Brainquake (18 page)

“Your passports, please.”

Michelle gave Paul hers. He handed both through the window. The French officer and the plainclothes detective studied the passports, their eyes glancing up at Paul and Michelle. The passports were returned. The French officer and the plainclothes detective went on to the people in the car behind the blue sedan. They had a baby, too.

Paul and Michelle took another bite. Their hands shook. Guitar music was joined by a sax.

“How did they know?” Paul finally said.

“New York cops must’ve put the word out. Probably working with Interpol.”

“What’s that?”

“International Police. They work with almost every country in the world to look for fugitives. Their headquarters is in France. Lyon.”

Blankly, Paul looked at her.

“You think I picked the wrong place to hide, don’t you?” Michelle said.

Paul nodded.

“It’s the best place, Paul. We got lucky—look at all these people here. With babies, too.” Michelle smiled. No longer shaking. In complete control. “But even if this festival hadn’t been here, it would still have been the best place for us. Because I know people here. We can disappear here.”

Paul nodded.

“We’re going to make it, Paul.”

Woody’s beard soaked in blood. Flat on his back in the New York hangar, blessedly unconscious until Father Flanagan’s kidgloved hand hammered the spike through his palm into the wide wooden table. Woody howled.

“Stop that.”

Woody couldn’t. The second spike was driven through his other palm into the table. Woody swallowed blood, choked on it.

“Johnson at the photo studio sent a man, a woman and a baby to Cappy to fly their asses out of the country, right?”

“
Right!
” Woody screamed.

“Quieter, please.”

Swallowing more blood, Woody’s scream faded to a whimper.

“How much did they pay Cappy?”

“Two hundred grand…”

“Where’d he fly them?”

The words were barely intelligible, spoken through a spill of blood.
“Brobant farm.”

“There. That’s better. And where is this Brobant farm?”

“
Omaha Beach.
”

“Where were they headed after Omaha Beach?”

“
Don’t know…
”

Father Flanagan held the third spike an inch above Woody’s eye, which was bulging from its socket.

“
Don’t know!
”

“Make your peace with God.”

Father Flanagan shifted the spike, teased Woody’s bloody lips apart with one thumb, and into his mouth it was jammed. The shrieking was harrowing. Metallic sound of hammer driving spike into the table brought blessed silence.

* * *

Vigorously slapping her face with cold water didn’t help much. In the ladies’ john, Zara stared at bloodshot eyes, twitching face muscles. A wreck. A big zero.

Captain Sherman sent for her.

“Woody and Cappy ring a bell, Lieutenant?”

Zara nodded. “Got their license revoked for smuggling religious statues from Europe. Among other things.”

“License renewed couple months ago, Lieutenant. Flights limited to Jersey and Pennsylvania, though how much you want to bet they don’t stop at those borders?”

“You want me to hassle them for license violations? I’m kind of busy.”

“No, nothing like that. Some kids playing ball near Cappy’s old hangar, one of them slammed a homer into it. This is what the outfielder found.”

Captain Sherman held up a photo.

She took it, looked at the spikes driven through Woody’s palms, the third through his bearded mouth into the table.

“Jesus. Woody must have gotten on the wrong side of the mob.” She handed the photo back. “But I’ve got my hands full with another case, Captain.”

“You so sure of that?”

Took Zara a second. “You think Spikes is after the cab driver and the widow? That’d take a mob ties at a higher level than little Frankie Troy.”

“Word on the street is, a bag’s gone missing.”

“And?”

“So’s your cab driver and your widow.”

“How much in the bag?”

“No one’s naming a number. But the way they’re talking, it’s got to have six zeros in it. At least.”

“Why didn’t I hear about this?”

“Must’ve asked the wrong people.”

“I asked everyone.”

“Asked the wrong questions, then.”

“You think it’s Page and the widow.”

He tapped the photo hard. “I think it’s our chance to get this son of a bitch at last.”

Zara was already halfway out the door.

* * *

For five hours she waited alone in the hangar. In the corner were Woody’s jeep and Cappy’s motorcycle. She heard the plane touching down with squealing tires. A second later it taxied into the hangar, came to a jerking stop. Cappy got out, staring at the unmarked police car, saw no sign of Woody. Big as life was his old nemesis sitting on the scarred wooden table, legs crossed, staring at him.

