Max was silent, thinking of his life: smuggling and amassing wealth. The boat rocked gently; the freighter was almost up to them. Robert leaned down and lit a lantern, shading it with his cap.
“And that is why you help me, my friend. So that you can say in the cold hours before dawn when all of us are most anxious about ourselves, ‘I did this and it helped Robert, who helps many others; in my own small way, I made the world a better place.’ And now we must signal.” He looked back for a moment. “We’re lined up with the last dock?”
“We’re exactly where you wanted to be.”
“Then she will know where to look.”
He balanced the lantern on the gunwale of the boat and slid his cap across it and away, four times, then waited a moment and did it twice again. He and Max stowed the thermos and unfolded a large blanket. Robert repeated the signal with the lantern three times, and then they waited.
This was the first time Max had come with Robert to pick up one of the fugitives, though he knew of many of them, since they often hid in a Lacoste et fils crate when a piece of equipment was being returned to Marseilles. Max’s people fitted the crate with a small amount of food and water, and evacuation bags, and when the freighter was at sea a bribed crew member would open it. Freighters always carried thirty or forty passengers—travelers willing to forgo the comforts of a regular sailing ship for a bargain price and whatever romance they found in traveling on a working freighter and eating with the captain and crew—and Robert’s young people, staying quietly in the background, blended unobtrusively with them until, approaching France, it was time to rendezvous with Robert in his small boat.
But this night, as Robert handed Max the binoculars and then took them back to focus on the freighter, no figure slipped over the side; no one swam to them to be hauled into their boat and wrapped in the large blanket. Max took the binoculars from Robert, and when the freighter slid silently past and he turned to watch it, he saw uniformed men on the dock. “Something’s wrong. We’re going in.”
“A few more minutes.” Robert’s voice trembled. “Give her a few more minutes.”
Max started the engine and kept it at a low idle while the freighter docked. He was furious. He was the one who bore all the risk: his company, his shipment, himself. “You’re sure she left Chile?”
“I’m sure. I had a telephone call. You’re right, Max, we must go in. My friend, don’t be so angry yet. She may be hidden.”
“She damned well better be.” He revved the engine and swung the boat around. “What the hell made you think you could trust a girl to do something like this?”
“Max, she is a woman, not a girl, and of course I trust her. You yourself said she has been living a life of danger in a country where they tear people like her to pieces. Why should she not be successful as a stowaway?”
Max did not answer. They docked at the Lacoste et fils warehouse, and from there they went to a bar near the docked freighter. It was jammed with crews from freighters up and down the Marseilles dock, the air thick with cigarette smoke, the noise deafening. Robert, less noticeable and memorable than Max, slipped through the crowd, listening, asking questions. He returned to Max, who had bought two beers, and they found a place to lean against the wall. “Customs. They’ll make a special search of the cargo. They choose at random; they chose this one. We have to—”
“They just happened to choose this one the night your girl is on board? How do we know they weren’t tipped off?”
“We don’t. But it would have had to come from Chile—”
“Or whomever they bribed on board.”
“Yes, but then they would be looking for a stowaway, and the police would be here. All they’re talking about is a routine customs check. Well, not routine, but a more thorough one, and they do those often. At random. We have to think about—”
“Fuck it,” Max muttered.
“Max, this is not like you. You knew there was a risk; there’s always been a risk, every time you’ve helped us bring someone out or in. Why is this night different from all other nights?”
“I don’t know.”
But he did. He felt things were closing in. For the first time he wondered if going to Los Angeles was realistic, or Rio, or Buenos Aires, or anywhere else. Since October he had behaved as if he was living a normal life, married, working, relaxing in short car trips around Provence. Not hiding, not on the run. But it was all pretense. Nothing about his life was normal. He was not married, he was in hiding, and soon he would be on the run. He had brushed all that aside because he wanted what he wanted, and he had ignored reality. Like a smitten adolescent.
Christ, he thought, I’ve got to get out of here.
And he meant all of it: Marseilles, Cavaillon, France, Europe.
While there was still time.
“We have to think about Jana,” Robert said. “But we have to know what they’re planning. I’ll be back.”
He made his way toward the bar again while Max stayed where he was, jostled by the crowd, watching through the swirling haze of smoke until two customs officers pushed into the room and fought their way to the bar. Robert stood near them, then motioned to Max to meet him outside.
“They’re searching the cargo tomorrow; all they did tonight was stay with it until it was unloaded and locked in their warehouse. Max, she’s in there, I know it. If we can get her out, no one will know. But of course the warehouse will be locked . . . and guarded.” He turned to look down the dock. “Do you know which one it is?”
“At the end. No, the other end, the farthest from mine. One entrance and one guard. We’d have to take care of him.”
Their eyes met. “I’ll do that,” Robert said. “But first I need the key to your car.”
Max gave it to him. “I’ll wait here.”
He walked around the corner and leaned against the wall, away from the entrance to the bar. When Robert returned, dressed in his cassock, his hair and beard neatly combed, Max’s eyebrows rose. “This requires prayer?”
