by Gerald Jay
When Reiner returned to Taziac, he thought his one problem was the Reece woman. He’d believed that his handyman scenario had worked perfectly—that Mazarelle was content with Ali Sedak as lone perpetrator of the L’Ermitage murders. Yet, along with attending to the Reece woman, almost out of a mix of habit and caution, he’d also been watching the inspector, tracking his movements. A useless time filler, Reiner thought, while he waited to finish the other job. But he now realized that he’d been too easily swayed by the newspaper accounts of Mazarelle’s great success. Then to learn—from the inspector himself—that Mazarelle was apparently not satisfied! Reiner supposed that, like the stubborn American woman, Mazarelle would probably never quit his hunt for the killer.
Well then, he’d simply have to take care of both of them. Reiner welcomed the opportunity. Felt energized by the risk he was taking in staying on in this house. And by the pressure of time. He guessed it’d take no more than a day or two before analysis of the guns would help the flics discover that their murder case had spread next door. Soon they’d be back in force and swarming. He knew he could meet the challenge, but he couldn’t afford to waste a minute.
Tonight it would be Mazarelle’s turn. Tomorrow the orphan. He’d do both in his own way, with care—after all, he was an artist, not a butcher. So what if everything he did wasn’t a masterpiece? How many Sistine Chapel ceilings did Michelangelo paint or how many Guernicas Picasso? He already had some exciting ideas percolating. In no time he’d have a custom-made plan set up for each of them. But both plans would have to be foolproof this time. No fuckups like the failed cave fiasco or the Phillips job—he still couldn’t believe what happened there and how he’d lost control. In the current circumstances, he’d have no second chances.
It wasn’t often that he had such a worthy adversary as the inspector. Though there was no money in his removal, which of course was an ugly blemish in any plan, Reiner was already anticipating the thrill of the challenge. He’d begin with what he’d been given. Late that night Mazarelle would be going for dinner at the Café Valon. Stuffing himself with duck confit, that well-known favorite of his. Plus a bottle of wine, to add to the several cognacs he’d had earlier in the day. Which would mean a full stomach, a slow step, and a pickled brain on his way home. So far so good!
Okay. So he’d be walking back alone, perhaps humming some American ditty to himself. The inspector, he’d read, loved American music. And as usual at that late hour, he’d take the shortcut down the gravel-covered alley to his house on the Place Mestraillat. Reiner had watched him take this route before. There were no streetlights in the narrow alley, no signs of life from the three, empty medieval buildings—one dating back to the fourteenth century—under reconstruction. The only light came from the rear of the few houses that were occupied. Based upon the way the weather had changed that late afternoon—the wind kicking up the dust and storm clouds gathering, filling the sky with enormous dark towers—it promised to be a moonless night. Perfect for what he had in mind.
But first he’d need a large cardboard box. It didn’t take him long to find just the ticket under the kitchen sink. He pulled out a brown corrugated box, the name Le Creuset printed all over it and designed to hold a large Dutch oven. Reiner emptied out the sponges, oven cleaner, floor wax, paper towels, rubber gloves, and jumbo plastic garbage bags. He lifted the empty box. The size looked right—big enough to hold a small pit bull or a medium-size cocker spaniel. After some minor adjustments, he thought, it should work beautifully.
Then, soon as it got dark, he’d leave to set the stage and wait for his leading actor to step from the wings. And after he’d said his piddling farewell lines, it’d be “Auf Wiedersehen, cher monsieur l’inspecteur!”
41
HOUSE OF WOODEN HEADS
As soon as he’d given Bandu and Thibaud their marching orders with a description of the stranger in the Café Valon, sent Tricot off to Toulouse with the napkin for Didier, and, last but not least, taken care of the garbage in the garde à vue cell, Mazarelle left for home to attend to his ankle. The weather on the way turned gloomy, overcast, humid; and Taziac, when he arrived, felt like it was wearing a heavy, damp woolen overcoat. Though they needed rain, he wasn’t looking forward to it. City people rarely do. He took the boring mail out of his box, unlocked the front door, and lumbered in—tossing the bills and advertisements onto the kitchen table. Pouring himself a glass of whiskey, he dropped into his big, comfortable red chair. The pressure on his ankle was causing him grief.
