The Monster Novels: Stinger, the Wolf's Hour, and Mine

by Robert R. McCammon

  Compounding the traffic problems were many laboring, swastika-emblazoned trucks, creeping along and backfiring in the midst of bicyclists like bomb blasts. Michael saw several troop trucks, loaded with soldiers, and even a couple of tanks pulled over to the side, their crews sunning themselves and smoking cigarettes. The whole picture said that the Germans believed they were here to stay, and while the French could go about their daily lives it was the conquerors who kept the reins tight. He saw a group of young soldiers flirting with girls, a stiff-backed officer getting his boots shined by a little boy, another officer shouting in German at a waiter who frantically mopped up a carafe of spilled white wine. Michael sat back in his seat, drawing in all the sights, sounds, and aromas, and he felt a heavy shadow over the City of Light. The Mercedes slowed, and Gaby hit the horn to hurry a few bicycling citizens out of the way. Michael smelled horseflesh, and he looked to his left at a military policeman astride a horse that wore blinders with Nazi symbols on them. The man saluted.

  Michael nodded absently and wished he had that bastard alone in the forest for one minute.

  Gaby drove east on the Boulevard des Batignolles, through an area crowded with apartment buildings and rococo houses. They stayed on that boulevard, crossing the Avenue de Clinchy and then turning north. Gaby turned right onto the Rue Quenton, and they entered a district where the streets were made of rough brown paving stones and clothes hung on lines across windows. The buildings here were painted in faded pastels, some of their facades cracked and the ancient clay bricks exposed like yellow ribs. Here the bicyclists were fewer, there were no sidewalk cafés or street-corner Van Goghs. The structures seemed to lean drunkenly against each other, as if in forlorn support, and even the air smelled to Michael of bitter wine. Shadows held figures who watched the black car glide past, their eyes dead as counterfeit coins. The Mercedes’s breeze stirred old newspapers from the gutters, and their yellowed pages drifted over the littered sidewalks.

  Gaby drove fast through these streets, hardly pausing at the blind intersections. She turned left, then right, then left again a few blocks ahead. Michael saw a crooked sign: rue lafarge. “We’ve arrived,” Gaby said, and she slowed down and blinked the headlights.

  Two men, both middle-aged, unlatched a doorway and threw it open. It led into a cobblestoned alley just a few inches wider than the Mercedes, and Michael braced for a scrape but Gaby entered the alley with clearance on either side. The two men closed the doorway behind them. Gaby continued up the alley and into a green garage with a sagging roof. Then she said, “Get out,” and cut the engine. Michael did. A man with a brown, seamed face and white hair strode into the garage. “Follow me, please,” he said in French, and began to walk rapidly away. Michael followed, and glanced back to see Gaby unlocking the Mercedes’s trunk and removing a brown suitcase. She closed the trunk, then the garage door, and one of the first two men locked a chain and padlock and pocketed the key.

  “Hurry, please,” the white-haired man urged Michael, his voice pleasant but firm. Michael’s jackboots clattered loudly on the cobblestones, the noise echoing in the silence. Around him, the windows of the crooked buildings remained shuttered. The white-haired man, who had the thick shoulders and arms of a heavy laborer, unlatched an iron gate with spear tips on the top, and Michael followed him across a small rose garden into the back door of a building as blue as a robin’s egg. A narrow corridor stretched before them, and a set of rickety stairs. They went up to the second floor. Another door was opened, and the white-haired man motioned him in. Michael entered a room that had a carpet of intertwined, multicolored rags and smelled strongly of fresh bread and boiled onions.

  “Welcome to our home,” someone said, and Michael found himself looking at a small, frail old woman with snowy hair pulled back into a long braid. She wore a faded blue dress and a red-checked apron. Behind her round glasses she had dark brown eyes that took in all and revealed nothing. She smiled, her heart-shaped face folding into a mass of wrinkles and her teeth the color of weak tea. “Take off your clothes, please.”

  “My … clothes?”

  “Yes. That disgusting uniform. Please remove it.”

