“Brains, LaRoche, brains.”
“Come on, LaRoche, tell us about it.”
“A story like that, it’s too good to keep to yourself.”
“You’re one of the great criminal geniuses, LaRoche, did you know that?”
“It’s true: a genius.”
“It’s just bad luck, getting caught the way you did.”
“Could have happened to anyone.”
“Who the hell cares about blowing up a fucking gendarme?”
“Nobody.”
“You told him not to pick it up.”
“Too bad it wasn’t Schneider, huh?”
“Yeah, no one’d miss that son of a bitch.”
“All we need is the million bucks and it’s wrapped up.”
“Did you really drive around to all those bars on a chopper with the million bucks in a suitcase?”
“Genius, LaRoche, that’s genius.”
“But we’ve got a witness, you know.”
“Two of them.”
“They saw you and the Payton broad, LaRoche.”
“It’s all tied up.”
“Just one little slip and…whammo!”
“Too bad, LaRoche.”
“Why don’t you tell us about it, Alain?”
“Sure, relax, it’s all over now.”
“A beer, a cigarette, maybe a sandwich, then…hell, we’ll just start taking it down, okay?”
“Whattaya say, Rocky?”
“Hey, Emile, go get us some eats.…”
After that they got started in earnest.
CHAPTER 31
It was obvious, I told myself for the sixtieth time, that they were just going through the motions. They didn’t really believe I had anything to do with this business, they were just a trifle out of sorts, and I was a handy punching bag.
I lay back on the Spartan cot and stared at the blank cement ceiling of the Commissariat’s holding cell. It was the first time I’d seen one from the wrong side, and I wasn’t enjoying the experience.
For that matter, I had to admit, I wasn’t really relishing my stay in Tahiti, Gem of the South Pacific, the way the travel agency had promised I would. I ticked off my experiences of the last couple of days: I’d been shot at; been driven at with intent to be pushed off a cliff; been sewed up by Dr. Mengele and his staff from Auschwitz; been set up for a fatal bombing and had pieces of gendarme rained on me, and been punched silly by a number of gendarmes. It was less hazardous, I decided, being a cop in San Francisco, where at least I had a licence to shoot back.
And now it looked as if I might be spending an indeterminate length of time in a Tahitian hoosegow. After a forthcoming interrogation by the Juge d’Instruction—Examining Magistrate, I gathered—I might as well resign myself for a transfer to the regular prison in Faaa.
“Jesus,” I said to the cop who’d explained this to me, “what about bail?”
He looked at me as if I was Joe Rube, who’d just paddled in from the islands. “Bail? In a murder case? You must—Oh, I keep forgetting, you’re American.”
So I sat and told myself all the reasons it was obvious they were just going through the motions.
For instance: the note in the Renault, directing me to Mahina. Did they think I’d written that to myself?
And ballistics tests would prove the .25 Biretta they’d found on me hadn’t been used to kill the Wests.
And if they were really serious, I said, they wouldn’t be shouting at me from nine different angles, they’d be interrogating me quietly about names and dates and places: On October 3rd you snatched her; on the 4th you mailed the letter; what were you doing on the 5th? And so on and so forth.
I hoped.
In my gloomier moments, aggravated by my aches and pains and probable concussion from the week’s accumulated beatings and batterings, I looked at the other side of the picture. I didn’t like what I saw.
Maybe it wasn’t so obvious they were just going through the motions. Maybe they were just lousy interrogators.
Suppose they hadn’t found that note in the car—Colonel Schneider would have chewed it and swallowed it with pleasure if it would have meant putting his pal LaRoche in a tight spot.
Suppose the .25 Biretta had killed the Wests. I couldn’t invent a plausible reason for it then turning up in their bedside table, but stranger things have happened.
And finally, I said to myself, I wasn’t locked up here by Ellery Queens and Hercules Poirots whose quest for truth was motivated by a high intellectual curiosity and a thirst for justice. I was locked up by a bunch of workaday cops whose only concern was to clear their desk and go on to the next thankless task. We’ve got a guy in jail for kidnapping and murder-one? And he looks okay for the fall except for maybe a couple details?
