by Gil Brewer
“I should not tell you this,” Chevard said. He tried to hold his stiffening lids open, forcing them upward, his eyebrows up all the time now. It didn’t help any. His lids closed even with the eyebrows up like that. He looks like hell, Baron thought, like pure hell. But don’t feel sorry for him.
“All you’ve told me is something about a gadget you put on this plane. I keep thinking it’s maybe atomic. But how could it be? It would be out, somehow—wouldn’t it?”
Chevard leered at him. He drank from his inkwell and refueled without spilling a drop.
“A breather,” Baron said, prompting him a little.
“A cosmic breather,” Chevard said.
“The hell with it,” Baron said. He did not want to hear any more about it. It would be better that way. He felt completely evil and rotten. Even the brandy didn’t seem to help. He hoped Chevard would shut up now.
“I’m drunk,” Chevard said. “It’s a good thing I know you, Frank.”
“Sure.”
“I could be shot for this.”
“Oh, hell.”
“It’s true. We all took an oath, Frank. But I know you. I said to myself, Chevard, you old son-of-a-bitch, this man is your friend and he lost his faith in himself because he thinks everybody’s lost faith in him. So, I said, you’ve got to show him that you trust him.”
Baron stood up by the desk with the inkwell in his hand and stared at Chevard. Right then he came very close to telling the man just how wrong he was to place any faith in a lying bastard like himself. He put the inkwell on the desk, turned, and walked over to the door. “I’m going home.”
“All right.” Chevard coughed, drank, looked at Baron. “We begin production on the breather next week,” he said. “Maybe I can ring you in on that. Everything’s ready. It’s going to be something, all right. Never been done before.”
“Next week.”
“Correct. Think I’ll last through to the tests? I’ve been under some terrible pressure.”
“You’ll be all right.”
“It’s a question of air,” Chevard said. “You see? The higher up you go, the less air there is, you see? Got to have it. Got to breathe. A question of breathing. It’s so damned simple it’s obvious, we all know that. Only how? That’s the simple part. Well, we’ve got it. Fly to the goddamned moon. A question of breathing, that’s all on God’s green earth. Nobody hooked onto it, though. By God, no.” He drifted off into a long tirade in French, rattling on and waving his arms, with Baron catching perhaps two thirds of it. Baron knew he had to get Chevard to leave with him. He could take no chances on Chevard’s staying here all night, and maybe checking the safe to see if it were locked properly.
“Why hasn’t anybody else caught on to this thing?”
Chevard stood and came around the desk and stood rocking and weaving in front of Baron. “It’s staring them in the face, understand? They want to make it intricate. They’ve missed it, had their hands on it hundreds of times, and missed it. People look but they don’t see, that sort of thing.”
“I’ll drive you home.”
“Yes. All right.”
Baron saw that Chevard was close to collapse. They left the office and piled into the jeep. Baron drove Chevard home in the Fiat. Chevard slept all the way. Jeanne and Baron helped get him into the house.
She grinned at Baron, with Chevard slumped in a kitchen chair, snoring.
“See what I mean?” she said.
“Yes.”
“It’s all right, though. It’s all right, Frank.”
He looked at her but she was already poking Chevard awake, so she could get him upstairs. Baron left in the Fiat, and he knew what he had to do. There weren’t many hours between now and the doing, either.
* * * *
He drew up at the curb in front of 77 Rue Paradis. He sensed the shadow by the door of the Fiat before Arnold opened the door.
“Good evening, Monsieur Baron,” Arnold said. “Come with me.”
He was about to tell him to go to hell. He thought better of it. He didn’t know what he wanted to do and maybe it was just as well that he see Gorssmann. Perhaps he could see Bette.
All right, he thought. Where’s your gun?
“We will go in my car,” Arnold said. “Please, quickly.”
“I’ll follow you,” Baron said.
Arnold said nothing. He waited by the open door of the car. The Opel came up the street then and parked beside Baron’s car. The rear door swung open.
Baron went over and got inside the Opel.
