"Are you a version of him?"
"I got feelings," I said. "I love."
"Yes, you do," Susan said. "And quite well too. Let us take this last bottle of champagne to the bedroom and lie down and drink it and continue the conversation and perhaps once more you would care to, as the kids at the high school say, do it."
"Suze," I said, "I"m a middle-aged man."
"I know," Susan said. "I see it as a challenge." We went into the bedroom and lay close in the bed, sipping the champagne and watching the late movie in the air-conditioned darkness. Life may be flawed but sometimes things are just right. The late movie was The Magnificent Seven. When Steve McQueen looked at Eli Wallach and said, "We deal in lead, friend," I said it along with him. "How many times have you seen this movie?" Susan asked. "Oh, I don"t know. Six, seven times, I guess. It"s on a lot of late shows in hotel rooms in a lot of cities."
"How can you stand to watch it again?"
"It"s like watching a dance, or listening to music. It"s not plot, it"s pattern." She laughed in the darkness. "Of course it is," she said. "That"s the story of your life. What doesn"t matter. It"s how you look when you do it."
"Not just how you look," I said. "I know," she said. "My champagne is gone. Do you think you are, if you"ll pardon the phrase, up for another transport of ecstasy?" I finished the last of my champagne. "With a little help," I said, "from my friends." She ran her hand lightly across my stomach. "I"m all the friend you"ve got, big fella."
"All I need," I said.
25.
Next day Susan drove me to the airport. We stopped on the way in the hot bright summer morning at a Dunkin" Donut shop, and had coffee and two plain donuts apiece. "A night of ecstasy followed by a morning of delight," I said, and bit into a donut. "Did William Powell take Myrna Loy to a Dunkin" Donut shop?"
"He didn"t know enough," I said. I raised my coffee cup toward her. She said, "Here"s looking at you, kid." I said, "How"d you know what I was going to say?"
"Lucky guess," she said. We were quiet on the ride to the airport. Susan was a terrible driver and I spent a lot of time stomping my right foot on the floorboards. When she stopped at the terminal she said, "I"m getting sick of doing this. How long this time?"
"Not long," I said. "Maybe a week, no longer than the Olympic games."
"You promised me London," she said. "If you don"t make it back to pay off I"ll be really angry with you." I kissed her on "I love you, Suze." She said, "I love you too," and I got out and went into the terminal. Two hours and twenty minutes later I was back in Montreal at the house near Henri Boura.s.sa Boulevard. It was empty. There was O"Keefe"s ale in the refrigerator along with several bottles of champagne. Hawk had been shopping. I opened a bottle of O"Keefe"s and sat in the living room and watched some of the games on television. At about two-thirty a man knocked at the front door. I stuck my gun in my hip pocket, just in case, and answered. "Mr. Spenser?" The man was wearing a seersucker suit and a small-brimmed straw hat with a big blue band. He sounded American, although so did half the people in Canada. At the curb with the motor running was a Dodge Monaco with Quebec plates. "Yeah," I said, very snappy. "I"m from Dixon Industries. I have an envelope for you, but first could I see some ID?" I showed him my PI license with my picture on it. I looked like one of the friends of Eddie Coyle. "Yeah," he said, "that"s you."
"It disappoints me too," I said. He smiled automatically, gave me back my license and took a thick envelope out of his side coat pocket. It had my name on it, and the Dixon Industries logo up in the left-hand comer. I took the envelope. The man in the seersucker suit said, "Goodbye, have a nice day," went back to his waiting Monaco, and drove off. I went in the house and opened the envelope. It was three sets of tickets for all the events at the Olympic stadium for the duration of the games. There was nothing else. Not even a preprinted card that said HAVE A NICE DAY. The world becomes impersonal. Hawk and Kathie returned while I was on my fourth O"Keefe"s. Hawk opened some champagne and poured a gla.s.s for Kathie and one for him. "Haw old Suze doing?" he asked. He sat on the couch, Kathie sat beside him. She didn"t say anything. "Fine. She said h.e.l.lo."
