Milo March #3, page 5
“Sure,” I said. “I think the little guy paid you a thousand dollars to tell him the name of the man in Lisbon who provided you with the Brazilian passport.”
His face closed up so completely I knew I was right.
“All I want,” I said, “is to talk to the man in Lisbon. Then I’ll forget I ever heard his name. And I’m willing to pay a thousand dollars.” I took out the stack of money and put it on the table halfway between us.
It took him a long time to make up his mind. Finally he reached out and pulled the money over to his side. He glanced through it, doing a rough count.
“All I told him,” he said, “was Manuel Maria Tristão. Rua Fragoso, in the Arab Alfama quarter. Number twenty-one.” The stack of money vanished.
I nodded and stood up.
“The little guy,” he said. “Why’d he want it? He looked like an honest John.”
“He was an honest John,” I said. “Only last Wednesday he killed a guard and knocked off a diamond worth seven hundred thousand dollars. Except for that one little thing, he’s still an honest John.”
His mouth was still open as I walked out and nodded to the guard.
John Franklin didn’t say anything until we were well away from the prison.
“Well?” he said finally.
I grinned in the darkness. “I spent your thousand bucks,” I said. “But I know where to go when I get to Lisbon.”
“Where Carter is?”
“No. But it’s the jumping-off place for Carter.” I laughed to myself. “You know something? The more I hear about this little guy, the better I like him. He did something that no professional would ever think of doing and got himself the answer he wanted. As simple as that, where every crook would have had to make it complicated. You know Gregory’s theory that every crook in the world will be after Carter and the diamond?”
“I know about it.”
“I’ll bet they never get within shouting distance,” I said. “Carter doesn’t know any of the rules. He’s playing everything strictly by ear and it’s going to confuse the hell out of cops and crooks alike.”
“I know,” Franklin said. When he spoke again his tone was dry. “My only consolation is that we’ve got a man on his trail who also doesn’t pay any attention to rules.”
I let it ride and went back to sleep. Franklin woke me up when we reached the hotel where he’d made a reservation for me. I went upstairs and resumed my sleeping where it had broken off.
I was up early the next morning. I had breakfast in the hotel and then went to Great Northern.
There was a last-minute pep talk from another Great Northern vice-president while Franklin watched me with a nervous eye. Then Franklin handed me two thousand dollars for expenses and assured me there’d be more if it was needed. He tried to hint that they’d all take it kindly if I kept in touch by phone. Reversed charges, of course. I was generous about it. I promised to send him a postcard.
Taking my luggage with me, I got a cab and gave the driver the address of Dr. Harrison Blake. I would go directly from his office to the airport.
The doctor’s office was in the eighties just off Central Park West. He didn’t keep me waiting long. He was a brisk little man of about sixty. He got even more brisk when he discovered that I was the man who had called him the night before. He looked over my identification as if he expected to find a collapsed synapse.
“What can I do for you, Mr. March?” he asked.
“I was stabbing in the dark when I called you last night,” I said. “Maybe I’d better know what kind of doctor you are before I waste your time more.”
“I’m a psychoanalyst,” he said. He smiled briefly. “You need my services, Mr. March?”
“Probably,” I said, “but that’s not why I’m here. Twenty years ago, for a period of about two months, you had a patient by the name of Samson Hercules Carter. Do you suppose you still have any records on him?”
“Samson Hercules Carter?” he said. “Didn’t I see that name in the papers recently? In connection with a murder?”
“That’s the one,” I said.
He looked interested. “I thought there was something familiar about the name,” he said. “Wait a minute, Mr. March.”
He got up and went into the next room. He was gone ten or fifteen minutes. When he came back, he was carrying a book.
“You’re in luck,” he said. “I wouldn’t normally keep records on a case which was terminated after such a short period, but there were a number of things about Mr. Carter that interested me. I was working on a book at the time—it was published five years later—and I included him in the book. Before we go farther, however, I think I should know a little more about the circumstances.”
I quickly told him the story of what had happened on Wednesday, leaving out the things I’d learned since. His interest took a big leap when I told him about the diamond.
“Excellent,” he said. He looked at me eagerly. “Do you suppose I might be permitted to examine him when he’s captured?”
“I imagine it might be arranged,” I said. “Depending on your opinion, you might even be welcomed by the defense.” I hesitated and then put something I’d been thinking into words. “I have never met Carter, but my own personal opinion is that he lives in a world entirely of his own making. In a strict moral sense I don’t think he is a criminal. Of course, he can’t be allowed to get away with this, but he certainly shouldn’t be executed. If you can do anything about that, then I think the defense should certainly retain you.”
“No one should be executed,” the doctor said. “It serves no purpose except to satisfy a revenge motive which is out of our barbaric past. … The story of Samson Carter is in this book and I will give you a copy. But if you like I will briefly outline it for you.”
“I’d like it very much,” I said.
He nodded. “Do you know anything about psychoanalysis, Mr. March?”
“Not much.”
