Liberation Day (11 page)

I stood up, adjusted my sweatshirt and fanny pack, and nodded to the old woman. She folded some jeans and mumbled something as I set off left, downhill toward the town center. There was no need to watch Pashmina Man. His window for the RV was thirty minutes, he was going to be there until eleven-thirty.

Everything seemed normal as I passed the perfumery. Women were doing their sniff tests on overpriced bottles, and young men with plucked eyebrows and waxed-up hair were wrapping their purchases in very expensive-looking boxes. The
tabac
farther along wasn’t that packed. A few old guys were drinking beers and buying lotto tickets. I couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary.

I reached the pedestrian crossing about fifty yards farther downhill and, once on the RV side of the road, I headed back up toward the red pashmina past the newsstand and
pâtisserie
. Only in France could a man wear one of these things and not even get a second glance.

As I approached I got a glimpse of him in profile, sipping espresso, smoking and watching the world pass by a little too intently. He looked familiar, with his slicked-back hair, slightly thinning on top, and round, dark face. I got a few paces closer before I recognized him, and almost stopped in my tracks. It was the greaseball from Algeria.

11

I
ducked into the first doorway to my left, trying my hardest to look interested in the glass display cabinets along the wall while I collected my thoughts. The elderly shopkeeper gave me a smile and a genial
“Bonjour.”

“Bonjour, parlez-vous anglais?”

“Yes.”

“Just looking, thank you.”

He left me alone as I looked at the array of wooden and plastic pipes and all the paraphernalia you need to smoke one. I turned my wrist and checked traser: 11:04. Greaseball still had twenty-six minutes to wait until the RV was closed, and I was in no rush. I took my time. I needed to think.

I didn’t want to meet up with him, source or not, especially outside, especially if he was a known face. That was bad professionally: I needed to be the gray man.

I turned to the door and gave the old man a mechanical
“Au revoir,”
straight from the phrasebook, wishing that what little time I’d spent in high school had been at French lessons.

Without looking in the direction of the RV I went back out into the street, turned right toward the pedestrian crossing, over the road, and pushed my shoulder against the door of the
tabac
. It was a dreary place, the walls covered in dark brown carpet to complement the dark wooden floors. The old men in here had half a dozen Gauloises lit up, the haze of smoke adding to the gloom. I sat back from the window so I could keep an eye on Greaseball, and ordered myself a coffee.

He’d lit up another cigarette. The pack was on the table with the lighter on top, next to his
porte-monnaie
. He ordered something more, and as the waitress turned to go back into the café, I took my paper napkin and wrapped it around the espresso cup before taking a tester sip. Greaseball started to get a little agitated now, checking his watch for the fifth time in as many minutes. There were three more minutes to go until eleven-thirty, and once again he checked through the café window to see if there was anyone seated inside on his own, before twisting around again and making sure the magazine was flat and easy to spot.

I poured my change onto the table from my small brown coin purse and left eleven francs, which were collected with a grunt by the old guy running the show.

Greaseball checked his watch once more, then leaned across to ask the waitress cleaning the next table for the time. Her reply seemed to confirm what he feared, because he got to his feet and checked up and down the road again as if he knew what he was looking for. It was eleven-thirty-four before he packed away his cigarettes and finally headed up the hill.

I picked up the cup for the last time, gave the lip a quick wipe before leaving with the napkin, and followed him from my side of the road as trucks and vans blocked him from view for split seconds. I needed to make a little distance and be right on top of him in case he got into a car. If he did, I could stop him before he moved off. I would have to approach him at some time, but not yet. First of all I needed to make sure no one else was following him—or me.

I couldn’t see anything suspicious: no one talking to themselves with their eyes glued to the back of Greaseball’s head; nobody leaping into or out of cars in a desperate measure to get behind him, or concentrating so much on not losing him in a crowd that they took a slide in dog shit or bumped into people and lampposts.

