The Assassini

by Thomas Gifford

  I called Sister Lorraine.

  She asked how my researches were going. I allowed as how I seemed to have fetched up against a wall and was beginning to watch my back. She gave a Gallic laugh, rather on the world-weary side, and said she’d remembered something else I might be interested in hearing. I interrupted her. “Sister, could I prevail upon you for the name of a restaurant?” She began to speak but I went on. “And might you be the guest of this poor stranded wayfarer? Without your help I’d have come a long way for nothing.” It seemed to me I’d done just that anyway, but I was in no mood to spend an evening alone with a bottle of Bombay gin and memories of the silvery hair and the blade in the moonlight. Thanks be to God, she said she’d be delighted, so I thanked God again for small favors, for the Order, and the modern age of the sisterhood. Brave new world. She gave me the name of a restaurant, told me how to get there, and said she’d meet me.

  The Tikka Grill was situated next to the El Kashafa el Baharia Yacht Club, whose lights I’d seen from my balcony. The dining room was on the second floor. Our table looked across the harbor at the white yachts with the glow from their deck parties. It was like a scene from a Humphrey Bogart movie. The music was playing softly and my nun was smiling at me through the candlelight. I had the feeling that the only women I knew anymore were nuns. I mentioned it to Sister Lorraine and she tilted her small, sleek head to one side, her eyes wide. “God’s way of saving you from your base self, do you think?”

  “I wish God weren’t quite so worried about my base self.”

  “Shame on you,” she said. “God is everywhere, concerned with everything. Alexandria is no exception.” She sipped a French white and recommended the fish kebab. As we ate we talked and I felt myself letting down, relaxing. The walls were white stucco. The room was pleasantly crowded. The tablecloths and napkins were a gentle pink, the wine dry and cold, the fish superb. A soothing oasis of reality where I was at least for the moment safe. I told her that Richter had been pleasant enough but hadn’t really told me anything about Val I didn’t know.

  She put her silverware down. “Mr. Driskill, I can’t believe you came so far without a real reason. I’m not a detective, but the whole world knows your sister was murdered. You’ve come here because your sister was here … I have the feeling you have decided to—what do you say in English? Take the bull into your own hands?”

  “Matters, not bull. Or by the horns, not into your own hands—”

  “Whatever. May I be frank?”

  “Everyone else seems to be when it comes to this.”

  “I think you are being a little foolhardy. I have thought about it since yesterday and I nearly decided to put you and whatever you’re up to out of my mind … but then I thought about your coming so far. And your sister was so—so significant a woman. Such a credit to the Order. And”—she made a small dismissive gesture—“I couldn’t stop you from doing whatever you intend. I am correct, am I not?”

  “Tell me what you remembered, Sister.”

  “Sister Valentine saw another man while she was here. Or, rather, she intended to. She mentioned it to Sister Beatrice, who mentioned it to me—it had slipped my mind, then I thought of it last night.” She sighed expressively, as if she knew she ought to have kept the name hidden forever. Sister Lorraine was a natural flirt.

  “Give me the name,” I said.

  “If I do, will you tell me what you’re doing?”

  “Sister—” My back was killing me. It had come out of nowhere, like the man with the knife. “I … don’t know what I’m doing.”

  “Are you all right?” She leaned forward, her huge eyes narrowing. “You are so pale …”

  “I can’t tell you.” I was thinking as Val had when Sister Elizabeth asked her what was going on. I was protecting Sister Lorraine from what I didn’t know. “But I need that name, Sister.”

  “LeBecq. Etienne LeBecq. He owns a gallery. Très chic. Cairo and Alexandria. He’s the sort of man who has his own plane. One of my countrymen, I’m afraid. His family has been in the art business for generations. In Paris. With people like Wittgenstein and Duveen Gobelin, the tapestry people. LeBecq apparently came to Egypt after the war, a young man …” She made a face. “The LeBecqs were, you know … Vichy, I believe.”

  “Do you know him?” I needed a pain pill. I needed a new life and a day without fear. The chills were shaking me.

