by Lex Lander
‘Esta bien, señora?’ The enquiry was fatuous and superfluous. She fairly obviously wasn’t all right, though there was just a small chance she went in for the kind of sex that involves rough and tumble. Her face said not.
‘Mind you own business, Ingles,’ the baseball-capped guy growled. He wasn’t tall, but he was broad across the shoulders and his arms were muscled. He reached into a front pocket of his jeans and fished out a clasp knife, the kind used by anglers for gutting their catch. He opened it to expose a fat, highly polished blade. No bloodstains on it, but that wasn’t conclusive. That made two of them armed with knives.
‘Take it easy,’ I said. My Spanish was functional rather than fluent, but I could string together simple sentences and naughty words. ‘No need for anyone to get hurt.’
Baseball Cap took a couple of steps towards me; his three amigos stayed crouched. The girl seemed petrified in both senses of the word.
‘Fuck off, marica.’
Marica. Faggot. Not very friendly. I was prepared to overlook it though, if they would all go in peace. I matched his two steps, bringing me alongside a rack of bottled beverages, including several bottles of wine.
‘I told you to fuck off,’ Baseball Cap said, the level of menace in his voice a note higher than before.
‘Let the girl go,’ I said reasonably. ‘You want to end up in prison for ten years? Rape isn’t like petty thieving.’
He carried on shortening the gap between us, slowly but with no sign of hesitation. I was getting a bit old for rumbles in the jungle, so if it came to a clash I wasn’t going to fight fair. Not with odds of four-to-one against.
Several metres of floor space still separated us when I grabbed a pair of wine bottles from the shelf. Even before he could react, I had smashed them against the bottom shelf of the rack. They exploded, spraying glass and vino blanco all over the floor, my shoes, and my pants, leaving me clutching about six inches of bottle necks, lethally jagged at the point of breakage.
Fear leapt into the guy’s eyes. Confronting a broken bottle calls for real nerve, especially in the hands of someone who looks as if he knows how to use it. As, in all modesty, I did. Somehow, jagged glass is more intimidating than a shaft of steel. Maybe it’s because any cuts inflicted are likely to cause far more damage to tissue, far deeper scars, than a knife slash. And when there are two bottles in play, the risks are doubled.
But Baseball Cap was young, over-confident, and above all stupid. He came at me in a rush, slashing inexpertly with the knife. At the last minute, as he came within range, I stepped aside, spun round and shoved the jagged end of one of the bottles into the fleshy part of the side of his neck, just above the collar bone. His shriek was piercing and childlike. He sank to his knees, clutching at the wound, his knife spinning off into obscurity. His buddies did fair imitations of sprinters leaving their starting blocks. They bumped into each other in their haste to get out of there. Once they had sorted themselves out, they were gone in seconds. I heard an engine start up, gears clash, tyres squeal. Quiet descended on the little scene: me, panting slightly, the bottle in my right hand dripping blood now. The would-be rapist, still on his knees, swaying a little and keening in the back of his throat. The girl was sprawled on her back, her ruined black dress up around her thighs, treating me to a soft porn display of white underwear. For once, the upskirt view was not erotic.
‘You staying while I call the police?’ I said quietly to Baseball Cap. I was bluffing. I never involved the police.
His keening rose to a wail. He staggered to his feet, tried to turn his head to look at me, but it must have hurt too much because he gave up the effort and blundered out through the door thoughtfully left open by his pals. Last I saw of him he was reeling off into the night.
‘Gracias, señor.’ The girl’s voice was a whisper, barely audible. ‘Muy, muy gracias.’
She pronounced the ‘c’ like a soft ‘s’ instead of lisping it, which told me she wasn’t from around here.
‘De nada,’ I said, offhand-like, as if it were a routine event, the equivalent of giving up my seat in the subway to a pregnant woman.
She struggled to rise. I laid the remains of the bottles on the counter, and helped her. Her bra was exposed and a strap broken. She tried to gather the torn material of her dress around her and recover her dignity. I pretended not to notice her embarrassment. She smiled uncertainly at me. Her age, I guessed, was twenty-five to thirty. She was pretty enough, with that reddish sandy hair you sometimes come across in northern Spain.
