The Cézanne Chase (22 page)

She put her hand on his arm. “I'll say it again, Peder. Please be careful.”

 

It was after eleven when Aukrust turned onto Rue Faure and drove past his shop. He parked, turned off the engine and the lights, and waited for a lone walker to pass his car and vanish in the shadows. The street was dark except for the night lights in display windows and a solitary streetlamp nearly fifty yards away. He walked slowly toward his shop, paused to look in the window of a bookseller, then went ahead to the door of his shop and unlocked it. He slipped inside and felt along the wall for a panel of switches, and at the instant his fingers touched the light switch a fist crashed into his stomach and another fell solidly on his jaw. He lashed back, landing a glancing, undamaging blow, then was struck a third time on the top of his shoulder with a hard object that also scraped against the side of his head and tore his ear.

The pain was intense. He stumbled backward, separating himself a valuable few feet from the ambush. He was certain there were two men, armed no doubt, but he had no idea with what. His only advantage was in knowing how his shop was laid out—the location of counters, doors, and light switches. To his right, in the darkness, he heard heavy breathing then a voice that spoke in a slangy French he couldn't understand. Another voice replied, and he heard a faint shuffling. He edged along the counter until he was in front of the
locked door that led to the back of his shop. The bare amount of light in the shop came through three small diamond-shaped glass panels in the entrance door. Two figures were vaguely silhouetted in the dim light.

Aukrust opened a drawer under the counter and took out two spools of picture wire. He rolled one of the spools across the floor, and as soon as it clattered against the wall, he rolled the other.

“What is that?” one voice asked.

“The flashlight! Put it on!” the other replied.

In that brief moment of confusion, Aukrust rushed at the nearest figure, crashing furiously into a small body, his right hand grabbing a handful of hair, his left smashing powerfully against a mouth, snapping off teeth and causing blood to fall over cut lips.

“
Arrête! Arrête!
” a frightened voice yelled out.

Aukrust responded with a backhanded swipe to the face, but was at that instant hit low in the back by whatever had crashed into his shoulder a half minute earlier. As he turned away he caught what turned out to be a four-foot length of pipe. He held onto it tightly with both hands, then yanked and twisted it, throwing his attacker off balance. He grabbed a shirt and began pummeling a head and a chest. Aukrust's shoulder and the side of his head and ear were bleeding, and the pain he felt became his license to inflict pain. One of the attackers bolted for the door and was gone before Aukrust could react.

He locked the entrance and turned on the light. The remaining assailant was sitting on the floor, his back against a display case, his arms, like a doll's, flopped out beside him. There was both fear and anger in the face that stared up at Aukrust. Aukrust returned the stare, sizing up a twenty-year old with black, matted hair and a scruffy mustache that failed to make him look any older. Blood oozed from the corner of his mouth.

“Who sent you?”

The eyes on the young man hardened, and he did not answer.

“Weisbord? Was it Weisbord?” He spied a piece of paper in the young man's shirt pocket and snatched it away before a hand reached up feebly to prevent him.

At the top of a brief note was printed the name André, followed by the address of Aukrust's shop, and below that a phone number. Aukrust went to the phone behind the counter and dialed the number.
It was late, the phone would not be answered immediately. He counted the rings...six... seven, then a woman's voice.

“Allo?...allo oui?”

“Monsieur Weisbord?” Aukrust said in a loud whisper.

“Who is calling?” the voice asked warily.

“Tell him...” Aukrust paused, “that it Doctor Turgot.”

“He is asleep, I—”

Aukrust put down the receiver.

He came back to the young man who was using his shirt to wipe the blood from his face. Aukrust waved the paper.

“Are you André, or was that your cowardly friend who ran away?”

The young man spit at Aukrust, a feeble spray of blood and saliva that fell short on the floor.

“Get on your feet,” he commanded.

André, if indeed that was his name, stared blankly at Aukrust.

Aukrust snarled the command again. “On your feet, I said.”

“Take a shit,” André muttered.

