House of Cards

by Stanley Ellin

  He took a step toward the door, then retreated from it. “Fire!” he bellowed at the staircase, and I heard the cry repeated in the distance, heard a woman screaming, and the sound of feet thundering up the staircase.

  “We’ve got to get everyone out of here!” I shouted, and the guard wheeled on me, his face twisted with rage.

  “You drunken fool!” he snarled and sent the glass flying from my hand.

  “Look, we don’t have time for that!” There was no need for me to play drunk any longer; I could be expected to sober up in the face of this disaster. “Where’s Madame de Villemont’s room?”

  “At the other end of the hall. It’s in no danger.”

  I was headed in that direction before he finished saving it, and I heard him pounding after me. “Wait! Hold it, or I’ll put a bullet into you!”

  I was sure he wouldn’t, and I was right. I found the room at once because its door was already open a few inches and a frightened Djilana was peering out of it.

  “Is Madame inside?” I demanded.

  “Yes, what is it?” Djilana said fearfully. “Is there danger?”

  “Great danger. A fire. You and Madame must go downstairs at once.”

  Then the guard was there, menacing me with a drawn gun. “Get away, damn it! You’re not supposed to be here.”

  Djilana wailed like a lost soul. “He said there was a fire.”

  “It’s nothing. It won’t hurt you if you stay where you are,” the guard assured her, but when her voice rose even louder in hysterical appeal to Allah, he said resignedly, “All right, all right, stop your howling and get downstairs with Madame.”

  “And tell her to bring her passport,” I called over his shoulder. “Monsieur de Gonde wouldn’t want it left lying around.”

  “Yes, yes, the passport too,” Djilana said as she popped out of sight behind the door.

  “All right,” the guard told me, “now move.”

  He shoved the gun into its holster and followed close on my heels as I went back along the hallway. I had to get rid of him within the next minute or two, but this wasn’t the time or place. A crowd of OEI men were now gathered around the door to my room furiously wielding extinguishers under the direction of Georges and Claude de Gonde.

  It was a bad moment going past them but no one took notice of me as I slipped by and knocked at the colonel’s door. Then I pushed open the door and strode into the room to see the colonel snoring away where I had left him.

  “Give me a hand,” I said to the guard who was watching from the doorway. “This smoke will choke him to death if we leave him here,” and when the guard leaned over the other side of the bed he made the target I wanted. I hit him flush on the jaw, hit him another crusher for insurance as he sagged forward, his eyes blindly turning up in his head, and he went face down on the bed. In my fighting days Louis had sometimes mourned my lack of killer instinct. He would have had no complaint this time.

  When I left the room I saw Anne and Djilana just starting down the staircase, pressing close to its banister to stay clear of the men dragging the garden hose up the steps. It wouldn’t be long before the fire was under control and de Gonde could take notice of what else was going on around him. Following Anne down the staircase at a distance, all I could do was pray that Matilde would have the car outside on schedule.

  The staircase led down to the entrance hall, the door to the outside world beyond was wide open, and the men supposed to serve as watchdogs there were busily uncoiling the hose snaking past them. With Anne standing hesitant near the door, it was the perfect time to make a break for it. But there was no car to be seen.

  My watch said it was past eight-thirty. I stopped short midway on the stairs, wild with rage at Matilde. I couldn’t stand frozen into inactivity like this, but in which direction should I move? The guard in the colonel’s room would be stirring out of his coma at any minute, ready to sound the alarm against me. Could I risk losing sight of Anne and that open door to go back to the room and see to it that the man was gagged and bound?

  Caught up by this question, I saw the headlights sweeping around the driveway without at first realizing what they meant. Then, as the gleaming whiteness of the Ferrari pulled up before the door with a screech of brakes, I was jolted into action.

  What followed had a weird quality. I knew I was moving as fast as I could, but I felt as if everything was taking place at the maddening tempo of a slow-motion film. And I was not only performing in the film but was helplessly watching it un-reel. At the same time that one Reno Davis was approaching Anne and putting an arm around her waist so that she gasped and tried to pull away before she saw who it was, the other Reno Davis stood apart, cursing the tedious amount of time every action took.

