by Allan Folsom
Osborn’s eyes went to his hands and he saw his knuckles clenched white around the steering wheel. He thought if he squeezed any harder the wheel would snap off in his hands. Taking a deep breath, he relaxed. And the urge to act faded.
Ahead, the light changed and Kanarack crossed the street. He had to assume he was being followed, either by the American or, by now, though he doubted it, the police. Either way, he could let nothing appear to be any different than it had been, five days a week, fifty weeks a year for the past ten years. Leave the bakery at five, stop somewhere along the way for a brief refreshment, then take the Métro home.
Halfway down the next block was the brasserie Le Bois. He kept his pace unhurried and steady; to all the world he was a simple working man, exhausted at the end of his day. Stepping around a young woman walking a dog, he reached Le Bois, pulled open its heavy glass door, and entered.
Inside, the terrace room facing the street was crowded with the noise and smoke of people unwinding after work. Looking around, Kanarack tried to find a table by the window where he could be seen from the street, but there was none. Grudgingly, he took a seat at the bar. Ordering an espresso with Pernod, he looked toward the door. If a plainclothes policeman came in, he would recognize him or her immediately by attitude and body language as they looked around. Plainclothes or not, high rank or low, every cop in the world wore white socks and black shoes.
The American was another question. The initial attack on him had been so sudden Kanarack had barely seen his face. And when the American had followed him down into the Métro, Kanarack’s own emotions had been rushing and the place jammed with commuters. The little he could remember was that he had been nearly six feet tall, had dark hair and was very strong.
Kanarack’s drink came and for a minute he let it sit on the bar in front of him. Then, picking it up, he took a small sip and felt the warmth of the mixture of coffee and liqueur as it went down. He could still feel Osborn’s hands around his throat, the fingers digging savagely into his windpipe trying to strangle him. That was the part he didn’t understand. If Osborn had been there to kill him, why did he do it that way? A gun or a knife, sure. But bare hands in a crowded public building? It didn’t make sense.
Jean Packard hadn’t been able to explain it either.
It had been easy enough to find out where the detective lived, even though his phone number, along with his address, was unlisted. Speaking in English with an unwavering American accent, Kanarack had placed an emotional call to the Kolb International switchboard in New York just at closing. Saying he was calling from his car phone somewhere outside Fort Wayne, Indiana, and was desperately trying to reach his half brother, Jean Packard, an employee of Kolb International, with whom he’d lost contact since Packard had moved to Paris. Packard’s eighty-year-old mother was desperately ill in a Fort Wayne hospital and not expected to live through the night. Was there any way he could get in touch with his half brother at home?
New York was five hours behind Paris at this time of year. Six o’clock in New York was eleven in Paris, the Kolb offices there were closed. The New York operator on duty checked with his supervisor. This was a legitimate family emergency. Paris was closed. What should he do? At closing time his supervisor, like everyone else, was in a hurry to leave. With only a moment’s hesitation, the supervisor cleared the international computer code and authorized the channeling of Jean Packard’s home telephone number in Paris to his half brother in Indiana.
Agnes Demblon’s first cousin worked as a fire brigade dispatcher in Paris Central Fire District One. A telephone number became an address. It was no harder than that.
Two hours later, at 1:15 Thursday morning, Henri Kanarack stood outside Jean Packard’s apartment building in the Porte de la Chapelle section north of the city. A bloody twenty minutes later, Kanarack went down the back stairwell leaving what was left of Jean Packard sprawled on his living room floor.
Ultimately he’d given Kanarack Paul Osborn’s name and the name of the hotel where he was staying in Paris. But that was all. The other questions—why Osborn had attacked Kanarack in the brasserie, why he’d hired Kolb International to track him down, if Osborn represented or was working for someone else—Packard could not answer. And Kanarack was certain he’d been told the truth. Jean Packard had been tough, but not that tough. Kanarack had learned well his stock in trade in the early sixties, taught proudly and with relish by the U.S. Army Special Forces. As leader of a long-range reconnaissance platoon in the first days of Vietnam, he’d been thoroughly schooled in the ways of obtaining the most delicate information from even the most hardheaded adversary.
The trouble was that in the end all he’d gotten from Jean Packard was a name and an address. The exact same information Packard had given Osborn about him. So to his thinking, Osborn could only be one thing, a representative of the Organization come to liquidate him. Even if the first attempt had been sloppy, there could be no other reason. No one else would recognize him or have cause.
The ugly part was that if he killed Osborn, they would only send someone else. That is, if they knew. His only hope was that Osborn was a freelancer, some kind of bounty hunter given a list of names and faces and promised a fortune if he brought any of them in. If Osborn had happened on him by chance and had hired Jean Packard on his own, things still might be all right.
Suddenly he felt a rush of air from outside and looked up. Le Bois’ front door had opened and a man in a raincoat was standing there. He was tall and wore a hat and was looking around. At first his eyes swept the crowded terrace, then he looked toward the bar. When he did, he found Henri Kanarack staring at him. As quickly, he looked away. A moment later, he pushed through the door and was gone. Kanarack relaxed. The tall man had not been a cop and not been Osborn. He’d been nobody.
Across the street, Osborn sat behind the wheel of the Peugeot and watched the same man come out, glance back in through the door, then walk off. Osborn shrugged. Whoever he was, he wasn’t Kanarack.
The baker had gone into Le Bois at five fifteen. It was now almost a quarter to six. He’d made the drive back from the river park through rush-hour traffic in less than twenty-five minutes, and had parked across from the bakery just after four. It had given him time to canvass the neighborhood and get back into his car before Kanarack came out.
Walking a half-dozen blocks in either direction, Osborn had found three alleys and two deliveryways leading to industrial warehouses that were closed. Any of the five would do. And if tomorrow night Kanarack followed the same route he’d taken tonight, the best of the five would be right on the way. A narrow alley with no doors opening onto it and without streetlights, less than a half block from the bakery.
Dressed in the same jeans and running shoes he now wore, he’d a watch cap low over his face and wait in the darkness for Kanarack to pass. Then, with a full syringe of succinylcholine in his hand, and another in his pocket to make sure, he’d attack Kanarack from behind. Throwing his left arm around his throat, he’d jerk Kanarack backward into the alley while at the same time driving the needle solidly into his right buttock through clothes and all. Kanarack would react hard, but Osborn needed only four seconds to complete the injection. All he had to do then was let go and step back and Kanarack could do what he wanted. Attack him or run away, it would make no difference. In less than twenty seconds his legs would begin to lose feeling. Twenty more, and he’d be unable to stand. Once he collapsed, Osborn would move in. If there were passersby, he would say in English that his friend was American and ill and he was helping him into the Peugeot at the curb to take him to a medical facility. And Kanarack, on the brink of skeletal muscular paralysis, would be unable to protest. Once in the car and moving, Kanarack would be helpless and terrified. His entire being would be concentrated on one thing alone, trying to breathe.
Then, as they sped across Paris for the river road and the secluded park, the effects of succinylcholine would begin to wear off and Kanarack would slowly begin to take i
n air once more. And just as he was feeling better, Osborn would hold up the second syringe and tell his prisoner who he was and threaten him with a stronger, far more potent and most unforgettable shot. Then, and only then, could he sit back and ask why Kanarack had murdered his father. And have no doubt whatsoever that Kanarack would tell him.
23
* * *
AT FIVE minutes past six, Henri Kanarack came out of Le Bois and indifferently walked two blocks to enter the Metro station across from the Gare de l’Est.
