The Day After Tomorrow

55

A NEW, dark green Ford Sierra with Pirelli P205/70R14 tires and fourteen- by five-and-a-half inch wheels, drove slowly past the apartment building at 18 Quai de Bethune, turned the corner at the Pont de Sully and pulled in behind a white Jaguar convertible parked on the rue St.-Louis enl’Île. A moment later, the door opened and the tall man got out. It was a warm afternoon but he wore gloves just the same. Flesh-colored surgical gloves.

Bernhard Oven’s train arrived at Gare de Lyon at twelve fifteen. From the station he’d taken a cab to Orly Airport, where he retrieved the green Ford. By 2:50 he was back in Paris and parked outside Vera Monneray’s building.

At 3:07, he slipped the lock and stepped into her apartment, closing the door behind him. No one had seen him cross the street, or use the newly minted key that fit the security door to the service entrance. Once inside, he’d climbed the service stairs and entered the apartment through the rear hallway.

To most of France, the story first broadcast on Antenna 2 television and, soon after, repeated by every other media, about the mysterious, dark-haired woman who’d driven away the American murder suspect from the golf club after he had climbed out of the Seine, was a juicy, romantic intrigue. Just who she was and who the American might be were the subjects of reckless speculation—from a major French actress, film director and author, to an international tennis star, to an American rock singer, dressed in a black wig and speaking French; the doctor was whispered to be no doctor at all, the picture given the press a fake, but a famous Hollywood actor, currently in Paris promoting a film; darker stories vouched it was a veteran United States senator, his star diminished by still another tragedy.

Vera Monneray’s identity and address, handprinted on a card, as well as the keys to the service door and her apartment, were in the glove box of Bernhard Oven’s car when he’d picked it up at Orly. In the five plus hours since he’d left Marseilles, the Organization had proven itself meticulously efficient. As it had with Albert Merriman.

The ornamental clock on the table beside Vera Monneray’s bed read eleven minutes past three in the afternoon.

Ms. Monneray, Oven knew, had gone to work that morning at seven o’clock and would not be through with her shift until seven the following night. That meant, factoring the possible unknown intrusion of a maid or handyman, he would not be disturbed as he searched her apartment. It also meant that if, by chance, the American was there, he would have him alone.

Five minutes later Oven knew the American was not there. The apartment was as empty as it was spotless. Letting himself out, carefully relocking the door, he retraced his steps down the service stairs, stopping at the landing where the service door opened onto the street. But instead of going out, he continued on down the stairs, descending into the basement.

Finding a light switch, he turned it on and looked around. What he saw was a long narrow hallway leading back under the building, with numerous doors and darkened storage areas off it. To his right, tucked back under a low ceiling of heavy timbers, were the trash receptacles for the building’s tenants.

How innocently accommodating the upper-class Parisians, each apartment having its own refuse containers, and each painted with the apartment’s number. A closer scan of the area quickly turned up the four trash bins allocated to Vera’s apartment, only one of which was filled.

Removing the cover, Oven spread open a day-old newspaper and went through it piece by piece. Finding, in turn, four empty cans of Diet Coke, an empty plastic bottle of Gelave, hair conditioner, an empty container of Tic Tac mints, an empty box of Today contraceptive sponges, four empty bottles of Amstel light beer, a copy of People magazine, an empty and partially bent can of beef bouillon soup, a yellow plastic squeeze bottle of “Joy dish soap and—Oven stopped, something rattled inside the bottle of Joy.

He was about to unscrew the cap when he heard a door above and someone start down the stairs. The footsteps stopped briefly at the landing where the service door opened to the street, then continued down. Turning out the light, Oven stepped into the shadows behind the low overhang of the stairs, at the same time lifting a .25-caliber Walther automatic from his waistband.

A moment later, a plump maid in a starched black-and-white uniform clumped down the steps carrying a bulging plastic trash bag. Snapping on the light, she lifted the lid to one of the rubbish cans, dropped the bag inside, then closed the lid and turned back for the stairs. It was then she saw the mess Oven had spread out on the newspaper. Muttering something in French, she walked over, scooped it up and plunked it into Vera’s trash bin. Replacing the cover, she abruptly shut off the light and tromped back up the stairs.

