The Day After Tomorrow

67

IT WAS 2:40 in the afternoon. Osborn had called McVey three times at his hotel, only to be told that Monsieur McVey was out, had left no time when he would be expected back, but would be checking in for messages. By the third call, Osborn was going through the roof, the built-up anxiety of what he had decided to do made all the worse by the fact that McVey was nowhere to be found. Rationally and emotionally he’d already put himself in the policeman’s hands and, in doing so, had prepared himself for whatever that meant: a fellow American who would understand and help, or a quick ride to a French jail. He felt like a balloon stuck to a ceiling, trapped but free at the same time. All he wanted to do was be hauled down but there was no one to pull the string.

Standing alone, showered and freshly shaved, in Philippe’s basement flat, he struggled with what to do next. Vera was on her way to her grandmother’s in Calais, transported there by the police who had been guarding her. And even though Philippe had made the call, Osborn wanted to think she had realized it was he who was telling her, that Philippe was only his beard. He hoped she understood that he was asking her to go there not only for her own safety but because he loved her.

Earlier, Philippe had looked at him and told him to use his apartment to clean up. Laying out fresh towels, he’d unwrapped a new bar of soap and given him a razor to shave. Then, saying to help himself to whatever he found in the icebox, the doorman had done up his tie and gone back to work. From his position in the front lobby he would know what the police were up to. If something happened, he would telephone Osborn immediately.

Without doubt, Philippe had been an angel. But he was tired and Osborn had the sense he was one surprise away from coming unglued. Too much had happened in the last twenty-four hours to test not only his loyalty but his mental balance. Generous as Philippe was, he was, after all, and by his own choice, simply a doorman. And nobody, least of all himself, expected him to be daring forever. If Osborn went back up to his hiding place under the eaves there was no knowing how long he’d be safe. Especially if the tall man found a way to elude the police and came back looking for him.

Finally, he had realized there was only one choice. Picking up the phone, he rang Philippe at the front desk and asked if the police were still outside.

“Oui, monsieur. Two in front, two at the rear.”

“Philippe—is there another way out of the building besides the front door or the service entrance?”

“Oui, monsieur. Right where you are. The kitchen door opens into a small hallway; at the end of it is a stairway up to the sidewalk. But why? Here you are safe and—”

“Merci, Philippe. Merci beaucoup,” Osborn said, thanking him for everything. Hanging up, he made one more call. The Hotel Vieux. If McVey was picking up his messages, this would be one he. would want. Osborn would give him a time and a place to meet.

7:00 P.M. The front terrace room of La Coupole, on the boulevard du Montparnasse. It was where he had last seen the private detective, Jean Packard, alive, and the one place in Paris he was familiar enough with to know it would be crowded at that hour. Thereby making it difficult for the tall man to risk taking a shot at him.

Five minutes later, he opened an outside door and climbed the short flights of stairs to the sidewalk. The afternoon was crisp and clear and barge traffic was passing on the Seine. Down the block he could see the police standing guard in front of the building. Turning, he walked off in the opposite direction.

At 5:20, Paul Osborn came out of Aux Trois Quartiers, a stylish department store on the boulevard de la Madeleine, and walked toward the Métro station a half block away. His hair was cut short and he was wearing a new, dark blue pin-stripe suit, with a white shirt and tie. Hardly the picture of a fugitive.

On the way there, he had stopped in the private office of Dr. Alain Cheysson on the rue de Bassano, near the Arc de Triomphe. Cheysson was a urologist two or three years younger than he with whom he’d shared a luncheon table in Geneva. They’d exchanged cards and promised to call one another when Osborn was in Paris or Cheysson in L.A. Osborn had forgotten about it entirely until he decided he’d better have someone look at his hand and tried to think how best to approach it.

“What happened?” Cheysson asked, once the assistant had taken X rays and Cheysson had come into the examining room to see Osborn.

“I’d rather not say,” he said, trying to effect a smile.

“All right,” Cheysson had replied with understanding, wrapping the hand with a fresh dressing. “It was a knife. Painful, perhaps, but as a surgeon you were very lucky.”

“Yes, I know . . . .”

It was ten minutes to six when Osborn came up out of the Metro and started down boulevard du Montparnasse. La Coupole was less than three blocks away. That gave him more than an hour to play with. Time to observe, or try to observe, if the police were setting a trap. Stopping at a phone booth, he called McVey’s hotel and was told that yes, Monsieur McVey had been given his message.

“Merci.”

Hanging up, he pushed open the door and went back outside. It was nearing dark and the sidewalks were filled with the restless flow of people after work. Across the street and down a little way was La Coupole. Directly to his left was a small café with a window large enough for him to observe the comings and goings across the street.

Going inside, he picked a small table near the window that gave him a clear view, ordered a glass of white wine and sat back.

He had been lucky. The X rays on his hand had, as he’d thought, shown no serious damage and Cheysson, though a urologist and hardly an expert on hands, had assured him that he felt no permanent damage had been done. Grateful for Cheysson’s help and understanding, he’d tried to pay for the visit, but Cheysson wouldn’t hear of it.

“Mon ami,” he’d said, tongue in cheek, “when I am wanted by the police in L.A. I know I will have a friend to treat me who will say nothing to anyone. Who will not even make a record of my visit. Eh?”

Cheysson had seen him immediately and treated him without question, all the while knowing Osborn was wanted by the police and jeopardizing himself by helping. Yet he had said nothing. In the end they’d hugged and the Frenchman had kissed him in the French way and wished him well. It was little enough he could do, he said, for a fellow doctor who had shared his lunch table in Geneva.

Suddenly Osborn put down his glass and sat forward. A police car had pulled up across the street. Immediately two uniformed gendarmes got out and went into La Coupole. A moment later they came back out, a well-dressed man in handcuffs between them. He was animated, belligerent and apparently drunk. Passersby watched as he was hustled into the backseat of the police car. One gendarme got in beside him, the other got behind the wheel. Then the car drove off in a singsong of sirens and flashing blue emergency lights.

That was how fast it could happen.

Lifting his glass, Osborn looked at his watch. It was 6:15.