Black Money

8

I followed Peter’s Corvette inland into the foothills. Their masses had been half-absorbed by the blue darkness of the mountains. A few lights, bright as evening stars, were scattered up their slopes. One of them shone from Martel’s house.

Peter stopped just short of the mailbox. The name stenciled on it stood out black in his headlights: Major General Hiram Bagshaw, U.S.A. (ret.) He cut the lights and started to get out.

The quiet of the evening shivered like a crystal. A high thin quavering cry came down from the direction of the house. It might have been a peacock, or a girl screaming.

Peter ran toward me. “It’s Ginny! Did you hear her?”

“I heard something.”

I tried to persuade him to wait in his car. But he insisted on riding up to the house with me.

It was a massive stone-and-glass building set on a pad, which had been excavated above the floor of the canyon. A floodlight above the door illuminated the flagstone courtyard where the Bentley was parked. The door itself was standing open.

Peter started in. I held him back. “Take it easy. You’ll get yourself shot.”

“She’s my girl,” he said, in the teeth off all the evidence so far.

The girl appeared in the doorway. She had on a gray suit, the kind women use for traveling. Her movements seemed shaky and her eyes a little dull, as if she had already traveled too far and too fast.

Perhaps it was the brilliant light shining down on her face, but its skin appeared grayish and grainy. She had the sort of beauty – shape of head, slant of cheekbone and chin, curve of mouth – that made these other things irrelevant.

She held herself on the concrete stoop with a kind of forlorn elegance. Peter went to her and tried to put his arm around her. She disengaged herself.

“I told you not to come here.”

“That was you screaming, wasn’t it? Did he hurt you?”

“Don’t be silly. I saw a rat.”

She turned her lusterless eyes on me. “Who are you?”

“My name is Archer. Is Mr. Martel home?”

“Not to you, I’m afraid.”

“Tell him I’m here, anyway. All I want is a chance to talk to him.”

She said to Peter: “Please go. Take your friend with you. You have no right to interfere with us.”

She managed to produce a little spurt of anger: “Go away now or I’ll never speak to you again.”

His large face contorted itself in the light, as if it could transform its homeliness by sheer expression. “I wouldn’t care, Ginny, as long as you were safe.”

“I’m perfectly safe with my husband,” she said, and waited demurely for his surprise.

“You married him?”

“We were married on Saturday and I’ve never been happier in my life,” she said without any visible sign of happiness.

“You can get it annulled.”

“You don’t seem to understand, I love my husband.”

Her voice was soft but there was a sting in the words which made him wince. “Francis is everything I’ve ever dreamed of in a man. You can’t change that, and please stop trying.”

“Thank you, ma chérie.”

It was Martel, with his full accent on. No doubt he had been listening for an entrance cue. He appeared in the hallway behind Ginny and took hold of her upper arm. His hand against her light gray sleeve looked almost as dark as a mourning band.

Peter began to bite his mouth. I moved closer to him. Whether he was a French aristocrat or a cheap crook or a muddy mixture of the two, Ginny’s husband would be a dangerous man to hit.

“Congratulations on your marriage,” I said without much irony.

He bowed, touching his chest. “Merci beaucoup.”

“Where were you married?”

“In the chambers of a judge, by the judge himself. That makes it legal, I believe.”

“I meant what place.”

“The place doesn’t matter. Life has its private occasions, you know, and I confess to a passion for privacy. Which my dear wife shares.”

He smiled down into her face. His smile had changed when he looked up at me. It was wide and mocking. “Didn’t we meet at the swimming pool today?”

“We did.”

“This man was here before,” Ginny said, “when the fellow tried to take your picture. I saw him in the fellow’s car.”

Martel stepped around his wife and came toward me. I wondered if his little gun was going to come into play. I also wondered what dark liquid had left a partial heel-print on the concrete stoop. More of it glistened on the heel of Martel’s right shoe.

“Just who are you, m’sieur? And what gives you the right to ask questions?”