Gambling with death, I crossed the road, then focused on his brown suede loafers, which perfectly matched the fag-bag. He had bare, hairy ankles. No socks: very South of France. He walked with Julia in his right hand and the bag in his left.

I didn’t want him to have any opportunity to turn and make eye contact, since he’d be unlikely not to recognize me. And, given the circumstances of our last meeting, I guessed he might be a tad nervous when he did.

I checked constantly to my left at the shops and apartment-building entrances for somewhere I could go if he stopped. It’s not an easy bit of tradecraft, because by the time the target has turned and looked back, you have to be static if in view or, better still, hidden. And you can’t afford to draw attention to yourself in the process.

He turned left, off the main road, and became unsighted. I quickened my pace to get to the corner, did the Cannes Shuffle, and crossed the road. No way was I turning into dead ground without first checking what was waiting for me.

Looking left and right for traffic as I crossed, I had the target once more. He was still on the left-hand side of the road and wasn’t checking behind him. He was walking purposefully: he wasn’t running from something, he was going to something.

Once on the other sidewalk I turned left and went with him. He was a bit farther away now, but that was fine because the road was a lot narrower, just a normal street lined with houses and apartment buildings. There weren’t many real people here, so a little distance was a help.

Looking ahead and keeping the red in my peripheral vision, I could see the large blue neon sign ahead for an Eddie’s on my side of the road. The supermarket took up the ground floor of an apartment building. It was one of a chain called E. Leclerc. I didn’t actually know what the E stood for, but it had been a boring four days so I’d made up the name, along with Thackery’s.

There was a
rôtisserie
truck at the curb with its sides open, selling freshly cooked chicken and rabbit. A flock of small cars were trying to force themselves into impossible spaces and double-park around the truck. They bumped up onto the curb, and into one another. People didn’t seem to care much about their paintwork down here.

Greaseball crossed toward the grocery and disappeared up the road immediately before it. I quickened my step. As I got to the junction I saw him easily beyond the chaos of shoppers, moving up the road. It was very narrow here, just single lane, and quite steep now that we’d gotten farther up the hill. There were no sidewalks, just iron fences and stone walls on either side, flanking houses and apartment buildings. Some of the buildings were quite new and some needed a lick of paint, but they all had one thing in common, and that was the amount of ironwork that covered every point of entry.

He kept to the left. I followed, allowing him to become temporarily unsighted now and again as the road twisted uphill, in case he stopped. We were the only two on this stretch of road and I didn’t want to make my presence too obvious. If he’d disappeared by the time I got around the corner, the drills for finding him would be long, laborious, and boring, but I had no choice. I’d have to find a place to hide and wait for him to reappear. If I had no luck I’d have to contact George and tell him the bad news. I’d lie, of course, and say I’d seen something suspicious around the RV. He would have to get his act together fast and do whatever he did to get another RV organized.

I wasn’t worried any longer that Greaseball was going to a car, because he wouldn’t have parked this far from the RV. The thought did cross my mind that he’d spotted me and was moving around the town a bit to confirm I was following him. What that would mean to me, I didn’t know—maybe a reception as I turned a corner. But I had no option, really. I had to follow and contact him once we were somewhere safer and less exposed.

The old terra-cotta roofs that overlapped the walls here and there on each side of me would have been there for ages before the dull cream apartment buildings that had sprung up on every available patch of land since the sixties. They were no more than five or six stories high; quite a few of the balconies had towels, comforters, or laundry hanging from them; one or two had barbecues. I could hear the drone of the traffic from the main drag off to my right.

Greaseball took off the pashmina to reveal a blue checked shirt. He wasn’t the only one getting hot; I was starting to leak around my face and down my spine as I made my way uphill. We passed some more apartment buildings, which seemed a little the worse for wear, and Greaseball stopped for a car to squeeze past. He rummaged in his fag-bag. There was a not-too-good-looking building opposite, with a line of cars parked bumper-to-bumper in front.

I carried on toward him, head down, not making eye contact. He might be spotting me this very moment, waiting for me to betray myself. The car accelerated past me and I had to stop to let him through as Greaseball disappeared into the covered, mosaic-tiled entryway.

