Louise paused, started thinking again.
She’d given me enough already.
Lacey said he was thrown in with Parsons randomly. That he didn’t know a thing about him. He lied.
“Florence.”
My attention returned to Louise. “Her name,” she said.
“The waitress in Chicago?”
“Her name’s irrelevant, I know.” she said. “I just wanted to finish the story in my head.”
“Kit Cobb the newspaper reporter admires your digging for the detail.”
“And Kit Cobb the worker for our government? By the way, is that a euphemism for a spy?”
“You’ve just been a big help to that guy. For which he admires the hell out of you.”
“I’m so glad,” she said.
“Yes it is,” I said.
She flickered at this.
“A euphemism for a spy,” I said.
She smiled. “The word will never pass my lips.”
I said, “Something else very important, my darling. You must treat John Lacey as if nothing has happened. You know nothing. You’ve said nothing.”
“Of course. I don’t often see him. But if I do, it’ll be business as usual.”
“One more thing you must keep hidden. Tales will come from La Chapelle. It’s unlikely but possible that people will speculate close to the truth. That it was Cyrus’s ambulance. That he was the one who put it there. Perhaps even that it was the source of the explosion. It’s important that you don’t encourage that story. You simply don’t know anything about it. All right?”
“Of course.”
“You must leave all the rest to me,” I said.
“I worry for you,” she said. “Is that all right?”
I hesitated only a moment. It was. “Yes,” I said.
“If you need me. For anything. Or want me. I will be here tonight. Again at nine o’clock. Tomorrow is my day of rest. I will be here all day and night. You must come to me if I can help you in any way.”
What I needed was for her to be safe. I was afraid I made her less so until all of this was resolved. So I made no promises.
I simply kissed her.
She asked for no more than that.
Then the light was out and we were settled in, entwined beneath the covers. Almost at once her breathing slowed and deepened and she was asleep.
It took me a while, as my head filled with little things I’d noticed but either not recognized or had misinterpreted. A word, a glance between these two mugs at our meeting in the New York Bar. Lacey’s barely contained fury at his father, the guy in the family who was the active member of the ruling class. This was also about men. Fathers and sons. Parsons was taking up where he felt his father lost his nerve and failed; he got to beat the old man at his own game. Lacey was tearing his old man down. Utterly. Tearing him down.
That thought started to gyre and then dissolve and I was in the dark and any move I made bumped a barrier, I tried to stretch my leg, tried to throw my arm to the side, tried to press my hand upward, but everything was blocked and the air was tight and my chest clamped shut and I struggled to breathe and I knew what had happened, I’d gone into the trunk backstage, hiding from some man in my mother’s life, another phony father, an actor, and he didn’t know I was hiding and my plan was vague, to leap out at him, but rehearsal was over and everyone was gone, and I pushed both hands hard above me, tried to lift the lid but it would not yield, it was sealed shut and now the lid and walls and the very stage floor were closing inward, squeezing the air out of the trunk, out of me, and I screamed and I screamed, I had to get out but the air was gone and there was no sound and I fisted my hands and pounded above me, pounded and pounded as if I were buried dead alive and the lid was my coffin and above was only six feet of earth. And then the lid flew open and I jumped up gasping and now all around me were flames. The Lyceum Theatre was on fire. The curtains and the flats and the auditorium before me, all the seats, everything was on fire, and then the flames overwhelmed it all, made it all vanish, and for a moment I saw nothing but the flames and I could only wait to vanish within them forever, but something began to take shape around me in the inferno, a skeletal form, and I could make out doors, and then a roof, a front window frame, a dashboard, and just as I understood where I was, the flames vanished and I was sitting in the passenger seat of a Ford ambulance and all around was darkness except for the headlights thrown before me, showing nothing, but I was moving. No. I was being driven. And I knew who it was sitting beside me, behind the wheel. I turned. And he was not there. No one was there.
25
When I stepped out of the door just before seven-thirty, a Renault Torpedo was approaching on Perronet from the east, a strikingly recognizable marque, its radiator set behind the motor, which allowed for its distinctive low-swooping coal-shuttle hood. But at least it was not an American limousine. The Renault’s black canvas top was raised. It would do just fine for what lay ahead. Which did not include what I’d thought it would when Sam dropped me off a few hours ago.
The car was right-hand drive, so he was prominent before me as he negotiated the curb. I began to move toward the street.
A short time ago a bleary-eyed Louise and I parted sweetly, briefly. And informatively: I now had a pretty good idea of the ambulance drivers’ typical daily schedule. Lacey would have opportunities to slip out. If Cyrus had accelerated his bombing plan impromptu or if he’d consciously orchestrated it to include our trip to Compiègne—either way—this was a good day for him and a coconspirator to meet up. And if not today, then soon. The best thing I could do now, with the few circumstantial clues I had, was follow Lacey.
The sun had not yet risen on this late-autumn morning. At the hospital, the drivers were heading for the dining hall in the basement.
