Hotel Pastis (39 page)

They were less pleased to be told by Simon that any hint of police involvement might prejudice the safety of the hostage. The senior detective, his superior rank apparent from his habit of stealing his colleague’s cigarettes and waiting for them to be lit, shook his head.

“Unfortunately, Monsieur Shaw, we have been informed. We have been involved, you understand? It is a
fait accompli
. How can I, a police officer, ignore a major crime?” He glanced down at his notebook and rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “But I can promise you this.” He took another cigarette from the open packet on the desk and cocked an eyebrow to indicate that it needed to be lit. “I can promise you this,” he said again. “We shall conduct this affair with the maximum delicacy and discretion.
Le maximum
. We have much experience
of matters like this. Why, I remember three years ago the abduction of a Swiss tourist during the festival of Avignon.…”

Françoise put her head round the door. “Monsieur Shaw? There are two men here for you.”

Simon went into the reception area and stopped short at the sight of a man with two cameras slung round his neck. His colleague was more modestly equipped, with a single tape recorder hanging by a strap from his shoulder.

“
Bonjour
, Monsieur Shaw.
Le Provençal
. We’ve just come from the school at Lacoste. You have two minutes? We understand you know the young man who—”

Simon held up one hand. “Don’t go away.” He went back to the office and shook his head at the two detectives. “ ‘Maximum discretion,’ is that what you said?”

They nodded.

“Then tell me why there’s a reporter and a photographer out there.”

The detectives shouldered their way past Simon and glared at the journalists. “Out,” said the senior detective, jerking his thumb at the door. “There is no story. This is a confidential matter for the police.”

The journalists both started talking at once, their eyebrows, shoulders, and hands jerking up and down in extravagant outrage. The press had a duty to report events—more, a constitutional right to report events.

“
Merde
to all that,” said the senior detective. “You listen to me.”

Simon closed the office door and rested his head in his hands. A few noisy minutes later, the door opened.

“No problem,” said the senior detective, smiling at Simon as if he’d done him a personal favour.

“What do you mean, ‘no problem’? You can’t stop them writing a story.”

The detective tapped the side of his nose. “This is France, monsieur. Journalists know their place.”

Simon sighed. “Okay. Now what?”

“The kidnappers will be calling again,
non?
We will arrange for the call to be traced. Meanwhile, we wait.”

“Do you have to wait here? We’re trying to run a hotel.”

With some reluctance, the detectives allowed themselves to be persuaded to leave the office and continue their duties with a cordless phone on the terrace overlooking the pool.

“Oh, there’s one thing you could do while you’re waiting,” Simon said. He pointed across the terrace. “If you see a man looking over the top of that wall, arrest him.”

Simon called the bank to warn them to expect the money, and to have it ready for him to pick up at the end of the day. He did his best to soothe Françoise, who had just learned of Boone’s disappearance. He thanked his lucky stars for Nicole and Ernest, who dealt with guests and staff as though nothing had happened. He deliberately woke Ziegler at five a.m. in New York to make sure that the money was being sent as soon as business opened. He was lightheaded with fatigue, but incapable of sleep, and he knew that he was becoming increasingly short-tempered. The sight of the two detectives studying lunch menus on the terrace did nothing to improve his mood.

He returned to the office and sat staring at the phone. There was nothing much the police could do until the kidnappers called again, nothing much anyone could do.

And then he remembered Enrico. What was it he’d said? If ever there was a problem at the hotel, a problem
the authorities might find difficult to deal with through official channels … something like that. Simon pulled the phone towards him. It was probably all talk, but it was worth a try. Anything was better than sitting here feeling useless.

The guardian of Enrico’s telephone growled. Simon identified himself and lit a cigar while he waited to be put through.

Enrico sounded pleased to hear from him. There were certain unresolved matters to discuss before his people could start servicing the hotel. Perhaps another delightful lunch might be arranged? Simon cut him short. “Enrico, listen. I don’t know if you can help, but a friend of mine is in trouble. A young American. He’s been kidnapped.”

