The Laughter of Carthage (58 page)

For a while our conversation was stilted and conventional. By the time my food arrived I was wanting to ask Jimmy what was wrong. Was he getting round to admitting he could not yet pay back my $500? When he had finished his own pork chop he put his knife and fork carefully together in the plate, drew a breath, then turned his clear, grey eyes directly on me. ‘Max, I’m here as a pal to wise you up.’

He spoke in a different accent, harsher and somehow lazier, in style closer to Santucci’s. He used slang normally confined to private conversations with Lucius Mortimer. I could follow him thanks chiefly to my familiarity with hookers, who used a similar patois. I understood the gist of his opening remark, therefore, but had no idea what it actually implied.

‘It’s Roffy.’ Rembrandt paused. ‘He’s mad enough to bite. He thinks you’re a yentzer. That’s why I’m here. To try to get you to see reason.’

‘Mr Gilpin said Mr Roffy was very anxious.’

‘He’s going crazy. He told me you’re holding out on him. Your cash will save the airport scheme. What’s up, Max? Are you planning to cop a sneak? D’you think they’re a couple of skin-gamers or what?’

‘Of course I trust them. I’ve done everything in my power to get the money. I feel terrible about it, Jimmy. Mr Gilpin told me Mr Roffy’s considering suicide.’

‘Let’s just say he’s a little unstable at the moment, Max. He’s sure angry enough to blow the whistle.’

‘On what?’

‘On you. He’s saying he’ll turn you over to the cops. Maybe belch on you to the papers. About why you left France in a hurry. He’s got the goods on you, pal. Your whole sidetrack.’

I fell back in surprise. ‘How could he have found out? Jimmy, I insist -’

‘Someone must have slipped the info to him. Or he saw the same stories I did.’

I felt very sick. I pushed my plate away. ‘You know those charges are completely false! I explained that when we first met in New York. You believed me!’

‘It’s not making any difference to Roffy, the way he is now. Look at your position. Max. A bum monicker? That’s enough for the front office. You’d be deported to France. It’d be the hatch for sure.’

Weakly I signalled the waiter to remove my plate. I asked for a glass of water. My entire body began to shake. This time I could not stop it. ‘He has my IOU, Jimmy.’

‘So what?’

I put my head closer to his, speaking in an intense undertone. ‘You know the charges were false!’

‘So it’s a hype. But it could stick. You must believe that or you wouldn’t be here. They’ll beef you. Max, unless you come up with your third. What’s it to you? A hundred fifty measly grand? Thaw it as soon as you can. Square Roffy and Gilpin. You’ll get it back fast. You can’t want to see your friends go down. At least take my tip. I owe you one. Roffy’s crazy enough to do anything. If this goes on the wire I wouldn’t lay evens you’ll leave Memphis in anything but a case of ice.’

‘He’d kill me?’

‘Maybe not Roffy personally. But he has friends who aren’t squeamish.’

I believed him. I was already sweating. I could hardly breathe for the terror which suddenly struck me. Familiarity with the threat of death made it no easier to accept. Something seemed to press hard on my chest. ‘Can’t you appeal to him? Tell him I’m doing my best?’

‘Max, just give Roffy his kick-back. What if he does doublecross you? It’s a small enough slice of your pie. The papers said you took twenty million. They always bullshit, I know. I’d guess at ten. You can afford it.’

‘Jimmy, I told you the papers lied!’ I was by now soaking in my own juices.

‘Five, then?’

‘I stole nothing. I arrived in New York almost penniless. I’ve been living off Roffy and Gilpin here. In New York I sold some jewellery, but I haven’t a cent now!’ My whisper became almost a shriek. I tried to lower my voice again. I was hoarse. I had at least admitted the truth to someone. I felt the burden lifting from me. But a worse one was settling and I had completely lost control of my tongue. ‘A patent in Washington went for a pittance. That’s how I could lend you the five hundred. If I’d told them I was broke they wouldn’t have trusted me. You said yourself you had to pretend to be rich for people to take you seriously, no matter how good your ideas. I listened to your advice, Jimmy!’

