“Yes,” agreed the banker. “Do you think you can get it back from the new consul? We all know that Corteguay is broke.”
Baron de Coyne looked down at his friends. “You are a bunch of cynics,” he said. “I’m merely curious to see what kind of a man they have sent us this time.”
“What difference does it make? They are all the same. All they really want is our money.”
“Do you wish to meet him, your excellency?” Madame Blanchette asked.
The baron shook his head. “No, just to look at them.”
He followed her to the adjoining wall, and she drew back a drape. There was a small glass in the wall. “You can see them from here,” she said, “but they cannot see us. There is a mirror on their side.”
The baron nodded and looked into the room. The first thing that he saw was the boy asleep on the couch, his child’s face drawn and tired.
“He’s just about my own son’s age,” he said to Madame Blanchette in surprise. “The child’s mother must be dead or he would not be with his father like this. Does anyone know where Ramírez has gone?”
Madame Blanchette shrugged. “There’s been some talk that he has a place on the Italian Riviera, though no one knows for sure. One night last week a truck removed everything from the embassy.”
The baron’s mouth tightened. So that was why they had come looking for a room. If he knew Ramírez, there wouldn’t be even a stick of firewood left. As he watched, the tall man walked over to the couch and put a pillow under the boy’s head. There was a curiously gentle expression on his dark face.
The baron dropped the drape and turned back to Madame Blanchette. He had seen as much as he wanted. The poor man would have enough troubles once the word got around that a new Corteguayan consul was in Paris. Everyone of Ramírez’ creditors would be clamoring at his door. “Give them my suite on the third floor. I’m sure Zizi won’t mind if I spent the night in her room.”
77
It seemed like the middle of the night but it was actually ten o’clock in the morning when Marcel Campion heard the knock at his door. He rolled over and put the pillow over his head. But even through that he could hear the shrill voice of his landlady.
“All right, all right!” he shouted, sitting up. “Come back later. I’ll have the rent then, I promise you!”
“There’s a telephone call for you, monsieur.”
“For me?” Marcel’s brow knitted as he tried to think who might be calling him. He got out of the bed. “Tell them to hold on, I’ll be right down.”
Sleepily he staggered over to the washstand and poured water into the basin and splashed its coldness over his face. His bloodshot eyes stared balefully back at him from the tiny mirror. Vaguely he tried to remember what kind of wine he had been drinking last night. Whatever it was, it must have been awful, but at least it had been very cheap.
He patted his face dry with a rough towel and, slipping into his robe, went down the stairs. The concierge was behind her desk as he picked up the telephone. She tried to pretend she was not listening but he knew she was.
“Allô?”
“Monsieur Campion?” asked a bright fresh female voice.
“Oui.”
“Hold on a moment, the Baron de Coyne is calling.”
The baron’s voice came on before Marcel had an opportunity to be surprised. “Are you the Campion employed at the Corteguayan consulate?”
“Yes, your excellency.” Marcel’s voice was very respectful. “But I no longer work there. The consulate is closed.”
“I know that. But a new consul has just arrived. I think you should return.” The baron’s voice was clipped.
“But, your excellency, the previous consul still owes me three months’ back salary!”
The baron was obviously not used to having his suggestions questioned. “Return to work. I shall guarantee your salary.”
He rang off, leaving Marcel staring at the dead telephone. Slowly he put it down. The concierge came toward him smiling. “Monsieur is going back to work?”
Marcel stared at her. She knew as well as he; she had heard every word. He started for the staircase, still puzzled. The Baron de Coyne was one of the richest men in all France. Why should he be interested in a tiny country like Corteguay? Most people didn’t even know where it was.
The telephone shrilled again and the concierge answered. She held the receiver out toward Marcel. “For you.”
“Allô?”
“Campion,” said the now almost familiar clipped voice, “I want you to go there immediately!”
Marcel glanced at his watch as he turned into the Rue Pelier and started up the hill. Eleven o’clock. That should be fast enough. Even for the baron.
The grocer sweeping the sidewalk in front of his stall greeted him. “Bonjour, Marcel,” he called jovially, “what are you doing back in the neighborhood?”
“Bonjour. I am going to the consulate.”
“Going back to work?” The grocer looked at him shrewdly. “Has that merde Ramírez returned? He still owes me more than seven thousand francs.”
“Three thousand francs,” Marcel repeated automatically. He remembered things like that.
“Three thousand, seven thousand, what’s the difference? Ramírez is gone, and so is my money.” The grocer leaned on the broom. “What’s up?” he asked confidentially. “You can tell me.”
“I don’t know,” Marcel answered honestly. “I just heard that a new consul had arrived. I thought I might get my old job back.”
The grocer was thoughtful. “Perhaps my money is not gone after all.” He looked at Marcel. “There’s fifty percent in it for you if you collect for me. Fifteen hundred francs.”
“Thirty-five hundred,” Marcel replied automatically.
The grocer stared at him for a moment, then a broad smile cracked his face. Playfully he punched Marcel on the arm. “Ah, Marcel, Marcel. I always said they would have to get up early in the morning to beat you. Thirty-five hundred francs it is!”
Marcel continued on up the hill. He could see the consulate now. On an impulse he crossed the street before he came abreast of it. The first thing he noticed was that the gate hung open, and even from across the street he could see that the lock had been smashed. He nodded to himself. They probably had to break it to get in. He wondered what the landlord would have to say about that.
The second thing he noticed was the boy in the front garden cutting the weeds. Though it was cool he had already stripped to his undershirt, and the fine muscles in his arms rippled as he swung the broad flat blade. There was a look of grim concentration on his face.
Marcel stared at the blade in the boy’s hand. He had never seen anything like it before. Then he remembered that he had, in some picture that Ramírez had shown him. It was a machete. Marcel shivered. The savages used them as weapons.
His eyes turned back to the boy’s face. He couldn’t be French, that much was obvious. Not the expert way he handled the machete. Whoever he was he had come with the new consul. Suddenly the boy looked up and caught him staring.
The eyes were dark and challenging. Slowly the boy straightened up. The machete was still held lightly in his hand but now Marcel felt as if it were aimed right at his throat. The boy’s lips tightened savagely, revealing even white teeth.
Involuntarily Marcel shivered again. Then, without even understanding why, he turned and started back down the street. He was willing to swear that he felt the boy’s eyes boring into his back until he had turned the corner.
He ducked into the brasserie. “Cognac.” He drank it quickly, then ordered a coffee. He felt the warmth of the liquor as he sipped at the coffee. If it weren’t for the fact that the Baron de Coyne had personally asked him, he would never consider going back to work there. Not among such savages.
From his table Marcel saw the boy entering the grocery store across the street. Impulsively he called for his check, paid it, and crossed over. Through the open doorway he saw the boy select two lo
aves of bread, a piece of cheese, and a hunk of sausage. Marcel hesitated a moment, then went inside.
The boy did not look around as he came in; he was too intent on watching the grocer wrap his order.
“Three hundred francs,” the grocer said.
The boy looked down at the bills in his hand. Marcel could see that he had only two hundred francs. “You’ll have to take something back,” he said in halting French.
As the grocer reached for the sausage, Marcel said, “Don’t be such a crook. Is this the way you plan to get money from the Corteguayan consulate?”
The boy seemed to understand the reference to the consulate, but the rest of it came too fast for him. He looked at Marcel, then recognized him.
“I don’t see what it matters to you, Marcel,” the grocer grumbled. But he pushed the sack back across the counter and pocketed the two hundred francs.
“Merci,” the boy said and started out of the store.
Marcel followed him onto the sidewalk. “You have to watch them all the time,” he said in Spanish. “They’ll steal your eyeteeth if they think you’re a foreigner.”
The boy’s eyes were dark and unfathomable. In a way they reminded Marcel of the eyes of a tiger he had once seen in the zoo. The same wild tawny lights glinted there. “You’re with the new Corteguayan consul?”
The boy’s eyes did not waver. “I am his son. Who are you?”
“Marcel Campion. I used to work at the consulate as secretary and translator.”
Dax’s expression did not change but Marcel sensed rather than saw the slight movement of his hand. The outline of a knife showed briefly beneath his coat. “Why were you watching me?”
“I thought perhaps the new consul could use my services. If not—” He didn’t finish. The knowledge of the hidden knife was making him nervous.
“If not—what?”
“There is the matter of the three months’ salary the former consul owes me,” Marcel replied quickly.
“Ramírez?”
“Ramírez.” Marcel nodded. “He kept promising the money would arrive next week. And then one morning I came to work and the consulate was closed.”
The boy thought for a moment. “I think you’d better come and talk to my father.”
Marcel glanced at the boy’s hand nervously out of the corner of his eye. But the hand was empty. Something of the breath that he had withheld escaped. He relaxed. “I shall be honored.”
Together they started up the street.
When they arrived at the consulate the new consul was sitting behind a spindly wooden table in the large empty front room, an angry group of men shouting and gesticulating in front of him.
“Gato Gordo!” the boy shouted, plunging through them toward his father.
A moment later Marcel felt himself flung out of the way as a large fat man hurtled through the doorway. He was spun halfway to the floor before he regained his balance, and when he straightened up he saw that the fat man and the boy faced the crowd together, knives in their hands.
The crowd fell back. A sudden silence came into the room. Marcel saw the pallor of fear enter their faces, and he realized suddenly how afraid he himself was. For a moment they were all in another world. A world of death and violence. Paris had vanished.
And he knew somehow that this was not the first time the fat man and the boy had faced danger together. There had been many moments like this. He knew from the almost unspoken communication that seemed to flow between them. They reacted with almost one mind.
Finally one of the men spoke. “But all we wanted was our money.”
In spite of himself Marcel began to smile. This was a method of refusing payment that they had never experienced before. And very effective too. He wished he could do the same with his own creditors.
The consul rose slowly to his feet. Marcel was surprised. The man was taller than he had seemed while seated. But the face was drawn and weary, a weariness more of the spirit than physical. “If you will wait outside,” he said in a tired voice, “I will discuss your bills with each of you. One at a time.”
