William F. Buckley Jr. (10 page)

He could not leave the casino on so synthetic a high, so he resolved to put up the whole wad! Two hundred and forty thousand francs on—one number.

Which number? Caroline’s birthday was yesterday, she was twenty. He closed his eyes and willed the money on Number 20. If it came in he would have eight million-odd francs. About twenty-four thousand bucks. He closed his eyes again and listened for the clickety-clack of the metal ball. He heard a gasp of delight. His eyes opened to see King Farouk dissolved with pleasure as he waited to be paid on the Number 21 on which he had plopped a hundred-thousand-franc chip.

What a bore. Danny was disgusted by it all. He would go to his room and, for a change, read a book. He was well into
Scott-King’s Modern Europe.
He went by the dining room and asked for a bottle of Chablis, “And please open it.” It was brought to him on a tray by the waiter with his stiff shirtfront and little black bow tie. Danny removed the bottle from the tray, wedged the cork back in, smiled at the sommelier, tipped him, and slid the bottle into his ample pocket.

He was confused by the door lock, fidgeted again with the key and suddenly realized why it wouldn’t turn. It was already open. Instinctive caution governed his movements now. He removed the bottle from his tuxedo and then with considerable force burst the door open.

Pauline was there. Danny hadn’t seen her like this before, not last night, not this morning. She wore no makeup, no tiara, no furs, no lacy nightgown. She had evidently tossed her raincoat on the armchair. She had a yellow bandana around her head of blond hair and when Danny heaved into the room she began to cry. Danny approached her and embraced her as he might have a mother, not his mistress. And she was there on a motherly mission, to tell Danny he was being blackmailed.

•  •  •  •

Much later, Pauline had stopped crying. The wine bottle was empty. She stood up and moved her hands in front of her face. She did not want to think of “Daniel,” she said, as she would think of a … lawyer or a doctor approached for advice. He was something entirely different to her, Pauline. And she wanted a final embrace from her beautiful Daniel. In just ten minutes—that was all the time she needed—she would be back from the bathroom. And Daniel would see the same Pauline he had known the night before, indeed, this very morning (“
ce matin si précieux
”) at her hotel. Danny nodded.

Yes, this morning had been … precious. He had attained an acuteness of pleasure beyond anything he had ever experienced, and he knew that he had given as much as he got; because when the time came finally to leave—Paul Hébert would be coming by with the envelope at noon at the Negresco—Pauline was suddenly inconsolable at the thought of his departure. Her passion had inflamed her resentment over his leaving her. She hadn’t even wanted to look him in the face. Danny had dressed, said nothing, only then approached her to kiss her lightly. She had wheeled on him and returned his kiss, but with great ardor; then turned away as Danny went out. She did not expect to see Danny again.

Now, late in the evening of the same day, Danny was putting on his pajamas. Tonight was very different from the night before. This time it was Pauline who was careful about the lights. Only the light from the little sitting room seeped in. Like a little yellow mist issuing through the windows of the French doors. Pauline embraced him, began her caress with such ardor Danny had to reach down and calm her movements. Deep within her he felt her elation and then her exhaustion, and he thrilled in a voluptuous embrace. But this time it was truly over.

He told her he would escort her back to her hotel. She replied that he must be crazy even to consider any such thing. Under no circumstances must Paul Hébert or anybody he knows see them together, not after her treachery. Because now he knew the true narrative of the night before. And, most important, knew where
he could find Paul Hébert. Once again, they kissed good night, and goodbye.

The stoplights, though they were few, seemed interminable. The highway was under construction but most of it was still as it had been before the war and during it. The beaches were full but not crowded, as tout Paris edged back toward the capital after a pastoral August, relinquishing the Riviera to its inhabitants and to the tourists—always, the tourists. It was still warm and the salt air came in, tangy and palpable whenever they were stopped at a traffic light; faintly, nicely discernible when under way at 100 kph.

“What does Pauline expect you to do with Mr. Paul Hébert?”

“Oh, that was pretty obvious. She just figures I’ll buy him off. Pay more for the fucking pictures”—Danny paused. “
Mot juste
, Henry?—than the tabs would.”

“But she knew you were broke the other night?”

