The Quirk (39 page)

“So much the better for you,” said one of his escorts.

“So it seems he speaks some French after all,” the other said suspiciously.

He was half carried, half dragged across the courtyard to where the others were already being herded through an unmarked door.

“You don’t have to hold on to me,” Rod tried again to reassure his captors. “I just want to explain to somebody that the whole thing is a mistake.”

“You’ll have plenty of chance to explain anything you want. Perhaps even some things you don’t want, eh?”

Once inside the door they gave him a shove toward a flight of worn stone steps and let him go. He staggered forward and caught the banister and started up. At the top, the stairway gave onto an enormous corridor that seemed to stretch as far as the eye could reach with doors opening off on both sides of it. The floor was made of worn planking that echoed with the tread of many feet. A black-robed lawyer swept by, the bats’ wings of his sleeves fluttering menacingly. A pair of policemen flanking a man wearing handcuffs and with bloodstains on the front of his shirt emerged from a door. Policemen in pairs escorted other charges to and fro–a trio of sullen women in shabby finery, a man incongruous in elaborate makeup and sharply tailored suit, a stout man with his face wreathed in dirty bandages. Some sort of freak show, Rod decided sagaciously. The whole world was a fucking freak show. He recoiled from the scene. The night was an endless dream. Small but recurrent shocks jarred his alcoholic torpor. Dread stirred uneasily in him, but he still couldn’t relate to his surroundings, so it remained unfocused. The fact that he was alive to some danger without even identifying it made him feel that he was prepared to deal with it. He had already forgotten how he had got here.

Unaware of being guided, he turned off the corridor and entered a large room filled with the harsh light of unshaded bulbs. It contained several battered wooden desks behind which men in sleazy suits were working over papers. People were taking seats on a long bench running along one side of it, and he somehow gathered that he was to join them and did so. He closed his eyes against the light. He wanted a drink. He was sleepy. He could pretend to go to sleep. That would be a smart move, he decided. He slumped against the wall, asleep and awake.

More awake again, he found himself standing in front of a desk behind which two men were seated. He couldn’t see their faces. They were bent over what appeared to be a large record book. He hadn’t the slightest idea where he was. He looked around him. Policemen. A row of men on a bench. It all looked vaguely familiar. He turned back to the desk. “What?” he said. He had the distinct impression that one of the men asked him something.

“I said I want to see your identity card.”

Rod began to fumble through his pockets. They were empty. “I don’t think I have it with me. It’s at home. With my passport I’m an American.”

“Your name and address.”

Rod provided them. He watched as they were inscribed in the book.

“Your means of livelihood?”

Rod opened his mouth and closed it. Fear suddenly clutched at his throat. His mind splintered, casting up fragments of memory. The police. François had warned him. He remembered now. Maybe François had been arrested and had tried to implicate him. The little shit was capable of anything. He remembered he wasn’t supposed to be living with Patrice. “Listen. That address I gave you–that’s just where I work. I live in a hotel around the corner. You’d better write it down.”

“One address is sufficient if you can be reached there. Your means of livelihood?” Their bored repetition of the question seemed a confirmation that they knew the whole story. One side of it. His mouth opened and closed. His legs felt as if they were going to give way. He wasn’t going to let François get away with it. He hadn’t done anything. Words tumbled from his lips as he hurried to revise the picture.

“I don’t know what he’s told you, but it’s obviously a lot of nonsense. I lent him some money. That’s all. I don’t know what he wanted it for. He was–François, François Leclerc–he was going to Marseille, and I decided to go with him. Just for the drive. This friend of mine, M. Valmer, wanted to go too. That’s all there was to it.” He remembered François saying it might be the police following them. If so, they knew about the wild chase around Marseille. He hurried on. “When we were leaving, François thought somebody was following us. All of a sudden he started roaring around town to get rid of them. M. Valmer didn’t like the way he was driving and decided to come back on the train. I think somebody shot at us. I’m a painter. I don’t know anything about deals with money and all that. I’m perfectly willing to cooperate with you in any way I can, but I don’t know anything. Your getting me in here is just a misunderstanding.” Rod paused breathlessly. There was a brief silence as the two men looked at each other, not at him. Finally one of them shrugged.

