The Boy Who Followed Ripley (4 page)

Tom nodded. “At least now I know why your hair stands up. You used to part it on the left.”

“I did.”

Mme. Annette was bringing a tray of coffee to the living room. Frank and Tom got up, Tom glancing at his watch. It was not even ten as yet. Why had Frank Pierson decided that Tom Ripley would be sympathetic? Because Ripley had a shaky reputation, according to the newspaper files which the boy perhaps had seen? Had Frank done something wrong too? Killed his father, maybe, pushed him over the cliff?

“Ah-hem,” Tom said for no reason, swinging a foot as he walked toward the coffee table. Disturbing thought, that. And was it the first time, even, that it had crossed his mind? Tom wasn’t sure. Anyway, he would let the boy come out with that one, if and when he wished to. “
Coffee
,” Tom said firmly.

“Maybe you want me to take off?” asked Frank, having seen Tom glance at his watch.

“No, no, I was thinking about Heloise. She said she’d be back before midnight, but it’s a long time till midnight. Sit down.” Tom fetched the brandy bottle from the bar cart. The more Frank talked tonight, the better, and Tom would see him home. “Cognac.” Tom poured, and poured the same amount for himself, though he disliked cognac.

Frank looked at his own wristwatch. “I’ll leave before your wife gets back.”

Heloise, Tom supposed, was one more person who might discover Frank’s identity. “Unfortunately, they’re going to widen the search, Frank. Don’t they know already that you’re in France?”

“I don’t know.”

“Sit down. They must know. The search might even get to a small town like Moret, once they’re finished with Paris.”

“Not if I wear old clothes and have a job—and another name.”

Kidnapping, Tom thought. That might come next, certainly was a possibility. Tom didn’t want to remind Frank of the Getty boy’s kidnapping, that fine-tooth-comb search that had still been futile. The kidnappers had snipped off an ear lobe to prove that they had the boy, and the three million dollars ransom had been paid. Frank Pierson was hot property also. If crooks recognized him (and they would be trying more than the general public), it would be more profitable to kidnap him than to turn the attention of the police to him. “Why,” Tom asked, “did you take your brother’s passport? Haven’t you got a passport?”

“Yes. A new one.” Frank had sat down, in the same corner of the sofa as before. “I don’t know. Maybe because he’s older and I felt safer. We look a little bit alike. Only he’s blonder.” Frank winced as if with shame.

“You get along with Johnny? You like him?”

“Oh, pretty well. Sure.” Frank looked at Tom.

That was a genuine answer, Tom felt. “Got along all right with your father?”

Frank looked toward the fireplace. “It’s hard to talk about since—”

Tom let him struggle.

“First he wanted Johnny to take an interest in Pierson—the company, I mean, then he wanted me to. Johnny can’t make it into Harvard Business School, or he doesn’t want to. Johnny’s interested in
photography
.” Frank said it as if it were something bizarre, and gave Tom a glance. “So Dad then started on me. This was—oh, more than a
year
ago. I kept saying I wasn’t sure, because it’s a very big—business, you know, and why should I want to—dedicate my
life
to it.” There was a flash of wrath in Frank’s brown eyes.

Tom waited.

“So—maybe no, we didn’t get along so well—if I’m honest.” Frank picked up his coffee cup. He had not tasted the brandy, and maybe didn’t need it, because he was talking quite well.

The seconds passed, nothing more came from Frank, and out of mercy, because Tom could see there was more pain to come, Tom said, “I noticed you looking at the Derwatt.” He nodded toward “Man in Chair” over the fireplace. “Do you like it?— It’s my favorite.”

“It’s one I don’t know. I know that one—from a catalogue.” Frank said with a glance over his left shoulder.

He meant “The Red Chairs,” a genuine Derwatt, and Tom knew at once which catalogue the boy had probably looked at, a recent one from the Buckmaster Gallery. The gallery now made an effort to keep the forgeries out of its catalogues.

“Were some really forged?” Frank asked.

“I don’t know,” Tom said, with his best effort at sincerity. “Never was proven. No. I seem to remember Derwatt came to London to verify—certain ones.”

