Rachel had good ideas. She was a necessary part of the plan. There was no way to do it without having her in on it.
Alex discussed the whole thing with Nieves. She was a very level-headed girl, and a very passionate one. Unusual combination.
“I would live with you anyhow,” she said. “Even if you had no money. I love you; that’s all that matters. But I do like my life back home. And you would like it too, Alex. And I don’t think you would be happy living on my money.”
“No,” Alex said.
“That is silly, but I respect you for it. It is a matter of pride with you. But it means you must get money of your own; otherwise you’ll never be happy.”
“Suppose I could get quite a lot of money,” Alex said. “For the moment, never mind how. Would you marry me and live with me in Asunción?”
“Yes.”
“Even if I had a different name and slightly altered appearance?”
“What are you talking about?”
Alex told her about Iran and the Contras, the contributions, and how he was thinking of tapping them rather heavily.
Nieves listened until he was finished, then laughed. “You had me scared for a moment. I thought you were thinking of robbing a bank or maybe a Seven-Eleven store. But what you’re talking about doing, Alex darling, doesn’t really qualify as a crime at all. You’re going to relieve the thieves of a little of their loot. They should give you a medal.”
“They could give me one hell of a long jail sentence if they caught me.”
“Then if you’re going to do it,” Nieves said, “you’d better steal a lot, because you’re just going to do it once and the sentence is probably the same, whether you take a lot or a little, if you get caught. But Alex, you mustn’t get caught.”
“I wasn’t really planning to. I’m going to need Rachel’s help on this one. She’s in on it anyhow. I need her help, and I need to give her some of the profits.”
“That’s up to you, of course.”
“We’ll have to keep this quiet. No one must know about us. Not until I can marry you.”
“I hope that won’t take too long.”
“Less than a month. I’m going to need the help of some of your friends. Can you give me some contacts in Paraguay?”
“Of course.”
Then Alex had a moment of doubt. “Some people in Asunción may figure out who I am. Any problem?”
“Certainly not. They’ll think it was clever of you. No one would tell the American authorities.”
“Maybe a Paraguayan wouldn’t tell. But an American might.”
“Not our American friends in Asunción.”
“What if one of them is the wrong kind of American?”
“Don’t worry, my love. The wrong kind of American doesn’t stay long in Paraguay.”
Nieves opened her purse and found a tortoiseshell cigarette case. She lit up a long, dark brown Nat Sherman cigarette.
“Alex never told me his plans in so many words,” Nieves said. “The idea was, he would do what he had to do, and we would meet in Asunción. He wanted the names of some Paraguayans in Paris whom he could rely on. I had several friends there. You must understand, I didn’t really know what was going on. I didn’t really think it was so bad, taking money from those pompous fools who support these soldier-of-fortune causes. All I thought about was how Alex was going to come to me in Paraguay. He would look different. A moustache, at least. Maybe a little facial surgery. It was the most exciting thing I’ve ever been involved with. It was very romantic. And I was very much in love. Or very much infatuated. I guess that’s why I didn’t think it through until now.”
“What did you think through now?”
“Well, what Alex would actually do. Take the money, of course. Go to Paris. Then disappear. Rachel would hire you to find him. That had all been planned beforehand. You were selected because you knew Alex well, and because Alex thought you would be … flexible.”
“Flexible,” I said bitterly. “You mean malleable. And gullible, to boot.”
“It’s a nice quality, Hob,” she said. “Don’t lose it.”
“What else did you know?”
“You would witness Alex’s death. He would be able to start a new life under an assumed name, with me, in Paraguay. But of course, there was one part that had been left out, one thing left that wasn’t safe, one thing that was a loose end.”
“Rachel,” I said.
“Yes, exactly. Rachel. I didn’t want to think about it. But finally I did. And I realized—but I hope I’m wrong—that the only way Alex could be really safe was if Rachel was dead, too.”
