House of Cards

by Stanley Ellin

  I gave up at last near the entrance to the Alimentation Building, which seemed to cover at least an acre of ground and where I knew there was no use continuing any pursuit. Then it struck me that I might have been lured into doing just what I had done, follow a false lead intended to separate me from Paul. Carnival sounds filled the air around me—the snapping of banners in the wind, the hard-boiled Belleville accents of a barker proclaiming that he had on hand the one indispensable kitchen utensil, accordion music somewhere in the distance, a shrill chorus from some small schoolgirls trailing after a stout little nun à la queue leu leu, in single file like ducklings—but insinuating through it all what I heard in my ears was a whisper of menace, a chuckling, demented note of triumphant evil, the dry rasping of the cobra’s scales as it slowly uncoils to confront its prey.

  That was enough to send me racing back full speed to the pavilion where I had left Paul and Louis. I twisted and dodged through the gathering crowd, recklessly jostling aside anyone who barred the way, learning at first hand how a sun-filled carnival atmosphere could make a nightmare taking place in it that much more nightmarish.

  I could have hugged Louis when I saw him standing with an arm around Paul, both of them exactly where I had left them, both absorbed in the workings of a toy world whose inhabitants were only the size of matchsticks and never dangerous.

  I waited until I got my breath back and then went up to them, drawing Louis aside out of Paul’s earshot.

  “No luck?” said Louis.

  “No, but I know where to find him as soon as I get back to the house. He’s a guard hired to keep people away from the meetings they have there. Bourdon seems to be his immediate boss, and he might be able to explain what this is all about. In any case he’ll know where I can look up the bastard. His name’s Albert, by the way, and the last time I saw him he was packing a gun.”

  Louis frowned at me. “If this Bourdon is his boss, how do you know he wasn’t the one who set him on your tail?”

  “Because he has no reason to. Morillon’s the one behind this.”

  “To what purpose? Morillon seems to be a type who plans accidents, not shootings. Or is it possible,” Louis said grimly, “that your lady friend never went to de Gonde at all, but went straight to Morillon and told him about your intention to expose them? That wouldn’t leave him much choice, would it? His one hope would be to get rid of you before you spill the beans. Next thing we know, there’s this species of gunman—”

  “Do you think she’d let anything like that happen while Paul was with me?” I demanded.

  “She wouldn’t even know what was happening, pal. She runs in a panic to Morillon, tells him the disaster they face; he tells her not to worry, that he’ll make a deal with you, and as soon as she’s gone he picks up the phone and arranges for a quick assassination no matter how it endangers the kid. What the hell do you think the kid’s safety could possibly mean to him at a time like this? You’ve got some brain all right, giving a woman like that warning you were going to pull the house down over her head!”

  “And you’ve got some imagination, working up a sweat because we happen to run into a little squirt I once saw carrying a gun. If it wasn’t just coincidence—”

  “One bump is coincidence,” Louis said. “Two could mean business. Also, when I got my first look at this Albert over by the wine booths he was with another type I’d hate to meet up with in a dark alley. Even bigger than you, shoulders like a barn door, arms like meat hooks on him. One of those animals spends all his time lifting weights, I guarantee. And a pretty little head too small for the rest of him, with golden curls on it like one of those Greek statues in the Louvre. Did you see anyone like that standing around when you ran outside?”

  “No.”

  “Anyone like that ever show himself around the rue de Courcelles?”

  “Not that I know.”

  “Oh, you’d know it all right, if you once got a look at him. This is a type who liked to pull the wings off flies when he was a kid, and you can see it in his face right now. It also shapes up as a type who might get a lot of fun out of pushing people downstairs or driving cars over them, if you know what I mean.”

  “I know what you mean. What do you want me to do about it? Run to the police and tell them you got a look at someone and knew right off he killed Sidney Scott and Max Marchat?”

