Hotel Pastis

by Peter Mayle

  Simon tossed the sack into the back of the car and got in. “Maximum discretion.” Jesus. They might as well have put it on the six o’clock news.

  The duel of shrugs and gesticulations ended with the detective ripping the ticket from the windscreen and tearing it up. Two men from the café applauded. The detective got into the car as the traffic policeman shouted a parting obscenity over the blaring of the horns.

  “And your mother!” said the detective to him out of the window. “And your dog!” He snorted with the satisfaction of having had the last word. “Okay, let’s go.”

  The message waiting when they arrived back at the hotel said that Hampton Parker would be in Brassière in the early hours of next morning. Simon, like the bank manager before him, felt a sense of relief that both the money and the responsibility could soon be passed to different hands. He put through a call to Ziegler and waited, the sack between his feet.

  “Any news of the kid?”

  “They’re calling tonight. Parker’s arriving very early in the morning. I’ve got the money here, ready for him.”

  Ziegler said nothing for a few seconds. When he spoke, it was in the crisp, decisive tone he used when he was making up a client’s mind for him. “Parker’s not to be involved. No way.”

  “But he is involved, for Christ’s sake. He’s the boy’s father.”

  “I don’t want him anywhere near those goddamn dangerous goons.”

  “So how are they going to get the money? Federal Express?”

  “Jesus, Simon, we can’t put Parker at risk like that! Suppose they decide to kidnap him as well? Suppose they ice him, for fuck’s sake! No, you’ll have to do it.”

  Simon felt his stomach turn over. “Thanks a lot. Suppose they ice me?”

  Ziegler’s voice changed, all warmth and reassurance, his new, business-presentation voice. “Don’t worry about it. You’re not a billionaire, you’re just the guy making the drop. Wear old clothes—look poor, you know? It’s no big deal. You’ll probably never see them. And hey, think what it’ll do for our relationship.”

  “ ‘Our relationship’?”

  “Parker will be in our pocket. The goddamn account will be set in concrete. It’s a moral debt, buddy. We’ll have him for life.”

  Simon said nothing, but he knew that Ziegler wouldn’t have listened anyway. As far as he was concerned, the decision was taken—probably the right decision, Simon had to admit. If the kidnappers thought they could get their hands on one of the richest men in America, who could tell what they might do?

  Ziegler sounded impatient. “So you’re holding the ball, okay? Don’t screw up.”

  “You’re a soft-hearted bastard, aren’t you?”

  “That’s me. Sweetest guy in the business. I’ll talk to you soon.”

  Nicole found Simon in the office, smoking a cigar and staring out of the window, ignoring the detectives. He looked haggard, and bruised under the eyes. She stood behind him and rubbed gently at the base of his neck.

  “When this is over,” she said, “I’m going to take you away.”

  Simon closed his eyes and leaned his head back against her body. “Promise?”

  “Promise.”

  The detectives sat and watched them impassively, wondering what they were going to be given for dinner.

  Enrico looked at the pile of passports on his desk and smiled. Contacts, greed, and fear. They always worked when you were looking for information. Within hours of putting the word out, one of his men in Avignon had heard that the police were trying to keep the lid on a kidnapping. If these passports didn’t have something to do with that, Enrico thought, he was losing his touch. He had decided to take a personal interest in the matter. One should never pass up the opportunity to meet people who might be useful. He put the passports in a large crocodile-skin attaché case, went downstairs to his car, settled himself comfortably in the backseat, and gave the chauffeur his instructions.

  As the Mercedes headed out of Marseille towards the airport, the General thrashed his car along the autoroute from Cavaillon. Be in the underground car park at Marignane by eight, they had told him, and look for a black Mercedes 500 with Bouches-du-Rhône plates.

  He found a space as far away as possible from the entrance to the terminal, cut the engine, and lit a cigarette. He squeezed the plastic supermarket bag which held the cash. Five hundred thousand francs. He’d almost fainted when they’d told him the price, but what else could he do? Anyway, there was more where that came from—a lot more.