"Dixon go along?"
"Yeah. I think it gave him another purpose. Something else to think about."
"Better than watching daytime TV," Hawk said. "You turn up anything yesterday or today?" He shook his head. "Me and Kathie been looking, but we haven"t seen anyone she know. Stadium"s big. We haven"t looked at it all yet."
"You scalp some tickets?" Hawk smiled. "Yeah. Hated to. But it"s your bread. Been my bread I might have taken them away. Hate scalpers."
"Yeah. How"s the security?" Hawk shrugged. "Tight, but you know. How you gonna be airtight with seventy, eighty thousand people walking in and out two, three times a day. There"s a lot of b.u.t.tons around, but if I wanted to do somebody in there, I could. No sweat."
"And get out?"
"Sure, with a little luck. It"s a big place, man. Lot of people. "
"Well, tomorrow I"ll see. I got us all tickets so we don"t have to deal with the scalpers."
"All right," Hawk said. "Hate corruption in all its aspects, don"t you, Hawk."
"Been fighting it all my life, bawse." Hawk drank some more champagne. Kathie filled his gla.s.s as soon as he put it down. She sat so that her thigh touched his and watched him all the time. I drank some ale. "Been enjoying the games, Kath?" She nodded without looking at me. Hawk grinned at me. "She don"t like you," he said. "She say you ain"t much of a man. Say you weak, you soft, say her and me we should shake you. I getting the feeling she don"t care for you. She think you a degenerate."
"I got a real way with the broads," I said. Kathie reddened but was silent, still looking at Hawk. "I told her she was a little hasty in her judgment."
"She believe you?"
"No. You buy anything besides booze, like for supper."
"Naw, man, you was telling me about a place called Bacco"s. Figured you"d like to take me and Kath out and show her you ain"t no degenerate. Treat her to a fine meal. Me too."
"Yeah," I said. "Okay. Let me take a shower."
"See that, Kath," Hawk said. "He very clean." Bacco"s was on the second floor in the old section of Montreal not far from Victoria Square. The cuisine was French Canadian and they had one of the better country pates that I"d eaten. It also had good French bread and Labatt 50 ale. Hawk and I had a very nice time. I was thinking that Kathie probably did not have nice times. Ever. But she was pa.s.sive and polite while we ate. She"d bought a kind of dungaree suit with a vest and long coat that she was wearing, and her hair was neat and she looked good. Old Montreal was jumping during the Olympics. There was outdoor entertainment in a square nearby, and throngs of young people drinking beer and wine and smoking and listening to the rock music. We got in our rented car and drove back to our rented house. Hawk and Kathie went upstairs to what had become their room. I sat for a while and finished the O"Keefe"s and watched the evening events, wrestling and some of the weightlifting, alone in the rented living room, on the funny old TV set with the illuminated border. At nine o"clock I went to bed. Alone. I hadn"t had much sleep the night before and I was tired. I felt middle-aged. I was lonely. It kept me awake till nine-fifteen.
26.
We took the subway to the Olympic Stadium. Subway is probably the wrong term. If what I ride occasionally in Boston is a subway, then what we rode in Montreal was not. The stations were immaculate, the trains silent, the service on time. Hawk and I forced a small s.p.a.ce for Kathie between us, in the jam of bodies. We changed at Berri Montigny and got off at Viau. Being a supercool sophisticated worldly-wise full-grown hipster, I was unimpressed with the enormous complex around the Olympic Stadium. Just as I was unimpressed with going to the actual, real, live Olympic games. The excited circus feeling in my stomach was merely the manhunter"s natural sensation as he closes in on his quarry. Straight ahead were food pavilions and concessions of one kind or another. Beyond was the Maisonneuve Sports Center, to my right the.Maurice Richard Arena, to my left the Velodrome and, beyond it, looming like the Colosseum, the gray, not quite finished, monumental stadium. Cheering surged up from it. We started up the long winding ramp toward the stadium. As we went I sucked in my stomach. Hawk said, "Kathie say this Zachary a bone-breaker."
