The Paris Directive (6 page)

Though Judy didn’t object to letting her husband have his little bête noire, she was confident the inspector wasn’t about to believe such nonsense without evidence. He was no fool. She wondered if the pretty young woman in the framed picture was his dead wife. He had decked the photo out like an impromptu shrine with a sprig of deep yellow forsythia in an Orangina bottle. How thoughtful! She might have been his daughter she was so young looking. Judy wondered why some girls marry men old enough to be their fathers. Or grandfathers in the case of Saul Bellow and Pablo Casals. She had to admit the inspector was certainly a good listener, which any woman yearns for in a man.

After hearing Monsieur Reece out, Mazarelle leaned back in his chair and lit his pipe. Sparks flew into the air and smoke wreathed his face. Crime, as they no doubt realized, was not unknown in Bergerac. A major contributing factor was that, except in the smaller surrounding villages, people no longer knew their neighbors the way they once did. And families nowadays fell apart like wet tissue paper.

He sighed, a ghostly stream of smoke rushing out of his mouth. With the stem of his pipe, the inspector gestured toward the local map on the wall. Pinned to it were dozens of tiny green, yellow, and red paper flags. Each one, he pointed out wearily, represented an
unsolved
crime. Fortunately, all relatively minor. There were no black flags because there had been no murders, the last one a
crime
passionel
three years ago—long before he arrived—in which the killer was never in doubt. If only they weren’t so badly understaffed and underfinanced. Unfortunately, that was the way it was here in the Dordogne. Judy felt genuinely sorry for him. Maybe it was those sad, sympathetic brown eyes of his and the droopy mustache. He seemed to need more help than they did.

In any case, he explained, it would be difficult to track down their
lost money. The Visa, if stolen, was quite another matter. Though he promised nothing, he said he’d do what he could. Getting up, he asked if Monsieur Reece had notified the company about his missing credit card. Feeling stupid, Ben admitted that he hadn’t. Mazarelle studied him for a few seconds without a shred of enthusiasm and suggested that whether his Visa was lost or stolen, he thought that would probably be a good idea.
“N’est-ce pas?”

Downstairs at the door, the inspector shook hands with each of them. Should anything develop, he said he’d be in touch. Ben was afraid the inspector was a dead end.

Back in his office, Mazarelle picked up the pad on his desk and glanced at the notes he’d taken. Though he wasn’t sure about the exact location of L’Ermitage—the hilltop house outside of Taziac where they were staying—he knew the road below them that bordered the Chambouvard farm and the nearby gravel pit. He wondered why the Reeces hadn’t gone to the gendarmerie in Taziac to file their report rather than to the commissariat. It seemed that even tourists knew the difference between the
police
nationale
and the tin soldiers in the village. Outside his window the shouts grew louder as the game heated up.

While waiting impatiently for the Reeces to come out, Reiner sat scrunched up in his little Renault and watched the game. The midfielder ran breathlessly down the field and sent a diagonal pass ahead to the racing striker who had broken free of the defense. He kicked at the ball wildly, and it trickled into the net past the lunging goalie. The fans went wild. Waving off the goal, the ref declared him offside. The small crowd of idiots roared at the poor man, but Reiner saw he was right.

Reiner loved what Pelé called the “beautiful game.” But it was torture watching this one, even with only half an eye. All they did was kick the ball as hard as they could and run after it like panting dogs. “It’s the ball that needs to run, you
narren,
” he muttered, “not the player.” Each side huffing and puffing as if it couldn’t wait to give up possession to the other. No plan, no discipline, no control. The
qualities that made the great Matthäus such a joy to watch. Not only did the crack German playmaker know exactly what had to be done on the field, but he had the skill and power to do it.

Reiner had recently read the amazing story about Murdoch, the Australian press czar, bidding one billion dollars for Britain’s Manchester United. He dreamed that one day he himself might have enough money to buy a club. A
Bundesliga
championship team of his own! He had to laugh at those
Ossi
s still clinging to their Trabis and the good old DDR days of Stasi, shortages, watchtowers, and barbed wire. Idiots! Weak-minded sentimental fools suffering from
Ostalgie
and longing for a workers’ paradise.

