by Jack Batten
“You should have kept yourself out of this business, Crang.” Archie talked like a guy who had the bit in his mouth. Raring to go. “You should have kept out from the very beginning.”
“But you see what I mean about intent. If you stick the Queen’s Own bayonet in me, there’ll be no reasonable doubt that you had malice aforethought. Pardon the legalese, Arch.”
“Shut up, Crang.”
“Your goose will be cooked.”
Archie concentrated on getting me past a small group of parishioners on the cathedral steps.
“But in Jamie’s case,” I said, “I’m betting there was no intent. That means no murder. Manslaughter at worst. It could be a light sentence for you, Arch. Suspended sentence even.”
“Crang, you bastard, I intended to kill Haddon.” Archie hissed his words. A mist of spittle sprayed my face. “When I followed him to your hotel room, I didn’t know if I had any aim except to dress him down for the pain he caused me. But after the things the swine said to me, I pushed him over the railing, and goddam it, I had made up my mind in that instant to push him.”
“That’s what I’m talking about, Arch, a crime of passion. No insult to you, but under the circumstances, Jamie provoking you, driving you nuts and all, a good lawyer could make a plea of temporary insanity stick.”
“I felt relieved when I killed the bastard.”
“By good lawyer, I didn’t mean myself necessarily.”
“You are quite correct in one assumption, Crang.”
“Don’t bother telling me, Arch.”
“I intend to kill you.”
We came out of the shadows of the cathedral street to lights and people at Rue Maréchal-Joffre. The crossing signal was against us. We stopped. Archie didn’t slack off his grip on me. There was a guy on my right side waiting for the light. He was large and black. He had on a short-sleeved djellabah, a knitted wool cap, and thonged sandals. His right arm was draped in strings of beads. He had pieces of purple and green fabric slung over both shoulders. They were either very small rugs or very heavy scarves. He had rings dangling loose on his fingers above the knuckles, five or six rings per digit. Wristwatches marched up his left forearm from wrist to elbow. The watches had silver stretch bands and glinted green in the overhead street lamps.
“These things actually keep time?” I asked the black guy. I flexed the watch band at the top of his forearm.
“Don’t speak to him.” Archie’s sibilance gave my face another sprinkling.
“Want a good watch, boss?” the black guy said to me. His voice was of James Earl Jones resonance. “Best prices on the Riviera, boss.”
I was still fingering the top watch. The crossing indicator flashed the signal for walk. Archie forced me forward. My fingers squeezed on the watch. I tugged hard and down. The tug stripped half a dozen watches off the black guy’s arm. They tinkled and clattered into the gutter.
James Earl Jones erupted. “What you fucking do to my watches, man?” He hovered between going for me and going for the watches. I ducked after the watches. Archie’s left hand went with me, still clutching my arm but loosening the intensity of the hold. I swept up four watches and flung them in Archie’s face. He let go of my arm.
“You fucking ruin my business, man,” the black guy roared at me.
Archie’s right hand stayed in the pocket and on the knife. His left hand was fending off the flying watches.
“Make it up to you later,” I said in a rush to the black guy.
I belted across Rue Maréchal-Joffre. My Rockports thwacked on the pavement, my unbuttoned jacket flapped open, my body strained ahead, my eyes felt as if they were bulging out of their sockets. A pretty young woman walking toward me regarded my running form and giggled behind her hand. No laughing matter, lady. I heard clumping behind me. I didn’t glance around. It would not be friendly pursuit back there.
I ran as fast as I could. On the right, there was a string of food places, a cafeteria, an oyster bar, a restaurant called Le Brasserie au Boeuf. On the left, a dirt square broken by rows of stubby plane trees. Customers in the windows of the eating places turned their heads and charted my progress. My lungs hurt.
Beyond the restaurants, I ran past a boule pitch. Beyond the boule pitch, a bandshell in another dirt square. Beyond the bandshell, a street thick with cars and people. I dodged and darted and flitted through the brief gaps between pedestrians. Me and O.J. Simpson.
