“Paris,” José said, looking at the number Harry had written down. “Must be important, no?”
Harry shrugged his shoulders to show that this call was really a matter of no concern to him, so unimportant that he could scarcely understand why he had bothered getting out of bed to make it. Then he reflected; yes, maybe it did have some slight importance. He said, grudgingly, “Bastante.”
Bastante means “enough,” or “sufficiently.” It is a seemingly inexpressive little word that can mean a great deal in the right corner of the Spanish-speaking world. Harry had learned that it was a word more decisive than the urgencias and rápidos of the Spanish language. Harry had learned that when José said something was muy caro it meant it was less expensive than something that was bastante caro.
“I’ll get it for you right away,” José said, disconnecting a lady who had talked long enough to her husband in Copenhagen. He put his hand on the handcrank—yes, you cranked these telephones like old U.S. Army field units—muttered, “Pues, a ver,” and cranked.
And he got Paris just like that; sometimes it’s like magic. And there it was: Harry was through; now if only Hob was on the other end.
ME, HARRY HAMM
27
i was just resting up in bed after a hard day of being pushed around by Jean-Claude and friends when suddenly there was Harry Hamm on the telephone.
“Harry? How are you!”
“Hot and tired, Hob, but bearing up. Got some news for you.”
I had been so wrapped up in the concerns of the moment that I’d clean forgotten that my life did not consist of merely a single case, as seems to happen with so many private detectives in literature, who apparently live in a state of limbo between cases, with nothing better to do than indulge their alcoholic pursuits and eat at heartbreak diners full of cheap food and wisecracks. Real detectives, such as myself, have more than one case going at a time.
“Yeah,” I said, “give it to me.”
“Near as I can make out,” Harry said, “those sailboards of yours are on a fishing boat bound for France.” Harry told me that Industrias Marisol was run by Enrique and Vico. Enrique had gone to San Sebastián, and Vico had left the island by fishing boat. The boat seemed to be going to France. Harry presumed that Vico and the missing sailboards were aboard.
“I don’t suppose you know where in France?” I asked him.
“I don’t know for sure,” Harry said. “These fishing boats don’t file flight plans. But I saw this article today in the International Herald-Tribune. Page five, lower right hand corner. It seems there’s a sailboat race to be held tomorrow in the Honfleur harbor in France. What do you want to bet those boards end up there?“
“I think you’ve got something,” I said. “Good going, Harry! So you’ll fly into Honfleur and check it out.”
“Hob,” Harry said, “I can’t leave Spain.”
“Are you wanted for something in France?”
“Nothing like that. It’s just that I’ve applied for my permanencia.”
“Merde,” I said, in my anger slurring the italics. The permanencia is your permission to live permanently in Spain. It carries several privileges and a few obligations. To get it, you must fill out your forms, surrender your passport, and reside in Spain for six months. After that your passport is returned and you can come and go more or less as you please.
“When’s your permanencia supposed to come through?”
“In about six weeks.”
“This is damned inconvenient,” I said. “Can’t you get your buddy Belasco to get your passport back for you?”
“No sweat, if it were on the island,” Harry said. “But you know as well as I do, all paperwork goes to Madrid.”
I nodded, grinding my teeth. Bloody overcentralized Spain. I’m a regional autonomy man, myself.
“All right,” I said. “I’ll check it out myself.”
HONFLEUR
28
i went to the Gare Montparnasse and caught a train to Honfleur.
Honfleur is a couple of hours from Paris. It’s an old port in Brittany on the English Channel. It played an important role during the Napoleonic wars.
I took a room at the Hôtel Arènes with a nice view of the harbor. I felt better immediately. From my window I could look out on the narrow cobblestoned streets, the steep church steeples, the cobblestoned ramp down to the harbor. I had noticed a few welcome sailboarders signs on the streets. Aside from that, there didn’t seem to be much local interest.
