TimeLocke

by Jack Barnao

  I was working now, and I noted every entrance to the house. The side door to Constance’s quarters led down from the shed, and there was one window where I guessed the sink would be in her kitchen.

  On the east side the house was blind except for two small windows, both shut tightly. On the south side was a door that looked as if it hadn’t been opened since the last occupant went out to his own funeral. And on the west side, under Amy’s window, there was a courtyard with a couple of garden chairs and a big old brass water faucet over a stone sink. There were French doors into what I judged to be Constance’s living quarters and a couple of low doorways into outdoor storage spaces.

  The only ray of sunshine was Constance’s truffle dog. With any luck at all he would be a pathological barker.

  Constance saw me as she came back through her trees, puffing on her pipe. She waved, and I walked out to join her. “You approve of my house?” she asked dryly.

  “Not the most defensible place I’ve been in, but it’s certainly beautiful.”

  She gestured casually with her pipe. “We managed. Last year, after Orsini became angry with Amy.”

  “How many people did you use?”

  She shrugged. “All those I could find from the old days. Six, including me.”

  She included herself without any false pride. She had used a gun before then, her attitude said. It was what one did under provocation.

  “You had them where?”

  “Where would you have placed them, John?” she asked teasingly. Her voice had become playful, and I could imagine her, forty-five years younger, flirting with my father when he was a young officer with the Canadian army, fighting his way across France.

  I turned and pointed where I’d place the men. “One on the hill behind the house. One by the woodpile on the north side, one lower down here, where the path turns. One in the courtyard, one on the south side, and the last one in the living room of Amy’s apartment.”

  “What about the east side?” she asked dryly.

  “I figured Bonzo here would take care of that.”

  She smiled, showing those terrible teeth. “You have done this before.”

  “Lots of times,” I said. “Did Amy tell you she was attacked this morning in Vaison?”

  “Yes.” She frowned, puffing smoke. “That gives me concern. It says not only that Orsini is serious but that he has good intelligence.”

  “It bothers me as well. I wonder how he found out so quickly that she was in town.”

  “Did you stop anywhere before you went to see Pierre Armand?”

  “At Le Siècle, for a café au lait. There was hardly time for men to drive from Marseilles even if she had been recognized at once.”

  “Then the information must have come earlier. Perhaps Orsini has a contact with the airline, someone who would see the passenger lists from Paris.”

  “It sure looks that way,” I said. “This could be an interesting few weeks.

  “Well, you know what the Chinese say?” She was testing me again.

  “ ‘May you live long in interesting times.’ I’d heard that was more of a curse than a blessing.”

  She laughed. “Perhaps, but consider the alternative.” She stooped and let her dog off the leash. It bounded away to the far side of her grove of oaks and squatted. “Well trained,” she said with a twinkle.

  She recalled the dog and led it around to the back of the house and tied it up. “Amy is sleeping?”

  “Yes. I should get back. I just wanted to assess the house.”

  “Of course. Perhaps now, when she wakes, you will join me for a drink. We can talk more.”

  “Thank you. I’d like that.” We walked around to the back entrance. She went down her two steps; and I went up. The door was locked, as I’d left it, and I let myself in. Amy was sitting in the living room with a glass of water.

  “Sleep well?” I asked her.

  “Yes. I find jet lag isn’t much of a problem.” She spoke with the confidence of someone who habitually travels first- class. I’d found it different in the belly of a Hercules transport back to Britain from the Falklands.

  “We should talk,” I said. “They’re on to you. And from the speed they’re moving they’ve been lying in wait for a year, so they’re serious.”

  Her face became set, a stubborn child. “You can take care of me. You proved that this morning.”

  “You can count on me to do my best, and that’s pretty good. But you have to remember that even the president of the United States isn’t safe behind a full corps of bodyguards,” I said. “I just want you to know that the risk continues.”

