Уильям Макгиверн: The Darkest Hour

“I doubt that,” the priest said. “But what about Marcia?”

“She’ll get along. She’s good at that.”

“Aren’t you going to see her?”

“Sure,” Retnick said. “She knew Ragoni.”

“Is that the only reason you’re seeing her?”

“Tell me a better one,” Retnick said coldly.

A touch of color appeared in the priest’s face. “I don’t know all your problems,” he said, “but I know your duties. And one of them is to treat her with compassion and sympathy, no matter what mistakes she’s made.”

“And what about her duties?” Retnick said, staring at the priest. Then he turned away sharply. “Talking’s no good. I’ve got to be going, Father.”

The priest went with him to the door. From the steps he watched Retnick walking toward the avenue, walking like a man advancing on an enemy. Father Bristow shivered involuntarily, not from the cold but from the memory of the coldness in Retnick’s eyes.

The Gramercy was a supper club in the East Fifties, an intimate spot that featured excellent food and unobtrusive music. There was a small bar and several banquettes at one end of the room to accommodate patrons waiting for tables; it wasn’t a place for stags to get drunk in. The bartender looked dubiously at Retnick’s cheap suit, and said, “Do you have a reservation, sir?”

“No. Give me a whisky with water.”

“Very well, sir.” The bartender didn’t argue the point; as a judge of men he bet himself that this one wouldn’t start trouble. Finish it, more than likely—

Retnick glanced into the crowded, dimly lighted dining room and saw the tiny white piano placed against the far wall.

“When does the music start?” he asked the bartender.

“Nine-thirty, or thereabouts.”

“Is she here now?”

“You mean the pianist?”

“That’s right, Marcia Kelly.”

“I believe she’s changing, sir.”

Retnick took the paper coaster from under his drink and wrote his name on it. “Would you send this back to her, please?” he said, pushing the coaster across the bar.

“Well, sir, we have a rule about that, you know.”

“It’s all right. I’m an old friend of hers.”

“In this case—” The bartender hesitated, smiling uncertainly. Then he signaled a waiter, hoping that his estimate of this man had been accurate.

The waiter returned in a moment or so and said to Retnick, “She’d like to see you, sir. Will you come with me?”

Walking through the little flurries of laughter and conversation in the dining room, Retnick noticed the piano again and remembered that a piano had figured in their first meeting. This was no feat of memory; there were few details of their days and nights together that he couldn’t recall effortlessly and vividly. When he met her he had been bird-dogging for Father Bristow, looking for someone to give piano lessons to three kids in the boys club. The priest had suggested Marcia Kelly, a girl from the parish who had studied music in college.

She had been willing to help out...

They were married in the summer, six months or so after they had met. And a short while after that, a month to the day before Christmas, he was in jail on a murder rap.

They turned into a short corridor and the waiter pointed to a door at the end of it. “Right there,” he said.

“Thanks.” When the waiter had gone Retnick hesitated, feeling nothing but the pressure of the lifeless anger in his breast. It was all right then, he knew. Nothing could touch him.

He walked down the corridor and rapped on the door. She said, “Come in, please,” in a light, expectant voice. Retnick smiled and twisted the knob.

She stood in the middle of the softly lighted dressing room, a small girl with close-cut, curly black hair. There was humor and intelligence in her delicate features, and her body looked slimly mature and elegant in a simple black evening gown.

Retnick closed the door and stood with his back to it, watching her with a cold little smile. For an instant neither of them spoke and the silence became oppressive in the perfume-scented room.

She’s twenty-eight now, he thought irrelevantly. The years had touched her; the planes of her face were more sharply defined and the look of gay and careless happiness was gone from her eyes. He noticed that her bare shoulders were lightly tanned but that her face was very pale.

“Steve,” she said, and took a tentative step toward him, smiling uncertainly into the coldness of his eyes.

Retnick leaned against the door. “This isn’t a social call,” he said.

“I waited at home for you yesterday,” she said.

“Home?”

A touch of color came into her face. “The apartment then. I... I hoped you’d come back. I had a steak, a bottle of wine—” She made a helpless little gesture with her hands, smiling too brightly now. “It was quite a production, Steve. Too bad you had to miss it.”

“A big welcome for the hero, eh?” he said. “The kind GI’s get, with all the neighbors in to add to the festivities.”

“I thought—”

“I didn’t get out of the army, I got out of jail,” Retnick said.

She brought her hands up slowly to her breast. “Why didn’t you come home?”

“What for?”

“I’m still your wife.”

“That’s your decision, not mine,” Retnick said. “I told you to get a divorce.”

“I didn’t want a divorce. I wanted to wait for you.”

“And did you wait?” Retnick said evenly. “Like a pure and faithful wife in some medieval romance? Is that how you waited?”

“Please, Steve,” she said. She turned away from him, hugging her arms tightly against her body. “Let’s don’t talk about it. Not now. Can’t we go somewhere and have a cup of coffee?”

“I don’t have time.”

“Can’t you give me the tiniest break?” she said, turning and looking steadily into his eyes. “I want to tell you what happened. It’s not a long and fancy story. There aren’t any twists or surprises in it. And I don’t come out as the brave and lonely little heroine.” She took a step toward him, smiling with trembling lips into his hard face. “I’m not trying to make it sound cute, Steve. You know me better than that.”

“I thought I knew you,” he said.

“You left me with nothing,” she said, shaking her head helplessly. “Why did you do it to me? You told me not to visit you in jail. You wouldn’t even see me when I went there. You told me to get a divorce the day the trial ended. And you acted as if you hated me. I couldn’t understand it. I tried to wait for you, Steve, I tried. I—”

“There was a man, right?”

“Please, Steve.” She turned away from him and put a hand to her forehead. “I wrote you everything. I needed your help. I still need it.”

“You needed something,” Retnick said, “but it wasn’t me. So let’s forget it. When did you see Frank Ragoni last?”

She stared at him with something like wonder in her eyes. “What did they do to you, Steve? You used to understand people, you used—”

“When did you see Ragoni last?” Retnick’s voice fell across her words like a cold dead weight.

She sat down at the dressing table and shrugged her slim bare shoulders. “Okay, okay,” she said wearily. “You think I’m a leper and that’s that. I’ll stop trying to change your mind. So on to something important. Frank was in here about a month ago, I think. With his wife. They were celebrating an anniversary.”

“A month ago. Did he give you any message for me?”

“Nothing in particular.”

“Are you sure?”

“I don’t know,” she said, shaking her head. “What am I supposed to remember?”

“This would have to do with Joe Ventra’s murderer.”