There wasn’t much to do in Honfleur, but that was all right by me. I strolled in the town and along the harbor, admiring the skies, which looked like the skies in French seascape paintings; I stopped at cafés here and there for coffees and apéritifs. I loafed and invited my soul.
When I returned to my hotel I wasn’t entirely surprised to learn from the bell captain that a gentleman had asked for me, and was now awaiting my return in the lounge.
Looking into the bar, I saw the burly, familiar, tweed-clad back and leonine head of Major Nigel Wheaton.
I slid onto a stool beside him. “Hi, Nigel,” I said.
As I have mentioned, I am not of the muscular persuasion. When there is anything dirty to do, I subcontract it. Why do it yourself when an expert is close at hand forever in need of money?
Nigel Wheaton was ex-Red Berets, a former colonel in Moise Tshombe’s ill-fated army. Before that, he had lent a hand in various unpleasantnesses in Malaysia, Kenya, Brunei and Afghanistan. Wheaton was tall, and, when he forgot to hold in his stomach, portly. He had a full head of untamed reddish-brown curls, a curly beard and moustache. He looked a little like a lion, and a little like a Monty Woolley who had been left out in the sun too long. Nigel’s face was a monument to tropical sunlight and hard booze. He was a complicated man with several different aspects. One of his best acts was the slightly stuffy British ex-army type. Comical, that one. He had other personas, too, and no one, not even Nigel, knew which was the real Wheaton.
“Jean-Claude said you had a job for us,” Nigel said.
“How’d you know to look for me here?”
“I remembered you used to come here often in the old days, when you were fed up with Paris but not quite ready to return to Ibiza.”
“You know my ways, Watson,” I said.
Nigel nodded. “How’s Kate, by the way?”
“Just fine,” I said.
“Does she ever ask after me?”
“Not really, Nigel. Kate has put the good old days far behind her.”
“Lovely woman, Kate,” Nigel said. “Are the children all right?”
“Yes, fine. They didn’t ask after you, either.”
“Well, so much for the good old days. What’s happening currently, Hob?”
“Alex Sinclair. Remember him?”
“Only too well,” Nigel said. “For a while he had a finca adjoining mine in Ibiza. Devious Alex, the golden-haired boy. I was best man at his second wedding, you may remember. I can’t remember now if that was his marriage to Margaret or Catherine.”
“What else do you remember about him?”
“He did a scam with Raúl Fauning, the art forger. Then worked for Bernie Cornfeld for a while selling imaginary real estate. Then returned to the States. Gave up his days of wild and illicit freedom and went to work for some big law firm in Washington, D.C. The last I heard he was living high on the hog in Georgetown.”
“That’s about the limit of my knowledge, too. I’ve been hired to find him. Seems he came to Paris about a month ago and disappeared.”
“Who’s hiring you? If I’m not being indiscreet by asking.”
“No, you’re on the payroll now, such as it is. The lady in question is named Rachel Starr, or at least that’s the name she gave me.”
“Never heard of her,” Nigel said. “Not one of the old bunch, I presume?”
I shook my head. “I introduced her to Rus and he didn’t know her. If Rus didn’t know her, she wasn’t on the scene.”
> “Why does she want to find Alex?”
“She won’t tell me. It seems to be a personal matter.”
Nigel smiled. “With Alex it usually is. What do you want me and Jean-Claude to do?”
“That should be obvious. Try to find something out. Specifically, what Alex was really up to, how and why he’s disappeared, where he is now.”
“Seems reasonable enough,” Nigel said. “When are you coming back to Paris?”
“Soon,” I said, unhelpfully.
“What are you doing here?”
“Another case,” I told him.
“Well, old boy,” Nigel said, “we’re partners now. Fill me in.”
So I told him about Frankie and what Harry had uncovered.
“You’re going to intercept the guy here?” Nigel asked.
“Yes, assuming he and the sailboards do indeed come here. Maybe this whole thing can be settled easily.”
“A lot easier than trying to establish jurisdiction, eh?” Nigel said. “Well, I suppose you know what you’re doing.”
