The Traces of Merrilee

by Herbert Brean

  “But they did?”

  “Of course.”

  “Then, how?”

  Merrilee laughed, a tinkling pleased laugh, because she had mystified me.

  “She could see through the mask tied over her eyes, which appeared to be a big black scarf. And he was giving her hand signals all the time. They worked out an elaborate system. But then—”

  “But what?”

  “A funny thing happened.” We had reached a ladder leading to the bridge, and she stopped and looked out on the hissing sea. “I don’t like to talk about it.”

  I waited.

  “After a time my mother discovered that she could read minds, in a way. I don’t mean she could do the act without signals. She never could do that. But she began to know things, other things, without knowing how she knew them. It was as if her concentration when she was on stage brought out something she always had, but never knew she had.”

  “For instance?”

  “Well...There was the night in Buffalo. I was about ten. We were in this terribly cheap hotel and playing a crummy burlesque theater with the act. We were kind of broke. The weather had been terrible all that month. Ferdie and Mother had booked into the hotel as man and wife—it was cheaper that way, but it was really all right. You know what I mean. The truth is they didn’t even like each other very much. But sometimes, when money was low, they had to take a double bed. That’s how it was this night.

  “Anyway, I slept in a little alcove off the bedroom, on a sort of sofa. During the night my mother took me into bed with her. I’d never remember it now, even though Ferdie grumbled considerably about there being three in the double bed. But I remember for what happened later.

  “I dropped off to sleep, and suddenly I was waked up by a tremendous crash, like an explosion. The whole ceiling had fallen in on the alcove. It had been raining heavily, and there was a leak in the roof. Anyway, all this plaster fell on where I had been sleeping earlier. It could have killed me.

  “The next day I heard Mother and Ferdie talking about it.

  The ceiling fell down about four in the morning. But about one o’clock my mother had had this vivid dream, more like a vision I guess, really, in which she saw the ceiling fall on my bed, crushing me. It was so clear she could not get back to sleep. So she took me into bed with her. And a couple hours later the ceiling did fall. I would have been killed.”

  “Some people would call that coincidence.”

  “Sure. That’s why I don’t like to talk about these things.”

  “Things?”

  “There were others. My mother knew things, sometimes. But if you tell people about them, they think you are crazy. Or that she was some kind of freak. I don’t know why I talk about it now.”

  “Because you were going to tell me why you are afraid of crossing the ocean.”

  “Yes. I forgot. It’s because of what went on between my mother and myself sometimes. Because for a while I knew things, too. Like once, when I was thirteen, and we were playing Boston at Christmas, and there was this store near the theater that had a wonderful red skirt for three-seventy-five in the window. I didn’t tell anyone, a single soul, ’cause we were broke. As usual.

  “But the day before Christmas Mother and Ferdie were talking and said we’d go out for Christmas dinner at the serve-self between the second afternoon show and the seven-o’clock curtain, and suddenly I said I’d wear my red skirt, and Mother said I didn’t have one. But I said I would have, and I did. Later Ferdie asked me what I wanted for Christmas, and he bought it for me—he borrowed ten bucks from the theater manager, believe it or not. Ferdie was nice, sometimes. But the thing is, I knew I was going to have a red skirt in time for Christmas dinner. I don’t like this.”

  She stopped.

  “Don’t like what?”

  “I got the skirt. But while we sat eating Christmas dinner I knew that Ferdie was going away. I told my mother later. She said I was crazy. But on New Year’s Day the act broke up and Ferdie went back to California.”

  “You mean you are psychic, too?”

  “Not really. Although I know Mother was—sometimes. But me...I don’t know. Like there’s one thing I’ve been waiting for years to happen.”

  “What’s that?”

  She looked across the sea as we paced. Spray had dewed her long lashes. Finally she said, “There’s a man with a green face. I find him hanging, by the neck...I can’t see him clearly. But—”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “It’s a dream I had—oh, fifteen years ago. I walked into a small room, almost like a closet or something, and this man was hanging there by the neck, and his face was green and drawn. He was dead.”

  “So what happened?”

  “Nothing. Because it hasn’t happened yet.”

  “There you are.” I took her arm. She was cold and, I think, trembling. “Look. Everybody has bad dreams. Did you ever have a nightmare? A real one?”

  “This is still going to happen someday. Klára says so, too.”

  “Who is Klára?”

  “My maid. I told you. She knew my mother. Lately she’s said she thinks I have my mother’s ability. Klára is Hungarian.” She said that as if it proved something.

  We had come back around to her cabin, and the wind was stronger and colder. It was getting late. She’d be better off in bed and getting a night’s sleep.

  “It won’t happen. Believe me. And let me tell you something. I believe in extrasensory perception. Anyone with a knowledge of what constitutes really scientific truth has to. There are people who can sometimes know things by means other than the accepted senses. Most scientists believe this today and accept the many years of tests made at Duke University.”

  “I wouldn’t know about that. But I think it still happens to me.”

  “What does?”

  “Knowing things.”

  “Such as?”

  “Such as, why do I know that a few nights ago you were at a dinner that had something to do with me?”