As I arrived on the sidewalk, Sam engaged his hand brake and idled for me. I circled the car to the passenger side and slid in.
“Good morning,” he said. “Mr. Trask wants to see you first thing.”
“At the embassy?”
“Yes.”
I wasn’t surprised.
I had news for him anyway.
But we could lose Lacey.
“Is he in his office right now?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“There’s a post office near the Place Parmentier. Stop there first. I want to telephone him.”
Sam hesitated for only the briefest moment. His order from Trask had no doubt been to bring me to him first thing, no delay. I was countermanding it.
“Right,” he said and he throttled up.
“I’ve got a new lead,” I said. “A good one but immediate. No longer the Zone.”
“You’re the guy who tells me what to do,” Sam said. No explanation being necessary.
He had good instincts. From what I’d seen of wars, the authority in the field should always take precedence over the authority in the office.
We pulled away, the engine’s four cylinders as full of pattering notes as a ragtime drummer.
I said, “You were obviously up early.”
“Is this one okay?”
I was starting to like Sam. Good field instincts and he was quick. I’d have to lecture him at some point about hearing only what you’re listening for when there might be an alternative. But in this case he was right. The Renault.
“It’s swell,” I said and said no more for now. We were shortly turning into the Avenue du Roule, just above the place. Ahead, in the dark, the post office’s blue light was still on, for the dark hours of the morning.
In front of the building, a stacked and stuffed horse cart was just pulling away from the curb, the post office probably its last stop of the day. The Cyrus lately occupying my head had me notice him. This guy was a ragpicker. There were thirty thousand of them, though most only had gunnysacks on their backs. Every one of them was at work every day in Paris. And they were all citizens of Cyrus’s oppressed masses, their labor made a crucial part of the city’s tras
h management for no wages at all.
The man on the cart prompted me to briefly second-guess myself. Even if Cyrus’s bomb-making was elsewhere, he might well have friends, associates, certainly sympathizers in The Zone. He could even have a hideout where somebody teaches him waitress French. He could be there right now.
But Lacey was the hand to play. If Cyrus was indeed in The Zone, that’s where Lacey would lead us.
I closed the door to the telephone booth, dropped my coins, and found Trask in his office.
His immediate words to me: “This about your morning intention?”
Sam had dutifully delivered my message.
“It’s changed in the past couple of hours,” I said. “As a lead, dramatically for the better. As a development in our larger concerns, dramatically for the worse.”
“Being mindful then, we do need to talk in person,” Trask said.
“But on-site,” I said.
“Where?”
“The Lycée.”
“You’ll be watching?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll find you.”
And we rang off.
I came back out to Sam and the Renault.
I worked the crank for us and got in.
“Is it okay?” Sam said.
“He’ll meet us there.”
“And where’s the new there?”
“The Lycée Pasteur.”
“The American Hospital.”
“The American hospital.”
On our way, I told Sam the story of J. B. Lacey.
We parked on a right-angled side street, Rue Alfred de Musset, lined with plane trees and commencing directly across the Boulevard d’Inkermann from the Lycée’s main gate. There were several other automobiles along the street, on both sides. Facing forward, beneath the trees, with other cars keeping us from standing out, our trilbies pulled low, we were in good position.
The sun was still down. The air was chill. Sam and I settled in. Fifteen minutes later the Pierce-Arrow turned onto our street from d’Inkermann and parked directly across from us, facing in the other direction.
I stepped from the Renault.
Trask emerged from behind the Pierce-Arrow’s steering wheel. Before dawn, with his man assigned to me, Trask drove himself.
We met in the middle of the street.
We simultaneously offered our hands and shook, while our breath plumed before us and vanished, plumed and vanished.
Trask said, “Sam tells me you figured it out on the way.”
“It struck me Parsons was probably the anonymous caller.”
“That occurred to me as well.”
“I’ve since confirmed he speaks some French. Enough to leave a terse tip.”
“If only we got to him in time.” This came out of Trask not brittle with criticism but muted with sadness. Not quite what I’d expected of him. He was starting to surprise me with some regularity.
I said, “Nothing was going to tell us where he’d leave the vehicle.”
“I know,” Trask said. “I know. And he played that trump card with a time-fuse.”
I said, “I got nothing I could recognize as a lead in my first pass at the hospital. But I’ve got something now.”
“It’s the dramatically worse thing that I’ve been waiting for.”
“Another American is involved.”
“Judas priest.” The oath was spontaneous, but spoken low, as if in deep disappointment.
I had to make it even worse for him. “Another driver at the hospital.”
He turned his face sharply away. His breath wasn’t pluming. Not for a long moment. He’d sucked it in with the news and wasn’t letting it out.
Then at last he exhaled.
I said, “I think he can lead us to Cyrus.”
Trask looked back to me. “What’s his name?”
“John Barrington Lacey. A Harvard man no less.”
“The world has gone mad.” This was growled.
