by Gerald Jay
“I’ll be in. But late.”
“I’ll save you some.” He picked up their empty glasses and asked the inspector, “Another round of drinks?”
It was useless to try to be heard above the noise. Noting that his tablemate was absorbed in the action on the screen, Mazarelle nodded—another round for both of them. The café had become a battlefield of booing, cheering, stomping feet. Only a few minutes before the half and the English had just been awarded a free kick. Number 7 would take it. As he brushed his long, blond hair out of his eyes, the boos grew louder, the cheering more desperate. The Valon fans appeared frozen in a World War II time warp—split between rabid Pétainist Vichyites and Free French Gaullists. Mazarelle had to laugh at the old guy at the next table pumping his cane like a baton as he led those cheering the Brits’ kicker.
Reiner scowled at the Anglophiles and the decrepit old bone bag making a fool of himself.
The inspector said, “Number seven. That’s Beckham, isn’t it?”
“That’s him. Too pretty for my taste.”
Mazarelle announced having read somewhere that he was one of the highest-paid players in Europe.
“One hundred and forty thousand a week.” The stranger knew everything about him, had apparently read all the football fanzines. “And that doesn’t include what he gets from Adidas and Pepsi for endorsements. Do you realize that’s more than Arnold Schwarzenegger makes?”
“I guess he’s worth it.”
Reiner stared at him as if he were certifiable. “You’re joking.”
“We’ll see,” the inspector said, as Beckham stepped up and blasted the ball. Had it gone straight, instead of way wide of the Germans’ right goalpost, it would have tied the score. The inspector winced. An admirer of the French star Zinedine Zidane, he philosophically observed, “He’s no Zizou.”
Reiner needed another drink. The owner seemed to have forgotten all about them. He tried to get Thérèse’s attention for a refill, but she was busy. It was the half now.
“Not a bad first half,” the inspector said.
“At least the first six minutes.” The stranger appeared annoyed by the thirty-nine that followed, unable to fathom why Bayern wasn’t way ahead by now. He waved in the direction of Thérèse, who was taking other orders. “What are you drinking, cognac? This round is on me.”
Mazarelle was on his feet. “My treat,” he called on his way to the bar. “The next is yours.”
Reiner saw no reason to argue about it. He’d been watching the excited old fool at the adjoining table, who throughout the half had been scurrying back and forth to the crapper. This time as he tried to get up he lost his cane. Reiner handed it back to him.
The old man seemed surprised. “It’s not easy getting old,” he said, as he stood up.
There was a momentary look of contempt on Reiner’s face. “What’s the big trick? All you have to do is hang around long enough.”
The old man enjoyed the joke. He had a shrill, grating laugh, more like a wheeze than a laugh. Reiner hated it, and Reiner wasn’t joking. He flicked his foot and the old man lost his cane. He went sprawling, banging his head hard on the cement floor. His friends rushed to his aid and, lifting his wafer-thin, crumpled body, hurried him out the door. Reiner watched them go. No one had seemed to notice his footwork.
When the inspector returned, the stranger was watching the young couple on TV driving through Barcelona, their child strapped safely in his seat in the back. All three of them smiling from ear to ear. A car commercial.
“Still here?” the inspector asked, laughing as he put down their drinks. “I thought you might have left.”
The stranger was not amused. “Of course I’m still here. The only way you’ll get me out of here before this game is over is to arrest me and drag me away.”
Mazarelle grinned. “Speaking of which, what happened to the old boy they just carried out?”
Reiner shrugged. “He must have fallen. At his age and that thin it doesn’t take much. The slightest breeze.”
“What’s that up there? A new Mercedes?” The inspector sipped his cognac.
“The new S class model.”
The inspector was impressed. “A good-looking car.” The black sedan gleamed like something in a jeweler’s window.
“In a way almost too good,” Reiner said softly, thinking that if things had worked out differently with Phillips’s rented Mercedes, he would no longer be in France. No, no, he told himself, that way lies madness.
Puzzled, the inspector asked, “What do you mean ‘too good’?”
