The Porsche soared out of town via Belle Plaine Avenue then took the Clarion Overpass to Liberty Road. It roared through Ada, then Delphos, then Xenia, then Cedarville. The yellow Toyota was half a mile behind it all the way.
In the Eye’s Minolta XK were several photos of the marriage ceremony. And a close-up of the two names on the Hall register: Paul Hugo and Lucy Brentano.
The bride was from New York. She lived on East Ninety-first Street. She worked at the Air France office on Fifth Avenue.
At nine o’clock they arrived in Camden Lake and checked into the Woodland Inn.
The Eye left them there and drove to a gas station on 68. In the John he pulled off his trousers and stubbed them with a damp rag. He threw away his shorts and soaped his cock and thighs. Then he had dinner in a restaurant in Evanstown, devouring everything that was served: salad, soup, veal, rice, an omelet, another salad, toast, cheese, a dish of cherries, cake, coffee, another cake, a double brandy.
At an adjacent table a drunk and his girlfriend were arguing about Africa. She threw a bowl of gravy at him and he almost hit her with a jar of mustard, splattering the wall behind her. Three waiters bounced them.
The Eye had a Peach Melba. Then another double brandy. At eleven o’clock he drove back to the Woodland Inn.
He parked the Toyota in a copse on the edge of the road and entered the grounds via a side gate. A lamp post glowed in the garden, painting the edges of the night in amber. He moved past the pool and tennis court, descended a narrow winding flight of stone steps to the back of the premises.
The newlyweds had a cottage suite on the lakeshore. All the lights were on. Floating as noiselessly as a shadow, he approached a window.
The living room was empty. Lucy’s purse was on the couch. Her dark raincoat hung over the back of a chair. Her shoes were on the floor. A bottle of Gaston de Lagrange cognac and a pack of Gitanes sat on the coffee table.
The bedroom was empty, too. A silver disc on a chain was hanging on the bathroom doorknob. The valise, a dress, a collant, a bra, the beret, were scattered on the bed. A transistor on the bureau.
He went into the backyard, peered through a rear window. Paul, wearing only a pair of shorts, was in the kitchenette, smoking a cigar, taking glasses out of a cupboard. He found two large liqueur ponies and carried them out into the living room.
The Eye drifted back to the bedroom window. Lucy came out of the bathroom, wrapped in a towel, wearing a bathing cap. She took the chain from the doorknob and hung it around her neck. She was barefooted; her face was shining.
‘Lucy!’
‘Just a second.’
She sat down at the foot of the bed, pulled off the cap. Her hair was cropped, tawny, citrine. She took a wig from the valise, donned it. Now she was chestnut.
‘The door’s locked!’
‘Is it?’
‘What’re you doing, closing me out?’
‘Sorry. Force of habit.’
She got up, crossed the room, unlocked the door. The Eye slipped to the living room window. Paul was pouring two cognacs. Lucy walked over to the table, picked up the pack of Gitanes, lit one. He handed her a pony. She took it, sipped it. He pulled aside her towel, touched the disc.
‘What’s this? A goat?’
‘Capricorn.’
‘You’re a Capricorn?’
‘December the twenty-fourth.’
‘Merry Christmas! I’m a Leo. August the fifth. And here we are!’ He toasted. ‘Summer and winter. Hot and cold.’
They drank. The Eye backed off into the blackness. Hold it! Capricorn? His radar was trilling again. On the marriage register it had been Date of birth March 22, ’54.
‘Can I have some ice?’ Lucy asked.
He came up to the window again. Paul set his pony on the table and went into the kitchenette. Lucy walked over to the couch, took a vial from her purse, uncapped it, carried it to the table, emptied it into his glass.
She stuffed the vial into the pack of Gitanes, sat down, and finished her own drink. Paul came out of the kitchen with a cup of ice cubes. He set it on the arm of her chair.
‘I’m going to jump into a shower, honey.’
‘Don’t be too long.’
‘I won’t be a second.’ He picked up his pony and went into the bedroom.
It began to rain.
She uncorked the bottle, lifted it to her lips, took a long swig, then lit another cigarette. She rose, carried the cup of cubes out into the kitchenette.
