The man who sold death

CHAPTER 13

Craig flew to Paris in an Air France Caravelle. He looked and acted like a very wealthy tourist. For one night he stayed in a hotel near the Rue de Rivoli, drank in bars in the Champs-Elysees, visited the Louvre and the Musee Rodin, the Deux-Magots, the Casino, and the Crazy Horse Saloon. He attracted girls, bought them drinks, danced with them, ditched them. When he was sure that no one followed him, he went to join Grierson and made him practice, over and over, the skills he had learned from Hakagawa. Then Grierson disappeared for a while, and came back with a case of worn black leather. Inside it were two Colt.38's, Craig's Luger, and the Colt Woodsman that Craig had asked for. The Woodsman is a long-barreled weapon, a target pistol of tremendous accuracy. It has to be. Its.22 bullets have very little stopping power unless they hit a vital spot. Craig had practiced with it continually before he had left London. He was beginning to know it well. He lifted it out of its case and weighed it in his hand. "Now we can go," he said.

"We have to get you a car first," Grierson said. "I've ordered an Alfa Romeo." "Aren't we using yours?"

"No. The Lagonda stays in London. It's too conspicuous for this kind of work. I've got myself a Mercedes. Fast, not too conspicuous, left-hand drive."

"Like the Alfa?"

Grierson nodded.

"He's planned this well," said Craig. "I like that."

The Alfa was black, and waxed till it glowed. It had been hired to Craig by an Englishman who lived in Paris, and the receipt was there too. So was the Englishman, who watched Craig handle his heart's joy in the Paris traffic, then sighed softly and asked to be let out, stroked the gleaming paintwork and disappeared. Craig went to the Port de Picpus, and left Paris by the N5 and drove to Sens, seventy miles in an hour and a quarter, and the car had scarcely drawn breath. Grierson, following him, cursed as he pressed his foot down. He lunched in Sens, and took the N6 through Auxerre and Macon to Lyons, another two hundred and fifty miles. Grierson had to work hard to keep him in view. In Lyons he stayed the night. By now he knew the car; he had taken it beyond the hundred, experimented with its handling on winding side roads, proved the assurance of its brakes. The car, like his guns, was the best Loomis could get.

He dined at a restaurant near the Fourviere Basilica, a hushed and dedicated place where serious men ate seriously-gras-double a la Lyonnaise, cervelas en brioche, poulet en chemise-and drank, with a decent respect, Beaujolais, Macon, Cotes du Rhone. Grierson, two tables away, marveled at his digestion. Next morning, after coffee and brioches, they left Lyons on the N7, the fast Riviera road, and kept on going. The sun was shining now, hard enough for them to wear sunglasses, and the air was warm.

After a while Grierson pulled out and passed him in a glorious thunder of power. Craig accelerated and held him. Grierson couldn't let the Mercedes go too fast-the road was busy and at anything below ninety the Alfa could pace him easily. Outside Valence, a couple of girl hitchhikers were thumbing a lift. Grierson kept on going, but Craig pulled over and eased to a stop. He could do with someone to talk to, and besides, the dark one seemed to be limping. The two girls came running toward him, and he saw that the dark one, who carried a guitar, was limping no longer. He grinned to himself. There was a technique for getting lifts, like everything else. Firmly he reminded himself that he was English; that the Wogs begin at Calais. It was no longer disgraceful to speak French, but one must still not speak it very well.

Both girls wore tartan shirts, blue jeans and espadrilles, and both were pretty. There the resemblance ended, for one was blond, plump, relaxed, and French, the other dark, intense, manic, and American. They were going to St. Tropez, the French girl said, but it had to be by way of Avignon, the American girl insisted. They had to see the Palace of the Popes.

"Just as you like," said Craig. "We might as well lunch in Avignon as anywhere else."

He squeezed the accelerator gently, and the Alfa moved forward in a joyous surge of power.

"Hey," said the American girl, "what kind of car is this?"

"Alfa Romeo," Craig said.

"It moves," said the American girl. "Man, does it move."

"It's supposed to," said Craig.

"I can see that. But it doesn't look much, does it?" "Doesn't look-" Craig choked. "I mean it's so small." "Big heart," said Craig.

The American girl offered around cigarettes, lit one for Craig, and put it in his mouth.

"You on vacation?" she asked. Craig nodded. "So are we-in a way, that is. My name's Sikorski-Maria Sikorski. This is Sophie Gourdun."

