Michael Collins - Shadow of a Tiger

I reached the next corner. The street sign high on its lamppost read: 10th Avenue-19th Street. I knew where I was. I ran left again down Nineteenth Street toward the condemned building where Charlie Burgos and his boys had taken me. Before the black car and Gerd Exner could follow, I jumped down into a sunken areaway in front of an Italian market. With any luck, Exner would think I was going back to the condemned building, and drive past me.

He did. The black car went on down the street toward the condemned building. It was all the break I needed. I knew where I was now, I’d gained a few moments, and Exner had lost sight of me.

I slipped along the dark streets back to my office.

This time no one was waiting for me in my office. I locked my door, just in case. Gerd Exner would know by now where my office was. All right, what did the ex-Legionnaire want? With me, or with Charlie Burgos, or both? What did Charlie Burgos want? With Charlie Burgos it was probably money. It was probably money with Gerd Exner too. Or was one of them a man who had killed, and who wanted me silent?

I heard the man coming up the stairs outside my office. He wasn’t trying to be quiet. I got out my old cannon anyway, put it on my desk in plain sight. The man in the corridor could be going to some other office on my floor. A shuffling walk, like the furtive customers of the old men across the corridor with their funny pictures. But the old men wouldn’t be open this late, so I watched my door.

The knob turned. I waited. A voice called out: “Mr. Fortune?”

Jimmy Sung’s voice-sober, as far as I could tell. I got up and unlocked the door. Jimmy Sung came in. I checked the corridor. Jimmy seemed to be alone. I sat down at my desk. Jimmy Sung stood and looked at my big gun. He wasn’t drunk the way he had been this morning, but he wasn’t sober, either. A liquor shine to his eyes, a faint swagger to his stance, but not swaying or shaking. The alcoholic plateau, where, with a drink every so often, the alkie can function for hours as if perfectly sober. Maybe better.

“I went to the shop,” Jimmy said, not slurring. “There was a package, you know? Like I said, maybe Mr. Marais was holding something for that Claude, and I remembered the package. In the safe. I remembered seeing it out the night Mr. Marais got killed. On a shelf in the back room.”

“As if he was planning to give it to someone that night?”

“I don’t know, but it ain’t around the shop now.”

“It wasn’t on the list of what the robber took.”

“It wasn’t on no inventory, see? Just holding it.”

“No idea what might have been in it, Jimmy?”

“Mr. Marais never said. I ain’t even sure it was Claude’s.”

“Can you describe it?”

“Brown paper, waxed black string, about the shape of a shoe box. Mr. Marais’s name was on the outside in black ink.”

“It was addressed? You mean someone had mailed it to Mr. Marais? From where?”

“No, not mailed. No stamps. Hand-delivered, I guess. Kind of a label on it from some place in Africa, I think.”

I reached for my telephone, dialed the number of the Hotel Stratford, asked for room 427. Li Marais’s soft voice answered.

“Li? It’s Dan.”

A silence. Then her voice again, low, “Dan, no. I’ll-”

“I have to talk to you now, Li.”

“No, Dan, I cannot. Later, I will call you.”

“Sorry, it’s business, you understand. I’ll come there.”

“Claude is here!”

“Yeh,” I said. “Don’t run away on me, Li.”

I hung up. “Let’s go, Jimmy.”

I didn’t wait for the elevator. My clerk-friend said something I didn’t hear as I went past, and Jimmy Sung was puffing when we reached the fourth floor and room 427. Claude Marais opened the suite door.

“Mr. Fortune?”

I went in past him, with Jimmy silent behind me. Claude Marais looked at Jimmy, then at me. Those slow, deliberate movements of his, as if even to bother to breathe was a wearying effort. For a moment, I wondered if he knew-about me, and Li, and the afternoon. There was something about his eyes. He said nothing, and I had more important matters to worry about.

Li was sitting in a far corner near the windows, almost hiding. She saw Jimmy, and smiled. It was a weak smile. She didn’t smile at me. She and Claude weren’t alone. Viviane Marais sat on a couch. It had all the look of an urgent family conference. The murdered Eugene’s widow was out of her black, in a wine red dress that took ten years off her age. She was smoking, didn’t rush to welcome me.

“You have something to talk about, Mr. Fortune?” Viviane Marais said.

“A lot. Jimmy’s been cleared.”

The widow nodded toward Jimmy Sung. “So I see. That was good work. You must give me your bill.”

“When the work is finished,” I said.

“Of course,” she said. That was all. She smoked.

Claude Marais had come to stand near the widow. Somehow, they fitted better than Claude did with Li, small and Oriental in her corner. Or maybe that was my reflex prejudice.

I said, “You sent a package to Eugene, right, Claude?”

“No, I sent nothing.”

“From the Congo. Size of a shoe box, brown paper. Eugene had it in his safe, I know that. You sent it, I know that.”

Claude looked at me, and then, slowly, toward his wife in the far corner. Li Marais lowered her eyes. Claude shrugged.

“It was nothing important, African trinkets,” he said. “A small present for Eugene.”

“He wasn’t holding it for you? You gave it to him?”

“Yes, of course.”

“But he never opened it, right? You sent a small present all the way from the Congo, months ago, and Eugene just kept it in the safe unopened?”

Claude Marais said nothing. Li was still studying the floor under her tiny feet. I remembered those feet, small and bare. Viviane Marais watched us all like a perched hawk.

“Where’s that package now, Claude?” I said. “It’s not in the shop. It wasn’t in the stolen loot.”

“I don’t know,” Claude Marais said. “I don’t care. I said, it is nothing of any importance.”

“Maybe Gerd Exner knows where it is now,” I said.

“No, Gerd has no interest in the package.”

“He’s got an interest in something,” I said. “Something connected to you, Claude. He’s still around. He’s looking with a gun in his hand. He wants something, and he wants it bad. I think you have what he wants. I think your wife was right all along. Exner is dangerous, and you know it.”

“No. Gerd is an old comrade, no problem. My wife made an error, nothing more,” Claude Marais said. He seemed to think, sighed. “Gerd wishes me to join him in some work again, that is all. He attempts to persuade me. I am not interested.”

True or a lie, Claude Marais was going to stick to his story. Without the package, or some other proof that he was lying, there wasn’t much more I could say. There was nothing left to do but search this suite, turn it inside out, and if that uncovered nothing, look other places. I turned to Jimmy Sung to tell him to start searching. Viviane Marais was staring at her brother-in-law. Her sharp, alert eyes watched Claude. Her cigarette burned forgotten in her fingers.

“Mrs. Marais?” I said.

“That night,” she said, still watching Claude. “The night Eugene died. He said Claude had been in the shop, Claude was supposed to come back. Eugene said Claude had to come back-to get something. Eugene had something of Claude’s. Eugene said he was not sure Claude should have it. I remember. The last time Eugene called, I was half asleep. I forgot, thought only of the man he was waiting to meet, but now I remember.”

Claude Marais said, “I was supposed to go back, but I didn’t. We were going to talk about me going away from New York, going somewhere better for me. Getting the package wasn’t necessary. I couldn’t think of anywhere I wanted to go, so I didn’t go to the shop. I went to bed, right, Li?”