Wherever There Is Light

by Peter Golden

  Kendall said, “I should’ve killed them both.”

  “And give yourself something else to regret forever?”

  She looked across the tin rooftops with the terra-cotta chimney pots to the domes of the Sorbonne and Panthéon, both of them glorious against the wash of red and violet twilight.

  “I didn’t see them at Ohrdruf. The camp was a mob scene. Everyone wanted a peek. To prove we were fighting the right war. Soldiers and reporters were in and out. Eisenhower stopped by with Patton and Bradley . . .”

  Kendall turned. “You would’ve shot them. I wished you were there to shoot them.”

  Julian would gladly shoot them now, but that information wouldn’t help Kendall, who was resting her head on his chest. Gingerly, Julian put his arms around her.

  “I felt like it was my fault,” Kendall said.

  “It wasn’t.”

  “And I felt worthless.”

  “You’re not.”

  Kendall was trembling, controlling herself, trying not to cry.

  Julian embraced her. Raising his voice, he said, “You’re not worthless.”

  Kendall held her breath, then exhaled slowly. Her trembling stopped.

  Julian whispered, “Marry me?”

  Kendall didn’t respond immediately. Then her head nodded up and down against him. Julian knew they would have to talk about it later, but for now he was happy to take it for a yes.

  Chapter 50

  I’m sure Thayer’s fine,” Kendall was saying into the telephone as Julian entered his bedroom with a towel around his waist. “Her roommate from Smith was in town, wasn’t she? They could’ve gone off somewhere. I’ll go by Thayer’s, speak to her concierge, and ask around. When’s your train get in? We’ll be here at nine. Call.”

  Kendall hung up. “That was Simon. He’s in Heidelberg and hasn’t been able to get in touch with Thayer for three days. He got your number from Otis.”

  Julian began to dress. Sounding defensive, Kendall said, “Simon and I, we’re not—”

  “I know.” Julian didn’t suspect her of cheating on him, but Thayer’s disappearing and Simon’s going to Heidelberg got his attention. Heidelberg was the headquarters of the US military in Europe; Thayer had been awfully chummy with Arnaud Francoeur at her party, and though Julian had assumed her interest in him was carnal, not political, now he wondered if Simon, Thayer, and Francoeur could be up to something. Unlikely that it was warehousing small arms in Paris, as Wild Bill had suggested in July. Julian doubted that Stalin would order the Red Army to invade Western Europe, because the Soviet leader wouldn’t want an atom bomb dropped on the Kremlin. Yet who would’ve predicted that the Germans, the intellectual, artistic, and scientific lodestars of the West, would annihilate millions in the camps?

  Outside it was one of those sun-blessed October days with the leaves, like miniature kites, drifting through a polished-blue sky, and on Place de la Contrescarpe, the clochards were collecting donations from the shoppers streaming down Rue Mouffetard. Julian and Kendall sat on the terrace of La Contrescarpe.

  “Don’t you get bored with pain au chocolat every morning?” she said.

  “Nope. And I don’t get bored with making love to you.”

  “You will when we’re old.”

  “Then I’ll still have chocolate.”

  “Hah! Small compensation.”

  Julian grinned and, after another bite of his pastry, changed the subject. “We didn’t finish our conversation last evening.” They had gone to Tour d’Argent, and with a view of the Seine and Notre-Dame and eating duck and drinking pinot noir, they had discussed marriage. Kendall was warming to the idea, but the conversation ended when they got back to Julian’s.

  Kendall’s smile lit up her eyes. “It’s not my fault. Who told you to kiss me?”

  “I thought that up on my own.”

  “You were saying it would be easier to get married in the States, and I said it would be illegal in Florida.”

  “New Jersey then.”

  Kendall drank her café crème. “But we’d live in Paris?”

  “I’d have to be in Jersey now and again, but I’d live here. Marcel’s finishing renovating a three-bedroom upstairs. The rent’s a hundred and fifty dollars a month.”

  “And we could split it.” She wasn’t asking a question.

  “Or you could pay it and I’d be a kept man.”

  “I like that. What would you do in Paris?”

