He rose and went to the counter and lifted the glass bell and reached for the croissant. Then he heard the buzzer at his front door.
He put down the bell and went back through the bright yellow kitchen to the foyer and opened the door.
He saw the woman first.
Then the gun.
She was battered; her face was covered with bruises. One eye was nearly closed. She stared at him for a moment and then staggered forward, into the foyer.
Devereaux had the pistol in hand.
Quizon had never met Devereaux but he knew of him; this was the man.
“Who are you?”
“Be quiet,” Devereaux said, his voice low and flat. He spoke English, and the words carried a peculiar menace. Quizon’s world of words was French, and the English words intruded like burglars.
Jeanne walked across the tiled floor to the front room and sat down heavily on the couch. She leaned her head back against the couch; her arms dropped wearily at her sides.
“I want bandages and water and ointment.”
Quizon stared at Devereaux. “Who are you to come in here and—”
“But you know who I am, don’t you, Quizon?”
“I don’t understand what you’re saying.” Quizon’s own English was polite and a bit haughty, as though learned in an English boarding school. It was no match for the rougher, lower-voiced words of Devereaux.
“Get me what I asked for.”
Quizon turned. He thought of the telephone, but the apartment was too small; they would hear him. He had a feeling that Devereaux had guessed the game, that he would not be allowed to live.
He took a laundered sheet from the towel chest and filled a small pan with cool water. He had only tincture of iodine for an antiseptic. He carried them into the front room and put them down on a low table in front of Jeanne Clermont. He knew it was Jeanne Clermont; he guessed everything that had happened to them. But why had they come here?
There was gauze as well as tape in the medicine cabinet in the bathroom. After a few minutes of delicate work, Jeanne was bandaged. It did not improve the look of her face; the bruises would remain for days.
“You should take her to a hospital,” Quizon said. “Why did you come here?”
Devereaux sat down on the couch next to Jeanne Clermont and stared at Quizon pacing back and forth, slowly, on the far side of the room.
“I could call the hospital, get an ambulance,” Quizon said.
“Sit down.”
Quizon sat down.
“Tell me about Manning.”
Quizon’s eyes widened. He stared at the gray-eyed man across the room. Panic clutched at his throat like the feeling of Simeon’s heavy hand.
“I…”
“Tell me.”
“You know. I was the station man. Manning was my agent. I acted as control on the scene.”
“Tell me about how he died.”
“But I sent the report back to Hanley and—”
“Quizon, I know what you are.”
Silence crept between them like a jungle animal; it waited on its haunches; it seemed to breathe, but there was no sound.
“I never knew that Manning would be killed,” Quizon said at last.
“Who did you talk to?”
“I can’t tell you, he would—”
“No, Quizon. All other threats are not valid. Only my threat. Now.” The voice was reasonable but without mercy, the voice of a patient adult explaining the absolute rules to a child.
“He forced me to share information,” Quizon said. “He would have expelled me from the country, they knew about me.”
“Who is he?”
“Inspector Jules Simeon.”
“He was supposed to protect me,” Jeanne Clermont said. “Last night. Before they came. The Deuxième Bureau was supposed to take me to a safe house.”
“What happened?” Quizon said.
“How long did you work for him?” Devereaux said, overriding both of them.
“You don’t understand. He wasn’t an enemy. He knew abut me, he knew about the Section.”
“How long?”
“You see, he was in charge of the antiterror bureau. He gave me good information.”
“What did he pay you?”
“It wasn’t the money. At first.” Quizon looked up with something like indignity. “I served the Section and what was I paid?”
Devereaux waited.
“Madame Clermont, I knew William in 1968. I was his control then, when I was still an active correspondent. I am sorry he is dead.”
“Because you killed him,” she said. “You little man. You killed him without any reason.”
“They…Simeon wanted him but he was going to quit the mission, I knew it. He was wavering. He told me he couldn’t betray you…”
“Damn you,” she said, so softly that the curse carried a weight beyond the mere words.
“This is the safest place for the moment,” Devereaux said. “For us but not for you. Simeon is blown now and so are you. At the least, they’ll send you back to the United States. At the worst, they’ll charge you with murder.”
“I didn’t kill him, I only told Simeon…”
“Why, Quizon?”
“You don’t understand. I lived here all those years, I couldn’t leave Paris. I don’t have anyone, I never married, I don’t have any relatives…All my life is here in this city, don’t you see? Madame? You’re a Parisienne. What if you were forbidden to ever see this city again, to walk in the streets, to dine in the brasseries by the river?”
There were tears in the old eyes; his hands were trembling. “Don’t you see how horrible it was? And until now, it was nothing important. I didn’t have much information for him, I never—”
“You gave him Manning,” Devereaux said. “You gave him Manning from the beginning, and then you gave him Manning’s life.”
Quizon stared at the merciless face before him. “Are you going to kill me?”
“No.” Quietly. “Someone will, someone will come up behind you when you don’t expect it and kill you. But I won’t kill you. In less than two hours, they’ll have you, Quizon. If you left now, you could get a flight to London. You might be safe there for a little while.”
“But I’m not a rich man, how would I get money? Everything I have is in this apartment, everything I…”
“I don’t know.”
“In a little while, it would be safe again, I could come back.”
“I don’t have any say on that.”
Quizon turned to her. “Madame. Madame Clermont? I’ve given you the killer of your lover, please, I assure you I never knew he…Madame, would you allow me to return when it is safe?”
Jeanne Clermont stared at the man for a long moment. Beneath the battered skin, her eyes were clear still, her soul shifting in shades of blue and green and gray. Devereaux stared at her, but it was as though she did not see him, did not see the other man. And when she spoke, her voice was distant:
“Yes. You can return. You don’t need to be part of this. Not anymore.”
Quizon began to babble his thanks, but she stared him to silence. He rushed around the apartment slamming drawers and packing a small brown leather valise. They sat in silence as he prepared to leave. They waited without speaking to each other or looking at each other.
The sullen morning light flooded the bright front room. There was a threat of rain in the lowering clouds that obscured the steeples of the city. The feeling of the city was close and muggy.
Quizon left, and they did not speak for a long time still, waiting, listening to the rumbles of the first few sounds of thunder.