Carr squirmed. This was a very upsetting girl. He said, “The results would depend on who had inspired me.”
“Touché,” she said, and laughed.
“If I get the chance,” he promised, and they were both silent.
The food came. Beautifully laid out in small dishes, there were at least twenty hors d’oeuvres, and a large bowl of raw vegetables.
“Is there actually another course?” he asked.
“Oh, yes.” A waiter came with a bottle of rosé wine in an ice bucket. “I can’t do this very often,” she said. “Have to watch my weight.”
“You’re joking,” Carr said, remembering the slim body on the sand. “I would have thought you’re the type that never has to diet.”
“Not a chance,” she said, chewing on a crayfish. Her blond hair fell over her face, catching the sun. “I normally live on fruit, lettuce, and diluted water—plus three hours of hard exercise a day. Have to. The competition around here is fierce. I was lucky to get a job as a dancer in the first place.”
“Where do you work?”
“At the Cannes casino, in the floor show. We’re between seasons now—the winter show has closed, and the summer one doesn’t open for ten days. We’re practicing, twice a day, at the Palm Beach. Once in the morning, and then after dinner. Keeps you from stuffing yourself at dinner.”
Carr nodded. “You live in Cannes?”
“Menton.” She picked up a radish, examined it thoughtfully, and popped it into her mouth. “Actually, though, I can’t complain about the work. Not only do I have the chance to exhibit my fair body every night before the drooling masses, but I can discuss philosophy with the other girls. It’s very stimulating, I can tell you. The radishes are sour.”
“Why don’t you leave?” Carr asked again.
“You know,” the girl said, “the art in this auberge is nothing compared to what’s around here. Have you seen any of the museums? The Picasso museum in Antibes?”
“No, not this time. I was here a few years ago, and I saw it then. Picasso lives near here, doesn’t he?”
“Ummm.” She discarded the rest of the radish and tried the cucumbers. “He has a villa called La Californie, north of here. And a new wife, who barricades him in and won’t let him see anybody. It’s quite a local scandal.”
“I can imagine.”
She pushed her hair back from her face with one hand. Her fingers were slender and delicate. “You’re not really very interested in art, are you?”
“No,” Carr said, “that’s not it.” He paused, wondering how he could explain it. It wasn’t that art didn’t interest him; it was just that he had never given it much thought. He had never had the time: Carr’s girls, like his life, were relaxed, pleasant, full of fun and good times. They weren’t bright, they weren’t interesting, but they had been good sports and that had been enough.
Slightly irritated, he corrected himself mentally—that was enough. Wasn’t it?
Outside, in the parking lot, Brauer sat behind the wheel of the Citroën, playing poker with the two pugs in the back seat. His eyes moved constantly—from his cards, to the entrance of the restaurant, back to the cards again. He did not resent having to divide his attention. He was winning handsomely.
“You look young,” Anne said. “How old are you?”
“Thirty-seven.”
“Married?” She asked the question with complete casualness.
“No.”
“Ever been?” Carr shook his head. “That’s interesting,” she said. “That makes you an idealist, a misogamist, an inveterate playboy, or a liar.”
“Do I get my pick?”
“You look like a playboy to me,” she said. “Let me guess what kind of line you use. Are you really rich?”
“Not particularly.”
“But you have an Alfa. Rented, I suppose. What kind of car do you have in the States? A Porsche?”
“Austin-Healey.”
“Okay. You must have a private home—a little retreat of some kind?”
“Yes,” Carr said reluctantly. This girl was coming rather close to the knuckle. He did not mention that he had sold his Porsche to buy the Healey.
“And your clothes are carefully cut. Do you have a little tailor tucked away in Rome or London?”
“No,” he said, glad she had missed.
“Brooks Brothers,” she announced. “American all the way. I should have known. All right.” She leaned back and looked at him critically. “I think you probably rely on the good-humored-elf approach. Tone down the money, play up the funny-guy personality. All spontaneous good times. Joke them into bed, one big laugh all the way. Either that,” she said, “or the brilliant, dashing-young-man approach: sweep them off their feet, into the sportscar, into the sheets. Fly away with me to my cozy little retreat, I am an up-and-coming, handsome, gregarious—”
“Lawyer.”
“Yes. And if that fails, there is always the sincere treatment. Deep stares into her eyes. Mumblings. Doubts about yourself. An honest fellow, intelligent but bored with his exciting life, hoping to find meaning and true values, and possibly to settle down—if he finds the right girl. That always works with the difficult cases.”
Carr shifted in his chair. “How old are you?”
“Twenty-nine.” She seemed delighted to have forced him to change the subject.
“You don’t look older than twenty-two.”
“I know. It’s a great disadvantage. The old ones think I’m pure and unspoiled and won’t know what tired lovers they are. They’re always pestering me.”
“Ever been married?”
“I think I’ve heard this conversation before.”
“Witness is directed to answer the question.”
“Yes,” she said, “I was married. I’m basically the type. I got married when I was nineteen—over my father’s dead body, quite literally. The guy was a writer, or thought he was. He was a very self-important bugger and he made a grand impression on a girl of nineteen, and I’d rather talk about something else.”
