Ripley's Game (35 page)

‘Who is it?’ Simone called.

‘Jon.’

She slid the bolt. ‘Oh, Jon – I was worried!’

That sounded hopeful, Tom thought.

In the next second, Simone saw Tom, and her expression changed.

‘Yes – Tom’s with me. Can’t we come in?’

She looked on the brink of saying no, then she stepped back a little, stiffly. Jonathan and Tom went in.

‘Good evening, madame,’ Tom said.

In the living-room the television was on, some sewing – what looked like a repair on a coat lining – lay on the black leather sofa, and Georges was playing with a toy truck on the floor. The picture of domestic calm, Tom thought. He said hello to Georges.

‘Do sit down, Tom,’ said Jonathan.

But Tom didn’t, because Simone showed no sign of sitting.

‘And what is the reason for this visit?’ she asked Tom.

‘Madame, I —’ Tom stammered on, ‘I’ve come to take all the blame on myself, and to try to persuade you to – to be a little kinder to your husband.’

‘You are telling me that my husband —’ She was suddenly aware of Georges, and with an air of nervous exasperation took him by the hand. ‘Georges, you must go upstairs. Do you hear me? Please, darling.’

Georges went to the doorway, looked back, then entered the hall and mounted the stairs, reluctantly.

‘Dépêche-toi!’
Simone yelled at him, then closed the living-room door. ‘You are telling me.’ she resumed, ‘that my husband knows nothing about these – events, until he just walked in on them. That this sordid money comes from a bet between doctors!’

Tom took a breath. ‘The blame is mine. Perhaps – Jon made a mistake in helping me. But can’t that be forgiven? He is your husband —’

‘He has become a criminal. Perhaps this is your charming influence, but it is a fact. Is it not?’

Jonathan sat down in the armchair.

Tom decided to take one end of the sofa – until Simone ordered him out of the house. Bravely, Tom started again. ‘Jon came to see me tonight to discuss this, madame. He is most upset. Marriage – is a sacred thing, you know that well. His life, his courage would be quite destroyed if he lost your affections. You surely realize that. And you should think also of your son, who needs his father.’

Simone was a little affected by Tom’s words, but she replied, ‘Yes, a father. A real father to respect. I agree!’

Tom heard footsteps on the stone steps, and looked quickly at Jonathan.

‘Expecting someone?’ Jonathan asked Simone. She had probably telephoned Gerard, he thought.

She shook her head. ‘No.’

Tom and Jonathan jumped up.

‘Bolt the door again.’ Tom whispered in English to Jonathan. ‘Ask who it is.’

A neighbour, Jonathan thought as he went to the door. He slid the bolt quietly shut.
‘Qui est-ce, s’il vous plait?’

‘M. Trevanny?’

Jonathan didn’t recognize the man’s voice, and looked over his shoulder at Tom in the hall.

There’d be more than one, Tom thought.

‘Now what?’ asked Simone.

Tom put his finger to his lips. Then, not caring what Simone’s reaction might be, Tom went down the hall towards the kitchen, which had a light on. Simone was following him. Tom looked around for something heavy. He still had one garrotte in his hip pocket, and of course it wouldn’t be necessary if the caller was a neighbour.

‘What’re you doing?’ Simone asked.

Tom was opening a narrow yellow door in a corner of the kitchen. It was a broom closet, and here he saw what he might need, a hammer, and besides that a chisel, plus several innocuous mops and brooms. ‘I might be more useful here.’ Tom said, picking up the hammer. He was expecting a shot through the door, the sound of the front door being assaulted by shoulders from outside, perhaps. Then he heard the faint click of the bolt being slid – open. Was Jonathan mad?

Simone at once started off boldly into the hall, and Tom heard her gasp. There was a scuffling sound in the hall, then the door slammed shut.

‘Mme Trevanny?’ said a man’s voice.

Simone’s cry was shut off before it became a real cry. The sounds came up the hall now towards the kitchen.

