Ripley's Game

by Patricia Highsmith

  ‘You see I can’t get any more until the rest contribute. Four or five people,’ Reeves said. ‘But there’s no doubt at all that I can get the marks.’

  Jonathan was thinking, somewhat vaguely because he was anything but a bargainer himself, that Reeves was in a weak position asking other people for money after the deed was done. Shouldn’t his friends have put up the money first, in trust somehow, or at least more money? ‘I don’t want it in marks, thanks,’ said Jonathan.

  ‘No, of course. I understand. That’s another thing, your money ought to be in Switzerland in a secret account, don’t you think? You don’t want it showing on your account in France, or you don’t want to keep it in a sock like the French, do you?’

  ‘Hardly. – When can you get the half?’ Jonathan asked, as if he was sure it was coming.

  ‘Within a week. Don’t forget there might be a second job – in order to make the first job count for something. We’ll have to see.’

  Jonathan was irked and tried to conceal it. ‘When will you know that?’

  ‘Also within a week. Maybe even in four days. I’ll be in touch.’

  ‘But – to be frank – 1 think more money than this is only fair, don’t you? Now, I mean.’ Jonathan felt his face grow warm.

  ‘I do. That’s why I apologized for this paltry sum. I tell you what. I shall do the very best I can, and die next you will hear from me – via me – is the pleasant news of a Swiss bank account and a statement of the sum you have in it.’

  That sounded better. ‘When?’ Jonathan asked.

  ‘Within a week. My word of honour.’

  ‘That is — a half ?’ Jonathan said.

  ‘I’m not sure I can get a half before — You know I explained to you, Jonathan, this was a double-barrelled deal. The boys who are paying this kind of money want a certain kind of result.’ Reeves looked at him.

  Jonathan could see Reeves was asking, silently, was he, going to do the second shooting or was he not? And if he wasn’t, say so now. T understand.’ Jonathan said. A little more, a third of the money even, wouldn’t be bad, Jonathan was thinking. Something like fourteen thousand pounds. For the work he had done, that was a comfortable little sum. Jonathan decided to sit tight and stop arguing tonight.

  He flew back to Paris the next day on a midday plane. Reeves had said he would cancel Dr Wentzel, and Jonathan had left it to him to do. Reeves had also said he would telephone him Saturday, day after tomorrow, in his shop. Reeves had accompanied Jonathan to the airport, and had shown him the morning paper with a picture of Bianca on the U-bahn platform. Reeves had an air of quiet triumph: there was not a clue except the Italian gun, and a Mafia killer was suspected. Bianca was labelled a Mafia soldier or button man. Jonathan had seen the front pages of the newspapers on the stands that morning when he went out to buy cigarettes, but he had had no desire to buy a newspaper. Now in the plane, he was handed a newspaper by the smiling stewardess. Jonathan left the paper folded on his lap, and closed his eyes.

  It was nearly 7 p.m. when Jonathan got home, via train and taxi, and he let himself into the house with his key.

  Jon!’ Simone came down the hall to greet him.

  He put his arms around her. ‘Hello, darling!’

  T was expecting you!’ she said, laughing. ‘Somehow. Just now. – What’s the news? Take off your coat. I had your letter this morning that you might be home last night. Are you out of your mind?’

  Jonathan flung his overcoat on the hook, and picked up Georges who had just crashed against his legs. ‘And how’s my little pest? How’s Cailloux?’ He kissed Georges’ cheek. Jonathan had brought Georges a truck which dumped things and this was in the plastic bag with the whisky, but Jonathan thought the truck could wait, and he pulled out the drink.

  ‘Ah, quel luxe!’ Simone said. ‘Shall we open it now?’

  ‘I insist!’ said Jonathan.

  They went into the kitchen. Simone liked ice with scotch and Jonathan was indifferent.

  ‘Tell me what the doctors said.’ Simone took the ice tray to the sink.

  ‘Well – they say about the same as the doctors here. But they want to try out some drugs on me. They’re going to let me know.’ Jonathan had, on the plane, decided to say this to Simone. It would leave the way open for another trip to Germany. And what was the real use of telling her things were a trifle worse, or looked worse? What could she do about it but worry a little more? Jonathan’s optimism had risen on the plane: if he’d come well through the first episode, he might make it through the second.