  The little coldness that went down my back had nothing to do with the night wind.

  “You were,” she said. “I see you. I think I saw you there when we first met tonight.”

  I know how easy it is to read this. Try hearing it firsthand, on a dark, remote ship deck, well out at sea.

  I made myself say, “What did you see?”

  “You were at dinner. At a small table. A few other people. A blond girl, I think. And wine glasses. And you did something. Yes—you made a telephone call. It was a—I don’t know. I think of a pleasant, friendly dinner. But I was involved—I don’t know, exactly...”

  I said, “Well, of course I have dinner every night.”

  But I was in a little whirl. “We’ll discuss this again. You still haven’t explained why you are afraid of crossing the ocean.”

  “My mother. Less than a year before she died she told me that I must never go on the sea. I am going to die on the water, she said. I—I’ve never even dared go on a yachting-trip. You can’t understand what it means.”

  She shrank toward me. I put an arm around her. She seemed glad for it.

  “Do you know what I’ve been doing for the past three days? I’ve been staying in a suite in the St. Regis, trying to get up my courage to make this trip. I disguised myself—tried to look different—to escape from something. I don’t know what it is, exactly. Do you think I’m crazy?”

  “No.”

  “Do you think my mother was crazy? I don’t. I tell you, she knew things. And she said when my time comes, it will be on water. That’s why I was scared. And I am scared. It took three tranquilizers this morning before I even dared call a cab to get me to the boat.”

  Her head pressed on my shoulder. We walked in stride, saying nothing.

  We got to her cabin door. “Nothing’s going t
o happen to you. I promise.”

  “Oh, sure. But you know, I’ve never even learned to swim because of that. And I’ve posed in lots of bikinis.”

  “Swimming is the first thing you should have learned,” I said. It didn’t sound funny.

  She gave me the key to her cabin door, and I started fitting it into the lock. As I did, I thought I heard a scuffling sound behind us. I looked around. There was nothing.

  “I’m in B-15,” I said, “just on the other side of this deck. If you need anything, call me at any time. I’m here to help. You know that.” The door swung open. “And I can swim.”

  “You’re sweet—really.” She gave me her hand. I held it. I had an insane desire to kiss her. It really wasn’t that she was pretty. I wanted to comfort her, and stop her from worrying, and make her realize that she was safe.

  “Good night...Deac.” I released her hand.

  “Good night, Merrilee.”

  I heard the sound again, and belatedly looked around. It seemed to come from near the lifeboat.

  From inside the cabin a hoarse, suspicious voice, neither male nor female, demanded, “Who is it?”

  “Me, Klára. Back to sleep.”

  She turned and smiled into the light and said, “I hope I see you tomorrow,” and she really damned near got kissed that time.

  But I was a gentleman and just said, “You will,” and turned and walked down the deck; and as I did, it seemed I saw the glimmer of a dark figure disappear around the corner at the far end.

  I walked fast, but when I got to the turning no one was in sight. Then I returned to the scent of her perfume, which still lingered on the shoulder of my coat, and the warmth of her presence, which lingered even more.

  Chapter 5

  The Sleepy Weasel

  After all that, I couldn’t just fall into bed and go quietly to sleep.

  I climbed a narrow, breakneck staircase to the sports deck, walked across the vague white markings for shuffleboard and deck tennis, and stood for a time at the rail looking astern toward the southwest. Somewhere, there below the horizon, Nantucket light must be flashing, and New England lay. Above me spread the dark, starry sky. Below was the black-and-white wash of our wake.

  That had been quite a story. And told by quite a girl.

  Toward the bow, two windows glowed in the cabin below the darkened bridge. That would be the ever-wakeful radio shack. Radio has always drawn me like a magnet. When I was a kid, one of my daydreams was to be radio officer on a ship. Not the captain, not the exec, not the admiral of the fleet—just the “sparks” talking to other ships, and to faraway places, and to home.

  I crossed the deck and looked in a window.

  It was half-open and a man sat under it, enclosed in a glassed-in booth, at a desk with a phone on it. He was talking on the ship-to-shore phone.

  It was the sleepy weasel of the bar this noon.

  “...just for a minute,” he was saying. “She was just finishing her dinner. In her cabin...Sure, she seemed okay...No, don’t worry about that, Mr. Harlow...”

  I moved far enough from the window to be out of its light and still hear.

  “...going to watch over that girl like a—like a mother hen. She’s not the first star that Sam Jones has watched over, you know...Tonight? Tonight she was going to bed early, right after she finished dinner, and read.”

  She was, eh?

  “And she’s got that maid with her—you know...Okay, Mr. Harlow. Why don’t I call you every night around this time? Give you a little report, so to speak...Right, Mr. Harlow. ’Bye now.”

  This was the press agent, then. And Newt Harlow was doing a little checking. On me?

  I heard the receiver click and a chair scrape, and I moved back into the darkness beside a stack of deck chairs.

  Jones came out of the radio office and walked briskly to the ladder. When his head disappeared below the deck’s edge I followed on tiptoe.

  I didn’t know what I was doing or why. I was a little wound up, I suppose, and also suddenly aware that things were going on which I didn’t know about.