I wondered if it took an anarchist Harvard boy, the spawn of the ruling class, to finally bring James Polk Trask to that conclusion.
“We’ll keep watch,” I said. “If Cyrus has gone rogue, Lacey might follow. If they want to raise the ante on the carnage, why keep one of them under cover?”
“This is good work,” Trask said. “But I’m going to need to pull you away for a couple of hours a little later in the morning.”
“Fortier? About last night?”
“Yes.”
“Surely that can be rescheduled,” I said. “Tracking Lacey is our one lead and this could be our only chance. We don’t want two needles in the haystack.”
Trask was staring down the street toward the gate of the Lycée.
I knew I’d said all I could say.
I waited for him.
He looked at me and said, “Washington has already taken an intense interest in this, as I expected. Even over a goddamn farm boy. But two Americans now. These two, for Christ’s sake. Their diversity compounds our jeopardy and undermines the president. Undermines the country. Fortier is a very important man. He sits close to both Poincaré and Joffre. He’s impressed with you. With his reach to the highest levels, an hour with him at this juncture is crucial. The meeting needs us both.”
“We can’t lose Lacey,” I said.
“Sam Mandeville. Don’t be deceived. He drove me around but that’s because I’m hand-grooming him. He’s got moxie. He can take care of the surveillance for a couple of hours. This man Lacey might see and identify you anyway. He won’t know Sam.”
He stopped. He waited for my assent.
I didn’t like the whole plan. In operational ways. In ways that were new to me and I was yet to figure out. But he also made some sense. Especially about both our targets being able to recognize me. On the way back to the surveillance I could alter my looks. This morning the operation had to be impromptu, and some of its flaws were unavoidable. Maybe even including a rookie working on his own for a while.
I still didn’t like the larger thing.
Trask didn’t like my hesitating to assent. He said, “I’ll come get you in a couple of hours.”
“I may be somewhere else,” I said.
“Right,” he said. “We hope so. Be at Fortier’s office at eleven o’clock.”
I had no choice. “I’ll be there,” I said.
“Good,” he said. “And since we won’t have a chance to speak again till we’re with him, this is how it needs to go. I’ll talk first and lay out our story.”
“About the German ambulance thief?”
“About the Germans. You can then add any plausible details you want. Like writing your newspaper stories.”
Trask was sounding like Trask again. I let his disdain for newspaper news pass. What troubled me more were the lies he was having us weave. Official, covertly arranged, high-governmental lies. Trask knew best what was at stake between Washington and Paris and what needed to be done about that. I couldn’t argue with strategy. But the tactics still seemed off.
“This new complication,” I said. “Doesn’t that change things out here in the field? We kill one guy with no lies preceding, you give them the body and Americans took care of one rogue American. I see how it goes no further. We assassinate two Americans, one a Harvard boy, that we claimed ahead of time were Germans, and what’s your story?”
James Polk Trask actually put a hand on my shoulder. “This is why you’re free for a few hours and why we won’t move on these two till you and your skills are in place. We just need to find out where Lacey ends up. Once we have the hideout, we just watch until you’re back in place and we’re sure both of them are present. Then you take them out in your own special way in their own private place. You let me know when it’s done. Then you leave the rest to me.”
The hand that was on my shoulder had shaken me gently a couple of times for emphasis. Now it withdrew.
And he said, “There were only American heroes involved.”
26
I slipped into the passenger seat of the Renault.
Moments later the Pierce-Arrow engine snare-drummed into life. A drumroll to herald a worry that I’d made a stupid call in switching automobiles. The Pierce-Arrow was probably the only vehicle at the embassy with a self-starter. True enough it would also be a neon-lit windmill parked down the street from a hideout. But having to crank, we were stuck with a delay in beginning a pursuit. Sam by himself would be delayed even longer. And alone, he’d be physically vulnerable in the process, having to put his back to the action.
But it’s what we had to work with.
I made sure to caution Sam about that latter worry as I finished recounting my conversation with Trask. To which Sam instantly replied, “I can handle myself, Kit.”
I figured he could. I liked him for his spirit. But if he’d been acting as a chauffeur while being hand-groomed by the office boss, he still had a lot to learn from field experience. Untempered reliance on that spirit could be dangerous. That wasn’t, however, something I could reason him out of. I said no more.
We set up a surveillance protocol together.
Then Sam produced a small pair of Huet binoculars from a bag in the floor of the backseat.
We settled in to wait.
The sky was only beginning to fade a bit into gray.
One thing from my conversation with Trask, which I had not mentioned, I now gave to Sam.
I said, “You’ve impressed the boss.”
“You think so?” Nonchalant.
“It’s clear,” I said.
“I’m ready,” he said.
“Just be careful,” I said. “There’s much to learn out here that Trask doesn’t know to tell you. Nobody does, until things happen.”
In reply, he lifted the binoculars. “You or me first?”
I was maybe ten years older than Sam Mandeville. It felt suddenly like much more.
“You,” I said.
Paris in the Dark Page 18