Rembrandt’s face lost all colour. He lit a cigarette and he looked at me through careful eyes. ‘Max, you’re caught in a snowstorm. How can I know this is the m’coy?’

‘Cocaine doesn’t affect me that way.’

‘You’re telling me you’re actually innocent? The Frogs really did set you up? You’re down to the cotton?’

I nodded. ‘You believed me before.’

‘You can’t even raise a couple hundred bucks?’

‘If I pawn my clothes, maybe.’

Jimmy swore under his breath. ‘But every damned paper agreed you were the big shill, Max. The gyp of the century!’ He looked at me like a stricken child. ‘Jesus Christ.’

I felt obscurely guilty. ‘Someone benefited, I suppose. It was not I.’

In an expression of incredulity he blew smoke through pursed lips. ‘So you’re the friggin’ yap! Setup for the gum job. Freighted out of the country before you knew what was happening. Perfect! Well it sure makes us look like boobs!’ He shook his head. ‘So Christmas has been cancelled,’ he added, as if to the restaurant at large.

‘If you’re suggesting Kolya betrayed me you’re wrong. I suspect de Grion. My friend is a prince of the royal blood. He saved me, Jimmy. He’d save me now if he could. I don’t have his latest address. However, a friend in Italy -’

‘What a beautiful scam!’ Jimmy was hardly listening to me. I found it odd he reacted as he did. It was as if he was admiring the criminals who betrayed me while also laughing at himself. Yet only minutes before he had warned me my life was in danger. Possibly ironic amusement was his way of disguising his own fear, but it disturbed me. A smile began to form, then he frowned. ‘And what a bunch of suckers we turned out to be. Conned by a Michigan roll! All those months of planning. The outlay. We blew every dime on this. It was me got Lucius to talk those old pros into it! Oh, Christ.’

Though many of his remarks remained obscure I could tell he was genuinely upset. ‘I assure you, Jimmy, I’m heart and soul behind the scheme. I never meant to deceive anyone, least of all you and Major Mortimer. I offered my services, my patents, my skills, my brains. There’s nothing wrong with any of them. If I had the cash I’d give it to Mr Roffy immediately! I’ve as much stake as he has. I don’t want our scheme to collapse.’

He was plainly bitter. He had vouched for me to his friends and I had let him down badly. I could not stop babbling. I leant across to take his arm. He was unaware of my touch. Jimmy had lost all concentration. He stared vacantly up at the gas-globes overhead, grinning to himself. Had we both gone mad? I could not then see any reason for his reaction.

It was shock, of course. I had to make notes, puzzling over that meeting many times before I realised why, quite suddenly, he began to laugh. I stared at him in amazement.

‘Oh, Jesus Christ!’ He was helpless. ‘We’ve sweet-lined our own asses!’

He had no reason to take the whole blame. Part of the moral responsibility was mine.

I have never been one to deceive myself in such matters.

Biddena natla’ ila barra. Mashi yesma’.

* * * *

SEVENTEEN

THE CAUSE OF other people’s mirth is a subject which has frequently defeated me. Jimmy Rembrandt’s reaction to my dilemma remained a baffled note in my diary for some years. Even as I parted from him outside Plunkett’s Cafe he was still occasionally seized by an attack of snorts and grimaces. He wished me luck, ‘though I guess Roffy and Gilpin need it more’. Speechless once again he gave a shaky salute and walked rapidly up Monroe Street to vanish in the electric shadows.

I saw little humour then in my situation and none at all the next day when, coming empty-handed from the Western Union office, I saw Pandora Fairfax jump from her car with an agitated shout and run towards me. She asked me if I had seen either of my partners. It emerged both had disappeared, leaving rent unpaid on their own apartments and mine. They also owed considerable sums to various printers, designers, model-builders, researchers and advertising agencies in the city. She herself had been promised cash for the hire of her plane and in expectation of an agreed consultant’s fee had made a down payment on another aircraft. ‘There’s a rumour,’ she said, ‘that Boss Crump’s men have orders to bring them in dead or alive.’

