The Day After Tomorrow

61

BERNHARD OVEN’s decision to retreat had been correct. The American’s first shot, thrown off because of the knife in his hand, had seared a bloody path along the base of his saw. He was lucky. Had it not been for the knife, Osborn probably would have shot him between the eyes. Had Oven had the Walther in his hand instead of a knife, he would have done the same to Osborn, and then killed the girl.

But he hadn’t, nor had he chosen to stay and fight it out with the American because the police waiting outside would have, and no doubt did, come in very quickly at the sound of the gunshots. The last thing Oven Wanted was to be pitted against an enraged man with a gun with the police coming in the front door behind him.

Even if he’d killed Osborn, there was every chance he would have been caught or wounded by the police. If that had happened, he might survive, at best, a day in jail before the Organization found a way to eliminate their problem. Which was another reason why his withdrawal had been timely and correct.

But his leaving had created another problem. For the first time, he had been clearly seen. By Osborn and by Vera Monneray, who would describe him to the police as quite tall, six foot four at least, with blond hair and blond eyebrows.

It was now almost 9:30, little more than two hours after the shooting. Getting up from the straight-backed chair where he’d been musing, Oven went into the bedroom of the two-room flat on the rue de I’Eglise, opened the closet door and took out a pair of freshly pressed blue jeans with a thirty-two-inch inseam. Laying them on the bed, he slipped out of his gray flannel slacks, hung them carefully on a hanger and put them in the closet.

Pulling on the blue jeans, he sat down on the edge of the bed and unhooked the Velcro straps that connected ten-inch-long leg and foot prosthetics to the stubs of his legs at the point where they had been amputated, halfway between the ankle and the knee.

Opening a hard plastic traveling case, he took out a second pair of prosthetics, identical to the others but six inches shorter. Fitting them to the nub of each leg, he reattached the Velcro straps, pulled on white athletic socks and then a pair of white, high-top Reeboks.

Standing, he placed the prosthetics box in a drawer and went into the bathroom. There, he put on a short, dark wig and darkened his eyebrows with mascara of the same color.

At 9:42, a light gauze dressing covering the bullet crease on his jaw, five-foot-ten-inch Bernhard Oven, with dark hair with dark eyebrows, left his flat on the rue de I’ Eglise and walked a half block to the Jo Goldenberg restaurant at 7 rue Rosiers, where he took a table by the window, ordered a bottle of Israeli wine and the evening special, rolled grape leaves stuffed with ground beef and rice.

Paul Osborn lay huddled in the dark on top of the aging furnace in the basement of 18 Quai de Bethune, in a two-foot-square area that couldn’t be seen from the floor, his head only inches from the dusty, spider-infested ceiling of ancient beams and mortar. He’d found the spot only moments before the first detectives had invaded the area and now, nearly three hours later, he was still there, having some while ago stopped counting the number of times scurrying rats had come up to sniff and stare with their hideous red, rodent eyes. If he could be thankful for anything it was that the night was warm and no one in the building had yet called up the heat, thereby turning on the furnace.

For the first two hours it seemed as if the police were in every corner of the basement. Uniformed police, police in plain clothes with I.D.s pinned to their jackets. Some left and came back. Talking vigorously in French, every once in a while laughing at some joke he didn’t understand. He was lucky they hadn’t brought dogs.

The bleeding in his hand seemed to have stopped, but it ached brutally, and he was cramped and thirsty and exceedingly tired. More than once he’d dozed off, only to be wakened again by police as they searched everywhere but Where he was.

Now, for a long time it had been quiet, and he wondered if they were still there. They had to be, otherwise Vera would have come down looking for him. Then it occurred to him that she might not be able to. That the police might have posted guards to protect her in case the tall man came back. What then? How long should he stay there before he at least made some effort to get out?

Suddenly, he heard a door open above. Vera! He felt his heart jump and he raised himself up. Footsteps were coming down. He wanted to say something but he dared not. Then he heard whoever it was stop at the landing. It had to be Vera. Why would a policeman come down alone when the area had already been thoroughly covered? Maybe it was someone checking the service door to see if it has been secured. If so, they would go back up.

Abruptly there was a sharp creak as weight was put on a stair coming down to where he was. It was not a woman’s step.

The tall man!

What if he had eluded the police just as Osborn had, and was still there? Or had found a way to come back? In a panic, Osborn looked around for a weapon. There was none.

The stairs creaked again and the footsteps descended further. Holding his breath and craning his neck, Osborn could just make out the bottommost stairs. Another step and a man’s foot appeared, then a second, and he stepped into the basement.

McVey.

Lying back, Osborn pressed flush against the top of the furnace. He heard McVey’s footfalls approach, then stop. Then move off again, going away from the furnace and deeper into the block-long, coffin-shaped cellar.

For several seconds, he heard nothing. Then there was a click and a light went on. A moment later there was a second click and more of the basement was illuminated. What little he could see he had seen before when the French police had come through. The basement looked like a small warehouse. Old wooden coat bins, now jammed with tenants’ furniture and private belongings, lined either wall and vanished into the darkness beyond the lights. Osborn thought that had he got ten that far, to the area where the lights ended, he could have hidden anywhere. Perhaps even found an exit the far end.

