Anything Considered (10 page)

Shimo was accompanied by a broad slab of a man who might have had “Bodyguard” printed on the front of the black suit that appeared to be regulation dress for Poe’s employees. Bennett led them into the sitting room, and they perched on the couch like two hostile crows while he fumbled his way through an apologetic explanation.

Shimo lit a cigarette, and there was a low, hissing sound as he inhaled. He turned to look at Susie. “So,” he said, “the two men were Italian. Are you sure? Definitely not French?”

“Well, they spoke Italian. I mean, that’s often a clue, isn’t it?”

Shimo studied her impassively. Bennett nudged her. “No jokes, Suze. I don’t think this is the moment.”

Shimo leaned forward, tapping his cigarette on the rim of a crystal ashtray. “Describe these two men.”

“Oh, both dark-haired, dark clothes, very polite. Let’s see—oh yes, one of them was sort of, well, lumpy. You know, he looked as if he was going to burst out of his suit.” She glanced at Shimo’s silent colleague. “Rather like him, actually. Meaty, if you know what I mean.”

Shimo nodded. “And the other one?”

“Thinner, older, a little mustache.” Susie’s brow furrowed with concentration. “There was one other thing. He had a bit of a limp. But he was a sweetie, very nice.”

“A limp?” Shimo nodded again. “I know about him. You were lucky he was feeling friendly. He often isn’t.” He
turned to the bodyguard. “That was Vallone. One of Tuzzi’s men.” He got up, went over to a desk in the corner, picked up the phone, and turned his back to the room. Susie and Bennett exchanged bewildered glances. The bodyguard stretched, yawned, and tried to muffle a belch.

Shimo finished his brief, inaudible conversation and came back to the couch, where he stood looking down at Bennett. “You will come with us. Your friend can stay here and entertain herself.”

Despite his apprehension, Bennett felt his hackles go up. “Absolutely not,” he said. “She’s only just arrived, and we’ve made plans for this evening.” He attempted a winning smile. “Haven’t seen each other for ages, lots to catch up on, I know you’ll understand.” There was no response from Shimo. “Look, I’m sorry about the case, and of course I’ll do anything I can to help, but tonight’s out of the question. Let’s have a chat tomorrow.”

Shimo dropped the butt of his cigarette in the ashtray. “Mr. Bennett, we’re leaving now. You can either come willingly, or Gérard here will assist you, which would be painful. It makes no difference to me.”

Bennett looked at Gérard, who smiled amiably, clasped his thick hands in front of him, and cracked his knuckles. The sound made Bennett think of broken bones. He turned to Susie and shook his head. “I’m sorry about this, Suze. Will you be OK? I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

“When?”

Bennett stood up, and looked at Shimo. “Well?”

“I couldn’t say.”

Susie put her glass down on the table and reached for her cigarettes. “That’s brilliant,” she said. “Welcome to bloody Monaco.”

——

The drive to Nice airport was, for the most part, silent. Shimo sat in the back and ignored Bennett’s questions until he gave up. Gérard confined his remarks to occasional muttered streams of profanity directed at any car that wouldn’t get out of his way fast enough. Bennett assumed they were going back to see Poe, and felt the hollow chill of a criminal on his way to be sentenced. What lousy luck. Fate, cudgel in hand, had slugged him just when everything was looking rosy. It was with a sense of foreboding that he climbed into the helicopter and buckled up for the flight to Poe’s estate and, he felt sure, summary dismissal.

Or maybe worse, he thought, as they headed northwest, away from the brightly lit coastal strip and over the black emptiness of the backcountry. Poe was clearly a powerful man, and some of his employees—certainly the two who were flying with him—were the most sinister executives Bennett had met since he’d had to deal with film union officials and their leg-breakers in Paris.

The helicopter tilted abruptly, and he instinctively grabbed the back of the pilot’s seat. Shimo smiled. “Nervous flier, Mr. Bennett?”

Bennett wiped his palms on his trousers. “I should
watch out if I were you. I get terribly airsick. Buckets of it, all over the place.”

Shimo grimaced, and moved as far away as he could. For Bennett, it was the only pleasing moment of the trip.