“Proceed,” Arnold said to the driver.
This time Baron was alone in the rear seat of the car. They’re beginning to trust me, he thought. Somehow it was a kind of consolation in the midst of all the distrust and lying and confusion. Then he sat there and laughed. At first he laughed quietly to himself, but finally the laughter burst past his lips.
Arnold hung his chin over the rim of the front seat and watched him, his face gleaming pale as they passed street lights.
CHAPTER 18
This time they drove through quiet moonlight on the Corniche road. Out there to the right, the Mediterranean lay peacefully black and moon-shot, and Baron tried to think of nothing. He concentrated on the word itself, but it was no use. Bette would be wherever he was going—and Lili. As they drove along, he thought about Bette and his thoughts turned to Lili and he knew that he loved her. He wished that he did not, but there was nothing he could do about it. Because perhaps she was with Gorssmann on this thing and that would be bad—for him, not for Lili.
“You’ve moved?” he asked Arnold.
Again Arnold turned and looked at him over the rim of the front seat, his eyes glistening wetly. He did not answer.
The hell with him, Baron thought. He realized that he had picked up something along the way that helped him not to care. He wondered what it was and where he had got it. He wondered whether it was a good thing. He decided it was. At least in this case it was.
He had so many things to consider and to worry about that not caring about a couple of things seemed to help release the pressure. Then he got to remembering about how Follet had acted and the places where the pressure was released filled up and he felt worse than before. Why couldn’t Follet have been just a good egg? But they can’t be, he decided. They’ve got to be a little mysterious and opaque and all that. They can’t just be straight and to hell with it. They’ve got to let you know that they’re onto something that you don’t grasp, that you can’t understand. Maybe that’s what’s so maddening about them.
Damn them all.
Damning them did not help.
They rounded a curve, and Baron saw a swimming pool cut into the rock, back from the sea, down there to the right. There were some dim yellow bulbs burning above the doorways to bathhouses and he saw two women sitting on the boardwalk wrapped in towels. It was far from warm and the breeze from the sea had ice in it. What the hell was the matter with these people? Nuts, he thought. It’s not the people, it’s you.
Rounding the curve beyond the pool, the Opel turned suddenly to the left, straight into the Corniche cliffs, and up a road cut through the solid yellow-gray rock. They lurched in ruts, swung up and up and around and under huge trees and roared across an immense lawn, disregarding a semicircular driveway. It was one of those big châteaux up there on the cliff overlooking the sea. Baron saw that it was an old one, the moonlight touching it in places, and he thought of the old castles and witches’ temples in a Disney cartoon of midnight on Halloween.
They jerked to a stop in front of the house. A light burned in one of the windows upstairs and all of the downstairs lights seemed to be glowing. Wooden blinds were drawn, but the light shone through the slats.
* * * *
“He laughs,” Arnold said to Gorssmann. “He laughs like the clown.”
Gorssmann blinked at Baron. They were sitting in a large flagstone-floored room, in immense hand-carved black mahogany chairs. There was a large fireplace o
pposite Gorssmann. At the end of the room a weathered-looking grand piano was quietly going to hell beneath a wrought-iron stairway that circled upward to a balcony. Off the balcony, Baron could see doors leading to rooms.
“The laughter is merely tension,” Gorssmann said. “Not so, Baron?” Gorssmann was wearing an orange-and-blue-checked robe. The sash was too small for his girth and it kept coming loose and beneath the robe he wore black pajamas. He kept tying the sash, but every time he moved, it slipped loose. Finally he tied the sash into a tight knot and from then on was obviously extremely uncomfortable.
“What do you want?” Baron said.
Gorssmann sighed. “I expect this may trouble you some,” he said. There was a kind of sadness in his voice. “I have had orders. Things are, shall we say, getting hot? It was, as you see, necessary to move.” He waved his arm.
“Why?”
“Here nor there. The man I am dealing with is impatient. He says we must act immediately.”
“I have good news, then,” Baron said. He heard the bitterness in his voice. He wished he could rid himself of that, but it seemed to come from down inside him. “I’ve decided not to wait at all. Tomorrow is the day.”
“Good.” Gorssmann leaned forward in his chair and smiled. The sash pained him and he leaned back again. “Very good, Baron. You see, something has been decided. If you fail, we are supposed to blow up the plant at Cassis.”
Baron stared at him disbelievingly. “But that’s only destroying your own ends!”
“Try to grasp this,” Gorssmann said. “I don’t care at all what is done, so long as I am paid. The sum I am to receive is the same, either way. If you fail in accomplishing this mission, you are to be put on the other one. That is, if you are not, shall we say, out of the running?”
“I won’t fail.”
“Optimistic? Well, that’s a good sign, sometimes. All right.”
They discussed it for a time and Baron told him what he had planned. He kept his eyes and ears open, hoping for some sign of Bette. So far there was nothing.
Gorssmann was working himself into a slow fit, thinking about what would happen in the morning. He had begun to perspire and breathe heavily. Arnold stood over by the door, watching them. Baron listened to Gorssmann’s hissing breath.
Gorssmann said, “As soon as you succeed in getting those papers, Baron, return here. You know how to get here now?”
Baron nodded.
“We’ll be waiting.”
“Is that all?”
Gorssmann nodded. “Arnold, you may take Baron home now.” He was staring at the floor, his eyes slightly protruded, staring intently. “You must not fail! Do you understand?”
Baron nodded. “I want to know something,” he said. “I want to know about Elene. Where is she?”
“You have seen the papers,” Gorssmann said.
Baron knew then that the newspapers must have printed the story.
“Don’t feel badly,” Gorssmann said. “It was unavoidable. She was the cause of her own demise.” He did not look at Baron. Baron came out of his chair, strode across the room, and looked at Gorssmann. The fat man turned his eyes up to Baron and tried to smile. But he could not smile. “I promise you,” Gorssmann said. “If you fail—”
“You know what I want to know.”
“Your daughter is perfectly all right.”
“I want to see her. Where is she? You lied to me about Elene. You would lie about anything. I know that, you know it. I want to see Bette.”
“I am profoundly sorry. You cannot. Arnold,” Gorssmann said. “Show Monsieur Baron out, please.”
Arnold started across the room. He was already wearing his hat. His face was quite grave and he walked stiffly, with one hand near the pocket of his suit jacket. The jacket pocket hung down slightly and Baron knew there was a gun there.
He also knew they would not hurt him now.
“Why did you lie about Elene?”
“Because you did not have the proper attitude to assume the responsibility of knowledge. You still haven’t, but that cannot be helped.”
He heard a voice calling to him. It was a young woman’s voice and he knew it was Bette’s. It came from one of the rooms up on the balcony. Gorssmann lurched to his feet, reached to grab him, fumbled.
“Arnold!” Gorssmann said.
Baron turned, twisting from Gorssmann’s grasp, and leaped toward the stairway.
“Baron!” Gorssmann said loudly. “You fool! You ass!”
Arnold ran in front of him, waving the gun. He still had his hat on, and somehow, even in the violent rushing, it was comical. Baron straight-armed Arnold in the face and Arnold sat down on the floor, still holding the gun.
“Bette!” he called. “Bette!”
He heard her yell then. She yelled bloody murder and he started up the stairs. He was scared. He was as frightened as it was possible to be.
He ran full tilt into Joseph, who had started down the stairs.
“Bette,” he called, trying to get past Joseph.
There was no sound from upstairs now. He went slightly berserk. Joseph frowned, lifted his foot, and centered it on Baron’s chest.
“No, Joseph!” Gorssmann screamed from the foot of the stairs. He had forgotten Joseph could not hear. Baron felt himself leave the stairs and he hurtled backward through the air, over the banister.
Gorssmann yelled something. He yelled it close to Baron, and Baron landed on something that gave, scrambling and yelling. He had landed on Gorssmann. They rolled across the floor. He leaped up. Joseph was already there. Joseph stepped toward him.