  ‘You mean you’ll have to go back?’ she asked.

  ‘That’s possible.’ Jonathan watched her pour the two scotches, generous ones. ‘But they’re willing to pay me for it. They’re going to let me know.’

  ‘Really?’ said Simone, surprised.

  ‘Is that scotch? What do .’ get?’ Georges said in English, with such clarity that Jonathan burst out laughing.

  ‘Want some? Take a sip,’ Jonathan said, holding out his glass.

  Simone restrained his hand. ‘There’s orange juice, Georgie!’ She poured orange juice for him. ‘They’re trying a certain cure, you mean?’

  Jonathan frowned, but he still felt master of the situation. ‘Darling, there’s no cure. They’re – they’re going to try a lot of new pills. That’s about all I know. Cheers!’ Jonathan felt a bit euphoric. He had the five thousand francs in his inside jacket pocket. He was safe, for the moment, safe in the bosom of his family. If all went well, the five thousand was merely pocket money, as Reeves Minot had said.

  Simone leaned on the back of one of the straight chairs. They’ll pay for your going back? That means there’s some danger attached?’

  ‘No. I think – there’s some inconvenience attached. Going back to Germany. I only mean they’ll pay my transportation.’ Jonathan hadn’t worked it out: he could say that Dr Perrier would give the injections, administer the pills. But for the moment he thought he was saying the right thing.

  ‘You mean – they consider you a special case?’

  ‘Yes. In a way. Of course I’m not,’ he said, smiling. He wasn’t, and Simone knew he wasn’t. ‘They just might want to try some tests. I don’t know yet, darling.’

  ‘Anyway you look awfully happy about it. I’m glad, darling.’

  ‘Let’s go out to dinner tonight. The restaurant on the corner here. We can take Georges,’ he protested over her voice. ‘Come on, we can afford it.’

  8

  JONATHAN put four thousand of the francs into an envelope in a certain drawer among eight such drawers in a wooden cabinet at the back of his shop. This drawer was the next from the bottom drawer, and held nothing but ends of wire and string and some tags with reinforced holes – junk that only a frugal person or an eccentric would save, Jonathan thought. It was a drawer, like the one below it (Jonathan had no idea what that contained) which Jonathan never opened ordinarily, therefore neither would Simone open it, he thought, on the rare occasions when she helped out in the shop. Jonathan’s real cash drawer was the top one on the right under his wooden counter. The remaining thousand francs Jonathan put into the joint account at the Société Générale on Friday morning. It could be two or three weeks before Simone noticed the extra thousand, and she might not comment, even if she saw it in their cheque book. And if she did, Jonathan could say that a few customers had suddenly paid up. Jonathan usually signed cheques to pay their bills, and the bankbook lived in the drawer of the écritoire in the living-room, unless one or the other of them had to take it out of the house to pay for something, which happened only about once a month.

  And by Friday afternoon, Jonathan had found a way to use a little of the thousand. He bought a mustard-coloured tweed suit for Simone from a shop in the Rue de France for 395 francs. He’d seen the suit days ago, before Hamburg, and thought of Simone – the rounded collar, the dark yellow tweed flecked with brown, the four brown buttons set in a square on the jacket had seemed created just for Simone. The price had
been shocking to his eyes, more than a bit out of line, he’d thought. Now it seemed almost a bargain, and Jonathan gazed with pleasure at the new material being folded with care between snowy sheets of tissue paper. 4 And Simone’s appreciation gave Jonathan pleasure all over again. Jonathan thought it was the first new thing she’d had, the first pretty clothes, in a couple of years, because the dresses from the market or the Prisunic didn’t count.

  ‘But it must’ve been terribly expensive, Jon!’

  ‘No – not really. The Hamburg doctors gave me an advance – in case I have to go back. Quite generous. Don’t think about that.’

  Simone smiled. She didn’t want to think about money, Jonathan saw. Not just now. ‘I’ll count this as one of my birthday presents.’

  Jonathan smiled too. Her birthday had been almost two months ago.

  On Saturday morning Jonathan’s telephone rang. It had rung a few times that morning, but this was the irregular ring of a long distance call.

  ‘This is Reeves…. How is everything?’

  ‘All right, thanks.’ Jonathan was suddenly tense and alert. There was a customer in his shop, a man staring at lengths of sample frame wood on Jonathan’s wall. But Jonathan was speaking in English.