“All right. Why don’t you leave the Riviera?”
“Say, you are curious, aren’t you, counselor?”
“Can’t help it.”
“Your grin is absolutely devilish. You must be an unbelievably successful seducer.”
“Well, I like to think—”
“Never mind. I’m not sure I can bear it. Why don’t you pour some more wine? Here comes the main course.”
Chapter XII
LUNCH WAS A DELIGHT. They finished two bottles of wine, and even after coffee, Carr felt a little high, and very happy. They had discussed everything, and he had become increasingly astonished at her. At one point, he had playfully accused her of being too literal, and she had responded by quoting the gravedigger scene from Hamlet—not just one speech, but the whole scene, taking on all three roles, twisting her face and changing her voice.
Later, he found himself listening to her explain with equal facility about the security measures in the casino, the air-oil suspension of the Citroën, and the way Mann wrote—ten sentences a day, never more. She preferred that to Balzac, who wrote his novels from the middle, expanding one central incident until he had reached both the beginning and end of the book, or to Wolfe, who wrote standing up, dropping finished pages into a wastebasket.
She had gone on to talk about Poe, who was underrated; Larry Rivers, who was “a nothing”; De Gaulle, whom Americans couldn’t understand; sex, which nobody could understand; and the problems of the rich, which she envied.
“I would like,” she had said, “to be rich enough to be unhappy, but not rich enough to be miserable.”
She was quick, she was witty, she was gorgeous, and Carr found himself entranced. She refused to be snowed by him, fending off his gambits with amusement and good humor. He was intrigued by the lighthearted challenge she presented, but his interest went further. Just how much further, he couldn’t be sure; it was not the sort of thing he normally worried about.<
br />
After lunch, she grabbed his hand impulsively and dragged him back to the car, saying there was a place he simply must see. They drove for only a few minutes before they came to an incredible building perched in the woods overlooking Saint Paul and the sea.
“This is the Fondation Maeght,” Anne said, as they parked. “It was built a couple of years ago, and it’s the greatest museum on the whole Riviera.”
Carr looked at it—starkly modern, with huge wings of poured concrete rising above the roof. In front, a giant spider-like contraption stood on the lawn.
“It’s a Calder stabile,” Anne said as they walked toward the entrance. “Isn’t it incredible?”
“Incredible,” he agreed.
Through the entrance doors, they could see a central courtyard, where several skinny, elongated Giacometti statues stood. There was very little furniture in the museum; the floors were dun tile, the walls white.
“Maeght is a dealer who built this place especially to hold the work of five artists. There is a room of each. This is all Chagall,” she said as they entered one room.
Carr didn’t care if it was Grandma Moses. He held her hand, and was happy. They wandered from Chagall to Kandinsky, then to a room of Giacometti. Then they went outside, to a garden where a giant egg stood in a pool of water. “Miró,” Anne said. “All the artists contributed original work to the museum. Right around the corner there’s a mosaic by—”
Carr had stopped listening. In a far corner of the garden, he had just seen the blond man, standing with two huge brutes. The three were glancing at Carr, and talking together in low tones. There was something disturbingly sinister about them, and he felt tension grip him. Unaccountably, the words of Vascard came back to him: “Did you ever think that these men wished to abduct you?”
Then men talked, huddled together, superficially interested in a Giacometti nude.
He remembered the two men who had mistakenly knocked on his door the day before, in the hotel. He recalled the surprised look on their faces.
It was the same two men. He was sure of it. And the waiter who had suddenly “taken ill” while delivering Carr’s food?
It all fitted together. He shivered.
The three men began walking toward him.
“I want some postcards,” Carr said to Anne.
“What?”
“Postcards. I want some.”
“But we haven’t seen all the sculpture.” She was giving him a very puzzled look.
“We can come back.”
“Do you feel all right? You look a little pale.”
“Never better.”
The three men were drawing closer. They all had their hands in their pockets. They were all staring at Carr.
“Well, frankly,” Anne said, frowning, “if it’s all the same to you—”
“It’s not.”
He grabbed her arm and pulled her back into the museum, walking briskly toward the room where books and postcards were sold.
“Hey, what’s got into you?”
“Nothing.”
He paused at the desk and picked up a book of lithographs. “There are people here I don’t want to meet is all.”
“Really? Where?”
“Don’t look around. Pick up a postcard.”
Something in his tone must have frightened her, because she immediately took a card and examined it critically.
“Are you in trouble?” she asked, looking at the cards.
“I might be. I don’t know.”
“It sounds exciting.”
Oh, for Christ’s sake, he thought. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the three men enter the room and examine a stack of reproductions for sale.
“I’ll take this,” he said to the salesgirl, handing her the book he was holding. It was a collection of Miro paintings.
“That’s the most expensive thing here,” Anne said.
“It’s for you.”
“Oh, you shouldn’t—”
“I should. And when I give it to you, you will repay me with a great big kiss, and then you will put your arm around me very tightly, and we will walk out of here.”