And you want us to spring him so we can go look for somebody else?
Beat it, pal, before we drop you off at the funny farm.
I chewed a knuckle distractedly. Think, you lunkhead, think! You got yourself into this mess. Now think your way out. So I thought. An hour and a half later it came to me.
It was so obvious it hardly merited consideration. Since I know I’m innocent, it therefore follows that—No, wait. Back up a moment. Since I know I’m innocent.…
There’s something important there.… What?
I began to nibble on the knuckles of my other hand. Desperately.
Say it slowly.
Since I know I’m innocent, therefore.…
.…someone else is guilty?
Obviously.
But wait. Take it a step further. I know I’m innocent…so suppose.…
.…just suppose that.…
An hour later I knew I had to get out of there.
At ten o’clock they came and clamped chains around my wrists and led me by foot to the Examining Magistrate’s office a few buildings down the way. I examined my chains and manacles with single-minded concentration. When they mothballed the battleship Missouri, I decided, they sent the anchor chains down to the Papeete police department. Harry Houdini might have been amused by their presumption and naïveté. I found them a burden just to lift.
We climbed the broad steps of the Palais de Justice and went up to the second floor and down a corridor. There were four or five people gathered in front of a door. All of them looked up with interest as I approached with my escort.
I sighed. Tamara Payton was there, looking as angry as I’d ever seen her, and Maître Françoise Sivel, attired this time in the pleated black robes of her calling. She was as tiny as ever, and her puckish grin was just as irrepressible.
“So,” she said with all the drama she could muster. “We meet again.”
“Looks like it.” I raised my arms with their hundredweight of clanking ironware. “Any chance of getting these removed? They’re awkward when I have to itch.”
“I’m sure that’ll be no problem,” she said, and turned to one of the men beside her. I edged closer to Tamara. “What’s happening?” I asked.
She could hardly get the words out. “My…my father…said he hopes you…burn. He…he.…” Her fingernails dug into her palms.
“Forget it,” I said as kindly as I could. I wasn’t exactly dizzy with shock at the knowledge of his desertion. “I…I’m sorry about your mother. I…just wish I could have been a little smarter or a little quicker or.…”
She nodded miserably. “I…I came to see you, to tell you that I don’t believe you could.… I know you couldn’t have!” She gulped. “I…I remembered that you’d been to see Maître Sivel and I went to hire her. Did…did I do right?” She looked up at me, her eyes anguished.
It was my turn to gulp. I reached out to squeeze her fingertips. “You did just right. A man is lucky when he can find a friend like you.…” I drew a deep breath. “Enough of my problems, they’ll take care of themselves. Is your father still here?”
She nodded. “Until tomorrow. We’re leaving in the afternoon with…with.…” Tears filled her eyes and she pawed at
them awkwardly with the back of her hand.
“Courage, ma belle, courage,” I whispered, and was led into the chambers of the Juge d’Instruction.
The room could have been in the Hall of Justice on Bryant Street. There was a wall covered with legal tomes, an imitation wood desk littered with bulging dossiers, a flag in one corner, and a picture of the President of the Republic on the far wall. Different President, different Republic. The only other difference was that the electricity in Papeete had gone off earlier in the day as it did from time to time, and open windows had replaced the air-conditioning. Exhaust fumes from the street below made their way up and in. I wrinkled my nose.
The Examining Magistrate, a middle-aged Frenchman in a sport shirt, came in accompanied by Tama and we found chairs for ourselves. The two cops stood motionlessly on either side of me. Tama refused to catch my eye.
Bastard, I muttered to myself, just as the electricity came back on. The Magistrate hopped up to close the windows and turn on the air-conditioner. I settled in for a long session. My head was throbbing.
Maître Sivel opened by speaking at some length, citing this text and that. At the end of it the magistrate pulled a long face and ordered the manacles removed and the two policeman out of the room. It was an encouraging sign.
