Her vision blurred. She retreated a little farther back. When she was calmer, she examined her watch.
It was nine thirty-five when Pascal disappeared around the corner. At nine-forty she finally saw Star for the first time.
He drew up opposite in a large black Mercedes sedan, parked in a restricted zone, and climbed out. He looked up and down the boulevard. Just prior to entering Mathilde Duval’s apartment building, he consulted his watch.
Chapter 18
AT TEN ON THAT Wednesday morning, Rowland still believed that this story might take weeks, at best days, to unravel. By ten-thirty he saw just how wrong he was. The countdown had already begun; by the time he realized that, it was just thirty minutes before the start of the Cazarès couture show, and he feared he was too late.
At ten that morning he was on the telephone, still trying to locate Gini, who was not in her room—he had already been down twice to check—who was not in the restaurant, or the lobby, and who was not replying when she was paged. This desk clerk, the third to whom he had spoken, said he wasn’t certain, but he thought he had seen her go out.
“When?” Rowland said. “What time?”
Eight, maybe eight-thirty, the desk clerk said, sounding harassed.
Rowland slammed down the telephone. He stared at the wall. He was at once certain that only one person could explain this sudden disappearance: it had to be Pascal Lamartine. It couldn’t be work: if it had been work, Gini would have informed him of where she was going, and why. So it had to be Lamartine. He began pacing, then stopped: of course—he saw it now. They must have contacted each other the previous night. Had Lamartine telephoned—perhaps even seen Gini then? Rowland watched the hours he had spent alone, since last seeing Gini, open up. Hour upon hour, and every minute of those hours, was suddenly filled with doubts.
During the time he had spent in conversation with Juliette de Nerval, Gini, as agreed, had returned to her new room here. Rowland, hastening back, had had a brief conversation with her in the doorway of that room, shortly before nine o’clock. Rowland had known he might have gained admittance to that room, and he had wanted admittance—passionately. Watching her pale face, and her wide, dark eyes, Rowland had thought that one touch, one word, might make her relent. Fighting the desire he felt, respecting something in her eyes, sensing that this issue might be forced on another occasion but not now, he had finally withdrawn, and spent much of the night arguing with himself as to whether that restraint had been correct.
At four in the morning some pole in his mind had steadied him, and he had finally, briefly, slept. Now the compass of his mind oscillated violently. North, south, east, west: he rewrote those hours spent alone, plotted them one way, then another. One moment he felt absolutely certain that his final route, and Gini’s, must take a certain course; the next, distrusting instinct, he lost faith.
He moved back to the telephone, picked up a notebook, examined a fax sent by his stringer from New Orleans overnight, which seemed to confirm that as far as work was concerned, anyway, his intuition could be relied upon. He thought of telephoning his source in Amsterdam, Sandra Lucas, who had been Esther’s closest friend and a good friend to him when he’d needed one, in another country, in another life. When Esther was suddenly gone and he was alone. He began to dial the code for the Netherlands; he replaced the receiver. He dialed the first digit of the extension to Gini’s room, and someone began banging at the door to his suite. He swung around at once, certain Gini had come back.
When he opened the door with Gini’s name on his lips, Lindsay saw disappointment tighten his face. She forced herself to ignore it. She was in a state of nervous agitation anyway, partly because of the fax she now held in her hand, partly because she was anxious not to be late for the Cazarès show, and partly because, despite all her resolve, she still found it difficult to be unaffected by encounters with Rowland McGuire.
She came into the room fast, looking at her watch and waving the fax at him. She explained the necessary details very quickly. It was probably of no use to him anyway, but for what it was worth, she now knew the surname of Marie-Thérèse, and her brother, Jean-Paul.
“All couture clothes are labeled, Rowland,” she said. “Just like other clothes—though the labels are more prestigious, of course. Marie-Thérèse had handled couture clothes. She respected them. She learned from their every little detail. I just knew that when she made that dress for Letitia, she’d label it. It was the first real dress she ever made. I knew she’d want to sign it. Somewhere on that dress—if I could find the dress, if the dress still existed—I’d find her signature, her name. And I have. The curator at the Metropolitan checked for me. The dress was there: Letitia had stipulated it be kept. And there was a label—with the name hand embroidered. Here’s the name, Rowland—on this fax.”
