by D. W. Buffa
“Not far,” replied Hart. “I’ll just ride along for a few blocks, if you don’t mind.”
The woman, Parisian down to her shoes, seemed amused.
“Are you really a United States senator?” she asked quite calmly.
Hart was looking out the window, his eyes darting all around, searching for anyone that might still be trying to follow him. His heart was racing, every muscle in his body tense. The strange, the unexpected thing, was that he was enjoying it: not just the sense of danger, but his own reaction, the speed with which he had made his decision, the absence of any real panic. There was nothing like a bullet whizzing past you, nothing like the threat of violent death, to make you feel alive.
“Reagan said that,” he remarked, turning to the woman as if, instead of perfect strangers, she had been privy to his thoughts. “When he was shot,” he explained. “He said there was nothing more exhilarating. Reagan could always deliver a line, especially when it belonged to someone else. Churchill said it first, in something he wrote, about the last cavalry battle ever fought. He was in it.”
He saw the mild astonishment on the woman’s face. His eyes were full of mischief at what he had done.
“Yes, I am a member of the United States Senate; and yes, to that other question you are too polite to ask—I probably have lost my mind.”
The taxi was just passing the Eiffel Tower on its way toward a bridge that crossed the Seine. Hart had the driver pull off to the side. He started to get out, remembered he had been an uninvited guest on someone else’s ride, and paid enough to cover the fare for wherever the couple wanted to go. He watched them travel on across the bridge on their way to the Left Bank, and wondered what they would think when they learned later that the crazy American they had just ridden with was wanted for murder, and not just any murder, but the murder of the president. It might have been only vanity, or more likely self-respect, but he wanted to believe that no one who had spent time with him, even two French strangers in a Paris taxi, would believe he could have had anything to do with something as unthinkable as that. Though he did not know their names, and would never see them again, he felt almost as if they were friends. It was absurd, of course, but only, he realized, if you were not facing the prospect of your own imminent death. Then the last face you saw, the last voice you heard, the last momentary connection with another human being, had more meaning than what you had known of someone with whom you might have had a brief conversation, exchanged a few, meaningless words, every day for years. He watched the cab recede into the distance and with a wistful glance wished the two strangers well.
“Now let’s get the hell out of here,” he mumbled to himself as he started walking. “And for God’s sake—try to think!”
He had gone perhaps a quarter of a mile, collecting his thoughts, trying to make sense of things, when he remembered that he had not done the one thing he should have done as soon as he was out of the embassy and free on the streets. It was one thing to ask Austin Pearce, but this was something he had to do himself. He might be in danger, but Laura was in trouble. Even safe in Santa Barbara, reporters would be all over this, camped out in the street, badgering her with questions she could not answer about her husband’s involvement in the assassination of the president. He pulled out his cell phone and started to call, but then he remembered that it was only late morning on the East Coast and Laura was booked on a ten o’clock flight.
“If she ever got to the airport,” he said out loud. He stopped walking and looked around. He had changed directions and come back along the river until he was only a stone’s throw from the Eiffel Tower. He dialed the number, but Laura did not answer. Perhaps she had gotten away before the story broke, but that did not seem possible, if it was in all the morning papers. Maybe she saw it, the headlines in an airport newsstand, and remembered what he had told her, how important it was that he know she was safe, and had gotten on the flight instead of turning back to find out what was going on in Washington. He called Santa Barbara. At least there would be a message waiting for her when she arrived.
“I’m all right,” he told her as calmly as he could. “Stay there, wait for me. I know who is behind this, and it won’t take long to prove it.”
It was one of the few lies he had ever told her.
Turning away from the Eiffel Tower and the long lines of tourists, he walked toward a landing on the river where he bought a ticket for an open boat ride under the bridges of Paris. Just as he was about to board, he heard someone speak his name. Several women, Americans from the sound of their voices, who had already taken their seats, where pointing at him as they whispered among themselves. Pretending that he had misplaced something, Hart left his place in line and began to walk away.
