The Chain of Chance (8 page)

“Maybe she’ll feel like telling me herself,” I said.

“Never, or perhaps ten years from now. You may know something about boys, but girls are different.”

Another smile, and she was gone. I went to take care of our flight reservations. Only one seat left; I insisted there had to be two. Negotiations by telephone. Finally some VIP was persuaded to give up his seat. To Annabella. Fenner was in a hurry but offered to cancel some important meeting if I agreed to join him for lunch. I declined a second time. After Randy and the others had driven off, I inquired whether the girl and I could get a bite to eat in one of the airport facilities. The bars and cafeterias had all been closed down, but an exception was made in our case: we were now above the law. A man—dark-featured, bushy-haired, an undercover agent—escorted us to a small restaurant located on the other side of the departure area. Annabella’s eyes were red and swollen: she’d been crying. Before long she started getting prissy. While the waiter was taking our order and I was debating what she should have to drink, she commented in a rather brisk, matter-of-fact tone that at home she was always served wine. She had on a blouse that was a couple of sizes too big, with rolled-up sleeves, and a pair of shoes that also looked a size too large. I was just beginning to enjoy the comfort of dry pants and the fact that I didn’t have to stick to a diet of spaghetti any more, when I suddenly remembered her parents. There was a chance the news story might make the afternoon edition. We quickly drafted a telegram message, but when I got up from the table our cicerone sprang out of nowhere and offered to take care of it. When it came time to pay, we were treated as guests of the management. I tipped the waiter with the sort of generosity Annabella might have expected of a real astronaut. In her eyes I had suddenly become a celebrity and a hero—and a confidant, to the point where she even told me how she was dying to change clothes. Our chaperon escorted us to the Alitalia Hotel, where our luggage was already waiting for us in our room.

I had to hurry her along a little. At last, looking very prim and proper, she was ready, and with due decorum we embarked for the airplane. We were picked up by the airport’s acting managing director—the managing director was temporarily indisposed, owing to a slight nervous breakdown—and driven out to the Cessna in one of the little Fiats used by the air controllers. At the foot of the ladder a rather courtly young Italian apologized for intruding and asked whether I cared for any souvenir photos of the recent drama. The photos would be forwarded to any address requested. I thought of the blond woman and thanked him anyway. A round of farewell handshakes. In the flurry of handshakes I could have sworn that I shook the same hand that had held me captive a short while ago.

I enjoyed flying in small planes. After a birdlike takeoff our Cessna veered northward. We landed at Orly shortly after seven. Annabella’s father was there to meet her. Before landing we exchanged addresses, and to this day I still have fond memories of her. I wish I could say the same about her father. He was profusely grateful, even paying me a farewell compliment inspired no doubt by his having watched the television coverage of the “massacre on the steps.” He said I had
esprit de l’escalier.

I spent the night at Orly, at the Hotel Air France, since by now my contact had already left the Centre National de Recherche Scientifique and I didn’t particularly feel like bothering him at home. Before going to sleep I had to get up and close the windows, because my nose was starting to act up again. It was then I realized I’d gone the whole day without sneezing once.

As it turned out I could have taken Fenner up on his offer, but then I’d been in such a hurry to reach Paris.

The next morning, the first thing after breakfast, I called the CNRS only to find out that my contact was on vacation, moving into a new house, but that he could still be reached. I then placed a call to his house in Garges, but it turned out he was just having his new phone connected. Announced or unannounced, I decided to pay him a visit. At the Gare du Nord the suburban trains were not in service, due to a strike. Seeing the mile-long line-up in front of the cabstand, I inquired about the nearest car rental agency—it turned out to be another Hertz—and settled for a Peugeot compact.

