Glass Houses

CHAPTER 32

“What’re you doing?” asked Beauvoir.

Though it was obvious what Gamache was doing. The question Jean-Guy was really asking was why.

As the car slowed down to a reasonable, even leisurely, pace and descended into the village of Three Pines, Gamache twisted in his seat and came away with the automatic pistol in its leather holster, taken off his belt. Opening the glove compartment, he put it in, first removing the bullets.

“You can be seen with a gun,” said Gamache, as he locked it and put the key in the pocket of his slacks. “I can’t. Reine-Marie and Annie will notice, and ask. We can’t have that.”

The sun was still up, though the unrelenting sheen of the summer day had softened. The village had never looked more beautiful. More at peace with itself. The gardens in full bloom. The children, having eaten dinner, were playing on the village green. Squeezing out every last moment of a perfect summer day.

“And what happens if the exchange is made in the bistro and you’re standing there with a spoon in your hand?”

“I hope I’d at least grab a fork,” said Gamache, but Beauvoir didn’t smile.

“I have this,” he said, his face serious again as he showed Jean-Guy what he’d taken out of the glove compartment, in exchange for the gun.

In his palm was what appeared to be a piece of wood. But Beauvoir knew it wasn’t. It was a Swiss Army knife, for hunters. Its hidden blade designed to gut animals.

Jean-Guy looked from Gamache’s steady hand into his steady eyes.

It was one thing to shoot a person. A horrific act that could never be forgotten. Nor should it be. As Beauvoir knew all too well. But it was something else altogether to stab someone. To drive the blade in.

Jean-Guy had never considered it.

But Gamache had. And was. And would. If necessary.

“Great,” said Ruth, as Gamache and Beauvoir strolled into the bistro. “It’s Rocky and Boo-Boo.”

Gamache looked at Beauvoir and shook his head in despair.

“Isn’t that Rocky and Bullwinkle?” asked Gabri, putting a beer down in front of Clara, as Beauvoir kissed Annie and took Honoré in his arms.

“Moose and squirrel.” Clara nodded and took a long sip of the cold Farnham Blonde Ale.

“It’s Yogi and Boo-Boo,” said Reine-Marie, greeting Armand with a hug.

“Et tu, Brute?” asked Gamache, and Reine-Marie laughed.

“Honoré,” Jean-Guy whispered in the little boy’s ear, and smelled the scent of him. A combination of baby powder and Annie.

And Jean-Guy understood why the Chief Superintendent had asked that Ruth be there when they arrived. So she could publicly mock them. It was a tiny, telling detail. Like Clara’s portraits, made up of small strokes, and dabs. Deliberately placed. For effect.

To those who knew them, Ruth’s insults were simply a ritual. A kind of calling card. But to strangers it would sound like the derisive mocking of two people so incompetent even an old woman could see it. And felt free to say it.

It added to the picture of Gamache as friendly, warm, easygoing. Soft. A man more suited to insults in a country inn than the cold, serrated edges of police work.

Beauvoir could see Matheo Bissonette and Lea Roux sitting in a corner. Listening. Lea’s smile so tight her lips had disappeared. She looked like a viper.

The American visitors were staring at them openly. Not even bothering to pretend not to be interested.

They would know who Gamache was, of course.

This was a critical moment.

Would they get up and leave, afraid the Sûreté had bumbled onto their plans?

Would they pull out their weapons and open fire on the Sûreté officers and everyone else in the bistro? It would be far from the first time the cartel had done something like that.

But the two men just sat there, as though watching a not very interesting talk show.

“I didn’t know you were here,” Jean-Guy said to Annie, surprised and relieved that his voice sounded so normal.

“I left a text on your phone,” said Annie. “We decided to come down, to get out of the heat of the city.”

Though it wasn’t much better in the country. The air was ripe with humidity. It felt one degree short of becoming water. There was no breeze and no letup in sight. People scrambled for shade, and prayed for the sun to go down.

Everyone except the children, now holding hands and dancing in a circle on the green. Two boys were wrestling over a ball.