The creditors turned and filed silently past Marcel. When the last of them was gone, he heard the boy’s voice. “Close the door, Marcel.”
This was no longer a boy’s voice; it was the voice of a warrior accustomed to having his orders obeyed. Silently Marcel closed the door. When he turned back into the room the knives were gone, and the boy was behind the table, next to his father.
“Are you all right, Father?” he asked in a voice full of love and affection. In some way that Marcel did not wholly understand it was almost as if the boy were the father, the father the son.
78
In the wood-paneled office with the heavy leather furniture, the baron listened attentively from across a massive carved desk. Even with the background of the familiar sounds of the traffic outside coming from the Place Vendôme Marcel could not bring himself to believe in the reality of all that had happened in the week since he had gone back to work. But the baron’s voice dragged him back from his moment of unreality. “What is the total of the unpaid bills Ramírez left behind?”
“Almost ten million francs,” Marcel answered. “Eighty millions of their pesos.”
As was his custom the baron automatically converted the sums into dollars and sterling. One hundred sixty thousand dollars. Forty thousand pounds sterling. He shook his head. “And the consul paid all this himself out of his personal funds?”
Marcel nodded. “He felt it was his duty. Ramírez had been his own recommendation and he felt the government was too poor to have an additional drain placed upon it.”
“Where did he get the money?”
“Money changers. He paid a premium of twenty percent.”
“It was after this that the consul decided to go to Ventimiglia to see if Ramírez would make some sort of restitution?”
Marcel nodded. “But by then it was too late. The five days of working in that dank, unheated house and sleeping on the cold floor with nothing but a thin blanket had taken their toll. Señor Xenos woke that morning with a bad fever. By afternoon I called the doctor and after one look he insisted that the consul go immediately to the hospital. Señor Xenos protested but in the middle of it he fainted. We carried him out to the doctor’s car and off to the hospital he went.”
The baron shook his head. “A man’s honor is at the same time his most valuable asset and his most expensive luxury.”
“I can understand the consul,” Marcel said quickly. “He is one of the most honorable and idealistic men I have ever met. It is the boy who puzzles me. He is nothing like the father. Where his father is reflective, he is reflexive; where the man is emotional, the boy is controlled. He is like a young jungle animal, completely physical. In the way he moves, thinks, and acts. He has but one loyalty. To his father.”
“And they went to Ventimiglia—the boy and the aide?”
Marcel nodded. He remembered when they had come back to the chilly consulate from the hospital. He had looked at the boy as the door closed behind them. Dax’s face was an unreadable mask.
“I think I’d better return for credit the tickets to Ventimiglia issued to your father and myself,” Marcel said.
“No.” Dax’s voice was sharp. He glanced at Fat Cat. Marcel suspected an invisible communication had passed between them because Fat Cat was nodding in agreement almost before Dax spoke again. “Get one more ticket. I think the three of us should pay our friend Ramírez a little visit. It is long past due.”
Later they had sat on the side of the hill in the fading Riviera sunlight, looking down into the villa. There were three men seated at a table in the patio, a bottle of wine before them. In the quiet country air the faint sounds of their voices had carried to the hillside.
“Which one is Ramírez?”
“The thin wiry one in the middle,” Marcel answered.
“Who are the other two?”
“Bodyguards. He is never without them.”
&nb
sp; Fat Cat cursed. “I know the big one, Sánchez. He was in el Presidente’s personal guard.” He spat on the ground. “I always thought him a traitor!”
Some women came out into the patio bringing food. Ramírez laughed and slapped one of them on the behind as she passed.
“Who are they?” Dax asked.
Marcel shrugged. “I do not know. Ramírez always had several mistresses.”
Dax smiled. Marcel could feel no warmth in it. “At least we know that he does not sleep with his bodyguards.” The boy got to his feet. “We must discover which bedroom is his before we go there tonight.”
“But how will you get in?” Marcel asked. “The gate will be locked.”
Fat Cat chuckled. “That will be no problem; we’ll go over the wall.”
“But that’s burglary,” Marcel said, shocked. “We could all be sent to prison.”
“And Ramírez stole the money legally?” Dax’s voice was dry and filled with contempt.
Marcel did not answer.
Fat Cat leaned his back against a tree and chuckled contentedly. He reached out a hand and affectionately rumpled Dax’s hair. “It is like the old days back home, eh, jefecito?”
“It is probably the corner room, the one with the balcony,” the boy said.
As he spoke the French doors on the balcony opened and Ramírez came out. He stood there leaning against the railing, his cigarette glowing. He seemed to be looking out at the sea beyond the house. Soon a woman came out and joined him. He threw the cigarette over the side of the balcony, and they heard faintly the woman’s laugh. Then Ramírez went back into the house with her. The balcony doors remained open.
“Very hospitable of the traitor,” Fat Cat said. “Now we won’t have to go searching through the house.”
Presently the lights went out, and the house became dark. Fat Cat started to move but Dax’s hand stopped him. “Give him ten minutes. By then he will be too busy to hear the sound of a thousand horses.”
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