Chase paid for two beers and brought them, one in each hand, through the tight clumps of cafe patrons. The crowd outside was applauding the stage’s bowing line of color and exhaustion. Unable to find Regi’s table, Chase thought he came out of the cafe a bit differently than going in. Then he turned and saw that he was in the right place, only that the table was now occupied by another couple. He turned and looked around so quickly that the beer sloshed from the glasses to his shoes, seeping around his leather tongue and into his socks.
“Shit,” he said. “Here,” he told the new couple, putting the beers down on the table. “Drink.”
From atop an empty chair, he surveyed the interior of the cafe, then jumped down and combed the tables outside. When he’d run out onto the square all he could do was move his toes in the dampness of the ale. Regi had vanished. He realized he couldn’t even tell Gaudin, or the others, about his brief meeting with Regi if he was to seem at all wary to the paths down which this fallen man seemed proficient in disappearing. He saw the table where Regi had been sitting. The couple toasted their glasses. On the table lay Regi’s sling.
Chase retraced his steps back to the hotel. The market stands had completely disappeared. Men in blue jump suits scoured the streets and alleys clean using hoses coupled up to fire hydrants. Chase turned into the alley that led toward the hotel, the shops still and empty, only one yet displaying its goods on the street—a rack of loose shoes. He had long thought there was something suspect about shoes displayed in such a way, mismatched, in only one or two sizes, as though the leather had recently been worn by people with fates he did not care to imagine. He was the same way about buying clothing too cheaply. Furniture for nothing. There was misery behind these things.
The same attendant at the front desk greeted him when he entered. “You have a message.”
The note on the hotel stationary was from Toro, along with the number to his cellular phone.
Ten minutes later, Toro swept up in front of the hotel in his Citröen and Chase climbed in. Jean-Luc Ponty played from a cassette and Chase groaned. Toro turned it off.
“What’s this about?” Chase asked, as Toro drove down the street, around the arch and into the outskirts of Orange.
“Look in there,” he said, pointing to an envelope on the dash.
Chase took out a sheaf of legal documents. “You found where the winery is,” Chase said, thumbing through the copies that made up the winery’s deed. “You’re the best, Toro. You know the lay of the land.” It was a wonderful break.
“I know a little. A bottler recognized the label from working there. It’s a small vineyard south of here.”
“I had a long talk with a local waitress,” Chase said, looking for the estate’s address.
“Still scouting for models?”
“No, we had a serious political discussion.”
“What about?”
“Serious local politics.”
“And what’ve you learned about our politics?”
“Scary shit, Toro. Potentially scary. She said–”
“She?”
“This waitress.”
“An expert on local politics?”
“Yes. Her uncle once tried to run for mayor.”
Toro held up his hands from the steering wheel. “Okay.”
“This waitress was telling me about the party’s control down here and in the other towns. Nothing I didn’t know. But the other things, the efforts to get rid of all the books in the library not penned by Frenchmen, the hiring of family members, the harassment of immigrants—her husband among them. The nationalism, what was done to the Jewish cemetery.”
Toro sighed. “I’m no party member,” he said. “Remember, we run the opposition paper. But you can’t take these things too seriously,” he said. “It’s small town life. It’s a fact that cranium sizes are several millimeters smaller here than in the cities.”
“Really?”
“You have been drinking, huh?”
“Yes,” Chase admitted.
“Look through those papers more carefully.”
Chase leafed through the pages of legalese. His eye arrested on the name of the vineyard’s current owner. “What is this? A joke?”
“It’s real.”
“It can’t be.”
“It is. Bona fide.”
Chase spoke the name out loud, pointing out the line to Toro as Toro slowed at the scene of a traffic accident ahead, just where the road crossed the Rhône river. “It says David Ferriswheel. It’s signed by him.”
“I thought you’d be interested.”
“And look at the date! That was notarized only a few weeks ago. Do you have a deed of transfer or something?”