“My friend, prayer and clothing have nothing to do with each other. I have been praying since Jana failed to appear. But what I am going to do requires trust, and this garb inspires trust, even though, sadly, in this case it will be misplaced. Now, you will leave the guard to me and I will tell you when we are ready for the next step.”
Max put his hand on Robert’s arm. “You’ll be careful.”
“I try always to be careful. Thank you, Max, for your concern.”
They walked the length of the dock to a row of darkened warehouses, each with a lighted window beside the entrance. Robert went to the window, leaving Max behind. He pulled a bottle of cognac from beneath his cassock, took a drink, then struck the window with his knuckles and let himself fall just below it, flinging himself against the building.
The door swung wide and the guard stood in the opening. “Who’s there?” He was short, with a broad chest and shoulders, hugely muscled arms and a paunch that hung over a wide belt. “What the hell . . . Father? Father, you shouldn’t be here.”
“Just celebrating,” Robert said thickly. “Nothing wrong; just a little tired after all the celebrating.” He grinned at the guard. “Getting transferred to Paris.”
“Paris,” the guard snorted. “That’s no reason to celebrate. Full of fags and weaklings, and they take you for everything you got. You know what’s good for you, you’ll stay here.”
“Well, but I have to go.” Robert struggled to sit up, and held out the bottle. “Have a drink in my honor, even if you don’t like Paris.”
“Can’t, Father, I’m working.”
“Just one, to wish me well. Now you’ve got me worried about how I’ll get along there.”
“Well, one . . . what the hell.” He took a swig from the bottle and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “But that was to you, Father; not to Paris or anywhere but Marseilles.”
“Then we should drink to Marseilles. A great city.”
“Well, why not?”
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Another bottle appeared from beneath Robert’s cassock. The two men sat together beneath the illuminated window, drinking to the guard’s wife, to his four sons and three daughters, to his brothers and sisters, to his grandfather who worked in an olive oil cooperative, and then to the olive oil cooperative. Robert was faking it with small sips but still he thought perhaps he could not hold out against the guard, until at last he saw the guard’s head nod, jerk up, nod again, and at last stay down, his chin on his chest, gentle snores lifting the edge of his undershirt.
Robert walked to the corner of the warehouse, and Max joined him. “That gentleman has a capacity of truly staggering proportions. He has a key ring but I don’t think we can get it off his belt.”
“Then we’ll take the belt. But first bring him inside.”
They dragged the guard into his room, then unfastened his belt and pulled it through his pants loops. He snorted as they took off the key ring and the keys clattered together.
Max bent over him. “Sound asleep. How much did he drink?”
“Just under one bottle.”
“He’ll have a good time explaining that tomorrow; more likely he’ll fabricate a sudden attack of flu. Hold on while I check the logbook.”
He ran down the columned entries in the book on the guard’s desk until he found the shipment being returned to Lacoste et fils. “Fifth floor. We’ll walk; I don’t want to chance the elevator. And we’ll move fast, Robert; I don’t know how often someone comes to check on the guards.”
He unlocked the warehouse door and they used the light from the guard’s office to locate the stairway before locking the door behind them. Max jammed the key ring into his pants pocket and they made their way to the stairs. The staircase had windows at each landing, so they kept their flashlights off, guiding themselves in the blackness by keeping a hand on the wall. They climbed fast and steadily, counting five floors until they came to a steel door that Max eased open. “Ten minutes; less if possible.” He was breathing hard and thought fleetingly that he was out of shape; he ought to ride a bicycle like Robert, whose breathing had barely changed.
The windowless floor was pitch black and they turned on their small flashlights. There was a sudden scratching, and then a scampering sound. Robert spun around. “Who is that? It may be—”
“It’s not your girl. It’s a rat. The warehouses are full of them. You start on the left; I’ll go to the right. Hurry.”
Narrow aisles stretched the length of the huge room between ghostly crates that loomed up in the narrow beams from their flashlights: crates as big as rooms and smaller ones stacked to the ceiling. Playing the flashlight beams on the shipper and destination stamped on each crate, they moved swiftly up and down the aisles, in dead silence. No sound penetrated from the dock below; the scampering had stopped. Max thought he might have suddenly gone deaf and he tapped his flashlight on a crate, for reassurance. Then, in the next aisle, he found his crate, and said, “Robert. Here. Quickly.”
“Where are you?”
“Here.” He shone the flashlight on the ceiling and Robert used the pinpoint of light as a guide to make his way up and down the aisles to him. “The crate is here; there’s no sound from inside.”
“She doesn’t know your voice. She’d be very still. Keep talking. It helps me find you.”
“Shall I recite poetry? Or tell tales from the Arabian Nights? Hurry, damn it; I want to get out of here.”
“Max, I can’t leap over these crates and fly to you.”
“You haven’t tried.”
Robert chuckled. He felt very close to Max, their voices mingling in the darkness, danger hanging in the air. He turned a corner and saw Max holding his flashlight up to the ceiling, and he grinned, even knowing Max could not see him, because he had found him and they were together. “Thank you for the beacon. But what now? How do we open the crate?”
“With this.” Max handed Robert his flashlight, took a chisel from his pocket, and began to pry open the side facing them.
