Authors: Patricia Highsmith
‘But of course!’ said Tom just as cheerily. The bank account was going to be slightly overdrawn, he thought, which was why Heloise had to go to the bank and talk to someone – and how would she manage that during the lunch period when the bank was closed? And Mme Annette was joyous because still another piece of furniture was entering the house which she could get to work on with her indefatigable waxing. Heloise had been looking for a nautical, brassbound chest of drawers for Tom for months. It was a whim of hers to see a
commode de bateau
in his room.
Tom decided to seize the moment and try Reeves, and he ran up to his room. It was 1.22 p.m. Belle Ombre had two new dial telephones since about three months, and one no longer had to get a long-distance number through the operator.
Reeves’ housekeeper answered, and Tom used his German and asked if Herr Minot was in. He was.
‘Reeves, hello! Tom. I can’t talk long. I just wanted to say I’ve seen our friend. Had a drink with him … In a bar in Fontainebleau. I think —’ Tom was standing up, tense, staring through the window at the trees across the road, at the empty blue sky. He was not sure what he wanted to say, except that he wanted to tell Reeves to keep trying. ‘I don’t know but I think it might work with him. It’s only a hunch. But try again with him.’
‘Yes?’ said Reeves, hanging on his words as if he were an oracle that never failed.
‘When do you expect to see him?’
‘Well, I’m hoping he’ll come Thursday to Munich. Day after tomorrow. I’m trying to persuade him to consult another doctor there. Then – on Friday the train leaves around two-ten from Munich to Paris, you know.’
Tom had once taken the Mozart Express, boarding it at Salzburg. ‘I would say, give him a choice of a gun and – the other thing, but advise him not to use the gun.’
‘I did
try
that!’ Reeves said. ‘But you think – he might still come around, eh?’
Tom heard a car, two cars, roll on to the gravel in front of the house. It was no doubt Heloise with the antique dealer. ‘I’ve got to sign off, Reeves. Right now.’
Later that day, alone in his room, Tom examined more closely the handsome commode which had been installed between his two front windows. The chest was of oak, low and solid, with shining brass corners and countersunk brass drawer pulls. The polished wood looked alive, as if animated by the hands of the maker, or maybe by the hands of the captain or captains or officers who had used it. A couple of shiny, darkish dents in the wood were like the odd scars that every living thing acquired in the course of life. An oval plaque of silver was set into the top, and on it was engraved in scrolly letters
Capt. Archibald L. Partridge, Plymouth, 1734
, and in much smaller letters the name of the carpenter, which Tom thought a nice touch of pride.
10
O
N
Wednesday, as Reeves had promised, he telephoned Jonathan at his shop. Jonathan was unusually busy and had to ask Reeves to ring back just after noon.
Reeves did ring back, and after his usual courtesies, asked if Jonathan would be able to come to Munich the following day.
There are doctors in Munich too, you know, very good ones. I have one in mind, Dr Max Schroeder. I’ve found out he could see you early Friday, around eight in the morning. All I have to do is confirm it. If you —’
‘All right.’ said Jonathan, who had anticipated that the conversation would go exactly like this. ‘Very good, Reeves. I’ll see about my ticket —’
‘One way, Jonathan. – Well, that’s up to you.’
Jonathan knew. ‘When I find out the plane time, I’ll ring you back.’
‘I know the times. There’s a plane leaving Orly at one-fifteen p.m. direct to Munich, if you can make it.’
‘All right. I’ll aim for that.’
‘If I don’t hear from you, I’ll assume you’re on it. I’ll meet you at the town terminus as before.’
Absent-mindedly, Jonathan went to his sink, smoothed his hair with both hands, then reached for his mac. It was raining a little and rather chilly. Jonathan had made his decision yesterday. He would go through the same movements again, visit a doctor in Munich this time, and he would board the train. The dubious part to Jonathan was his own nerve. Just how far would he be able to go? He walked out of his shop and locked the door with his key.
Jonathan bumped into a dustbin on the pavement, and realized that he was trudging along instead of walking. He raised his head a little- He’d demand to have a gun as well as the noose, and if he balked at using the noose because of a failure of nerve (which Jonathan folly expected), and he used the gun, then that was that. Jonathan would make an arrangement with Reeves: if he used the gun, if it was obvious that he was going to be caught, then he would use the next bullet or two for himself. That way he could never possibly betray Reeves and the other people Reeves was connected with. For this, Reeves would pay the rest of the money to Simone. Jonathan realized that his corpse couldn’t be taken for that of an Italian, but he supposed it was possible that the Di Stefano family could have hired a non-Italian killer.