“Yes, I thought maybe you were there, because you know the people at that gallery, don’t you?” Now Frank perked up a bit. “My father has a Derwatt, you know.”

Tom was glad to veer slightly. “What one?”

“It’s called ‘The Rainbow.’ Do you know it? Beige colors below, and a rainbow mostly red above. All fuzzy and jagged. You can’t tell what city it is, Mexico or New York.”

Tom knew. A Bernard Tufts forgery. “I know,” Tom said, as if with fond memory of a genuine. “Your father liked Derwatt?”

“Who doesn’t? There’s something warm about his stuff—human, I mean, which you don’t find in modern painting all the time. I mean—if someone wants warmth. Francis Bacon is tough and real, but so is
this
, even if it’s just a couple of little girls.” The boy looked over his left shoulder at the two little girls in the red chairs, flaming red fire behind them, a picture that could certainly be called warm because of its subject matter, but Tom knew Frank meant a warmth of attitude on Derwatt’s part, which showed in his repeated outlines of bodies and faces.

Tom felt a curiously personal affront, because apparently the boy did not prefer “Man in Chair,” which showed an equal warmth on the part of the painter, though neither the man nor the chair was on fire. It was a phony, though. That was why Tom preferred it. At least Frank had not yet asked if it might be a phony, a question which if he put it would be based on something he had heard or read, Tom thought. “You evidently enjoy paintings.”

Frank squirmed a very little. “I like Rembrandt a lot. Maybe you think that’s funny. My father has one. He keeps it away in a
safe
somewhere. But I’ve seen it several times. Not very big.” Frank cleared his throat and sat up. “But for pleasure—”

That was what painting was all about, Tom thought, regardless of Picasso saying that paintings were to make war.

“I like Vuillard and Bonnard.
They’re
cozy. This modern stuff, abstracts— Maybe one day I’ll understand it.”

“So at least you had something in common with your father, you both liked paintings.— He took you to art exhibits?”

“Well, I went. I mean, I liked them, yes. Since I was about twelve, I remember. But my father was in a wheelchair since I was about five. Someone shot at him, you know?”

Tom nodded, realizing suddenly that John Pierson’s condition would have made it a strange life for Frank’s mother for the past eleven years.

“All business, charming business,” Frank said cynically. “My father knew who was behind it, some other food company. Hired killer. But my father never tried to persecute—
prosecute
, because he knew he would only get more of the same. You know? That’s the way things are in the States.”

Tom could imagine. “Try your cognac.” The boy picked it up, sipped, and winced. “Where’s your mother now?”

“Maine, I suppose. Or maybe the New York apartment, I don’t know.”

Tom wanted to press the matter again, to see if Frank would say something new. “Call her up, Frank. You must know both numbers. The phone’s right there.” It was on a table near the front door. “I’ll go upstairs so I won’t hear anything you’re saying.” Tom stood up.

“I don’t want them to know where I
am.
” Frank looked with steadier eyes at Tom. “I would call up a girl, if I could, but I can’t even let
her
know where I am.”

“What girl?”

“Teresa.”

“She lives in New York?”

“Yes.”

“Why
don’t
you ring her up? Isn’t she worried? You don’t have to tell her where you are. I’ll still go upstairs—”

But Frank was shaking his head, slowly. “She might be able to tell it comes from France. I can’t risk that.”

Had he perhaps run away from the girl? “Did you tell Teresa you were going away?”

“I told her I was thinking of taking a short trip.”

“Did you have a quarrel with her?”

“Oh, no. No.” A quiet, happy amusement spread over Frank’s face, a look of dreaming that Tom had not seen before. Then the boy looked at his wristwatch and stood up. “I’m sorry.”

It was only eleven or so, but Tom knew Frank did not want Heloise to see him again. “Have you got a picture of Teresa?”

“Oh, yes!” Again happiness shone in his face as he reached into the inside pocket of his jacket for his billfold. “This one. My favorite. Even though it’s only a Polaroid.” He handed Tom a small square snapshot in a transparent envelope which just fit it.

Tom saw a brown-haired girl with lively eyes, a mischievous smile with closed lips, eyes slightly narrowed. The hair was straight and shining, shortish, the face more full of fun than mischief, really, as if she had been snapped while dancing. “She has charm,” Tom said.