I looked around for a dustpan and brush. Found only a broom and used it to sweep the glass fragments into a corner of the office. Nothing to be done about the stickiness on the floor. The girl watched me, still fiddling with the torn dress.
‘What’s your name?’ I said.
She hesitated, moistened her lips. To a country girl like this, a man asking her name was probably akin to hitting on her. Maybe she questioned my motives. Saviour one minute, ravisher the next.
‘Libertad.’
‘Mucho gusto, Libertad.’ Roughly translates as ‘pleased to meet you’. I proffered a smile of my own, to put her at her ease.
‘Mucho gusto, señor,’ she responded.
‘Now, Libertad, I need some gas to get me to the border.’
It was after 9pm when I came within reconnoitring range of the Franco-Spanish border at Coll Dels Belitres. I pulled onto the verge about two hundred metres short of the bend before the border itself. Dousing the headlights and using a pencil flashlight to avoid any pitfalls, I walked along the road towards France. Ahead on the left was the old stone-built border post, with its round mini-tower. Opposite, the blue FRANCE sign inside its circle of twelve yellow stars, representing twelve of the twenty-odd member countries of the EU. The air was permeated with ozone.
My purpose in covering this last section of Spanish road on foot before crossing into France was more common-sense security. I had to satisfy myself that the border post really was unmanned. If I had driven up to it and discovered, too late, that it was open, retreat would have been impossible. Technically, it had been closed for years. In the interests of economy and the Schengen Agreement, passport control was a thing of the past, and never more so than at these rural crossing points.
Around the next bend, on the French side, the more substantial set of buildings were similarly devoid of life. Just to be sure, I advanced until I was close enough for the beam of my flash to pick out the STOP legend painted on the road beside the oval control office. The French were as non-present as their Spanish counterparts.
I returned to the Seat and drove on into France, just another law abiding citizen with a false passport.
The three-star Hotel La Frégate in Collioure, where I stayed when visiting the area, was located just down from the port. Built at a triangular junction, it was a much smaller, much less imposing cousin to the Flatiron Building in NYC. My view from the third floor window was of the port and rows of small craft at anchor in the still waters, dominated by the pointed stone tower with its illuminated clock face. The sky to the east, royal blue and starry, rounded off the fairytale scene. Any poet would wax effortlessly lyrical about it.
Within a half hour of checking in I was ordering moules marinières in the Restaurant Le Clocher, named after the clock tower and close by the beach. I preferred my mussels cooked in cider rather than white wine, and as an infrequent but remembered client they indulged me.
A tall, narrow-shouldered guy in a crisp white shirt and black pants with creases that looked lethally sharp, came over to my table while I was waiting for my mussels to be served.
‘Bonsoir, monsieur,’ he said, favouring me with a broad smile. ‘Je m’appele Magnin. Je suis le gérant. Vous êtes déjà venu chez nous, n’est-ce pas?’ You’ve been here before, haven’t you?
‘Effectivement,’ I confirmed, and went on to congratulate him on the quality of his cuisine.
He thanked me for my kind remarks and for my custom, and we
chatted away about the attractions of Collioure and the state of the French economy until my food came. Then, with a tiny bow, he took off to cultivate some other late-season diners.
I tucked into my mussels with gusto. For once, I was feeling good about myself. The attempted rape incident and my role in thwarting it had lightened the negativity in my hollow life. That said, just as Aristotle observed that one swallow doesn’t make a summer, a single selfless deed didn’t make me a paragon. I was a contract killer. However you dressed up the terminology, the work I did came down to murder for money. The only saving grace was my moral code: I killed bad guys and only bad guys.
Not a murderer, then. An executioner. Much better.
I set my self-vindication aside and focused on my meal and soaking up the ambience. An hour later, replete, I was back in the hotel, brushing my teeth, not a care in the world.
Well, hardly a care.
