Silent Partner Read online

  “You said it was an accident. What kind of accident?”

  "Karim said he had taken Martin down to Isfahan, to meet some of the people he deals with there. I gather he was sort of teaching him the business—”

  Tony nodded.

  “He was showing Martin the bazaar. I believe you’ve been there?”

  “Once.”

  “Then you know how it could happen. Martin got separated from Karim. It seems he wandered into a courtyard that isn’t used anymore because the balcony’s unsafe. Apparently he climbed onto it, and it gave way.” Zacharian made an expressive gesture. “Broke his neck. He was dead when Karim found him.”

  “Poor old Harvey.” After a minute Tony added softly, “Damn. Oh, damn.”

  “You really were fond of Martin, weren’t you?” Zacharian still sounded genuinely surprised.

  “He and Karim have always been like my family, like brothers. I’ve been an orphan since I was six, with nobody.” Tony was not totally void of self-pity. “We went through college together—”

  “I know.”

  “They were foreign students, a long way from home. They didn't have anybody either, and we sort of stuck together. That’s why it came naturally for me to go into business with Karim.” Tony paused. “You know why I really feel so rotten? I got Harvey into this.”

  “Oh?” said Zacharian. “You offered him the partnership?”

  “Sure. Harvey never had any fun. He was snowed under with family, had to run his father’s business and all that jazz. When he finally got loose and had some cash, I told him he ought to come in with us, and he jumped at it. He wanted to travel, see the world, do something exciting. You know, live a little. So he died.” Tony put his head in his hands. “Jesus. He’d only been in Iran five weeks.”

  “You can hardly blame yourself. It was his choice.”

  “Yeah, but— See, Karim didn’t want a third partner. Nothing personal. It was just he couldn’t see what Harvey was going to add to the business outside of his money, which we didn’t really need. I had to talk kind of fast and loud. If I hadn’t, Harvey’d still be sitting safe in London.”

  "I see,” said Zacharian. "Well, and suppose he had stayed in London and been knocked over by a taxi on Piccadilly Circus. Then you’d be blaming yourself the other way.”

  "I suppose so. Did Karim say what he was going to do with—”

  "He will fly the body back to England as soon as arrangements can be made. He’ll cable you.”

  Looking through his dark lenses at the paneled wall, Tony seemed to be looking down a narrow alley that stretched ahead of him with no way out except at the other end. He loathed the prospect.

  "What time is it in London now?”

  Zacharian looked at his watch. "Getting on for six. Why?”

  Tony said bleakly, "I ought to call Ellen.”

  "Ellen?”

  "Harvey’s girl. He was going to marry her. He was that kind.” Tony reached out for the phone on Zacharian’s desk, then drew his hand back. He was not quite ready. "No, I’ll wait till I see her.”

  Zacharian’s eyes widened. "Are you planning to go to the funeral?”

  "I have to,” said Tony hollowly.

  Zacharian said, "Well, I’ll be damned.”

  "I think,” said Tony, "I ought to be insulted, but I’m too tired. See you, Jake.”

  "So long,” said Zacharian, and looked after him with surprise and something else. A bright, hard spark of speculation.

  Tony went out through the faint fragrance of incense that almost covered the mingled scent of mothballs and carpet wool. He drove in the hot sun back to his apartment, where he pulled the blinds and fell onto the rumpled bed.

  He was asleep almost at once. But for a long time dark shapes stalked him in his dreams, crying out with familiar voices, “Have fun, Harvey! Live!” All the voices were his, but all the dark shapes had Harvey's face. He ran and ran to get away from them, and the place where he was running was the main thoroughfare of the UCLA campus; only when he came to Sunset Boulevard, it wasn’t there, and he found himself instead in the great bazaar of Isfahan, running down the tunneled ways among the shadows and the strange smells and the alien faces. And he could feel the tears running down his cheeks.

