The Two Faces of January (7 page)

Colette was silent, her hand tense on the table, her red nails digging into one red thumbnail. Her eyes, when she looked at Chester, were frightened, and a little reproachful, he thought.

“There's more,” Rydal said. “Authorities therefore believe MacFarland is still within Grecian borders and that . . . he may have tried to assume another identity. George Papanopolos leaves behind him, et cetera.”

Colette looked at Rydal. “Go on. Leaves behind him?”

Rydal cleared his throat and read, “A wife Lydia, thirty-five, a son George, fifteen, a daughter Doria, twelve, two brothers Philip and Christopher Papanopolos both of Lamia, and a sister Mrs. Eugenia Milous of Athens.” Rydal laid the paper down.

Chester met Rydal's eyes, but he felt he met them dumbly, that his spark was gone. He sat up a little in his chair.

“Not bad news,” Rydal said. “They didn't mention a lead on Crete, and they didn't even give a description of you. It's really as good as it could possibly be, under the circumstances.”

“But he's dead,” Colette said. She rubbed her forehead with her fingertips.

Chester poured another drink for himself, then tipped the flask upside down and let it all run out. He wanted to get high, even a bit drunk. Why not? What was he supposed to do, sit up all night mulling over the mess he was in, all night long awake without even the temporary oblivion of sleep? “If it's good, let's have a drink on it.”

Rydal declined at first, then accepted his offer.

Eleven o'clock found them in a huge barn of a restaurant which seemed to be also a nightclub of a simple sort, right on the seafront. Chester did not know how he had got there. Some time, hours
before,
he thought they had had dinner somewhere, but he wasn't sure. Now Colette and Rydal were dancing on the tiny dance floor that looked half a mile away from where he sat, though the orchestra
was so loud, and so rotten, it hurt his ears. Chester stared sullenly at a near-by table, a large round table at which a whole family of Greeks sat, papa and mama and grandma a
nd all the kiddies. The kiddies were in their party best, and several minutes ago Chester had staggered over and chucked one of the little girls under the chin (it had been on his way back from the men's room, a filthy hole), and he had been rewarded with a cold, uncomprehending stare. Then Chester had realized he was in Greece and not in America, not in some pizzeria on Third Avenue in Manhattan, and that the little girl had not understood a word he said, and that her family, which had glared at him, had probably thought he said something terrible to her. Chester fell asleep.

He was awakened by a tapping on his shoulder. Rydal stood beside him in his overcoat, alert and smiling, saying, “They're closing. Got to take off.”

Worst of all, there wasn't a taxi. Chester walked between Rydal and Colette, partially supported by both of them, needing their support and feeling ashamed of it.

“It's the worst hour,” Rydal was saying. “It's rough.”

Chester heard them discussing him for a few seconds, discussing what would be “best for him”
, and, though he didn't like it, he thought why not let them worry over him, because wasn't it
he
who had the God-damned load on his shoulders,
he
who'd gotten into trouble trying to protect his wife as well as himself? And who'd asked Ryburn—what was his name?—to come along, anyway? A hard, brutally hard bench, a hard, cold stone bench jolted him awake. He was sitting on it. He looked to his left and saw Colette beside him, snuggling her head against Rydal's shoulder, getting ready to fall asleep. Rydal smoked, looking straight ahead, the duffel bag between his feet. Chester thought they were in the little square by the Iraklion Museum, where they had been that afternoon, but he wasn't sure. Maybe that dark café across the way was where they'd had tea. The dawn was showing signs of coming, showing signs. It was the worst hour, as the fellow had said. Nothing was open, that was plain.
Damn them all, damn everybody for not being open!
Chester thought, and was too tired to say it. Colette was holding hands with Rydal, Chester saw. He smiled a little, superiorly. Nobody could take Colette away from him. Just let them try, see how far they'd get. Chester closed his eyes.