“What do you suppose is the matter with this one?”

“I don’t know. It sounds like the
milieu
,” said the other. “Perhaps it’s a case for the special services.”

“
En effet
. But it’s not our affair.” The official leaned around Rod and gestured.

“I’ve got to go now,” Rod said, satisfied that he had stated his case with clarity and persuasion. He caught a glimpse out of the corner of his eye of a policeman moving in close at his side and went on with a hint of desperation. “You know where you can find me if you want me.”

The official bent over his book once more with a sigh. “Monsieur, even Americans are obliged to carry papers,” he said. “We must verify your identity. It may take until morning. We’ll make you as comfortable as we can.” He made a slight dismissive gesture and turned pointedly to his colleague.

“I won’t accept this,” Rod shouted. The policeman edged closer. His trembling increased. Did anybody know he was here? He couldn’t think. They were just checking his identity. That was fair enough. They didn’t question his story. He wasn’t really being arrested. He put his hand to his forehead and turned from the desk with a spasm like a sob caught deep in his chest. It would help to get some sleep. The policeman fell into step at his side.

Rod leaped aside as the shot was fired. He found himself on his feet looking around dazedly. The pounding of his heart subsided. A dream. Everything was a dream. He moved his head slowly back and forth and blinked his burning eyes. He was still alone in the room where he had been left the night before. The night before? The square of gray light in the window told him it was day. He glanced at his watch and saw that it had stopped. It couldn’t be 3:30, morning or afternoon. Before he had time to sit down again, his mind was crowded with memories. They all came back with a rush, simultaneously. Patrice’s failure to come home. Lambert and the party. The prince and his disgusting friends. The demonstration or whatever it was that he got mixed up in. The insane “statement” that had led to his being shut up here. There were still a few blanks. Had he done anything worse than the things he remembered? He sank down into the leather armchair in which he had apparently been sleeping.

The first thing to get straight was the period following his arrest. Had he been arrested? If so, how had they picked him out of that crowd? He went over it minute by minute, trying to remember every word he had spoken, every move he had made. He had a clear, vivid memory of his declaration of innocence, though he couldn’t re-create the thoughts that had provoked it. What had possessed him to suppose that a couple of policemen making a routine identity check in the middle of the night could know anything about François and the trip to Marseille? They’d said something suspicious. And François. He had warned him that they might be in trouble.

At least he hadn’t signed anything. He was sure of that. And if he had mentioned names, they hadn’t thought it important enough to ask him to repeat them. The whole interview had, in fact, been so nearly incoherent that he needn’t be bound by any of it today. He could dismiss it all as drunken fantasy and nobody could prove otherwise.

Meanwhile, he had to get word to Patrice. He was bound to be home now and worried about him. Why hadn’t he done something about their getting a telephone? He would have to send a telegram. Surely they couldn’t object to that. He wasn’t really under arrest. He hadn’t been put in a cell. They hadn’t the right to hold him indefinitely.

All the stories he had heard about the lethargic and high-handed methods of the French police came to mind. He pulled himself to his feet again and took his surroundings in more coherently. He seemed to be in a sort of reading room. A table stood in the middle surrounded by chairs. He crossed to a closed door but hesitated before opening it. The thought of facing whatever lay beyond it, of encountering hostility or lack of comprehension made him realize that his head was splitting. There was a foul taste in his mouth. He raised his hand and felt his beard. He must look like hell.

He tried to straighten his coat and discovered that the buttons weren’t in the right holes. He unfastened them and found the subsequent layers, jacket and shirt, in similar disarray. He buttoned his shirt properly and tucked it more carefully into his trousers. He shook down his rumpled clothes and felt a bit more presentable. He would demand his rights. They had laws here like anywhere else. He went to the door and pulled it open.

