She lifted her shoulders indifferently.
‘I’m sorry for you. A year ago I would never have put you in danger, but you are expendable now. You can’t consider yourself anything but unimportant now, can you?’
‘That seems to be the idea most people have of me,’ Cade said, staring into the fire.
She studied him, then leaning forward, she said, ‘You have always interested me. I think you are a great artist and I admire your work. Is it really true you ruined your life because of some slut in Mexico?’
Cade continued to stare into the fire.
‘You are amusing as a spy,’ he said, ‘and you are quite picturesque with your gun and your sleazy methods of sexual awareness, but would you please keep your bitchy nose out of my past?’
She flushed.
‘I’m sorry … really I mean that.’
‘That’s nice of you.’ He glanced at her and smiled. ‘I can understand your morbid interest. I have become a museum-piece to be stared at and wondered at.’ He lifted the bottle and took a long drink, then as he replaced the cap, he went on, ‘What really surprises me is your faith in me as a photographer. I should have thought you, with your intelligence, your sophistication and your quite impressive courage, would have had more psychological awareness. Didn’t it occur to you that I was so goddamn drunk that I just didn’t get any photos?’
She became motionless, her fingers tightening on the gun, her blue eyes widening.
‘What are you saying?’
‘Baby, my heart bleeds for you,’ Cade said, still staring into the fire. ‘You claim to know something about me, but your research has been very superficial. Didn’t you hear about my débâcle with General de Gaulle? I had the exclusive on him, but I was so plastered at the time, the pictures were completely out of focus. Do you imagine I sat up in that tree without getting plastered? Don’t puff out that pretty little chest of yours. Wait until the films you have stolen from me have been processed. It’s my bet they will be as useless as I am: probably a little more useless, if that is possible.’
He watched her lose colour and confidence. She put her hand inside her coat as if the touch of her fingers on the two film cartridges would work a miracle.
‘I have a sneaking feeling you have backed the wrong horse,’ Cade said, stretching his feet out towards the fire. ‘For the past six months, people have been making the same mistake about me. A man on the bottle is always a rotten bet. I don’t know who your Russian boss is, but he won’t be at his amiable best when he finds out you picked on Cade of all the photographers to get vitally important photos.’
She sat for a long moment, still and tense, then she said, ‘You know how to talk, don’t you? You think my psychology is all wrong, but I don’t. No matter how drunk you were, you would have taken good pictures. This happens to be one of the biggest news scoops ever. You don’t bluff me. You—Cade—wouldn’t have fallen down on an assignment this important.’
Cade smiled at her.
‘Your confidence in me is touching,’ he said. ‘The proof of the pudding is in the processing.’
The sound of the telephone bell made them both start. She lifted the receiver, the gun covering Cade.
‘Ginette,’ she said, then listened. She went on, ‘Will you come here at once, Nicki? It is urgent. We have what we hoped for. Yes … all right. I’ll wait, but be as quick as you can,’ and she hung up.
Cade was taking another long pull from the bottle.
‘Oh! Can’t you stop that!’ she exclaimed angrily.
‘Don’t worry about me.’ The bottle nearly slipped out of his hand. He hastily grabbed it. He now seemed pretty drunk. ‘It’s time you began to worry about yourself, baby. We’re no longer alone. While you were talking to your boyfriend, company has arrived.’
Her eyes widened.
‘Company? What do you mean?’
‘There’s creaking and groaning outside.’ Cade got to his feet, lurched, recovered himself and pitched the bottle of whisky on the settee. ‘Someone is prowling around on the terrace.’
She raised her hand and they both listened. They could hear the rise of wind in the fir trees. There was a sudden startling noise that made her catch her breath as snow dropped from the roof onto the terrace.
Cade walked unsteadily to the door, opened it and listened. Ginette watched him, tense. He beckoned, holding up his finger for silence. She came close to him.
‘They are in the basement,’ he said, his mouth close to her ear. ‘Listen!’
She leaned forward as he opened the door wider.
She heard nothing, then his hand slammed down on her wrist, knocking the gun out of her grip. He gave her a hard shove that sent her reeling hack into the middle of the room. He scooped up the gun and smiled at her.
‘Still psychologically wrong, baby. You really thought I was drunk, didn’t you? That was just an act. I’m not all that much of a sucker, am I?’
She stood motionless, her eyes smouldering.
‘Okay, let’s start where we came in. Give me those films!’
She backed away, but moving quickly, he caught hold of her wrist, twisted it, turning her, then pushed her bent arm up against her shoulder blade. She caught her breath in a little exclamation of pain.