He woke up from the cold, he didn't know how much later, but the dawn hadn't made much progress. Now both Colette and Rydal were asleep, holding hands, their heads tipped towards each other, bracing each other. Chester stomped up and down the pavement, his teeth chattering, every muscle rigid with chill and trembling. For hours, it seemed, he watched the progress, watched cynically and bitterly the progress of the opening of the café across the street. First the opener or the proprietor arrived on a bicycle, started to unlock the padlock on the door and didn't, got into a long conversation with the milk-deliverer, also on a bicycle, shared a mutual cigarette with him, swapped several jokes, slapped the milk-deliverer's back, took off one shoe and stood in a stockinged foot while he explained something apparently of great interest about the sole, put the shoe back on again, and then the milk-deliverer propped his foot up on the handlebars and began to discourse on his own shoe. It was 6:17.

At 6:32, when the doors of the café at last opened, Chester shook Rydal awake roughly and with pleasure, saying that the café across the way was open and that they could now get some hot coffee.

6

Of all
man's capacities, Rydal was thinking as he rode on the airlines bus towards the airport, memory was the most eerie, pleasant, painful, no doubt at times the most deceptive. All night, awake, dozing, or sleepwalking, he had been half in the present, half in the past. Dancing with Colette had stirred the old desire that he had felt for Agnes, that he had not really felt since. And yet Colette was
not
like Agnes, not at all. Colette was shallower, he thought—in a way. No, that wasn't right. Who could have been shallower, more flippant and unfeeling than Agnes when she said good-bye to him? There was an example of memory being deceptive again, simply because ten years ago he had attributed to Agnes all the depth a woman's soul could possibly contain. Last night the memory of Agnes had been sweet. Colette didn't even look like Agnes. But she flirted rather like her, there was no doubt about that!

Rydal stared into the blazing disc of the sun until he could stand it no longer and had to set his teeth and close his eyes.

Colette was merely playing, enjoying making him feel desire for her, playing for want of anything better to do in the long night without a warm bed to sleep in, to share with her husband, who had passed out. Go a little farther with her, take her up on it, and she'd say no. “Of
course
not, silly boy. Do you think I'd do that to Chester?” Rydal could hear her.

He smiled, thinking of Chester this morning, his teeth chattering against the thick rim of his coffee cup in the café. Chester had huddled by the wood-burning stove in the place, chafing his hands and stomping, but neither the stove nor the coffee had seemed to do much good. Chester was chilled through, chilled by the sea wind and the after-effects of all the Scotch and ouzo he'd drunk, and it would probably take all day to get him back to normal. He had been funny to look at, but Colette hadn't laughed, Rydal noticed. She had been tender and serious and concerned, warming Chester's muffler over the stove, bringing it back to wrap close about his neck. Yes, Colette was a good wife. She'd be an angel to Chester if he got sick.

They were getting to the airport. Rydal glanced around at the six or eight people in the bus who were bound for Athens on the three-thirty plane. Half of them looked downright poor, the other half lower middle class, economically speaking. None was American. None looked like a plainclothes man. Rydal twisted the newspaper gently in both his hands. In this morning's paper there had been a description of Chester MacFarland,
with
the moustache, though the photograph reproduced had been the moustacheless one of the agent's notebook. Rydal had torn the notebook's sheets out, torn them up and dropped them into three different rubbish bins in Athens yesterday evening before calling on the MacFarlands. He could have sold the Greek's credentials to Niko for a couple of hundred dollars, no doubt, but Rydal hadn't had the heart, somehow, to do it. It would have been like selling pieces of the man's flesh after he had died. He'd only been doing his job, an honest man's job, and he hadn't deserved to die. Rydal had thrown the credentials away, torn up, and the billfold also, but he had taken the man's drachmas, a mere two hundred and eighty.

Niko was sitting on one of the wooden benches in the bleak terminal building, his sneakered feet splayed on the floor. His musing smile became a grin when he saw Rydal. He lifted a hand in greeting, and stood up. Rydal nodded, pleased that he had come. It meant he had the passports. Rydal beckoned him towards the door that opened onto the field.

“You got them?” Rydal asked.

“Got them.” Niko nodded.

They strolled along the edge of the field, exchanging comments on the weather, slowly passed an American Air Force bus that stood waiting, empty except for its driver. Rydal lit a cigarette, offered one to Niko, then lit his for him, too.

“How are the ages on them? On the passports?” Rydal said, unable to wait any longer to find out this important point.

“Ages?” Niko shrugged. “I forgot. Okay, I think.”

A fat lot Niko cared, Rydal thought, and sighed. Niko's hands itched for his money, he itched to be off again to Athens with his thousand dollars American. Rydal slowed to a stop. “Well, let's see them.”

