The Two Faces of January by Patricia Highsmith

Chester wouldn’t feel it. He remembered Chester this morning, dragging the big brown suitcase, which Rydal had fetched for him from the seaside restaurant, behind the curtain that concealed the hole-in-the-floor W.C. of the café. Chester felt he had to hide, when he went into his cash.
    â€œYou got the money?” Niko asked anxiously.
    Rydal pulled his left hand out. “Here’s yours.”
    Niko glanced at it and stuffed it away somewhere, like a squirrel.
    Rydal turned around. They were not being watched, as far as he could see. He unbuttoned his back pocket, and got the other money. “You don’t have to count it. It’s ten five hundreds.” He saw Niko’s hand tremble as he took it.
    Niko smiled. “Fine. Zank you.”
    Rydal smiled. He turned again, back towards the terminal.
    â€œWhat they give you?” Niko asked.
    â€œOh-h, I don’t know yet,” said Rydal.
    â€œHe kill a man, no? I see in this morning’s paper.”
    â€œAn accident,” Rydal said.
    â€œSure, but . . . he kill.”
    Ergo, gouge him plenty, Niko might have added. “We’ll see,” Rydal said vaguely.
    â€œWhen you coming back to Athens?” Niko looked up at him, smiling, showing the lead-framed tooth, like an absurd miniature picture frame setting off that masterpiece of bad diet and neglect, Niko’s yellow incisor.
    Rydal thought of Colette’s white teeth, her fresh lips. “I don’t know that, either. Have to do a little sightseeing first. I’ve never been to Crete before.”
    Niko stuck his underlip out, looked around him at this thing called Crete, nodded and seemed about to make some disparaging yet important remark, but said nothing. Then he giggled. “I never been before, either.”
    After a moment, Rydal said, “There’s your plane loading, I think.”
    Niko jumped, started towards it as if it were a street-car he was about to miss, checked himself and grinned self-consciously. He was a few yards away from Rydal now. “Hey! Frank say he want to make a date with . . . with the girl!” Niko gestured towards Rydal with a finger.
    It took Rydal an instant to know he meant Colette. Rydal put his head back and laughed, and waved good-bye. “My love to Anna!” Then he trotted towards the terminal.
    He had missed the bus to Iraklion, so he took a taxi. In the taxi, he closed his eyes and let his head rest against the comfortless seat back. His eyes smarted from lack of sleep.
    He found Chester and Colette in the place they had appointed, a modest little restaurant by a round fountain, some six blocks up the main street from the sea. Chester had managed to shave with his battery razor, in some men’s room probably, and he looked better than he had when Rydal left him, though his eyes were still pink and squinty from fatigue. They both looked at him anxiously as he approached their table, and Rydal smiled and nodded to reassure them. They had finished lunch, apparently. Their empty coffee cups were on the table, and also a large cloudy glass of ouzo at Chester’s place.
    â€œGreetings,” Rydal said, pulling out a chair for himself.
    â€œYou got them?” Chester asked.
    â€œYep.” Rydal looked up at a solemn, tired waiter who had come to the table. “Just a coffee, please,” he said in Greek. When the man went away, Rydal looked to see if the mild interest his arrival had caused in the place had died down—it had—then coolly lit a cigarette and unbuttoned his overcoat. There were only three customers in the restaurant, a fat man reading a newspaper at a table in the rear, and two Greeks who had also finished their lunches and were talking pugnaciously at a table some fifteen feet away. Rydal pulled the passports out of his overcoat pocket and passed them under the table onto Chester’s thigh.
    Chester glanced over his shoulder nervously, then opened one of the passports,