Julie slept late. Breakfast and lunch were one in the old Spanish kitchen that served as the Cantina. Afterward she walked into the patio, dallied over a cigarette in the bright, hot sun. She didn’t want to leave this pleasant town. She didn’t want to go to Santa Fe. Something held her back, perhaps the grim woman’s final remark: “An unhealthy place.” But the woman had mentioned refugees. That held hope.
She packed, bought the local papers. The New York ones hadn’t caught up with her yet. The locals didn’t mention Maxl’s death. New York was far away. She took the three o’clock bus. It pushed over the highway, past the same scenic barrenness of yesterday’s long train ride, endless flat brown land spotted with scrub trees, barren, low-lying mountains on the far horizons. There was but one town, a half hour out, a Mexican village where some passengers left the bus. In the next hour there was nothing but the barren land, occasionally a small brown mud house, twice filling stations.
The bus went on and on, climbed through a steep cut, and again there was wasteland. The sun was still high when the bus came into the town, past small tin buildings, past beautiful Spanish pueblo buildings, past the long sprawling barracks of an Army hospital. The wheels crawled through narrow, unattractive streets to the tiny bus station.
She took a cab two blocks to La Fonda, the inn at the end of the trail. It had been recommended in Albuquerque. It was large and handsome, a dust-colored building in Spanish and Indian style with terraced roofs, a walled garden. The lobby was not as rich as that of the Alvarado but it was pleasant and spacious, beautifully decorated. It opened to a patio, on either side were covered portals.
She followed the boy down the right-hand portal to the lone elevator. Her room was on third; it was unlike a normal hotel room. The windows, opening to a tiny wooden balcony, were curtained with bright hangings. The furniture was painted in Spanish color and design. She had deliberately taken a higher-priced room; she must appear to be well-to-do, well able to pay, when she made inquiries about Mexico. If what Maxl had insinuated was true, blackbirding wasn’t a political venture—it was for gain.
She unpacked. She must buy one or two dresses. The chambermaid might be inquisitive about an empty closet. She would have to get away quickly. She couldn’t afford to be Julie Guille here for long. At this moment it wasn’t fear driving her, as much as economy. She had lost her imminent fear. The lack of news in the papers, the undisturbed sleep of the night before, her acceptance at face value at both hotels. Above all, being released from what she had believed was the surveillance of the gray man. It had been foolish of her to be suspicious of him simply because he rode the same train west with her. That sort of coincidence was certainly a frequent one with a traveler leaving New York for the West. If he had been from the New York police, he wouldn’t have wasted time on this trip; he would have taken her into custody before the Century departed. She had been silly. Fear created such distortions. Fear magnified curiosity into suspicion. She must remember to keep fear sublimated. Remember the lesson she had learned escaping from France. If you act unafraid, you are not suspected of being afraid.
What actually had she to fear? The agents of Paul Guille? They hadn’t caught up with her in the cities where the representatives of the new order multiplied like rats. They would never have heard of this out-of-the-way village. The F.B.I.? They had not sought her in New York; only if she were brought to their attention would they learn she was an unauthorized visitor. The New York police? Yes. If the identity of the girl with Maxl became known.
But she was certain she had covered her tracks leaving New York. Only by chance would she come into that again. If her name was given she would learn it from the newspapers in time to twist away on another covered trail. There was no imminent fear to face. There was time to breathe, time to make her arrangements with the Blackbirder. Ticklish business but she wasn’t without resources as she had been three years ago. She had learned the tricks of evasion, of escape. She had learned to be sly and wise; she’d learned the animal importance of self-preservation without heed to the method. Only if some uncounted ill fortune touched her, need her plans be changed. If Dana Fortuna would but hold the wheel steady a few more days. . . .
She would gather information about Popin here, write to him to get in touch with Fran, before she departed. And if Popin did live in Mexico, she could see him personally after the blackbirding ship carried her across the border. Together they could work to effect Fran’s release from prison, and his escape too on the Blackbirder’s wings. Her heart beat more quickly. If the Dame were kind, she and Fran would be together so soon.
She was slightly apprehensive of carrying with her any longer the diamonds and the large amount of money. Tickets for escape were seldom bartered for in savory surroundings. No need to add to her burden with fear of possible loss while the hotel safe was below. She removed her money belt, keeping out fifty dollars for current expenses. She rolled the belt neatly, thrust it into her handbag, went down again to the lobby. At the desk she signed a statement, the amount of money, personal jewelry, one necklace. The white-haired woman behind the desk sealed the belt into an envelope, placed it in the safe. She smiled at Julie, “This is your first trip to Santa Fe?”
Julie nodded.
“It has an interesting heritage. There are many things you’ll want to see.” She passed across a folder.
Julie walked out onto the sidewalk. She stood motionless there for a moment and then unaccountably she shivered. It could be the small wind that had crept into the golden afternoon, a warning of the falsity of early spring. It could be that the blueness of sky had become flawed by the faintest brush of cumulus white. She didn’t know. She looked up the street to the right. The cold brown-gray cathedral stood rampant on its terrace, its squat towers dwarfed by the mountains pressing behind them. She turned her head quickly to the left. Beyond the straggle of narrow streets stood another mountain.
Mountains. She shivered again. She didn’t like mountains. The unyielding, unholy mass of inert matter dwarfed human mind and spirit.
She turned swiftly, crossed cater-corner to the barren plaza. It was deserted. The shabby old men huddled together on the soiled stone benches only added to its desolation. They spoke in Spanish to each other. They did not see her. Perhaps in the summer when blades of green might push against the flagstones, perhaps when the trees leafed again, there might be a remnant of the gay festivity here which the word plaza connoted. Perhaps not. It would still face on three sides the motley shops in their old brick buildings. A few were covered over in copy of Indian architecture, the bank shone marble white, but the faded brick dominated.