“Hello, Cappy. Swallowing any more condoms filled with heroin?”

“Hauling me in for another X-ray, Lieutenant?”

“Nope.”

“Seen Woody?”

Zara tapped the table.

Cappy approached uneasily, stared at the dried blood she was tapping.

“Woody’s?”

“Every drop.”

Zara produced the photo, dropped it face-up on the dried blood. Cappy gaped at his former partner crucified on the table. Zara dropped another photo on top of the first. Cappy stared at a young naked woman crucified on the wall of her hotel room. A third: a man, crucified against the side wall of his house. Cappy needed a drink. Zara handed him her silver flask. He drank as she spoke.

“Spikes left his calling card again, Cappy. Wants to distract us with it, hopes we label him a psycho and go chasing wild geese. But the man works for organized crime, always has. And right now there’s only one pair of fugitives they want badly enough to call him in.” She slapped the
Daily News
down on top of the photos. Paul and Michelle stared out from the paper like hunted animals. “The mafia wants them. I want Spikes.”

Whiskey burned going down. He coughed. She went on.

“Guess Woody wouldn’t talk. You’re next on the cross.”

“Me? I don’t know anything! I don’t know who these people are…” Pointing at the newspaper.

“Well, that’s a shame, for you and me both. It’s been nice knowing you.” She got up, headed for the open hangar door.

“Wait! Wait…” Woody cleared his throat. “Can the police protect me?”

“Oh, now you think some attention from the police would be a good thing, do you?”

“Better than being nailed to a fucking table,” Woody muttered.

Zara came back, tapped a long index finger on the newspaper photo. “You seen them?”

Cappy nodded. “And their baby.”

“Cooperate and we’ll save your ass, Cappy.”

“I dumped ’em at Brobant farm near Omaha Beach.”

“You talking about France?”

A nod.

“Price tag?”

“Couple hundred Gs.”

“Say where they were headed after Omaha Beach?”

“I’d shout it if I knew. Swear to god.”

Zara drove him in, turned him over to Captain Sherman. She found an urgent message to phone a Dr. Adson. She called him, learned he was treating the taxi driver.

“Who sent him to you, Dr. Adson?”

“Another patient of mine. I recommended specialists to treat her daughter, who suffers from a rare form of aphasia. I gather Paul ran errands for the mother. She asked me to help him. He suffers from an unusual brain condition as well.”

“What kind, Dr. Adson?”

“There’s no name in the record for it. He called it his ‘brainquake.’ ”

“What’s that?”

“Seizures, auditory and visual hallucinations, violent impulses. Never seen anything quite like it.”

“Dr. Adson, did he ever talk about what he did for a living?”

“Sure. I encouraged him to find something lower-stress.”

“Than…?”

“Driving a cab. What did you mean?”

If the mob knew he’d treated Paul for a brain disorder, they’d kill him. “That’s what I meant, Doctor. Driving a cab. We’ll call you if we need anything else.”

They drove past the illuminated Statue of Liberty standing by the center of Grenelle Bridge. Michelle told him it was the model for the big one in New York. She explained that she used to come see it when she was a little girl, that she’d heard the story over and over: how the people of France gave the statue to the people of the United States, but when it got to New York the lady didn’t have a pedestal to stand on. A newspaper asked children to give pennies and nickels for a foundation. That was how the Statue of Liberty finally got a brick base. Paul remembered the drop he made to the skyscraper office on the hundredth anniversary of the statue and all the fireworks in the sky.

Paul wasn’t surprised when Michelle told him she was born in Paris. There was no reason to be surprised. Why should being born in Paris be a surprise?

Paul was infatuated by the story of the Eiffel Tower illuminated at night. Michelle was so patient when she told him things. Patient the way his parents were.

The tall buildings with lights made him think of New York. Only they didn’t push each other like trees in a forest. Illuminated sightseeing boats were moving on the river Seine like ferry boats crossing the Hudson.

His father had told him about Lafayette, who helped George Washington fight the British in the American Revolution.

He had never asked his father why Lafayette left his country to help George Washington. One day he would ask Michelle. She would explain it simply. He’d understand. He felt comfortable with her. When she looked at him, she never looked through him.

