7
Rydal awakened at 7 p.m., dressed, and went down for the papers. He found a street vendor some four blocks away, an old man stooped on his heels and huddled under a cape beside his newspaper stacks. Rydal bought, besides the Cretan evening paper, an Athens Daily Post of yesterday in English. The Post he could have skipped: there was nothing about the Greek agent’s death in it. The Iraklion evening paper, however, reproduced Chester’s photograph again, and gave a description of him as well as his wife—“. . . his young, attractive, blue-eyed and blonde wife, exquisitely attired, who appeared barely in her twenties . . .” The MacFarlands, said the paper, were known to have stayed at the Hotel Dardanelles in Athens on Tuesday night, 9 January, the night of the murder. Their movements after 9 the next morning were unknown.
“. . . They may have taken a plane to Corfu, Rhodes or Crete, authorities speculated. The frontiers of Albania, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria and Turkey have been on the alert since Wednesday morning, and it is doubtful if they have crossed the border, unless they were able to obtain false passports in the short time.”
Things were becoming a bit hot, Rydal supposed. The police speculating about Crete, and now the MacFarlands were stopping at the main hotel in the main city of the island. Rydal moistened his lips, seeing suddenly the police tapping Chester on the shoulder in the lobby of the Astir, questioning him, Chester summoning him to tell the police they’d been travelling together for days, had been inseparable for days, and they were talking to the wrong man, anyway. Did they want to see his passport? (You bet they did.) Rydal couldn’t imagine Chester answering their questions coolly, producing his passport coolly, unless he were at a certain point of drunkenness, a precise degree of drunkenness. Rydal did not fancy perjuring himself now. He felt he was losing his nerve. It didn’t seem as simple and easy as it had yesterday, or the evening of the murder when he’d arranged for the passports with Niko.
He paused for a cold bottle of grape soda at a little sweets shop, and drank it standing up at the counter, listening to the staccato voice of a news reporter on the proprietor’s static-filled radio. The voice hurried through the news of a London conference, a fiscal measure France was contemplating, the outlook for the weather, and then—slam, bang, bing and tinkle—back to Greek folk music again. Rydal put his empty bottle down and left.
The telephone was ringing when he entered his room, and he felt a start of fear, then realized it was probably Colette or Chester. It was Colette.
“Did you sleep?”
“Yes.”
“Chester wants to know if you would like to come in for a drink before we go out to dinner.”
Rydal went down the hall to their door with his newspapers, and knocked.
“Come in!” Chester’s baritone voice called heartily, but as the door was locked, he had to come and open it. Chester was in a foulard dressing-gown and trousers.
Rydal noticed that Chester’s beard—the one he had suggested, low along the jawline—was already beginning to show. “Good evening,” he said to them both. Colette had changed her clothes since he had seen her. Now she wore a light grey, nearly white, tweed dress, and she stood by the long, low chest of drawers, one hand on her hip.
“What do you drink, Rydal?” Colette asked. “We have ouzo tonight, too.”
“Yes. Just sent down for a bottle,” said Chester.
“All right,” Rydal said. “Ouzo. Thanks.”
They also had ice in an ice bucket.
“I see you’ve got the papers,” Chester said.
Rydal had taken off his overcoat and dropped it across a straight chair. He picked up the Greek paper, then put it down, remembering Chester couldn’t read it. “They’re speculating—saying you’re probably still within the borders,” Rydal said, dropping his voice. “They’re concentrating on Corfu, Rhodes and Crete.”
Chester listened attentively. “Concentrating?”
“Well, it doesn’t say what they’re doing. Looking, I suppose.” Rydal was uncomfortable. He glanced at Colette. She was fixing his ouzo with ice and water, but she had glanced at him at the same time. She looked cheerful and quite at ease. “I don’t know what your plans are,” Rydal said to Chester, “but I think it might not be a bad idea to go to some smaller town in Crete. Or—you could try to get out of the country right away on those passports. For that, you’d have to go back to Athens, you know, because no plane from here goes out of Greece. At least not at this time of year.”