——

They hovered above the floodlit landing pad, cypresses bowing in the downdraft as the helicopter eased its way to the ground and settled as delicately as a bird on its egg. Ducking through the turbulent air beneath the rotor blades, Shimo and Bennett made their way through the garden toward the back of the house and across the terrace. The plate-glass window slid aside. Poe was standing in front of the fireplace, remote control in one hand, an unlit cigar in the other.

Bennett heard the window close behind him, nodded at Poe, and followed the pointing cigar to a chair. Shimo sat off to one side, alert and watchful.

“Well, Mr. Bennett, this is a bugger’s muddle, isn’t it?” Poe fussed over the lighting of his cigar with a long wooden spill, puffing deliberately until he was satisfied with the uniform dark-red glow of the tip. “I’m not pleased. You haven’t exactly distinguished yourself.”

Bennett took a deep breath. “Look, I’m sorry, I really am, but as I said earlier—”

Poe held up one hand. “Spare me the excuses. Shimo told me what you told him. What I want to know is this: Are you completely sure that you weren’t seen by the men
who took the case?” He peered intently at Bennett, eyes narrowed behind the gray-blue smoke.

“Positive. They’d been gone at least ten minutes by the time I got back.”

“Positive. That is some small consolation, I suppose.” Poe sat down and crossed his legs, the light reflecting from the mirror-polished toe cap of his shoe. “Well, now. If that’s the case, you will no doubt be relieved to hear that your employment will continue for the time being, but under slightly different circumstances. Does that please you?”

“I think so. Well, yes, of course. That would be great.”

“Excellent.” For the first time since Bennett had arrived, Poe smiled. “I find people perform so much better when their hearts are in their work. It’s almost as powerful a motivating force as money. Although, in the end, there’s nothing like fear.” He smiled again, and drew on his cigar. “But I’m forgetting my manners. Do help yourself to a drink, and then we have one or two things to go over.”

Bennett half filled a large tumbler with Scotch. It could have been worse, he thought. At least he hadn’t been thrown out of the helicopter, and Poe didn’t seem dangerously angry. It was too early for relief, perhaps, but he felt something close to it—a moment of whisky-induced hope—as the first swallow went down. He leaned forward, and Poe began to speak.

“I think I might have mentioned to you that one of my minor interests is the truffle, not simply because of its taste
but also because of the mystique that surrounds it—the secrecy, the unpredictability of the market, the outrageous prices, the trickery and dishonesty.” Poe spoke the words with gusto, as though they tasted good. “And, above all, the fact that truffles have resisted all efforts so far to grow to man’s bidding. They cannot be cultivated with any guarantee of success. Believe me, the French have been trying for years—and not just the farmers, but the government, too.”

Poe paused while Shimo got him a drink, and Bennett remembered the notes he had read in Monaco. The man was certainly interested in truffles, but it was hard to imagine him as Farmer Poe, with dirty fingernails and mud all over his shiny shoes, scratching a living from the earth. He smiled at the thought.

“Something amuses you, Mr. Bennett?”

“Oh, it’s just that I can’t see you wandering through the woods with a pig and a stick—you know, truffling.”

Poe raised his eyebrows. “What a hideous thought. Now, I suggest you contain your hilarity for a few minutes and listen carefully.” He gazed up at the ceiling, and his voice took on a measured, professorial tone. “Some years ago, the work of a rather extraordinary man came to my attention. A boffin, an agricultural researcher of great vision and ability—but, as exceptionally clever men tend to be, somewhat arrogant, and not what our sporting friends would call a team player. Eventually, he fell out with the high-and-mighties of the French Ministry of Agriculture, and when I met him he was unemployed, broke, and resentful. He felt that his research had been ignored by jealous
men of lesser intellect. Not uncommon, as I’m sure you know.”

Poe blew a smoke ring, and watched the gray halo shiver and curl in the air. “It was then my interest in truffles changed from that of the gourmet to that of the businessman. Because, Mr. Bennett, our little boffin claimed that he was close to developing a formula, a serum, that would guarantee the consistent growth of
Tuber melanosporum
—given the right trees and climate and soil conditions, obviously, but they’re not difficult to find. There are hundreds of thousands of hectares in France that are suitable.”

Bennett, feeling like a backward student, held up his hand. “What did you call it—
Tuber …
?”

“
Melanosporum
. The black truffle. It’s also known, quite inaccurately, as the Perigord truffle. Here in Provence, it’s called the
rabasse
. It grows at random—up till now, at any rate—on the roots of hazelnut or oak trees. It’s said to be heterotrophic.”

