Hazard (32 page)

“How did you know where I'd be?”

“It figured.”

“You didn't just know.” He hoped to God she wasn't tapped in on him to that extent.

“The queen told me.”

Meaning Peter, Hazard realized. She'd been to London. He pictured her going to all that trouble to track him down and he liked it, but then his thoughts turned practical. “You shouldn't have come,” he told her. “I'll bet Kersh was against it.”

“He suggested it. He thought it would help,” Keven said.

“I don't need help.”

“No one said you did.”

“Besides, what about the exercises?”

“They were a bust.”

“Nothing got through?”

“See for yourself.” She gestured vaguely in the direction of the desk in the corner. Hazard went over to it and found a manila envelope that contained Xerox copies of reports covering the first three of the overseas exercises. They showed the images he'd sent compared to those she'd received. The first, the gull, was a reasonable match. The second, the time he'd failed to send, looked right because her big green X was a sort of graphic cancellation. The third he'd sent had been a photograph of a group of fifty men standing on the steps of a public building. What she'd recorded were five horizontal lines of ovals, but exactly fifty of them in an arrangement that corresponded with the men's faces. So that one was hardly a total miss.

Hazard was pleased. “I'd say we did damned well considering.”

“Yeah, considering.”

“There was nothing wrong with my sending,” he claimed.

“Okay, so the reception was bad.”

“How come?”

“Too much interference.”

Her tone warned him not to pursue that. He asked her about the night before last, if she'd received the one he'd sent from the plane, the Byron quote.

“No,” she said indifferently.

He was disappointed. He'd been so sure about that one. “Why not?”

“I forgot to try.”

More silence.

She remained the same, legs crossed.

He'd gone back to the far-away chair. Unable to avoid looking at her, he imagined leaping high at her, floating down in slow motion upon her, softly, his mouth finding her mouth finding his and all of him sinking into her so nicely, together.

“Been getting any?” she asked.

“Any what?”

“Sleep.”

“How about you? You been sleeping?”

“Like a baby. I can drop right off any old time.” She did a big yawn to demonstrate.

That did it. He got up fast and went into the bathroom, closing the door hard. Angry at everything, he pulled off his jacket and ripped off two of the fly buttons while getting out of his trousers. One bounced and clicked happily on the ceramic-tile floor. The other flew mockingly into the bidet.

There was a glass-enclosed shower stall. He stepped in and turned the water control handle half way between
chaud
and
froid.
Cold came shooting out but before he could swear much it changed to warm. He adjusted it to hotter and let it hit between his shoulderblades, a point he always considered the center of his tensions.

He didn't hear her enter the bathroom. He didn't know she was there until she opened the shower door.

All she had on were the sunglasses.

“I want in,” she said, contritely.

His smile welcomed her.

They hugged tight as possible, kept their full lengths pressed for a long while.

The water splattered and ran in rivulets down the mirrored surface of her sunglasses. She let him take them off.

He was happy for himself and sorry for her when he saw the little dark circles below her eyes. Gently, he kissed, left and right, that evidence of her lack of sleep.

She reached for the bar of hotel soap and said, “I'll lather.”

15

C
ATHERINE
.

Ten o'clock the next morning.

She was wrapped in one of Pinchon's silk robes. Sometime after midnight she'd come roaring, swerving in and managed to park her yellow Ferrari half on the drive and half on the lawn. She'd left the lights on and motor running, so Pinchon had personally gone out to turn them off.

In any condition, even that drunk, he was glad to have her there. And despite her drunkenness, she knew clearly why she had come. She wasn't the type to take rejection standing up.

Now she was in the anteroom off Pinchon's bedroom, where he usually took breakfast when the weather wasn't nice enough for the terrace. He was trying as best he could to minister to her hangover. Aspirins, black coffee laced with brandy, and frequent consolations.

She was, however, far from restored as she looked out the near window and thought the day, dull and drizzling, was a suitable accompaniment to her feelings. She placed her cup on the table. The front of her robe slipped carelessly apart. She sat back and closed her eyes. “The son of a bitch,” she said.

