The Blackbirder (3 page)

She went up and out into the morning, into crowded streets now. Despite the cold she walked leisurely up to Fifth, turned downtown, looking into shop windows. She walked to 37th Street, crossed Fifth, and turned back uptown. At 9:20 she entered Kresge's. She hadn't wanted to be the first customer. There was almost three dollars left in bills and in change. She held the bills in her hand. For $1.02 she bought a brown, imitation-leather purse. For 590, she brown fabric gloves. She went up to the women's room. Behind the locked toilet door, she took the blood-matted gloves, thrust them into the new paper sack. She opened her old purse. The handkerchief was bloodstained; she thrust it in with the discarded gloves. The coin purse, a pencil, the little black notebook, stiff to her touch, she transferred. Her lipstick and golden compact were clean. The handkerchief had protected them.

The old purse was larger than the new. The old wouldn't fit into that paper sack. She took the center double-spread of the newspaper, folded it about the purse.

Again on Fifth Avenue she walked uptown. The paper sack she crumpled under the discarded newspapers in the first metal trash container. The newspaper-covered purse she laid in another container. She walked west and south to the savings bank.

She made out the withdrawal slip— $1,900, leaving $100 in order that there would be no questions asked, no closing of the account. She hadn't wanted to touch this two thousand until she knew what the future would bring. Until she had found Fran. It was necessary now.

The cashier asked, “In cash?” and she nodded. “Small bills or large?”

She said quickly, “Half in small, half large.” She mustn't offer a large denomination until she was safely away from this city. She mustn't attract any attention.

She pushed the sum deep into her purse and left the bank, caught a Sixth Avenue bus and rode to 34th Street. Safer to buy clothes in a mammoth department store. No questions asked. No remembrance of a girl with coffee stains matted on her coat.

As soon as she was within the store she removed the coat, folded it inside out, carried it over her arm. She wasn't frightened now. She was hidden in the crowd. She had her ration books in her purse. She selected a navy coat, a navy gabardine suit, a tailored blouse, a frilled blouse, a blue pullover sweater. Underclothes, stockings, nightclothes, a tailored robe. Everything new from the skin out. Hat, shoes, gloves, a new large navy bag. Cosmetics, brush and comb. She went from counter to counter, unhurried. When her arms were loaded she checked her parcels, returned for more. She had spent almost $200 before she bought the luggage, one large suitcase, one small. She didn't buy the more expensive ones but it was almost $50 more. She had to watch her money— $1,900 to see her through. It seemed a vast sum but it wasn't. Because she was going to some far-off place called Sante Fe and she didn't want to be inconspicuous there. She was going as Julie Guille and she hoped someone would recognize the name. Someone who watched for refugees. Someone who was blackbirding.

She took her bags unwrapped to the mezzanine, retrieved her purchases, put what she could inside. She couldn't carry all the load. She checked the week-end bag with some parcels in it, and she carried the large suitcase and the large box which held her coat. She bumped her way down the stairs and out through the revolving doors.

On 34th Street again she found a cab, rode the short trip to the Pennsylvania Station. She went to the women's waiting-room, to the inner room, and put a coin in a dressing-room slot. Behind closed doors she changed suit, blouse, hat and shoes. There wasn't time for more. She crammed the brown ones, the Kresge bag and gloves, into the suit box. She tied the string around its bulge. Her large suitcase she checked. The box she put into a locker. She threw the key into a waste container.

She wasn't tired now and she wasn't afraid. She didn't look the same. She had the courage needed for what must be done. She left the station, walked to the corner of 34th and caught an uptown bus. At 42nd she left it, started eastward across town. No one looked at her. The westward didn't know she was passing, the eastward walkers didn't know she was among them. There was no curiosity on city faces. Even if police officers were watching for Juliet Marlebone they wouldn't recognize her now. Her description would be without identifying marks save for shabby brown clothes. Hundreds of girls had blue eyes, small faces, dark curling hair.