  “Compose an epic poem. La Chanson de Julian.”

  There went her smile again. Beautiful. “Like La Chanson de Roland only about you?”

  “Exactly. I’d write in between real-estate deals.”

  Kendall put her hand on his. “Are you unhappy with the way we are now?”

  “I want children. You said you did too.”

  “At some point. But I’ll still have to travel for work.”

  “I’ll be around, and we can hire a femme de ménage. I want a family. I want you to be my family.”

  “I—I already feel like I am.”

  Julian squeezed her hand and wished that Kendall had sounded less—less reluctant? Less afraid? He finished his café crème and let the matter drop. “You have a shoot today?”

  “For Ebony. Negro expatriates in Paris. I’ll be at the Café Tournon between eleven and three. First, I’ve got to take some film to the lab. And I told Simon I’d go by Thayer’s. I’ll do that, and then I’ll make some calls. Otis might have seen her.”

  “I’ll be at the club. I can swing by your place at four and we can figure out dinner.”

  “Parfait,” she said, and laced her fingers through his.

  Julian had been sitting at the bar for two hours going over the accounting ledger with Isabella when she said, “We’re making a profit and you’re not taking your share.”

  “That makes me a good partner, no?”

  “A confusing one. You’re supposed to take your money.”

  “You keep it. I got plenty.”

  “My cousin Arnaud wants to be our partner as well.”

  “What?”

  “He was here last night. We were busy, and Arnaud says I am doing so well, didn’t I want to contribute to le Parti Communiste Français? The Communists could make sure nothing happens to my bistro.”

  Apparently, a Commie protection racket was no different from the capitalist variety.

  Isabella said, “That leprous asshole was there when les tondeurs shaved my head. My cousin, whom I cared for as a baby—dried his tears and changed his diapers—did nothing to stop them. Manny, my friend’s son, tried to help, and the mob beat him to death.” Isabella closed the ledger, then stared at Julian. “And Arnaud thinks I’ll give him money so he can keep sitting in the Café de Flore acting like the king of France. I would sooner suck his puny cock.”

  Her eyes shone with anger, which Julian preferred to the hopelessness that he’d seen when they met. And since Francoeur had been one of Kendall’s lovers, he didn’t object to hearing that he was hung like a mouse. “Don’t pay Arnaud. I’ll talk to him.”

  “Bonjour,” Marcel said, as he walked into the club.

  Isabella was suddenly grinning like a young coquette. “Julian, did you know the girls flirt with my doorman?”

  “Because you tell them I can do more with one arm than any man with two.” Marcel bussed her on one cheek, then the other. “I have to show Julian the new apartment. Will you excuse us?”

  “Bien sûr. Be here by five. So I can feed you. You are still too thin.”

  As Marcel and Julian headed up Rue Blainville, Marcel, speaking English to Julian for the first time, said, “I’ve heard from an associate. We need a taxi, and you will need to spend some of your cash.”

  “For?”

  “To go to Pigalle and pay une fille de joie.”

  The Moulin Rouge, the cabaret famous for its cancan dancers and the red windmill on its roof, was still in Pigalle, and so were the prostitutes on Boulevard de Clichy. The government had outla
wed the maisons de tolérance after the war and, with the economy a wreck and most of the GIs gone, the girls had taken to quoting prices to men going in and out of the green, cylinder-shaped pissoir that stank from a block away. Marcel turned onto a side street, and Julian saw more girls standing on Place Adolphe Max and eyeing the statue of Hector Berlioz, as if the composer, looking prosperous in his cravat and cape, were a potential client. At the corner, an old man in a pilled sweater and patched trousers was selling roasted chestnuts in cones of newspaper, and Marcel said to him, “Bon travail, mon ami,” and walked past a fleabag hotel to a house with a crumbling stucco exterior. Marcel asked Julian for a fifty-dollar bill, then banged on the door. A woman answered. She had hennaed hair done up in pin curls, a peignoir that advertised her wares, and the countenance of someone who expected nothing and got even less.

  “You spoke to my friend,” Marcel said, holding out the fifty. “Can you repeat the story?”

