I had to find Sean O'Toole and put a bullet through his heart, and preferably in front of lots of television cameras so that the message could be flashed back to Ireland in an instant and Michael O'Ryan, the Colonel, would see that the job was done and would reveal the location of the ghastly dungeon where my family were slowly being killed.
I stood up. I felt dizzy. I moved carefully down the steps out of the ambulance, but still managed to stumble over the last one. I just managed to keep my feet as I reached solid ground. My arm wasn't really sore at all. The medic's pain-killing shot had, if anything, given me a slight sense of narcotic elation. Maybe Sean O'Toole felt this way all the time. Maybe I should get into heroin. William Burroughs had written many of his novels while addicted to the stuff. He had also shot his first wife in the head. I looked to the station. It was big and imposing and I didn't have a timetable. I had a credit card, but no luggage. My computer was back at the hotel. My clothes, I should get changed, my bill, I didn't . . .
'Dan?'
'What?'
'Get the train, go to sleep, there's nothing more you can do until you get to Cannes.'
He was right. I'd been shot. I needed to rest. I needed to get my head in order. I needed to be perfectly sane before I could do something insane like shooting Sean O'Toole.
Maurice was closing the doors. I nodded up at him. 'Good luck,' he said.
'Thanks.'
I turned and walked towards the train station.
36
Even though I was intent on killing an international film star, I was not a madman, or at least it was important that I didn't look like one. I was not going to go charging through the streets of Cannes waving my gun and shouting, 'Sean O'Toole! Come out, come out, wherever you are!'
My family were dying, but I had to be cool, calm and collected. Though my head was pounding with the possibilities and my stomach was perpetually hanging around my ankles like trousers in a narrow toilet cubicle, I had to appear normal. I did not need to attract attention. I was a man on a mission. An amateur. Hinckley. Chapman. Maybe even Lee Harvey.
I slept on the train, I read an English newspaper some homesick tourist had left behind. I stayed away from the news section in case there was something about O'Ryan, in case there was a photograph and his eyes caught mine, teasing, gloating eyes made all the more horrific by dotted black and white. I turned to the sports section. Liverpool were doing well again after a ten-year lapse. Bruno was talking about a comeback. I studied the lifestyle section and learned how to lose pounds in days by eating whatever the fuck I wanted. Anything to put the time and the miles in. Or kilometres, given the location.
I changed at Paris and bought a baguette. I arrived in Nice with the sun splitting the trees, then took a cab to Cannes. I asked the driver if he could recommend a hotel in Cannes, not too expensive, but not a flea pit either, somewhere with a satellite TV and a mini-bar and maybe south-facing so that it got the sun in the morning or was that north-facing? – I'd never quite been able to work that one out. He looked at me through a haze of cigarette smoke and said, 'Pardon?'
'You don't speak English?'
'Pardon?'
I sighed. He didn't deserve it, but he got it. 'You're just doing it for badness, aren't you? I've read about you French bastards. You just pretend you can't speak English to piss people off. You speak it like a Cockney, you cunt, but you just think you're so fucking superior you expect everyone else to talk fucking French. Okay, granted you won the World Cup but that was only because Ronaldo was pumped full of drugs, and, okay, Napoleon had a certain talent but excuse me if we didn't save your sorry arse in the war, not once but twice, you yellow Vichy bastard.'
So much for cool, calm and collected.
'Pardon, monsieur? Je ne parle pas anglais.'
'Up your hole with a big jam roll.'
I wound down the window. It was beautiful weather. I said, 'Just take me to Cannes.'
He shrugged and drove on. He caught my eye in the mirror several times, and halfway there offered me a cigarette. I thanked him and lit up. My hands were shaking, and not just because I didn't usually smoke. I'd shared a Camel with Maurice. I was a real two-a-month man, but only when members of my family were under threat.
I'm a political smoker. I don't inhale. When I was a kid a gang of us rode our bikes to Groomsport with ten Embassy Regal between us. We were eleven years old. We hid up an alley close to the beach and lit up. I smoked mine in twelve seconds, suck in, blow out, suck in, blow out, like it was a race to the finish, and it was, I suppose. And then the minister from our local church came strolling past and caught us on and I didn't touch another one for twenty years. And now another, in a cab in the flaming south of France with my wife and . . .