I looked over my shoulder. Archie was ten yards behind. He ran like John Cleese. High knee action, upper body rolling, loony face. People heard him coming. They cleared the track. Archie’s right hand remained jammed inside his jacket pocket. The posture slowed his progress. His speed wasn’t world-class anyway. Hell, I was building a lead on Archie.
The street was Rue Félix Faure. It led straight at the hills of Le Suquet, less than half a block ahead. I aimed for its tiny, twisty alleys. Good prospects in there for shaking Archie and his stiletto.
I cut sharp right at Rue de la Boucherie. It wasn’t so much a street as a flight of stone stairs with a pair of ruts on either side. I went up. The muscles in my calves screamed at the climb. I was alone on the stairs. The sudden quiet struck me as eerie. The dismal light wasn’t reassuring either. It was the sort of area I’d ordinarily avoid, prime hunting ground for muggers. Maybe it would be helpful if I ran into a mugger. I could point him at Archie.
Rue de la Boucherie turned abruptly to the left and into a covered passageway. The light got gloomier. Other, small alleys branched to the right and left. Some of them led down to the busy street I had just left. I slowed my pace. What if Archie had continued further along Rue Félix Faure and looped up one of the side alleys to intercept me? What if this was the neighbourhood where he intended to use his blade on me anyway? Maybe it had been a lousy idea to slip into the old town. Maybe I had outfoxed myself.
The street got steeper. I proceeded with all caution flags flying. Up ahead, at the very top of the hill, there seemed to be a castle outlined against the sky. A couple of turns and more climbing lay between me and the castle. The light in the alley wasn’t growing any brighter. I tried for stealth as I crept forward. My hands reached out like a sleepwalker’s, feeling my way.
I heard Archie before I saw him. I heard huffing and puffing in the shadows of a recessed doorway. I slowed up. Archie lunged out of the doorway. He held the knife in front of him in the manner of a duellist with a sword. The stance made Archie look foolish. On the other hand, he gave the impression he knew what he was doing.
“Chrissake, Arch.” I kept my hands up and out. I was backing off slowly. “This can’t be what the Queen’s Own trained you for.”
Archie came forward in a kind of stutter step. He carried the knife low, in position for an upward thrust. I eased back. There wasn’t much room in the cramped alley for manoeuvring, nothing to duck behind. Archie sprang at me. He let out a grunt, his right foot slapped the ground, he swung the knife in an arc that was on course for my belly. I juked left, feet off the ground, arms over my head, stomach pulled tight. My linen jacket flew wide open. The knife swept past my gut, nicked my black sweatshirt, and cut into the open jacket. Archie tugged at the knife. It seemed to be caught in the fabric. The knife ripped the jacket, but didn’t come loose. I pulled back. The jacket ripped some more. I turned away, pointing in the direction up the hill. More ripping. I yanked at the jacket. The knife came loose, and Archie lost his hold on it. The knife fell to the pavement. Archie stooped for it. I took off up the street toward the castle.
The steep climb slowed me almost to a walk. There were still no people around, though the lights got brighter as I went higher. I passed a pair of signs, Résidence de la Citadelle and Musée de la Castre. Sounded worthwhile if I was on a sightseeing spree. I tramped up a steep driveway. I looked back. Cannes was spread out far below me. I could pick out La Croisette and the Palais des Festivals. I could also
pick out Archie. He was coming up the steep driveway. He had the knife in his hand.
I hurried across a courtyard. The route took me down a slight slope, through a small passageway, and up a short set of stone steps no more than a couple of feet wide. The steps put me on the parapet of what looked like the remains of an ancient wall around the castle. Very ancient. Eight or nine centuries old. Standing on the parapet, the top of the wall came up to the middle of my thighs. On the far side of the wall, in the direction of downtown Cannes, there was a drop of maybe eighteen or twenty feet. The fall on the other side, the open side, was five or six feet. A parapet of an old wall didn’t offer me a really strategic place to make a stand. I stopped anyway. I needed a pause to catch my second wind. I wasn’t sure I had a second wind.
