He began to reach inside his coat for the photograph.
The fat man levelled his pistol, and Gadwa cautioned, “Be careful, my friend.”
Joe bristled at the moniker but let it slide. He opened the overcoat to show the inside of its flap and slowly pulled the rolled photograph from inside the pocket. He handed it to Gadwa, who unrolled it and looked, then handed it to Marie.
“I have always hated that photograph,” Gadwa said.
“For good reason,” Joe said. “Like Ephialtes viewing a photograph of Leonidas.”
Gadwa reacted as though bee-stung, but recovered and spat, “Don’t be dramatic.” He waved. “Go on with your little story. I find it entertaining.”
“In the photo, I knew who Gresham was from the beginning. From their uniforms, I could tell the French from the English, and I knew who had died and who had lived. Huntington, the man you had killed on the ship, told me how you had prospered following the war. Since I had not met you, I assumed that you were Marcel, but the woman at a bookstore showed me differently. “Once she pointed you out, it all came clear. How long had you been selling information to the Germans?”
“Since before the war,” he answered. “I had been a military liaison in Berlin for a few years and began then. That, actually, was how I ended up where I was. Through others, I was transferred to the Champagne following the first battle there because everyone knew a second would eventually come. Joffre was so predictable.”
He looked to Joe almost expectantly, his fingers worrying against his thumbs. The man had probably not ever been able to tell his story to anyone, had held only his own council. Joe understood that being able to hear it and to tell it must have felt somehow liberating for the traitor.
“Every night that you went out, you sold something to the Germans—where holes were in the concertina wire, when troop movements were scheduled and advances planned, where the approach roads were. You volunteered to go out alone. Everyone thought you courageous for taking their spots in the rotation. Your superiors probably talked about medals. After that morning, though, with the slaughter that took place, you must have known that you needed to disappear. You were in advance when the day began, out front with Rene Marcel. After the battle, or during it more likely, you kill Marcel and change uniforms, wound yourself enough to be removed from the front. You slide into hiding.”
“Very good,” Gadwa said.
“I wonder, though,” Joe said.
“Yes?”
“How did you pull it off since then?”
“It was so much easier than you might think, so much easier than I imagined that it would be. I thought that I would have to disappear into Germany and begin again. That would not have been so bad, for I had accumulated millions in Swiss francs over the many years that I worked for the Germans.
“But once I became Marcel and spent my time convalescing as him, I had the opportunity to go through his business papers and realized that I had a fortune waiting to be picked, like low-hanging fruit. Especially with Wilde dead in the battle, and, I thought, everyone else. Imagine my surprise when I found out that Dillard had lived. . . and then Gresham. By then, though, I had already taken over that business and built it into what it now is.”
“And nobody questioned it?”
“Why would they. The facts supported the story, even if the facts were wrong. That is what truth is—whatever you can support with facts. People wanted to believe, so they did. And once I became Rene Marcel, one of the richest men in France, I could tell my story as I wanted it to be. Politicians and businessmen kissed my toes because I had what they wanted—money and power.”
“And why rock that boat?”
“Pardon?”
“The politics of pragmatism. Goddamn you.”
“Yes,” Gadwa said. “He probably already has,” then added, “I suppose we will both see if Nietzsche is right or not. But, please, sit.” He waved toward chair.
For emphasis, the fat man pointed the barrel of his pistol toward the chair.
Joe sat, his hands in his coat pockets. He watched Marie, her eyes steady and black, but not looking at him even though she stood facing him, backlit by a floor lamp. Gadwa walked up behind her then stepped to the side to stand to her right and turned to say something to the fat man.
For a moment, Joe felt as though he was looking at Vermeer’s “Soldier and Young Girl Smiling.” Marie, beautiful as he now knew her, faced him with her hands drawn together in front of her and her fingertips dusting lightly together as though she was holding a small cup, the expression on her face more lost than warm. Gadwa, standing tall and with his back to Joe as in Vermeer’s painting, was shown in the orange glow of a lamp. Except the young girl was not smiling and the nearly faceless soldier was a coward.