  Gaby came in, escorted by the man who’d locked the garage. The old woman glanced at her, and Michael saw the woman’s face tighten. “We were told to expect two men.”

  “She’s all right,” Michael said. “McCarren—”

  “No names,” the old woman interrupted crisply. “We were told to expect two men. A driver and a passenger. Why is it not so?” Her eyes, as dark as pistol barrels, returned to Gaby.

  “A change in plans,” Gaby told her. “I decided to—”

  “Changed plans are flawed plans. Who are you to decide such things?”

  “I said she’s all right,” Michael told the old woman, and this time he took the power of her stare. The two men had positioned themselves behind him, and Michael felt sure they had guns. One on the left, one on the right; an elbow in each of their faces if the guns came out. “I’ll vouch for her,” Michael said.

  “Then who’s to vouch for you, Green Eyes?” the old woman asked. “This is not the professional way.” She looked back and forth from Michael to Gaby, and her gaze lingered on the girl. “Ah!” she decided with a nod. “You love him, eh?”

  “Certainly not!” Gaby’s face flushed crimson.

  “Well, maybe it’s called something else these days, then.” She smiled again, but thinly. “Love has always been a four-letter word. Green Eyes, I told you to take off that uniform.”

  “If I’m going to be shot, I’d rather it be done while my pants are on.”

  The old woman laughed huskily. “I think you’re the type of man who does most of his shooting with his pants off.” She waved a hand at him. “Just do it. No one’s going to be killing anybody. Not today, at least.”

  Michael removed his overcoat, and one of the men accepted it and began to rip the lining out. The other man took Gaby’s suitcase, put it on a table, and unlatched it. He started rummaging through the civilian clothes she’d brought along. The old woman snatched the Stalingrad medal off Michael’s chest and examined it as she held it beneath a lamp. “This trash wouldn’t fool a blind tinsmith!” she said with a sharp laugh.

  “It’s a real medal,” Gaby answered coolly.

  “Oh? And how do you know that, my little valentine?”

  “I know,” Gaby said, “because I took it off the corpse after I slit his throat.”

  “Good for you.” The old woman put the medal aside. “Bad for him. You take off your uniform, too, valentine. Hurry, I’m not getting any younger.”

  Michael went ahead with it. He stripped down to his underwear, and Gaby undressed as well. “You’re a hairy bastard,” the old woman observed. “What kind of beast was your father?” She said to one of the other men, “Bring him his new clothes and shoes.” He went away into another room, and the old woman picked up Michael’s Luger and sniffed the barrel. She wrinkled her nose, finding the odor of a recent shot. “You have any trouble on the road?”

  “A small inconvenience,” Michael said.

  “I don’t think I want to hear any more.” She picked up the silver pocket watch, clicked the winding stem twice, and looked at the cyanide capsule when the back popped open. She grunted softly, closed the watch, and returned it to him. “You might want to keep that. Knowing the time is very important these days.”

  The white-haired man returned with a bundle of clothes and a pair of scuffed black shoes. “We got your sizes over the radio,” the woman said. “But we were expecting two men.” She motioned toward the contents of Gaby’s suitcase.

  “You brought your own clothes, then? That’s good. We don’t have civilian papers for you. Too easily traced in the city. If either of you are captured …” She looked at Michael, her eyes hard. “I expect you to know what time it is.” She waited until Michael nodded his understanding. “You won’t see your uniforms or the car again. You’ll be supplied with bicycles. If you fee
l you must have a car, we’ll talk about it. We don’t have a lot of money here, but we have a fortune in friends. You’ll call me Camille, and you will talk only to me. You’re not to address either of these two gentlemen.” She motioned toward the Frenchmen, who were gathering up the German uniforms and putting them in a basket with a lid. “Keep your pistol,” she told Michael. “Those are hard to come by.” She stared at Gaby for a few seconds, as if evaluating her, then at Michael. “I’m sure you both have had experience in this. I don’t care anything about who you are, or what you’ve done; the important thing is that a lot of lives depend on your being smart—and careful—while you’re in Paris. We’ll help you as much as we can, but if you’re captured we don’t know you. Is that clear?”