“Yeah, but schoolboy-broke. She obviously figures that for this operation there wouldn’t be any shortage of cash.… I’d call home—

“ ‘Mom? Hi, Mom. Fine, how are
you
, Mom? Ah ha. Well you know, Mom, there is this slight problem. There is a dirty old man—A dirty … old … man. You know, French type? And you know, Mom, when I called the other day, said I needed some cash? Well, the dirty old man saw that I was having trouble so he came and said to me that there was a very beautiful woman around who was so nice and generous he was absolutely sure
she’d
give me some money, or anyway, lend it to me.

“ ‘Well’ ”—Danny’s amusement won out for the moment over his anger—“ ‘well, I went to the lady, Mom, told her about my problem, and she gave me the four hundred bucks. And I just didn’t know how to thank her, so I dropped my pants and fucked her.’ ”

He roared with laughter, and decided to go on. “ ‘No, Mom. I didn’t pick up any disease, not that I know of. The problem was the dirty old man. You see, he had a camera there and took a bunch of pictures of me saying thanks to the lady.

“ ‘Yes, Mom, I quite agree. He had absolutely
no business
doing that. Absolutely correct, total invasion of privacy. I must remember to tell him that.

“ ‘What is he going to do with the pictures? Sell them on the street? Well, uh, no, Mom, he has other ideas. He sells to the tabs. The t-a-b-s. Tabloids. They’re pretty raunchy over here, and the idea is, Hey, you want to peek at the way the grandson of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt says thanks to nice French ladies who do him favors?’ ”

Danny’s laugh was truncated.

And Henry’s voice was earnest. “Listen, buddy. I think we probably
should
make an effort to buy him off. Did Pauline give you any idea what kind of price the pictures would fetch?”

“No. But if they would fetch more than one hundred bucks, that’s more than I’ve got.”

“I’ve got some.”

“I knew you’d say that. But we’re probably talking maybe a couple of thousand bucks. After all, they paid me four hundred and twenty-five dollars. So? There’s just one alternative: grab them. They’re probably still wet, hanging in some improvised darkroom.”

The Citroën bounced confidently over all the potholes. Now there was a stretch of beach—“That belongs to Farouk,” Danny said. “Where we’re headed is the development, over there,” he pointed, “at the end of his property.”

It was a brand-new high-rise, not yet complete; there were men at work on the top story. The entrance hall was light and large, the salt air providing fine ventilation through the lobby floor. They walked confidently past the desk into one of the automatic elevators. The target was 18B.

Henry was more than willing to act as the man up front, as had been agreed. He would knock on the door, with Danny out of sight. He would tell M. Hébert that he was there to buy some pictures for a British newspaper. If Hébert refused to let him in, Danny would materialize and together they would force their way in and overpower Hébert. If Henry was admitted, he would there and then deliver a knockout blow—in the elevator they had put
on gloves to cover their tracks—then open the door for Danny. Together they would tie up Hébert and search for the pictures.

“If we don’t find them, we’ll need to get serious with him,” Danny had said. Henry never remembered seeing Danny more resolute, more vindictive, actually.

M. Paul Hébert, dressed in a sports shirt and slacks, seemed not in the least surprised by Henry’s explanation for calling on him, an explanation begun in halting French, but completed, at M. Hébert’s invitation, in English. Evidently he was accustomed to doing business thus extemporaneously.

Hébert opened the door. Henry stepped in and instantly delivered an uppercut that crumpled his host, who fell to the floor on his back, his arms outstretched, his mouth open, eyes entirely blank.

The door had not even shut, so that Danny came in by himself. Wordlessly they brought Hébert’s wrists together behind him and put on the handcuffs. Then Danny began with the tape. He did not need to pry open Hébert’s mouth—it was wide open. He bound him tight.

“Pull up on the desk, Henry.” Henry did so while Danny dragged the manacled hands and let the desk leg come down between Hébert’s arms.

Danny stood up, breathing deeply. “Not bad. He can’t move his arms, can’t talk, can’t move any farther than the desk can move. Yes, not bad, not bad. Say, Henry, that’s a hell of a swing they taught you. I hope you don’t ever get angry with me.”

Henry smiled. Mad at Danny? Not easy. Not impossible—but very nearly that, when Danny was in a jam, as he now was. Henry had once been in a jam.

Their search was instantly successful. The negatives were there, dangling on clothespins.