The whiskey helped. He was about to see what else might help when he realized that this was one of the rare times when he sat down in his chair that Michou didn’t suddenly swagger into the room and leap onto his lap. When he left the house, she’d no desire to go anywhere. He shuffled into the kitchen and saw that her bowl was empty. Taking out one of her special treats from the cabinet, he keyed open a small can of sardines and emptied it into her bowl. She couldn’t resist that. Ordinarily he’d even share one or two of the rich, oily sardines with Michou—a gesture of camaraderie he didn’t always feel—but the pain in his ankle seemed to have affected his appetite. He wondered how she’d gotten out of the house. The one thing he knew for sure was that she’d be back.
Upstairs, taking off his clothes, he sat naked on the edge of the bathtub and turned on the water. The cold felt good. The injured ankle, on the other hand, felt lousy when he touched it. Though swollen, it was luckily not yet a grapefruit, and the cold would keep the swelling down, the pain manageable. If it didn’t get any worse, he’d survive.
As he sat there cooled by the water rushing into the tub, he went over what it was that troubled him about the unpredictable stranger at the Café Valon. For one thing, why did the fellow tell him he was in Taziac on vacation but tell Ali, according to his wife, that he was here looking for a job? Why would someone lie about a thing like that? And why did he refuse to give his name? Or say he was a stonemason when his hands were as free of calluses as a baby’s backside? Curious, sure, but none of these were exactly capital offenses. Likewise, no crime that he was a German football fan, or his little angry outburst when München began to screw up. Yet the intensity of his gaze as he watched the last agonizing life-or-death minutes of the game was unusual. Oddly enough, it was almost the same way he stared at the halftime Mercedes-Benz commercial and its vaunted safety features. Which reminded the inspector of what happened when Reece took his friend’s Mercedes and nearly lost his life. An accident Phillips himself might otherwise have been the victim of when not only the car’s brakes but also its air bags failed to work—and most astonishing of all, both at the same time.
All of which, he supposed, added up to nothing more than a nexus of possibilities. In short, the inspector didn’t care for the smell of him. And speaking of smells—he turned off the rushing bathwater—what about that leather jacket of his with its stale, musty odor, as if he might have been staying in a house that had been closed up for months, a house similar to the McAllisters’? Now maybe if you had a name to go with it, Mazarelle, you’d really have something. He was getting closer but still no cigar.
Mazarelle wrung out the wet washcloth, tied it around his ankle, and deciding to forgo dinner and forget aspirins, he prescribed himself another glass of whiskey and a bed.
The sound in the dark that pried open his eyes was the kitchen cuckoo clock. His wristwatch swore it was ten o’clock. Though he hadn’t slept as long as he’d wanted to, the few hours had done him a world of good, along with what had once been a cold compress. He untied it. Feeling hungry, he padded into the kitchen, opened the refrigerator. Though enjoying the cold air on his bare thighs, he wasn’t impressed with what he saw. Michou’s sardines were still untouched in the bowl on the floor, but that hungry he wasn’t. Then he remembered Mickey’s duck confit surrounded by its caramelized onions and orange glaze waiting for him at the Valon. He threw on his clothes and limped out the door.
No question, Mazarelle concluded after daubing
up the last of his dinner’s exquisite gravy-soaked morsels, he was glad he’d changed his mind. It would have been worth even a much longer and more uncomfortable trek. A Lucullan feast to end a trying day. The duck as rich as Midas and meltingly tender, the local cèpes plucked fresh from their bosky depths and ennobled by the bird’s savory fat and garlic. The entire meal glorified by a heady, opulent, but not ostentatious bottle of Saint-Émilion that seemed to remove any hint of pain from his left leg.
