“A man who has done nothing to anyone,” I said. “Eugene said that to me the night he was killed. Claude said something like it-no enemies, no comrades. Now you say just about the same. Coincidence, Mrs. Marais?”
For a time she was silent. Then she sat down facing me. She lit another cigarette. “Perhaps not. The words seem to be in my mind. I was thinking why that would be. It was Eugene, something he said. A small remark. While reading his newspaper one night, I think, perhaps a week ago. I took little notice, a husband and wife of thirty years, you know? But now?”
“What did he say?”
“That a man can spend his life doing nothing and harming no one, neither monster nor hero, and still there will be reasons for some to want him gone, nonexistent.” She nodded to herself. “Yes, so the thought is in my mind. Perhaps he said much the same to Claude. In all our minds.”
“You don’t know what he might have meant?”
“No.”
“Nothing special happened recently? Anything unusual?”
“Not that I know.” She blew smoke in the room. “We lived a routine life, Mr. Fortune. Here at home. We read, walk, talk, make love. A quiet life, very good. Our only outside life is my church work and Eugene’s Balzac Union-a French cultural club in New York he attended quite often at lunch, sometimes in the evening. Perhaps we lived so because we began in such chaos. The war, the Occupation, the Liberation. We were married in 1942 under German guns, German sneers, their arrogant eyes and boots everywhere. Eugene’s older brother died in the war, my brother vanished in the Occupation, a gendarme cousin was killed by the Maquis, my parents died under your bombs in the Liberation. Chaos and destruction. Is it a wonder we wanted only private quiet?”
I said, “Eugene hadn’t seen his brother in a long time, had he? When did Claude come to New York?”
“A few months ago. You can’t think that Claude-!”
“What do you know about him? His life since Algeria? He’s a closed-up, detached man. He says he worked in remote places where he needed a gun. He’s got some peculiar friends. I heard Eugene say he was a drifter, a bad influence.”
“On Danielle, we thought. But I doubt that anyone can be a worse influence on Danielle than her present friends,” Viviane Marais said. “I am not sure exactly what Claude has done since he left the French army. A mercenary soldier, a pilot, a trader and guard for other traders. What else does he know to do? He was a bitter boy against we who lost to the Germans. He had to defend the honor and glory of France. Eugene had not a high opinion of the honor and glory of France, or of any nation or people. They argued in the old days, saw little of each other over the years. A few months ago Claude appeared here with his wife, moved into that hotel, has done very little since.”
“Waiting?” I said. “For someone or something?”
“I do not know. Eugene talked little about Claude.”
“All right,” I said. “You said Danielle was under a bad influence already. You mean Charlie Burgos?”
“You know about that young animal? What does she see in that one? What will he ever be? So arrogant, and so empty!”
“You and Eugene opposed her seeing Charlie Burgos?”
She threw up her hands. “We hated him, but what can a parent do? To forbid her would be a red flag, yes? We said what we thought, but we did not stop her. She will have to learn.”
“Could Charlie Burgos have tried to rob the shop?”
“I would believe it, but I think not. He would have known Eugene was there. He would have picked a better time, I think.”
“How would Charlie have known Eugene was at the shop?”
“Danielle knew Eugene was staying late.”
I nodded. I didn’t think Charlie Burgos would have tried.
“What do you know about Jimmy Sung?”
“A sad, lonely man who drinks. But Eugene said he worked very hard, very well.”
“Did Eugene play chess with Jimmy Sung?”
“Often. It pleased Eugene very much that Jimmy could play chess. He said Jimmy was good, had learned in some hospital.”
“Did he mention playing with Jimmy that night?”
“No. He said nothing about Jimmy.”
I shook my head now. “I don’t really like the robbery idea, Mrs. Marais, but what else is there? The police have to have at least a hint of some other possible motive.”
“Is the fact that Eugene was at the shop that night to meet someone enough hint, Mr. Fortune?”
“Meet? Who?”
