The Shadowers

VI

SHE LIVED within walking distance of the restaurant, technically speaking, although I wouldn't have wanted to hike that far on a cool fall night in a thin dress and high heels.

But she was still young enough to feel that taxis were corny and walking was reckless and gay-or perhaps she just had some natural reservations about sharing a dark back seat with me and my knife.

Anyway, coming out of the restaurant, I took off my suit coat and put it around her to keep her from freezing, and we hoofed it gaily through narrow streets with shabby old buildings, some with ornamental ironwork on windows and balconies, very picturesque if you like old architecture. I was more interested in the question of whether or not we were being tailed. On foot, in that ancient neighborhood of twisty little lanes, it was hard to tell. If somebody was shadowing us, he was good-but then he would be. That was his business, shadowing. That was why he'd been assigned to Olivia Mariassy in the first place.

Toni's room, apartment, studio, or pad-whatever they called it locally-was up two flights of narrow dusty stairs right under the roof. I couldn't help thinking it would be an oven in a New Orleans summer. She stopped on the landing and gave me back my coat.

"Thanks," she said. She found a key in her purse, unlocked the door, and looked up with her hand on the knob. She spoke in a voice from which all expression had been carefully removed. "Would you like to come in?"

I said, getting into my coat, "That's no way to put it, doll. You're not really concerned with my likes and dislikes, only with my intentions. Sure I'd like to come in. What do you think I am, a eunuch or something? But I'm not coming, thanks just the same."

She smiled faintly, as if she'd proved something about me, and maybe she had. "Why not?" she murmured. "Why the amazing display of self-control?"

"Because if I come in, you'll start wondering if I'm not really figuring you for a sucker or a tramp or both. Hell, you're wondering now, that's why you offered the invitation, isn't it? To see what kind of a slob I really am? But if I treat you with great respect, and just kiss you chastely here at the door and tear myself away, maybe I can make you remember me kindly in spite of the way we met."

She said, watching me, "Just how kindly do you want to be remembered, Paul?"

I said, "To be perfectly honest, I'd rather not be remembered at all, publicly at least. The little man who wasn't ever here, that's me."

"All right," she said. "But hardly little. All right. If that's what you want. I've had a lovely evening after all, and in return I'll follow any instructions you give me. That was the deal. But let's pass up the chaste and respectful kisses, shall we? I don't… don't like playing games with it, if you know what I mean." Her voice wasn't quite even at the end.

I looked at her for a moment, and I had the feeling you sometimes get in the business, that if you'd met somebody at a different time under different circumstances something might have come of the encounter, something you'd rather not think about since it wasn't going to happen.

"Sure," I said. "Anything you say, Toni."

She said quietly, "You're a very clever guy, aren't you? The funny thing is, you've almost got me convinced you're a pretty nice guy." She smiled crookedly. "I'll hold that thought as you walk away, Paul Corcoran, or whatever your real name is." There was a little pause while I turned toward the stairs. "Paul?"

I looked back. "Yes, Toni?"

"Good luck," she said softly. "Good luck with whatever you're doing, whoever you are."

Outside I drew a long breath and started up the street thinking it would be swell if wars were fought only by professional soldiers, and undercover operations involved only tough and unscrupulous agents who'd volunteered for the work. I'd used the kid cold-bloodedly to cover my interest in Olivia Mariassy, and she'd repaid me by calling me a pretty nice guy and wishing me luck. She was a bright kid and kind of a brave kid; and she thought she was experienced and sophisticated but she didn't really know the score.

I hoped she'd never learn it through anything I'd done, but there was no way of being sure of that. It's kind of like rabies, except that you don't have to bite anybody to pass it along. Just being seen with them can sometimes be enough. I remembered a case in which a small boy died, never mind where, because he'd politely picked up and returned a small package a lady had dropped-quite accidentally, as it happened, but the people watching her hadn't known that. They'd had to make sure.

Nobody followed me back to the hotel. I was quite certain of that, but the significance didn't strike me until I was crossing the lobby toward the elevators. Then I stopped abruptly with a cold feeling in my stomach, remembering that I'd had no such confidence when we reached Toni's place.

