The Two Faces of January (9 page)

Chester nodded. “Maybe.” His Scotch was arriving. As soon as the waiter set it down, he picked it up and drank. His other hand was clenched on the edge of the table. “I'm inclined to agree with what you said earlier,” Chester murmured to Rydal. “We ought to go to a smaller town than this. Just for a couple of days, I think. You know. . . till this beard grows out and I won't be in danger of . . . you know, people on the street like this.” He gestured.

Rydal sighed, not knowing where to begin talking. Several things had entered his mind. “You don't happen to have any older clothes than the ones you're wearing, do you?”

“Older? Not with me,” Chester said. “You're thinking I should assume a disguise?”

“No. But your clothes stand out in Greece. They look like money,” he said bluntly. “That's what you ought to avoid, if you can. You, too.” He looked at Colette. “Pack that mink stole up, for instance. Don't shine your shoes,” he said to Chester. “Get different cufflinks. Put a couple of spots on your hat.” Rydal picked up his ouzo and finished it. He felt like something out of a not very good movie.

“What other towns are there in Crete?” Chester asked. “I've seen the map, but I can't remember the other towns.”

“There's Chania farther west. It's a port on the north shore like Iraklion. I don't remember any others. You wouldn't want to go to too small a place. You'd stand out there like a sore thumb.”

They stayed in the restaurant past midnight. Chester became drunker, and, in a brooding way, more afraid. He rambled on vaguely about what might happen, and he told Rydal of how much he had “at stake” in his businesses in the United States. He bored Rydal. Colette tried to get him to dance, and Chester said heavily:

“Honey, there are times when a man has more important things on his mind than dancing. Dance with Rydal, if you've got to dance!” And his blue eyes flashed in his pink face.

Rydal danced with Colette, just to get away from Chester.

“What kind of things at stake?” Rydal asked Colette when they were on the dance floor, trapped in a swift waltz whose tempo Rydal wasn't skilful enough to cut in half.

“You know. His stocks,” Colette said.

It was difficult to talk over the noise, but Rydal felt less bored talking. “I gather he doesn't use the name MacFarland in the States.”

“Oh, no. Gosh, his real name was practically like another alias when we left,” Colette said, glancing up at Rydal with a smile. She danced with enthusiasm, but she followed him perfectly.

“How many aliases has he?”

“Oh—Damn, I wish that ox would keep in his own lane!”

“Sorry. I'll try to watch out.” A huge man and a small woman were describing erratic circles around them. Rydal had been trying to avoid him, but the man was like something caught in an orbit around him and Colette.

“They aren't exactly aliases. See, Chester doubles for several officials in his company. I should say companies. He signs his checks William S. Haight, for instance, for a couple of companies, as treasurer.”

“And draws a salary for Haight, too, of course.”

“Oh, two or three salaries.” Colette laughed. “Maybe it's sort of illegal, what he does, but all his subscribers get dividends, and what more do they want?”

It was like a gigantic check-kiting system, Rydal supposed. Chester had to keep one jump ahead of himself all the time. Charles Ponzi had managed it for a long time, but not quite till the end of his life. “Doesn't Chester have partners who can carry on for him? Now, in the States, I mean?”

“Well—not partners. I guess you'd call them salesmen. Sure, he has four or five. One of Chester's stocks is quite good.”

“What's that?”

“Universal Key. It's a magnetic key that opens a magnetic lock. It has to be exactly magnetized, you see. . . .” She broke off, still going strong, but plainly knowing no more about it.

“It's on the market?”

“The stock? No, not yet.”

“I mean the magnetic key.”

“No, it's being invented. I mean, it's been invented, natch, but it has to be . . . oh, I don't know,
made,
I guess.”

“I see.”

She danced closer, fairly dove against him. “I wish we could dance like this all night.”

Rydal kissed her forehead. They were dancing so close, it was only a matter of turning his head slightly to kiss her.

“I love you,” Colette said. “Do you mind?”

“No,” Rydal said, and at that moment, he didn't. Rydal opened his eyes and saw Chester at a table only ten feet away, staring at him, and was so startled he jumped and pulled a little away from Colette.

“What's the matter?” Colette asked, looking up at him.

“Chester . . . Chester's watching us. He's moved to a closer table.”

