Chasing Cezanne (33 page)

It looked good, Paradou thought. It looked very good. It would have been perfect if they had hit an oncoming truck on their way across the road, but this would do. Now he would go and count the broken necks. He looked for the next exit so that he could make the turn back to the wrecked car.

There is nothing quite like a close brush with death to clear the head of alcohol, and three very shaken, suddenly sober figures clambered up the slope and onto the hard shoulder. “Can you make it across to the other side?” said Andre. “We'll hitch a lift into Aix.” A gap in the traffic, a rush of adrenaline, a sprint across what felt like half a mile of highway, and they were on the opposite side, the nausea and shivering of reaction beginning to set in. Andre stood at the edge of the emergency lane, an unsteady but hopeful thumb extended toward an approaching truck. It passed without slowing down. So did the next one, and the half dozen after that.

“This isn't going to work,” said Lucy. “You two get down there, out of sight. Come up when I whistle.” With
the two men waiting in the darkness at the foot of the slope, she undid the top buttons of her blouse, rolled up an already short skirt, and faced the oncoming headlights with a smile and an upraised hand. Almost at once, French gallantry came to the rescue with a great hissing of hydraulic brakes.

The driver of the truck opened the passenger door and looked down at Lucy with pursed lips and an appreciative gleam in his eye. She winked at him, adjusting the strap of her bra. “Aix?”

“
Paris, si vous voulez, chérie
.”

“Great.” Her whistle, and the instant appearance of Cyrus and Andre, happened too quickly for him to close the door. Some hundred-franc notes pressed into his hand helped him overcome his disappointment, and Andre's account of brake failure and the subsequent crash even produced a grudging sympathy—enough, at any rate, to make him leave the autoroute and drop them off near the center of town. They were back in their hotel while Paradou, gun in hand, was still beating the bushes around the wreckage of their car.

Holtz and Camilla sat together in hostile silence. The argument had started in the Ritz and continued in the car, and was now simmering in the back of the plane as the day's last flight headed south toward Marseille. She was livid with him for dragging her away from Paris simply—as she knew very well and he didn't bother to deny—to act
as potential chauffeur and general dogsbody. It was too bad, and it was undoubtedly going to get worse, with the night spent in some ghastly little airport hotel with no facilities, Rudi in a foul mood, and absolutely nothing to wear tomorrow because they had left in such a rush.

The hotel was every bit as dreary as she had anticipated, and it wasn't improved by the sly, knowing expression on the desk clerk's face when they checked in with no luggage. He leered. He actually leered—as if any couple in their right minds would choose Marseille airport for a romantic assignation. The whole thing was too sordid for words.

Holtz made straight for the phone in their room and was having a long, obviously unsatisfactory conversation. At the sight of his scowling face, Camilla shut herself in the bathroom and ran the water for a bath—a long bath—hoping he would be asleep by the time she finished.

The mood of the following morning was still far from festive. They had made an early start, taking a taxi into Aix to meet Paradou, and the three of them were now in his car on the Cours Mirabeau, diagonally opposite the entrance of the Hotel Nègre-Coste.

“You're sure they're still there?”

Paradou turned a bleary eye on Holtz, who was sitting in the back seat with Camilla. “I checked at the desk last night. They came back, God knows how. I've been here ever since.”

Silence returned to the car. The beauty of the shaded green street in the morning sun, the dappled light on café awnings, the delightful sights and sounds of a beautiful
town coming to life—none of these did anything to improve Camilla's ragged temper, the nervous anxiety of Holtz, or the grinding frustration that Paradou was beginning to feel. How he longed for a few minutes of honest, conclusive violence and an end to the job. He fingered the crosshatching on the butt of the gun under his arm. Third time lucky, and this time he would do it at short range, so he could see them go down. He yawned and lit a cigarette.

Fifty yards away, an unusually subdued trio sat over coffee in the hotel. Shock and alcohol had given them a sound, almost drugged night's sleep, but the effects had worn off and they were coming to terms with the possibility that the crash might not have been an accident. Once again, Cyrus had suggested that he continue alone, and once again Andre and Lucy had brushed the suggestion aside. All they had to do, after all, was get to Cap Ferrat—but not in another rented car. They decided to take a taxi to the house in Les Crottins and go on together with Franzen.

And so, with the sun now well up, they left Aix behind them, their spirits beginning to lift in the serene and unthreatening normality of the back road that runs parallel with Sainte-Victoire. The mountain glowed with light from the east, no longer mysterious or sinister. Vans and tractors buzzed up dirt tracks between the fields of vines, magpies hopped and squabbled on the verge, a few high clouds tumbled across the great blue sweep of the morning sky: another ordinary, beautiful day.

