The Memory of Eva Ryker (24 page)

“You'll get duplicates of the tapes,” Margaret said. “I want you to understand I would never allow such a thing if Eva hadn't requested it. I'd like her to stay with me for a while. A couple of weeks at least. Together we can talk this thing out. Put it together a piece at a time.” She smiled, patting my shoulder. “It's called Crawling before Running.”

“Of course.” I watched her drag deep from the cigarette. “Margaret, you better be sure what you're doing, every step of the way. If she breaks down over this …”

“Don't underestimate Eva. A very resilient lady. She'll survive.”

I took refuge in the glorious view and tried to ignore my misgivings.

Two days later the last of the seven hours of tape flipped onto the take-up reel of the recorder in my den.

Jan struggled up from the leather chair by my desk and turned it off.

I didn't say anything. She nervously fiddled with my letter opener while trying to collect her wits.

“My God, Norman. How could you stand it?”

“I couldn't. But I did.” I reached for the flask in the bottom drawer. “Join me?”

Jan grabbed our empty coffee mugs. “A double.”

I poured two fingers of Jack Daniels into her cup and three for myself. “Well? What do you think?”

She touched bottom with one giant swig, then came up for air. “I wish I knew. The tape raises two questions for every answer.”

The phone rang. I tried to shake off my mental storm clouds as I picked up the receiver.

“Tom Bramel, Norman. Good news! We scrounged up a picture of Albert and Martha Klein!”

“You're kidding! Where?”

“Well, the FBI and State Department were dry wells. But the Cunard Line came through, if you can believe it. Their London office has some of the old White Star Line's records in storage. They came across a company duplicate of the Kleins' original passport!”

“Have you seen it yet?”

“It's on its way over. I'll mail you a copy.”

“Jesus, Tom, I can't wait that long! Can't you speed it up somehow?

“Well …” The receiver crackled thoughtfully. “Do you know how to get to the Sûreté Nationale's headquarters in Paris?”

“At the Ministry of Interior? Sure.”

“All right. Be there as soon as you can. Within the hour if possible. Ask for Chief Inspector René Bresson. I'll phone ahead. The Sûreté can pick up the picture by facsimile and give it to you.”

“Thanks very much. You're a lifesaver.”

“… again. Yes, I know. After a while I lose count. 'Bye.”

I hung up and intercepted Jan's question. “Not now. I'll explain in the car.”

We were courting disaster with the traffic cops by the time we got to the Ministry on the rue des Saussaies.

If Chief Inspector Bresson noticed that both Jan and I were out of breath, he gave no sign. After polite formal introductions, he led us up an elevator and down a corridor to a telex room filled by two teletypes, a phone connected directly with Interpol's radio station, and a Phillips facsimile printer. The phone, I noticed, was off the hook.

Attaching the receiver into the printer's cradle, the operator waited a moment, then pushed a button. A paper cylinder about the size of a piano roll started spinning beneath the glass cover of the machine. The scanning head started at the left side of the roll and moved slowly along the length of paper, receiving signals from the identical machine transmitting across the English Channel.

Complete transmission took two minutes. Its task completed, the machine sighed gently to a stop.

The operator passed the picture to Inspector Bresson, who gave it to me. I took one glance, blinked, then looked again. My stomach had a curious sinking feeling.

“Norman? What's the matter?”

I numbly passed the photo to her.

“It can't be!”

“I quite agree. Now, if we rip this up, we can pretend it never happened.”

The left side of the photocopy was marked “Albert Cassius Klein,” the right “Martha Vanella Klein.”

Albert Klein was a handsome fellow with thin, narrow cheekbones.

His wife was a pert, cute girl with a short nose and a full face.

Mr. and Mrs. Klein were black.

21

May 9, 1962

“Norman, you aren't going to solve anything by crying into your popcorn.”

Jan's words and the accompanying “shushes” from surrounding theatergoers did little to break my shell shock. She had suggested staying in Paris and going to see
West Side Story
in an effort to cheer me up, but so far the doomed Super Panavision romance of Maria and Tony wasn't doing the trick.

