by Michelle Wan
“Cupboard under the stairs,” said Mara in a low voice.
“Shouldn’t we call a doctor?”
Jacqueline shook her head. “No need. He’ll come round in a bit.”
Julian stood by, watching her ministrations. Mara went to fill a hot water bottle in the kitchen and brought it to Jacqueline.
“There, mon vieux,” said the nurse. “Get that on your feet. Like blocks of ice, they are.”
It took Joseph almost forty minutes to recover sufficiently to tell them what had happened. His voice came out in a barely audible croak.
“She was beating on the windows. Trying to get in. Then the lights went out. She came in through the back, right into the room.”
“She, who?” Mara looked askance at Jacqueline and Julian. “What’s he talking about? Was someone trying to break in?”
“Amélie.” Joseph’s voice broke into a quavering sob. “She was here. She stood over me, big and black, like a tree.” The corners of his mouth pulled down, the muscles of his throat working spasmodically. He might have been crying, but no tears came out. His eyes looked as dry, as red, as flayed as ever. “She said, ‘You have to die, Joseph.’ She wanted me to join her, you see. I told her, ‘I’m not ready to go.’ I said, ‘Leave me alone.’ Then”—his trembling fingers danced on top of the covers as he relived his terror—“she put a pillow over my face. I tried to fight her off. But she was too strong for me. And—and she had no head. Mon Dieu, only a big black hole!”
Jacqueline said briskly, “You had a nightmare, Joseph. A bad dream. None of this really happened.”
“I swear it’s true,” he moaned, and his entire body shook in his agitation. “She was here. I felt her. I heard her breathing. Her hands were big. And—and …” He struggled to find the words. His extreme mental effort was visible in the way his head writhed, his mouth twisted.
“And what, Joseph?” Mara leaned forward to hear him.
“Her skin … was loose and rubbery.”
Big hands and loose, rubbery skin? Mara raised doubtful eyes to Jacqueline. The nurse’s mouth pursed skeptically. But Joseph was staring at Mara piteously, needing to be believed.
“What happened then?” she asked, taking his hands in hers.
“She went away. She just went away. I heard her go out. But I was afraid she’d come back. I got out of bed. I kept bumping into things and falling down. The lights were out, you see. So I crawled. I crawled into the closet under the stairs and hid there. I hoped she wouldn’t find me. Because she can break down walls, you know. She’s done it before.”
He lay back exhausted. Just before he fell into a deep sleep, he mumbled, “Don’t let her come for me.”
They left him. In the kitchen, Jacqueline made a strong brew of coffee. The three of them sat drinking it at a scarred wooden table.
The nurse shook her head. “Nightmares and hallucinations. His drugs bring them on, make it hard for him to separate fact from fantasy. He’s had a bad few hours, but he’ll be fine. In fact, it’s actually a good sign that he fought Amélie off in his dream. It means he’s not ready to give up living. I wouldn’t be surprised if he doesn’t remember a thing about this when he wakes up.”
Mara said, “But you don’t suppose someone really did come in? He and Amélie never locked their back door, you know. Amélie used to say a locked door kept only friends out.”
Jacqueline said, “But the back door was locked. I had to unlock it when I went outside to look for him.” She drained her cup. “Well, no real harm’s been done, grâce à Dieu. But one never knows … what with those housebreakers about.” She poked her chin in Julian’s direction. “What did you tell him, Monsieur Rafaillac?”
“That we couldn’t find Joseph, of course.”
Jacqueline pulled a mouth. “I wish you hadn’t. Now it’ll be all over the place.”
“The others will find out about it anyway,” said Mara. “You know how word gets round. How much longer do you think it will be before he gets home care?”
Jacqueline shrugged. “These things take time. Especially out here in the boondocks.” She said it with a little sniff. “I just don’t want those O’Connors to hear about it. I meant to tell you, I saw her at the supermarket the other day. She had another go at me. About putting Joseph in a home. This will just give her fuel to stoke her fire.”
“They’re still here?” Mara had thought that the Americans had returned to warm, sunny Florida right after the funeral.
“Oh, I think he has some business in the area.” Just as the O’Connors called Jacqueline “the nurse,” she referred to them simply as “he” and “she,” usually with wry emphasis.