Stop thinking about them. You'll go mad.
Block them out. Do the job. They'll survive.
No, they won't. It's too late. They're dead.
No, it isn't. Do your best. They can't ask for more.
They can't ask at all, they're dead.
Fuck it.
We were in Cannes. We came down a hill onto the main seafront drag, the Croisette. Traffic was virtually at a standstill. There were thousands of people on the sidewalk. Every twenty yards there was a huge poster advertising a movie. Helicopters buzzed overhead. To my left, beyond the palm trees, was the bay. Dozens of cruisers lay at anchor. Big motherfuckers that could have taken part in the Falklands War were playing host to B-list celebrities for £40,000 a day. I wondered if Sean O'Toole was out there and how I would ever get to him if he was.
My driver was from Nice. If he had any inkling about hotels he didn't let on. He would just drive until told to stop. If I had my way, I wouldn't be staying long enough to need a hotel. If things worked out, the French government would be providing one for me anyway, free of charge, for an extended stay. Twenty or thirty years, maybe, and the chances were there wouldn't be a mini-bar.
I said, 'Just drop me here, Johnny Foreigner,' and he looked at me and smiled and drove on, so I tapped him on the shoulder and pointed at the roadside and pulled at the door handle. The centime dropped. He pulled in. We were in one-way traffic and immediately there came a fusillade of horns from behind. He ignored them. So did I. I fished in my wallet. I'd managed to extract some money on my credit card at a bureau de change when changing trains in Paris. I even gave him a tip.
He said, 'Thanks very much.'
I said, 'Oh.'
He said, 'Many of your criticisms of my country are valid, although I should point out that my father fought for the Resistance. Have a nice day.'
I thanked him and closed the door.
Cannes.
On the other side of the road were the big hotels, the Majestic and the Carlton, where a Coke would set you back six quid, and a Diet Coke just as much, even though all the goodness had been taken out. On the bay side were the extensions to those hotels, semi-permanent marquees erected to feed the 50,000 accredited producers, directors, financiers and journalists who descended each year for the two weeks of deal-making and drinking that constituted Cannes's raison d'être, although not in that order. At the far end of the Croisette there were the blue-carpeted stairs leading up to the Palais des Festivals where all the competition films were shown, and behind it, overlooking the public beach with its tourists and overstacked topless models hoping to get discovered, and getting discovered only by the pervs with the video cameras, a series of pavilions dedicated to different countries or companies: there was one for Fox, one for HBO, one for Miramax, a dozen others, then last and least, the British pavilion, a tarted-up caravan with a small marquee added. There was a bar, of course, and I was heading straight for it when a security guy stopped me.
Bouncers, everywhere I go. No dickie, no black suit, but a bouncer all the same.
He was pleasant, but firm: no accreditation, no entry. I asked him where I could get it. He gave me a look that said first time, yeah, then pointed me in the right direction. It was only a couple of hundred ya
rds and it only cost me fifty quid and a quick head and shoulders photo from a shark on the promenade. Then into the Palais des Festivals to get the ID. I had an old press card stuck in my wallet. For the Belfast Evening News. On the back of it there was my drunken scrawl, the name Margaret, and a phone number. I shuddered. The girl behind the desk was nice and pretty and welcomed me to the festival in perfect English. I smiled and said bonjour. I clipped my shiny new plastic ID card into a little blue string necklace they provided and marched back out, part of the most exciting film festival in the world, and only one thing on my mind.
Calm down, act normal, find out where he is.
This time the bouncer let me in. I bought a drink at the bar and started talking to anyone I could, though most of them were busy slabbering on mobile phones. I'd left mine in my hotel in Amsterdam. With my laptop and my clothes. I hadn't washed in days, I was badly stubbled. Perhaps they weren't talking on their mobiles at all, just trying to avoid standing next to me. There was a healthy breeze blowing in off the bay, so I made a point of standing downwind of it. I caught somebody's eye and before he had a chance to look elsewhere I raised my Becks to him and said: 'How're ya doin'? Howse it going so far?'