‘Do you want me to strip you?’ he asked. ‘Give me my films!’
As he increased the pressure on her arm, she hurriedly took the two film Cartridges from her pocket and dropped them on the rug.
He gave her a violent shove that catapulted her across the room to land sprawling on the settee. He picked up the cartridges, then walked over to the lounging chair and sat in it.
‘You know something?’ he said, looking at the two film cartridges in his hand. ‘I have had a change of mind. I am now asking myself why I got so worked up about Hardenburg and his silly little plot. I am asking myself why my people should give a damn? So why not let him go ahead? There was a time when I could get worked up over a situation like this, but not now. Did you ever hear of a town called Eastonville? There, they hate blacks. They really know their business of hating in that small town. I got worked up about that. I thought the murder of two young black people was the end of civilisation. But I have learned different now. I know that people have to die so other people can survive. I had photographs of that murder: proof that five brutal bastard men clubbed the life out of two harmless people. That film was destroyed by a man who had no conscience.’ He frowned as he recalled Deputy Sheriff Schneider’s sneering face. ‘Right now, you imagine the world will come to an end if you don’t prove that Hardenburg is a traitor. You just happen to be young. I assure you the world will go on its own sweet way because treachery is the normal background of our lives these days. So it seems to me I won’t have any part of this. These films belong to me and as my property, I can do what I like with them.’
Deliberately, he began to pull the film out of the cartridge in exactly the same way that Deputy Sheriff Schneider had done once in Eastonville airport.
‘No!’ Ginette screamed, jumping to her feet. ‘Don’t!’
‘If you come near me,’ Cade said evenly. ‘I will hit you pretty hard. I mean that.’ He began stripping the second film out of the cartridge while Ginette, white-faced, watched him. Finally he looked down at the coils of film at his feet, then he tossed the empty cartridges onto the settee. ‘Keep these as a memento. Don’t look so tragic. You just backed the wrong horse.’ He reached for the bottle of whisky and took a long drink, sighed, then took another. As he lowered the bottle, he said, ‘I think I deserve that drink. You are not a very clever spy, are you? You should have seen that the bottle is still half full.’
‘I was mad to have hoped for anything from a spineless drunk like you!’ Ginette said furiously. ‘Go back to your Mexican slut if she will have you!’
Cade smiled.
‘Okay, so I’m spineless. Okay, she is a slut, but she and I together discovered something, short as it was, that you will never find. I say this b
ecause when I look at you, I see you haven’t ever found a man to love you the way a woman needs love. While I am philosophising, here is another tip: the trick in this complicated life which we are trying to live is to appreciate the good moments and discount the bad ones. That has been my trouble. The bad moments have always been too much for me. Take my advice and drop this cloak and dagger nonsense. Find a man, get married, have kids: that’s what a woman is made for.’
‘Shut up!’ Ginette said furiously. ‘Who cares what a drunk like you thinks?’
Cade scratched the side of his nose, then he nodded.
‘You have a point.’ He paused to take a final drink, then he dropped the bottle on the floor and stood up. ‘People who can’t manage their own lives should never offer advice. Well, so long, baby. I am on my way. You stay here and keep warm until your boy-friend arrives. I am going to take a ski run down to Aigle.’
As he walked to the door, Ginette said, ‘Stop playing the fool! They are waiting for you outside! Stop being dramatic!’
He paused, turned and smiled.
‘I have no future. I now have no means of earning a living so why shouldn’t I be dramatic? I am inserting a full stop to a way of life that now has no further interest to me. I am going to be as dramatic as I like.’
He left the room and walked down the stairs to the garage.
As he strapped on a pair of skis, he thought of Juana. He wondered what she was doing. Probably, he thought, she was with some rich, fat American, her slender fingers stroking an ageing, hairy chest while the sun of Acapulco made patterns of light and shade around her. He tightened the last strap. His mind shifted in quick succession to Sam Wand, Ed Burdick, Mathison and finally to Vicki Marshall. He shook his head sadly as he realised that they had become shadowy, unreal figures, no more important to him than characters he had seen in some good movie. Then as he opened the garage doors, he thought of Adolfo Creel. The fat Mexican with the food stains on his suit, his smile, his kindness and his loyal friendship became startlingly real and very close as Cade moved out into the moonlit snow.
He was just beginning to gain speed for his rush down the slopes to Aigle when one of Hardenburg’s men spotted him.
The rifle sight lifted, a finger tightened. There was a bang and a flash as the bullet sped on its destructive way.
Cade was already dead as his skis churned up the snow in a disorderly, but artistic pattern that could be read as his epitaph.
THE END
Cade Page 19