“Yes.” Chester looked seriously down at the floor. He already had a drink in his hand. He felt his jaw with his fingertips.
“The beard will help,” Rydal said. “Too bad a beard takes so long.”
“Oh, mine won’t take too long,” Chester said, chuckling but not very mirthfully. “I’m one of those people has to shave twice a day.”
“Good. In Athens, you might have the passport photo touched up with a beard. You can get that done through Niko.”
“Yes, yes, I thought of that,” said Chester.
“I detest beards,” Colette said, coming towards Rydal with his drink. “Too bad, isn’t it?”
Chester only glanced at her, evidently thinking of something else. “Well—”
Colette’s fingers brushed the length of Rydal’s hand after he had taken his glass. Rydal did not look at her.
“If I don’t look too much like a tramp who needs a shave, we might catch that afternoon plane tomorrow back to Athens, eh, Colette? What do you think?”
Colette looked at him. She did not seem in a mood for thinking.
Rydal pushed his palm across his forehead. “I was considering that plane, too. I’d like to see Knossos tomorrow morning, then take the afternoon plane.” His tone was dismissive, final, or at least he wanted it to be.
“Um-m. So was I thinking of Knossos tomorrow. It’s only thirty or forty minutes from here by bus, according to the hotel. I asked about it a few minutes ago. We could go out there around ten, spend an hour or so—” Chester looked at his wife. “Does that appeal to you, honey?”
“What’s Knossos? I’ve forgotten.”
“Where the Labyrinth is,” Rydal said. “It’s the Palace of King Minos.” He could have gone on. He still knew the rigmarole about the Palace of Knossos his father had made him learn when he was a kid. Rydal drank his ouzo.
“The Labyrinth? I thought that was a myth,” Colette said, sitting on the edge of one of the twin beds. She swung her light Scotch highball in circles, making the ice click.
Rydal kept his mouth shut.
“No, this one’s not a myth. The myth grew up around this particular palace,” Chester told her. “You should read the guide book on it.” Chester moved towards the bathroom. “Well, I’ll put a shirt on.” He went into the bathroom and closed the door.
Colette looked at Rydal, unsmiling now, yet it was an intimate, questioning look. What does she expect me to do, Rydal thought, steal a kiss while Chester’s out of the room? He lit a cigarette. Colette walked to him and stood on tiptoe, and before Rydal could step back she caught his shoulder and kissed him, on the side of the mouth. Frowning, Rydal went to the mirror over the low chest of drawers. He bent close, wiping, but he didn’t see any lipstick. He turned around.
“Don’t do silly things like that,” he said, frowning.
Colette opened her arms in a shrug. “I like you,” she said in a high, barely audible voice, a voice like a little mouse’s.
Chester came back, sliding his tie knot into place. He looked at himself in the mirror. “Sit down, Rydal. Say, you’re about ready for another, aren’t you?”
They decided to go for dinner to the place where they had spent most of last night, the big nightclub-restaurant by the sea. It was Colette’s idea. She probably wanted to dance, Rydal thought.
The waiter recommended the shish-kebab, and they all ordered it.
There was wine, more ouzo, and Scotch for Chester. Chester danced with Colette on the small, again remote dance floor, where hefty girls in low-cut peasant blouses danced with undernourished-looking young men in dark suits. Then Rydal danced with Colette, submitted to her close hold on the back of his neck, out of the range of Chester’s eyes, and finally enjoyed her closeness, thinking that after tomorrow, by this time tomorrow night, he’d be free and on his own again. In the great city of Athens, he could disappear at once, rejoin his friends in the tavernas, go back to his old room at the Hotel Melchior Condylis, if he wished. The old Condylis suddenly had the attractions of home for Rydal. When the orchestra stopped, Rydal moved to leave the floor, but Colette kept hold of his hand.
“They’re starting again. Look.”
