Part 42 (1/2)

”Pardon me, folks.”

They turned, and looked up into the eyes of a rather large, almost handsome man in a suit standing in the aisle.

”I hate to interrupt,” he said, ”the name's Fenney. Ed Fenney. I saw you on the train out of Barcelona. I just heard the lady say she's sorry she missed the American cigarettes. I bought them all. Look, here, take these.”

It was a pack of American Camels.

”Mr. Fenney, it's really not necessary,” said Sylvia.

”No, I know how you get, missing your best smokes. I just got a little greedy at the border. My apologies, miss. Please, take these. You Brits and us Americans, we ought to stick together. It's going to be us against the world one of these days, you just wait.”

He smiled. There was something peculiarly intense about him and remotely familiar, but he seemed so eager to please that Florry found himself accepting the cigarettes.

”Well, thanks awfully,” he said. ”Would you care to join us?”

”No, listen, after a long day like this, I really want to turn in. I've calls to make in Paris tomorrow, have to be sharp. Nice seeing you.” He left.

”Robert, I'm awfully tired, too,” said Sylvia.

”Well, then. That seems to be that. Shall we go?”

It was nearly midnight: they walked through the dark, rocking corridor from car to car until at last they found their compartment. They entered; the porter had opened the bed and turned it back.

”Not much room in here, is there?” he said.

”The French are so romantic,” Sylvia said. She held up a single red rose that had been placed in a vase by the tiny night table that had been folded out of the wall.

Florry pulled the door shut behind him, snapping it locked. When he turned, Sylvia had undressed to her slip and washed her hands and face in the small basin. He went to her bag and opened it. Julian's ring had fallen out of the pocket of his coat and worked its way into the corner of the case. He picked it up, looked at it.

This is all there is of my friend Julian Raines, he thought. There was little enough to it: a simple gold band, much tarnished, much nicked, as well it should be. The inscription inside it read, ”From this day forth, Love, Cecilia.” It was dated 6-15-04.

For luck, Florry thought, and gave it a little secret kiss.

There was a knock at the door.

”Who on earth could that be?” he said.

”It's Ed Fenney, Mr. Florry,” came the voice through the door.

”Oh. Well, what on earth-”

”Listen, I have an extra carton of Camels here. I might not see you in the morning. I'd like to give them to you.”

”Well, it's not necessary but-”

”It'd be my pleasure.”

Florry turned, gave Sylvia a quizzical look, and turned to the door.

”Robert, don't. We don't know-”

”Oh, he's just a big, friendly American. Just a moment,” he called, getting the door unlocked, even as he wondered how this Fenney knew his name. ”You know, this is awfully d.a.m.ned kind-”

The man hit him in the stomach and he felt the pain like an explosion; he hit him twice again, driving him back, filling his mind with astonishment and, by the power of the blows, his heart with fear.

Yet even as he fell, Florry was trying to rise, for the man had just smashed Sylvia across the face with the back of his hand.

The big man hit Sylvia a second time, killing the scream in her throat, and she dropped bleeding on the bed when Florry, having somehow acc.u.mulated a bit of strength, a.s.saulted him with a desperate rugby tackle, but it hurt Florry worse than the other and as Florry slid off, a brute knee rose and met him cruelly flush beneath the eye with a sick ugly sound that filled his head with sparks and scattered his will. He began to crawl away to collect himself, but the man dropped onto his back, pinned him with a knee as one pins the b.u.t.terfly through the thorax to the board, and had his thick hands under his throat. He pulled his head back. Florry felt the strength and the force. He knew the man could snap his neck in an instant. He could hardly breathe. He was gagging.

”Pleased to meet you, yentzer,” yentzer,” the man hissed. ”I'm your new pal.” the man hissed. ”I'm your new pal.”

Florry was instantly released and felt the man rise off him. Then a powerful kick slammed against his ribs, lifting him against the wall in the tiny room, flipping him. He tried to scream when a short sharp blow delivered with a boxer's grace and cunning nailed the exact center of his body and the sound was frozen forever in his lungs. He lay back, his eyes closed, sucking desperately at the air.

The man leaned across the bed and pulled Sylvia up by the hair. He slapped her face hard twice to bring her awake to scream, and as her throat constricted in the effort, he rapped her there lightly to trap it. He pulled her over and her head down.

Florry knew he had to help her. He had to get air, and help Sylvia.

”Please,” Florry begged. ”Don't hurt her. I'll do anything. Just tell me. I'll do it.”

Please him, he thought.

The man dropped Sylvia unconscious to the bed and turned to Florry. Florry seized Sylvia's suitcase from the corner and desperately hurled it, but it was open and the clothes falling from it crippled the velocity of the thrust. The man elbowed it aside contemptuously. He walked over the litter of clothing now spread about the floor and smashed Florry in the face and Florry wasn't fast enough to slip the blow. Instead, head a mess of confusion and lights, he went down to the floor. The man sat atop him. Florry could feel the hot, excited breath and the heaving heart and the strength and the totality of him, the overwhelming force of him.

”I know it all,” said the man. ”The old Jew Levitsky. The guy at Cambridge. He told me. You're working for the reds.”

”I-I-” Florry struggled with the idea.

”Yeah. He told me, Levitsky himself, your great buddy. And I got this this, too, f.u.c.ker.”

He leaned back, reached into his pocket, and pulled something out. Florry recognized it immediately. It was the confession he'd signed for Steinbach.

”The gold,” the man said. ”Where's the gold?”

”What? I-”

”Don't f.u.c.k around. The gold! G.o.d d.a.m.n it, the gold.” He pulled something from his pocket, snapped it, and a knife blade popped out. He put the icy-sharp point of the blade into the soft skin under Florry's eye. ”I'll cut you and cut you and cut you. Then I'll cut the girl. I'll cut everybody you ever knew. The gold. The gold!”

Florry knew now he was hopelessly insane, his ideas crazed and pitiful, his willingness to hurt absolute and unending.

”You've got it all wrong,” Florry said. ”It's-”

The man's eyes widened at this defiance and he hit Florry savagely in the face.

”No,” said Florry, gasping and curling, seeking desperately for something to put between himself and the pain, ”no. It's Julian. Take Julian, don't take me. He's the one. Leave us alone, please, I beg you.”

But the man stood above him, looming like some t.i.tanic statue. Florry watched as the man's foot came forward until it covered his face with its black shadow and descended onto his face. He could feel the shoe on his nose and lips, flattening and spreading them, and he could taste the grit and filth on the sole, little flecks and curds of it, falling into his mouth.