Rowland had read, and was now rereading the fax. She saw him frown, then shake his head.
“What’s the matter, Rowland?” She hesitated. “I have to go. I’ll be late for Cazarès… Does the name mean something to you?”
“That was very clever. Thank you, Lindsay.” He gave a half-smile. “In a hundred years, I’d never have thought of that…”
“Well, you’re a man. And not the kind of man who’s very interested in labels on clothes.” She looked away; she wished Rowland had not smiled at her like that. It was too direct, too devoid of nuance. I am the invisible woman, Lindsay thought, and with more excuses about time, and Markov, she left.
Rowland continued to look at the fax. The name Marie-Thérèse had so proudly sewn onto a dress nearly thirty years before was familiar to him: Rivière—one of the aliases chosen by Star. He could see, obviously he could see, the implications of this: Star might indeed be that lost New Orleans child. But Rowland still did not believe it.
At that moment the telephone rang. It proved to be the hotel’s assistant manager speaking in an agitated way. Rowland could just hear the sound of a woman’s crying; he stiffened. “Forgive me, Monsieur McGuire,” the man said. “But could you come down to my office? We need your assistance.”
“Is it urgent?” Rowland began. The man interrupted him.
“Yes, Monsieur McGuire,” he said quietly. “I fear it is.”
Mina thought the night would never end. She thought her opportunity would never come.
At first, for hour after hour, Star was so up: she could feel him soaring and when she looked at his eyes, the pupils were pinpricks, they blazed with blue-black light.
He read the tarot twice. He bathed twice, and showered once, locking her in the bedroom while he did this. When he came back from the shower, it was around two in the morning—Mina couldn’t be certain, because her watch had stopped. She kept shaking it and holding it to her ear and watching the hands, but they didn’t move. Star saw none of this. He was laying out clothes on a chair: a black suit, a brand-new white shirt still in its plastic wrapping, a necktie, black socks, black shoes. He polished the shoes three times, then he stood in front of the mirror and looked at himself. He acted the way some women acted in front of a mirror, Mina thought. He held his hair back, then let it flow around his face and shoulders; he turned this way, then that. He smiled at himself in the glass, and Mina, crouched on the bed, thought he looked more beautiful than ever, and utterly insane. He flirted with his own reflection, lowered his thick black lashes over his beautiful eyes, and gave himself a lingering look.
“I could have been a movie star,” he said in a matter-of-fact tone. “A really major star—don’t you think?”
“Yes, I do,” Mina said in a small voice. “I guess you still could…”
Star turned, and frowned.
“Oh, no,” he said almost kindly. “That’s not on the agenda. I know what my future will be. I have it all mapped out.”
Then he told her exactly what he was going to do the next morning, and when.
“You see,” he said, “the Cazarès collection will last one hour. It begins at eleven and ends at noon. I’ll
be there, out front, watching it. It’s not easy to get in, of course. Invitation only, and those invitations are very carefully checked. There’s security, muscle—everywhere. But I can get around that. Maria’s been helping me. I had a practice run last fall. It worked like a dream. It will work again, Mina, I know that. The cards know that…”
A dreamy look of pleasure drifted across his face.
“Oh, yes, I’ll be there. Just one of the students they admit. In my jeans, with my red scarf, standing with me other students, way back, where you can’t see shit. I’ll be invisible—until the moment comes. I won’t be invisible then, of course. They’ll all be watching, all those famous people. All those rich people. Jean Lazare will come out to take his bow, and then…” He picked up the gun and caressed it. “Imagine, Mina. I might even get filmed doing it—that would be good. I’d be on every network in the world. Prime time, Mina. The whole world will watch me fire that shot.” He smiled back at his own reflection in the mirror. “I want to look good then, I want to look like—an angel of death.”