  Sleep turned eventually into a semicoma far too deep for dreams, and he had forgotten them when he waked again. The sun was drowning itself in the Pacific, and the Malibus were turning dark against the sky.

  There was an envelope shoved under his door. It was a long cable from Karim. Harvey’s body would be flown to England on Thursday, and Karim would go with it, and there was no need for Tony to come to the funeral.

  “What the hell does he think I am?” said Tony angrily, and flung the crumpled paper down. But he knew what Karim thought he was, and he knew he was right. He didn’t want to go. Given enough encouragement, he wouldn’t.

  He needed food now as badly as he had needed rest. After he had had it, he began to drive aimlessly, wondering what to do. He hated being alone, but somehow he could not face Sandra or The Third Illusion or any of their several counterparts, not just yet. He thought perhaps a movie. There were a couple of them in Westwood. He drove up through the village and parked, and then he knew that he had not come there to see a movie at all.

  The campus drew him like a magnet. He passed the gate that separates the university from the town, walking slowly, looking at the buildings, a mixture of mellow Italianate stone and glaring modern. Lights showed here and there where someone was working late. The place had grown since he had been here. Always large, it had now become stupendous. It had changed enough to make him feel old but not enough to be unfamiliar. He had walked here with Karim and Harvey, attended classes in this or that building. He could even remember the particular rooms. There had not been anything in the least unusual about a student from England and a student from Iran being there. UCLA had them from all over, north, south, east, and west, everywhere but the Iron Curtain countries.

  Karim and Harvey.

  He leaned against a tree, staring up at the campanile, black against the milky sky. He thought how stupid a man is to get involved even with a friend, if he is the kind of man who hates pain and all unpleasantness.

  But Harvey was young. He was not supposed to die.

  He hated Harvey for doing this to him.

  Nevertheless, in twenty-four hours he was on a plane heading for London.

  3

  It was a tiny village tucked away in a green fold high on the edge of Dartmoor. A handful of neat white cottages set at random around a green shaded by old trees, a little stone pub called The Ring of Bells, a little stone church that went back beyond the first Elizabeth. This was Harvey Martin's birthplace. His parents had moved to London when he was a child; but Martins had been buried here for three centuries, and so even the ones who wandered came home when they died. Harvey was the last of them. There would not be any more.

  It was cold in the churchyard. The wind plucked at coats and uncovered heads, snatched away the words from the parson’s mouth. Great clouds drove across the sky so that sometimes there was sunshine and sometimes a mist of rain. Tony Wales stood beside Karim Hassani and Ellen Lofting, his eyes straying from the open pit of the grave to the leaning, sunken stones patched with lichen and the grassy mounds outlined with cobbles, neat beds for sleeping away eternity, and then to the whaleback ridge of moorland rising beyond, getting little comfort from any of it. He hated all these symbols of time and continuity. They reminded him that they had been here long before he came and would be here long after he was gone; his existence meant nothing to them. Tony liked the cheap, bright gimcracky things that were only for the moment. He used them and threw them away, and they were gone; but he remained.

  Ellen’s parents were in Sicily and had not felt obliged to return for the funeral. Harvey’s small circle of friends in London had found it too difficult to get away from their jobs; they had sent flowers and regrets. The village people, though, had come to
bid farewell to one of their own. They stood as solid as the moorland stones, in thick tweeds and solemn faces, and when the service at last was mercifully over, they came to speak to Ellen, whom they knew because Harvey had brought her here a time or two, and then to Karim and Tony, whom they did not know. Both looked sufficiently exotic in this place, Tony with his too-short haircut and heavy tan, Karim black-haired, black-browed, Iranian and handsome with his strong, straight features and flashing eyes. But the villagers were warm in their handshakes and condolences; these strangers had been Harvey’s friends, and they had come a long way to be at his burying. Tony, who had a lazy ear, found their soft Devonshire speech difficult to understand, and it made him remember how Harvey had used to lapse into it on occasion. He shook hands and mumbled and envied Karim his gracefulness.

  Ellen moved through the whole affair with her head up and her shoulders back, too proud to break, bend, or cry. Tony felt awkward with her, remembering the last time he had seen her, not so long ago, miniskirted and laughing, all long legs and good humor and eager intelligence. Harvey had loved her because she was excited by life and the world and so was herself exciting. Now she looked remote and bloodless, her tall body moving with an almost mechanical stiffness. She wore a dark coat that covered her knees and a blue scarf over her head. Her hair, long and straight and rich brown, hung down over her shoulders at the back, and the wind played with the ends of it. She spoke gently to all the people and thanked the parson and walked away to the hired car that had brought them up from Exeter, and she did not once look back.

  The driver set off, retracing a narrow road that looped across the vast gray-green emptiness. Tony had a bottle in the car, whiskey this time and damn the additives. He offered it around. Both Ellen and Karim refused it, so he drank gratefully and sat with the bottle in his hands, looking out at the wide sky, with some kind of a hawk in it sweeping broadwinged down the wind, and the miles of rough country rolling up to granite ridges, and the stark tors standing above it all like broken watchtowers. It might as well have been Arizona except that it was the wrong color. After a while he said, “I didn’t know there was anything this big in England.”

  Ellen said sharply, "You Americans never get out of London.”

  “What for?” said Tony. “I never get out of New York or LA either. Or Rome, or whatever. There’s nothing in the country but country.”

  It was the first time anyone had spoken since leaving the village, and it was not very successful. So again they were silent. A band of the little wild Dartmoor ponies came scampering toward the road, and the driver slowed down; but they stopped at the verge and watched the car with bright button eyes, their forelocks blowing. They seemed almost to be laughing, as though this was a thing they did to drivers just to see them flinch.

  Abruptly Ellen said, "I’m sorry, Tony, that was snappish. Forgive me.”

  “Oh, hell. Forget it.”

  Karim made a sudden impatient gesture. “If nobody else is going to say it, I will. If I hadn’t let him wander off in the bazaar—”

  "He wasn’t a child,” said Tony. "What were you supposed to do, hold his hand?”

  "Still and all—”

  "It was an accident. Just the same as if he’d been hit by a taxi. It wasn’t anybody’s fault.”

  Karim looked at Ellen. He seemed to expect her to say something, and she shook her head.

  “I’m still too angry to think clearly.”

  "Angry with me?”

  She shrugged. "With God. With fate. Perhaps now I’ve got this bit of medieval torture done with, I can begin to function properly again.”

  There was a pause, and then she said rapidly, “I suppose I ought to tell you. Harvey had no family left, and we were to be married. He willed everything to me, including his share of your business.”

  Karim nodded. “I expected that. We can talk about it later.”

  He settled back in the corner of the seat, a dark and quiet man watching the countryside roll by, a man at peace with his sorrow.

  4

  In midafternoon of the second day after the funeral Ellen drove Karim to Heathrow, and Tony went along.

  He was in a restless mood. "I think maybe I’ll go over to Paris, kick around a little, see what’s doing.”

  "Last night it was Rome,” said Karim. "This morning it was Stockholm.”

  "Well, you tell me. Is there someplace you want me to go?”

  "Not at the moment. But when you do light somewhere, send me a cable, huh?”

  “You know me," said Tony. “Old Reliable.”

  At the airport they said good-bye, and Karim was especially charming to Ellen. She did look better, Tony thought, more normal and relaxed. But there was still a certain stiffness in her manner toward Karim, and he was obviously aware of it. He told her not to worry about anything connected with the business and to call on him if there was anything she wanted. Then he turned to Tony and gave his hand a hard grip.

  “I may be on the coast this fall. I’ll let you know. Take it easy. And don’t forget to cable."

  He smiled at them and went beyond the barrier, where they could not follow.

  Ellen and Tony returned to the car and began the drive back into London.