Someone was coming. Reiner slumped down in his seat and waited to see who it was. The two of them came marching around to the back of the commissariat and walked toward the Peugeot. Reiner checked his watch. He’d been staking out their car for almost an hour now. They were arguing about something, but they had started out that way when they left L’Ermitage. The comings and goings of everyone in that house were important to him the closer he came to the end of the month. He was surprised by where they had gone, curious to know what it was about. The one thing he did know was that it had nothing to do with him.

9

L’ERMITAGE, TAZIAC

R
einer went to call Zurich the next day. A public telephone was at the intersection not far from the house where he was holed up. On one corner a small, tile-roofed, rust-stained factory, its metal shutters closed. Diagonally across the way, a Total gas station. At the side of the road, a glass telephone booth that stood out in the midst of farmland like a solitary hitchhiker.

Reiner leaned his bicycle against the empty telephone booth. With the door closed, it was warm inside. The afternoon sun beat on the glass, where a wasp shrugged its paper-thin, pale yellow wings. Reiner turned his back to the glare and dialed the long number. As he waited for someone to pick up the phone, he recalled drizzly Zurich and the comforting solidity of the gray bank building with its thick granite walls, its marble floors. He’d been most impressed by the contrast between the noisy bustle on the bank’s main floor and the mortuary hush and kid-glove deference that greeted him upstairs. Finally someone answered.

Reiner asked for Monsieur Spada in Numbered Accounts. Identifying himself to Spada’s satisfaction, he told him precisely what he wanted. In less than five minutes, the accommodating bank officer was back on the line with the information.

Reiner smiled. He liked doing business with reliable people. But in any event, he never made a move until at least half the amount agreed upon was deposited in his account. It was one of five that he’d tucked away in different corners of the world. He thought of the money in them as
Schlafmünzen,
his sleeping coins. Though his bank in Monte Carlo would have been more convenient for this job,
Reiner, fearing the proximity and control of France, had decided not to use it. If the French ever got lucky and discovered that account, they could squeeze Monte Carlo for information about him that they’d have a hard time getting from the tight-lipped Swiss.

He hung up the receiver.
“Sehr gut.”
With a lightning motion, his palm came down on the wasp, smashing it against the glass. “Tomorrow then,” he told himself.

Reiner had a good idea why the two retired French intelligence agents wanted him for the job rather than doing it themselves. He wasn’t so stupid that he allowed flattery to turn his head. Pellerin and his beefy boyfriend were clearly keeping their distance, intent on insulating themselves from him and from what very soon was about to happen. If pressured, they’d cut him adrift without a second thought. He was well prepared for that. Wiping the delicate silky wings off his hand, he picked up his bicycle. It was then he noticed the rear tire.

Reiner walked the bike over to the gas station.
“Avez-vous une pompe?”
he asked the old guy in the office. Without looking up from his newspaper, he pointed to the hose hanging outside on the wall and told him to help himself. The tire seemed to hold the air he put in okay. Reiner crouched down, spit on his index finger, and wet the rear valve, looking for a leak. As he watched the slow bubble form, a gray Mercedes roared into the station and pulled up to the gas pump. The car’s twelve-star EEC license plate had a D on it, but when the couple got out Reiner could tell that only the middle-aged driver was German. From Munich, he guessed by the accent. The curvy young blonde looked to him like a Natasha. While the attendant filled the tank, they went inside to use the toilet.

The newly filled tire, despite its leak, would do to ride back on. It wasn’t that far, and he’d neither the time nor desire to fix it. Reiner thanked the guy for his air and, as he climbed on his bike, admired the sleek German car. The attendant nodded. But expensive, he said, pointing to the gasoline pump, where the dials for liters and francs crazily raced each other higher and higher. The big, pricey car guzzled gas the way his son put away wine. That’s why he never showed up for work here on time.
“Salaud,”
he complained.

