The Alternative Detective (Hob Draconian) (21 page)

All right, I’m exaggerating; maybe it wasn’t that bad, but I had suddenly remembered that I hadn’t had a decent meal since I’d come to Paris and to be frank, I was feeling more than a little churlish about it. Wouldn’t you?

It may seem like an odd place to begin complaining, in the middle of a mad dash to the French seacoast, to La Baule, to be precise, located a few miles past the not-very-famous port (except to Second World War German-submarine buffs) of St-Nazaire. But there it is; I complain when I please. And even though I had agreed to help Alex, due apparently to some blind impulse powered by déjà vu, I was now having second thoughts, to say nothing of third and fourth thoughts, and indeed all thoughts up to and beyond the transfinite series.

Over cups of dismal coffee, but with an acceptable cognac to accompany them, I asked Alex to explain just what the hell he was doing now and why he found it necessary to have me along.

“It’s very simple,” Alex said. “I’ve got to disappear.”

“You already did that, remember?”

“That time was just playing around. This time’s for good.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Hob, they’ve got me boxed. The people I work for. I finally got the angle. They’re going to put it on me.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The whole Iran-Contra missing funds business.”

“How can they do that?”

“They’re going to claim that I scammed them, diverted key funds to my own account. I should never have let them use my account. I thought I was so smart. Anyhow, I’m going to step out of the world for a few years, give it all a chance to settle down.”

“Step out? Where? How?”

“The old identity trick.”

“A new passport?”

“A total set of papers. An entire personality I can step into. These people I’m going to meet can arrange it.”

“Is that where we’re going? To meet some forgers?”

“It’s safe,” Alex said, “but I’m a little nervous about them all the same. That’s why I need you to back me up.”

“Why bother dealing with these guys at all? If you really need a forger, I’ll find you one in Paris.”

“These guys produce first-class documentation. And they have just what I need. It’ll go all right. Especially when they see I’m not alone.”

I fell silent and couldn’t help but think, cynically, that if Alex were relying on me for when the shooting started, he didn’t know how alone he was. I don’t know what he thought private detectives do, but a lot of us get along nicely without guns, boring as that may sound.

“You mean you’re not armed?”

“Certainly not. What do you take me for? Some sort of a thug?”

Alex shook his head and took something out of his pocket and tapped my knee with it. It was solid and metallic. The thing, not my knee.

“What are you doing?” I asked with some irritation.

“Take it,” Alex said. “Put it in your pocket.”

I reached under the table. He put a large, slightly oily automatic into my hand.

“Now just a minute,” I said.

“Hob, you won’t have to actually use it.”

“Damn right I won’t have to use it. I’m not taking it. Here, take it back.”

I reached with it under the table.

“Hob,” he pleaded, “please don’t make a scene.”

“Damn it,” I said, “take back the piece.”

“Hob, listen—”

“No, you listen; take back the goddamned piece.”

“I’m trying to tell you I’ll pay you two thousand dollars just to keep the gun in your pocket.”

“Two thousand dollars?” I said.

“That’s what I said.”

“But not to use it?”

“Just to hold on to it and show it, if necessary.”

“Two thousand dollars?” I asked.

He nodded.

“It’s easy to say,” I told him.

“Hold out your hand under the table,” he said.

“Just a minute,” I said. “I have to put this thing away.” I managed to stuff the bulky automatic into a jacket pocket, where it made an unsightly bulge and probably left an indelible stain. Then I reached under the table again.

“Check this out,” Alex said, and put something in my hand.

It was an envelope.

The envelope was filled with something.

About half an inch of something.

I peeked. Lovely thousand franc French notes. I riffled them. They’d probably come to two thousand dollars American close enough. I put them into my pocket.

“Let me explain the ground rules,” I said. “First of all, I’m not going to shoot anyone. I don’t know what you’ve read about private detectives, but we don’t do that.”

“Don’t worry,” Alex said. “The gun’s just for show.”

“Isn’t it loaded?”

“Of course.”

“Why, if it’s just for show?”

“It’s not possible to bluff properly with an unloaded gun. Come on, Hob, let’s get out of here.”

We paid up and piled out into Alex’s Citroën. Then we were off down the dark road, proceeding at speed through low, flat country with high hedges on either side.

“What’s our next stop?” I asked.

“Angers.”

We were in the heart of nothing, and we were on our way to nowhere. The auspices were terrible. But I did have an unanticipated two thousand dollars.

THE HIT

46

We went through Angers around midnight. The streets were without sidewalks, the buildings lining the streets shoulder to shoulder. High, narrow buildings with steep eaves. A tangle of stone streets like the petrified entrails of a medieval monster. Europe is our past, we must go back from time to time to exhume it psychically, penetrate the layers that lead to our guts. Grays and browns, and sometimes a glint of starlight.

But then, just a few hundred yards within the sleeping city, we saw the right-hand turn marked Nantes-Rennes-Laval. We took it through the suburbs and followed it through small towns near the banks of the Loire: St-Georges-sur-Loire, Varades, Ancenis, coming at last to Nantes. There was no time to stop and sample the frogs’ legs, a speciality of the region. We continued watching the signs for Vannes and Rennes. We followed them onto a dual carriage road, through a lot of construction, emerging at last on the N165. We continued through open countryside for fifteen miles, then, just before Savenay, turned onto N171. Soon we were rolling through the dark industrial heart of St-Nazaire, and past it to the little town of La Baule, just a few miles past St-Nazaire.