Julian said, “Well, all the same, old Rafaillac was surprisingly helpful when I told him about Joseph. Offered to go out and look for him. And by the way, his phone is working. So the break in the lines must be beyond him. Rafaillac said he’d wander down and check out the wires, give France Telecom a call.”
“Joseph needs a cellphone,” said Mara. “I’ll see about getting him one.”
There was a pounding on the front door, and Olivier Rafaillac himself stepped inside when Julian opened it. He was a big man with a red face and a disposition that could sometimes be as prickly as the artichokes he cultivated. Little pellets of ice slid off the surface of his padded nylon jacket onto the floor.
“Did you find him?” he asked, getting straight to the point.
“Yes,” laughed Jacqueline. “He was here all the time. We just didn’t know where to look.”
Olivier looked about him doubtfully. “Where was he, hiding in the cave?”
“No, no.” Jacqueline brushed aside a direct answer.
“Well, I came to tell you the phone lines are all okay. Except here.”
“If it’s here, that means us, too,” Mara said gloomily. It would be days before France Telecom got around to them. She saw herself having to stand outside in the rain to use her portable, since the thick walls of her house impeded mobile reception.
“No.” Olivier shook his head. “I’m telling you it’s just here. Come out and see for yourself. The feed leading to this house is down. There are a lot of broken branches lying around, so that could be what did it. Although”—he paused to scratch his head—“the wire looks cleanly broken, almost like it’s been cut.”
“Cut?” Mara echoed. Now what was that supposed to mean?
• 10 •
The wind had felled trees everywhere. At the moment, Rocco Luca, alias Ton-and-a-Half, or simply the Ton, resembled any other country property owner cleaning up after a storm. He was dressed in dungarees, an old beret, and a sheepskin jacket that the French called a canadienne. Despite the frigid weather he wore it open. The Ton was impervious to the cold. A poplar had fallen across the lane leading to his house, and he was cutting it up with a noisy chainsaw that gave off a smelly blue exhaust as it bit through the soft wood. He had cleared away the branches and now was slicing the trunk into meter-length pieces.
Ton-and-a-Half was a big man, heavy but not fat. His bullet head with its bristling hair, broken nose, and scarred eyebrows rose like a prizefighter’s bad dream out of a hefty pair of shoulders with almost no intervening neck. His personality was super-sized to match his bulk. He liked grand gestures, loud clothes, large women, and strong drink. In his youth he had pursued a career in boxing until he proved to be a bleeder. Despite his heft, he had thin skin; his head split open like a melon every time it was hit. From the ring it was a quick step into various illicit activities, including drug trafficking, an activity he had successfully conducted for more than five decades behind a cover of various legitimate business enterprises.
A car turned off the main road and came lurching down the rutted lane. Each time it hit a pothole it sent up a spray of muddy water. It braked short of the fallen tree. Serge Taussat got out, placing his feet carefully so as not to dirty his shoes. In sharp contrast to his boss, Serge was a slim man with a quiet manner, and his color of choice was black. His
slacks, jacket, overcoat, and shoes were black. His car, a Mercedes CLS, was black with a black leather interior. At night Serge would have passed unperceived. On this raw afternoon, he was a dark stain against a background of rain- soaked trees and raw, sullen earth. Only his pale, narrow face seemed to reflect what little light there was to the day, and that was because Serge’s skin was drawn so tightly over brow and cheekbones that his skull had the appearance of being shrink-wrapped. His hair was whitish-blond, and his eyes were large and flat, like two gray mirrors. From some angles he looked like a modernistic sculpture; from others, an alien being.
The chainsaw sputtered to a halt. Ton-and-a-Half set it down on the ground and waited for Serge to pick his way through the scattered branches.
“Et alors? What have you got?”
“Zéro.”
Bull-like, the big man lowered his head. “Why do I get the feeling Freddy is getting past his sell-by date?” He made clear his displeasure by picking up a section of tree trunk and hurling it onto a pile of cut wood.
Freddy, also known as Deep Freddy because he was always in it up to his neck, was a junkie and small-time pusher whose life predicaments the Ton resolved in exchange for information. He roamed the streets of Périgueux and was a useful source since he lived rough and knew, as the Ton put it, in which direction the gutters ran.
