CHAPTER 14 – BLONDET, AFTER ALL
"But, hello, we are over here," Leandre Durand said to the man's back. The man spun. "Truly, you look like a man I used to know, by the name of Blondet," Durand said.
"Yeah? It wasn't me. Get lost."
"Oh, no, I do not play the game that way. If you hang about and send unfriendly looks toward houses that I am watching out for, I think that I am due an explanation."
"You'll be sorry, helping Arabs. They won't like it and neither will we."
"Who is we?" Bertin Nason asked.
"I'll never tell," the man answered.
His radio sprang to life. "Hey, Blondet, the one's confirmed dead and the other one's gone to ground if he isn't dead. Nothing more to do today. Break off and go home."
"An excellent idea. Shall we walk you home, Blondet?" Durand said, impishly. He stepped back to give the other man room to make a break for it. Blondet curled his lip, and walked deliberately to the next corner. As he rounded the corner he broke into a run.
Durand laughed. "I would hate to be the imbecile who relayed such a message before making sure that the coast was clear, eh?"
"We are letting him go?" Nason asked, incredulously, when Durand made no effort to follow.
"How often have I told you that impetuosity is a virtue only when delay is dangerous?" Durand said.
"Never," Nason said. "And that's the truth."
Durand laughed again. "Forgive me, my friend. That is a quote from a book written long before your time. For all the pomposity, the character of Nero Wolfe made some admirable observations, within his limits as a heathen." Durand cocked his head and listened. "Seriously though, Nason, this is not like the sort of thing for which you are usually called. There are no hostages, and no other reasons to hurry – at the very least, not by running around a corner after a man who to our belief ambushes people in this part of town, no?"
Nason grinned. "So you think that the radio message was intended for our ears? Now that I think about it, I cannot believe anyone would be so stupid as to send such a message in such a way."
"Oh, Bertin, you are very young. Never underestimate how stupid people can be, especially crooks who are trying to be clever."
"I suppose you are right," Nason said.
"And I suppose that I would like to do a little digging, and see what I can find out about our friend Blondet, and this neighborhood, and the dead boy, just for starters," Durand said. He didn't add that he intended to do some serious digging on both Nason and Castelneau, as soon as he could shake Nason.
He grabbed the young man by the arm and steered him across the street. Jaywalking, in his opinion, seemed the most reasonable course of action under the circumstances. The drivers who were inconvenienced by it made frightful noises, and some refused to slow down, but Durand thought it small hazard compared to walking where expected when an ambush had been laid.
"What was that you were saying about never underestimating how stupid people can be?" Nason said heatedly, after he'd jerked his arm free and dodged three homicidal motorists.
"Armed ambush-types, right forward," Durand said.
Nason hauled him to cover.
"I think you might possibly have tipped them off to the fact that we have tumbled to them," Durand said, trying to sound dignified despite having been shoved to his rump behind a flower box.
"Tough," Nason said. He shouted warnings to bystanders and pointed in the direction of a man holding a gun. Some people dodged sideways or backward, many people froze. Uninformed motorists and pedestrians got angry and acted stupidly in ways that showed they had no fear for their lives. The man with the gun put it in a pocket and melted away.
In the middle of the confusion Durand dusted himself off and led Nason out of the neighborhood.
He parted company before long, on the grounds that each of them had multiple calls on his time. It was necessary to split up, he said, because there was much to be done. Also, although he didn't say so, Durand didn't want Nason to see him having to change shoes and socks and put his feet up for a while just because today he had walked more than usual. His feet, sad to say, were not what they were when he was young. It was inconvenient that they needed extra tending these days, but it was no good to argue with them, either.
Not Exactly Allies Page 14