By that evening I was in the extraordinary position of trying to explain why my partners had left no forwarding address. I believed they were based in Washington, I said. One of Boss Crump’s hard-faced lieutenants said he would check. He seemed angry and suspicious of me but his common sense must have made him realise I was telling the truth. Also he was aware of my standing with certain members of the community and it was obvious even to him that I was innocent of any fraud. Nonetheless I was taken to a little office over a dairy depot on Union Avenue and interviewed by E. H. Crump himself. He was quietly spoken and polite, taller than I had expected, and dressed in a pale blue suit. He had round, smooth features, manicured hands and wore horn-rimmed glasses. He, too, was quickly convinced that I knew nothing of my partners’ whereabouts and had not been aware of the amounts of money owed in the city. Of course, he now began to deny he had placed any trust in the two men and claimed never to have heard of the $450,000 warranty demanded of us. It would have been imprudent to tell him that if the demand had not been made, the bills would have been quickly paid and Memphis would have been richer in a dozen ways before the year was out.

In fairness to Roffy and Gilpin, I did not offer my own opinion, that my partners, convinced I had deliberately betrayed them, had fled in panic. Unable to raise the extra $150,000 they had taken their own money and abandoned the project. I am not one to lay the blame for my own misfortunes on others. I had let them believe I was wealthy. They had acted in good faith. If they had wanted revenge on me they could have revealed what they knew of my past. Thus I remained convinced of their basic integrity. Some of us are stronger than others. Whereas, in their shoes, I might have stood my ground and explained my predicament, they had lost their nerve. My main regret, of course, was that another far-sighted, bold and commercially viable project had been shelved. Boss Crump’s political machine had turned against anything to do with my plans. He made that clear. My association with Major Sinclair could have contributed to this, I now realise. Because of his misguided stand against the Ku Klux Klan, Crump never really succeeded in pushing Memphis to her full potential. This opposition, reflected in the prejudices expressed in the Catholic-dominated
Commercial Appeal,
was the single reason he never reached the high office for which his excellent judgment and character were suited. Perhaps he saw the Klan as a rival. An alliance would have given him national, rather than merely local, influence.

For a while I was also puzzled by the disappearance of Jimmy Rembrandt. I wondered if perhaps he feared my anger, believing he had let me, as well as Roffy and Gilpin, down in some way. Possibly he was still embarrassed over the $500 he owed me. Nervous of Roffy’s anger, he might also have decided not to risk involvement if by chance I was murdered. Presumably he had returned to New York.

My moral and practical problems were not eased by having to hear my friend Major Sinclair’s honest opinion that Roffy and Gilpin were ‘a pair of scallawags’ who had used me for their own ends. I could not see what they had gained from their association. There was no point now in explaining my own part in their predicament, but I assured him only the most terrible circumstances could have forced the two men to abandon me. I pointed out I had lost no cash in the affair. I was not responsible for the Aviation Company’s debts, nor my partners’ personal debts. In my wildest flights of speculation I wondered if alien interests, scheming the ruin of our great venture, had not kidnapped them or otherwise disposed of them. It has long been obvious to me that all major airship disasters of the 20s and 30s were the result of Zionist sabotage. Alternatively, my partners could easily have fallen into the clutches of Jewish or Italian moneylenders. Loan sharks were known to deal savagely with defaulting debtors unable to pay their exorbitant interest. That would also explain why Roffy and Gilpin seemed so desperately frightened towards the end, when I could not produce the money. I explained this theory to the police officers who called on me. They promised to explore the matter thoroughly. But they were Crump men through and through. Their conviction was that I and the city had been victims of ‘a pair of high-class con-artists’.