The priest lapsed into silence for the longest time. Brandy and Ray waited and, finally, with a strong voice and no hint of hesitation, Trevelyan said, “Yes. I will go with you to the castle.”
Ray poured another round and, together, they drank their drinks - late into the night and early into the morning.
II - The Dead of the Legend
One
Marcel Fournier was dead on his feet. His sleeplessness had been further aggravated by – of all things in quaint little Paradis – sirens. Sirens in the middle of the night as if they were in Paris. The long night crawled into a long morning.
Fournier had just poured himself a cup of coffee and was headed for his desk when the curtain to the back room came open. He scowled at Loup. His underling looked like hell. His eye was a swollen mess, his nose a purple abomination, his lower lip pulped meat. And a woman was responsible. Pathetic. “Is everything ready?”
Loup nodded. Apparently, it hurt to talk. Pathetic.
“Be sure. I do not want any mistakes. The shipment tonight is going to make…” Fournier stopped abruptly, his cup halfway to his lips, his thought half expressed… staring through the front window. He could not believe his eyes.
There they were, across the street, marching on his shop like gun fighters in one of their westerns; the mean little American bitch (with her huge purse), the big American (with the dead sister) and, of all things, a priest (and what did that bastard want?). “Do you see this?”
Loup joined his boss at the window. He too wondered if he could believe his eye. “These Americains are crazy.” The usual nastiness in Loup's voice, Fournier noted, had been replaced by disbelief - and fear.
The trio stopped out front. A discussion followed which, to Fournier and Loup, played like a bizarre pantomime. The woman was soon angered by something the big man said. Her reply sent his arms into the air. The priest, true to form in Fournier's opinion, added nothing. Whatever their debate they, apparently, came to an agreement. The couple left the priest, headed in.
Fournier returned to his desk and shuffled papers as the bell over the door sounded. When it ceased, without looking up, he said, “No tours today.”
“We didn't come for a tour.” The big man re-introduced himself, re-introduced the woman, then added, “We need your help.”
Fournier looked up. His face, usually a threat, was now a question mark. “My help?” He dropped the papers he wasn't reading. “You and your little bitch beat one of my men.” He pointed to the pulped and purple Loup. “You interfere with my business. You come here as agents of the Gendarmerie. And you ask for my help?”
“Your man left my sister alone at the castle. He may or may not have had a direct hand in her death, but he certainly contributed. He deserved worse than he got and you'd have done the same. As for your business, we don't know anything about it and don't want to. As for the Gendarmerie, they're half convinced we're helping you and neither of us give a damn what they think. We're here for personal reasons, nothing else.”
“The priest?” Fournier asked nodding toward the window. “What has that worthless bastard to do with this?”
Geez, and Brandy thought he had issues with the church! “We asked for his help,” Ray said. “He agreed.”
“Now we're asking for yours,” Brandy added.
Fournier stared, amazed, annoyed and impressed by the Americans' temerity; if not their tenacity. He considered offering them a drink and then, with equal sincerity, considered shooting them both. It was an odd sensation not knowing whether to laugh or explode. Without consciously choosing, he went with the former – and roared.
“You… you are crazy, mon ami. You are both crazy. You do not know when to be afraid. But I like you because you are crazy.” He slapped his desk, decided. He was as good as any damned priest. “So… what is it you want? How is it I can help you?”
“We're going back to the castle this afternoon; the two of us and Father Trevelyan. We intend to retrace my sister's steps and find out what happened to her.”
“The castle is mine. I own it. I have not given you permission to go there.”
An icy moment passed. “You're right,” Brandy said, breaking the tension. “You're right, Mr. Fournier. We would really like to return to your castle and retrace Vicki's steps, if we're able. We request your permission.”
She looked Fournier in the eyes, confidently but without defiance.
“And if I agree?”
Ray jabbed a thumb in Loup's direction without taking his eyes off the boss. “In that case… we'll need him. He was there.”
