The Talented Mr. Ripley

  By the end of January Tom thought that Fausto must have come and gone through Rome, though Marge’s last letters had not mentioned him. Marge wrote, care of the American Express, about once a week. She asked if he needed any socks or a muffler, because she had plenty of time to knit, besides working on her book. She always put in a funny anecdote about somebody they knew in the village, just so Dickie wouldn’t think she was eating her heart out for him, though obviously she was, and obviously she wasn’t going to leave for the States in February without making another desperate try for him in person, Tom thought, hence the investments of the long letters and the knitted socks and muffler which Tom knew were coming, even though he hadn’t replied to her letters. Her letters repelled him. He disliked even touching them, and after he glanced through them he tore them up and dropped them into the garbage.

  He wrote finally:

  I’m giving up the idea of an apartment in Rome for the time being. Di Massimo is going to Sicily for several months, and I may go with him and go on somewhere from there. My plans are vague, but they have the virtue of freedom and they suit my present mood.

  Don’t send me any socks, Marge. I really don’t need a thing. Wish you much luck with “Mongibello.”

  He had a ticket for Majorca—by train to Naples, then the boat from Naples to Palma over the night of January thirty-first and February first. He had bought two new suitcases from Gucci’s, the best leather goods store in Rome, one a large, soft suitcase of antelope hide, the other a neat tan canvas with brown leather straps. Both bore Dickie’s initials. He had thrown the shabbier of his own two suitcases away, and the remaining one he kept in a closet of his apartment, full of his own clothes, in case of an emergency. But Tom was not expecting any emergencies. The scuttled boat in San Remo had never been found. Tom looked through the papers everyday for something about it.

  While Tom was packing his suitcases one morning his doorbell rang. He supposed it was a solicitor of some kind, or a mistake. He had no name on his doorbell, and he had told the superintendent that he did not want his name on the doorbell because he didn’t like people to drop in on him. It rang for the second time, and Tom still ignored it, and went on with his lackadaisical packing. He loved to pack, and he took a long time about it, a whole day or two days, laying Dickie’s clothes affectionately into suitcases, now and then trying on a good-looking shirt or a jacket in front of the mirror. He was standing in front of the mirror, buttoning a blue-and-white sea-horse-patterned sport shirt of Dickie’s that he had never worn, when there came a knock at his door.

  It crossed his mind that it might be Fausto, that it would be just like Fausto to hunt him down in Rome and try to surprise him. That was silly, he told himself. But his hands were cool with sweat as he went to the door. He felt faint, and the absurdity of his faintness, plus the danger of keeling over and being found prostrate on the floor, made him wrench the door open with both hands, though he opened it only a few inches.

  “Hello!” the American voice said out of the semidarkness of the hall. “Dickie? It’s Freddie!”

  Tom took a step back, holding the door open. “He’s— Won’t you come in? He’s not here right now. He should be back in a little later.”

  Freddie Miles came in, looking around. His ugly, freckled face gawked in every direction. How in hell had he found the place, Tom wondered. Tom slipped his rings off quickly and pocketed them. And what else? He glanced around the room.

  “You’re staying with him?” Freddie asked with that wall-eyed stare that made his face look idiotic and rather scared.

  “Oh, no. I’m just staying here for a few hours,” Tom said, casually removing the seahorse shirt. He had another shirt on under it. “Dickie’s out for lunch. Otello’s, I think he said. He should be back around three at the latest.” One of the Buffis must have let Freddie in, Tom thought, and told him which bell to press, and told him Signor Greenleaf was in, too. Freddie had probably said he was an old friend of Dickie’s. Now he would have to get Freddie out of the house without running into Signora Buffi downstairs, because she always sang out, “Buon giorno, Signor Greenleaf!”

  “I met you in Mongibello, didn’t I?” Freddie asked. “Aren’t you Tom? I thought you were coming to Cortina.”

  “I couldn’t make it, thanks. How was Cortina?”

  “Oh, fine. What happened to Dickie?”

  “Didn’t he write to you? He decided to spend the winter in Rome. He told me he’d written to you.”

  “Not a word—unless he wrote to Florence. But I was in Salzburg, and he had my address.” Freddie half sat on Tom’s long table, rumpling the green silk runner. He smiled. “Marge told me he’d moved to Rome, but she didn’t have any address except the American Express. It was only by the damnedest luck I found his apartment. I ran into somebody at the Greco last night who just happened to know his address. What’s this idea of—”

  “Who?” Tom asked. “An American?”

