19 Purchase Street Page 18

  Gainer did not put up much of an argument. What mattered most to him was being in Paris where he could get a hold on the leads Alma Schebler had provided.

  Those telephone numbers.

  They had caused a small chink in the wall of his remorse. Relieved some of the pressure. No longer was he being asked to just accept Norma’s killing, to go home and go through everyday motions and hope some normal feelings returned to him.

  Leslie, attuned to him as she was, sensed the shift. It was also obvious to her what had brought it about.

  “Leslie?”

  “What?”

  “Do something for me.”

  “Anything …”

  “Take a flight back to New York.”

  “… except that.”

  “Please. I’ll be better off alone.”

  “You’ll need me. You know how much you need me.”

  More than ever, he thought, and let it go at that.

  THEY arrived in Paris and at the Avenue Foch house very late. Went directly to bed and sleep. Leslie made the ultimate sacrifice, placed a long bolster between herself and Gainer, hoping that might help him to sleep better.

  Still, he woke up at dawn, then tried to slip back under but too many disturbing possibilities kept coming at him. He gave up, got up and wandered about the house.

  It was larger and more luxurious than his brief impression of it from the night before. Thirty rooms, was his guess. Intricate giltwood paneling and Scalamandre silks on the walls, countless knots by past Persians underfoot. Authentic Louis quatorze and quinze everywhere.

  The Genoise crystal chandelier in the main entrace hall was so huge and made up so many sharply faceted pieces, to walk beneath it made Gainer uneasy. It didn’t matter if he gawked a little, he told himself.

  He found the kitchen.

  No one there.

  Green figs in the early sunlight, resting individually in cotton wool in a little crate stenciled Fauchon. They weren’t really too perfect to touch, Gainer decided. He took one and, on second thought, two more.

  Found the library. Thousands of leather bindings with burnished patinas, as though each was a frequently handled favorite. Gainer sat at the ormolu-mounted bureau plat and returned the blank stare of a small Degas bronze that rested on its surface, a pubescent boy with arms out, palms up, evidently to receive something. Gainer placed one of the green figs in the boy’s arms. He ate one of the others, except for the hard part at the tip of its stem. He chewed on that.

  There was a telephone on the desk. Maybe now, early, was a good time to call, catch the bastards off balance, talk them into revealing their addresses. He’d already thought of a fairly credible routine. He took the numbers from the pocket of his robe, practically had them memorized. He dialed one of the Paris numbers and let it ring twenty times before giving up on it. Tried it again in case he’d misdialed.

  He also got no answer from the other Paris number and the one in Vernon. He slammed down the receiver.

  Where was everyone?

  He asked the books to distract him, climbed the sliding ladder to get at some of the high ones. Turned pages for fragments of La Fontaine and a few lines of Rimbaud, got momentarily lost at sea in a passage of Conrad’s Lord Jim.

  When he went back up to the bedroom he expected Leslie would still be asleep. She was seated on the floor with an open fifth of four star VSOP Martell cognac between her legs and a large bottle of Vichy. Several one ounce brown, dropper-capped bottles were scattered around, and, all lined up, as though hoping to be chosen, were thirty-nine bottles that were smaller yet. These contained her stock of essences, concentrates, such things as willow and water violet, holly and heather. Leslie had obtained them (for a price) direct from the Dr. Edward Bach Healing Centre in Berkshire, England.

  Dr. Bach himself was long gone but his Remedies prevailed. The doctor had been a successful Harley Street consultant with M.B., B.S., M.R.C.S., I.C.P., D.P.H. following his name. In 1930 he gave up his lucrative practices to tramp about in the woods and fields. His colleagues thought him very balmy indeed. Bach would sit for hours on a log contemplating the face of a wildflower. He spent the rainiest days observing the behavior of certain trees. What came of it was a theory that petals and buds contained marvelous medicine, the power to heal a person’s very nature, restore psychological vitality and thereby offset the simmering of disease. No one ever bothered to disprove Dr. Bach, which perhaps was the basis for his efficacy.