  She took the bill as if plucking a grape from a vine. “Four days ago a Negro in a nice suit was outside. I came downstairs and asked if he would like to come up. He said no, he was waiting for a woman. His French was shameful. He was an American.”

  “And the woman?”

  “She arrived in a taxi with a scarf over her hair. I saw her from my window. She had a face like a doll. The Negro handed her something and went away. She stood there long enough for me to smoke a cigarette and two men came in a truck. One had light hair, the other a beret like yours. The woman unlocked the front door of my building and went in.”

  Julian said, “So the Negro gave her a key?”

  “Perhaps. The two men carried six wooden crates into the apartment below mine. Then they left in the truck, the woman on foot.”

  “May we see the crates?” Julian asked.

  “Do you have a key?”

  “No,” Julian said. “Do you?”

  “I have a knife, hammer, and screwdriver.”

  Another fifty rented all three. Julian had no trouble with the lock. It probably hadn’t been changed since the reign of Napoleon. The apartment was unfurnished and the walls were mildewed. A dirt-ringed bathtub was in the kitchen, and the crates were in the windowless bedroom. Inside the crates were M1 carbines; M3 submachine guns; military Smith & Wesson revolvers; and ammunition for all of them.

  Marcel said, “The American weapons Wild Bill mentioned to you.”

  Nodding, Julian loaded a revolver, tucked it in the back of his waistband, and dumped some cartridges into the pocket of his sport coat. Then he hammered the crates shut. The woman was standing in the entranceway. Julian returned the knife and tools, then gave her a hundred dollars and warned her, “Talk to no one about this. You’ll be safer.”

  They were out on the boulevard again. Marcel said, “The one with the light hair, I would wager that’s Francoeur. Do you know the others?”

  “Two out of three, I think. They’ve been at Dans le Vent. The Negro’s Simon Foxe, the woman’s Thayer Claypoole. No one has seen her for a while.”

  Marcel let out an exasperated sigh. “She’s missing? You should’ve told me. Wait here.”

  He went into a tabac, and from the open windows Julian could smell the aroma of potatoes frying in oil. When Marcel came out he headed straight for a cab with Julian behind him, and he gave directions to the driver as they settled into the back seat.

  “What?” Julian asked.

  “My younger brother was an inspector at the Brigade Criminelle. He has retired to Brittany. But he had many friends at the Brigade, and I spoke to a detective. This Thayer’s college roommate—a niece of the American ambassador—has been searching for her.”

  “Have they located Thayer?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Where?”

  “Nowhere you would want to be.”

  Chapter 51

  Bicycle patrolmen weaved between the police cars parked on Quai des Tuileries. A crowd had formed along the low wall on the quay, and les flics in their kepis and capes were blocking the onlookers from going down the stone ramp to the Seine, where the linden trees bent toward the river as if their autumn-gold leaves were peeking over the shoulders of the police.

  Marcel said, “I’ll see if I know anyone.”

  He was gone for five minutes.

  “I’ll have to call the Brigade for details, but I heard reporters from Le Parisien and France Soir talking. There is a dead woman, and the cops believe she jumped from the bridge. Another lovesick young woman, and someone told the reporters she had a wooden mask on.”

  “Of L’Inconnue de la Seine?”

  “How did you—”

  “Thayer collected those masks.”

  “It will be an hour before I learn anything.”

  “I have to make a stop. Can your detective send the police to get those weapons?”

  “He can. You are going to see Francoeur?”

  “Oui.”

  “C’est bon ça. Whatever the Communists think, I don’t want their revolution here, and France is also my country.”

  The Café de Flore was a few doors down from Deux Magots. The terrace was full, but just a handful of customers were upstairs, and Arnaud Francoeur, in a blue blazer and white tennis shirt, was among them. He sat by himself at a marble-topped table in back eating an omelet and drinking a glass of white wine.

  “Très intéressant,” Julian said, taking the chair across from him. “An epicurean Stalinist.”

  Francoeur put down his fork and looked at Julian like a poker player calculating whether to call or raise. “Your French accent is improving.”

