The Chameleon Fallacy (Big Bamboo Book 2) (45 page)

Shit
, he thought,
this gadget does more fucking tricks than Derek Flint’s lighter.

Not having the remotest idea what or where to press, he just held the R3 to his mouth and spoke. “Hello?”

“
Hyatt. Hyatt. Is zat you?”

“
Er, yeah, yeah.”

“
Where are you,
monsieur
? Ze chauffeur ’as called. ’E ’ave say you ’ave not been on ze plane. Wat ze fuck is ’appening?”

Monsoon had no way of knowing that the R3 was making his voice sound exactly like Hyatt’s, but he decided to wing it anyway.

“
Oh. Er. Yeah. Well, I, er, had a bit of a fall.”

“
Mon Dieu
. Was zhere any damage?”

“
Oh, no. I’m fine, thanks.”

“
Not you,
connard
, ze device.”

Monsoon had no idea what a
connard
was, but he could guess. “What do you think I’m speaking to you with, dipshit?”

“
Ah,
bon
. Zen we still ’ave ze deal,
n’est-ce pas
?”

“
Yeah. Yeah, sure.”

“
So, ’ow soon can you be in Paris?”

“
France?”

“
Non
, fuckeeng Texas. Of course France, you
gogol
.”

Whoever this clown was, he was starting to get on Monsoon’s tits, and he was tempted to volunteer his opinion of facetious French fruits, but the sweet angel of pending fortune—bathed in the unmistakable perfume of moolah, butt-naked with dollar signs tattooed on her ass—alighted gently on his shoulder with a little golden tinkling sound, and advised him to resist the temptation.

“
Oh. Er, tomorrow, I reckon.”

“
Très bien
. Ah ’ave reserved a room for you in ze Ritz. Go straight to ze ’otel. Mah peepuhl will rendezvous wiz you, and zen make ze transacksheen.”

“
Oh. Yeah. Good, er, great.”

“
Bon. Au revoir; à demain, mon ami
.”

Monsoon didn’t know whether you had to hang up R3s or not, so he just stashed the device back in the briefcase. As he did so, his train clanked into the station, and he climbed on. He found a seat at the back, and as the train pulled out, he gazed out at the bare trees and the stark gray buildings beyond, and began to ponder this latest turning of the worm.

So. Fucking game on again. What it all came down to now was whether Hyatt had croaked or not. If he had, then all Monsoon had to do was get to Paris and convince this French faggot, who he didn’t know from Adam, that he was a white guy named Hyatt who was a scientific genius and spoke fluent Russian, do the deal, and then get the fuck out of Dodgeski before the truth came out.

If Hyatt was still alive, he would either get there first, or not be far behind, and either way would have gotten straight on the phone to put the kibosh on the transaction. In that case he would have to play it fast and loose. But if possession is nine-tenths of the law, it’s ten-tenths of breaking it, and since Monsoon had all the goodies, that put him in a prime negotiation position. He would just have to burn that fucking bridge when he came to it.

He doubted that Hyatt was greased. It had been a pretty decent shot to the noggin, but, unless Hyatt had an eggshell for a skull, not really hard enough to send him to the big research lab in the sky. And if he was, then he was a pretty good shot for a dead guy, because it sure as hell wasn’t Annie Oakley who put one through the pilot’s headphones. Maybe if he had known what was at stake he would have slugged him harder, but he doubted that too. A lying, thieving, underhanded, opportunist shitbag he was, but a murderer he wasn’t, and he knew it. Did he wish Hyatt were dead? Not really. Even with all that was at stake, he knew he didn’t have the winter in his heart to think like that. Only guys like Baby Joe Young had the proper steel for those kinds of gigs. He wondered what had happened to that guy. Kinda weird the way he showed up in New Orleans like that.

***

Thus far, the R3 was behaving as predicted by Hyatt and Sebastian, insofar as its behavior was entirely unpredictable. Which is why, when it received the call from Alphonso Nightingale, Hyatt received exactly the same call in real-time on his phone, but was unable to answer. Unlike Monsoon, Hyatt knew exactly who Alphonso Nightingale was. So all he had to do was make sure he got to Paris first, before Monsoon fucked things up, and have Low Roll and Hard D ventilate the little scallywag douchebag—after he had recovered the merchandise, of course. Calling Alphonso Nightingale and explaining that he had been cold-cocked with a religious effigy and suckered out of the goods by a lowlife nickel-and-dime grifter like Parker would not look good on his resume.

But although Hyatt was pissed, and embarrassed, he wasn’t seriously concerned. It was really just an inconvenience. Parker had gotten lucky, and maybe Hyatt had underestimated him a little, but it wasn’t going to happen again. The real bad news was that he was going to have to fork out for a business class ticket for Hard D because his buffalo butt wouldn’t fit in coach. Besides, think of the poor bastard beside him. Hyatt could be a cold son of a bitch, but he wasn’t that cold.

***

People invariably asked Alphonso Nightingale if he was related to Florence, and he invariably replied that he was. It was, of course, bullshit and a complete fabrication, as were most things related to Monsieur Nightingale. In fact, just about the only question he could have answered with any degree of honesty was whether he was an unprincipled, devious, lying motherfucker, in which case he could have answered in the affirmative with a clear conscience.

Then again, baby Alph didn’t get much in the way of a start in life. He was descended from a family of collaborators who had changed sides more times than a fat guy in a bed full of breadcrumbs. His old man got bumped off around the same time that he was getting his ass smacked by the midwife, so he hadn’t gotten much in the way of parental guidance. His mother never told him anything about his old fella, and not much about herself either, other than that she was some kind of gypsy, so he grew up without any real sense of identity.