It was going on 4:00 a.m. We followed a road along the coast, passed through La Baule itself, a huddle of Breton houses, and came to a group of docks situated just beyond the mouth of the Loire, but sheltered from the open Atlantic by a curving headland to the north.

Alex parked the car close to the docks. He turned to me. “Do you know how to use that gun?”

I took it out of my pocket and examined it by Alex’s small penlight. It was a Browning .45 calibre automatic. I couldn’t quite remember how the safeties worked. As I’ve mentioned, firearms are not my thing and I manage most of the time to do well enough without them. Alex watched me fumble for a moment or two then took it out of my hand.

“Like this,” he said, extracting the clip and ejecting the round in the chamber. He showed me how to put the clip back in, jack a cartridge into the barrel, and how to operate the safeties. Finally, he handed it back to me, the hammer set on half cock.

“All the safeties are off except the half cock,” he said. “To shoot, just thumb the hammer down. Then point, aim and squeeze. Nothing to it.”

“Since I’m not going to shoot anyone,” I said, “I really don’t have to know all that stuff.”

“Hob, as a private detective you are a disaster. Look, I’m paying you two thousand dollars just to look dangerous. Or at least competent. The least you can do in return is pay attention when I show you how the thing works.”

“All right,” I said grudgingly. I took the automatic again and went through the moves. After all, since I
was
in the detective business, you could never tell when this sort of thing might come in useful.

“Ready?” Alex said after a few minutes.

“Sure, I’m ready,” I told him. To be perfectly frank, I was feeling less than unmitigated enthusiasm. But the two thousand dollars in French notes did a lot for my motivation. Also, I had always liked Alex and this was a chance to help him out.

We left the car and walked along the dockside. About twenty yards down, Alex identified the rendezvous: a pier belonging to Dupont et Fils, Shippers. The high iron gate had been left unlocked, so we were able to go through it and around the main building to the wharves on the other side.

We walked until we came to a long pier extending out into the water. There was a bright light at the end of it, and Alex indicated that this was the place where the exchange was to take place.

“Hob,” he said, “I want you to stay back here. Just make sure no one else comes out onto the pier.”

“What do I do if they try anyhow?”

“Just tell them to go away.”

I didn’t like it, but what was there to do? I found a tall iron diesel barrel to crouch behind. Alex drew a small revolver out of his pocket, a .32, I suppose, checked the chambers, looked at me, said, “Wish me luck, old buddy,” and started down the pier.

Even before Alex walked out on the dock, I could hear the low throbbing of a boat’s engine in the harbor, closing on the pier. As he walked to the end, I could make out the boat’s shape, a darker mass against the medium gray darkness of the sky and water. The shadow of the boat crept up to the pier without lights. I could see Alex standing at the end, in silhouette.

The boat nudged the pier with a creak. I took out the .45 and set it on full cock. I still wasn’t planning to use it, but no sense in being careless.

Two men climbed up onto the pier. I could see them in silhouette, short men who contrasted sharply with Alex’s tall figure. Then I heard a noise behind me.

I turned, the Browning in my hand, but I couldn’t see a thing. When I turned back, I saw that there were three men on the dock now, all of them shorter than Alex. They had started to argue. I couldn’t make out what was being said, but it was getting louder, and one of the men was swearing.

Then there was a scuffle. Alex pulled free, and I heard the sound of a revolver going off. One of the men staggered back, clutching his arm and cursing. After that things happened very quickly. Alex whirled around, and I heard shots fired. I had the impression that Alex was firing his handgun. Then I heard the sound of an automatic weapon, an ugly sound in the night. Alex’s hat flew into the air and I saw his head explode as a tracer went into it.

Alex’s body tumbled down onto the pier. The men on the pier gathered it up and lowered it into the boat. The boat took off.

I stood there for what felt like a very long time, the loaded gun in my hand, looking out to sea.

FAUCHON

47

I can’t remember how I got back to Paris. Presumably I drove Alex’s car. I just couldn’t remember doing it. A lot of me was on automatic, just doing what had to be done. I couldn’t even remember where I parked the car. There was a blank of some hours. Then I found myself in a café on the Champs-Élysées having a cognac. Whenever I tried to think what happened, my mind winced away from it. If I pursued it, it showed me images: the dark pier, the lighter gray of the water, the people in silhouette, the flash of the handguns, and then the brilliant tracer fingers of the automatic weapon. Then Alex falling back, his head blown open. …

I don’t remember how I got from the bar in the Champs-Élysées to Fauchon’s office. I was preoccupied with fatigue and guilt, the feeling that somehow I was responsible.

I told Fauchon what I had seen. He heard me out without a change of expression. Not a raised eyebrow, not even a little quirk to the mouth. He was a solid man, Fauchon, and he hunched there in his straightbacked wooden chair and jotted down notes in his little black pocket notebook.

When I was finished he asked me if I had anything more to add. I said that I didn’t. He excused himself and went to a desk in the back of the room. He made a phone call, talked with someone for a while, then came back to me.

“I spoke to the gendarmerie in St-Nazaire,” he told me. “They have no report of disturbances last night in La Baule. They’ll check out the area and call me back. Are you sure you haven’t left out anything?”

“That’s it,” I told him. “You don’t seem too impressed. I suppose it wasn’t a very interesting murder.”

“So far,” he told me, “we have only your word that a murder was committed at all.”

I stared at him. I found his attitude difficult to believe. “You mean you won’t take my word for it?”

“I do not think you are trying to lie to me,” Fauchon said. “But I have noted that you are an emotional man, and probably given to hallucinations from time to time. You are the visionary type so aptly described by Jung. And you have been under considerable strain recently.”