Craig said, "I'm John Reynolds."

"Hi," said Maria.

"Hi," said Sophie.

After that, all he had to do was listen and drive. The girls were singers, and hoped to work the Riviera through the season. Their entire assets were three hundred new francs, the contents of their rucksacks, and a work permit for Maria, and they hadn't a care in the world. They were twenty-one years old.

"I sing Western songs," Maria said. "I come from Detroit, but I worked in Las Vegas and I learned a few songs from the cowboys there. You ever been to Vegas?" She didn't wait for an answer. "Maddest place you ever saw. Ten thousand miles of nothing and a city full of slot machines in the middle. You know what Las Vegas means? It means the Open Country. Those Spaniards never saw anything more open than Vegas. You look around, you can still find a few cowboys. They've got good songs too. Sophie's nuts about cowboys."

"Do you sing Western songs too?" Craig asked.

"No," Sophie said. "I sing corny songs. Ballads. You know-late-at-night, sad songs."

"Hey, she's good too," said Maria. "She makes me cry every time. You know what? She used to be a dancer. Worked in striptease even." She looked at Sophie with pride, and Sophie tried but failed to look modest. Craig was intrigued.

"Did you like it?" he asked.

"Good money," said Sophie, "but very tiring work. Stupid too. On, off, on, off. Either one goes to bed or one does not."

"Have you been a stripper too?" Craig asked Maria.

"No," Maria said. "I haven't got the temperament for it. The lazy ones do best. They look more sexy or something. I couldn't make myself be lazy in a million years."

She talked all the way to Avignon, and Craig believed her.

Avignon enchanted her. She checked on the existence of the bridge in the song, and the fact that it was in ruins did not bother her at all. It had stood, once, and a song had been made, and that was enough. The cathedral and the view from the Promenade du Rocher were all that she had expected, and the sohd gray mass of the palace, austere and yet magnificent, the scented beauty of the hanging gardens, moved her for a brief while to silence.

"You see how lucky you are, giving us a lift," she said at last. "If you hadn't, you'd have missed all this."

"I'm very much in your debt," Craig said. "Perhaps you'll permit me to buy you lunch."

"Heavens, I should think so," said Maria severely. "I only hope it's good, that's all."

They went to a Provencal restaurant, and ate long and well, and when they had finished, Maria said, "I forgot to ask you. How near are you going to St. Trop?"

"I'm staying the night there," Craig said.

"Hey, that's great," said Maria.

"Tomorrow I'm going on to Cannes," Craig lied.

"You're going a very long way round," said Sophie.

"I may be meeting a friend in St. Tropez," Craig said, "and anyway I've never been there. I really think I ought to before I die."

Sophie said seriously, "You're not that old, surely?" and Craig laughed aloud. It seemed to him a long time since he had done that.

They drove on through Aix-en-Provence and Brig-noles to Cannet-des-Maures, leaving the N8 then, turning south to Grimaud, and so at last to St. Tropez. The girls left him at the port, and he promised to meet them for dinner. He drove up to the little hotel near the English church where he was to rendezvous with Grierson and wait with him for their next instructions. Already, at the end of May, the little town was crowded: twenty thousand people crammed in where in winter five thousand lived in no great luxury, but a room had been booked for Grierson and Craig, a cool, airy, spacious room, with french windows opening on to a garden, and a private shower. Madame la Proprietaire had been warned that the two Englishmen were wealthy, generous, and fussy about privacy. Moreover, she had been paid in advance. She was content.

Grierson was angry.

"You shouldn't have done it," he said. "We aren't here on holiday."

"We're supposed to be," said Craig, "and a couple of girls are the best cover there is. Anyway, they're healthy -and human. I needed to talk to people like that. They reminded me of Tessa. In any case, we'll be leaving tomorrow. I told them we were going to Cannes."

"You shouldn't have done it," said Grierson. "What's more, you know you shouldn't."

"I like them. You don't think I would let them get hurt, do you? After tomorrow, they'll never see us again."

Grierson sighed. "All right," he said. "I'll come and have a look at them. But Loomis won't like it."

"Loomis isn't invited," said Craig.

The two men showered and changed, and drank cold, white Burgundy while Grierson read aloud a letter from Ashford which was waiting for them. "Our friend is away still and won't be back for two days," it said. "I enclose a clipping which I've been asked to pass on to John. He may find it amusing-or so I'm told."

