The Alternative Detective (Hob Draconian) (14 page)

RETURN TO PARIS; JUANITO

32

i caught the morning train back to Paris the next day, well satisfied with how things were going. Perhaps I hadn’t made much progress on finding Alex or getting Frankie reimbursed for his sailboards; but at least the projects looked like they were going forward and might even be turning into paying propositions.

With the prospect of Romagna’s five thousand dancing before my eyes, I took a taxi from Montparnasse Station to the Forum des Halles.

It was one of those days that Paris produces every now and then: blue sky of a tremendous lucidity; formal white clouds scattered here and there in perfect taste by the Master Designer; the Seine a glittering silver snake flowing beneath the Pont Mirabeau, Pont de Grenelle, Pont de Bir-Hakeim, Pont d’Iéna, the elegant bridges that segment its length.

It was a resplendent day. The crowds were out in force. In the Forum and on the broad terrace in front of the Beaubourg, two musical groups were vying for attention. One group was dressed in the national costume of Brittany and was doing folk dances. The other group was South American, and was composed of two lead guitars, a bass guitar, and a soprano guitar.

I’m a fool for a good huapanga, so I went over to catch their number. I recognized Juanito, the Paraguayan bandleader from El Mango Encantado. He had on one of those frilled white shirts with puffy sleeves.

Slipping his maracas into his belt, he flashed me a big smile. “Meet me after this set, ’Ob. I have news for you about Alex.”

“You got it,” I said. “I’ll be having a drink at the Père Tranquile.”

It’s amazing how easy it is to pick up information if you know where to hang out. I think I can say without exaggeration that I am one of the most skilled hangers-out in the western hemisphere. It’s a talent like any other, of course, and it’s main ingredient is patience.

“So hi there, keed,” Juanito said, twenty minutes later, leaving his buddies to pass the hat. “How you been keepin’, huh?”

In addition to the ruffled shirt, Juanito was wearing black skintight bullfighter pants, Nike running shoes, and he had a blue and white polkadot bandanna knotted casually around his neck like Jon Voigt in
Midnight Cowboy.
This time he gave me his boyish grin rather than his Apache scowl.

“Listen, ’Ob, you still wanna get in touch with Alex?”

Juanito’s big grin and shiny eyes told me that this was going to cost me. Maybe dearly. Ain’t nobody love you like the guy who’s going to take you off.

I temporized. “Well,” I said, “I’m not exactly
looking
for him. I mean, I’d like to
see
him as long as I’m in Paris anyway, but if I don’t, well, it’s no big deal, you know what I mean?”

Juanito’s face fell. I could see the adding machine in his brain taking thirty percent off the price he was going to ask me for his most probably bogus information.

“Come on, ’Ob,” he said, putting up the grin again, “I know you gotta find Alex and it’s worth something, isn’t it?”

I allowed as how there might be a few francs in it, nothing to get excited about, but something.

“What’s it worth to you if I can take you right to him?”

“Can you?” I asked.

“Not just yet, ’Ob, but soon. But first you gotta tell me, what’s it worth to you.”

I favored him with a hard look. “Juanito, if you can lead me right to Alex without a whole lot of crapping around, I’ll give you two hundred dollars American and I’ll do you a favor.”

“What favor?”

“I won’t tell the gendarmes you haven’t got a green card.”

He looked just ever so slightly poleaxed. “How you know about that?“

“I don’t reveal my sources.” Nor my lucky guesses.

“Make it five hundred, OK? I got people to take care of.”

I was going to tough it out, but then I figured, what the hell, it’s someone else’s money, because bribes paid in the line of duty are chargeable to the client, or possibly to both clients, if it turns out that way.

“All right,” I said. “When do we do this?”

“Meet me tonight in front of Sainte-Eustache. You know where that is?”

“Of course I know. What do you take me for, a tourist?” I could always look it up.

“OK, see you then.”

“Wait a minute; what time?”

“Let’s make it midnight, OK, ’Ob?”

“Fine,” I said. “But just do me one favor, OK?”

“Sure, ’Ob,” he said, smiling and looking a little puzzled.

“Stop calling me ’Ob. You’re South American; you have no excuse for not aspirating. Try it, H-O-B.”

“ ‘-O-B,” Juanito said.

“Much better,” I told him. “
Hasta mas tarde.
” I walked away thinking, midnight, hmm; wonder if that means anything.

VICO IN PARIS

33

Later in the afternoon I was sitting on a bench near the Seine when who should show up but Vico. He sat down on the other end of the bench and didn’t say anything.

This was Sunday. I remembered that yesterday had been Vico’s race in the sailing contest in Honfleur. This was the day Vico was supposed to pay me Frankie Falcone’s money for the boards, assuming Vico had won. By looking at him I couldn’t tell how it had gone. He didn’t have the bright-eyed look of a winner. Nor did he have the down-at-the-ears look of a loser. Under the circumstances, I decided to ask.

“So how did the sailboard contest go?” I asked him.

“I am not interested in your jokes,” Vico said.

“What are you talking about?”

“You know very well.”

“No, I do not know,” I told him. “What am I supposed to know?”

Vico glowered. “You know that I did not compete in the Honfleur race.”

“How would I know that?”

“Because you stole the boards,” Vico said. His face contorted. He sobbed, “Oh, you bastard! My big chance, and you can’t even trust me for a few lousy hours!”

“Somebody stole your boards? How? When?”

“They were supposed to have been brought to the hotel from the airport. They never arrived.”

“But who took them? Surely someone must have seen.”

“A large man in a chauffeur’s uniform. That’s what the porter told me.”