  She shook her head. “No Catholic nun, not even of the Order, can move in Monsieur LeBecq’s circles.”

  “Is he one of Richter’s pals?”

  “I don’t know. A Frenchman with a Vichy background and a soldier of the Occupation?” She shrugged. “Why do you ask?”

  “My sister connects them. And one of LeBecq’s trucks was delivering a package to Richter’s office this afternoon.” I moved gingerly in the chair, trying to ease the pain. My back felt wet.

  “What’s the matter? Mr. Driskill? Do you need a doctor?”

  “No, no, please. I’ve got a bad back. And maybe a lingering touch of jet lag.”

  “I think it’s time to get you to bed.” She called for the check. She was trying to pay the damn thing, but I managed to force my credit card into the waiter’s hand.

  She was driving a Volkswagen convertible and the cold air off the water revived me. I got out at the Cecil, reassured her that I was all right, thanked her for her help, and tottered up to my room.

  In one of Father Dunn’s novels the bad guys would have searched the room or been waiting for me with guns, or the gorgeous blonde who’d sat next to me on the flight from Cairo would be naked in my bed, but the room was quiet and undisturbed and I was very much alone. The bed was turned down, the curtains were furling slowly in the breeze.

  I got to the bottle of pills, checked my back, which was fine, lay down wondering if I’d better start saying my prayers.

  The LeBecq Galleries faced the sea, plate glass windows on two floors with palm trees swaying in front, reflected above and below. The gallery was sterile, chrome and Plexiglas and glass and white walls, some huge paintings alone on vast stretches of whiteness. I spotted a Rauschenberg, a Noland, a Diebenkorn looking pale and cool and exquisite. In the ground floor windows, flanking the doorway, were two large Hockneys on chrome tripods, lots of water and sunshine and flat reflecting surfaces and inviting shadows. A couple of well-dressed customers strolled before the pictures inside, then climbed the open stairway which seemed to float like a dream of great wealth just above the floor.

  I called from a restaurant five minutes away and said I’d like to see Monsieur LeBecq personally about the Hockneys that afternoon. The girl had a soft, limpid, soothing voice and wondered if she might be of assistance. A couple of minutes later I had an appointment with LeBecq for three o’clock. I ate my lunch and sat on a bench outside and read Leave It to Psmith by Wodehouse, which I’d picked up in the lobby of the Cecil. I showed up at the gallery a few minutes early and had a look around. It was all very spare, remote, cool, airy, devoid of any of the richer emotions. Art for the summer homes ranged along the beaches where the rich from Cairo maintained their retreats from the heat of the Nile delta.

  The woman who showed me into LeBecq’s office was short, compact, precise, with a face of sharp edges and rounded, female shoulders and hips. She was the one with the voice. She wore a tobacco-colored pleated skirt that swung from her hips when she walked. She had a deep tan, an oval face, a slightly tilted nose, rakish cheekbones, and a lot of gold against her flesh. She reminded me of just how long it had been since I’d truly wanted to touch a woman: you could always be driven to some kind of need, but wanting was something else again. She murmured something and left the office and Monsieur LeBecq entered a few seconds later. There was a soundproof double-paned glass wall overlooking the main two-story gallery. When I’d climbed the steps to LeBecq’s aerie the damn things had swayed like a rope bridge over a chasm with the answers on the other side. I turned back from the view when LeBecq made a polite little cough, and
when I saw him I had to do a quick double take.

  He was pale, as if he’d just climbed out of a coffin full of earth from his native land, and he wore a black suit, a white shirt with French cuffs and onyx and gold cuff links, a black and gray figured tie. He was oldish but indeterminately so, tall, thin as a mop handle. His face was narrow and lean. He had an Old Testament look, a hanging judge, all severity. It was hard to imagine him sucking up to the rich and filling their need for something with pale green in it to match the stripe in the couch. He wore heavy black glasses and his eyes swam like huge waterlogged beetles behind the thick lenses.

  “You were calling about the Hockneys, I believe,” he said. “They are, of course, choice pieces, Mr. Driskill.”

  “I lied. I own two Hockneys and while I like them very much, two is a lifetime supply.”