“All the standard safety devices they put in nowadays. Air bag, supplemental restraint systems, seat belt pretensioners, brake assist, traction control, electronic stability control.”
“What the hell’s wrong with that?”
On the spur of the moment the only thing Reiner could think of was “Too expensive.”
Mazarelle noticed the players drifting back from their locker rooms for the second half and inquired how Bayern had scored their goal. The stranger brightened and described Basler’s remarkable free kick but, feeling that he’d failed to do it justice, became annoyed with himself. He snatched up the inspector’s small paper napkin and asked for a pencil.
“Will this do?” Mazarelle gave him his pen.
Reiner swiftly sketched in the goal, the defensive wall of players, the position of the two stick figures he labeled Basler and Schmeichel. Then with a neat dotted line he tracked the triumphal curving path of the ball past the goalie into the net.
“You see?” He pushed his drawing across the table.
“Impressive.”
“Exactly.” The stranger leaned back, arms folded in satisfaction, and balanced himself precariously on the spindly rear legs of his wooden chair.
Mazarelle took out his pipe. He filled it with Philosophe and methodically tamped down the tobacco. “What did you say your name was? I don’t think I’ve ever seen you in Taziac.” Though said in passing while he busied himself hunting in his pockets for matches, it was not exactly random chitchat at this point.
“Funny, I was thinking the same about you.” Reiner felt that in knowing his man the advantage was all his. That was what made the little cat and mouse game he was playing with the inspector so extraordinary.
“Have you been in here before?” Reiner asked.
“Oh, a few times,” the inspector said casually. “Do you live around here?”
“I’m on vacation.”
“Taziac is a good place for a vacation. Especially if you like peace and quiet. That is”—the inspector lit up and sent a stream of gray smoke across the table—“until recently.” The two men exchanged wary glances.
Reiner, seeing the players take the field, announced, “Here we go,” and brought his chair legs down with a crash. The second half was about to begin.
Bayern got off to a quick start. The Germans seemed the fresher of the two teams and more determined than ever to break away from their English defenders. Again and again they challenged United’s goalie, but each time he scooped the ball up and put it back into play. Reiner groaned. He was becoming more and more frustrated. Throwing his head back, exasperated, his eyes searched the café’s pressed tin ceiling for divine intervention. The football gods had turned a deaf ear to Bayern’s dejected fans. With time running out, perhaps they wouldn’t need another score to win.
There was almost no regulation time left on the clock when Manchester’s Teddy Sheringham took what had to be his team’s last chance. It was a corner kick—a high, driving one and curving at an impossible angle. Reiner watched the normally dependable Kahn move toward the approaching ball. Leaping across the mouth of the goal, the fully extended German goalie reached for it but, eluding his outstretched fingertips, the ball somehow slipped into the net. Sheringham threw up his arms, exultant. Shouting and pounding him on the back, his English teammates celebrated the equalizer and the red-and-white-clad United fans in Barcelona danced deliriously in the s
tands.
Reiner was disgusted. How lucky could they get? Bayern had the match under control for nearly ninety minutes and with only seconds left let it get away from them. He’d never seen such sloppiness, such utter stupidity in his life. Now they’d have to go into overtime. Though he tried not to look back at Bayern’s missed opportunities, the furious Reiner felt like a steaming volcano inside. He pounded his fist on the tabletop. Startled, the inspector jumped back, bumping into the table, knocking over his chair—their wineglasses and his empty plate fell to the floor. People at nearby tables turned to see what had happened. Thérèse hurried over with a broom and swept up the broken glass.
The stranger’s outburst had surprised the inspector. Though his mind knew better, his body had been trained to react instantly in such situations, as if the man’s anger had been directed at him. Taking out a handkerchief, Mazarelle wiped off the wet sleeve of his jacket. “Sorry,” Reiner said, as coolly as if nothing had happened, but he knew by the look on the inspector’s face that he’d made a mistake.