  Then Anne saw who it was, and her body relaxed, yielding to me with relief. But only for an instant. She suddenly stiffened in resistance. “No,” she said breathlessly. “I gave Claude my word we’d never see each other again.”

  “That’s too bad.” I was half carrying her toward the door. “Walk, damn it,” I said harshly for the benefit of the men at the door who were now watching us narrowly. “Don’t you have sense enough to get out of a building when it’s on fire?”

  It worked. We walked past the guards, Djilana trailing behind us, and now we were outside the building and the car was only a few steps away. But Edmond Vosiers barred the way to it, his face almost comical with bewilderment. I saw Matilde, too, her face a mask showing nothing, and beyond her, Gabrielle de Gonde and the Comtesse de Laennac and a huddle of domestics, all turning to watch as I steered Anne toward the car, Vosiers making way for us as if he were moving in a dream himself.

  As voices faded into silence, I became aware of the throbbing of the car’s motor, the sweetest music I could have heard then.

  Assurance, Louis used to say. You can get away with anything as long as you behave with assurance.

  With assurance, I opened the car door and pushed Anne into the seat. She looked up at me with the same expression of bewilderment as Vosiers, but before she could speak I said, “It’s all right. You’ll feel better out here in the air.”

  Vosiers suddenly woke from his dream.

  “What is this?” he demanded savagely. “What the devil is going on here?”

  “This.” I drew the gun from my pocket and leveled it at him. He stared at it incredulously, and in back of him the guards made a tableau of impotent fury as I slid behind the wheel of the car, the gun fixed on its blubbery target.

  Only Matilde Vosiers dared break the spell.

  “Shoot him!” she cried frantically to the guards. “He’s trying to get away! You have your orders! Shoot him!”

  It was her last hope, and she knew it. So far I had failed to live up to my part of our bargain, but if those men reached for their guns I might yet have to. It was such a little thing to ask. One bullet, and her husband would be paid for all his sins against her.

  “For God’s sake, no!” Vosiers shouted to his men in a high-pitched, quavering voice, and then I had the car rolling along the driveway, picking up speed as it entered the avenue of cypresses. A man with a leashed dog stood at the edge of the road, and as I passed he made a futile gesture at me and the dog lunged snarling at the car. There was no other sign of life along the way, no obstacle showing ahead.

  “Listen to me,” Anne said. “It’s too late for this!”

  I disregarded her, keeping my eyes on the rear-view mirror, waiting to see a glare of headlights move up behind us. Then I saw it and slowed down a little to make sure my route could be followed. As the car slowed, Anne suddenly threw open the door ready to jump. I flung her back into her seat and pulled the door shut, but immediately she started to open it again. Coolly and deliberately I slammed the back of my hand against her cheek. She made a choked sound of pain, then set her teeth against any further outcry and sat looking with blind defiance ahead of her.

  “Let’s get one thing straight,” I said. “The police want me on a murder c
harge that I can’t beat without Paul as my witness. And nobody in your gang intends to go along with that because they know it means the end for them. So now you and I are going to Venice to get Paul. It’s as simple as that. But if you try any more tricks along the way, I’ll take my chances on going straight to the police, no matter what it costs me or Paul. Unless you’re with me in this all the way, there’s nothing else I can do.”

  “You can do what Claude wants you to,” Anne said. “Go to South America—”

  “Sure, by way of Valence, which is where you and I are supposed to be found dead in an accident tomorrow. Neat, isn’t it? A murderer gets his weak-minded lady friend to help him escape the law, and they pile up their car in the attempt. Too bad for her, say the police, but it sure as hell serves him right.”

  “Ah, no,” Anne whispered, “dear God, no.” But the look in her eyes as they stared wide-open at the brutal truth made it plain that she believed me.