Julie walked slowly, past the ugly stone monument, to the far corner of the square. This was a grim little town. She hadn’t known it would be so small. She hadn’t known it would be a mountain town. She was familiar with others, in Germany, Switzerland, the Tyrol. Save for language, modifications of architecture, she might again be in one of them. Even in the winter-sports season, she had realized that the gayety was not spontaneous in such villages, it was deliberately generated in defiance of the oppression of nature. The mountains only tolerated man.
She turned on her heel, started back to the hotel. She walked more rapidly now. Lingering in a sinister town was out of the question. She must find the Blackbirder without delay, make arrangements. Get out of this trap. Not only the encirclement of the merciless hills but the very smallness of the village trapped her. If she were followed here, there would be no place where she might hide. Anonymity would be out of the question. If she could set the wheels in motion, it might be better to return to Albuquerque, wait for passage there. She would be safer in a city.
She entered the hotel, grateful for its dim lobby, its room warmth. The white-haired woman was still behind the desk. Impulsively Julie moved to her. She asked, “Have you ever heard of a place—Tesuque?”
The woman smiled. “Tesuque.” Julie’s pronunciation had not been accurate. “It’s about ten miles out. The Tesuque valley. There’s the village and the pueblo.” There was a shade of regret. “Before the war we conducted tours to all the pueblos and places of interest. Now we can’t. But there’s a bus.” She pointed to the folder. “The information is there.”
Julie clutched the unopened pamphlet, was patient until the woman had finished. She said, “Thank you so much.” She hadn’t allowed her face to express the triumph that surged within her. Popin was that near at hand. Everything was simplified. Perhaps she wouldn’t have to flee without Fran. She felt his actual nearness again as she hurried toward the carved wooden doors of the telephone booths. Everything, even her meeting with Maxl and his death which put into her hands the black notebook, was part of a magnificent cosmic plan. Dame Fortuna had twirled the wheel upward. It was meant that Julie find Popin. It was meant that she and Fran after these endless years should be reunited.
She closed herself in the booth, dropped her coin, read the number from Maxl’s notebook: Tesuque 043J3. The operator repeated. Julie heard the three metallic rings. She waited, breathless. The call was answered.
The woman’s voice at the other end of the wire was accented. “Mr. Popin, she ees not here now.”
Julie accepted the deferment. “When will he return?”
“When I don’t know.” The voice shrugged. “He ees gone to Santa Fe for dinner. Maybe tonight later?”
Julie said, “I will call him tomorrow.” She didn’t leave her name. The lazy voice didn’t ask.
She came out of the booth, refusing to admit the keenness of her disappointment. It had been ridiculous to believe that because one sign had been favorable there would be no delay. She knew the maneuvering of escape better than that. The trouble was that the seven months of comparative safety in New York had left her responses rusty.
But those months had had therapeutic value. She was rested, she was calmed, she had a reservoir of physical and mental strength on which she could draw to carry through her escape and now Fran’s as well. She had no doubts that Fran would be at her side winging to a new and safer refuge; if not that, if she were impelled to sudden departure, that he could follow on the next blackbirding flight. Fran. She hadn’t allowed herself the luxury of thinking about him for so long a time. She wouldn’t now. There was too much to be accomplished.
Her watch marked past five thirty. Too early for dinner. A cocktail bar was always the best place to observe those with more money than intelligence. It didn’t matter if it were the Ritz, Paris, or La Fonda, Santa Fe; that verity remained unchanged. The Bible called them prodigal sons, the past knew them as remittance men, today they were playboys. The refugees would be there too, feeding nostalgia with the universal sameness of all bars. The Blackbirder would follow to offer his wares. If he were more elusive than that, a bar would brew loose talk, gossip. The refugees always gossiped. It was a way not to talk of the past. If she were a man and could browse at the bar with constancy, she would learn soon what she wanted to know. As it was she could enter upon occasion, sip and listen. She was confident she would hear the whisperings soon. Maxl had tied the Blackbirder to Santa Fe. If the refugees in New York whispered of him, those here would certainly hold the forbidden knowledge.
La Cantina was off the lobby at left, a small room, Spanish, gay. Great leather chairs were pulled to hand-carved tables, leather couches leaned against the walls. Waitresses swished in bright peasant skirts, embroidered blouses. There were Lantz-green and scarlet murals on the walls and over the bar: cactus, cock fights, dancers, horse races.
Julie moved to a table for two against the wall, sat facing the entrance. A man and a woman, both in blue jeans, were at the table nearest the door. Behind her on the couch by the curtained front window there were two women in city-black, modish hats. Another table held a khaki youth and a young girl. The bar was at her left across the room. Leaning against it was a tubby man in a cowboy hat, a lean empty-faced companion in a larger cowboy hat.
It was all quiet, all pleasant. At the couch facing the bar, his back to her, was a man. The back of his head was patched with gray. His shoulders were gray.
He hadn’t followed her. This time she had followed him. She wasn’t frightened of him. She ordered a Daiquiri. There was no reason why she should not be here. She would sip her iced drink. She wouldn’t hurry. If he saw her, a vague nod. She had demonstrated to him on the train that she had no wish to further acquaintance. He had understood. He hadn’t spoken to her after Kansas City. It was awkward that he had chosen the same town and the same hotel, but no more than that.
The swirling calico skirt brought her drink, placed it. Julie laid a bill on the tray. She kept the corner of one eye on the gray man. He was pushing up from the couch now but he didn’t turn about. He was some four yards away. He moved to the right, still without turning. The pillar hid him. He emerged from it to cross the small clearance toward the door. She could see his profile. She held the cocktail glass to her lips, her eyes ready to lash if he glanced her way. The bright calico skirt bearing a tray crossed him, returning her change. He was halted and in that moment he sighted Julie. She wasn’t prepared; her eyes drooped a fraction too late. He knew she had seen him and he would trespass again. She watched him limp toward her. He stood across the table, his hand on the back of the chair. His mouth wore that small smile, almost an amused smile.
“We meet again.”
Any answer must be provocation or snub. She was silent.
