The Paris Directive (34 page)

Mazarelle wrung out the wet washcloth, tied it around his ankle, and deciding to forgo dinner and forget aspirins, he prescribed himself another glass of whiskey and a bed.

The sound in the dark that pried open his eyes was the kitchen cuckoo clock. His wristwatch swore it was ten o’clock. Though he hadn’t slept as long as he’d wanted to, the few hours had done him a world of good, along with what had once been a cold compress. He untied it. Feeling hungry, he padded into the kitchen, opened the refrigerator. Though enjoying the cold air on his bare thighs, he wasn’t impressed with what he saw. Michou’s sardines were still untouched in the bowl on the floor, but that hungry he wasn’t. Then he remembered Mickey’s duck confit surrounded by its caramelized onions and orange glaze waiting for him at the Valon. He threw on his clothes and limped out the door.

No question, Mazarelle concluded after daubing up the last of his dinner’s exquisite gravy-soaked morsels, he was glad he’d changed his mind. It would have been worth even a much longer and more uncomfortable trek. A Lucullan feast to end a trying day. The duck as rich as Midas and meltingly tender, the local cèpes plucked fresh from their bosky depths and ennobled by the bird’s savory fat and garlic. The entire meal glorified by a heady, opulent, but not ostentatious bottle of Saint-Émilion that seemed to remove any hint of pain from his left leg.

At the door, he heartily shook hands with Mickey, relaying his compliments to Giorgio the chef, and with that the inspector walked off into the night, feeling buoyant, at one with the universe. Not only pleasantly light-headed but light on his feet as well. The alley on the way home was a black pool of silence with only occasional splashes of light. The air still warm, heavy, but no moon, no stars, no rain, no pain. With Mazarelle humming a jazz version of “La Vie en Rose,” à la the great Louis. But not so loud that he failed to hear the giggling up ahead, even though he could see no one there. The tires on the gravel creeping up on him from behind he’d missed completely. Then came the angry, jangling bell sounding its alarm.

Mazarelle whirled around to see what all the noise was about. But before he realized what it was, the bicycle that was almost upon him swerved wildly, skidded, and raced on by. “Idiot!” Mazarelle shouted after him. “Put on your light.”

He stood rooted to the spot, watching the bike’s flickering red taillight flipping the bird at him as it disappeared down the alley. “Damn fool,” he said, relieved and chuckling to himself.

At the rear of the house across the way, a light suddenly went on in an upstairs window and a woman looked out to see what the noise was all about. The inspector walked on, but before the light went out he saw the couple in the alley with their arms around each other, the face of the laughing young woman gleaming.

“That you, Gaby?”

“Inspector Mazarelle!” She sounded surprised, but she had seen him coming—weaving drunkenly in their direction. “That guy on the bicycle was certainly in a big hurry. He didn’t hit you, did he?”

“Imbecile. Completely batty. Thinks he can see in the dark. What are you doing out at this hour anyhow?”

“Félix and I were just coming back from seeing some friends. You remember Félix, don’t you, Inspector?”

He nodded at her thin, sullen pal with the gold earring shimmering in the shadows. She had pointed him out, hanging around the bakery, when Mazarelle had asked about boyfriends. But she insisted he wasn’t. Just a friend,
not
a boyfriend. “He’s too serious for me,” she’d said. “The only thing funny about him is his name.”

Just like her mother, he thought. Not particularly smart about men and always looking to be amused. That’s what fascinated the youthful Martine about Mazarelle, she later admitted, after she’d found him. He used to think he’d found her. A young, beautiful woman who’d fallen in love with the stories he’d told her about the bizarre, psychotic minds he’d encountered, the adrenaline rush of solving crimes, the dangers of the life he’d led. What she was really looking for, he discovered, was an abortion. She’d soon change her mind about that too—along with so many other things in their relationship.

The inspector asked, “Don’t you have school tomorrow?”

“School!” She laughed. “There’s no school. It’s the summer. My vacation.”

“You’re right. And this summer you’re working in the bakery. Don’t you have to get up early to help Louise?”

“I’m an early riser.”

“Don’t talk nonsense. You’re a growing girl. You need your sleep. At least eight hours every night, according to the doctors. Sleep, they say, heals all wounds and comforts the afflicted.”

“You hear that?” Gaby grabbed Félix’s arm and yanked. “Bedtime,” she told him, giggling.

Just like her mother, he thought, as he walked away. He hadn’t gone very far when he heard a cat crying. But it wasn’t just any cat, it was Michou. He was sure of it. And she wasn’t simply unhappy. He knew her unhappy sound, the same bawling one she made after climbing a tree and discovering she couldn’t get down. This time she was scared-out-of-her-wits terrified. In fact the closer he moved to its source, the more horrific her wailing became. It sounded as if someone were torturing her.

“Don’t worry, Michou! I hear you. Hold on!”

The animal’s awful howls seemed to be coming from the house of the wooden heads, a fourteenth-century stone structure destined for renovation. Time had reduced it to a roofless frame. Its walls were still standing (some provisionally supported by thick beams), as was the front doorway with its three carved wooden heads over the lintel—the foreheads squished, the mouths grimly turned down. Once inside the doorway, Mazarelle was surprised that even without a roof the interior was darker than the alley outside. He stopped to get his bearings. The howls filled every inch of the blackness with torment. Groping in his pocket, the inspector pulled out his Swiss Army knife, a compact model appropriately called the Midnight Manager. He flipped on its bright LED, hurrying toward the rear wall and the explosively shaking cardboard box on the ground.

“Coming, Michou! I’m coming!”