  “You’re telling me you’re scared?” Her voice was almost sneering, and her pretty face wasn’t pretty at that moment.

  “I’ve been in worse situations. I doubt that you have,” I said levelly. “It just seems to me that you’re taking an academic exercise very seriously, putting it ahead of your own safety.”

  “You publish or perish in my field.” Her voice was crisp, as if she were lecturing her nice, harmless group of students back in Toronto. “I’ve got a head start on my career with my doctoral paper. Now I’ve changed focus, and when this assignment is completed, I’ll be set for tenure at the U. of T. and also most likely have a popular audience for my work. This is important.”

  I raised both hands. “Count on me. Now, why don’t you fill me in on who you’re going to see?”

  “Is that necessary?” The same pouty look.

  “I can give you some advice on how to stay safe,” I said patiently. “For instance, don’t tell anybody who else you’re going to see. If they suggest someone, don’t tell them when you’ll be making the call.”

  She looked at me without speaking for about half a minute. Then she nodded, a gesture more to herself than to me. Her purse was sitting by the chair, a big straw basket with some cloth label on one side in French. It looked as if she had bought it on her last trip here. She reached in and took out a file and, surprisingly, a pair of reading glasses. I could see through them that her cheek looked smaller. She was myopic.

  “Do you want to write these names down?” she asked.

  “How nearsighted are you?” I interrupted.

  “Normally I wear contacts,” she said. “I won’t miss anything, if that’s what’s worrying you.”

  “If not, wear your glasses,” I told her. “You might recognize someone important.”

  She pursed her lip, biting off some snappish reply. “I’ve seen this man only once. He looks like that photograph you showed me, so you’ll recognize him as quickly as I do.”

  “Was there anyone else around him?”

  “His date, girlfriend, whatever.”

  “I doubt that she’s a permanent fixture, but what did she look like?”

  “Like a hooker,” she said grimly. “Long hair, long eyelashes, long fingernails.”

  “Blond, dark? How old? Did she resemble anybody, an actress or someone I’d know?”

  The questions made her realize this wasn’t a game. She frowned and remembered. “About twenty-five, I’d say. Jet black, dyed hair, pouty, like Bardot.”

  “That’s good. How tall?”

  “Five three, but she wore enormous heels, and with her hair puffed up, she was taller than he was.”

  That was unusual. It suggested Orsini was a confident guy. Most men pick out shorter girls. “Okay. I think I’ve got her pegged. Did you see anyone else, his chauffeur or someone who might have been a bodyguard?”

  “If he had anyone like that along, they stayed outside. I didn’t see anybody but people I guessed were film people, you know, casually dressed.”

  “To be on the safe side, if you recognize any of them, tell me. They might be on his payroll.”

  She nodded and unfolded her piece of paper. “All right. I’ll do that. Now, do you want these names?”

  “No. I won’t write them down; I’ll learn them.” I was trained not to put things on paper unnecessarily, but Amy still frowned at
me, the theatrical smile, playing to an invisible audience, showing that she was superior to me and my strange ways.

  “Where does Pierre fit in? His name isn’t on the list.”

  “He’s a friend from Cambridge, a classicist. He was useful on my last assignment, and he might be useful here. I looked him up to see if he can help.” Her tone was defensive. She and Pierre had been close at one time, I judged.

  “And can he be?”

  “He has promised to talk to his own contacts in the community. He’s well known locally; he’s lived here since university.”

  “Doing what?”

  “Really,” she snapped. “What has this got to do with your guarding me?”

  “Did he know you were coming to town today?”

  She stood up angrily. “Are you saying he told someone and Orsini heard?”

  “Somebody did. And the guys knew exactly where you were.”

  She took a couple of steps, holding her hands away from her sides. “Is this what it comes down to? Everyone I know is a suspect?”

  “What does he live on?” I kept my voice calm. She was in danger, and the sooner she realized the fact, the safer she would become.