“Really?” said Bennett, nodding vigorously in incomprehension.

“Closer to the animal than the vegetable. Fascinating, isn’t it?”

“Absolutely.” Bennett doubted that his Scotch would last as long as the lecture, and wondered what all this could possibly have to do with his revised terms of employment. But Poe seemed to have mellowed in his role of instructor, and Bennett sensed that trying to rush him might be a mistake.

“I won’t burden you with too many details, but to apréciate
the genius of my boffin, you should know that the birth of a truffle is a very haphazard process. A question of spores.”

“Ah,” said Bennett, “spores.”

“From a rotting truffle. During the period of putrefaction, a spore can be transported—by insects, birds, wind, whatever—from one spot to another. If it should find a hospitable tree, such as the pubescent oak, it will attach itself and feed off the root. And if conditions are right, it will grow.”

“Remarkable,” said Bennett.

“Indeed. But not predictable. As any farmer will tell you, Mother Nature makes an unreliable partner.” Poe examined the long, wrinkled cylinder of ash that had grown on the end of his cigar, and flicked it into the fireplace. “And that has been the problem. People have tried, God knows. There was the Somycel plan, the Signoret plan, the INRA plan—all schemes to make truffles grow to order. None of them worked. But where the French government has failed, Mr. Bennett, my boffin succeeded—with some considerable assistance from me, I might add. I set him up. Bought a patch of land in the Drôme, built him a laboratory, gave him time—years of time—gave him money. Also, I gave him what he really wanted. Recognition.” Poe nodded. “I believed in him. And he didn’t fail me.”

What a charitable soul you are, thought Bennett. And I bet you want nothing in return. “Well, congratulations. It was quite a gamble, wasn’t it?”

“And it paid off. Two years ago, the oaks on my land
in the Drôme were treated with serum injected into the roots. The first season, we had a success rate of seventy percent. The second season was over ninety percent. Imagine, Mr. Bennett, being able to produce tons—year in, year out—of a commodity that sells for anything between three and eight thousand francs a kilo. We’re talking about very substantial amounts of money. Millions.” Poe tapped the side of his nose, echoing the gesture of the sly French peasant. “And of course, because of the nature of the business, a great deal of that would be in cash.”

There was a moment of silence while Poe sipped his whisky. He put his glass down and leaned forward. “And now for the bad news.” His voice changed, as though it had been sharpened. The edge was audible, and Bennett felt a strong desire to be somewhere else.

“The case,” said Poe, “the little case that was so generously handed over by your friend, contains everything—vials of the serum, the formula for manufacturing more, field notes, production records, application instructions, everything. Whoever has that case can control the truffle market. Now do you understand its importance?”

Bennett’s mouth felt suddenly dry. “Yes, but surely your man—you know, the boffin—I mean, he could make some more serum, couldn’t he?”

“I’m afraid he’s no longer with us. Apparently, the brakes failed on his car. A great loss to agriculture.” Poe seemed unmoved by this tragedy.

Bennett finished his whisky in one long, nervous gulp.

“Can I ask you a question?”

Poe nodded.

“If the case was so important, why was it delivered to Monaco? Why not here?”

“It’s impossible to develop a long-term project like this in total secrecy. Rumor, speculation, bar talk, village gossip—one way or another, word gets out. We have obviously been as discreet as possible, but I know that in the past few months several interested parties have had their people out all over Provence, looking for the laboratory.” Poe held up a hand, counting off on his fingers. “The Corsicans, the Japanese, a syndicate based in California, and, of course, the Italians. Some are conventional businessmen, and some aren’t. Or perhaps I should say that their business practices aren’t conventional.”

Bennett couldn’t help but wonder if tampering with car brakes was one of them. “What do you mean?”

“Oh, bribery, physical persuasion—primitive stuff, really, but it’s been known to be effective on a certain type of person.”

Me for one, Bennett thought. “So that’s why you wanted me in Monaco, was it? In case things turned nasty. Thanks a lot.”

Poe shook his head. “Give me more credit than that, Mr. Bennett. You were a convenience, not a target. You see, the Italians know where I am. Maybe the others do, too. In any case, this property is being watched. And so I thought it prudent to have the case delivered to Monaco.” He looked at Bennett under raised eyebrows. “It seems I was wrong.”