Neither Five Nor Three (Helen Macinnes) (32 page)

Brownlee curled his lip in distaste. “Martin and his comrades get paid off in foreign money. Thelma gets paid off by Martin. I wonder what all the little party idealists would think of that?”

“It might make some of them less enthusiastic for Thelma’s musical Sunday evenings.”

Brownlee paced around the room. “Charles said that those Sunday parties were negligible. Was he only trying to protect his mother?”

“Well, to anyone who didn’t know the value of propaganda, they’d seem negligible. Just a collection of well-fed and well-dressed men and woman thinking how advanced they were, how daring. But you and I see them as the first little steps down a long gradual slope into the kind of corruption that Martin is caught in. If Martin wanted to break free now, knowing what he knows, would he be allowed to do it?”

“Hardly,” Brownlee said with a smile. “Once you are deep into a conspiracy, you don’t get out so easily. Both Orpen and Martin are up to their chins in this bog. All they can do is to hang on to their ideology and make no false move.”

“Do they never have doubts?” Haydn asked, almost of himself.

“They gave up freedom of thinking long ago. Or else they wouldn’t be in their present position of power. The Communist who thinks for himself never gets very far in his career as a Communist.” Roger Brownlee placed the envelopes inside his jacket, and buttoned the pocket carefully. “Don’t let me get run over by a taxicab this evening,” he said with a grin.

“I’ll tell Rona we’re leaving,” Haydn said, reaching for his hat.

Brownlee said, “Fine. By the way”—he was folding the newspaper, tucking it casually under his arm—”I think I’ll ask for a nice quiet watchdog to look after Miss Metford for a week or two. Just in case Charles got excited and defiant at the last moment, and yelled something about a letter.”

“They’d never trace it to Rona,” Paul said. “That’s why Charles chose her.” He hoped he sounded more confident than he suddenly felt.

“Warn her to mention this letter to no one. Not even in the future, when all this mess has been swept up.”

Paul nodded, his lips compressed, his eyes thoughtful. Together, they entered the corridor.

“I hope she isn’t one of those young women who take half an hour to put on their hats,” Brownlee said. But Rona was waiting for them, ready to leave.

“I didn’t feel like any more work,” she explained, trying to keep her voice light and make a joke of it. But she was worried and depressed. Scott; Charles’ death; Burnett’s annoyance when he found she was making so little headway in her work. I’ll have to stay late every night this week, she thought gloomily, or else I’ll never manage this assignment. That means cutting evening classes, and the term is nearly over, and I’ve cut too many classes already this spring. That thought led her back to Scott Ettley...

“Don’t worry, Miss Metford,” Brownlee said as they waited for the elevator. “We shan’t keep you long. Then Paul can take you to his favourite restaurant and buy you a steak.”

“Do I look so hungry?” Rona asked, beginning to smile. But she glanced nervously at Paul. We’re being pushed together, she thought. Everything that has happened in these last days has pushed us together. Even Scott has done his share.

They entered the elevator, and it was Brownlee who made the conversation. It seemed as if Paul Haydn had nothing to say at all. “Yes,” Brownlee went on, for the benefit of the interested operator, “there’s nothing like steak to keep you optimistic. Pessimists are always hungry people. That’s why Caesar balked at having Cassius around the place—a perpetual skeleton at the feast.”

As he talked, Rona hoped it was all as simple as that. I’m reaching a stage, she thought, when everything is piling up right on top of me, and I don’t seem to be able to struggle free. Yet, I must. I must.

She glanced into a shop window as they reached the avenue, to catch her reflection. She was surprised to see how normal she looked. Then she glanced at the scattering of people, walking slowly up the avenue for an after-dinner stroll. How many private worries, how much disappointment and unhappiness did they hide in their own hearts? They looked normal. But so did she. Just a girl, in a grey suit and a white straw hat, walking between two men toward the edge of the broad sidewalk, while one of them signalled with a newspaper for a cab.

Then Paul Haydn spoke. He said quietly, “Scott Ettley is just behind us.” He said it as though he had been expecting this.

“You can’t speak to him,” Brownlee said to Rona. “Sorry. But we haven’t time, you know.”

