The Boy Who Followed Ripley

by Patricia Highsmith

  At the name Teresa, the boy sat up a little. “I think you’d like to—you’d like me to get lost. I can understand that.” Frank stood up.

  “If you want to stay in Europe, you can. That’s your affair. But it’ll make you happier if you speak to Teresa and tell her you’re all right. Won’t it? Don’t you think she’s worried?”

  “Maybe. I hope so.”

  “It’s around noon in New York. She’s in New York?— You dial nineteen, one, then two one two. I can go upstairs so I won’t hear a word.” Tom waved a hand toward the telephone, and walked toward the stairs. The boy was going to do it, Tom could tell. Tom went up to his room and closed the door.

  Less than three minutes later, the boy knocked on Tom’s door. He came in at Tom’s word, and said, “She’s out playing tennis.” He announced this as if it were dreadful news.

  Frank couldn’t imagine Teresa so unconcerned about him that she would be out playing tennis, Tom supposed, and a further agony must be that she was playing tennis with a boy she liked more than she liked Frank. “You spoke to her mother?”

  “No, the maid—Louise. I know her. She told me to call back in an hour. Louise said she was out with a few boys.” Frank put the last phrase in miserable-sounding quotes.

  “You said you were all right?”

  “No,” the boy said after an instant’s reflection. “Why should I? I suppose I sounded all right.”

  “I’m afraid you can’t call back from here,” Tom said. “If the—if Louise mentions it, the family may want to get the call traced if you ring back. Anyway it’s too likely for me to risk it. Post office in Fontainebleau is closed now, otherwise I’d drive you. I don’t think you can reach Teresa tonight, Billy.” Tom had hoped that the boy could reach Teresa tonight, and that she might have said something like, “Oh, Frank, you’re okay! I miss you! When are you coming home?”

  “I understand,” the boy said.

  “Billy,” Tom said firmly, “you must make up your mind what you want to do. You’re not suspected. You’re not going to be accused. Susie doesn’t seem to count for much or anything, because she didn’t see anything. Just what are you afraid of? You have to come to terms with that.”

  Frank shifted and shoved his hands in his back pockets. “Of myself, I think. I already said that.”

  Tom knew. “If I weren’t here, what would you do?”

  The boy shrugged. “Maybe kill myself. Maybe be sleeping in Piccadilly. You know the way they hang around the fountain there, the statue. I’d send Johnny’s passport back to him, and then I don’t know what I’d do—till somebody checked on me. Then I’d be sent home—” Another shrug. “And then I don’t know. Maybe I wouldn’t ever confess—” He emphasized the word, but spoke in a whisper. “But maybe I’d kill myself in a couple of weeks. Then there’s Teresa. I admit I’m hung up—and if something goes wrong there—if something’s already gone wrong—She can’t write me, you know. So it’s hell.”

  Tom didn’t want to remark that Frank would probably be in love with seventeen more girls before he found the one he might finally marry.

  WEDNESDAY JUST AFTER NOON, Tom was pleasantly surprised by a telephone call from Reeves. The object in question would be ready by late that night, and would be in Paris by tomorrow noonish. If Tom was in a hurry and wanted to pick it up himself, he could go to a certain Paris apartment, otherwise it could be sent from Paris to Tom by registered post. Tom preferred to pick it up. Reeves gave him an address, a name, third floor.

  Tom asked for the telephone number there in case of need, and Reeves gave him this too. “Very fast work, Reeves, I thank you.” It would have been quite all right, Tom thought, to have sent it registered from Hamburg, but the airplane delivery did save one day.

  “And for this little job,” said Reeves in his creaky, old man’s voice, though he was not yet forty, “two thousand, if you don’t mind, Tom. Dollars. Cheap at the price, because this wasn’t easy, sort of a new one, you know. And I should think your friend can afford it, eh?” Reeves’s tone was amused and friendly.

  Tom understood. Reeves had recognized Frank Pierson. “Can’t talk anymore here,” said Tom. “I’ll get it to you via the usual, Reeves.” Tom meant via a request to his Swiss bank. “Are you going to be home in the next days?” Tom had no plans, but wanted to know this. Reeves could be wonderfully helpful.

  “Yes, why? Thinking of coming?”

  “No-o,” said Tom cautiously, ever fearful that his line might be being tapped.