Pinchon knew whom she meant from her mumblings the night before. He gathered, with pleasure, that she'd had a falling out with Stevens over some other woman. It only bothered him that Catherine was reacting so to it. He advised her to forget it.

“You can bet your ass I will.”

“Good.”

She massaged the back of her neck with her fingers. “He's not much of a man anyway,” she said, thinking aloud.

“A tree surgeon,” said Pinchon disdainfully.

“Remind me, Jean, I owe you fifty some thousand francs.”

“Why?”

She told him, replenishing her ego by reducing Hazard to a level of outright deceit. It showed what a user he was, the way he went around victimizing people, she said.

Pinchon detested that he'd been taken at cards, but he pretended it hadn't been important. Curious, though, and thinking there might be more to it, he calmly, sympathetically, drew her out.

Without realizing the serious harm of it—she didn't know the actual reason Hazard had come to Europe—Catherine eventually revealed who Stevens really was.

Pinchon registered only mild surprise. He appeared to be more concerned for her. She shouldn't waste any more emotion on the matter. Why didn't she soothe herself with a warm bath or a sauna? It was a good day to spend in bed. Not to worry about anything, he would care for her.

She was already feeling somewhat better. What a dear he was, she said.

He agreed.

Moments later he excused himself to attend to what he called a business problem. He thought it out on his way downstairs. Not for a moment did he believe it coincidence that the brother of the late Carl Hazard was now on the scene under an assumed identity. Quite possibly this Hazard was the reason Badr hadn't come in from London as expected four days previous and now couldn't be located anywhere. Badr was very reliable, had always been; it was unlikely he'd disappear without a trace. And Saad was missing in New York.

He summoned Mustafa, Hatum, and Gabil to his study. He told them what he wanted done. They would have no trouble finding Hazard; probably he was at one of the hotels in the vicinity. There might be a girl with him. In that case she would also have to be dealt with.

No further instructions were necessary. No questions. They were on their way out when Pinchon stopped them with an afterthought. Two of them could manage it easily, he said. Mustafa and Gabil. This would be an opportunity for Gabil to prove himself.

Hatum stayed behind, feeling a bit slighted.

Pinchon had something else for him to do. Hatum was to go to Grasse to pick up a flacon of perfume. A fragrance not available elsewhere, one that had been created, blended, balanced, perfected generations ago exclusively for the Pinchons. In two and a quarter centuries only four women had been granted the privilege of wearing it.

Now, it seemed Catherine would be the fifth.

16

A
T THAT
moment Hazard and Keven were less than five hundred feet away.

They were in the Peugeot parked off the Boulevard de Gaulle, opposite the private drive that led to and from Pinchon's villa. The rain handicapped their view to some exterit and the car's windows were so fogged inside that Hazard had to keep wiping them with the flat of his hand.

The circumstances, the rain and the car, reminded Hazard of the last time, that miserable long night in London he'd spent waiting for Badr. What made this time better was Keven. She had refused to be left at the hotel, despite Hazard's reasoning that she'd be safer there, that she'd be merely an additional responsibility if she went along, that it was none of her damn business anyway. She didn't argue, but he might as well have been talking to himself.

They'd been parked outside the villa for almost an hour now. Hazard was watching and hoping something advantageous might develop. To help pass the time Keven put his memory through a few calisthenics. Things she'd especially looked up for ammunition.

“Who holds the record for swinging?”

He shrugged. “All swingers are liars.”

“Not that kind. I mean ordinary old back-and-forth swinging, like at a playground.”

“Oh.” He thought a moment. “Two guys swung for a hundred hours in Seattle on August 1st, 1971. Jim Anderson and Lyle Hendrickson.”

“Okay, how about the world's record for spitting?”

“For what?”

“Spitting.”

“Snakes or people?”

“People.”

“Altitude or on a line?”

“Quit stalling,” she said, believing that perhaps at last she had him stumped.

“On April 1st, 1971, a guy named Don Snyder reared back, snapped his neck, and let fly for a distance of 31 feet, 6 inches. Of course, that was one of his better days.”

