13

At the Hotel Stratford desk, my clerk-friend, George Jenkins, told me that Li and Claude Marais had gone out together. I sat down in a corner of the small lobby to wait. I hadn’t eaten any breakfast, in a hurry to get to the Salvation Army warehouse store, and the beer I’d had with Jimmy Sung was sloshing in emptiness. George Jenkins sent a bellman out to get me a sandwich.

I’d finished it, was thinking of maybe another, when Li Marais came into the lobby. She was half running, her face chalk white, looking only straight ahead. I didn’t think she was seeing much. Her black hair was down on one side, and she wore her Chinese dress again. A long dress, narrow despite its slits. As I reached her near the elevator, she almost tripped on the confining skirt. I held her arm.

“Li?”

She looked up. “He … Claude …”

That was all she got out. People were watching. I got her into the elevator, and we rode up to the fourth floor. At her door, she fumbled in her bag. I took the bag, found her key, opened the door. Inside, she sat down on the edge of the couch. I closed the door. Her pale face was turned away, hidden by the loose black hair down on one side.

“He went toward the river,” she said, talking to the far wall away from me. “Claude. He walked away from me.”

“Trouble? The river?”

“I don’t know. No, of course not.”

“I should call the police.”

She was silent. “No, let him be with himself. All these years of defeat he has never tried to die. He will not now.”

“Unless something’s changed,” I said.

If she heard me, she gave no sign. “He was to be talked to for a job. A French company here. We walked together. A beautiful day, hot but beautiful. We had lunch outdoors, a small restaurant. We went to the French company. He would not go in. We stood there, and he would not go in. The people on the sidewalk pushed at us, walked around us. Claude turned from the building, walked toward the river. On a side street I begged him to return, talk to the French company. I cried. He said I should leave him, go home to Saigon, I was still young. I said that Saigon was not my home now, could never be. He said then I better find a home, go somewhere, find a man who was alive. He said he wanted to walk alone. He pushed me away when I tried to touch him, slapped me. He walked away from me. Toward the river.”

“Why, Li? Has he done that before?”

She didn’t answer, but she turned, looked toward me. Her small, perfect face was paler than ever. She got up and went into the bathroom. I heard water running. The hotel room was hot and silent with the yellow afternoon sun through the windows. I lit a cigarette and waited. If Claude Marais was going to the river for a reason, I should be calling the police. Sure or not. I didn’t call the police. I smoked and waited in the sunny room.

The water in the bathroom stopped. Li Marais came out. Her black hair was down all around her small face, her skin was no longer pale as if she had freshened in cold water. There was no other change in her. She stood just outside the bathroom door, wearing the long, slim dress.

“Li?” I said. “Is Claude involved in some deal? Something illegal, maybe? Big enough for murder?”

“No.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes. Dan? He walked away from me.”

I said, “Can you be really sure what he’s doing, Li?”

“No, perhaps I can’t. I don’t know. Dan—”

“Did he give something to Eugene, Li? Something Eugene was to hold for him? Something valuable, even dangerous?”

“Perhaps he did. Dan, he said I should find a man.”

“What did he give Eugene, Li? What has he been doing?”

“There was a package. He sent it, I think. From the Congo,” she said. She took a step toward me, one step. “He is not a husband to me. He won’t touch me. Will you, Dan?”

It was her hotel room—and Claude’s. “Here? Li, I—”

“Now,” she said. “If you like me.”

“Claude lives here too, Li. Any time he could come back.”

She walked past me to the outer door, double-locked it, put on the chain. She stood with her back to the door.

“He would expect me to be here, he would not stop for a key at the desk. He would not knock. I might be asleep. He is a kind man. If he did guess, know, I think he wouldn’t really care. Perhaps he would even approve.”

“Do you want to get at him through me, Li?”

“I don’t know. I want to be loved.”

Claude Marais’s wife and rooms. Wrong? No—not right and not wrong, only human. She had her need, so did I. Marty was gone. Some things just are, will be. Claude could walk in on us, but some risks must be, too. I kissed her at the door.

In her bedroom I found out what else she had done in the bathroom. When she took off the long dress, she had nothing on underneath.

Evening when I left, and she was asleep in the bed. She had cried the first time, and talked about all the places they had been, she and Claude, how good he had been then. The second time she cried and talked about herself and all she didn’t understand that was pushing her into darkness. She talked about her childhood in Saigon when she had understood. After the second time, I was in love with her.

I didn’t know if that was good or bad, and she fell asleep in the heat of the early evening, and I left. I knew that the bed had been good—for me and I hoped for her. I wasn’t sure about the love or anything else, except that maybe the crying was good. Maybe she had needed the chance to cry and talk.

I knew I didn’t really want to leave, but somewhere in my mind I was thinking of Claude Marais and the river. In the hotel room I had not thought about Claude or the river. Now I did, and I think I was going to walk to the river. Stupid. If he was in the river, I wouldn’t find him. But he wasn’t in the river.

As I went out into the heat of the street, I saw him coming toward the hotel at a distance. I stepped into a doorway until he had passed and turned into the hotel. He walked slowly, looked at no one. When I stepped out of that doorway I was still in love with Li Marais, but I did not feel good.

I had lost an afternoon of work. I had a murder to work on. Work is an answer.