The Eye turned up the collar of his jacket. A glint of lightning illuminated him. He cowered, moved along the wall to the bedroom window. Paul was in the bathroom, swallowing his cognac. He set the pony on a shelf, pulled off his shorts, turned on the shower, and, whistling, stepped under the spray.
The Eye was drenched. He took out his handkerchief, wiped his face. What was in the goddamned booze anyway? Chloral hydrate? An aphrodisiac? Cyanide? Balls! Capricorn. Maggie was a Cancer. The crab. His feet were soaked.
Lucy came into the room. She went to the bureau, switched on the transistor. A mezzo-soprano crooned.
Laisse-moi prendre ta main,
Et te montrer le chemin,
Comme dans la sombre allée
Qui conduit – à la vallée.
Samson et Dalila. X across, French composer with dash. Ten letters. Saint-Saëns. She was going to kill him.
Tu gravissais les montagnes
Pour arriver jusqu’à moi
Et je fuyais mes compagnes
Pour être seule avec toi.
She leaned against the wall and smoked her cigarette. The Eye stared at her. She was going to kill him. Her hips moved in a contortion so exquisitely gracious that his throat choked with tenderness. The towel slipped from her body and she stood there, naked except for the chain and disc. She was going to kill him. He was absolutely certain of it.
Pour assouvir ma vengeance
Je t’arrachai ton secret …
Paul crawled out of the shower on his hands and knees. He rolled over on the floor and squealed loudly.
Lucy walked to the closet, opened it. His suitcoat was hanging on the inside of the door. She reached into the side pocket, pulled out the envelope. She went to the bed and shook the eighteen thousand dollars into her valise.
She turned off the shower, the radio, and all the lights.
The Eye wiped his ringing ears with his handkerchief.
He threw back his head and let the rain splash down on his face.
Lucy reappeared at the back of the cottage, wearing a raincoat, dragging the naked body out the door, through the yard, and down the bank to a rowboat roped to a small wharf. She hoisted him aboard, climbed in after him. She cast off, lifted the oars into the locks, rowed away into the rainy darkness.
The Eye sat down on the ground under a tree and waited for her. Mud. He was sticky with mud. A sign on the wharf warned:
Don’t swim too far from the shore
Or you will drown and swim no more!
Pete Stone,
Camden County Sheriff
A few years ago there was a squeal the boys at Watchman called ‘The Sinister Case of the Abominable Bathtub.’ A rare coin dealer named Nitzburg disappeared with a sack of valuable Roman sesterces or something and Bill Fleet, the missing persons expert – known on all the floors as Flatfleet – spent four days looking for him. He finally found him in his own bathroom, sitting in the tub, his left side paralyzed. He’d been there for something like ninety hours, unable to budge, gulping down mouthfuls of water to stay alive. He survived. He sent Flatfleet a card every Christmas. He –
Hold it. What did that have to do with this caper? Nothing. Some jobs were just simply more outlandish than others. Well, anyway, he was covered. You could bet your ass on that! He’d tell them he went to his car to get his raincoat and when he got back to the fucking cottage they were gone. He’d say …
Lucy Brentano. What was her real name? What were her thoughts now, out there, all alone on the lake?
Hey! He could sneak into the bedroom and grab the eighteen grand and fade with it. He could say he lost their trail this afternoon and spent all night backtracking, trying to locate them. He could –
Shit.
He sat there, listening to the thunder.
She came back to the wharf. She roped the boat and walked up the bank, passing within five feet of him without seeing him.
He was invisible again, part of the landscape and the elements. Mud. A bog. The wind and the rain.
She entered the cottage, switched on a lamp, removed her raincoat, pulled on a pair of gloves. Nude, she took the money from the valise, dropped it on the pillow of the bed, went over to the closet and bundled all of Paul’s clothing, then went into the bathroom and gathered up his toilet articles. She stuffed everything into the valise. The bottle of Gaston de Lagrange, too. And the transistor.
She was humming. The Eye, crouched at the window, trying to keep track of her movements, listened closely to the tune. ‘La Paloma.’
