“If you can afford two first class tickets, you can probably swing for a phone charger.”
“It’s no big deal. I charged up before we got on the plane. I’ll just turn it on when I need to use it. Those damn international fees will eat you alive anyway.”
Rosenfeld scrunched her eyebrows. “You ever heard the term penny wise and pound foolish?”
Crow turned to her. “Let me explain something. I don’t mind spending money on things that are worth it. Like first class tickets, for example. What I do mind is wasting money. Takes money away from things I like to spend my money on. Like first class tickets.” He smiled at the logic.
“Whatever. It’s your money.” Rosenfeld closed her eyes and sunk back luxuriously in her seat. “I’ve never been able to sleep on a plane. Then again, I’ve never flown first class to Europe. Pardon me while I give it a shot.”
Crow reclined his own seat and reflected on the reality of their predicament. He’d researched a lot of books but never one where his own life hung in the balance. What had he gotten himself into? Everyone kept telling him to leave it alone, to suspend the chase. His better judgment told him so, but he couldn’t. More than not being able to go home, it was a burning curiosity. The story had everything his imagination could have ever conjured up. He had to see it through. He stared out into the nothingness that lay outside his window until he could no longer keep his eyes open.
School would be letting out any moment. It was his mother’s day off at the diner. She told him to come straight home after school. Benson Crow gathered up his backpack and hurried up the river embankment. The afternoon sun beat down on his head. He could feel the burn in his calves, still he pumped the pedals faster.
Upon rounding the corner onto his street, he noticed something different right away. A strange car sat in his driveway. An ugly green one that looked vaguely familiar, but he couldn’t quite place it. He dropped the bike in the dirt and opened the screen door to the kitchen. He wondered who was visiting. It dawned on him where he’d seen that green car about the time he saw the gentleman who sat in the easy chair in the den beside his mother on the sofa.
“You know Vice Principal Rotch, I’m sure,” his mother said.
Benson said nothing.
“You didn’t show up for school again today,” Mr. Rotch said. “We became concerned.”
“Where have you been, Benson?”
“I’ve been down by the river.”
“What were you doing at the river?” Rotch asked.
“That’s where he goes to write,” his mother said.
Vice Principal Rotch laughed. “Is that so? You skip school and all the writing assignments so you can write?”
“Benson does have a vivid imagination,” she said.
“I should say so. That’s quite an imaginative excuse.”
“I know my son, Mr. Rotch. He’s no liar.”
“You’ll excuse me, Mrs. Crow, but I tend not to trust truants.”
“He’s not a truant.”
“In the eyes of the law he is, and he’s putting you in jeopardy, too. I can have him arrested right now. If he’s found guilty, a judge can fine you or sentence you to community service for having a truant child.”
“Me?”
“That’s right.”
“But he’s 16,” she said.
“Compulsory school age in this state is until age 17. He’s in violation of the law, which means you have to pay the price.”
“I have to pay?”
“That’s the law.”
She looked at Benson for a long moment while she spoke to the vice principal. “Are you going to have him arrested?”
Rotch rose from his seat. “No, not this time.”
“Are you going to suspend me?” Crow asked.
Rotch smirked, “That’s exactly what you’d want me to do.” He walked past Crow. A bit too close for Crow’s taste. “We’ll expect you at school in the morning, Mr. Crow. I won’t be so lenient next time. And I won’t give you the satisfaction of a suspension, but I will bet you don’t want to see your mother writing the judge a check.”
When she heard the screen door slam, she let him have it. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” She lit a cigarette and threw the lighter on the coffee table.
“I don’t know. School’s boring. I had some ideas I wanted to work on.”
“You think you’re the first kid that hated school? The rest of ‘em just suck it up and go. What makes you think you’re so special?”
Benson lowered his head. He’d heard this speech before.
“No, really,” she said. “What makes you think you’re so damn special? You think you’re better than everybody else in this town?”
He shook his head.
“I mean it. You’ve always acted like that. Like this little piece of shit town ain’t got enough going on for you. Like you somehow deserve better. Well, I got news for you, sweetie. You ain’t no better than the rest of us. You ain’t no different and you ain’t no better. You’re grounded, you hear me? You come home every day right after you’re done at the feed store. I mean it. Don’t you walk away from me when I’m talking to you!”
Crow hiked his backpack further up on his shoulder and walked down the hall to his room. He didn’t know how to tell her he lost the job at the feed store two days ago.
“Benson Crow, you come back here! Benson!”
“Benson,” Rosenfeld said again, tugging on his arm.
His senses came to life.
“You’re having a nightmare.”
“What?” He rubbed his eyes. “Sorry.” He pulled himself up in his seat.
“What on earth were you dreaming?”
“Hmm? Oh, nothing. I don’t remember.”
“Anything you want to talk about?”
He stretched his locked hands out in front of him and cracked his knuckles. “What are you, my shrink now?” he yawned.
“I’m just trying to be helpful. Maybe talking about it would—.”
“Well, I appreciate that, but there’s nothing I need to talk about.”