Her eyes were wide. She said nothing. The salesgirl wrapped the book, and Carr paid her two hundred francs, then gave it to Anne. She let out a little squeal and flung her arms around his neck. They kissed for several moments.
As they walked out, arms around each other, Anne said, “Was that all right?”
“That was just perfect”
“Pretty sneaky way to get a kiss. Was it the three over in the corner?”
Carr did not dare look back. They came to the door, and he opened it, saying, “Yes. Now, let’s get back to the car. Fast.”
He felt a tap on the shoulder.
Oh, Christ, he thought, bolting through the door.
The tap became a firm grip. Carr was almost hauled off his feet. He turned to face the blond man.
Ugly as sin, he thought, Like a greasy, smooth pig.
“You had an appointment today?” the man said.
“Me? An appointment? I don’t think so.” He tried to pull free of the blond man, but no luck. He might as well be gripped by a clam.
“Yes, an appointment. At noon, near American Express.” He spoke English slowly, with a thick German accent.
“Wrong fella,” Carr said. “Really. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Your friend,” the blond man replied. “He said to give you this.”
A small box was thrust into Carr’s hand. It was not large, no bigger than a cigarette packet, and quite expensively wrapped.
The blond man released Carr, bowed slightly, and turned back into the museum. Carr stood there, dumb-founded, holding the box in his hand.
“I don’t think I understood all that,” Anne said.
Carr shivered, thrust the box into his pocket, and tried a smile. “Neither did I.”
They went to the parking lot, and he started the Alfa, throwing it noisily into gear but not caring. They roared off down the road.
“Did you really have an appointment?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said. “I forgot all about it.”
Carr’s mind was working furiously, churning with his stomach. He was very confused, and very upset. He had never panicked before in his life, and now he was a little ashamed.
Warm sunlight, not yet fading, poured onto his face as they drove toward the coast. The sky was crisp and blue. Somehow it all seemed unreal, absurd.
“You still look pale,” Anne said. “Is there anything I can do to help?”
“No,” he said.
She lit a cigarette and stuck it between his lips. He was grateful.
“If you’re in trouble, why don’t you go to the police? Or the consulate?”
The consulate, he thought. Now, there was something he hadn’t even considered. He could go to them, and dump the whole business in their laps.
Dump what? He had nothing, really. A series of strange incidents, made sinister by his overactive imagination, embroidered childishly. No, there was nothing they could do for him, any more than the police.
He felt the sun on his face and the wind tugging at his hair. Once again he was struck by the absurdity of it all. Kidnappings just didn’t happen, for no reason at all. He had merely been involved in a series of freakish incidents. If he ignored them, they would all go away. In a week, he’d look back and laugh.
Still, he would rather not be alone tonight.
“As a matter of fact, there is something you can do.”
“What?”
He looked over at her. Her face was so serious, he laughed. “Come to dinner with me.”
“Am I going to have to kiss my way out of the restaurant?”
“No, I promise.”
“All right,” she said.
“Eight o’clock? The casino?”
“Sold.”
At her request, he dropped her off in Cagnes-sur-Mer, and returned to Nice.
It was
five-thirty when he arrived at his hotel room, ordered a drink, and remembered the package. As he reached in his pocket for it, he felt the ring as well, and brought them both out together. He placed them side by side on the table and looked at them.
He had examined the ring before. It was nondescript, battered, real gold. The package was wrapped in glazed white paper, and tied with a white ribbon bow. It was elegantly, expensively simple. A card was tucked under the ribbon: “With our regrets. The Associates.”
He shook the box, holding it next to his ear, and heard nothing. He supposed it could be something terrible, like a bomb—but so small and light?
“With our regrets. The Associates.”
He had never heard of the Associates.
His drink came, and he sipped it, walking around the table and looking at the ring and package. He realized that he was afraid to open it. Why? No reason, really. Just afraid.
The drink relaxed him, and finally he got up the nerve. He tore away the ribbon and ripped off the paper. The box was simple white cardboard.
He opened the lid and saw nothing but cotton padding. Beneath this, he found a human finger.
Chapter XIII
HASTILY CARR SAT DOWN in a chair and gulped back the rest of his drink.
He leaned forward and looked again. Gingerly he picked it up: there was no doubt—it was a finger. Tanned, grimy, severed cleanly at the knuckle. Clearly visible was the circle of pale flesh where the ring had once been.
“With our regrets. The Associates.”
“God almighty,” Carr said aloud, dropping the finger back into the box. It was stiff, and fell with a thump, like a stale cigar. “God almighty.”
This was too much. He had to do something.
In a sudden burst of clarity, he picked up the phone. “American consulate, please.”
A few minutes later a girl answered.
“I need to see somebody right away,” Carr said.
“I’m afraid the consulate is just closing. It will open tomorrow at eight—”
“This is important. It can’t wait.”
“I see. What exactly is your business, sir?”
“It concerns a finger.”
“Yes, sir,” the girl said. Her voice had an abstracted quality; he guessed she was writing it down.
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