The Day After Tomorrow

22

THE DARK limousine was waiting outside.

Vera had seen it pull up from her bedroom window. How many times had she stood in that window waiting for it to turn the corner? How many times had her heart jumped at the sight of it? Now she wished it had nothing to do with her, that she was watching from another apartment and that the intrigue belonged to someone else.

She wore a black dress with black stockings, pearl earrings and a simple pearl necklace. Thrown over her shoulders was a short jacket of silver mink.

The chauffeur opened the rear door and she got in. A moment later he got behind the wheel and drove off.

At 4:55, Henri Kanarack washed his hands in the employee sink at the bakery, stuck his time card into the clock on the wall and punched out for the day. Stepping into the hallway where he kept his coat, he found Agnes Demblon waiting for him.

“Do you want a lift?” she asked.

“Why? Do you ever give me a lift home? No, you don’t. You always stay until the day’s receipts are in.”

“Yes. But, tonight I . . .”

“Tonight, especially,” Kanarack said. “Today. Tonight. Nothing is different. Do you understand?”

Without looking at her he pulled on his jacket, then opened the door and stepped out into the rain. It was a short walk from the employees’ entrance down the alley to the street in front. When he turned the corner, he pulled his collar up against the rain, then walked off. It was exactly two minutes after five.

Across the street and two doors down, a rented dark blue Peugeot was parked at the curb, the rain beading up in little knots on its freshly waxed exterior. Inside, sitting in the dark behind the wheel, was Paul Osborn.

At the corner, Kanarack turned left onto boulevard de Magenta. At the same time Osborn twisted the key in the ignition, then pulled out from the curb and followed. At the corner he swung left in the direction Kanarack had gone. He glanced at his watch. Seven after the hour and with the rain, already dark. Looking back, all Osborn saw were strangers and for a moment he thought he’d lost him, then he caught sight of Kanarack on the far sidewalk, walking deliberately but apparently in no hurry. His easy manner made Osborn think that he’d given up on the idea he was being followed, that he had taken the other night’s attack and foot chase as an obscure incident done by a crazy man.

Ahead, Kanarack stopped for a traffic light. So did Osborn. As he did, he could feel the emotion rise up. “Why not do it now?” an inner voice was saying. Wait for him to step off the curb and into the street. Then gun the accelerator, run him down and drive away! No one will see you. And who cares if they do? If the police find you just tell them you were about to go to them. That you thought you might have run over someone in the dark and the rain. You weren’t sure. You looked but you saw no one. What can they say? How could they know it was the same man? They had no idea who it was in the first place.

No! Don’t even think it. Your emotion nearly ruined it the first time. Besides, kill him like that and you will never have the answer to your question, and having that answer is every bit as important as killing him. So calm down and stick to your plan and everything will be all right.

The first shot of succinylcholine will have its own effect, putting his lungs on fire for lack of oxygen because he doesn’t have the muscle control to breathe. He’ll be suffocating and helpless and more afraid than he’s ever been in his life. He’d tell you anything if he could, but he won’t be able to.

Then, little by little, the drug will start to wear off and he’ll begin to breathe again. Grateful, he’ll smile and think he’s beaten you. Then suddenly he’ll realize you are about to give him a second shot. Much stronger than the first, you’ll tell him. And all he’ll think about is that second shot and the horror of repeating what he’s just been through, only this time with the knowledge that it will be worse, much worse, if such a thing were possible. That’s when he’ll answer your question, Paul. That’s when he’ll tell you anything you want to know.

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 in 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.