He said, “D’you know, we have met before?”
She spoke without inflection. “On the train.”
“I don’t mean that.” The smile deepened. “I’ve remembered. You’re Julie Guille.”
She set the glass on the table without trembling the liquid. Her eyes were expressionless on his gray ones. “Where did we meet?”
“In Paris.” He laughed. “It must have been the Ritz Bar, of course. You were with your cousin, Fran Guille.”
She stated deliberately, “I don’t remember you.”
“You wouldn’t.” Without asking he’d pulled out the opposite chair, dropped into it. It was done like sleight-of-hand and without seeming intrusion. “You were surrounded by an admiring covey and I was one small visiting fireman. On leave. Even then, it was all of four years ago, I was in the R.A.F.”
She said rather than asked, “You are English.”
“Yes.” He passed cigarettes, American, to her. “You don’t remember, do you? My name is Blaike, Roderick Blaike. My friends call me Blaike, however, never Rod.” He lighted the cigarettes. “I’m again on leave.” His mouth had gone straight. “Had a little crackup over the Channel—my leg—” He touched it. “They tell me I’ll have to relearn flying.”
She asked then, “How do you happen to be in America?”
“I’m recuperating.” There was a moment before he remembered to slant the smile. “How is Fran? With you?”
She answered, “No.”
His brows pointed up. “Not still in Paris?”
She took her time in reply. “I don’t know where he is. I haven’t heard from him for a long time.” She raised her eyes then. “We don’t get much news from Paris now.”
He accepted that with a grave face. “You’re with your aunt and uncle here?”
“As far as I know, they are in France,” she answered brusquely.
She didn’t like this questioning. Maybe he was only a naive young British flyer; maybe not. Gestapo agents, disguised above suspicion, had been instrumental in placing Fran in internment. There were Germans who could pass for British in Whitehall, much more easily in this remote New Mexico town. She could have been led here deliberately by Maxl, his death not part of the pattern. Reports of Paul’s fury at her escape had reached her while she was still in the Paris underground. He had been determined to recover both her person and the de Guille diamonds. The Blackbirder could be Nazi. The whispers about him in New York had always started at the appearance of refugees who could not have entered the United States by legal methods. She rejected, definitely now, the coincidence of this man as a traveling companion.
She finished her drink, scooped up part of the change. “It so happens that I am an American. I do not hear from the Guilles.” She rose, slid her purse under her arm. “There is no word from France since France’s death.”
He apologized, following her toward the door. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean—I know how you must feel—”
She didn’t answer; she didn’t even hear him. Her eyes disbelieved as she hurried forward. Beyond the man blurred in the doorway was another man. It was Jacques Michet.
Julie propelled herself forward, barely excusing herself as she brushed aside the man in the entry. “Jacques!” She ran to him, caught his arms. “Jacques! Jacques!” She could only repeat his name over and over in wonder, in faith.
He appeared thin but fit; his dark curly haircut American; his tight denim Levi’s and blue shirt, New Mexican; huaraches on his feet. His eye lighted for a moment, his lips formed, “Julie,” and then unaccountably both were shuttered. “Pardon?”
She shook him slightly. “Jacques, I haven’t changed that much. It’s Julie. I just can’t believe you’re here.” It was too good for belief. After the years of working alone, to have someone on whom she could depend, who would help. Jacques had been paid by Paul Guille but he had been Fran’s man, Fran’s friend. The Guille heir and the Guille handyman. The gap hadn’t counted. Not with both of them so enamored of planes. That was before planes had become stamped as lethal weapons, when they were incredibly beautiful silver streaks in the sky. Fran had taught Jacques to fly his twoseater. It was the summer when she was fifteen. Fran from his six years of seniority had promised to teach her when she was older. Another summer.
Fran was in prison. But Jacques was free. He would help. “I’ve so much to tell you, Jacques.” She didn’t understand his restraint, then she realized.
The gray man was standing there watching. The man she had brushed in the doorway was also watching. She hadn’t looked on him until now. Slight, no taller than she, with a sad monkey face and a beautiful silken brown beard. It was the exact color of the corduroy jacket he wore. His eyes were brown, cinnamon brown. When she turned he peered and asked, “You have a friend, Jacques?” His voice was gentle.
Jacques spoke formally to Julie. “It has been good to see you, M’mselle. Give my regards to your family.” He took a step away, toward the beard.
She shook her head slightly. She was puzzled but she accepted it. There must be a reason. Her eyes suddenly lifted to the gray man, to that faint amused smile.
The bearded man was in front of Jacques. “Your friend—”
Jacques’s back was to her but she heard his words. “We are late now, Popin.”
“Popin!” She echoed it aloud.
He had sidestepped Jacques. “I am Popin.”
She was delighted. “But amazing! I tried to reach you by phone only a little while ago. The—maid?—said you were in Santa Fe for dinner.”
“So I am.”
“For dinner with me,” the gray man said. “Mr. Popin, I am Roderick Blaike.”
Popin’s laughter was unrepressed. His long fingers gestured to one and to the other. “It couldn’t happen.” He shook his beard. “No carnation in the buttonhole. No seeking a face for a name. We meet. We are all friends. That easy it is. We will dine together? Miss—?”
Jacques spoke. His face was a graven thing. “She is Julie Guille.”
“Yes?” If there was a flicker of surprise behind the silken beard it was swathed. “And you are an old friend of my friend Jacques? How pleasant. A reunion. Mr. Blaike, you do not object if the young lady joins us for dinner?”
Popin didn’t know Blaike, the meeting was of strangers. He distrusted the gray man too, obviously; otherwise he would have mentioned Fran. She didn’t want to dine with Blaike but possibly he could be eluded after dinner. If there could be granted just one moment alone with the bearded man, to speak Fran’s name, to hear it spoken.
“I’d be delighted,” Blaike said. He might have been laughing at her. He looked from his height down into her face. “You will join us, Miss Guille?”