In that fleeting moment Mazarelle had a thought. It was nothing more than a hunch about this excitable stranger with the musty leather jacket that he’d been sitting next to for more than an hour now, this unknown visitor who refused to tell him his name. Whoever he was, this guy might well turn out to be trouble. He definitely wanted to know more about him. When the game was over he’d tail him, find out where in Taziac he was staying. Until then, he intended to keep as calm as he could, enjoy the end of the game, and not let this weirdo out of his sight.
Three minutes was all that was left. Injury time. The already keyed-up crowd in the café grew increasingly restless watching the game as the seconds ticked by. With only a few ticks left on the clock and the score still tied 1–1, United was awarded another corner kick. It was up to Beckham now. Even Reiner, who thought him overrated, considered the Englishman a threat. His fans believed that at his best, in a tight game such as this one, he could make all the difference. They watched Beckham, forgetting their drinks, as the side of his foot met the face of the ball and sent it gracefully arcing to Sheringham, who flicked it to Solskjaer—dubbed by his teammates the “baby-faced assassin”—who slammed it home. The perfect trigonometry of a championship.
On TV the overwrought announcer screamed “GOAL! GOAL! GOAL! GOAL! GOAL!” Bayern Münich players were all down on the turf rolling around in agony. They couldn’t believe what had just happened. The café erupted. Manchester United fans were on their feet, cheering, dancing, leaping up and down. Ole Solskjaer’s splendid right-footed blow had been a stab in the heart of the Bayern rooters. They were disconsolate. Asked his reaction, one of the German players said, “I don’t have words to describe such a sickening moment.”
Mazarelle, who’d been enjoying the interviews with the players, turned to see how his tablemate was taking what had happened, but he was gone. Vanished. The inspector rushed to the front door. Shoving people aside like bowling pins, he plowed through the noisy crowd. Almost lost among the many cars parked in front of the café was a black Yamaha with a gleaming chrome exhaust. A second before the motorcycle’s engine roared into life, he spotted the stranger’s leather jacket as he sped off down the narrow rue Blanche.
Mazarelle was determined not to let this guy get away. If he’d nothing to hide, why was he behaving as if he did?
Siren wailing, the inspector’s car raced down the hill after him, sped around the church in the main square, flew past the town hall, and went barreling out of town in hot pursuit. His quarry was heading north toward Bergerac on D14. Mazarelle turned up the volume of his siren, but the stranger was riding a rocket. He’d no intention of stopping. Switching on his radio, the inspector put in a call to the commissariat and Bandu answered, a dependable rock when Mazarelle most needed one. He quickly described the situation and instructed him to set up a roadblock at the intersection with N21. That done, he stomped on his accelerator and began to pass cruising cars as if they were telephone poles. Mazarelle was almost on top of the Yamaha when the motorcycle began to slow down. Pulling up behind it, he got out, troubled that he didn’t have a gun with him.
“Why didn’t you stop?”
“I thought you were after somebody else.”
“Let’s see your license.”
The biker unzipped his jacket and went through his inside pockets as if he expected to find what he was looking for. “I must have left it at home.”
Bristling, Mazarelle ordered him to take off his helmet. It was impossible to see his face through the tinted visor.
“Why?”
“You want me to take it off for you?”
The biker removed his helmet, astonishing the inspector. The guy he’d been chasing had done a Houdini. Here was a beard, a face he’d never seen before, not to mention a thick chain around his neck with an Iron Cross. He remembered Thérèse’s description of one of the bikers who’d demolished Ali’s car. Perhaps it was the furious chase that made him lose his cool, perhaps simply frustration at having lost his man.
“Who are you?” Mazarelle grabbed the big guy, dragged him off his chopper.
“Let me go.”
“You’re one of the three assholes who smashed up Sedak’s VW, aren’t you?”
The biker wasn’t expecting to be fingered for that old prank. Lunging at his accuser, he pushed him away. Surprised by his sudden move, the off-balance inspector crumpled to the ground. He felt a shooting pain and grabbed for his twisted ankle. The roar of the fleeing motorcycle soon dopplered into the distance. Mazarelle sat there in silence on the shoulder of the road rubbing his aching ankle in a Job-like trance, but he’d no doubt he was to blame for being such a jerk. The police car’s radio crackled alive. Pulling himself to his feet, Mazarelle answered. It was Bandu.
