The Lives of Harry Lime v1.0 Read online

  My rented Citroen was behaving nicely, and I guess I wasn’t watching the road too carefully because suddenly the ordinarily deserted pavement became crowded and I had to pull to a stop. Arabs riding burros crowded about the car. There were some half-castes, on foot, climbing the running-boards. In front of the car were three or four fierce-looking Bedouins with old-fashioned muskets slung over their shoulders. Suddenly, from out of the crowd, a figure came up to the car.

  ‘Good afternoon, Mr. Lime,’ he said as he opened the door.

  I remembered where I had seen him before. ‘You’re the chief teller from the Bank Internationale!’ I said.

  ’That’s one of my occupations. Move over, Mr. Lime; we have things to talk about before your meeting with the Alafin.’

  Of course, the beady-eyed, pockmarked Arab who sat beside me was Schweig’s agent in the bank. He had seen me get into Mordecai Varin’s car after I had left the bank that morning, and had joined me to point out that it might not be too healthy to go against Schweig’s wishes. We arranged to meet in the bar of the hotel after I had seen the Alafin: there I would get paid, and would be able to get out of town before Varin found out in whose favour the leases were made.

  My meeting with the high potentate of Becurata was an infuriating ordeal of delay. Somehow or other the granting of> oil rights seemed to be inexorably tied up with native dances and ceremonies and rituals. Before the crass business of the leases could be discussed the shadows were deep in the gardens outside the palace. And even then the cautious old man wouldn’t sign anything. The best I could manage was to leave the contracts with him, and get in exchange a half promise that he would sign them—and I had made them out—within the week. I had to be content with that. And as I drove back to the city, parked my car behind the hotel, and made my way to the bar, I wondered if Schweig’s fascinating messenger boy would be content with the arrangements. He was waiting for me there all right.

  ‘You needn’t summon the waiter.‘he said as I came up to the table. ‘I took the liberty of ordering an absinthe for you.’

  ‘Very thoughtful. I hope that you were also thoughtful enough to bring the money with you.’

  He smiled. ‘I came prepared, but I have been informed that the Alafin did not sign the contracts.’

  It was what I had expected. ‘Look.’ I said, ‘if you know they weren’t signed, you also know I made them out the way you wanted them. My job here is finished. Even if I wanted to stick around in Becurata until the old dodo gets around to signing them, I couldn’t. Not with Varin in town. I want the money I’ve got coming to me.’ I seized his lapel and looked into his beady eyes. ‘Now! Do you understand—now! ’

  He hesitated. ‘I’m not sure Schweig would approve…’

  I kept hold of him. ‘You’ve got the money in your side pocket. I can see the bulge. Now pull it out and start…’ A shot rang out, and the teller slumped forward against my chest.

  Watch out, Lime,’ he gasped. ‘Varin…Varin knows…’

  He must have been dead almost before I reached over and took the money from his side pocket And I could hear him topple from his chair as Varin and’ a handful of thugs burst into the room through the doorway from which one of them had shot him. They fired a couple of shots after me as I streaked out of the back door, but I reached the rear of the hotel and jumped into the Citroen.

  I stepped on the starter, and, as the motor caught, I clashed the gears and the car leaped towards a narrow, tortuous street. I wasn’t sure where it led, but already I could hear other cars starting behind me. Natives and animals sprang out of my way as I careered down the winding street.

  The cars were farther away now, but ahead of me I could see people milling about near a dimly lit café. There, was a figure in white, and suddenly I could see it was the girl, the American girl from the hotel.

  She dashed out into the road. I skidded to a stop. She was in the car beside me in an instant.

  ‘Get me away from here quickly.’ she gasped.

  ‘What were you doing in the native quarter?’ I asked after a few minutes’ furious driving.

  Her sentences came in jerks. She was as pale as a sheet. ‘I…I…George Harris wouldn’t take me where I…where I wanted to go…I slipped out of the hotel after dinner…I went to the native café back there…a horrible place…two natives came up…I tried to get out…I was never so happy to see anyone in my life.’

  I was silent for a little while. An idea was forming in my brain. After a little while, I asked: ‘I’m not going too fast?’

