Strangers on a Train

Eighteen

In the month after Guy returned to New York, his restlessness, his dissatisfaction with himself, with his work, with Anne, had focused gradually on Bruno. It was Bruno who made him hate to look at pictures of the Palmyra now, Bruno who was the real cause of his anxiety that he had blamed on the dearth of commissions since he had come back from Palm Beach. Bruno who had made him argue so senselessly with Anne the other evening about not getting a better office, not buying new furniture and a rug for this one. Bruno who had made him tell Anne he did not consider himself a success, that the Palmyra meant nothing. Bruno who had made Anne turn quietly away from him that evening and walk out the door, who had made him wait until he heard the elevator door close, before he ran down the eight flights of stairs and begged her to forgive him.

And who knew? Perhaps it was Bruno who kept him from getting jobs now. The creation of a building was a spiritual act. So long as he harbored his knowledge of Bruno’s guilt, he corrupted himself in a sense. Such a thing could be perceived in him, he felt. Consciously, he had made up his mind to let the police trap Bruno. But as the weeks went by and they didn’t, he was plagued by a feeling that he should act himself. What stopped him was both an aversion to accusing a man of murder and a senseless but lingering doubt that Bruno might not be guilty. That Bruno had committed the crime struck him at times as so fantastic, all his previous conviction was momentarily wiped out. At times, he felt he would have doubted even if Bruno had sent him a written confession. And yet, he had to admit to himself that he was sure Bruno had done it. The weeks that went by without the police picking up any strong trail seemed to confirm it. As Bruno had said, how could they with no motivation? His letter to Bruno in September had silenced him all the fall, but just before he left Florida, a sober note from Bruno had said he would be back in New York in December and he hoped to be able to have a talk with him. Guy was determined to have nothing to do with him.

Still he fretted, about everything and about nothing, but chiefly about his work. Anne told him to be patient. Anne reminded him that he had already proven himself in Florida. In greater measure than ever before, she offered him the tenderness and reassurance he needed so, yet he found that in his lowest, most stubborn moments he could not always accept it.

One morning in mid-December, the telephone rang as Guy sat idly studying his drawings of the Connecticut house.

“Hello, Guy. This is Charley.”

Guy recognized the voice, felt his muscles tensing for a fight.

But Myers was within earshot across the room.

“How are you?” Bruno asked with smiling warmth. “Merry Christmas.”

Slowly Guy put the telephone back in its cradle.

He glanced over at Myers, the architect with whom he shared the big one-room office. Myers was still bent over his drawing board. Under the edge of the green windowshade, the bobbing pigeons still pecked at the grain he and Myers had sprinkled on the still a few moments ago.

The telephone rang again.

“I’d like to see you, Guy,” Bruno said.

Guy stood up. “Sorry. I don’t care to see you.”

“What’s the matter?” Bruno forced a little laugh. “Are you nervous, Guy?”

“I just don’t care to see you.”

“Oh. Okay,” said Bruno, hoarse with hurt.

Guy waited, determined not to retreat first, and finally Bruno hung up.

Guy’s throat was dry, and he went to the drinking fountain in the corner of the room. Behind the fountain, sunlight lay in a precise diagonal across the big aerial photograph of the four nearly finished Palmyra buildings. He turned his back to it. He’d been asked to make a speech at his old school in Chicago, Anne would remind him. He was to write an article for a leading architectural magazine. But so far as commissions went, the Palmyra Club might have been a public declaration that he was to be boycotted. And why not? Didn’t he owe the Palmyra to Bruno? Or at any rate to a murderer?

On a snowy evening a few days later, as he and Anne came down the brownstone steps of his West Fifty-third Street apartment house, Guy saw a tall bareheaded figure standing on the sidewalk gazing up at them. A tingle of alarm traveled to his shoulders, and involuntarily his hand tightened on Anne’s arm.

“Hello,” Bruno said, his voice soft with melancholy. His face was barely visible in the dusk.

“Hello,” Guy replied, as if to a stranger, and walked on.

“Guy!”

Guy and Anne turned at the same time. Bruno came toward them, hands in the pockets of his overcoat.

“What is it?” Guy asked.

“Just wanted to say hello. Ask how you are.” Bruno stared at Anne with a kind of perplexed, smiling resentment.

“I’m fine,” Guy said quietly. He turned away, drawing Anne with him.

“Who is he?” Anne whispered.

Guy itched to look back. He knew Bruno would be standing where they had left him, knew he would be looking after them, weeping perhaps. “He’s a fellow who came around looking for work last week.”

“You can’t do anything for him?”

“No. He’s an alcoholic.”

Deliberately Guy began to talk about their house, because he knew there was nothing else he could talk about now and possibly sound normal. He had bought the land, and the foundations were being laid. After New Year’s, he was going up to Alton and stay for several days. During the movie, he speculated as to how he could shake Bruno off, terrify him so that he would be afraid to contact him.

What did Bruno want with him? Guy sat with his fists clenched at the movie. The next time, he would threaten Bruno with police investigation. And he would carry it through, too. What vast harm was there in suggesting a man be investigated?

But what did Bruno want with him?