The Longest Second (6 page)

Several waiters were lounging in a group along a side of the deserted wall. One broke away and, approaching me, attempted to seat me in the center of the room. I moved along unhurriedly to another table near the loafing waiters. The waiter handed me the menu which was written in both Arabic and English. Scanning the Arabic side, I pointed to the items of coffee and melon. The waiter dropped his sullen air, and looked at me more closely.
“Mit ahlan wa sahlan,”
he said. He was welcoming me.

I wrote on the paper
“Moutta shakker,"
thanking him. He quickly returned with a small cup of thick Turkish coffee, very sweet, and a thin slice of Persian melon. Placing them before me, he retreated to rejoin his confreres.

Sipping my coffee, and toying with my melon, I listened to the waiters. The Arabic language with its repetitious phrases, and changing cadence from deep guttural to a high-pitched tremolo is deep, earthy, explosive sounding. I could understand very little of it—only a few words here and there in the conversation which seemed to be a series of complaints against the proprietor.

I realized that I had only a rudimentary knowledge of the language. At some time, I must have studied it and learned the more common words and phrases, and was able to understand it, in part, if it was spoken slowly and in the usual stereotyped forms of speech, but the colloquial tongue and rapid conversation were beyond me, I was not fluent in the language. The question came to my mind as to why I had wanted to study Arabic in the first place.

According to my Army record, I had served in Africa, spent some time in the desert, and been hospitalized. But so had thousands of other American troops. They hadn’t learned Arabic, beyond a few words; I wondered why I had. Motioning to the waiter, I received my bill and left him a tip. He bowed and said,
"Hallet el-baraka.”
With my paper I replied,
“El-baraka aleikum.”
This age-old ritual I understood perfectly. At the door I paid the cashier and descended the stairs to the street.

I began walking west, across town, until I reached Sixth Avenue. The night felt good on my face, and I decided to walk back to the Village. It took me longer than I expected, and it was nearly eleven o’clock when I arrived at Bianca Hill’s. As I prepared to ring the bell, a cab pulled up and Rosemary Martin got out. She paid the driver and approached the door. For a moment we stood there on the single step staring into each other’s face. In the darkness her face seemed strangely smooth, dusted by the shadows and the moon into a mask. Only her mouth looked alive. It seemed black and twisted.

“What are you waiting for?” she asked.

I shook my head. I was waiting only because I had no key, and I did not wish to disturb Bianca unnecessarily.

Suddenly, angrily I thought, Rosemary unlocked the door and pushed her way into the house. I followed her. She went upstairs. I went down to the basement.

THE MPR
rolled up to the front entrance of the Eighth Precinct station. In the predawn darkness the metal lamps on each side of the door glowered greenly—alert against the evils of the city. Burrows hesitated momentarily before getting out, then said, “Well, I suppose I better get started on the reports.” Paper work and routine were part of his life, but he never failed to resent them both.

“Okay,” said Jensen. “I’ll go on uptown and report in at Manhattan East. Then I’ll get started on the ID.”

“There’s always the possibility that the guy’s family will miss him and call in about it.”

Perhaps it was the time, and the night. Jensen became stolidly philosophical. “I don’t know,” he said, “but did you ever notice that weird things like this never seem to happen to guys with families? Not that family men don’t get in trouble, but they don’t get in crazy kinds of trouble.” Burrows deliberately avoided Jensen’s meaning. “Sure,” he agreed. “If this guy was from out of town he might’ve been taken. It doesn’t look like a mugging though. If he was from out of town, it might take longer to hear he was missing.” Jensen said, “We might never hear.”

Burrows opened the door of the car and stepped out. “See you later.” He slammed the door and stepped back as it pulled away. Lighting a cigarette, he entered the building. The desk sergeant looked up and greeted him as he came in. “Heard you got a good one,” he said to Burrows. Burrows said yes, he had a good one, and climbed the flight of stairs to the second floor where the detectives’ room was located.