Loup looked like a cornered animal. Bruised and beaten he flashed hatred at Brandy and Ray as their 'request' sank in. Then he looked to Fournier displaying cowardice with his working eye.
For the first time in a long time, Fournier actually felt something for Loup – pity. He laughed again, a joyless exhalation, and shooed the Americans toward the door. “Aller à l'enfer.”
Neither Brandy nor Ray needed any translation. 'Go to hell' was pretty much 'Go to hell' in any language. But they needed Loup's help and Brandy was not willing to give up. “If you give it some thought, Mr. Fournier, you'll find it's in your best interest.”
He eyed Brandy, allowed himself a base hunger, then turned it off. She wouldn't be worth the trouble. “How – my interest?”
“I was at the Gendarmerie station when you were questioned. They have already hauled you in because of what happened at the castle; perhaps because of what Loup did. They will again until they solve these murders. Is he worth that hassle?”
Loup pulled a gun on Brandy. “Like Fournier said, you can go to hell.”
What followed startled and impressed the drug dealer; the combination of instinct and training only a leader of men can appreciate. The American, big as he was, jumped, snapped a kick to Loup's hand that sent the gun into the air. He landed, pivoted then kicked him on the sternum. Loup crashed, backwards, ass over tea kettle. To finish the trick, Ray caught the gun as it came back down. He offered Fournier the gun butt first.
The drug dealer took it shaking his head. “I like you, mon ami. But you are more than crazy. You are suicidal.”
“What if it were your sister?”
Fournier considered the question. He studied Loup, rising from the floor and dabbing his aches with his fingertips; his chest, his eye, his lip, and now his ass. Pathetic. Fournier turned back and nodded. “Take him.”
Loup opened his mouth, but nothing came out, making him look like a landed trout. He tried again and his question arrived full of air and incredulity. “What?!”
“You're going with them.”
“Why should I?”
“For the same reason you do everything. Because I say so. This whole thing is bad for my business. It draws attention to me. I do not like attention.”
“Can't you just get rid of them?” It wasn't a question. It was a plea.
Fournier looked from the biker and his woman to their companion in the street. He shook his head. “Killing two Americans and a priest would also draw attention. You'll go and help them any way you can.” He turned to Brandy and Ray. “For my assistance, my crazy American friends, I am never going to see either of you again.”
They asked to leave at four, as if it were the last tour of the day, and Fournier consented. For his part, he turned over the keys to the castle gate (the grounds had just been released by the police) and assured them Loup would be among them. The deal was struck and Brandy and Ray left Fournier's Tour of Terror for the last time.
“Crazy,” Fournier said, watching them go. “These Americans are crazy.”
Brandy and Ray traded sighs of relief as they rejoined Father Trevelyan outside. It hadn't gone smoothly, but it had gone and that was what was important. Both nodded - giving him the good news. He sighed too.
It was then the trio heard a tisking like a chattering squirrel and turned to see Felix, Brandy's original tour guide, vying for their attention from the corner of the build
ing. He pointed at Ray and whispered, “Monsieur. Monsieur.”
As Ray and Brandy drew near, they saw Eve, Felix's red-haired girl, there behind him.
Felix was having difficulty. He opened his mouth but nothing came out. He reset his lips and tried again. The second attempt was better; dry but audible. “I… I was listening, behind the curtain, from the back room. If Fournier knew he would kill me.”
Ray shrugged. Their presence was no secret. “Listening for what?”
“When you go to the castle,” Felix said, “I want to go with you.”
You would have thought he'd kicked Brandy. “You didn't care the other day,” she shouted, startling the others. “Why do you care now?”
“Easy.”
“Well, he didn't.”
Felix looked nervously from Brandy to Eve, then back to Ray. He took Ray by the arm and led him away. “Eve, my girl, she is angry with me. She often is. I can not blame her. She does not want me working for Fournier. She is a good girl. She says doing right is more important than money. I have never found that to be true.”