Osborn watched him go, then clicked on the overhead light and checked the map on the seat next to him. Ten and a half miles and nearly thirty-five minutes later, he drove past Kanarack’s apartment building in Montrouge. Leaving the car on a side street, he walked a block and a half and took up a position in the shadows across the street from Kanarack’s building. Fifteen minutes later, Kanarack came walking up the sidewalk and went inside. From beginning to end, bakery to home, there had been no indication he thought he was being followed, or in danger. No sense at all of anything other than daily routine. Osborn smiled. Everything was on track and running as planned.
At seven forty, he pulled the Peugeot up in front of his hotel, gave the keys to an attendant and went inside. Crossing the lobby, he checked the front desk for messages.
“No, monsieur. I am sorry.” The petite brunette smiled at him from across the desk.
Osborn thanked her and turned away. In a way he’d been hoping Vera had called, but he was just as glad she hadn’t. He didn’t want the distraction. Simplicity now was everything, and he had to concentrate on what he was doing. He wondered what made him tell Detective Barras he would be leaving Paris in five days. He could have as easily said a week or ten days, two weeks even. Five days had compressed everything to the point of nearly losing control. Things were happening too fast. Timing was too critical. There was no room for error or for the unforeseen. What if Kanarack became ill overnight and decided not to go to work. Then what? Go to his apartment, force himself in and do it there? What about other people? Kanarack’s wife, family, neighbors? There was no room for something like that to happen because he hadn’t given himself room. There was no latitude. None. It was as if he held dynamite in his hand with the fuse already lit. What could he do but follow through and hope for the best?
Taking his mind from it, Osborn turned away from the elevators and went into the gift shop for an English-language newspaper. Taking a copy from the rack, he turned to wait his turn at the cashier. For a moment it hung in his mind what would have happened if Jean Packard had not located Kanarack as quickly as he had. What would he have done—left the country and come back? But when? How would he know that the police hadn’t made a notation on the electronic code on his passport to alert them if he did come back within a certain time? How long would he have to wait before he felt it was safe to return? Or what if the investigator had not been able to locate Kanarack at all? What would he have done then? But luckily that wasn’t the case. Jean Packard had done his job well and it was up to him to follow through with the rest. Relax, he told himself and moved up to the cashier, absently glancing at the newspaper, as he did.
What he saw was beyond reason. Nothing could have prepared him for the sight of Jean Packard’s face staring out at him from under a bold front-page headline: PRIVATE DETECTIVE SAVAGELY MURDERED!
Below it was a subheading: “Former soldier of fortune heinously tortured before death.”
Slowly the gift shop began to spin. Slowly at first. Then faster and faster. Finally Osborn had to put out a hand against a candy counter to stop it. His heart was pounding and he could hear the sound of his own deep breaths. Steadying himself, he looked at the paper again. The face was still there; so was the headline and the words underneath.
Somewhere off he heard the cashier ask if he was all right. Vaguely he nodded and reached in his pocket for change. Paying for the newspaper, he managed to navigate his way through the gift shop and then out and back across the lobby toward the elevators. He was certain Henri Kanarack had discovered Jean Packard following him, had turned the tables and killed him. Quickly he scanned the article for Kanarack’s name. It wasn’t there. All it said was that the private investigator had been murdered in his apartment late the night before and that the police had refused comment on either suspects or motive.
Reaching the elevators, Osborn found himself waiting in a group with several others he scarcely noticed. Three might have been Japanese tourists, the other was a plain-looking man in a rumpled gray suit. Looking away, he tried to think. Then the elevator doors opened and two businessmen got out. The others filed in, Osborn with them. One of the Japanese pressed the button for the fifth floor. The man in the gray suit pushed nine. Osborn pressed seven.
The doors closed and the elevator started up.
What to do now? Osborn’s first thought was Jean Packard’s files. They would lead the police directly to him and then to Henri Kanarack. Then he remembered Jean Packard’s explanation of how Kolb International worked. Of how Kolb prided itself on protecting its patrons. How its investigators worked in complete confidentiality with clients. How all files were given to the client at the end of an investigation with no copies made. That Kolb was little more than a guarantor of professionalism and a billing agent. But Packard had not given Osborn his files. Where were they?