The taxi came to a fork in the road and began the
short, steep climb to Les Crottins, the driver cursing as two village dogs on their morning vigil darted out to snap at his tires.

“It's the house with blue shutters,” said Andre. “There, at the end, with the Citroen outside.”

There was another growl from the driver when he saw that Franzen's car gave him no room to turn and he would have to back down the street. These villages were built for donkeys. Somewhat pacified by his tip, he deigned to nod goodbye as his passengers got out, and put the taxi into reverse.

Franzen opened the door before they had a chance to knock. “
Salut, mes amis
. Come in, come in.” Handshakes for the men, a whiskery kiss on each cheek for Lucy, and then he led them into a low-ceilinged room the width of the house, explaining that Anouk, a late riser, had wished them
bon voyage
and hoped to see them again soon. “But before we go,” he said, “I thought it might amuse you to see these.” He waved a casual hand toward the stone fireplace. “The light is unhelpful, I admit, but it would take a good eye to tell the difference, even side by side. Eh, Cyrus?”

On the stone mantel above the fireplace, Cézanne's
Woman with Melons
and her twin sister gazed out at them, placid, beautiful, and apparently identical. Cyrus went closer, shaking his head. “I do congratulate you, Nico. Quite, quite extraordinary. Tell me a trade secret: How long does it take you to—”

“Cyrus!” Andre, glancing through the window at the
sound of an engine, saw a thickset, crew-cut man with dark glasses get out of a white Renault, his hand reaching inside his jacket as he came across the street to the house. “Someone's coming.” And a moment later: “Jesus. He's got a gun.”

They stood like four statues until a steady, insistent knocking jerked them back to life. “Through the kitchen,” said Franzen. “There's a back door.” Taking the paintings from the mantelpiece, he led the way out of the house and into a tiny, high-walled garden with a barred gate giving onto an alley. “My car's just around the corner.”

“Yes,” said Cyrus. “So is our friend with the gun.”

“Just a minute.” Andre pointed at the canvases under Franzen's arm. “That's what he's after. It has to be. Nico, give me one of those; the other one to Cyrus. Have your car keys ready. Lulu, you get behind me. Nico, behind Cyrus. Stay close, and we'll be fine. Nobody wants a Cézanne with bullet holes in it.”

Paradou had stepped away from the door to look through the window, and it wasn't until he heard Holtz shout from the back of the car that he turned, to see two paintings walking around the corner of the house, each painting with four legs. Comedians: The world was full of them. He shook his head and raised his gun.

There was an anguished screech from Holtz, who by now had pushed his head and shoulders through the back window of the car. “No! No! For Christ's sake don't shoot! Franzen—Nico—we can do a deal. Listen to me. It was all a misunderstanding. I can explain.…”

Franzen, still shielded by Cyrus and the painting, opened the door of the Citroen and started the engine. Lucy and Andre slid into the back seat. Cyrus joined Franzen in the front, and the Citroen took off down the street, passing so close to Holtz that Andre could see the spittle on his lips and, behind him, the pale blur of Camilla's face.

“He has to back out,” said Franzen. “We've got a couple of minutes' head start.”

Andre looked through the rear window and saw Paradou getting into the Renault. “Go for the autoroute,” he said. “There'll be more traffic. Where can we get on?”

“Not until Saint-Maximin.” The big car lurched around a bend. “Do you think they'll follow us?”

Cyrus looked down at the painting on his lap. “Thirty million dollars?” he said. “They'll follow us.”

They were silent as Franzen reached the N7 and started pushing the car to the limit along a straight, flat stretch of road—so straight and so flat and so devoid of turnings and hiding places that he could do nothing but drive on the horn and hope for the best while Lucy and Andre kept a lookout through the rear window. Half an hour passed, as uneventful as any half hour can be at high speed on one of the most deadly roads in France, and the level of tension inside the Citroen dropped as they came off the N7 to join the access road to the autoroute.

Franzen pulled to a stop behind a line of cars waiting to go through the tollbooth, and all the air seemed to leave his body in one vast whoosh of relief. He turned to Cyrus
with a grin. “I think I'll stick to forgery from now on. I wouldn't want to do that again. Is everyone all right? No heart attacks?”

“What I'd like to know,” said Andre, “is who that guy was with—”

“Andre?” Lucy's voice was small and tight. “He's there.”

Their eyes followed Lucy's nod. In the line next to theirs, easing forward to the tollbooth, was the white Renault. Paradou was staring back at them. He was smiling.