“Certainly.”
Jacques stood apart.
Popin said, “The New Mexican room is most pleasant. There are delicate frescoes of Olive Rush. And in this—our new country—there is yet sufficient food.” His voice muted. “We are the fortunate ones.” He raised his cinnamon eyes. “I too am a refugee.” His head turned. “Jacques—”
Jacques said unsmiling, “I have important errands, Popin. You remember. You will excuse me.”
“But dinner first. You must eat something.”
“Something I will eat. But first the list for Spike—and other more important things.” He did not wait for response. His huaraches clicked across the lobby.
Popin shrugged his hands. “You knew him well before, Miss Guille?”
“He worked for my guardian, Paul Guille.” She made a little face. “I’ve known him since I was a child—but not too well.” Evidently. She didn’t understand. True, she had not known Jacques well but Tanya—Tanya was his wife. It was Tanya who had affected her escape out of France. Jacques knew; he must have known. And he knew her love for Fran.
A stringed orchestra in the velvet garb of Spanish grandees strummed outside the dining room door. The room was pleasant, quiet, pastel on the walls and pillars: a delicate faun, a warm gray squirrel, white blossoming cactus. Popin led to a banco against the wall, placed her beside Blaike there. He took the chair across the narrow, painted table. His fingers touched the fat white of the candle. “You have only just arrived, Miss Guille?”
“This afternoon.”
“Funny thing.” Blaike beckoned the wine boy. “You’ll have a drink before we order dinner?” Julie refused. Popin said, “Bourbon if you please.” Blaike gave the order. “Funny. Miss Guille and I traveled from New York together.”
She scotched it quickly, her eyes warning the bearded. “On the same trains.”
Blaike laughed pleasantly. “Yes. Funnier still, I’d met her in Paris years ago, with her cousin, Fran Guille.” Popin didn’t move an eyelash. “I didn’t get it remembered until a while ago.” Blaike suggested from the menu. The starched white waitress wrote the order.
Popin laid his fingertips together. He spoke modestly. “What I do not understand, Mr. Blaike, is how you happen to hear of my painting back there in New York.” His accent was definite, not definable.
“I’ve always been interested in modern art. Cigarette?” He was playing the host, easily, practicedly. “A fellow I knew there told me about your work. With great enthusiasm, I might add.” He hesitated. “I’m on leave, R.A.F. Recuperation by travel, that sort of thing. I decided to drop off here and look you up.”
He was lying. She knew that. It was no sudden decision to drop off here; he had come deliberately as the crow would fly. Popin knew he was lying. He asked with incredible gentleness, “Who was this fellow you know? Did he know me?”
Blaike finished lighting Julie’s cigarette. He blew out the match, laid it in the diminutive brim of a clay sombrero. He said, “His name was Maximilian Adlebrecht.”
She was as quiet as the small painted burro on the wall. She made no waste gesture with her cigarette nor with an eyelash. He knew. He had known all the time. He was waiting, the way the mountains were waiting, for something, and she did not know for what. She could only wait too. She could not ask.
Popin was turning the name unfamiliarly on his tongue. “Adlebrecht. Maximilian Adlebrecht.” He was apologetic. “One meets so many.”
“Young fellow,” Blaike said. “Good broth, what?” He tested again. “He was here last autumn, I believe.”
“A German?” There was a faint suspicion in the question.
“Refugee,” Blaike said.
“I do not know,” Popin decided promptly. He began to eat as if he were very hungry. He repeated, “One meets so many. He told you of my work?”
“Yes. He was well pleased with it. I was hoping you’d be good enough to allow me to look at it.”
“Perhaps it can be arranged,” Popin murmured. He put his napkin to his beard. His head tilted at Julie. “You too are interested in my work?”
She wasn’t certain what the answer should be. He was trying to convey to her something beyond the words but she knew too little to decipher the message. It was necessary to fence, neither rejecting nor accepting until she became wiser. “I’m afraid I don’t know much about modern art. I was toured through quantities of galleries in Paris, of course, but no one bothered to explain to me what were the requirements of quality. As far as I could judge it was all based on fashion, and as tenuous as that.”
Popin was smiling under his beard. “You do not know much, do you?”
She shook her head. “I’m the blank page.” Her eyes held his a moment. “Really a find for an artist. And certainly I’d like to see your work, Mr. Popin. But I warn you in advance my personal taste is Rembrandt.”
“You could not go wrong.” He attacked his plate again.
Blaike emerged from his. His eyebrows were puzzled. “You must have known Maxl in Paris, Julie.”
“Paris is a large city.” She raised soft blue eyes at him, deliberately innocent eyes. “My circle was limited.” She was casual as a breath. “This—the fellow was Ritz Bar?”
He wasn’t. He’d been poor. Studio parties, free lectures, music—how had she happened to know him? The Russian choreographer? The Spanish guitarist? Some toast of the town who had crept from the fringes.
“You should remember him,” Blaike insisted. “Young fellow. Rather good-looking in a dark way. Neat dresser.” He was describing the New York Maxl. She listened without expression. He stated deliberately, “He was a friend of Fran’s.”
He wasn’t. Fran’s friends were not poor students. The corners of her mouth taunted but her voice was milk-mild. “Fran is quite a bit older than I, almost six years. I didn’t know many of his friends.” She asked a question lightly. “You knew this”—she forced her lips to form the name—“this Maxl in Paris?”
He answered slowly, “No, I didn’t. I ran into him in New York.” His gray eyes were cold as granite. “It was he who told me he was a friend of Fran Guille’s.”
She dismissed the subject. “Fran had too many friends.” She saw him suddenly, tall, dark, gallant, always gay. Her heart wrenched. Fran in prison. A falcon caged.
Something must have flickered in her face. Blaike said, “Sorry. I forgot.” He turned to Popin. “Miss Julie hasn’t heard from her cousin. She believes he is still in France.” There was something ironical in the intonation.