  “You’re staying put.”

  Tom supposed that Reeves knew he was sheltering Frank Pierson, if not under his own roof, then somewhere.

  “What’s all the trouble? Impossible to say, huh?”

  “Impossible, yes, just now. I do thank you, Reeves.”

  They hung up. Tom walked to the French windows and saw Frank in his Levi’s and darker blue workshirt plying the spade at the edge of a long bed of roses. He worked slowly and steadily, like a peasant who knew what he was doing, not like an amateur who would have knocked himself out in fifteen minutes of a fast attack on something. Strange, Tom thought. Maybe the work was some kind of penance in the boy’s mind? Frank had been spending his time yesterday and today reading, listening to music, and doing chores such as car-washing and sweeping out Belle Ombre’s cellar, which had involved shifting rather heavy racks of wine and putting them back in place. Frank had thought the tasks up himself.

  Should they go to Venice, Tom wondered. A change of scene might shape the boy up, make him come to a decision, and Tom might be able to put him on a plane from Venice to New York, and return home himself. Or Hamburg? Same thing. But Tom didn’t want to involve Reeves in the sheltering of Frank Pierson, and Tom in fact didn’t care to involve himself much longer. Maybe with the new passport, Frank would find his courage and take off on his own, finish his personal adventure in his own style.

  Thursday noon, Tom rang the Paris number in the Rue du Cirque, and a woman answered. They spoke in French.

  “This is Tom here.”

  “Ah, oui. I think everything is in order. You are coming this afternoon?” She didn’t sound like a maid, but like the woman of the house.

  “Yes, if that is convenient. Around three-thirty?”

  That would be all right.

  Tom told Heloise that he was going to make a quick trip to Paris to talk with their bank manager, and would be back between 5 and 6 p.m. Tom was not in trouble with an overdraft, but one of the managers of Morgan Guarantee Trust did sometimes give him stock market advice, very general and minor, Tom considered, as Tom preferred to let his stocks ride rather than waste time in the dangerous game of playing the market. Anyway, Tom’s excuse was good enough, because Heloise’s mind was on her mother that afternoon. Her mother, a youthful fifty-odd and not inclined to illness, had had to go to hospital for an examination which might result in an operation for a tumor. Tom remarked that doctors always prepared people for the worst.

  “She looks in the pink of health. Give her my good wishes when you speak with her,” Tom said.

  “Billy is going with you?”

  “No, he’s staying. He’s got some little jobs he wants to do—for us.”

  In the Rue du Cirque, Tom was able to find a parking meter free, then he went to the house, an old well-kept edifice with the usual street door button to press, and then the door opened on a hall or foyer with a concierge’s door and window, which Tom didn’t bother with. He took the lift to the third floor, and rang the bell on the left marked Schuyler.

  A tall woman with a lot of red hair opened the door slightly.

  “Tom.”

  “Ah, come in! This way, please.” She led him toward a living room which was across a hall. “You have met before, I think.”

  In the living room stood Eric Lanz, smiling, hands on hips. There was a coffee tray on a low table in front of a sofa. Eric was standing. “Hello, Tom. Yes, me again. How are you?”

  “Quite well, thanks. And you?” Tom wa
s also smiling with surprise.

  The redheaded woman had left them. There was a low drone of sewing machines from another room of the flat. What went on here, Tom wondered. Maybe another fence depot, as was Reeves’s Hamburg apartment? With a couturière cover?

  “And here we are,” said Eric Lanz, opening a beige cardboard portfolio, which had strings to close it. He produced a white envelope from among other thicker envelopes.

  Tom took the envelope, and glanced over his shoulder before he opened it. No one else had come into the room. The envelope was not sealed, and Tom wondered if Eric had already looked at the passport? Perhaps. Tom did not want to look at it in Eric’s presence, but at the same time wanted to know if Hamburg had done a good job.

  “I think you will be pleased,” Eric said.

