19 Purchase Street (24 page)

Number 12 was halfway down on the right. Leslie parked not quite across from it.

Gainer's watch, an Audemar Piquet that Norma had given him, said twenty past three. He was aware of the stretchable straps that harnessed around his shoulders and across his back beneath his jacket, of the ASP in its slip holster there next to his heart. The weight of it against him seemed to exaggerate his heartbeat. It was good that his heart was beating harder and faster, he thought. It meant he was nervous, but the adrenaline would make him sharper.

Number 12. Its entrance was an archway that once must have accommodated carriages. It was fitted with a heavy wooden gate painted a dark green enamel, probably a hundred coats. A door was built flush into the right section of the gate for easier coming and going. Twelve windows above, eight of those covered with metal shutters.

Gainer imagined his adversary up there somewhere, maybe taking a Sunday snooze, unaware that his death was so near. Whoever he was, he'd come out sooner or later and Gainer would make a move. No finesse, no margin for a miss, he'd get out, walk up to the man and kill him. That was the smart street way of handling such a thing Gainer knew. However, he'd never killed anything except a hell of a lot of New York City cockroaches. Even coming, as it was, from rage, it still wasn't going to be easy. Another thing, he'd have to make sure of his man. What a mess if he whacked out the wrong guy.

Leslie gave him a squirt of Remedy and placed her hand on the back of his neck. Probably it was his imagination, but he felt an assuring energy being absorbed from her.

He started humming a Noel Coward tune.

As though merely making conversation, Leslie asked: “If I wasn't married to Rodger or anyone, what about us?”

“What about us what?” He knew but liked hearing her ask.

“Would you want to marry me?”

“I'd want to.”

“But would you?”

“In a minute.”

“I'll be thirty-nine next time.”

“Yeah, going on twenty-one.”

“I'm not sure I appreciate that.”

“I meant it nice.”

“Okay, I'll take it.” She hardly paused. “What did you think of Alma?”

“You mean, Alma and Norma?”

A nod from Leslie.

“They would have been fine with me,” he said. “Any kind of happiness would have been fine. I only wish Norma had told me.”

“Probably she wasn't ready.”

“I guess.”

“She mightn't have been altogether sure of it herself. Do you resent that she kept it from you?”

“No, it's just that I didn't get the chance to make it better for her.”

Leslie let that sink in, told him: “You know, sometimes I think the only reason I love you is you're exceptional.” She kissed him below the earlobe, then whispered for emphasis: “But you wouldn't marry me. I wouldn't let you.”

“Sure, you'd be nuts to give up all you have with Rodger.”

“See, you're already backing off.”

It drew a little laugh from Gainer, very small but the first since Martha's Vineyard.

To celebrate it Leslie went into her carryall, rummaged around under her loaded ASP and brought out a plastic bag. Slices of a bagatelle, some slathered with a well-truffled
pâté de foie gras
, others with raspberry preserves.

A talent for coming up with exactly what a tight moment called for, that's what she had, Gainer thought. He was munching away when the green door of Number 12 swung open.

A man stepped out.

A dapperly dressed old-timer with frail hands and a hanging face. He hesitated on the sidewalk, glanced down at his fly, adjusted his straw hat and set off in the direction of Avenue Henri IV.

In no way did he fit the description of either of the men Gainer was out for.

A girl came down the street, hurrying. She appeared to be about fourteen, had on extreme high heels but was not fazed by them, even when she crossed the cobbles.

She went into Number 12.

Nothing more for an hour.

Gainer decided not to just wait any longer. He went over to the green door, pushed its button. A buzz clicked the door open. He stepped in.

There was a bulging woman in a cheap housedress and felt slippers that her bunions had misshaped.

The concierge, Gainer assumed. He had a name ready as his excuse for being there.

The concierge routinely looked him down and up, as though she had seen him a thousand times before. With a dismissing wave of her hand, she indicated the cobbled courtyard beyond, then left him standing there.