  “Family money. His father has vineyards. Pierre doesn’t have to teach, like me.”

  “And he’s working on something about the Romans?”

  She turned to stand over me. If I’d been one of her students, I would have known I was going to get a D minus on my assignment. “Just what the hell does a dropout like you know about anything?” she hissed.

  “You can’t learn if you don’t ask questions. What kind of teacher are you, anyway?” I said mildly.

  She threw up her hands and sat down. “Your business disgusts me. You poke and pry into everything.”

  “Think of me as a historian of the ongoing. I won’t ask about anything I don’t need to know.”

  “He’s working on a history of the false popes,” she said finally. “There, satisfied now?”

  “Why isn’t he over at Avignon? That’s where they held court.”

  “He spent the winter there. Now he’s back in his own home doing his writing. Okay?”

  “Fine. Thank you.”

  She sat in silence, and at last I said, “I was talking to Constance. She asked us down for drinks. What do you say?”

  “On condition you keep your damn mouth shut,” she said.

  I stood up. “You’re beautiful when you’re mad,” I told her, and ducked the cushion she flung at me.

  Drinks and, later, dinner with Constance were the best part of the day. Amy had been right about her books. She had three walls of her big room covered with them. Everything from Sartre to Surtees to S. J. Perelman. While the women chattered in French, I excused myself and browsed, drink in hand, finally borrowing a history of the Mongols to read while I was there.

  After dinner we went back upstairs. I’d locked the door before we left but went in first, anyway, making sure nobody had slipped in ahead of us. If Orsini knew we were in town, he probably knew where we were staying. But there were no prowlers.

  Constance had told me that her dog was noisy if anyone came close, but I made a last check outside before coming in. Everything was still, and Amy was already in her room with the door closed when I got back. I drank a last glass of the good water that had come from the spring that fed the tap in the courtyard and then went to bed, leaving a chair under the door handle of the downstairs room.

  I’ve learned to sleep lightly over the years, and I did, waking before dawn, still on Toronto time. I sat and read about Genghis Khan for an hour, then got up and went for a run, down to the roadway and back three times. It was only about six kilometers, but the hill was punishing, and I was sweating hard when I got back. The door was locked, and the leaf I’d slipped between the edge of the door and the jamb was still in place. I’d been happy to see that the dog barked authoritatively every time I came and went from the house, so I knew we were safe. The only thing was, he had disturbed Constance. She came to the side door as I opened it up. She was wrapped in a terrycloth bathrobe and for once was not wearing her pipe.

  She beckoned me. “Come,” she commanded, and I followed her as she led me around to her doghouse. The dog leaped up on the end of his chain, and she went up and petted it, talking in soft idiomatic French that left me clueless about what she was saying.

  Then she waved to me. “Let him sniff your hand,” she said, and I did. She stopped again and spoke to the dog in a loving whisper. This time I caught two of her words. “Ton ami” Your friend. Security clearance, La Fongeline style.

  “Now he knows you,” she said. “If you insist on this dreary North American business of exercising in the mornings, the rest of the world can sleep.”

  “Thank you.” I stooped and fondled the dog, and he relaxed with me as totally as he seemed to with Constance. “Bon garçon” I said, and Constance laughed.

  “Would you like some powerful coffee?”

  “Please. If you don’t mind the way I’m dressed.”

  She fondled the dog one last time, then stood all the way up, her full four feet eleven. “I spent the whole of 1944 and part of 1945 living with the Maquis,” she said proudly. “You are not showing enough flesh to shock me, John.”

  “Fair enough,” I said. “I’d love some coffee, please.”

  She led me back in and poured us coffees into the wonderful bowls they sometimes use in France. She added hot milk and gave me a croissant. “The breakfast of champions,” she said dryly.

  I laughed and raised my coffee. “Salut.” She smiled. I could see she liked having a guy around. It was time to use the advantage. “Tell me, Constance, how safe would you say Amy can be here?”