  Leslie was a believer.

  “I’m mixing a new remedy for you,” she told Gainer brightly.

  He sat on the chaise just above her. “What was wrong with the old one?”

  “It had cherry plum in it. You don’t need cherry plum.”

  “I need a gun.”

  “Cherry plum helps control the temper.”

  Throughout the trip she’d been giving him a special remedy. At any moment she’d bring out the little brown bottle and he’d tilt his head back and open his mouth like a baby bird for her to squeeze in some drops. Not because he believed, he told himself. It was just easier to go along.

  “I called the numbers,” he said. “No one answered.”

  “It’s Sunday.”

  “All the more reason for someone to be home.”

  “Maybe those aren’t home numbers.”

  That had occurred to him. “And maybe Karl Schebler has us carried away with his imagination.

  “Be positive. I’m positive.”

  “Why?”

  “I asked Lady Caroline.”

  “Oh.”

  “She said you’re on the right track.”

  “While she was at it, why didn’t she give us the names and addresses to go along with those numbers.”

  “She didn’t have to.”

  Leslie selected one from her stock of essences, announced it decisively: “Rock rose.”

  “What’s that for?”

  “Courage. It’s great for courage.”

  “Think I’ll need it?”

  “Might.”

  She also chose gorse, star-of-Bethlehem, olive and clematis. He didn’t ask and she didn’t tell him gorse was to keep him from becoming despondent, star-of-Bethlehem was to help offset the emotional shock he was still suffering, olive would give him energy and clematis would improve his concentration.

  “You’re a lovely shamaness,” he said.

  “Merci, mon bête.” She smiled up to him, which was also up into the strong sunlight coming from the tall windows. Out of habit she didn’t squint or blink—thanks to the countless times as a model she’d had to look directly into the sun without scrinching up her face. It took a while for the dark spots to go away.

  She went on concocting. Into the ounce brown bottle she put two drops of each of the essences she’d chosen. Along with a spoonful of cognac. Filled the bottle with Vichy, put the top on and shook it. Labeled it with a nice, although lopsided, heart and printed a capital G inside that.

  Tossed the bottle to him.

  “I have to get a gun,” he said.

  By then the help had returned from mass.

  Gainer and Leslie took brunch on the wide terrace overlooking the formal gardens at the rear of the house—precisely laid out paths, topiary and ancient-looking statues enclosed by a high-vined wall. All that could be seen of the house next door were its chimney peaks.

  “Who lives over there?” Gainer asked.

  “The Mellons. When they’re in a Paris mood.”

  Gainer felt displaced, thought these sumptuous surroundings weren’t right for a man set on revenge. He should be in an inconspicuous disagreeable hotel being miserable and hating everyone.

  He was poured a third demitasse from a dazzling Georgian silver server.

  Leslie went inside for a moment. Returned with a Maud Frizon shoebox containing two automatic pistols, a pair of silencers, holsters, extra clips and ammunition. She handed him one of the pistols, grip first.

  It was a custom modified Smith and Wesson M3
9, the sort known among shooters as an ASP, after its maker, Armament Systems and Procedures, Inc. The look of the ASP was all business—black Teflon finish, no frills or nickel plate, a transparent grip that allowed a visual count of the eight 9mm cartridges it held.

  Gainer immediately took to the feel of it. Its pound and a half compactness seemed made especially for his hand. Or maybe that was because he now felt so much need for a gun.

  “Whose is it?” he asked.

  “Rodger’s.”

  She brought out another ASP, a duplicate.

  “That one too?”

  “Mine,” she said.

  “Then let me use yours.”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  She didn’t reply, was preoccupied with screwing on one of the silencers. Inserted one of the loaded clips and shoved it home.

