It was cold outside, flurrying snow. Wiley had come without a coat. He wouldn’t need one. While he completed the carry, he’d have the taxi wait, take him right back to the airport.
Place des Vosges.
A square that was once a favorite for illegal dueling and other foolishness. Its all-around identical structures of red brick, white stone and blue slate still displayed much of the majesty, harmony and good nature that Henry IV had ordained more than three hundred years ago.
Victor Hugo had lived at Number 6. Cardinal Richelieu at Number 21. Mme. de Sévigné, Anne de Rohan and Marion Delorme had resided and done other intriguing things around the place. Many fashionable persons lived there now. The address Wiley wanted was Number 14, a J. F. Forget, which was easy to remember although it was pronounced for-jay.
The taxi put him there in forty-five minutes. He went into a foyer. Number 14, like all the apartments, was above street level, deuxième étage. The curved stairway had a lovely seventeenth-century iron bannister that Wiley didn’t notice. He pressed the door buzzer and waited. The usual pinpoint peephole was in the upper door panel. Wiley tried to appear nonchalant for it. He buzzed again, waited, listened, believed he heard movement within, but no one came to the door. After three more insistent buzzes and ten minutes, he gave up.
The taxi driver was irate. He was a Communist, wanted nothing more to do with this inconsiderate American. He wanted only his money. He had locked the car doors so Wiley couldn’t get back in. Wiley gave him fifty dollars through a crack in the window, five times too much, and even then, there wasn’t a merci in the man’s mumbling as he drove off.
Within seconds Wiley was cold to the marrow, close to chattering. Spits of snow on his face. The place was nearly deserted, a few cars, no pedestrians along the sidewalk or on the pathways of its parklike center. The leaden sky had a tint of red neon in it. And against the sky, the branches of the trees were like networks of dead black nerves. The time was nearly two. It would be dark by four, perhaps sooner. Wiley couldn’t just stand there. He remembered Argenti had mentioned that The Concession kept a suite at the Hotel Meurice that he could use. A nice suite overlooking the Tuileries.
Luck! A taxi was letting someone off down the way. Wiley ran and got it. He gave the driver his destination. Argenti had said that the suite at the Meurice was the one General von Cholitz, the Nazi commander, had used as his Paris headquarters. Inasmuch as von Cholitz had been a sort of inverse aesthetic hero for not burning and otherwise destroying the city, probably every suite at the Meurice claimed the same distinction, Wiley thought.
He changed his mind, had the driver take him instead to the intersection of Rue Royale and Faubourg Saint Honoré. He walked west on Faubourg Saint Honoré, shopped a few windows but was soon chilled through. He went in at Number 23, Ted Lapidus. Bought a substantial wool topcoat, dark blue, silk-lined, double-breasted. For seven hundred dollars. And a pair of picked pigskin gloves for fifty. Protection against pneumonia was certainly a justifiable business expense. He requested a stamped receipt. The sales clerk glanced disapprovingly at the plastic Air France satchel.
Leaving the shop, Wiley turned right, realized it was the wrong direction and turned abruptly, causing a near-collision with a heavy man who had a wine face. Splotchy red and puffy, purplish in the cold. For a moment Wiley and the man were practically nose to nose, and Wiley got a whiff of sour breath. The man seemed startled.
Wiley begged pardon and continued on. He hadn’t intended to stay overnight in Paris, didn’t want to. The suite at the Meurice sounded like lonely brocade and overstarched sheets. Never mind that he was tired.
He taxied back to 14 Place des Vosges. This time he dismissed the driver with a reasonable tip, went in and up. He buzzed for five minutes, knocked some, pressed an ear to the door, again believed he heard movement inside. But no one answered.
Outside, he paused at the curb. The time was nearly three-thirty. He crossed the street and entered the park, followed the walkway to a bench where he would be facing Number 14. He had a clear view of the front windows of the third-floor apartment, two hundred feet away.