  “No, an Italian fellow. Just a young kid.” Freddie was looking at Tom’s shoes. “You’ve got the same kind of shoes Dickie and I have. They wear like iron, don’t they? I bought my pair in London eight years ago.”

  They were Dickie’s grain-leather shoes. “These came from America,” Tom said. “Can I offer you a drink or would you rather try to catch Dickie at Otello’s? Do you know where it is? There’s not much use in your waiting, because he generally takes till three with his lunches. I’m going out soon myself.”

  Freddie had strolled toward the bedroom and stopped, looking at the suitcases on the bed. “Is Dickie leaving for somewhere or did he just get here?” Freddie asked, turning.

  “He’s leaving. Didn’t Marge tell you? He’s going to Sicily for a while.”

  “When?”

  “Tomorrow. Or late tonight, I’m not quite sure.”

  “Say, what’s the matter with Dickie lately?” Freddie asked, frowning. “What’s the idea of all the seclusion?”

  “He says he’s been working pretty hard this winter,” Tom said in an offhand tone. “He seems to want privacy, but as far as I know he’s still on good terms with everybody, including Marge.”

  Freddie smiled again, unbuttoning his big polo coat. “He’s not going to stay on good terms with me if he stands me up a few more times. Are you sure he’s on good terms with Marge? I got the idea from her that they’d had a quarrel. I thought maybe that was why they didn’t go to Cortina.” Freddie looked at him expectantly.

  “Not that I know of.” Tom went to the closet to get his jacket, so that Freddie would know he wanted to leave, then realized just in time that the gray flannel jacket that matched his trousers might be recognizable as Dickie’s, if Freddie knew Dickie’s suit. Tom reached for a jacket of his own and for his own overcoat that were hanging at the extreme left of the closet. The shoulders of the overcoat looked as if the coat had been on a hanger for weeks, which it had. Tom turned around and saw Freddie staring at the silver identification bracelet on his left wrist. It was Dickie’s bracelet, which Tom had never seen him wearing, but had found in Dickie’s stud box. Freddie was looking at it as if he had seen it before. Tom put on his overcoat casually.

  Freddie was looking at him now with a different expression, with a little surprise. Tom knew what Freddie was thinking. He stiffened, sensing danger. You’re not out of the woods yet, he told himself. You’re not out of the house yet.

  “Ready to go?” Tom asked.

  “You do live here, don’t you?”

  “No!” Tom protested, smiling. The ugly, freckle-blotched face stared at him from under the garish thatch of red hair. If they could only get out without running into Signora Buffi downstairs, Tom thought. “Let’s go.”

  “Dickie’s loaded you up with all his jewelry, I see.”

  Tom couldn’t think of a single thing to say, a single joke to make. “Oh, it’s a loan,” Tom said in his deepest voice. “Dickie got tired of wearing it, so he told me to wear it for a while.” He meant the identification bracelet, but
there was also the silver clip on his tie, he realized, with the G on it. Tom had bought the tieclip himself. He could feel the belligerence growing in Freddie Miles as surely as if his huge body were generating a heat that he could feel across the room. Freddie was the kind of ox who might beat up somebody he thought was a pansy, especially if the conditions were as propitious as these. Tom was afraid of his eyes.

  “Yes, I’m ready to go,” Freddie said grimly, getting up. He walked to the door and turned with a swing of his broad shoulders. “That’s the Otello not far from the Inghilterra?”

  “Yes,” Tom said. “He’s supposed to be there by one o’clock.” Freddie nodded. “Nice to see you again,” he said unpleasantly, and closed the door.

  Tom whispered a curse. He opened the door slightly and listened to the quick tap-tap–tap-tap of Freddie’s shoes descending the stairs. He wanted to make sure Freddie got out without speaking to one of the Buffis again. Then he heard Freddie’s “Buon giorno, signora.” Tom leaned over the stairwell. Three stories down, he could see part of Freddie’s coat sleeve. He was talking in Italian with Signora Buffi. The woman’s voice came more clearly.

  “. . . only Signor Greenleaf,” she was saying. “No, only one. . . . Signor Chi? . . . No, signor. . . . I do not think he has gone out today at all, but I could be wrong!” She laughed.

  Tom twisted the stair rail in his hands as if it were Freddie’s neck. Then Tom heard Freddie’s footsteps running up the stairs. Tom stepped back into the apartment and closed the door. He could go on insisting that he didn’t live here, that Dickie was at Otello’s, or that he didn’t know where Dickie was, but Freddie wouldn’t stop now until he had found Dickie. Or Freddie would drag him downstairs and ask Signora Buffi who he was.

