Nightwork

'It's a hand-to-mouth existence,' he said. 'I never got far enough ahead to take even a month off without worrying. I saw opportunities around me constantly that would have made me a rich man if I bad even a modest amount of capital. I won't say that I was bitter, but I certainly was discontented. I had just turned fifty a few days before the flight to Zurich, and I was not pleased with what the future might have in store for me. It is rasping to the soul to be committed to the company of the rich without being rich yourself. To pretend that losing three thousand dollars in one evening means as little to you as to them. To go from one great palace of a hotel to another while you're on duty, so to speak, and to hide in dingy out-of-the-way boarding houses When you're on your own.'

The ski-club group had been particularly lucrative. Almost permanent games had been set up from year to year. He had made himself well-liked, did a minimum amount of skiing to establish his legitimacy, paid his debts promptly, gave his share of parties, never cheated, was agreeable with the ladies, and was introduced to likely prey among the abundant Greek, South American, and English millionaires, all gamblers by nature, proud of their games and careless in their play.

'There was also the possibility,' he said, 'of meeting widows with independent fortunes and young divorcees with handsome settlements. Unfortunately,' he said, with a sigh, 'I am terribly romantic, a failing in a man my age, and what was offered I wouldn't have and what I would have wasn't offered. At least,' he said, with a touch of vanity, 'not on a financially acceptable basis. I know that I am not painting a very heroic picture of myself...' he said.

'No,' I said.

�... but I would like you to believe that I tell the truth, that you can trust me.'

'Go on,' I said. 'I don't trust you yet.'

'So,' he said, 'that was the man who tried to open a bag that was ostensibly his in the overpriced room at the Palace Hotel in St Moritz and found that the combination didn't work.'

'So you sent down for something to break it open with,' I said grimly, remembering my own experience.

'I had the desk send a man up. When he got the bag open, I saw immediately that it wasn't mine. I don't know why I didn't tell him that the bag belonged to somebody else. Some sixth sense, perhaps. Or maybe the sight of the brand-new attach� case lying on top of everything else. People don't usually pack a case like that in their luggage, but usually carry it by hand. In any event, I thanked the man and tipped him.... Incidentally, I didn't have the heart to throw the case away. It's in the bedroom and of course I'll be pleased to give it back to you.'

Thank you.'

'You're welcome,' he said. Without irony. 'Of course,' he said, 'when I counted the money, I realized that it had been stolen.'

'Of course.'

'It changes the morality of the affair a bit, doesn't it?'

'A bit.'

'It also meant that whoever had carried it across the ocean would not go crying to Interpol to recover it. Would my reasoning seem inaccurate to you?'

'No.'

I went through the bag very carefully. I hope you'll forgive me if I tell you that I found nothing there to make one believe that the owner of the bag was in anything but the most modest circumstances.'

I nodded. 'You can say that again, brother,' I said.

'I also found no indication of who the owner was. No address books, letters, etcetera. I even looked in the shaving kit to see if there were any medicines with a name on them.'

I laughed, despite myself.

'You must be an extraordinarily healthy man,' Fabian said, approvingly.

'About the same as you,' I said.

'Ah,' he said, beaming, 'you had the same experience.' 'Exactly.'

'I spent the next hour,' he went on, 'trying to recall if there was anything in my bag which had my name on it. I decided there was nothing. I had forgotten about Lily's letter, of course. I thought I had thrown it away. Even so, with her usual caution, I knew no names would be committed to the page. The next step was obvious.'

'You stole the money.'

'Let's say I put it to good use?�

'What do you mean, use?'

'Let me go step by step. I had never been in a position before to risk enough to make any coup really conclusive. In view of the circles in which I moved, the amounts I could risk were derisive. So that even when I won, as I have more often than not, I never reaped the full benefits of my luck. Do you follow me, Grimes?' 'Partially,' I said.

'For example, until now, I have never dared to play bridge at more than five cents a point.'

'Mrs Sloane told me that you were playing with her husband at five cents a point.'

'That was true. The first night. After that we went up to ten a point. Then to fifteen. Naturally since Sloane was losing rather heavily, he lied to his wife.'

'How much?'

'I'll be frank with you. When I left St Moritz, I had Sloane's check for twenty-seven thousand dollars in my wallet'

I whistled and looked at Fabian with growing respect. My own poker in Washington dwindled to a pinpoint. Here was a gambler who really knew how to ride his luck. But then I remembered it was my money he was risking, and I began to get angry all over again. 'What the hell good does that do we?' I asked.

Fabian put up his hand placatingly. 'All in due time, my dear fellow.' I had never expected to be called a dear fellow by a man who had grown up in Lowell, Massachusetts. 'I also did quite well, I am happy to say, at backgammon. Perhaps you remember that handsome young Greek with the beautiful wife?'

'Vaguely.'

'He was delighted when I suggested raising the stakes. A little over nine thousand dollars.'

'What you're telling me,' I said harshly, 'is that you ran my stake up thirty-six thousand dollars. Goody for you, Fabian;

you're in the chips and you can give me back the seventy and we'll shake hands and have a drink on it and we're both on our way.'

He shook his head sadly. 'It isn't quite as simple as that, I'm afraid.'

'Don't abuse my patience, man. You either have the money or you don't. And you'd better have it.'

He stood up. 'I believe we both could use another drink,' he said. I glowered at him as he went over to the sideboard. Having refrained from killing him when I had the chance, any lesser threats had depreciated greatly in value. It also occurred to me as I watched his well-tailored back (not my clothes, but from any one of two or three other bags he probably traveled with at all times) that it might all be a lie, a cock-and-bull story to keep me tamped down until somebody - a maid, Lily Abbott, a friend, came into the room. There would be nothing to stop him then from accusing me of annoying him, dunning him for a loan, trying to sell him dirty postcards, anything, and having me thrown out of the hotel. As he gave me my drink, I said, 'If you're lying to me, Fabian, the next time I see you I'm going to be carrying a gun.' I had no idea, of course, of how you went about getting a gun in France. And the only guns I had ever fired were .22 rifles at shooting galleries at town fairs.

'I wish you would believe me,' Fabian said as he sat down again with his drink, after pouring soda into it with a steady hand. 'I have plans for us two that will require mutual trust.'

'Plans?' I felt childishly manipulated, cunningly outmaneuvered by this man who had lived by his wits for nearly thirty years and whose hand could be so steady just a few minutes after he had escaped violent death. 'Okay, go on,' I said. 'You're thirty-six thousand dollars richer than you were three weeks ago and you say it isn't simple to give me back the money you owe me. Why not?'