I stood there trying to remember and analyze my reactions. All the way from Antoine's to Toni's the warning signals had been flashing red on the control board. I might not have consciously seen, heard, smelled, or felt anything wrong, but the night had been faintly wrong behind me. From Toni's to the Montclair there had been nothing of the sort. Logic provided the answer: if somebody had followed me to Toni's, he was still there.

It was time for a careful review of the possibilities and their meanings. If our man had really followed me tonight instead of sticking with Olivia, this meant that my red-herring stunt hadn't worked. He'd seen enough of our clumsy meeting to want to investigate me further. And if he'd stuck with Toni instead of tailing me back to the hotel, this meant… I didn't know what it meant.

It was time to think hard and move slowly; it was time for great caution and thorough planning to retrieve, if possible, what could turn out to be a fatal mistake very early in the operation.

It was no time to consider small girls with black hair and unplucked eyebrows. As far as the job was concerned-as far as my duty was concerned-Antoinette Vail had either served a purpose or failed to serve it. Either way, what happened to her now was quite irrelevant.

Still, I told myself, I might learn something by going back, and the man with the craggy face couldn't be two places at once. If he had business with Antoinette, whatever it might me, he was for the moment no threat to Olivia. I could indulge my sentiment or curiosity or sense of responsibility a little. I could at least find out what had happened back there, if anything.

The cabbie I got had trouble with one-way streets, and it seemed a long time before I was again standing on the sidewalk in front of the three-story building. There was a light behind the drawn blinds of one of the dormer windows high above. Well, she'd told me she painted. She could have had a midnight burst of artistic inspiration, but it would have been more reassuring if the window had been dark, as if she'd gone right to sleep, tired after an exciting evening.

I went up the stairs fast without taking any of the precautions in the manual except to keep my hand on the little knife in my pants pocket. When I reached the third-floor landing I saw that the door was ajar, and I knew I'd come too late. I drew a long breath, pushed the door aside and stepped into the brightly lighted room.

It was a big place under the slanting eaves. At least the floor space was sizable; the ceiling space was less so. A skylight and the window presumably gave illumination by day. Now the light came from a couple of dangling bulbs without shades. There was an easel, but it had been knocked over. There were paints, and some pots of brushes, one of which had been spilled on the floor. There were stacks of canvases on stretchers, several of which had got knocked around. There was a table, stove, refrigerator, and sink; and there were several wooden chairs, some overturned, that looked as if they'd been picked up secondhand like the rest of the furniture.

A cot stood in the corner. It apparently had been shielded from the room by a painted screen, but this had been flung aside. On the cot, face down, lay a small, motionless, terribly disheveled figure, wearing only some torn, shiny pink stuff bunched about the hips and one laddered stocking. The other stocking, the pink satin pumps, and some scraps of undergarments were distributed about the floor with the painting debris. Her long white gloves were laid out neatly on the little, undisturbed table by the door, as if she'd just removed them, starting to undress, when somebody had knocked and she'd turned to answer…

I closed the door behind me and crossed the room. I had no real hope. I didn't speak because I didn't expect her to hear. I put my hand on her shoulder and was more startled than a man of my experience ought to be when she stirred at the touch and sat up abruptly, tossing the tangled black hair out of her eyes.

"You," she whispered. "You!"

"Me," I said, withdrawing my hand.

"You came back," she whispered. "Well, I hope you're satisfied! He did a good job, didn't he? You must be very pleased! You've proved something, haven't you? I don't know what, but something. Oh, God, and I thought you were nice. Nice!"

After a little, indifferently, she pulled up a handful of the wrecked satin dress to cover her breasts, but not before I'd seen the ugly bruises. She had an incipient black eye and a cut lip. There was blood on her chin from the cut. But she was alive, I told myself. At least she was alive.

She licked her lips, touching the cut gingerly with her tongue. Her eyes, under the thick black brows, hated me.

"You creep!" she breathed. "You disgusting creep, with your knife and your kiss and your smooth, smooth line.