The old fool understood nothing about German engineering and
the S500. Although it had a powerful 5.0 liter engine, Mercedes-Benz had developed an automatic cylinder shut-off system that reduced fuel consumption by 7 percent. As soon as the V-8 engine dropped into part-load operation, its electronic management system would deactivate cylinders 2 and 3 on the right bank and 5 and 8 on the left, effectively reducing the fuel consumption. A beautifully made machine, the S500. Reiner knew all about Mercedes-Benz cars. Could take them apart blindfolded. He’d have no need for a flashlight tonight, he thought as he pedaled merrily away on his slowly leaking tire.

The Phillipses had gone to bed late. But the restless Ann Marie couldn’t sleep and, despite plans to visit Sarlat with Judy the following day for sightseeing and shopping, she stayed up reading Wilkie Collins’s
The
Moonstone,
a novel she’d found downstairs in the bookcase. Along with the English policeman, she too had been wondering what the three Indian jugglers seen in the neighborhood had to do with the disappearance of Miss Verinder’s enormous diamond, when she heard them scratching at the window, trying to break into the house. Opening her eyes wide, Ann Marie sat bolt upright. The sound had awakened her. Thankfully, the small bedside lamp was still on. She swiveled her head from side to side as she tried to pin down what it was—weird, frantic scraping sounds that resembled bony skeletal fingers clawing their way out of a sealed vault. She looked up. The noise seemed to be coming from directly overhead.

“Woodchucks,” said a sleepy Schuyler awakened by the commotion. He remembered the ferocity of the digging under the cabin they once rented in the Laurentians. “But what are they doing up there?”

“Bats.”

“Well … maybe.” He pulled up his blanket and turned over. “Could you please shut off the light, dear?”

“Taisez-vous!”
Ann Marie shouted at the razor-toothed nocturnal revelers, but the racket continued. Picking up her book from the floor, she hurled it at the ceiling—all at once, silence.

“That’s better.” Rather pleased with herself, she crawled back into
bed, switched off the light, and, burying her head under the blanket, was soon fast asleep.

But that night there would be no rest for Schuyler. Unable to get back to sleep, he climbed out of bed. It was warm in the room, but at a little after three, he’d no wish to go downstairs. He carefully unlocked the French doors and slipped out into the pleasantly cool air on the balcony. Glancing up, he scanned the canopy of stars. The moonlight silvered the treetops, the thin ribbon of road, and the fields beyond. The silence was magical. Schuyler was astonished at how long it had been since he last thought about anything that had to do with his work and wondered why he was doing so now. Guilt, he supposed, smiling. These days in Taziac with Ann Marie and Ben and Judy had been a wonderful change. He was thinking what a good time they were all having when he heard something moving on the dirt road below.

Though he couldn’t see through the trees, he imagined from the sound that it was a large animal. He’d seen deer in the fields while driving. Or perhaps one of the neighbor’s cows had wandered away from the herd. The footsteps, though not loud, grew increasingly clear in the stillness. They sounded almost human the closer they came to the house. He searched the shadows, straining his eyes.

The shape that emerged into the pale moonlight was unquestionably human. Schuyler pulled back from the balcony railing lest he be seen. He’d no idea who it was. No one he recognized. The dark figure moved furtively up the hill to the top and, just before disappearing behind the house, turned.

The moonlight flashed on something in the figure’s hand. Schuyler shifted his weight and felt a sudden sharp pain in his right thigh. Only a cramp, he guessed, but it was almost as if he’d been hit by a bullet. Damnit, he thought, annoyed with himself for not yelling at the poacher. Hunting was forbidden anywhere in France at night.

Of course, he might have been wrong about the gun, but it had looked like a rifle barrel to him. The poacher was probably after rabbits or some nocturnal feeder. Rabbits were all over the neighborhood. Schuyler had nothing against hunting and wasn’t a bad shot himself, but people with guns trespassing about at night gave him the creeps.