Simone appeared, sliding on the heels of her shoes, manhandled by a thick fellow in a dark suit, who had his hand over her mouth. Tom, to the left of the man as he entered the kitchen, stepped out and hit him with the hammer just below his hat-brim in the back of the neck. The man was by no means unconscious, but he released Simone, and straightened up a little, so that Tom had an opportunity to bash him on the nose, and this Tom followed – the man’s hat having fallen off – by a blow on the forehead, straightforward and true, as if he had been an ox in a slaughterhouse. The man’s legs sank under him.

Simone got to her feet, and Tom drew her towards the broom closet corner, which was concealed from the hall. As far as Tom knew, there was only one other man in the house, and the silence made Tom think of the garrotte.

With his hammer, Tom went up the hall towards the front door. Quiet as he tried to be, he was still heard by the Italian in the living-room, who had Jonathan on the floor. It was indeed the old garrotte again. Tom sprang at him with the hammer raised. The Italian – in a grey suit, grey hat – released the garrotte and was pulling his gun from a shoulder-holster when Tom hit him in the cheek-bone. More accurate than a tennis racket, the hammer! The man, who had not quite stood up, lurched forward, and Tom removed his hat quickly with his left hand and with his right came down again with the hammer.

Crack!
Little Leviathan’s dark eyes closed, his pink lips relaxed, and he thudded to the floor.

Tom knelt beside Jonathan. The nylon cord was already well into Jonathan’s flesh. Tom turned Jonathan’s head this way and that, trying to get at the cord to loosen it. Jonathan’s teeth were bared, and he was trying with his own fingers, but feebly.

Simone was suddenly beside them, holding something that looked like a letter-opener. She pried with the point of it into the side of Jonathan’s neck. The string loosened.

Tom lost his balance on his heels, sat down on the floor, and sprang up again. He yanked the curtains of the front window shut. There had been a gap of six inches between them. Tom thought that a minute and a half had passed since the Italians had come in. He picked up the hammer from the floor, went to the front door and bolted it again. There was no sound from outside, except for the normal-sounding steps of someone walking past on the pavement, and the hum of a passing car.

‘Jon,’ said Simone.

Jonathan coughed and rubbed his neck. He was trying to sit up.

The porcine man in grey lay motionless, with his head propped by accident against a leg of the armchair. Tom tightened his grip on the hammer, and started to give the man one more blow, but hesitated, because there was
already some blood on the carpet. But Tom thought the man was still alive.

‘Pig,’ Tom murmured, and pulled the man up a little by his shirt front and flamboyant tie, and smashed the hammer head into his left temple.

Georges stood wide-eyed in the doorway.

Simone had brought Jonathan a glass of water. She was kneeling beside him. ‘Go
away,
Georges!’ she said. ‘Papa is all right! Go in the — Go upstairs, Georges!’

But Georges didn’t. He stood there, fascinated by a scene that was perhaps unsurpassed on die television. By the same token, he wasn’t taking it too seriously. His eyes were wide, absorbing it all, but he was not terrified.

Jonathan got to the sofa, helped by Tom and Simone. He was sitting up, and Simone had a wet towel for his face. ‘I’m really all right,’ Jonathan mumbled.

Tom was still listening for footsteps, front or back. Of all times, Tom thought, when he’d meant to create a peaceable impression on Simone! ‘Madame, is the garden passageway locked?’

‘Yes,’ said Simone.

And Tom remembered ornamental spikes along the top of the iron door. He said in English to Jonathan, ‘There’s probably at least one more of them in a car outside.’ Tom supposed Simone understood this, but he couldn’t tell from her face. She was looking at Jonathan, who seemed to be quite out of danger, and then she went to Georges who was still in the doorway.

‘Georges! Will you —!’ She shooed him upstairs again, carried him half-way up the stairway, and spanked his bottom once. ‘Go into your room and close the door!’

Simone was being splendid, Tom thought. It would be a matter of seconds until another man, just as at Belle Ombre, came to the door, Tom supposed. Tom tried to imagine what the man in the car would be thinking: from the absence of noise, of screams, of gunshots, the waiting man or men probably supposed that everything had gone as
planned. They must be expecting their two chums to come out the door at any moment, mission accomplished, the Trevannys garrotted or beaten to death. Reeves must have talked,. Tom thought, must have told them Jonathan’s name and address. Tom had a wild idea of Jonathan and himself putting on the Italians5 hats, making a dash out the door to the Italians’ car (if any), and taking them by surprise with – the one small gun. But he couldn’t ask Jonathan to do that.

