“Fine, really fine. She’s right here. Can you hear her purring?”
Jealousy twinged at the thought of my Twinkie in bed with Kitty, and purring to boot. I was glad it wasn’t loud enough for me to hear. “She hasn’t destroyed anything else, has she?” I asked with a nervous chuckle.
Kitty didn’t answer right away. I said, “She hasn’t, has she? Destroyed anything?”
“Well—”
“Kitty! What happened?”
“It was one of the smaller ones.” I could tell she was trying for a comforting tone.
“Smaller what?” A horrible idea hit me. “Not one of Luc’s statues!” Kitty was the custodian of her estranged husband’s collection of valuable, sexually explicit, pre-Columbian statuary.
“Georgia Lee, you must not worry—”
This was the limit. “Tell me what happened,” I said from the depths.
“Twinkie jumped up on a shelf and knocked him off. He didn’t shatter or anything, but his— private parts got chipped.”
“I’m so sorry,” I gabbled. “Of course I’ll pay for it. Oh, Kitty!” The thing was surely worth thousands. I was practically in tears.
“No, no,” she said, her voice soothing. “I rearranged the shelves. Luc will never miss him. He won’t remember what he had, anyway. I’m sure he won’t.”
“Really?” I quavered.
“Promise. He never comes here. You know that.”
I knew, but possibly one day Luc would straighten himself out, and remember the particulars of his collection. I was willing to wait until that day to settle the matter if Kitty was. “If you’re sure—”
“Positive.”
“Oh, God! Why did she have to do it?”
“Please, Georgia Lee.”
“See you soon, Kitty.”
“Take care.”
I hung up, quivering. It was a sunny market day in Beaulieu-la-Fontaine. The loudspeaker was booming somebody’s rendition of “Feelings.” I stumbled out of the booth and stood on the edge of the cheerful scene. I should start a special savings account, in case Luc found out what had happened. Nothing Kitty had ever said about Luc made me think he was an understanding, forgiving sort of person. Or a cat lover, either.
I rambled aimlessly, jostled on all sides, staring unmoved at wreaths of lavender, handmade teapots, screened boxes for keeping cheese, and God knows what other items that would have sent me into ecstasies if I’d been myself. My one thought, obscuring all else, was to get back to Paris before Twinkie did any more damage.
Because I was so distracted, I was within a few feet of Alexander when I saw him. He was leaning against a plane tree next to a woman who was selling gaily packaged sachets. He was looking at me with intense absorption, an unattractive smile on his lips. If I hadn’t glanced up I would’ve walked right into him, which was evidently what he’d been waiting for.
I stopped abruptly and stepped backward, colliding with a woman who said, “Excuse me, Madame,” with a fine sarcastic edge. Alexander straightened, his eyes locked with mine. I pushed sideways, putting two women with shopping bags, one pushing a child in a stroller, between us. I pulled my eyes away from his and ran, searching for a place to hide.
A Game Of Boules
Reason told me (if the thoughts rocketing through my head could be called reason) I should stay at the market, where people were around, instead of taking off for the empty streets beyond. Unfortunately, the market at this point had spread out into a gravelly parking lot, and the density wasn’t nearly as great as on the main street. The shaded tables set up in rows and lining the edge of the lot didn’t offer much in the way of cover. I dodged between two of them and glanced back to see Alexander in determined pursuit. Since he was so tall, it was easy to pick him out over the heads of the crowd.
I slipped along behind the vendors as he worked his way toward me. This tactic wouldn’t work for long. I looked around for a better alternative.
Parked sideways across the end of the lot was a large, snazzy, red-and-white panel truck. The side of the truck was open, and set up in front of the opening was a long table with a display of boules, the steel balls used in the bowling game that’s a French national pastime. At the moment, several men, probably including those in charge, were deeply absorbed in a game, or possibly a demonstration, in an open space some distance from the display. My eye fixed on the dark, safe-looking space inside the truck. If I could get in there without being seen, I could wait until Alexander got tired of searching and gave up. Not a bad idea, but pulling it off would be the trick.