The bank stood foursquare on the corner of Madison. She hadn't been in it since she rented the box almost seven months ago. No one in so large a bank would remember the girl who had rented it. If the police had her name, they could be waiting here. But they couldn't have it yet. She and Maxl had spoken to no one during the evening. Even if it had been part of a plan, even if Maxl had been deliberately lying in wait for her, he would have talked of her as Julie Guille. He hadn't known her real name until last night when she had given it with her phone number. She had had to spell it out— Marlebone. In Paris she had been Julie Guille. It was simpler that way. She lived with the Guilles; Paul and Lily were her guardians.

She slipped into the bank, took a breath. She counted the steps descending to the vaults. This was the moment. Experience had taught her over and over how to behave in possible as well as in actual danger. This was only possible. She was aloof, seemingly certain of herself. She stated her name softly, giving it a French accent, “Marlebone.” She passed the guard with no tremor. Alone in the diminutive room she laid the small box on the table. Her gloved fingers opened it, removed the shabby zipper bag. From it she took the soiled lump of cloth, unrolled it.

There was no aesthetic impulse to her senses, no breathless impact on her eyes, when the blaze of diamonds lay on her palm. Two missing from the delicate, exquisite necklace. Two she had sold, one in a stifling room of a Havana hotel, one in the furtive back streets of downtown New York. Stones for bread. She had no regrets. She wrapped the necklace again in the fold of cloth, pressed it within the depths of the large navy handbag. The zipper bag she replaced empty in the metal box. This was not the time to court identification by relinquishing the box. She followed routine, replacing it, nodded briskly to the guard.

He said, “Nice day, isn't it, Miss?” He was a prim little Irishman with faded brick hands. He said, “When you were coming down the stairs I was thinking it was my own daughter. She's overseas, a nurse. She used to wear her hair like to yours— on the shoulders that way. It's dark, too.”

Her hair. There was yet time. She walked more quickly up the stairs, into the cold sunshine. Again to Fifth. She chose an expensive department store. It was restful, the shampoo, the drying, but she didn't sleep. A short swirling haircut. She didn't need a permanent; there was enough curl in her hair. She couldn't have endured that time waste.

She wasn't at all afraid when she stepped out on the Avenue again. It was nearing four o'clock. She didn't stop to eat. She returned to the great department store, stood in line to retrieve the week-end bag and the other parcels. The girl behind the counter hadn't looked at her when she'd turned them in; if it was the same girl she didn't look now. There were too many faces on the daily treadmill.

Julie walked back to the Pennsylvania for the large suitcase, opened it in the waiting-room and put the parcels inside. A cab took her to Grand Central. A redcap took her bags. To the question, “What train?” she answered, “I'm not certain about my reservations.” She walked down the marble stairs to the great concourse, her head high. Her elegant heels tapped to the Pullman window. No one could see the ghost of a gray girl in stained brown clothes that had flitted here in the early dawn.

Expense or no she must have a compartment, must be able to lock a door behind her. It didn't matter what train. The harassed clerk didn't look at her. He grunted, “You're lucky. Roomette cancellation on the Century— these Washington big shots— ”

Lucky. She'd forgotten that with wartime restrictions it might be impossible to find a place on an outgoing train. She held her teeth together.

She bought her ticket only to Chicago. If questions were asked, if the police discovered who had been with Maxl, Chicago should be large enough to cover her.

She told the porter, “The Century.”

There was almost an hour to spare; the train didn't leave until six. She had time for a sandwich and tea in Liggett's. She didn't want more now, she was too tired. She could eat early on the train. She bought magazines, the afternoon papers,
World-Telegram, Sun, Post, PM.
She didn't let her eyes look at the headlines, not that Maxi's death would be headline material with wholesale slaughter to the East and to the West. She bought a carton of Pall Malls, a box of chocolates. Any young girl on pleasure bent.

There was yet the final barrier. Her heart was louder than her heels approaching the gate. Were there plainclothes men now watching the departing trains, watching for a small thin girl with long dusky hair, dressed in worn brown? She moved with the mask of pleasant assurance, a taller girl in navy-blue suit, dark hair curled above her face under her navy-blue Breton, color on her lips and cheeks.