Robert held the flashlight. “Do you remember the time I said I felt that we were two boys smoking behind the barn where the grown-ups couldn’t find us?”
“How does it happen that a priest understands the rush one gets from danger? Most priests live unnaturally secluded lives; you’re an anomaly, and even you—”
“There are more of us than you think, my friend, who believe that God looks kindly on action.”
“But even you don’t court danger; you simply do good.”
“There is nothing simple about it. No, I don’t court danger, Max, but I recognize its seductive nature. One could get hooked, as the young people say.”
“Well, maybe you do court it; probably we all do. No game would seem worth the candle if it had no danger and we weren’t sure that it had the potential to explode in our faces.” He eased the heavy wood from the crate; it screeched faintly as it pulled away from its nails.
“Jana!” Robert exclaimed. He knelt as Max pulled the wood aside. “My dear, dear Jana!”
She was sitting between the wheels of the front-end loader, her knees to her chin, her arms around her legs. “Robert?” Her eyes, enormous in her small thin face, looked up at them blindly and Robert lowered his flashlight and reached in to help her out. She staggered a little, holding on to him. “I’m sorry; I’ve been here for a while.”
“When did you hear about customs?”
“About six hours ago, and I got back in here right away; I thought I shouldn’t wait.”
“Very wise. Jana, this is my friend, Max Lacoste. We have him to thank for getting you here. Max, this is Jana Corley.”
“We’ll talk later,” Max said impatiently. “Is anything left in here? Food? Water? Evacuation bags?”
“No. We cleaned it out on board. We thought they might have dogs.”
“So if we hadn’t found you . . .”
“I would have been very uncomfortable.”
“Admirable.” He made a swift survey of the interior of the crate, then took a hammer from his belt and hammered the crate shut. “Hurry.” He led the way to the staircase and they ran down it in the darkness, their hands on the walls for guidance.
They had been in the warehouse for seven minutes.
Max locked the door and handed Robert the key ring. “You and Jana put it on him; I’ll watch at the corner.” He was breathing hard again; his legs felt rubbery. Damn it, I’m in lousy shape. He looked to left and right along the empty stretch of dock. I’ll go with Sabrina on her bike rides; maybe go back to tennis. When we leave France, I’ll get back in shape.
Robert and Jana joined him and he led them around the corner of the warehouse to the street behind it, and then through an alley to another street, this one brightly lit, lined with bars, cafés and strip joints. Prostitutes stood at street corners, couples strolled, a family with a baby in a backpack stood debating where to eat. Music blared from open doors to the sidewalks where men sat at tables drinking beer, playing cards, bantering with passersby and with the prostitutes who wandered over for companionship, then drifted back to their corners.
“The car is this way,” Max said, but Robert put a hand on his arm.
“Perhaps we could get Jana something to eat before we leave. It’s a long ride to Cavaillon.”
“I’d rather get started; it’s after midnight. Jana, can you wait a couple of hours?”
He looked down at her. It had been dark in the warehouse but now they were standing beside the brightly lit window of a café. Customers on the other side of the glass were only a few inches from them, talking and gesticulating, but Jana was not looking at them; she was looking at Max and as their eyes met, he knew she recognized him.
They all come from privileged families; have I told you that?
Jana Corley, Max thought. Small, blond, thin, extremely pretty, with a tilt to her head and an easy walk that showed she had been brought up with wealth.
They are wealthy, well educated, accustomed to luxury and the
indulgences of a world that admires and rewards wealth more than poverty.
In other words, she came from the social circles in which Max Stuyvesant had been visible and prominent. Corley, he thought again. He had met a Corley—Richard, Ramsay, Ralph, something like that. He owned factories in Manchester, Max remembered, and had a home somewhere outside London. They had met, he thought, once or twice at Olivia Chasson’s garden parties. And Jana could have been there.
What were the chances that one of Robert’s idealistic young people would know Max Stuyvesant and would be smuggled into France in one of Max’s crates on the one night that Max was there?
Not one chance in a million.
Except that it had happened. Because such things did happen all the time. People marveled at such coincidences, but they shrugged them off, saying “Small world” . . . one more proof that life was strange.
And so Max Stuyvesant, with a new name and newly bearded, his hair dyed since he had last been in London almost a year before, stood on a raucous harbor street in Marseilles at twelve-thirty in the morning in the middle of July, and looked into the eyes of a blond radical activist and knew that she knew him.
Jana’s eyes widened as their look held. “What did you say your name was?” she asked.
“Max Lacoste.” His large body was very still. He expects me to expose him, Jana thought. She felt the unreality of everything that was happening: she was tired and stiff and keyed up from the last twenty-four hours, and now she was talking to a man she had last seen drinking champagne at a garden party in Kent, a man who was allowing everyone to believe him dead. And now he expected her to expose him. But why would I? she thought. He’s helping Robert, and Robert is the best man in the world and he probably knows what’s going on with him a lot better than I do, and Robert says he got me out of Chile. I’m not going to mess up his story, whatever it is. What good would it do?
She held out her thin hand. “How do you do. It’s because of you that I’m here?”
“It was my company’s shipment.”
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