These observations took an instant. I was standing between a line of tables and the trees bordering the parking lot. Beyond the trees was a road with parked cars along its edge. I darted past a tree and ducked down behind a parked car. I’d attract attention if I stayed here, but maybe I could evade him for as long as it took to reach the truck. I peeked from behind the car and didn’t see him. Bent over, I scurried to the next car and peeked again. This time I saw him craning his neck, looking for me. So I’d lost him, at least momentarily, and the truck was only a couple of cars plus a mad dash away. I went into a hunched-over sprint and reached the last car. Alexander was now on my side of the parking lot. When his head was turned I made my final scramble, ending up behind the truck, breathless.
In some barely conscious calculation, I’d figured the best way to get inside was to go along the back and slip around. Trying to look casual but purposeful, I strode to the back end of the truck and peered at the scene. The boules players were intent on the game. Everybody else was intent on selling, buying, or looking. Alexander was near the trees where I’d disappeared. I slid around the side of the truck, walked swiftly to the open door, and stepped inside. Nobody shouted and asked what I was doing. I moved out of the doorway and looked around.
The inside of the truck was fitted with racks on which were stacked cartons of boules. Just inside the door, by my feet, stood an open carton of boules and a half-empty plastic bottle of Evian water.
I didn’t want to stay where I could be seen by a casual glance through the door. At the end of the truck there was a narrow space between the rack and the wall where I would be more hidden. Before moving back, I took one of the smooth, shiny boules from the open carton. It was heavy and cool in my hand, near baseball size. I had no idea what I might do with it, but it seemed a possible weapon if I needed one. I got an unlikely mental picture of myself hurling it at Alexander and catching him between the eyes. Then I went back and fitted myself in the niche. If I rounded my shoulders, it was fine.
I’d been there an eternal ten minutes, listening to a salesman who had left the game to give a pitch to a potential customer, before I calmed down enough to try and figure out what was happening. Clearly, Alexander knew or suspected I was on to him. I remembered the letter I’d taken from his duffel bag. If he’d missed it, he could easily conclude I was the thief. Which meant I had to get out of Beaulieu-la-Fontaine before he got to me.
The longer I waited, the less imminent his getting to me seemed. I slipped the boule into my shoulder bag, ready to hand if he should pop through the doorway. I wished I could see outside, see if he were lingering around or if he’d given up. Surely he’d given up.
I was planning to risk a quick look when the two boules salesmen decided to take an Evian break. One of them reached for the bottle without really looking inside the truck. Then they positioned themselves in the doorway, passing the bottle back and forth while they discussed business, which, they agreed, was terrible.
Wedged in my uncomfortable hiding place, I listened as they excoriated the boules players (and buyers) of Beaulieu-la-Fontaine and lauded those at another village down the road. Then they widened the comparison to take in the entire Vaucluse region, and soon it seemed that the boules community of Beaulieu-la-Fontaine was the most unskilled and parsimonious in Provence. I expected the discussion, which had by now continued for a considerable time, to expand to all of France, and it probably would have i
f a man hadn’t approached and proved them liars by purchasing a set of boules.
My shoulders were aching, my feet were prickling, and I wanted nothing so much as to get out of this truck. Beyond stir-craziness, I could add another compelling reason: Time was getting short. It was almost noon. The market ended at twelve-thirty, and if business was bad these guys could decide to close up early. The bus for Carpentras left at one, and I had to go back to the hotel, gather my things, and pay my bill. If the salesmen didn’t get out of the doorway, I would have to emerge and brazen it out with some excuse. The problem was, I couldn’t imagine any possible excuse.
I was sorting through feeble possibilities when one of the salesmen said, “My God! What a beauty!” and the two of them left the doorway and, as far as I could tell, the immediate vicinity. I scuttled for the door and hopped out, lingering at the boules display to get my bearings. The salesmen were over by the road. They weren’t chatting up some gorgeous woman, as I’d assumed, but had joined a knot of people admiring an antique car whose driver was proudly answering questions. Alexander was not in sight. Relieved and liberated, I started back for the hotel.