Keven sighed, conceding. As a reward she shoved a shriveled-up, dried, organic apricot into his mouth.

It was so tough Hazard couldn't bite through it, almost tasteless, more bitter than anything. Finally it softened enough for him to chew and swallow it.

“Apricots are loaded with Vitamin A,” she declared.

“What else have you got in that bag?”

She'd brought along her Mexican-peasant net bag. It was bulging. “All kinds of goodies,” she said.

“How about something bad for a change?”

She brought out a handful of tablets like dark brown M&M chocolate candies. She put a few in her mouth and mmmed as though they were delicious.

“Give me some,” he said, reaching.

She decided she'd better not trick him that much. “Desiccated beef liver,” she said.

Hazard jerked his hand back.

Time for a kiss, she thought, and took the initiative, quickly dissolving away his distaste with a short and then a much longer one. When they broke he used the hand that had been under her sweater to wipe the windshield.

Just in time. A dark gray Mercedes sedan was coming out of Pinchon's drive. Mustafa with Gabil behind the wheel.

It might have been an opportunity had Mustafa been alone, but Gabil's presence made it too complicated. No use forcing Gabil into a tight situation, Hazard decided. Watching the Mercedes out of sight, he asked Keven, “Was there anyone in the back seat?”

“I didn't notice.”

The possibility that both his targets had been in the Mercedes with Gabil made Hazard decide to give it up for now and come back at night. Maybe Mustafa and Hatum would be working out again, and if so, this time he'd take the chance and to hell with the consequences. He was for returning to the hotel and making better use of the afternoon.

“Let's wait a while longer,” Keven said.

“Why?” He thought perhaps her mood didn't match his.

“Give it ten minutes and then if nothing happens—we'll do what you want.”

A few minutes later another Mercedes, a black one, came out of the drive and turned north. It was Hatum, and definitely alone.

Hazard quickly started up the Peugeot and went after him.

It soon became apparent that Hatum wasn't bound for the local
boulangerie.
He drove up the Corniche Moyenne and went east to Nice. He circumvented the more-congested section of that city and got onto the superhighway to Cagnes. There he changed off to a typical French back-country road, black-topped but crumbling along the edges, with no shoulders and allowing only a few inches clearance between cars passing in opposite directions. Traffic was sparse. However, each time a car came from the other way Hazard felt he had no choice but to meet it head-on or run off the side. At ninety kilometers per hour he managed to stay a discreet distance behind the Mercedes. Hatum was driving as though the road were one way, his way, right down the middle, somehow always swerving at the last second to avoid cars coming at him.

After about five kilometers they reached a small place called la Colle sur Loup, where, for no apparent reason, the road improved, at least to the extent that it had paved shoulders.

Where the hell was Hatum going, Hazard wondered. Keven demonstrated how relaxed she was about everything by commenting on the scenery. Rugged, arid country, steep slopes covered with scrubby pine and cork oak and cacti. Hard, beautiful country, the high bony instep of the Alps. Huge fingers of granite shoved upward, gigantic fists of it holding remnants of ancient ramparts; old frightened villages that had been perched defensively against the fierce Germanic invaders and Muslim pirates. All of it now freshly washed and darkened by the rain that had finally stopped.

“Shit,” said Hazard.

Keven disagreed. “I think it's pretty.”

He meant they were almost out of gas. The fuel indicator was nearly parallel with the red “empty” line. “Didn't they fill it up when you rented it?”

“I assumed they did.”

He couldn't really blame her for that. It was a mistake he himself might have made. But it created a critical problem. The only thing to do was to keep going and hope the Peugeot had enough reserve.

Ten minutes and fifteen kilometers later the black ribbon of road wound huggingly around the side of a sheer rift, then came out suddenly to present a wide, lower-lying plateau with a village set on it. They saw the distant surrounding hillsides largely patched with the red and pink and yellow of flowers. A road sign announced “Grasse,” and Hazard informed Keven that it was the perfume-making center of France, the world really. She said she knew and quickly rolled her window open all the way and, yes, the air was remarkably fragrant. She inhaled deeply and sighed with pleasure.