live in Brooklyn.”

  “Sure. You remember my wife’s name?”

  Cole felt embarrassed, as though to admit ignorance would be insulting. He frowned, concentrating, trying to remember.

  The girl said, “It’s Mattie.” She said it as though she felt sorry for him.

  He nodded. “That’s right, Mattie.”

  “She knows it,” said Fred, and they all laughed.

  Nick said, “We can’t stick around. I want Paul to go see everybody, everybody we can find.”

  “Lot of people gone home for the holidays,” said Ed.

  “There’s still some left.”

  Fred Crawford said, “Hey, Paul. We’re having a New Year’s Eve party. You coming?”

  “I’d get lost.”

  “Nick’ll bring you, won’t you?”

  “Sure,” said Nick. He grinned and said, “You’re my date, baby.”

  Cole tried to laugh, too, to get into the spirit of it, but he was too self-conscious. All of these people were so sure of themselves, so solidly placed. He felt like a bubble, floating, doomed to disappear with a pop any second.

  Nick got to his feet, saying, “See you later. Come on, Paul.”

  Cole rose and said, “Glad to have met you,” because he was self-conscious. They all laughed at that, except Mattie, who looked embarrassed and pitying. In confusion, Cole turned away and hurried after Nick out of the place, knowing it was going to go on like this all day.

  But it would help. That was the only reason he’d put up with it; it would help.

  19

  The girl named Rita was walking homeward with him, but he didn’t know yet whether she would be coming up to his apartment or not. He wasn’t even sure whether he wanted her to come up or not.

  In a whispered conference in the men’s room at the East Side coffee shop where he and Nick had wound up a little after midnight, and where they’d run into Rita and three other people, Nick had told him that Rita and the old Paul Cole had been going together for about six months prior to Cole’s going off with the touring company. Cole then had hemmed and hawed, but there hadn’t been any roundabout way to ask it, so finally he’d just blurted the question out: “Did we sleep together?”

  “Beats me. Maybe.”

  All in all, in their wandering throughout the day and half the night, they’d met fifteen or twenty people who had known the old Paul Cole, ranging from party acquaintances to close friends. As with the first group, Nick had in each instance taken over the task of explaining Cole’s memory problem, always with that bit of flair in his manner, a hint of fanfare in his voice.

  There’d been nearly as many reactions as people. Some had seemed sincerely concerned about him, wishing him well. Some had acted awkward and uncomfortable in his presence, after hearing about him. And some had found a kind of rough humor in his condition, making jokes he sometimes understood. Half a dozen times Cole had been on the verge of bolting, of running flat out across the sidewalks and home, of locking the door behind him and crawling into bed to cower there in misery, ignoring any ringing of phones or knocking at doors, until the memory of tonight would have faded and disappeared. But each time he had restrained himself with the same argument: Meeting these people again, talking with them, moving through these surroundings, all would help him regain his memory.

  And it did seem to be working. Through conversations he had learned much about himself, adding to the information he had gleaned from constant reading and re-reading of the tax forms and resume and the other treasures in the desk at home. He had learned tonight about the tour he had been on when he’d had his accident, though he hadn’t met anyone who had been along on that tour or could tell him specifically what sort of accident it had been. But slowly the parts of Paul Cole were being made known to him, and this accretion of knowledge made the uneasiness and the self-consciousness and the nervousness all more than worthwhile.

  As to the people, most of the ones he’d met tonight he did recognize, and even here and there caught sight of a faint visual memory glimmering down at the end of a long tunnel in his mind. Exposing himself to his past this way was agitating his brain, forcing his memory to start to work again, and that was all to the good. He understood now why it had been so necessary for him to leave that town; if he had stayed there, his memory might never have gotten well. He was only lucky he’d obeyed the urge to come here, even though at the time he hadn’t understood it.

  Not that his memory was well now, not at all. Only a few faint memories had been sluggishly stirred so far, and some of the people he had re-met tonight he didn’t remember or recognize at all, including this girl Rita, whose arm was now linked with his as they walked westward across Eighth Street toward his apartment. Her face, her voice, her words and mannerisms, all were as foreign to him as though she had just this night been created. Yet Nick had said this stranger had been his girl for six months, and it was possible they had gone to bed together.

  There was an eerie feeling in it, to be walking with a girl who was such an unknown quantity to him, yet who knew him, perhaps, as much as any woman knows any man. It was like the eeriness of dreams where one walks naked through crowds.

  He wished Nick had come along. But Nick had winked and grinned and pushed him toward the door, saying, “I’ll see you around, you silly bastard. Go for a walk with Rita, go on.”

  She did all the talking, now. She would mention someone’s name, and say something about what he or she was doing right now, and then try to remind him of the person by telling anecdotes from the past. A few times the anecdotes rang small bells in his memory and he’d say, “I remember now. A short fat girl,” or something like that. But most of the time there was no memory at all, and nothing for him to say, and for the last few blocks Rita’s chatter faded away and they walked silently together.

  She was, all in all, a beautiful girl, a natural beauty. Twenty or
twenty-one, with gleaming black hair and large dark eyes and a clear soft milk-white complexion. Her features were regular and cleanly drawn, and if they contained any flaw at all it was not in the features themselves but in her expression, which, because she was tired and because she’d been drinking, was somewhat loose and vague.

  They stopped at last in front of his building, and stood looking at one another, while he belatedly began to wonder whether or not he should ask her upstairs. If only he knew just what their relationship used to be, but he didn’t.

  She broke the silence, saying, “You’re not a bit like you used to be, you know that?”

  “I don’t know very much about what I used to be.”

  “You going to change back?”

  “I guess so. I hope so.”

  “It’s cold out here. Let’s go on up and have a cup of coffee.”

  “All right,” he said. “Good.” He was relieved to have the problem decided for him, though it still didn’t answer the main question.

  He unlocked the street door, and they started up the stairs together. She took his hand and led the way, a step ahead of him, and he followed, frowning. It was stupid not to remember her. Her of all people, it was stupid.

  He felt her hand warm and moist in his as she led him up the stairs. Her coat was unbuttoned, with a black wool sweater beneath; looking up at her, he saw the fullness of her breast defined by the black wool, and all at once a scene came into his mind, a full memory, of himself and a girl on a sofa, his hand touching the girl’s small breast beneath a brown wool sweater.

  He frowned at the memory; it was from the wrong world. That town had no meaning for him anymore, no purpose in his thoughts. Memories of it were wasteful, consuming space needed for more meaningful memories of more meaningful times. And why should he think of Edna now, anyway, why should he even remember her name? He could see her clearly, could hear her frail voice and list the whole catalog of her nervous mannerisms. Compared with this girl Rita—No, there was no comparison. Not in looks, not in personality, not in anything. And particularly not in meaning. It was important for him to remember Rita, necessary for him to remember her, but remembering Edna could only be a barren luxury.