The crowd was thinning out now, and some vendors were knocking down their tables or packing up unsold goods. I kept an eye out and proceeded as inconspicuously as I could, but I saw neither Alexander nor his motorcycle.
By the time I got back to the hotel, my mind was running on practicalities like buying my bus ticket and whether to pay the hotel with cash or credit card. The lobby was empty and somnolent. I leaned across the desk, got my key, and climbed upstairs to do the little packing that was necessary.
I was jiggling the key in the lock when the door flew open. Someone inside the room dragged me in and clamped a hand over my mouth. My suitcase lay open on the neatly made bed, with my clothes trailing out of it. Clippings, notes, and transcripts were strewn across the floor. My head was pulled back and a voice said in my ear, “Predictable, aren’t you, bitch?” It was Alexander.
Monologue
Predictable was the word for it. My shock and fear were secondary, in that instant, to anger at myself. I had expected to prance back here, get my suitcase, and leave town unimpeded? I flushed with shame at my naïveté. Alexander shoved the door closed and marched me to the bed, where he pushed me down next to my suitcase with my face buried in the pillow. I writhed, but he planted his knee on my back as I struggled for breath. He wrenched my arms behind me and tied my wrists together with some springy material. Then he pulled my head back roughly and bound my mouth. I realized he was trussing me up with pantyhose. My own pantyhose. I’d always hated pantyhose, and here was the final justification.
“Final” was a word with deep reverberations. That I might be killed by this smarmy bastard made me madder than ever.
He pulled me upright, but before I got my balance he shoved me back on the bed where I sprawled ignominiously, but front side up. I struggled into a sitting position and glared at him.
“If looks could kill,” he taunted. He walked to the bureau and picked up two items, exhibiting them for my inspection, one in each hand. I recognized the letter I’d taken from his room and Pedro’s tape. He waggled the tape in front of my nose and said, “Thanks for letting me listen to this on your recorder.”
So, while I’d been wedged in my ingenious hiding place in the boules truck, Alexander had had the leisure to break into my room and suitcase, find the incriminating evidence, and play it on my tape recorder. How humiliating.
“Good old Pedro,” he said, stuffing the letter and tape into the pocket of his jeans. He stood in front of me, arms folded, looking down. “What should I do with you?” he asked.
Since I couldn’t answer, I shook my head and narrowed my eyes, trying to look my most hateful.
“If I let you go, you’re going to start squawking that I killed Carey. I can’t afford that. I want you to drop it.”
I didn’t blink.
“You think you’re so goddamn smart, and you’re so screwed up,” he said contemptuously. He walked to the window and looked out. In the streaming sunlight he looked older and more dissipated. He looked like a handsome, wasted brat. On his wrist the Rolex— or the fake Rolex— gleamed.
“I have to shut your mouth,” he continued, turning back to me. “How? Beat the shit out of you? Maybe you think I’m going to kill you. That would shut you up, wouldn’t it?”
The maid, or Alexander, had closed the window. A fly buzzed loudly against the pane. Provencal flies, I’d learned, were loud, and a nuisance, but dumb. Easy to swat.
“Let me surprise you,” Alexander said. “I’m going to do it another way. I’m going to tell you the truth.”
If disbelief can be conveyed by rolling eyes, raised eyebrows, and flared nostrils, I conveyed it.
He laughed. “Sure, sure. You don’t like me. You want me to be a killer. But don’t get committed to the idea.”
I had slumped back on the bed. He took me roughly by the shoulders and pulled me upright. “Listen, captive audience!”
I put on an attentive look. What choice did I have? The fly, stupid as they come, continued to buzz futilely, banging itself against the pane.
In a corner sat a green ladder-back chair with a cane seat. Alexander turned it around and straddled it, resting his arms on its back. Of course he wouldn’t sit in a chair the normal way. Too constricting on his balls.
