Corsican Death (16 page)

You live well, Count. People die so you can live well.

“Do you speak French?” Count Lonzu’s English was flawless.

Bolt nodded.

The Count switched to French. “What kind of deal did you make with Remy Patek?”

Bolt frowned. The fucker’s curious. “Didn’t have a chance to make a deal. We were talking when we got interrupted.” The narc’s eyes went to the far end of the huge room. The Viking was there, that big blond bastard who had punched Bolt into unconsciousness. Sitting on a chair, another guy with him, both with guns stuffed in their belts. Might as well tell the truth; some of it, anyway.

“I wanted to talk to you,” said the Count, folding his hands and crossing his legs. A violent-looking man, he thought. The American looks as though killing comes easy to him.

“Yeah, well, I got your invitation and I’m here.”

The Count started to smile, then stopped. “Your own fault, Mr. Belli. Bertrand tells me you started to struggle, leaving him no choice.”

Bolt’s eyes went to Bertrand. Bertrand. I’ll remember you, lover. Give me a chance to repay your hospitality.

“Yeah, well, Bertrand has a way with words. I just couldn’t say no.”

The Count nodded. “About your arrangement with Remy. As you may or may not know, Remy and I are now competitors, and as such, I have no wish to see him prosper. I’d like to discuss your employer back in America. Perhaps we can all come to some sort of agreement?”

“What if I don’t like the idea?” Hard-to-get time, folks.

“I would prefer that you not deal with Remy.” The Count sighed. Yes, a most violent man, our Mr. Belli. A most interesting scar he has on his forehead.

Bolt read between the lines. This old bastard would kill him rather than see
him
do business with Remy. This old bastard had clout with cops, too, because Bolt was smart enough to know he had been set up by somebody inside, somebody who had told the Count to be outside the station when Bolt showed his face.

“What have you got to offer, uh, what is your name?”

“Count Lonzu.”

“Count, huh? O.K., Count, why should I do business with you?”

“Because your life depends on it.”

Bolt nodded. So much for being subtle and cool. So much for old-world charm.

“My people in the States don’t like that kind of pressure.”

“I have a lot at stake, Mr. Belli. What happened in the Blue Cat tonight could very well have happened to you.”

That’s when Bolt knew he had
not
just been lucky. With all of the footing at the Blue Cat tonight, the Count’s men had tried to keep him alive, the goose that would lay golden eggs for them. Thinking about the way Count Lonzu played with people’s lives pissed Bolt off, and for a few seconds he glared at the old man, wishing he could stick his thumbs in his eyes and press down hard for ten minutes.

“What if I don’t want to do business with either one of you? I don’t like being pushed around.” If you’re a hood, be a hood.

Count Lonzu nodded. Be patient with this one; he fights back. “Yes, yes, I quite understand. Then let’s put it on a business basis. I have an excellent route for getting heroin into America. Remy does not. I have better chemists than he. My sources in Munich deliver morphine base to me on a day’s notice. Remy has some contacts there, good ones I’ll admit, but mine are better. And the quality of my merchandise is excellent.”

“How excellent?”

“Ninety percent pure.”

Bolt nodded. That was goddamn excellent, all right.

“Good,” said the Count. “Oh, one more thing. I’m told you met my brother Alain in America?”

“Yeah. So?”

“Was he well?”

“He was busy; we didn’t have time to talk.”

“I take it your man in America is black, the man you are buying for.”

Bolt nodded. He had a cold feeling in the pit of his stomach, and looking over at Bertrand didn’t help any. Bertrand was staring at him, a hungry wolf looking at a piece of red meat.

“Well, I guess I have my brother to thank for bringing us together. I expect him here any day now, three days at the most. I would like you to be my guest until he arrives. You can stay here until then, and when Alain shows up, you and I should have completed our arrangements.”

Jesus Christ! Bolt’s throat went completely dry, and he felt as though his head was going to fan off and roll away someplace. Wait here until Alain Lonzu showed up, pointed the finger at him, and said, “Kill this bastard because he tried to kill me.”

Bolt was scared. His eyes went from Bertrand to the Count to a German shepherd dog lying at the Count’s feet. When Alain Lonzu showed up—and the Count seemed damn sure that was going to happen—Bolt’s ass was grass and the Count was the lawn mower. The party would be over. There was no way Bolt would come out of this thing alive when little brother got a look at him. No way.

