L'Assassin

by Peter Steiner

  “I am arresting you for the murder of Solesme Lefourier.”

  Madame Chalfont let out a cry and sank back onto the chair.

  Louis stood up. “It is a mistake, madame,” he said, as though he had ordered tea and Penont had brought him coffee. “A mistake. I assure you, it will be sorted out in no time. If you will excuse me.”

  “As though he had ordered tea,” said Madame Chalfont, “and Penont had brought him coffee.” People had gathered in front of the hotel almost immediately. The whole of Saint Leon was talking about the arrest of Louis Morgon for the murder of Solesme Lefourier.

  “Of course it is a misunderstanding,” said Penont. “Why would anyone kill someone who was already dying?”

  “To help them die, of course,” said Lansade, the boulanger. “To spare them the agony and pain. That is the only logical explanation. That must be what happened.”

  “Aha,” said Penont. “Well, that is a humane thing to do if they are in pain.”

  “Humane perhaps,” someone else said, “but still against the law.”

  A debate erupted on the merits of helping someone die, whether pain was sufficient justification, whether that person, while perhaps not legally culpable, was culpable in the eyes of God. “He is an American,” someone said. “Monsieur Morgon is American. They think differently about such things.”

  “Oh, but he has been here a long time.”

  “That he has been here a long time does not change the fact that he is still an American.” The arguments came fast and furious. They washed over one another and masked the sadness and confusion that everyone felt.

  “We shall have to wait and see,” said Madame Chalfont.

  “Life certainly has a way of taking a strange turn.”

  Louis was taken to a cell in Tours. “May I stop at home and get a book?” he asked Renard.

  “I will get it for you. What do you want?”

  “It’s on the kitchen table,” said Louis. “Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment.”

  Renard sighed and rolled his eyes. “Of course. Why am I not surprised?” Now he sat in his office and waited. He tried to do paperwork, but he could not concentrate. The telephone rang. “Finally,” said Renard, but he hesitated a moment before he lifted the receiver.

  “Renard,” he said.

  “Inspecteur Renard, this is Captain Montfort.” It was his superior in St. Calais. “I will get straight to the point, Inspecteur. Regarding the arrest you just made: you are to secure Mr. Louis Morgon’s release immediately,” he said.

  “But, Captain, he has—” Renard was not permitted to finish the sentence.

  “All charges are to be dropped. Immediately. Is that clear? Louis Morgon is to be released. I am faxing you the paperwork,” said the captain. Renard’s fax machine began humming before he had hung up the telephone.

  “So, it is as bad as I feared,” said Louis when Renard came to the prison to see to his release. “They don’t want me in the custody of the police. They prefer to have me out and about, where they can do whatever they want, whenever they want.”

  “That is one possibility,” said Renard, but he could not think of any other. For once he could not disagree with Louis’s grim assessment. “What do we do now?” he asked.

  “You go home to Isabelle,” said Louis.

  “And what about you?”

  Louis looked at the prison guards standing by the door. “I think it is best that I disappear,” he said softly. “I’ll be in touch with you.” Louis looked into the policeman’s eyes.

  “Shouldn’t you …?” Renard began. But he did not have any suggestions, so he looked away.

  The two men walked slowly through the front door. Louis’s shoulders were slumped. He even took Renard’s arm for support as they descended the stairs. They crossed the gravel courtyard and reached Renard’s car. Is he up to this? Renard wondered. But a moment later when he turned to look, Louis was gone.

  “How can he bear it?” Isabelle wondered that evening at dinner. “Solesme’s death, this terrible vendetta. And then arresting him for …”

  Renard raised his hands in self-defense. “That was his idea. I was against it. In fact, I couldn’t believe it when he proposed it. As for how he can stand it, that’s beyond me too. I just don’t know.”

  “But why the murder of Solesme?” Isabelle wondered. “If you had to accuse him of a crime, why that in particular? It seems so cruel.”