“There are many theories in the field,” he said. “I, and a number of my colleagues, have long believed that much neurosis is a sort of emptiness in the individual—you will notice that my book is called The Empty Ones. You might speak of it as structure without content. The individual is unable to find any permanent values within himself and is constantly looking outside for the fulfillment lacking within him. He feels himself to be an alien in the world. Consequently he is constantly confused between reality and fantasy and is always in danger of accepting his fantasies as the only reality. This is, of course, an oversimplification, but perhaps it gives you an idea.”
I nodded.
“Carter was such a person,” he said. “He came to me because he felt that he was empty, that there was no purpose to his life. He abruptly terminated the visits because he believed he had suddenly discovered a goal and that this was no longer true. He did not tell me what this goal was, but at the time I suspected that it was another fantasy. From what you’ve told me, I’d guess that he finally moved into that world of fantasy.”
“Perhaps,” I said. I didn’t want to tell him any more until I’d heard what he had to say.
“In the short time we had,” he went on, “I was unable to get the complete history of Carter. But I did learn that his father was a big, boisterous man. The father was delighted when he had a son and was immediately convinced that his son would be the biggest and best of men when he grew up. He expressed this by naming the infant Samson Hercules. When the son turned out to be small and delicate, more interested in books than barbells, the father took it as a personal betrayal. He never forgave his son. It was the father who started laughing over the fact that this puny male was named Samson Hercules. It was a laughter which was to continue through school and into adult life.”
The story of Samson Carter, I was thinking, could rightfully be called a horror story. I’d felt that from the beginning. “Could you say,” I asked, “that this made him feel that he had to do something important, something that would make him a big man, yet also convinced him that he could never do it?”
“Something like that. He was convinced that he could never do anything important in the world of reality. But in the world of fantasy he could do anything. There, you see, he could be a big man. As big as his father. It was probably some such fantasy that made him stop the visits here.”
I nodded. It was immediately after the last visit to the doctor that the first pages were torn from Carter’s diary. And from the little I had picked up, I’d guess that it was immediately after this that Carter started the preparations that had culminated last Wednesday.
“I think so,” I told the doctor. “It was shortly after that when Carter started putting half of his savings in diamonds. This was obviously not done just as an investment. We also believe that Carter started planning twenty years ago. Not that he intended stealing the specific diamond he did—its existence was not even known then. But I think he started with the idea of saving enough money and eventually stealing a large diamond. Not for gain, but to possess.”
“The diamonds are interesting,” Dr. Blake said. “When Samson Carter was a small boy, his father owned something which is rarely seen these days. It was a piece of crystal, glass, with a picture of himself inside it. It was a cheap souvenir of something or other, but the boy played with it for hours at a time. For a while he was convinced that the picture imbedded in the glass was his father. In fact, I got the impression that the father in the glass was more real to him than the father who walked about the house.”
“The one in the glass was probably kinder to him,” I said.
He nodded. “When his father died, shortly before he first came to me, he tried to find the picture in the crystal, but it had apparently been lost. Perhaps the diamond is merely a substitute for the lost glass.”
I thought a minute. “Tell me what you think of this, Doctor,” I said. “I think that Carter’s plan was this: He would save enough money to last him the rest of his life. Then he would take the diamond—he had decided on the Tavernier Blue when he first saw it five years ago and had eventually convinced himself that it rightfully belonged to him—and go away. He had prepared himself for twenty years so that he could live almost as a native in the place he had chosen. After twenty years he saw the whole thing so clearly that it was a reality to him long before he put it into operation. During this period, while he is making it come true, he is dangerous. He will kill anyone who interferes, not cold-bloodedly in the terms the police use, but merely because the person intrudes. But once he has arrived at his destination, he will settle into a new personality and probably never commit so much as a misdemeanor again.”
“Unless someone again intrudes on the reality he has constructed,” the doctor said. “Of course, you understand, this is a sketchy analysis because we do not have all the facts. It may be wrong in a dozen places.”
“It feels right,” I said.
There was no more the doctor could tell me. I thanked him and left, taking the book with me. I would read it on the plane, but I was sure I had most of it already.
It was well after noon when I reached LaGuardia. I had lunch in the restaurant and then waited in the terminal. When the flight to Lisbon was announced, I went out and climbed into the plane.
The Pan American Clipper scraped over the roofs of Long Island apartment houses and gained altitude. Below, New York was once more a sprawling old woman, shrinking rapidly as we headed out over the Atlantic.
Interlude 2
He’d arrived in Lisbon on Thursday. He had checked into the hotel. Taking the few things that were important, he had walked out of the hotel and no one had seen him go. He had asked for directions in Spanish and within a few minutes he stood in front of Number 21. It was an old art shop, its window black with dirt. A bell jangled as he opened the door.
For a price Senhor Tristão was happy to give him what he wanted. It would be ready not later than Monday. Certainly no later than Tuesday.
This was not soon enough. He knew that on Sunday another plane would leave New York and be in Lisbon on Monday. He insisted on having it at once.
Senhor Tristão protested that it was a work of art and that as an artist he could not be rushed. Such matters took time.