  “No,” said Louis, “what I want you to do is get home right now and ask your Monsieur de Gonde what the hell is going on. Ask him what he knows about this Albert and his buddy being on your tail, and if he can’t answer that, let him find out about it from someone who can.”

  What he said made sense. I was in no position to remain on the scene and invite trouble with Albert and his muscular friend while I had Paul in charge. So I explained to Paul that the time had come for our departure, that we would return next day to see the rest of the fair, and steered him, obedient but plaintively arguing the point, out of the pavilion and along the promenade leading toward the Place de la Versailles gate, Louis trailing close behind as a sort of rear guard.

  I saw the big man before Louis did, recognized him at once from his description. Immense arms and shoulders bulging under a too-tight jacket, a disproportionately small head, the flawless features of a vacuous Adonis, and a crown of beautifully tended gold ringlets that would make any woman enviously wonder who his hairdresser was. Hands in pockets, he was leaning against a pillar, sleepily scanning the passing crowd. Then he caught sight of me and came wide awake. He turned to signal someone further up the promenade and started breasting his way through the crowd in my direction. The man he had signaled, young, hard-faced, looking as if he would be more at home in a black leather jacket than in the neat business suit he was wearing, fell in step with the crowd and sauntered toward me. Then I thought to glance behind me and saw Albert moving in. Three of them, all intent on the business at hand.

  “Trouble,” I said to Louis, pulling up short.

  “Yes, I see it coming. One of them bumps us, next thing there’s a fight about it, maybe a knife shoved into you. And right in the middle of the fair, too. You’d think this was rue Lepic on a Saturday midnight, the way those bastards are handling it.”

  Paul looked up from one to the other of us. “What bastards?” he asked.

  “Big ears,” said Louis. “Never mind that. Just keep your eyes on the ground, and if you see a diamond Véronique dropped around here this morning she’ll give you a reward for it. Just keep looking and don’t say a word until you find it.”

  The unholy threesome closing in around us had stopped in their tracks when we did and remained poised at a distance, the passing throngs eddying around them. We were not far from the graveled walk leading to a row of model homes, and just inside the walk was a phone booth.

  I said to Louis, “That phone is our best bet. I figure the trouble is supposed to start before we can make it to the gate, but if I call de Gonde and tell him what’s going on, he can be down here in no time. After all, our friend Albert is supposed to be on his payroll.”

  “What if de Gonde isn’t there to take the call?” said Louis.

  “Then Bernard will be, or even Bosiers. The main thing is for one of them to get the kid out of here.”

  When we moved toward the phone booth, Albert and his henchmen moved, too, closing in a little more, but when I entered the booth they remained at ease where they were. The roadway fronting the model homes led away from the promenade, but I knew that didn’t worry them any. At the far end of the roadway was a board fence ten feet high which made this a blind alley offering no way of escape. Sooner or later, the trio knew, we would have to return to the promenade, where in the thick of the crowd anything could be made to happen.

  I kept the door of the phone booth open as I dialed de Gonde’s number, and Paul tugged protestingly at my jacket.

  “How can I find Véronique’s diamond if you make me stay here?” he demanded.

  “Because she might have dropped it right here wh
en she made a phone call this morning.”

  “She’s unbelievably careless,” Louis remarked. “The ground must be littered with her diamonds. Just keep looking.”

  I was getting no sound of ringing or busy signal on the phone, nothing but dead silence. I tried Bernard’s number to no better effect.

  “What’s the matter?” Louis said.

  “Plenty. This thing must be out of order.”

  Louis swore under his breath. “Did you try the operator? Maybe you can get through to her.”

  I tried the operator, while from my vantage point I watched Albert and his henchmen watching me. Then the operator’s voice sounded in my ear. I explained my inability to get the numbers I had been calling, she asked me to wait a minute while she investigated the matter, and in less than a minute was back on the line.

  “The numbers you have been calling, monsieur, have been discontinued.”

  “But that’s impossible!”

  “There is no use shouting at me this way, monsieur. All telephone service to the address you are calling has been discontinued.”