The questions began, and for the next four hours they continued with only a short break for lunch. We were back at it long before 1:30, when the rest of Papeete returned to work, and we paused for a moment while motorcycles and cars were stabled with all their accompanying roars just below us. The electricity had gone off again and the windows were open once more.
The Juge d’Instruction was intelligent, civilized, impersonal, and clearly a hanging judge. At 2:20 I leaned over to Maître Sivel and whispered: “Yes, or no? Is he going to lock me up, at least for the next couple of days?”
“Well,” she said, “it’s—”
“Yes or no?”
“Yes,” she said reluctantly.
I nodded. “Just wanted to know.”
I sat back and felt the adrenaline begin to pump through me. My hands began to quiver. I was going to have to do it.…
“Look,” I said softly ten minutes later, trying to mask the desperation in my voice, “you’re all forgetting a very important legal point. In fact, I can prove it to you.” I swivelled around to point at the heavy, leather-bound volumes of the Proceedings of the Court of Versailles, 1947-1978 in their shelves against the wall. The Examining Magistrate looked up with interest and his head turned to follow my gesture. Before he could say anything, I stood up on trembling legs and walked as casually as I could across the room, my hand outstretched.
“Here, let me show you,” I said. I hesitated, pulled down the volume for the second half of 1952, circled with it behind the Magistrate’s desk, and jumped out the window.
I landed on the roof of a white Peugeot with a hollow clang and bounced from there onto its hood. I dropped the book in my hand and joined it on the sidewalk an instant later. I began to run. The adrenaline and sheer naked fear helped. Jesse Owens never hoofed it faster.
There were a dozen cars parked along the sidewalk, and further down, half a dozen motorcycles. My eyes scanned them despairingly. They must have all belonged to cops and judges and untrusting people like that because there wasn’t a key among them. I ran on. There were shouts now, somewhere behind me.
Just ahead of me, partially blocked by a pickup truck, I finally noticed a tiny Tahitian girl almost lost in her goggles and helmet climbing down from a large black Yamaha. I put on a final burst of speed and arrived as she was removing the key.
“Thank you,” I said with all the breathless charm I could muster, and threw my leg over the seat. Two seconds later I had driven up on the sidewalk, scraped my knee excruciatingly against a concrete wall, and had wobbled out against the oncoming traffic.
I didn’t bother to check whether the street was one-way or not, I just went. All the traffic seemed to be coming from the opposite direction, so at the first intersection I skidded through a right turn, charged past a schoolyard, and roared out onto the main road through town. Without slowing I plowed into traffic just under the nose of a large green army bus, turned left at the last possible moment, and six seconds later was hitting 70 miles an hour on my way out of town and running for dear life to Mareta’s cozy little hideaway in the Faaa hills.
CHAPTER 32
Mareta’s body was warm and damp against mine in the afternoon heat as we lay drowsily in the aftermath of love. She raised her head from my chest and kissed me tenderly on the forehead.
“Poor old LaRoche,” she murmured as her fingers gently probed the bumps and tufts of stitches on my head. “You’re my horrible monster.”
“I’ll be Colonel Schneider’s horrible monster if he ever catches me,” I said, cupping her breast in my hand. “And Tama’s too. I think I was under his jurisdiction when I jumped out that window.”
Laughing, Mareta sat up on the bumpy mattress and raised her arms to fiddle with her hair. I admired the sleek curve of her neck and the taut contours of her breasts. “I wish I could have seen that, the escape of Robin Hood from the Sheriff of Nottingham.”
“Errol Flynn should feel so lousy,” I muttered. I climbed reluctantly to my feet and followed Mareta out to the back yard, where we stood under a cold-water showerhead in a galvanized-tin shed. I pulled her to me and her body molded itself to mine as we relished the cool water flowing over our bodies.
“You better be going,” I said when we finally broke apart and began wielding the soap. “I overhead Schneider saying he’d had a beeper put on my car yesterday morning, which must have been while Payton and I were being shouted at in Tama’s office. If they were tracking me then, they know I went to the hospital—hell, I told them that—and then to your place in town. But they don’t know I came up here in your car. So sometime they’re going to be coming around to your place in town. Buy yourself a bag of groceries on the way in, and if they wonder where you’ve been, tell them you’ve been to the beach and then shopping. Okay?”