‘Jonathan, I’d better go out before it’s too late,’ Tom said.

‘Too late – how?’ Jonathan had wiped his face with the wet towel, and some blond hair stood on end above his forehead.

‘Before they come to the door. They’ll be suspicious if their chums don’t come out.’ If the Italians saw the situation here, they’d blast the three of them with guns and make a getaway in their car, Tom was thinking. Tom went to the window and stooped, looking out just above the sill level, He listened for a car motor idling somewhere, looked for a car stationed with parking lights on. Parking was permitted on the opposite side of the street today. Tom saw it – maybe it – to the left, some twelve yards away diagonally. The big car’s parking lights were on, but Tom could not be sure the motor was, because of the hum of other noises on the street.

Jonathan was up, walking towards Tom.

‘I think I see them,’ Tom said.

‘What should we do?’

Tom was thinking of what he would do alone, stay in the house and try to shoot anyone who broke in the door. There’s Simone and Georges to consider. We don’t want a fight in here. I think we should rush them – outside. Otherwise they’ll rush us here, and it’ll be guns if they break in. – I can do it, Jon.’

Jonathan felt a sudden rage, a desire to guard his house and home. ‘All right – we’ll go together!’

‘What are you going to do, Jon?’ Simone asked.

‘We think there might be more of them – coming,’ Jonathan said in French.

Tom went to the kitchen. He got the hat from the linoleum floor near the dead man, stuck it on his head and found that it fell over his ears. Then he suddenly realized that these Italians, both of them, had guns in their shoulder-holsters. Tom took this man’s gun from the holster. He went back into the living-room. “These guns!’ he said, reaching for the gun of the man on the floor. The drawn gun was hidden under his jacket. Tom took the man’s hat, found that it fitted him better, and handed Jonathan the hat from the kitchen. ‘Try this. If we can look like them till we cross the street, it’s a slight advantage. Don’t come with me, Jon. It’s just as good if one person goes out. I just want them to move off!’

“Then I’ll go,’ Jonathan said. He knew what he had to do: scare them off, and perhaps shoot one first if he could, before he was shot himself.

Tom handed a gun to Simone, the small Italian gun. ‘It might be useful, madame.’ But she looked shy of taking the gun, and Tom laid the gun on the sofa. The safety was

off-Jonathan pushed the safety off the gun in his hand.

‘Could you see how many are in the car?’

‘Couldn’t see a thing inside.’ On his last words, Tom heard someone walking up the front steps, cautiously, with an effort to be silent. Tom jerked his head at Jonathan. ‘Bolt the door after us, madame,’ he whispered to Simone.

Tom and Jonathan, both wearing hats now, walked up the hall, and Tom slid the bolt and opened the door in the face of the man standing there. At the same time, Tom bumped him and caught him by the arm, turning him back down the stairs again. Jonathan had grabbed his other arm. At a glance, in the near darkness, Tom and Jonathan might have been taken for his two chums, but Tom knew the illusion wouldn’t last more than a second or two.

To the left!’ Tom said to Jonathan. The man they held was struggling, but not yet yelling, and his efforts nearly lifted Tom off his feet.

Jonathan had seen the car with its parking lights on, and now he saw the lights come full on, and heard the motor revving. The car backed a little.

‘Dump him!’ Tom said, and he and Jonathan, like a pair that had rehearsed it, hurled the Italian forward, and his head hit the side of the slowly moving car. Tom was aware of the clatter of the Italian’s drawn gun on the street. The car had stopped, and the door in front of Tom was opening: the Mafia boys wanted their chum back, apparently. Tom pulled his gun from his trousers pocket, aimed at the driver, and fired. The driver, with the aid of a man in the back, was trying to get the dazed Italian into the front seat. Tom was afraid to fire again, because a couple of people were running towards them from the Rue de France. And a window opened in one of the houses. Tom saw, or thought he saw, the other back door of the car being opened, someone being pushed out on to the pavement.