She wondered how long it had taken for his father to see the gradual change of pink turn to red. At the right moment, she would ask Paul if his father had told him. She felt so relieved that Frankie and Al were dead.
She missed Eddie. She remembered how hesitant he was when he had to bruise her face to make it look like Al had assaulted her. Eddie couldn’t. They were fighting time. She had called Al and asked him to come over early, telling him she was sorry she had attacked him, she wanted to apologize, make it up to him, wanted to see him alone.
That was why they were fighting time—he was coming. It was Eddie’s plan. But Eddie couldn’t do it. She lost her temper, got him mad enough to slap her, hit her, make her mouth bleed.
Clipping her on the cheek was accidental. He apologized, kissed her. Got her blood all over his mouth. He washed it off quickly and left.
When she phoned him that Paul’s boss was going to have him and Al hit on the street, he said the time had come. One of them had to take the fall so the other two could get away. It wasn’t going to be him and it wasn’t going to be her. That left Al. His own brother! He hesitated for the slightest fraction of an instant, remembering some day when they were both in diapers or playing in the yard. But it passed. Al was dangerous, to all of them. Al dead was safer than Al alive. So, sayonara. Goodbye Me-hee-ko, hello France.
When Al came in alone, she attacked him with such animal fury he got all mixed up. She saw the confusion on his face as he warded off her blows. And then she shot him. Even dying, his eyes popped animal astonishment.
The drone of the engines made her close her eyes. Paul tapped her on her shoulder, lifted the baby, returned to his seat. Michelle fell asleep.
Paul loved to hold the sleeping baby. He watched reflections of the plane’s blinking lights and waited for his fear, but it didn’t come. Not even when they took off. Not even when he was higher than the highest skyscraper did that fear of height seize him. Maybe if he saw the ground from this altitude in the daytime his fear would return, but in the darkness it was just like being on the ground.
His head began to ache in a different way and he knew what it was. He had kept the thought away as long as he could. He thought about the Boss and wondered if she’d been killed because she covered for him. Maybe she was still alive. She should be. No. She had to be dead.
But a flash of hope shot through him.
The Boss was smart.
She was smart enough to come up with the ten million and have another bagman deliver it to Railey in Philadelphia. Who would get mad at her if she found a way to replace the money?
He wished Johnson had taken more—a grand, ten grand. Of course, he knew Johnson would spend the hundred he did take on opium. Paul couldn’t understand why people sniffed or shot the needle or smoked poison when they knew it was killing them.
Holding the baby snugly, Paul dozed off. The jolt on the ground startled him and Michelle but not the baby. The plane had stopped somewhere to refuel. The pilot told him it was Iceland. Then the plane took off again.
30
At dawn Paul held his breath, waiting for the fear to slam him. It didn’t. His face hesitantly pressing against the window, he looked down, passing over thousands of gravestones. All the gravestones were the same. Beyond them he saw the English Channel. Then nothing but land under him, almost close enough to touch. The plane landed on another dirt road like the one near Van Cortland Park and came to a stop where trees flanked the road.
They taxied up to a Normandy house, part stone, part wood. Out of it, a grim-faced woman emerged. An old shawl was over her shoulders. A dark apron was over her long dress. She wore sandals.
They got out of the plane without a word from Cappy, who had jumped out and gone into the house. The woman gestured to follow her. They did, Paul lugging their gear, Michelle holding the baby. The woman led them around to the back of the wooden side of the house. An old blue sedan was there.
“Twenty thousand,” the woman said. “American.”
Paul paid her. She gave him the key, vanished around the house. Paul put the suitcase in the trunk, helped Michelle and baby into the front seat and climbed behind the wheel. After a few tries, the engine came to life, sputtering.
Waiting for it to warm up, Paul looked around at the desolate area’s small rocks, dirt mounds, few trees and great deal of brush.
“We’re in Normandy,” Michelle said. “It’s in France.”
“Near Paris?”
“Not far. That road runs along the beach. We’ll find a sign.”
They bumped along the narrow rutted road. Some houses dotted the rolling hills on their left. The English Channel on their right. They approached a massive boulder. Paul stopped behind it because it shielded them from the houses. He got out, spotted a dump heap twenty feet below in the brush hollow.
He opened the trunk, pulled out the suitcase. She put the baby on the floor of the sedan. Paul pulled out the makeup kit and the box with beard and wigs.
Both ignored German graffiti on the shell-pocked boulder. The swastika was faded.
Guided by his passport photo, Michelle made up his face, arranged his wig, rubbed the adhesive on his beard, fitted it on his cheeks. She put on her own makeup and wig as Paul set aside the clothes they were to change into, placed their sneakers on the pile, dumped out their extra changes, pulled out his black bag and the big folded backpack.
He put his bag into the backpack, dumped the extra clothes on top, then stuffed in the diapers, bags of baby food cans.
They stripped in front of the faded swastika, put on the clothes Johnson had gotten them. He put the clothes they shed into the trunk of the sedan, slammed the trunk shut.
Michelle took the baby and stepped away from the sedan. She watched Paul drive over the empty suitcase, going back and forth until it was a mess. He carried the mess down the slope to the dump, jammed the remains between rusty scrap iron and tin cans, bottles, all kids of refuse.
They drove on until he spotted another dump. He dumped their old clothes and shoes in this one. Now there was nothing to link the bagman and widow with this couple of American travelers.
Except the baby.
* * *
Omaha Beach was bristling with tourists. Some sort of folk music festival was going on. Some of the women had children or babies slung on their backs. Beards and faded clothes. Paul breathed easier: they’d fit right in. Guitars were playing as the blue sedan poked its way past several big buses parked off the road.
Jammed traffic waiting to uncoil forced Paul to stop. Hawkers with postcards, maps, brochures, small American and French flags moved through the sea of cars and crowds of people.
Michelle spotted a booth that said CHANGE among the many stands selling souvenirs, sandwiches, cold drinks. She pushed her way through and returned to the car with francs, as well as a jambon-et-beurre baguette and a liter of some sort of flavored water. They’d also warmed the baby’s bottle for her.
A guide with a flag in hand was loudly telling a group about the invasion, pointing out landmarks on the beach. Paul and Michelle bit into their sandwich and the baby enjoyed the bottle. The traffic jam moved by inches.
“Americans?”
Half-poking his head in the driver’s-side window, the uniformed French policeman held a hand out. Behind him, a plainclothes detective was waiting.
Paul nodded.
“Your passports, please.”
Michelle gave Paul hers. He handed both through the window. The French officer and the plainclothes detective studied the passports, their eyes glancing up at Paul and Michelle. The passports were returned. The French officer and the plainclothes detective went on to the people in the car behind the blue sedan. They had a baby, too.
Paul and Michelle took another bite. Their hands shook. Guitar music was joined by a sax.
“How did they know?” Paul finally said.
“New York cops must’ve put the word out. Probably working with Interpol.”
“Wh
at’s that?”
“International Police. They work with almost every country in the world to look for fugitives. Their headquarters is in France. Lyon.”
Blankly, Paul looked at her.
“You think I picked the wrong place to hide, don’t you?” Michelle said.
Paul nodded.
“It’s the best place, Paul. We got lucky—look at all these people here. With babies, too.” Michelle smiled. No longer shaking. In complete control. “But even if this festival hadn’t been here, it would still have been the best place for us. Because I know people here. We can disappear here.”
Paul nodded.
“We’re going to make it, Paul.”
31
Woody’s beard soaked in blood. Flat on his back in the New York hangar, blessedly unconscious until Father Flanagan’s kidgloved hand hammered the spike through his palm into the wide wooden table. Woody howled.
“Stop that.”
Woody couldn’t. The second spike was driven through his other palm into the table. Woody swallowed blood, choked on it.
“Johnson at the photo studio sent a man, a woman and a baby to Cappy to fly their asses out of the country, right?”
“Right!” Woody screamed.
“Quieter, please.”
Swallowing more blood, Woody’s scream faded to a whimper.
“How much did they pay Cappy?”
“Two hundred grand…”
“Where’d he fly them?”
The words were barely intelligible, spoken through a spill of blood. “Brobant farm.”
“There. That’s better. And where is this Brobant farm?”
“Omaha Beach.”
“Where were they headed after Omaha Beach?”
“Don’t know…”
Father Flanagan held the third spike an inch above Woody’s eye, which was bulging from its socket.
“Don’t know!”
“Make your peace with God.”
Father Flanagan shifted the spike, teased Woody’s bloody lips apart with one thumb, and into his mouth it was jammed. The shrieking was harrowing. Metallic sound of hammer driving spike into the table brought blessed silence.
* * *
Vigorously slapping her face with cold water didn’t help much. In the ladies’ john, Zara stared at bloodshot eyes, twitching face muscles. A wreck. A big zero.
Captain Sherman sent for her.
“Woody and Cappy ring a bell, Lieutenant?”
Zara nodded. “Got their license revoked for smuggling religious statues from Europe. Among other things.”
“License renewed couple months ago, Lieutenant. Flights limited to Jersey and Pennsylvania, though how much you want to bet they don’t stop at those borders?”
“You want me to hassle them for license violations? I’m kind of busy.”
“No, nothing like that. Some kids playing ball near Cappy’s old hangar, one of them slammed a homer into it. This is what the outfielder found.”
Captain Sherman held up a photo.
She took it, looked at the spikes driven through Woody’s palms, the third through his bearded mouth into the table.
“Jesus. Woody must have gotten on the wrong side of the mob.” She handed the photo back. “But I’ve got my hands full with another case, Captain.”
“You so sure of that?”
Took Zara a second. “You think Spikes is after the cab driver and the widow? That’d take a mob ties at a higher level than little Frankie Troy.”
“Word on the street is, a bag’s gone missing.”
“And?”
“So’s your cab driver and your widow.”
“How much in the bag?”
“No one’s naming a number. But the way they’re talking, it’s got to have six zeros in it. At least.”
“Why didn’t I hear about this?”
“Must’ve asked the wrong people.”
“I asked everyone.”
“Asked the wrong questions, then.”
“You think it’s Page and the widow.”