Yes, of course. And Nieves didn’t know all of it, perhaps. How Rachel was planning not only on sharing the money with Alex but on sharing his life, too. She loved him. She wasn’t about to take no for an answer. It had to be her or Nieves.
If he went away with Nieves, if he left Rachel, she could be counted on to blow the whistle as loud and as long as she was able.
Where was Rachel now?
I made a call to her hotel. There was no answer from her room. It didn’t prove anything, but I thought I knew what was happening. When Rachel had learned about Alex’s death, that was her signal to meet him. At a previously arranged rendezvous, her thinking they were going to take off together.
That rendezvous was the logical place for Alex to kill her.
If only I knew where that rendezvous was.
I turned to Nieves. “Did Alex say anything about where he was going after all this?”
“No. He just told me to wait for him in Asunción. But I couldn’t. I mean, robbery’s one thing, but I couldn’t stand it if he were really going to kill that poor woman.”
I got up, trying almost physically to shake off the deadening depression that had hung over me ever since I had seen Alex.
“Come on.”
“Where are we going?”
“To find Alex.”
12
ALEX REANIMÉE
51
Clovis was our only hope. There was no one else I could think of in Paris, or anywhere else, for that matter, who might know where Alex was going to meet Rachel. Assuming Alex was still alive. And at this point I had to assume that.
I hailed a taxi and explained that we were going to make several stops. The driver complained about the loss of fares until Nieves slipped him a thousand franc note. She had a lot of class, Nieves. Of course, it also helped that she was rich.
Clovis was not at Deux Magots. We checked out the Café Flore and the Brasserie Lipp as long as we were still on the Boulevard St-Germain, but we came up empty. Next stop was the Dôme in Montparnasse. This time Nieves took charge. The manager couldn’t have been more charming. He was desolated to tell her that M. Clovis had been there only half an hour ago, but had left, leaving, alas, no word as to where he might go next.
“How very annoying,” Nieves said, tapping her teeth thoughtfully with a folded thousand franc note. “It is really important for me to find him this evening.”
The manager’s eyes shifted from the francs to the frail, from the gelt to the girl, from the moolah to the madonna, however you want to say it. Cupidity fought a brief bout with discretion and was defeated in straight falls.
“You could, I suppose,” the manager said, “try M. Clovis at his home.”
“And where would that be?” Nieves asked sweetly.
He was good enough to write it out for her, and she was good enough to slip him the thousand. Then we were out in the taxi again, requesting an address on the Quai d’Orsay fronting on the Seine.
Clovis lived in a big old apartment house with black wrought iron bars over the windows, and a wrought iron gate that stood like a portcullis between the street and the front door. I rang the buzzer.
Clovis himself answered the door. He was wearing an embroidered red silk dressing gown. Something that sounded nice but was unfamiliar to me was playing on the record player. I glanced at it later and saw that it was Camille S
t-Saëns’ first symphony.
“Clovis,” I said, “I’m terribly sorry to disturb you. But we come on an errand of life or death.” Melodramatic, but not, I think, inaccurate.
“Well then, I suppose you must come in,” he said, somewhat churlishly, I thought. But he brightened up and became the soul of graciousness itself when he took a look at Nieves.
“I hope you are going to stay in Paris for a while, mademoiselle,” Clovis said. “You would be perfect for my next picture. Have you ever acted? Not that it matters. My theory on acting—”
Nieves wasn’t going to get caught up in Clovis’ game. “Perhaps we could discuss that some other time,” she said, her smile more brilliant than ever. “Just now we have urgent business.”
“Ah, yes, the famous matter of life and death. But first may I get you both a glass of wine? There is some Entrechat ‘84 on ice, and I also have a rather decent little—”
I wasn’t going to let Clovis get into an interminable wine monologue. “Clovis, we need to find Alex at once.”
He looked at me dumbstruck. “But ’Ob, you yourself saw him die!”
“I saw what I was supposed to see. But you know and I know that Alex isn’t dead. You helped him set this up, didn’t you?”