  Freddie knocked on the door. The knob turned. It was locked. Tom picked up a heavy glass ashtray. He couldn’t get his hand across it, and he had to hold it by the edge. He tried to think just for two seconds more: wasn’t there another way out? What would he do with the body? He couldn’t think. This was the only way out. He opened the door with his left hand. His right hand with the ashtray was drawn back and down.

  Freddie came into the room. “Listen, would you mind telling—”

  The curved edge of the ashtray hit the middle of his forehead. Freddie looked dazed. Then his knees bent and he went down like a bull hit between the eyes with a hammer. Tom kicked the door shut. He slammed the edge of the ashtray into the back of Freddie’s neck. He hit the neck again and again, terrified that Freddie might be only pretending and that one of his huge arms might suddenly circle his legs and pull him down. Tom struck his head a glancing blow, and blood came. Tom cursed himself. He ran and got a towel from the bathroom and put it under Freddie’s head. Then he felt Freddie’s wrist for a pulse. There was one, faint, and it seemed to flutter away as he touched it as if the pressure of his own fingers stilled it. In the next second it was gone. Tom listened for any sound behind the door. He imagined Signora Buffi standing behind the door with the hesitant smile she always had when she felt she was interrupting. But there wasn’t any sound. There hadn’t been any loud sound, he thought, either from the ashtray or when Freddie fell. Tom looked down at Freddie’s mountainous form on the floor and felt a sudden disgust and a sense of helplessness.

  It was only twelve-forty, hours until dark. He wondered if Freddie had people waiting for him anywhere? Maybe in a car downstairs? He searched Freddie’s pockets. A wallet. The American passport in the inside breast pocket of the overcoat. Mixed Italian and some other kind of coins. A keycase. There were two car keys on a ring that said fiat. He searched the wallet for a license. There it was, with all the particulars: fiat 1400 nero—convertible—1955. He could find it if it was in the neighborhood. He searched every pocket, and the pockets in the buff-colored vest, for a garage ticket, but he found none. He went to the front window, then nearly smiled because it was so simple: there stood the black convertible across the street almost directly in front of the house. He could not be sure, but he thought there was no one in it.

  He suddenly knew what he was going to do. He set about arranging the room, bringing out the gin and vermouth bottles from his liquor cabinet and on second thought the Pernod because it smelled so much stronger. He set the bottles on the long table and mixed a martini in a tall glass with a couple of ice cubes in it, drank a little of it so that the glass would be soiled, then poured some of it into another glass, took it over to Freddie and crushed his limp fingers around it and carried it back to the table. He looked at the wound, and found that it had stopped bleeding or was stopping and had not run through the towel on to the floor. He propped Freddie up against the wall, and poured some straight gin from the bottle down his throat. It didn’t go down very well, most of it went on to his shirtfront, but Tom didn’t think the Italian police would actually make a blood test to see how drunk Freddie had been. Tom let his eyes rest absently on Freddie’s limp, messy face for a moment, and his stomach contracted sickeningly and he quickly looked away. He mustn’t do that again. His head had begun ringing as if he were going to faint.

  That’d be a fine thing, Tom thought as he wobbled across the room toward the window, to faint now! He frowned at the black car down below, and breathed the fresh air in deeply. He wasn’t going to faint, he told himself. He knew exactly what he was going to do. At the last minute, the Pernod, for both of them. Two other glasses with their fingerprints and Pernod. And the ashtrays must be full. Freddie smoked Chesterfields. Then the Appian Way. One of those dark places behind the tombs. There weren’t any streetlights for long stretches on the Appian Way. Freddie’s wallet would be missing. Objective: robbery.

  He had hours of time, but he didn’t stop until the room was ready, the dozen lighted Chesterfields and the dozen or so Lucky Strikes burnt down and stabbed out in the ashtrays, and a glass of Pernod broken and only half cleaned up from the bathroom tiles, and the curious thing was that as he set his scene so carefully, he pictured having hours more time to clean it up—say between nine this evening when the body might be found, and midnight, when the police just might decide he was worth questioning, because somebody just might have known that Freddie Miles was going to call on Dickie Greenleaf today—and he knew that he would have it all cleaned up by eight o’clock, probably, because according to the story he was going to tell, Freddie would have left his house by seven (as indeed Freddie was going to leave his house by seven), and Dickie Greenleaf was a fairly tidy young man, even with a few drinks in him. But the point of the messy house was that the messiness substantiated merely for his own benefit the story that he was going to tell, and that therefore he had to believe himself.

