Authors: Gordon Merrick
M. Gouffron pounced. His weak eyes seemed curiously penetrating as he leaned and said, “So you remember everything you said last night.”
Rod’s mind was immediately dodging, backtracking, reinforcing his lines of defense. He had apparently given himself away although he didn’t quite see how. Either they knew something about François or they didn’t. He should probably sham language difficulties. “I remember talking a lot of nonsense,” he said, making his French sound labored. “I don’t remember what it was all about.”
“Yet you were prepared with an explanation for having mentioned Leclerc.”
“I had this idea that my being here had something to do with him. It’s the sort of association of ideas you have if you’re drunk.”
“I’ve never been drunk.” M. Gouffron said the word in a way that made Rod wonder whether it was such a good excuse after all. M. Gouffron picked up a pencil and put a fresh piece of paper with the other in the folder. “The names of these friends of yours,” he said, poised to write.
“What friends? I hardly know François Leclerc. He was going to Marseille, and this friend of mine and I thought it would be fun to go.”
“This M. Valmer is the friend you refer to? His Christian name please.”
“Listen. He knows even less about this than I do. There’s no point getting him into it.”
“Less about what?”
“About nothing really. About why François was going to Marseille.”
“Why was he going?”
“He said he had some business. I don’t know what. My friend didn’t even know that much. He didn’t even come back with us.”
M. Gouffron sat without moving. The pencil remained poised. He spoke dryly. “Let me remind you that you’ve told a very odd story. You were followed. You were shot at. Marseille is not the most tranquil city in France, but American tourists aren’t usually shot at, even there. This is not a comedy. You would do well to refrain from heroics.”
“I don’t remember any of that I must have been thinking of a film I saw recently.” He had reached safe ground that he intended to occupy to the end. He remembered nothing.
M. Gouffron let the pencil slip from his grasp and joined the tips of his fingers lightly together and looked at them. “What is your means of livelihood?”
“I’m a painter,” he began proudly, although somehow in these surroundings it didn’t have quite the ring he would have liked. Painters were notoriously erratic and unstable. Painters often ended up in jail. He went on with some diffidence. “I came over here with a certain sum of money that I’ve been living on ever since. I’m soon going to have another exhibition that should make enough to keep me for another year or so.”
“Yet you have money to lend to people you hardly know?”
“What are you talking about? I don’t lend people money.” If François had been talking, and they came back to him about that one, he was ready. It hadn’t been a loan but an investment–in an unknown project.
“And these dollars? You have of course been changing them legally?” M. Gouffron straightened one finger as Rod began to speak. “Don’t bother to say anything. There are always ways to make a little extra. We know them all, and it’s very easy to check. You’re in order with our tax people?”
“Your tax people? I pay my taxes in the United States. I don’t have to pay anything here.”
“You earn nothing here? You sell no pictures?”
“No,” Rod replied with confidence. He was completely safe on this score. It was a relief to be able to speak openly and truthfully. M. Gouffron gave him a little time to enjoy the sensation. The official picked up his pencil and placed the point on the paper in front of him.
“Let me refresh your memory,” he said. “You stated that you lent money to this Leclerc. You said you didn’t know what he wanted it for. When people lend money it’s not usual for them to demand an explanation of the purpose of the loan. Why did you feel it necessary to emphasize your ignorance?”
“I’ve told you. I don’t lend money.”
“You’ve had no financial dealings with him of any sort?”
“Of any sort? That could include buying him a drink. I think you ought to be more specific.” He made a hasty mental note to return the money to his friend at the bank while he prepared himself for a grilling.
There was a maddening silence while M. Gouffron stared at the tip of the pencil resting on the paper. “Very well,” he said at last. “It’s quite evident that you’ve been engaged in some questionable financial arrangements with M. Leclerc. Whatever they are, your name is now in our files. All your banking and exchange transactions will be closely scrutinized. I see no reason not to warn you of this. Perhaps it will save us all trouble in the future. In a month or so–these things move slowly, but our methods have proved to be effective–you’ll be called in by the tax people and the
Office des Changes
to give a complete accounting of your financial dealings since you’ve been here. If you can satisfy them, that will be the end of the matter about the mysterious M. Valmer than you wish to.”