Aukrust aimed a vicious kick at André's shoulder, and as he did, André turned aside, rolled over and came up into a crouch, his right hand holding a double-edged, six-inch knife. Aukrust froze for an instant, sizing up the unexpected reversal. He took a step toward the length of pipe that lay between the two but nearer to André's feet. André knew how to handle a knife and with the agility of a fencer stepped to his right and in the same motion sliced the knife across Aukrust's arm. The blade cut through his shirt then across his arm. It happened so quickly Aukrust thought the knife had missed, then he felt a sting where the razor-sharp edge had cut his skin.

“Damn you!” Aukrust roared, and lunged forward. André tried stepping aside but too late, as one of Aukrust's powerful hands hit him high in the chest and spun him a half turn. Aukrust grabbed the wrist of the hand holding the knife and twisted it until there was a cracking sound, and André shouted in horrible pain.

“I'll break your other hand and both feet, you little bastard!”

Aukrust struck him on the side of the face, then hit him again causing André to moan and collapse to the floor, where he writhed in the pain that Aukrust had inflicted so skillfully.

“It would be my pleasure to continue,” Aukrust said, “but I have another purpose for you.” He picked up the knife, folded it, and slid it into his pocket. Then he unlocked the door into his workroom
and went to his pharmacy, where he cleaned and bandaged the cut on his arm and applied a salve to the abrasions on the back of his head and on the painful split in his ear.

“It was foolish of Weisbord to send you here. How much did he pay?”

The young tough squeezed the hand with the broken finger in a vain attempt to stop the sharp pain that had traveled up his arm into his shoulder. André's defiance gave way to fearful respect. “My finger,” he said pitifully; “can you help?”

“I'll break another,” Aukrust said, as if he meant to do just that. “Answer my question, André, what did Weisbord pay you?”

“I'm not André, I am Pioli.” Uncontrollably, he began to cry.

Aukrust leaned down and carefully examined Pioli's arm, then the hand. The phalange bone in the middle finger was torn clean and had pierced the skin. Aukrust stared at it with a certain fascination, holding on to Pioli's shaking hand with what seemed to be genuine concern.

“Tell me how much Weisbord paid you.”

The youth sniffed back his tears but said nothing.

Aukrust's grip tightened, and with no more effort than he would exert to remove a piece of lint from his sweater, he flicked a finger against the exposed bone. The pain was excruciating, and as Pioli tried to pull free, Aukrust's hand tightened around his arm like giant pincers.

“Tell me!”

“A thousand francs,” Pioli gasped.

“Each?”

“For both.”

Aukrust let the arm go free. “You risk an arrest, maybe your life, for five hundred francs? You are very stupid, Pioli, or very desperate.”

Pioli pointed to the bandages Aukrust had put on the counter. He held up his hand.

“Get up,” Aukrust commanded.

Pioli had difficulty standing. He steadied himself against the display case and looked at Aukrust. “Please?”

Aukrust glowered and nodded toward the door. “Out!”

Pioli reached the door then turned back. “I know something you want to know.”

“Then tell me... and quickly.”

Pioli held up his hand again. “You'll help me?”

Aukrust stared at Pioli, now looking very young and vulnerable. “If what you tell me is important.”

Pioli stepped toward him. “When you go to your home tonight there will be someone waiting for you. He is called LeToque, and he will do anything when he is paid enough money. Even kill.”

A
ukrust knew precisely where to insert the needle. He injected thirty mg of chloroprocaine, and when Pioli's pain subsided, he sterilized the wound then deftly extended the finger, repositioning the bones in their original alignment, then splinted the broken finger and the adjacent index finger together. Aukrust gave Pioli a bottle of peroxide and a towel to rub over his cuts, where the blood was beginning to turn dark and harden. When he was reassembled into a more reasonable and less painful condition, Pioli said, with growing respect, “
Merci
.”

“I don't want your thanks,” Aukrust said, “but you'll stay with me until we find what kind of surprise LeToque has planned.” He instructed Pioli to remain on the floor while he inventoried his medicine case, removing some items and adding others from his pharmacy. One of the items he picked out was an aerosol can that was an inch in diameter and fit into the palm of his hand. After testing the spray, he replaced the cap and put the can in his shirt pocket. He also filled two small plastic bottles with a milky fluid and put them into the pockets of his sweater. He handed the medicine case to Pioli, relocked the door into his workroom, and secured the front of his shop. It was fifteen minutes past midnight when the station wagon pulled away from the curb and headed toward the suburban apartment Aukrust had rented in the town of Vallauris, a suburb to the east of Cannes. Vallauris was an ordinary community, where he would be unnoticed and where neighbors would be likely to confine their questions to the weather and the latest soccer scores. He had located an old building which had opened a hundred years earlier as a school, was made into a ceramics factory, then, in its final metamorphosis, it was gutted and rebuilt into cheap apartments.