The bistro was filling up, many of the seats already taken.

Gamache walked over to the table with the two Americans. There was a slight scraping of wood on wood as the older man pushed his chair away from the table and dropped his hand to his lap.

Every hair on Jean-Guy’s arms and the back of his neck stood on end, his skin tingling. As though a November breeze had come through the room. But he had Honoré in his arms and couldn’t do anything, even if the man pulled a gun. And shot the chief.

Beauvoir forced himself to turn away. Shielding Honoré with his body, he stepped in front of Annie.

While the others had resumed their conversation, about Clara’s show at the Musée des beaux-arts in Montréal, now just a week away, Ruth was watching Jean-Guy. A curious look in her curious eyes.

Gamache smiled at the two men. “Do you mind?” he asked in French. When there was no answer, he said, “Anglais? English?”

“Yes.”

“Are these chairs taken?”

“No, help yourself.”

Gamache put his hands on the back of the two empty pine chairs at the table, then hesitated, staring at the men.

“You look familiar. Have we met?”

Across the room, Beauvoir thought he’d faint. He’d given Honoré to Annie, and was prepared to draw his weapon if need be.

Conversation swirled around him, words without meaning, though he did his best to appear to be following the conversation.

Jean-Guy didn’t dare look at Gamache chatting amiably with the head of the drug cartel. But he could hear them.

If they don’t kill him, thought Beauvoir, I will.

Isabelle Lacoste was seated next to Clara, a smile fixed onto her rictus face, though he could see her right hand had dropped below the level of the table.

Jean-Guy’s heart was pounding so hard he could barely hear what they were saying.

“I don’t think we’ve met,” said the younger man. “We’re just visiting.”

“Ah,” said Gamache. His English had a soft British accent. “You’re lucky. Not many people find this village, or this bistro. New chef. Try his grilled trout, it’s delicious.”

“We just ate,” said the young man. “Amazing. We’ll definitely be back.”

“I hope so,” said Gamache. “Thanks for the chairs.”

Chief Superintendent Gamache nodded to them, picked up the chairs and plunked one down for Beauvoir, then placed the other beside Reine-Marie.

“They seem nice,” said Jean-Guy, glaring at Gamache as he sat.

“Americans. Always nice.”

Armand took off his jacket and folded it carefully over the back of his chair. Showing, for anyone interested, that he had no weapon. The Chief Superintendent was unarmed, and unaware, apparently, of who he’d just given a dinner suggestion to. And what was about to happen.

Another dab for the portrait.

“What would you like, patron?” asked Olivier. “A scotch?”

“Oh, too hot, mon vieux.” He loosened his tie. “I’ll have a beer. Whatever’s on tap.”

“We have some freshly made lemonade,” Olivier said to Jean-Guy.

“Perfect, merci.”

“So, how’s the trial going?” asked Ruth. “Have you lied yet?”

“Every word,” said Gamache.

The problem with Ruth, he remembered too late, was the inability to control her. Fortunately, most people thought she was either kidding or demented.

It was like playing with a jack-in-the-box. It looked like a normal box, until the crazy person popped out.

Behind Ruth, out the window, he noticed that the children had stopped their dancing and were falling to the ground. Laughing and rolling.

Ashes. Ashes.

The fight for the ball was over. One boy was bouncing it on his knee, while the other, tears staining his dirty cheeks, grabbed his bike and peddled off.

Where could a boy on a bicycle go

When the straight road splayed?

In the reflection of the window, he saw the Americans. The younger man’s ghostly image superimposed on the wobbly boy. Like before and after pictures.

This was where the boy on a bicycle went, Gamache knew.

Then he refocused on the children. Go away, he begged them. Go home.

But the children continued to play, and the boy on the bike continued to pump his thin legs until he’d disappeared. Leaving the ghostly man behind.

Gamache leaned back in his chair and gave a long, contented sigh. A show sigh, though he tried not to overdo it. He was careful not to scan the forest ringing the village for a mob soldier.