Serge shrugged. “I told him to keep trolling. What goes down has to come up. Sometime or other.” He looked past his patron to the house at the end of the lane. It was an imposing structure, built of red and yellow stone, with two towers flanking a fake Gothic entry. Attached to the west end of the house was a conservatory filled with tiered beds of plants of every description. The Ton’s current woman, an ample blonde named Lydia, was crazy about flowers. The conservatory also housed a large hot tub, which constantly steamed up the glass panes of the walls and roof.
Luca gestured massively with a meaty hand and said grudgingly, “I’ll say this much for le petit morveux, whoever he is. He’s smart. Moves fast, thinks on his feet.”
A crow in a bare tree nearby gave a disheartened caw. It balanced comfortless on a branch, its feathers ruffled by the wind.
Serge’s narrow face registered disapproval. “His feet are on your turf, and his action is attracting attention. You don’t want that, what with the flics already hanging around like a bad smell because of Yvan.”
“They have nothing on me that will stick.”
“They’d have less if you’d let me deal with him months ago.”
The Ton rubbed his nose with a walnut-sized knuckle. “Trouble is, I liked the bastard. That’s always been my problem. I take to people. It’s my nature. Too soft-hearted.”
Unimpressed, Serge gazed expressionlessly at the heavy sky. More rain was on the way.
“As for Freddy,” the Ton went on, “tell him I’m not satisfied. Tell him I don’t like that he thinks he can roll up like an empty bottle. Tell him I want something by Friday, or he will prove to be a great disappointment to his friends and relations.”
“He is already,” said Serge. The crow swayed miserably on its perch. Serge hunched inside his coat and shoved gloved hands into his pockets. He, too, felt the cold.
The Ton stuck his lower lip out. He was brooding on something else.
“I heard from Pascal. He thinks the flics are on to him.”
“Merde,” said Serge softly.
“They haven’t moved in on him yet. He thinks they’re just letting him know he’s being watched.”
“Yeah, but if the filière in Toulouse is compromised, how are we going move the stuff?”
“Find the kid, we may not need Toulouse.”
Serge’s flat eyes fixed on his boss. “It’s a pigeon-shit operation, patron.”
The Ton laughed harshly, like a truck backfiring. “Big oaks from little acorns grow.”
He glanced into the rear of the Mercedes. Pots of fleshy-looking plants, protected by clear plastic, stood in a large box on the back seat. They did not resemble oak seedlings. Luca picked up the chainsaw.
“Take those damned things on up to the house,” he said, jerking his chin at the cargo in the car and yanking the saw to life again. “Make Lydia’s day.”
• 11 •
Mara woke first. She propped herself up on her elbows. Outside, another cold, gray day was breaking. She burrowed back down under the covers and curled against Julian’s back. He muttered something and rolled over, enfolding her in his arms. They both slipped back into an early morning doze. A few minutes later, they woke again. He nosed her hair, her neck.
“Sandalwood,” he murmured.
She laughed, brushed his cheek with her lips, and blew gently into his ear.
“God, I love it when you do that.”
Sleepily, they kissed. Then they made love, wordlessly forgiving each other for their recent irritabilities, seeking to make it linger, not just the physical act but the feeling of intense closeness and the calm, luxurious aftermath. This was, each realized, the two of them at their best. To hell with Madame Audebert.
Later, Mara made tea. She was learning to make a decent brew by Julian’s standards. He liked it as strong as coal tar. Because it was Sunday and they could take their time, she carried it into the bedroom where they had it in bed with their croissants. Julian dunked his. She wished he wouldn’t. It left drip marks on the sheets.
“What are you up to today?” she asked.
“I’m afraid”—he took a last swallow of tea and set his mug on the nightstand—“it’s time I did something about finding Kazim Ismet. I’ve put it off long enough.”
“Oh.” She pulled a pout. “I was hoping we could spend some time together.”
“Indulging in more close encounters?” He gave her a villainous leer.
She said quite seriously, “Getting back in touch. We hardly seem to have time to talk anymore. I mean, really talk.”
“What do you want to talk about?” He sounded wary.