TWO
The house was in the foothills of the Pyrenées, overlooking the leafy town of Céret with its bubbling Tech, a river in a hurry. The site was east facing, its outlook ragged coastline and the pure blue Mediterranean. Even the GPS had struggled to find it at the end of a track that consisted of little more than two furrows.
A steel-barred gate and a fence of two metre-high steel stakes guarded the place. A gatehouse not much larger than a sentry box stood to the left of the gate, and a man in a leather windbreaker stood beside it, peering through the bars at me.
‘I'm expected,’ I told him through the lowered window, as I pulled up with the Seat’s nose almost nudging the bars of the gate.
‘Votre nom?’
‘Henley.’ My parallel self.
He plucked a cell phone from a holster on his belt, and pecked at it twice with his forefinger. I cranked up the fan of the climate control. It was sunny and warm for October, especially for this altitude. Behind the building, the buzz of a lawn mower making the final cut of the season. The smell of grass clippings filtered through the open window. It reminded me of my sister Julie’s garden in Buckinghamshire, England.
After a short exchange of words on the cell phone the all-clear was granted. The gates swung back, motor driven.
‘Get out of the car,’ the gatekeeper commanded, as I drew alongside him. His French was strongly Midi inflected.
‘What for?’ The house was a good quarter mile from the gate, and I couldn't see why I should have to walk the distance.
‘I drive.’
No point in arguing. It was obviously a security issue and the guy was just obeying orders. As it turned out, I was required to get out of the car for another reason too. The moment my feet touched the gravel he whirled me round and spread my legs.
‘Put your hands flat on the roof.’
I obliged. He patted me down. He was thorough. I wasn't carrying a weapon, so his frisk bore no fruit. As he stepped away, I walked around the car and sat docilely in the passenger seat for the first time ever. The gatekeeper got behind the wheel, engaged drive and we cruised towards the house. The paved driveway was lined with plane trees, their foliage thinning; up here winter would come a couple of weeks earlier than at sea level.
The building itself was typical Mediterranean. Lots of arches, verandas on two sides, patio doors everywhere. A creamy-coloured stucco or crepi finish. Red tiles. Louvered shutters on both floors – the working kind, not just for decoration. An unidentifiable creeper, leafless now, coiled around the corner arch. On the terrace before the house a fountain spurted, the plume of water whipped into spray by the breeze. A large black-and-tan dog lay panting in the sunshine; German shepherd, most likely bred to be mean. A reassuring chain ran from its neck to an unseen stud under the veranda.
We parked around the side of the building, well away from the dog, suggesting the gatekeeper had respect for it too. As we emerged from the cockpit, it came trotting towards us. The chain restrained it short of savaging distance. It didn't snarl or bark, just stood there watchful, tongue lolling and trailing a stalactite of saliva.
‘Be careful of him,’ my escort said. ‘When you leave, stay out of reach.’
He ushered me in through the front door. The interior was cool compared to outside. Air conditioning hummed from several wall-mounted units. The white walls were crammed with paintings, mostly impressionists with a scattering of portraits and modern art. Artefacts galore occupied the flat surfaces – a wire bird of prey, a stone Don Quixote windmill, a bronze figurine of a woman playing a harp, to name but a fraction of the eclectic collection. A woman, real, without harp, approached us across the tiled floor. She was middle aged, black hair, immaculately groomed. French to her fingertips.
‘Je suppose que vous êtes Monsieur ’Enley,’ she said. No Midi accent from her.
I confirmed I was Henley. She didn't introduce herself. Too expensively dressed for an employee, so maybe she was the mistress of the house.
‘My ’usband is expecting you,’ she said, switching to English.
As the gatekeeper withdrew, bowing, but not to me, I was consigned to the woman's care. She led me to a double door and opened half of it.
‘Mr ’Enley is here, chéri,’ she announced. A flicker of a smile for me, and she stood aside to let me enter the lion’s den. The door closed behind me, softly-softly.