“In a month or so, maybe I won’t be here,” Rod burst out on the spur of the moment. It filled him with deep unexpected relief to say it. That was one way of getting the hell out of this. He wanted to let out a great shout of protest and helplessness. He thought of being in a place where bombs didn’t keep going off in the street, where you weren’t bullied by the police, where you weren’t locked up for the night because you happened to get caught in a crowd. Yes, where he wasn’t always surrounded by queers. They were around at home, but he’d never known any. At home, there were recognizable social signals that told you what was what. He knew who he was there. Home, where you didn’t have the responsibility of rewriting the rules, because they were already written. You didn’t fall in with petty crooks in America. It helped to remind himself that he had a way out, even though he knew Patrice would never permit him to accept what would amount to defeat. A defeat of what? Home and a good safe job. He’d had a success with part-time work. What was Patrice trying to prove?
“You’re thinking of leaving the country?” M. Gouffron asked. “Well, so far we have no grounds for stopping you. There remains the verification of your identity.” He pressed a button. The policeman reentered the office and stood beside the desk. Rod had the feeling it was over for the moment. He wouldn’t have to send the telegram after all. Once he had talked it all over with Patrice, they’d know how to cope with developments. François was going to be questioned. His head throbbed painfully.
“You will accompany M. Mac-an-teer to his domicile,” M. Gouffron instructed the policeman. “Make a note of the numbers of his passport and carte d’identite. The usual routine. That’s all. Inspector Lascaux will provide a car.” The official turned back to the paper in front of him and began to scribble on it. The policeman looked at Rod and nodded. “Monsieur,” he said.
Restored to respectability, Rod didn’t want to slink off like a criminal. He rose and held out his hand to M. Gouffron. “Thank you, monsieur. I’m sorry if I’ve been a trouble to you,” he said.
M. Gouffron stopped writing and looked at Rod’s hand. The phone rang, and he picked it up and offered his other hand, still holding the pencil, to Rod. He listened for a moment and seemed to come to attention. He gestured Rod back to the chair with his pencil and straightened his tie and smoothed his sparse hair. “Yes, monsieur,” he said, bowing at the phone. Of course, monsieur, yes. François Leclerc. Very good, monsieur. Yes, that name figures in the dossier. I understand, monsieur.” He closed the folder that lay on the desk in front of him. “You can count on me, monsieur. A pleasure.” He bowed to the phone again before hanging up and resumed his air of authority with the policeman. “You will conduct M. Mac–this gentleman to 107. They will know what to do. Give them this.” He handed the folder to the policeman.
Rod’s heart was pounding uncomfortably again. “What’s this all about?” he demanded.
“The affair is out of my hands. You will go, please.”
Rod rose again, no longer thinking about making a graceful exit. The policeman preceded him to the door, and they went out into dark deserted corridors and narrow twisting stairs. Nothing resembled anything he remembered from the night before. He supposed he had been transferred to some special section.
They mounted two flights of stairs and followed a corridor around a corner and entered an unmarked door. It gave onto a narrow passage that ran along a sort of screened cell. A waist-high wooden partition was completed by heavy wire mesh that rose to the ceiling. Rod could see men moving around on the other side of it. A shout gathered again in his throat. If they took him in there, he would claw his way out. The policeman took the folder to a slot at the end of the partition and handed it through to a man who glanced at it and held it aloft. Another man came up behind him and took it. All these movements were fragmented by the heavy wire mesh. Rod’s muscles were gathered together to resist any attempt to get him inside, while his eyes traveled along the partition looking for an opening in it. He couldn’t find one. They had no right to keep him here. M. Gouffron had said it was all over except for the identity check. He was going to start throwing his weight around, demand some written authorization if this went on much longer. He heard a door opening, and he turned. A man wearing a dark raincoat and a felt hat pulled low over his eyes was standing in the doorway Rod had entered. A gangster. He nodded to the policeman and gestured to Rod to come out. Rod did so with alacrity. The man moved away down the corridor, and Rod caught up to him and fell into step beside him.