  And he would still leave for Naples and Palma at ten-thirty tomorrow morning, unless for some reason the police detained him. If he saw in the newspaper tomorrow morning that the body had been found, and the police did not try to contact him, it was only decent that he should volunteer to tell them that Freddie Miles had been at his house until late afternoon, Tom thought. But it suddenly occurred to him that a doctor might be able to tell that Freddie had been dead since noon. And he couldn’t get Freddie out now, not in broad daylight. No, his only hope was that the body wouldn’t be found for so many hours that a doctor couldn’t tell exactly how long he had been dead. And he must try to get out of the house without anybody seeing him—whether he could carry Freddie down with a fair amount of ease like a passed-out drunk or not—so that if he had to make any statement, he could say that Freddie left the house around four or five in the afternoon.

  He dreaded the five- or six-hour wait until nightfall so much that for a few moments he thought he couldn’t wait. That mountain on the floor! And he hadn’t wanted to kill him at all. It had been so unnecessary, Freddie and his stinking, filthy suspicions. Tom was trembling, sitting on the edge of a chair cracking his knuckles. He wanted to go out and take a walk, but he was afraid to leave the body lying there. There had to be noise, of course, if he and Freddie were supposed to be talkin
g and drinking all afternoon. Tom turned the radio on to a station that played dance music. He could have a drink, at least. That was part of the act. He made another couple of martinis with ice in the glass. He didn’t even want it, but he drank it.

  The gin only intensified the same thoughts he had had. He stood looking down at Freddie’s long, heavy body in the polo coat that was crumpled under him, that he hadn’t the energy or the heart to straighten out, though it annoyed him, and thinking how sad, stupid, clumsy, dangerous, and unnecessary his death had been, and how brutally unfair to Freddie. Of course, one could loathe Freddie, too. A selfish, stupid bastard who had sneered at one of his best friends—Dickie certainly was one of his best friends—just because he suspected him of sexual deviation. Tom laughed at that phrase “sexual deviation.” Where was the sex? Where was the deviation? He looked at Freddie and said low and bitterly: “Freddie Miles, you’re a victim of your own dirty mind.”

  16

  He waited after all until nearly eight, because around seven there were always more people coming in and out of the house than at other times. At ten to eight, he strolled downstairs to make sure that Signora Buffi was not pottering around in the hall and that her door was not open, and to make sure there really was no one in Freddie’s car, though he had gone down in the middle of the afternoon to look at the car and see if it was Freddie’s. He tossed Freddie’s polo coat into the backseat. He came back upstairs, knelt down and pulled Freddie’s arm around his neck, set his teeth, and lifted. He staggered, jerking the flaccid weight higher on his shoulder. He had lifted Freddie earlier that afternoon, just to see if he could, and he had seemed barely able to walk two steps in the room with Freddie’s pounds pressing his own feet against the floor, and Freddie was exactly as heavy now, but the difference was that he knew he had to get him out now. He let Freddie’s feet drag to relieve some of his weight, managed to pull his door shut with his elbow, then began to descend the stairs. Halfway down the first flight, he stopped, hearing someone come out of an apartment on the second floor. He waited until the person had gone down the stairs and out the front door, then recommenced his slow, bumping descent. He had pulled a hat of Dickie’s well down over Freddie’s head so that the bloodstained hair would not show. On a mixture of gin and Pernod, which he had been drinking for the last hour, Tom had gotten himself to a precisely calculated state of intoxication in which he thought he could move with a certain nonchalance and smoothness and at the same time be courageous and even foolhardy enough to take chances without flinching. The first chance, the worst thing that could happen, was that he might simply collapse under Freddie’s weight before he got him to the car. He had sworn that he would not stop to rest going down the stairs. He didn’t. And nobody else came out of any of the apartments, and nobody came in the front door. During the hours upstairs, Tom had imagined so tortuously everything that might happen—Signora Buffi or her husband coming out of their apartment just as he reached the bottom of the stairs, or himself fainting so that both he and Freddie would be discovered sprawled on the stairs together, or being unable to pick Freddie up again if he had to put him down to rest—imagined it all with such intensity, writhing upstairs in his apartment, that to have descended all the stairs without a single one of his imaginings happening made him feel he was gliding down under a magical protection of some kind, with ease in spite of the mass on his shoulder.