  “Dear God, yes,” I said remorselessly. “And that means no more nonsense about turning back. Is that understood?”

  “Yes.”

  “All right. Do you have your passport with you?”

  She pressed a hand against the pocket of her cardigan. “Yes.”

  “Remind me to thank Djilana for that. Do you know where Paul is?”

  “No. But Claude said he was with his grandmother and that they’d meet me in Saint-Tropez at the end of the week.”

  “Just in time for the funeral. Look, Vosiers happened to mention they were in Venice. Does that sound plausible?”

  “Yes, the Montecastellanis have a summer place there on Torcello.” Anne’s voice broke. “But they’ll take him somewhere else if they know we’re trying to get to him, won’t they?”

  “If,” I said.

  To the north lay Paris; to the south Dijon—Milan—Venice. I swung the Ferrari north to Paris and bore down hard on the gas.

  PART FOUR

  The Hanged Man

  1

  It was Georges who had once enviously remarked to me that Madame Vosiers’ Ferrari was easily the fastest car in the family’s garage, and now I was staking everything on that. I drove with a heavy foot on the accelerator, my hand on the horn to warn aside the scattered traffic along the way, but the traffic kept me from going all out, and the big Mercedes limousine trailing us clung to us like grim death.

  Then at last I was on a deserted stretch of highway where the Ferrari could give me everything it had. Here the road was full of unexpected twists and turns, the glimmering canal on one side and an endless line of trees on the other seemed to cut right across my way again and again, and I had to fight the wheel to keep the car under control at this speed, the tires screaming as we wildly slewed back and forth. It was like racing along a course on which barriers were set at random angles so that you never knew when you would crash into one. The speedometer rose to the two-hundred-kilometer mark, passed it and kept rising. Then the headlights of the Mercedes began to dwindle smaller and smaller until they were dots of light that finally disappeared completely.

  This was what I had been waiting for.

  “Brace yourself!” I shouted, and as Anne thrust her hands against the dashboard I ruthlessly jammed on the brake, the car skidding lengthwise across the road, the smell of burning rubber pungent in the air. I didn’t have time to study the terrain. I simply picked an opening between two trees and headed for it. The car rocked, bounced, and nosed downhill, coming to rest with the front wheels in a drainage ditch that ran along the foot of the low embankment on which the trees had been planted.

  I switched off the lights and scrambled up to the head of the embankment, where I threw myself flat to watch the road. The Mercedes had not been as far behind me as I had thought; it roared past almost at once.

  I slid down the embankment to the Ferrari and jockeyed it uphill in reverse.

  “Now what?” Anne said as we turned south toward Dijon. “Italy?”

  “Yes.”

  “We’ll never make it. They’ll be watching for us along every road across the border. You don’t know them the way I do.”

  “That’s a safe bet.” I reached a hand behind me and felt the outlines of a valise propped against the seat. A cheap valise. It seemed to be made of cardboard. I lifted it and placed it on Anne’s lap. “Open that and see what’s in it.”

  She bent over the valise exploring it. “A jacket and trousers, a few pairs of socks in a paper bag, toilet things, some other clothing. What am I supposed to find in it?”

  “Money and a railroad ticket to Milan. Look again, damn it.”

  She did. “Wait, there’s something besides socks in this bag. Money and a railroad ticket. But what good is just one ticket?”

  “What good would the other be without a passport to go along with it? How much money is there?”

  Anne switched on the dashboard light and riffled through the banknotes. “A hundred francs.”

  So Matilde had kept her part of the bargain after all. Some day, if my luck held out, I might still pay her back by sending her husband to jail or the guillotine.

  I said to Anne, “Do you have any money with you?”

  “No.”

  “Any jewelry, anything negotiable?”

  “Only my wedding ring.” She started to strip the narrow gold band from her finger, and I said, “No, hold on to it. We’ll cash it in if we have to, but even with what we can get for it we’ll be on short rations.”