Jonathan said to Simone, ‘I had a telephone call from the Hamburg doctor this morning. He wants me to go to Munich tomorrow.’
‘Oh? So soon?’
Jonathan remembered he had told Simone it might be a fortnight before the doctors wanted to see him again. He had said Dr Wentzel had given him some pills whose result he would want to check. There had in fact been a conversation about pills with Dr Wentzel – there was nothing really to do with leukemia except try to slow it up with pills – but Dr Wentzel had not given him any. Jonathan was sure Dr Wentzel would have given him pills if he had seen him a second time. There’s another doctor in Munich – someone called Schroeder – Dr Wentzel wants me to see.’
‘Where is Munich?’ asked Georges.
‘In Germany,’ Jonathan said.
‘How long will you be gone?’ Simone asked.
‘Probably – till Saturday morning,’ Jonathan said, thinking that the train might come in so late Friday night, there wouldn’t be a train out of Paris to Fontainebleau.
‘And what about the shop? Would you like me to be there tomorrow morning? And Friday morning? – What time must you leave tomorrow?’
There’s a plane at one-fifteen. Yes, darling, it would be a help if you could look in tomorrow morning and Friday morning – even for an hour. There’ll be a couple of people calling for pictures.’ Jonathan stabbed his knife gently into a piece of Camembert which he had taken and didn’t want.
‘You’re worried, Jon?’
‘Not really. – No, on the contrary, any news I get ought to be slightly better news.’ Polite cheerfulness, Jonathan thought, and it was really rubbish. The doctors couldn’t do anything against time. He glanced at his son who looked a bit puzzled, but not puzzled enough to ask another question, and Jonathan realized that Georges had been overhearing such conversations since he could understand speech. Georges had been told, ‘Your father has a germ. like a cold. It makes him tired sometimes. But you cannot catch it. Nobody can catch it, so it is not going to hurt you.’
‘Will you sleep at the hospital?’ Simone asked.
Jonathan didn’t understand what she meant at first. ‘No. Dr Wentzel – his secretary said they’d booked a hotel for me.’
Jonathan left the house the next morning just after 9 a.m., in order to catch the 9.42 a.m. to Paris, because the next train later would have made him too late for Orly. He had bought his ticket, one-way, the preceding afternoon, and he had also put another thousand francs into the account at the Société Générale, and five hundred in his wallet, which left two thousand five hundred in the drawer in his shop. He had also removed
The Grim Reapers
from the drawer and stuck it into his suitcase to give back to Reeves.
Just before 5 p.m., Jonathan got off the bus which had brought him to the Munich city terminus. It was a sunny day, the temperature pleasant. There were a few sturdy, middle-aged men in leather shorts and green jackets, and a
hurdy-gurdy played on the pavement. He saw Reeves trotting towards him.
‘I’m a little late, sorry!’ Reeves said. ‘How are you, Jonathan?’
‘Quite well, thank you,’ Jonathan said, smiling.
‘I’ve got you a hotel room. We’ll get a taxi now. I’m in a different hotel, but I’ll come up with you and we’ll talk.’
They got into a taxi. Reeves talked about Munich. He talked as if he really knew the city and liked it, not as if he were talking out of nervousness. Reeves had a map, and pointed out ‘the English Garden’, which their taxi was not going to pass, and the section bordering the river Isar, where Reeves told him his appointment was tomorrow morning at 8 a.m. Both their hotels were in the central area, Reeves said. The taxi stopped at a hotel, and a boy in dark red uniform opened the taxi door.
Jonathan registered. The lobby had lots of modern stained-glass panels depicting German knights and troubadours. Jonathan was pleasantly aware that he felt unusually well, and therefore cheerful. Was it a prelude to some awful news tomorrow, some awful catastrophe? It struck Jonathan as insane to feel cheerful, and he cautioned himself, as he might if he were on the verge of taking a drink too many.
Reeves came with him up to his room. The bellhop was just leaving, having deposited Jonathan’s suitcase. Jonathan stuck his topcoat on a hook in the hall, as he might have done at home.
‘Tomorrow morning – even this afternoon we might get you a new topcoat,’ Reeves said, looking with a somewhat pained expression at Jonathan’s.
‘Oh?’ Jonathan had to admit his coat was pretty shabby. He smiled a little, unresentful. At least he’d brought his good suit, his rather new black shoes. He hung up the blue suit.
‘After all, you’ll be in first class on the train,’ Reeves said. He walked to the door and slid the button which made it impossible for anyone outside to enter. ‘I’ve got the gun. Another Italian gun, a little different I couldn’t get a silencer but I thought – to tell you the truth – a silencer wouldn’t make all that much difference.’