“He did not say who, only that he would be home late because he had to meet someone. He called about six to tell me, and called me again at eleven to say the person had not come. He would wait another hour. That was the last time we spoke.”
She sat silent, hearing her husband’s last call again.
“Claude?” I said.
“Perhaps. He had seen Claude, expected Claude to return. But I had the impression it was someone else he waited for.”
“I met a man at the shop,” I said, and described the tall, military type I had bumped into at the shop. “His name could be Paul Manet. Eugene mentioned that name.”
“Manet? There was a Paul Manet years ago in Paris, a hero in the Resistance. Eugene knew the family. I did not. If he is in New York, Eugene did not mention it.”
“Was Eugene in the Resistance?”
“No, nor did he collaborate. We were small people, we went on living as best we could, as did most.”
“How about a Gerd Exner?” I described the scarred German “associate” of Claude Marais.
“I do not know him.”
I thought it out. “One more thing. Did Danielle know you were calling me last night, planned to hire me?”
“Yes. She did not approve.”
It explained the attack on me in the alley. Charlie Burgos didn’t approve of Viviane Marais hiring me, either. Charlie wanted me safely out of action in some hospital.
“Death did not frighten Eugene,” Viviane Marais said after a moment. “He said he desired to live long only for me, for us. I do not hate that he is dead, it must happen to all, but I do not believe this robbery. I do not want him to be dead for nothing. Some reason, Mr. Fortune, real or imagined. Not the mindless fiat of a mindless world.”
I heard the echo of Marty. Chance was not enough. There must be shape, reason, some conscious direction to life.
“I want you to find that reason,” Viviane Marais said. “I have here a hundred dollars. You will bill me for more.”
She was a middle-class French housewife, and no one is more practical. I took the money, asked the address of the Balzac Union, and left.
I had a job, and I was beginning to want to know more about the death of Eugene Marais myself. The chaser of theories and puzzles. Maybe Marty was right about me.
6
The Balzac Union was in a brownstone on East Seventeenth Street. A small, quiet lobby with a bust of Napoleon and a portrait of De Gaulle. An old man in some uniform with medals stood behind the desk. There was a bar to the right, a large reading room ahead where affluent-looking men read, played cards, or talked. The events board listed a lot of lectures and discussions.
The director, a tall older man named M. De Lange, met me in his second floor office. His rimless glasses reflected the midday sun through his window, but the office was cool-air-conditioned and pleasant.
“A nice club,” I said, as I sat down facing his desk.
“Thank you, Mr. Fortune.” His slight accent was English rather than French. “A social club, no politics. The culture of France, and we keep the older people in touch, try to help new arrivals if we can. Kinship and company, shall we say.”
“Everyone likes a home,” I said.
“If you like,” M. De Lange said, his eyes smaller behind the rimless glasses. “But what is it I can do for you?”
“Tell me what you know about Eugene Marais.”
He swiveled. “You are a policeman?”
“Private.
Mrs. Marais hired me.”
“I see.” His face became grave. “Very sad. Eugene Marais was not our most active member, although he came often. Not a gregarious man, rather aloof, a watcher of others.”
“He wasn’t liked much?”
M. De Lange considered. “He was withdrawn, cynical toward our love of things French, a critic of history.” The director smiled. “That is not unusual, we French are not a compliant, docile people. Still, many wondered why Eugene joined us.”
“Why did he?”
“I suspect to provide an opposition, to prick our bubbles. Eugene admired Balzac, lost no opportunity to remind us that our hero had been a cynic and critic himself. A gadfly, in a way. Most of us associate outside the club, Eugene never did. I don’t think he ever invited one of us to his home, for example.”
“Any idea why?”
The director removed his rimless glasses, polished them. “He was a psychological hermit, I think. Some past trauma.”
“The war? The Occupation? That far back, maybe?”
“Perhaps, but he wasn’t a man who talked about himself. So little, one had the feeling he had never done anything at all.”
There it was again. As if Eugene Marais somehow made everyone know he had been a man who had done nothing. As if that was important in his mind.
“Is there a Paul Manet in your club, M. De Lange?”