  As he looked at his watch, he saw the Mercedes nosing slowly through the lines of cars. He took a deep breath, picked up the bag, and got out.

  The tinted window of the Mercedes slid down, and the chauffeur and the General looked at each other in silence. With a start, the General remembered what he’d been told to say to identify himself.

  “I’m a friend of Didier’s. He sends you his best.”

  The back door swung open. “Come in, my friend,” said Enrico. “It’s cooler in here, with the air conditioning.”

  The General ducked inside and perched on the edge of the deep leather seat.

  Enrico studied him through the smoke of his cigarette. “You’re a busy man, I’m sure,” he said, “so I won’t waste your time.” He stubbed out his cigarette and flicked a speck of ash from the silk sleeve of his suit. “Tell me, when are you picking up the ransom?”

  The General felt sick, as if he’d been kicked in the stomach. How the hell did he know? He couldn’t know. He was guessing.

  Enrico reached over and patted the General on the knee. “Come, my friend. Think of me as a professional colleague. We’re already partners, after all. I have your passports, and I must say that considering the lack of time, they’ve turned out very well. Works of art. You won’t have any problem there.” He smiled and nodded. “Cigarette?”

  The General’s hand was shaking so violently that he almost lit his moustache.

  “Relax, my friend, relax. Allow me to congratulate you. Americans are so scarce these days.” Enrico sighed. “The recession, and the weak dollar. They don’t travel as much as they used to.” His eyes never left the General’s face. “Well? When are you giving him back?”

  How had he found out, this man who sat so still and never seemed to blink? The only sound in the car was the whisper of the air conditioning as the General felt his shoulders slump. He wasn’t going to get the passports unless he answered the question. He looked at the broad back and muscular neck of the chauffeur.

  “Don’t worry about Alphonse.” Enrico smiled. “He’s very discreet. We’re all very discreet.”

  The General let out his breath. “We’re making the exchange tonight.”

  “And then?”

  “Out of the country.”

  “Ah, yes. Of course.” Enrico bent down and snapped open his attaché case. The General’s eyes widened as he saw neat piles of bank notes, hundreds of thousands of francs. There was barely enough room in the case for the passports which Enrico took out and passed over. “May I?” He took the plastic bag from the General’s lap and started to count the money, tossing each brique of ten thousand francs into the case as it was counted.

  “C’est bon.” With some difficulty, Enrico pressed the lid of the case shut, and leant back as the General fumbled for the door handle. “Now then,” he said. “Your travel plans. I think I could be of some assistance.”

  The General stopped, his hand still on the door.

  “I have a little shipping business, cargo mainly, but we occasionally oblige passengers with special requirements. You understand?” Enrico didn’t wait for a reply. “An agreeable coincidence occurs to me. It happens that one of my vessels—not luxurious, but comfortable—leaves Genoa the day after tomorrow for Algiers. Very pleasant, the Mediterranean, at this time of year.”

  The General let his hand drop from the door.

  “You and your friends would be completely safe.” Enrico looked at his watch. “As it happens, I’m
driving to Italy now. Alphonse prefers the night, specially in July. The roads are impossible during the day.” He offered the General another cigarette. “We could meet in Genoa. Just go to the docks and ask for my colleague, the captain of the Principessa Azzura. He’ll know where to find me.”

  The General did his best to look disappointed. “Merde—if only I’d known,” he said. “But of course, I’ve made other plans.” He reached again for the door.

  “My friend.” Enrico looked as friendly as death. “I must insist that you take advantage of this unexpected blessing. It would be a great sadness if the police were to be looking for the names on those excellent new passports. Such a waste. I do hate waste.”

  Bastard. The General nodded, and Enrico smiled back. “You won’t regret it. Sea air is so healthy.”

  “But not cheap.”

  “Nothing good in life is cheap.” Enrico shrugged in apology. “But I will give you a tarif de vacances, since you are a group. Let’s say 500,000 francs. You will eat well. They have a very good cook on board.”

  It was the General’s turn to shrug. “I don’t have 500,000 francs with me.”