At the door, he heartily shook hands with Mickey, relaying his compliments to Giorgio the chef, and with that the inspector walked off into the night, feeling buoyant, at one with the universe. Not only pleasantly light-headed but light on his feet as well. The alley on the way home was a black pool of silence with only occasional splashes of light. The air still warm, heavy, but no moon, no stars, no rain, no pain. With Mazarelle humming a jazz version of “La Vie en Rose,” à la the great Louis. But not so loud that he failed to hear the giggling up ahead, even though he could see no one there. The tires on the gravel creeping up on him from behind he’d missed completely. Then came the angry, jangling bell sounding its alarm.
Mazarelle whirled around to see what all the noise was about. But before he realized what it was, the bicycle that was almost upon him swerved wildly, skidded, and raced on by. “Idiot!” Mazarelle shouted after him. “Put on your light.”
He stood rooted to the spot, watching the bike’s flickering red taillight flipping the bird at him as it disappeared down the alley. “Damn fool,” he said, relieved and chuckling to himself.
At the rear of the house across the way, a light suddenly went on in an upstairs window and a woman looked out to see what the noise was all about. The inspector walked on, but before the light went out he saw the couple in the alley with their arms around each other, the face of the laughing young woman gleaming.
“That you, Gaby?”
“Inspector Mazarelle!” She sounded surprised, but she had seen him coming—weaving drunkenly in their direction. “That guy on the bicycle was certainly in a big hurry. He didn’t hit you, did he?”
“Imbecile. Completely batty. Thinks he can see in the dark. What are you doing out at this hour anyhow?”
“Félix and I were just coming back from seeing some friends. You remember Félix, don’t you, Inspector?”
He nodded at her thin, sullen pal with the gold earring shimmering in the shadows. She had pointed him out, hanging around the bakery, when Mazarelle had asked about boyfriends. But she insisted he wasn’t. Just a friend, not a boyfriend. “He’s too serious for me,” she’d said. “The only thing funny about him is his name.”
Just like her mother, he thought. Not particularly smart about men and always looking to be amused. That’s what fascinated the youthful Martine about Mazarelle, she later admitted, after she’d found him. He used to think he’d found her. A young, beautiful woman who’d fallen in love with the stories he’d told her about the bizarre, psychotic minds he’d encountered, the adrenaline rush of solving crimes, the dangers of the life he’d led. What she was really looking for, he discovered, was an abortion. She’d soon change her mind about that too—along with so many other things in their relationship.
The inspector asked, “Don’t you have school tomorrow?”
“School!” She laughed. “There’s no school. It’s the summer. My vacation.”
“You’re right. And this summer you’re working in the bakery. Don’t you have to get up early to help Louise?”
“I’m an early riser.”
“Don’t talk nonsense. You’re a growing girl. You need your sleep. At least eight hours every night, according to the doctors. Sleep, they say, heals all wounds and comforts the afflicted.”
“You hear that?” Gaby grabbed Félix’s arm and yanked. “Bedtime,” she told him, giggling.
Just like her mother, he thought, as he walked away. He hadn’t gone very far when he heard a cat crying. But it wasn’t just any cat, it was Michou. He was sure of it. And she wasn’t simply unhappy. He knew her unhappy sound, the same bawling one she made after climbing a tree and discovering she couldn’t get down. This time she was scared-out-of-her-wits terrified. In fact the closer he moved to its source, the more horrific her wailing became. It sounded as if someone were torturing her.
“Don’t worry, Michou! I hear you. Hold on!”
The animal’s awful howls seemed to be coming from the house of the wooden heads, a fourteenth-century stone structure destined for renovation. Time had reduced it to a roofless frame. Its walls were still standing (some provisionally supported by thick beams), as was the front doorway with its three carved wooden heads over the lintel—the foreheads squished, the mouths grimly turned down. Once inside the doorway, Mazarelle was surprised that even without a roof the interior was darker than the alley outside. He stopped to get his bearings. The howls filled every inch of the blackness with torment. Groping in his pocket, the inspector pulled out his Swiss Army knife, a compact model appropriately called the Midnight Manager. He flipped on its bright LED, hurrying toward the rear wall and the explosively shaking cardboard box on the ground.
“Coming, Michou! I’m coming!”
