Le Cagot smashed his fists together, breaking the skin over a knuckle. “But why, Niko! Why kill such a morsel? What harm could she do, the poor muffin?”
“They wanted to prevent me from doing something. They thought they could erase my debt to the uncle by killing the niece.”
“They are mistaken, of course.”
“Of course.” Hel sat up straight as his mind began to function in a different timbre. “Will you help me, Beñat?”
“Will I help you? Does asparagus make your piss stink?”
“They have French Internal Security forces all over this part of the country with orders to put me away if I attempt to leave the area.”
“Bof! The only charm of the Security Force is its epic incompetence.”
“Still, they will be a nuisance. And they might get lucky. We’ll have to neutralize them. Do you remember Maurice de Lhandes?”
“The man they call the Gnome? Yes, of course.”
“I have to get in touch with him, I’ll need his help to get safely into Britain. We’ll go through the mountains tonight, into Spain to San Sebastian. I need a fishing boat to take me along the coast to St. Jean de Luz. Would you arrange that?”
“Would a cow lick Lot’s wife?”
“Day after tomorrow, I’ll be flying out from Biarritz to London. They’ll be watching the airports. But they’re spread thin, and that’s to our advantage. Starting about noon that day, I want reports leaked to the authorities that I have appeared in Oloron, Pau, Bayonne, Bilbao, Mauléon, St. Jean Pied de Port, Bordeaux, Ste. Engrace, and Dax—all at the same time. I want their crosscommunications confused, so that the report from Biarritz will be just one drop in a torrent of information. Can that be arranged?”
“Can it be arranged? Do… I can’t think of an old saying for it just now. Yes, it can be arranged. This is like the old days, eh?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“You’re taking me with you, of course.”
“No. It’s not your kind of thing.”
“Holà! Don’t let the gray in my beard fool you. A boy lives inside this body! A very mean boy!”
“It’s not that. If this were breaking into a prison or blowing away a guardpost, there is no one I’d rather have with me. But this won’t be a matter of courage. It must be done by craft.”
As was his custom when in the open air, Le Cagot had turned aside and unbuttoned his trousers to relieve himself as he talked. “You don’t think I am capable of craft? I am subtlety itself! Like the chameleon, I blend with all backgrounds!”
Hel could not help smiling. This self-created folk myth standing before him, resplendent in rumpled fin-de-siècle evening clothes, the rhinestone buttons of his brocade waistcoat sparkling in the sun, his beret tugged low over his sunglasses, his rust-and-steel beard covering a silk cravat, the battered old makila under his arm as he held his penis in one hand and sprayed urine back and forth like a schoolboy—this man was laying claim to being subtle and inconspicuous.
“No, I don’t want you to come with me, Beñat. You can help most by making the arrangements I asked for.”
“And after that? What do I do while you are off amusing yourself? Pray and twiddle my thumbs?”
“I’ll tell you what. While I’m gone, you can press on with preparations for the exploration of your cave. Get the rest of the gear we need down into the hole. Wet suits. Air tanks. When I get back, we’ll take a shot at exploring it from light to light. How’s that?”
“It’s better than nothing. But not much.”
A serving girl came from the house to tell Hel that he was wanted in the château.
He found Hana standing with the telephone in the butler’s pantry, blocking the mouthpiece with her palm. “It is Mr. Diamond returning your call to the United States.”
Hel looked at the phone, then glanced down to the floor. “Tell him I’ll get back to him soon.”
They had finished supper in the tatami ’d room, and now they were watching the evening permutations of shifting shadow through the garden. He had told her that he would be away for about a week.
“Does this have to do with Hannah?”
“Yes.” He saw no reason to tell her the girl was dead.
After a silence, she said, “When you get back, it will be close to the end of my stay with you.”
“I know. By then you’ll have to decide if you’re interested in continuing our life together.”
“I know.” She lowered her eyes and, for the first time he could remember, her cheeks colored with the hint of a blush. “Nikko? Would it be too silly for us to consider becoming married?”
“Married?”
“Never mind. Just a silly thought that wandered through my mind. I don’t believe I would want it anyway.” She had touched on the idea gingerly and had fled instantly from his first reaction.
For several minutes, he was deep in thought. “No, it’s not all that silly. If you decide to give me years of your life, then of course we should do something to assure your economic future. Let’s talk about it when I return.”
“I could never mention it again.”
“I realize that, Hana. But I could.”
Part Four.
Uttegae
St. Jean de Luz/Biarritz
The open fi shing boat plowed the ripple path of the setting moon, quicksilver on the sea, like an effect from the brush of a kitsch watercolorist. The diesel motor chugged bronchially and gasped as it was turned off. The bow skewed when the boat crunched up on the pebble beach. Hel slipped over the side and stood kneedeep in the surging tide, his duffel bag on his shoulder. A wave of his hand was answered by a blurred motion from the boat, and he waded toward the deserted shore, his canvas pants heavy with water, his rope-soled espadrilles digging into the sand. The motor coughed and began its rhythmic thunking, as the boat made its way out to sea, along the matte-black shore toward Spain.
From the brow of a dune, he could see the lights of cafés and bars around the small harbor of St. Jean de Luz, where fishing boats heaved sleepily on the oily water of the docking slips. He shifted the weight of the duffel and made for the Café of the Whale, to confirm a telegraph order he had made for dinner. The owner of the café had been a master chef in Paris, before retiring back to his home village. He enjoyed displaying his prowess occasionally, particularly when M. Hel granted him carte blanche as regards menu and expense. The dinner was to be prepared and served in the home of Monsieur de Lhandes, the “fine little gentleman” who lived in an old mansion down the shore, and who was never to be seen in the streets of St. Jean de Luz because his physiognomy would cause comment, and perhaps ridicule, from ill-brought-up children. M. de Lhandes was a midget, little more than a meter tall, though he was over sixty years old.
Hel’s tap at the back door brought Mademoiselle Pinard to peer cautiously through the curtain, then a broad smile cracked her face, and she opened the door wide. “Ah, Monsieur Hel! Welcome. It has been too long since last we saw you! Come in, come in! Ah, you are wet! Monsieur de Lhandes is so looking forward to your dinner.”
“I don’t want to drip on your floor, Mademoiselle Pinard. May I take off my pants?”
Mademoiselle Pinard blushed and slapped at his shoulder with delight. “Oh, Monsieur Hel! Is this any way to speak? Oh, men!” In obedience to their established routine of chaste flirtation, she was both flustered and delighted. Mademoiselle Pinard was somewhat older than fifty—she had always been somewhat older than fifty. Tall and sere, with dry nervous hands and an unlubricated walk, she had a face too long for her tiny eyes and thin mouth, so rather a lot of it was devoted to forehead and chin. If there had been more character in her face, she would have been ugly; as it was, she was only plain. Mademoiselle Pinard was the mold from which virgins are made, and her redoubtable virtue was in no way lessened by the fact that she had been Bernard de Lhandes’s companion, nurse, and mistress for thirty years. She was the kind of woman who said “Zut!” or “Ma foi!” when exasperated beyond the control of good taste.