He moved back to the bed, took out some grass and some pills, and began to arrange them in a pattern on the quilt. Mina watched him, too terrified to speak.
Star selected two pills and swallowed them down: one was a White Dove, the other was speed, he said. This action made Mina even more afraid: it was the first time she had ever seen Star take drugs. He drank several glasses of water, then took her hand in his.
“You’re afraid. Don’t be.” He kissed her forehead. “I’ll be coming back for you, Mina—didn’t you realize that? When it’s all over, I’ll come back here, and I’ll wash, and fix myself up. There might be blood, you see, and…” His vision glazed; he sighed, then shook himself. “So I’ll take a shower, then I’ll put on my black suit, that new shirt over there, and then, Mina, we’re going places, you and I, because I’ll be free, you see. Free for the first time in my life.”
Mina made a little murmuring sound of agreement, and it seemed to suffice. Minutes later he became restless again. He disappeared into the bathroom, locking her in the bedroom as he left. When he returned, and lay down beside her, she could see that he’d washed yet again, but he hadn’t washed well enough: there were traces of some odd white powder around his nostrils and upper lip.
He said he had another pink jewel for her, and Mina tensed. She knew why he was going to make her take that: because it would make her dreamy and dopey, and then it would make her sleep. For hours.
Mina took the pill from him and put it into her mouth. She knew she had to distract him, so she asked him to show her the gun again—and it worked. It took only a second as he rose from the bed. She just had time to spit the pill into her hand, then let her arm hang down over the side of the bed. She pushed the pill under the mattress, and Star never noticed a thing.
He smoked some grass—that very strong grass that made her feel sick, then he made her smoke it too, and when he saw she wasn’t inhaling, his eyes got that glittery look. He made her inhale, twisting her left arm up behind her back so the pain was excruciating. He made her smoke almost an entire joint, and she hadn’t eaten all day, and she could feel it start to twist about in her head and make her fears very large—huge physical things, like great birds that came swooping down at her, then drove her over some precipice and into a pit.
She lay beside him, trying to fight these birds off. Beside her, Star was busy; he was doing something she did not want to watch. She could hear him undo his zipper. She could hear his hands move, feel body movements, hear the alteration in his breath. She could sense stealth, and also desperation. Finally, when she could bear it no longer, and the birds had retreated for a while, she opened her eyes cautiously and looked down, under her lids.
He was erect now. He knew, it seemed, how to arouse himself. As she watched, she saw him take up the gun again and felt a dart of pure fear; then she saw that the gun was to be part of this ritual. He stroked his penis with the barrel of the gun; his flesh quivered. Mina shut her eyes tight. There were more furtive movements, then his body jerked sharply: Christ, he said, Christ…
Mina wanted to be sick. She was shaking with fear and disgust and pity and love. She thought, I must wait; I must wait.
It was dawn when her chance came. She could hear the birds outside begin singing; she watched a thin gray light begin to edge the curtains. It must be seven-thirty, perhaps nearing eight. Star’s eyes were closed, his breathing regular. She inched toward the edge of the bed; just as she was about to rise, his hand shot out and gripped her wrist.
“Star,” she said in a whisper. “I don’t feel too good. It’s that grass. I have to be sick…”
She thought he might insist on coming with her to the bathroom, but he did not. He turned and gave her a long, still look with his blue-black eyes. He looked into her and through her, and Mina thought: he knows; he knows I’m going to betray him.
He couldn’t have known, though, because he let her go. She padded out to the little bathroom; she was still dressed, but her feet were bare. She didn’t dare to take her shoes—then he would certainly suspect.
In the bathroom she felt the waves of nausea pick her up and toss her forward and back. She was sweating badly; she was terrified she might pass out. She vomited several times, and began to feel a little better. She stole a look over her shoulder, then turned on all the faucets in the bath: almost at once, and just as she had hoped, the pipes began to rattle and cough. She hoped the plumbing was noisy enough to drown the sound of her escape.
