by Joseph Kanon
“Hello,” a voice said. “The gentleman with the turquoise, isn’t it?”
He turned slowly, prolonging the moment. For a second he couldn’t place him. Then he recognized the man from the jewelry shop. Chalmers? Something like that. Sonny. Behind the wire glasses, his eyes were bright.
“Hello,” Connolly said. The man seemed slighter outside the shop. Connolly tried to imagine him with his arm raised, holding a crowbar. No, it didn’t seem possible. Unless the eyes had been furious, the body coiled in surprise.
“I thought it was you. I didn’t realize you were in the service,” Chalmers said pleasantly. “Do you like the pictures?” He glanced toward the wall to see what Connolly had been looking at. “Ah yes. The park.” He turned to face him. “I often wondered, did you find what you were looking for?”
The question floated as casually as an inquiry about the weather. Connolly met his eyes. “Yes, I did.”
“Good,” Chalmers said. “Good. What happened to the turquoise pieces?”
“I still have them.”
“Perhaps you’re interested in selling them.” So this was how it was done—the new meeting, a chat back at the store.
“Maybe. I don’t think I ever introduced myself. My name is Steven Waters.”
“A pleasure,” Chalmers said easily, nodding. Just a name. “Are you”—he hesitated—“with somebody?”
Connolly, caught off-guard, had the unexpected feeling that Chalmers might be making a pass. Or was he just making sure Connolly had come alone? “No,” he said. “Why do you ask?”
Chalmers fluttered, embarrassed. “Forgive me. I thought I knew everyone here, that’s all. It’s my gallery, you see. You’re very welcome.”
“I am supposed to be meeting someone here,” Connolly said, another try.
“Yes, I see. Well, I hope you enjoy the pictures. If you do wish to sell the turquoise, come and see me at the shop.”
“Any particular time?”
Chalmers looked at him, puzzled. “Whenever it’s convenient for you.”
Connolly watched him move away, turning to another group of guests like a concerned host. But was he anything more? Connolly walked out to the patio to have a cigarette, feeling oddly deflated. Had they made contact or not? Is that all that happened, the suggestion of another time and place? After all the waiting, the anxious drive down, did he turn now and go? Or had he imagined it all? Perhaps the man was simply checking his guest list or looking for a new friend. The fact was, Connolly didn’t want it to be Chalmers, so unprepossessing and ordinary that he seemed hardly worth the long search. But why not him? A drive to the church, a quick meeting, a meeting afterward with someone else, and it was done. No fog and trenchcoats, just business as usual. But what had Chalmers really meant? He went over the conversation in his mind. Was it possible—almost a comic thought—that the language of espionage was no different from that of a pickup, all the words that meant something else, verbal sex, the invitation not really offered until it was accepted?
He looked around. All over the room people were making contact. He put his hand in his pocket, feeling the gun. The late afternoon sun flooded the patio. In broad daylight, he thought. Maybe this was how it was done. A nice middle-aged man, a harmless exchange that might mean anything. But there had been nothing casual about the meeting at San Isidro. Except they’d already known Eisler. This was just a sighting. Connolly tried to imagine himself as the other man. What would he be looking for? An amateur. A soldier, nervous, looking around. Someone new to it, who needed to be approached with more than the vague promise of the jewelry shop. But carefully. Connolly realized then that if it was going to happen, he was already being watched.
He went into the gallery rooms, moving toward the refreshments, then back again, staring openly at people now, a soldier looking for someone. He caught Chalmers glancing furtively at him, but with no more purpose than a proprietor keeping an eye on the stock. Emma avoided him, talking to a man in a double-breasted suit who was probably asking her too whether she was with somebody. A woman jarred his elbow, brushing past toward the cheese. So where was he? Hadn’t he made himself visible enough? He moved into the interior room, empty now as people, finished with the paintings, clustered on the patio with drinks. He walked slowly, pretending to study the pictures on the wall. The cathedral in the snow. A Soyer imitation of the bar at La Fonda. A heavy metal statue of a rider—where had they got the scrap?—his horse reared back, hooves sticking up. A giant cob of corn. “Do you like it?” A woman’s voice, throaty.