They finally compromised. It would be ready by Saturday night.
It was Senhor Tristão who found him a room in the neighborhood and who sent him to Carlos Sarmento, whose knife was always for hire. The arrangements were quickly made.
Friday and Saturday were spent in shopping. New luggage, new clothes. Everything must be new. Almost everything. Then there was his new mustache, a thin, dark line across his upper lip. Three days were not enough, but it showed promise. It had elegance. That was the important thing. It had not been grown as a disguise but because it now belonged. He was also an artist in his way.
Saturday evening he again went to the art shop in the Rua Fragoso. In the back room, beyond the paintings which no one had wanted to buy in years, he sat stiffly while Senhor Tristão took his photograph. A print was quickly made. He did not like it. It was too light. The next one was too dark. He nodded when he saw the third print. It was soon dry and was glued into place.
Payment was made. In small diamonds as had been agreed. Senhor Tristão examined each one, clucking over it as he discovered it to be genuine. As he approved of each one, he tucked it away in the pocket of a greasy vest. When the last of the diamonds had been examined, adding up to more than twice his usual price, he handed over the passport he had made with his usual care. Then he, in turn, waited for approval.
It came in an unexpected fashion.
He knew that the passport must be good, so he did not even look at it. He put it in his pocket and when his hand came out it held the gun. A look of surprise came over the face of Senhor Tristão. It was still there a moment later when he fell to the floor and died with the taste of his own blood in his mouth.
He felt neither triumph nor regret at the death of Senhor Tristão. It had been a necessity. If the trail were to end in Lisbon, there could be no markers left to point in the new direction. He put the two unused photographs in his pocket. He was an honest man and he did not take back the diamonds which now belonged to the corpse. He left the shop.
There were always loud noises—and many of them sounded like gunshots—in the Alfama quarter of Lisbon and no one paid any attention to the latest one. Nor saw him leave the shop.
On Sunday a small passenger plane lifted from the Lisbon airport. The sun made golden streaks through the windows. He sat in one of the wing seats and breathed the air of a new world. Cupping his hands around it so that others might not see, he looked into the blue diamond. It caught a bit of the sunlight and held it prisoner deep within the blueness. He stared at this sign of life until his cupped hand ached. Then he put the diamond away.
Five
From the air, Lisbon has always reminded me of a picture postcard. The water is bluer than water should be. The sun shining on the buildings make them seem whiter than they are. The whole thing seems more like a four-color process job than reality. Then, as the plane drops lower, the air of illusion goes and you see Lisbon as she is—which is still one of the prettiest and cleanest cities in Europe.
The red tape at the airport didn’t take long and I was soon through with it. I took a taxi and went first to the police station.
I was expected and the way was more or less cleared for me. The insurance company and the New York cops had both been in touch with them and asked them to cooperate. They assured me that they hadn’t rested since first receiving word that Senhor Carter was in Lisbon. They were polite about it, but the implication was that if they couldn’t find him, I was wasting my time. They were convinced that the Senhor Carter knew he didn’t have a chance against the Polícia International e de Defesa do Estado and had chosen suicide as the only graceful way out. He had probably taken a boat out and then leaped overboard. As for the rest, it was undoubtedly in the hands of God and the sharks.
“More likely in the belly of the shark,” I said.
This convulsed them. They spent the next thirty minutes telling me what a funny fellow I was. When it was finally established that we were all good fellows together, we got around to the reason I had stopped there in the first place. I wanted to take a look at Carter’s hotel room and I wanted to do it without benefit of a parade.
By this time they were very understanding. They could understand that a representative of the insurance company might want to look at the room of the suicide—it had jumped from theory to fact—and they weren’t insulted by the fact that I wanted to go alone.
We exchanged a number of compliments about Portugal and the United States, and I finally got away. They had arranged with the hotel to have me admitted to Carter’s room. It had only taken an hour to transact five minutes’ business.
First I went to the Avenida Palace Hotel and checked in. The Aviz was too rich for my blood, even on an expense account. It was still early in the day and I was sure that Carter was no longer in Lisbon. I decided to rest before I tried his room. The shot I’d had Saturday night was working on me and I felt feverish.
Later I went downstairs and had a couple of brandies. It put enough strength in my legs so that I felt like going on. I took a taxi over to the Aviz.
It is one of the most expensive hotels in Lisbon. The lobby was filled with people, at least half of them Americans. It was almost the cocktail hour and the Lisbon night life was starting to show some movement. I went over to the desk.
“My name is Milo March,” I said. I was speaking Spanish, but nearly everyone in Portugal understands it. “I believe that it has been arranged for me to see one of your rooms.”
The desk clerk looked as if he thought I might walk off with the hotel silverware. “Yes, Mr. March,” he said. The fact that he answered me in English was another sign of his disapproval. “You understand, Mr. March, that we have left Mr. Carter’s things in the room only because he insisted on paying a week in advance. The manager, however, has asked me to tell you that we shall remove the things tonight. If Mr. Carter returns later, we will give him a refund. But the Aviz Hotel is not accustomed to—”