Rosenfeld’s expression betrayed her skepticism.
“Why do people always want to take me in like a stray dog?” Crow asked.
“Maybe they can tell behind that nasty bark there’s a lost puppy.”
“I don’t want to be anybody’s pet.”
Rosenfeld glanced over at him. “Bottling things up isn’t healthy. You know that, don’t you?”
Crow looked back at her. “Trust me, you don’t want to pop the cork on this bottle.”
Chapter Thirteen
The plane touched down at Charles de Gaulle just before eight-thirty Wednesday morning. Crow and Rosenfeld waited through customs. His eyes darted from face to face trying to catch someone staring.
“Anything to declare, monsieur?”
Crow seemed startled.
“Anything to declare?” the customs agent repeated.
“Declare? No, nothing to declare.”
“Are you here for business or pleasure?” she asked.
“Uh, business. No, pleasure.”
The agent looked at him curiously. “Which one is it, monsieur?”
“What damn difference does it make?” he asked. “Every time I come to this country you ask me that. Do you keep some kind of tally or do you do that just to annoy the foreigners?”
Rosenfeld sidled up next to him. “Honey,” she smiled at the agent. “The lady’s just doing her job. Pleasure. He’s here for pleasure.”
“I asked him,” the humorless agent said.
Crow managed a smile. “It’s pleasure. Just seeing the sights.”
The agent kept an eye on him while she stamped his passport. He moved forward and Rosenfeld pushed over her passport.
“Sorry about that,” she said. “He had a rough flight. Nothing to declare for me. Here for pleasure.”
The agent returned a sour look and stamped her passport. A supervisor observed sternly fro
m a few feet behind the agent. He watched them walk away and picked up the phone.
“For somebody who hasn’t done anything, you sure look guilty as hell,” Rosenfeld said, catching up to Crow.
“I can’t stand these frickin’ power people.”
“Attention: s’il vous plaît, restez avec vos bagages en tout temps. Tous les bagages sans surveillance seront détruits,” the sultry female voice announced over the airport loudspeakers.
Rosenfeld giggled.
“What?” Crow asked.
Then the announcer translated her message into English. “Attention: please stay with your baggage at all times. Any unattended baggage will be blown up.”
“It sounds so sexy when they say it in French,” Rosenfeld said.
A group of six French soldiers wearing battle dress uniforms, flack jackets, and maroon berets ambled past making small talk with one another. Side arms were affixed to their belts and, most conspicuously, their arms rested on automatic weapons slung from their necks. Rosenfeld stared at them.
“My God,” she said. “I feel like I’m in some sort of military dictatorship.”
“Would you rather take your chances with the terrorists?” Crow asked.
“If this is the way these people have to live, it looks like the terrorists have already won.”
“Paris has been an international battleground for decades,” Crow said. “I’m sure the people here are used to it by now.”
“Yeah, and that’s a shame.” She tried to keep pace. “Where are we going?”
“TGV station.”
“TGV?” she asked.
“It stands for Train à Grande Vitesse,” he explained.
“High-speed train,” she said.
The train station, connected to the airport, was a superstructure of white metal and glass and a great expanse of marble floor. Crow booked them two tickets on the 9:58am train then led Rosenfeld down an escalator. They waited for their train to arrive. Crow inspected the faces of the others who stood around reading their newspapers and checking their phones.
“I think we lost them,” Rosenfeld’s voice dripped with sarcasm.
He shot her a disapproving look.
“Crow, we’re almost 4,000 miles from home.”
He looked over at her then back out at the crowd. “If these folks kill with drones, then nothing is out of the question.”
“See anybody suspicious?” she asked.
“Not yet, but I don’t really know who I’m looking for.”
“Then why are you looking?”
“Just to see if someone is looking at us.”
“Well, don’t freak out and jump one of your fans. That would be embarrassing.”
He turned to her. “You think this is funny, don’t you?”
“No, I don’t think this is funny. Well, your Nervous Ned routine is rather humorous. Actually, it’s kind of irritating. You’re making me jumpy.”
“You need to take this more seriously.”
“Relax, Crow. We’re in Paris.”
Crow turned angry but tried not to raise his voice. “I just saw a man gunned down right in front of me, and I almost tripped over another dead body. I’ll be damned if I’m going to relax. We’re into something extremely dangerous.”
“Don’t you think I know that?”
“No, I don’t think you know that. I’m just being cautious.”
“A little overly cautious, if you ask me.”
“When somebody’s trying to kill you, there’s no such thing as overly cautious.”
Their attention was diverted to the train arriving. The breeze blew the ladies’ skirts as it slid into the station. The high whine faded and the brakes whispered until the locomotive came to a full stop. Passengers disembarked. Crow and Rosenfeld boarded and stowed their belongings overhead. The train glided away from the station.
“I didn’t mean to make you mad,” she said.
He gazed out the window. “I don’t think you understand the gravity of our situation.”
“I do,” she said. “I really do. It’s just that I don’t get out much. You probably figured that out already. The sudden trip to France. Flying first class. I just got caught up in the excitement. I haven’t really let myself stop and think beyond today. We are in a bit of a mess, aren’t we?”