Suddenly Osborn remembered being amazed that the detective never wrote anything down. Maybe there weren’t any files. Maybe these days that had to be the private investigator’s game. Keep information out of everyone’s hands but your own. Kanarack’s name and address had been given to him only at the last moment, handwritten and on a cocktail napkin. A napkin that was still in the pocket of the jacket Osborn was wearing. Maybe that was it, the file in its entirety.
The elevator stopped on the fifth floor and the Japanese got out. The doors closed again and the elevator started up. Osborn glanced at the man in the gray suit. He looked vaguely familiar, but he couldn’t place him. A moment later they reached the seventh floor. The door opened and Osborn got out. So did the man in the gray suit. Osborn went one way, the man the other.
Walking down the hallway toward his room, Osborn breathed a little easier now. The initial shock of Jean Packard’s death had worn off. What he needed was time to think about what to do next. Suppose Packard had told Kanarack about him. Given him his name and where he was staying? He’d murdered the detective, why wouldn’t he try to murder him?
Suddenly Osborn-was aware of someone walking behind him down the hallway. Glancing back, he saw it was the man in the gray suit. At the same time he remembered the man had pushed the button for the ninth floor, not the seventh. In front of him a man opened a door and set out a room service tray of dirty dishes. Looking up, he saw Osborn, then closed the door again and Osborn heard the chain lock slide closed.
Now he and the man were the only ones in the hallway. A danger alarm went off. Abruptly he stopped and turned.
“What do you want?” he said.
“A few minutes of your time.” McVey’s reply was quiet and unthreatening. “My name is McVey. I’m from Los Angeles, the same as you.”
Osborn looked at him carefully. He was somewhere in his mid-sixties, about five feet ten and maybe a hundred and ninety pounds. His green eyes were surprisingly gentle and his brown hair was graying and beginning to thin on top. His suit was everyday, probably from The Broadway or Silverwoods. His pale blue shirt was a shiny polyester and the tie didn’t match any of it. He looked more like someone’s grandfather or what his own father might have looked like, had he lived. Osborn relaxed a little. “Do I know you?” he said.
“I’m a policeman,” McVey said and showed him his LAPD shield.
Osborn’s heart shot up in his throat. For the second time in a very few minutes he thought he might faint. Finally he heard himself say, “I don’t understand. Is anything wrong?”
A middle-aged couple dressed for the evening came down the hallway. McVey ste
pped aside. The man smiled and nodded. McVey waited until they passed, then looked back at Osborn.
“Why don’t we talk inside.” McVey nodded toward the door to Osborn’s room. “Or, if you’d rather, downstairs in the bar.” McVey kept his manner low-key and easy. The bar was as good as the room if it made Osborn more comfortable. The doctor wouldn’t bolt, not now anyway. Furthermore, McVey had already seen all there was to see in Osborn’s room.
Osborn was anxious and he had to work not to show it. After all, he’d done nothing, not yet anyway. Even using Vera to get him the succinylcholine hadn’t really been illegal. Bending the law a little, but not criminal. Besides, this McVey was from the LAPD—what jurisdiction could he have here? Just be cool, he thought. Be polite, see what he wants. Maybe it’s about nothing.
“This is fine,” Osborn said. Unlocking his door, Osborn ushered McVey in.
“Please sit down.” Osborn closed the door behind them, putting his keys and the newspaper on a side table. “If you don’t mind, I’ll wash the city off my hands.”
“I don’t mind.” McVey sat down on the edge of the bed and glanced around, while Osborn went into the bathroom. The room was the same as he’d left it earlier that afternoon when he’d shown his gold shield to a housekeeper and given her two hundred francs to let him in.
“Would you like a drink?” Osborn said, drying his hands.
“If you are.”
“All I have is scotch.”