Флетчер Флора - Park Avenue Tramp

Farnese also sat without speaking for quite a long time. He sat erect in his chair with his hands folded on the desk in front of him, and there was in the rigid immobility of his posture a cataleptic quality that was almost frightening. A tall, slender man with blond, graydusted hair and a face like a narrow wedge of stone, he might have been in his withdrawal either psychotic or ascetic, but what he was in the opinion of Sweeney could best be expressed in the language of the gutter, which Sweeney spoke fluently, and now to himself in the merest whisper he called Farnese the name of what he was, forming the word with livid lips. He wasn’t fooled, either, by the pose of quietude that Farnese held. He had learned long ago to sense the sickening turbulence beneath the surface of icy reserve, and when he sat and made his reports with quiet malice, he laughed and laughed within himself, the laughter growing and becoming so enormous inside his flabby body that he was sure it would break loose like thunder in the room.

When Farnese spoke at last, his voice, like his face, did not betray his feelings. It was modulated and flat, deviating only slightly from a monotone. His thin lips barely moved to permit the passage of words, and if there was any sign of emotional disturbance at all, it was in the fine line of a scar that followed so precisely for about three inches the line of the mandible that it seemed to have been made deliberately by a scalpel. This scar was ordinarily invisible, but sometimes it turned dead white, as now, and could be seen plainly against darker flesh, and Sweeney found it extremely interesting, and useful as a kind of adrenal barometer. He had thought at first that Farnese was older than he admitted, that the scar was evidence of plastic surgery, but he now knew definitely that this was not so. Farnese was forty-five. He had married Charity McAdams when he was forty-one and she was twenty-five. They had been married, after a fashion, four years. These were vital statistics of which Sweeney was certain.

“All right,” Farnese said. “Begin whenever you’re ready.”

Sweeney began. Using his notes to remind himself of specific times and places, he reported that he had been waiting yesterday afternoon, as per instructions, in the office of the garage in the apartment building on Park Avenue in which the Farneses lived. At exactly 4:57 be had received a telephone message from the Farnese maid that Mrs. Farnese had just left the apartment. He, Sweeney, had picked her up at the front entrance and followed her to the apartment of Miss Samantha Coy, who was not new to Sweeney’s notebook. Mrs. Farnese had remained here for nearly two hours, leaving with a party of six, including herself, at 6:43. The party of six was evenly composed of men and women in pairs, and they had apparently had quite a few cocktails, and they drove in one car, a Cadillac, to an Italian restaurant on Tenth Street. They had arrived at the restaurant at 7:18.

“Never mind the exact timetable,” Farnese said. “I’ve told you before that it isn’t necessary.”

“I like to be accurate,” Sweeney said.

“Never mind it. When I want to know a time, I’ll ask for it. Get on with the report and omit the details.”

Sweeney bowed his head above his notebook and whispered to himself the name of what Farnese was. He continued his report.

After leaving the Italian restaurant, the party of six had driven in the Cadillac to Fourth Street, where they visited three nightclubs in about three hours. While they were in the third of these, Mrs. Farnese had deserted the party and had gone away with a young man in a white Mark II. Sweeney did not know the identity of the man, but he had obtained the license number of the Mark II, and it would be a simple matter from that to get the identity.

“Don’t bother,” Farnese said. “I know who he is.”

“Oh,” Sweeney said.

Mrs. Farnese and the man in the Mark II, he said, had gone to a place in the area of Sheridan Square. Another night spot. The place was very crowded and noisy, filled with confusion, but Mrs. Farnese and the man had sat at a small table not far from the bar, and he, Sweeney, had managed to grab a stool from which he could observe them clearly. After a while, Mrs. Farnese had got up and gone away alone, presumably to the ladies’ room. Since the man had remained at the table, it was a fair assumption that Mrs. Farnese would return, which was the assumption that Sweeney made, and this was a mistake, or had almost been one, for she didn’t return after all, and it was only by the sheerest luck that he had caught a glimpse of her at the last second as she was going out past the check stand.

When he got outside after her, she was standing on the sidewalk in front of the building, just standing there very quietly, and there had been, he thought, an odd expression on her face. Or maybe it had been the absence of any expression at all. A kind of vacancy. It was pretty hard to describe, but about the best word he could think of was gone. She’d looked gone. Not there. Nobody home.

Moving suddenly, as if she’d just remembered something, she’d started walking down the street with him behind her, and she’d walked very rapidly for several blocks and had then stopped in front of still another night spot, a crummy little place identified by a few twists of neon tubing as Duo’s. She’d patted the bricks by the door as if she were in love with them, and had gone inside and sat at the bar and talked for quite a while with the bartender.

“Is this bartender important?” Farnese said.

“What do you mean?” Sweeney said.

“Did she do anything with him, go away with him, give any indication at all that he was any more to her than a common bartender?”

“No. Nothing like that. She just talked with him and drank the Martinis that he made for her.”

“Then why make a point of him? Please get finished.”

“Oh. Sorry.” Sweeney took a deep breath, held it five seconds, released it slowly. “There was a piano player there. A so-so thumper. Name’s Joe Doyle. He’s the one she went away with. After quite a while, that was. I was sitting at the bar talking to a redhead who hit me for a drink.”

“Did you follow or stay with the redhead?”

“Followed. When I’m on a job, the job comes first.”

“I congratulate you on your integrity. Where did they go?”

“They picked up his car in the alley and made a tour of half a dozen places. Didn’t stay long in any one of them. They seemed to be looking for someone, and it’s a good bet it was the guy in the Mark II.”

“Possibly. But they didn’t find him, of course.”

“No. Finally they drove to the place this other guy lives. The piano thumper. Joe Doyle.”

“Where is this?”

“An old residence south of Washington Square. Probably he has a room there. Maybe a small apartment.”

“Quite likely. What did they do then?”

“Well, that’s a matter for speculation.” Watching the stony face of Farnese, Sweeney spoke now with deep, delicious malice. “They went inside together, and they didn’t come out. Not before daylight, anyhow. I waited that long, and then I went home for a nap. A guy has to sleep now and then.”

Farnese said nothing. He sat rigidly erect in the cataleptic pose, and Sweeney kept his eyes on the fine white line of scar tissue along the mandible, and the thunderous mirth grew in Sweeney’s gross body.

“That’s all,” Sweeney said.

“Very well,” Farnese said.

“Shall I continue on the job?”

“Not today. Perhaps tomorrow or the next day. I’ll let you know.”

“All right,” Sweeney said.

He folded his notebook and replaced it carefully in the sagging pocket of his coat. Rising, he walked to the door and let himself out of the room, and Farnese continued to sit unmoving in his chair. He sat with his hands folded and submitted himself to the violations of fury and terror and incongruous desire.