“I do not know what you are talking about,” Clovis said frostily. “And who is this young lady?”
“She is Alex’s fiancée,” I told him. “The one from Paraguay. You know about her, don’t you, Clovis?”
He looked at her intently. “You are Nieves?”
“Nieves de Sanchez y Issássaga,” she said, her voice firm and clear, her back erect and shoulders square, like they taught her in parole-busting school. “Alex was going to meet me in Paraguay after the fake death, did you not know?”
“All right,” Clovis said. “Sit down. We’ll talk.”
He led us into an elegant little parlor. It was filled with handblown bottles and assorted bric-a-brac, and there was a lot of stuffed furniture with gilt legs that must have cost a fortune and looked very uncomfortable.
“I recognize you by your picture,” Clovis said to Nieves. “Alex showed me one of you taken in Washington. I am so pleased to meet you. Yes, Alex discussed his plan with me. I found it quite romantic. And at the same time, politically sound. I applauded Alex’s skill in taking money off the evil plutocrats of Washington. And I applauded his decision to start a new life helping the poor in Africa. It was a noble gesture. I wish I could do it myself. But alas, one owes something to one’s art, Rimbaud’s example notwithstanding.”
“Africa?” I asked. “Did you mention Africa? Just what did you think Alex was going to do there?”
Clovis smiled a sagacious smile. “He explained his dream to me in some detail. He was going to take his new identity and his money and set up a clinic in Africa. A place for the poor, the sick, the homeless. He was going to follow his role model, Dr. Albert Schweitzer. I thought it was a wonderful idea.”
“Sure it is,” I said. “Did he tell you where Rachel fit into all this? And Nieves?”
“But of course! That was the best part of it—the way you were all going to work together. And live together in a triune marriage. I thought that was courageous of him, thus to flaunt bourgeois morality.”
“Then you know where Alex is now?” I asked.
“Perhaps, perhaps not,” Clovis said, covering all the possibilities.
“This really is an emergency,” I said. “Please tell us where he was going to meet Rachel.”
“Ah, you know about that, do you?” Clovis said, a sly look on his foxy face. “Then you can understand the need for discretion. Do not think too badly of him, Mademoiselle Nieves, if he leaves now for Africa with Rachel and without you. The ménage à trois is inherently unstable—a part of its charm, of course, is its ephemerality.”
“You have it all wrong,” Nieves said. “Alex is going to marry me. Believe me, this is no delusion on my part.”
“But what about Rachel, then?”
I said, “He’s supposed to be meeting her somewhere and paying her off. That’s what Rachel thinks. But I think Alex has other ideas.”
“What are you hinting at?”
“We think,” I said, “or fear, that Alex is going to kill her.”
“That seems to me hardly creditable,” Clovis said. But you could see him thinking. He got up and began walking around the room, running his fingers absently over the gilt furniture. Presently he turned to Nieves.
“You are sure he planned to marry you?”
Nieves nodded. “I helped make the arrangements to get him out of France.”
Clovis thought about it. You could see logic wrestle with hero worship in his fevered brow. At last he asked a key question.
“Are you wealthy, Miss Nieves?”
She nodded again.
“Merde!” said Clovis. “Then it’s probably true. Although I always applauded Alex’s idealism, I had my doubts about it, too. The words came too easily to his tongue. Well! I have been deceived.”
“Where is he?” I asked.
Clovis looked at me. His face was serious now. “What does he plan to do when he meets Rachel, if not go away with her?”
“He’s been trying to get rid of her for a long time,” I said. “And now he’s dead, so he can pretty much do as he pleases, and he’s wealthy enough to make it come out right for him anyhow. Rachel is in the way. I can’t prove any of this, but I’d like to get to Alex before Rachel does. Come on, Clovis!”
Clovis stood in the center of the room, looking like a man having an indecision fit. Then he made up his mind, turned to us, barked, “Wait, I’ll be right back.” And he hurried out of the room.
