A Tangled Web (57 page)

“I liked the beard,” Andrew said. “He always seemed a little wild, you know, outside everybody's predictable lives.”

“Yes, that was Max,” Robert said softly. “He wouldn't let himself fit into a category. Or a way of life.”

“Come on,” Andrew said impatiently. He gathered up everything but the thermos and sandwich and put it all in the glove compartment of his van. “Let's get out of here.”

They drove down the mountain and pulled into the grove of cedar and pine trees where Stephanie's car was still parked. Only this morning, she thought. A lifetime ago. Fifty feet into the woods, while Stephanie held a small flashlight, the men took shovels from the van and dug two graves. “Not close to each other,” Robert said. “I don't want that man lying beside Max.”

“Wherever,” grunted Andrew. “Just so the son of a bitch who sent him doesn't know where he is. Hey, that'll keep him awake, right? His guy disappears, no sign of Max, no nothing. He won't know what the hell happened. I hope it drives him crazy.”

It was midnight when they laid the two bodies in the graves. A light breeze whispered through the small clearing, lightly touching the perspiring men and Stephanie's tearful face.

“Our Father,” Robert said quietly. He took the flashlight from Stephanie and turned it off, and the three of them stood in the pitch-black silence, holding hands. “We bring you Max Lacoste, in an unconventional way, but nonetheless in a spirit of love and grace. He was a man who wandered far from your path, a man who lived a life we would not emulate but for which we cannot entirely condemn him. He was a complicated man, a devious man, but a caring man. He was a man who, even when outside the law, cared for others, did good, and shared what he
had in money and energy and talents. He could have been much more . . . or much less. He was never able to be completely happy, though he knew happiness as well as sadness, wealth and loss, love and fear. He was my friend and the friend of others. Had he lived, he might have turned his great talents to the service of others. I will always believe that that might have happened, if he had lived. Now we commend his soul to you. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost . . . amen.”

Stephanie, crying, heard Andrew crying. Then she saw the flashlight's thin beam move to the other grave, and heard Robert say a brief prayer for the soul of the murderer. “Now,” Robert said, and with Stephanie again holding the flashlight the men shoveled earth into the graves, tamped it down, then dragged branches and fallen leaves over them.

Stephanie knelt where Max was buried and pressed her palm to the earth. My husband, she thought. Somehow it never seemed right to me that we were married, just as it doesn't seem right, even now, that Sabrina is my name, but he cared for me as a husband would, and that was what mattered.

“My dear.” Robert's hand was on her shoulder, and she rose and went with him to her car, and he drove it while Andrew followed in the van, all of them locked in their thoughts as they drove through a sleeping Bédoin, past the darkened villages and farmhouses that dotted the rolling plain, and so back to Cavaillon. “And you will stay with me tonight,” Robert said to Stephanie. “I don't want you to be alone in your house.”

She looked at him through drooping eyes. “You think there are others, and when they don't hear from that man they'll come looking for me.”

“We don't know that.”

“But you think it. That's why you want me to stay with you.”

“It's possible. I don't want to take the chance.”

She was too tired to argue. “But I want to talk to Andrew first.”

Robert left them alone in his small living room, and she asked Andrew about what Max did in Marseilles, and he told her. “There's a huge market all over the world for counterfeit money, hundreds of millions of dollars a year. Max was providing a service, and I was honored to be part of it. He was a hell of a guy to work for, Sabrina, and a hell of a good friend. I mean, he cared about people and he loved being alive and making things happen. I thought he was like a puppet master, you know, sort of keeping the rest of us dancing.”

“Yes,” Stephanie murmured. “What was the good deed he did?”

“Good deed? No idea.”

“He said the reason they found him was some kind of coincidence. He was doing a favor for a friend and it backfired.”

Andrew shrugged. “Got me. He didn't talk to me about his private life.”

“Does Robert know?”

“About the good deed?”

“About any of it. The counterfeiting, the smuggling . . .”