The clipping was from a New York newspaper, and the article marked said stern things about the Longshoremen's Union. Below it was a tiny squib that told of the torturing and murder of an unidentified man in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Grierson waited until Craig had read it, then burned the letter and the clipping.

"And then there was me," said Craig.

"Baumer?" Grierson asked.

"Yes. I don't find it amusing."

"Ashford's got to be careful," Grierson said.

Craig drank more wine. It would be Loomis who had sent the words that Ashford had used, knowing that they would make Craig angry. Loomis wanted St. Briac dead, and for that purpose no detail was too trivial, not even the use of the word "amusing."

They met Maria and Sophie in a bar by the port. Like every other male there, Craig and Grierson wore beach shirts and slacks, while the girls wore toreador pants and Provecnal blouses. So did every other girl. It reminded Grierson of his days in the marines. Craig wanted to drink more wine, and found that he had to have whisky: there wasn't any question of choice. Whisky was what he had to drink because whisky was what was drunk. In the face of such logic, he abandoned argument. Later he found that he had to eat grilled sardines in one of the only three possible restaurants, and later still that he had to dance by candlelight in a cellar strewn with nets. He also had to help carry Maria's guitar, and, at four in the morning, listen to her sing cowboy songs. She did this by the pier, sitting on an upturned boat, and in no time at all she had an audience. Her voice was hard and driving, her guitar-playing skillful, searching; sometimes with Negro overtones, sometimes with a hint of Mexico. Craig almost expected to be told to pass the hat around, but Sophie attended to that, wheedling, coaxing, demanding coins until it was her turn to sing, her voice a strong despair, while Maria played. They stopped when they'd made thirty new francs, enough to live on for tomorrow.

The crowd broke up, and Craig looked across the mole to the soft, moon-stroked sea, where the fishing boats bobbed like swans. Sophie leaned against him, and he put his arms around her shoulders.

"You sing well," he said.

"Well enough," said Sophie. "Listen. You and your friend-are you rich?"

"Nobody ever says yes to that," Craig said. "But we're not poor."

"That's what I thought," said Sophie. "Suppose Maria and I lived with you for a while?" Craig stared. "Well, why not? We like you."

"You're very kind," said Craig.

"I can be," Sophie said.

"No, but-" he hesitated. She was staring this time. "We're too old for you. I'm thirty-six."

"I like old men," Sophie said. "I think you are very clever, very serious, and when you make jokes, you are witty also. I feel very relaxed with you. I like to be relaxed." She touched his arm, feeling the hard muscles. "You are very strong, John. In your world it is important to be strong."

"My world?"

"Les affaires. Business," she said. "It is different for Maria and me. We don't need anything. We have so many friends. Do you know that eight of us share a room? It is true. In an hour it will be our turn to sleep. I would rather sleep with you."

"No," said Craig, and kissed her lightly. "I can't. I wish I could." He looked into her eyes. Very grave eyes she had, gray and serene.

"I'm sorry," said Craig. "I can't do it."

"Why not?"

He sighed, and looked at her again. Beneath the easy manner, the propositioning demands for four-star meals and a five-star bed, there was something else that he had no right to. This girl liked him, liked him so much that she was ready to love him. As Tessa had done. It would not be easy to turn her down. She knew well enough how desirable she was, how much men wanted her. If he said no, she would remember, and she would not forgive--

"Why did you pick on me?" he asked. "Grierson's the good-looking one. Your sight must be bad."

"I can see very well," she said. "Grierson is attractive, certainly. But you-you are far more interesting. You are much stronger than he is, and much more gentle."

"You're wrong," Craig said.

"No, I'm not. If you were fond of someone, they would always be safe. I know this."

How safe was Tessa? How safe would this girl be?

"You are also much more intense," said Sophie, and laughed at his bewilderment. "You five so much more than anyone else-every minute I have been with you, you have been eating up life. Avignon, the Alfa, me, sardines for dinner. You gobble it all up. You are so greedy, my dear."

Because I have so little time.

"Why won't you?" she asked.

"I'm sharing a room," he said.

"Couldn't you ask your friend to go somewhere else?"

"No," said Craig. "I couldn't. He would think he knew about us. He wouldn't-but he'd think he did. I'd never let him do that."

"You'd sooner do nothing?"

"Much sooner," Craig said. "You're a dream, Sophie. You come from somewhere unbelievable-" "A club called Venus," Sophie said.

"-and you'll disappear into somewhere beyond the stars."

"A club called La Ultima."

