Anything Considered (12 page)

Shimo nodded at Bennett to sit on one of the low leather-and-chrome chairs in front of the desk, and they waited while Poe finished making notes on a pad, took off his glasses, and, rather to Bennett’s surprise, smiled and nodded.

“Well, Mr. Bennett, you’ll be pleased to hear that your period in durance vile is very nearly over. I hope it hasn’t been too uncomfortable. I’m sorry we haven’t been able to let you out of the house during daylight, but as I told you, there are watchers in the hills out there, and it wouldn’t do at all if your face were seen. Most unhealthy.” He smiled again, the picture of a benevolent host concerned with his guest’s welfare. “I must say, it’s gratifying when one’s competitors behave predictably. Puts me in rather a good humor, as you’ve probably noticed.” He leaned back, and smoothed the dark-blue silk of his shirtfront with a tanned and manicured hand.

“As I thought he would, our Italian friend Tuzzi has
succumbed to greed, which is his habit, and he is planning an auction. The bidders are to meet in Cannes, where they will be taken on board Tuzzi’s boat.” The corners of Poe’s mouth turned down in distaste. “The
Ragazza di Napoli
, if you can believe that. Neapolitan Girl seems an inappropriate name for one of the largest and ugliest gin palaces in the Mediterranean, but that’s Italians for you. Sentimental to the core. Anyway, the auction will be conducted at sea, sailing west. Tuzzi has an estate on Ibiza, and he goes there every summer to play the squire and chase little Spanish girls. Repulsive creature.”

Bennett hardly heard Poe’s comments about Tuzzi’s summer plans; his mind was still taking in the horror of being cooped up on a boat with a bunch of brigands. And he was supposed to outwit them, steal the case, and return to dry land in one piece. The whole thing was a nightmare.

“You’re looking glum, Mr. Bennett. What’s the matter? Poor sailor?”

Bennett clutched at the excuse. “The worst. I’ve been seasick in port. Even the deep end of a swimming pool—”

Poe cut him short. “Take some pills. As I was saying, the boat will be sailing west. Once the auction is over, all the bidders will be put ashore at one of the ports along the French coast, but I have every confidence that you’ll have made the switch by then. If not, you’ll have to stick close to the buyer.”

“Switch?” Bennett wondered if he’d missed something vital. “What switch?”

Poe chuckled, enjoying the game he was playing. “Surely you don’t think I’d send you on this important errand unprepared?” He swiveled around in his chair and bent down. When he straightened up, he was holding the identical twin of the case Bennett had last seen in Monaco. Poe placed it on the desk. “This will fit easily into an overnight bag.” He snapped open the lid. “Obviously,” he said, “the contents are counterfeit. The vials are filled with doctored water, and the paperwork is bogus, but it all looks authentic enough, I think. Particularly if nobody is expecting a substitution. Here, take a look.”

Bennett leaned over to inspect the contents of the case. The top section was taken up by rows of vials set into a bed of foam rubber, each vial labeled in a spidery French hand, corked, and wax-sealed. The rest of the case contained dossiers. Bennett flicked through them: pages of formulae, computer printouts, notes on soil conditions and irrigation, temperature charts—more than enough to deceive anyone who didn’t have a degree in agricultural science. He felt a sense of reluctant admiration at Poe’s thoroughness. “It would fool me,” he said.

“No doubt,” said Poe. He closed the lid and turned the tumblers on the lock. “It’s set at the same combination as the original. You like women, Mr. Bennett, so it should be easy enough to remember: thirty-six twenty-four thirty-six.” Poe then picked up a small, dark-blue box and pushed it to the edge of the desk. “Your cover.”

Bennett opened the box and saw the engraved copperplate of a traditional business card, announcing that the Honorable L. Bennett was president of Consolidated European Investments S.A., with an office in Zurich.

“As you see, I’ve promoted you to Honorable. Italians love titles, and Tuzzi’s a frightful snob—probably comes from being such a vulgarian himself. He’ll be impressed. In fact, we’ve already contacted his people, sent them your card with a covering letter. They’re delighted that the aristocratic representative of a Swiss investment syndicate is coming to join the auction. Any calls or faxes to the numbers on the card will be rerouted via Zurich to us here. Isn’t technology a blessing?”