Gorssmann was groaning on the floor. He saw Joseph coming toward Baron and shouted, trying to get to his knees. He could not rise. Baron saw he could not get by Joseph.
“Bette!” he shouted. “Are you all right?”
There was no answer. He nearly wept. Joseph did not move. Gorssmann kept trying and trying to get to his knees, but he could not manage.
“Arnold, help me!”
Arnold came over and finally got Gorssmann to his feet. The huge man stood reeling, staring at Baron.
“Have Joseph take him outside. Take him home. Now!” He turned on Baron, and he was in pain. He panted heavily, his breath hissing and whistling, tears in his eyes from the pain, his lips twisted like a baby’s.
“So help me, if you’ve harmed her—”
“Get out, you fool!”
Joseph got the wind of things then, through Arnold’s gesticulations, and he came and took Baron’s arm and they moved toward the door at the far side of the room.
“Hurry,” Gorssmann said. “Go along, Arnold—take that maniac home. And Baron,” he called. He limped painfully to the chair and sank into it, wiping his face with both hands. “One mistake—one, you hear!—and your daughter will—you know! You know what will happen. Now, go and we will see tomorrow.”
In the car, Arnold turned and looked at Baron over the rim of the front seat.
“It is true,” he said. “You are a fool. Hugo becomes mixed up when things like this happen. He is apt to do anything. One never knows.”
Baron surged forward. Joseph reached over and grabbed his arm. Baron quieted down. There was nothing he could do. He had heard Bette’s voice. She was there, in that monster’s house.
A few hours, he kept thinking. Just a few more hours.
But what would those hours bring? He did not know and he was too worked up to guess. His leg began to pain him and he knew he had hurt it when he sprawled down the stairs. He looked over at Joseph. The man stared straight ahead, his face utterly without expression as they drove down onto the Corniche road and turned toward Marseilles proper.
Baron tried to look at things coldly now. He knew what he had to do and he was going to do it. Morning would come soon, and he would cross Chevard once and for all. It would be done.
He hoped it would be done. Anything could happen. If he failed, he did not know what he would do.
“Arnold,” he said,
“I’ve got to have a gun. You can understand that, can’t you?”
“Yes, but I do not know if Hugo will think—”
“Let me worry about that.”
Arnold debated for a time. They came around past the harbor, and turned up the Cannebière.
“Well?”
“Yes, all right.” Arnold reached down onto the front seat, handed Baron a gun. “You will return it, non?”
Baron did not answer him. He examined the gun. It was a .32 Savage automatic. He put it in his pocket. They turned up the Rue Paradis.
“Let me off at the restaurant, right there. The café on the corner.”
“Sorry,” Arnold said. “My orders are to take you to your home. That is the way it must be.” They sped on past the café.
The Opel drew to a stop exactly where they had picked him up earlier, beside the Fiat. Baron climbed out and looked back at Arnold’s glistening eyes.
“I must tell Hugo about the pistol,” Arnold said.
Baron turned and walked away.
“I don’t know what Hugo will do,” Arnold said.
Baron climbed into the Fiat, pulled swiftly away from the curb, turned, and headed back toward the café. He was ravenously hungry. The gun was uncomfortable in his hip pocket. He changed it to his side jacket pocket.
He was going to go through with it. Why did he keep telling himself that? He knew he would have to, he must.
Eating in the café, he was extremely nervous. It seemed to him that everybody watched his movements. Even the waiters seemed to hover unnecessarily close. Nevertheless, he forced himself to eat, because he did not know what tomorrow would bring. He knew he would need strength.
He sat back then at the table in the café and laughed at his half-empty plate.
CHAPTER 19
The question of whether or not the supposedly constructed model of the breather was in the safe along with the papers did not occur to Baron until he was already inside the plant the following morning. Now, thinking of it, he knew what he was going to do. Whether he found it or not, he would tell Gorssmann he had found it, and destroyed it. He would tell him he smashed it, maybe burned it. This pleased him, because just now he was very anxious and worried and nervous.