There were glass-paned double doors at the deep end of the courtyard, one of which opened, and a thin blond woman appeared. She beckoned to Gainer, invited him in by stepping aside. He went to her and into the foyer of an attractively furnished apartment.

The blond woman's appraisal of Gainer was different than the concierge's. She took an intense measure of him, greeted him with an overlotioned handshake, along with the name Lewiston, which she mispronounced.

She just missed being chic. On her the expensive clothes did not appear to their best advantage. Her blond hair needed a touch-up. The ruby pin on her collar was real but still somehow unbelievable. She asked how Monsieur White was.

Gainer told her Monsieur White was better.

“Oh, has he been ill?”

“No, but he's better.”

She smiled tolerantly, led Gainer into the salon.

Any moment he might be meeting one of his men, he thought. Maybe this woman's husband or the man around this house. He sat in the chair he was offered. The woman left the room, not excusing herself.

Within minutes two young girls entered and sort of collapsed rather than sat on the deep sofa opposite Gainer. They were barefoot, had on simple white cotton panties and camisole tops laced loosely with pink silk ribbons. Additional ribbons tangled in their long hair.

They were very pretty.

Gamins
was the word for them, Gainer remembered. Thirteen- or fourteen-year-olds was his guess.

They pretended to ignore him, to be preoccupied only with themselves, but he caught their glances. One sat with her legs drawn up so her chin could rest between her knees. Surely an immodest position from Gainer's point of view. The crotch of her panties stretched tight over her mound, a few little coils of pubic hair showing. The other girl was sprawled on her side, just awkwardly enough to cause her camisole to ride up, exposing her rounded tummy and navel.

No doubt they were posturing for him, Gainer thought. They certainly were a couple of teasers. He tried to look elsewhere in the room.

That caused them to take other measures.

They intertwined their slender legs.

Kneeled and bowed so their bottoms seemed offered.

Stuck out a slow tongue at him.

Decided to exchange camisoles, took them off.

Examined a nipple, touched it with a forefinger and thumb.

Gainer got up.

The girls made room between them on the sofa.

He went past them, out to the foyer.

The blond woman was seated there reading
L'Officiel
.

“Is something wrong, monsieur?”

Gainer decided he'd risk describing one of his adversaries to see where that got him. “I'm looking for a man,” he said.

“Oh?” the woman arched.

“A certain man—”

“You have come to the wrong place, monsieur, definitely the wrong place.” She was brusque and rude the way most French get when they lose money that was practically in their pockets. She wouldn't hear another word.

When Gainer got back to the car Leslie gathered from his attitude that nothing had been accomplished. He did not tell her what had happened only because he didn't feel like going through it at the moment. All he said was: “Let's try the other address.”

Boulevard de Menilmontant.

Leslie took a moment to look it up in the little red book:
L'indispensible Repertoire des Rues
.

The boulevard was in the Twentieth Arrondissement. The most direct way to it was the Rue de la Roquette. Leslie timed most of the traffic lights and disregarded many of those she did not get right. Along the way Gainer noticed all but a few shops were closed
pour les vacances
, windows covered by solid metal shutters. Hardly any pedestrians. Like a city expecting enemy planes, he thought.

Boulevard de Menilmontant gave less of such an expression because of the bistros and tabac stands still open. Leslie cruised slowly while Gainer looked for Number 82. On the east side of the boulevard a high, cut-stone wall ran for several long blocks, so he concentrated on the west side. There was Number 115 and Number 103 and after a short ways, Number 83. Next door to 83 was Number 81.

Where the hell was 82?

There was no 82.

Seemed that Rodger's man at the consulate had come up wrong.

“What's that over there?” Gainer wondered aloud as he looked across the boulevard.

Leslie made a U-turn over to where the high, neatly masoned stone wall gave way to a pair of square columns and a grillwork gate heavily chained and padlocked. Immediately beyond the gate was a stone structure that appeared to be an office.

Chiseled deep into one of the columns were the numerals 82, and beneath that cut in the same manner:

CIMETIÈRE DE L'EST

DIT DU PÈRE-LACHAISE

Gainer sank.