Beyond it, he found a shabby, cluttered office in which a single policeman was sitting behind a desk reading a newspaper, his cap pushed onto the back of his head. He looked up as Rod entered.

“I’ve got to send a telegram,” Rod announced, hoping that his decisive manner would sweep away any obstacles. “It’s very important. I’ve got to let a friend know that I’m all right.”

“A telegram.” The policeman shrugged good-humoredly. “Unfortunately, this isn’t a telegraph office.”

“You can use the telephone.”

“The telephone.” The policeman studied the instrument on the desk before him. “Who would pay for it?”

“I can pay. I think. If I haven’t enough, I’ll pay later.”

“Perhaps. But I don’t believe it’s covered in the regulations. It sounds irregular.” He hunched himself over the desk and looked up at Rod placatingly. “Look, monsieur. M. Gouffron will be here shortly. This is his affair. You will talk to him. He will send the telegram for you. It is not for me to decide.”

“But I tell you, this is urgent. I’ve been gone all night. What will my friends think?” Aware of how disreputable he must look, he advanced slowly to the policeman, trying not to give the impression that he was threatening him. The latter regarded him with an alert but sympathetic eye.

“Listen, monsieur. These things are unpleasant I regret it. But 15 minutes one way or the other won’t make any difference now. Sit down and be patient. That’s the only thing you can do if you don’t wish to create further difficulties. M. Gouffron will surely be here any minute.”

Rod seated himself stiffly upright, trying to suggest in his bearing his disassociation from the whole affair. The least he expected was a browbeating from some self-righteous official who would know nothing about him and who would probably classify him with the rest of the crooks and vagrants that passed before him every day. He remembered that things had been said last night that had given him the idea that François had informed against him. He didn’t know what he would do if he were really in trouble. He had to be very sure there was no danger for Patrice in citing him as a witness. He couldn’t believe that he had ever taken pride in thinking of himself as a sort of outlaw. Never actively. Never to the point of public defiance. Patrice was a bit to blame for putting his work before every other consideration. Without his implicit sanction, he would never have done some of the things he had done in the last few days. His fists were doubled in his lap. He wanted to smash them down on the desk in front of him. How much longer was he going to have to wait here?

As if in answer, the policeman folded his newspaper and pulled his cap forward so that it sat squarely on his head. “I think that’s M. Gouffron now,” he said. Rod had heard nothing. The policeman rose and pulled down his tunic and settled his belt over his paunch. He went to the door and opened it. A nondescript man in a shabby suit slipped in. A few words were exchanged, which Rod didn’t catch, and the policeman withdrew with a salute, closing the door behind him. The newcomer didn’t glance at Rod but went to a corner and removed his jacket and hung it on a hook. He put on another, even shabbier, jacket that had been hanging there. He proceeded to the desk the policeman had vacated and sat down. Rod had started to rise but settled back uncertainly. He watched while M. Gouffron read a paper in a folder that lay in front of him, waiting for an opportunity to ask him to send the telegram. After a moment the neat little man pulled on his nose and looked up at Rod and grunted.

“Another American,” he said with a touch of incredulity. His eyes were weak behind steel-rimmed spectacles. His gray hair was thin over a freckled skull. “Do you people behave at home the way you do in this country?”

Because this was unwarranted–if he meant Rod’s having been picked up in the street with a crowd–his heart constricted with foreboding. M. Gouffron looked down at his paper again. He pulled his nose and cleared his throat.

“Now then. What is this story about one François Leclerc?”

“Nothing,” Rod asserted. “I was drunk. I just happened to go to Marseille with him the other day. We had a–well, there wasn’t any trouble, really. Just a peculiar incident. I suppose that when I saw policemen, I immediately associated them with that.”