The Longest Second (9 page)

Prying the knife from the wood, I turned off the lights and made my way upstairs. With the knife on the table by the side of my bed I went to sleep. This night when the nightmare returned it had altered slightly. There was the same long dark room with the spot of light in it. I was still waiting for someone to appear in the light, but while I was waiting I kept trying to reach the knife which was in my jacket and to call to someone. It seemed that my fingers could not quite reach the knife, and the words on my lips were strange ones.

The next day I addressed the cards from the list of bank names in the telephone directory and mailed them out. When I went down to the basement, Bianca said, “I thought I heard you down here in the shop last night”

“Yes.”

She waited for me to make some explanation, I suppose, but I did not feel like making one. After a moment she continued, “Is there anything I can do to help you?” I told her no, there wasn’t.

When she went upstairs for lunch, I walked over to the power bench, and snapped on the grindstone. Turning the knife on the stone, I honed it to a needle point with razor sharpness on both edges. A shower of sparks ... red, with elongated points like stars ... danced along its blade while the steel snarled against the stone. It was beautiful.

When I lifted the knife in my hand, it felt right . . , light, balanced, eager to jump. I placed a piece of cork over the point, and wrapped the blade in heavy brown paper; it would carry safely in my pocket until I should have an opportunity to make a sheath. Frankly I did not know why the knife gave me such satisfaction and security; a revolver would have been a greater and better protection. To be honest I did not know where to buy one, or how to secure it, as the sale of firearms in New York is illegal without a permit. However, I did not worry about this, because I didn’t want a revolver; with the knife I was content.

Later I queried Bianca again concerning Rosemary Martin. This was a slow process, although Bianca had become expert in interpreting my nods and the few words which I could pronounce to supplement my writing. I wanted to know the places where Rosemary liked to go, places where she might possibly attend again at some time or other. “Well,” Bianca told me, “lots of girls have favorite places where they go on dates ... the Stork, ‘21,’ Copa, and so on, but Rosemary never liked night clubs very well. At least I don’t think she did.” She paused and glanced quickly down. After a moment she lifted her eyes. “Why are you so interested in Rosemary?” she asked. “First you wanted the address of her old apartment. Now you’re trying to find out where she might be having fun.”

I wrote on the pad, “I feel bad about her leaving. I don’t think she’s angry with me, but I’d like to find her to apologize in case she is.”

“Oh, don’t worry,” said Bianca. “If she’s angry, she’ll get over it. Why don’t you forget it?”

“No.” I continued with my questioning. “Rosemary,” she told me rather reluctantly, “liked smart places for dinner ... the Chateaubriand, Maude Chez Elle, and the best restaurants. After dinner she would sit around for a while talking and have a liqueur and coffee, and then come home early. She wasn’t interested in floor shows and comedians.”

“What was that hotel she seemed to go to a great many times?” I wrote.

“You mean the Acton-Plaza. It was one of her favorite places. It’s rather old-fashioned, you know, in the sense of ... well, good service and tradition. Rosemary even liked to go there for tea on Sunday.”

That was the name which I had been trying to recall. I decided that I would try to pick up the trail of Rosemary Martin at the Acton-Plaza.

AT
ten o’clock in the morning, Burrows was beginning to get a little tired. By this time, usually he was home and asleep. The city around him had hit its stride, trucks waddled through the narrow streets of lower Manhattan, buses and taxis raced the main avenues, and the men in the Eighth precinct, occupied by their duties, came and went in an evenflowing stream. Burrows had been out to breakfast at a small diner located near the station. When he returned, he settled down to wait until he heard from Jensen. While he was waiting, he worked on the endless reports which seemed to drown his working hours—a case of vandals breaking a shop window, a burglary in an apartment with the theft of a portable typewriter and radio, a pedestrian injured by a motorcycle, a reported incident of a Peeping Tom, an alky found dead near the Bowery.

The phone rang by his side, and Burrows picked it up. It was Jensen calling from Centre Street. “We got an ID on the stiff,” Jensen told Burrows. “It just came in from Washington.”

“The FBI?”

“Yeah, but it came from the Army files.”