Gadwa turned to look at Joe, his small, red-rimmed and gray eyes searching and steady. He crossed his arms, but he did not smile as he looked at Joe. His mouth slowly tightened into the small, thin line of his lips. “You are a fool,” he said.
Joe had to agree, and it wasn’t the first time that notion had crossed Joe’s mind. He just hoped it wasn’t the last time as well. When Joe did not answer, Gadwa walked to a side table to pour himself a brandy. Before drinking, however, he held the bottle up and read the label. Then he took a mouthful, moving it around in his mouth to test it on his palate. A mantel clock chimed the hour.
Gadwa nodded and turned to Joe. “For you?” he asked.
“Whiskey.”
Gadwa nodded, “Of course.” He tined ice into a small glass then splashed in whiskey. He handed Joe the whiskey and Marie a brandy and raised his glass, “A votre sante.”
Joe paused. “To the Lost,” he said, then he drained his glass. He held the glass to the light and examined it, amber liquid clinging to the sides.
“Why did you come here?” Gadwa asked, licking his lips, thin and pale.
“Seemed like the thing to do at the time,” Joe said. “I’d be happy to leave if I’m interrupting anything.”
Gadwa laughed. “The famous American sense of humor. . . . I hate it.”
“It’s gotten us through some tough times,” Joe said.
“Yes, I suppose it has. You don’t always realize when you’re beaten.”
“Maybe that’s why we never are.” He looked at Marie standing with her back to the fireplace, her glass full and placed on the marble mantel. She avoided his eyes with studious labor.
He looked at the fat man with the small pistol. “Boss not let you imbibe?” he asked.
The man smiled his sallow smile but did not answer.
Joe shrugged. “You have a large number of people working for you.”
Gadwa shrugged. “I do,” he said. “And in many places across Europe.”
“It must cost a bit of money to pay such an army.”
“It does, but, then, the peace has been very good for me.”
“You did all right from the war.”
Gadwa took three long, slow strides to stand in front of Joe. He backhanded Joe in the mouth, a feline blow that bloodied the corner of his mouth but one that nearly sent him to the floor. His first reaction was to strike back, but there was the large man with the sallow face smiling at him and that little pistol readied. He looked at Marie. In her eyes he saw fear. Her eyes told him to do nothing, to say nothing.
Gadwa looked at Marie. “We have to leave.”
“You bastard,” she said. “Why have you done all this?”
Gadwa cupped her chin in his hand. “You are so beautiful,” he said. “So naïve and so stupid.”
He squeezed, she jerked away, he slapped her.
Joe lunged for Gadwa, but the fat man was there. He clubbed Joe with the pistol and sent Joe back to the floor.
Gadwa smiled at Joe. “The cowboy to save his damsel in distress. How noble. But, thank you for coming here tonight, Monsieur. It helped immensely.”
He took Marie by the arm, “We will leave now.” She tried fighting loose but Gadwa held t
ight.
Gadwa said to Joe, “My man here will stay with you. Please listen carefully to what he tells you.”
“And Mademoiselle Dillard?”
“She will come with me.” Gadwa looked from Joe to Marie, a thin smile on his lips. He took Marie by the arm and led her out, stopping to whisper in the large man’s ears.
“Mort?” Joe asked after Gadwa and Marie had left the room.
“No,” the man answered, shaking his head. He waited as a door closed in the back of the house. Silence interrupted the room. All Joe could hear was the popping of the coals in the fireplace. The large man stepped around the sofa and to the mantel where he took Marie’s glass of brandy. He drank a little, swirled it in his mouth as Gadwa had and tasted it, shrugged at Joe, and drank the rest in a single gulp.