Archie clumped up the stone steps. He was exhaling like a runner in the last hundred yards of the Boston marathon. The knife was in his right hand. He held his left hand to his heaving chest.
“Arch, we’re both frazzled,” I said. “Let’s call off the war games and talk the situation over.”
“You bastard.” Archie’s voice was hoarse.
“Aw, be fair, Arch. I’m the guy with the torn jacket, and you call me a bastard?”
Archie panted. “I’m going to kill you.”
“Come off it. You hardly got enough breath to talk. Never mind the strength to skewer me with that stupid piece of cutlery.”
It was the wrong line to take with Archie. My words didn’t persuade him to pack it in. They stung him back to action. He launched another sweep at me with the knife. I danced out of range. The move called for no fancy footwork. Archie had lost much of his quickness. But he still had the damn knife.
“Time out, Arch,” I gasped.
“Kill you.”
Archie sounded fanatical. He drove at me, flicking the knife in my face. I ducked left, weaved right, moving back and back. The knife flicks were getting more threatening. I kept up my dancing retreat. Archie persisted. My right foot caught a loose stone in the parapet. I kept my balance, but the stumble broke the rhythm of my escapes from the knife’s thrusts. Archie’s eyes went wide at my stumble. He switched tactics. He raised the knife over his shoulder. I tried to get myself straight and out of danger before the knife descended. Archie grunted. The knife didn’t descend. Archie was frozen in his pose, body reared back, hand over his shoulder.
“Who’s gonna pay for my watches?”
It was the James Earl Jones voice. The face of the large black street vendor rose over Archie’s right side. The vendor had grabbed the hand that wielded the knife.
“Hey,” I said, “the cavalry has arrived.”
Archie groaned. He pulled at the black vendor’s grip. The vendor wasn’t giving way.
“That a knife?” he said. “What you people at?”
“Don’t let go,” I said. “I’m the good guy in this. He’s the bad guy.”
The black vendor had ditched his merchandise. He stood tall and unencumbered behind Archie, his right hand around Archie’s wrist. The black guy’s face showed incomprehension. I couldn’t blame him.
“I can explain,” I said.
“I don’t want no explaining, man,” the black guy said. “Want my money.”
Archie let out a roar. The noise shocked the black guy into relaxing his hold. Archie’s knife hand came loose. He drove at me. I made a little shift to my right. At the same time, I threw a right cross at Archie’s face. His thrust was wild and out of control. The knife missed its target. My right cross didn’t. It clipped Archie on his prominent jaw. He staggered against the low wall and pitched over. I grabbed for his left arm. The black guy reached fast for Archie’s right arm. Both of us hung on. The force of Archie’s fall jerked my shoulder. I almost lost my grasp, but didn’t. The black guy had no trouble with Archie’s right side. Archie dangled against the face of the wall, his shoes a dozen feet above the dark ground. The black guy and I, hanging on to him, leaned over from the parapet. The knife was still in Archie’s hand.
“Drop that, Arch,” I said, “and we’ll haul you up.”
“Fuck you, Crang.”
“Oh, great.”
“You going to pay for my watches?” the black guy said to me.
“Let’s deal with this present emergency first, the one at the end of our hands.”
“My watches are an emergency, man.”
“All right, listen, how many watches?”
“Six, man. Top-grade timepieces.”
“Forget six. I’ll buy one.”
“Five.”
“Two, my outside offer. What am I going to do with more than two watches?”
“Three of my best, better than Rolex. Twenty-five dollars apiece.”
“Make it twenty.”
“Sixty dollars. You got a deal, boss.”
Archie squirmed. He was weighing heavy on my hands.
“What we do with this fella, boss?” the black guy asked me.
I looked down at Archie. “You going to let the knife go, Arch?”
“Fuck you, Crang.”
I turned to the black guy. “How do you feel about dropping him?” I asked.
The black guy shrugged.
We dropped Archie.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Annie passed up a chance to interview the guy who had written the new John Travolta movie, and came with me on the train to Nice.
