Free The Two Faces of January by Patricia Highsmith

he was from Massachusetts.”
    â€œOh, and so what? I know a lot of crumbs from Massachusetts.”
    â€œWell, he certainly doesn’t look like a crumb!” She snuggled into the curve of his arm, her head against the swell of his chest.
    â€œYou were talking about his shoes.”
    â€œOh, the hell with his clothes,” Colette said. “You can see he’s got nice manners. He may come from a poor family, but it’s a good family.”
    Chester smiled indulgently in the darkness. It was one of the things he’d never argue with Colette about. She was essentially a Southerner, he supposed. A pipe began to clank mysteriously in the bathroom. Then an angry voice shouted something that sounded as if it came through several walls, and was answered by a woman’s shriller voice.
    â€œKee-rist! I hope that doesn’t keep on all night,” said Colette.
    â€œHope not.” She was in a better mood, and the fact the young man was coming with them had picked her up, Chester realized. He had thought he might have to do some persuading to make her agree to his coming. It was funny. Then he stiffened a little, remembering the way they had been looking at each other when he walked in from the bathroom with his suitcase tonight. So. Maybe. Maybe that was why the young man hadn’t pointed out that his services as an alibi-provider wouldn’t be needed for very long. Chester squirmed a little. The young man now had him by the short hair, too, if he wanted to stay on. Maybe he was after bigger money than a few hundred dollars or a thousand.
    â€œS’ matter, darling? Am I heavy on you?”
    â€œYou’re never heavy on me,” Chester said. He was uneasy. He was thinking, as he had been thinking off and on all evening, that the Hotel King’s Palace employees might find the body as early as 5 a.m., the police might have the trains and buses checked by 7 a.m., and start on the Athens hotels. They could be picked up at 8 a.m., before they were even out of the Hotel Dardanelles. Or was he feeling over-pessimistic because it had been such a long, horrible day? He had ordered a beefsteak for dinner and hardly been able to touch it. And Colette said he was acting cool about it! He lay awake a long time after Colette had fallen asleep, until his arm grew cramped, and he gently pulled it through the little gap her neck made at the bottom of the pillow, and turned over.
    Chester awoke first at 7:30 and ordered breakfast. “American coffee and toast and marmalade. Buttered toast . . . Oh, all right, butter on the side, yes. . . . No, the milk aside from the coffee. Not in the coffee. Understand? . . . No, I never said anything about French coffee. American coffee. . . . All right, if the milk comes in it, it comes in it. Just make it quick, will you? And have our bill ready, if you wi ll.” He hung up. “Whew!”
    Colette was awake. “Trouble, honey?” She smiled and sat up, ran her fingers through her hair and stretched her arms up, her fingers splayed and arched backward, like her spine. She took a quick bath, shrieking at the coolness of the water, while Chester shaved at the basin. “Draw one for you, dear?” she asked as she washed the tub out with her sponge.
    â€œThanks. Not taking time this morning.”
    He did not sit down for his grey-colored coffee, and did not eat any of the round rusklike stuff that passed for toast, though Colette got through several of them, dunking them quickly to soften them, then spreading them liberally with orange marmalade.
    â€œSmell this butter, Ches,” she said through a laugh, holding up the butter plate to him. “Smells just like a wet sheep.”
    Chester sniffed, agreed with her, then went on about his business, which at that moment was sneaking a fortifying drink in the bathroom. Colette didn’t like him to drink in the early morning.
    They were at the Olympia Airlines by a quarter to 9. Rydal