He looked toward the back of the house before pouring himself another glass of brandy. He kept the pistol on Joe and placed the glass on an end table, using one hand to pour. His eyes darted between the flow of brandy waving in red circles in the glass and Joe sitting. The man leaned against the mantel, a look of sullen content as he sipped from the glass and licked his lips as he finished.
He placed the glass on the end table. Again he lifted the stopper from the bottle and began to pour the brandy.
“What then?” Joe asked.
“I will let you go,” the man said.
“What?”
The man shrugged, indicating that it was not his decision. “I am to tell you that Gadwa is leaving France tonight. He will be at his house in Montmartre for a couple of hours. If you bring the manuscript, he will let the woman go. If you do not bring the manuscript, he will take her.” He laughed. “I suppose that means that he will kill her, eventually he will kill her.”
His eyes returned to the pouring brandy. Joe leapt at him, taking hold of the gun hand in his own and circling his arm around the man’s side with his other, lifting the man onto his shoulder and driving the large man back against the brick of the wall.
The fat man dropped his gun but did not fall. Instead, he hit Joe in the back using his joined fists as a club, battering them together on Joe’s neck. His grip loosened. The fat man pulled Joe away and head butted him. Then his legs went rubber, and he fell like a sack of cement. The fight had not gone well. He was getting his ass kicked.
The fat man stood over him, huffing. The pistol was back in his hand and pointed again at Joe.
“Arrêtez.” The word came from the back door where Quire stood, his own pistol leveled straight arm at the fat man.
The fat man looked from Quire to Joe and back at Quire.
“Don’t,” Quire said, then in French: “Je vais vous tuer.” He added in English, “Sure as shit, Mr. Arbuckle, I will kill your ass.”
The fat man sighed and dropped his pistol. He shrugged his shoulders.
“Bon,” said Quire. “Sit against the wall. There. Legs straight out in front of you.” He quickly pointed with his pistol.
The man did as he was told. His large legs stuck out from his large body.
“The Webley,” Joe said.
The man shrugged and slid the Webley across the floor.
“Impeccable timing,” Joe said to Quire. He wiped blood from a cut on his forehead.
“Like I told you. I have luck with trouble.” He added, “And I said that I’d meet you here. After I got to Ballard, I came straight here.”
“Many thanks, brother,” Joe said.
Quire nodded. “You going to kill him?” he asked.
“It’s a thought.”
“Mort?” the large man asked. His hand moved slowly toward the fireplace tools racked near him.
Joe lifted the pistol from the floor and aimed, cocking it and sighting down his arm and the short barrel into the man’s large chest. Shoot for the middle, he had been told by his sergeant, and you won’t miss. His finger tensed.
“Wait,” Quire said, stepping forward and bending on one knee next to the large man. He held a small pillow in one hand and a Webley pistol in the other. He bent close and asked a question in French. When the man did not answer, he asked again, louder.
He did not answer and Quire placed the pillow against the man’s foot and sank the Webley into the down of the pillow and shot. Feathers and blood and bone meal exploded from the man’s foot. The man cried out. He went to grab his foot, but Quire took the man’s head by the hair and drew it back so that the man looked Quire in the face, sweat and tears running down his cheeks.
Quire repeated his question. He still did not answer. Quire let go of the man, who slid into a fetal position with his hands holding tight to his bloody and now useless foot. Quire stepped to the sofa and chose another pillow. Down from the first pillow was stuck to his hand by the man’s blood. Quire knelt again and pulled the man to a sitting position and placed the pillow to his crotch and sank the Webley into the pillow.
“Non,” he cried, pitiful and bestial. “Please,” he said in English, the single syllable broken.
Quire asked again, “How many men are with Marcel?”
The large man, sweat rolling from his forehead, his shirt beginning to darken. He swallowed and said, “Deux, trois.”
Quire said, “Merci,” then patted his shoulder. He hit the man in the face so hard that his head bounced from the bricks and he slumped to the floor.
“If you want to kill him, we can, but I don’t think there’s a need.” Quire stood and wiped his hands free of down on the back of the sofa.