Even his eyes could betray him, Gamache knew. Every gesture of his was being closely watched, he suspected. Every word monitored and evaluated by the visitors. They were confident, but they’d also be vigilant.

He could not afford a misstep.

“Should we have dinner here?” he asked. “I’m starving.”

“Well, it’s time for Honoré to eat, and then bath time,” said Annie, getting up.

“And I should be getting back to the city,” said Lacoste. “Not looking forward to tomorrow.”

“Oh, haven’t had a chance to tell you, but the judge has called an early start. Eight.”

“In the morning?” asked Isabelle, and Myrna and Clara laughed at her tone.

“Sorry,” he said. “She wants to get in as much as possible before the day heats up.”

“Then I really do need to get going. Are you staying the night?”

“Probably. Haven’t decided yet,” said Gamache.

“Do you want me to help?” Jean-Guy rose with Annie.

“I’ll go,” said Reine-Marie. “You two stay here. Enjoy your drinks. Dinner in about forty-five minutes. Salmon on the grill. Would you like to come over?” she asked Myrna and Clara.

“That sounds good,” said Myrna. “Unless you’d like to get into your studio and finish those paintings.”

“Har-dee-har-har,” said Clara, though it was obvious this needling was getting old. “Dinner sounds great. We’ll help.”

As they left, Armand hugged Reine-Marie. Not too tight, he hoped. Closing his eyes for a moment, he took in her scent of old garden roses. And Honoré.

Jean-Guy kissed Annie and Ray-Ray.

It was all he could do to not whisper to Annie to take Honoré and go back to Montréal. But he knew if he did that, and the heads of the cartels suspected, it would be the spark that could leave them all dead.

Only Ruth and Rosa remained at their table, the old woman swilling scotch. Rosa got up and waddled across the table to Beauvoir. He grunted as the duck hopped off the table, onto his lap. And settled down.

As he took a long pull at his beer, Armand noticed Lacoste drive away. Reine-Marie, along with Annie, Myrna and Clara, who was holding Honoré, walked the last few steps through the golden evening. Reine-Marie stopped, stooped, and picked a weed out of their front garden.

She showed it to Myrna, who clapped. It had become their running joke, from their early days in the village, when Reine-Marie and Armand had “weeded” the spring garden, only to discover they’d left the weeds and taken out most of the perennials.

Myrna had become their gardening guru.

Armand smiled as he watched them.

“I see that politician woman and her husband are back,” said Ruth. “She came by my place earlier this afternoon.”

“Really?” said Jean-Guy. “Why?”

Anton had come out of the kitchen and was talking to the Americans.

He put something on the table. A piece of paper with writing.

“To tell me they’re making me a Chevalier in the Ordre du Québec.”

“That’s wonderful, Ruth,” said Armand. “Félicitations.”

The young head of the cartel was gesturing to Anton to join them. The chef looked surprised and shook his head, indicating that he had work to do in the kitchen. But a look from the American made the chef reconsider. And he sat.

“A Chevalier?” said Jean-Guy. “The knight or the horse? Are you sure they didn’t say cheval? Because you’re halfway there already.”

In the back of the bistro, Gamache could see Matheo and Lea also watching the table with Anton and the Americans. Lea turned to Matheo and said something. Matheo shook his head.

Then Lea looked directly at Gamache. It was so swift he didn’t have time to drop his eyes. He knew if he did it now, it would look like what it was. An effort to hide something.

Instead, he held her gaze and smiled.

She did not return his smile.

Jean-Guy and Ruth were exchanging insults, though the old poet’s rheumy eyes were not on Beauvoir, but on Gamache.

Armand had settled into his chair, crossing his legs, the voices around him heard and half-heard. Nursing a cold beer after a tough day on the witness stand. Apparently at ease with himself and the world. But Beauvoir could feel what Ruth was sensing.

Something was radiating off Gamache.

Was it rage he felt from the chief? Jean-Guy wondered. It certainly wasn’t fear.

It was actually, Beauvoir realized with some surprise, extreme calm.

He was like the center of gravity in the room.

Whatever the outcome, the bombing would stop, that night. The war would end, that night.