'Okay,' he said. He was in a white suit and T-shirt, he'd sandy brown hair and a protruding belly. He also had a hopeful look in his eye. He was in his early thirties, I guessed. He squinted a little as he came across, trying to work out where we'd met, at which one of the myriad parties that crackled along the Croisette every night we'd exchanged names or bodily fluids, but as he came closer his chin dropped a little as he realised he didn't know me from Adam, although Adam would undoubtedly have been wearing cleaner clothes. His eyes drifted down to my ID badge, and mine to his. It was a Cannes mating ritual. He was wearing a little badge on his lapel that said I Don't Know You Either. His name was Victor Dalgetty and he ran a small production company in Soho. He'd made two features in the last year and both were being shown at Cannes, but not as part of the competition. It didn't say all of this on his ID, of course. We got talking. I bought him a drink. I didn't give a shit about his views on Cannes, but I thought it might scare him off if I just barged in with have you seen Sean O'Toole? I'm trying to kill him.
The film festival was split into two sections, the competition and the market. The competition, though it got all the international press attention, actually meant bugger all to the real world. 'Swedish dramas about incest and Croatian epics on paedophilia!' Victor laughed. 'They're all shit, but they give them all sorts of facking awards here and they think they're great, then they disappear up their own facking arseholes. Gimme Armageddon any time!'
For Victor the real reason for coming was the market, where companies like his tried to sell their films to as many international territories as they could, either directly or through a sales agent. He was also trying to raise finance for some other films he was hoping to make in the coming year. 'But of course, you're a reporter, you're not interested in commercial movies that make money, you're here for all the facking arty-farty stuff in competition.'
I shrugged.
'You're Irish,' he stated.
'Northern Irish.'
'Whatever. You'll be here to suck up to that facking Sean O'Toole.'
I shrugged. Mountains, and Mohammed.
'Facking Brigadier.'
'Why facking?'
'Lotta people's noses outta joint. Cunt like him just walks into competition with his movie 'cause he's a star, others have to make way. They don't like that here. And I don't like it either 'cause he should stick to doing what he does best, making flash bang wallops 'stead of crawling up some intellectual arsehole with crap like that.'
'You've seen it?'
'Nobody's seen it! All I hear is it's in black and white and there's another facking kiss of death at the box office. Tell you this, only two black-and-white movies ever made any money at the facking box office – I mean apart from when they were all facking black and white!' He cackled. 'Schindler's List and that was all the facking Jews crying over spilled milk and the facking new Nazis having a wank over the dead Jews, and facking Manhattan and that was only because everyone thought they were going to see Annie Hall again and, boy, did they get a facking surprise.'
I tried in vain to think of another black-and-white movie that had made a mint, just to prove him wrong, because he was an annoying bastard, but I couldn't. I sighed and said he had a point and incidentally had he any idea where Sean O'Toole hung out, I'd heard he was in town. I nodded across at the Majestic.
'You jokin'? In there all you get is the cunts on expense accounts and some wannabe producers with daddy's money in their back facking pocket.'
'Out on the boats, then.'
'Same. But, Jesus, people come here t'party, facking superstar or Joe facking Bloggs, doesn't matter, you don't wanna be stuck out on a facking boat. Only one place you're guaranteed to see them all, the facking Cap.'
'The what?'
'Hotel du Cap. You haven't facking heard of it? It's a facking legend. Oh, they're all out there, without a doubt. Half an hour out of town and ten thousand facking quid outta my range.' He clapped a hand on my shoulder. 'Do you wanna come and see one of my movies? They're facking good.'
I took a deep breath. 'What're they . . .?'
'Kids' films. Animated. They're not Disney, but who the fack is? I hire facking Filipinos to do the animation. Draw like a dream and I pay them facking pennies, then I pull in some sad facking ex-soap star to do the lingo and hey presto I make a facking fortune.' I looked at him. 'At least that's the facking plan,' he added.