Apparently Weisbord had gone to extraordinary lengths to find him, or as Margueritte predicted, the old lawyer had called in a few chips he was owed by the local police. Aukrust was now angry that he had
signed a month-to-month lease under his own name instead of the name Metzger that had served him so well.

The buildings along the street were a mix of small houses, factories, and an old structure in the process of being converted into still more apartments. They walked close to these buildings, avoiding the small pool of light created by a single streetlamp and an occasional spotlight shining on the gates in the chainlink fences surrounding the factories. The local residents parked their Peugeots and Toyotas on the street or in the one small parking area, which adjoined a warehouse. He inspected each car, searching for an unfamiliar one that didn't belong in the neighborhood. Then he spotted a silver Porsche 911.

Aukrust pointed at the car and whispered to Pioli, “Is that LeToque's car?”

Apparently the anesthetic was wearing off, because Pioli's concentration was on rubbing his sore hand. He nodded, “I think so.”

“I don't want an opinion. Is that LeToque's car?”

Pioli sized it up more carefully and said that it was.

“Go see if anyone's in it, but do it carefully.”

Pioli crossed the street and worked his way to the rear of the Porsche. When he disappeared in the darkness, a distressing thought swept over Aukrust: The little bastard's run off to warn LeToque. Seconds later and from behind him came Pioli's voice. “For sure that's his car; his girlfriend's behind the wheel listening to the radio.”

He was relieved that Pioli had returned, but LeToque's girlfriend was a problem because she had a clear view of the apartment's front entrance. He went back to his car and took a flat box from his medicine case, and as he gave instructions to Pioli, he took a hypodermic from the case, plunged the needle into a vial, and loaded the syringe, then pointed the needle straight up and squeezed a few drops from its tip. They approached the low-slung car from the rear. When Aukrust signaled, Pioli tapped a coin lightly on the rear window, then Aukrust rapped loudly against the driver's door.

“Police,” he said firmly.

The window opened several inches.

“What have I done?” said a high-pitched, worried voice.

“Identification,” Aukrust demanded.

“I'm waiting for a friend. Is that illegal?”

“Get out of the car,” he said harshly.

After a few seconds the car door slowly opened and long slim legs in black stockings swung out, followed by the rest of a girl who was
perhaps twenty, tall, and with large eyes surrounded by too much blue and purple makeup.

Aukrust took hold of her bare arm and expertly inserted the needle into the flesh near her shoulder. Her eyes widened instantly and stared helplessly as the needle was withdrawn. Her mouth opened as if to speak, and she collapsed. Aukrust caught her and pushed her sagging body into the car, pulled the seat belt around her, and turned off the radio. It all happened in less than a minute.

Pioli looked at the girl then at Aukrust and said with fright in his voice, “Is she dead?”

Aukrust shook his head. “It was past her bedtime, she's asleep.”

There were six small apartments in the building where Aukrust lived, two on each floor, with no elevator and a single front entrance; fire-escape ladders were suspended from a window in each apartment in the rear. Aukrust's apartment was on the first floor, to the left upon entering, and consisted of a bedroom, a combination living room/kitchen, and a bathroom. Several steps led up to a small porchlike slab of concrete and to the front entrance, which was a steel door painted brown to look like wood. Inside the entrance was a long, narrow hall with stairs to the upper floors at the back of the hall. The doors into the first-floor apartments were immediately inside the entrance, and under the staircase was another door that opened into a tiny room inside Aukrust's apartment that at one time had been intended as a kitchen but now served as a bedroom closet. It had occurred to Aukrust that the door connecting the closet with the hall might some day be a necessary way to leave the apartment, but he had never considered it as a means by which he might enter it.