He turned around. The bobbed hair. The eager eyes. “Hannah,” he said.
She looked up at him, startled for a minute, then said, “Oh, it’s you. Emma’s friend. Forgive me, I didn’t recognize—” Her voice wavered, still puzzled. “But have you joined the army?”
Hannah. He felt the hair on the back of his neck. She had approached a soldier. He stared at her, frozen, as still as the moment on the trail at Chaco. Hannah. Not a man.
“Just for the day,” he said.
But only he had made the leap. “I don’t understand,” she said, disconcerted by his stare. Then, quickly, catching herself, “But where is Emma?”
“She’s not here,” he said. “I was looking for you.”
Hannah. Eisler had been billeted at the ranch.
“Me?” she said, a nervous laugh, uncertain. “But I didn’t know I was coming myself. It’s so difficult to travel now.”
Back and forth to Los Angeles. There would be people there, the next link. No need to risk another meeting in Santa Fe.
“But you sent me an invitation.”
“No,” she said. “I’m sorry. You’re mistaken. It must have been the gallery. Of course, if I had known—” She looked away from him, turning her head as if she wanted to be rescued from the conversation. “But there she is. Emma!” she said loudly, calling her over, but Connolly had glanced up and caught her eye. He shook his head, stopping her at the door.
Hannah turned back to him, bewildered. “I thought you said—”
“She doesn’t know,” Connolly said evenly. “I’ve brought you a message from Corporal Waters.”
Did her eyes widen, or was it his imagination?
“And who is that?”
“Me.”
She looked at him for a moment in disbelief, not saying anything. “Is that your name?” she said finally, polite. “I’m sorry. I forgot. There must be some mistake.”
“No. The invitation was for me.”
Her eyes, shrewd and cautious, darted across his face, trying to see behind the words. Then she closed herself off and looked away. “You are mistaken,” she said, so simply that for an instant he wondered if he was wrong. Everything was supposed to fit. Everything counts in murder. How could it be her? Another European story?
She had turned her head, searching for something, and he followed her look out onto the patio, to the tall Mexican in a denim jacket leaning against the adobe wall. Her right hand. Ajax. A classical name. No, Hector. The constant companion. As if he were taking snapshots, Connolly looked from the patio to Hannah, then again to the Mexican, his mind back at the blackboard. Connect everything. The workboots. Hector’s job on the Hill. Of course he’d be with her, just in case. Strong enough to carry a man. Strong enough to kill one. Two people, one to drive the car back. A wrench, some tool. Had she watched? Had she turned away, like Eisler, or had she watched? Eisler was meeting her, the person off the Hill, but Hector had to return. He worked there now. The car. The back gate.
When he turned back to Hannah, he saw that she had been following his eyes, watching him fill in his crossword. “There’s no mistake,” he said. “Eisler’s dead. He talked to me before he died. I know.”
And then he did know. It was in her eyes. One look, one unguarded point of recognition. “Who are you?” she said softly.
He didn’t answer.
“ ‘I know,’ ” she said. “What does that mean?”
“I know wh
at information Eisler gave you. All of it, every detail. I know about the meeting at San Isidro. I know what happened to Karl.” For a second her face held a question, and he realized she had never known Karl’s name. “The man you killed there. You and your friend.”
She looked at him closely, then shook her head. “Phantastische,” she said. “Poor Friedrich. A delirium. Why would he say such things? But it’s often like that at the end. The fantasies, the paranoia. And you believed him? All this nonsense in his sleep.”
“He was wide awake,” Connolly said flatly. “I interrogated him.”
“Ah,” she said, her voice wry with scorn. “So now we have the Gestapo too. Like the movies. The rubber hose. The castor oil. Some drug? Is that how he died?”