I nodded; although I didn’t, not really.
“Could you advance me and Jean-Claude a little something?” Nigel asked. “I believe you Americans refer to it as walking-around money.”
I gave Nigel five thousand francs to split with Jean-Claude. I gave him a list of the people I had interviewed so far. He gave me a telephone number where a message could be left for him or for Jean-Claude.
“Are you taking the train back?” I asked.
Nigel shook his head. “I’ve still got the old Hispano-Suiza. See you in Paris.”
He turned to go. I said, “By the way, Nigel …”
He turned, a splendid military figure with a slight paunch. “Yes, Hob?”
“About Turkey. I did not set up you and Jean-Claude.”
“I know that,” Nigel said.
“Jean-Claude didn’t seem to believe me. How come you know I’m telling the truth?”
“I worked it out long ago. If I really thought you’d turned us in, Hob, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”
“Why not?”
“Because you’d be lying at the bottom of St-Martin canal with my exercise weights tied to your ankles. See you in Paris, Hob.”
MEETING VICO
29
That evening I took a taxi out to Honfleur’s little aerodrome, which also served Le Havre and the Pays-de-Caux. It was a mild evening. To the east, a gray haze was visible over the Paris basin. The evening flight from Antibes was twenty minutes late. I was close to the passenger gate when they got off. There were many people on the flight. Only a few of them were men in the right age group. The rest were women, children, priests and military. There were also several South Americans, evident at once because of their serapes and tap shoes.
It was pretty easy to find an observation point where I could watch without being spotted. The coffee bar opposite the passenger gate had a large mirror in which I could watch the arrivals.
There were two priests, and a bunch of schoolgirls in school sweaters, maybe a volleyball team, the Nice High School All-Stars versus the Camargue Ducks. Maybe not.
And then I spotted the man. He came out of the aircraft and looked around, like he’d just come to the promised land. I saw the package come through. Five brightly colored sailbags, other colored canvas bags holding gear.
They came around on the baggage carrousel, and he took them off and stacked them neatly. A porter came over, took the bags out, gave them to a limousine marked Hôtel Ritz, Honfleur. Vico was about to get into the limousine when there came an announcement for him, a telephone call. He went to get it. When he got back, the limousine had left.
“Excuse me,” I said. “May I offer you a lift into town?”
“I don’t believe we’ve met,” he said. “But I’d be very pleased. My luggage went without me.”
He got in. I drove off.
“We haven’t met,” I told him, “but we do have a mutual acquaintance. We both know Frankie Falcone.”
He stared at me wide-eyed. “Who did you say?”
I repeated it for him. “Frankie Falcone. I’m Hob Draconian, his manager and friend. I’m also a private investigator.”
“So you know Mr. Falcone?” he said.
Vico was short, barrel chested, in his mid-twenties. He had dark, brutal good looks. But there was something wrong with them. Something ran across his face like a fissure in a cliff, some weakness not even buried under the surface, an exterior flaw to mirror an inner compunction. And it was impossible to think any thing of this face except for the drama it represented. What drama? Weakness versus strength, custom versus spontaneity, the reality principle versus the life of fantasy. I thought, there are so many of these short, dark, barrel-chested people, and for a moment he was as alien to me as a Javanese, or one of the inhabitants of Barsoom.
After giving me a long look, whose intent I did not find clear, Vico said, “You come to me from the great Mr. Falcone? America’s premier maker of sailboards?”
“That is correct.”
“But please, this is wonderful, let me buy you a drink! Next to meeting Mr. Falcone himself, this is the greatest pleasure I could imagine. Mr. Draconian, you have no idea what Falcone’s sailboards have meant to me. Come into the bar, I must buy you a drink this instant, and we will talk.”
People are sometimes hard to get close to in my line of work. They clam up, won’t say a thing. But sometimes you get a break. Especially if you’re me. I’m a private investigator who tends not to terrorize the people I interview. Quite the opposite. Malefactors have told me that, in my presence, they felt a burst of divinely inspired inner power, as though they could succeed forever in a world composed of types like me. In gratitude and grandiosity, they sometimes spill the beans.