“That’s bad. In the tourist season, too. Amateurs. You must tell me everything you know.”

When the brief conversation was over, Enrico left his office for a stroll around the Vieux Port. He stopped twice, once to visit a bar and a second time to go through the back door of a seafood restaurant. The men he spoke to got on the phone as soon as he’d left them. If this was a local job, somebody would know about it. And if somebody knew about it, Enrico would be told. He beckoned to the Mercedes that had been trailing him round the port. He would take a quiet early lunch in the garden at Passédat, the brochette of
langoustines
, while he considered the business opportunities that this interesting piece of news might offer.

The bank called in the late afternoon to tell Simon that the money was ready, and he was halfway to the car before it occurred to him that walking round Cavaillon
alone with ten million francs in cash might be a mistake. He went down to the terrace, where the detectives were keeping a watchful eye on the sunbathers.

“The money’s arrived. It would be best if you came with me.”

The detectives adjusted their sunglasses, the mirror-lens models favoured by the motorcycle cops for that added glint of menace, and followed Simon out to the parking area. They got into the unmarked police car, blistering hot and stale with yesterday’s cigarettes, and the junior detective used the car phone for a laconic exchange of grunts and monosyllables with headquarters.

They double-parked outside the bank. The detectives looked up and down the street, saw nothing instantly suspicious in the sprinkling of slow-footed tourists and housewives shopping for the evening meal, and hurried Simon across the pavement. They pressed the buzzer next to the plate glass door and waited. An aged bank clerk shuffled up to the door, shook his head, and mouthed
“Fermé,”
pointing at the opening hours printed on the glass. The senior detective slapped his identity card flat against the door. The clerk peered at it, shrugged, and let them in.

The manager of the bank greeted them outside his office, showed them in, and closed the door. He let his breath out in a great sigh of relief. It had been a nightmare afternoon, money being delivered from the bigger branches in Avignon and Marseille, thoughts of a holdup, visions of men with shotguns. But now, thank God, it was over.
“Voilà, messieurs.”
He pointed to his desk. “If you’d like to count it.”

Simon looked at the stacks of five hundred-franc notes, banded together in
briques
of ten thousand francs. Somehow, he’d expected ten million francs to look more
impressive, more bulky. He sat down and, as the others smoked and watched, arranged the
briques
in piles of one hundred thousand francs, counted the piles, packed them into a thick plastic sack, and hefted the sack in his hand. It was no heavier than the attaché case filled with work that he used to take home from the agency every weekend.

“C’est bon?”
The manager put a form on the desk in front of Simon.
“Une petite signature, s’il vous plaît.”
He watched Simon sign the receipt and relaxed. Now it was someone else’s responsibility.

They shook hands and went to the main door, Simon sandwiched between the two detectives, the sack bumping against his leg.

“Merde!”
One of the detectives saw a traffic policeman slipping a ticket under the windscreen wiper of their car. They ran down the steps as the policeman looked up at them, tapping his pen against his teeth. He enjoyed it when the owner of the car came back a few seconds too late. It relieved the boredom of the job.

The senior detective pointed at the ticket. “You can take that off.” He opened the door to get into the car. “We’re from headquarters in Avignon.”

The traffic policeman smiled. “I don’t give a shit if you’re from the Elysée Palace. You’re double-parked.”

The detective went round the car so that he could glare at closer range. The two men stood out in the road, sunglasses almost clashing, blocking off the remaining clear lane. A truck pulled up with an angry hydraulic hiss, and the driver leaned out of the window, his arm raised in irritated frustration. The customers sitting outside the café opposite turned to get a better view of the argument. Horns started an impatient chorus behind the truck. The bank manager and his clerk stood watching from the steps.

Simon tossed the sack into the back of the car and got in. “Maximum discretion.” Jesus. They might as well have put it on the six o’clock news.

The duel of shrugs and gesticulations ended with the detective ripping the ticket from the windscreen and tearing it up. Two men from the café applauded. The detective got into the car as the traffic policeman shouted a parting obscenity over the blaring of the horns.