“That’s him!” yelled one of the women, jumping to her feet. “That’s Bobby Hart—the one who killed the president!”
Hart kept moving, walking at the same, measured pace, trying to lose himself in the crowd. The other women started shouting as well, a strident chorus of accusation, shouting until they were red in the face, but to their astonishment, and Hart’s relief, no one seemed to pay attention, dismissing with French indifference the shouted demands of the Americans.
Even in Paris he could not pass unnoticed. Anywhere on the street he might pass an American, a tourist out for a stroll, and be recognized, and, recognized, accused. He was a fugitive who, even in a foreign capital, could not count on anonymity. There was no time to alter his appearance, no time to change the color of his hair, but he could at least change his clothes, get out of his suit and tie and dress more like a man who lived there. He found a small men’s store where he bought a pair of black pants, a short, two-button brown jacket, a pair of walking shoes, and a green shirt. The proprietor bundled up his suit and dress shoes in a brown paper package.
He felt safer now, free from his own identity and less noticeable in a crowd. It was nearly six, and with gray skies pregnant with a summer storm, almost as dark as winter. The cars on the streets had their lights on and all the shop windows were lit up, but Hart wore dark glasses and stayed off the main avenues. He was not sure what time he should go to Aaron Wolfe’s apartment. If he got there too early, before Wolfe came home, someone might notice him, someone might recognize him, someone might call the police. He decided to wait until eight. Wolfe was sure to be there by then, and if by chance he was not, it would be dark enough, whatever the weather decided to do, to stay out of sight.
He fell into a small café, took a table in the back corner, and picked at dinner. He had a glass of wine, and then had another, and he tried not to think too much about what had happened or what he was going to do. To get his mind off the immediate danger, he calculated the time difference between Paris and California, and then what time, his time, Paris time, Laura would make the long drive from the airport in Los Angeles to their home in the hills of Santa Barbara.
Even before the second glass of wine, he had begun to feel tired, very tired, as tired as he thought he had ever felt; weary with fear and frustration, fear of what he could not control and frustration over what he did not yet know: who was doing this and why they had decided that the best way to protect themselves was to make him a scapegoat, a fall guy, an assassin. His eyes felt heavy, his legs thick with fatigue. The only sleep he had gotten was the two fretful hours on the plane, a flight that now seemed like it must have happened weeks ago.
He started to order another glass, but glanced at his watch and thought better of it. He could not afford to be tired: there was too much to do to think about sleep. He caught a taxi outside the café and gave the driver Aaron Wolfe’s address in the 18th arrondissement.
The head of the American embassy’s political section lived three blocks from the Seine at the end of a short narrow street in a four-story building that had been there from sometime in the eighteenth century. Wolfe had one of the two apartments on the third floor. Hart pushed the button next to Wolfe’s name. When there was no response, he stepped back ont
o the sidewalk and looked up. The lights from Wolfe’s apartment were on. Hart tried the buzzer again, but again there was no answer. A woman carrying a bag of groceries was just coming home.
“Mr. Wolfe?” asked Hart. “Do you know if he’s home? He’s expecting me, and I saw the lights on from the street.”
She was a middle-aged woman who walked slowly and with a limp. A single bag of groceries seemed the limit of her strength. But she had a pleasant face and kind, if rather tired, eyes. She started to open the door with her key and found that it was not locked. She turned to Hart as if she was sure he would be as surprised at this as was she.
“It’s always locked, you know. Well, perhaps he left it that way so that you—”
There was a sudden violent noise: a burst of gunfire, two shots—or was it three?—in rapid succession, and behind it, shouted cries for help. Hart dashed past the woman, who was staring helpless at the landing overhead, and took the stairs three at a time.
“Call the police!” he screamed down at the woman.