Trying to get around Paris, especially when you’re unsure of your destination, is sheer hell. Not far from the Opéra—it wasn’t on my itinerary; I wound up there quite by accident—a delivery van rammed into my bumper; the damage was so minor I kept on going, my mind now conjuring up visions of Canadian lakes and glacial waters as a distraction from the downpour of blazing-hot sun, unseasonable for this time of year. By mistake I wound up in a place called Sarcelles, one of those ugly, nondescript little settlements; then later I got stuck in front of a railway crossing, sweated, and pined after an air conditioner. Dr. Philippe Barth, my contact, was a well-known French computer scientist who also served as a scientific consultant for the Sûreté. The team he headed was in the process of programming a computer capable of solving multifactorial problems in which the number of case-related facts exceeded the storage capacity of the human memory.

The exterior of the house had just been freshly stuccoed. Surrounding the house was an old-fashioned garden: one wing shaded by stately elms, a gravel driveway, a flower bed in the center—marigolds, if I’m not mistaken (botany is the only subject astronauts are spared). Parked in front of a shed serving temporarily as a garage was a 2 CV, mud-spattered from the windows down, and right beside it a cream-colored Peugeot 604, its doors wide open, floormats spread out on the lawn, and dripping all over with soapsuds. Some kids were washing the car, but with such bustle and teamwork I had trouble counting them at first. They were all Barth’s kids. The oldest two, a boy and a girl, greeted me in collective English: as soon as one began to falter, the other would fill in the missing word. How did they know they were supposed to speak English? A telegram had come from Randy announcing the arrival of an American astronaut. How could they tell I was the astronaut? No one else was in the habit of wearing suspenders. Good old Randy. While I was talking with the older kids, the younger one—I couldn’t tell whether it was a boy or a girl—kept circling around me, hands folded behind its back, as if hunting for the spot that presented me in the most interesting light. I was told their father was very busy, and just as I was debating whether to go inside the house or to join the car-washing party, Dr. Barth leaned out of the ground-floor window. He looked surprisingly young, but then I was still not accustomed to my own age. I was given a polite but restrained welcome, which made me wonder if I hadn’t made a mistake in approaching him by way of the Sûreté, rather than the CNRS. But Randy was on friendlier terms with the police than with the scientific community.

Barth showed me into the library—his study was still in a state of chaos following the move—and then briefly excused himself while he went to change out of his varnish-stained smock. The house had been made to look like new already; rows of books stood freshly arrayed on the shelves, the smell of wax and varnish was everywhere. On the wall I noticed a blowup of Barth and his kids mounted on an elephant. Judging from the face in the photo I would never have guessed he was the promise of French computer science, but then I’d already had occasion to observe that people in the exact sciences tend to be less conspicuous in appearance than those in the humanities.

Barth came back into the room, frowning at his hands, which still showed traces of varnish, prompting me to suggest various ways of getting rid of the stains. We sat down by the window. I started out by saying I was neither a detective nor a criminologist, but that I had become involved in a rather bizarre and morbid case, and that I had come to him as a last resort. He was impressed by my fluent but not very European French. I explained that I was of French Canadian origin.

Randy had more confidence in my personal charm than I did. I was so anxious to gain this man’s favor that I was somewhat embarrassed by the situation. The Sûreté was not a reference that he seemed to hold in particularly high esteem. Then, too, the attitude prevailing in academic circles is a decidedly antimilitaristic one. In such circles it’s widely believed that astronauts are recruited from the armed forces, which was not always so, at least not in my case. But then I could hardly confide in him my whole life history. I was in doubt, therefore, as to what course I should take to break the ice. It wasn’t till much later that he confessed to having been somewhat moved by the look of utter desperation on my face. My guess had been right: the colonel Randy had got to introduce me was in Barth’s eyes a clown; nor was Barth exactly on the best of terms with the Sûreté. But sitting there in the library, I had no way of knowing that this indecision of mine was the best possible strategy.

He agreed to hear my story. I’d been involved with the case for so long I could have recited every detail from memory. I’d also brought along a set of microfilms containing all the documentation needed to illustrate my lecture, and Barth had just finished unpacking his projector. We plugged it in, leaving the windows and curtains open since the trees were already suffusing the room with a greenish half-light.