As he got nearer, he could see that the box had been wrapped like a mummy from end to end in tape. Was this some awful prank cooked up by a demented neighborhood kid to amuse himself? Nothing was going to get out of that box alive. Mazarelle tore into the tape—turning it into harmless plastic fringe—then ripped off the box top and out leaped one very frightened cat. The inspector grabbed Michou before she could get away and attempted to calm her down. It was a slow process, but he thought he was making progress when, without warning, he began to sneeze violently and dropped his light. As he bent to pick it up, Michou bolted.
“Merde!” cried the inspector.
The heavy beam narrowly missed his head as the timber brace crashed to the ground. At first, he wasn’t sure what it was. Then came the second brace, and the creaking of the wall of stones grew louder, the way the roar of an avalanche rolls over you before the mountain does. Mazarelle yelled for help and started to move in the opposite direction as if he imagined he might somehow outrun it, but he didn’t have a chance.
Gabrielle and Félix hadn’t gone very far and, having found another dark corner, weren’t planning to, when they heard the tumultuous noise and the inspector’s shouts. Amazed at what must have happened, they ran back at once to see how they could help. Félix noticed a white light leaking out from under one of the piles of stones and said, “Come on!”
The two young people were a good team as they furiously lifted the large stones in a desperate effort to free Inspector Mazarelle. Despite their frantic energy, youth, and intensity, it took them a while to get to the bottom of the pile. When they reached it, the white light was still on but there was no sign of the inspector. Gabrielle, her face sweaty, flashed the light at another pile looking for a sign and spotted a shoe sticking out. “Look,” she cried, “it’s his shoe.”
“Are you sure it’s his?”
“Of course it’s his. Look how big it is.”
Félix peered inside and whistled. They were big shoes to fill. Size 50, extra wide.
Gaby thought it was just as well his foot wasn’t in it. She told Félix to keep digging. She was going to call the police and get some help. As she hurried away, she failed to see the bicycle’s flickering red taillight swallowed up in the distance.
42
THE BILL COMES DUE
Reiner was up and about before the first gravel truck of the day. His last day in France, and the sun peeping out over the dew-drenched fields. It promised to be another hot, humid one, but cloudless blue and brushed with fair-weather, salmon-pink, Day-Glo streaks. And for him, a busy day. First, the phone call to Paris, where he had news for his employers. Their bill had come due.
Locally at that hour, there’d been no traffic to speak of on the road out of town. The Total station at the crossroads hadn’t even opened yet
. Leaning his bicycle against the glass telephone booth, he checked the tires. Rubber taut on the rims and leak-free, treads still as good as new. Perfect. This bike belonged to the Missus, and its tires held their air the way a Japanese pearl diver holds her breath. Dialing Pellerin’s number in Paris, he deposited the long-distance toll.
The ringing telephone reached out for anyone on the premises—turning Blond over on their mattress and burying him under his pillow. It woke up a cranky Pellerin, annoyed to have been pulled out of bed so early. “A minute,” he whispered, when he realized who it was. Why, he wondered glancing at the clock, was he calling at this hour? Dragging himself and the phone into the living room, he closed the door behind him.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong. I’ve finished the job.”
“You mean—?”
“All taken care of. You have five hours to make the last half of your payment. I’m expecting it in Zurich today by high noon. Don’t fail me.”
“No problem.” Pellerin promised, “The money will be there.”
Until confirmed one way or the other when he spoke to Spada in Numbered Accounts, Reiner wasn’t holding his breath. More convinced now than when he began that the retired French agents couldn’t be trusted. Assuming they’d do one of two things: pay him the money they owed him or rat him out. But even if they never paid him in full, he’d already made a killing. (This weakness for puns, where did it come from? France, as he’d already suspected, was having an unwholesome influence on him.)
Regardless of what they did, however, they’d suffer the same consequences for delaying his departure. Reiner intended to dispatch them as permanently as he had the inspector under the medieval stone wall. As for the American woman, she was on the menu for later that evening. Pierre Barmeyer carefully covering his tracks in France as if he were never there. He was genuinely looking forward to showing Molly Reece how good a cook he was, proud of his skill. A crooked smile spread across his face in anticipation of his pleasure. He savored the thought of her visit. The secret of his omelette aux champignons was, of course, the mushrooms.