Back in the Real World
Page 20
“All right,” Arlette said, “now tell me. How did you do it?”
I told her about getting hold of Morel’s videocassettes—and about what had happened to Morel.
She stared at me. “You deliberately tricked him into a situation where you had an excuse to kill him. Coldly and calculatingly.”
I didn’t speak of the cold, calculating things Morel had done to Anne-Marie and to the others he’d been blackmailing. Instead I said, “He didn’t have to try shooting me. He could have given up—and waited for the DST to kill him.”
Arlette moved her shoulders as though to rid herself of the kind of chill that comes with a bad dream. She said, “Tell me the rest of it.”
“I know somebody in the DGSE. I went to Paris, and he put me in touch with his opposite number in the DST.”
“And you gave him those cassettes to look at.”
“Not all of them,” I told her. “I’m holding a few of the most incriminating ones back until I’m absolutely certain Crow will stay free. I explained that to the man I met. I didn’t have to explain what would happen if certain friendly foreign governments learn the French government has been collecting damaging material about their diplomats and business tycoons.”
“The DST would go the way of the old SDECE,” Arlette said. “And the Interior Minister might fall like the Defense Minister did.”
“I imagine the man I spoke to discussed it with someone higher up in the DST. Who probably explained the problem to someone high in the Interior Ministry. Who in turn persuaded juge d’instruction Escorel to drop his case against Crow. It’s that simple.”
“Oh, sure. Simple. Except that nobody can make a juge d’instruction do anything he doesn’t want to. Because nobody can take a case away from him once he’s on it.”
I said, “Except that in Xavier Escorel’s case, he has political ambitions. I understand he’s smart enough to realize his future won’t be so bright if high levels of government come to feel he’s an uncooperative type. Like I said, simple.”
Arlette said, “You really are an unscrupulous man.” There might have been a certain amount of grudging admiration in there somewhere.
“I have scruples,” I said. “About letting a friend do a long prison stretch for something he didn’t do.”
Arlette nodded. “I give you that. You did get him free. I have ambivalent feelings about it, though. As an attorney, my job is to save a client. No matter how, as long as it’s legal. But there is an old value around. Much misused and neglected, I admit. But still important. It’s called the truth.”
“In this case,” I told her, “the truth wasn’t available in any form that would get Crow out.”
I took her arm and led her away from the prison. “It’s over a week since you promised to go for that swim with me. I think we can both take the time for it now.”
We went to my place but didn’t get around to going down for that swim until after the sun had set. Which made it the night swim we’d originally talked about. We spent a long time in the warm sea. When we came out and started back up the path to the house I looked at the beads of water on her dark skin, each drop reflecting the moon.
“A vision of delight,” I told her.
“For a cold, calculating man, you do have something warm in there somewhere, Pierre-Ange. Reserved for special occasions, of course.”
“Ah, you’ve noticed.”
Arlette squeezed my hand in hers. “Indeed, indeed…
We found Crow and Nathalie seated at my patio table waiting for us. There was a bottle of champagne and four glasses on the table.
“Thought we’d drop by for a spot of celebration,” Crow said, and he went to work on the bottle’s foil and wire.
“Mona and Gilles send their love,” Nathalie told me. “They’ve gone up to get Alain—and to break the news to him together. It’s not going to be an easy time for them for a while. But they’ll come to see you, too, when they can.”
Crow popped the cork and poured. We raised our glasses in a silent toast.
There was no sound but the cry of a hawk, circling in search of prey somewhere in the dark above us—and the clink of our four glasses meeting.