The Blackbirder Page 7

  After trying to erase it for three years, the memory was still brutally livid. “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 and go any place and anything I wanted as long as it was what they wanted. I didn't know it then. 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 he 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 a revolver in case— in case the need for su
ch 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 harm to Fran, he wouldn't warn her, not 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 Adlebrecht 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.

  Chapter Four

  WITH A BLACK BOWLER

  Julie woke with a tremor. She'd been riding the subway again, on and on, faster and ever faster. For a moment her eyes were bewildered. This quiet Spanish room. Sun breaking through the bright draperies at the window. Then she knew: La Fonda in Santa Fe. But she alone hadn't sought this out-of-the-way mountain town. There was a man in gray, who called himself Roderick Blaike and who said he had come to find the Blackbirder.

  She sat up in bed. She must see Jacques. Alone. He hadn't said it but she knew it must be alone. He was afraid of someone; he hadn't given that someone a name. But the death fear had been on him when he saw the gray man last night. He knew for what the gray man stood. She must learn that. She mustn't fight longer in the dark. For, whatever the gray man stood for, he was inimical to her. If he w
ere Nazi, if she were to be taken like Tanya— Julie clutched the bed linen. Deliberately and at once forced her fingers to open. Terror was a luxury. She couldn't afford it now. If Blaike were Gestapo— she had outwitted them before. He was waiting for something before he moved. She would be ready for him when he did move.

  If he represented the American government, there was more immediate danger. He could be making inquiries about her even now. He could have discovered there was no record of Julie Guille's entry into the United States. If she were detained for passport questioning, Maxi's murder would come into it. She would be locked up again. In New York, it had been the other way around. Question about the murder, knowledge of illegal entry. Whichever way it went, circumstantially she stood against the right. Either way she'd be imprisoned. She mustn't be. She mustn't ever endure that again. She must escape into Mexico, escape before this man closed the way of escape, before he apprehended the Blackbirder. It didn't matter how much good the Blackbirder was doing for the poor and hunted, he was illegal.

  First Jacques. She didn't know where to reach him. Popin would know. Perhaps she should wait for Jacques to communicate with her. Surely he would. If he could. She was tired of coming up always against the stones of if, maybe, perhaps. She would call now. Her watch said after ten o'clock. She gave the Tesuque number. She recognized the same lazy voice:

  “Mr. Popin, she ees not here now.”

  Julie asked, “Do you know where I could reach Jacques Michet?”

  The voice repeated the formula. “Jacques, she ees not here now too.”

  Julie left no message. Evidently Jacques lived with Popin. She would see him this evening if he did not get in touch with her before then. She arose, showered, dressed: the tailored blouse today. She combed out her short curly hair, put on lipstick. She must buy another outfit. Maybe a sweater and skirt like the soldier's girl in the Cantina last night. It would be nice to look young and happy, an outward manifestation of the hope that some day again you could be that. Facing herself in the mirror, Julie also faced fact. She would never again be what that girl was, what Julie Guille once had been. Three years ago. It could as well have been three hundred years. She had been aged in sorrow and pity and despair. You couldn't rebuild happiness over the murdered bodies of your friends.