“What’s happening now? Am I getting out of here?”
“Yes. Somebody wants to see you.”
“I’m not sure I want to see him. Why should I?”
“Because I have orders to take you to him. A compatriot of yours. I’m doing you a favor.”
“Thanks.”
They descended stairs in silence and came out into a dingy courtyard where an old black Citroën was waiting. Another man in civilian clothes was at the wheel. Rod’s escort gestured him into the backseat and got in with him, and the car rolled forward. Rod took a deep breath of cold morning air. At least he was out. He began to relax. The cold air helped his head. A compatriot? Somebody at the American Embassy who had heard about him and knew his family and wanted to offer help? He didn’t need help until he knew what was going on. He wanted to get home to Patrice.
A few glances out the window placed him somewhere around the Palais de Justice. The streets were busy. Judging by the light, he guessed it wasn’t much past 9 o’clock. A glimpse of a clock in the street confirmed it–9:30 it said. Patrice would postpone going to work until the last possible moment, wondering about him, assuming he’d spent the night with Nicole. If he were being taken straight home, he’d be in time. Damn not having a telephone.
They drove through traffic, and after a few minutes he saw that they were taking the bridge across to the Ile-St-Louis. They turned onto the quai and passed trees prettily sweeping over the river.
“Stop here,” the man beside him ordered. “I’ll be only a moment. Monsieur,” he said to Rod, letting himself out and holding the door open. They walked half a block before his escort turned his head quickly back and forth along the street and said in a low voice, “In here.” They entered an old sagging building and mounted a grand staircase, shabby but elegant in a Parisian way. They stopped in front of a door, and the escort pushed a button.
The door was opened by a big man in slacks and shirtsleeves. The knot of his tie was pulled down below an unbuttoned collar. He took off glasses as he looked at them.
“Good morning, sir,” the escort said.
“Thanks.” The man nodded at him and stood aside to admit Rod and closed the door after him. He led the way across a hall into a big room that looked as if nobody lived in it. Pieces of ill-matched furniture stood about in it, but there were no pictures, no homely clutter of objects. A metal office jutted at right angles from one wall. It was the only thing in the room that looked used. Papers littered its surface. Rod took off his coat and put it on the end of a sofa. The big man stopped and faced him.
“Mather, as in Cotton,” he said as if he had said it thousands of times before. He didn’t hold out a hand. “It’s Henry, actually. You’re Rod. I know quite a lot about you, Rod.”
He had a lean lined face and graying hair. A tough character but intelligent, Rod decided. “Nothing surprises me anymore,” he said.
“You look a little worse for wear. They don’t exactly run a rest home over there, do they? No rough stuff, I hope.”
“No. They were polite enough.”
“I’m just making some coffee. Would you like to fix yourself up? There’s an electric razor in the bathroom if you want to use it. Breakfast? Bacon and eggs?”
“No thanks. I could use a beer if you have some. Actually, I’m in sort of a hurry.”
“You can count on an hour, with or without eggs. You might as well try to relax. You’re in more trouble than you bargained for.”
“Listen, if you’ll just tell me what–”
Mather held up a peremptory hand. “Let’s have some coffee, and that beer. The bathroom’s in there.” He pointed at a door and turned and headed off in the opposite direction. Rod watched him go while anger rose and subsided in him. He resigned himself with exasperation to following directions.
He found a modern American-style bathroom, beyond a bedroom, with a toilet beside a glass shower stall. Seeing it made him realize that his bladder was about to burst, and he headed for it gratefully. He washed his face and used the electric razor and found a clean comb. Time for Patrice to give him another haircut. Damn not being able to get to him before he went to work. At least he’d think he knew where he was.