“Christ, no. Max told me never to tell him. He really cared about Robert, you know; he wouldn't have laid that on him. Anyway, he didn't really trust anybody, even the people he cared about. Oh, sorry, I didn't mean—”

“It's all right. I know he was like that.”

“Look, Sabrina, if you need help, if you need anything . . . I'll get you out of here, I'll take care of you; I mean, if you'd let me—”

“Thank you, Andrew, but I'm fine. I have Robert and . . . I have friends.”

Robert. Friends.
She thought about them all night, sleeping fitfully on the small couch, waking with a start, thinking she heard Max's voice, or Léon's or Jacqueline's, or Madame Besset beating egg whites for a soufflé,
or the bell at Jacqueline en Provence announcing a customer. Sometimes she was sure she heard the dull thud of soil being flung into graves. At dawn she stayed awake, and that was how Robert found her, curled up, one hand under her cheek, her eyes wide and thoughtful.

“What is it you look at so intently?” he asked.

“I'm trying to see the future.” She wore a pair of Robert's pajamas that were only slightly too big, and as she sat up, her hair tousled, her cheek red with the imprint of her fingers, Robert thought she looked like an innocent child.

“Part of your future is secure,” he said, and told her about Max's money. “You're a wealthy woman, Sabrina; you'll need someone to help you handle your money and Max's investments. I know two people, one in Marseilles, one in Paris. Let me give you their names.”

Stephanie took the cards he held out.
A wealthy woman. But all I want is what I have: a home, a job, friends . . . and Léon.
“Robert, I have a friend. Someone very important to me. I'd like you to meet him.”

He gazed at her without expression. “Did Max know?”

“I never found a way to tell him. I wanted to, but . . . You see, he was leaving Cavaillon. And I was staying.”

“He told me you were leaving together. But not for a while.”

“He left last night. I wouldn't go with him.”

“Because of your friend?”

“Partly. But mostly because this is my home and I didn't want to start all over again somewhere else.”

“Max was your husband.”

“I couldn't go with him, Robert. He told me things about his life, things I couldn't be part of . . .” A shiver went through her. “I can't believe we're talking about him like this; I keep thinking he'll walk in the door and be angry because we're talking about him. He didn't like people to talk about him, or to know anything about him.”

“But I knew him, at least I knew some sides of him, and I don't believe he would have left you behind.”

“He didn't want to. He tried to persuade me to go. But he knew I didn't love him—I think you knew it, too, Robert—and when I refused, he had to leave. He knew they'd found him, whoever they were, and he didn't have much time. But then he came back. He said I was in danger, too.”

“And so you must leave after all. As soon as possible.”

“Where will I go? Robert, I have nowhere to go; I don't know anyone anywhere but here.”

“I have friends; I can send you to them. Or is the real reason that your friend does not want to leave?”

“I haven't asked him. I love him, Robert, and I want to marry him, but I have to know what kind of life I can lead before I ask him to be with me.”

“But you must leave. How can you hesitate, after yesterday? If you want your friend with you, you must ask him to leave Cavaillon, but in any event, Sabrina,
you cannot stay here
.”

“Yes, I know, I know, I just can't decide right now . . . Robert, right now I just want you to meet him and get to know him.”

“To give you my blessing.”

“Yes.”

“And to marry you?”

“When we're ready . . . if you would . . . there's no one else I want.”

“But then what is it you want now?”

“I want you to tell me you're happy for me. I want you to be glad that I've found someone to love.” Tears came to her eyes. “I want you to be my family.”

Robert kissed her forehead. “This afternoon, then. Can you reach him that quickly? We'll have lunch at Café Hélène. A family lunch.”

Café Hélène was a converted house, white stucco, square and solid on its street corner, its tables shielded from the traffic by a high stucco wall. Stephanie and Robert were led through a narrow arch to a tiny walled courtyard fragrant with roses, with a single table set for three.
When Léon arrived, he took Stephanie's hands and kissed them. “I was worried. I called all day yesterday. I even called Jacqueline, who said she does not keep track of you on Sundays.”