At intermission we loitered outside the main entrance of the Gaumont Palace to avoid the hubbub and cigarette smoke. On the Champs-Elysées Citroëns and Peugeots zipped insanely through the chrome-plated night.

“Janice,” I finally said, “I don't understand any of it. Why would Martha Klein lie to me about she and her husband being aboard the
Titanic?
”

“What makes you think she did? We saw both of them in the Masterson film.”

“What we saw was a good-looking blond couple who matched the description Mrs. Heinley gave me. ‘Handsome as two figures on a wedding cake!'” I laughed grimly. “Hardly a definitive portrait.”

Blinking lobby lights beckoned us back to the further adventures of the Jets and Sharks. Through the rest of the film thoughts of Rykers and Kleins circled through a muddled holding pattern in my head. Driving home, I grew obsessed with a mental image of a great gray snake twisted into a loop and biting its own tail, swallowing its way to self-extinction.

I had just veered the Rolls off the Autoroute onto D-98 when the Gestalt hit me.

“Norman? Norman!”

With a start, I steered us out of the soft shoulder.

“If you don't mind, I'd like to stay alive! Are you all right?”

“Janice,” I said slowly, “when we get home, I want to go over the HPD files.”

Jan made coffee while I pawed through the rubble in my desk drawer. It took only a moment to locate the photocopied passports of Albert and Martha Klein picked up by the HPD in 1941. By the time she entered with the cups and cream pitcher, I already had long distance on the line.

“Who are you calling this time of night?”

I didn't answer. The phone was ringing on the other end.

“H'lo?”

“It's Norman, Tom. Were you asleep?”

“Until you called. I think your initial charm is beginning to wane.”

“I apologize. I really do. But something big has come up.”

“You mean the Kleins in blackface? I've already had my belly laugh for the day.”

“Not that, exactly. But it got me thinking.” I flipped through the HPD file on my desk. “When you get to work in the morning, look through the original Honolulu report on the Klein murders. You should see a passenger list of Pan American Clipper Flight 208 from Los Angeles to Honolulu on November 24, 1941.”

“That's the flight the Kleins took, isn't it?”

“Right. I've got my copy in front of me now.” I read down the column of nineteen names, hoping for a clue, but none was forthcoming. “It's a tall order, I know, but I need an FBI check of everyone on that list.”

“Norman …”

“… it's crucial. Trust my hunch.”

A tired sigh. “What is the FBI looking for?”

“A missing person. Someone who flew to Hawaii and never came back.”

“I'm not sure I understand.”

“Neither do I, really.” I rubbed my eyes. “But I need the information yesterday. To simplify things, start with the men's names first.”

“All right, Norman. I'll be getting back to you.”

“Jan can take a message if you call in the next week. I won't be here.”

“Where are you off to now?”

“Honolulu.”

“To do what?”

I plugged my ear against Jan's sputtering protests. “Something I should have done months ago.”

I rose to my feet when Claudine Jarmon entered M's Smoke House to keep our luncheon date. The reaction was more than mere chivalry. Mrs. Jarmon,
née
Claudine Maurois, was one of the most self-possessed, formidable young women I'd ever seen. Clad in a beige suit cut in unrelenting good taste, she walked with the assurance of a lady who expects the cosmos to part in twain at her approach.

“Mr. Hall.” A cool, white-gloved handshake and a cultured smile which accented her Eurasian eyes. “I'm so pleased to meet you. Have you been waiting long?”

“Not at all.” I let the host lead us to our table on the mezzanine. Drinks arrived and I watched Mrs. Jarmon lunge for the martini as if it was heavenly manna.

“Christ, that's good.” She sighed in demure heartiness. “Ever spend the morning with ten Eastern Star biddies?”

“Not that I recall.”

“Oh, I'm sorry.” She squeezed my palm. “You didn't fly nine thousand miles to talk about me.” She blinked oddly. “Or did you?”

“Not exactly. I …”

“If I had to guess, I'd say you want to talk about my mother. Am I getting warm?”

“Amazingly so.”