  Reeves said, ‘I’m coming to Paris tomorrow and I’d like to see you. I have something for you – you know.’ Reeves sounded as calm as usual.

  Simone wanted Jonathan to go to her parents’ home in Nemours tomorrow. ‘Can we make it in the evening or – around six p.m., say? I’ve got a long lunch.’

  ‘Oh, sure, I understand. French Sunday lunches! Sure, around six. I’ll be at the Hotel Cayré. That’s on Raspail.’

  Jonathan had heard of the hotel. He said he would try to be there by 6 or 7 p.m. ‘There’re fewer trains on Sunday.’

  Reeves said not to worry. ‘See you tomorrow.’

  Reeves was bringing some money, evidently. Jonathan gave his attention to the man who wanted a frame.

  Simone looked marvellous on Sunday in the new suit Jonathan asked her, before they left for the Foussadiers, not to say that he was being paid anything by the German doctors.

  ‘I’m not a fool!’ Simone declared with such quick duplicity Jonathan was amused, and felt that Simone really was more with him than with her parents. Often Jonathan felt the opposite.

  ‘Even today,’ Simone said at the Foussadiers, ‘Jon has to go to Paris to talk to a colleague of the Germans.’

  It was a particularly cheerful Sunday lunch. Jonathan and Simone had brought a bottle of Johnny Walker.

  Jonathan got the 449 p.m. train from Fontainebleau, because there had been no train convenient from St Pierre-Nemours, and arrived in Paris around 5.30 p.m. He took the M6tro. There was a Métro stop right beside the hotel.

  Reeves had left a message for Jonathan to be sent up to his room. Reeves was in shirt-sleeves, and had apparently been lying on the bed reading newspapers. ‘Hello, Jonathan! How is life? … Sit down – somewhere. I have something to show you.’ He went to his suitcase. ‘This – as a starter.’ Reeves held up a square white envelope, and took a typewritten page from it and handed it to Jonathan.

  The letter was in English, addressed to the Swiss Bank Corporation, and it was signed by Ernst Hildesheim. The letter requested a bank account to be opened in the name of Jonathan Trevanny, and gave Jonathan’s shop address in Fontainebleau, and said that a cheque for eighty thousand marks was enclosed. The letter was a carbon, but it was signed.

  ‘Who’s Hildesheim?’ Jonathan asked, meanwhile thinking that the German mark was worth about one and six-tenths French franc, so that eighty thousand marks would convert to something over a hundred and twenty thousand French francs.

  ‘A businessman of Hamburg – for whom I’ve done a few favours. Hildesheim’s not under any kind of surveillance and this won’t appear on his company books, so nothing for him to worry about. He sent a personal cheque. The point is, Jonathan, this money has been deposited in your name, posted yesterday from Hamburg, so you’ll be getting your private number next week. That’s a hundred and twenty-eight thousand French francs.’ Reeves didn’t smile, but he had an air of satisfaction. He reached for a box on the writing-table. ‘Dutch cigar? They’re very good.’

  Because the cigars were something different, Jonathan took one, smiling. Thanks.’ He puffed it alight from the match that Reeves held. Thanks also for the money.’ It was not quite a third, Jonathan realized. It wasn’t a half. But Jonathan couldn’t say this.

  ‘Nice start, yes. The casino boys in Hamburg are quite pleased. The other Mafia who’re cruising around, a couple of the Genotti family, claim they don’t know anything about Salvatore Bianca’s death, but of course they would say that. What we want to do now is knock off a Genotti as if in retaliation for Bianca. And we want to get a big shot, a capo – a chief just under the boss, you know? There’s one named Vito Marcangelo who travels nearly every week-end from Munich to Paris. He has a girl friend in Paris. He’s the chief of the dope business in Munich – at least for his family there. Munich by the way is even more active than Marseille now, as far as dope goes …’

  Jonathan listened uneasily, waiting for an opening in which he could say that he didn’t care to take on another job. Jonathan’s thoughts had changed in the last forty-eight hours. And it was curious, too, how Reeves’ very presence stripped Jonathan of a sense of daring – maybe made the deed more real. Then there was the fact that he had, apparently, a hundred and twenty-eight thousand francs in Switzerland already. Jonathan had sat down on the edge of an armchair.