  “Because,” Renard said, “it is plausible. In the first place, she just died. And, in the second, because he had apparently thought of helping her die. They had talked about it. She thought that she might want him to do that someday. To help her die. Of course, he couldn’t bear the thought of it. And she didn’t want it, at least not yet. ‘As long as I can stand the pain,’ she said, ‘then so must you.’ “

  Isabelle still found the whole idea shocking and terrible. “What if Solesme knew you were doing this?” she said.

  “Louis thinks she would be pleased,” Renard said. He thought about it for a moment. “And you know what? He might actually be right. You know Solesme. She would be thrilled to have a part in this whole business. She never wanted to miss out on anything.”

  The day after Louis was released from jail and disappeared, the strange tourists checked out of the Hôtel de France and disappeared themselves. “They all left at the same time,” said Penont. He paused in his sweeping and leaned on the broom. “It was like a small convoy. They just got in their cars and sped away. Madame is desolate. They were the perfect guests. Clean. Quiet.” He began to sweep the bar floor, then paused again. “And they paid in advance. In fact, they paid through the end of October. Full daily seasonal rate. Imagine that. It is a large sum.”

  “Through the end of October?” said Renard.

  “Of course madame will return their money.”

  “Let me know if she is successful,” said Renard.

  “If she is successful?” Penont did not understand.

  “If she is able to find them, to return their money,” said Renard, taking a sip from his coffee.

  “You think they were up to some mischief?” Penont wondered.

  “I have never known innocent people to pay in advance,” said Renard.

  X

  Pierre Lefort was lazy, just as Louis had said, but he was not stupid. On the morning after Louis’s visit, before the sun had even risen, Pierre packed the white van with some clothes, bottles of water, and cans of food. Then he took a flashlight and went out to the small shed behind the house. He pushed aside some garden tools, hose, and bits of plastic; moved some empty cartons and an old wheelbarrow; and pulled a small white plastic tub out of the corner. Pierre set the light on the wheelbarrow so that it was pointed at the tub. He pried up the lid, peeled it back, and withdrew a thick bundle of dollars and euros from the bucket. Then he returned to the house and woke his son.

  “Get dressed, Zaharia,” he said.

  “Why?” said the boy, trying to rub the sleep out of his eyes.

  “We have to leave,” said Pierre. “Hurry up. Get dressed.”

  “Why?” said the boy again. But Pierre did not answer, and Zaharia did as he was told. A short while later, still drowsy and confused, the boy climbed into the van. They drove away from the house, leaving everything as it was. Pierre could not bear to look back. He knew he would never see this place again.

  The headlights of the van swept across the stony landscape as they jolted and lurched up the road. The shadows shifted as they passed, and the familiar cliffs and boulders took on strange and menacing shapes.

  “Papa,” said the boy, “I’m scared.”

  Pierre did not respond at first. But then he reached over with his right hand, stroked the boy’s head, finally pulling him to him. “I know,” he said.

  Pierre did not call his mother to tell her of his decision to disappear. He did not dare tell anyone where he was going, and he knew his mother would beg him to tell. Nor did he tell the boy’s mother that they
were leaving. When she learned finally that Zaharia and his father had vanished without a trace, she was beside herself. But whom could she turn to for help in finding them? There was no one.

  The eastern sky began to turn pink as Pierre pulled onto the main road and headed south. Apart from a few trucks, there was very little traffic. He and the boy ate some apricots and figs. They drank juice from paper cartons. The sun rose high into the sky and hung motionless above them as they drove into the mountains. Late in the afternoon, they turned onto a smaller road and, after half an hour, onto a narrow stone track. After lurching along the track for about an hour, they arrived in the village of Al Ghargourat.

  Al Ghargourat, which is not even on most maps, consists of a few round stone huts huddled under a cliff and surrounded by miles of undulating stone and sand. The people of Al Ghargourat have a few small olive groves and keep some chickens and a skinny goat or two. Summers are scorching and winters, bitter cold. Pierre had not been there for more than twenty years, but he especially remembered the summers, when everything shimmered in the heat.

  When Amir opened the door and recognized his boyhood friend Pierre standing there, he smiled broadly, spread his arms wide, and enfolded Pierre in a warm embrace. “Welcome in Allah’s name,” said Amir, and kissed Pierre on both cheeks.

