The Luxembourg Run

by Ellin, Stanley

  Three days of that, then back to Paris, and there you are. You have only two

  things to remember. First, you’re to follow all Marie-Paule’s instructions to

  the letter. Second, you’ll also be her strong-arm boy. Her protector.

  Chouchoute said you’re good in that department. That you know how to use

  your muscle without getting murderous.”

  “Glad to get the recommendation,” I said, “but protector against what?”

  “Not the police, if that’s what’s on your mind. However, there’s a

  species of waterfront animal who may show up at our place in Marseille

  looking for trouble, and that must be discouraged. But no weapon is permitted.

  Nothing that might have the police move in.”

  “One’s best weapon is a pure heart and a loving spirit,” I pointed out.

  “Exactly. That’s what gives us hope for the future of mankind, isn’t it?

  And now, since you’re going to be up before dawn, Mijnheer, I’d suggest you

  bed down early. The room upstairs overlooking the street is all yours.”

  I bedded down on an army cot somewhat harder on the hip than even the

  floor would be, so in the end I settled for the floor. I was awakened in

  darkness by Kees poking my shoulder and saying, “Time to be up, Sleeping

  Beauty. It’s four-thirty. Get a move on or you’ll catch an earful from the lady.”

  49

  The lady herself, a wedding band now conspicuous on her finger, was

  hard at work in the kitchen when I walked in and was in no sweeter mood than

  she had been last night. Under her instructions I loaded into the station wagon

  cartons of books and leaflets, a wicker hamper of food, and finally her suitcase

  and mine. As a reward, I was allowed all the coffee and bread I could put

  away in one minute flat, and then on the stroke of five we were in the car and

  heading south.

  She drove expertly, always staying just within speed limits, and

  traveling thus, we arrived at Marseille in midafternoon It came as no surprise

  to find that, just as the Paris tabernacle was planted in a rough neighborhood

  among cheap bistros and auto supply shops, the Marseille tabernacle, a couple

  of blocks from the docks, was planted in a rough neighborhood of cheap

  bistros and boat supply shops. And, as I saw after I rolled up the corrugated

  metal sheet that sealed it in and Marie-Paule had unlocked its door, the place

  itself was a facsimile of the Paris salvation center. Same general size and

  layout, and, one flight up, even the same sort of bedroom waiting for me, no

  furniture in it but a cot.

  So to work, unloading the car, and then, shoulder to shoulder with

  Marie-Paule, tending to an accumulation of Marseille grime with rags and

  mops.

  In the midst of this I was handed yet another duty, to get to a bakery for a

  few loaves of bread. Watching Marie-Paule working away with the mop as I

  departed, I could only wonder where she got the energy. It was some

  satisfaction, therefore, when I returned and laid the warm breads on the bar, to

  see that my partner must have gone human for a moment and decided to take a

  breather. She was not on the scene but her mop was, resting against the bar.

  Nothing wrong with that, but, curiously, the kitchen door which we had left

  open through our labors was now almost closed, only a thin band of light

  showing through it. And on that newly mopped floor, were those the prints of

  men’s shoes other than mine? Two distinct sets of them?

  I moved toward the kitchen, but stopped short of it. “Marie-Paule,” I

  called, “I’ve got the bread here. Where do I put it?”

  A silence followed, a few heartbeats of it, and then in a warmly inviting

  lilt came Marie-Paule’s voice. “Right in here, mon cheri.”

  Mon cheri? From that lady?

  50

  I came at the door like a battering ram and hit it full force with my

  shoulder, trusting that anybody waiting in the kitchen to waylay me would be

  behind it, and luck was with me. The door crashed into someone, sent him

  staggering back, but I didn’t have time to finish him off on the spot. Marie-

  Paule was seated in a chair in the middle of the kitchen which was a scene of

  wild disorder, and standing over her, one hand twisted in her hair, the other

  gripping a long-bladed knife, was a big, hard-looking specimen, astonishment

  on his face. As training for combat, soccer has its advantages. Before he could

  turn the knife in my direction I drove my heel into his shin, and when he

  doubled over in agony I kicked him in the jaw with impact enough to drive it

  right through his skull, and down he went. I wheeled around, expecting the

  other man to be on my back by now, but that one had had his bellyful —

  faceful, actually, and I knew how that felt — and before I could grab him he

  was through the outside door and gone.

  I closed and locked the door and quickly returned to the kitchen. Marie-

  Paule, still seated and very white of face, was regarding the man stretched out

  on the floor. Most of the acid seemed drained from her as she looked up at me.

  “My God, you are efficient, aren’t you?”

  “You helped considerably. That mon cheri was very clever.”

  She gave me a pallid smile. “And you are too, for guessing what it

  meant. When he motioned me to call you in here I didn’t want to, but that knife

  at my throat —”

  ”A very convincing argument, a knife at the throat. But who is he?”

  “I don’t know.” She got unsteadily to her feet and didn’t seem to mind

  that I put an arm around her waist to support her. “Small fry probably. They

  live on what they can steal from proper dealers. See what he has on him.”

  I did, and found I wasn’t the only one in these parts traveling without

  papers. There were a few franc notes in one of his pockets, and that was it.

  “Now what?” I asked Marie-Paule. The man stirred and made a sound in

  his throat. The unnatural angle of his jaw indicated it might be broken, but he

  looked tough enough to survive a broken jaw and a few missing teeth. “He’ll

  soon be coming back from dreamland,” I pointed out, “and I can’t just cart him

  out outside and dump him there.”

  “I’ll run upstairs and phone Kees about it. Meanwhile, tie that animal up

  and get him down to the cellar. Use the rope from the book cartons.”

  51

  She didn’t wait to see me tie my victim’s hands behind him, then bring

  him around to consciousness by slapping a wet rag back and forth across his

  face so that he could do his own walking. When he dragged his feet I urged

  him on with his own knife — eight inches of razor-edged fisherman’s knife —

  and he sullenly led the way to the chilly cavern below decks which must have

  once been a wine cellar. The racks were still there along with a few wooden

  crates and a scattering of dust-covered empty bottles. I tied him to one of the

  iron posts supporting the ceiling and left him to his reflections.

  It took Marie-Paule long enough at her phone call for me to do some

  straightening of the kitchen before she returned. Not only had its shelves been

  ransacked but our cartons of books and leaflets had been emptied on the floor,

  a couple of th
e cartons stove in by hard kicks. I managed to fit the printed

  matter into the unbroken ones, then squatting there, one of those hefty copies of

  Le Recueil d’Hymnes in my hand, I wondered why anything this cumbersome

  should be used as our text when it would be more practical to use a

  lightweight hymnal. And after the Paris singsong there had been that business

  of Marie-Paule’s almost fanatically careful repacking of each copy before she

  undertook to dole out refreshments.

  I flipped through the pages of the book, found it no more or less than

  what it was supposed to be, and, moving fast now, emptied the carton on the

  floor and repeated the process with the rest of the hymnals. Of the two dozen,

  four had sections of pages cut away to make neat little nests in the middle of

  the book, and each of the four was identifiable by a rough spot dead center on

  the spine. By moderate estimate, the nests provided transport space for at least

  half a kilo of heroin.

  Tiens. So during the Marseille services, four of the redeemed known to

  my partner would be handed these special volumes and would plant the goods

  in them. Marie-Paule herself would collect the books and carefully pack them

  away. In Paris, select members of the congregation would then remove the

  packets from the hymnals and that was all there was to it.

  I made no move to conceal what I was doing when Marie-Paule

  reappeared before me. She frowned and then decided to take it with good

  grace. “So you’ve solved our little puzzle,” she said.

  “I trust I haven’t offended.”

  52

  “I’m in no position to be offended. After all, I owe it to you that I’m not

  lying here right now with my throat slit. Yes, that’s the truth. I told Kees about

  it, and he’s very grateful too. Almost as much as I am.” She looked almost

  dewy-eyed about it.

  I tucked away the last of the hymnals. “More important,” I said, “what

  about our friend downstairs?”

  “Yes, that. Kees doesn’t believe he was on his own. So you’re to see

  he’s tied up tight and stored away where he is. Tomorrow after we leave,

  some men will come here and work him over. They’ll try to find out who put

  him up to this, then dispose of him.”

  “Clumsy,” I said. “This is supposed to be a mission. Suddenly there’s a

  crew of toughs coming in and out, doing something mysterious. It can endanger

  our whole cover.”

  Marie-Paule shrugged. “These are the chances one takes.”

  “But what if I can find out who this type is working for? And then send

  him back to his boss to warn him that he’s now a marked man?”

  Mane-Paule shook her head. “C’est un dur cela. That’s a hard case

  downstairs. If you think you can make someone like that sing with a kick in the

  belly, you don’t know what you’re dealing with.”

  “Perhaps not. But I’d like a few minutes to find out. Meanwhile, you can

  get the shop ready for the evening trade.”

  I didn’t give her a chance to debate this — or to consider that somehow I

  was taking charge — but picked up a length of rope and the knife and made my

  way down to the cellar. The man watched expressionlessly as I planted a

  whiskey crate underneath a pipe running along the ceiling. I stood on the crate

  to lash an end of the rope around the pipe and made a noose of the remainder.

  Before releasing the condemned from his post I bound his ankles and made

  sure his hands were tightly tied behind him.

  If anything, he seemed contemptuous of the proceedings. The contempt

  faded as I maneuvered him to the crate and manhandled him on to it. When I

  draped the noose around his neck he finally seemed to grasp that there was

  something seriously wrong with his situation. He had trouble speaking with

  that twisted jaw but he managed to get the words out. “What the hell is this?”

  I said cheerfully, “That’s how it goes, copain. You win some, you lose

  some.”

  53

  “You’re crazy! Just because of a little break-in you’d kill somebody?”

  “If he’s doing a job for Big Milos Periniades, yes. Sorry, chum, but

  those are the orders.” Giving myself a foot up on the crate, I snugged the noose

  around his neck. “My boss has a bug in the brain about Big Milos. And

  anybody on his payroll.”

  “I’m not on his payroll! Big Milos? I never even heard of him. I swear

  on my beloved mother’s life I never even heard the name.”

  “Sure, sure,” I said soothingly. I stepped down from the crate and braced

  a foot against it, poised for the shove that would leave the body dangling.

  “Wait, for God’s sake!” Beads of sweat stood out on his stubbly face.

  “Listen to me! It was Renaudat who put me up to it. I swear it. Only

  Renaudat.”

  I scratched my head thoughtfully. “Renaudat,” I said.

  “I swear it. You know how he operates. Out for easy pickings as long as

  somebody else does the dirty work. He told us it would be some kind of sickly

  woman and a miserable little Dutchman who’d faint if you showed him a knife.

  He never said a pro like you would be on the job.”

  “So now you know.” I prolonged the agony a little longer, then slipped

  the noose from around his neck and slashed away the rope binding his ankles.

  He stepped shakily down from the crate. “Look,” he said, “any time I can do

  you a favor —”

  ”Right now. Get back to Renaudat fast and let him know he’s in big

  trouble. Tell him he has one hour to get out of town, because after that it’s

  open season on him in Marseille. You’d better convince him of it, too, or the

  same goes for you.”

  “Yes, sure. Believe me, I’ll take care of it.”

  I paraded him upstairs and past Marie-Paule who stood there openmouthed

  at the sight, then at the front door I cut loose his wrists and shoved

  him out into the street. He lurched away, picking up speed as he went.

  Marie-Paule was still open-mouthed when I returned to her. “You let

  him go?” she said.

  “Renaudat,” I said. “Know of anyone by that name?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, he’s the one who arranged for our friends to hit this place.”

  54

  “And that animal told you about it?” She pressed her fingertips to her

  forehead. “But of course he did. How else would you have known about

  Renaudat?”

  “Right. And now that I do I advised his boy to get him out of town fast or

  disaster sets in. And he will. I guarantee it.”

  “You guarantee it.” She slowly shook her head back and forth. “You

  know, I think I’m ready to believe anything you tell me after this. Incredible.

  I’ve never met anyone quite like you.”

  “I must say the same about you,” I told her truthfully.

  Sudden color showed in those cheeks. “Yes. Well, we do seem to

  complement each other, don’t we? But now I must call Paris again and explain

  how things turned out. Incredible. What did you do to him? He didn’t look

  badly hurt.”

  “I converted him. That’s our business, isn’t it?”

  Services that evening varied little from the services in Paris, except that />
  now, as my partner doled out hymnals, I gave a dramatic reading from

  Revelations, and afterward, while she led the hymn-singing, I was the one who

  collected the hymnals and carefully stored them away. Very carefully. The

  street value of the cargo some of them now carried made them worth at least

  as much as a Gutenberg Bible.

  That night, out of painful experience, I rejected my rump-sprung cot and

  prepared for another bedtime on the floor by gathering together anything that

  might cushion my slumbers. I was at this when Marie-Paule appeared in the

  doorway. She was wearing a flannel robe that would have done credit to any

  missionary, but in contrast to the image this offered, her hair was down.

  Surprisingly heavy and lustrous, it fell almost to the middle of her back, and

  the effect considerably softened the harshness of her features.

  “Well?” she said.

  “Well?” I said.

  She abruptly opened the robe to demonstrate she was wearing nothing

  under it. A bony body, but feminine. Distinctly feminine. “Do you find this of

  interest to you, Monsieur van Zee?”

  “Of great interest, mademoiselle. But consider. No imbibing of alcohol,

  no smoking, no caffeine. I’m not sure where the list ends.”

  55

  She laughed. “It ends right there, cheri. And there’s certainly room in

  that old bed inside, if you don’t mind a tight fit.”

  I didn’t mind at all.

  56

  Nor did I mind that during our three

  days in Marseille Marie-Paule spent much of her time single-mindedly

  building up her role of Madame van Zee, devoted wife. She fussed over me,

  prepared meals to my taste, and even seemed to take pleasure in washing my

  clothes. And in bed went far beyond mere devotion.

  Our last morning in town I was wakened by a finger gently playing back

  and forth along my arm. I opened an eye and saw Marie-Paule standing there

  in that dismal robe holding a tray with a cup of chocolate and brioche on it.

  “Breakfast in bed?” I said, helping myself to it. “Now this is what I call

  high living, mon ange.”

  “You deserve it, cheri. And don’t gulp it down like that. I’ve just been

  on the phone with Kees, and he said there was no need to rush back to Paris.

  To take our time, as long as we were there before evening.”

  “And my passport will be waiting for me?”