There he sat in his new overcoat. He pulled up the coat collar, scrunched down into it. Wished he’d thought to buy a scarf. No one else in the park. He thought how foolish and lonely he must look hunched there.
Night was coming fast now. It was that brief in-between time when day and night were pausing to bid hello and good-bye.
Lights went on! The tall framed windows of Number 14 were lighted.
Someone there now. Must have just arrived.
Wiley got up and started that way.
He saw the two men enter the park via that same walkway, headed toward him. He was about fifty feet from them when he recognized them. Wine Face, the same he’d bumped into far from there less than an hour ago, and Hairpiece, the one with the cheap rug on his head that he’d noticed at the airport.
Couldn’t possibly be coincidence.
Perhaps, Wiley thought, The Concession was looking after him, or anyway, its interests. This being his first carry. Could be.
He took the intersecting walkway off to the left, more briskly.
They followed.
He considered stopping, confronting them. But what if they weren’t his guardian angels? His five million carry warned him they weren’t. He decided against making a try to reach Number 14. They could easily cut him off.
At a faster pace he left the Place des Vosges for Rue Saint Antoine, a major street, crowded with end-of-workday traffic, people hurrying home, buying their suppers from street vendors and stores along the way.
Wiley glanced back. Perhaps the crowd had discouraged them. No, they were still on him, if anything had gained some.
He continued on, block after block, hoping for any opportunity to lose them. Rue Saint Antoine became Rue de Rivoli. He was in the older part of Paris, the Marais, with many minor side streets that, possibly, in their maze, could offer escape but might as well lead to a dead end.
Rue de Renard. Fox Street. He was the fox. He turned right on to it, quickened his pace to nearly a jog. A short block and then left on Rue de la Verrerie. They couldn’t have seen him take that left. Maybe he’d lost them. There was the church of Saint Merri. A large fifteenth-century-style church, architecturally complicated. It might provide sanctuary. In movies men on the run usually took refuge in churches, and, if he remembered correctly, they usually ended up expiring in a pew or on an altar.
Wiley continued on to the Boulevard de Sébastopol, another wide, bustling artery. Hoping to gain distance with daring, he crossed the Boulevard mid-block, against the traffic. Cars didn’t swerve to hit nor slow to miss. At times he went up on his toes and stiffened like a matador as they brushed past him, from one direction and then the opposite.
He made it across, paused at the curb to look back.
A red light was holding up traffic now. The Boulevard was practically clear. His pursuers were striding across.
What to do? The city was apathetic. It seemed to offer no safe place. If he tried to hide in a restaurant or shop, he’d be cornering himself. He couldn’t go to the police for the very reason he was being chased: the emeralds, the smuggled five million in the satchel. He couldn’t even run because that might draw police attention.
A taxi would help. But they were all taken now during the rush. He could get away in a taxi. Better than that, he could quickly return to Place des Vosges, deliver the carry and be done with it.
There was a taxi, right there, waiting for the light that was about to go green.
Wiley opened its door to climb in.
“Non!” the driver shouted.
The passenger, a hefty woman, raised her leg immodestly, placed her foot in Wiley’s chest and shoved. Sent him sprawling to the gutter. The taxi pulled away.
That sortie cost him. His pursuers were now no more than fifty feet away, dodging with greater hurry through the crowd. They appeared confident, methodical.
Another block over Wiley reached Les Halles. For eight hundred years that section had been the main food market for the fussy palates of Paris. No more. Most of the pavilions had been torn down. Where everything from squid to pork brains had been piled ten feet high, there were now numerous stalls and shops selling antiquités. The stalls claimed street space, competed for it. Wiley took advantage of this commercial labyrinth, dodged in, out and around stall after stall, a confusing course. He circled and doubled back and hurried north up Rue Saint Denis, where he ducked into a doorway.
A cautious peek.
He’d lost them.
But he couldn’t stay there, nor could he risk the street yet. He turned to the door. Its upper half was a clear glass panel. Inside was a narrow stairway up. Seated on the fourth step for best display under a raw bright light was a woman. A heavy whore. Her complexion was the color of baker’s dough, and powdered. Hair an incredible orange, dead and so thin her scalp skin showed. A greasy red mouth that she must have painted purely by guess.