  I had a feeling of total unreality. The sunshiny fairgrounds, the watchful trio deployed among the passers-by on the promenade, Paul scrabbling in the gravel underfoot while Louis kept a protective hand on the collar of his jacket, the echo of the operator’s voice in my ear—everything suddenly seemed part of a sinister dream.

  “Monsieur?” said the operator impatiently, and I started from the dream to find it wasn’t a dream but a wholly sinister reality.

  “One more favor, mademoiselle,” I said, and gave her Madame Cesira’s number. “Will you please put this call through for me?”

  Now it seemed like an endless time before she reported back. “Service to that number also has been discontinued, monsieur.”

  “It can’t be! Please make sure of that, mademoiselle. This is a very important call.”

  “Monsieur, it doesn’t matter whether your call is intended to settle an international crisis or merely to learn the time of day; service to that number has been discontinued.”

  Parisian operators have short tempers. Before I could say another word the line went dead again, and I had to grope in my pocket for another coin.

  “What is it?” Louis said. “No answer?”

  “More than that. No phone service. I’m going to ring the police and have them send a man here to get us out of this. There won’t be any trouble once these thugs see a uniform heading toward them.”

  “Too late,” said Louis. “Look.”

  Albert must have signaled the weight-lifter that we had remained under siege long enough. The big man came sauntering toward the phone booth, the others following his lead. As if to prove that Louis knew his customers, there was a flicker of light along a blade that the hard-faced one slipped from his pocket.

  “Don’t ask any questions,” I told Louis. “Just get the kid out of here as quick as you can while they’re concentrating on me and head straight for your room.”

  “I’d rather stay here,” said Louis. “I can still deal out a good kick in the shins when I have to.”

  “Do what I tell you.” I yanked Paul up by an arm and thrust him at Louis. “Both of you start moving right now!”

  But their way was suddenly barred by Albert and the hard-faced man with the knife, and my way out of the booth was barred by the weight-lifter. This maneuver had been executed with such casual efficiency that no one in the passing throng was even led to glance our way.

  The weight-lifter looked me up and down contemptuously.

  “You’ve got a nerve,” he said in an incongruously high-pitched voice. “You see citizens waiting to make a call but you think it’s funny to stand here keeping that lousy phone warm. You sure as hell are looking for trouble, aren’t you?”

  His face, thrust against mine, was smooth-skinned and pink-cheeked as a baby’s, and from it rose an overpowering flowery reek of cheap cologne. His eyes were veiled; his lips curled in a pout; the whole look of him, as Louis had remarked, suggested a child who was preparing for a quietly happy session of pulling wings off flies. But there was nothing childlike about his strength. Trapped in the confines of the phone booth I tried to push past that mountain of muscle, and his shoulder wedged into my chest, pinning me even tighter.

  Through the door of the booth I saw Louis and Paul sandwiched between Albert and his hard-faced aide, Louis with a look of alarm on his face, Paul gaping at me; and I said to the weight-lifter in an amiable voice, “Look, let the little man and the kid go, and we can settle this between ourselves. You and me alone, or any way you want it.”

  “That’s a good idea, you and me alone. We wouldn’t want to scare the kid with any rough stuff, would we? My friend there can take him for a walk meanwhile. You want to tell the kid it’s all right with you?”

  So it was Paul who was the intended victim, and once he was hustled away into the crowd it would be too late to do anything about it. “Steady, big stuff,” the high-pitched voice whispered with relish. “Try anything, and the kid might get his throat slit.”

  My hands were at my sides, but I still had a grip on the phone. I jabbed it viciously into the belly of the weight-lifter, and, although it was like trying to dent a block of granite, it made him grunt and fall back a step.