I told him my name. “I’m a detective, and I’m hired to ask them.”

“Hired by this one here?”

He gave Peter a black look of contempt.

“That’s right,” Peter said. “And we’re going to keep after you until we know what you want.”

“But I have what I want.”

He turned to Ginny with his arm stretched out. It was just a little like a scene from opera, more light than grand. Next minute the merry villagers would troop in for the nuptial dance.

I said to fend them off. “One question that interests me at the moment – is that blood on your heel?”

He looked down at his feet, then quickly back to me. “I expect it is blood.”

Ginny’s curled fingers had gone to her mouth, both hands, as if another peacock cry was surging up in her throat. Martel said quietly and smoothly: “My wife was alarmed by a rat, as she told you.”

He had been listening. “I killed it.”

“With your heel?”

“Yes.”

He stamped on the asphalt. “I’m a fencer, very fast on my feet.”

“I bet you are. May I see the corpse?”

“It would be hard to find, perhaps impossible. I threw it into the undergrowth for the bobcats. We have wild animals up here in the hills, don’t we, ma chérie?”

Ginny dropped her hands and said yes. She was looking at Martel with a combination of respect and fear. Perhaps it was a form of love, I thought, but not one of the usual forms. His voice filled the vacuum again: “My wife and I are very fond of the wild animals.”

“But not the rats.”

“No. Not the rats.” He offered me his wide cold grin. Above it his eyes and forceful nose seemed to be probing at me. “Can I persuade you to leave now, Mr. Archer? I’ve been quite patient with you and your questions. And please take this one with you.”

He jerked his head toward Peter as if the fat young man didn’t quite belong to the human race.

Peter said: “Ask him the five questions, why don’t you?”

Martel raised his eyebrows. “Five questions? About myself?”

“Not directly.”

Now that the time had come to ask the question, they seemed childish, even ludicrous. The light-operatic note on which the scene had balanced was giving way to opéra bouffe. The courtyard under the light, surrounded by the amphitheater of the canyon, was like a stage where nothing real could happen.

I said reluctantly: “The questions are about French culture. I’ve been told that an educated Frenchman ought to be able to answer them.”

“And you doubt that I am an educated Frenchman?”

“You have a chance to prove it once and for all. Will you take a stab at the questions?”

He shrugged. “Pourquoi pas? Why not?”

I got out the two sheets of paper. “One. Who wrote the original Les Liaisons dangereuses and who made the modernized film version?”

“Les Liaisons dangereuses,” he said slowly, correcting my pronunciation. “Choderlos de Laclos wrote the novel. Roger Vadim made the cinema version. I believe that Vadim collaborated with Roger Vailland on the screen play. Is that enough, or do you want me to outline the plot for you? It’s quite complex, having to do with the diabolical sexual intrigue and the corruption of innocence.”

His voice was sardonic.

“We won’t bother with that just now. Question two. Complete the phrase: ‘Hypocrite lecteur–’ ”

“ ‘Hypocrite lecteur, mon semblable, mon frère.’ Hypocritical reader, my brother, my – comment-à-dire? – duplicate?”

He appealed to Ginny.

“Mirror image,” she said with a small half-smile. “It’s from the front of Les Fleurs du mal.”

“I can recite many of those poems if you like,” Martel said.

“That won’t be necessary. Three. Name the great French painter who believed Dreyfus was guilty.”

“Degas was the most prominent.”

“Four. What gland did Descartes designate as the residence of the human soul?”

“The pineal gland.”

Martel smiled. “That’s a rather obscure point, but it happens I read Descartes nearly every day of my life.”

“Five. Who was mainly responsible for getting Jean Genet released from prison?”

“Jean-Paul Sartre, I suppose you mean. Cocteau and others also had a hand in the deliverance. Is that all?”

“That’s all. You scored a hundred.”

“Will you reward me now by disappearing?”

“Answer one more question, since you’re so good at answering them. Who are you and what are you doing here?”