But then sometimes you meet a type like Vico. Falling all over himself to talk to me. I followed him into the bar. Already I was getting an uneasy feeling. It’s the feeling you get when they’re not cooperative enough. Or when they’re too cooperative.
Vico ordered champagne cocktails for us both. Fixing me with his beady black eyes, he said, “You cannot know how things were for me last year. My wife, Maria, had just lost her mind. She was suffering from the delusion that I was a vampire bat. Wouldn’t let me anywhere near her. You can imagine the frustration on my part. I also had an argument with Enrique, my elder brother, who was also my partner in the scuba rental business we were then engaged in. This was before I knew anything of sailboarding. All I dealt with was the same dreary old stuff, scuba gear for brawny Germans or Frenchmen so they could go down to the depths of our beloved island, Ibiza, and take away the last of her rapidly dwindling underseas life on the ends of their spears. Scuba divers are a sinister lot, if you ask me, and it was irony that our business catered mainly to them. I won’t bore you with the details of how I got into that unsavory business, except to say that it was the result of a curious bequest on the part of my Uncle Lluit, and is a story which has taken its place in the folklore of the island.
“So never mind how I got it, there I am in this detested business, and then one day I hear about sailboards. They had been around for quite a while, in fact, but when you are sunk deep in the sort of gloom that can come to a man only in a Catholic country with strong family ties when nothing is working out, you stop really tracking. A lot of important stuff was passing me by. For a five-year period I can’t remember a single band name, nor the title of a movie. It is the dreaded cafard, some say caused or at least impelled by the southern wind, the sirocco or levanter, or khamsim as they call it in Israel, the wind of ill repute which visits our shores from time to time, a hot, dusty, dark wind of grit and irritability blowing out of Africa, bringing with it the dreaded mumbo jumbo and foreknowledge of bad times coming. That’s how it was with me, and so the sailboard sensation hit me, belatedly, but with purity. I saw at once how these small boats, so easy to outfit, so simple to man, could become a pathway to ineffable regions, and le
ad one to areas of accomplishment of both an inner and an outer nature.
“I introduced sailboards into my store, trying now this design, now that, until I came at last upon the incomparable boards of the peerless Frankie Falcone of Hood River, Oregon. Up to this time I had been a merely competent sailboarder, one capable of beating up a windward leg, or whatever it was, with the rest of the pack, but never finishing first. But that changed when I tried my first Falcone board. I began to place in the winning numbers.
“I tried a second Falcone board. My success was even greater. I suddenly saw what I could do: obtain the necessary four or five boards and equipment and enter international competition. With just a few wins I could free myself of my brother Enrique’s callous laughter, the jealous jeers of my father, the catcalls of my own generation who knew the names of the pop idols, but had forgotten their own souls. I could rise above all that, supported by victory money, and all I had to have was Falcone boards under my feet.
“The next step was inevitable. I hadn’t told anyone of my intentions.
“It was expensive but I had to have the boards. It was the biggest gamble of my life, but I sent for them. When they arrived I summoned up all my courage and left the island, left my wife, brother, parents, just me and the boards and a change of underwear. And so I entered my new life.
“Another drink, Señor ‘Obart! Let us signal the beginning of new life, away from all the sorrows and defeats of the past.”
So said Vico and leaned back, beaming but sweaty, a man who felt better for confession, a man trembling on the threshold of transformation and a new life. I sympathized. So you can imagine what sort of a bastard I felt like, when, in the tones of flat pragmatism that I detest but live by all the same, I said, “That’s all very well, Mr. Vico, and I do wish you a lot of luck in your new life. But how about paying for the boards, huh?”
The moment of retribution, the calling-forth of the reckoning! It is the private detective who brings forth this moment.
The Alternative Detective (Hob Draconian) Page 9