“If you don’t mind, Henry, I’ll do the identifying on those pictures.” Danny examined them. He was visibly inflamed by what he saw. He looked down to adjust the lamplight and spotted a small glass tray. On it were a pair of glasses and a key ring. “Looks like he hadn’t gotten around to making prints yet. But
for the hell of it let’s look in the drawers.” While looking at a negative he reached for the key ring, slipping it into his pocket.

They did so, and Danny took pleasure in leaving the drawers overturned. “May as well make it look like a robbery. Actually,” he smiled, “in away, it
is.
I mean, the pictures
are
his, technically speaking, aren’t they?” Henry said he thought that rather a fine point, but obviously Danny enjoyed making it.

They found nothing, and now Danny turned to the figure on the floor.

“Well, M. Paul. Having fun?”

Muffled groans.

Danny launched now into his deception, an attempt to shield Pauline as his informant. “There is a nice woman in Nice—I know you look after her comfort because you enlisted me in that effort a couple of nights ago. Well, I went to say goodbye to her last night and found she had left town. To Algeria, the concierge told me. Why that upsets me, Paul, is this: I thought if I could find her, I’d tell her
you
were uncomfortable and for a change
she
could look after
you
—see what I mean?”

“Danny, let’s get out of here.”

“Yeah.”

Henry lowered his voice. “We can call the police after we’re away and give them the room number, tell ’em we think there’s a problem there—”

“Yeah, yeah.” Danny’s voice was hoarse. He shook his head, as though attempting to wake up.

They went down the elevator together, removing their gloves.

Danny stepped into the car and closed the door. But suddenly he opened it again. “Damn! I got to go back up. I left my dark glasses.”

“Well, make it fast—”

Danny was out of the car.

As he rode up in the elevator he studied the key ring and isolated the key likeliest to open the apartment door.

Now he was staring down at Paul Hébert, the dandy manqué with the hint of a decoration on his tuxedo coat, lying now on his side, his goatee protruding under the gag that kept him silent, or
rather, just capable of grunting. Danny trained his thought on the Germans he had fired on, thrown hand grenades at. It wasn’t at all clear why such as they should die and leave alive such as Paul Hébert. He gave himself a full minute to recapture, step by step, exactly what the vile Hébert had done to him. Tried to do to him. And he imagined what now, if free, and if he settled his suspicion on her, he might try to do to Pauline.

He brought his revolver out of his pocket, approached Hébert slowly, stepping around his thrashing legs, brought the barrel to an inch from the top of Paul Hébert’s nose and pulled the trigger.

He tossed the key ring back on the tray, walked back through the room and, in the elevator, tried to concentrate on the question, Was his heart beating faster right now than on that night at the Arno, in the last seconds of the countdown?

Probably less. One gets used to things.

“All set,” he told Henry, getting into the driver’s seat and adjusting his sunglasses.

I
T WAS ELSIE who had first suggested that Caroline go with her to West Point on the double date, but after Caroline said thanks a lot, no, it was Harriet who more or less put herself in charge of the social agenda.

Harriet Carberry, who roomed with Elsie, was the daughter of a colonel in the army. Her father, notwithstanding his exalted rank, was always something of a drill sergeant. He dealt with Harriet and her two younger brothers as he might have done with recruits. He told them what to do, explained how things worked, supervised their activity, and disappeared from their lives only during their schedule breaks, ten minutes every hour, and the hours after school and other duties. As a boy, Philip Carberry had been sent to Culver Academy, a proud military
secondary school whose teachers exercised a comprehensive concern for every detail of the young cadets’ lives. Punctuality was central to the working of Colonel Carberry’s universe. “If you are not prompt,” Colonel—then Captain—Carberry lectured his ten-year-old daughter when she arrived not at twelve o’clock at the corner outside the schoolhouse, as instructed to do, but five minutes later, “you may be the instrumental factor in a breakdown in arrangements whose consequences you cannot estimate.” Mrs. Carberry whispered to her husband that he was not addressing a seminar of officer candidates but a ten-year-old girl, but the colonel paid her no heed and persisted in a scolding that lasted so long they missed the train. Mrs. Carberry was amused that the colonel had been the victim of the vice he was so eloquently adjuring his daughter to abstain from, but in fact did not laugh; laughter in the house of Carberry was always suspect, contumacious as often as not, the colonel thought, and also rather effete, like so many of those male leads in Hollywood.