He stiffened. “I’m under no obligation to tell you.”

“I thought you might want to lay the rumors to rest.”

“Rumors don’t bother me.”

“But you’re not the only person involved, now that you’ve married a local girl.”

He saw my point. “Very well. I will tell you why I am here, in return for a quid pro quo. Tell me who is the man who tried to take my picture.”

“His name is Harry Hendricks. He’s a used-car salesman from the San Fernando Valley.”

Martel’s eyes were puzzled. “I never heard of him. Why did he try to photograph me?”

“Apparently someone paid him. He didn’t say who.”

“I can guess,” Martel said darkly. “He was undoubtedly paid by the agents of le grand Charles.”

“Who?”

“President de Gaulle, my enemy. He drove me out of my patrie – my native land. But my exile is not enough to satisfy him. He wants my life.”

His voice was low and thrilling. Ginny shuddered. Even Peter looked impressed.

I said: “What has de Gaulle got against you?”

“I am a threat to his power.”

“Are you one of the Algérie-Française gang?”

“We are not a gang,” he retorted hotly. “We are a – how shall I say it? – a band of patriots. It is le grand Charles who is the enemy of his country. But I have said enough. Too much. If his agents have followed me here, as I believe, I must move on again.”

He shrugged fatalistically, and looked around at the dark slopes and up at the star-pierced sky. It was a farewell look, consciously dramatic, as if the stars were part of his audience.

Ginny moved into the circle of his arm. “I’m going with you.”

“Of course. I knew I would not be permitted to stay in Montevista. It is too beautiful. But I shall be taking a part of its beauty with me.”

He kissed her hair. It hung sleek on her skull like a pale silk headcloth. She leaned against him. His hands went to her waist. Peter groaned and turned away toward the car.

“If you will excuse us now,” Martel said to me, “we have plans to make. I’ve answered all your questions, have I not?”

“Just to nail it down, you could show me your passport.”

He spread out his hands one either side of Ginny. “I wish I could, but I can’t. I left France unofficially, shall we say?”

“How did you get your money out?”

“I had to leave much of it behind. But my family has holdings in other parts of the world.”

“Is Martel your family name?”

He raised his hands, palms outward, like a map being held up. “My wife and I have been very patient with you. You don’t want me to become impatient. Goodnight.”

He spoke quietly, with all his force poised behind the words.

They went into the house, closing the heavy front door. On my way to my car I glanced into the front of the Bentley. There was no registration card visible. The things which Martel had taken from his cabana were piled helter-skelter on the back seat. This suggested that he was planning to leave very soon.

There was nothing I could do about it. I got in beside Peter, and turned down the driveway. He rode with his head down, saying nothing. When I stopped at the mailbox, he turned to me in a sort of violent lunge: “Do you believe him?”

“I don’t know. Do you?”

“Ginny does,” he said thoughtfully. “She knows him better than we do. He’s very convincing.”

“Too convincing. He has an answer for everything.”

“Does that mean he’s telling the truth?”

“He tells too much of it. A man in his position, wanted by the French government for plotting against de Gaulle, wouldn’t spill his secrets to us. He wouldn’t even tell his wife if he was smart. And Martel is smart.”

“I can see that, the way he answered the professor’s questions. What’s the explanation, if he’s lying? Who is he trying to fool?”

“Ginny, maybe. She married him.”

Peter sighed. “I’m starved. I haven’t really eaten since breakfast.”

He climbed out of my car and started across the road to his Corvette. His foot kicked something which made a muted metallic noise. I peered out into the dark. It was the camera that Martel had smashed. I got out and picked it up and put it in my jacket pocket.

“What are you doing?”

Peter said.

“Nothing. Poking around.”

“I was just thinking, they’re serving dinner at the club tonight. If you’ll have dinner with me, we can discuss what to do.”

I was getting a little tired of his mournful company. But I was hungry, too. “I’ll meet you there.”