Now Colette saw him too, smiled and gave him a wave with her right hand—whose fingers were still locked in Rydal's. “Looks furious, doesn't he? He's had a rough night.”

“All right, let's sit down, and you dance with him for a change.
”
The number was coming to an end. Rydal broke from her, and motioned for her to go ahead of him towards the new table.

Chester had his drink with him, or a fresh one. Their overcoats had been checked. There was no doubt about it, Chester was jealous, and furious. But he forced a smile and said with elaborate casualness, “Thought I'd move. Those two back there were still staring at me.”

“Oh,” Rydal said, sitting down after Colette did. “Maybe you'd like to take off. Soon. It's getting on to one.”

“No. I thought I might have a dance with my wife,” said Chester, starting to rise. His face seemed twice as flushed suddenly. He held his hand out for Colette in a way that brooked no refusal. They went off to the dance floor together.

Rydal smiled a little at himself, at his rise of emotion—sudden fear, guilt—on the dance floor when he'd seen Chester looking at him. Colette should be the one to feel some guilt, but she had been cool as a cucumber. But of course he
had
kissed Colette's forehead, and Chester
had
seen it. Rydal lit a cigarette with a casual air and pretended to be looking over the whole crowd, though his eyes moved again and again to Chester and Colette, Chester was talking to her, talking forcefully, and Rydal could imagine what he was saying. It probably wasn't the first time such a thing had happened.

Chester came back with Colette, ordered another drink and asked Rydal what he would like. Rydal did not care for anything more, but he ordered a
fix
beer.

“You don't want it, I can tell,” Colette said. “Want to divide it with me? I'd like a glass.”

Rydal nodded. “Bring two glasses, please,” he said to the waiter.

Chester was serious and quiet now, unresponding to Colette's remark on the endurance of certain Greek couples who had not missed a dance since they arrived. At last, at 1:35, they left the place and took a taxi to the hotel. Chester was a bit unsteady on his feet.

“Oh . . . uh . . . Rydal. Mind if I come in and have a word with you?” Chester asked when they were about to say good night in the hall.

“Not at all,” said Rydal, but Chester's phrase and even his manner had been so like his own father, that Rydal's blood had run cold for an instant. It was the phrase his father had used when he had spoken to him about Agnes, that fulminating speech which had only been exceeded in its heat by the speech his father had delivered to the judge recommending reform school for him.
I'd like a word with you in my study.
The irony of it, Rydal thought. He was going to be chastised about Agnes for the second time.

They went into Rydal's room and closed the door.

Chester seemed to be having a hard time getting started. He declined to sit down. He stood staring at the floor, frowning, and swaying slightly.

“Hm-m. Well . . . you probably know what I'm going to say,” Chester began, still not looking at Rydal.

Rydal had hung up his overcoat. He sat down on a straight chair and looked at Chester attentively.

Then Chester lifted his pinkish eyes from the floor to him. “I'm going to need you . . . when I go to that small town. Oh, no, wait a minute,” he interrupted when Rydal started to protest. “You know the language, you know the ropes, it'll be easier. And safer. And I'm also prepared to pay you for it. I want to pay you.”

“But I don't need the money. And frankly—I'm not very comfortable in this role.”

“Who is? I know you're not. That's why I want to make it worth your while. You'll be helping me and . . .” He paused, lost, as if the image of Colette and his irritation with Rydal's attraction to her had swum into his mind, obliterating what he meant to say. “I'll feel . . . more at ease,” Chester went on solemnly. “I speak for myself and I know. If someone's saying something about me, right over my shoulder, I want to know what it is. The news in English here is a day late, and that's dangerous. I'm prepared to give you five thousand dollars, if you stay with us—say, three days. At least till this beard grows out more. What about it? You've been . . . you've been great up to now . . .”

Rydal thought, until tonight? He leaned forward on his knees, squeezing his palms together. “For less than five thousand dollars,” Rydal said, “you can get yourself an artificial beard till yours grows out.”

“Oh, you know it's not just that. I want you to stay with me,” he said, low and passionately. “Name your own price.”

His emotion wasn't only from fear, Rydal thought. It was hurting his pride to beg him to stay on, when he'd been furious enough to punch him in the nose tonight. Five thousand dollars. For three days. For risking a police rap himself for collusion, if a police officer picked them up in Chania. Five thousand dollars would be a nice nest egg to have in the bank, when he got back to the United States. Or was he weakening because he wanted to stay on where Colette was?