  “Perfectly,” Michael answered.

  “Good. If you’d like to rest awhile, your room is through there.” Camille nodded toward a corridor and a doorway. “I was just making some onion soup, if you’d like a taste.”

  Michael picked up the shoes and bundle of clothes from the table where they’d been set, and Gaby closed her suitcase and hefted it. Camille said, “You children behave yourselves,” and then she turned away and walked into a small kitchen where a pot boiled on a cast-iron stove.

  “After you,” Michael said, and followed Gaby along the corridor to their new quarters. The door creaked on its hinges as Gaby pushed it open. Inside was a four-poster bed with a white quilt and a more somber cot with a green blanket. The room was cramped but clean, with a skylight and a window that looked out over the drunken pastel buildings.

  Gaby put her suitcase down on the four-poster bed with solid authority. Michael looked at the cot, and he thought he heard his back groan. He went to the window and slid it open, getting a lungful of Paris air. He was still in his underwear, and so was Gaby, but there seemed no need to hurry about anything, including getting dressed—or undressed, as the case might be. Gaby lay down on the bed and covered herself with a crisp linen sheet. She watched him, framed against the window; she let her gaze play over his muscles, his sleek back, and long, dark-haired legs. “I’m going to rest for a while,” she announced, the sheet up to her chin.

  “Be my guest.”

  “There’s not room for two in this bed,” she said.

  “Of course there isn’t,” he agreed. He glanced quickly at her, saw her long black hair, unpinned now that it was out from under the cap, splayed across the goosedown pillow like an intricate fan.

  “Not even if I squeezed over,” Gaby continued. “So you’ll have to sleep on the cot.”

  “Yes, I will.”

  She shifted her position, the goosedown mattress settling beneath her. The sheets were cool and smelled faintly of cloves: an aroma Michael had detected as soon as they entered the room. Gaby hadn’t realized how tired she was; she’d been up at five o’clock, and her sleep had been restless at best. Why had she come with this man? she asked herself. She hardly knew him. Didn’t know him, really. Who was he to her? Her eyes had drifted shut; now she opened them and found him standing over the bed, staring down at her. So close it made her skin tingle.

  Her bare leg had slipped out from under the sheet. Michael ran his fingers along her ankle, raising chill bumps. Then he gently grasped her ankle and slid her leg back under the fragrant linen. She thought for an instant that his fingers had burned their impressions on her flesh. “Sleep well,” he said, and he put on a pair of brown pants that had patches on both knees. He started to go out, and Gaby sat up with the sheet clutched to her breasts. “Where are you going?”

  “To get a bowl of soup,” Michael answered. “I’m hungry.” And then he turned and left, shutting the door quietly behind him.

  Gaby lay back down, but now she couldn’t sleep. A heat pulsed at her center, and her nerves were jangled. It was the remainder of their encounter with the fighter plane, she decided. Who wouldn’t be unable to rest after something like that? They were lucky to be alive, and tomorrow …

  Well, tomorrow would take care of itself. Like all tomorrows did.

  She reached down, beside the bed, and pulled the cot a few inches closer. He’d never know. Then, satisfied and growing drowsy in the embrace of goose down, Gaby closed her eyes. A few minutes passed, in which the shadows of airplanes and the sounds of gunfire played through her mind, Those things faded, like bad dreams in daylight.

  She slept.

  4

  MICHAEL DISMOUNTED, AND THE springs mewled softly. He leaned the rusted Peugeot bicycle against a street lamp at the intersection of the Rue de Belleville and the Rue des Pyrenees, and he checked his pocket watch in the yellow glow. Nine-forty-three. Camille had said the curfew began at eleven o’clock sharp. After that time the German military police—the rough, hard-nosed bastards—roamed the streets. He kept his head down, studying his watch, as Gaby slowly pedaled past him, going southeast on the Pyrenees. The darkness took her.