  “I don’t understand, m’sieur. You called about the Hockneys in the window—”

  “So I did. I just wanted to make sure I saw you personally. I saw Klaus Richter yesterday. He didn’t call you by any chance, did he? A word of warning, perhaps?”

  “Herr Richter? No, he didn’t call me.” He was standing with his back to that big glass wall. His suit was cut tight, making him look like a stork in mourning. “Now I must ask you to state your business, if any … or—” He pointed to the door. I heard some Vivaldi start up, coming through hidden speakers.

  “My sister came to see you and a few days later someone killed her. I want to know why she came—”

  “What are you talking about? I know of no sister of yours!”

  “Her name was Sister Valentine. She came to Alexandria to see you and Richter. I’m here to find out why.”

  He looked as if someone had snipped the wires holding him together. His limbs gave a nervous jerk, he ducked his head. He was wearing a black hairpiece that jutted away from the nape of his neck when he leaned forward. He stalked awkwardly to his desk, fumbled with the back of his chair, spun it into position, and sat down. He seemed to have gone whiter still. He steadied his hands on the desktop.

  “Sister Valentine,” he said tonelessly. “Yes, I read about her murder.…” He was talking to himself. “What do you want of me? What do you expect—”

  “Why did she come to see you?”

  “Oh …” He brushed his hand weakly across his face. “Nothing. She was digging up the past. I couldn’t help her.”

  “What was your connection to the Church?”

  “The Catholic Church? I had nothing to do with the Church. You see me—I am an art dealer. I have always been, my family has always been.” He was struggling to get a grip on what he remembered about composure. He reached out and straightened a framed photograph on his desk. In it he was standing on a runway, one arm on the wing of a light plane. He wore a black suit then as well. “I have nothing for you, m’sieur. Please leave me, I have much to do.” The beetles were darting restlessly behind the lenses.

  “I’m not leaving without some answers.” I leaned on his desk, staring down at him. “I’ve got a picture of you, LeBecq.” I slapped the worn snapshot down on his desk. He jumped at the sound, drew back. I was scaring him but I didn’t know why. “Take a look,” I said. He turned away. I reached out, grabbed his arm, yanked him back in his swivel chair. “Look at the goddamn picture!”

  He slipped his spectacles off and cautiously leaned forward as if he thought I might smash him facedown on the desk. I held the photograph flat on the desk and he blinked at it, then lowered his head farther, squinting. It was hard to imagine him flying the plane with eyes that bad.

  “D’Ambrizzi, Richter … and you,” I said. The thin man, cadaverous, the single black eyebrow. Forty years ago, but it was the same man. “Tell me about that picture. Tell me who was the fourth man.” I paused. “And who took the picture.” I waited. “Talk to me!”

  “How can I help you?” He was muttering, plaintive. “How do I know who you are?”

  My fist came down on the desk. The framed picture toppled over.

  LeBecq shrank back. His lips were moving but nothing was coming out. Then he croaked: “Maybe you killed her … No, no, don’t hit me! Don’t touch me!”

  “Tell me about the meeting in that picture. You, Richter, and D’Ambrizzi … You are going to tell me. The sooner the better.”

  “Maybe you’ve come to kill me,” he said hopelessly, finally staring up at me as if he were contemplating his cruel fate. Those big wet eyes were speaking to me. They were saying I wasn’t the only one having a bad day. “Maybe you’ll kill all of us …”

  “What are you talking about?” I eased up on him. I had to get him talking. “Kill all of you? Who?”

  “She came here, your sister, she was asking about those old days.… I knew it would come to this sooner or later. The past always catches up with you.… Who sent you?” The eyes swam up in search of mine. His hand was feeling for his heavy black-framed glasses.

  “I told you why I’ve come.”

  “Was it Simon? Did Simon send you?”

  “Who the hell is Simon? The fourth man? Or the man with the camera?”

  He slowly shook his head. He was having a lot of trouble coping with what was happening to him. “Have you come from Rome? Is that it?” He licked his dry, cracked lips. “For God’s sake, don’t kill me now … not after all these years.… Your sister is dead … my brother is dead … that’s enough, isn’t it?”