It was true. The clarinet was tootling a few practice notes, the bass viol tuning up. The orchestra was terrible. They danced through four more numbers, including a slurring, drunk-sounding “Mean to Me”. A collision with one of the hefty girls’ behinds could be quite jolting, Rydal discovered.
“Will I see you in Athens?” Colette breathed in his ear.
“Well—I expect to go back to the States in a couple of days.”
Silence.
Rydal’s eyes sought Chester’s grey suit in the distance, and then he stopped dancing. “Come on. Let’s go back.”
“What’s the matter?”
“Somebody’s talking to Chester.” Two men were talking to him, and, even from far away, Rydal had seen Chester’s agitation. “Go slow. Take it easy.” Rydal slowed his own walk.
One was a shirt-sleeved fellow of about thirty, a little the worse for drink, and the other a bigger, blondish man with a hanging underlip, better dressed and soberer. Chester managed a chuckle as Rydal and Colette came up.
“Don’t know what they’re trying to tell me,” Chester said. “It’s all Greek. Maybe you can figure it out.”
“What do you want to say to him?” Rydal asked them pleasantly, sitting down as Colette did.
“This man,” said the drunker fellow, pointing. “He looks like the guy Mac-Far-land,” he said, accenting each syllable equally. “My friend thinks so, too. So we asked him his name.”
“This is Bill,” Rydal said, smiling, slapping Chester’s shoulder, and pretending to be a little high himself. “Bill Chamberlain. His wife—Mary Ellen. How do you do? What’s your name?”
The two strangers looked at each other. Then the drunker one stared at Colette, and said to his friend, “A blonde wife, too.”
“A redhead,” said the man with the hanging underlip.
The drunk fellow shrugged. His big hands were planted on the table.
“So what’s your trouble?” asked Rydal.
“How come you speak Greek? You look American,” said the fellow with his hands on the table.
Rydal was glad they were shifting the attack. “I’ve been living here a few months. I’m a student here.”
“Here? In Crete?”
“Well, I happen to be in Crete now. At least I think so.”
The two strangers murmured together, and Rydal couldn’t hear what they said for the din of voices and music around them. Then the big fellow said, “Ask him, ask him.”
“You got any identification, mister?” the shirt-sleeved man asked Chester.
“He wants to see identification,” Rydal said to Chester, smiling indulgently, as if urging Chester to humor the intruders. “Got your passport? If they’re so insistent, let them take a look.”
“I’ve got it.” Chester, with a bored glance at the two, pulled his passport from his inside pocket, opened it to his photograph, and held it out for them to see. The blondish fellow started to take it from Chester, and Chester pulled it back out of his reach. “My name,” said Chester, pointing to the preceding page, where william james chamberlain was written plain enough for them to see. Chester chuckled triumphantly.
The shirt-sleeved fellow nodded. “Okay.” He gave a half salute, half wave, and withdrew.
His companion also walked off. “Watch out. You look like a killer,” he said facetiously.
Chester, who couldn’t have understood it, gave an appropriate “Hah!” Then he stared at the table, his shoulders hunched, as if he wanted to shrink to a point of invisibility. Beads of sweat stood on his forehead.
“You did that very well,” said Rydal. He had glanced around. Fortunately, the conversation hadn’t attracted any attention. It was an informal place with a good deal of circulation among tables.
“I need another drink,” Chester said, and his voice shook.
“Sure. You deserve one,” Rydal said cheerfully, but he could see Chester was really all gone. He clapped his hands for a waiter.
Colette’s face looked worried.
“Everybody had better cheer up,” Rydal said. “Those two might still be watching. I don’t know where they are, but don’t look around for them.” Rydal said to the waiter, “Another Scotch. A double Scotch. Dewar’s.”
“It’s all right, darling,” Colette said when the waiter was gone. “There’s nothing to worry about.”
Rydal studied her through his cloud of cigarette smoke. Did she really care? Or was she only bolstering Chester, because she wanted to take care of her meal ticket? He’d probably never understand Colette. There wouldn’t be enough time to understand her. She could probably like or love several people at once, he thought. A many-chambered heart. I am the chambered naughty-lust . . . Rydal wanted to hum a tune, but he didn’t. He felt oddly cheerful. He looked at Chester.