Oh, you were good, you were great, Mr. Corcoran. You had the little girl feeling all romantic and warm inside. Hell, there were tears in her eyes as she watched you go away down the stairs. And then the other man came, the one for whom you'd really been putting on the show all the time. Isn't that right? You didn't really give a damn about me; you were just using me. All the time it was an act for his benefit, wasn't it? In case you don't know, his name is Kroch, Karl Kroch. He told me to call you and tell you. Well, you're here, so I'm telling you. Now get out of here!"

"Kroch," I said. "Why did he want you to tell me?"

"How should I know why?" she demanded. "You're the clever one. You figure it out."

"Are you all right?" I asked.

Her eyes widened scornfully. "Why, I'm fine," she said savagely. "I'm great, Mr. Corcoran, don't I look it? I'm marvelous. I've just been slapped all over my studio. I've been tossed on my bed and had most of my clothes ripped off by a gorilla who didn't really care any more about my body than if I'd been a store-window dummy. He just.. just violated me because it was the lousiest thing he could think of to do to me short of killing me. He said this would let you know he meant business and couldn't be stopped. He said when the time came he'd act and to hell with you. He said if you had any objections he wouldn't be hard to find. He said this would tell you the kind of man you had to deal with."

"Karl Kroch," I said.

"That's the name," she said. "A real crazy goon. And he can come back any time and go through the same routine all over again, and I'll just be happy because he isn't you! Why… why I really liked you. And you set me up for that!" She drew a harsh breath. "Now, if you've had your eyeful, get out of here! P-please get out of here!" Her voice faltered on the last sentence.

I asked, "Do you want a doctor?"

She shook her head. "No. He'd just ask a lot of dumb questions. I… I'm all right. I told you before I wasn't a sheltered virgin. I've had it rough before. Maybe not this rough, but rough. I'm all right. Just go away, will you?" She was silent for a moment. "Paul."

"Yes?"

"You might at least have warned me! You might have let me know what you were getting me into. You might have told me the kind of people… He had a face like Mount Rushmore before they carved presidents on it. It never changed. He didn't get any bang out of mussing me up or even… even taking me. It was like he was a machine just programmed to… Is that the way you are, Paul? Inside? Behind that humorously satanic look that makes a girl feel she's found somebody, well, dangerous but nice. Just another machine with a different face? One machine labeled Kroch. One machine labeled Corcoran. Playing some kind of lousy, mysterious game. And a naive little softhearted sentimental kook named Vail, caught in the middle!"

I said, "If there's anything I can do-"

"I told you. You can get out of here!"

"Sure." After a moment, I started to turn away.

"You don't have to worry," she said behind me. "It's still deal. It's a lousy, rotten deal but I agreed to it and I'll stick to it. I won't call the police and interfere with your crummy business, whatever it is. I won't talk." Her voice was hard. "But on second thought, there is something you can do. You can pay for the damage. My wardrobe is kind of limited. I've got plenty of jeans with paint on them, but I don't have so many dresses I can afford to have them torn up."

I took out my wallet and went back to her and put some bills on the bed beside her, all I had with me except the small stuff. She picked them up and counted them and looked up quickly.

"And just what do you think you're paying for, Mr. Corcoran, an easy conscience?" she demanded scornfully. "You've been around, you know perfectly well this cheesy little satin number didn't cost any two hundred dollars. It was thirty-nine fifty on sale last year. Ten bucks will cover the rest. The bruises will heal, and I don't put a price on my self-respect or whatever you want to call that. Here!"

She held out three of the four fifties I'd given her. There was nothing to do but take them. I looked down on her small, hurt, hating face for a moment. I tried to reassure myself with the thought that the fate of nations and the lives of important people were at stake, and that what happened to one little girl wasn't really important, but I didn't try to sell the idea to her, perhaps because I wasn't sure I bought it myself.

I turned and walked to the door. A faint sound made me look back. She was again lying face down on the bed. Maybe she was crying. I couldn't be sure. The one thing I could be sure of was that I wasn't the man to console her. I paused by the door to slip the three fifties under her gloves before I went out. After all, by the looks of the place, she'd had a lot of stuff ruined in here besides a dress.

Maybe I was trying to buy an easy conscience, as she'd charged. At a hundred and fifty bucks it would have been a bargain if it had worked, but it didn't.