  Apartment buildings, most of them once elegant homes decorated with statuary, stood around him, furtive lights gleaming in some of their windows. The avenue was quiet but for a few velo taxis and a horse-drawn carriage or two. On their ride from Montmartre through the twisting streets, Michael and Gaby had seen many German soldiers, strolling the boulevards in rowdy groups or sitting in sidewalk cafés like drunken lords. They’d seen, as well, a number of troop transport trucks and armored cars scuttling busily over the paved stones. But Michael and Gaby, in their new disguises, attracted no attention. Michael wore his patched pants, a blue shirt, and a dark brown corduroy coat that had seen better days; on his feet were the scuffed black shoes, and on his head a brown cap. Gaby wore black slacks, a yellow blouse, and a bulky gray sweater that hid the bulge of her Luger. They wore the outfits of regular, struggling Paris citizens, whose main concern was getting food on the table rather than the dictates of European fashion.

  Michael gave her a moment or two more, then he got on his bicycle and pedaled after her, between the aged and sad stone beauties. Much of the statuary was broken, he saw. Some of it had been wrestled up from its moorings and stolen away, probably to grace Nazi dwellings. Michael pedaled at a slow, steady pace. A carriage went past, heading in the opposite direction, the horse’s hooves clopping on the pavement. Michael came to the sign marking the Rue Tobas, and he swung the bicycle to the right.

  The buildings here were crowded close, and there were few lights. This district, once wealthy, had the air of decay and dissolution. Some of the windows were broken and mended with tape, and much of the carved masonry had either collapsed or been removed. Michael thought of a ballet dancer whose legs had become bloated and thick with veins. Headless statues stood in a fountain that held bits of trash and old newspapers instead of water. A stone wall screamed a black Nazi swastika and the painted words DEUTSCHLAND SIEGT AN ALLEN FRONTEN—“Germany Victorious on all Fronts.” We’ll soon see, Michael thought as he pedaled past.

  He knew this street, had studied it well on the map. Coming up on the right was a gray building—once a stately home—with broken stone steps sweeping up from the curb. He knew this building, too. He kept pedaling and quickly glanced up. On the second floor light crept through the blinds of a corner window. Apartment number eight. Adam was in that room. And Michael didn’t look, but he was aware of the gray stone building across the street, too, where the Gestapo had their watchmen. No pedestrians were on the street, and Gaby had already pedaled on ahead to wait for him. Michael moved past Adam’s building, sensing he was being watched. Possibly from the roof of the building opposite Adam’s. Possibly from a darkened window. This was a mouse trap, Michael thought. Adam was the cheese, and the cats were licking their whiskers.

  He stopped pedaling and let the bicycle coast across the cracked pavement. His peripheral vision caught a flare of light to his left. Someone standing in a doorway, holding a match to a cigarette. The match went out, and smoke plumed. Meow, Michael thought. He kept going, head down, and he saw an alley coming up on his right. He guided the bike toward the alley,
turned into it, pedaled about twenty feet farther, and then stopped. He leaned the Peugeot against a wall of gray bricks and walked back to the alley entrance, facing the Rue Tobas, then crouched down on his haunches beside a group of garbage cans and stared across the street at the doorway where the Gestapo man stood smoking his cigarette. A tiny red circle waxed and waned in the night. Michael saw the man, clad in a dark overcoat and hat, outlined in a faint blue haze. Seven or eight minutes crept by. A crack of light drew Michael’s attention, and he looked up at a window on the third floor. Someone had just drawn aside a black curtain perhaps three or four inches; the curtain was held open for only a few seconds, then fell back into place again and the light was gone.

  Michael reasoned that several teams of Gestapo men kept Adam’s apartment under watch all hours of the day and night. From that third-floor surveillance post they had a clear view of the Rue Tobas, and could see anyone going in or coming out of Adam’s building. They probably had listening devices in Adam’s apartment as well, and certainly had his telephone tapped. So the contact would have to get a message to Adam along his walk to work; but how was that going to be possible with the Gestapo dogging his trail?