The director almost beamed now. “Indeed. A new member, but not new to us by reputation. How do you know Paul Manet?”
“Eugene Marais mentioned him.”
“So? I am surprised. Then, it was the brother who brought Manet to us from San Francisco. They knew each other there.”
“Who is Manet that you knew him by reputation?”
“A hero of the Occupation, one who saved many people from the Germans. His name is well known to Frenchmen of that time, as most of us here are.”
“What does he do now?”
“A representative of French businesses abroad. A journalist, too, I believe. An imposing man, and a welcome addition here.”
“You said he knows Claude Marais. Is Claude a member?”
“No.” The director’s face clamped shut. He put his glasses back on. “Claude Marais served France well, a hero also, but he is a bitter man turned against all he once fought for. We asked him to join us, of course, but he sneered at us, cursed France to our faces. A misanthrope, unpleasant. Perhaps he has suffered much, is disillusioned, but other men have suffered in defeat and not turned against their country.”
“Were Claude and Eugene close? Eugene agreed with Claude?”
“I am not sure. Eugene apologized for Claude, the only time I ever saw Eugene upset, and yet…?” De Lange shrugged. “Eugene said something rather cryptic, then. He said, ‘It seems there are different roads to the same end.’ And that perhaps there was only one end, life a circle that always came to the same point no matter what road. What he meant, who can say?”
“But Claude Marais rejected your club?”
“And we him. There was an incident. With Paul Manet, in fact. Some of us were discussing Indo-China again, Claude was here, so we asked him to comment, of course. He refused, made remarks about stupidity and cowardice. Manet became angry. There were actual blows, I’m afraid.”
“Who won the fight?”
“It was brief,” De Lange said uncomfortably. “Claude Marais knocked Paul Manet down.”
“Manet’s a lot bigger than Claude, looks in good shape.”
“Paul Manet is older, and a gentleman.”
“Maybe that explains it,” I agreed dryly. “Why are you surprised that Eugene Marais mentioned Paul Manet?”
“I did not know they had met. Somehow, Paul Manet was never introduced to Eugene here. Of course, Claude Marais and Manet knew each other in San Francisco, so Eugene must have met Manet on the outside.”
On the outside, and a long time ago, maybe, and at least once at the pawn shop-with Claude there even after the fight at this club. Paul Manet had known the Marais brothers better than the Balzac Union members realized. As if someone wanted the association to remain private.
“You know a man named Gerd Exner?” I asked.
“No. We know few Germans. Stupid, perhaps, but true.”
“Where do I find Paul Manet?”
“I believe he sublet an apartment from a member, or was loaned it.” De Lange checked a box of file cards. “Here it is: Jules Rosenthal’s apartment, 120 Fifth Avenue.”
I thanked the director, and left. I walked down. As I passed the desk, the old soldier on duty called to me:
“Monsieur Fortune? Telephone. You take it in the booth.”
In the booth I picked up the receiver. “Fortune.”
Viviane Marais’s voice said, “I thought you would go to the club. A Lieutenant Marx has just called me. He has arrested Jimmy Sung for the robbery and my husband’s murder.”
Jimmy Sung sat in a straight chair under an overhead light in the hot, dark, windowless interrogation room.
It was bright daylight outside, but in the interrogation room it was always night. A timeless room that could be anywhere. Colorless, bare, with nothing to give it identity, nothing to place it in space, nothing human. A room without a sense of name, and after a time no one in it had a name. In it, as victim or bystander, I felt reduced, stripped. That was the way it was planned.
Two detectives and Lieutenant Marx stood around Jimmy Sung, taking turns talking to him. Another man stood in the shadows. I went to him, expecting to find Captain Gazzo-Homicide chief, and, most of the time, my friend. It wasn’t Gazzo. It was a big, heavy man with a pale, massive face and small eyes. Captain Olsen, Narcotics downtown.
“A narcotics angle, Captain?” I said.
“Gazzo’s on vacation, I’m filling in on Homicide. You’re a lucky man, Fortune. You can collect for doing nothing.”