  Those few inches between us were all I needed. I lifted an uppercut to his jaw which sent him staggering back out of the doorway of the phone booth. Then I burst out of the booth myself, following up the first punch with a wild right flush into that surprised face. The classically chiseled nose smashed to a pulp, blood spurted from it, the weight-lifter howled with pain, and yet, as if he really were granite, he refused to go down. His arms went out and clutched me to him, his breath in my face was a bloody froth. Half conscious, he still had enough strength in him to make my ribs crack under the pressure he was exerting.

  An excited crowd was gathering around us now, coming on the run from every direction. Over the weight-lifter’s shoulder I saw Albert suddenly grab Paul by the arm and try to pull him into the crowd, saw Louis wheel and deliver a stiff-legged kick—a lovely display of la savate—which caught Albert in the small of the back and sent him sprawling. The next instant, Louis and Paul had melted into the crowd and out of sight. When Albert came to his feet and started after them, I knew that he must have been the one personally assigned to seize Paul.

  I tried to heave myself free of the weight-lifter’s grip, failed, kneed him savagely, and this time he went down writhing. Then I was after Albert as he furiously tried to push his way through the crowd in pursuit of his victim. I caught him with a flying tackle that brought him down full-length, women screaming and men swearing as we landed among them. The knife-wielder dived on top of me; we made a kicking, squirming pile as I rolled away, trying to dodge the knife blow I anticipated, and then, incredibly, I was lying there alone.

  I lurched to my feet and looked around dazedly. The crowd was solidly around me, loud with comment, ready to join in the battle now that it was over. As for the gang, they were all gone now, even the weight-lifter, who must have found it an agony to move, much less move fast. The reason was plain enough. Through the onlookers I could see the kepi of a policeman heading my way.

  To remain on the scene meant a waste of precious time. I would be pinned down by questions, and then, most likely, would have to go along to headquarters to answer for disturbing the peace. And all I wanted to do was get to the Faubourg Saint-Denis to make sure Louis and Paul had arrived safely at Madame Olympe’s.

  I headed into the crowd away from the approaching flic, and it parted before me like the Red Sea parting for Moses. Then I realized I was drawing looks of consternation from every side, and, once clear of the crowd, I glanced into the mirror of a vending machine to see why.

  One quick look told the story. I was not only dirty and disheveled, but my face, shirt, and jacket were so spattered with the weight-lifter’s blood that I looked as if I had barely escaped with my life from a tra
in wreck. I cleaned my face with my handkerchief as well as I could while making my way to the Place de la Versailles gate, but that didn’t do much to change the general effect.

  The driver of the first car in the line of taxis outside the gate flung open his door to me and said sympathetically as I clambered in, “What a mess! But take it easy. There’s a hospital only a few blocks away on rue Raymond. I’ll get you to it in no time.”

  “Never mind that. Did you see a man and a kid running out of that gate a few minutes ago? A little man with a big nose and a beret, and a boy about nine years old?”

  “I saw a lot of people coming out of that gate. Are you sure you don’t want a doctor to look you over?”

  “No. Just get me to the Faubourg Saint-Denis as quick as you can.”

  The car moved forward and then stopped short. I saw the driver watching worriedly as two flics trotted through the gate and hesitated there, eying the street up and down. The cabby was a jaunty young man with his cap cocked on the back of his head and a cigarette thrust behind his ear, but all the jauntiness oozed out of him as the flics started toward us.

  He turned to face me. “Say, pal, you’re not in trouble, are you? If you are—”

  “Get going!” I ordered.

  “Now look—” the driver said, and I gripped the nape of his neck and said in a deadly voice, “Either you get going or I wring your neck like a chicken’s. Which is it?”

  We lurched away from the curb and down rue Vaugirard leaving the flics standing there in the middle of the street, futilely waving us back.

  “They’ve got my license number,” the cabby said gloomily. “You know what can happen to me now?”

  “I’ll explain to them if anything happens to you.”

  “You’d better,” the cabby said. “And I want to be there when you do.”

  When we pulled up before Madame Olympe’s, I flung him double the fare to placate him and said, “That’s just a down payment. I’ll be back right away, so wait for me.”