  Ellen was silent for a time. Tony sat hunched up, frowning to himself and wondering how he could decently get out of asking her to dinner. He had had enough of the funeral atmosphere. He needed something now to get the taste out of his mouth.

  Ellen said, “You don’t go to Iran at all, do you?”

  Surprised, Tony said, “I was there once. I was all over the Middle East. It’s a drag. Those Moslem chicks, you not only don’t touch, you don’t even look—unless you want to go the professional route, and man, I’m scared. The boys only go out with boys there, and it makes the night life kind of boring. Anyway, that’s Karim’s end of it."

  The little Morris scuttled expertly around a slow-moving bus, dodged a truck, found a clear space, and went like hell.

  “Nervous?” asked Ellen.

  “No," he lied.

  “Well, do stop slamming on the brakes. You make me nervous."

  He hadn’t realized he was doing it. He forced himself to relax, stopped looking ahead, and watched her profile instead.

  Not his type, of course. Not a real swinger. He couldn’t imagine jumping on her the way he did on the Sandra types, just casually for the exercise. She wasn’t a girl in the sense that they were; she was a person. She was the kind you got involved with, and he wanted no part of that. But he had to admit she was something special.

  “By Karim’s end of it,” she said, “you mean the working end.”

  Her voice was like a ringing slap across the face, and Tony forgot all about admiring her.

  “Well, hell, yes,” he said, “and why not? I’m the rich bitch, remember? I put up the coins.”

  “Ah, yes. All those lovely trust funds and things.”

  “What’s the matter with them? And while we're on the subject, I haven't seen you swinging any picks and shovels.”

  “I make a living,” she said, and let it pass, without giving him the usual lecture he got from hopeful young actresses about how tough it all was. He was grateful for that.

  But not grateful enough to be polite. “If it hadn't been for me, Karim wouldn't have a business, and we both know it. So he does the work, and I skate, and we’re both happy.”

  “Skate?”

  “Glide. Like easy. Been doing it all my life. It's the only way.”

  She didn’t seem to notice, or at least to care, that he was angry.

  “In other words, you don’t really know anything at all about the business.”

  “I know all I need to know. Like how much it pays—thirty thou a year. I’m the highest-priced errand boy in the world. I travel, and I take it off my income tax, and I have myself a ball. Karim’s not complaining, and neither did Harvey, so why should you?”

  “Oh, yes, he did,” she said softly. “In a nice way, because he was
fond of you. But he said if he was going to be a partner, he was going to pull his weight. Harvey wasn’t a skater.”

  “He never had the chance to be. Look,” Tony said, "don’t start pushing. You may be technically a partner, but—”

  She cut him short. “You don’t know anything about the business, and you don’t know much about Karim either.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “You only know what he tells you. He could be doing anything—trading opium for white slaves. You wouldn't know the difference."

  Tony sat up rigidly. “Honey,” he said, “you're making an unfriend real fast."

  “That’s not important. It’s true, isn't it?”

  He did not answer, and she spun the wheel over hard, making the Morris jump like a startled rabbit.

  “I must talk to you, Tony.”

  “I don’t—”

  “That isn’t important either.”

  He thought: Christ, she doesn’t have that long English jaw for nothing. He tried again.

  “Look, I don't—”

  “Oh, stop being such a bloody baby.”

  It was obvious that he was not going to get away, short of throwing himself out of the car. “I think,” he said, “I liked you better when you were crushed.” He sat quietly while the Morris burrowed its blunt nose deeper into the wilds of Bayswater. Presently it stopped, midway in a long row of stone fronts with nearly identical porticoes. He recognized it. He had been here once with Harvey to pick her up.

  She marched into the building, and he followed behind her up two flights of stairs, admiring in spite of himself the shape of her long, thrusting legs. Her apartment was furnished sparsely but in excellent taste, if you liked things arty and modern, and Tony did. There were a lot of books around, and records, mostly longhair stuff. Harvey had gone for that, too. There was a photograph of Harvey on a small table. He looked young and fit and happy.