The room was about thirty feet square with a cheminée big enough to stage a play in. No fire burned in the glass-encased stove. Four French windows led to terraced areas. Through the nearest window, a kidney-shaped pool and an array of sun beds were visible. Beyond, the blue of the Mediterranean and the blue of the sky merged almost without horizon. One of the sun beds was in use: a girl in a black bikini was draped along it like a leopard on the bough of a tree. Her hair was golden blonde and piled up in a great bunch on top of her head.
In the room itself were five men, all attired for heat in short sleeve shirts or T-shirts and cotton pants, like me. The boss was easy to single out. Seated in a high-back armchair, he was not only a generation older than the others, but exuded that all too recognizable aura of power.
‘Welcome,’ he said, and rose to extend his hand, rotating it horizontally, as if he expected me to kiss it. One of the patio doors and my silhouette were reflected in his rimless eyeglasses.
‘Schwarzenegger,’ he said, accompanied by a sardonic smile. ‘Call me Arnie.’ His speech was New England American.
Keeping a straight face, I said, ‘Same as the movie star?’
‘Exactly,’ equally deadpan. ‘And yours is Henley, is that right?’
‘Jack Henley.’ On my passport I was John, but Johns are often known as Jack in the Anglosphere. It had always seemed to me that my alias would be all the more plausible if I converted my supposed given name to a supposed nickname. Too subtle for most, but the devil as always was in the detail.
Hands were clasped. His grip was firm without being knuckle-pulping. He was tallish, maybe a whisker above me, and in good shape for his age, which I put at middle fifties. Still had most of his hair, which was dark brown but infiltrated with grey at the sides and temples, though the grey didn’t extend to his goatee beard. His glasses magnified his hazel eyes, making them disproportionate to his face. His black shirt was neatly pressed, his dove grey pants likewise. My initial impression was favourable, that he would be a good man to do business with.
The four other men were ranged about the room like strategically-positioned chess pieces. To Schwarzenegger’s right was a guy in his twenties, a younger, slimmer version of phoney Arnie, but minus the goatee. His son? The remaining three were in the thirty to forty age bracket: one black and glistening bald with mirror-finish sunglasses, another thinning blond with a moustache, the third, ruddy complexioned, with a snake tattoo coiling around his forearm. Employees, not associates. Maybe bodyguards, in case I turned out to be unruly.
I nodded to them across the room, they returned the nod. No smiles of pleasure at meeting me. These were pros. I was the foe until proven friend.
‘This is my
nephew, Richard,’ Schwarzenegger said, beckoning forward the young guy. He at least came over and shook my hand. Except for a cast in the right of his very blue eyes, he was quite good looking in a rather effeminate way. Muddy blond hair, a mouth that would have been seductive on a woman; medium height. Dimpled chin.
‘Thank you for coming,’ he said, same enunciation as his uncle. Better manners though.
I was invited to sit, offered a drink. I opted for Scotch sour with plenty of ice. Drinking hard liquor during business discussions was generally a no-no, but asking for a Perrier or a tomato juice in this company might be bad for my credibility. I was in machoville, so macho behaviour was expected.
‘How was your journey?’ Schwarzenegger enquired. ‘You were driving up through Spain, I understand.’ His phraseology was that of an educated man. The most dangerous kind of thug, if that’s what he was.
‘That’s right. The journey was uneventful, thanks.’
‘You enjoy driving?’
‘Yes,’ I said, as the nephew, Richard, handed me my drink. ‘I’m attracted to all forms of dicing with death.’
Schwarzenegger snickered politely. I sipped my Scotch. It was top grade stuff as far as I could tell, when my palate had filtered out the lime juice.
‘In your profession it must be a pre-requisite.’
When I made no comment, he didn’t pursue the topic. Instead he asked me if I were staying overnight in Perpignan.
‘No.’ I took another sip, decided to elaborate rather than appear evasive. ‘I’m driving back this evening.’
‘I see. Would you mind showing me your passport?’
Across the room one of the bodyguards stirred, as if the request was a signal to spring into action.
‘If I had it, I would mind. As I don’t, the question doesn’t arise. You can search me if it makes you happy.’
His mouth turned down, either at learning that I couldn’t supply what he wanted, or at my choice of words. He was a man who would be used to minions jumping when he said jump.