No one halted her. Her redcap met her on the walk, she smiled with her generous tip. The porter helped her up the train steps; she brushed past a gray-flanneled man in the entry, went into her own square, locked the door. Until she sank down in the seat, she didn't know how her knees trembled. She pulled off the hat, put her head against the rest, and closed her eyes. Safe. A little bit safe for a little while.

The train out of city caverns into the suburban countryside. Julie opened her eyes. Now was the opportunity to study that small address book. She opened her handbag, put her fingers on the leather, withdrew them. She snapped the bag. She didn't have to look now; she could wait. She could have these few hours, if not of Lethe, at least of respite. She wished she dare throw the book from the train. It could be found, her name burning from the page. Burn. She could burn it, page by page. That would rid her of it forever. But it might prove valuable; it might hold Santa Fe names and addresses which she would need. She would wait.

Her eyes closed again. She must sleep. Wearied as she was she couldn't descend into depths of sleep; she was but dozing when the rap came at her door. The conductor. She took her ticket from her bag before unlocking to the summons. She stepped back quickly, and then she smiled.

It was only the tall man in gray flannels. She hadn't noticed his physical appearance in the corridor. Now she filed it. Lean body about six feet, lean cheeks, blond hair with a swatch of gray through it, darker brows, gray eyes, good straight nose and mouth. She said, “I thought you were the conductor.”

“Awfully sorry.” His voice was British, as Maxl's had been when he remembered London. He smiled at her. “I thought this was my compartment.” His eyes looked her over, went around her small cubicle, before he went away. He limped slightly, favoring his left leg.

She locked the door and sucked breath into her lungs. It hadn't been the police. Certainly not. The police couldn't have located her yet. She had covered her trail today.

She sat down again and took up the papers. There wasn't much more than what had been in the morning editions. Maxl's address was printed, a large commercial hotel. No one there knew where he had gone the night before. No one remembered seeing him leave. (He had been wise; you were anonymous in a large hotel. She would go to a large hotel in Santa Fe.) Someone— the inevitable someone— had heard a taxi stop on West 78th Street about one o'clock. The police asked the driver to report. He hadn't as yet. No mention of a girl on West 78th Street. Nor was there a report from Yorkville. If it were a pro-Nazi rathskeller, it wouldn't call attention to itself by volunteering information. Juliet Marlebone hadn't figured in it as yet.

She must remember. She was no longer Juliet Marlebone. She was Julie Guille. She hadn't ever wanted to return to Julie Guille. She hadn't ever expected to resume that name, that self. It made her a little sick knowing that she must. Only in these straits would she ever have assumed Paul's name again. Only to remain free, to be able to draw breath, come and go. She must remain free until she found Fran.

There hadn't been time to think of him in these last frantic hours; now, remembering again, she was suddenly sick inside of her. The answer to her letter might come this very day. It would gather dust at the Free French offices. She would have to write again, wait again. It would be more difficult now, but she couldn't risk remaining in this country. She would have to operate from a safer point. If she were to be involved in Maxl's murder, if she were locked up, she couldn't help Fran. Somehow she would find hint She must find him. Her fingers pressed against her cheeks. She must find Fran. She mustn't be locked up. She couldn't bear to be locked up again. She would go mad.

Again a rap at the door. This time the conductor— his voice called through, “Tickets.” He and his assistant checked, said, “Chicago,” echoed, “Chicago,” wrote something, returned a receipt. They were impersonal as the landscape outside the window. They didn't see her. Never could they identify her.

It was seven o'clock. She rang for the porter, said, “I'd like to eat here. Could you send a waiter?”

Special privileges were not wisdom in flight, but better to risk the identification of porter and waiter than to face the dining-car. She wasn't hungry but she ordered, ate while twilight rushed past the window into darkness. Her eyes were leaden. She wouldn't double the identification risk by asking more privilege. She would wait until the porter came to her compartment. She locked the door after the dining-car waiter and she slept, uncomfortably, until the buzzer woke her. She had been dreaming. She couldn't remember of what; it was shadowed. She only knew that it was unpleasant.

She stood outside in the narrow corridor while the porter made up the berth. It seemed long. She could hear a portable radio behind the next door; it wasn't giving the news, only dance music. When someone was approaching she swerved quickly, pretended to be engrossed in the moving dark outside the window.