“Who was he?”

“A guy named Pacific, Victor Pacific.”

“Pacific?” repeated Burrows. “That name sounds familiar.” “Yeah,” laughed Jensen, “I thought so too. But I guess I was thinking of the Pacific Ocean.”

“Sure,” agreed Burrows, “everybody’s heard of the Pacific. But what I guess I meant was it sounds peculiar ... like a phony. Who the hell would ever have a name like Pacific any more than they’d have a name like Atlantic or the Red Sea?”

“Well, this guy had it. He had it through the Army.” “You get anything else on him?”

“Nothing but his old address,” Jensen replied. “All the information on his old record will be coming through in a few minutes.”

“Where’d he live?”

“On Thirty-third right out in the middle of the East River.”

“I don’t get you,” Burrows said.

“He was listed with an address Six-sixty something East Are you familiar with that neighborhood?”

“A little,” replied Burrows cautiously.

“That address just doesn’t exist. If it did, it would either be in the middle of Con Edison utilities or in the East River. All’it means is that this guy Pacific was using a phony address.”

“If the name is false and the address a phony, this guy must have had something to hide. It’s funny we don’t have a record on him.”

“Maybe Pacific was a small-time torpedo just starting out when the war broke. He might not’ve been picked up yet. And after the war he went straight. The FBI didn’t have anything on him for a record.”

MOST
of the cards for me ... Victor Pacific ... had been returned from the banks; at least all of them that would be returned. They had arrived over a period of two weeks; about half of the banks didn’t bother to return them, and I interpreted this to mean that they had no record of me as a depositor. The other cards, which were returned, were all negative. Merkle seemed as disappointed in the result as if he had been gathering information for himself. I told him that it didn’t matter, and for no reason whatsoever continued to see him occasionally.

One day, while I was using my key to Bianca’s house, I remembered a Lock-Aid. This memory, from the past, slipped into my mind, and with it the knowledge that the possession of one was illegal even for the police; although the FBI do have them. It is impossible to buy one, but as clearly as I knew how to dress myself, I knew how to make one.

A Lock-Aid is an ingenious, spring-driven device which plunges a needle between the tumblers of a lock, forcing it open. The contrivance is remarkably simple and operates with a trigger, although it requires a great amount of practice to use one successfully. Skillfully handled, a man can open nearly any locked or double-locked door.

I made up a list of the supplies I needed to make one, and the next time I saw Merkle I gave it to him. He could get what I wanted from the hardware supply house. “Sure,” he agreed, “I can get this stuff for you. Nothing to it. But what do you want it for?” The supplies, in themselves, meant nothing and were ordinary pieces of hardware. As I did not wish to tell him their purpose, I shrugged off his question. He looked as if his feelings had been injured, although he finally said, “Well, okay. This junk won’t cost you nothing anyway. I’ll lift it out of stock.” I was indifferent to his generosity; Merkle appeared to have the inclination of a jay for petty thievery and seemed to enjoy it.

In the meantime, I had fixed a pattern to watch the Acton-Plaza twice a day ... at noon, and then in the evening at dinner. The hotel, a great old structure, was honeycombed with entrances and small lobbies. Its towering elegance was cluttered with fountains, benches, plants, shrubs, and twisting, carpeted corridors. On the main floor there were six dining rooms and restaurants.

It was impossible for me to watch all the entrances at the same time. I felt a curious resignation concerning the hotel, and was convinced that, eventually, Rosemary Martin would appear. Returning day after day, I merely waited in one or another of the lobbies, and after a reasonable length had passed, I would leave.

Once I had Bianca call the hotel to inquire if Rosemary Martin was registered there. She wasn’t. Bianca, however, had appeared disturbed by my request, so after that I had Merkle call at intervals of several days. “Who is she,” Merkle asked me, “a girl friend?”

I indicated that she was. This was something that Merkle could understand. “When’d you meet her?” I didn’t reply. “Since your accident?” I nodded. “She must have plenty of dough to be staying up there,” he said. “Has she got a friend?”

I told him no, she didn’t have a friend. I didn’t attempt to explain beyond this; I didn’t want to insult Merkle, however, because I believed I might need his services again. Indeed, I needed them again very soon.