He saw barges and tugs moored on both banks like back home. Some of the barges had lights. Michelle told him to pull off the main road. He stopped near trees and bushes.

She had a plan they’d begun to carry out. She didn’t trust the woman at the farmhouse. That was the kind of woman who would, for money, tell the French police what kind of sedan they bought. Or she would tell Eddie. Paul hadn’t forgotten that Eddie had sworn to kill them. Or she would tell whoever Pegasus sent after them. That woman would tell anyone who paid her.

He opened the trunk, pulled out the bulging backpack and rucksack. She got out with the baby. He tossed the sedan key into the Seine, fitted the rucksack on her back, placed the sleeping baby in it, hoisted the backpack, followed her. She was carrying the blue bag of diapers and her shoulder-strap bag.

It was a refreshing feeling of safety to abandon the sedan as they walked along the Seine. The moon was full. Security was here right where they were. Who would ever look for them on the waterfront in Paris?

She stopped at a stone ramp leading down to the moored tugs. He waited. She descended to the tugs and slowly moved along the water, trying to locate a specific one. After a few minutes out of Paul’s sight, she returned, swiftly ascending to where Paul waited.

Michelle pointed. “He’s in one of the two bars up ahead.”

They walked toward them. Paul had never asked the name of the friend she trusted. Paul had confidence she knew what she was doing. He had confidence because she had confidence. Paul felt a good partnership between them. She came up with Paris. He came up with Johnson’s forged passports.

He again thought about Johnson. What a good friend to have. Like her Paris friend, he supposed. Only Johnson was the only friend Paul ever had. The word trust between them had never risen.

Suddenly Paul felt sick. He had had another friend, too. The Boss. But she didn’t understand his desperation and fear. Johnson helped without any hesitation. The Boss had put business before friendship. Johnson had not.

He felt shame for comparing them.

It was a new emotion for him. Hard to figure out. He felt shame for having any bad thought about the Boss. She had told him she had a boss over her. Maybe she couldn’t do what he demanded because her boss wouldn’t let her do it. He stopped questioning her friendship. She had done so much. One day he would tell Michelle more about it. Maybe Michelle would think of a good explanation why Eddie wasn’t hit in the street by the Boss’ men.

What kept moving around in his head was his own shame. He’d never felt any before. He carried blood money, dope money, murder money, but in his mind, he only delivered the mail. The word shame never could make sense to him, not in his most secret feelings. It was possible, he thought, that he really was mentally retarded. That might explain it. No sense of guilt. No capacity for it. Even when he shot that kid, how long had the guilt lasted? Not long. Of course, he had killed in selfdefense. But he had still killed, a kid, and hadn’t felt a twinge over it in years.

Stealing? He hadn’t stolen. He was going to make delivery to Railey after the hit. Things had happened fast, he’d done what he had to do. If he hadn’t, the murder of Michelle and the baby would have brought guilt for sure. But he would make it right in the end.

They reached the first bar. Michelle looked through the window.

“Not there,” Michelle said. “He must be at the other.”

They walked toward it. Three waterfront bums came lurching ominously toward them. Michelle quickened her pace, advancing toward them belligerently. She shouted at them in French. Her hand was outstretched.

The trio staggered past her. Not a word from them. As they passed Paul in the moonlight, he saw fear in their faces. The three vanished. Paul reached her.

“
Clochards
,” Michelle said. “Bums.”

“What did you say?”

“I told them we needed money for a fix.”

He admired her.

They could hear singing coming from the Anchorage. Michelle peered through the window.

“There he is.”

As planned, Paul lifted the baby out of the rucksack. She unwound herself from it. He placed the rucksack in the shadows near the entrance, gently put the baby down on the ground beside it, but kept the backpack on. She went into the Anchorage.

It was crowded with people and smoke. Captain Lafitte was standing at the bar, big as ever and only slightly grayer, ruggedfaced under his battered seaman’s cap, leading the lusty singing of a French bawdy song with his tugboat friends. Michelle, near the entrance, tried to catch his eye. But she couldn’t. She thought she could push through the crowd, but what use would it be? She had to talk to him privately. Better to wait. He had to come out sometime. She turned to leave when she heard a drunk’s voice boom: