by Marc Olden
“O.K., captain, we radio when we get closer. But you understand something: nothing better happen to me, and you know why. My brother never forgets, and I’m sure you know what that means. It means you’re dead if I don’t walk off this ship and see my brother. You’re dead.”
Girons licked his lips, suddenly realizing he’d been holding his breath and leaning back in the chair as though to move farther away from Alain Lonzu. The Count owned the La Rochelle, and Girons had no choice but to follow orders if he wanted to continue as ship’s captain. These days few men were ship’s captains, and for a young orphan boy who had eaten garbage in Marseilles’s streets to keep from starving to death, Hubert Girons had come a long way.
He wanted to stay captain almost as much as he wanted to stay alive. Sighing, he raised his hands from his lap, letting them fall back on his thick thighs. A gesture of defeat.
“Everything will be all right, you’ll see. It’ll be all right.”
Alain’s twisted smile was ugly as he reached over with his left hand, keeping his eyes on Girons while pressing the hand onto Girons’s white shirt, feeling the man stiffen under the touch and seeing him fight for control as Alain wiped blood on the shirt. The smile, still ugly, was there as Alain said, “That’s my blood. Go on, look at it. Now, if everything is not all right, your blood will be there, you understand?”
Girons, lips pressed tightly together, jaw trembling with fear and shame, his face burning with savage embarrassment, said nothing.
“Captain, I asked you a question: I said do you understand?” Alain, like those with any power or advantage, used it.
Girons nodded, his head jerking stiffly, as though he were a puppet. And the harsh truth was that he was. But in his mind he made a note.
Girons, proud as those are who rise from nothing, had been pushed too far this time. The humiliation by Alain had been too much, and Girons, a Corsican, vowed that one day he would have his revenge on this bleeding bastard. The captain’s voice was low, almost inaudible. “I understand. I do.”
CHAPTER 6
FRANCE.
Eighty miles an hour. Speeding down an empty highway at eighty miles an hour, 6:45 on a chilly morning, bouncing around in the back seat of a small French taxi, his body tired and aching from a seven-hour night flight from Washington, D.C., to Orly Field in Paris. Shit, thought John Bolt, that’s just the good, news. The bad news is that the taxi was in midair—it had just hit a bump in the road—and all four wheels were off the ground.
My ass, thought Bolt. The fucking Frenchman’s driving like he’s the Red Baron.
In the seconds left to him before the taxi slammed back down into the highway, Bolt shoved his legs straight out, pressing hard against the base of the seat in front of him. Both hands were tightly entwined with a strap near the window on his right, the best white-knuckle grip the narc could come up with on short notice. Bolt was wide awake now. Oh yeah.
Wham!
The taxi banged into the highway, swerved into another lane, miraculously empty at this hour of the morning, and tires squealing, straightened out and kept speeding toward Paris.
Bolt, eyes wide, mouth open, heart scraping his ribs, let the air explode from him, chest collapsing. Shaking his head slowly in nervous anger, he yelled in French, “Jean-Paul, you bastard! If I had wanted to take a plane to my hotel lobby, I would have taken a fucking plane to my hotel lobby! Jesus Christ, you can take your death wish and shove it up your fat French ass! Slow this fucking piece of junk down, goddamn it!”
Jean-Paul Lamazère, forty-two, tall and packed with pink flesh from years of eating his own gourmet cooking, wrinkled his big nose, grinning slowly with a mouth that consisted almost entirely of one thick lower lip. Jean-Paul was enjoying himself. “Get out and walk, you lazy American bastard.” But he eased his huge foot off the accelerator, eyeing the speedometer as it dropped to one hundred and ten kilometers—sixty-eight miles an hour.
John Bolt breathed loudly through his open mouth, slowly shaking his head from side to side, feeling himself calm down and relax as touches of hot anger and cold fear crawled away from him. His stomach was sliding down from his throat now, heading for its rightful place. Hallelujah.
Shit, he liked Jean-Paul Lamazère, but something seemed to snap in that son-of-a-bitch’s head every time he slid behind the wheel of a car. Like most Frenchmen, Jean-Paul was a rotten driver, and like most rotten drivers, he thought he was good. “Tell you something, Jean-Paul. I’d let an alligator chew on my dick before I’d ride around with you again. When am I ever going to learn that you can’t drive, any more than you can give birth to twins? Shit, you get worse the older you get, you know that?”
“Italian drivers are worse,” said Jean-Paul, shrugging his thick shoulders, his eyes on the road. “An Italian driver will run over a pregnant nun.”
“Serves her right. You’re looking good, you fat bastard, did I tell you that? Shit, I’m so tired I don’t know what the fuck’s going on. Yeah, you’re looking good. Eating your own cooking … and speaking of eating, you’re probably getting more ass than a toilet seat.”
Bolt’s red-rimmed eyes looked into the rear-view mirror, locking with Jean-Paul’s large brown eyes and the saggy pink bags under them. Pink bags and thick black eyebrows. Colorful and ugly.
Yeah, Jean-Paul Lamazère was sure ugly to look at. Six feet four inches, overweight, big nose, a mouth with only one lip, a thick lower lip at that, and some people thought it was a kindness to describe the huge French cop as one of God’s bad jokes. That was their mistake. He was smart, tough, incorruptible, in a country where the police force could be bought too often for too little.
And incredibly enough, this big, quiet man who was a superb chef and lived alone in a small house with twelve dogs, was devastating with women, getting more of them than any man Bolt had ever met in his life. God’s bad joke was having the last laugh, because he was one of those rare men born with an indefinable attraction that women recognized immediately and responded to. Whatever the ugly French cop had, it was special, and it worked.
His women were beautiful, shapely, intelligent, rich, poor, and in-between, members of royalty, actresses, journalists, or lovely whores who sought him out and didn’t think of asking for money.
And always the big, ugly cop would be the one to end the affair. He left first, no expression on his face, ignoring tears and shouts, leaving the woman sad, angry, frustrated, shocked, hurt. And wanting to see him again, anytime and on his terms.
How did the ugly bastard do it? Bolt didn’t know. All he knew was that Jean-Paul Lamazère got his hands on more pussy than a gynecologist, and what’s more, he never spoke about his love life to anybody. Bolt had never heard him say more than a sentence or two about a woman, and even when that had happened, Jean-Paul had suddenly stopped talking about her and switched to something else.
There was a sadness in the huge cop, something that he kept buried deep inside, perhaps sharing only with his dogs. His cooking was considered good enough for him to be offered a chef’s job in a top Paris restaurant, which Bolt had learned was like playing quarterback on a superbowl football team. Cooking in France wasn’t an afterthought.
It was a skill, like brain surgery, portrait painting, good novel writing. You didn’t laugh about it, and you especially didn’t laugh about it in front of Jean-Paul Lamazère, who had a reputation for using his big feet to break the bones of people he didn’t like. Bolt, who had met him four years ago on a European assignment, liked him a lot.
They were both loners, tough and submerged in their work, crowding out anything else. For Jean-Paul Lamazère to get up this early in the morning and come out to the airport to meet Bolt was an act of great affection. To help the federal narcotics agent, on his own time and at a great deal of risk, said even more.
“Ask me questions,” said Jean-Paul. It was good to see Bolt, but he wished Bolt would let him drive faster. He knew he was a good driver.
Fumbling through papers on th
e back seat, Bolt picked up a small black-and-white photograph of a bearded white man not over thirty. “White man with a beard, thirty, maybe less. Long hair, shoulder-length, moustache, beard, and eyes that belong on a dead rat.”
Jean-Paul nodded in recognition. “One of yours. American. Jesse Staggers, age twenty-nine, height six feet one inch, weight a hundred and eighty pounds. Dishonorable discharge from your army in Germany three years ago. Caught dealing drugs to American troops. Also accused of killing an American GI who would not pay him for some dope he sold him. No stockade time, however. A bad man.”
“What’s he doing in my life?” Bolt rolled up a car window. Cold as hell in France in the morning, no matter what time of year. A cow mooed at him, then disappeared as the car sped down the empty highway.
“Monsieur Staggers is a driver for some of our Corsican friends. When the opium leaves Turkey, it is stored in Germany, usually Munich. You know all of that, but I’m telling you again so you know what Monsieur Staggers does. In Munich, the black opium gum is changed into morphine base, a crude powder. Now enter Monsieur Staggers. He drives the morphine base from Germany down to France, where the Corsicans have their scientists change it into heroin.”
“Courier and driver.”
“Oui. Sometimes they pay him off in money—dollars, Swiss or French francs, German Marcs, whatever he wants. Sometimes they pay him off in heroin, part of a kilo. Monsieur Staggers cuts the heroin several times and resells it to your American soldiers in Germany or France for a nice profit.”
“A sweetheart.”
“Not really.” Jean-Paul swung around a car in front of him, passing it quickly. “He thinks he’s a tough guy, likes to talk big, brag, boast, and sometimes he, as you say, does a rip-off. Is that how you pronounce it?”
Bolt smiled. Jean-Paul had said “reep-oof” but it was close enough. “Yeah, that’s how you say it. He’s the one I’m meeting?”
“Oui. Go to Ansel’s. It’s a cheap nightclub with watered drinks, and champagne made from ginger ale by a bartender who I think pisses in it to make sure it has bubbles. Don’t laugh, it might be true. Corsicans hang out there, so does Monsieur Staggers. He’s driven for Alain, who does a lot of the hiring for the Count. The Corsicans don t keep drivers on the payroll, they hire them as they need them. Tell Staggers you want to buy and show him money. But be careful. He has killed. We cannot prove it, but we hear it. He has killed, yes?”
Bolt studied Staggers’ face. The beard didn’t hide any of the ex-GI’s weakness and cruelty. He had the face of a man who would do anything for money. But never anything on a grand scale except scream like hell when he got his balls caught in the wringer. Bolt had seen that face, seen it on other men—white, black, yellow—wherever illicit narcotics were sold. A small-time hustler who’d stick his thumb in your eye for a nickel.
“Tonight. Ansel’s,” said Bolt.
“Ah yes. Staggers goes with a whore who works there, a woman called Anna Tellers. Staggers can tell you a lot about Alain, even some things I don’t know. Alain has a lot of women. He thinks he’s a lover. He has a wife and children somewhere in Marseilles, but they keep far away from him, and the Count sees that they have enough money to prevent them from making trouble. You talk to Staggers and learn what Alain might do if he gets away from the French police.”
Bolt looked at the back of Jean-Paul’s head. “Friend-to-friend, what do you think will happen when the boat lands?” Tell me the truth, old friend, thought the narc. Your brother cops have busted your ass, held you back from promotions, tried to kill you once or twice, tried to frame you—all because you won’t go along with being nice to Corsican dope dealers. You’ve survived hard times, and it’s made you sad and wise. Let’s hear it.
Jean-Paul didn’t answer for almost a minute. When he spoke, his voice was very low. “Alain’s the Count’s brother, and the Count is very powerful. The Count has friends in the police and with the politicians. I think … I think Alain Lonzu will never see the inside of a jail, no matter how many telegrams Washington sends to Paris. That is what I think. I think, rather I know, that the Count and Remy Patek will have men at Le Havre waiting for that boat, and even now Remy has men checking with Alain’s friends, his women, to see if Alain planned a double-cross in America. I think you are in danger, my friend, that is what I think.”
Bolt shrugged. Can’t quarrel with that. Everything the big man said was true. Patek’s killers would be prowling around looking for any information that would shed light on what happened in America to Remy’s brother and the four million dollars. Alain Lonzu was a bigmouth, a lover who liked to brag to his women.
Yeah, Remy and his goons would be out with their clipboards, asking questions, except that they wouldn’t have clipboards. They’d have guns, knives, fists, acid, fire—whatever it took to get Remy what he wanted. Watch out, Bolt. You’ve got a return-trip ticket, and you want to use it.
“I took some more information for you,” said Jean-Paul. “Roger did, too. It’s all there. Roger thought the two of us might be noticed at the airport, even though I’m wearing the worst suit I own and I borrowed the cab. He’ll get in touch with you sometime today.”
Bolt grinned. “Tell the little bastard to wash his moustache.” Roger Dinard. Thirty-five years old and looking fifteen years older because of a bald head, thick moustache, and round face. Funny way of walking, with feet turned out like a duck’s, and always wearing clothes with food stains or grease spots on them. A funny little man who really believed that cops should be straight and not on the take.
Like Jean-Paul, Roger had paid for that moral outlook by being overlooked for promotion and getting shot at, among other things. Both were plainclothesmen, but neither was going any further in the police department. Yet both refused to quit or give in. They stuck together, with Jean-Paul spending an occasional evening with Roger Dinard, his wife, and two kids.
Two good cops who were paying through the nose for being both good and cops. And now Bolt had placed his life in their hands, at least for the next five days.
“Did Alain get a look at you?”
Bolt nodded. “Think so.”
Jean-Paul shook his head, pushing his lower lip out further, slowing down as he came close to the rear of an orange-and-black school bus. “Bad news, as you say. He’ll remember you. And he’s a Corsican.”
Bolt, listening to his empty stomach growling, nodded. “Corsican” meant Alain Lonzu would kill him if he had the chance.
“I got five days. No one knows I’m here. I can be waiting for him, grab him, or at least get some information from him; then I’m gone. Long gone, baby.”
Jean-Paul was beside the school bus now, speeding to cut in front of it. Bolt looked out of the window and up at the faces of the French schoolgirls looking down at him. He waved, smiled. Three of them did, too. None of them looked any older than fifteen, which was the problem, because two of them looked damn good. I’d better cut out thinking like that, thought the narc.
A truck was heading directly toward Jean-Paul, its driver leaning on the horn.
Christ, thought Bolt, his head snapping from the girls and toward the front of the car. We’re going to crash, we’re fucking going to crash, and I’m going to die out here on the highway. …
Jean-Paul swerved to the right, turning the wheel again and again, getting out of the path of the oncoming truck, missing it by less than three feet, slipping between it and the school bus, which braked, its horn blaring.
Without looking back, Jean-Paul kept on driving, a small smile on his mouth. Why not? Jean-Paul was a good driver.
Bolt, in the back seat, sat up straight, papers and photographs all over his lap and on the floor. Nervous? Damn, he was ready to pee. Down his leg and into his shoe. “Jean-Paul …” he screamed, unable to say more.
Jean-Paul shrugged. “Read the information, John. You will need to know it. I went to much trouble to get it for you, eh?”
Bolt, his head cool and light, because it
isn’t every day you miss getting crushed on a French highway between a speeding truck and a school bus, sighed long and loud, then whispered, “I hate you, Jean-Paul.”
Jean-Paul smiled and shrugged. “Welcome to France.”
The woman screamed, feeling pain stab her skull as the Algerian yanked her hair. The Algerian, big and dark, his face greasy and pockMarced, smiled down at her, bringing the shiny pair of scissors to her face.
Remy Patek, standing behind them, said, “No, not her face. Her hair. Cut it.”
The woman, on her knees, small hands gripping the Algerian’s thick wrists, screamed, the sound piercing every corner of her small Paris apartment. Her name was Cloris, and at twenty-four she had been one of Alain Lonzu’s women for the past two years, dancing in a Paris club owned by Count Lonzu.
“Oh, please, please, don’t! Please!” She wept, begged, a breast slipping from her thin blue dress.
The Algerian, pleased to be allowed to hurt the woman, smiled and opened the scissors, catching thick blond hair between the shiny metal blades. This was his job, doing as Remy ordered. The Algerian’s name was Ahmed, and he was muscle and a trigger finger working for the Corsican.
“No, oh God, no! Oh, please …”
Fear made her incoherent, and her face, red and swollen from crying, looked up at the Algerian smiling down at her. What had she done? These men, four of them, had burst into her apartment, mentioning Alain and warning her. Warning her.
“I want Alain to know,” said Remy. “You tell him that I am looking for him. When he comes back, you tell him that, you understand?” Remy’s narrow, cold face stared at the woman as though she were garbage. He wanted Alain Lonzu to know, wanted him to be afraid.
“Oh no, please don’t, please …”
The blond hair fell softly to the light green carpet, and the Algerian smiled, his thick fingers moving slowly, carefully, enjoying what he was doing to the woman, now on her knees in front of him. Shit, it was sexy as hell to do this.
