He thought for a moment. “Dr. Applewood—I know you must know about him. Dr. Applewood didn’t seem to have much trouble getting out.”
“Of course not. We let him out. We let all of them out, except for one who got killed by accident.”
“Why?”
“What do you care?” She sounded contemptuous.
“Because I was one of them.”
“That’s right, you were. You’re willing to turn against North?”
“I’ve never been for him. I was a sort of prisoner—his slave, if you want to put it like that.”
“And you couldn’t get away?”
“I did.” He told her what had taken place in the basement. “That is, I got away from North. What I want to know is why you let me get away, and Dr. Applewood and the rest.”
“Because you were all just low-level people. When you’ve identified low-level people, you don’t arrest them. You don’t want to. You watch them like we watched the play before North showed up. You let them lead you to the ringleaders.”
He said, “That was what you did with me, wasn’t it? I had my hotel key in my pocket, and this morning before I ate I went to Dr. Applewood to get this bandage and some salve for my hand. After breakfast, when I came down again to buy some clothes, the light was off in his office. I suppose the blonde in the beauty shop saw me the first time and came to listen outside the door.”
Fanny shrugged. “I suppose.”
“You don’t know?”
She glanced at him, irritated. “You think she tells me everything she does? She’s my boss, a lieutenant.”
“I’m sorry,” he said.
When she was silent he added, “It’s just that this morning in the coffee shop I thought you liked me. When they shut the hotel and nobody would pay any attention to me until you came by to pick me up, I knew I’d been supposed to find that paper about you, and you were just playing a part … .” He let the thought trail away.
“Nature made women to play parts. When we stop, the show’s over.” She drew a deep breath, then let it out with a puff. “I did like you, and I still do. But as long as we know each other I’ll always be playing a part, every few minutes and sometimes for hours. I can’t help it. Anything else you want to know?”
“Yes. Last night at the theater—who was the woman in the box with Klamm?”
“His stepdaughter.”
“What?” He realized his mouth was open, and closed it.
“That’s his stepdaughter. Klamm used to be married, though obviously they never—you know.”
He did not, but he nodded.
“Then his wife found a man who would. She and Klamm were divorced, naturally, but they’re still friends—she’s supposed to have been his favorite student when he was at the university, and I imagine their love was always a lot more intellectual than anything else.”
The highway had become a boulevard. Fanny turned off it onto a city street lined with stores. “All this is just what I’ve heard, you understand—I don’t know Klamm or his ex-wife personally. Anyway, he’s been like an uncle to her children. That’s what they say, but that one’s the only one you ever see with him in public. I suppose she looks a lot like her mother did when she was younger; it happens sometimes.” Fanny smiled bitterly.
“And her name’s Klamm?”
“Certainly not. Her name’s Nomos. Laura Nomos.”
“Laura Nomos,” he repeated. He had heard the name, he felt sure. At the theater? In the hospital? He could not place it. Had Joe mentioned it? He found he associated it with Joe.
“This morning in the coffee shop I thought you really liked me.” Fanny was parodying what he had said a few moments before. “When I found out it was really Klamm’s stepdaughter, I was just devastated. I mean I am.” She sighed theatrically. “She’s a lawyer, I hear. You could look her up in the Bar Association’s guide—see how much you learn by hanging out with a cop?”
The little car turned right, and though they were not going fast, the turn was so abrupt that its rear wheels skidded.
“Any more questions?”
“Are you taking me to see Klamm?”
She laughed. “I’m taking you to my place—maybe in a week you’ll get to see Klamm. How old do you think I am?”
He hesitated, fearful of insulting her. “I’m not very good at this. Twenty?”
“Thanks. I’m twenty-two, and if I was a grade lower I’d be in uniform. My lieutenant reports to a captain who reports to a person who reports to a woman who reports to Klamm. We have to go up the chain of command, and we’ll have to have something to say that will make Klamm think you’re worth his time. Is there anything else?”
“Who is Kay?”
Her eyes left the road to stare at him, their expression a mixture of surprise and skepticism.
He explained, “Once I talked to Klamm on the phone, and he thought I was somebody called Kay. I’ve known women named Kay, but this was a man, I think. He heard my voice, and he called me ‘Herr Kay.’ That’s a man, isn’t it?”
“I suppose it is. But I haven’t the least idea what man. Except …”
“Yes?”
“Sometimes Klamm himself is called Herr K. in the papers, from his initial and because he was born in the German Empire. But I don’t see how it could be that if you were really on the phone with Klamm.”
“I don’t either. One more question. What’s a Visitor?”
Her lips tightened. “And where did you hear about that?”
“Does it matter? I want to know what one is, because I think I may be one myself.”
Fanny nosed her little car to the curb. “It’ll have to wait until we get inside,” she said. “Here we are.”
The Room
“Not what you expected, huh?”
It was not. Fanny’s room was small and shabby, no bigger than ten by twelve. Electrical wiring had been strung across the ceiling, and lingerie (a black brassiere and two pairs of panties, one peach, one pink) dangled from it. He said, “Even for a waitress …”
“This is a little extreme? Is that what you think? Rest easy; the department didn’t rent this place for me to go with the job. We aren’t that thorough, and usually we don’t have to be. This is where I live.”
As though to prove it, she sat down on the bed. “If it had gone on longer, I might have picked up some extra money in tips when the weather got a little better. Well, it’s over with now. Tomorrow I’ll tell Blanche about you and get my new assignment. Sit down.”
There was only one chair, a wingback upholstered in faded chintz. He sat, feeling the chair was too small for him, that it had been scaled for a child, that it had once been part of the furnishings of a doll’s house—furnishings dispersed long ago, scattered through smoldering dumps, through Salvation Army stores until only this chair and the doll remained.
“You were going to ask me about Visitors,” she said. “You even said you thought you might be one yourself. Why is that?”
“Because I don’t seem to fit in here.” He paused, laboring to box his feelings in words; and at last he muttered, “I never really know what’s going on.”
Fanny put her fingertips together, reminding him suddenly of the buck-toothed woman in the Downtown Mental Health Center. “Just what is it you don’t understand? I’ll explain if I can.” She rummaged in her purse, took out a battered pack of Chamois and extended it to him. “Smoke?”
“No,” he told her, “and that’s one of them. Hardly anybody smokes any more, except maybe dope. But here almost everybody seems to smoke. Even Mr. Sheng, he smoked a pipe. Klamm smoked a cigar right in the theater. And once when I tried to call my apartment, I got Klamm. I was hoping that Lara would answer, and now I think maybe she was standing there beside him, like she was that night.”
“You know Laura Nomos?”
He shook his head. “Lara Morgan—she used to live with me. I’m looking for her.” He paused to savor the idea. “That’s why I’m here.” Just saying it made him feel stronger.