Seating himself at a desk, he began to fill out the homicide report, marking in the upper right-hand corner “Preliminary and Tentative.”

Burrows looked at the heavy clock on the wall. It was a little after four
a.m.
He went off duty at eight in the morning. There was still four hours to go, and he had accomplished very little. He wasn’t worried; he was a patient man, and he had learned one important fact: time was always on the side of the cops.

FROM
Bianca I learned the names of the families living on Newton Mews. She had lived her entire life there and knew them all, having inherited the house from her mother. The neighboring families on each side were the Fairbanks and Bains. Then there were the Cosgroves, Morisses, Janviers, Bryants, MacMurrays, and some half dozen others. They all had lived on Newton Mews for years and were quiet, respectable, and fairly well to do.

“I’m the financial black sheep of the street,” Bianca told me. “After my mother died, I had practically no money. Just this house. One year, when my family was still alive, we lived in Mexico and I learned a little about silver-working ... just for fun. So I decided I’d try to see what I could do with it, as I’ve always loved to design things and make my own jewelry. It’s been difficult to get established, and I’ve barely been able to make ends meet. My business though is getting better all the time, and I’m still optimistic.”

From her description of the families on Newton Mews, I doubted that I had any contact with them before the night she found me. And yet I was convinced that my attack had been intended as a warning to someone living on the street.

Santini came over another day. He stayed only a very short time. “You think you remember the name of a Colonel Horstman?” he asked me.

I nodded.

“Miss Hill asked me to check for you. Washington said there was never a Colonel Horstman in the Six hundred and fourth with which you served.”

I wrote asking him if he’d checked the records of any Colonel Horstman connected with the Army at all.

There was irritation in his eyes. “Of course I checked it,” he told me. “No Colonel Horstman since the turn of the century. Then it was some old guy who was a major in the state militia during the Civil War.”

Although this seemed to conclude Santini’s interest in Colonel Horstman, it did not finish it for me. I knew that at some time I had known a Colonel Horstman.

Santini asked me, “When’re you going to start trying to learn to talk?” I shrugged, as I didn’t know. After he had gone, however, I thought it over. Doctor Minor had told me that there was a free speech clinic for laryngectomy patients —patients who had their vocal cords removed by operation because of cancer and other causes. The clinic was maintained by a number of hospitals; if I preferred I could work with a private teacher, but would have to pay for the lessons. As I didn’t have the money, I decided to attend the free clinic. Bianca made the arrangements for me, and I began to attend twice each week.

The instructor at the clinic told me that a person speaks, ordinarily, through the combined use of his lungs, larynx, tongue, and lips. If the larynx has been taken out, or badly damaged, it’s still possible that the lips, tongue, and lungs properly combined and coordinated can produce a certain type of speech. It doesn’t sound natural, but it can be understood. Air is exploded through the mouth, and then the teeth, tongue, and lips form a distorted facsimile of sounds resembling words. These words are usually intelligible, but that depends also on how difficult the word is to pronounce. The clinic started me to make sounds which resembled the vowels—a, e, i, o, and u. At first, I could not even remotely imitate them.

Bianca didn’t object to my oral exercises, and I continued to practice them while working. During this period of time, I had a strange feeling of passiveness. It was a time of waiting. Within me, however, was the belief that the mosaic of the passing days would eventually put together a small fragment of a pattern. I would then find other pieces, add them to the existing pattern, and at last find an answer to who I was, and what had happened to me.

It is not true to say that I was contented, but I was resigned to waiting. My work was pleasant, and through Bianca I had developed a skill in soldering which removed the monotony of smelting and pouring. I arose each morning, had breakfast in the kitchen, worked during the day, practiced my speaking exercises, and went to bed at night. And nearly every night the old familiar nightmare would return to me.