  Gainer kept his eyes on the gun in her hand, ready to duck if she inadvertently pointed it his way. He told her: “Be careful. You’ll blow your pretty toes off … or something.”

  “One of the great things about an ASP is its smooth body, so it won’t snag when you draw. It’s very easy to commit.”

  Gainer had never heard her talk like that.

  She cocked a round into the chamber. Got up and assumed a good solid shooting stance, used her off hand to steady the weapon with the forefinger snugly around the special contour meant for that purpose on the front of the trigger guard. Sighted at a headless, legless statue of a nude Greek among the yews about seventy feet away. Squeezed off three rounds.

  Limestone dust and chips flew.

  All three shots hit within an inch or so of one another, just slightly right of the statue’s left nipple.

  Gainer couldn’t remember ever having seen anything so incongruously lethal. His own gentle love with her own fierce weapon. It made the hairs bristle on the back of his neck. He expected she’d be at least a little smartass about being a good shot; but she only smiled modesly and explained, “I went to Jeff Cooper’s shooting school in Arizona.”

  “Why?”

  “Never know when you’ll need to kill someone,” she said, not lightly.

  Flower remedies and hollow points, Gainer thought. He looked at the statue. “Won’t Rodger be upset about that?”

  “He paid two hundred thousand to have that piece sneaked out of Greece. But it’s a fake. He’s been meaning to get rid of it.”

  They target-practiced with their ASPs for an hour, killed the fake Greek again and again. Gainer got so he could fire an entire clip into a tight pattern. It was the best he had ever shot.

  When they went inside, Leslie received a telephone call. She took it in the boothlike enclosure underneath the main stairway.

  Gainer wondered who could possibly know she was here. Maybe it was Rodger telling her she’d overstepped her arrangement by bringing Gainer to bed in this house. But then, if Rodger didn’t give a damn in New York, he certainly shouldn’t in Paris.

  Leslie was on the phone only a couple of minutes, came out and handed to Gainer what she had jotted down.

  Two addresses:

  12 Rue de la Cerisaie

  82 Boulevard de Menilmontant

  To go along with those two Paris phone numbers.

  “I’ll have the one in Vernon tomorrow,” she promised.

  “How did you do it?”

  “Yesterday before we left Zurich, I called George.”

  “George who?”

  “Grocock.”

  “You’re making that up.”

  “No, honest. It’s an old New England family name. He’s with the American consulate, which probably means the CIA too.”

  “How do you know him?”

  “Rodger gave him to me.”

  “Birthday or Christmas?”

  “As someone I should call on here if ever I was in a bind.”

  Something else to be grateful to Rodger for, Gainer thought.

  THE choice was to take the dark green Bentley, the gray Daimler or a taxi.

  Gainer would have settled for a little ten-year-old half-destroyed Renault, all the better to blend in with the rest of the Paris traffic. Leslie didn’t believe that would make much difference. Certainly she would rather not have to put up with some grumbling ingrate of a taxi driver. Besides, she contended, they might need to get from somewhere in a hurry.

  So, they took the Daimler.

  Leslie drove.

  Down Avenue Foch and into the death-defying whirlpool of Place de l’Étoile. Actually because it was August and most Parisians had made le grand départ, the usual streams of cars on the wide thoroughfares were reduced to relative trickles, and the lesser streets had practically nothing at all running on them.

  That suited Leslie, enabled her to make nearly record time down the Champs-Élysées, whizzing so close by one gendarme directing traffic that she damn near scraped his brass buttons and left him crossing himself. She led with the Daimler’s fenders, intimidated her way faster than everyone along the Quai des Tuileries, past the Louvre and on into the Fourth Arrondissement.

  Rue de la Cerisaie was obscure and out of the way, but Leslie found it—one short, narrow block that cut across near the point where two avenues converged at Place de la Bastille. Typical of that section, it had older, three-story residential buildings compressed along both sides with lookalike windowed faces all somehow looking distressed.

  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?”r />
  “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.