Not many people can lay claim to having been an accomplished smuggler at age one, but Alphonso could. That was because his mother used to use him to smuggle stolen diamonds from Switzerland by shoving them up his ass. This went on for years until the unfortunate incident with the Rolex Oyster put a stop to it. His vision of motherly love and affection was forever colored by that accident, brown to be exact, and when he was ten he ran off with a circus, where he sold programs and dipped the customers on the side.

One night he fucked up while trying to swipe the billfold of a top Unione Corse guy from Marseille. Of course, Alphonso didn’t know he was a top Unione Corse guy; he thought he was just another fat, greasy, garlic-smelling rustic with wine stains down the front of his shirt. It turned out to be a blessing in disguise, really, because the Unione Corse guy was so impressed by the way he stood up to the right good kicking they gave him that he offered to take Alphonso under his wing. For a vicious, gun-running drug smuggler, the UC guy proved to have decent avuncular instincts and was quite an amiable bloke, all things considered. And he was a diligent teacher. For example, he taught Alphonso how to shoot, throw a blade, fight like a shithouse rat in a blind alley, and walk in a convincing fashion with half a key of smack shoved up his ass in condoms. Well, at least it was a good deal more comfortable than Rolexes.

That was how Alphonso Nightingale learned about who he really was and found out what had happened to his old man. Nightingale Senior had become an integral part of the opium/heroin trafficking deal that eventually became known as the French Connection, gathered a pile of Everest proportions, stool pigeoned like Kid Creole on a couple of characters, and, with the tacit approval of the Sûreté and the CIA, began making the transition to legitimate and sensationally wealthy businessman, before he ended up getting shot by Gene Hackman.

It seemed a man named Gaston Delacroix benefitted from his old man’s demise, and took over the family business, lock, stock, and barrel full of brown-colored powder. After years of careful planning and scheming, Alphonso felt strong enough to make his move. Gaston Delacroix ended up with an eel living in his anal cavity, and the Nightingales sang once more in the Bois de Boulogne.

Maybe Freud could explain it, and maybe it was as a consequence of his traumatic babyhood experiences, but Alphonso developed a lifelong fascination with jewels—diamonds in particular. He devoted a great deal of his time and energy to the accumulation of a fabulous collection of rocks, even going so far as to pay for them sometimes. Things were going just fine and dandy for a while, and he had all the trappings of the well-to-do French smack peddler: the yacht at Cannes, the apartment in Nice, the permanent suite in Monte Carlo, the original 78 wax recordings of Maurice Chevalier, the whole
neuf
yards.

Then, out of nowhere, love walked in and sucker-punched him. A radiant and sexy woman claiming to be an Algerian refugee sought him out, saying she was being hunted by a renegade gang of former French Foreign Legionnaires in connection with something that had happened back in Africa, and that she needed protection and a new identity. Before very long they were lovers and old Alphonso was besotted. He doted upon her, gave her the best of everything, and even showed her his diamond stash. Shortly thereafter, love walked out of his life as abruptly as it had walked in, and his diamonds walked out right along with it.

That derailed him for a while and things started to go from bad to worse, culminating an egregious piece of misjudgment, no doubt occasioned by grief and outrage, which resulted in him doing a two-stretch in Fleury-Mérogis. While he was in the slammer, he got ahold of a French translation of an American paperback thriller called
Diamonds Aren’t For Everyone
. It told the story of this Unione Corse guy who gets turned over by this radiant and sexy woman who claims to be an Algerian refugee, and…!

***

The Italy-shaped pool of blood on Khuy Zalupa’s floor belonged, coincidentally, to an Italian. He was a Sicilian assassin by the name of Antonio Lo Vuolo. He was, prior to the abrupt termination of his employment, a very successful contract killer. His success was as much due to his appearance as to his skill or ruthlessness. You could not imagine anyone who looked less like a stone-faced killer. He was short, portly, and balding, and had enormous, wet, appealing puppy dog eyes that peered out of a round cherub face. His demeanor was gentle, his manner sociable and polite, and you would not suspect him of trying to ride the bus without paying his fare, never mind of wasting not less than forty souls in cold blood, in an often-gruesome manner.

Lo Vuolo worked a lot out of Corsica, and became acquainted with Alphonso Nightingale during the old French Connection days. Apart from their professional relationship, Alphonso liked Antonio personally. He was a cheerful and willing character, always ready to bump somebody off at short notice, regardless of the inconvenience. Over time, he became Nightingale’s number-one man, the go-to guy when something beyond the ordinary, run-of-the-mill rubbing-out was required. A degree of trust developed between them. If you can’t trust your own friendly neighborhood hit man, then whom can you trust? That was why, when Alphonso Nightingale found out that Fanny Lemming was alive and well and living with some kind of Russian ogre in Moscow, and he needed someone to fly over there and straighten things out, there was only one guy he was going to turn to.

Antonio Lo Vuolo didn’t normally like to hit women with his fist. It was because he wasn’t all that strong, and didn’t pack much of a punch, and it usually resulted in the woman kicking the shit out of him. He therefore preferred to use a blunt object. But then, that required finesse. Unless of course you just intended to kill the bitch outright, right off the bat, then it didn’t really matter, but if you wanted her alive for interrogation purposes, you had to be careful. And Mr. Nightingale had been quite explicit in his instructions. No irreparable brain injury or irreversible hemorrhaging was to be inflicted upon Ms. Lemming until she had revealed the whereabouts of the diamonds.