His eyes were now on a level with mine. He said, “I came to New York the day before Carey was killed. For reasons that have nothing to do with the murder, I wasn’t traveling under my own name.” He scrutinized me and said, mockingly, “Following me so far?”
I nodded.
“Very good.” He blinked rapidly. For the first time I saw that behind the bravado he was nervous, too. “I come to New York fairly often. I don’t usually tell Vivi, because it makes for complications. She insists on seeing me, and I have business to do. She knows nothing about the business. I want that clear. On that trip, though, I knew she and Carey were having a lot of trouble, so I called her when I got to town. She was in a bad way. She and Carey were on the verge of splitting up. We arranged to meet the next night at a bar I knew, to talk.
The chair had a sloppy paint job. I studied the brush tracks. Alexander went on, “When Vivi and I talked, I think I said something like, ‘Don’t worry. If Carey gives you any more grief, I’ll smash his face in.’ I said it because I knew she’d love it, and she did. The idea that I’d really kill Carey is ludicrous. I’ve got better things to do. But I figure Pedro was listening in and heard what I said.
“So— I was supposed to meet Vivi. In the early evening, though, a serious business problem developed that meant it was advisable for me to get out of New York fast.”
What could it have been, I wondered. Police problems, more than likely. A raid on their warehouse, if they had a warehouse.
“I didn’t have time to call Vivi and cancel the date before I left town,” Alexander said. “I figured I’d call her from the airport. Only the traffic was completely snarled because of the weather, and by the time I got to the airport it was too late to call. She would’ve already left to meet me at the bar. Besides which, I was afraid they’d close the airport, and I needed to get the hell out, so I didn’t have time to waste. I got a flight, we sat on the runway for a while, and finally took off. When I got back to California I went to— a friend’s house, so I didn’t get Vivi’s message about Carey until late the next morning. By the time we got a chance to talk she was reassuring me that everything was OK, that my name had never come into it. I didn’t know what she was talking about at first, and then I realized she thought I’d done it.
“Believe it or not, I’ve never been able to convince her otherwise. When I try she claims to believe me, but I know she doesn’t. She wants to think I killed for her.” He cocked his head at me. “What do you think?”
I shrugged. I thought it was more convincing than I’d expected.
“So who did it? I don’t kn
ow. I’m sure Vivi didn’t, because she’s so convinced I did. The letters I wrote accusing her were to scare you off. When they didn’t work, I had to get over here. I knew Vivi would be pissed at me for showing up, so I hung around a few days trying to figure out what to do.”
He breathed deeply. “I was on a plane when Carey was killed. I know the flight number. I can tell the alias I was using, if I have to. I don’t want it to get to that point, because if it does I’ll be kaput for reasons besides Carey’s murder. See?”
Little did he know he was kaput anyway, as soon as Missy got busy. I wouldn’t have told him, even if I could talk.
He laced his fingers. A knuckle cracked. “You should’ve taken the money I offered you. Saved a lot of trouble.”
He stood and checked the Rolex. “Got to go. We’re leaving to see the lawyer in Carpentras in half an hour.” He leaned over me. “I could hurt you. And I will, if I have to. So keep your mouth shut.”
He went to the door and let himself out.
It was a long struggle to free myself from my abominable pantyhose. When I did, they were nearly as tattered and full of runs as they would have been after a couple of normal wearings. There was now no question of making the one o’clock bus. I wandered around the room gathering my possessions, thinking about Alexander’s story. If he really could prove he’d been on that plane, he hadn’t killed Carey. And after all this, I still didn’t know who had.
I sorted my scattered clippings. Why was I doing this? They were of no use to me now. I could toss them in the hotel incinerator before I left.
Even so, I looked at them. And as I looked, I realized I wasn’t quite through. I had to go back to Mas Rose one more time.
Nice Boy
The hotel proprietor agreed to extend my stay with his customary lack of grace. I showered, dressed in fresh clothes, stowed the clipping in my shoulder bag, put on my straw hat. My loins reasonably girded, I started out.
The Complete Mystery Collection Page 39