She stood on tiptoe to kiss the end of my nose. The tips of her nipples brushed disturbingly across my skin. “Of course, my conspirator. And then I come back here?”
I began to towel off. “Better not. They’ll probably want to search your house to make certain I’m not hiding under the bed. Let them. Then turn on lots of lights and hang around in the house in full view so they can see you easily if they’re snooping around. If you do have to come back here—for some real emergency either try to use another car and make sure you’re not tailed, or make certain they haven’t put a beeper on your station wagon.” I told her where to look for one, without much hope that she’d be able to spot it.
I pulled her against me and tried to smile encouragingly. It wasn’t easy. “If everything goes as planned I’ll be able to march up to your place leading a brass band tomorrow.” Her dark brown eyes looked up at me uncertainly, and she grabbed my face with both hands. Her mouth found mine and kissed it with desperate hunger, then she pushed herself away abruptly. She turned and began to pull on a pair of shorts. “If everything goes as planned,” she murmured ironically.
“Yeah.” I swallowed uncomfortably. “If.”
* * * *
But the first part of my plan worked to perfection: the afternoon ticked away, the sun set behind Moorea right on schedule, and darkness covered the land.
After that it got a little chancier.
At 9:30 I revved up the stolen Yamaha and drove it without the headlight at a walking pace down the rutted dirt road. It was a cloudless night, with a quarter moon to light the way, and I managed the 400 yards to the paved road without breaking any bones. A few dogs barked at my passage but no one came out to investigate.
Once on the pavement I flicked on the lights and tucked myself low behind the handlebars. From this point on it was going to have to depend on speed.
I zipped down to the main road without meeting any traffic
and came to a stop at the intersection. As luck would have it, a motorcycle tore by at that moment on its way to town, and after a moment’s reflection I took after it in hot pursuit. I caught it 300 yards down the road and slowed to maintain an interval of five yards between us. Any camouflage was better than none, and the cops would be looking for solitary cyclists, not a pair riding together. Or so I could always hope.
It was only five minutes into town, and whether we passed any policemen or gendarmes on the way I didn’t know. In any case, no one came roaring after me, sirens wailing, or called ahead to get the barricades raised. Just after passing the entrance to the cemetery where the bodies of Bob and Susan Wood lay moldering in the Tahitian earth we peeled off to the waterfront road. On the left was the Olympic swimming pool, and on the right a bit further the headquarters of the gendarmes’ motorcycle brigade. There were two choppers parked on the sidewalk, but the small corner office was unlighted.
The traffic signal at Avenue Bruat was flashing orange, as it did in the evenings. I sailed on through, past the post office and the Vaima Center, made a U-turn around the divider, and came back up the other side of the waterfront. The width of the sidewalk separated me from the dozens of yachts tied up for the night. I passed The Book of Dreams and wondered idly if Hiro and Billy had talked themselves out of jail yet. I hoped not.
Fifty yards further along, the black outline of the Aventurier bulked against the sky. No gendarmes appeared to be lurking in ambush anywhere in the vicinity, so I slowed as much as I dared and examined it carefully as I rolled by. I couldn’t see any lights, either on deck or below, but it was hard to be certain in the few seconds I had.
Back at the Avenue Bruat intersection I made another U-turn and headed back the way I’d originally come. When I passed the Vaima Center, however, I kept on going, leaving the yachts behind me, until I reached the Banque de Polynésie on the corner of Rue Gauguin. From there I made my way out of town to the Commune of Pirae, where I’d so guilelessly checked in six eons ago at the Hotel Taaone.
This time, however, I didn’t go that far. Between the football stadium and a military center were a couple of residential blocks. I knew from Tama that what I was looking for was somewhere in there. The stadium was in darkness as I drove behind it, turned left, and then left again. I cut the engine and peered into the darkness.
Trouble in Tahiti Page 20