  Frank’s photograph had the official stamp which raised the surface, plus PHOTOGRAPH ATTACHED DEPARTMENT OF STATE PASSPORT AGENCY NEW YORK partly on and partly below it. BENJAMIN GUTHRIE ANDREWS was the name, born in New York, and height and weight and date of birth corresponded well enough to Frank’s, though the date made him seventeen now. No matter. The job looked good to Tom, who had some experience, and maybe only a magnifying glass could detect that the raised stamp on the photograph might be a bit off from the stamp on the page—or was it? Tom couldn’t tell. Inside of front page, full address was apparently that of parents in New York. The passport was some five months old, with a Heathrow entry stamp, then France, then Italy, where the unfortunate bearer must have been relieved of it. No current French entry, but unless a passport control officer’s suspicions were aroused by Frank’s appearance, no one was going to peer at entry and exit stamps, Tom knew. “Very good,” Tom said finally.

  “Nothing to do but sign it across the photograph.”

  “Do you happen to know if the name has been changed, or is the real Benjamin Andrews going to be looking for his passport?” Tom hadn’t detected any sign of erasure in the typewritten name inside the front cover, and any previous signature fragment had been neatly obliterated from beside the photograph.

  “It has been changed, the last name, Reeves told me.— Coffee? This is finished, but I can ask the maid to make some.” Eric Lanz looked slimmer, even of better social class since Tom had seen him three days ago, as if he were a miracle man who could effect a transformation just by thinking about it. Now he wore the trousers of a dark blue summer suit, a good white silk shirt, and the shoes which Tom recognized. “Sit down, Tom.”

  “Thanks, I said I’d be home soon.— You travel a lot, it seems.”

  Eric laughed—rosy lips, white teeth. “Reeves always has work for me. Berlin too. I am selling hi-fi gadgets this time,” he said in a lower tone and glanced at the door behind Tom. “Supposed to be. Ha-ha!— When are you coming to Berlin?”

  “No idea. No plans.” Tom had put the passport back into its envelope, and he gestured with it before sticking it into his inside jacket pocket. “I’ve arranged to settle for this with Reeves.”

  “I know.” Now Eric pulled a billfold from his blue jacket which lay on the sofa. He extracted a card and handed it to Tom. “If you are ever in Berlin, it would be a pleasure to see you, Tom.”

  Tom glanced at the card. Niebuhrstrasse. Tom didn’t know where that was, but it was in Berlin, with a telephone number. “Thanks.— You’ve known Reeves a long time?”

  “Oh—two, three years, ja.” His rosy, neat mouth smiled again. “Luck to you, Tom—and to your friend!” He moved to the door with Tom to see him out. “Wiedersehen!” said Eric, softly but clearly.

  Tom went down to his car and drove homeward. Berlin, Tom was thinking. Not for the presence of Eric Lanz at all, if he ever was at home, but because Berlin was off the beaten tourist track. Who wanted to visit Berlin, except perhaps scholars of the World Wars, or as Eric had said, businessmen invited to conferences. If Frank wanted to hide out a few days longer, Berlin might be an idea for him. Venice—more attractive and beautiful, but also a place where Johnny and the detective might spend a couple of days, looking. What Tom didn’t want was that pair to knock on his own door in Villeperce.

  9

  “Benjamin. Ben. I like that name,” Frank said, beaming now as he sat on the edge of his bed, gazing at his new passport.

  “I hope it gives you courage,” Tom said.

  “I know this cost something. You can tell me how much, and if I can’t—do it just now, I can do it later.”

  “Two thousand dollars. . . . Now you’re free. Keep letting your hair grow. You’ve got to sign that passport across the photograph, you know.” Tom made him try the entire name on a sheet of typewriter paper. The boy had rather quick and angular handwriting. Tom told him to round the capital B of Benjamin, and made him write the whole name out three or four more times.

  At last the boy signed with one of Tom’s black ballpoint pens. “How is this?”

  Tom nodded. “All right. Remember when you sign anything else—take it easy so you’ll round everything.”

  It was after dinner. Heloise had wanted to watch something on television, and Tom had asked the boy to come upstairs with him.

  The boy looked at Tom and his eyelids blinked quickly. “Will you come with me, if I go somewhere? To another town, I mean? City?” He wet his lips. “I know it’s been a pain having me—hiding me. If you’d come with me to another country, you could just leave me.” Now he looked with sudden dismalness toward the window, and back at Tom. “It’d be so awful, somehow, leaving from here, your house. But I could, I suppose.” He stood up straighter, as if to illustrate that he could stand on his own feet.

  “Where’re you thinking of going?”