  “Ouf.” Enrico brushed the detail aside. “We’re businessmen, you and I. There is mutual trust and understanding. You can pay me in Genoa, and then we have lunch.” Enrico leaned across and opened the door. “I’ll pay for lunch. It will be my pleasure.”

  The General stood and watched the big car pull away, and as the menace of Enrico disappeared, fear and shock gave way to anger. A million francs for eight lousy passports and a trip to Algiers on some rusty bucket, probably full of noisy macaronis. The General was a mild man, but this was taking unfair advantage, nothing less than daylight robbery. He turned to his car and then stopped. He forced himself to think.

  He had the passports. He didn’t have to go to Genoa. He could stick to his original plan. Screw Enrico, he thought, and felt better. People like that, people with no business ethics, they didn’t deserve to get away with it. He remembered Enrico tossing the passport money casually into his case, on top of the pile that was already there. And he wanted more, the bloodsucker. Well, this time he wasn’t dealing with one of his tame dumb thugs. He was dealing with a man who used his head.

  The General walked upstairs to the terminal, pushed his way through the Arabs at the bar, and ordered a Calvados. Courage returned as he felt the bite and warmth of the alcohol. He braced himself, went over to the bank of phones by the tabac, and made the call. He was sweating by the time he put down the phone. Salopard. Let’s see how he gets out of that.

  On his way back to the Lubéron, the General stopped at the service station at Lancon for a coffee and went over the possible effects of his call. Enrico wouldn’t know for sure. He might suspect, but he wouldn’t talk too much—not because of honour among thieves, which all true thieves know to be crap, but because he would implicate himself in a crime that he hadn’t even committed. There was something ironic in that, the General thought as he dropped the plastic coffee cup in the bin. Serve him right. Anyway, by the time he gets out of trouble I’ll be a long way from Marseille, and he won’t know where.

  He drove carefully back to Cavaillon, observing the speed limit, and took the N-100 up to Les Baumettes. He parked by the phone booth, feeling a pang of hunger at the sight of people eating on the terrace of the small restaurant on the other side of the road. Tomorrow, he thought, if all went well, he’d celebrate. He locked his car before going into the phone booth. It was only a few metres away, but there were so many crooks around these days you couldn’t be too careful.

  The phone was picked up after the first ring.

  “Monsieur Shaw?”

  “Oui.”

  “You have the money?”

  “It’s here.”

  “Bon. This is what you must do.”

  Simon put the phone down and looked at the notes he’d made. The senior detective exchanged his toothpick for a cigarette and propped himself on the corner of the desk, pleased that there was finally going to be some action. “Alors?”

  Simon recited from his notes. “I go alone in the car up to the parking area at the edge of the Forêt des Cèdres, and leave it there. I take the forest road on foot. After four kilometres, I’ll see a sign on the right marking the start of the Forët Dominiale de Ménerbes. I leave the money under the sign. If everything is in order, the boy is released tomorrow morning.”

  “We need a map,” said the senior detective, “and a local man, someone who knows the forest.” He jerked his head at his colleague. “Call Avignon, and tell them what’s going on. Tell them to cover both airports—but no uniforms, d’accord?”

  Françoise was sent to fetch her father. Simon found a map and was spreading it on the desk when Bonetto arrived, in singlet and shorts and slippers, his beetroot face serious. The men huddled over the map in a cloud of cigarette smoke.

  Yes, Bonetto said, he knew the road well, from his hunting days. It ran along the spine of the Lubéron, from Bonnieux to just before Cavaillon, barred at each end by the forest service so that cars couldn’t use it.

  The detective asked him about escape routes. Bonetto scratched his head and bent lower over the map, jabbing it with a blunt finger as he spoke. “On foot,” he said, “one can go down the south face towards Lourmarin, down the north face to Ménerbes, west to Cavaillon, east on to the Claparèdes above Bonnieux, or anywhere here in this valley.” He shrugged. “There are old mule tracks, dozens of them. The Resistance used them during the war. A man could hide in there for months.”

