Well. That, in any case, is about how it went. When I came out of the trance – you’d have to call it that – I was out of it all the way, wide awake, refreshed, alert. The radio was still going, bringing in nothing but static now. I hadn’t noticed the static before. I turned off the radio and checked the clock. It was a quarter to seven. The high had lasted a little under three hours.
On the bed Seth and Randy and Arlette slept nude in delicate obscenity. They had evidently spent their high making some sort of triangular love, as unaware of my presence as I was of theirs. I drew the tigerskin over them and went into the bathroom and showered and shaved.
I got dressed again and put up water for a fresh pot of coffee. The three of them went right on sleeping with occasional groping noises issuing from beneath the sheet. I ignored these insofar as possible. I measured out coffee and poured the water through it and hunted around for something to eat. I was suddenly ravenous and the cupboard was bare. I settled ultimately for a bread sandwich, a slice of whole wheat between two slices of white. It wasn’t very much better than it sounds.
At eight o’clock I carried three cups of coffee to the bed, set them down upon the bedside table, and shook each of the bed’s occupants in turn until they were sufficiently awake to accept coffee. Seth and Randy woke easily, and Arlette was not nearly so foggy as she had been in the past.
She looked at me and blushed. The boys didn’t notice, I don’t think; it probably would not have occurred to them to be embarrassed about their little homage to troilism. I’m sure they didn’t regard it as an orgy or anything of the sort. Just three good friends getting high together and being friendly and warm and tender to one another. For my part, it was just another item on the lengthening list of things I did not really give a damn about. But Arlette, the Oft-Made of Orleans, was the sort of angel who manages to behave like a free spirit without ever quite feeling like one. I didn’t know how to respond to her, unable to make up my mind whether it would be more insulting to scorn her as a slut or convey to her the idea that I didn’t really care.
So instead I said, “I woke you early for a reason. We have twelve hours before the Queen hits the fan.”
Seth looked at me. “You straight, Evan?”
“Straight as a hoop snake. We have twelve hours. That’s plenty of time. I’ve got it all figured out. We’ll fix things so they pop the right way, and then we’ll pick up on Minna before the sparks go out.”
Seth and Randy exchanged glances. Seth said, “I think he’s still stoned out of his gourd.”
“Sounds like.”
But they were both wrong. I knew exactly what I meant, and I had a hunch it would work.
Chapter 14
Arlette didn’t have a map of the Montreal area on hand. She offered to go buy one, but I chose to save time by sketching a rough map on a sheet of notebook paper. The four of us sat around the kitchen table while I outlined the route the royal barge would take.
At a bend in the river, I made an X. “This is where the ambush is scheduled to take place,” I said. “Up here on the right there’s a sort of hill that provides a perfect vantage point of the river. Off to this side is a clump of brush that also bears down upon the ambush point. And down here” – I made a pencil mark – “is a natural inlet, a pocket bay just large enough to hold a motorboat.”
Randy said, “Question.”
“Go ahead.”
“Which checkmark is the Texas Book Depository?”
I looked at him, and he apologized. I pointed again with the pencil. “Now this is how they’re going to do it,” I said. “One man – Claude – will be on top of the hill with a pair of binoculars and a rifle. He’ll pick up the barge just as it approaches Point X and fire a volley of three shots across the bow. That serves two purposes – it identifies the barge positively for the other three and should also slow it down some, if not stop it entirely.
“As soon as Claude starts shooting, the rest of them go into their act. Jean and Jacques Berton will be here in the clump of brush. Or next to it, or in back of it, whatever. They have a machine gun-”
“Sweet Jesus.”
“Exactly. They’ll begin firing as soon as Claude goes into action. The way things are set up, they’ll be able to triangulate on the barge. With shots coming from two different directions, the captain won’t be able to get out of the line of fire. He’s almost certain to freeze.”
“Got it,” Seth said. “The hill is the Texas Book Depository, and the clump of brush is the Grassy Knoll.”
“Whatever way you want it. There’s more coming. Once the shooting starts up, Emile begins sailing from the cove-”
“Sailing?”
“He’ll be in the sheltered cove in a motorboat, a fast one. He’ll have a pistol, but that’s the least of it. The boat will be overflowing with explosives. Plastique, dynamite, God knows what else. While the triangulated gunfire freezes the barge, Emile will set out for it at top speed on a collision course.” I sighed and shook my head. “He’s arranging things so that the explosive charge goes off on impact.”
Arlette was hearing the details for the first time and seemed staggered by them. She kept murmuring little oaths in French. The boys’ reaction was ambivalent; they seemed torn between horror at the enormity of the deed and admiration for the sweet simplicity of it.
Randy said, “Good-bye, Queenie.”
“That’s the general idea.”
“I don’t see how they can miss, man. Unless there’s a mess of police boats for escorts-”
“There probably will be. It doesn’t matter – with all the confusion that the gunshots will generate, it’s highly unlikely that anybody will even notice Emile’s boat, much less do anything to stop it. He’ll have the throttle tied all the way down once he gets going, so that even if he’s shot dead, the boat will go along on its merry way.”
“I’d love to meet the clown who planned this.”
I coughed. “Well,” I said, “I planned some of it-”
“You?”
I nodded, equally proud and ashamed. When we’d had our planning session Saturday afternoon, I had added a few refinements, on the theory that if one was going to do something, one might as well do it right. I was a little sorry about that now. The plan was almost too right.
I raised the pencil again. “Now here’s what we do,” I said, with what was supposed to be contagious confidence in my voice. “Timing is very important. The Queen is scheduled to arrive at the fairgrounds at eight thirty. If she follows that schedule, and it’s logical to assume that she will, then the barge will reach Point X somewhere between seven fifty and eight ten. The assassins will be at their posts from seven o’clock on, and they’ll expect to hit the barge at eight, give or take a few minutes. If the barge isn’t there on time, then we have a chance.”
Arlette looked at me. “But they will simply wait-”
“I’ve got that figured out. Let’s take one thing at a time. The first step is to delay the royal barge. The longer it’s delayed, the better our chances look.” I pointed the pencil at the boys. “That’s where you two come in.”