“I’ve got him.”
“Formidable!” he shouted. “Well done, Bandu! I want you to book him for destroying evidence, obstructing justice, harassment, and resisting arrest. You can also throw in twisting my ankle with intent.”
“Are you coming into the commissariat?”
“Later. I’ve got something important to do first.”
The Café Valon was almost deserted and there were only a handful of customers inside when Mazarelle entered. As he went over to where he’d been sitting, he was noticeably favoring his good leg. How lucky can you get? he thought. He still had a good one left.
The inspector bent down and searched in the dim light underneath the table and chairs, running his hand over the scuffed and grimy floor. Nothing. His fingers came up damp, smelling of stale wine. Then he remembered that Thérèse had swept up the mess and asked her where she’d dumped it.
“In the bin with the other trash. Where do you think?”
The bin was under the bar. It took Mazarelle a while to go through it without shredding his hands on broken glass. Eventually he found what he was looking for and, trying not to smudge any prints on the napkin, carefully pocketed it. His pen, though, was gone. Probably swiped. Not the worst thing that might have happened to him when dealing with a killer.
Mickey V was busy at the rear, folding the extra chairs and stacking them up. In the warm café, his shirt collar was open wide at the neck, sweat stains under his arms. It wasn’t every day he worked this hard for his money. Mazarelle asked if he’d ever before seen the guy he’d been sitting with.
“You mean the long-haired guy? Yeah, he’s been in here.”
“Know who he is?”
He’d no idea. “Some hippie. Ask Thérèse. He was playing pool with her husband. Maybe she knows.”
But she didn’t. Ali had mentioned the stranger’s name, but Thérèse had forgotten it. “Maybe Borman or Baumgartner. Something foreign like that. All I know is he was looking for a job.”
“What kind of job?”
“Who remembers? Maybe construction. Stonemason. I’ve got to go.” She called to Valon. “I’ll be back in an hour, Mick.”
“Wait a minute,” Mazarelle ye
lled after her. “Could it have been Barmeyer?”
“Maybe. But like I said: Who remembers?”
The inspector on his way out left instructions with Valon to call him immediately if the stranger came back. “Don’t forget! It’s important.” He squeezed the owner’s arm to be sure he had his full attention. “Okay?”
Mickey struggled to loosen his grip. “Okay, okay!”
From the road, Mazarelle called the commissariat and asked to speak to Tricot. He told him he’d be there in about twenty minutes. He wanted him to leave right away for Toulouse with a piece of evidence to be scanned for prints and returned afterward. See if any of the prints matched those on the shotgun Lambert was bringing Didier. Tricot said he was ready to go. Mazarelle had been pleasantly surprised by André Tricot. He’d proven to be a valuable addition to their squad. Perhaps the inspector had become a little too suspicious lately even of his own men.
Then there was the matter of finding whoever the long-haired stranger was. He had to be tracked down. Though Mazarelle had his doubts about him being a laborer or stonemason, that possibility had to be explored. He’d get Bandu and Thibaud to question the Taziac supervisors handling the historic restoration of the village—see if anyone who’d recently been hired matched his description.
While clutching the steering wheel with one hand, Mazarelle leaned down and massaged his aching shank, which felt as if something might be broken. Probably nothing more than a sprain. And last but not least before going home to wrap his ankle in a cold compress, he wanted to pay a visit to the commissariat. Make sure their Nazi prisoner was resting comfortably before throwing the book at him.
40
THE BOX TO BAIT THE TRAP
Reiner couldn’t believe his eyes when he returned to his hideout and found the gun case in the living room empty. He’d thought that his biggest loss that day was a football game. The two rifles were nowhere in the house. If he’d any luck, they might have been stolen. A larky visit from their carousing French neighbors perhaps, or the local teenage scum scrounging for knickknacks to pawn. But given how cleanly the guns had been taken—no signs of break-in—both were highly improbable. More likely, and much more dangerous, was that Mazarelle and his flics had been there.