What it had come down to was a minor league brothel and a graveyard.

L
ATER
that night, at the house on Avenue Foch, Gainer was again high up on the library ladder.

Searching for
Lord Jim
.

It wasn't where he thought he'd replaced it and in his frame of mind he blamed the book. It was purposely eluding him, hiding among all its confederates so similarly, smugly leather-bound. To hell with it. He pulled out Camus's
L'Homme Revolte
, opened it to any page. A paragraph held him for three sentences before his eyes went over the crease of the binding to Leslie below.

She was within the central medallion of an eighteenth-century Kashan carpet, seemed to be held afloat by twines of blue flowers. She was wearing a wrap-robe of creamy
crêpe de chine
bordered in matching maribou. She had nothing else on. The silk tie of the robe had slipped its knot several times until now she was just letting it have its way. There were several books around her, and she was presently so engrossed in a large, thick one that she nearly tipped over her wine glass when she reached for it.

Gainer asked what was so interesting.

“I'm boning up on that cemetery,” she said, not realizing the pun. “It was named after the Jesuit priest who served as confessor to Louis
quatorze
.”

That really helps, Gainer thought unhappily.

“Père-Lachaise was opened in 1804. Before that, for eight hundred years, the main cemetery was the Cimetière des Innocents. More than two million people were buried there.

“Big popular place.”

“Only two acres, actually. People were buried on top of one another. In stacks thirty feet deep, seven feet above street level. Imagine.”

Gainer tried. He got World War II concentration camp pictures.

“The parish of Saint Germain was paid a fee when anyone was buried at Innocents. It was the only holy ground around and they weren't about to give up their good thing.”

“Figures.”

“Then it happened.”

Gainer's grunt asked the expected what.

“Innocents had a big landslide. Two thousand of its corpses crashed through the walls of apartments. That was in 1780, and that was how Père-Lachaise came to be.”

“I thought you said it was started in 1804.”

“The French government argued about it for twenty-five years.”

“Call what's his name again.”

“Grocock.”

“Hard to forget. Call him.”

“He'll be calling me. Not to worry.”

“I still think he's confused.”

“I don't.”

“What makes you so sure?”

“Intuition.”

“Intuition tells a woman she's right whether she is or not.”

“What's that from, the Bible?”

Gainer reached down and ran the hard edge of the Camus over his shins, left and right several times. His soccer sores were healing and itching.

Leslie told him: “All kinds of famous people are buried at Père-Lachaise. Even Heloise and Abelard. Lots of artists—Ingres, Corot, Pissarro, Delacroix, Daumier, Seurat, Modigliani. Did you know Modigliani's mistress killed herself the day after he died? She was buried in Père-Lachaise with him. Her name was Jeanne Hebuterne. She was only twenty-two.”

Gainer read a few more lines of
L'Homme Revoke
but couldn't keep his mind on it. He put it back into its space and reached for his glass of wine that precariously balanced on the top edges of
The Memoirs du Marquise de Montespan
, which, Gainer thought when he noticed, would have been more suitable for warming brandy.

“Here's a map of the place!” Leslie exclaimed, discovering and unfolding it. “Come down and look at it with me.”

They took the map of Père-Lachaise and another bottle of Chateau Cheval Blanc 1947 to bed with them. It was their third such bottle from Rodger's cellar since dinner. It got to Gainer, rounded his mood considerably.

Leslie lay inside his arm. She held up one edge of the map while he held the other so that Père-Lachaise was spread in front of them. According to the map, the cemetery covered forty-three hectares, twenty-five centiares, fifty-six acres, which Gainer converted via acres to an area around a half-mile by a half-mile.

Leslie traced its outline with a fingernail. “It's shaped like the head of a man.”

“Or woman.”

“Or woman,” she conceded.

“With a next-to-nothing nose.”

“No upper teeth.”

“Pugnacious son of a bitch, the way the lower lip and jaw juts out.” Gainer imitated it.