“What’s the latest on Archie’s ankles?” she asked.
“Still broken, the last I heard.”
“Was that the phone call this morning?”
“From Trum, yeah,” I said. “Maybe Archie’s physical state’ll wring the hearts of the judges at his trial.”
“You think he’ll actually be tried?”
“So far the cops haven’t been brought in. Trum says it’s only a matter of Swotty holding off until Trum’s brother wings over from home. That’s supposed to be a couple of hours from now.”
I looked at my watch. It had a silver band and a greenish sheen. I shook the watch.
“Damn thing’s stopped,” I said.
“Oh, well, you’ve got two more of the same.”
“That’s the trouble.”
The train was an express and got us to Nice without any stops between it and Cannes. Trum had said to meet him at a restaurant in the Old Town. It was called Nissa Socca.
“Wheee,” Annie said.
“What?”
“Socca. It’s the yummiest food in the world.”
The restaurant was Trum’s kind of place, snug and frayed around the edges. It had an open kitchen and tables placed in parallel rows. The customers sat cheek by jowl. Trum had empty plates and the remains of a litre of red wine in front of him. Annie and I sat across from Trum, and I made the introductions.
“I told you you were wasting your time, Crang,” Trum said to me, “coming over here.”
“Nice to see me, though, right, Trum?”
“Nice to meet Annie. But as for you, what you and C&G and the family got to settle can be done through the mails.”
“That’s the official Whetherhill line?”
“I would’ve thought you’d take the hint, Pamela and Swotty not returning your calls.”
Annie smiled sweetly at Trum. “I think that’s why Crang wants to talk to you. To get the answers no one else is willing to provide. Or perhaps that should be able to provide.”
Trum didn’t dissolve completely under Annie’s charm, but he gave signs of loosening up.
“I’ll fill you in on Archie’s story,” he said to me, “if that’s gonna make you happy.”
“He bumped off Jamie,” I said. “What else?”
“A lot. Background stuff I’m talking about.”
“Background’s a start.”
“From your standpoint, old buddy,
it’s also an end.”
“I assume what you’re about to reveal came from Archie’s own lips.”
“His version, yeah,” Trum said. “Well, last week he followed Pamela to an apartment you guys were staying at.”
“In Pont Saint-Jean,” Annie said.
“Wherever.”
“He followed Pamela for what reason?” I asked. “He thought she and Jamie were renewing old acquaintances?”
“Right,” Trum said. “Archie didn’t say it in so many words, but if you ask me, he was hoping to catch his wife and that asshole Jamie in flagrante delicto. That’d give him a dynamite bargaining chip.”
“Followed Pamela to our place,” I said. “Then what?”
“He kept on following her when she left.”
“To the Beau Rivage?”
“I forget the name,” Trum said. “The hotel where Jamie was staying. Except when she got there, Pamela, Jamie wasn’t in, and she left right away.”
“But now Archie knew where Jamie was.”
“You got it,” Trum said. “So he started following Jamie around.”
“Why’d he switch from Pamela to Jamie?”
“My opinion, I figure the poor bastard was feeling guilty about tailing his own wife, never mind she’d been playing fast and loose on him for a year.”
“Okay,” I said, “that put Archie right behind Jamie last Wednesday in Cannes.”
“The guy was so cuckoo he thought Pamela and Jamie were getting it on way over there, a hotel in Cannes.”
“The rest of it,” I said, “is as plain as the nose on your face.”
“That a personal crack, Crang?” Trum was fingering his red, veiny proboscis.
“Just a figure of speech, Trum. The thing is, knuckling down to the legalities, though I’m not all that au courant on French law, Archie ought to be pretty solid on a defence of provocation.”
“I suppose.” Trum didn’t sound intensely involved.
“He goes busting into our hotel room, Annie’s and mine, and he’s expecting the ultimate confrontation. Instead, major disappointment, it’s his adversary all by himself, Jamie the rotter, who gives Archie some heavy stuff about Pamela and her recent love life. Archie goes hairy. Boom, Jamie’s off the balcony.”
