The Lucifer Gospel

25

With the exception of their passports they had all the documents they needed by two in the afternoon. As a bonus Pyx had thrown in two perfectly valid Bank of Nova Scotia Visa cards in their new names, each with a ten-thousand-dollar limit that, according to Pyx, would somehow be skimmed from the huge Canadian bank’s vast stream of invisible wireless transfers that pinged off satellites around the world each day.

They spent most of their day at Le Vieux Four in the sun-warmed garden behind the house drinking ice-cold Sangano Blonde beer, nibbling on cheese and pate, and listening to Arthur Simpson tell his tale. As the sun warmed her Finn could almost forget why they were in this beautiful place, with its buzzing bees and chirping birds scolding them from the branches of the old birch trees at the end of the garden. Almost.

In the early afternoon, with documents in hand, they thanked Pyx for his hospitality and the speed and quality of his work, then climbed back into the Mercedes and headed down the mountain to the valley below. Finding the autoroute, they made the sixty-mile trip to Lyon in a little over an hour. Simpson dropped them off in front of the modern Part Dieu railway station.

“There are fast trains all the time. The trip to Paris takes about two hours. You should be all right. You remember the name of the hotel I told you about?”

“Hotel Normandie. Rue de la Huchette between rue de Petit Pont and the boulevard St. Michel on the Left Bank,” said Finn, repeating Simpson’s instructions.

“Good girl.” The old man smiled.

“We owe you for the passports,” said Hilts grudgingly. “I haven’t forgotten, you know. We’ll pay you back.”

“Think nothing of it, Mr. Hilts.” Simpson looked fondly up at Finn through the open window of the car. “Repaying a favor to the memory of an old friend.”

“We will pay you,” said Finn, her tone firm.

“On your way,” Simpson ordered.

“What about you?” Hilts asked.

“I have some people to see back in Italy. But I’m sure we’ll meet again before this is over. Look for me.” He smiled again, rolled up the window, and drove off. Hilts and Finn turned, crossed the broad sidewalk, and went into the low-ceilinged modern terminus. They bought a pair of first-class tickets on the next high-speed train to Paris, a brand-new TGV double-decker Duplex with big airplane-style seats, lots of leg room, and a top speed of 186 miles per hour. They boarded the train, found their seats, and settled in for the relatively short journey. So far they had seen nothing suspicious, but without passports and only forged documents to identify themselves they both felt vulnerable. The train was packed, mostly with tourists of various nationalities on their way back to Paris, but they had seats together and no one paid them any attention. The train headed smoothly out of the station, right on time, and a few minutes later they were gathering speed as they raced through the suburbs of the big French city. Neither one of them had spoken since leaving Simpson at the entrance to the station.

“You want something to eat?” Hilts asked. He had taken the aisle seat, giving Finn the window.

“No, thanks.”

“Drink?”

“No, I’m not thirsty,” said Finn, shaking her head. “Maybe later.”

“Yeah, maybe later,” said Hilts awkwardly. Another moment passed.

“What do you really know about this man Simpson?” he asked finally.

“Not much,” she responded. “He came to my room in Cairo. He said he knew my father. He warned me about Adamson.” She paused. “He says he knew Vergadora back in the old days.” She paused again. The train began to sway and vibrate slightly as they hit the open countryside and continued to gain speed. “I know he got us out of a lot of trouble last night. He’s arranged for passports today. Stuff we couldn’t have done ourselves.”

“Like some kind of guardian angel, is that it?”

“I’m not sure.”

“You ever wonder what’s in it for him?”

“Yes.”

“And?”

“I can’t give you an answer because I don’t know. I only know what he’s done for us so far.”

Hilts was silent for a moment. He stared at the striped fabric and the pull-down table on the seat ahead.

“You ever watch a TV show or read a book and come to a place where you stop and ask yourself, why don’t they just go to the cops?”

“Sure,” Finn said. “It’s like in a horror movie when the girl goes down into the dark basement and everybody but her knows she should turn and run.”

“But if she did, the movie would end right there,” agreed Hilts. “That’s where we are. We’re at the place where the movie should just end, because if we had any brains we’d run to the cops.”

“But we can’t. They want us for killing Vergadora.”

“And our guardian angel, your friend Mr. Simpson, who keeps on turning up, is helping us to get away from the cops.”

“What are you getting at?”

“He’s keeping the movie going.”

“So?”

“Why?” Hilts asked. “Unless he wants us to keep on looking for DeVaux.” He paused. “Or unless we’re being led into some kind of trap.”

“That thought had crossed my mind,” Finn said abjectly. “But what are we supposed to do about it now?”

“That story he told us today, out in Liam Pyx’s garden, about DeVaux.”

“What about it?”

“Do you believe it?”

“I don’t know. I’m still trying to figure that out.”