The Day After Tomorrow

63

BY OSBORN’s watch it was 2:11 Monday morning, October 10.

Thirty minutes earlier he’d climbed the last stairs and taken the hidden elevator to the room under the eaves at 18, Quai de Bethune. Exhausted, he’d gone into the bathroom, opened the spigot and drunk deeply. After that he’d removed Vera’s bloodsoaked scarf and cleaned the wound in his hand. The thing throbbed like hell and he had a lot of trouble opening his hand. But the pain was welcome because it suggested that as badly as he’d been cut, neither the nerves nor crucial tendons had been severely damaged. He’d taken the tall man’s knife between the metacarpal bones just below the joint of the second and third fingers.

Because he could open the hand and close it, he was relatively certain no permanent damage had been done. Still, he would need an X ray to tell for sure. If a bone had been broken or splintered, he’d need surgery and then a cast. Left untreated, he ran the chance it would heal misformed, thus converting him to a one-handed surgeon and all, “but ending his career. That is, if there would be a career left to resurrect.

Finding the antiseptic salve Vera had used on his leg wound, he rubbed it into his hand, then covered it with a fresh bandage. After that he’d gone into the other room, eased down on the bed and awkwardly taken his shoes off with one hand.

He’d waited a full hour after McVey’s exit before sliding off the furnace and climbing the darkened service stairs. He’d gone carefully, a step at a time, half expecting to be surprised and challenged by a man with a gun in uniform. But the moment hadn’t come, so it was evident that whatever police were still on guard were outside.

McVey had been right. If the French police caught him and put him in jail, the tall man would find a way to kill him there. And then he would go after Vera. Osborn was caught, with McVey the third and final part of the triangle.

Loosening his shirt, Osborn shut out the light and lay back in the dark. His leg, though better, was beginning to stiffen from overexertion. The throbbing in his hand, he found, was less if he kept it elevated, and he arranged a pillow under it. As tired as he was, he should have fallen asleep immediately, but too many things were alive in his mind.

His abrupt intrusion on Vera and the tall man had been sheer coincidence. Certain she was at Work and the apartment would be empty, he’d chanced coming down simply to use the telephone. He’d agonized for hours before finally coming to the conclusion that the most realistic thing he could do would be to call the American embassy, explain who he was and ask for help. In essence throwing himself on the mercy of the United States government. With luck, they would protect him from French jurisprudence and perhaps, in the best of all cases, consider the circumstances and exonerate him for what he had done. After all, it was not he who had killed Henri Kanarack. More important, it was an action that would put the focus entirely on him and remove Vera from the shadow of a scandal that could ruin her. His own private war had been going on for nearly thirty years. It was neither fair nor right that his personal demons bankrupt Vera’s life no matter whatever else they might have between them. That was until he had opened the door and seen the tall man’s knife at her throat. In that instant the simple clarity of his plan vanished and everything changed. Vera was in it whether either of them wanted it or not. If he went to the American envoy now, that would be end, the same as if the police had him. At the very least he’d he held in protective custody while things were sorted out. And because of the publicity over Kanarack/Merriman’s murder, the media would be all over it, thereby telling the tall man Or his accomplices where he was. And when they got him, then they would go after Vera, as McVey had said.

Lying in his pigeonhole at the top of Paris, his hand throbbing above him in the dark, Osborn’s thoughts turned to McVey and his offer to help. And the more he weighed one against the other, wondering if he could trust him, whether the overture was genuine or just a ruse to lire him out for the French police, the more he began to realize there was very little else.

At 6:45 A.M., McVey lay on his stomach in his pajama bottoms with one foot sticking out from under the covers, wanting to sleep but finding it impossible.

He’d played a hunch because it was all that was in his hand. Without Lebrun’s presence, the French inspectors would not have permitted him to question Vera Monneray at any length. So he hadn’t even tried. Even had Lebrun been there, he would have had trouble exacting the truth of what had happened because Ms. Monneray was smart enough to hide behind the respect of l’amour, or, more correctly, the prime minister of France.

Even if he’d been wrong and she had, out of fear or anger or outrage—he’d seen it before—chased after the tall man, blazing away with the gun as she’d said, her statement about not seeing the car killed her story. Because someone had most definitely gone out into the street and fired at it as it sped away.

If she’d admittedly done as she’d said, why would she lie about not seeing the car unless she’d arrived too late on the scene to be aware of what happened. Which, of course, meant someone else had shot at the car.

And since the tech crew had found two separate blood types, and since Vera herself had been uninjured, it meant at least three people had been in the apartment when the shooting took place. One of them had driven away and one of them was still in the apartment. That left one missing.

The first gunshot brought Barras and Maitrot to attention. The second and third had sent them running, with Barras radioing for backup. The tall man had gotten away in a fast car. Moments later, uniforms filled the area. Every apartment in the building and within a three-block radius had been checked, as had every alley, every rooftop, every parked car, and every passing barge on the Seine that a fugitive might have jumped onto from a bridge or a quai.

That meant one thing. The third person was still there. Somewhere. Because of the quickness of the police response and because gunfire had occurred just outside the service door, the most obvious place for that person to hide was the basement.

Yes, it had been thoroughly checked and secured. But it had been done without dogs. Experience had taught that desperate people can be exceedingly clever or sometimes just plain lucky. Which is why he had let the French police finish their job and then gone back.

At 6:50 he opened an eye, glanced at the clock and groaned. He’d been in bed for four and a half hours and was sure he hadn’t slept two. One day he would get a solid eight. But when that day would come, he had no idea.

He knew people would give him until seven o’clock, then the calls would start. Lebrun, reporting he was on his way back from Lyon and setting a time to meet. Commander Noble and Dr. Richman calling from London.

Then there were two calls due from L.A. One from Detective Hernandez, whom he’d called when he got back to his room at two in the morning because there had been no fax waiting of the Osborn file he’d requested. Hernandez had not been in and no one else knew anything about it.

The other L.A. call would be from the plumber the neighbors had called when McVey’s automatic sprinklers Started going on and off at four-minute intervals around the clock. The plumber was calling back with an estimate of the cost to install an entirely new system to replace the old one McVey had put in himself twenty years earlier With a kit from Sears, the parts to which no longer existed.

Then there was one more call he was waiting for—rather hoping for, the one that had kept him tossing most of the night—the call from Osborn. Again he thought back to the basement. It was bigger than it looked and packed with a zillion cubbyholes. But maybe he’d been wrong, maybe he’d been talking in the dark.

6:52. Eight more minutes, McVey. Just close your eyes, try not to think about anything, let all the muscles and nerves and everything else relax.

And that’s when the phone rang. Grunting, he rolled over and picked up.

“McVey.”

“This is Inspector Barras. Sorry to bother you.”

“It’s all right. What is it?”

“Inspector Lebrun has been shot.”