The door to Wolfe’s apartment was wide open. Wolfe was lying on the living room floor, his eyes gaping in now dead wonder at what had happened, a hole in his forehead where the bullet that killed him had flown to his brain. Someone, a man Hart did not recognize but who looked like one of the men who had been chasing him earlier, was lying face down on the floor, his arms spread apart, a gun—the gun he must have used to murder Aaron Wolfe—lying just beyond his outstretched hand. Hart picked it up, and then he heard a voice, a voice he did not want to hear. It was Austin Pearce, sunk back in an overstuffed chair, his shirt front oozing blood. With the last strength he had, Pearce raised his hand and pointed. On his knees next to the body of the unknown intruder, Hart wheeled around and, without even a moment’s hesitation, fired the gun he had just picked up. Crying out in pain, a second assailant, a second killer, dropped his gun and clutched his right shoulder. He started to go for the gun again, but he knew, he could see it in Hart’s eyes, that he would be dead if he tried. But he also seemed to know that he could still get away, that Hart would not shoot him in the back. He turned on his heel and vanished down the hallway.
“Austin,” said Hart, rushing over to him, “what happened?”
“We had only just got here. There was a knock on the door. Wolfe kept a gun. He managed to shoot the first one, but the other one was right behind him, and….”
“Save your strength. An ambulance will be here any minute.”
Pearce grasped Hart’s hand and held it tight.
“In my pocket—an address…a time….”
His grip grew tighter, and then, slowly, Austin Pearce let go.
Chapter Eighteen
Hart could hear the wail of sirens in the distance. The French police were on their way. The man he had shot—the one he had let get away—was probably already calling for help, telling his confederates that he had just missed killing Bobby Hart and that if they hurried they could still find him there. Perhaps the wounded assassin did not have to call them; perhaps they were waiting just outside in a car. Hart could not stay there another second.
He was halfway to the door when he remembered. With his last breath, Austin Pearce had told him that there was something in his pocket: a time, a place, something Hart had to know. He bent down and began to search, the second time in two days that he had to look in the lifeless eyes of someone he had liked and respected, both of them, Quentin Burdick, and now Austin Pearce, willing to risk everything to get at the truth. And both of them murdered because they knew him, knew what he had been asked to do, knew enough about what had happened to cut to pieces any claim that Hart had been part of a conspiracy to murder Robert Constable.
Hart thought he was going to be sick, watching, and not wanting to watch, the glass-eyed stare that each time he forced himself to look away seemed to force him back, to make him look again at death’s final work. There was nothing in the outside pockets; he slipped his hand inside the blood-soaked jacket, and there, next to Pearce’s black leather wallet, he found a single half-sheet of blue paper, folded twice. Despite the blood, it was still possible to make out the words.
“Tomorrow. Mont Saint-Michel. Four p.m. Jean Valette.”
What did it mean? Had Austin Pearce arranged a meeting, made an appointment, with the head of The Four Sisters, the man behind everything that had happened? The police sirens were louder, closer, almost here. Hart stuffed the half sheet of paper in his pocket and stood up. Then he saw it, on the table next to the chair where he had placed it, the gun, the gun he had picked up from just beyond the outstretched hand of the first assailant, the gun that, with Austin Pearce’s warning, had saved his life. He hesitated, not sure whether to leave it behind or take it with him. He looked one last time at Austin Pearce, lying dead in the chair, and then grabbed the gun and headed down the stairs.
The woman he had left at the front entrance, just inside, the woman he had told to call the police, was cowering in fear. The grocery bag lay on the floor, a mess of broken eggs and coffee. She looked up at Hart with a sigh of relief.
“Mon Dieu! You’re safe! When I heard the other shot, when I heard someone running away, down the hallway and out the back, I thought you must be killed.” She opened her hands as if to pray forgiveness. “I should have come up, seen if you needed help, but I couldn’t—I couldn’t make myself move. I called the police, but after that, I couldn’t….”