  ‘. .. on a moving train, a day train, the Mozart Express.’

  Jonathan shook his head. ‘Sorry, Reeves. I really don’t think I’m up to it.’ Reeves could block the cheque in marks, Jonathan thought suddenly. Reeves could simply cable Hildesheim. Well, so be it.

  Reeves looked crestfallen. ‘Oh. Well – so am I sorry. Really. We’ll just have to find another man – if you won’t do it. And – I’m afraid he’ll get the better part of the money too.’ Reeves shook his head, puffed his cigar and stared out the window for a moment. Then he bent and gripped Jonathan’s shoulder firmly. Jon, the first part went so well!’

  Jonathan sat back, and Reeves released him. Jonathan squirmed, like someone forced to make an apology. ‘Yes, but – to shoot somebody on a train?’ Jonathan could see himself nabbed at once, unable to escape anywhere.

  ‘Not a shooting, no’ We couldn’t have the noise. I was thinking of a garrotte.’

  Jonathan could hardly believe his ears.

  Reeves said calmly, ‘It’s a Mafia method. A slender cord, silent — A noose! And you pull it tight. That’s all.’

  Jonathan thought of his fingers touching a warm neck. It was revolting. ‘Absolutely out of the question. I couldn’t.’

  Reeves took a breath, going into another gear, shifting. ‘This man is well guarded, two bodyguards as a rule. But on a train – people get bored sitting and walk in the aisle a bit, or they go to the bog once or twice, or the dining-car, maybe alone. It might not work, Jonathan, you might not – find the occasion, but you could try. – Then there’s pushing, just pushing him out the door. Those doors can open when the train’s moving, you know. But he’d yell – and it might not kill him either.’

  Ludicrous, Jonathan thought. But he didn’t feel like laughing. Reeves dreamed on silently, looking up at the ceiling. Jonathan was thinking that if he were caught as a murderer or in an attempt at murder, Simone wouldn’t touch any of the money from it. She’d be appalled, ashamed. ‘I simply cannot help you,’ Jonathan said. He stood up.

  ‘But – you could at least ride the train. If the right moment doesn’t present itself, we’ll just have to think of something else, another capo maybe, another method. But we’d love to get this guy! He’s going to move from dope to the Hamburg casinos – organizing – that’s the rumour, anyway.’ Reeves said on another note, ‘Would you try a gun, Jon?’

  Jonathan shook his head. ‘I haven’t the n
erve, for God’s sake. On a train? No.’

  ‘Look at this garrotte!’ Reeves pulled his left hand quickly from his trousers pocket.

  He held what looked like a thin, whitish string. The end slipped through a loop, and was prevented from going all the way through by a small lump at the end of the cord. Reeves tossed it round the bedpost and pulled, jerking the cord to one side.

  ‘You see? Nylon. Strong as wire almost. No one can even grunt more than once —’ Reeves broke off.

  Jonathan was disgusted. One would have to touch the victim with the other hand – somehow. And wouldn’t it take about three minutes?

  Reeves seemed to give it up. He strolled to a window and turned. Think about it. You can ring me up or I’ll ring you in a couple of days. Marcangelo usually leaves Munich noonish Fridays. It would be ideal if it could be done next week-end.’

  Jonathan drifted towards the door. He put his cigar out in an ashtray on the bed-table.

  Reeves was looking at him shrewdly, yet he might have been gazing far behind him, thinking already of someone else for the job. His long scar looked, as it did in certain lights, thicker than it was. The scar had probably given him an inferiority complex with women, Jonathan thought. Yet how long had he had it? Maybe just two years, one couldn’t tell.

  ‘Like a drink downstairs?’

  ‘No, thanks.’ Jonathan said.

  ‘Oh, I have a book to show you!’ Reeves went to his suitcase again, and pulled a book with a bright red jacket from a back corner. Take a look. Keep it. It’s a wonderful piece of journalism. Documentary. You’ll see the kind of people we’re dealing with. But they’re flesh and blood like everyone else. Vulnerable, I mean.’

  The book was called The Grim Reapers: The Anatomy of Organized Crime in America.

  ‘I’ll telephone you Wednesday,’ Reeves said. ‘You’d come to Munich Thursday, spend the night, I’d be there at some hotel also, then you’d return Friday night to Paris by train.’