INTO THE DARK : A TOM DEATON NOVEL

by Richard B. Schwartz

  Tom kicked it away and hurried down the steps in pursuit of the other figure. A group had formed in the lobby, still holding newspapers and cigarettes, and staring out the windows and door as a late-model Mercedes drove off, its tires spinning and squealing in the dusty street. Tom shoved them aside and ran out. The lights of the car were off, the license plate illegible. He saw pedestrians diving out of the way of the car, gesturing at it angrily. Tom looked around at the faces of the hotel guests. They looked back at him, hoping he might somehow have answers to their half-formed questions.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  HÔtel Le Cro-Magnon, Les Eyzies de Tayac

  Tuesday, 8:58 p.m.

  Diana met Tom at the top of the stairs. She was holding the gun of the man in the hallway. “How is Walt?” he asked, his breath thin. She shook her head. “His blood was everywhere and there was no pulse. There was nothing that could be done,” she said.

  The man in the hallway was still breathing but the rug was wet with his blood and urine. Tom turned him over. He could hear the sucking chest wound and see the fluttering movement of the stained and torn fabric just below his heart. Tom pulled off the mask. The man had dark brown hair and brown eyes. The eyes were rolling and unfocused. Tom grabbed the towel that Walt had been carrying and pressed it against the man’s chest. “Who are you?” he asked. “Who are you working for?”

  The man’s mouth closed and his eyes filled with contempt. “You’ll survive this,” Tom said. “Then you can start thinking about French prisons and French guillotines.” The man forced his lips into the beginnings of a smile. “She’ll . . . die . . . first,” the man said, the words seeping out slowly.

  Tom looked up at Diana. She was holding herself back. There was no fear in her eyes and no pity. “Did you kill my brother?” she asked, her voice tight with restraint. The man stared at her in cold silence. She took a step forward, her anger palpable. “Don’t,” Tom said.

  “Don’t what?”

  “Don’t go to work on him with that heel again.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because his heart just stopped beating and it wouldn’t do any good.”

  “He wasn’t French,” Tom said, “or if he was he spoke perfect English. I asked the hotel manager to try to reach Cossard. He could be of help with the local police.”

  “I’m very sorry about Walt’s death,” Diana said, searching his eyes for responses.

  “Thanks,” Tom said. “There’s not really very much to say anyway. He tried to save someone else again. This time he didn’t make it out himself.”

  “They were waiting for you, weren’t they?”

  “Yes. Walt’s man wouldn’t tell them where we were so they waited for us here. The two other men were killed as well, the one in the room above us and the one in the room just below. Neither of them had been tortured.”

  “Perhaps because they could only speak French.”

  “Good point. Let me ask you something.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Why didn’t you stay in the car?”

  “Do you wish I had now?”

  “Now’s easy. What if you had ended up in the hallway with a bullet in your head or sitting in a room with them where they could break your fingers one at a time?”

  “I wanted to help.”

  “You did help. You flattened the son-of-a-bitch, disarmed him, and then kept him from getting away.”

  “Thanks.”

  “The question still stands. What if it was you on the floor instead of him or you in the chair instead of Jeff?”

  “Then it would have been me. And you would have had to find them on your own . . . and secure the revenge for David’s and my deaths. That’s what you would have done, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, that’s what I would have done.”

  “Is protecting women something you’ve always felt you had to do?”

  “Does it bother you?”

  “You don’t see me leaving, do you? Does it bother you that I might want to protect you too?”

  “No, I need all the protection I can get.”

  “Don’t be flip. I’m serious.”

  “So am I,” Tom said.

  A few moments later there was a knock at the door. It was the concierge, Monsieur Bonnard. “They have found the other man,” he said. “I thought you might want to come and see him.”

  Tom looked at Diana, she got up, and the three of them left together, the concierge driving. “It is just beyond the village, a few hundred meters past Les Combarelles.”

  They were there in less than five minutes. On the east side of the road they saw the sign and the wooden building at the entrance to the Combarelles cave. Ahead in the darkness they could see blinking lights. The Mercedes was in a culvert, its headlights and taillights still burning. The driver was visible from the road, his head and upper body illuminated by half a dozen flashlights. His ski mask had been removed and the left side of his face was gone.

  The concierge told Tom and Diana to wait by the car while he spoke with one of the policemen. He approached him and offered him a cigarette. They appeared to know one another well. After five or six minutes he walked back to his car. “There is no identification on the driver and the car is rented,” he said, “probably with false credentials. A man from Lyons driving with his family told the police that he thought he saw the car leaving the Combarelles car park and a second car following, but he could not identify the second car.” He looked up and down the highway and ran his fingers over his forehead and through his hair. “I feel very bad for the village. These things do not happen here. Now no one will come to the caves for many weeks.”

  “Don’t worry, they’ll still come,” Tom said.