"How big is he?" Hawk said, "Kath?"
"Very big," she said. "Bigger than me," I said, "or Hawk?"
"Oh yes. I mean really big."
"I weigh about two hundred pounds," I said. "How much would you say he weighs?"
"He weighs three hundred five pounds. I know. I heard him tell Paul one day." I looked at Hawk. "Three hundred five?"
"But he only six feet seven," Hawk said. "Is he fat, Kathie?" I was hopeful. "No, not really. He used to be a weightlifter."
"Well, so, Hawk and I do a lot on the irons."
"No, I mean like those Russians. You know, a real weightlifter, he was the champion of somewhere."
"And he looks like a Russian weightlifter?"
"Yes, like that. Paul and he used to watch them on television. He has that fat look that you know is strong."
"Well, anyway, he won"t be hard to spot."
"Harder here than most places," Hawk said. "Yeah. Let"s be careful and not try to put the arm on Alexeev or somebody." Hawk said, "This dude trying to save Africa too?"
"Yes. He... he hates blacks worse than anyone I"ve seen."
"That helps," I said. "You can reason with him, Hawk."
"I got something under my coat for reasoning."
"If we run into him we"re going to have trouble shooting. There"s too many people."
"You think we should wrestle him, maybe?" Hawk said. "You and me good, babe, but we ain"t used to no giants. And we got that other mean little sucker we got to think of." We were at the gate. We handed in our tickets and then we were inside. There were several tiers. Our tickets were for tier one. I could hear the crowd roaring inside now. I was dying to see. I said, "Hawk, you and Kathie start circling that way, and I"ll go this way. We"ll start at the first level and work up. Be careful. Don"t let Paul spot you first."
"Or old Zach," Hawk said. "I be especially careful about Zach."
"Yeah. We"ll keep working up to the top tier, then start back down again. If you spot them, stay with them. We"ll eventually intersect again as long as we stay in the stadium." Hawk and Kathie started off. "If you see Zachary," Hawk said over his shoulder, "and you want to do him in, it okay. You don"t have to wait for me. You free to take him right there."
"Thanks," I said. "I think you ought to have a shot at the racist b.a.s.t.a.r.d." Hawk went off with Kathie. He seemed to glide. I wasn"t so sure he couldn"t handle Zachary. I went off the other way, trying to glide. I seemed to be doing pretty well. Maybe I could manage Zachary too. I was as ready as I was going to be. Pale blue Levis, white polo shirt, blue suede Adidas with three white stripes, a blue blazer and a plaid cap for disguise. The blazer didn"t go but it provided cover for the gun on my hip. I was tempted to limp a little so people would think I was a compet.i.tor, temporarily out of action. Decathlon maybe. No one seemed to be paying me any attention so I didn"t bother. I went up the ramp to the first-level seating. It was better than I had imagined. The stadium seats were colorful, yellow and blue and such, and when I came out of the pa.s.sageway there was a bright blaze of color. Below the stadium floor was bright green gra.s.s, ringed with red running track. Directly below me and near the side of the stadium, girls were doing the long jump. They had on white tops mostly, with large numbers affixed, and very high-cut tight shorts. The electronic scorekeeper was to my left near the pit where the jump finished. Judges in yellow blazers were at the start point, the take-off line, and the pit. A girl from West Germany started down the track in that peculiar longgaited stride that long jumpers have, nearly straight-legged. She fouled at the take-off line. In the middle of the stadium, men were throwing the discus. They all looked like Zachary. An African discus thrower had just launched one. It didn"t look very good, and it looked even worse a minute later when a Pole threw one far beyond it. Around the stadium there were athletes in colorful sweat clothes, jogging and stretching, loosening up and staying warm and doing what jocks always do waiting for an event. They moved and ma.s.saged muscles and bounced and shrugged. At either end of the stadium, at the top, were scoreboards, one at each end, with instant replay mechanism. I watched the Pole"s huge discus toss again. "The G.o.dd.a.m.ned Olympics," I said to myself. "Jesus Christ.""