Hart touched her shoulder and told her that he understood. The sirens were deafening, the street outside echoing with their noise. He had no time left.
“You did fine, better than I could have done. Tell the police the truth: that I was here, with you, when we heard the shots. My name is Robert Hart,” he said. “Robert Hart. Can you remember that? Tell the police that the men who came here were looking for me, that they came to kill me; they did not come to take me back.”
Hart was on the street, walking fast. The police raced past him. They did not see him, or if they did, paid no attention. He thought about turning back, going to the French police, to show them that instead of a fugitive trying to get away, he was the victim of a conspiracy meant to have him murdered. But they might simply hand him over to the Americans, the same ones who wanted him dead. He hurried on, wondering how he was going to get to Mont Saint-Michel and what he was going to do when he got there and was finally face to face with the infamous Jean Valette.
He had been there, to Mont Saint-Michel, on the border of Normandy and Brittany, once, years ago, when he and Laura had spent a long, blissful month traveling through France. It was one of the best times he had ever had, moving from one place to the next, never in a hurry because there was never any place they had to go. They had wandered through and around Notre Dame, taking note of what it looked like inside, what it must have felt like to a Christian of the Middle Ages, listening to Mass, and then, after Mass, what it looked like from the different vantage points from which it could be seen on a bright, sunlit afternoon. From Paris, they had gone, not immediately, and not by the direct routes followed by tourists grimly determined to see as many things as possible, to the cathedral at Chartres; and, as if they knew that the best would be last, only after that to Mont Saint-Michel and the cathedral that had stood for a thousand years, as close to heaven as anything human hands could build.
They had rented a car and driven all over France. If he tried to rent one now, he would have to provide identification, information that would almost surely be traced. His own government was after him, and the French had no reason not to help. He took a taxi to the train station and tried to buy a ticket. The clerk only shrugged.
“There is no train to Mont Saint-Michel.”
“No train tonight, or no train?” asked Hart patiently.
“No train, tonight, tomorrow, anytime, monsieur. Perhaps you would prefer to go somewhere else?” he asked with a look of bored indifference.
“All right,” agreed Hart without hesitation. “I’ll go there instead.”
“I’m not sure how much that particular ticket would cost, monsieur. As you might imagine, ‘somewhere else’ is not one of our most requested destinations.”
“Perhaps if you had a special train…?”
The clerk’s eyebrows shot halfway up his vacant skull.
“Then you could of course go anywhere—wherever there were tracks—but the cost!—Nothing short of astronomical.” His eyes tightened, became confidential. “But perhaps that is something you can afford. Still, it would take time to arrange, and, if I am not mistaken, you are in something of a hurry. A special train is out, and we have no train to Mont Saint-Michel. How do we solve this dilemma? Ah, perhaps I have the solution. We have a train—it leaves in an hour—to a station ten kilometers away from where you want to go. From there, you can take a taxi, or even walk, if you prefer.”
Hart appeared to think about it.
“Well, if that’s the closest you can get.”
Though recently refurbished, and spotlessly clean, the train station had the gaslight atmosphere of the late nineteenth century, dimly lit, with intricate, iron latticework columns and shiny marble floors. The only thing missing was the rush of steam from a heaving locomotive. The new high-speed trains that shot across the country, and the continent, in less than half the time it had taken before, ran quieter and cleaner than that. Hart tried to imagine what Laura would say, the quick, easy commentary on the things she saw, the sudden insights that made so much sense to him perhaps precisely because he had never had the same thought himself. Laura always looked at things through different eyes. She was never much impressed with the urgent demands of the present. Others thought her odd, eccentric, for that, and even a symptom of the instability that had brought her close to a breakdown; Bobby was convinced that it was the source of the strength that had saved her sanity. He was desperate to talk to her, to hear her voice, but afraid that after he had called her once, left that message for her to hear when she got home, the next attempt would be traced.