  ’The farther I get from that horrible place the better I like it.’ Her tone was firmer now.

  ‘Cold?’

  ‘A little.’

  ‘Pull the robe up around you…and you could sit a little closer to me.*

  She moved over. Then, shyly, ‘How’s that?’ .

  ’Fine, just fine. But do you think it’s “proper” to sit so close when you haven’t even told me your name?’

  She was silent for a moment. Then she asked: ‘You won’t take me back to that horrible city?’

  Nothing was farther from my intentions. ‘I’ve suddenly developed an allergy to it myself,’ I said.

  She smiled. ‘Well, my name’s Marion Lawrence. I’m an orphan. A distant relative died a few months ago and left me a little money. I quit my job and decided to take a world cruise.’

  ‘Have you your passport with you now,’ I asked. I tried to make my tone casual.

  She hesitated. ‘No, I haven’t.’ she said at last.

  ‘Well, I know someone near the border who’s a very talented engraver. However, we might obviate a lot of trouble by having him make out our passports with some new names…say, Mr. and Mrs. Joe Smith of Cleveland, Ohio.’ I looked at her to see how she was taking it. ‘How does it sound to you?’

  She gave a laugh. ‘It sounds real exciting. Like we were spies, or espionage agents, or something.’

  It was working perfectly. Marion was enthralled with the excitement and romance of our ’adventure’. It would take time for Varin, and whoever else might be following me, to pick up the trail. I knew that Harry Lime had a well-established reputation as a lone wolf. For Harry Lime to marry was unthinkable. Harry Lime was known to move in certain fixed cosmopolitan circles. He never adopted aliases or disguises.

  But by the time we’d crossed the border, all of that was changed. Marion and I were Mr. and Mrs. Joe Smith of Cleveland, Ohio, U.S.A…It was working perfectly, because Marion was the perfect bride, adoring, starry-eyed. Yes, she was really in love with me. And because she was in love with me, she asked no embarrassing questions. There was an added feature, too. It had become apparent that her little ‘inheritance’ wasn’t so little after all. Her purse contained a roll of large denomination bills big enough to choke a customs official.

  We crossed border after border, and Becurata was a long way back now. But I kept imagining that I saw Varin as we went through customs offices. I thought I caught a glimpse of Schweig as we ate dinner in a funny little restaurant in Istanbul. And even though I thought “I’d seen him die, I could have sworn I saw the pockmarked face of the chief teller of the Bank Internationale as we walked into a railway office in Bucharest. And the funny thing was the more nervous and irritable I became, the more affection Marion seemed to lavish on me. She ’ sneaked out and bought me little presents everywhere we stopped; beautiful dressing-gowns, pipes, bottles of hard-to-get absinthe. And finally, what with her affection and the growing distance between ourselves and Becurata, I began to relax. By the time we’d reached Vienna, I think I’d almost begun to enjoy my role as a somewhat bucolic tourist.

  We were sitting in a funny little Austrian restaurant one night listening to a gipsy band and sipping champagne. Marion leaned over and touched the back of my hand. ‘Are you happy, “Joe”,’ she asked.

  ‘Dangerously. The way I feel I might never want to leave here.*

  ‘You know…I’ve never danced with you.’

  I
laughed. ‘I’ve never cared much for waltzes. If you’ll wait until they play a foxtrot…’

  ‘In Vienna.’ she mocked me.

  I reached over to pour her out another glass of champagne.

  ’There seems to be plenty for all of us.‘a voice said over my shoulder. It was George Harris! He sat down, saying, ‘You don’t mind if I join you?’

  Marion had gone pale. ‘What do you want here.‘I asked as he poured himself a glass of champagne.

  ‘I don’t want to start a riot here; there are too many people. But I have armed men at every door and window, so any attempt at escape would be useless.’ His tone was calm and confident.

  ‘You talk like a cop.’ I laughed.

  ‘I’m with the F.B.I. of the United States. By the way, Lime, I think you might be interested in knowing that Alafin got a little tired of all your intrigue. He has awarded the oil leases to the U.S.’