  “But they won’t want to hide.” The senior detective stared at the maze of contour lines and tracks on the map. “They’ll want to get out. They’ll have a car somewhere. They’ll have to get back to a road.”

  “Beh oui.” Bonetto shook his head. “But in the beginning, they’ll go on foot. And on foot they can go in any direction.”

  The junior detective, a young man with a liking for high technology and higher drama, proposed a helicopter with a searchlight and an assault force from the CRS. He himself would volunteer to go with them.

  Simon held up both hands. “Listen,” he said. “No helicopters, no road blocks, nothing. Nothing until we get him back. Then you can send in the bloody Foreign Legion and Mitterrand’s bodyguard, anything you want. But not until we get him back. They’ve worked it out. They’re not going to bring him up with them. They’ve got him hidden somewhere, and if there’s any sign of a trap …” His voice was hoarse. There was a strange taste in his mouth, dry and unpleasant, and he wondered if it was too many cigars or fear.

  The customs officer yawned and wished it was time to leave his cramped cubicle and go home. Traffic was thin tonight; the usual procession of trucks but not much else. If it came, this black Mercedes with the Bouches-du-Rhône plates, they wouldn’t have any trouble spotting it. If it came.

  He yawned again and turned to the man next to him, who had arrived an hour before. “You don’t think it’s some emmerdeur with nothing else to do?”

  The other man shrugged. He kept his eyes on the road, watching the traffic as it came into the glare of the floodlights that marked the end of France and the beginning of Italy. “God knows,” he said. “I don’t. All I know is that Avignon took it seriously. They told Nice, and Nice took it seriously. It might be a grudge. The mec who tipped them off said it was tax evasion and currency smuggling. Some big sardine from Marseille. Apparently they’ve been after him for years.”

  The customs officer stretched. It made a change from checking load weights on trucks. “We normally pass cars straight through,” he said. “Otherwise it would be solid from here to Menton.”

  “That’s probably what he’s counting on. Or maybe he’s just getting careless. Got a cigarette?”

  “Given it up.”

  “Me too.”

  The two men stared at the headlights that streamed down the autoroute in straight lines before fanning out and slowing down to pass through the row of gates where t
hey paid the toll. A truck from Torino, going home. A Volkswagen camper with windsurfing boards strapped to the roof. Two motorbikes, travelling in convoy.

  They saw it at the same time as it came smoothly into the floodlights, a black Mercedes 500, tinted windows, Bouches-du-Rhône plates.

  “There’s our boy.” The customs officer got up. “You tell the others. I’ll go through the routine.”

  He stepped out of the cubicle and walked across to where the Mercedes was waiting behind a German caravan. He tapped on the driver’s window, and it slid down. Over the shoulder of the chauffeur, he could see a man asleep in the back, his hand resting on the attaché case by his side on the seat.

  “Bon soir, monsieur. Vous êtes français?”

  The chauffeur nodded.

  “Anything to declare?”

  The chauffeur shook his head.

  “Just pull in over there, would you?”

  The whites of the chauffeur’s eyes gleamed against his dark skin as he looked over to the side of the road. Four men in suits were waiting under the floodlights. One of them beckoned to the Mercedes. Enrico continued to snore softly.

  Simon checked his watch, stood up, and dragged the sack from under the desk. “I’d better go. I’m supposed to be there between midnight and one.” He picked up a flashlight and the car keys and turned to the detectives. “No games, all right?”

  “Monsieur Shaw, if you should get a chance to see a face …”

  Simon nodded. Sure, he thought. I’ll do better than that. I’ll ask them all to pop down for a drink after I’ve handed over the money, and we can have a party. He felt curiously calm, almost fatalistic, in between spasms of panic. What was he doing, taking a million pounds in a plastic sack into the middle of a bloody forest to meet a bunch of dangerous lunatics? This was madness. He picked up the sack and went out of the office to find Nicole and Ernest talking quietly to a tearful Françoise. They went with him to the car, and as he drove off he saw them in the rearview mirror, a forlorn trio in the middle of a shadowy street.