  “My son, Zaharia,” said Pierre, motioning toward the van. The boy climbed down and came forward.

  “You have a son?” said Amir in astonishment. “Has it been that long?”

  “Can we stay with you?” Pierre asked. “Just until I figure out my next move. I think,” he said as though it had just occurred to him, “we are going to France.”

  The boy’s eyes widened, but he did not speak.

  “France?” said Amir.

  “I lived there for a while,” said Pierre. “I will tell you all about it.” Later, when they had eaten and the boy was asleep, Pierre and Amir sat outside and smoked. Pierre told Amir about his time in France and about how well his life had been going, until now. But now they had to leave.

  “Maybe I can help you,” said Amir. He explained how he drove oil tankers all over North Africa and the Middle East, and he offered to take Pierre and Zaharia along on his next trip. No one would know or care. “I go to all the ports and I know people at all of them,” Amir explained. “Getting on a ship to France should be easy. The only thing is, it will cost you.” He named a large sum.

  “All right,” said Pierre. “Thanks, Amir. I knew I could count on you.”

  “Here is how it works,” said Amir. “I get a call. A couple of times a month I get the call. There’s going to be a shipment from, say, Algiers to Tripoli, or from Benghazi to Port Said. I’ve been all those places,” he said proudly. “And then some.”

  Amir would be told when and where to show up, and he would be given the name of a contact. When he got there, the tanker truck would be waiting. “Good new trucks, too. The best. There’s a lot of money involved. There are hundreds of these trucks going back and forth.” He would be provided with shipping manifests and customs documents.

  The tanker he was to drive was filled with off-the-books oil that had been skimmed from the production of a Saudi company. The Saudi princes, who were also the oil company executives, and their cousins, who were oil ministry officials, were thus able to exceed export quotas and avoid the price controls that had been agreed upon by OPEC. They also avoided taxes and other duties, and enriched themselves in the process.

  The oil was bound for the United States and Europe, where it eventually ended up being sold and distributed on the black market. “Oil prices are political dynamite over there,” Amir explained. “They’ll do almost anything to keep the costs down. So this way the Europeans and Americans can keep the lid on prices, the Saudis keep the oil flowing and the pipelines open, I make some money, and everybody is happy.”

  When Amir delivered a tanker to his assigned destination he was handed an envelope filled with money. “Good money,” he said. “Very good money.” He then found his way back to Al Ghargourat and waited for the next call.

  A few days after Pierre and Zaharia arrived, the call came. Amir, Pierre, and Zaharia got into Amir’s Toyota truck and drove north and then east. “You didn’t tell me why you’re going, what you’re running from,” said Amir. They had stopped for gas. He and Pierre stood behind the pickup.

  Pierre looked to see that the boy was out of earshot. “I’m in trouble,” he whispered.

  “I know that,” said Amir.

  “That’s all I should say about it,” said Pierre.

  “You should have told me,” said Amir. “What kind of trouble?”

  “I can’t say. It’s big. Believe me, it’s best for you if you don’t know.”

  Amir gave him a long look. “Still, you should have told me,” he said. “I’m risking my neck, you know.”

  The shore west of Tripoli was lined with rows and rows of gigantic steel storage tanks connected to one another by an impenetrable tangle of valves and pipes. Pipes of every size climbed over one another like steel vines, twisting and turning corners and going up and down and in every direction. Here and there steam escaped from valves, making a hissing noise and shooting up jets of vapor. A tall, narrow stack at the water’s edge spouted blue flames high into the air. Beyond the tanks and pipelines enormous tanker ships sat at anchor, riding low in the water.

  Amir pulled into a vast, unpaved lot between two sets of storage tanks. He stopped next to a line of tanker trucks parked side by side. Amir punched some numbers into his satellite telephone and waited while it rang. He listened and then hung up without speaking.