The Count’s voice came to him in a fog. “… wire your man, have him meet you here.”

“Huh?”

“I said you can wire your employer, have him come over and be my guest here. I’m sure when he sees the quality of my merchandise he’ll congratulate you on a job well done. I anticipate no trouble in convincing him that we are much better to do business with than Remy, who is rather, shall we say, emotional?”

Wire my employer?
Wire Kramer and tell him to come on over and get his ass shot off?

Bolt frowned. If he was still sitting in this chair three days from now, he was a dead man.

He forgot about the pain in his head and his gut. My ass and Kramer’s.

“Give me the wire and I’ll have it sent off tonight.” Count Lonzu smiled. Heroin is heroin. There would be no trouble selling the black when he arrived. No trouble at all. The Count had only the best, and the black would learn that.

Bolt forced himself to swallow. Smiling took a hell of a lot more effort, but he made it. “Long as you got the stuff, my man will buy.”

E
DITH DINARD HELD THE
telephone with two hands, her voice trembling, tears sliding down her face. “John Bolt. American narcotics agent. He’s here in France working undercover. He hasn’t checked in with you, and I don’t think he plans to for a few days. He—”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. He’s using the name Joe Belli.”

Silence.

The cop at the other end of the phone frowned, then slammed his hand down on the desk. “Joe Belli? Are you sure? Are you certain, madame?”

“Yes … yes. I’m certain. Can you pick him up, perhaps deport him or something?” She wiped her dripping nose with the back of her hand, then reached into the corner of her eyes, using her fingers to squeeze out the tears.

The cop chewed his lip, still frowning, his mind racing. Joe Belli. “Madame, please, please give us your name. How do you know—?”

Click.

Edith stared at the phone, her body still shaking. Let them pick up Bolt, deport him. It might save Roger’s life. If Bolt was gone, Roger wouldn’t have to go out on nights when he should be at home. No more danger, no more chances of Roger getting killed in shootings like the one at the Blue Cat. No more chance of that.

Bolt would be out of the country soon; that’s all there was to it. Then why did she suddenly feel cold all over, as though it were winter? Why was she more afraid now than she had been in a long, long time? Why?

Her hand reached out to the phone as though to take back her words, and her eyes were filled with tears now, and she couldn’t see.

Her voice was soft and filled with pain as she said, “Roger, Roger, forgive me, please forgive me. …”

At the St. Marie police station, the tall cop, whose name was Clément, reached for the phone, then drew his hand back. No. Not here. Not here. He would have to leave headquarters and find another phone to use.

Clément was going to call Count Lonzu and tell him that the man Clément had just helped him to get his hands on was an American narcotics agent. The tip was anonymous, but when you’ve been on the force long enough, you sense things. And Clément knew this tip was legitimate. He
knew
it.

Just as he knew the Count will kill this undercover American agent almost immediately.

Bolt burped, rubbing his full stomach with one hand as he sat on the edge of the four-poster bed staring at the thick oak door directly in front of him. He’d need a hand grenade to open that. Tonight’s the night. He was busting out of here tonight, before Alain got near enough to start talking ship-to-shore with his brother.

The Count wasn’t a bad host. A cook had scrambled some eggs, throwing in cheese and herbs, making a damn good omelet. Toast, fruit, wine. Yeah, it was a good meal.

And a private room. High ceilings, fireplace, big bed, and comfortable chairs. Plenty of closet space, too. And a locked door, with maybe somebody else on the other end. Maybe. But one thing was sure. It
was
locked, because Bolt had heard the key turn in the lock, and when he had tried the huge brass knob, the door hadn’t moved.

Well, wishing it would open won’t make it so. Kramer was on the way, leaving early in the morning, arriving at Orly tomorrow afternoon, to be met by Bolt and some of the Count’s men. One way to handle it was to get to a telephone, call Jean-Paul and Roger, and have them come out here and save Bolt’s ass. But using a phone with the Count or one of his men eyeballing you all the time wasn’t smart.

Bolt had sent a wire to Kramer, who under the name Wilson was registered at Washington’s best hotel, living it up like a top dope dealer to establish his cover while waiting for Bolt’s invitation to come to Paris. Kramer would come, he’d show as planned, and he’d step into a trap unless Bolt got the hell out of here.
Tonight.

