lungs would cease to function and he’d suffocate. But then a hoarse cough had been followed by the sound of heavily labored breathing and he knew he was all right.
The problem was that now he had only one syringe left. If something went wrong with the car or if they were delayed in traffic, that syringe would be his last line of defense. After that he’d be on his own.
By now it was nearly 4:15 and the rain was coming down heavier. The windshield began to fog and Osborn fumbled for the defroster. Finding it, he clicked on the fan and reached up to clear the inside of the windshield with his hand. This was one day he was certain no one would be in the park. The weather, at least, was something he could be thankful for.
Glancing over his shoulder, he looked at Kanarack on the backseat. Every expansion and contraction of his lungs was a supreme effort. And Osborn could tell from the look in his eyes the horror he was going through, wondering, with each breath, if he’d have the strength for the next.
Ahead, a traffic light changed from yellow to red and Osborn stopped behind a black Ferrari. Once more he glanced over his shoulder at Kanarack. At this moment he had no idea how he felt. Incredibly, what should have felt a monumental triumph no longer did. In its place was a helpless human being, frightened beyond all measure, with absolutely no idea what was happening to him, battling with everything in him for no more than the air to keep him alive. That the creature was innately evil, had caused the deaths of two people and horribly and inexorably gnarled Paul Osborn’s own life from childhood on, seemed, at this point, to have little meaning. It was enough to have gotten the beast this far. For Osborn to go through with the rest would make him the equal of Kanarack, and that was someone he was not. And if that was all, he might have stopped the car right there and simply walked away, thereby giving Kanarack back his life. But it wasn’t all. The other thing had yet to be addressed.
The WHY of it.
Ahead of him, the light changed to green and traffic moved off. It was getting darker by the moment and motorists were switching on their yellow headlights. Directly ahead was avenue de Clichy. Reaching it, Osborn turned left and headed toward the river road.
Less than a half mile behind him, a new, dark green Ford pulled out in traffic and speeded up to pass. Turning onto avenue de Clichy, it changed quickly into the right lane and slowed, staying three cars behind Osborn’s Citroen. The driver was a tall man with blue eyes and a pale complexion. Light blond eyebrows matched his hair and the hair on the backs of his hands. He was wearing a tan raincoat over a dull plaid sport coat, dark gray slacks and a gray turtleneck sweater. On the seat beside him was a small-brimmed hat, a hard-shell briefcase, and a street map of Paris that had been folded back. His name was Bernhard Oven and today was his forty-second birthday.
36
“CAN YOU hear me?” Osborn said, as he turned the Citroen northeast along the river road. The rain was coming down harder than before and the wipers beat a steady rhythm across the windshield. To his left, the Seine was just visible through the dark of the trees that lined the road. Little more than a mile ahead was the turnoff to the park.
“Can you hear me?” Osborn repeated, glancing first into the rearview mirror, then turning so that he could look into the backseat.
Kanarack lay staring at the car’s ceiling, his breathing becoming more regular.
“Uh huh,” he grunted.
Osborn looked back to the road ahead. “You asked me if I knew what happened to Jean Packard. I said yes. Maybe you’d like to know what happened to you. You were injected with a drug called succinylcholine. It paralyzes the skeletal muscles. I gave you just enough for you to understand what it does to the human body. I have another syringe filled with a much larger dose. Whether I inject you with it or not is up to you.”
Kanarack’s eyes focused on a button in the Citroen’s ceiling upholstery. The act of doing it made him think about something other than the possibility of having to endure again what he had just gone through. To do it another time was impossible.
“My name is Paul Osborn. Tuesday, April 12, 1966, I was walking down a street in Boston, Massachusetts, with my father, George Osborn. I was ten years old. We were on our way to buy me a new baseball mitt when a man stepped out of a crowd with a knife and pushed it into my father’s stomach. The man ran away. But my father fell down on the sidewalk and died. I’d like you to tell me why that man did what he did to my father.”
“God!” Kanarack thought. “That’s what this is about. It’s not them at all! I could have taken care of it so damn simply. It could all be over.”
“I’m waiting,” the voice said from the front seat. Suddenly Kanarack felt the car slow. Outside he caught a glimpse of trees; the car turned and there was a jolt as they hit a pothole. Then they accelerated again and more trees flashed by. Another minute and they lurched to a stop and he heard Osborn shift gears. Immediately the Citroen backed up, then tilted sharply and continued downward. A few seconds more and it leveled off, then stopped.
Lack of motion was followed by a metallic sound as the emergency brake was pulled up. Then the driver’s door opened and closed. Abruptly the door beside Kanarack’s head jerked open and Osborn stood there, a hypodermic syringe in his hand.
“I asked you a question but I didn’t get an answer,” he said.
Kanarack’s lungs were still burning. Even the slightest breath was agony.
“Let me help you understand.” Osborn stood aside. Kanarack didn’t move.
“I want you to look over
“If you think you just went through hell,” Osborn said softly, “imagine what it will be like out there, with your arms and legs paralyzed. You’ll stay afloat for what, maybe ten, fifteen seconds? Your lungs barely work anyway. What do you think will happen when you sink?”
Kanarack’s mind flashed to Jean Packard. The private detective had been in possession of information he wanted and he had done whatever had been necessary to obtain it. Now someone was equally passionate about getting information from him. And he, like Jean Packard, had no alternative but to give it.
“I—was—a—contract—man.” Kanarack’s voice was no more than a raspy whisper.
For a moment Osborn wasn’t certain he’d heard correctly. Either that, or Kanarack was fooling with him. Tightening his grip on Kanarack’s hair, he jerked it back hard. Kanarack cried out. The effort made him suck in his lungs. Terrible pain shot through him and he cried out a second time.
“Let’s try it again.” Osborn’s face was next to his
“I was paid to do it . . . Money!” Kanarack coughed. The expelled air seared like flame across his dry throat.
“Paid?” Osborn was shocked. That wasn’t what he’d expected, nothing of the kind! He’d always seen his father’s death as the random action of a crazed man. And lacking any other motive, so had the police. It was an act, they had said, done by a man who had hated his own father, or his mother, his brothers or his sisters. Done, he’d always believed, as an expression of unbearable anger and long pent-up fury, randomly and mindlessly unleashed. His father had merely been at the wrong place at the wrong time.
But no, Kanarack was telling him something altogether different. Something that made no sense. His father was a tool designer. A plain, quiet man who owed no one a penny, and had never raised his voice in anger in his life. Hardly the kind of man someone would pay to have killed. Suddenly it came to him that Kanarack was lying.
“Tell me the truth! You lying son of a bitch!” In a thundering rage Osborn dragged Kanarack from the car by the hair. Kanarack screamed in agony, the sound tearing against his throat and down into his lungs. A moment later they were knee-deep in the river. The syringe came up in Osborn’s hand, then suddenly he pushed Kanarack under. Holding him there, he counted to ten, then pulled him up.