The relationship between Bianca and me was changing; at least it was changing on her part. She casually began to inquire about my likes and preferences. This made me uncomfortable as I had no established preferences concerning food and other small things, and preferred to accept such as were offered. Occasionally she suggested that we attend the neighboring movie. I did not object to this, although I did not encourage it either, realizing to a degree that I was dependent on her generosity. As long as I stayed in her house, if gestures such as these caused the situation to be easier, I was agreeable.

Rosemary, on the other hand, became more irritable. She began to stay away from the house later into the night, and never again since the night she descended into the basement exchanged more than a few words with me. I never saw her alone; it was always in the presence of Bianca. But one evening, shortly after six-thirty, Bianca decided to make a hurried trip to the grocery. I offered to go for her, but she declined. As soon as she had left the house, Rosemary came down to the kitchen.

I was having a drink. “Did Bee go out?” Rosemary asked.

“Ow-t,” I replied. By now I could manage a few distorted single-syllable words such as out, yes, no, and why. Each of the words had a singularly mechanical sound.

“Out?” she repeated it.

I nodded.

“Look, Vic,” she said, ‘I’ve got to talk to you. I’m getting scared!”

“Me?” I asked in surprise.

“No! I’m not scared of you,” she replied impatiently. “But you know who does frighten me!”

“No.”

Nervously she lit a cigarette. “I guess you can’t talk,” she said. “I’ve seen your throat and it gives me the creeps. But you’re not stupid. One thing I’ve always admired about you, you’re very, very smart.”

Rosemary did know something about me. She was the first thread leading into my past. I felt a surge of anticipation, and, in my haste to question her, I forgot that I could pronounce only a few words; for a moment I made meaningless sounds. “Listen,” she said, interrupting me, “they know I’m here.”

“Wh-y?”

“Because ... well, why do you suppose they dumped you out on my doorstep?”

She didn’t bother to await a reply but continued rapidly. “By now they know you’re not dead either. And I’m getting frightened ... petrified! With both of us together they’ve got their answer ... they’ll grab us. I’m not waiting around any longer.” The sound of the front door opening announced that Bianca was returning. Quickly Rosemary thrust a long, flat key in my hand. “Here it is,” she whispered. “You keep it” Turning away from me, she added over her shoulder, “You know how to reach me.”

Hastily she put the length of the room between us as Bianca entered. “Bee, darling,” Rosemary said, “are you still doing errands this time of night?” Her voice was strained.

“I don’t mind,” Bianca replied.

“I’m running right back out,” Rosemary said. “I’m not even going to bother to change.” Rosemary looked directly at me, and said, “Good night.” Her steps echoed down the hall, and in a moment the front door closed.

“How odd!” Bianca exclaimed. I didn’t say anything.

Later that same evening the telephone rang. Bianca and I were sitting at the round table listening to records. The call was from Rosemary, and she talked to Bianca. I paid little attention to the conversation, but when Bianca returned her face was both hurt and puzzled. “Did you and Rosemary have a fight while I was gone?” she asked.

I told her no.

“On the phone just now she said that she was going away for a while. She isn’t even coming back tonight to get her clothes.”

I wrote on my pad, “She can’t go very far in one dress.”

“Rosemary said she had some other clothes in storage which she would get tomorrow.” Abruptly her face became thoughtful, and she gazed levelly at me across the table. “Tell me honestly, Vic, is there anything between you and Rosemary?”

“No.”

“I always thought that Rosemary felt uneasy about you. I couldn’t understand it because I like you very much. It’s occurred to me that you might have known each other.” Writing on my pad I told her, “I do not recall having ever seen Rosemary before I came to this house.”

“If you had known her,” Bianca was bemused, “why would Rosemary pretend not to know you?”

I didn’t know why, but I remembered something else I wanted to ask Bianca. Via my pad, “The night I was nearly murdered are you sure Rosemary was in Chicago?”

“Oh, yes.” Bianca assured me. “She called me from Chicago earlier that afternoon. She wanted me to airmail her some things she’d forgotten to pack. Her job came up in such a hurry that she had practically no warning of it.”