I hadn"t thought much about going to the games until I got off the subway. I"d been busy with the business at hand. But now that I was here looking down on the actual event, a sense of such strangeness and excitement came over me that I forgot about Zachary and Paul and the deaths at Munich and stared down at the Olympics, thinking of Melbourne and Rome and Tokyo and Mexico City and Munich, of Wilina Rudolph, and Jesse Owens, Bob Mathias, Rafer Johnson, Mark Spitz, Bill Toomey, the names flooded back at me. Ca.s.sius Clay, Emil Zatopek, the clenched fists at Mexico City, Alexeev. Cathy Rigby, Tenley Albright. Wow.
An usher said, "You seated, sir?"
"That"s okay," I said. "It"s over there, I just wanted to stop here a minute before I went on."
"Of course, sir," he said.
I started looking for Paul. I was wearing sungla.s.ses, and I tipped the hat down over my forehead. Paul wouldn"t expect to see me, if he were here, and Zachary didn"t know me. I looked section by section, starting at the first mw and moving up and down the rows slowly, one row at a time, up to the end of the section. Then I moved on. It was hard to concentrate and not begin to skim over the faces. But I concentrated and tried to, pay no attention to the games right there below me. It was an outdoor sports crowd, well-dressed and able to afford the Olympic tickets. Lots of kids and cameras and binoculars. Across the stadium a group of male sprinters gathered for a 100-meter heat. I picked out the American colors. I discovered that I wanted the American to win. Son of a b.i.t.c.h. A patriot. A nationalist. The PA system made a little chiming sound and then an announcer said, first in French, then in English, that the qualifying heat was about to begin.
I kept drifting through the stands looking up and down the rows. A lot of Americans. The starting gun cracked across the stadium and the runners broke out of the blocks. I stopped and watched. The American won. He jogged on around the track, a tall black kid with that runner"s bounce, with USA on his shirt. I looked some more. It was like at a ball game, but the crowd was more affluent, more dignified, and the events below were of a different order. A vendor moved by me selling c.o.ke.
On the field below, a platoon of Olympic officials in Olympic blazers marched out onto the near side track and picked up the long jump paraphernalia. And took it away. An American threw the discus. Farther than the African.
Not as far as the Pole. I circled the whole stadium, getting tired of looking, stopping now and then to watch the games. I saw Hawk and Kathie two sections over, she was holding his arm, he was doing what I was doing. I started around again and I stopped at the second level for beer and a hot dog.
I put mustard and relish on the hot dog, took a sip of beer, a bite of hot dog (it was so-so, not Olympian) and looked out through the runway to the stands. Paul came down the runway. I turned back toward the counter and ate some more of my hot dog. A tribute to careful search and survey techniques and a masterpiece of concentration, looking over the stands aisle by aisle, and he almost walks into me while I"m eating a hot dog. Super sleuth.
Paul moved on past me without looking and headed up the ramp toward level three. I finished the hot dog and drank the beer and drifted along behind him. I didn"t see anyone who looked like Zachary. I didn"t mind.
At the third deck Paul went to a spot in the runway and looked down at the stadium floor. I went in the next ramp and watched him across the seats. The athletes looked smaller up here. But just as poised and just as agile. The squad of officials was breaking out low hurdles as we looked down at them. The discus throwers were leaving and the officials for that event formed into a small phalanx and marched, out. Paul looked around, glanced up at the top of the stadium and back into the runway behind him. I stayed half inside my runway, a section away, and watched him sideways behind my sungla.s.ses underneath my plaid cap.
Paul came back up the runway and turned down along the ramp that ran beneath the stands. I followed. There was a large kiosk where the washroom was located, and between it and the wall beneath the stands there was a narrow s.p.a.ce. Paul stood looking at the s.p.a.ce. I leaned on the wall and read a program, across the width of the ramp by a support pillar. Paul walked through the s.p.a.ce beyond the washroom and into another ramp, then he came back up the ramp and stood in the s.p.a.ce beyond the washroom staring down toward the ramp.
