Emile looked around and saw a man standing just outside, his nose an inch from the glass. The stranger smiled at Luca, then blew a plume of cigarette smoke against the glass, hiding his face. Emile rapped the window sharply with his knuckles and the face reappeared. The man, he looked like a skeleton with black holes for eye sockets, turned his ugly smile on Emile and crooked his finger, beckoning.
“Some crazy,” Emile said to his son. He pushed back his chair and got to his feet. “Don’t move. I’ll go see what the devil he wants.”
“Be careful,” Luca said.
He watched his father take his brown leather jacket from the hook by the door and push through out into the snow. The face at the window disappeared once more into the snow. For a time, Luca sat blowing his warm breath against the glass and scribbling problematic mathematical equations with his fingertip. After some minutes, the garçon appeared. Where had his father gone? He wanted to know. Was he going to pay? Was something the matter?
The skeleton suddenly appeared behind the waiter, staring at Luca. He had a long red scarf wrapped around his neck and he had snow on his shoulders. His face was bright red from the snow and cold and his curly, wet yellow hair was plastered to the sharp angles of his skull.
“On your feet,” the soggy sack of bones said in American English to the boy.
“Who the hell are you?” Luca asked, loudly enough to be heard by the boisterous group at the next table. A few heads swiveled in his direction.
“Gimme the fuckin’ check,” the skeleton hissed at the waiter, eyeing the young Corsican for a few moments. The waiter went off and returned with the bill. The yellow-haired man pulled a wad of francs from his pocket and handed some to the waiter, who mumbled something and disappeared. Luca cast his eyes about the diners. No longer was anyone paying attention to him or the stranger.
“Where is my father?”
The man bent forward and whispered into Luca’s ear.
Luca made a face and nodded his head, then followed the stranger outside into the snowy street. No one inside had said a word.
There was a long black car parked at the curb. It wasn’t a French car, Luca saw, but an English one. A Rolls-Royce, a very ancient one with brass headlamps up front and a single violet carriage lamp mounted on the roof above the windshield. Like a hearse, he thought. Luca could see the black shape of his father seated in the rear between two large men.
The bony man opened the driver’s side door. There was another man on the passenger side, big, the collar of his black raincoat turned up. Luca could make out a shaved head, a bashed-in boxer’s face, and a close-cropped beard. The yellow-haired skeleton slid behind the big wheel, started the car, and turned on the headlights.
Outside, all was blurred white.
“I’m sorry, Father,” Luca said, turning to his father in the rear.
“Shut your piehole, kid,” one of the two men sitting in the rear on either side of Emile said. It was New York English, the kind you often heard in movies but seldom in Paris. They were wearing very colorful sport coats and Luca remembered seeing them on the platform at the station. His father nodded his head, staring at Luca, telling him to obey. Yes, he would be quiet all right. That would be best. In fact, no one spoke as the big car slid through the snowy streets and crossed the river at the Pont Neuf, some of the turns very tight in the great long car.
“Hey, Joe Bones,” the big man next to the window said in the thick accent of a movie gangster. “What’s wrong with this right here?” He spoke without looking over at the driver, pointing out the side window.
“I ain’t Joe Bones yet, boss. Just Mama Bonanno’s boy Joey.”
“You will be after tonight, kid, I’m telling ya. Make your frigging bones at last.”
“So, whaddya want me to do?” the skeleton behind the wheel said out of the side of his mouth.
“Pull over, for chrissakes. I want you should park it here. Nice and close. It’s fuckin’ freezin’ out there. Christ, snow in Paris? Who knew? Right here. Awright, Joey?”
“Whatever blows your hair back,” Joey said, and pulled the big wheel over to the right. The black Rolls skidded to a stop next to a massive nineteenth-century cannon in the southwest corner of the cobblestone courtyard.
“Well, kid, this is us,” the big man said, sucking in his gut and looking at Luca through a haze of cigarette smoke. He said, “Napoleon’s Tomb. I’m lookin’ forward to seein’ it. I hear it’s even bigger than my friggin’ mausoleum at Mount Olivet in Queens. Hey, how you doing, kid?”
“Who are you?” Luca said.
“Who, me?” The man stuck out his big meaty hand. There was a massive gold nugget on the small finger.
“Greetings from Gangland, U.S.A., kid,” the big bald man said, grabbing Luca’s hand and pumping it. Luca whipped his hand away, rubbing it on his trousers, and stared into the man’s eyes until the American gangster averted them.
“What did you say?” Luca said coldly.
“Name is Benny,” the man said, and shrank back from Luca’s gaze. “Benny Sangster.”
Chapter Six
Cannes
HAWKE SLID HIS GREEN AMERICAN EXPRESS CARD UNDER the hotel cashier’s grate and waited for the clerk to raise the dreaded issue of whether one had raided the bloody honor bar. It was a universal travel wrinkle he loathed. He found it unbearable, in the process of checking out of a hotel, that one must stand there trying to recall if one had eaten any peanuts or opened a bloody Perrier before turning in.
Having paid, he strode across the lobby and informed the concierge that he was leaving, discreetly slipping the mustachioed man a sealed hotel envelope containing one hundred Euros, informing him that the lady, his—guest—might be staying in his rooms until next morning.
“Mais oui, monsieur. Pas de problème.”
Hawke emerged under the hotel’s porte-cochere entrance, pausing for a moment. On assignment abroad, one expects to be watched. He saw no quickly averted head, or raised newspaper, however, so he turned right, descending the gently curving drive that led to the avenue. There was little traffic and he sprinted across the four lanes and grassy median to the beach promenade. Following the curve of the harbor west along le Croisette, he kept the Star in view on his left. From this distance, it looked like normal departure preparations were well underway.
Beyond the twinkling lights of the Vieux Port, the glittering coastline lay like a necklace beneath the dark sky. He was, he thought, ready. It promised to be a simple business, to be sure, but it was not in Hawke’s nature to pursue any objective with less than the maximum of his ability.
He walked as quickly as possible without attracting undue attention. A pair of rope-soled espadrilles had replaced his evening shoes. Here in the South of France, the thin canvas shoes were conveniently stylish and stealthy. Approaching the palm-lined fringes of the marina, he spoke softly into the lipmike of his wireless Motorola.
“Hawke,” he said.
“Quick,” the distinctly American voice of his security head replied in his earpiece. “Good evening, sir.”
“Hi, Tommy,” Hawke said. “How do we look for this thing?”
“All the telephoto surveil monitors look good, sir. Normal last-minute activity aboard the subject vessel. Ship’s radio officer has been monitoring the Star’s transmissions and reports business as usual. Idle chit-chat. A pair of cargo cranes loading the midships hold now, as you can probably see from where you are. Looks like heavy equipment. She got her final departure clearance from the port authority an hour ago, confirmed a midnight sailing.”
“Good.”
“Skipper, again, I have to urge you to reconsider some backup. I don’t want—”