She lit a Gitane, washed the ponies, put them into the cupboard, then went through the entire cottage with a towel, wiping fingerprints from the sink taps, doorknobs, ashtrays, tabletops, the arms of chairs, the bureau, the closet door, the bathroom fixtures, the light switches.
Still wearing the gloves, she took a shower, then dressed and threw the gloves into the valise, picked up the eighteen thousand, and sat down on the bed. She leaned back on the pillow and, holding the money on her lap, went to sleep.
It stopped raining. The Eye remained where he was, afraid to move in the sudden stillness. He could see her feet and ankles, shining in a silvery haze of the lamplight. The rest of her was shrouded in shadows.
He filled his mind with pageants to ease his muscles. A bullfight. A rodeo. Cars racing at Le Mans. A girl fencing with an Iroquois Indian. Maggie skiing. Paul wading out of the lake. A stage collapsing beneath a full symphony orchestra, all the musicians toppling in an insane avalanche of tuxedos and fiddles and oboes and cellos and bassoons. Insane indeed. Man, they’d catch her within twenty-four hours!
They?
Yes, they. The gentlemen down at Homicide.
What about them? Homicide? What homicide?
The bridegroom floating out there in the lake, man!
Suppose they don’t find him for a while? A week, two weeks, a month? Or for that matter, never?
Never? (Aside) He’s right, by God! They’ll never find him if they don’t look for him!
What does that mean, Daddy?
Huh?
She woke at five o’clock. She rose from the bed, picked up the valise, went into the living room. She put the money in her purse, put on her shoes and raincoat, went outside, and tossed the valise into the Porsche.
The Eye ran across the bank and up the stone steps. He raced across the garden to the side gate, tried to open it. It was locked. Sonofabitch! He climbed over it, sprinted down the road to the yellow Toyota. He jumped into it, started the motor.
The sun came up.
The Porsche stopped in the middle of the Camden Bridge. Lucy stepped out of it, threw the valise into the river and then her wig. She took another wig from her purse, pulled it on. Now she was a redhead.
She got back into the car and drove off.
The Toyota was half a mile behind her.
She parked the Porsche on Neatrour Avenue, a half-block from the Hugo’s gingerbread donjon, and walked to Lambert Crescent.
The Eye followed her on foot.
The doorman at the Hotel Concorde knew her. ‘Good morning, Miss Granger.’
‘Good morning.’
She went into the lobby, took her key from the desk, and stood with her hands on her hips, waiting for the elevator to come down.
The Eye sank into an armchair in the lounge. The house dick, a clod named Voragine, recognized him and came over, grimacing sourly.
‘What’s the matter with you?’
‘Hello, Voragine.’
‘You look putrid.’
‘I’ve been up all night. Who’s that?’
‘Who?’
‘The redhead there at the elevator.’
‘Name’s Granger. Why?’
‘Very nice.’
‘Eve Granger. From Frisco. She’s a model.’
‘Very nice.’
‘You onto her?’
‘No, no. Just looking. I’m onto something else.’
‘So what can I do for you?’
‘Do you have a Baptist clergyman named Rathbone living here?’
‘Rathbone?’
‘The Reverend Jacob Rathbone.’
‘I don’t think so. Stay put. I’ll check the book.’
He ambled over to the desk. The elevator door closed behind Miss Eve Granger.
He drove to the Carlyle Tower and left the yellow Toyota in the lot. He went down into the basement gym, showered and shaved. Lucy Brentano. Eve Granger. Fuck it! He kept a complete change of clothing in his locker. He put on a clean shirt, a new tie, another suit, fresh socks. He looked into a mirror and saw himself on the front page of a tabloid.
‘DETECTIVE’ HELD AS ACCESSORY! The role of Watchmen, Inc. in this tragic affair still has not been fully clarified. Why, for instance, was a private investigator (above) following the victim on the day of the murder? And how many interested parties were there out on Camden Lake the night Paul Hugo met his death?
Shit!
At nine o’clock he was in Baker’s salon telling lies.
‘Paul Hugo caught a plane to Montreal.’