Frank nodded, happy and wordless. “You don’t mind driving me back? These shoes are comfortable but—”

Tom laughed. “Nothing easier.” Frank wore Gucci shoes, black moccasin-style of crinkly leather, well-shined now. His brown and tan tweed jacket, a Harris tweed, had an interesting diamond pattern that Tom might have chosen for himself. “I’ll see if madame is still awake and tell her I’m leaving and coming back. She sometimes gets disturbed by car sounds, but she
is
expecting Heloise. Use the downstairs loo, if you want.” Tom gestured toward a narrow door in the front hall.

The boy went off to use it, and Tom walked through the kitchen to Mme. Annette’s door. Her light was off, he saw from a look at the crack under the door. Tom scribbled a note on the desk where the telephone was: “Driving a friend home. Back by midnight probably. T.” Tom left it on the third step of the stairs, where Heloise would be sure to see it.

3

T
om wanted to see Frank’s “little house” tonight, and on the road he put the request casually. “Can I see where you’re living? Or would that bother Madame Boutin?”

“Oh, she goes to bed around ten! Sure, you can see it.”

They were just then entering Moret. Tom knew the route now, made the left turn into the Rue de Paris and slowed for number 78 on the left. There was a car parked near the Boutin house facing Tom. Since the street was empty of traffic, Tom pulled over to the left to park, his headlights lit the front of the parked car, and Tom noticed that the license plate ended in 75, which indicated a car registered in Paris.

At the same time, the car’s headlights came on at their brightest into Tom’s windshield, and the Paris car backed quickly. Tom thought he saw two men in the front seats.

“What’s that?” Frank asked, sounding a bit alarmed.

“Just what I was wondering.” Tom watched the car back into the nearest turn on the left, then pull out and roll away at a good speed. “Paris car.” Tom had stopped, but his lights were still on. “I’m going to park around the corner.”

Tom did so, in the still darker and smaller road in which the Paris car had made its turn. Tom put out his lights, and locked three doors with the buttons after Frank had got out. “Maybe nothing to worry about,” Tom said, but he felt a little worried, imagined that there might be one man, or two, lurking in Mme. Boutin’s garden now. “A torch,” Tom said, getting his from the glove compartment. He locked the driver’s door, and they walked toward the Boutin house.

Frank took the long key from his inside jacket pocket, and opened the gates of the driveway or carriage entrance into the garden.

Tom tensed himself for a possible fistfight just inside the gates—which were only about nine feet high, not difficult to climb even with their spikes at the top. The front gate would have been even easier.

“Lock them again,” Tom whispered as they both went through.

Frank did. Now Frank had the flashlight, and Tom followed him as he walked between grapevines and some trees that might have been apple toward a small house on the right. Mme. Boutin’s house on the left was quite dark. Tom heard no sound at all, not even that of a neighbor’s television. French villages could be deadly silent by midnight.

“Watch out,” Frank whispered, indicating with the torch a cluster of three buckets that Tom should avoid. Frank pulled a smaller key out, opened the door of the little house, switched on the light, and handed Tom his torch back. “Simple, but it’s home!” Frank said gaily, closing the door behind him and Tom.

It was one not very big room with a single bed, a wooden table painted white, on which lay a couple of paperback books, a French newspaper, ballpoint pens, a mug of half-finished coffee. A workman’s blue shirt hung over a straight chair. At one end of the room was a sink and a small wood-burning stove, a wastebasket, a towel rack. A brown leather suitcase, not new, rested on a high shelf, and below the shelf a rod about a yard long served for clothes-hanging, and Tom saw a couple of pairs of trousers, jeans, and a raincoat.

“Bed’s more comfortable than this chair to sit on,” said Frank. “I can offer you Nescafé—made with cold water.”

Tom smiled. “You don’t have to offer me anything. I think your place is quite—adequate.” The walls looked freshly whitewashed, maybe by Frank. “And that’s pretty,” Tom said, noticing a watercolor on a piece of white cardboard (the cardboard that came at the bottom of writing paper tablets) propped against the wall on Frank’s bed table. The bedside table was a wooden crate on which stood also a red rose with some wild flowers in a glass. The watercolor was of the gates they had just passed through, partly opened in the picture. It was direct, bold, and not at all worked over.