“That’s another thing,” Toro said. “There were none. Just this.”
Chase felt bewildered. Why would David have bought or been given the vineyard? Had it been some kind of hush payment to stop him from exposing Wrest? No, that seemed unlikely, as they hadn’t found any evidence to suggest David was writing anything damaging. Just a book on Chopin, though there were also those entries in Baptiste’s journal. Though nothing seemed impossible to Chase at the moment. Then again, perhaps Wrest had thought to keep David quiet by seeming to give him a piece of the action, then made sure he didn’t live long enough to partake in it. Or, to pass his smuggling past into the indefensible lap of a dead man. Better than an alibi.
Toro pulled to the side of the road just before the two-lane bridge. Chase could see at least three police cars, an ambulance, and two men from a swift water rescue unit. For the first time, he wondered why they were driving north, not south to the vineyard. The sky was dimming and the lights from atop the vehicles lit the nearest trees in colored sweeps. Toro cut the engine.
“Why are we stopping?”
“This is why I called,” Toro said. “Come on.”
They maneuvered down the gravel embankment to where the view of the Rhône was blocked by thick undergrowth. The air smelled of urine. Scrawny cats darted across their path as a military policeman came towards them through the weeds. Toro pointed at Chase. The policeman nodded, and Chase recognized him from the night on the hill above the performance of Don Giovanni. The policeman didn’t recognize him and passed back up the embankment to the line of parked cars.
“What’s it about?” Chase asked.
“I hoped you might be able to do an identification.”
“Of what?”
“A wreck. The people inside.”
Chase slowed. “Why me?” When Toro placed a hand on his shoulder, he knew he couldn’t retreat.
“Something you said. I could be wrong, but your descriptions sounded similar.”
“To?”
“The man who shot at you, who pushed Wrest’s son off the bridge.”
“Baptiste? You think he’s the man in this wreck?”
“I could be wrong,” Toro said.
The river came into view. Rough sand banks divided the width of the river into swift rivulets. He could see the overpass where a policeman stood, and in his mind, the airborne flight of the car that came into his view ahead, half submerged along the shore where it had landed. His stomach grew weak.
It was hard to tell what make the car was, other than a sedan. The water washed around the rear bumper, lapped at the back window and swept around the right side. The front was crumpled into sand that had an oily rainbow sheen. The driver had been pulled from the wreck and lay on a stretcher on the shore, a plastic sheet covering his body. As they neared the wreck, men from the rescue unit were in the river, working on prying open the opposite door of the car. The current swept their feet to the surface.
A policeman approached them, took Chase’s name and address, and lifted the plastic lining. Chase turned away and Toro touched him on his back.
“No,” Chase said. “It’s okay. It’s okay. It’s not Baptiste.” He took a closer look. The driver had Baptiste’s stature, but he was definitely French and lacked the lighter features of the
Dane. Even though the accident had caved in the man’s face, he knew he had never seen the man before. “It’s not him,” he repeated, and realized only then his relief. “How did it happen?” he asked. “Driving too fast?”
The policeman dropped the plastic sheet. “Witnesses say a car ran them off the road.”
Chase shuddered at the idea of flying through the air, thudding silently here on the trash-strewn bank—it was not a pleasant end. But Chase had the good sense to keep his distance from the scene. He had learned this at the paper and was glad some of this callousness had survived. Distance, sometimes, meant everything. High up in the sky, Chase spotted Venus.
The river changed sound. Chase saw that the divers had managed to open the passenger door, which now swung out into the current and diverted the water through the car and out the already open driver’s door. Though it was dim, the inside of the car seemed to harbor a small maelstrom.
“I’ll take you back,” Toro said. As he followed Toro, Chase watched one of the divers walking stiffly to shore with the body of a woman in his arms. Chase was stopped by what the diver carried. The limp body was familiar, the forehead high and bright, and the hair lighter yet. Chase backed up slightly, his sole sinking into the wet sand.