  After a short while, a Land Rover appeared on the road. It turned into the lot and came toward them, leaving great clouds of yellow dust in its wake. “Wait here,” said Amir. He got out of the Toyota, and two men got out of the Land Rover. They looked in Pierre’s direction and gestured with their heads as they spoke with Amir. Pierre looked straight ahead and tried not to watch. After a while, the men handed Amir a packet of papers. They got back in the Land Rover and drove back the way they had come.

  Amir helped Pierre and the boy load their things behind the seat of a tanker truck. He drove the Toyota under a shed, and Amir, Pierre, and Zaharia climbed into the cab of the tanker truck. Amir turned the ignition, and the engine roared to life. He put the truck in gear and drove out onto the highway.

  “Why France?” said Amir.

  “I told you,” said Pierre. “I lived there.”

  “You did time there,” said Amir.

  “Please, Amir, don’t …”

  “I just want you to be straight with me,” said Amir. “I’m taking a big chance for you.”

  “Please, Amir,” said Pierre. “My son. Not in front of the boy.”

  “Suit yourself,” said Amir with a shrug, and gave himself over to driving. They rode in silence.

  The engine hummed. It was warm in the cab. They rocked forward and back as though they were in a cradle. Pierre woke up as they came to a shuddering halt. He had been dreaming of France, and for a moment he did not know where he was. He looked over at Zaharia. The boy was asleep. He murmured and turned his head back and forth restlessly.

  It was the middle of the night, but it was as bright as day. They were surrounded by brilliant orange lights mounted on top of tall masts, and Pierre could hear the loud electric hum of the lights. He could smell salt in the air, and he could hear the sea slapping in the darkness somewhere below them.

  They had stopped at the head of a long concrete pier. A great tanker ship loomed above them, groaning and creaking where it rubbed against its moorings. Fat hoses and thick ropes hung down her side and snaked, in random patterns, back and forth across the pier. The words Miss Chastain and Libya were painted in white on her black hull.

  When Amir climbed down from the cab, he was met by two men who appeared from behind the truck. One was in shirtsleeves, while the other wore a uniform and a pistol on his hip. The two men went over the
papers Amir handed them. The men spoke for a while, then gestured toward Pierre and the boy. Amir returned to the truck. “Give me the money.”

  Pierre reached inside his shirt and took out an envelope. Amir opened it. He counted the bills quickly, as though he was used to handling large sums of money. He climbed down and handed the envelope to the man in uniform, who put it in his pocket without looking inside.

  “This ship is bound for Marseille,” said Amir, handing Pierre a fat envelope. “Inside you have crew papers that should get you ashore. Once you’re in Marseille, though, you’re on your own. But France is easy. By then you should be home free.”

  “Thank you, Amir. I owe you a lot.”

  “Go with Allah,” said Amir. He embraced Pierre and patted his shoulder. He did not look at the boy but turned and walked away.

  The journey to Marseille took five days. The seas were calm. The nights were clear and still, and the days were sunny. During the day, Pierre and Zaharia sat on deck in the shade of a lifeboat and stared across the flat, green water. Gulls followed the ship the entire way, swooping and diving whenever the garbage was thrown overboard. Zaharia stood at the back of the ship and watched the gulls glide above his head. He held out his hand as though he had something to give them, but they knew better.

  “What is France like?” Zaharia wanted to know.

  “You will see,” said Pierre. Then: “It is hard.”

  “Why is it hard?”

  “The French make it hard. They hate us. The French hate North Africans.”

  “Why?”

  “They think we are all criminals,” said Pierre.

  “Is everyone in France rich?”

  “No. But a lot of people are.”

  “Amir said you were in jail.”

  “That is true. I was in jail. Stop asking so many questions.”

  The crew consisted entirely of Pakistanis, thin, hard men who kept to themselves. They did not seem surprised or even curious about the father and son who had joined them. They did not ask questions because they did not want anyone asking questions of them.

  Among the crew, there was a boy who looked to be not much older than Zaharia. He was even smaller than Zaharia and had large, dark eyes. His dark hair lay in a great tangle on top of his head, and he had the wispy beginnings of a mustache. He wore the same filthy clothes day after day and shoes that were much too large for his feet.