“I don’t want to speak to him,” she said in a low voice. She didn’t look around. She slipped her arm through Brownlee’s. He felt her hand tremble on his wrist. He was suddenly aware of a tension between Rona and Paul, a tension that had nothing to do with Charles’ death. “There’s a taxi,” she almost cried out, “there!”

“I’ll take Miss Metford. Make sure he doesn’t follow us,” Brownlee said opening the door of the taxi and helping Rona in. He gave Paul the address quickly before he followed her. Only then, as the cab drew smartly away, did he look back at Scott Ettley. He saw a tall fair-haired man in a well-cut suit starting forward to hail the next taxi. But Paul had stepped forward, too.

“I’m sorry,” Brownlee said vaguely, only knowing there was some good reason to feel sorry for this girl. He found he was patting her hand to comfort her like an ageing great-uncle. Not a role he particularly enjoyed. Still...

* * *

“Just a minute,” said Paul Haydn.

Scott Ettley ignored him completely. He was signalling a cab. His mouth was bitter, his eyes narrowed.

“Tell Nicholas Orpen—” Paul said quietly, and left his sentence unfinished.

Ettley swung round to face him. For a moment, he was caught off guard. His face was startled and tense, almost waiting. He paid no attention to the taxi that had drawn up at the curb behind him.

“Tell Nicholas Orpen not to bother thinking up any more fancy pen names for the stuff he sends us.”

Scott Ettley’s face was under control again. He was half-angry, half-contemptuous. “In the first place, I’m not likely to meet Orpen. In the second place, deliver your own messages. And in the third—you keep away from my girl.”

“Hey!” called the taxi driver. “Who’s taking this cab?”

“If I were you,” Haydn said slowly, “I’d let Rona make her own decisions.”

“You would, would you?”

“I would. And another piece of advice—”

The driver leaned over toward the window. “Are you taking this cab or ain’t you? Make up your mind, Jack!”

“—stop pushing Rona around, will you?” Haydn said.

They eyed each other.

Ettley raised his right fist and swung.

“All right,” Haydn said, ducked, and hit hard with his left.

“Hey!” the driver shouted. “Keep offa my windows.” He reached over to close the door which he had opened expectantly.

“You’ve got your fare,” Haydn told him, picking Ettley off the side of the cab and shoving him inside. “Take him to the East River and dump him in with the garbage.” He slammed the door.

The driver started his meter, swung his cab out into the mainstream of traffic. “Sit back and relax, can’t you read?” he said warningly over his shoulder as his passenger grabbed suddenly at the door handle. The way I see it, he thought, is I’m doing a public service getting this fellow off the street. Any guy who leads with his right is just naturally asking for trouble. “Better get some ice on that jaw,” he advised. That’s me, he thought, helpful Harry, the kids’ counsellor.

There was no answer.

Okay, okay, so I’ve got one of those talkative fares. “Where to?” he asked briskly.

17

“No, thanks all the same,” Rona said, “really, Paul, I think I’ll go home now.” She flinched as an elevated train hurtled up Third Avenue a block away, suddenly flashing into view with its warning roar. Then it had passed, and the street was quiet once more, a few lights in the windows already switched on against the gathering dusk, a few children playing on the sidewalk, a few people walking in their city-solitary way.

Rona smiled apologetically, excusing her nervous jump as well as her refusal. But Paul wasn’t accepting any excuses tonight.

“You are going to have the steak that Brownlee recommended,” he told her. “You aren’t going to let me eat it alone, are you?” He took her arm and persuaded her toward Lexington Avenue and a bright neon sign over a narrow window. “Benny’s” it read. “Neat but not gaudy,” Paul said, “not compared to other neon signs, that is. I’m one of Benny’s ‘habitchewees,’ and it hasn’t killed me yet.” He smiled down at her and added, “Besides, no one who knows you is going to be there.”

“That isn’t what worries me, Paul.” She still hesitated.

“No? Then it must be the boiled egg or that can of spaghetti which is welcoming you home so urgently.”

It may have been that unappetising truth, or his smile, or his decision, or the explanation she owed him about what did worry her in accepting his invitation—but, at any rate, she found herself inside Benny’s.

It was a long narrow room with the bar itself, backed by pyramids of gleaming glasses, jammed near the door. Benny, presiding behind the dark polished counter in a crisp white shirt and apron, gave a welcoming nod. His customers, perched on the top of red leather stools, glanced round to look who’s here. Some of them gave Paul a nod of recognition and then turned back to their own discussions. A pretty blonde in a black sweater smiled and said, “Hiya!”