“So much has happened . . . I have so much to tell you. Léon, this is Father Robert Chalon.”

They shook hands, taking stock of each other, liking each other. “I've seen your work,” Robert said. “You have a great talent.”

“But what has happened?” Léon took Stephanie's hand again, and sat beside her while Robert told him what had happened on Mont Ventoux. As he talked, Léon moved his chair closer to Stephanie's, his grip tightening on her hand. “Terrible, terrible. How terrifying to be there . . . alone. With the winds and the dead. Dead,” he repeated, his voice barely a murmur. “Dead. So suddenly, so crazily. We never thought . . .” He put his arm around Stephanie and turned her face to his. “All I want is to be with you always, to help you when you need it, to shield you from danger so that never again could you be alone on a mountaintop in such terror . . . my God, I would do anything to keep you from that.”

“I thought of you,” Stephanie said. “I talked to you. I said I couldn't die because we had barely begun.”

He laughed quietly. “We'll take care of each other from now on. And Father Chalon will watch over us both.”

“Wherever you are,” Robert said, and then they talked about all that had happened and all that might happen. They sat at the small round table for the whole afternoon, remembering Max, learning about Robert's work and how Max had helped it, trying to imagine the danger facing Stephanie.

“We'll leave,” Léon said at last. “Why would we stay where there is any danger at all? Nothing keeps us here; we'll choose a town where we can begin everything new, where we can be as private as we wish. Oh. I know the place. I have friends in Vézelay; I use their guest house and studio whenever I visit Burgundy. We'll go there. No
one looks for anyone in Vézelay; there are too many tourists. Everyone becomes anonymous.”

“A beautiful town,” said Robert. “But close to Paris. Less than two hundred kilometers, I believe.”

“Far enough,” Léon said. “We can slip in and out for theater and music and galleries, and live as we wish in Vézelay. Sabrina, does that sound good to you?”

“Yes,” she said. And she did not say that there might be people in Vézelay who knew her, or in Paris, or anywhere else they might go. Until she remembered who she was, there was nowhere she could be sure she would be anonymous. But why talk about that now? She was with Léon. The terror of yesterday and the black sorrow of the burial in the forest were behind her. She remembered her piercing happiness on the summit of Mont Ventoux just before the murderer arrived.
Everything is waiting for me . . . a new life, a whole life, with Léon. Because I will remember, and then I'll be the person I was and the person I am now. And I'll have everything I could ever want.

It would never seem that simple again, she thought. She knew now how the calm of a sunlit day could be shattered and happiness swept away. She knew there would be other shadows in the years to come, new discoveries, sudden meetings that she could not even imagine. But if they held on to each other, to what they would build together, nothing would be as terrible as that lonely moment on the summit of Mont Ventoux.
Because we'll be together. And we won't let anything tear us apart.

“Well, then, Vézelay,” Léon said. “A very special place. A good place for us. How soon can you be ready?”

“The house . . .” Stephanie said. “Madame Besset. I can't just walk out.”

“Madame Besset and I will pack up everything in the house and send it to you when you're ready,” Robert said. “You should leave very soon. You should not go back to that house at all.”

“No, you'll stay with me,” Léon said. They talked about storing the antiques and the art from the house, and
paying Madame Besset and moving Léon's furnishings and his studio. “Formidable but not impossible,” Léon said to Stephanie with a smile. “And we start with a visit to Avignon. I have some supplies to pick up; can you come with me? We can make lists of everything we need to do.”

Stephanie shook her head. “I can't just walk out of Jacqueline's shop. I'll ask her how long she needs me.”

“It is more important that you leave,” Robert said. “I could tell her for you.”

“No. Thank you, Robert, but Jacqueline is my friend. I'll tell her I'm leaving in . . . one week.”

Léon met Robert's eyes. “Less,” he said. “We'll go the day after tomorrow. What we cannot pack, Father Chalon and Madame Besset will finish for us. But first Avignon, yes? Will you come with me tomorrow afternoon after you finish in the shop?”