“Yes, that. I found some kid’s watercolors in the drawer of the table here.” Now the boy looked more sleepy than drunk.

“I shall be pushing off,” Tom said, reaching for the doorknob. “Phone me again when you feel like it.” Tom had the door half open, when he saw a light come on in Mme. Boutin’s house about twenty yards away straight ahead.

Frank saw it too. “Now what?” Frank said with irritation. “We didn’t make any noise.”

Tom wanted to flee, but suddenly in the absolute silence he heard her footsteps on what sounded like gravel and pretty near. “I’m going to hide in the bushes,” Tom whispered, and he moved even as he spoke, out and to the left, where he knew there was darkness either against the garden wall or under a tree.

The old lady was watching her footing with the aid of a feeble pencil-like flashlight. “
C’est Billy?
”

“Mais oui, madame!” Frank said.

Tom was crouched, with one hand on the ground, about six yards from Frank’s little house. Mme. Boutin was saying that two men had arrived around ten o’clock, asking to see him.

“To see me? Who were they?” Frank said.

“They didn’t say their names. They wanted to see my gardener, they said. Strangers to me! Bizarre to look for a gardener at ten o’clock, I thought!” Mme. Boutin sounded vexed and suspicious.

“It’s not my fault,” said Frank. “What did they look like?”

“Oh, I saw only one. Maybe thirty years old. He asked when you would be back.
I
didn’t know!”

“I am sorry they disturbed you, madame. I am not looking for other work, I assure you.”

“I trust not! I don’t like such people ringing my doorbell at
night
.” Now her small, rather stooped figure was taking its leave. “I keep my two gates locked. But I came all the way to the front gate to speak to them.”

“We should—forget it, Madame Boutin. I am sorry.”

“Good night, Billy, and sleep well.”

“And you too, madame!”

Tom waited, watching her progress back to the house. He heard Frank close his house door, then finally the turning of a lock in Mme. Boutin’s house, the faint creak of a second key, then the firm clunk of a bolt that she slid home. Or was that even final? There were no more noises of closures, but still Tom waited. A light on the floor above the ground floor glowed dimly through clouded glass. Then that went out. Frank was evidently waiting for him to make the first move, which Tom thought intelligent of the boy. Tom crept from the bushes, approached the door of the little house, and tapped with his fingertips.

Frank opened the door partway, and Tom slipped in.

“I heard that,” Tom whispered. “I think you’d better leave tonight. Now.”

“
Do
you?” Frank looked startled. “I know you’re right. I know, I know.”

“Now—let’s get going and pack up. You’ll stay at my house tonight and worry about tomorrow tomorrow. This is your only suitcase?” Tom took it from the high shelf, and opened it on the bed.

They worked smoothly, Tom handing Frank things, trousers, shirts, sneakers, books, toothpaste, and toothbrush. Frank worked with his head down, and Tom felt he was on the brink of tears.

“Nothing to worry about if we evade those creeps tonight,” Tom said softly, “and tomorrow we’ll leave the nice old lady a note—maybe saying you phoned your family tonight and you have to get back to the States right away. Something like that. But we can’t waste time with it now.”

Frank pressed his raincoat down, and closed the suitcase.

Tom took his torch from the table. “Wait a sec, I want to see if they’ve come back.”

Tom walked as noiselessly as possible over the mowed grass toward the gates. He was able to see only some three yards around him without the torch, and he didn’t want to put the torch on. No car was in front of the Boutin house, anyway. Could they be waiting near his car around the corner? Nasty thought. The gates were now locked, so Tom couldn’t go round the corner and see. He went back for Frank, and found him with suitcase in hand, ready to go. Frank left the key in the lock of the little house, its door locked, and they went on to the gates.

“Stay here for a minute,” Tom said when Frank had unlocked the gates. “I want to look round the corner.”

Frank lowered his suitcase, and nervously started to come with Tom, but Tom pushed him back, made sure the gate looked closed, and walked toward the corner. He felt rather safe, because the two men certainly weren’t after him.