“Just fine,” Paul said.

“So I see,” said the blonde, looking with critical appreciation at Rona.

“Two old-fashioneds, Benny,” Paul said, and led Rona toward one of the half-dozen booths that filled the back half of the room. A wide opening in the rear wall showed a small kitchen, clean and bright, with a white-capped cook watching a charcoal broiler and a row of copper pans hanging overhead. The tables in the dark wooden booths were covered with red-checked tablecloths. “Benny picked up several ideas when he was in France,” Paul told her. “The steaks are good. But don’t try the apple pie. If Mom ever baked it like that, the boys would still be in Europe.”

“This is cosy,” Rona said with approval, settling into the privacy of their booth, taking off her hat and smoothing her hair as she looked around the crowded little room. Cheap brown wood furniture; crude seascape murals with stiffly bending Cape Cod clam-diggers scattered around flat bays, lighting that blazed from painfully functional fixtures. But in spite of this odd mixture, there was a feeling of friendly warmth, of easy relaxation and good humour. Even the man who took their order for tenderloin rare and baked Idahos seemed glad to see them.

“Yes,” Paul said, watching her gradually relax. “It’s a home away from home to a lot of lonely people.”

“How’s your new apartment? You managed to find a sublet, didn’t you?”

“Until September. Oh, it’s all right. Quiet.” He grinned. “And I get tired of my own cooking.”

“Didn’t you find someone to come in and cook for you?”

“Only if I were really to eat at six o’clock each night. They want to get home for their favourite television shows, you know.”

“And you cook?” She was a little amazed at that new idea.

“Fine hand with a can-opener,” he admitted.

Benny brought over their old-fashioneds and was formally introduced. “Pleased tomeecha,” he told Rona with a broad grin. And he seemed to be telling the truth. He talked with Paul for a minute or two, just enough to establish the right feeling of welcome. His wife was having trouble with the new garden—not a thing up yet, except the radishes and the grass. Too much grass. Nothing but mowing at the week-ends. All this rainmaking. Still the trees were bigger and greener than they’d ever been.

“A solid type,” Paul said, watching Benny walk with his slightly rolling step (Benny had always admired the navy) back toward the bar. “There’s as happy a man as you can hope to find. Nothing to grumble about except the weather or his income tax. He did his stint footslogging over Europe and settled his conscience. Then he invested his savings in this little place, married a girl from Brooklyn, left the Lower East Side and moved out to Queens, got himself a couple of kids and a ranch-type house—by the way, how did that word sneak into the language?—and some green grass to mow on Sundays.”

“How do you know he has nothing to grumble about except the weather and taxes?”

“True,” he admitted. “I ought to have said he didn’t let himself grumble. Benny’s got one good rule. He says he found it in a ditch in Normandy. To be happy, you’ve got to know what you want; but you’ve also got to know when to stop wanting.”

“When I was young,” Rona began, and then hesitated.

“And what are you now?” he asked with amusement.

“Well, when I was very young, I used to think that if one were grown up, with enough money to buy a chocolate éclair each day, then one would be happy.” She smiled at herself. “And I don’t even like chocolate éclairs any more,” she added. Then, watching him smile, she was shocked to find she had stopped worrying. Here I am, she thought, at the end of one of the most miserable days in my life—certainly the most terrifying and horrible—and I’m chatting about chocolate éclairs.

“What’s that thought?” he asked quickly.

How does Paul always seem to know? she wondered. She said, embarrassed and retreating, “That was a nice man. I didn’t feel so frightened after all.”

He stared for a moment, looked at Benny and then discarded him, and then at last guessed her meaning. “Nice—if you are on the right side of the law,” he said.

“Yes,” she admitted, recalling the quiet watchful man who had asked occasional questions, well-placed, well-pointed, as she told the story of Charles, and the letter. “Is he really important?” He had been polite, kindly. Not at all terrifying.

“I guess so.”

“I suppose Mr. Brownlee stayed to go over the details with him?” Then she glanced at Paul’s face. “You don’t want to talk about it?”

“That’s something we’ll have to forget, Rona.”

“Altogether? I mean—even afterwards, once everything is cleared up?”

“Altogether.”