As he got nearer, he could see that the box had been wrapped like a mummy from end to end in tape. Was this some awful prank cooked up by a demented neighborhood kid to amuse himself? Nothing was going to get out of that box alive. Mazarelle tore into the tape—turning it into harmless plastic fringe—then ripped off the box top and out leaped one very frightened cat. The inspector grabbed Michou before she could get away and attempted to calm her down. It was a slow process, but he thought he was making progress when,
without warning, he began to sneeze violently and dropped his light. As he bent to pick it up, Michou bolted.

“Merde!”
cried the inspector.

The heavy beam narrowly missed his head as the timber brace crashed to the ground. At first, he wasn’t sure what it was. Then came the second brace, and the creaking of the wall of stones grew louder, the way the roar of an avalanche rolls over you before the mountain does. Mazarelle yelled for help and started to move in the opposite direction as if he imagined he might somehow outrun it, but he didn’t have a chance.

Gabrielle and Félix hadn’t gone very far and, having found another dark corner, weren’t planning to, when they heard the tumultuous noise and the inspector’s shouts. Amazed at what must have happened, they ran back at once to see how they could help. Félix noticed a white light leaking out from under one of the piles of stones and said, “Come on!”

The two young people were a good team as they furiously lifted the large stones in a desperate effort to free Inspector Mazarelle. Despite their frantic energy, youth, and intensity, it took them a while to get to the bottom of the pile. When they reached it, the white light was still on but there was no sign of the inspector. Gabrielle, her face sweaty, flashed the light at another pile looking for a sign and spotted a shoe sticking out. “Look,” she cried, “it’s his shoe.”

“Are you sure it’s his?”

“Of course it’s his. Look how big it is.”

Félix peered inside and whistled. They were big shoes to fill. Size 50, extra wide.

Gaby thought it was just as well his foot wasn’t in it. She told Félix to keep digging. She was going to call the police and get some help. As she hurried away, she failed to see the bicycle’s flickering red taillight swallowed up in the distance.

42

THE BILL COMES DUE

R
einer was up and about before the first gravel truck of the day. His last day in France, and the sun peeping out over the dew-drenched fields. It promised to be another hot, humid one, but cloudless blue and brushed with fair-weather, salmon-pink, Day-Glo streaks. And for him, a busy day. First, the phone call to Paris, where he had news for his employers. Their bill had come due.

Locally at that hour, there’d been no traffic to speak of on the road out of town. The Total station at the crossroads hadn’t even opened yet. Leaning his bicycle against the glass telephone booth, he checked the tires. Rubber taut on the rims and leak-free, treads still as good as new. Perfect. This bike belonged to the Missus, and its tires held their air the way a Japanese pearl diver holds her breath. Dialing Pellerin’s number in Paris, he deposited the long-distance toll.

The ringing telephone reached out for anyone on the premises—turning Blond over on their mattress and burying him under his pillow. It woke up a cranky Pellerin, annoyed to have been pulled out of bed so early. “A minute,” he whispered, when he realized who it was. Why, he wondered glancing at the clock, was he calling at this hour? Dragging himself and the phone into the living room, he closed the door behind him.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong. I’ve finished the job.”

“You mean—?”

“All taken care of. You have five hours to make the last half of your payment. I’m expecting it in Zurich today by high noon. Don’t fail me.”

“No problem.” Pellerin promised, “The money will be there.”

Until confirmed one way or the other when he spoke to Spada in Numbered Accounts, Reiner wasn’t holding his breath. More convinced now than when he began that the retired French agents couldn’t be trusted. Assuming they’d do one of two things: pay him the money they owed him or rat him out. But even if they never paid him in full, he’d already made a killing. (This weakness for puns, where did it come from? France, as he’d already suspected, was having an unwholesome influence on him.)

Regardless of what they did, however, they’d suffer the same consequences for delaying his departure. Reiner intended to dispatch them as permanently as he had the inspector under the medieval stone wall. As for the American woman, she was on the menu for later that evening. Pierre Barmeyer carefully covering his tracks in France as if he were never there. He was genuinely looking forward to showing Molly Reece how good a cook he was, proud of his skill. A crooked smile spread across his face in anticipation of his pleasure. He savored the thought of her visit. The secret of his omelette aux champignons was, of course, the mushrooms.

43

MAZARELLE CHECKS OUT

T
hat morning Rivet had received the call almost as soon as he arrived at the commissariat. Captain Béchoux, the head of the Taziac gendarmerie, had bad news for him. Late the night before, Inspector Mazarelle had been the victim of a terrible accident in Taziac. He appeared to be seriously injured. His men immediately called for an ambulance from the Centre Hospitalier de Bergerac, where the comatose inspector was taken.

“I’m at the hospital now,” Béchoux said. “I’ll wait until you arrive. I suggest you hurry.”

“I’m on my way.” Dropping everything, Commissaire Rivet, accompanied by Bandu, rushed to Mazarelle’s bedside. By the time they arrived, the captain had been called away. He left behind one of his men, Gendarme Leduc, to stand guard outside the patient’s room and obtain a statement from him when he regained consciousness.

If he ever does, Leduc thought, when he and the two new arrivals viewed Mazarelle’s motionless body. Leduc explained that one of the teenagers who’d found the inspector knew him well. She’d done housekeeping work for his terminally ill wife before she died and now worked part-time for him. She and her boyfriend had found the inspector under a collapsed wall inside one of the oldest buildings in town. They had no idea what he’d been doing there. She thought he’d been drinking.

The commissaire sized up the situation at once. Taking Leduc aside, he explained that it was important to prevent reporters from learning what had happened to Inspector Mazarelle. He wanted to keep the news out of the media to avoid any sensationalism that
might interfere with the inspector’s recovery. Though he didn’t say it, he also wasn’t eager to have the uniforms taking credit in the press for rescuing one of his own men. And with that, Rivet thanked the gendarme, dismissed him, and placed Bandu in charge of Mazarelle’s security while in the hospital.