He tapped the photo hard. “I think it’s our chance to get this son of a bitch at last.”
Zara was already halfway out the door.
* * *
For five hours she waited alone in the hangar. In the corner were Woody’s jeep and Cappy’s motorcycle. She heard the plane touching down with squealing tires. A second later it taxied into the hangar, came to a jerking stop. Cappy got out, staring at the unmarked police car, saw no sign of Woody. Big as life was his old nemesis sitting on the scarred wooden table, legs crossed, staring at him.
“Hello, Cappy. Swallowing any more condoms filled with heroin?”
“Hauling me in for another X-ray, Lieutenant?”
“Nope.”
“Seen Woody?”
Zara tapped the table.
Cappy approached uneasily, stared at the dried blood she was tapping.
“Woody’s?”
“Every drop.”
Zara produced the photo, dropped it face-up on the dried blood. Cappy gaped at his former partner crucified on the table. Zara dropped another photo on top of the first. Cappy stared at a young naked woman crucified on the wall of her hotel room. A third: a man, crucified against the side wall of his house. Cappy needed a drink. Zara handed him her silver flask. He drank as she spoke.
“Spikes left his calling card again, Cappy. Wants to distract us with it, hopes we label him a psycho and go chasing wild geese. But the man works for organized crime, always has. And right now there’s only one pair of fugitives they want badly enough to call him in.” She slapped the Daily News down on top of the photos. Paul and Michelle stared out from the paper like hunted animals. “The mafia wants them. I want Spikes.”
Whiskey burned going down. He coughed. She went on.
“Guess Woody wouldn’t talk. You’re next on the cross.”
“Me? I don’t know anything! I don’t know who these people are…” Pointing at the newspaper.
“Well, that’s a shame, for you and me both. It’s been nice knowing you.” She got up, headed for the open hangar door.
“Wait! Wait…” Woody cleared his throat. “Can the police protect me?”
“Oh, now you think some attention from the police would be a good thing, do you?”
“Better than being nailed to a fucking table,” Woody muttered.
Zara came back, tapped a long index finger on the newspaper photo. “You seen them?”
Cappy nodded. “And their baby.”
“Cooperate and we’ll save your ass, Cappy.”
“I dumped ’em at Brobant farm near Omaha Beach.”
“You talking about France?”
A nod.
“Price tag?”
“Couple hundred Gs.”
“Say where they were headed after Omaha Beach?”
“I’d shout it if I knew. Swear to god.”
Zara drove him in, turned him over to Captain Sherman. She found an urgent message to phone a Dr. Adson. She called him, learned he was treating the taxi driver.
“Who sent him to you, Dr. Adson?”
“Another patient of mine. I recommended specialists to treat her daughter, who suffers from a rare form of aphasia. I gather Paul ran errands for the mother. She asked me to help him. He suffers from an unusual brain condition as well.”
“What kind, Dr. Adson?”
“There’s no name in the record for it. He called it his ‘brainquake.’ ”
“What’s that?”
“Seizures, auditory and visual hallucinations, violent impulses. Never seen anything quite like it.”
“Dr. Adson, did he ever talk about what he did for a living?”
“Sure. I encouraged him to find something lower-stress.”
“Than…?”
“Driving a cab. What did you mean?”
If the mob knew he’d treated Paul for a brain disorder, they’d kill him. “That’s what I meant, Doctor. Driving a cab. We’ll call you if we n
eed anything else.”
32
They drove past the illuminated Statue of Liberty standing by the center of Grenelle Bridge. Michelle told him it was the model for the big one in New York. She explained that she used to come see it when she was a little girl, that she’d heard the story over and over: how the people of France gave the statue to the people of the United States, but when it got to New York the lady didn’t have a pedestal to stand on. A newspaper asked children to give pennies and nickels for a foundation. That was how the Statue of Liberty finally got a brick base. Paul remembered the drop he made to the skyscraper office on the hundredth anniversary of the statue and all the fireworks in the sky.
Paul wasn’t surprised when Michelle told him she was born in Paris. There was no reason to be surprised. Why should being born in Paris be a surprise?
Paul was infatuated by the story of the Eiffel Tower illuminated at night. Michelle was so patient when she told him things. Patient the way his parents were.
The tall buildings with lights made him think of New York. Only they didn’t push each other like trees in a forest. Illuminated sightseeing boats were moving on the river Seine like ferry boats crossing the Hudson.
His father had told him about Lafayette, who helped George Washington fight the British in the American Revolution.
He had never asked his father why Lafayette left his country to help George Washington. One day he would ask Michelle. She would explain it simply. He’d understand. He felt comfortable with her. When she looked at him, she never looked through him.
He saw barges and tugs moored on both banks like back home. Some of the barges had lights. Michelle told him to pull off the main road. He stopped near trees and bushes.
She had a plan they’d begun to carry out. She didn’t trust the woman at the farmhouse. That was the kind of woman who would, for money, tell the French police what kind of sedan they bought. Or she would tell Eddie. Paul hadn’t forgotten that Eddie had sworn to kill them. Or she would tell whoever Pegasus sent after them. That woman would tell anyone who paid her.
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