“And your mother!” said the detective to him out of the window. “And your dog!” He snorted with the satisfaction of having had the last word. “Okay, let’s go.”

The message waiting when they arrived back at the hotel said that Hampton Parker would be in Brassière in the early hours of next morning. Simon, like the bank manager before him, felt a sense of relief that both the money and the responsibility could soon be passed to different hands. He put through a call to Ziegler and waited, the sack between his feet.

“Any news of the kid?”

“They’re calling tonight. Parker’s arriving very early in the morning. I’ve got the money here, ready for him.”

Ziegler said nothing for a few seconds. When he spoke, it was in the crisp, decisive tone he used when he was making up a client’s mind for him. “Parker’s not to be involved. No way.”

“But he
is
involved, for Christ’s sake. He’s the boy’s father.”

“I don’t want him anywhere near those goddamn dangerous goons.”

“So how are they going to get the money? Federal Express?”

“Jesus, Simon, we can’t put Parker at risk like that!
Suppose they decide to kidnap him as well? Suppose they ice him, for fuck’s sake! No, you’ll have to do it.”

Simon felt his stomach turn over. “Thanks a lot. Suppose they ice
me
?”

Ziegler’s voice changed, all warmth and reassurance, his new, business-presentation voice. “Don’t worry about it. You’re not a billionaire, you’re just the guy making the drop. Wear old clothes—look poor, you know? It’s no big deal. You’ll probably never see them. And hey, think what it’ll do for our relationship.”

“ ‘Our relationship’?”

“Parker will be in our pocket. The goddamn account will be set in concrete. It’s a moral debt, buddy. We’ll have him for life.”

Simon said nothing, but he knew that Ziegler wouldn’t have listened anyway. As far as he was concerned, the decision was taken—probably the right decision, Simon had to admit. If the kidnappers thought they could get their hands on one of the richest men in America, who could tell what they might do?

Ziegler sounded impatient. “So you’re holding the ball, okay? Don’t screw up.”

“You’re a soft-hearted bastard, aren’t you?”

“That’s me. Sweetest guy in the business. I’ll talk to you soon.”

Nicole found Simon in the office, smoking a cigar and staring out of the window, ignoring the detectives. He looked haggard, and bruised under the eyes. She stood behind him and rubbed gently at the base of his neck.

“When this is over,” she said, “I’m going to take you away.”

Simon closed his eyes and leaned his head back against her body. “Promise?”

“Promise.”

The detectives sat and watched them impassively, wondering what they were going to be given for dinner.

Enrico looked at the pile of passports on his desk and smiled. Contacts, greed, and fear. They always worked when you were looking for information. Within hours of putting the word out, one of his men in Avignon had heard that the police were trying to keep the lid on a kidnapping. If these passports didn’t have something to do with that, Enrico thought, he was losing his touch. He had decided to take a personal interest in the matter. One should never pass up the opportunity to meet people who might be useful. He put the passports in a large crocodile-skin attaché case, went downstairs to his car, settled himself comfortably in the backseat, and gave the chauffeur his instructions.

As the Mercedes headed out of Marseille towards the airport, the General thrashed his car along the autoroute from Cavaillon. Be in the underground car park at Marignane by eight, they had told him, and look for a black Mercedes 500 with Bouches-du-Rhône plates.

He found a space as far away as possible from the entrance to the terminal, cut the engine, and lit a cigarette. He squeezed the plastic supermarket bag which held the cash. Five hundred thousand francs. He’d almost fainted when they’d told him the price, but what else could he do? Anyway, there was more where that came from—a lot more.

As he looked at his watch, he saw the Mercedes nosing slowly through the lines of cars. He took a deep breath, picked up the bag, and got out.

The tinted window of the Mercedes slid down, and
the chauffeur and the General looked at each other in silence. With a start, the General remembered what he’d been told to say to identify himself.

“I’m a friend of Didier’s. He sends you his best.”

The back door swung open. “Come in, my friend,” said Enrico. “It’s cooler in here, with the air conditioning.”

The General ducked inside and perched on the edge of the deep leather seat.