They were standing in an empty corner of the field under the wide, windy blue sky.

Niko reached into his khaki jacket, undid a shirt button, and pulled them out. They were faintly, disgustingly warm from his skin. Niko stepped between the passports and the terminal building at his back, and watched eagerly.

William James Chamberlain, Rydal read. Wife, Mary Ellen Forster Chamberlain. Minors XXX. Height 5 ft 10 in. Hair brown, eyes grey. (The first bad thing, Chester's were pale blue.) Visible marks XXX. Birthplace Denver City, Colorado. Birth date Aug. 15, 1922. And the signature.

“Used to be Chambers,” Niko said, pointing with a dirty-nailed linger at the signature. “Frank changed. Changed passport number also.”

Rydal nodded. He flipped the other open, and looked for the coloring. Blue eyes, thank God, and felt his heart give a dip of relief. The birth date would make her twenty-nine now, and she'd said last night that she was twenty-five, but that wasn't bad. He looked at her photograph, which he hadn't seen before, and thought, my God, she's giving the same, direct, come-to-me look even to the man who made the photograph! He saw that the stamped-in
photograph attached department of state passport agency new york
that spread over the bottom part of the photograph, and the page fitted neatly, and checked the same thing on Chester's photograph, and found it good, if a bit worn-looking. Both passports were soiled, as if they had been stepped on a few times. Rydal wondered how many filthy hands they had passed through before they had come to his? He flipped them shut and put them into his overcoat pocket.

“Okay?”

“Okay,
” Rydal said. Then, thinking of something, he pulled them out again. He scanned the last stamped pages in both of them. Good. There was no Greek
exodos
stamp on them, only an
eizodos,
both dated in December of last month. That meant that the former possessors of the passports had entered but not left Greece, at least not with these passports. “Let's walk on,” he said, and began walking back towards the terminal building, hands in his trousers pockets. His left hand felt the crisp, folded five-hundred-dollar bills that Chester had given him that morning for Niko. The five thousand dollars was buttoned into the back pocket of his trousers. Carrying such a sum made Rydal a bit nervous, just on principle, he thought, if one could be nervous on principle. If he'd lost it, Chester wouldn't feel it. He remembered Chester this morning, dragging the big brown suitcase, which Rydal had fetched for him from the seaside restaurant, behind the curtain that concealed the hole-in-the-floor W.C. of the café. Chester felt he had to hide, when he went into his cash.

“You got the money?” Niko asked anxiously.

Rydal pulled his left hand out. “Here's yours.”

Niko glanced at it and stuffed it away somewhere, like a squirrel.

Rydal turned around. They were not being watched, as far as he could see. He unbuttoned his back pocket, and got the other money. “You don't have to count it. It's ten five hundreds.” He saw Niko's hand tremble as he took it.

Niko smiled. “Fine. Zank you.”

Rydal smiled. He turned again, back towards the terminal.

“What they give you?” Niko asked.

“Oh-h, I don't know yet,” said Rydal.

“He kill a man, no? I see in this morning's paper.”

“An accident,” Rydal said.

“Sure, but . . . he kill.”

Ergo, gouge him plenty, Niko might have added. “We'll see,” Rydal said vaguely.

“When you coming back to Athens?” Niko looked up at him, smiling, showing the lead-framed tooth, like an absurd miniature picture frame setting off that masterpiece of bad diet and neglect, Niko's yellow incisor.

Rydal thought of Colette's white teeth, her fresh lips. “I don't know that, either. Have to do a little sightseeing first. I've never been to Crete before.”

Niko stuck his underlip out, looked around him at this thing called Crete, nodded and seemed about to make some disparaging yet important remark, but said nothing. Then he giggled. “I never been before, either.”

After a moment, Rydal said, “There's your plane loading, I think.”

Niko jumped, started towards it as if it were a street-car he was about to miss, checked himself and grinned self-consciously. He was a few yards away from Rydal now. “Hey! Frank say he want to make a date with . . . with the girl!” Niko gestured towards Rydal with a finger.

It took Rydal an instant to know he meant Colette. Rydal put his head back and laughed, and waved good-bye. “My love to Anna!” Then he trotted towards the terminal.