Nieves turned to me. “What is that supposed to mean?”
I shrugged. It was catching. The gesture, I mean.
And then Clovis came back to the parlor. He had taken off his dressing gown and put on a tough-looking leather jacket. He was wearing amber sunglasses, and he was pulling on cane-back driver’s gloves.
“Come,” he said, starting for the door.
“Where are we going?”
“That’s a silly question,” Nieves said, pulling me out the door after Clovis.
CIOVIS
52
“Hey, look, is it really necessary to go so fast?” I asked. The three of us were squeezed into the walnut-panelled cockpit of Clovis’ restored Hispano-Suiza. An dat ole engine, she come a-whoopin’ an’ a-hollerin’ so loud that I had to shriek over it, and got more of a note of panic into it than I intended. Clovis paid me no attention and Nieves acted like she was enjoying the whole thing. I would have enjoyed it, too, if I hadn’t been so certain we were within microseconds of smearing ourselves to death against a bus or taking out a storefront with our heads.
It was late at night in Paris, past two in the morning, and traffic was thin, which was too bad because it allowed Clovis to go that much faster. I remember thinking, he’s probably been waiting all his life for this, a real honest-to-God emergency, so that he can drive his stupid sports car at unsafe speeds and scare hell out of any passengers not imbued like himself with suicidal tendencies.
We barrelled up the Champs-Élysées like a jet-propelled panzer division, screamed around the Arc de Triomphe on two wheels, and then we were doing broken field running down Avenue Kléber. By some miracle we reached the Périphérique without killing anyone.
Once I heard sirens behind me. But we outran them. Be damned if we didn’t outrun the radio advisories the cops were broadcasting to each other.
And then we were on the N135, going down a straight road between plane trees that turned into a blur of leafy shadows, as we eased back to a hundred miles an hour or so.
“Where are we going?” I managed to gasp.
“We’re here!” Clovis shouted as he turned the car at a sign marked aÉrogare annency.
It was a small airfield. There was steel mesh fence ahead of us and a steel mesh gate secured with a chain. Clovis didn’t even s
low down. He went right through it and we carried on with only one headlight to the low airport building near the airstrip.
Clovis brought the car to a skidding stop. Somewhat shakily I got out, followed by Nieves.
“What’s going on here?” I asked. “Where’s Alex?”
Three men came out of the darkened airport building. By the three-quarter moon I could make out that they were armed with revolvers. Jean-Claude was one of them. The second man was Nigel.
“Hi, fellows,” I said, more brightly than I felt. “I don’t know how you figured to come here, but I’m sure glad to see you.”
“What’s up with them?” Nigel asked Clovis.
Clovis was standing tall and somber in the near-darkness, tugging off his driving gloves.
“They knew,” he said. “I thought it best to bring them here.”
“Et tu, Clovis,” I said.
Clovis shrugged. “I never promised you a rose garden.”
“Hey, hey, fellows, let’s lighten up,” I said. “Let’s all take one giant step back from the brink of this impending catastrophe, forget about Alex, go somewhere and have a couple of drinks. OK with you?”
“Get control of yourself, Hob,” Nigel said sternly. “We all regret this. But you might as well go out like a man, eh?”
I stared at Nigel. He had always been a weirdo, but this was simply too much. From Jean-Claude I could expect any treachery. You get used to that from people with hyphenated first names. But Nigel? Nigel Wheaton? My old pal Nigel?
“Suppose you sit down over here while we sort this thing out,” Nigel said, gesturing with the revolver.
The third man stepped into the light. Tall, light haired, smiling sheepishly. It was Alex.
And I freaked.
“To hell with this!” I cried. If I were to die in character, that meant I had to go out as a coward. I threw back my head and let out a scream that could have been heard all across France and maybe even in parts of Spain. But Clovis tapped me on the skull with a tire iron just as I was working up to full voice.
The Alternative Detective (Hob Draconian) Page 17