  “How short? Remember I don’t have anything with me at all. I can’t travel very far like this. I’ll need some clothing and a few other things. A hundred francs is worse than useless if you’re serious about getting to Venice.”

  She wasn’t complaining, I realized, but only stating the case as she saw it. It struck me then that nothing in her way of life had equipped her to understand the value of money in small denominations. The casual shoes she was wearing cost more than a hundred francs, the evening gowns that filled her closet cost a few thousand each, the car we were in cost seventy or eighty thousand. To her, a hundred francs—twenty life-giving dollars—was what one stuffed into her purse for lunch money and a pack of cigarettes.

  I said, “Let me put it like this. If you don’t mind sitting with the peasants, train fare in sunny Italy comes to about five francs an hour. Since it’s four hours from Milan to Venice, we allow forty francs for travel and ten more for getting around Venice. The food bill won’t break us either. We can get a couple of days’ worth of bread, cheese, and wine for twenty francs. That means we’re left with thirty francs to luxuriate on. You can have half of it for your shopping.”

  “You’re joking.”

  “The hell I am. Now put that money and ticket into your pocket and keep a hand on them. Do you speak any Italian?”

  “Very little.”

  “Just as well. It means less chance of your giving the game away.”

  We reached the Dijon station ten minutes before train time, and I parked in a side street a block away from it.

  “Listen carefully,” I said, “because this is what you’re to do step by step. You buy whatever Paris papers they have on the stand, then wait in the ladies’ room until the train pulls in. Have you eaten dinner?”

  “No.”

  “Then get a few chocolate bars, too. When the train comes in go straight to the compartment and make sure the window-shade is closed. The berth will probably be made up, but if not, tell the attendant you don’t feel well and want it made up right away. And see if you can’t take care of the customs declaration first thing. Got that?”

  “Yes, but where will you be?”

  “Hiding this car. It’s too conspicuous to be left out in the open. Someone might recognize it.”

  “But if I’m left all alone and anything goes wrong—”

  “Nothing can go wrong,” I said, wishing I could believe it “Now give me the compartment number.”

  Anne held the ticket under the dashboard light. “Compartment 2, Car 8.”
r />   “I’ll meet you there. Get going. We don’t have much time left.”

  She got out of the car, lugging the valise after her, and as she closed the door she said, “Please watch out for yourself.”

  “It’s a little late for that, isn’t it?” I said, and she looked as if she had been slapped across the face again. Then she turned sharply away and started down the street.

  I found a garage on the next block, the man in charge getting ready to pull down its sliding door and call it a day. “Closed! Closed!” he cried, waving me back, and had to jump aside as I shot the car up across the sidewalk and into a filthy, oil-reeking interior.

  He ran around to confront me as I emerged from behind the wheel. “Peut-être vous avez le coco fêlé? Stones in the head maybe? Didn’t you hear me say I was closed? Isn’t twelve hours a day enough time to give the lousy customers?”

  “Cool off,” I said. “I’m in no hurry. You can do the job tomorrow.”

  “What job?”

  “Check the points, that’s all. I’ll be around in the afternoon to pick her up.”

  He was taking in the lines of the Ferrari now like a man studying Brigitte in a towel. “Well—” he said.

  The train was pulling in when I got to the station on a dead run. I saw Anne climb aboard, but I laid back out of sight until the engine piped its departure warning before I sprinted for a car down the line. When I stepped into its vestibule, the train was already sliding out of the station. It gained speed, rattled over switchpoints, and was on its way southward through the darkness.

  There were three cigarettes in the pack Jeanne-Marie had brought me at breakfast time, and even though it would be a long night ahead, I lit one now. I was on edge to take cover, but I had to make sure the train attendant was out of Anne’s compartment before I got there. The cigarette might make me look a little more at ease while I lounged in the vestibule.

  It might have made me look a little too much at ease. A party of sprightly, middle-aged women, American tourists led by a fussy little courier, crowded past me on the way to their berths, and one of them, a prairie version of Matilde Vosiers, regarded me with bright-eyed interest.