He asked me if I wanted a drink, I said yeah. We supped on bottles of Becks for a few moments. He tapped the glass rim against his teeth. It was an annoying sound. He was searching for something to say, and his eyes were searching the crowd for somebody he knew.
'So,' he said, evidently finding nobody, 'you're after Sean O'Toole. I hope you facking crucify him, the cunt.'
I nodded.
37
The Hotel du Cap lies equidistant between Cannes and Nice at the tip of Cap d'Antibes. It is set in twenty-five acres of ornamental gardens and surrounded by a Mediterranean pine forest. It was built for $130,000 in 1863 by a mixed group of Antibean businessmen and assorted Russian aristocrats with exotic names like the Count de Pletscheyeff and Count Nicholas Stroganoff.
I can read a tourist guide with the best of them.
I sat in the back of a cab and sighed. It didn't make any difference to me if Scott and Zelda had partied there, or Hemingway or Picasso. I didn't care if there was a swimming pool carved out of the blue-pink rocks or that the Eden Roc wing overlooked the Lerins Islands and you could drink English tea on the terrace. I was after O'Toole. I didn't say a word to the driver in case he was undercover. I was getting to think that I was the only person in the world who wasn't undercover. That I was stuck in some weird X-certificate Truman Show, that everything I had done thus far had been dumb, and then dumber.
The taxi driver grunted something. I looked forward and there was the hotel, in the distance. Impressive, sure. Fitzgerald had based his Hotel des Etrangers in Tender Is the Night on it, and I still didn't give a fuck. I'd a gun and a rough idea of how to use it. Literature is bunk. Or is that history? And am I?
There was security at the gate, but they were pretty much for show. It was a hotel, and it welcomed visitors. Things would only get heavy if you couldn't pay your bill. You could just be Joe Bloggs, drive up and ask about a room or a coffee, even if they were both outside your budget. They leant in to check I wasn't obviously barking, and at that moment I wasn't. I was smoking and wearing shades and looking damn cool. I'd left Victor facking Dalgetty comatose in his room at the Cannes Palace Hotel; he couldn't handle his drink any better than the concept of black-and-white movies. The last round had finished him off. I'd helped him up in the elevator, then helped myself to his shower and a shave and his shades and his cigarettes and lighter and as much cash as I could take from his wa
llet without him starving to death, especially after taking his credit cards as well. I wasn't normally a thief, but this wasn't normal. I left him an IOU and signed it Sam Cameron. Then I pulled his trousers and jockeys down round his knees and added thanks for a great time to the note.
I paid the taxi driver. I gave him a big tip and he was effusive in his gratitude; I didn't understand a word of it, but the security guys on the door seemed to, they opened up for me and welcomed me in like I was the prodigal son. Dusk had not yet settled on the Cap, or perhaps it had and the brightness of the stars within, rather than those without, was keeping it at bay.
I ignored reception and walked straight into the lounge; Patricia might have said it was eloquently appointed in the French country style, but to me it was just tables and chairs, and the aforementioned stars. If I had taken a bread roll and skimmed it from one table to the next it would have bounced off Martin Scorsese's head and landed on Kate Moss's lap; she would have shooed if off onto Naomi's, and she would have heaved it across the room at The Edge; he would have taken a bite and passed it on to Johnny Depp; Johnny would then have thrown it blindly behind him; it would have shot between Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet to strike Denzel Washington. Just as well I was all out of bread rolls. I tried not to look impressed. It wasn't hard. I have never been one for awe or autographs, I'd never thought of them as anything special beyond being good at what they did, and my experience with Sean O'Toole proved the point. I stood for a moment, lighting my cigarette – it was becoming a habit – and contemplated the room. For every little group of stars, there was a little group of minders: big bastards giving each other hard stares because there was nobody else to look at and you never ever looked at your employer in case he or she went into a blue funk.
Now there's a phrase.
So they turned their attention on me. I ignored them and swung into action with Plan A. I waved across the lounge at Kate Moss, because it made sense to start with the prettiest and work backwards. She waved back automatically. I hurried across, all smiles and coos. We air kissed. I said: 'Have you seen Sean?'
Shooting Sean Page 19