  “It seems the police fished Thayer out of the river.”

  Francoeur combed his fingers through his golden-brown hair. “A rich, naïve American girl with a taste for intrigue. That’s a pity.”

  “She died for the cause, did she?”

  Francoeur wiped his mouth with his napkin. “Jealous?”

  Francoeur was playing with him. Jesus, how could Kendall have fucked this jerk? “Of what?”

  “Of someone with a cause? You must not be a typical American, Julian. Americans love causes, non? For example, your General Marshall will soon be buying entire countries in Europe.”

  “Feeding the hungry is preferable to some of your countrymen sticking Jews on trains to Auschwitz.”

  “You Americans make me laugh. You are ignorant of your history and assume everyone else is. But we are not. Had Zyklon B been available, your Indians would have died in gas chambers. And Americans will have time to murder their Jews when they are done hanging Negroes like Christmas ornaments on trees. Is that not why so many, including Kendall, are in Paris?”

  Julian could have countered with Stalin and his purges, but he was allergic to philosophical masturbation. And he loathed hearing Francoeur say Kendall’s name. “Isabella told me you came by.”

  “She is my cousin.”

  “Isabella is not paying any protection money.”

  “That is up to Isabella.”

  “And me. I’m her partner.”

  “Quelle surprise. My old comrade, the OSS commando, the former lover of my former lover, turns up in Paris to go into business with my cousin. How stupid do you believe I am?”

  Julian pressed the table toward Francoeur, shoving him and his chair against the wall.

  Francoeur smirked. “This is a schoolboy game, non?”

  Julian got more of his weight behind his side of the table, wanting to break Francoeur’s ribs, but the smirk didn’t go away. While he may not have been able to write an epic poem, Julian wasn’t without creativity. Leaning close to Francoeur and locking eyes with him, Julian snatched the fork off his plate and drove the tines through the top of the man’s left hand. The smirk disappeared, and Francoeur sounded as if he were gagging.

  “Isabella pays you nothing. Rien. Not a centime.”

  Francoeur nodded, his face almost as red as the blood seeping around the tines.

  “Annoy her—or Kendall—we’ll get together again.
And I’ll bring a set of steak knives.”

  Julian left the fork in Francoeur’s hand and departed without saying au revoir.

  The sky was steely blue as Julian cut through Place Saint-Sulpice. Men and women sat on the lower lip of the fountain talking while the pigeons up on the statues of the bishops studied the people as if they were chaperoning a social. Julian entered a hotel off the square and phoned Dans le Vent from the kiosk in the lobby.

  Marcel answered. “Isabella has made her cassoulet. She says you must eat at the club with Kendall.”

  “I’ll try. Did you hear anything?”

  “Oui. It was Thayer Claypoole. Her college roommate identified her. She was struck on the head and probably unconscious when she was thrown in the water. The detective says men from the American Embassy had been asking about Thayer for weeks. They were aware of her, Simon Foxe, and Arnaud, and the rumor about the weapons that Wild Bill heard.”

  “I’m guessing the weapons are why Arnaud got rid of her. Thayer liked to talk.”

  “She was sleeping with Arnaud and Foxe?”

  “She was.”

  “Is it possible Foxe—”

  “Possible, not probable. I’ll talk to Simon. Can you fill in Wild Bill? Tell him I’m bringing Simon home, and after that, I’m retiring.”

  Marcel was silent. Then: “Certainement. What about Arnaud?”

  “I’ll give you my pistol, and if he bothers Isabella, you can take care of him.”

  “Avec plaisir.”

  Kendall was exiting a tabac on Rue de Vaugirard and slipping a pack of cigarettes into her shoulder bag when Julian saw her. With the air cooler than this morning, she had changed into a tight tweed jacket and tighter dungarees and knotted a purple-and-orange scarf around her neck. He loved to watch her without her seeing him; it was like looking at a painting—a riot of color and curves, and a lingering awe at the artistry of the creator.

  “How’d the shoot go?” Julian asked after they’d kissed.

  “It went well. But I didn’t get a chance to eat. I’m famished.”