“Shit,” he said. “Shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit.”
They lay Bombay on a stretcher next to the covered man. The water had unbuttoned the top of her blouse, leaving belts of accumulated sand around her stomach. She didn’t resemble her thin self. But it was her. Her eyes were open, her face an expression of calm contradicting the odd flatness of her forehead where she’d doubtless struck her head. Thick, slow lines of blood ran from the corners of each eye, like the tears of miracle statues. He bent down and kissed his fingertips and placed them over Bombay’s eyes and drew them closed, her eyes cold, like ice. He closed his own and felt nothing but grief and fear and when he opened his eyes again she was still there.
“Come,” Toro said. “Let’s get something strong in you. It’s on me.”
Chapter 19
A Doberman and its twin snarled at Gaudin as he stepped out from a taxi at ten minutes to midnight. He heard his name called on the dark warm wind as he walked toward the hotel. He turned and saw the two dogs on velvet paws, standing in the entrance of a bar.
“Don’t worry about them,” came a different voice from inside. “As long as you’re a dog, too, they’ll let you in.”
Gaudin entered and spotted Chase at the counter with his arm around a man’s shoulders. Chase had called him about Bombay. There was no one else in the bar.
“Monsieur,” the bartender said.
“A beer.”
The dump was tiny, just a few tables, and a bar top nicked by the loitering of years of beer glasses. A strawberry-scented candle burned, more to mask the dogs, Gaudin guessed, than for the benefit of the patrons. The floor was tile and felt cold, even through his shoes. Gaudin carried his drink toward Chase. “Every time you call me, it’s bad news.” Gaudin nodded at the man beside Chase. He was a young man with uncombed black hair, an unshaven face, and paranoid eyes. The bar top was wet below the man’s eyes.
“This is Joël,” Chase said. “Joël, this is my friend Gaudin. The one I told you about.”
“He has to pay,” Joël said.
Chase sighed. “This is getting bad.”
“I agree,” Gaudin said, feeling uneasy.
Joël pounded the bar, sending concentric rings quivering in Gaudin’s foamless beer. “It keeps hitting me!” he said, his voice vice-like. “She’s gone. When is it going to stop hitting me?”
Gaudin wished he could shut the kid up. Every word he said made Gaudin feel worse. Wrest had been good to him in the past. Quick, easy jobs that were well paid, not these long drawn-out affairs with new complications. Who was Wrest using?
The bartender refilled Joël’s drink and moved to stand outside with his two dogs. The dogs snapped at each other, then settled on the ground beside the man’s legs, using his shoes as pillows. “A shame,” he heard the man mutter to himself.
“Joël and Bombay were together,” Chase said.
“In the car?”
“No. That was just someone giving her a lift, the police think, maybe a pirate taxi driver. Though he was Baptiste’s size, looked remotely like him. Joël came down from Paris today.”
“What can I do?” Joël said. “I’d be better if the pain stayed. But it keeps hitting me,” he said, beating his chest with his fist. “She’s gone. She’s gone. She’s gone.”
Gaudin didn’t know what to say to Joël. Who was he to tell him that he couldn’t make things right. Gaudin sipped his beer. It was warm and earthy. He set it down behind the top of the bar so he wouldn’t have to look at it.
“I’ll go,” Joël said. “I’m drunk.” He slid unsteadily from his stool.
“Nonsense,” Chase said. “You’re in no shape.”
“Let’s take him across the street,” Gaudin said. Joël was thin but the beer, or perhaps simply the grief, made his body heavy. The hotel elevator was out of order again. Joël seemed heavier and heavier with each step up to their floor. The carpet had been cleaned in Chase’s room, the bed made, and the air smelled like pine. Gaudin told Joël to lie down, then took off the man’s shoes and set them aside.
“It’s so sad. She was so young,” Chase said. “I feel horrible. Half of me wants to drive as quickly as I can from all of this.”