“Yes, we are. It’s funny though. I’ve often daydreamed about disappearing somewhere in the world. Now that we’re having to do it, it’s not nearly as easy as I thought.”
“Nor as much fun,” Rosenfeld said.
After the graffiti and the decay of Paris passed from their window, it was replaced by fields of green and amber broken up by quaint villages and the occasional medieval structure. Every now and then a church spire passed in the distance. They chatted until Rosenfeld decided to curl up against the window. Crow warned her not to sleep.
“But I’m exhausted,” she complained.
“We’ll sleep tonight,” he said. “Your body will never acclimate to the new time if you give into it the first day.”
“A seasoned traveler, I see.”
“I’ve learned the hard way.”
“Do you have to travel a lot?”
“I don’t have to. I love it, actually.”
“Research for your books?”
Crow chuckled. “I write sci-fi. No amount of traveling is going to prepare you for that. I just enjoy getting away. Being someplace else.”
“You travel alone?”
He looked out the window. “I’m not married, if that’s what you were asking.”
“I wasn’t.”
“I just enjoy traveling by myself.”
“Thanks,” she said.
He hadn’t given a thought to how his comment sounded. “I don’t mean now. I just mean in general. I come over here and ride the rails for days.”
“All alone?”
“All alone.”
“What do you do with yourself?”
“I write. I sleep. I read. I get off whenever the fancy strikes me. I explore new towns and cities. Go to museums. Sample the local food.”
“You didn’t say anything about the people.”
He smiled. “I’m not much of a people person.”
“Really.”
He ignored the sarcasm. “I don’t hate them. Traveling around like this wouldn’t be much fun without other people, but I prefer to keep them at a distance.”
“I see. Is that pretty much your life story? Keeping people at a distance?”
He thought about the question. “Let’s just say I prefer to keep to myself.”
A train passing the other way screamed past their window then was gone.
“So, it’s just you and your novels.”
“I guess you could say that.”
“No time for anything or anyone else?”
He looked at her with a quizzical look. “You psychoanalyzing me again?”
“Just curious,” she said. “I like to see what makes people tick.”
“I’m really not that complicated.”
But he knew that was a lie. He tended to repaint the ordinary world into a more interesting place than it really was. The romanticized European train ride was an adventure to Crow. It was simply a means of transportation to the average European commuter. A relatively inexpensive way to get from Point A to Point B. Boring, in fact, were it not for the music coming from their earbuds or the print from their newspapers or tablets. To Crow, it was Murder on the Orient Express. He loved everything about it. The platform. The sounds. The smells. The cozy confines of first class. The claustrophobia of a sleeper car. He purposely waited to eat until he could enjoy the dining car. He mourned when the train schedules converted from the flap displays of the Solari boards to digital. He was old-fashioned that way.
“You’re more interested in your books than you are in real people.”
Crow smiled. “I find fantasy to be much more interesting than reality.”
“Maybe you should give reality a c
hance,” she said.
“Believe me, I have.”
The closer to Avignon they drew the hillier the terrain became. Small castles, or what was left of them, dotted the high ground here and there. A white glider turned lazily and followed their path before the speeding train made it just a memory. Amorphous clouds hovered over the landscape, some dark with rain. The sun fought its way to the ground between the clumps of white and gray. The hillsides grew to mountains and the dark clouds overtook the puffy ones.
An ocean away, Terrance Warner staggered to his parked car in front of his apartment in Washington, D.C. The blood was still fresh on his face. The gun was still warm in his hand. He fumbled for the key fob and unlocked the door. Throwing himself into the driver’s seat, he slammed the door and locked it. He dabbed the cut on his lip with the back of his free hand then reached down and returned the pistol to the holster attached to his thigh. He pulled the mirror down to assess the damage to his eye. It was bruised but nothing a little ice wouldn’t take care of. The sun was just starting to rise. He reached in his pocket for his phone, hit the contact, and held it to his ear. He winced looking in the mirror as the phone rang.
Crow frowned and answered, “Terrance?”
“When you said this was trouble you’d never seen before, you won’t shittin’.”
“What?”
“Two thugs. One white dude, one black. Caught me coming home from my shift. Damn, I need to pay better attention. Just locked the car and was heading up the steps to my apartment when they jumped me. White guy held me while the black dude interrogated me. Wanted to know where you were. I told him I had no idea. The dude did a number on my face. I didn’t know anything. Wouldn’t have told him if I did.”
“Oh, my God. I had no idea they’d come for you.”
“Ain’t no problem, my friend. Those two dudes wished they’d never screwed with Terrance Warner.”
“What happened?”
“I managed to bust loose long enough to reach my piece. White dude grabbed my arm. Got off a shot and I just did miss blowing the brother’s head off. Knocked me back down and the gun went flyin’. With all the commotion I guess they knew the neighbors would be coming out to see what was happening, so they bolted. Picked up my gun and aimed, but they were already around the corner.”
The First Face of Janus Page 9