She fled down the stairs, expecting him to shout, grab her from behind at any second. She fought with the bolts and the locks on the front door, and when it opened, half fell into the street. She began running, at random, first this way, then that, until she was in a maze of small streets and was sure at last that he could not be pursuing her. She leaned against a wall, tears streaming down her face. She fought to control her own breathing, but she couldn’t seem to get enough air. She took great gulps of cold air, then she realized she was about to be sick again, so she bent over the gutter and coughed up bile.
A woman was passing with a little dog on a leash; the woman gave her a look of disgust and averted her face.
All Mina could think about then was calling home. She could hear her father’s voice. But when she finally found a telephone, she couldn’t make the operator understand: she tried again and again, wasting time.
Then another idea came to her that had been there at the back of her mind all along. That man and woman she had overheard in the rue St. Séverin: she knew the man’s name because the woman had used it. She knew the name of their hotel—the St. Vincent. Mina was sure she also knew who they were: she’d figured it out during the night. They were private detectives hired by her father. For all she knew, her father might be with them in Paris right now, looking for her, searching for her.
Mina had no idea where she was, or where the St. Vincent was.
She kept stopping passersby to ask them, but when they saw her clothes and her bare feet and her dyed hair, and when they smelled the vomit and saw the tears, their faces closed up. They didn’t want to know; they’d start turning away, and when she tried to catch hold of them and plead, they’d get angry and shake her off.
She could have gone to a policeman, of course. She saw two as she staggered then ran the last few yards of a street called the boulevard St. Michel; they were standing in the wide, busy street beyond, which was filled with traffic. She looked at the river beyond that. A bus hissed past her, very close. Mina jumped back, terrified. No, she thought, not the police. She didn’t want Star to be harmed, arrested; she wanted him to be stopped and helped. She wanted him to be taken to a doctor, to some quiet, soothing, hospital place.
No, not the police, she thought, and scurried across the street to the bridge, weaving between the hooting cars. Even then, when she was on the bridge, she didn’t see it. A woman she stopped, a woman kinder than the rest, turned and pointed it out.
“Mais
, il est là,” she said. “En face, vous voyez…”
And then, seeing Mina had not understood even this simple statement, she took her by the shoulders and pointed. And Mina saw it—a huge gray castle of a place: the St. Vincent; the name was written in curly bronze writing, huge letters, just above its entrance.
It all took so long, Mina thought. Every second seemed a minute, every minute an hour. Even when she was finally safe in some assistant manager’s office, even when the man called Rowland finally appeared, she could not seem to make him understand.
“Oh, hurry,” she cried, “you must hurry. He’s going in as a student, that’s what he plans. He has his admission ticket, he showed it to me. And he’s ill. He didn’t hurt me, you mustn’t think that. But he needs a doctor, and—”
She knew what the problem was: it was herself. She could not stop shaking or crying. The man called Rowland was kind: she could see he was trying to calm her and trying to understand, but all the information she had to give him was tangled up in her head.
The manager man seemed less angry now and sent for some water. The Englishman helped her into a chair and took her hand in his.
“Sip the water slowly,” he said. “Take your time, Mina…”
“There is no time—” She sprang to her feet. “We have to be quick. It’s today. It’s this morning. He has the gun, and the ammunition. Look, look…”
That was the moment, she thought later, when the Englishman began to understand; when she pulled out the gun catalogue which she had taken when Star was washing the previous night.
She pulled it out, unrolled it, flourished it in his face. Her hands were trembling and her voice was unsteady, but he was beginning to understand: she watched the realization dawn in his eyes:
“This is what he’s going to use…” She stabbed her fingers at the picture of a gun. “He’ll wait—until this Lazare man takes his bow—that’s what he said. Then he’s—He won’t really do it, I’m sure he won’t. It’s just that he’s sick. He says he’ll move down the aisle from the back, and—He doesn’t hate them, Maria and Jean Lazare. He says he does, but he wept when she died. It was the night she died that he bought this…”
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