Jonathan understood. He looked at the small gun that Reeves had pulled from some pocket, and felt for an instant empty, stupid. To fire this gun at all meant that he’d have to shoot himself immediately afterward. That was the only meaning the gun had for him.
‘And this, of course.’ said Reeves, pulling the garrotte from his pocket.
In the brighter light of Munich, the cord had a pallid, fleshlike colour.
‘Try it on the – the back of that chair.’ Reeves said.
Jonathan took the cord and dropped its loop over a projection at the back corner of a chair. He pulled it indifferently until it was tight. He was not even disgusted now, he merely felt blank. Would the average person, he wondered, finding the cord in his pocket or anywhere, know at once what it was? Probably not, Jonathan thought.
‘You must jerk it, of course.’ said Reeves, solemnly, ‘and keep it tight.’
Jonathan felt suddenly annoyed, started to say something ill-tempered and checked himself. He took the cord off the chair, and was about to drop it on the bed, when Reeves said:
‘Keep that in your pocket. Or the pocket of whatever suit you’re going to wear tomorrow.’
Jonathan started to put it in the pocket of the trousers he was wearing, then went and stuck it in a pocket of the trousers of his blue suit.
‘And these two pictures I’d like to show you.’ Reeves took an envelope from his inside jacket pocket. The unsealed white envelope held two photographs, one glossy and the size of a postcard, the other a neatly clipped newspaper picture folded twice. ‘Vito Marcangelo.’
Jonathan looked at the glossy photograph, which was cracked in a couple of places. It showed a man with a round head and face, heavy curvaceous lips, with wavy black hair. A streak of grey at either temple gave an impression of steam spewing from his head,
‘He’s about five six.’ Reeves said. ‘His hair is still grey there, he doesn’t touch it up. And here he is partying.’
The newspaper photograph was of three men and a couple of women standing behind a dinner-table. An inked arrow pointed to a short, laughing man with a grey blaze at his temple. The caption was in German.
Reeves took the pictures back. ‘Let’s go down for the topcoat. Something’ll be open. By the way the safety on that gun works the same as on the other gun. It’s loaded with six bullets. I’ll put it in here, all right?’ Reeves took the gun from the foot of the bed, and put it in a corner of Jonathan’s suitcase. ‘Briennerstrasse’s very good for shopping,’ Reeves said as they rode down in the lift.
They walked. Jonathan had left his topcoat in his hotel room.
Jonathan chose a dark green tweed. Who was paying for it? That didn’t seem to matter much. Jonathan also thought that he might have only about twenty-four hours to wear it. Reeves insisted on paying for the coat, though Jonathan said he could pay Reeves back when he changed some francs into marks.
‘No, no, my pleasure.’ said Reeves, jerking his head a little, which was sometimes his equivalent of a smile.
Jonathan wore the coat out of the shop. Reeves pointed out things to him as they walked – Odeonsplatz, the beginning of Ludwigstrasse which Reeves said went on to Schwabing, the district where Thomas Mann had had his house. They walked to the Englischer Garten, then took a taxi to a beerhall. Jonathan would have preferred tea. He realized that Reeves was trying to make him relax. Jonathan felt relaxed enough, and was not even worried about what Dr Max Schroeder would say tomorrow morning. Rather, whatever Dr Schroeder would say simply wouldn’t matter.
They dined in a noisy restaurant in Schwabing, and Reeves informed him that practically everyone in the place was ‘an artist or a writer’. Jonathan was amused by Reeves. Jonathan felt a bit swimmy in the head from all the beer, and now they were drinking Gumpoldsdinger.
Before midnight, Jonathan stood in his hotel room in his pyjamas. He had just had a shower. The telephone would ring at 7.15 tomorrow morning, followed at once by a continental breakfast. Jonathan sat down at the writing-table, took some notepaper from the drawer and addressed an envelope to Simone. Then he remembered he’d be home day after tomorrow, even perhaps tomorrow night late. He crumpled the envelope and tossed it into the waste-basket. Tonight during dinner he had said to Reeves, ‘Do you know a man called Tom Ripley?’ Reeves had looked blank and said, ‘No. Why?’ Jonathan got into bed and pressed a button which, conveniently, extinguished all the lights, including the one in the bathroom. Had he taken his pills tonight? Yes. Just before his shower. He’d put the pill bottle in his jacket pocket, so he could show them to Dr Schroeder tomorrow, in case the doctor was interested.