  The man nodded appreciatively, trying to convince himself.

  “Thank you for bringing us,” Tom added.

  When they returned to the hotel they told Monsieur Bonnard that they would have to leave. “I understand,” he said. “Whoever tried to hurt you and your wife could return again. Here, I want you to have something . . .” He walked around from the side of the front desk and opened up a cabinet at the entrance to the restaurant, a few feet away. He reached inside and took out a white porcelain dish with a drawing of a prehistoric reindeer and the name of the hotel. “We sell them to those who dine with us. Keep it please. It is just a token.”

  “Thanks very much, it’s lovely,” Tom said.

  Ten minutes later they had loaded the car and returned to the highway where the Mercedes was found. The body had been removed and the car was being towed. “It must have been their rendezvous point. He reported their failure to kill us to whoever was in charge and the person followed him out of the lot, drove up beside him, and blew away the side of his head.”

  Tom could hear Diana exhale. “Now we face the killer who survived,” she said.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Hotel Le Cygne, Le Bugue

  Tuesday, 10:27 p.m.

  More an inn than a hotel, Tom had suggested Le Cygne because it was on the edge of Le Bugue, beneath the Bara Bahau cave, with sufficient shadow and foliage to both conceal their car and provide an opportunity for escape if that proved necessary. The room was clean and simple, more French than English, with yellows and slate blues and a small clear-glass vase of freshly-cut purple wildflowers on a polished pine stand.

  The room was on the second floor in the rear. There were two windows, each with bolted shutters, and a single bed. Tom took the seat and back cushions from the largest chair, spread them on the floor, and took the spare blanket from the cupboard next to the bathroom.

  “Why don’t you take the bed? You’ll sleep much better,” Diana said.

  “I’ll be fine. After the trees and rocks above the Cro-Magnon this won’t be any problem.”

  “How’s your incision?”

  “
It’s fine, really. Don’t worry about it. Get some rest.”

  She handed him one of the pillows. “In the morning we’ll check with Cossard,” he said. “We’ll see if he’s reached Ponge’s secretary in Cherbourg. Maybe we’ll even get lucky and the two men from the Cro-Magnon will have fingerprints on file.”

  “Good night,” she said. “And thanks.”

  “For what?”

  “For worrying about me.”

  He slept fitfully. In the past he often had anxiety dreams, confronting tasks for which he was ill-equipped or faced with questions for which there were no real answers or processes for which there were no logical endpoints. Sometimes he was standing in the shadows, watching himself within the framework of the dream, as if he were a ghostly bystander, wondering why he was conscious of the things he was unable to control or even fully understand. Sometimes the spaces were dark, sometimes starkly white. This night he woke up from a dream of limestone cliffs and silhouetted hands on the sides of cave walls. There were no tasks or challenges, no dark spaces or white rooms, no sudden confusion and equally sudden release, just unanswered questions and unexplained images.

  He couldn’t remember when it was that he was supposed to dream—right after he fell asleep or right before he was about to awake? And was the dreaming part of REM sleep? Was that when you dreamed most deeply, the times when you rolled your eyes and kicked your legs like a restless puppy? And why should he care about textbook predictions or diagnoses, since his personal mode was either to dream for a few moments or to dream constantly. Tonight he fell asleep and dreamed, awoke, fell back asleep and dreamed, awoke again and dreamed again, all in a series of steps like a Hogarth progress piece or a walk through a mist-filled museum with pictures from his recent life arrayed along an endless hall.

  First there were the silhouetted hands and the limestone, then the restlessness caused by the awareness of pain in the back of his head and the sight of moonlight illuminating the edges of the shutters, then dreams again, this time of city squares and parades through them: children with tin kazoos in clown suits with bent hats and dirty knees, proud parents, restive dogs, food waste spilling out of barrels in the small city park. Suddenly the awareness of Diana’s breathing and the tick of the wall clock, then dreams of highways that led to bridges that led to more highways that led to more bridges that led to mountain passes and valley floors and alleyways and boulevards and skyways and lanes and streets and roads and finally tire tracks through high grass leading to open meadows and gravelly beaches along deserted seas.

  No beaches with green mats and palm trees, the taste of long drinks in chilled glasses and the smell of banana and coconut oil; the feeling that the task was done, the case wrapped, the file closed; the rest of your life ahead, but all in good time, not now. Not with the Trades cooling your body in the warm summer air and the clouds slowly making their way east across a sky of the purest blue.

  Again, Diana’s breathing, and all of the memories of the last few days and all of the threats and uncertainties of the days to come. Silent, faceless enemies with ropes and bombs and automatic pistols, with images of David’s death and promises of Diana’s. The only figure in between a tall man with a split head held together by fraying sutures and scar tissue.