Bennett took a card from the box and ran his thumbnail over the surface, feeling the raised letters of the copperplate.

Poe laughed. “I can assure you they’re the very best quality. We wouldn’t want our noble bidder to be embarrassed by shoddy stationery.”

Bennett stared at the card with a mounting sense of awful inevitability. He seemed to have no choice but to go through with it. He looked up at Poe, who was watching with a patient, slightly amused expression, and made one last attempt to get himself off the hook that was biting into him more deeply every minute. “Look, it’ll never work. I’m just not the man for the job. I can’t deal with a gang of thugs all by myself.…”

“Come, come, Mr. Bennett. Where’s your spirit of
adventure? In any case, you won’t be by yourself. All the time you’re on land, at least two of my men will be keeping a discreet eye on you. We shall be tracking the progress of the boat. And when you run away to sea, you’ll have an assistant—a most able assistant—to come on board with you. It’s all been arranged.”

Bennett glanced at Shimo.

“No, Mr. Bennett, not Shimo. I won’t spoil the surprise for you. All you have to do is meet the Delta flight coming into Nice tomorrow morning from New York. Carry this for identification.” Poe slid a copy of the London
Financial Times
across his desk, the distinctive pink paper pale against the dark wood. “You’ll be approached. All clear?”

Bennett bowed to the inevitable, and nodded. “There’s just one point. You know, looking on the bright side—you mentioned a bonus.”

Poe looked at him speculatively. “I do believe you’re entering into the spirit of things at last. Shall we say ten thousand dollars?”

Bennett hesitated, then decided not to push his luck. “Fine.”

“Excellent. You’ll be leaving tonight, as soon as it’s dark. Call me tomorrow from Monaco, when you get back from the airport, and we’ll go over your sailing arrangements. And Mr. Bennett?” Poe put his hands flat on the desk and stood up. “Don’t even think of attempting anything foolish. I would take it very badly, after all the inconvenience you’ve caused me.”

——

It was close to midnight by the time a pensive, hungry Bennett let himself into the apartment, to be welcomed by a note left on the hall table:

Bennett was too drained to feel any worse than he already felt. He went into the kitchen, found a stale baguette, and opened the fridge. Next to a forgotten pot of Susie’s face cream was a leathery slice of Brie. He chewed without tasting, set his alarm, and went to an unmade, empty, and faintly perfumed bed.

BENNETT was up at dawn. He stood on the terrace, drinking coffee and feeling sorry for himself as he watched the first layers of light trickle across the surface of the sea. A street-cleaning truck grumbled up the hill below him, spraying and scrubbing the sidewalks so that they would be suitably pristine for the privileged feet of Monaco’s residents. For them, it would be another fine, carefree day, a day of sunshine, with perhaps a gentle stroll to the bank to visit their money before lunch—the kind of day he should have been looking forward to. Then he considered reality: a trip to the airport to pick up some gorilla, followed by danger, a good chance of failure, and an unknown but certainly nasty retribution. His coffee suddenly tasted bitter. He tossed the dregs into a tub of geraniums, and went inside to dress for his ordeal.

He drove along the coast, the morning air cool and still fume-free, the sun coming up fast over his shoulder, and parked behind the terminal with ten minutes to spare before the New York flight was scheduled to arrive. But it was early, and by the time he reached the gate
the first passengers were coming through, gritty-eyed, rumpled, and yawning after spending a night above the Atlantic. Bennett held the
Financial Times
like a pink banner in front of his chest and made guesses about the man he was going to meet. Poe’s business colleagues were becoming murkier by the day, and Bennett assumed, because of the Italian involvement, that Poe had found a recruit from one of the New York families. A Sicilian equivalent of Shimo, no doubt, handy with knife, gun, and garrote. He scanned the passengers, looking for someone with a blue-black chin and matching suit.

After five minutes, he had seen nobody who resembled the caricature, and he was hoping against hope that the immigration authorities had come to his aid and arrested his prospective partner, when a tap on the shoulder made him start.

“You’re Bennett, right?”

He turned to see a girl—a tall, dark girl, her eyebrows raised as she waited for his reply. “Well? Are you?”

Bennett nodded, and found his voice. “Yes. Yes, I am.”