“No. He killed himself.”
She looked up at him, interested. “Why?”
“Remorse, I think.”
“Remorse.”
“Not about you. He was loyal to the end, Eisler. A good party man. But Karl—that was something else. I don’t think he’d ever seen a man killed before. That shook him. I guess he didn’t know your lover was the hot-blooded type.”
“My lover,” she said, her voice cold with contempt, and Connolly thought of that day at the ranch. Something had happened between them. Not a lovers’ quarrel. No. She’d been angry with him for putting them at risk.
“Maybe he just didn’t know his own strength,” Connolly said.
“Enough foolishness.” She turned slightly to go.
“Don’t,” he said, his voice hard.
She froze, looking up at him.
“That’s right. You don’t want to make a scene. Not here. Not in front of the customers. We’ll go somewhere else. Then we can talk some more.”
“You must be crazy. You come up to me here, in this place, with these—what? Accusations? The rantings of a dead man. ‘I know.’ ‘I know.’ You don’t know anything. Leave me alone.”
“I have a gun,” he said quietly.
She stopped. “Now the melodrama too?”
“It’s over, Hannah. There was a witness at San Isidro,” he said. “He’s identified your friend. And you.”
She looked at him again, assessing. “It’s a lie.”
“Is it?”
“Then why wait so long? All this—” She spread her hand toward the room.
“We wanted to see if they’d send someone else. But they didn’t, did they? Your friends. What if it’s a trap? Send Hannah. She’s expendable. Now that Eisler’s dead. They’re closing you down too.”
He had touched some anger. “You fool,” she said, glaring at him. “Do you think that matters? There’ll be someone else. Always. That’s why we win. Yes, we,” she said, catching his look. “Who do you think won this war? The baby GIs with their Hershey bars? We won it. Communists. Such a dirty word to you. But we knew. We stopped them. You think politics is about elections? No—bodies. So, one more, one less? What difference?”
“Then we’ll start with you.”
She tossed back her head. “Yes, start with me. Take your time. You think you have so much time? Idiot,” she said in German. “It’s already too late. What did you think? We could sit by and watch you do this? And not protect ourselves? Children—you’re all children here. Do you think we would give a gun to a child?”
“Do you think we’d give one to a gangster?”
She paused, a flicker of a smile on her face. “No. He would have to take it. While the child was playing, perhaps.”
“For his own good.”
“Yes, for everybody’s good. But very carefully. So he wouldn’t know. We had to be very careful.”
Connolly paused. “And yet here you are.”
“For exactly one more minute. Then we are going to smile—it’s very pleasant, the gallery, yes?—and people will say, ‘You see, not so serious. They must have been talking about the art.’ You think you know something? Where is your proof? Friedrich? I was always very careful with Friedrich. When they put him at the ranch, I thought it was a trap—I wouldn’t even look at him. And he thought I had arranged it, so clever. But you know, there is luck in America. Not like Germany. Everything is lucky here. They thought he’d feel at home speaking German. But we never did. All that time, we were too afraid to talk. We couldn’t believe our luck, you see. But afterward, that was more difficult. So I had to be careful. No paper. No strings. Nothing. Nothing to connect us at all. Now what do you want to do? Arrest me? With your gun? Over nothing at all? I don’t think so. Who would believe such a thing?”
“Do you really think you’re just going to walk out of here?”
“No. I have to say goodbye to some people first,” she said coolly, “but then—It’s getting late. You can follow me, of course. But what will you find? Friedrich’s gone. So there is no Corporal Waters. Then my work—well, that’s over. You see, I don’t even have to be careful anymore. Unless you have something else to tell me?”
Then, smoothly, she began to turn away, and Connolly, in an instant of panic, looked around the room—Emma still lurking by the doorway, the kitschy art, people laughing outside—and felt everything slip away. Without thinking, he grabbed her arm, jerking her back toward him.
