Liberation Day

Chapter 11

I ducked into the first doorway to my left, trying my hardest to look interested in the glass display cabinets along the wall while I collected my thoughts. The elderly shopkeeper gave me a smile and a genial “Bonjour.”

“Bonjour, parlez-vous anglais?”

“Yes.”

“Just looking, thank you.”

He left me alone as I looked at the array of wooden and plastic pipes and all the paraphernalia you need to smoke one. I turned my wrist and checked traser: 11:04. Greaseball still had twenty-six minutes to wait until the RV was closed, and I was in no rush. I took my time. I needed to think.

I didn’t want to meet up with him, source or not, especially outside, especially if he was a known face. That was bad professionally: I needed to be the gray man.

I turned to the door and gave the old man a mechanical “Au revoir,” straight from the phrasebook, wishing that what little time I’d spent in high school had been at French lessons.

Without looking in the direction of the RV I went back out into the street, turned right toward the pedestrian crossing, over the road, and pushed my shoulder against the door of the tabac. It was a dreary place, the walls covered in dark brown carpet to complement the dark wooden floors. The old men in here had half a dozen Gauloises lit up, the haze of smoke adding to the gloom. I sat back from the window so I could keep an eye on Greaseball, and ordered myself a coffee.

He’d lit up another cigarette. The pack was on the table with the lighter on top, next to his porte-monnaie. He ordered something more, and as the waitress turned to go back into the café, I took my paper napkin and wrapped it around the espresso cup before taking a tester sip. Greaseball started to get a little agitated now, checking his watch for the fifth time in as many minutes. There were three more minutes to go until eleven-thirty, and once again he checked through the café window to see if there was anyone seated inside on his own, before twisting around again and making sure the magazine was flat and easy to spot.

I poured my change onto the table from my small brown coin purse and left eleven francs, which were collected with a grunt by the old guy running the show.

Greaseball checked his watch once more, then leaned across to ask the waitress cleaning the next table for the time. Her reply seemed to confirm what he feared, because he got to his feet and checked up and down the road again as if he knew what he was looking for. It was eleven-thirty-four before he packed away his cigarettes and finally headed up the hill.

I picked up the cup for the last time, gave the lip a quick wipe before leaving with the napkin, and followed him from my side of the road as trucks and vans blocked him from view for split seconds. I needed to make a little distance and be right on top of him in case he got into a car. If he did, I could stop him before he moved off. I would have to approach him at some time, but not yet. First of all I needed to make sure no one else was following him — or me.

I couldn’t see anything suspicious: no one talking to themselves with their eyes glued to the back of Greaseball’s head; nobody leaping into or out of cars in a desperate measure to get behind him, or concentrating so much on not losing him in a crowd that they took a slide in dog shit or bumped into people and lampposts.

Gambling with death, I crossed the road, then focused on his brown suede loafers, which perfectly matched the fag-bag. He had bare, hairy ankles. No socks: very South of France. He walked with Julia in his right hand and the bag in his left.

I didn’t want him to have any opportunity to turn and make eye contact, since he’d be unlikely not to recognize me. And, given the circumstances of our last meeting, I guessed he might be a tad nervous when he did.

I checked constantly to my left at the shops and apartment-building entrances for somewhere I could go if he stopped. It’s not an easy bit of tradecraft, because by the time the target has turned and looked back, you have to be static if in view or, better still, hidden. And you can’t afford to draw attention to yourself in the process.

He turned left, off the main road, and became unsighted. I quickened my pace to get to the corner, did the Cannes Shuffle, and crossed the road. No way was I turning into dead ground without first checking what was waiting for me.

Looking left and right for traffic as I crossed, I had the target once more. He was still on the left-hand side of the road and wasn’t checking behind him. He was walking purposefully: he wasn’t running from something, he was going to something.

Once on the other sidewalk I turned left and went with him. He was a bit farther away now, but that was fine because the road was a lot narrower, just a normal street lined with houses and apartment buildings. There weren’t many real people here, so a little distance was a help.

Looking ahead and keeping the red in my peripheral vision, I could see the large blue neon sign ahead for an Eddie’s on my side of the road. The supermarket took up the ground floor of an apartment building. It was one of a chain called E. Leclerc. I didn’t actually know what the E stood for, but it had been a boring four days so I’d made up the name, along with Thackery’s.

There was a rôtisserie truck at the curb with its sides open, selling freshly cooked chicken and rabbit. A flock of small cars were trying to force themselves into impossible spaces and double-park around the truck. They bumped up onto the curb, and into one another. People didn’t seem to care much about their paintwork down here.

Greaseball crossed toward the grocery and disappeared up the road immediately before it. I quickened my step. As I got to the junction I saw him easily beyond the chaos of shoppers, moving up the road. It was very narrow here, just single lane, and quite steep now that we’d gotten farther up the hill. There were no sidewalks, just iron fences and stone walls on either side, flanking houses and apartment buildings. Some of the buildings were quite new and some needed a lick of paint, but they all had one thing in common, and that was the amount of ironwork that covered every point of entry.

He kept to the left. I followed, allowing him to become temporarily unsighted now and again as the road twisted uphill, in case he stopped. We were the only two on this stretch of road and I didn’t want to make my presence too obvious. If he’d disappeared by the time I got around the corner, the drills for finding him would be long, laborious, and boring, but I had no choice. I’d have to find a place to hide and wait for him to reappear. If I had no luck I’d have to contact George and tell him the bad news. I’d lie, of course, and say I’d seen something suspicious around the RV. He would have to get his act together fast and do whatever he did to get another RV organized.

I wasn’t worried any longer that Greaseball was going to a car, because he wouldn’t have parked this far from the RV. The thought did cross my mind that he’d spotted me and was moving around the town a bit to confirm I was following him. What that would mean to me, I didn’t know — maybe a reception as I turned a corner. But I had no option, really. I had to follow and contact him once we were somewhere safer and less exposed.

The old terra-cotta roofs that overlapped the walls here and there on each side of me would have been there for ages before the dull cream apartment buildings that had sprung up on every available patch of land since the sixties. They were no more than five or six stories high; quite a few of the balconies had towels, comforters, or laundry hanging from them; one or two had barbecues. I could hear the drone of the traffic from the main drag off to my right.

Greaseball took off the pashmina to reveal a blue checked shirt. He wasn’t the only one getting hot; I was starting to leak around my face and down my spine as I made my way uphill. We passed some more apartment buildings, which seemed a little the worse for wear, and Greaseball stopped for a car to squeeze past. He rummaged in his fag-bag. There was a not-too-good-looking building opposite, with a line of cars parked bumper-to-bumper in front.

I carried on toward him, head down, not making eye contact. He might be spotting me this very moment, waiting for me to betray myself. The car accelerated past me and I had to stop to let him through as Greaseball disappeared into the covered, mosaic-tiled entryway.

There was no time to be subtle. I only had one chance. I ran toward him and got there just as he turned the key in the glass-and-brass-effect main door. He had his back to me but he could see me in the reflection of the glass.

“Beautiful, isn’t she?”

He spun around, leaving the key in place. His eyes were bulging and his arms fell to his sides as he moved back against the glass. My left hand grabbed the hem of my sweatshirt, ready to pull it up and draw down the Browning. His eyes darted after it. He had a good idea of what that was all about. For several moments he just stared at me in horror, then he stammered, “You? You?”

I wasn’t surprised he’d remembered me. Some things stay with you forever.

Even from a couple of feet away I could smell his heavy aftershave, mixed with the odor of heavily lacquered hair. I said again, “Beautiful, isn’t she?” and nodded at the magazine in his hand. There was still no reply.

“Answer me. Beautiful, isn’t she?”

At last I got something. “Yes, but Katharine Hepburn…” His face wobbled. He realized he’d messed up. “No, no, no, please. Wait, wait. She is, yes, she is, but not as much as Katharine Hepburn, don’t you think?”

It was good enough. “Where are you going?”

He half-turned and pointed. He’d shaved this morning, but already had shadow.

“Is there anybody in there with you?”

“Non.”

“Let’s go in, then. Come on.”

“But…”

I shoved him through the door, and into the dark foyer. The rubber soles of my Timberlands squeaked on the gray fake-marble floor. A baby was crying in one of the ground-floor apartments and I could smell frying as we headed for the elevator. He was still stressing out big-time. There was some heavy erratic breathing going on in front of me as he cradled his pashmina in his arms. I was going to reassure him about my intentions, but then thought, fuck it, why bother? I wanted to keep him off balance.

The small, boxlike elevator arrived and we got in. The smell changed. Now it was like the tabac. He pressed for the fourth floor and the thing started to shudder. I was standing behind him, and could see the sweat trickle down from his neck hair onto his shirt collar as I tapped him on the shoulder. “Show me what’s in the bag.” He was only too eager to comply, and held it up for inspection over his shoulder. There was nothing in there that I hadn’t seen already: a pack of Camel Lights, a gold lighter, and a small leather money pouch. The keys were still in his hand.