There was no time to be subtle. I only had one chance. I ran toward him and got there just as he turned the key in the glass-and-brass-effect main door. He had his back to me but he could see me in the reflection of the glass.

“Beautiful, isn’t she?”

He spun around, leaving the key in place. His eyes were bulging and his arms fell to his sides as he moved back against the glass. My left hand grabbed the hem of my sweatshirt, ready to pull it up and draw down the Browning. His eyes darted after it. He had a good idea of what that was all about. For several moments he just stared at me in horror, then he stammered, “You?
You?
”

I wasn’t surprised he’d remembered me. Some things stay with you forever.

Even from a couple of feet away I could smell his heavy aftershave, mixed with the odor of heavily lacquered hair. I said again, “Beautiful, isn’t she?” and nodded at the magazine in his hand. There was still no reply.

“Answer me.
Beautiful, isn’t she?
”

At last I got something. “Yes, but Katharine Hepburn…” His face wobbled. He realized he’d messed up. “No, no, no, please. Wait, wait. She is, yes, she is, but not as much as Katharine Hepburn, don’t you think?”

It was good enough. “Where are you going?”

He half-turned and pointed. He’d shaved this morning, but already had shadow.

“Is there anybody in there with you?”

“Non.”

“Let’s go in, then. Come on.”

“But…”

I shoved him through the door, and into the dark foyer. The rubber soles of my Timberlands squeaked on the gray fake-marble floor. A baby was crying in one of the ground-floor apartments and I could smell frying as we headed for the elevator. He was still stressing out big-time. There was some heavy erratic breathing going on in front of me as he cradled his pashmina in his arms. I was going to reassure him about my intentions, but then thought, fuck it, why bother? I wanted to keep him off balance.

The small, boxlike elevator arrived and we got in. The smell changed. Now it was like the
tabac
. He pressed for the fourth floor and the thing started to shudder. I was standing behind him, and could see the sweat trickle down from his neck hair onto his shirt collar as I tapped him on the shoulder. “Show me what’s in the bag.” He was only too eager to comply, and held it up for inspection over his shoulder. There was nothing in there that I hadn’t seen already: a pack of Camel Lights, a gold lighter, and a small leather money pouch. The keys were still in his hand.

The elevator climbed so slowly it was hard to tell if it was moving at all. Looking at him from the rear, I could see that his jeans were a bit too tight around his gut. His love handles flopped out on each side, straining against his shirt, and folding over his waistband. A gold Rolex and a couple of thin gold bracelets dangled from his left wrist onto his perfectly manicured hand. He also had a matching pair of bracelets on his right wrist, and a signet ring on his little finger. All in all, he looked like an over-the-hill gigolo who thought he was still twenty-one.

He zipped up the bag and wiped the sweat from his neck. “There’s no one here,” he assured me. “I promise you.”

The elevator doors opened and I gave him a shove into a semidark landing. “Good. What number?”

“This way. Forty-nine.”

I squeezed behind him, my right hand ready to draw down on my 9mm again as he placed the key into the cylinder lock in a dark brown varnished door. It opened into a small room, maybe ten-by-ten. The sun was trying hard to penetrate the net curtains covering the glass sliding doors of the balcony, and not quite succeeding. He walked in while I waited where I was, hand on my pistol grip. He turned back toward me, arms sweeping around the room, “Look, you see, everything is okay.”

That was his opinion. He might be Mr. Gucci out on the boulevards, but this place was a tipoff. To my left was a door into the kitchen. It was fitted with 1970s faded blue-and-white Formica units that had been worn down in places to the chipboard. An ashtray overflowed onto a half-eaten baguette. The sink was piled high with dirty pans and dishes.

I closed the front door with my heel as I walked in and motioned to him with my head. “Bolt it.”

I moved aside as he obeyed, breathing heavily.

There was another door to the left. “Where does that go?”

“The bedroom and bathroom.”