She touched the cold of her dessert. Could it be he was looking for Fran? Had he too learned that the bearded man was Fran’s friend? Was that, not an interest in art, what brought him here? She couldn’t warn Popin to say nothing. She could only pray that intuitive sensitivity would allow him to realize the danger of discussing Fran with an inquisitive stranger. If the gray man were after Fran, from what source did he stem? Not the British secret service, no matter the accent, the pretense of R.A.F. affiliation. Not the F.B.I. That organization would know that Fran was already in custody. She faced it with cold terror. It could only be the Gestapo. Had word somehow failed to reach headquarters that their American agents had put Fran in prison camp? Their men, masked as loyal Americans, bearing false witness against Fran, linking him with Paul’s sedition. It was possible. How long had he been locked up? At least a year. But if those agents had been unmasked, and also put away? This was credible. But why would they seek Fran, why wish to harm him? Why? Paul Guille was a collaborationist. Why would the Nazis believe his son a danger to them? Fran had been in the United States before the war began. He hadn’t been in Paris to bore against the reign of horror. Why? Unless the Gestapo had ferreted the secret which she and Fran alone shared. If they had learned, he was in danger because of her. But she was in graver danger.
She faced that, meticulously spooning the faint mauve ice. Why hadn’t the gray man moved against her before now? The answer came with shocking certainty. Because he didn’t know where Fran was. He believed that she knew. He was waiting for her to lead him to Fran. The gray man was not coincidentally on the train west. But how could he have known she would take that train—she hadn’t known herself! Unless she had been followed from the apartment that night, followed all the next day. Her spoon clicked against her teeth. She couldn’t have been. She would have known. But she realized with sinking heart that she wouldn’t have known. The months of inaction had dulled her perceptions. She put down the spoon. It made a definite sound against the china plate. She bent forward toward the gray man. “Maximilian Adlebrecht? Is that correct?”
His eyebrows pointed in mild surprise. He nodded.
“You saw him shortly before you left New York?”
Again he nodded.
Her eyes narrowed. She held a cigarette carelessly between her fingers. “It’s rather an unusual name in this country. I wonder. I read in the New York papers of the death of a man of that name.” She opened her eyes wide now on Blaike’s face. It expressed nothing.
It was Popin who asked huskily, “Maximilian Adlebrecht is dead?”
Blaike’s statement was sharp. “Yes, he is dead. He died the night before I left New York.”
Julie said, “I’m sorry.”
“You needn’t be,” Blaike said.
It was Popin who pressed on, his beard sagging down on the soft brown coat. “How did he come to die?”
Blaike looked at her. Her eyes did not falter. It was he who turned his head, explained, “I know little about it. A friend told me over the phone. I was packing then to leave. We were only chance acquaintances. He was found dead.”
Julie said cruelly, “He was shot in the back. At close range, the story said.”
Popin’s soft eyes closed for a moment.
Blaike asked, “You remember him now?”
The brown head nodded. “Yes. I remember him sooner. A young man who would not wish to die.” His voice was metallic. “He had escaped from France.”
Sorrow for the bearded little man, sorrow even for Maxl, hatred for the gray man and for what he stood for emerged from her. She said, “None of us wish to die. No one wishes to die. But there are those who have been bred to kill, who—” She broke off. “I’m sorry. I too escaped from France.”
Popin touched his beard. He didn’t speak. He looked old. He pushed back from the table. “I must not miss the return ride that waits for me.”
“I was about to suggest a liqueur.” Blaike was bland.
The head shook. “If I miss the ride, it is a long walk to Tesuque. There are not many rides these days.”
“What about seeing your work? Soon.”
“Yes. My work. Soon.” He was being put together again. The three moved from the table, crossed to the portal. “Tomorrow night? That is soon enough? You dine with me?”
“Good enough. How do I get there?”
“You catch the Tesuque bus outside the hotel. Someone will show you where. Jacques will meet you at the filling station, bring you to my house. And you, Miss Julie? You too wish to come see my work tomorrow?”
“For dinner then. I will expect you.”
She could phone Popin in the morning, make wiser arrangements. The less said before the gray man the better. They spoke good night in the lobby, watched the stooped brown figure vanish down the steps to the side entrance. She held out her hand to Blaike. “Thank you for dinner, and good night.”
He held her withdrawing fingers. “You’ve no ride to catch. A liqueur?”
“No thank you. I’m tired.” Her hand was free.
“As a matter of fact, so am I. The westward journey wasn’t exactly luxury travel.” He walked beside her as if without deliberate thought. She crossed to the newsstand. The bread-and-butter local sheet. The New York papers. Sunday’s editions on Tuesday.
Blaike said, “You’re quite a reader, aren’t you?”
She didn’t answer that. He was beside her in the portal. It seemed casual. At the elevator she would extend her hand, speak definite good night.
He gestured to the papers. “Typical New Yorker. Were you there long?”
“Not very.” She had no information to offer him. “But I don’t find much world-news coverage in the local products. And, of course, the Sunday papers are more than just newspapers; they’re a well-stocked library.”
“Rather.”
The pretty, dark-haired girl, Spanish blouse, wide peasant skirt, opened the elevator door. Julie’s hand was ready. Blaike said, “I’m on third. You?”
She didn’t appear disturbed. “Third, too.”
They rode up in silence, in silence left the elevator. Julie half turned to the Spanish girl, wanting to clutch the red skirt, to cling. The elevator door closed in her face.
She turned left. He walked beside her. Her hands knotted over the papers.
Halfway down the corridor he said, “I stop off here. I can’t tempt you with a nightcap?”
“Not tonight, thank you.” She was alert, waiting a move.
But his key turned in the lock of 346. He opened his door. “Good night then. See you tomorrow.” He went inside, his smile closed the door.
That was the end of today. She was actually weakened from relief as she proceeded down the corridor across to the right, 351. Her key was in her handbag, she hadn’t turned it in to the desk earlier. She fumbled for it, her elbow holding the heavy Sunday papers awkwardly.
“Julie!”
It was a whisper. She started, then tautness held her. She felt someone moving in behind. She stepped away from the door as she swerved. It was Jacques, his face hunted.
“Julie, quick. Open the door.”
Her fingers had found the key. She passed it to him. He went inside swiftly. She followed, flicking the switch just inside. He closed the door with a thud. Even in room light his face was green as it had been in the dim corridor. He pointed across the room. “Pull the curtains, Julie. Close the windows.”
She didn’t question. She knew livid fear; she had experienced it herself. She dropped the papers on the bed as she crossed. She fastened the windows leading to the small balcony, automatically her eyes looked down into the street. It was empty. She pulled the draperies across the panes. She turned then. “No one in sight. What is it, Jacques?”
He wiped the back of his hand across his forehead. He looked young and ragged but he wasn’t. Someone must have broken him before he reached refuge.
She urged. “Sit down.” His knees were wavering.
He spoke mechanically in his own tongue. “I do not believe I was observed coming here. I do not believe I was followed. I went most carefully.” He seemed to see her now. “Julie.” His muted voice was sharp. “You must go. Go quickly. You must not remain here. You are in danger. Terrible danger, Julie.” His eyes were impassioned.
“I know.” She sat down on the edge of the bed, flung off her hat. “I know,” she repeated. She didn’t know how he knew. He must have recognized the gray man.
“Why then did you come here?”
She hesitated. “I had to come here.” She said steadily, “It is important that I find the Blackbirder.”
He seemed to shrivel before her. His head turned, hunted over his shoulder. He edged the chair in order that his back was not to the door.
“You’ve heard of the Blackbirder? Certainly you have. All refugees have. Even in the East.” She chose words carefully. “I do not want to involve you, Jacques. It is better you do not know why I am running away. Only that I must.”
He swallowed with difficulty. “That only is why you came? To find the Blackbirder and to go away?”
He knew the Blackbirder. It was in his inflection. She said, “If he will take me across the border into Mexico—I have the money to pay—that is all I want, Jacques.” She lowered her voice eagerly. “It can be arranged?”
“I do not know. Why do you think I know?” His words trembled and he wet his lips. “What makes you think I might know?”
“Don’t you know, Jacques?” She laughed a little. She felt so certain, so free from fear in the face of his. “How long have you been here in Santa Fe that you do not know? His headquarters are here. I learned that in New York. He does not ask questions. If I have the fare I can leave without questioning. You must heard of him, if you have been here—”
“Almost two years now,” he said dully.
“Then certainly you know. You have heard of him.” Her glance was oblique. “Perhaps you can tell me how I can be put in touch with him?”
He didn’t look at her.
“His name?”
He said doggedly, “That is why you came. Only for that? You do not intend to stay here? You wish only to go away quickly? That is all?”
“That is all. Don’t you see, Jacques, I must go quickly? You said it yourself. I’m not safe here. There is one small thing I must attend to. That I will do tomorrow. Then as soon as I find the Blackbirder, I must go.”
His voice scratched. “What is this one small thing?”
“It’s Fran.”
“Fran?” Terror shrouded him again.
“He’s in prison, Jacques.” she said quickly. “An internment prison for dangerous aliens. The Gestapo put him there. Some who were disguised, above suspicion. They—they framed him. That’s the American word—you understand it? Somehow they did it. False accusations, false information.” Her voice beat against the gray mask Jacques had laid across his face. “I can’t leave him there to suffer. I don’t care how decently he’s treated, it’s indecent to be locked up. Like an animal. Caged. Helpless. I know.” Her voice whispered the horror. “I was locked up once in Paris.”
She steeled the words. “Did you know that? I was locked up. Paul did it. So I couldn’t get away.” She wasn’t looking at him, not speaking to him now. “I was always afraid of Paul. I didn’t know it but I was. There was something cruel in him, the way a beast would be cruel, not for any reason, just because he is. He came to my room in the night. It was the night of Monday, June tenth. Do you remember that night, Jacques? The night Italy marched. Where were you? Somewhere on the front fighting. No, not fighting. The generals wouldn’t let you fight, would they? They made you lay down your weapons. The Maginot Line had been broken. We knew it was the end. I told them at dinner, Uncle Paul and Aunt Lily, that I was going to leave Paris before it was too late. I wasn’t going to stay to be bestialized by the Nazis. If Paul and Lily wouldn’t go with me, I’d leave alone.”
After trying to erase it for three years, the memory was still brutally vivid. “Paul came to me in the night. I didn’t know what he was going to do. I was afraid to go with him. But if I hadn’t he would have laid hands on me. I was more afraid of his hands. I went—up—up—he was behind me on the stairs. I don’t know where Aunt Lily was. I don’t know if she knew.” She pushed the damp hair away from her forehead. “In the very top attic there was a slant room with a tiny dormer window. I’d never been in it. You could just see the Boulevard far below. He told me the Nazis would march there on Thursday afternoon.” Her eyes closed. “He knew the day. The very hour.”
Jacques’s face was empty.
“He locked me in there.” She pressed back the nausea. “He came at night and brought food. Once I tried to break past him. He struck me.” She let out her breath slowly. “The third day—I heard the planes first, then the machines, and then—the feet of marching men, thousands of them, little gray things far below—like ants.” She steadied her voice. “I thought Paul had left me there. For the ants.”
She had to touch the bedstead now, to know the reality of solid form. She had to wait before she could continue.
“That night Tanya came for me. The house was full of Nazi officers. They were having a victory dinner.” Her voice was dust. “Paul and Aunt Lily were with them, drinking toasts, laughing. I saw them. Tanya got me out of that house, through the streets, into an underground. She started me on my way to freedom. She wouldn’t come with me. She said her work was there.”
He spoke now. His voice was empty. “Tanya is dead.”
It was a moment before the import of it smote her. “Dead?”
He said it again. “She is dead.”
“They killed her.” She spoke with tight throat. “Didn’t they? They killed her because of me. That was it, Jacques?”
“She helped many.”
“It was because of me. Wasn’t it?” Her voice sharpened to pierce through his lethargy. “Wasn’t it?”
He saw her again. His eyes turned on her. “Yes. The Duc was angry. Because you escaped. Because you took the money, and the necklace, the de Guille diamonds.”
“She—” She couldn’t speak Tanya’s name, not without her voice trembling. “She took the money for me. Paul was wise. He had filled his house with francs while the banks were operating. We didn’t take much. It was all mine.”
Her voice rose. “My money supported all the Guilles, for years, since I was a child. That’s why Paul had himself declared my legal guardian, so he could have my income without report, for his own purposes.”
Even the diamonds were hers. She had bought them over and again. They hadn’t been out of pawn for fifty years before the Guilles found her. She hadn’t taken them for that reason. It had been in order that the pride, the ancestral treasure, of the Guilles, wouldn’t fall into the desecrating hands of the Nazis. Frozen with fear, trembling through the darkened upper stories of the house, she had halted Tanya while she slipped into Aunt Lily’s room, filched the necklace from the familiar blue velvet box. Paul had brought it home from the vaults the day war was declared. Stealing? Not then. She who was escaping would act as their custodian. That was before, peering through the banisters, she saw that scene she could never forget. Emeralds in the gilt of Aunt Lily’s hair, the gold green of her Patou model. Paul’s waxen toupee, waxen mustache, above his white tie. Nazis in dress uniform and grating medals. The acrid scent of champagne. The shame of laughter.
She turned on Jacques fiercely, as if he had spoken. “Certainly they supported me. They kept me. I was their kept child. I thought I had everything. I had. Everything but freedom. I could say and do anything and go anyplace I wanted as long as it was what they wanted. They kept me stupid, ignorant, so that I wouldn’t know. I’ve learned in three years.” She halted her words. This personal problem couldn’t interest him—more important things had laid their weight. She demanded, “Paul gave Tanya over to them?”
“I didn’t know,” Jacques said. “I came back to Paris. I went to the Duc again. For work. I didn’t know he was searching for Tanya.” His voice was iron. “I killed her. I led them to her.” He didn’t ask sympathy; he told Julie, “I killed her.”
“No.”
“They put her in a concentration camp. They tried to find out where you were. She didn’t know. They didn’t kill her right away. They didn’t kill her until—until she was dying.”
She whimpered, “Jacques. How do you know these things?”
His mouth was vicious. “The Duc told me. When he was trying to convince me I should do a task for him.”
“That is why you are here. To find me.”
He said simply, “You were Tanya’s friend. I would not hurt a hair of your head, Julie. You were kind to her.”
“I?”
“Don’t you remember? You protected her from the Duc’s anger?”
She hadn’t remembered. It wasn’t kindness; it was what anyone would have done. When Tanya first came to work for the Guilles. Julie had stepped between Paul’s cane and the girl. Julie hadn’t been more than fourteen years at the time. She hadn’t thought of it in years. The cane had left a red wedge on her face for days. Her fear of him must have come after that scene; there was none in her when she threatened she would leave his house forever, go to the trustees in America, if he dared touch Tanya again. Julie had won. He wasn’t going to let her money escape him. But he had held hatred since that day for a child’s defiance of him. There had been residue of that hate when he gave Tanya to torture.
She said now, “It was I who killed Tanya.” And she knew with certainty one thing: she herself would see that Paul answered for Tanya’s death.
Jacques shook his head. “She helped many to escape. She knew the risk. That was her work, what she remained in France to do. They called her a Communist. They said that was why she was arrested. She wasn’t. She’d never even been to a Popular Front meeting. She was a Frenchwoman.”
Jacques and Tanya had been married just before he went away to war. They hadn’t known the war would be so short. They hadn’t dreamed he would be the one left to mourn.
Julie was deliberately matter-of-fact. “Paul sent you to find me.”
“No. He sent me to help Fran.”
“He knew that Fran was in prison?” But of course he would. Fran would write his father for help. Fran didn’t know that Paul’s allegiance was to the Axis. Fran should have known as she should have known. The Croix de Feu meetings in the Guille ballroom. Later the Francistes. The dark oily little man with blubber lips. But his name hadn’t been synonymous with traitor then. And she and Fran were young.
No, Paul wouldn’t allow Fran, the beloved son, to waste in prison. Even the Nazis wouldn’t be as important as his son. Paul was sly. He would attempt to play this hand along with the other hand.
“Have you found him? Do you know where he is, Jacques?” She wouldn’t let Paul help Fran; she would do this alone. Paul mustn’t put his smear on Fran. He was tarred with Fascistic France. “We will arrange his escape. Guards always can be bribed. I have the diamonds—”
“Julie.” He interrupted, half out of his chair. “What is that?”
She lifted her head. She had heard nothing. He gestured to the door, slipped behind the chair, against the wall. There was a rap. He gestured again. She saw that in his hand was a gun.
She walked steadily but slowly toward the door. There must be no trouble here, nothing to call attention to her. Whoever was there must be handled without violence. She opened the door a little, closing her hand tightly over the knob. She hadn’t force to hold it against the gray man.
He pushed into the room. “I wondered if you were through reading your Trib—” He broke off, raised his eyebrows. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know you had company. Particularly a gunman.”
“Put it away, Jacques. It disturbs Mr. Blaike.” Her lips curved without smiling. “You remember Mr. Blaike, of course.” She looked up at him. “Jacques was showing me how to handle the revolver in case—in case the need for such information should arise. One never knows.”
Jacques thrust the gun into his hip pocket but he didn’t remove his eyes from the gray man. Not while he was saying to Julie, in English now, “I will go. Tomorrow I will see you. Yes, tomorrow. Tomorrow we will conclude this conversation. Tomorrow.” He didn’t walk to the door. He edged, never once moving the black of his pupils from the intruder. There was moisture on his temples. It shone under the light. The door closed on him.
The gray man’s eyebrows quizzed her. “Your friend doesn’t like me.”
She said slowly, “Why did you come here?”
“Isn’t it a bit dangerous to entertain a man with a gun at this hour in a strange hotel?”
“I have known Jacques for years. He wouldn’t harm me. He was a retainer of my uncle’s in Paris.”
“Do servants usually address the young lady of the house by her first name?”
“I was a little girl when I first knew Jacques. I hated being Missed. It was stuffy. Un-American.”
“You are an American?”
“Surely your good friend, Fran, told you that?” She turned her back on him, walked to the windows, pushed aside the curtains, and opened them wide. The street below was a black, flickering side way, deserted.
“I wasn’t interested in your nationality.” Blaike made it provocative.
She ignored that, taking a cigarette from the table. “My father and mother were both American. They died when I was young. Lily Guille, my mother’s sister, raised me.”
He seemed dubious. Mention of her father, Prentiss Marlebone, would dissipate that. She must forget the name Marlebone. She lit the cigarette, blew out the match. “May I say good night now? I have not read the news, as you can see. Tomorrow I shall be happy to lend you the Herald Tribune. Meanwhile you have satisfied your curiosity about my visitor.”
Blaike didn’t move. He didn’t wipe the amusement from his face. “You win,” he announced. “You won’t have it according to Queensberry rules. You want it straight. Very well. I didn’t come to borrow the paper. I didn’t even come to see who was your visitor. I thought he would have departed long ago. Oh yes, I knew you had one, although the light was too poor and my door open too slightly to get a good look. I came here to ask you an important question. Who steered you on to Popin?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Where did you hear of Popin?”
She took the cigarette away from her lips. “I could say that that is not any of your affair. It isn’t, you know. However”—she took her time—“I see no reason why your curiosity shouldn’t be satisfied. I heard of Popin through a friend of mine many months ago. In a letter. Popin was also a friend of this person’s. When I came to Santa Fe, knowing no one, I decided to look him up. I didn’t realize he was supposed to be a secret.” If you mixed truth with lies and added a touch of arrogance, the lies would hold.
He was digesting it. She thought that he was satisfied. But his gray eyes were sharp when he asked, “And why did you come to Santa Fe?”
She had that ready. “I was tired of New York. Cold. Damp. I wanted some sunshine.” She lifted the cigarette. “That also is none of your business, Mr. Blaike.”
“It takes money to traipse around the country.”
She was quick with anger. “Just what right have you to question me?”
“The right of self-protection.” He took a stride into the room. She made a backward move closer to the windows. “I came here to see Popin on business. I’m not having any queering of that game.”
She didn’t understand. If he were a Gestapo agent meaning to harm Fran, he wouldn’t warn her and leave her to report to the authorities. What more could he do here? They were both strangers; they had been seen together at dinner. Jacques could tell of Blaike’s presence in this room.
She tried to make her laughter a reassurance. “I merely wanted to make a friend. Truly it’s not business with me. I don’t want to buy any of Popin’s paintings. I’m not in the least intrigued with modern art.”
He said brusquely, “Nor am I.” His face held suspicion. “You don’t know Popin’s real stock in trade?”
“You mean he isn’t a painter?”
“He is a painter. He is also a station master. I suppose you’ve never heard of the Blackbirder.”
She sublimated her triumph. If Popin was the Blackbirder, it would be so simple. The Blackbirder and Fran’s friend in one. Too simple. Her original suspicions of the gray man flooded back upon her. She knew he wasn’t an Englishman; she had known that all evening. She had had too many British friends. The accent and intonation were true enough. Those qualities were easily acquired by anyone with an ear. Roderick Blaike’s idiom was American. He could be a German-American, loyal to Hitler. He could be a member of the F.B.I. The bureau which had unjustly interned Fran would be suspicious of any Guille. Even if it didn’t know that Julie Guille was Juliet Marlebone who had been with Maximilian Aldebrecht five minutes before he was shot down. Worse, this man had known Maxl.
She flaunted her lies. “Blackbirder? Who or what is a blackbirder? And why should I know about it?”
He believed her anger, her ignorance. He held a vestige of suspicion, but he believed. He was easier now. “You don’t know your country very well, do you? The blackbirders flourished in certain dark pages of history. They smuggled men out of one country and into another. Strictly speaking they were slavers. They shipped blacks out of Africa and into America. Not a very savory business.”
“You mean to tell me that sort of thing goes on again today?”
He said, “No, my dear. The modern Blackbirder doesn’t deal in slaves. He deals in refugees. Men without a country and in need of one, or the quite accurate facsimiles thereof. Now do you understand?”
She put out the cigarette. “I’m afraid I don’t. And I don’t see what you have to do with it.”
“Don’t you? It’s the one way of getting into Mexico without fanfare. I’ve always wanted to see Mexico.”
She shrugged. “It seems the hard way to go about it. And really I’m not interested in your travels.”
His smile widened his face. “And as you told me hours ago, you’re tired. You doubtless are by now.” He turned to the door. “You still intend to go to Popin’s for dinner tomorrow night?”
It could have been a warning, She ignored it. Her eyes were placid. “Certainly I do. If it makes any difference to you, I promise I won’t interfere with your business discussion. I shall study the paintings while you are in conference.” She let one small arrow fly. “And I don’t listen outside of doors.” She didn’t know if it struck target. She didn’t know if he had heard her conversation with Jacques. They had spoken in French. Doubtless French was one of Blaike’s linguistic accomplishments, along with English and American. Whether he was Gestapo or F.B.I., he wouldn’t be put on the Guille trail unless he was versed in that language.
He said, “Good night.” After he had closed the door, she moved from the windows.
The papers she had hungered these hours to open were disappointing. The story had moved far inside. The police were still waiting for the cab driver to appear. There was no mention of the Yorkville rathskeller or of a girl who had been there with Maxl only four nights ago.