“Nothing in particular. Us.” Their relationship. For months, they had been chugging along happily enough, patching over minor skirmishes. But she wondered how he really felt about living together. They never talked about their long-term prospects. Maybe it was time for some kind of stock-taking.
“Ah. Well, if ‘us’ is nothing in particular, then perhaps it can wait until I get back?” His bantering tone had an annoying hint of evasiveness. He swung his legs over the side of the bed. “Betul thinks Kazim is staying with his girlfriend, Nadia Beaubois. She works at the Intermarché in Périgueux. I expect that’s where I’ll have to start.” He swept his feet over the floor. “Damn! That bloody mutt has taken my slippers again.” They were an old sheepskin pair, trodden down at the backs, that the dog liked to carry off and chew. It was the reason he was named Bismuth (pronounced Beezmoot in French). His chewing made Julian want to reach for an antacid.
Mara barely knew how to tell him. “Madame Audebert found them all pulled apart and gummy with dog saliva. I think she tossed them.”
He jumped up, waving his arms about in the air. “That bloody, bloody woman! When is she going to learn to leave my things alone? First my newspapers, now my slippers.”
“For heaven’s sake, Julian, don’t make such a thing of it. You needed a new pair anyway.”
“And that makes it all right?” He stomped barefoot over the cold floor into the bathroom, where he turned on the taps full bore. A moment later, he came back into the bedroom. “Look, I’m sorry. Why not come to Périgueux with me? We can talk on the way.”
By now Mara was up, too, and feeling huffy. The heat of their lovemaking had long since dissipated. “With your head full of hunting down Kazim? No thanks.”
“All right. Suit yourself.” He disappeared to shower and shave.
•
Twenty minutes later Mara, wrapped in her bathrobe, was sitting at the kitchen table squinting over the top of her useless glasses at sheets of notepaper covered with a large, looping script: handwritten recipe
s sent from Canada by her mother, a very good cook, whose repertoire ran to rich meat pies, hearty soups, and even moose stew. Hers was the culinary expression of Quebec’s heartland (Maman came from the little town of Saint-Louis-du-Ha!-Ha!, a place name that rivaled Ecoute-la-Pluie for quaintness. Some said “ha! ha!” was from the antique French word for impasse; or a typographical error—“ha! ha!” was actually “ah! ah!” in admiration of the view; or an Indian exclamation of surprise). She did not look up when Julian came into the kitchen.
“Sure you won’t come with me?”
She shook her head. “Anyway, it’s my day to cook.” She scribbled something on the back of an envelope. She softened. “I’m giving you a surprise. But first I have to shop for the ingredients.”
He read aloud over her shoulder: “Potatoes.” He asked cautiously, “Another gratin dauphinois?”
“Never you mind. When will you be back?”
“How long does it take to find a runaway son? Afternoonish, I expect.” He planted a kiss on her cheek.
She watched him as he pulled on his jacket, turning up the collar in advance against the cold. “You know, I think the private investigator suits you. You look kind of tough and sexy with your collar up like that.”
He paused on his way to the door. “I do?”
“Uh-huh.” Her eyes dropped to his middle, bulky in the down-filled parka. “Too bad you don’t have a trench coat. That puffy jacket doesn’t quite cut it.” She grinned. “Too much like the Michelin Man.”
He left.
>Patsy, Mara composed an email in her head that would never be sent, what do I do with a man who’s as slippery as an egg custard?<
She imagined Patsy’s response: >Life is short. Eat dessert first.<
•
Julian started up his van and set out north on the D710. There was very little traffic on the road that morning. He drove past soggy meadows and dark, newly plowed fields. The recent rains had left standing water in the furrows that reflected flashing ribbons of pewter-colored sky.
As he drove, he realized that, despite Mara’s little joke, he was playing the limier, the bloodhound sleuth, on the trail of a missing person. Now that he thought about it, he rather fancied himself in that role. Tough and sexy. The silly part of him wished he did have a trench coat. Or was it only spies and dirty postcard sellers who wore them? No, he was sure Humphrey Bogart as Philip Marlowe in The Big Sleep had worn a trench coat. He had seen the film on French television not long ago. It was one of his favorites. He looked at himself in the rear-view mirror and tried talking out of the side of his mouth, Bogie-style: “M’emmerdes pas, connard.” Don’t piss me off, bastard.