  ‘So, then Schweig’s after me too.’ He nodded in agreement. ‘But what charges have you got against me?’

  ‘Charges? We have no charges against you.’ His tone grew as friendly as an ice-cube. ‘It isn’t against the law to be a skunk.’

  I looked at him in bewilderment.

  ‘I’ve just been helping the Becurata authorities to track down your sweet little bride,’ he explained.

  Marion was weeping now. ‘I’m sorry, Harry,’ she murmured.

  ‘The night you picked her up in Becurata, she was fleeing from the hotel,’ Harris went on, ‘where she’d just shot and killed her ageing husband. Are you ready to leave, Marion?’

  ‘Y-e-s.’ Her reply was almost inaudible.

  They got up to leave. Then Harris turned to me and said: ‘We traced you through the bills your “wife” spent on the trip. You see, her doting husband had cashed a large cheque at the Bank Internationale a few hours before she killed him. The chief teller fortunately made a list of the serial numbers.’

  So even in death he was giving me trouble.

  They reached the door. Then Harris turned and delivered his parting shot: ‘Next time, Harry Lime, I wouldn’t let the woman pay.’

  Well, it was a short marriage, but a very pleasant one—and if you should settle down somewhere and start enjoying easy living, rich food, and fine liquor, don’t worry about what it will do to your figure. Just worry about the fat it tends to develop…between the ears’.

  SEE NAPLES AND LIVE

  by

  Sigmund Miller

  There was once an exquisite and huge emerald locket which spent most of its time looking out at the world from the rather fleshy neck of Mrs. Donaldson as she waddled like a golden duck across the international social horizon, 1 had a rather strong desire to change the habitat of this locket from her cool neck to my itching palm. It was in Naples, 1937 …

  I was standing in the customs’ shed beside the the pier where a’ certain vessel was about to dock. That vessel was carrying precious freight—Mrs. Donaldson. I had already made arrangements with the customs officials that Mrs. Donaldson would be somewhat delayed and that her baggage would be extensively searched. A five thousand lire note had done the trick.

  An hour later I was standing beside a pillar watching my quarry. She was fiftyish, voluble, gullible, and somewhat foolish. At that particular moment she was very, very angry. ‘

  ‘You stubborn man—I tell you there is no contraband in my luggage.’ she was saying to an imperturbable customs officer. ‘You have already gone through my clothes twice with your dirty hands. Aimee, talk to this man. He doesn’t understand a word of English.’

  ‘My Italian is worse than his English,’ remarked a girl at her side. She had auburn hair and eyes to match the emerald, and she was as sensitive and shy as Mrs. Donaldson was garrulous and gushing. I guessed that she was the hired companion.

  I moved across and asked what was troubling them.

  Mrs. Donaldson’s face lit up. ’Thank heavens—an American!’ she exclaimed. ‘I have no idea why this idiotic official is rummaging through my clothes. One might think I was a smuggler or something. I’ve been to Naples many times, and there’s never been this ridiculous fuss. I’ll talk to the American Consul and see that this man loses his job. I wonder if you could talk to him—that is, if you speak Italian.’

  The man growled to me that there was a regulation that they had to examine every twenty-fifth passenger. I said that I would vouch for the lady, and handed him my card.

  He looked at it Then he said with great respect: ‘I am sorry to have caused Madame all this trouble. She may pass.’

  When the suitcases were, closed, I offered to give them a lift to their hotel in my car.

  ’Oh, I wouldn’t want you to bother,’ simpered Mrs. Donaldson.

  ‘No bother at all. One American to another, you know.’

  ’Thank you. These taxi-drivers rob you mercilessly,’ she said after a moment’s pause.

  ‘It’s a pleasure. My name is Lime. Harry Lime.’

  We shook hands. ‘I’m Mrs. Frederica Donaldson, and I am so glad that we ran into you…A wonderful piece of luck.’

  ‘Let us say that we are well met.’

  I hummed a little tune happily as we drove towards their hotel. Loveliness was gracing my car, loveliness in the form of the emerald locket around Mrs. Donaldson’s neck and loveliness in the form of Aimee Collins. I had guessed right: she was Mrs. Donaldson’s hired companion. And I also began to guess that she liked me. Every so often I would catch Aimee’s eye, and she would hastily turn away as if she were guilty of something.