  She looked at me over the brim of her cup. “It’s not going to be easy,” she said. “Orsini is tough.”

  “I know that. He’s the head of one of the biggest crime families in Marseilles,” I said.

  She shook her head impatiently. “Tougher than that, John Locke. Most of those guys sit on their fat asses and have other people do the work. Not him. He cuts his own throats. He was in the Maquis for three years. He was a lone-wolf killer. They called him Le Loup.”

  CHAPTER 6

  I was thoughtful as I went back up to the apartment. Constance’s information had raised a couple of questions in my mind. First, if Orsini was one of their own, why had her old buddies from the Resistance turned out to defend Amy the night he first gave her a hard time? If they knew his pedigree, they shouldn’t have been so ready to shoot him if he’d tried to harm Amy. That’s not the way it happens in the IRA, for instance. They will torture or even kill their own members, but they always have some kind of court-martial first. The Maquis did things more casually, it seemed.

  My second question was less philosophical. Had one of the local Resistance vets tipped off Orsini that Amy was coming back to town? Some of them must have known. Just where did their loyalties lie, I wondered.

  Constance had given me the names of the Resistance people she had called up the year before. I was planning to check them out with Amy, to see if she had contacted any of them ahead of time and let them know she was coming. A long shot, but if we could find out who was for us and who against, it might make my life a little easier in the weeks to come.

  I put coffee on and showered. By the time I was out, the coffee aroma had done the things it does in TV commercials, and Amy was in the kitchen, worrying about breakfast.

  It seemed she was a morning person. She was bright and cheerful as she poured the coffee and dug into the croissants Constance had given me for our breakfast.

  I told her about Orsini, and she paused in mid-bite to consider the news. “Is Constance certain of her facts?” she asked at last. “I’ve never heard this before.”

  “You’ve heard of Le Loup?”

  She nodded impatiently. “Of course. He was kind of a loner. From what I’ve heard, he started out with a group of others, leftists and men trying to avoid bei
ng shipped to Germany to work, the usual crowd.” She paused to eat some of her croissant, looking thoughtful as she tried to marshal the facts in her memory. “I think it was 1944 that things fell apart. His group was engaged in some kind of operation, and it went sour. The Germans were waiting for them, and they killed them all, wiped them out to the last man, except for Le Loup.”

  “Was he the leader?”

  “No.” She shook her head. “He wasn’t even Le Loup at that time. It was after that he built his reputation. He specialized in killing sentries.”

  I studied her face as she talked. Most men would have shown some emotion at the thought, pro and con, either reveling in the idea of the cowboys beating the Indians or else hating the idea of killing. Amy’s face was neutral. She was dealing in historical facts. Taxes had been collected. Throats had been cut. It was all the same to her, another fact for filing.

  “And I guess the Germans took reprisals on the locals,” I said. “For every German killed they would shoot the mayor of the nearest village, plus half a dozen other men taken at random.”

  “Yes.” She nodded. “There’s a plaque in the square at Gordes; they shot a group of hostages there, among other places.”

  “Mostly that system worked,” I said. “If you were from the area, you didn’t want to see your neighbors shot. But if you were from Corsica, or Marseilles even, that was different. Your war came first, the inhabitants second. I’d imagine Le Loup was not well liked.”

  She was hardly listening. “If Orsini is Le Loup, I’d love to talk to him,” she said.

  I kept my cool. “Don’t lose sight of who and what he is now,” I reminded her. “Charles Manson may have been a cute little kid once, but talking to him didn’t do much for Sharon Tate.”

  She was too excited by the thought to sit still. She got up, carrying her coffee cup, and walked over to the window. “How serious do you think he is about hurting me, really, John?” She flashed me a girlish smile, as if winning my heart would set her free from threats forever. “I can make him famous,” she went on. “Le Loup tells the world what it was like to be a lone freedom fighter.”