“Well?”

“Five thousand is plenty,” Rydal said. He could see that Chester saw he was weakening. Chester was no doubt good at seeing signs of weakening.

“Then it's a deal? We'll leave tomorrow morning?”

Rydal nodded. “All right. It's a deal.” He stood up, avoiding looking at Chester.

Chester walked to the door, turned, and Rydal heard his heavy sigh. “Well, I guess it's time we turned in.”

They said good night.

Colette's name hadn't even been mentioned, Rydal realized. Yes, it had been a pleasanter interview than the one in his father's study ten years ago.

8

For all
he had drunk, Chester slept badly that night. He had gone to sleep almost as soon as he had hit the pillow, but an hour later—he could see the radium dial of Colette's travelling-clock—he woke up again, his heart pounding, the tingling emptiness of hangover beginning to creep through him. He remembered swearing to himself tonight, as he sat watching Rydal and Colette dance—
dance
?
—
that he would make love to her when they got back to the hotel, but tonight it hadn't been in him, and he hadn't even begun. Chester cursed his fate. To be tied up with someone like Rydal Keener, just the age and the type Colette liked, to be dependent on him, to have to ask him to stick with him and stick by him!

Still, Chester supposed, it could have been worse. Rydal could have been a crummier type, a type who'd really take advantage of Colette and of him, too, financially. Rydal was a gentleman, ­really. Yet gentlemen went to bed with women, too, of course. And unfortunately Rydal had just the kind of “good manners” Colette admired, that air of restraint, gentleness, gentility, even if it was a little threadbare. Chester set his teeth. Three days. He supposed tomorrow or the next day Rydal would be wearing something Colette had picked and bought for him, a new shirt, a sweater, a tie. She liked buying things for men she liked. That Hank Meyers in New York who'd tagged around with Jesse for a while. She had bought Hank a wristwatch. Jesse had told Chester about it. Chester had ordered Jesse to get rid of Hank, and he had. Hank was a good-looking kid, about twenty-five, too. But Colette hadn't been to bed with him, Chester was sure. He'd had a real showdown with Colette about Hank, shook her till her teeth rattled and she'd been too scared to tell him anything but the truth, and she said she hadn't slept with him. Colette had cried for a whole day after that talking-to, and she had carried bruises on her arms for two weeks where Chester had held her, but it was all for the good, he thought. A woman liked to feel that a man cared what she did, that a man would beat the hell out of her if she got out of line. Yes, women liked that, and it did them good, and it did a man good, too. That was Chester's philosophy.

The next thing Chester knew, Colette was kissing his forehead, wakening him. She was standing by his bed in her robe. There was sunlight in the room. On Colette's bed was a large tray with two breakfasts on it.

“Ordered a couple of soft-boiled eggs for you this morning,” Colette said, smiling. “I thought you could use them. Go brush your teeth and hurry back.”

“Great. I sure could.” Chester got out of bed and went on bare feet to the bathroom.

After breakfast, Chester called Rydal's room. It was 8:35
.
Rydal had already inquired about the buses, and there was one leaving at 10:
30
bound west. Rydal was brief, and Chester sensed that he was guarding against possible eavesdropping by the hotel switchboard.

“Why don't you come in for a minute,” Chester said.

Rydal said he would.

There was a knock on the door a few seconds later.

Colette was dressing in the bathroom.

Rydal had the papers, but he said there was no news at all in them this morning.

Chester smiled. That helped a lot. “No news is good news.”

“I think I should leave first,” Rydal said. “I'm packed, so I'll take off in a few minutes and meet you at the bus station. It's a square up the street and to the left, not far from that restaurant by the fountain. You can ask the hotel where the buses for Knossos take off from, because it's from the same square, I know. I talked to someone on the street this morning about it.”

“Good boy,” said Chester.

“I'll be there at ten thirty,” Rydal said as he walked to the door.

“Right-o.”

“Tell your wife to dress simply—if she can,” Rydal said, and went out.