“Not me, obviously. I don’t even own a chauffeur’s outfit.”

“You could have employed such a person to steal my boards,” Vico pointed out.

I didn’t bother pointing out the irony in him accusing me of stealing boards that he himself had stolen from my employer. A guy like that was beyond irony. Instead I asked, “Why would I steal them?”

“So that you can return the boards to your client Falcone.”

“Good idea,” I told him. “I should have thought of that yesterday. But I had already agreed to wait. Don’t you remember?”

Vico shrugged.

“Vico, wake up,” I told him. “I did not steal your boards. Got it?”

“It doesn’t matter whether I got it or not,” Vico said. “The problem is not what I think, the problem is what will my partners think.”

“This is the first time I’ve heard about your partners. I thought it was you against the world in this sailboarding venture.”

“Well, I exaggerated slightly,” Vico said. “The point is, I
do
have partners and they do not like this development. Missing the Honfleur sailing trials is bad enough. But what about the other European sailboarding events? Amsterdam next week, and then Garmisch, Lake Constance, Maggiore? It is important that I sail in these events.”

“I sympathize,” I said. “But you should have paid for the boards in the first place, instead of smuggling them into France on a fishing boat.”

“You know about that? Mr. Draconian, I made a bad mistake doing that. But I was forced to it. Back in Ibiza, I entrusted my brother, Enrique, who is also the bookkeeper of Marisol, to send Señor Falcone his check. But Enrique went off with it instead to San Sebastián, where he has probably gambled it away by now.”

“Whatever happened, you didn’t pay. You stole the boards.”

“I had a panic,” Vico said. “And I was unable to contact my partners, who were traveling to Europe to watch me race.”

“Partners? You hadn’t mentioned them before.”

“Well, I do have partners, and I have talked with them and we have decided to pay your client, Mr. Falcone, for the boards now, immediately.”

“Really? I thought you couldn’t spare a sou until you won a race.”

“That is technically correct. But my partners have some money, luckily. We don’t blame you, Mr. ’Ob, for taking back the boards. But I really need them now. Hence,
voilà
, the payment.”

He removed a thick manilla envelope from an inner pocket and handed it to me. Within was a wad of bills. I riffled through them quickly. There were American and French bank notes, and some Sterling. Quite a bit of everything.

“How much is here?” I asked.

“Twenty-five thousand dollars. You can pay Mr. Falcone and keep the rest for yourself.”

“Why would you do that for me, Vico?” I asked.

“Because I like you, Mr. ’Ob. And because I must have those boards back and you seem to be the key to obtaining them.”

“I already told you, I don’t know anything about who took your—or rather Frankie’s—sailboards.”

“All that is understood,” Vico said, with that deadpan softness that Spaniards sometimes get just before they blow the bugle and storm the barricades. “I level no accusations. Just have someone deliver the boards to the following address”—he took out a slip of paper and gave it to me—“in the next forty-eight hours, and everyone will be satisfied.”

“I’ll do what I can,” I said, pocketing the money. “But I can’t promise anything.”

“Please see that the boards arrive at that address,” Vico said. “For your own sake.”

He rose to go.

I rose, too. “Are you threatening me?”

“Not me. I am a nonviolent person. It is my partners that we both must worry about.” He left.

The slip of paper gave an address outside of Paris. I put it into my wallet. Then I telephoned Nigel Wheaton and arranged to meet him at Harry’s New York Bar.

“I understand the problem,” Wheaton said, after I told him about my conversation with Vico.

“Do you think someone could have stolen the sailboards who had anything to do with the rest of this? Or was it random?”

“Difficult situation, old boy. But I’ll see what I can do.”

Wheaton smiled and alarm bells went off in my mind. I tend to believe that my friends remain exactly as they were when I saw them last. But I was always wrong. I wasn’t how or who I had been ten years ago; why should they be?

“Nigel,” I said, “you don’t happen to own a chauffeur’s uniform, do you?”

“Certainly not, old boy,” Nigel said. “See you soon.” He walked to the door, then turned. “But I know where I could get one in a hurry, of course.” And with that he was on his way.

I knew nothing about what Nigel was doing these days. I had just breezed into Paris and assumed that time had stayed nicely frozen, and everything and everyone had stayed the same. But it hadn’t. It couldn’t have. So what did Nigel do when he wasn’t working for me? And who could I find this out from?

When I returned to Le Cygne, the concierge told me there had been a phone call for me. A certain Jean-Claude had asked me to contact him as soon as possible. I went to my room and telephoned.

The phone was answered by what sounded like a large, redheaded woman speaking French with a strong Spanish accent. The Spanish are the
schvartzers
of France. They supply the concierges to the second- and third-rate Parisian hotels. On the social scale they are one step above the Algerians, who sweep the streets at night with brooms made of bundles of twigs. I switched to Spanish, and heard the usual Spanish complaint about the coldness of the French people and the blandness of their food. After she learned that I didn’t know anyone in Albacete, she told me that Jean-Claude had gone out, but was very eager to speak to me. I gave her the number of my hotel.

I still had an hour and a half before meeting Juanito. So I bathed and took a nap. You may think that I do a lot of napping. It isn’t so, actually. Other detectives nap a lot, too. They just don’t tell you about it. But I have determined to write a true account of my case. So let it stand.

I set my Casio wrist alarm for 11:45 p.m., lay down and fell asleep almost at once. All too soon the alarm went off, and my struggle to program the watch into stopping its damnable chiming woke me up nicely. I put on a dark blue cotton sports shirt and my lightweight khaki sports jacket with the many pockets, and went out into the warm and murmurous Paris night.

SAINTE-EUSTACHE