“And the other?” Gaudin asked, as Joël muttered, then passed out.
“The other half is saying the same thing.”
“Let’s let him sleep,” Gaudin said.
In the other room, Gaudin shared his mattress with Chase. “How are you holding up?”
“Better than Joël,” Chase said. “Jade still being released tomorrow?”
Gaudin nodded. He didn’t know if he should tell Chase how close she’d come to not pulling through. He listened to the crickets outside, the faint sound of water from the creek that flowed past the hotel. He heard Chase swallow. “The doctor told me she drank something like Vin Mariani, a cocaine wine you could buy at the turn of the century. Last century.” He paused. “Everyone drank it. It was endorsed by the Pope.”
“But she was so sick.”
“It was stronger than Vin Mariani. It probably held as much cocaine as could be dissolved. This cocaine wine wasn’t meant for drinking. Just smuggling. There was an extraction method.”
“It tasted bad,” Chase said. “Not like wine at all. If only Jade had known how badly.”
“The doctor told me the cocaine didn’t do much to her directly. She probably felt little from it—it takes too long to go from the stomach into the blood, then brain. But there’s something that happens when wine and cocaine are consumed together.” Gaudin climbed out of bed to yesterday’s clothes and pulled a piece of paper from his shirt pocket. The doctor had scribbled a diagram and a few terms for him. He found the word by moonlight. “Cocaethylene,” he said aloud to Chase. “It’s supposed to have the same affect as cocaine, but lasts much longer. When they pumped her stomach, enough had already entered her bloodstream, and brain.” He climbed back into bed. “She had a couple seizures while you were away. I didn’t know about them until today. But she’s okay now,” he said.
“Really?”
“Yes,” he said, which felt so refreshing a word in his mouth, cool and sweet and rare, like some tropical fruit. Truth.
“I’ve been thinking something.”
“What?”
“How do we know Bombay dropped off the wine?”
“Because it’s Wrest’s motivation for running her off the road.”
“What if Wrest dropped off the wine, but made it seem as though Bombay had delivered it?”
“Then we’d have a sample to test.”
“You’re right. So forget that,” Chase said. “But what if Regi dropped it off?”
“Why would he?”
“If Regi found out that Bombay is also o
n Wrest’s payroll, this might have been his means of revenge. She took some of the wine herself, remember? He could make it look like she was going to turn them in. And he’d have an excuse to kill her, then.”
“It’s dangerous to make everyone into killers,” Gaudin said.
“What do we do once we have the results of the tests on the wine and the bottle?”
“Then we can approach Wrest,” Gaudin said. Blackmailing for protection seemed the only option, though he felt too old for it, and uncertain that they had covered all their options. They would have to do a better job than Bombay had.
“Shit,” Chase said.
“What now?”
“I just remembered. We can’t trace Wrest to the vineyard. I have a copy of the deed. It’s made out in David Ferriswheel’s name.”
“You’re kidding,” Gaudin said, sensing Wrest’s clever move. “What about a deed of transfer?”
“Missing.”
“Of course.” Gaudin climbed out of bed and picked up the phone. It rang eight times before a girl answered. “Give me Wrest,” Gaudin said.
“He’s asleep.” He thought he recognized the voice as belonging to the girl Wrest had done in his apartment.
“Wake him.”
“I will not. Who is this?”
“Gaudin.”
“It’s Gaudin,” she said, away from the phone.
He didn’t have to wait long for Wrest to take the receiver.
“Do you know what time it is? My secretary is good at taking messages, you know.”
“This is going too far,” Gaudin said. “It’s too much now. Jade, Bombay.”
“Who’s Jade?”
“I’m telling you it’s enough.”
“Why so uncooperative all of a sudden? I’ve got other jobs for you. Listen. Why don’t you come to the house tomorrow, say for an early dinner. Bring your entourage. You need to enjoy yourself down here. Take your mind off accidents.”
The Path Of All That Falls Page 27
