Authors: Patricia Highsmith
‘I will not leave my husband. I want to know what my husband is doing here – with such filth as you!’
Her fury was directed entirely against him. Tom wished it could all come out now and for ever, in a great burst. He could never deal with angry women – not that he had had to deal with many. To Tom it was a circular chaos, a ring of little fires, and if he successfully extinguished one, the woman’s mind leapt to the next Tom said to Jonathan, ‘If Simone could only take a taxi back to Fontainebleau —’
‘I know, I know. Simone, it really is best if you go back to our house.’
‘Will you come with me?’ she asked.
‘I – I can’t,’ Jonathan said, desperate.
‘Then you don’t want to. You are on his side.’
‘If you’ll let me talk with you later, darling —’
Jonathan went on in that vein, while Tom thought, perhaps Jonathan wasn’t willing, or had changed his mind.
Jonathan was getting nowhere with Simone. Tom interrupted:
‘Jonathan.’ Tom beckoned to him. ‘You must excuse us a moment, madame.’ Tom spoke with Jonathan in the living-room, in a whisper. ‘We’ve got six hours’ work ahead – or I have. I’ve got to take these two away and dispose of them – and I’d prefer to be back by dawn or before. Are you really willing to help?’
Jonathan felt lost in the sense that he might be lost in the middle of a battle. But the situation seemed already lost in regard to Simone. He could never explain. Going back to Fontainebleau with her would gain him nothing. He had lost Simone, and what else was there to lose? These thoughts flashed in Jonathan’s mind like a single image. ‘I am willing, yes.’
‘Good. – Thanks.’ Tom gave a tense smile. ‘Surely Simone doesn’t want to stay here. She could of course stay in my wife’s room. Maybe I can find a sedative. But for Christ’s sake, she can’t come
with
us.’
‘No.’ Simone was his responsibility. Jonathan felt powerless either to persuade or command. ‘I have
never
been able to tell her—’
‘There’s some danger,’ Tom interrupted, then stopped. There was no time to lose in talking, and he went back into the living-room, felt compelled to glance at Lippo whose face was now bluish, or so Tom thought. At any rate, his clumsy body had that abandoned look of the dead – not even dreamlike or sleeplike, but simply an empty look as if consciousness had departed for ever. Simone was coming in from the kitchen, which Tom had been heading for, and he saw that her glass was empty. He went to the bar-cart and brought the bottle. He poured more into the glass in her hand, though Simone indicated that she didn’t want any more. ‘You don’t have to drink it, madame,’ Tom said. ‘Since we must leave, I must tell you there is some danger if you stay in this house. I simply don’t know if more of these won’t turn up.’
‘Then I will go with you. I will go with my husband!’
‘That you
cannot,
madame.’ Tom was firm.
‘What are you going to do?’
‘I’m not sure, but we have to get rid of these – this carrion !’ Tom gestured.
‘Charogne!’
he repeated.
‘Simone, you have got to take a taxi back to Fontainebleau,’ Jonathan said.
‘
Non
!’
Jonathan grabbed her wrist, and with his other hand took the glass, so it wouldn’t spill. ‘You must do as I say. It’s your life, it’s my life. We cannot stay and argue!’
Tom leapt up the stairs. He found, after nearly a minute’s searching, Heloise’s little bottle of quarter-grain phenobarbitols, which she so seldom took that they were at the back of everything in her medicine cabinet. He went down with two in his fingers, and dropped them casually into Simone’s glass – which he had taken from Jonathan – as he topped the glass up with a splash of soda.
Simone drank this. She was sitting on the yellow sofa now. She seemed calmer, though it was too soon for the pills to have taken effect. And Jonathan was on the telephone now, Tom presumed phoning for a taxi. The slender Seine-et-Marne directory was open on the telephone-table. Tom felt a little dazed, the way Simone looked. But Simone looked also stunned with shock.
‘Just Belle Ombre, Villeperce,’ said Tom when Jonathan glanced at him.