His own car was the only one that Tom could see. That was reassuring. People in this neighborhood had garages, and no cars were parked at the curbs. Tom only hoped that the two men had not taken notice of his license plates, because if they had, they might trace his name and address via the police on some made-up grounds of misdemeanor or affront. Tom walked back for Frank, who was still behind the gates. The boy came out when Tom beckoned.

“I don’t know what to do with this key,” Frank said.

“Drop it behind the gate,” Tom whispered. Frank had locked the gate again. “We’ll tell her in the note tomorrow.”

They walked, Frank carrying his suitcase and Tom a small carry- all, round the corner, and got into the car, which seemed a haven to Tom as soon as they had closed its doors. Tom concentrated on getting out of the town, and by a different route. As far as he could see, he was not being followed. In the main part of town, across the old bridge with its four towers, very few streetlights were on, one bar was closing, only two or three cars moved, paying no attention to him. Tom took the big N 5, and made a right turn toward the tiny town of Obelique on a road that would take them finally to Villeperce.

“Don’t be worried,” Tom said. “I know where I’m going and I don’t think anyone’s following us.”

Frank seemed sunk in his own thoughts.

The little world of Mme. Boutin was shattered, Tom thought, and the boy didn’t know where he was now. “I’ll have to tell Heloise you’re staying the night,” Tom said. “But you’ll still be Billy Rollins to her. I’ll tell her you want to do some gardening for us, and—” Tom looked into his car mirror again, but nothing was behind them. “I’ll say you’re looking for a part-time job. Don’t worry.” Tom glanced at Frank. The boy was staring through the windshield and biting his underlip.

They were home. Tom saw the gentle glow of Belle Ombre’s front court light, which Heloise had left on for him, and he drove through the open gates into the garage at the right of the house. Tom saw that Heloise had parked the red Mercedes-Benz in the right-hand garage space. Tom got out, asked Frank to wait a moment, then he got the big key from under the rhododendrons and locked the front gates.

By then Frank was standing with suitcase and carryall beside the car. One living room light was on. Tom put on another light which lit the stairs, turned off the living room light, then went out and beckoned for Frank to follow him. They turned left at the top of the stairs, and Tom put on the light in the guest room. Heloise’s door was closed.

“Make yourself comfortable,” Tom said to Frank. “Closet’s here—” He opened a cream-colored door. “Drawers there—and use my bathroom tonight, because the one here is Heloise’s. I won’t be asleep for another hour probably.”

“Thank you.” Frank had put his suitcase on the short oak bench at the foot of one of the twin beds.

Tom went into his room, put on the light and also the light in the bathroom. Then he couldn’t resist going to his front window, whose curtains had been drawn by Mme. Annette, and peering out to see if any car was cruising past or parked. He saw nothing but darkness, except for the area of light under a street lamp to the left. Of course a lightless car could be parked out there, but Tom preferred to think none was.

Frank knocked on the partly open door, and came in in pajamas, toothbrush in hand, barefoot. Tom gestured toward the bathroom.

“All yours,” Tom said, “and take your time.” Tom smiled, watching the tired boy—shadows under his eyes now—walk into the bathroom and close the door. Tom got into pajamas. He would be interested to see what the
IHT
might have to say in the next days about the disappearance of Frank Pierson. Surely the search would be heating up. Tom went down the hall to Heloise’s room, looked through the keyhole through which he could always see some light, if any light was on, though the key remained in the lock inside. No light.

Tom went back to his own room, and was in bed browsing in a French grammar when Frank came out of the bathroom, smiling, with dampish hair.

“A hot shower! Wow!”

“Go and get some sleep. Sleep as late as you like.”

Then Tom went to wash. He was thinking about the car in front of Mme. Boutin’s. Whoever the two men had been, they had not wanted to risk a noisy fight, or even a meeting with Frank and another person. Still it boded no good. On the other hand, it might be petty curiosity: someone in Moret might have mentioned seeing a new boy, an American, who might be Frank Pierson, and the same person might have a Paris friend. The men hadn’t asked for Frank, it seemed, just for Mme. Boutin’s “gardener.” Tom thought he would deliver Frank’s note to Mme. Boutin tomorrow without the boy, and as quickly as possible.