Oven listened as her footsteps retreated. Satisfied she was gone, he slipped the Walther back into his waistband, then clicked on the light. Lifting the lid from the trash barrel, he took out the plastic soap bottle and unscrewed its cap, then turned it upside down and shook it. Whatever . was inside rattled, but didn’t fall out. Pulling a long, thin knife from his sleeve, he opened the blade and coaxed out a small bottle covered with soapy slime. Wiping it off, he held it up to the light. It was a medical vial from Wyeth Pharmaceutical Products; the label read, 5ML TETANUS TOXOID.

A hint of a smile crossed Oven’s face. Vera Monneray was in her residency to become a doctor. Pharmaceuticals were available to her and she was qualified to give an injection. A wounded man coming out of a polluted river would very likely require a tetanus shot booster not only to prevent tetanus but diphtheria. And someone giving a shot would not be likely to do it elsewhere and then bring the empty vial back home to hide it in their kitchen soap bottle. No, the injection would have been given here, in Vera’s apartment. And since the American was not in her apartment now, it meant he was somewhere close by, perhaps in another building, perhaps in this building itself.

Five and a half floors up from the basement where Bernhard Oven stood, Paul Osborn hunched over the small table under his window and stared out across the roofline, watching the afternoon shadows slide over Notre Dame’s Gothic towers.

The hours he hadn’t been sleeping, he’d been alternately pacing the tiny room for the exercise he knew he must have, or blankly staring out the window as he was now, trying to collect his thoughts.

There were certain obvious truths, he had concluded, there was no way around.

First: the police were still looking for him in connection with the death of Albert Merriman. Through Vera he knew they had found the remaining succinylcholine and taken it from his hotel room. If—when—they discovered its purpose, there was every chance they would reexamine—he still wanted to call him Kanarack—Merriman’s body. If they did, they would find the puncture wounds, And if they hadn’t already, McVey would make them. It wouldn’t matter that he hadn’t actually killed Merriman. They would still charge him with attempted homicide. And if they proved it, which they would, he’d not only spend God knew how many years in a French jail, he’d lose his medical license in the United States as well.

Second: he hadn’t come out of the river unnoticed, and sooner or later the tall man, whoever he was, would learn he was still alive and come looking to kill him.

Third: even if he could somehow get out of Paris, the police still had his passport. So, for all intents, he was trapped in France because he could go to no other country without it, not even his own.

Fourth—and perhaps the cruelest and most painful of all, the thing he’d played over and over in his mind—was the clear and undeniable realization that the death of Albert Merriman had changed nothing. The demon haunting him had only become more complex and elusive. As if, after all his years of horror, such a thing were possible.

His insides screamed NO! in a hundred languages. Do not begin the pursuit again. Because this next door emblazoned with the name Erwin Scholl can only lead to what? Another door still! And by then, if you live that long, it can only open onto madness. Recognize instead, Paul Osborn, there will never be an answer. That this is your karma, to learn in this life that what you seek answers to, there may not be answers that are acceptable to you. It is only by understanding this that you will have peace and tranquility in the next life. Accept this truth and change.

But he knew that argument was nothing but avoidance and therefore not true. He could not change today any more than he had been able to change since he was ten. Kanarack/Merriman’s death had been a terrible, emotional, blow. But what it had done was clarify and simplify the future. Before, he’d had only a face. Now he had a name. If this Erwin Scholl, if he found him, led to someone else, so be it. No matter the cost, he would go on and on until he knew the truth behind his father’s death. Because if he did not, there would be no Vera, no life worth living. As there had been none since he was a boy. Peace and tranquility would come in this lifetime or not at all. That was his karma and his truth.

Outside, he could see the Notre Dame towers in full shadow. Soon the city lights would come on. It was time to pull the blackout curtain over his window and turn on his lamp. Having done that, he hobbled to his bed, and lay back. As he did, his resolve of the moment before faded and the pain flooded back, as raw as it had ever been.

“Why did this happen to my family—and to me?” he said out loud. He’d said it as a boy, as an adolescent, as a grown man and a successful surgeon. He’d said it a thousand times. Sometimes it came as a quiet thought, or part of a lucid conversation during a therapy session; other times, as emotion suddenly overwhelmed him, it had been thundered out loud wherever he stood, embarrassing ex-wives, friends and strangers.

Lifting the pillow, he brought out Kanarack’s gun and hefted it in his hand. Tipping it toward him, he saw the hole where death came out. It looked easy. Even seductive. The simplest way of all. No more fear of the police, or of the tall man. Best of all, his pain would be instantly gone.

He wondered why he hadn’t thought of it before.