Ray smiled but stifled it. Felix was painfully serious.
“I am not a bad person. But not being bad, Eve says, is not the same as being good. I have cheated people but I have never hurt anyone - really hurt them. I had nothing to do with your sister. But people will talk. I know if we are called murderers I will never get out of here… and I will lose Eve.”
“Brandy believes you know more than you've said.”
“I do not. But I feel responsible. I would like to come with you. I will answer as I am able and help you discover what happened to your sister.”
“What have the Templars to do with this?”
“Nothing! What could they possibly have to do with this? The Templars are nothing but eight old graves and a legend. I do not believe in the Templar ghosts. I have been selling them to tourists for too long.”
Ray turned and looked to Brandy. “You thought he knew something before.”
Brandy nodded. But before she could speak she was interrupted by an unmistakable voice.
“Felix.” Fournier stood in his shop doorway. “Felix, let us talk… alone.”
Despite Eve's obvious disapproval, and the others' concern, Felix disappeared around the rear of the building with his drug dealing boss.
They followed a stone path to the rear fenced-in yard with Fournier leaning, almost threateningly, on the young man's shoulder. “You are a good boy, Felix. You are stupid but you are a good boy. I have treated you like my own son.”
“I must be done, Fournier… for Eve. I must go.” If Felix didn't know better, he'd swear he saw real pain in Fournier's eyes. He couldn't let it matter now. “I must go. But I would like to help these Americans before I do. I owe them.”
“Never do anything for anyone else.”
“I owe Eve.”
He laughed. “Especially a woman.” He ran his hand across his lower lip and stared hard at the young man. “You would leave me now? Today?”
“I should have left before now.”
“This is gratitude?”
“I am grateful. But I feel I have no choice.”
“If you leave me now, you are done. You don't come back.”
“Unless you kill me I'm leaving.”
What a morning it was turning out to be. What a very strange morning. “Go.” Fournier almost spit the word. “But do not come back. When you are broke, and you will be broke, remember the bank is closed to you and your little bitch.”
Felix nodded slowly. In his mind's eye, the only safety net he'd ever known was cut to ribbons. And he held the scissors. The image vanished when he saw a cold steel gun pointed at his chin. Fournier cocked it – with mist in his eyes.
“If you were anyone else, knowing what you know, I would shoot you now. Take your last tour of the castle. Help these crazy Americans. But know this… if you say anything to anyone about my business, or tonight's shipment, you will wish the Templar knights had come back from the grave and gotten hold of you.” He patted Felix's cheek then slid the gun back into the small of his back.
On the opposite side of the fence, unknown to either of them, Jerome Rousseau sat silently rubbing down a boiled animal skull, his own ears pricked like a predatory creature, breathlessly listening to every word spoken. When Fournier and his man ended their discussion and left the yard, Jerome quietly crept back into his tattoo parlor. He had a phone call to make.
“It is settled,” Felix told Brandy as Eve took his hand. “We will go with you.”
A blue Peugeot, its toy horn blaring, raced up and stopped beside them. A tin can with two doors, Ray noted, while Brandy thought, 'How cute'. Their favorite reporter was at the wheel.
“Are you all right?” Aimee shouted as she jumped out. “I was to cover a story on a fire last night at the Le Alexandre. They wouldn't let me in. The fire department insisted I talk to the police. The police would say nothing. I find from someone in the kitchen the fire was in your room. Were you hurt?”
“No,” Brandy assured her, “We're all right.”
“What happened? What caused the fire?”
“You wouldn't believe it,” Ray said stiffly.
For the first time, Aimee examined the suspicious looking group; Brandy and Ray, Father Trevelyan, the tour guide Felix and his girlfriend and, in the doorway, Fournier watching all with an expression that kept changing. Her reporter's senses were tingling. “What is going on? What am I missing?”