20
W
HILE
Jonathan and Simone waited for the taxi, both standing in terrible silence near the front door, Tom went out to the garden via the french windows, and from the toolhouse got the jerry can of spare petrol. To Tom’s regret it was not full, but it felt three-quarters full. Tom had his torch with him. When he came round the front corner of the house, he heard a car approaching slowly, the taxi, he hoped. Tom, instead of putting the jerry can in the Renault, set it in the laurels, out of sight. He knocked on the front door and was admitted by Jonathan.
‘I think the taxi’s here,’ Tom said.
Tom said good night to Simone, and let Jonathan escort her to the taxi which was waiting beyond the gates. The taxi drove off, and Jonathan came back.
Tom was refastening the french windows. ‘Good Christ,’ Tom said, not knowing what else to say, and being immensely relieved to find himself alone with Jonathan again. ‘I hope Simone isn’t too livid. But I can hardly blame her.’
Jonathan shrugged in a dazed way. He tried to speak and couldn’t.
Tom realized his state and said, like a captain giving orders to a shaken crew, Jonathan, she’ll come round.’ And she wouldn’t ring the police either, because if she did, her husband would be implicated. Tom’s fortitude, his sense of purpose was returning. He patted Jonathan’s arm as he walked past him. ‘Back in a minute.’
Tom got the jerry can from the bushes and put it in the back of his Renault. Then he opened the Italians’ Citroen, the interior light came on, and he saw that the fuel gauge
registered slightly over half foil. That might do: he wanted to drive for more than two hours. The Renault, he knew, had only slightly more than half a tankful, and the bodies were going to be in there. He and Jonathan hadn’t had any dinner. That wasn’t wise. Tom went back into the house and said:
‘We ought to eat something before this trip.’
Jonathan followed Tom into the kitchen, glad to escape for a few moments from the corpses in the living-room. He washed his hands and face at the kitchen sink. Tom smiled at him. Food, that was the answer – for the moment. He got the steak from the fridge and stuck it under the glowing bars. Then he found a plate, a couple of steak knives and two forks. They sat down finally, eating from the same plate, dipping morsels of steak into a saucer of salt and another of HP. It was excellent steak. Tom had even found a half-foil bottle of claret on the kitchen counter. There’d been many a time when he’d dined worse.
That will do you good.’ Tom said, and tossed his knife and fork on to the plate.
The clock in the living-room gave a ping, and Tom knew it was 11.30 p.m.
‘Coffee?’ asked Tom. There’s Nescafé’
‘No, thanks.’ Neither Jonathan nor Tom had spoken while they had bolted the steak. Now Jonathan said, ‘How are we going to do it?’
‘Burn them somewhere. In their car,’ Tom said. ‘It isn’t necessary to bum them, but it’s rather Mafia-like.’
Jonathan watched Tom rinsing a thermos at the sink, careless now of the fact he stood before an open window. Tom was running the hot water. He tipped some of the jar of Nescafé into the thermos and filled it with steaming water.
‘Like sugar?’ Tom asked. ‘I think we’ll need it.’
Then Jonathan was helping Tom carry out the blond man, Who was now stiffening. Tom was saying something, making a joke. Then Tom said he had changed his mind: both bodies were going into the Citroen.
‘…even though the Renault.’ Tom said between gasps, ‘is bigger.’
It was dark in front of the house now, the distant street lamp not even shedding a glow this far. They tumbled the second body on to the first on the back seat of the Citroen convertible, and Tom smiled because Lippo’s face seemed to be buried in Angy’s neck, but he refrained from comment. He found a couple of newspapers on the floor of the car and spread them over the dead men, tucking them in as best he could. Tom made sure that Jonathan knew how the Renault worked, showed him the turn signals, the headlights and the bright lights.
‘Okay, start it. I’ll close the house.’ Tom went into the house, left one light on in the living-room, came out and closed the front door and double-locked it.
Tom had explained to Jonathan that their first objective was Sens, then Troyes. From Troyes they would go farther eastward. Tom had a map in his car. They would rendezvous first at Sens at the railway station. Tom put the thermos in Jonathan’s car.
‘You’re feeling all right?’ Tom asked. ‘Don’t hesitate to stop and drink some coffee if you feel like it.’ Tom waved him a cheerful good-bye. ‘Go ahead out first. I want to close the gates. I’ll pass you.’