“It’s not about Eisler. It’s about Karl. You’re not listening. I don’t have to prove a thing about your ‘work.’ I’m arresting you for murder.”
“Let me go.”
“That wasn’t careful, killing Karl.”
“Let me go,” she said, pulling her arm away, but Connolly held it. “What do you think you’re doing? On whose authority? Whose authority?” Her voice, louder now in the empty room, caused a few people out on the patio to look up.
“The police are outside. On their authority. You can say your goodbyes later.”
Her face, gone white, now twisted itself in a cold rage. “Take your hands off me,” she said, so self-possessed that Connolly obeyed the order and dropped her arm. “Madman. I never killed anybody.”
“Yes, you did. Technically, you might get away with being an accessory,” he said. “I don’t think so. Either way, you’ll be gone for years and years. I’ll see to it.”
“You,” she said, almost spitting the word.
“What’s the problem?” A deep voice: Hector, looming next to them.
“Come,” Hannah said, another order.
Connolly looked up at him, feeling suddenly dwarfed. Black eyes. “Hannah says you killed Karl all by yourself,” he said, improvising. Again the question mark. No one had known Karl’s name. “The man in the alley at San Isidro. You shouldn’t have done that, Hector.”
Hector glanced at her, then stared at Connolly, stunned. He seemed to lean back, as if he had been struck.
“Don’t listen to him. He’s crazy,” Hannah said.
“All by yourself. We thought she helped, but she said no, you did everything.”
Hector’s confusion made him jumpy. Connolly could see the tension creep into the broad, impassive face, the eyes as alert as an animal’s.
“You should have thrown away those boots,” Connolly said, pointing at his feet. “We matched the prints.” A lie, but would Hector know? “Just like a fingerprint. All over the bushes. When you pulled his pants down.”
Now the eyes, no longer confused, took on a shine of menace.
“Come,” Hannah said. “Foolishness.”
“You weren’t trying to kill him. I know. Just knock him out, the way you do.” As he said it, another blackboard leap. Someone else looking up at the tall, glowering man, black eyes flashing. “Like Batchelor. The soldier at the PX. You weren’t trying to kill him. Just teach him a lesson, right?”
“Shut up,” Hector said, his voice a low rumble.
“You didn’t kill him, just roughed him up a little. I can’t blame you. So why’d you kill Karl? We thought she told you to.” He nodded his head toward Hannah. “But she says she wasn’t there.”
Hector turned and looked at her, obviously surprised.
; “Don’t say anything,” she said coldly.
“We know you killed him,” Connolly said quickly. “We didn’t know you did it alone. See, the way we saw it, you knocked him out—he’s just out. Messed up. But she said you had to kill him, you had to finish it. Did you even know who he was? Did she tell you? Eisler said you didn’t know.”
“Shut up,” Hector said again, louder now.
“It was smart making it look like the murder in Albuquerque. To tell you the truth, we thought that was her idea too.”
“Hector, come,” she said, a pet command, and took his arm to lead him away.
Connolly glanced from one to the other, feeling he had to do something, say anything to hold him.
“But that was you. See, I didn’t put two and two together until you beat up the guy at the PX. I didn’t realize you were queer too.”
The fist, exploding, came up and smashed into Connolly’s face. He staggered back against the wall, blood spurting out of his nose in a rush.
“I’ll fuckin’ kill you,” Hector said, moving toward Connolly and chopping his fist down against the side of Connolly’s neck, forcing him to drop to his knees, stunned. He heard a woman scream in the other room, saw in a hazy flash of peripheral vision people turning on the patio to see what was going on. Connolly leaned forward for a second, catching himself, afraid he would black out.
“Hector, no!” Hannah shouted.
“Shut the fuck up,” he said, pushing her aside, heading for Connolly.
But it gave Connolly the second he needed. He brought the gun out of his pocket and held it up before him with two hands. He saw that they were shaking, one of them smeared bright with blood. “Stop,” he said, the word garbled by the blood in his mouth.