Chester and Colette left the hotel at 10 in a taxi. The square was a grassless area of ground, bordered by a few benches on which people sat with bundles and knapsacks and cardboard suitcases, waiting. The two or three buses that were parked there had no markers on them. Chester saw Rydal standing with a newspaper several yards away, and Rydal pointed to the bus nearest him, then came forward and helped Chester with his luggage. They had already dismissed the taxi-driver. The bus-driver was very nice, and got out and loaded the luggage on the top of the bus for them.

People straggled or ran to board the bus until the last minute—which was a couple of minutes past 11.
They lurched off, Chester and Colette sitting midway in the bus, Rydal at the back in a row of five or six men who sat with bundles on their laps and between their feet.

The bus bumped over stretches of bad road, then sped ahead at terrifying speed, and stopped now and then to let people off in the middle of nowhere. The sun came and went, changing the blue of the sky from bright to dark and back again. Tall farmers in boots, with embroidered knapsacks over their shoulders, paused at the roadside to look at the bus and sometimes to wave. Chester held Colette's hand between them on the seat. She was looking out the window, taking a lively interest in the scenery, commenting on a snow-capped mountain on the horizon, or a string of baby goats trotting along behind a farmer. Chester hadn't mentioned to her that he had offered Rydal five thousand dollars to stay another three days with them. It was a little strange, he thought, that Colette hadn't asked him how long Rydal was going to be with them. She was taking it for granted, Chester supposed, that Rydal was going to stay with them, because she liked Rydal, and because she had probably asked him to stay on. Chester intended to tell her of his arrangement with Rydal as soon as they had a moment alone, and he was sorry he hadn't this morning when they were having breakfast. If Colette knew Rydal was being paid for it, she wouldn't toy with the idea that his staying on was entirely due to her. He was of half a mind to tell her now, on the bus, among people who wouldn't understand a word of what he was saying, anyway, but he preferred to do it tonight, when they were in some hotel room. He'd say it in a firm, businesslike way, because it was business. By Sunday, Rydal's services would be over, and on Monday, or even Sunday night, he could disappear. The hum of the bus began to make Chester sleepy, but when he closed his eyes, his drowsy mind drifted back to that kiss he had seen last night when Colette and Rydal were dancing. Rydal's lips against her forehead, and his eyes closed—and the sudden fear on Rydal's face when he had opened his eyes and seen him looking at them. And then later in Rydal's room, when he had said, “You probably know what I'm going to say—” Yes, Rydal had braced himself for some strong words then, maybe a flat “Get the hell out of here!” and then he had offered Rydal money to stay on. Chester recrossed his legs restlessly and lit a cigarette. He wished he had taken the trouble to dash a note, or rather send a cable, to Jesse in New York, asking him to write or rewrite the latest news to William J. Chamberlain care of the American Express in Athens. But he hadn't.

They came to a town called Rethymnon, where there was a fifteen-minute stop. Fruit vendors and soda-pop wagons. Nearly all the passengers who were going on got out to stretch their legs. Rydal had got out before him and Colette, and was buying something from one of the peddlers.

“Like a coffee, my dear?” Chester asked Colette.

She held her topcoat around her. The wind was sharp. She had packed her mink jacket into one of the suitcases, as Chester had suggested this morning, but her high-heeled shoes still made her look very chic. Well, she was chic, Chester thought, and he was glad of it. She'd look chic in a house dress and flat shoes.

“Coffee?” he repeated. Then he realized she was looking at Rydal, not staring at him, but more aware of Rydal than of him.

“Yes, thanks. If it's hot.”

Chester went off to buy two cups. Rydal was standing by the vendor, with his cup and a small bun with a sausage in it.

“May as well buy something to eat,” Rydal said. “I don't think this bus is going to stop for lunch anywhere.”

“No? That's too bad.” It was already 1:30.
Chester bought two of the more palatable-looking buns from the vendor's basket.

Colette came up to join them. “Six hours this trip takes?” she asked.

Chester had guessed six hours in Iraklion.

“We should be in Chania a little after three,” Rydal told her. “It's a hundred and twenty miles from Iraklion or something like that.”

Chester had no appetite for his sweet roll. The Greek passengers, he noticed, had brought substantial sandwiches with them. He nodded towards the newspaper under Rydal's arm. “You're sure there's no news this morning,” Chester said quietly.

“I looked through it twice in my room,” Rydal said.