So Jonathan drove out first, Tom closed his gates and padlocked them, then soon passed Jonathan on the way to Sens, which was only thirty minutes away. Jonathan seemed to be doing all right in the Renault. Tom spoke briefly to him at Sens. At Troyes, they were again to go to the railway station. Tom didn’t know the town, and on the road it was dangerous for one car to try to follow another, but the way to ‘La Gare’ was pretty well marked in every town.
It was about 1 a.m. when Tom got to Troyes. He hadn’t seen Jonathan behind him for more than half an hour. He went into the station café for a coffee, a second coffee, and kept a look-out through the glass door for the Renault winch might pull into the parking area in front of the
station. Finally Tom paid and went out, and as he walked towards his own car, his Renault came down the slope into the parking area. Tom gave a wave, and Jonathan saw him.
‘You’re all right?’ Tom asked. Jonathan looked all right to Tom. ‘If you want some coffee here, or to use the loo, best go in alone.’
Jonathan didn’t want either. Tom persuaded him to drink some coffee out of the thermos. No one was giving them a glance, Tom saw. A train had just come in and ten or fifteen people were heading for their parked cars or to the cars of people who had come to meet them.
‘From here we take the National Nineteen,’ Tom said. ‘We’ll aim for Bar – Bar-sur-Aube – and meet again at the railway station. All right?’
Tom started off. The highway became clearer, with very little traffic except two or three elephantine trucks, their rectangular rears outlined in white or red lights, moving forms which might have been blind, Tom felt, blind at least to the two corpses in the back of the Citroen under newspaper, such a tiny cargo compared to theirs. Tom was not going fast now, not more than ninety kilometres or around fifty-five miles per hour. At the Bar railway station he and Jonathan leaned out of their windows to speak with one another.
‘Petrol’s getting low,’ Tom said. ‘I want to go beyond Chaumont, so I’m going to pull in at the next petrol station, okay? And you do the same.’
‘Right,’ said Jonathan.
It was now 2.15 a.m. ‘Keep on the old N nineteen. See you at the railway station in Chaumont.’
Tom pulled in at a Total station as he was leaving Bar. He was paying the man, when Jonathan drove in behind him. Tom lit a cigarette and didn’t glance at Jonathan. Tom was walking about, stretching his legs. Then he pulled his car a little aside and went to the toilet. It was only forty-two kilometres to Chaumont.
And there Tom arrived at 2.’5 a.m. Not even a taxi stood
at the railway station, only a few parked and empty cars. There were no more trains tonight. The station bar-café was closed. When Jonathan arrived, Tom approached the Renault on foot, and said:
‘Follow me. I’m going to look for a quiet spot.’
Jonathan was tired, but his fatigue had switched into another gear: he could have gone on driving for hours more, he felt. The Renault handled tightly and quickly, with the minimum of effort on his part. Jonathan was totally unfamiliar with the country here. That didn’t matter. And now it was easy, he merely kept the red tail-lights of the Citroen in view. Tom was going more slowly, and twice paused tentatively at side roads, then went on. The night was black, the stars not visible, at least not with the glow of the dashboard before him. A couple of cars passed, going in the opposite direction, and one lorry over- ‘ took Jonathan. Then Jonathan saw Tom’s right indicator pulse, and Tom’s car disappeared to the right. Jonathan followed, and barely saw the black gorge that was the road, or lane, when he came to it. It was a dirt road that led at once into forest. The road was narrow, not wide enough for two cars to pass, the kind of road often found in the French countryside, used by farmers or men gathering wood. Bushes scraped delicately at the front fenders, and there were potholes.
Tom’s car stopped. They had gone perhaps two hundred yards from the main road in a great curve. Tom had cut his lights, but the interior of the car lit when he opened the door. Tom left the door open, and walked towards Jonathan, waving his arms cheerfully. Jonathan was at that instant cutting his own motor and his lights. The image of Tom’s figure in the baggy trousers, green suede jacket, stayed in Jonathan’s eyes for a moment as if Tom had been composed of light. Jonathan blinked.
Then Tom was beside Jonathan’s window. ‘It’ll be over in a couple of minutes. Back your car about fifteen feet. You know how to reverse?’