“It’s a jigsaw puzzle,” I began, feeding the first reel into the projector. “A puzzle consisting of numerous pieces; each of them is distinct enough on its own, but when fitted together they make for an indistinct whole. Not even Interpol has been able to crack the case. Just recently we conducted a simulation mission, the details of which I’ll save till later on. The results were negative.”

I was aware that his computer program was still in the experimental stage, that it had never been tested in the field, and that it was the subject of conflicting reports; but I was anxious to arouse his curiosity, and so I decided to give him a succinct version of the whole affair.

On June 27 of last year, the management of the Savoy Hotel in Naples notified the police that Robert T. Coburn, an American, aged fifty, had failed to return after setting out for the beach on the previous morning. His disappearance was all the more suspicious in that Coburn, a guest of the hotel for the past ten days, had been in the habit of going to the beach every morning, even walking the hundred-meter distance in his beach robe. That same evening his robe was found in his cabin by the beach attendant.

Coburn had the reputation of being an excellent swimmer. Twenty years ago he had been a member of the American crawling team, and though he had a tendency to gain weight, he had managed to keep reasonably fit for a man his age. Since the beach was crowded, his disappearance went unnoticed. Five days later his body was washed ashore by the waves of a passing storm. His death would have been attributed to accidental drowning, a not unusual occurrence on every major beach, were it not for several minor details that later prompted an investigation. The dead man, a real-estate broker from Illinois, had no wife. Since he had died of unnatural causes an autopsy was performed, the results of which indicated that he had drowned on an empty stomach. Yet the hotel management claimed he had left for the beach right after breakfast. A minor discrepancy, perhaps, but the police commission was not on the best of terms with a group of city aldermen who had invested money in the renovation of certain hotels—among them the Savoy, which had recently been the scene of another incident, to be discussed later on. The police commission took a special interest in those hotels in which guests had met with accidents. A young assistant was put in charge of conducting a secret investigation, and he immediately placed the hotel and its guests under close surveillance. Being a freshly minted detective, he was anxious to sparkle in the eyes of his superior, and, thanks to his zealous enthusiasm, some very odd things were revealed. Coburn’s daily routine had consisted of mornings at the beach, naps in the afternoon, then early-evening visits to the Vittorini brothers’ health spa for the mineral-bath treatment that a local doctor, Dr. Giono, had prescribed for him—Coburn was being treated for the early stages of rheumatism. It also developed that during the week before his death Coburn had been involved in three car accidents, always on his way back from the Vittorini resort and each time under similar circumstances, namely, while trying to run a red light at an intersection. In every case the damage was minor, amounting to no more than dented fenders, and Coburn got off with only a fine and a warning. It was also around this time that he began eating supper in his room, rather than in the hotel dining room—before letting the waiter in, Coburn would first check through the door to make sure he was an employee of the hotel—and he soon gave up taking his daily stroll around the bay at sunset. These were indications that he felt harassed, even personally threatened—running a red light is a well-known method for shaking a tailing car—and such an interpretation would also explain why the deceased man had taken certain precautionary steps inside the hotel. But the investigation failed to turn up any further evidence. Coburn, whose childless marriage had ended in divorce fourteen years earlier, had made no friends either in the Savoy or downtown. It was later discovered that on the day before his death he had tried to buy a revolver from a local gun dealer, not realizing that by Italian law he was required to have a gun license. Since he didn’t have one, he bought an imitation fountain pen designed to spray an attacker with a mixture of tear gas and an indelible dye. The pen was later found, still unwrapped, among his personal belongings, and so they were able to trace it back to the local retailer. Coburn had known no Italian, and the gun dealer had only a weak command of English. All that was learned was that Coburn had asked for a weapon capable of repelling a dangerous attacker, and not just some petty thief.