The group traded looks in silence. Finally, the priest said, “We're, eh, ah, organizing an expedition.”
Fournier sniggered.
“We're going back to the castle,” Ray explained. He turned to the group. “We'll go at four.”
“I'm going too!” Aimee said.
“Christ, we're going to need a bus.”
Fournier laughed uproariously. Then he drew a set of keys from his pocket and dangled them. “That fat bastard Blanc has released my property but disallowed my tours until further notice. For now I'm out of the business.” Fournier threw the keys to Felix. “Consider it my last contribution to the ghost hunters.”
He turned and, laughing again, entered his shop.
Two
Shortly after four, the gray battleship that was Fournier's tour bus, still displaying its Tour de Terreur banners, arrived at the castle. Ray pulled down the police warning tape and opened Fournier's padlock. Then, with Felix at the helm, the bus revved through the castle gate, groaned beneath the arch and sagged to a stop near the courtyard.
“All ashore,” Ray said. He turned back to see he'd only confused the passengers; particularly Eve and Aimee. Apparently they were still in France. Ray shooed them to the door. “Everybody out.”
The group piled from the bus, pulling hats and sunglasses into place or, in the case of Trevelyan, squinting against the late afternoon sun. Everyone, that is, except Loup. He stretched across a rear seat, arms folded, legs crossed, eyes closed. He was an island unto himself, above and outside the loathsome Americans who'd forced him there.
Ray stood over him frowning. “Do you need a special invitation?”
Loup condescended to open his working eye, was unimpressed with what he saw, and closed it again.
When Ray told him to get up, Loup ignored him. When Ray jerked him from the seat and propelled him down the aisle, Loup regained his balance, straightened his collar and locked his jaw in defiance. And when Ray shoved him off the bus into the crowd, he finally ran out of attitude. “All right, my rough American friend,” Loup sneered. With a plaster strip across his nose and a purple mound where his left eye ought to have been he failed miserably at looking tough but didn't let that stop him trying.
Ray looked the group up and down. Aimee had a backpack, Brandy had her purse, Trevelyan had a large black shoulder satchel containing God only knew what, Felix had Eve, and Loup had his bruises; all ready to begin.
“Well,” Loup demanded, “what now?”
Brand
y and Ray shared a look; amazed such a loathsome creature could show so much contempt for others. “We reconstruct what happened the other evening.”
“This is stupid. Would it not make more sense to let the police…?”
“Nothing makes sense,” Ray yelled cutting him off. “We're not waiting for the police. We are going to recreate the tour from that day as closely as we're able. Which means Brandy, Felix, and you are going to tell us everything you remember and everything you did.” He stuck his finger in Loup's face. “And, if you know what's good for you, you'll do everything you can to help. And you won't leave anything out.”
It was the definition of 'unheard of' for a quiet country village; Lieutenant Colonel Petit and six gendarmes loaded rounds into rifles, ratcheted shells into shot guns, and secured their sidearms outside of their station. As each weapon was checked, it was loaded through the door on the passenger side of a blue van (red and white stripes and Gendarmerie emblazoned on each door). All down the line the soldiers prepared, it seemed, not for an arrest but a battle.
The deep blue sky, streaked with flames of red-orange as the sun sank, threw long shadows on the ground. Jerome Rousseau stood in one, at the corner of the building, watching the gendarmes and looking as if he'd rather be anywhere else.
Then Colonel Blanc broke from the station descending the steps at a clip. Petit shouted the unit to attention and the soldiers fell in. Blanc liked what he saw. It was good to be king. “Are you ready, Lieutenant Colonel?”
“Oui, Colonel.”
Chest out, gut nearly sucked in, Blanc paced before the unit. “Men…” (Five men, one woman, but it was the military), “we have that bastard!” He waved a fist in the air. “We have him! Fournier has a shipment, no doubt cocaine, coming in tonight. And we are going to receive it for him. We will catch them red-handed.”
The Devil's Bed Page 15