“I won’t feel bad,” I said. “You’re sure, Captain?”
“Listen and find out.”
Marx and his two squad men were soft-hammering, casual, putting Jimmy Sung at his ease. It wasn’t working.
Jimmy sat rigid in the chair, his soft hands on his thighs under work pants. His feet were flat on the floor, in sneakers, and his back was stiff and straight. His black eyes were fixed straight ahead. He seemed taller, even younger, and his alcoholic eyes were bright. His puffy face had a thin smile. Not amused-a tigerish smile, almost contemptuous. Like a soldier captured by the enemy, waiting for torture, sure they would get nothing from him. I had the illusion that if Jimmy Sung opened his mouth, all that would come out was name, rank and serial number.
“You went to rob the shop,” Lieutenant Marx said. “For booze money, right? You didn’t know Eugene Marais was there. You had to hit him. You started looting the store, decided to tie Marais up. You found he was dead, panicked, and ran.”
Jimmy Sung said nothing, didn’t move, his shoulders tense like a man about to be beaten. A man who expects to be beaten.
A detective said, “Come on, Jimmy. We don’t think you knew what you were doing. Make it easy.”
“We know about those years in that state hospital,” the second detective said. “You’re not responsible.”
The stocky Oriental moved his eyes; black eyes with anger in them now. “A lie, that hospital. You hear?” His eyes looked straight ahead again. “I’m home all night.”
I heard it in his voice-colorless, flat. He didn’t believe what he had said himself. He didn’t believe it, he didn’t believe that the police would believe it, but it was his statement. A man who would confess nothing.
Lieutenant Marx sighed, held up a small, jade Buddha. “Here it is, Jimmy. On the list of what was taken from the pawn shop. Found in your apartment. You know it, and we know it.”
“Not the same Buddha,” Jimmy said.
“It’s got Marais’s pawn mark on it.”
“I never saw it. Someone put it in my place.”
“It was in your bookcase, your woman saw
it the day after Eugene Marais was killed. You told her it was yours.”
“Mr. Marais gave it to me.”
“It was still on the inventory, Jimmy.”
“Mr. Marais forgot to take it off.”
I listened to Jimmy Sung change his claim each time Marx disproved the statement before. Simply, blandly coming up with a totally different claim, and all the time sitting there rigid, his eyes glittering with something peculiarly like pride, waiting for the blows to start. He was denying with his words, changing his claims to meet each charge, but his eyes and body were not denying, not even protesting, simply rejecting. As if he didn’t really care what he said, or what was believed. Resigned to be found guilty.
I said, “That Buddha is all you found, Lieutenant?”
“Isn’t it enough for you?” Captain Olsen said behind me.
“One piece?” I said to Olsen, to all of them in the dark room. “Where’s the rest? Why keep one piece? Come on, it looks to me like some crude frame-up. Jimmy’s no thief.”
“I’d agree, Dan,” Lieutenant Marx said, “if we hadn’t also found this at Eugene Marais’s shop.”
He held a half-pint bottle of vodka. Some brand I’d never heard of. Marx held it in a handkerchief.
“It was on the floor in the backroom, half empty. We found the liquor store clerk who sold it to Jimmy at about ten that night. It was the only half pint he sold, it’s a brand only his store carries around here-a cheap brand for bums and alkies. The bottle has Jimmy’s prints on it. Clear.”
I looked at Jimmy Sung. He still sat unmoving, that thin smile on his face, his bright eyes alert.
“Jimmy’s woman says he left his place about nine-fifty. So did she. No one knows when he got home.”
In a silence, everyone looked at Jimmy Sung. For a time, he didn’t change. Then he licked his lips, lost the thin smile.
“Okay, we played chess. I got there maybe ten o’clock, left maybe eleven o’clock. Mr. Marais was alive. I swear.”
A long breath seemed to go through the dark interrogation room. Jimmy had confessed, the denial didn’t count. Jimmy had been there, he had had a piece of the stolen property.
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