  “Your brother? What’s your brother got to do with this?”

  “Your photograph,” he said. He cleared his throat, trying to dislodge the fear. He was growing drastically older before my eyes. “That’s not me in your little picture. It is my brother … Guy LeBecq. Father Guy LeBecq. Ten years older than I. A priest. I know nothing of this photograph.… Please, you must believe me.” His personality kept shifting. Now he was morose, not fearful. “Like your sister, Mr. Driskill, he, too, was murdered … a long time ago in Paris. During the war. Murdered in a church graveyard, he was found propped against a gravestone … his back broken, the life crushed from his body …”

  I took a step back from the desk, still holding the snapshot, bumped into a chair, and sat down. “I’m sorry,” I said at last. “How could I know?” He was breathing heavily while the Vivaldi played on. “What do you mean about my coming to kill you? Who’s Simon? Why would Rome send me? I don’t understand what’s happening here—”

  “Listen to me,” he said slowly. He fitted his glasses into place, gripped the arms of his chair. “They will kill you, too. Have no doubt of that. You are far from home and you’re meddling in something that is no concern of yours. It’s the past, you’ll never understand any of it … so go home, Mr. Driskill, forget us, for the love of God, forget us … and maybe they’ll let you live—do you understand what I am saying to you? Go home, mourn for your sister—survive. You are an innocent—and your innocence is your only protection! Wrap yourself in it, hide within your innocence. Now, please leave me. There is nothing more I can tell you. Nothing!”

  He sat silently staring at his hands while I left.

  On my way down the floating stairway the beautiful girl who had shown me in passed me going up. She smiled and asked me if all had gone well. I shrugged and felt her eyes on me as I went on down.

  When I got to the main large gallery I looked back up at the thick glass wall of Etienne LeBecq’s office. He wasn’t visible, but I saw the girl go in.

  I left, walked slowly back to the Cecil.

  His brother?

  Jesus H. Christ. Everybody’s a comic and there’s always an extra little spin you didn’t expect. I made a straight line through the lobby of the hotel toward the bar. The lobby had seen better days but those days must have been something. Now the opulence was faded and getting on but the memory, like that of an old rake, was keen. The bar looked out on the Corniche and the water. The rays of the lowering sun were turning the vista gold.

  I eased my back into a comfortable position and downed a gin and tonic, signaled for anot
her. I’d blown off some steam with LeBecq and had begun feeling a little better about things when he said the guy in the picture was his brother. And his brother was dead. So what was so upsetting? He had me coming from Rome, being sent by Simon Somebody, coming to kill him … to kill all of us. He must have told Val some of it. Your innocence is your only protection. Did that mean he could tell that Val had known things I obviously didn’t? Somehow I couldn’t have remained in his office hammering at him. But I was going to have to see him again. He was all I had and he was going to have to explain himself. Of course, there was Richter, but he was a much tougher customer.

  I asked myself why I hadn’t bugged Richter about the snapshot—and the answer was that I’d realized Val had stolen it from him. No point in opening that mess to view unless you knew what you were going to see.

  Why hadn’t I mentioned to either of them the silvery-haired man, the priest, who had killed Val and tried to kill me? I didn’t have an answer to that, not one I was proud of. Maybe I was afraid they were all part of the same terrible conspiracy … maybe I was afraid he would come for me again.

  “Mr. Driskill, telephone for Mr. Driskill.” A bellhop was moving through the bar calling my name. I waved to him and he told me to take the call at cabin one in the lobby.

  When I said hello I was hoping it was Sister Lorraine taking me under her wing for another dinner. But it wasn’t. It was a woman but she was whispering. I couldn’t tell if she was trying to disguise her voice or simply ensuring privacy at her end.

  “Mr. Driskill, I must see you this evening.”

  “Who are you?”

  “Later. Meet me at—”

  “I only meet strangers in nice safe places, lady.”

  “At the statue of Sa’d Zaghlul in the square. Just outside your hotel. Safe enough?”