  The light was brighter now. He had overslept. His face was damp with anticipation. He rose to his feet and saw Diana laying diagonally across the bed, on her belly, the blanket down around her waist. Where was the phone? And where was Cossard’s number? He took out his wallet, checked the partition between his cards and his money, removed the note, stared at it, refocused his eyes, verified it, then reached for the phone. He refocused again and checked the wall clock. It was only 6:18. He walked over to the desk and checked his watch: 6:19.

  “What is it?” Diana asked, sitting up and covering herself with the blanket.

  “It’s nothing. I’m sorry, I thought it was later.”

  “Are you all right?”

  “Yes, I’m fine.”

  “Did you hear something?”

  “No, I’m just jet-lagged.”

  “Lay back down,” she said. “We’ll face it as it comes.”

  She turned over, stretched her legs, and pulled the corner of the blanket up to her face. The room was beginning to warm from the morning sun and she fell back to sleep, dreaming of southern California, of freeways and boulevards, shops, restaurants, signs, lights, studios, museums, and galleries. Then she was in Brighton’s car, facing the oncoming headlights, but no one was driving. She was alone in the passenger seat, the radio a quiet hum, the car on autopilot, taking her to her parents’ home in the canyon, the road empty, the moss on the pine trees visible in the headlights.

  Suddenly she was with David and it was autumn; they were trying to see through the bare limbs of the oaks and maples to the sea beyond. David’s mouth was moving but she couldn’t hear him; it was like an old 8mm home movie, the colors bleached, the action jerky and forced. He was smiling and waving his arms and calling to her. He had found something, seen something, something wonderful that he wanted to share with her. She ran toward him but her feet sank in the loamy soil and her legs grew heavy. David motioned her on, smiling, waving, and encouraging her. She moved her arms in a swimming motion, trying to pull herself from the ground and toward her brother.

  A moment later she awoke, feeling a draft on her shoulder. The room was warm but her body was chilled. She reached for the edge of the blanket and saw Tom sitting in the chair. He had put away the blanket and replaced the cushions. He was sitting quietly, oiling his automatic and checking his clips of ammunition.

  “Hi,” he said, “how about something to eat?”

  “You order; I’ll put on some clothes,” she said, slipping on the robe on the corner of the bed and going into the bathroom. He ordered coffee, croissants, and brioche, with butter and preserves. The hotel also had melon and smoked ham and he ordered two portions. Diana came out of the bathroom for a few seconds, took some clothes from her luggage, and then went back in. She came out a few minutes before the breakfast arrived. She was dressed in dark slacks and a dark blouse, her chestnut hair turning to gold in the bright morning light.

  “You finished with your gun,” she said.

  “Yes.”

  “I was watching you clean it.”

  “Old habit,” he said.

  “In the movies they do it mechanically—step by step, item by item, timing themselves.”

  “They teach you to do it mechanically so that you can do it in the dark or with your hands under an oilcloth cover in the rain. I like to clean the wooden grip, keep it oiled and polished. Strange hobby. Some people refinish picnic benches . . .”

  “I can’t imagine you doing that—down in a basement shop, firing up your SkilSaw, planing down the edges of a piece of plywood, routing with your router and grinding with your grinder or whatever.”

  “No, that was never me,” Tom said. “My father did all those things. During the day he worked with his head and at night with his hands. I’ve always had to do a little bit of both.”

  “So what do you do at night?”

  “Mostly read or drive along the coast. Enjoy the night air, smell the orange blossoms and the magnolias. Sometimes I get together with Hector and we drive out to the forest and check out the trails. We don’t do much.”

  “Is Hector married?”

  “He was. She’s a nurse.”

  “And you’ve never been married?”

  “No. I came close once but in the end it didn’t happen.”

  She looked at him but didn’t press.

  “Sometimes it’s a matter of the relationship between the people,” he said. “Sometimes it’s a matter of timing. Sometimes it’s both.”

  “I never really had the time,” Diana said. “Medical school is all-consuming; so is the internship and residency. By the time I emerged on th
e other side David had achieved great success and needed me.”

  “He still does,” Tom said.

  “Yes, I know he does.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Route N. 710, North of Le Bugue

  Wednesday, 11:05 a.m.

  “Where are we headed?”

  “Just around the countryside for a few minutes; I want to make sure there’s no one following us. I called Cossard and he’s arranged a meeting at 2:30 in St. Emilion. We’re going to a winery called Chateau Bison. Prime real estate, on D245, between Figeac and Cheval Blanc. They have a private facility for special tastings, with its own entrance. We’ll be able to park and walk around without worrying about who might be watching. Cossard and his people will be there and they’ll brief us on what they’ve learned so far. He did say that they’ve found Ponge’s secretary in Cherbourg, but they haven’t been able to interview her yet. They should know more by the time we meet.”

  “What was her name—Scaviner?”