He had missed the bus to Iraklion, so he took a taxi. In the taxi, he closed his eyes and let his head rest against the comfortless seat back. His eyes smarted from lack of sleep.

He found Chester and Colette in the place they had appointed, a modest little restaurant by a round fountain, some six blocks up the main street from the sea. Chester had managed to shave with his battery razor, in some men's room probably, and he looked better than he had when Rydal left him, though his eyes were still pink and squinty from fatigue. They both looked at him anxiously as he approached their table, and Rydal smiled and nodded to reassure them. They had finished lunch, apparently. Their empty coffee cups were on the table, and also a large cloudy glass of ouzo at Chester's place.

“Greetings,” Rydal said, pulling out a chair for himself.

“You got them?” Chester asked.

“Yep.” Rydal looked up at a solemn, tired waiter who had come to the table. “Just a coffee, please,” he said in Greek. When the man went away, Rydal looked to see if the mild interest his arrival had caused in the place had died down—it had—then coolly lit a cigarette and unbuttoned his overcoat. There were only three customers in the restaurant, a fat man reading a newspaper at a table in the rear, and two Greeks who had also finished their lunches and were talking pugnaciously at a table some fifteen feet away. Rydal pulled the passports out of his overcoat pocket and passed them under the table onto Chester's thigh.

Chester glanced over his shoulder nervously, then opened one of the passports, looking at it below the level of the table. His face relaxed. He smiled. He looked into the other passport. Then he nodded. “It's good, isn't it? They look fine.”

Rydal nodded. “I think so.”

“Want to see, honey?” Chester asked Colette.

“Well . . . not here. I'll take your word. What I'm interested in is a hotel.”

“If you'd like to go on now,” Rydal said, “don't wait for me to have my coffee. Bring my suitcase with yours, if you will. The man's already been tipped.” Their suitcases were still with the proprietor of the fish restaurant, except for Chester's canvas suitcase with his money in it. They had decided to stay at the Hotel Astir, which appeared to be the best in town.

But Chester and Colette said they would wait—“What's ten more minutes now?” asked Chester, but he was smiling—so they waited, livened and cheered by the passports and the prospect of a hot bath. When Rydal had finished his coffee, Chester paid the bill and they left, Rydal and Chester going down the street for their luggage, while Colette waited for them in the lobby of the Astir.

“It might be well for you to practise Mr. Chamberlain's signature as soon as possible,” Rydal said. “The hotel will make you sign a registration card, you know.”

“Yes. You're quite right. I'll do it now,” Chester said, and he looked rather nervous, but he sat down on the low cement parapet beside the sea, pulled out the passport and a small spiral-bound notebook, opened the passport to its second page, and began to copy the signature of William James Chamberlain. He wrote hastily, scratched out with impatience his first two efforts, and surveyed the third at arm's length. He made a fourth and fifth try.

Rydal moved closer. Even seen upside down, Chester's imitation of the signature appeared quite good in his last attempts, much better reproductions than the average person could have made of somebody else's handwriting. But then Chester was no tyro, Rydal supposed.

Chester glanced up at him with an amused smile. Obviously he was proud of his talent.

“Not difficult?” Rydal asked.

“No, not this. It's tall and slim. Scrawls are hard for me. I'll do fine with this.”

He was very sure of himself. Rydal kept his mouth shut, and in fact he had nothing to say. It was Chester's risk, not his. Chester tore out the notebook page, stood up and snapped his pen shut and pocketed the passport and the notebook. He flicked the wadded piece of paper over the parapet out towards the sea, and they walked on towards the fish restaurant.

They were at the Hotel Astir with their luggage in a taxi within five minutes. The tall bellboy in the beige uniform helped them out with it. Rydal and Chester asked for rooms at the desk, taking no trouble to hide the fact they were friends; and no doubt, Rydal thought, the whole town knew it by now. It was a good-sized town, but it had a small town's atmosphere, perhaps due to the absence of tall buildings. And there were few tourists at this time of year. That was bad. Rydal wondered if they were going to be challenged today or tomorrow by some wiseacre who wanted to know if Chester were Chester MacFarland? If they'd have to drag out Chester's passport and show his name to shake him off? Rydal wasn't afraid of a plain citizen, but if a policeman asked any questions—