The elevator climbed so slowly it was hard to tell if it was moving at all. Looking at him from the rear, I could see that his jeans were a bit too tight around his gut. His love handles flopped out on each side, straining against his shirt, and folding over his waistband. A gold Rolex and a couple of thin gold bracelets dangled from his left wrist onto his perfectly manicured hand. He also had a matching pair of bracelets on his right wrist, and a signet ring on his little finger. All in all, he looked like an over-the-hill gigolo who thought he was still twenty-one.

He zipped up the bag and wiped the sweat from his neck. “There’s no one here,” he assured me. “I promise you.”

The elevator doors opened and I gave him a shove into a semidark landing. “Good. What number?”

“This way. Forty-nine.”

I squeezed behind him, my right hand ready to draw down on my 9mm again as he placed the key into the cylinder lock in a dark brown varnished door. It opened into a small room, maybe ten-by-ten. The sun was trying hard to penetrate the net curtains covering the glass sliding doors of the balcony, and not quite succeeding. He walked in while I waited where I was, hand on my pistol grip. He turned back toward me, arms sweeping around the room, “Look, you see, everything is okay.”

That was his opinion. He might be Mr. Gucci out on the boulevards, but this place was a tipoff. To my left was a door into the kitchen. It was fitted with 1970s faded blue-and-white Formica units that had been worn down in places to the chipboard. An ashtray overflowed onto a half-eaten baguette. The sink was piled high with dirty pans and dishes.

I closed the front door with my heel as I walked in and motioned to him with my head. “Bolt it.”

I moved aside as he obeyed, breathing heavily.

There was another door to the left. “Where does that go?”

“The bedroom and bathroom.”

He started to walk toward it, eager to please. “Let me go and—”

“Stop, we go together. I want to see every move you make. Got it?”

I followed a few steps behind him as his loafers squeaked over the light gray fake marble. Both of the other rooms were in a similar state. The bedroom just fitted the bed, and the rest of the floor was covered with newspapers, dirty underwear, and a couple of Slazenger tennis bags still in their Decathlon shopping bag. He didn’t look the tennis type, but the two used syringes that lay on top of the bags were very much his style, which was why he tried to kick it all under the bed without me seeing. He was obviously contributing energetically to al-Qaeda’s heroin profits.

A pair of wardrobes were packed with brightly colored clothes and shoes, all looking new. The bedroom stank of aftershave and cigarettes, but not as badly as the tiny bathroom did. It had a faded yellow sink, toilet, and a typical French half-bath with a handheld shower. Every surface was covered with bottles of shampoo, cologne, and hair color. The bath had enough pubic hairs around the drain to stuff a mattress.

“You see everything is correct. It is safe.”

I didn’t even bother to check if he was embarrassed as we walked back into the living room. I squeezed around the furniture and went over to the patio-style window that led onto the balcony overlooking the road we had just walked up. A couple of tennis rackets leaned against the railings, and a pair of scrunched-up beach towels hung over the balustrade.

By now he was sitting nervously on a green couch, which had probably been installed at the same time as the kitchen. It was against the left-hand wall, facing a dirty wood-veneer wall unit that was dominated by a huge TV and video. Everything was covered in so much dust I could even see his fingermarks around the controls. VHS tapes and all manner of shit was scattered around the shelves. A small boom box-type CD player stood on a shelf above the TV, surrounded by a sea of discs lying out of their boxes. The videotapes had no titles, but I could guess the sort of thing he was into watching.

The rectangular waxed-pine coffee table at the center of the room was covered with more old newspapers, a half-empty bottle of red wine, and a food plate that had doubled as an ashtray. I was beginning to feel greasy as well as grubby in this guy’s company.

I got to the point, so I didn’t have to spend too much more time around him. “When will the boat be here?”

He crossed his legs and placed both hands around his knees, feeling a little more comfortable now that it seemed I wasn’t going to take his head off. “Tomorrow night, at Beaulieu-sur-Mer, it’s toward Monaco.”

“Write it down.” I knew where it was, but wanted to make sure I had the right place. He leaned forward, found a pen among the mess on the table, and wrote on the edge of a newspaper, in a scrawl that any doctor would have been proud of.

“There is a port, a marina, I think you call it. It’s not far. Her name is the Ninth of May. It’s a white boat, quite large. It’s coming in tomorrow night.” He ripped off the edge of the paper—“Here”—and pushed it toward me.

I looked out of the window and down into the garden of one of the original houses opposite. An old man was tending a vegetable patch, attaching bits of silver paper to bamboo sticks. I kept watching him. “How many are going to be on board?”

“There are three. One will always remain with the boat, while the other two collect the money. They’re going to start on Friday, the first of three collections. They’ll make one a day, and leave for Algiers with the money on Sunday. They are trying to close their accounts here in France — before you do it for them, no?”