Not
tomorrow,
not
three days from now, but
tonight.

The narc thought: Maybe we can make a break for it tomorrow at the airport, me and Kramer. But shit, that ain’t smart either. I don’t have a piece, and Kramer won’t be walking through customs with a gun either. He’s here on business; he won’t even be bringing money with him. Shit, that ain’t such a good idea at all. Two of us, fucking idiots, trapped in the middle of Count Lonzu’s apes, and we won’t have a peashooter between us.

No, baby.
Tonight’s
the night. I get out of here
tonight,
or it’s all bad news from now on, downhill on a greased glass mountain.
Tonight.

He looked around the room. Windows. Four of them. Huge, with blue-and-gold draperies hanging in front of each. In seconds he had crossed the thick, pale green carpet and pulled back the draperies. The glass was thick, old-fashioned, with faint designs of peasant boys and sheep. Unlocking the window, he opened it, pulling both halves of the window toward him.

His room was on the second floor. The courtyard was below him, bathed in moonlight, two men carrying rifles walking slowly across it, three German shepherd dogs trotting back and forth in their own graceful rhythm, the animals dark and wolflike in the night. So much for leaping out of the window or climbing down.

Taking a step back, Bolt eyed the window from the inside, looking for wires or electric eyes. No wires, but he saw the electric eyes. Two of them, one high up near the top, the other a foot down, perfect for catching anybody coming over the roof. If you wanted to go through or in the window, you had to crawl over the windowsill, holding your breath and pulling your gut in until it met your spine.

Cautious man, the Count.

Five minutes later Bolt had checked all four windows. No bars; hell, they weren’t necessary. Somebody had to drop you onto the roof for you to get in that way. The only other way was through the front gate of the compound, where the Count’s men and hungry dogs waited with open arms.

The roof. That’s it, the roof!

Bolt’s heart picked up, beating faster now as he nodded to himself. Climb
up
to the roof, make your way across it, and see what happens from there. Yeah, that’s it. Start climbing and hope to God you don’t slip and end up down there with the two-legged and four-legged animals.

Weapons.

Got to get a weapon. Something. Anything.

His eyes swept the room. Seconds later he had his weapon, tucked in the back of his belt. A candleholder. Carved silver. Hard enough to open a man’s skull. Or a dog’s.

The window. Which window?

He looked at the door again, snapped his fingers, and in seconds had jammed a chair under the lock. Just in case. Buys me a few seconds. You never can tell.

Back across the room, running from window to window, taking a quick look into the courtyard at the guards and dogs, all of whom never looked up once. They had the odds—guns and the dog’s killer instincts. The American visitor wasn’t going anywhere, nowhere at all.

The corner window. That’s the one. Bolt was breathing faster, feeling the adrenaline pumping, getting
that
feeling, that special high of going into action with your life on the line: Matadors had it, and so did guys who jumped out of planes. So did soldiers on the front line. You’re playing games with your own life. Nothing like it to bring you completely awake.

The corner window. It was away from the courtyard, and there was thick, dark green ivy up the side of the building, plus a rusted drainpipe that shrewdly didn’t reach ground. The roof overlapped the building, and under it were small wooden beams, the careful construction of another time. If you hung on to those beams and the ivy and the drainpipe, and if you had all the luck in the world, you could get up on the roof.
If.

Reaching back to feel the candlestick pressed against his spine, Bolt took a deep breath and let it out. God, if you’re watching, remember you used to own this place. Send some of your good feelings back down here, O.K.?

His heart pounding too fast and too loud, Bolt turned out the lights, sending his room into darkness. He waited, letting his eyes get used to the dark; then he crossed the room and slipped in between the draperies, pulling the window open slowly, his eyes upturned and blinking as he tried to focus on the electric eyes.

Speed.

And more speed.

Jean-Paul Lamazère held his breath, eyes darting to the speedometer and seeing the needle slide past one hundred kilometers, one-ten, one-twenty and still climbing. He jammed his huge foot down, flooring the accelerator, feeling his old Citroën leap forward, pull to the left almost in resistance at being asked to speed so fast. The needle hit one-thirty—more than eighty miles an hour. Roger Dinard stiffened beside Jean-Paul in the front seat, the fat man’s legs pressing down hard at nonexistent brakes, his eyes bulging and blinded by headlights speeding at them out of the darkness.