John Gardner - Stillness & Shadows

“You had”—McClaren tilted his dome, looking down at him at an angle—“you had some kind of operation, I understand?”

“That’s right,” Craine said. The inward smile widened, and a crackling like burning pine boughs began inside his head. The noise distracted him but also put him more determinedly on guard; it was something he’d experienced before, he couldn’t say when.

“Nothing fatal, I hope?” the inspector asked, then blushed.

“Everything’s fatal in the end,” Craine said, and gave a cackle. He turned to aim his nose at the inspector. “So you’ve joined the P.D.!”

“Yes,” McClaren said. “—Yes and no.” He hesitated. He seemed to cling for an instant to his hope of getting more on Craine’s illness, then relinquished it, looking down. He interlaced his fingers, thumbs upward, on his paunch. On two of the fingers he had heavy gold rings, one of them a wedding band, the other one the setting for a large red stone, perhaps a ruby. “Yes, I thought I’d get my hands ‘down into the dirt a bit,’ as Juvenal says. It’s no good being too theoretical.” By the lift of his eyebrows and the tilt of his head he gave Craine to understand that no one in the universe was his match when it came to pure theory. Craine had, as usual, his suspicions. He wondered, among other things, whether Juvenal had ever said anything of the kind. McClaren’s smile sharked out again. “Criminology,” he said, “is the science and practice of crime control.”

They’d arrived at the restaurant, and McClaren stopped, sweeping his bejewelled left arm out to open the door, pleased with the way he’d expressed himself and insisting, having won the advantage, that Craine enter first.

“Me before you?” Craine said. “You think there may be hit men inside?”

McClaren seemed not quite to hear him, and stared blankly at his grin. “Après vous ,” he said, smiling, tipped forward and sideways so that his bald head slanted toward the door.

Craine hesitated for just a moment longer, leering, inspecting their two reflections in the blacked-out restaurant window to the right of them — his own pitched forward, debauched and stooped, a shabby old stuffed-with-rags clown of a creature, prowler of the sewers, his wide hat brim level with his thickly glassed-in eyes — Detective Inspector McClaren’s form larger, more distinguished — he might have been the last of a noble line of owls, or a member of the Scottish country gentry, stuffed for posterity — tilted at the waist, the legs long spindles below the beer paunch. Beneath his trousers — brown corduroys — McClaren’s legs would be as white as boiled eggs, Craine thought, though maybe that was wrong: under his sport coat he wore a black cotton T-shirt, the kind boating men wear. Perhaps he had a Chris Craft, out at the marina on Crab Orchard. His legs would be dark brown, then, with bleached-out hairs. On the boat he’d wear a captain’s hat, drink martinis with people who sold real estate. (Craine smiled. “Most dangerous animals Nature’s ever known,” he’d told his neighbor Ira Katz. “Never mind the butler! Keep yer eye on the man in checked pants!”) On his wrist, the inspector had a sportsman’s watch, a two-hundred-dollar gold Seiko.

Craine stepped in through the door McClaren held and paused a moment to let his eyes adjust. It was a place he’d never been, so high, cool, and still it gave a feeling of murky temple ruins, possibly an old-fashioned roller-skating rink. A smell of must, maybe bones and hides, fell over him, and a darkness that had nothing to do with photons or the energy of the sun. McClaren came in behind him, closing the door softly, like an undertaker closing a coffin lid, and began to wipe his feet on the entryway mat. He took a long time at it, head bowed devoutly, making sure he did it right. Craine looked up at the ceiling. It was cluttered with objects; he couldn’t make out what. Blocky things, feathery projections. It was like being trapped inside a crystal.

“This is where I always come,” McClaren said heartily, his ritual ended.

Craine looked at him. “I see.”

There were mirrors on all the walls. Craine looked instinctively from one to another of them, hunting for some sign of whoever it was that had been spying on him, but there was no one, not even a shadow. His uneasiness increased. The room seemed to Craine to grow larger, more empty, by the moment. Again McClaren seized Craine’s crazybone, to guide him to a table near the enormous, black-lacquered bar. They were alone — no waiters, no bartender, nothing but dead objects from a dead civilization — so Craine put it to himself. The red, mirrored walls were a chaos of masks, old weapons, fake scrolls, queer musical instruments, lanterns, unidentifiable carved things as dusty as spiderwebs, and rising above the rest an immense, brightly painted papier-mâché lady, Indian, not Chinese.

“I like the company,” McClaren.said. In the dimness his face was lead-gray.

As Craine seated himself, the inspector went over to the bar and, with the flat of his hand, came down hard on the service bell. Then, pleased with himself, pulling with both hands at the tail of his sport coat, making it fall neatly, he came over, inspected the table — red-lacquered plywood — pulled out his chair, inspected the chair seat, and sat down. From the way he lowered himself — the smoothness of the thing — Craine got a momentary alcoholic vision, quite alarming for an instant, of a spider descending, tiny legs flying, huge dome floating like a sinking balloon or a large, bright stone falling slowly to the bottom of a pool. As soon as he was seated a waiter appeared, a long-torsoed Chinese Craine was certain he’d seen before somewhere (as it happened, he thought that of all Chinese), a high-school-aged boy with hair slicked so flat it seemed painted to his skull. He hurried to their table and, grinning, speaking in near whispers, took their order: whiskey for the inspector; for Craine, coffee with cream. The boy bowed and fled.

“Whiskey gives you cancer, you aware of that?” Craine said, then after an instant realized he hadn’t really said it, clearly as he’d heard himself; had only thought it.

“So!” the inspector said, and threw back his head and shoulders, smiling grandly.

Craine nodded, hunched like an invalid, peering nearsightedly around the room. He could relax here, there was no way anyone could observe him; yet he remained as tense as ever. His left hand picked at the book on the table in front of him, his right hand fiddled with the neck of the bottle in his coat pocket. Somewhere in the room a cat moved. Craine jumped.

“This is indeed an unexpected pleasure,” the inspector said. “An occasion, as they say. I’m acquainted with your exploits in Chicago, needless to remark.” His “remark” was protracted, an elegant southern drawl that seemed to slip from just one side of the pitch-black, trapezoidal smile. He fixed Craine firmly with his smoky eyes, though his smile was intended to be disarming. “What ever induced you to bring your practice to a place like Carbondale?”

Craine drew his pipe out, spilling scraps of paper without noticing, and toyed with it, smiling absently, staring at the center of the table, sharp-eyed, part of his mind trying to remember. “I forget.”

“You forget!” McClaren said, and laughed, slightly wincing. For an instant an anxious look came into his eyes, his bald head reddening to a blush again; then he swung forward and put his elbows on the table. “It’s none of my business, that’s true, I concede.” A gold tooth glinted as his smile flashed. “I just wondered. Natural curiosity.”

It was at this point, drunkard that he was, that Craine made his mistake.

“It’s a fact, actually,” he said, just a touch irritably, his voice ironed flatter than before. “I never remember anything, except sometimes when I read.” He got out his tobacco and penknife and opened the red Prince Albert package. When he looked up, McClaren was studying him, trying to make out whether his leg was being pulled. Craine’s blood chilled. If it was true that they were seeing if he’d do as a scapegoat, then what a piece of luck — this discovery that Craine had no memory! Craine winced, squinting. It was as if he were setting up the whole thing himself. He tensed all his muscles, straining to clear his head, make himself fit to take care of himself; but he knew it was useless, he’d do what his drunkenness pleased; no doubt feel proud of it.