“I’m Anna Hersh. Where’s your suit? You don’t look like one of the usual goons.”

“Good God. Are you …?”

The girl smiled, amused by his surprise. “What did you expect? Uncle Vinnie from the Bronx? Didn’t Poe tell you?”

“No. He just said to turn up with the newspaper.”

The smile faded. “He loves his little games.” She shook her head. “God, he hasn’t changed.”

Bennett was still in mild shock. He was looking—staring—at beauty instead of the anticipated beast. Her hair was closer to black than brown, shiny and cut as short as a man’s. The whites of her eyes were startling and accentuated the deep brown of the pupils. A long, fine-boned nose, olive skin, a strong mouth, a succulent lower lip. Dressed in jeans, a white T-shirt and an old leather jacket, she stood almost as tall as Bennett.

“Well,” she said. “Finished?”

“I’m sorry. You’re right—I was expecting Uncle Vinnie from the Bronx.” Bennett pulled himself together and became brisk. “Now then. Let’s go and get your luggage.”

The girl nodded at the canvas overnight bag on the ground. “That’s it. I’m not planning a long trip.”

They drove away from the airport and found a gap in the breakneck cavalcade of amateur Grand Prix drivers heading toward Nice. Bennett’s empty stomach rumbled along with the engine, reminding him that his last full meal had been lunch in his padded cell the previous day. He glanced at Anna. “Look, I’m starving. Do you mind if we stop for breakfast?”

“Fine with me. I haven’t had French coffee for years.” She tilted her head back to take the sun on her face, and Bennett wondered why she appeared to be so relaxed. Maybe she knew something he didn’t know. In any case, it was contagious, and he felt his morning gloom begin to lift. Putting aside the possible horrors the future might
hold, he concentrated on the much more immediate dangers posed by his fellow drivers. Unlike the sedate Monegasques, the motorists of Nice seemed to take personal exception to the Mercedes, flashing their headlights and sounding their horns as they did their best to squeeze their small cars past, weaving from lane to lane like demented steel insects. Bennett had long ago come to the conclusion that most French drivers needed three hands: one to hold a cigarette, one to use for abusive gestures aimed at other road users, and the third to navigate. It was with some relief that he turned off the Promenade des Anglais to join the crawl of traffic inching through the narrow streets of the old town.

They found a table outside one of the market bars and ordered. Anna took off her jacket, stretched in the sun, and lounged in her chair, one slim arm hooked over the back. “So tell me,” she said. “You’re not one of Poe’s regular bozos. How did you get involved with him?”

Bennett went through the whole story, from the ad in the paper to the abducted attaché case and the note from Susie, while Anna sipped her
café crème
and worked her way through the ham-filled baguette that Bennett had ordered for himself.

“And that’s about it,” he said, beckoning the waiter. “I’m not left with much of a choice—that is, if Poe’s serious about coming after me if I do a runner.”

Anna nodded. “He’s serious. He doesn’t like losing. And he has friends, believe me. Five, ten thousand dollars, and they’d bury their own mothers.” She looked at Bennett’s
empty plate and grinned. “I can recommend the sandwiches.”

He ordered another from the waiter, and more coffee. “You don’t seem too worried at the thought of working for a homicidal boss. Or are you a bozo?” He tilted his head and looked her up and down. “Damned good disguise, if you are—no black suit, no obvious weapons, no cauliflower ears.” He frowned. “Slight criminal tendencies when it comes to other people’s breakfasts, but otherwise I’d take you for a genteel, well-brought-up young lady. A librarian on holiday, something like that. The kind of girl you could trust with your dog.”

Anna took a long, thoughtful look at him as the waiter came with fresh coffee, and a sandwich that Bennett grasped with both hands. “I’d forgotten how complimentary the British could be.” She unwrapped a sugar lump and dipped it in her coffee, watching it turn brown. Bennett noticed that there were no rings on her fingers, no polish on the short, well-kept nails. She let the sugar sink slowly through the froth of milk. “I guess it’s my turn, isn’t it?”

“Well, it always helps to know a little about the person you’re working with—background, qualifications, next of kin, religious affiliation, blood group, leisure interests …”

“OK, OK.” She looked up. “Did you know you’re wearing some of your sandwich?”