She swirled the ice in her glass. “I can't claim any ESP powers, Mr. Hall. Just ordinary common sense. And a pretty fair memory. You see, when I was a young girl, I distinctly remember reading about a certain HPD patrolman who resigned under a very dark cloud just about the time my mother flew the coop.” Mrs. Jarmon held the martini aloft. “Ready for a refill?”

“An excellent idea,” I said unsteadily.

When the second round arrived, she smiled and patted her lips. “Enough cat and mouse, don't you think? What do you want to know?”

“Where is your mother, Mrs. Jarmon?”

An impatient frown. “She was declared legally dead in 1948. No one's arisen to dispute it.”

“I'm not prepared to debate the point. But your mother vanished into limbo. What did the police do to find her?”

The waiter arrived with two salads. I sensed her body coiling tight as she spread the napkin on her lap.

“Mr. Hall, I will synopsize my mother's life as concisely as possible. You will not interrupt and we will get this unsavory business out of the way. Agreed?”

“I'm listening.”

“Very well. My mother, Catherine Maurois, was a very drab lady to possess so aristocratic a name. Not, as you might imagine, a descendant of some French plantation baron but a laundress from Montreal. She moved here in 1922 to improve her fortune, without much success. After a series of odd jobs, she hired on as a maid at the Moana Hotel in 1924.

“Mother lived just off Hotel Street, and it was a rowdy place even then. Soon she found herself supplementing her income by entertaining men. Not exactly a prostitute but a very talented amateur.” Her lips drooped mordantly. “You see, I grew up with an astonishing variety of ‘uncles' in the family tree. I don't know which one was my father.” The almond eyes glinted. “Although I can make some pretty shrewd guesses.”

“I'm sorry.”

“Of course. Mother was always pretty careful at work, but she wasn't above calling in sick if she could get away with it. And on that November afternoon she told the boss, Mr. Pendergast, that she
had
to go home. Menstrual cramps was the standard excuse.” Her eyes crinkled with mischief. “Men are so terrified of women's trouble. He always let her go, like she was carrying the plague.” Mrs. Jarmon sprinkled pepper on her salad. “So she left work and I never saw her again.”

“But you must've worried. You reported her missing to the police.”

“She never turned up. HPD had no leads. And once December seventh rolled around, they had other things on their minds. After Pearl Harbor, I resigned myself to the fact that she was dead.”

“I don't understand.”

“One of my mother's friends lived on McCully Street. ‘Uncle Tashima.' She spent a good deal of time there. And on that December morning an antiaircraft shell from the
Nevada
missed its intended target and landed on that McCully Street apartment. Uncle Tashima's room was ground zero.”

“But no bodies were ever recovered.”

“No. But perhaps you can see why I never pursued the matter.” She beamed at our approaching steaks. “Ah, ambrosia! Now maybe we can change to a different topic of conversation?”

“If you wish.” I cut into an improbably tender porterhouse.

“How about the upward climb from poor little poor girl to my present happy state?”

I trimmed away some fat. “To be honest, my interest is marginal.”

“I can sum it up in two words.” She chewed thoughtfully. “‘Marry rich.'”

“I'll keep that in mind. Also, I have a favor to ask.”

“Yes?”

“Do you have any keepsakes of your mother's? Things that you packed away soon after her disappearance. Glasses. Silverware. Jewelry. Items few other people would've handled.”

“You have an unexpected morbid streak, Mr. Hall.”

“I can see how it might seem that way. But please indulge me this once. It could be very important.”

The eyes studied me for traces of deceit.

“My husband won't be home until six,” she finally said. “I have Mother's things in the garage.”

Claudine wafted me in her pink Coupe de Ville to Waimanalo Bay, where the Henry Jarmon residence sat like a steel and glass jukebox washed ashore. I reluctantly turned my attention from the impossible blue sky and matching ocean as she slapped the remote control on the Caddie's dash and berthed us in the four-car garage.

She climbed out of the car. “If I recall, the box is over here.” Her fingertips pointed up at a cabinet high above a gleaming walnut workbench festooned with shiny Black and Decker tools. “You'll need a ladder.”

She held the aluminum legs and made meaningless coaching noises as I grappled with an old pineapple crate filled with dusty relics of her humble past.