‘Montreal?’ Baker gawked. ‘When?’
‘Eleven thirty last night. Air Canada Flight 586.’
‘With the girl?’
‘No, all alone.’
‘Goddamn!’
‘He withdrew eighteen thousand dollars from his bank account yesterday afternoon at three forty-five.’
‘What’s he doing in Montreal with eighteen thousand dollars?’
‘No idea.’
‘Well, find out! Get your ass up there right away!’
‘Where?’
‘To Canada!’
‘What about the girl? We still don’t know who she is.’
‘Drop her! Cover the kid. Christ, if we lose him, his parents’ll flip all over me.’
‘Right.’
He went downstairs to his desk, opened the drawer, pocketed his passport, the .45 and clips, and the classroom photo. He decided not to take his razor – he’d buy a new one. He left the office.
He never returned.
At twelve he was back in the lobby of the Hotel Concorde. Voragine came lumbering up to him, his dolt’s face squeezed with annoyance.
‘Now what? I don’t like you comin’ in here all the time sittin’ in the chairs. Y’know?’
‘I’m sorry to bother you, Voragine, but listen.’ He lowered his voice. ‘The Reverend Jacob Rathbone is probably using another name. Do you have anybody here with the same initials?’
‘Same what?’
‘The same initials. J.R.’
‘Could be. I’ll check.’ He went to the desk.
Eve Granger came out of the elevator. She smiled at him as she dropped her key in the font. ‘Hello, Mr. Voragine.’
‘Hi, Miss Granger!’
She went out to the street. The Eye followed her. She crossed Lambert Crescent, turned into Seymour Street.
It wasn’t the same girl he shadowed yesterday. Lucy Brentano had been grave and remote, fair and Saxon, a damsel in a Dresden tapestry, sitting on a rampart, reading the Venerable Bede. Eve Granger was bold and assured, vermilion and Celtic, doelike, bounding over highland brooks. She walked with long, agile strides and seemed to be always about to burst into laughter.
But both girls smoked Gitanes, wore the same silver disc on their throats. And as Eve stood window-shopping at Darcy’s, her hands rose to her hips.
She was all in tan today – jacket, sweater, skirt – and wore ankle boots and carried a sack as huge as a mailbag. She –
She turned abruptly and looked over her shoulder.
The Eye passed her invisibly, lost in the vortex of pedestrians. But no … she wasn’t looking at him. Something across the street had attracted her attention. He glanced at the opposite pavement. There was no one there. Only the crowd.
She bought a newspaper at a kiosk and two pears in a grocery store on Front Street, then went up to Bell Square and sat down on a bench.
The Eye pulled out the Minolta and snapped a picture of her munching a pear and reading the paper. She took a pencil from her pocket, marked a column.
He snapped four more shots of her.
She set the paper aside, finished the pear, got up, walked into South Clinton.
He went over to the bench and picked up the paper. It was folded open at the horoscope section. The Capricorn box was encircled.
Dec 22-Jan 20. This week there
will be good days and bad days,
laughter and tears, joy and
heartache. Luck is still with you,
take advantage of it. If you’re
planning to travel, now is the time.
You have a secret admirer. Be circumspect.
So she and Lucy had the same sign, too.
She went into Stern’s. In the luggage department she bought a small overnight case, then went upstairs to the Femme Chic floor and examined a rack of dresses. She selected a very simple, very expensive dark blue frock and took it into the dressing room and tried it on.
A floorwalker spotted the Eye and closed in on him.
‘Can I help you, sir?’
‘I’m supposed to meet my daughter here. We’re going to buy an evening gown. But I can’t find her.’
‘Do you want me to have her name called on the loudspeaker?’
‘God, no! That would only embarrass her. Thanks anyway. I’ll just stroll around.’
She came out of the dressing room wearing the blue frock. A salesgirl wrapped up the tan outfit and put it in the overnight case.
Her next stop was the Footwear Shop, where she bought a pair of Italian shoes. Wearing them, carrying her boots in the case, she went downstairs to the ladies’ room.
When she emerged she was a brunette!
And at two o’clock she met her next victim.