Close on her heels, his pace increasing with every step, came her pursuer.
Carter rolled his weight to the balls of his feet and tensed to spring.
He saw a coat sleeve and then a short, stocky body.
"Monsieur…"
"Oui?… Que…?"
Carter's clenched hands, forming one powerful fist, came down smack in the center of the man's face. He felt and heard the nose go, and just as a cry of pain rolled from the man's smashed lips, Carter grasped him by the lapels.
In one swift, deft movement he whirled, ramming the small of the man's back against the edge of the fountain. A second howl of pain was cut off as the side of Carter's hand came down across the back of his neck.
Like wet laundry, the body folded to the brick floor of the alcove, but Carter was already in the lane walking toward the headlights of the Cortina. A cigarette was in his mouth, and his hands cupped the flame of a match.
About ten yards from the crawling car, Carter squinted through the smoke streaming from his nostrils. The driver's dark, deep-set eyes were darting everywhere looking for his mate.
By the time Carter was directly alongside the car's open window, he had sucked the cigarette between his lips into a glowing ember.
"Hey, you…!"
The pockmarked face turned directly toward him just as Carter flipped the cigarette. The ash hit the bridge of the guy's nose and spread. Some of it must have caught one or both eyes, because the howl from his throat was blood-curdling.
But he was game.
He must have been rolling along in neutral, because when his foot hit the accelerator nothing happened but a lot of rpm's and no movement.
Before he could find the gear shift, Carter had the door open and had grabbed a handful of his hair. As Carter yanked, the guy tried to claw a PPK from beneath his jacket.
It was a mistake for two reasons.
One, the pistol had a long, cumbersome silencer screwed into its snout. The end of the silencer caught on his jacket and wouldn't let go.
Two, he had thumbed the safety off when he tried to pull it.
Carter heard the phfft sound, and the guy was dead weight in his hands. He flipped him over, and when he saw the dark stain clear across his chest, Carter did not even bother to check for a pulse.
He hit the dash button to release the trunk lid and dragged the body to the rear of the car. When he had it stuffed as far inside as it would go, he lifted the guy's wallet.
As he jogged back to the alcove, he emptied the wallet into the pea jacket — ID and miscellaneous cards in the left pocket, cash in the right.
When short and pudgy was stuffed in with his buddy. Carter did the same with his wallet, then threw the two pieces of leather in with the bodies and slammed the trunk lid.
Lily was waiting under a streetlight at the foot of the Musee Baraly steps.
"Get in!"
She did, and sat, white-faced and rigid, as Carter pulled into traffic on the boulevard and headed for the train station.
"Where are they?" she asked at last in a surprisingly calm voice.
"In the trunk."
"Are they… are they… dead?"
Carter barely made a yellow and pushed the little car up to fifty on the Corniche J.F. Kennedy before flicking her a quick, sidelong glance.
Her jaw was set in a hard line, and her complexion was an ashy white. But she was not trembling, and there was no sign of hysteria.
"Are they?" she asked again, turning her face toward him but unable to meet his eyes.
"No," Carter half lied, then he checked his watch. It was 7:00 sharp. The train to Avignon would leave at 7:14.
"They are evil men, aren't they?"
"Yes," Carter said, "they are."
"Then it is all right… what you have done."
"Am doing," he corrected and threw her another quick glance. Her fragile lips were trying to smile.
Ahh, youth, he thought, whipping the car into the station drive.
He rolled on past the entrance into shadows, stopped, and tugged her purse from her hands. Pulling the wads of money from the right-hand pocket of his pea jacket, he stuffed the whole amount into the purse.
"What is that?"
"A little bonus," Carter replied, dropping the purse in her lap. "It will replace your bag and clothes at the hotel. Adieu."
"Just adieu…?"
"That's it," he replied, looking straight ahead. "That's got to be it."
She leaned across the seat and turned his face to here with one hand. With the other she stuffed a piece of paper into his hand as she kissed him.
It was a short but sensitive kiss that said a lot without promising anything.
And then she was standing outside the car, her face obscured in the shadow from the building.
"What's this?"
"My address… my telephone number in Avignon. Perhaps one day…"
She left it hanging and turned away.
Carter watched her all the way through the station before he lit a cigarette and pulled the Cortina back into traffic.
Rue Emile Zola was a narrow, tree-lined street in one of Marseille's more posh and older residential districts. The estates were large and set far back from the road in the midst of heavy shrubs and towering, leafy trees.
Number 37 was not a great deal different man its neighbors, except that its huge wrought-iron gates fronted just across from a side street that angled up a hill.
Carter smiled when he noticed this and lightly ran his fingertips over the small electronic device clipped to the sun visor above his head.
He made two passes in front of the gates, then turned into the side street and climbed until he could look down into the property behind him. When he was satisfied, he made a U-turn, parked, and killed the headlights.
With the binoculars he studied the layout.
A thick, crenelated wall ran around the entire perimeter of the property. The house itself was massive. Architecturally, it was a bastard cross between an English Tudor mansion and a French country chateau.
To the right, where the stables had once been, three sets of open double doors now revealed a garage. On the left was a swimming pool, and beyond that were a pair of tennis courts.
Monsieur LeClerc's organization might be pleading poverty, Carter thought, but the gentleman himself certainly managed to live in style.
A wide, asphalt lane led straight down from the gate to a courtyard and the main entrance of the house. The Mercedes limousine and a dark blue Citroen station wagon with Paris VLT plates sat near the marble steps leading up to the front portal.
Satisfied that his little plan of surprise had at least a ninety-five percent chance of success. Carter moved to the rear of the Cortina.
"Hey, sleeping beauty," he whispered, tapping lightly on the lid with the silencer of the Walther.
There was no response.
He opened the trunk with the keys and felt short and pudgy's pulse. It was faint but still there.
"Well, little man," Carter said, "if you survive the crash, you're going to have a lot of explaining to do to your boss.
He dragged both bodies — one dead, one breathing — from the trunk and propped them up in the back seat. When they were secured with the seat belts, he closed the trunk lid and crawled back behind the wheel.
Everything had to be arranged just so.
The electronic gate opener he held in his left hand. The PPK — with the safety safely on — he tucked into his belt.
Then he started the Cortina.
"Ready, gentlemen?" he growled, glancing at his passengers in the rearview mirror.