Immediately there was a scattering sound overhead and something dropped onto his chest. It was a rat. Fat and warm. He could feel its claws press into the skin beneath his shirt as it moved across his chest and sniffed at Vera’s scarf, sticky wet with drying blood, which bound his injured hand.

“Doctor Osborn!”

McVey’s voice reverberated the length of the cellar. 0sborn gave a start, and the rat dropped off and hit the floor McVey heard it thud, then saw it disappear into the darkness under the stairs.

“I’m not crazy about rats. How do you feel about them? They bite when they get cornered, don’t they?”

Inching up, Osborn could see McVey standing halfway between the furnace and the dark at the far end of the room. Piled to the ceiling on either side of him were dusty crates and ghostlike furniture, draped with protective cloths. The height of them made McVey seem almost miniature.

“With the exception of uniformed details at the front and rear of the building, the French police have left. Ms. Monneray has gone with them. To headquarters. They want her to see if she can pick the tall man out of photographs. If Paris is anything like L.A., she’s going to be there a long time. There are a lot of books.” McVey turned around and looked toward the furniture behind him.

“Let me tell you what I know, Doctor.” Now he turned again and started walking slowly back toward him, his footsteps echoing lightly, his eyes searching, looking for any suggestion of movement.

“Ms. Monneray was lying when she told the French police she used the gun. against the tall man. She’s a highly educated, remarkably connected woman, who’s also a physician in residence. Even if she managed to pull a gun as big as a forty-five automatic on an assailant, even if she shot at him, I rather doubt she’d .chase after him down a dingy back stairway. Or follow him out into the street, still shooting as he drove away.” McVey stopped where he was and looked back over his shoulder, then turned and continued on the way he had been going, moving slowly toward Osborn’s hiding place, talking loud enough to be heard either in front or behind him.

“She says, by the way, that she heard a car drive off but that she didn’t see it. If she didn’t see it, how did she manage to shatter its rearview minor with one shot and take the top off an iron fence post across the street with another?”

McVey would have known the French police had been all over the basement and found nothing. That meant he was taking a stab that Osborn was here. But it was only a stab, and he wasn’t sure.

“There were fresh bloodstains on the hallway door upstairs. On the floor in the kitchen and on the landing by the service door that leads to the street. The Paris Préfecture of Police tech squad is pretty good. They determined in short order that there were two types of blood. Type O and type B. Ms. Monneray was not cut or bleeding. So I’m willing to bet that between you and the tall man one of you is O and the other B. How badly either of you is hurt, I guess we’ll find out.”

McVey was directly under Osborn now. Standing, looking around. For some reason Osborn smiled. If McVey had been wearing a hat like ’40s L.A. homicide detectives, Osborn could have reached out and plucked it off his head. He pictured the expression on McVey’s face if he did.

“By the way, Doctor, the Los Angeles Police Department is doing an in-depth profile on you. By the time I get back to my hotel, there’ll be a fax waiting with preliminary stats. Somewhere on that sheet will be your blood type.”

McVey waited and listened. Then he started back the way he had come, walking slowly, patiently, waiting for Osborn, if he was there, to make the mistake that would give him away.

“In case you’re wondering, I don’t know who the tall man is or what he’s up to. But I think you should know he is directly responsible for a number of other deaths involving people who knew a man named Albert Merriman or who you might have known as Henri Kanarack.

“Merriman’s girlfriend, a woman named Agnes Denblon, burned up in a fire the tall man set at her apartment building. The fire also killed nineteen other adults and two children, none of whom probably ever heard of Albert Merriman.

“Then he went to Marseilles and found Merriman’s Wife, her sister, her sister’s husband and their five kids. He shot them all in the head.”

McVey stopped, reached up and turned out a bank of lights.

“It was you he was after, Doctor Osborn. Not Ms. Monneray. But of course, after tonight, now that she’s seen him, he’ll be concerned with her too.”

There was a dull click as McVey turned out the second bank of lights. Then Osborn could hear him start back toward him in the dark.

“Frankly, Doctor Osborn, you’re in a heckuva pickle. I want you. The Paris police want you. And the tall man wants you.

“If the police get you, you can bet the bank the tall man will find a way to take care of you in jail. And after he does, he’ll go after Ms. Monneray. It won’t happen right away, because for a while she’ll be guarded. But somewhere on down the line, while she’s shopping or maybe riding the Metro, or having her hair done or in the hospital cafeteria at three in the morning . . .”

McVey came closer. When he was directly beneath Osborn, he turned and looked back to the darkened basement.

“No one knows I’m here besides you and me. Maybe if we talked, I might be able to help. Think about it, huh?”

Then there was silence. Osborn knew McVey was listening for the slightest sound and held his breath. It was a good forty seconds before Osborn heard him turn back, cross to the stairs and start up, then he stopped again.

“I’m staying at an inexpensive hotel called the Vieux Paris on the rue Git le Coeur. The rooms are small but they’ve got a musty French charm. Leave word where to meet you. I won’t bring anyone. It’ll be just you and me. If you’re nervous, don’t use your own name. Just say Tommy Lasorda called. Give me a time and a place.”

McVey climbed the remaining stairs and was gone. A moment later Osborn heard the service door to the street open, then close. After that, everything was silent.