  Shadowing is a genuine art, and I’ve never had to practice it, but Jones made things easy for me. He headed straight for the bar where I’d seen him earlier. From the outside I saw him settle himself on the same bar stool and say something, probably the same thing, to the same bartender. Again there were few people in the bar. I walked in and sat one stool away from him.

  I told the bartender “CC and water” and let my gaze wander around. Finally we noticed each other.

  “Hi. You’re the magazine guy, right?”

  “Right.”

  “Editorial?”

  “Right.”

  “Sure. I can tell editorial guys from advertising a mile off.”

  “I could be in the printing end. Or a layout artist.”

  He laughed. “Tell ’em a mile off,” he said. “Have a drink.”

  “Got one, thanks. How do you tell them?”

  “I been dealing with ’em all my life. I probably know a lot of people you know. I’m in public relations.” He eyed me; the weasel look that he had lost for the moment returned now. “You know—a lousy flack.”

  “What’s wrong with that?”

  “It’s a living—I guess. Gimme another pour, barman. How about you? Sam Jones is my name. I’m one of the Jones boys. With one of the studios.”

  “Bill Deacon. Glad to know you. No thanks, on the drink. One nightcap’s my limit.”

  “Deacon. Sure. I know you. I read your magazine all the time. I know Bernie Welden.”

  Bernie’s our Hollywood correspondent.

  “Sure. Nice guy.”

  “He is that. You know”—he took a long pull on the fresh drink—”I envy guys like you. I’ve read your stuff in the magazines. Lot’s of people’s stuff. That’s what I always wanted to be. A reporter. You’ve written some good stories.”

  “Flattery will get you anywhere.”

  “I mean it. Me—I got sidetracked into this lousy business. Years ago. I took it as a temporary fast buck.” He looked into the bar mirror and even the walrus mustache seemed to droop a little. “I been fast-bucking ever since.”

  He sighed and sipped. “I guess that’s why you always find me at a bar.”

  “We seemed to find each other at bars,” I said.

  “Then have a drink with me.”

  “No, thanks. Honestly.”

  He pushed his glass toward the bartender. “You going over on a story?”

  “No. Strictly pleasure this time. You?”

  “I’m working. I guess you’d call it that. Nutty assignment.”

  “Publicity?”

  The weasel face grew momentarily alert. Then he shrugged.

  “How’d you like to turn down ten thousand dollars?” he said. “In one-hunnert-dollar bills? That’s what I did tonight. Just before dinner. Bribe money. And I coulda ask for twenny-five thousand and got it, too. And I’d turn that down, too.”

  “That’s a lot of money.”

  “Sure it is. People think a press agent is a crook, always out for what he can get, willing to sell anybody down a river. Or up the river. Well, I ain’t selling her—anyone, I mean—down a river.”

  He talked between steady sips, never moving the glass far from his mouth. I waited. He went on, as if someone had asked a question.

  “Because I’m nuts about her, that’s why. I need money much as any guy. Maybe more. But she’s nice kid. I’m almost old enough be her father, but I’m nuts about her. And if you think I’d sell out...when I think what a nice kid she is...what’s a lousy handful of hunnert-dollar bills?”

  “Sure. Who is she?”

  “No, you don’t, pal. I’m a little stoned. But I can’t tell you. I won’t. Anyway, she’s a long way from here.”

  �
�I see. Well, take it easy. And I’ll take a rain check on that drink.” I slid off the bar stool.

  “You got one. You’re smart, pal. Like I said. Like I shoulda been. I’m a little stoned. ‘Night.”

  He wasn’t the weasel now. He was just a defeated, middle-aged man, befuddled by life and, at the moment, liquor.

  “Good night.”

  * * * *

  The library door was still open as I went by and a man was sitting inside smoking a pipe over a book, the cover of which I recognized: The Complete Sherlock Holmes. He looked as if he enjoyed what he was doing. I went in and sat down. I wanted to think about what I had learned, and about how much I didn’t know. I dropped into a deep leather chair.

  But when books are around I cannot keep my eyes off them. In front of me was a shelf of reference books in both French and English, assembled for the passengers’ convenience by a thoughtful ship line—dictionaries, a Columbia Encyclopedia, a Who’s Who, Standard and Poor’s securities manuals, and an athletic-record book. I took out the Who’s Who and looked up Moore, Merrilee. She had an inch and a half of type which didn’t tell me much I didn’t already know, except that it reminded me of a few movies I had forgotten. I looked up Tom and was reminded that he had been born in Drogheda. I tried a couple of other friends to see if they had made it or were still there, and then, just for the hell of it, I tried Reginald Pennypacker.

  He wasn’t there, which did not surprise me. The only Pennypacker in Who’s Who was a professor of psychology at a small California college, now retired. I tried the other spelling—Penneypacker—but there wasn’t one. I put the book back. The man with the pipe still looked contented.

  * * * *

  In the suite I undressed, got into laid-out pajamas, turned out the bed light, and thought about Merrilee.

  As I did, I heard people come down the hall, arguing. A man’s voice came through our door: “Lousy damn food on these foreign ships. Lousy damned service!”