There wasn"t much activity under the stands, and I stayed back of the post with just a slot between it and the edge of the washroom kiosk to see. I was okay as long as Hawk didn"t show up with Kathie and run into Paul. If he did we"d take him right there, but I wanted to see what he"d do. He glanced over his shoulder back toward the washroom. No one came out. He leaned against the wall at the corner and took out what looked like a spygla.s.s. He aimed the spygla.s.s down the ramp, leaning it against the corner of the kiosk. He adjusted the focus, raised and lowered a little, then took a large Magic Marker and drew a small black stripe under the spygla.s.s, holding the spygla.s.s like a straight edge against the building. He put the Magic Marker away, sighted the spygla.s.s again by holding it against the line on the wall, and then collapsed it and slipped it away in his pocket. Without looking around he went in the men"s room.
Maybe three minutes later he came out. It was noon. The morning games were ending and the crowd began to pour out. From almost empty, the corridors under the stands became jammed. I forced after Paul and stayed with him to the subway. But as the train for Berri Montigny pulled out of Viau I was standing three rows back on the boarding platform calling the man in front of me an a.s.shole.
27.
By the time I got back to the stadium, it had cleared. Ticket holders for the afternoon games would not be admitted for an hour. I hung around the entrance marked for our ticket section and Hawk showed up in five minutes. Kathie wasn"t holding his arm. She was walking a little behind him. When he saw me he shook his head.
I said, "I saw him."
"He alone?"
"Yeah. I lost him, though, in the subway."
"s.h.i.t."
"He"ll be back. He was marking out a position up on the second deck. This afternoon we"ll go take a look at it."
Kathie said to Hawk, "Can we eat?"
"Want to try the Bra.s.serie down there?" Hawk said to me.
"Yeah."
We moved down toward the open area before the station stairs near the Sports Center. There were small hot-dog and hamburg stands, souvenir stands, a place to buy coins and stamps, a washroom, and a big festive-looking tent complex with the sides open and banners flying from the tent-pole peaks. Inside were big wooden tables and benches. Waiters and waitresses circulated, taking orders and bringing food and drink.
We ate, beer and sausage, and watched the excited people eating at the other tables. A lot of Americans. More than anything else, maybe more than Canadians. Kathie went to stand in the line at the ladies" room. Hawk and I had a second beer.
"What you figure?" Hawk said.
"I don"t know. I"d guess he"s got a shooting stand marked. He was looking through a telescope and marked a spot on the wall at shoulder level. I"d like to get a look at what you can see from that spot."
Kathie came back. We walked back up toward the stadium. The afternoon crowd was beginning to go in. We went in with them and went right to the second level. On the wall by the corner of the washroom near the entry ramp was Paul"s mark. Before we went to it we circled around the area. No sign of Paul.
We looked at the mark. If you sighted along it, pressing your cheek against the wall, you would look straight down into the stadium at the far side of the infield, this side of the running track. There was nothing there now but gra.s.s. Hawk took a look.
"Why here?" he said.
"Maybe the only semi-concealed place with a shot at the action."
"Then why the mark? He can remember where it is."
"Must be something here. In that spot. If you were going to burn somebody for effect at the Olympic games, what would you choose?"
"The medals."
"Yeah. Me too. I wonder if the awards ceremonies take place down there?"
"Haven"t seen one. There ain"t many at the beginning of the games."
"We"ll watch."
And we did. I watched the mark and Hawk circulated through the stadium with Kathie. Paul didn"t reappear. No medals were awarded. But the next day they were, and looking down along Paul"s mark on the washroom wall I could see the three white boxes and the gold medalist in the discus standing on the middle one.
"Okay," I said to Hawk. "We know what he"s going to do. Now we have to hang around and catch him when."
"How you know he ain"t got half a dozen marks like this all over the stadium?"