"The places dreams come from. If I can't have my dreams perfect, I don't want them at all."

"Where can we get some Scotch?" Sophie asked.

"At my hotel, I suppose. Do you want a drink?"

"It will be cold later," the girl said, and sighed. "I would have liked to sleep in a bed tonight. A big, warm, comfortable bed." Then she laughed. "I'm a very substantial dream, John. I weigh fifty kilos." She put her hands on his arms, and suddenly her nails dug into the long, smooth muscles.

"I may not be as strong as you are, but I bet I can scream much louder, and if you don't come with me I will, too. I mean it!"

And Craig knew that she did and went, telling himself that she would be suspicious if he didn't, and knowing that it wasn't for that at all. She was offering him life, perhaps for the last time, and he wasn't strong enough to refuse. Not like Grierson. Perhaps Grierson was the stronger, after all. And Tessa-perhaps he would not see Tessa again. Perhaps this would be the last time.

He drove to his hotel, and bought a bottle of Scotch, then went to Sophie's place and waited till she came out, bent under the weight of a vast sleeping bag, and put it in the car. He drove as she directed, along the moonlit road to the beach, until she told him to turn off, and the car jolted along a rutted track in second gear. She told him to pull over at last, and they climbed a fence, Craig struggling with the unwieldy mass of the sleeping bag, and found themselves in a vineyard. She led the way through the vines, and they were back by the road, with the sea below.

At last she let him put the sleeping bag down, and spread it out beneath an old, espaliered vine. Nearby, the tideless waves whispered, and slapped at the rocks. The thin, bitter scent of the vines was everywhere.

"I slept here last year," said Sophie. "By myself. Always. Nobody else knows this place. Only you. It is a strange place to make love. Strange enough for a dream."

He looked at her in the shadowed moonlight that turned her golden hair and skin to a delicate silver, and for a moment she belonged to a dream world, then frankly, without sophistication or teasing, she took off her clothes, folded them neatly by the sleeping bag, and stood naked before him, grave and patient as Craig looked at her strong, shapely body before he undressed and took her in his arms.

Her skin was cool as he touched her, and she gasped at his hard strength, and they kissed, her mouth soft, yielding under his, until, incredibly, she broke away.

"Now we swim," she said. "In the best dreams there is always swimming."

And Craig, cursing, wrapped the towel she gave him around his waist, put on his shoes, looked out for cars, then ran across the road and scrambled down the rocks to the sea. Naked they poised together on a ledge of rock, and dived into the dark water beyond the flurry of spray. Craig gasped at its coldness, surfaced, and struck out in a rapid crawl, swirling in the water toward the girl as she raced to meet him, her body silver in a nimbus of foam, white as the froth on champagne. He took her in his arms and they sank beneath the water, kissing, kissing, until they surfaced once more and swam back, side by side, scrambled up the rocks and back to the vineyard. The rubbed themselves dry and sipped the whisky until their bodies warmed to each other again, and she lay in his arms, shivering still, her skin smelling of the clean, salt smell of the sea as he possessed her. She was skilled, compassionate, eager for his pleasure as for her own, so that their love was demanding and complete. When they had done, they crawled inside the sleeping bag, luxuriating in its fleece-lined warmth, and drank once more.

Sophie took his hand in hers, kissed his fingers, drew the hand down to touch her body as she relaxed against him.

"You are very good-for an old man," she said. Craig pinched her and she squealed.

"You young people nowadays have no manners," he said.

Sophie said submissively, "Yes, monsieur. I'm very sorry, monsieur," and rolled over toward him, teasing him, willing him to want her again.

"I read about making love like this," she said. "It was in a book by Ernest Hemingway. The girl loved a man who was a soldier. He had come to kill his enemies." Craig tensed, and she moved closer to him, not understanding. "She had so little time. Like me… You've got a girl, haven't you? And you will go back to her, won't you, even after this?"

Craig began to say "I must," but she kissed him before he could answer, her body enfolding him, urging him to love.

At last they slept, and at dawn they bathed once more, then dressed and drove back to the hotel. Maria was there, with Grierson, who looked angry, and half asleep. Maria had been telling him all about Detroit.

"Hey, what happened to you two?" she asked.

"We went for a moonlight swim," said Sophie.

"We've just been talking. I propositioned him, but he turned me down." She seemed surprised.

Sophie looked at Craig. He shook his head.

"I think mine did too," she said.

Maria laughed, and swept her hand across the open strings of her guitar.