  “Venice. Rome, maybe. They’re big enough to get lost in.”

  Tom smiled, thinking Italy was a hotbed of kidnappers. “Yugoslavia? Doesn’t appeal to you?”

  “Do you like Yugoslavia?”

  “Yes,” Tom said, but not in a tone that implied he would like to go there now. “Go to Yugoslavia. But I wouldn’t advise Venice or Rome—if you want to stay free for a while. Berlin is another possibility. Off the tourist track.”

  “Berlin. I’ve never been there. Would you go to Berlin with me? Just for a few days?”

  The idea was not unattractive, because Tom found Berlin interesting. “If you promise to go home after Berlin,” Tom said quietly and firmly.

  Frank’s face was smiling again, as broadly as when he had received the new passport. “All right, I promise.”

  “Okay, we’ll go to Berlin.”

  “Do you know Berlin?”

  “I’ve been there—twice, I think.” Tom suddenly felt picked up. Berlin would be all right for three or four days, fun in fact, and he would hold the boy to his promise to take off for home from there. Maybe it wouldn’t be necessary to remind the boy of that promise.

  “When shall we go?” Frank asked.

  “The sooner the better. Maybe tomorrow. I’ll see about plane tickets in Fontainebleau tomorrow morning.”

  “I’ve still got some money.” Then the boy’s expression changed. “Not much, I suppose, only about five hundred dollars’ worth of francs.”

  “Never mind about money. We’ll settle up later. I’ll say good night. I want to go down and speak with Heloise.— Of course you can come downstairs again if you want to.”

  “Thanks, I think I’ll write to Teresa.” Frank looked happy.

  “All right, but we’ll post it from Düsseldorf tomorrow, not from here.”

  “Düsseldorf?”

  “Planes to Berlin have to touch down somewhere inside Germany first, and I always aim for Düsseldorf instead of Frankfurt, because you don’t change planes at Düsseldorf, just get out for a few minutes—passports. One other thing, most important, don’t tell Teresa you’re going to Berlin.”

  “All right.”

  “Because she might tell your mother, and I assume you want to be let alone in Berlin. The Düsseldorf postmark will let her know you’re in Germany, but tell her you’re—
going to Vienna. How about that?”

  “Yes—sir.” Frank sounded like a newly promoted soldier, delighted to take orders.

  Tom went downstairs. Heloise was lying on the sofa, watching a news program. “Look,” she said. “How can they go on killing each other?”

  A rhetorical question. Tom looked blankly at the television screen, which showed an apartment building blowing up, darts of red and yellow flame, an iron beam tumbling in the air. He supposed it was Lebanon. A few days ago it had been Heathrow, the aftermath of an attack on the Israeli airlines. Tomorrow the world, Tom thought. He was thinking that Heloise would have news of her mother tomorrow morning maybe by about ten, and Tom hoped the hospital tests would not mean surgery. Tom intended to go to Fontainebleau before ten, get the tickets, and tell Heloise that it was a most urgent job for Reeves Minot, which he had learned about by telephone during the night, something like that. There was no telephone in Heloise’s room, and with her door closed, she could not hear the telephone in his room or in the living room downstairs. Awful news continued on the television set, and Tom postponed any kind of speech to Heloise.

  Before he went to bed that night, Tom knocked on Frank’s door and handed him some booklets on Berlin and a map. “Might interest you. Tells you about the political situation and so forth.”

  BY BREAKFAST TIME, Tom had altered his plans somewhat. He would use a Moret travel agency for the ticket—his own—and telephone the airport in regard to Frank’s ticket. He told Heloise that Reeves had rung in the small hours and wanted him to come to Hamburg at once to lend both his presence and his advice on an art deal.

  “I spoke with Billy this morning. He wants to come with me to Hamburg,” Tom said, “and he’ll be going back to America from there.” Tom had told her that Billy had not made up his mind Monday in Paris where he wanted to go.

  Heloise was visibly pleased that the boy would be going off with Tom, as Tom had thought she would be. “And you’ll be coming back—when?”

  “Oh—I’d say in three days. Maybe Sunday, Monday.” Tom was dressed and having a second coffee and toast in the living room. “I’ll take off in a few minutes to see about the tickets. And I hope the news is good, darling, by ten.”