A leftover from former Les Halles nights when farmers brought more than their artichauts or aubergines to market.
Wiley hadn’t noticed her before.
She made lewd eyes at him.
She stuck her thumb into her mouth and worked it in and out.
She pulled aside her coat and blouse to pinch a nipple at him. Her skirt was already hiked up, so all she had to do was part her legs.
Wiley went in.
She was delighted.
He squeezed by her, took the stairs two at a time.
She threw French obscenities at him.
There was only a second floor. A hallway covered with linoleum. The smell of strong disinfectant, cheap cologne and the toilet, with its door open.
Four other closed doors. If there was another way out, a back stairs, it would most likely be the door at the far end.
It was a room. Wiley entered, shut the door behind him. A regular hook and eye was the only lock, screwed into the doorframe by hand. No windows. The room was barely furnished, even for what it was. A bed with a yellow-beige coverlet, above the bed a rectangle of mirror splotched with corrosion where moisture had gotten to it. There was a standing metal lamp with no shade and a blue bulb. A twenty-five-watt bulb in the ceiling fixture. More of that worn linoleum on the floor. Alongside the bed was a bathmat with Hôtel George V embossed by its weave.
Wiley sat on the end corner of the bed, on as little of the corner as possible in view of the color of the coverlet. As the minutes passed, he felt more secure. He looked directly up at the tired old looking glass, smiled at himself. He had outsmarted the sons of bitches. They were still searching for him among the antiquités. They would cover some of the bistros and restaurants in the area and then give up.
It was quarter to five. He’d stay there until six. Until seven for good measure.
Sounds down the hallway. Heavy footsteps. More than one person, men. The moment he heard them he realized where he’d made his mistake. The whore. They had asked her by chance. He shouldn’t have slighted the whore.
He placed the satchel under the bed to have both hands free. Yanked out the plug of the standing metal lamp. The lamp was light-gauge wrought iron with a tripod base, awkward. He took position to the left of the door. He didn’t have a fighting chance, really. They were probably professionals. He would die in an upstairs rear room of one of the cheapest whorehouses in Paris.
The doorknob was tried.
Weight hit the door.
The hook and eye gave.
Wine Face stepped in.
Wiley swung the standing lamp.
Ten inches too low.
The stem of the lamp hit Wine Face across the chest. He absorbed most of the blow with the padlike flesh of his upper arms. It hurt, but it didn’t do any serious damage. Wiley swung again, backhand, this time caught Wine Face across the hump of a shoulder.
Hairpiece slipped into the room.
He had a revolver.
Wiley figured they meant to kill him no matter what. He swung the lamp at Hairpiece, who dodged, but didn’t fire.
Another swing at Wine Face.
He absorbed it with his arm and grabbed the lamp stem with his other hand. He struggled for possession of the lamp. Wiley released it and, almost simultaneously, stepped forward and let go with a punch, his best right. It glanced off Wine Face’s cheekbone.
Being a jabber was nothing in this kind of fight. He should get in close and kick the balls.
Wine Face countered, connected, rotated his fist a little at the last moment to put more force in it.
It dropped Wiley. He went ass down, feet up. His arm was under the bed.
He lay there, stunned and apparently motionless, but his out-of-sight hand felt for the satchel, found it, grabbed its strap tight.
The door was still open.
He’d try for it. When he got his legs back.
Wine Face dragged him by the feet away from the bed, exposing the satchel.
Wiley wouldn’t let go of the satchel.
Wine Face tried to pull it from him.
Hairpiece stepped in and brought the heel of his hand down on Wiley’s forearm.
Even then, with his arm numb from the elbow down, they had to pry open his grip, finger by finger.
16
Wiley had to wait because Marlon Brando was doing the talking.