  Mrs. D. gushed happily on about the delay, the humiliation, and their luck in bumping into me. I made suitable noises whenever she paused for breath. Then, at last, she gave me my cue.

  ‘I wish we could repay you for your kindness,’ she exclaimed.

  ‘Well…I think perhaps you can.’

  ‘Wonderful…just tell us what it is.’

  ‘Well, I’ve got to buy my sister a gift,’ I said tentatively. ‘It’s her birthday. I don’t know much about jewellery…so I wonder if either of you could come along and help me shop?’

  ’Of course we can,’ Mrs. Donaldson cried. ‘Aimee does most of my shopping for me. She’s very good at it. I’m sure she would be delighted to help you.’

  I turned towards Aimee. ‘You don’t mind, do you, Miss Collins?’

  ’Oh, no, not at all.’ She looked very pleased.

  ‘Good—that’s a relief. And I would like both of you to be my guests at dinner tonight.’

  Mrs. Donaldson accepted with alacrity, and soon afterwards we deposited her at her hotel, and then Aimee and I went shopping. I took her along to the Corso Vittorio Emanuele, one of Naples’ better thoroughfares.

  We walked along silently for a while, looking into the windows. Then she remarked: ‘Life is very strange, isn’t it?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Well, just half an hour ago you and I were total strangers. Now here I am helping you to buy a gift as if…as if we had known each other for a long time.’

  I said that there was nothing wrong in that.

  ‘No,’ she replied doubtfully. ‘It’s—er—just that the moment you came upon the scene things seemed to move fast—and efficiently.’

  I tried to laugh it off. ‘You make it sound as if it were my fault.’ But the thought flashed across my mind that perhaps I was forcing the pace a little too much.

  She apologised. ‘I suppose I sound foolish,’

  ‘Perhaps it’s because you liked me too soon.’

  She looked embarrassed. A faint blush appeared on her cheek. ‘You have a way of condensing relationships quickly,’ she murmured.

  I remarked that if people like each other they don’t need a calendar full of time to tell them.

  ‘Good things grow slowly,’ she began. Then she broke off in evident relief: ‘Ah, here’s a shop.’

  We stood and looked into the window. I pointed to a filigree pin that took my fancy.

  ‘I am begging y
our pardon. I heard you conversing in English.‘said a voice over my shoulder. I looked round and saw a small, dark, swarthy man. I wasn’t glad to see him.

  ‘I am trying to reach Via Salvator Rossa. Could you inform me how to get there.‘he went on imperturbably.

  I directed him as briefly as possible, and then turned away. But he showed no sign of going. ‘I am much grateful. Perhaps you would like a cigarette,’ he continued.

  ‘No, thank you.’

  ‘I am unhappy to trouble you further, but do you have a match?’

  I said that I was sorry but I didn’t have any with me.

  ‘I have a light.‘said Aimee.

  ‘Madame is most generous.’

  When his cigarette was alight, he bowed to us and raised his hat. ‘Good day to you both. Perhaps we will meet again.’

  There was a long pause while ‘we looked into the window. But I wasn’t thinking about jewellery. T was thinking about Rubio, for that the character’s name. I had been foolish enough to broach my little scheme to get Mrs. Donaldson’s emerald to him some time back. In fact I had offered to cut him in for a share of the proceeds in return for his help in disposing of the jewel—for that was how he earned his living. But on second thoughts I had decided to work on my own: there would be more profit that way. However, he had not taken my decision kindly and had joined the innumerable caravan that helped to make me the most threatened man in Europe. Not that I was afraid of his threats, but his presence might easily prove embarrassing.

  Aimee interrupted my musings. ‘Did you ever see him before?’ she asked.

  ‘Why do you ask that?’

  She remarked that he had acted as if he knew you.

  ‘Well, I didn’t care to know him.’

  ‘I think you gave him the wrong directions.‘she went on. I remained silent, and she added with a smile, ‘It seems to me that if he followed your directions he would find himself in the Bay of Naples.’