Rydal was not looking at Colette at all, Chester noticed. He was acting as if she didn't exist. Chester didn't care for that, either.

“Well, look at our driver,” Colette said. “I suppose he's had himself a meal.”

The bus-driver was coming out of a small restaurant near-by, lighting a cigarette.

“You can't ever tell,” Rydal said, still not looking at Colette. “They tell you it's a fifteen-minute stop, and it's liable to be thirty-five.”

But the bus-driver got back in his seat immediately, and the passengers followed suit. They were off again.

Chania, at 3:30,
presented a town square sprinkled with idle men, centered with a cement memorial statue of some sort, and ringed around with various shops and restaurants. It had a backwater, fifty-years-behind-the-times look of certain towns Chester had seen in the United States, an atmosphere that inspired him to wonder how the inhabitants could possibly make a living. Consequently Chania appeared a little sad. It was not nearly as big as Chester had expected. A couple of bellboys in shabbier uniforms than those of Iraklion came up at the sight of their luggage, and hawked their hotels. Rydal said something to them. Both the boys began shouting, evidently each claiming the hotel with the hottest water or the most heat.

“Warter—'
ot,
” said one
boy to Chester, poking himself.

Chester left it to Rydal. Rydal chose the other boy. But both boys began picking up their luggage.

“I offered the other boy twenty drachs if he helps us with
the suitcases,” Rydal said to Chester. “He says the hotel's just around the corner.”

It was the Hotel Nikë, on a paper-littered street barely wide enough for two cars to pass in. The street and the buildings were a light tan, a color Chester associated with Athens also, only here one had the feeling the color had been made by dust and sand blown by the wind into the stone of the houses. Rydal spoke to the pleasant, moustached fellow behind the desk, who attempted English at first, then switched to Greek.

“It's certainly cheap,” Rydal said when he came back to them. “I asked for a good room with bath for you, so we'll see what happens. You can give them your passports and sign.”

Chester gave his and Colette's passports to the clerk, then signed W. J. Chamberlain. He had meant to sign hastily and casually, but he couldn't, not yet, and make it look anything like the passport signature. Colette, he thought, did better with her Mary Ellen Chamberlain, which she had practiced several times in the Hotel Astir. The clerk copied their passport numbers beside their names. Then he handed the passports back, and Chester put them into his breast pocket.

Chester's and Colette's room was so stark it was amusing. A double bed, a table, a chair, and that was it. No waste-paper-basket and only one ashtray the size of a pin tray. It was also cold. The bellboy went over and turned the wheel on a radiator with a triumphant air, said something to them, then waited for his tip. Chester paid him.

“I think this is very exciting,” Colette said. “It's like camping or something.”

“Um-m. Want to wash up first?”

Colette did.

Chester felt the radiator, which as yet showed no sign of losing its coldness. He had a vision of its being cold tonight also, and Colette staying up all night dancing somewhere with Rydal, instead of trying to sleep. Colette's energy was astounding to Chester—ice-skating all afternoon in Radio City or riding in Central Park, then dancing till dawn at a party, for instance. The energy of youth, of course. He simply couldn't keep up with it. His legs wouldn't hold out. Well, it hadn't come to that yet, and if the room didn't get warm in a couple of hours, he'd change the room or change the hotel.

“I'll be in Rydal's room,” Colette said as she came out of the bathroom, rubbing lotion on her hands.

They were all going out to have a late lunch in a few minutes. Chester only nodded to her. He washed up, had a Scotch, hung up a suit from his suitcase, then went down the hall to number 18, which Rydal said he had been given. The door was slightly ajar, but he meticulously knocked, holding the knob so the door wouldn't swing open. He heard Colette's and Rydal's voice, and heard Colette laugh.

“Come in,” Rydal called. “We're comparing notes on our rooms. How do you like that tub?” He nodded towards the bathroom.

Chester went to take a look. The hot-water tank projected over the front half of the tub, leaving hardly any room to sit in it. Chester came back smiling. “And how's your heat?”

“Coming along, I think,” Rydal said. He put on his jacket.

Chester wandered over and put a hand down on Rydal's radiator. Definitely on the way to being warm. Rydal's suitcase was open on a chair. Its lining was worn and coming unglued at an upper corner. Chester saw a sweater, a shirt, a rolled pair of pajamas with a pair of shoes inside them.