“Shall we tie him up?” Joe asked.
Quire shook his head. “If he leaves, it won’t be to follow us or even to warn Marcel. He has failed. I imagine Marcel is getting tired of the sloppy work of his people and will probably kill him. No, he’ll be visiting a doctor to fix up that foot of his. Us, though, we should be going.” He stood and winked at Joe as he walked past to the front of the house.
They walked out into the increasing cold of the night, down toward Saint-Germain to find a cab, and while they walked, quickly but not so quickly as to draw attention, Joe told Quire the story and that the man’s name was Gadwa and not Marcel.
“Damn,” Quire said.
They found a taxi and Joe gave him a ten spot to hurry across the city.
The driver, a bellicose man with a short, stubby cigar attached to his lower lip, nodded when Joe told him the address. He then offered to sell Joe and Quire cigars from a box he kept on the seat next to him. “They are not Algerian,” he said in French.
“Just what you need, a bad five-cent cigar,” Quire said. He reached a hand over the back of the driver’s seat, exchanging a couple of franc for a cigar and pulled the cigar under his nose, inhaling the aroma. “Might even be Caribbean.”
Joe sighed and looked through the front windshield. “What I need,” he said, “is not going to be found in something that looks like a dried dog turd.”
Quire smiled. In a moment, his smile dissolved. He looked at Joe. For the first time in the couple of days that Joe had known Quire, Joe detected an introspection in the man’s voice. “Yes,” Quire said. “What you’d like, what we’d all like again, is to be right. In this world, brother, that is the most difficult thing to be.”
Joe did not answer. Quire sat back in the shadows of the seat, looking out his side window and thinking his own lost thoughts.
The street’s tarred pavement ahead bounced in shimmering lines in the headlights of the passing automobiles. The buildings on either side of the rue Saint-Martin disappeared into the gray, acidic smoke and the haze of the blue-black sky. As they crossed the Seine, Joe looked down along the lighted quai alongside the river, black and empty except for a series of tugs and barges tied to the pilings along the concrete pier. Fog pooled in wraithlike vapors alongside the banks of the river which ran slow and opaque and controlled within the city’s charter. He looked back at the river as they passed over the bridge. The river curled and flowed black through the city, sparkling with bounced reflective light but welling heavy and dark as it a
pproached and underran the bridge’s supports. The river disappeared behind them. Joe turned to look again at the city cast in shades of gray under the black sky. The night fog shone in the streetlights of the city. Like the night and the river, the fog floated as though it might lay dark and mazy on the city.
A few minutes after passing over the river, Joe directed the cabbie to let them off at the end of the street down from Marcel’s house. They stood fifty yards from the house, often the width of the no-man’s land between the trenches during the last war.
“That it?” Quire asked.
“It is.”
Joe could feel Quire’s tension rise, like someone turning on the heat from pilot to full.
“Ballard should be nearby.” Quire’s tone was as hard as pounded steel.
“That would be good.”
“I told him to wait for us here.”
“He have the valise?” Joe asked.
“He does,” Quire said.
Joe nodded. “I hope he hasn’t begun without us.”
“I hope he hasn’t finished without us.” Quire laughed a little, the temper in his tone loosening.
“I suppose we should wait a moment and see if we see him.”
Quire looked around him and smiled. “You know,” he said, placing the unlit cigar in the corner of his mouth and chewing. “The first hotel I stayed in was around here somewhere. A real ritzy place that I had decided to put up in for a while. I figured that I was dying fast enough, so there was no reason to save my money. It had a damn drinking fountain in the bathroom, it was so damn ritzy. The goddamn thing must have been made for midgets, though, ’cause it was down near the floor and I had to get on my hands and knees to get a drink from it.” He looked blank faced at Joe, then winked.
Joe looked at Quire open-mouthed. It was as though Quire had no notion of the errand they were on, like they were drunken comrades intent only on the easy promises due young men on a Paris evening.
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