I turned back to Greaseball. He rummaged around in his bag and dragged out a Camel. With an elegant flick of a lighter, he sat back and let smoke curl out of his nostrils. He crossed his legs once more and laid his left arm along the back of the couch as if he were running the show. He was starting to get a bit too confident. “Where are they going to collect the cash, then, Greaseball?”

He choked on his cigarette and smoke blew uncontrollably from his nose and mouth. “Greaseball?” Composing himself, he took another drag and this time exhaled slowly, smiling at his new name. “Where? That I do not know, and I won’t until tomorrow night, maybe. I’m not sure yet. But I do know they’re only going to use public transport, buses, that sort of thing. It’s safer than Hertz. Bus drivers don’t keep records.”

It made sense to me. “Do you know how much money?”

“Anything between two-point-five and three million American.”

He took another drag and I went back to watching the old guy dig around his vegetable patch, thinking about the number of suicide bombers’ families with Land Cruisers with all the extras that could be funded with that sort of cash.

“Are they collecting from hawalladas?”

“Yes, of course. These guys on the coast, the ones who will be handing them the money, are hawalla people.”

I moved back one of the net curtains so I could get a clearer view.

“What time will the boat arrive?”

“Did you know this is where the money was collected to finance the attack on the American embassy in Paris?” He took another drag and sounded almost proud. “Can you imagine what would have happened if that had been successful too?”

“The boat, what time?”

There was some shuffling as he adjusted himself in his seat. “In the evening sometime, I’m not too sure.” There was a pause and I could hear him stubbing out his cigarette and pulling another from the pack. I turned as he gave the lighter a flick and looked at the CDs on the wall unit. It was obvious he was a big Pink Floyd fan.

“Zeralda liked me to bring a new tape for him each trip. I’d collect the boys too, of course.” He cocked his head to one side, measuring my reaction. “Did you see me drive back to the house that night? I was hoping you would have finished the job by then. But he kept calling on my cell. He didn’t like to be kept waiting….”

The fucker was smiling, taunting me.

I pulled the sliding glass door with my sweatshirt cuff to let in some air, and was greeted by the sound of traffic from the main drag, and the old guy outside clearing his passages. I resisted the temptation to go over and give Greaseball a good smack in the teeth and looked outside again instead. “So you two liked the same music as well as the same boys?”

He blew out another lungful of smoke before he replied. “You find it distasteful — but are you telling me it’s worse than cutting off a man’s head? You don’t mind using people like me when you need to, do you?”

I shrugged my shoulders, still looking out at the old man. “I’m here because it’s my job, believe me. And distasteful isn’t a strong enough word for what I think about you.”

I heard what sounded like a snort of derision and turned back to face him.

“Get real, my friend. You may hate me, but you’re here, aren’t you? And that’s because you want something from me.”

He was right, but that didn’t mean to say I was going to share his toothbrush. “Have you got anything else for me?”

“That’s all I know so far. But how do I inform you about the collections?”

“I’ll come here at eleven tonight. Make sure you’re here, and no one else is. You have a bell that rings downstairs, yeah?” He nodded and sucked the last mouthful out of his Camel. “Good. Open the door.”

He moved toward the exit. I went over to the coffee table and took the marina address, as well as the newspaper. Beaulieu-sur-Mer — I did know it, and so would anyone else if they picked up the paper. The imprint was clear to see on the pages beneath. As I bent down I could see the lower shelves of the wall unit and did a double-take at some Polaroids. I knew he liked rock music, but this was something else. Greaseball was in a bar, drinking with one of the guitarists from Queen. At least, that’s who it looked like. Whoever it was, he had the same mad curly hair.

Greaseball was trying to work out what had caught my eye as I waited for him to pull back the bolt. “Those people, the ones on the boat…Are you going to do the same to them as you did to Zeralda?”

I checked my 9mm to make sure it was concealed as he opened the door and glanced outside. I didn’t bother to look back at him. “Eleven. If you don’t know by then, I’ll be back in the morning.” I went past him, my left hand ready to pull up the sweatshirt.

As I walked toward the elevator I saw the stairwell and decided to go that way instead, just to get off the floor more quickly. I elbowed the light switch as I passed it. A couple of floors down, I was smothered in darkness. I waited for a moment, then pressed the next one.

I reached the ground floor and headed for the main door as a young woman in red sweat pants and sweatshirt was packing a crying baby into a stroller on the landing. Out in the sun again, I had to squint as I checked the bell push for number forty-nine. There was no name by it but, then, who would want to own up to living in a place like this? As I walked away, I wondered how I was going to break the news to Lotfi and Hubba-Hubba that Greaseball was the source.