The Godfather was being shown, a condensed version of it. Argenti had seen the full-length movie at least once each month for three years running. After that he had what he called “the dramatic fat” cut from it. The result was like an hour-long coming-attractions trailer. No dull moments, the way Argenti saw it. His favorite parts were the horse’s-head-in-bed and the pinning of the hand to the bar with an ice pick.
They were in the projection room at Argenti’s villa, seated facing the motion-picture screen in deep-cushioned armchairs that swiveled. The chairs had high backs, so Wiley couldn’t see who was where.
Having arrived midway through, he sat apart, in the back of the room. He had telephoned from the airport wanting to speak to Lillian, but perhaps the message hadn’t gotten to her, because the servant had come back on to say Argenti was expecting him.
Wiley had considered forgetting Bogotá and The Concession, going in any other direction, even changing his name. But he realized how guilty that would make him appear. What’s more, there was Lillian.
Marlon, jaws stuffed with cotton, did his death scene in the vegetable garden with the orange and the grandchild.
The lights went on.
Argenti swiveled around.
Wiley asked if he could speak privately with Argenti.
Argenti preferred to stay there, said he might want to watch another movie.
Clementina and her friends hurried out rather than chance having to endure The Godfather again.
Kellerman had also swiveled around.
Lillian remained as she was, out of sight.
In a way that made it easier for Wiley. He told it all, from his passing through customs in Bogotá and Paris to when he was left on the linoleum with a farewell kick in the groin, the orange-haired whore looking in from the hallway, laughing.
Argenti and Kellerman gave him their absolute attention. They seemed sympathetic, and at times Wiley could see questions in their eyes, but they didn’t interrupt.
Silence for a period when Wiley was through.
Finally, Argenti stood, stretched his back, rotated his head to untense his neck. “Monsieur Forget telephoned this morning very aggravated.”
“I never got to see Forget,” Wiley said.
“An important dealer. Fortunately he cannot take his business elsewhere,” Argenti said. Then to Kellerman, “Put another man on that carry.”
“Tomorrow, first thing,” Kellerman said.
“Someone we know we can trust.”
That really wasn’t an insinuation, Wiley thought.
Kellerman sat forward, leaned as though aiming his m
ind at Wiley. “These men you say jumped you …”
Say?
“… what did they look like?”
Wiley described Hairpiece and Wine Face in detail.
Kellerman told him: “Most people recall very little under such circumstances.”
Argenti agreed. “When frightened one is usually confused.”
“I got a good look at them,” Wiley said.
“You were not frightened?”
Wiley thought back to what he’d felt looking up at Hairpiece’s gun. “No,” he said.
Kellerman knew better.
“The most unusual thing,” Argenti said, “is that anyone would even dare such a robbery. Our carriers have never had to worry.”
“The holdup in Beirut,” Kellerman reminded.
“Five years ago,” Argenti reasoned, “and even that, as it turned out, was to our benefit, gave us the opportunity to demonstrate how The Concession would deal with such a thing. We haven’t had a problem since.”
“Till now.”
“Yes, now …”
“How could those men know what you were carrying?”
“They knew,” Wiley said.
“A leak on this end?”
Kellerman thought that unlikely.
Argenti sighed, ordered a cognac and, an afterthought, asked if anyone else wanted anything.
Wiley could have used a Scotch on the rocks. And even more, cigarettes. He had smoked nearly two packs on the return trip. But he let the offer pass. Lillian … was she still there? What were her thoughts through all this? A smile from her would be welcome encouragement.
Argenti told him: “The five million dollar loss is painful, naturally. However, what really distresses me is my personal disappointment.” Argenti lowered his head.
“You should have taken my advice, waited until I could run a check on him,” Kellerman said.
“I have never been more sure of a man,” Argenti said, “and he turns out to be incompetent.”
“Or dishonest,” Kellerman put in.
Wiley had expected to be raked over the coals. But not accused.
“It does not level up, Mr. Wiley,” Kellerman said. He was changed now, as though he had drawn a weapon. “First of all, no one knew what you were carrying …”
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