Chester glanced at him, furtively. “Just think what might have happened, if you hadn’t been here, been here to speak Greek to them.”
“Nonsense,” Rydal said. “The same thing would have happened. You knew they were asking your name, didn’t you? You’d have shown them your passport.”
Chester nodded. “Maybe.” His Scotch was arriving. As soon as the waiter set it down, he picked it up and drank. His other hand was clenched on the edge of the table. “I’m inclined to agree with what you said earlier,” Chester murmured to Rydal. “We ought to go to a smaller town than this. Just for a couple of days, I think. You know. . . till this beard grows out and I won’t be in danger of . . . you know, people on the street like this.” He gestured.
Rydal sighed, not knowing where to begin talking. Several things had entered his mind. “You don’t happen to have any older clothes than the ones you’re wearing, do you?”
“Older? Not with me,” Chester said. “You’re thinking I should assume a disguise?”
“No. But your clothes stand out in Greece. They look like money,” he said bluntly. “That’s what you ought to avoid, if you can. You, too.” He looked at Colette. “Pack that mink stole up, for instance. Don’t shine your shoes,” he said to Chester. “Get different cufflinks. Put a couple of spots on your hat.” Rydal picked up his ouzo and finished it. He felt like something out of a not very good movie.
“What other towns are there in Crete?” Chester asked. “I’ve seen the map, but I can’t remember the other towns.”
“There’s Chania farther west. It’s a port on the north shore like Iraklion. I don’t remember any others. You wouldn’t want to go to too small a place. You’d stand out there like a sore thumb.”
They stayed in the restaurant past midnight. Chester became drunker, and, in a brooding way, more afraid. He rambled on vaguely about what might happen, and he told Rydal of how much he had “at stake” in his businesses in the United States. He bored Rydal. Colette tried to get him to dance, and Chester said heavily:
“Honey, there are times when a man has more important things on his mind than dancing. Dance with Rydal, if you’ve got to dance!” And his blue eyes flashed in his pink face.
Rydal danced with Colette, just to get away from Chester.
/> “What kind of things at stake?” Rydal asked Colette when they were on the dance floor, trapped in a swift waltz whose tempo Rydal wasn’t skilful enough to cut in half.
“You know. His stocks,” Colette said.
It was difficult to talk over the noise, but Rydal felt less bored talking. “I gather he doesn’t use the name MacFarland in the States.”
“Oh, no. Gosh, his real name was practically like another alias when we left,” Colette said, glancing up at Rydal with a smile. She danced with enthusiasm, but she followed him perfectly.
“How many aliases has he?”
“Oh—Damn, I wish that ox would keep in his own lane!”
“Sorry. I’ll try to watch out.” A huge man and a small woman were describing erratic circles around them. Rydal had been trying to avoid him, but the man was like something caught in an orbit around him and Colette.
“They aren’t exactly aliases. See, Chester doubles for several officials in his company. I should say companies. He signs his checks William S. Haight, for instance, for a couple of companies, as treasurer.”
“And draws a salary for Haight, too, of course.”
“Oh, two or three salaries.” Colette laughed. “Maybe it’s sort of illegal, what he does, but all his subscribers get dividends, and what more do they want?”
It was like a gigantic check-kiting system, Rydal supposed. Chester had to keep one jump ahead of himself all the time. Charles Ponzi had managed it for a long time, but not quite till the end of his life. “Doesn’t Chester have partners who can carry on for him? Now, in the States, I mean?”
“Well—not partners. I guess you’d call them salesmen. Sure, he has four or five. One of Chester’s stocks is quite good.”
“What’s that?”
“Universal Key. It’s a magnetic key that opens a magnetic lock. It has to be exactly magnetized, you see. . . .” She broke off, still going strong, but plainly knowing no more about it.
“It’s on the market?”
“The stock? No, not yet.”
“I mean the magnetic key.”