Writing out an advertisement asking for information concerning a safe deposit box in my name, I gave the ad to Merkle to run in the
New Amsterdam Safe Box News.
On his lunch hour, Merkle faithfully made the trip to the office where he left the ad and paid for it with the money I gave him. Inasmuch as the publication appeared only once a month, there were a number of days to wait before the next issue with the advertisement

Bianca and I continued to work each day on her jewelry.

I began to enjoy a pleasure from working with the molten metal, the cold black silver, and the delicate tools. From time to time, when I had an opportunity to be alone in the shop, I would remove the Lock-Aid and work on it. Eventually, when I had it completed, I wrapped it in a newspaper and hid it beneath the heavy leather couch. Then, at convenient intervals, I would take it out and attempt to open the locked doors in the basement. It took me many hours of practice before I regained the skill necessary to operate it.

Bianca no longer continued to wear her shirts and slacks while working in the shop. Little by little she changed over to wearing sweaters and skirts which made her appear a great deal more of a woman—and less of an artist. At first I was ill at ease when confronted by her change in appearance; it was not impersonal. The relationship between us was not impersonal either, and the circumstances disturbed me. I wanted no ties of sentiment, no obligations of emotion, but I found myself being bound, against my own wishes, by this woman, who seemed to desire it. She was attractive, affectionate, amusing, and had offered me her help when I needed it. And to face this fact of help honestly, I still needed it. In accepting her help, however, I did not wish to assume any personal obligations with it. Consequently, I worked as hard and as efficiently at my job as it was possible for me to do, to help erase emotional indebtedness, although I realized that soon I would have to move from Bianca’s home.

That time had not yet arrived, but it would come ... depending on Amar. It was true that I did not remember him, and would not have recognized this implacable man, but he was responsible for having me threatened and followed, and the day would arrive when I should want to escape his surveillance. On that day I would disappear.

My time and patience were eventually repaid when I picked up Rosemary Martin’s trail in the Victorian Court of the Acton-Plaza Hotel. The Court is a highly ornamented, many mirrored, muchly marbled, bepalmed tea rendezvous in the hotel. As I approached it along one corridor which runs parallel to the Court, Rosemary was leaving from a door which is opposite a bank of elevators. I hurried forward, but was unable to call or reach her before she had stepped into one of the lifts. Angrily I stood before the old-fashioned indicator above the closed door, and watched in frustration the hand on the dial as it stopped at the third, ninth, and fifteenth floors. Rosemary Martin had gotten off the elevator on one of those three stops.

When the elevator had returned to the main lobby, I studied the face of the operator carefully, so I would recognize him again. It was hopeless, at that moment, to question him about Rosemary through the time-consuming use of my pad as his elevator was constantly in use, and he could not take the time necessary for my laborious questioning.

As Rosemary Martin had not been wearing a coat, I felt sure that she was living in the hotel. A delay until I had secured a photograph of her would not be too important, and with her picture my questioning of the elevator operator would be greatly simplified. When I returned to the house, I asked Bianca if she had a photo of Rosemary. She told me that she did not have one. I explained to her what had happened at the hotel, and why I wanted one. “You might get one from her model agency,” Bianca suggested. “She always worked through Gaynor.”

In the morning Bianca called Gaynor. The agency had not heard from Rosemary for some time; she had not been in touch with it, and had accepted no jobs through its efforts. There were pictures in the agency’s files, which it used for professional purposes, and Bianca received permission to borrow one of Rosemary Martin. “I’ll stop by to pick it up,” Bianca said on the phone, “or possibly I’ll have it picked up by someone else if that’s all right.” The agency said that it was.

At Gaynor’s there was a large reception room filled with chairs, seats, and padded benches occupied by men, women, and children in all stages of beauty, distinction, and age; they were waiting for interviews, picking up messages, and going out on modeling assignments. Rosemary Martin’s picture, in a large Manila envelope, was waiting at the information desk; in the photograph she looked elegantly expensive, and appeared sensually aloof. To me, it seemed a true interpretation.