room had been torn from the wall, apparently by someone breaking in from the hallway outside. The room itself was in wild disarray. The big double bed was shoved hard to one side, a table had been knocked over. A nearly empty bottle of Johnnie Walker Black was on the floor beside it, amazingly still intact. A bedside lamp hung precariously Inches above the floor, having been knocked off the bed table but stopped short by its cord just before it hit the floor.
Osborn’s clothes were still in the room, as were his toiletries and his briefcase containing his professional papers, traveler’s checks, plane ticket and a hotel notepad with several telephone numbers written on it. On the floor under the television was a copy of today’s newspaper open to the entertainment page with the name of a movie theater on the boulevard des Italiens circled in ink.
Barras sat down with the notepad and looked at the phone numbers. One he recognized immediately. It was his own at headquarters. Another was for Air France. Another for a car rental agency. There were four other numbers that had to be traced. The first was to Kolb International, the private investigation firm. The second was for an English-language movie theater on boulevard des Italiens, the same one that was circled in the newspaper. The third was for a private apartment on Ile St.-Louis and listed as belonging to a V. Monneray, the same name and number provided by the hotel concierge. The last number was that of a small bakery in the section of Paris near the Gare du Nord.
“Know what this is?” Barras looked up. Maitrot had just come in from the bathroom and was holding a small prescription bottle between the thumb and forefinger of his left hand. Even though there was no evidence a felony had taken place in the room, the room belonged to Paul Osborn and there was enough disarray to evoke suspicion on the part of investigating officers. As a result, both men were wearing disposable surgical rubber gloves to avoid disturbing fingerprints or adding their own physical body presence to whatever was already there.
Taking the bottle from Maitrot, Barras looked at it carefully. “Succinylcholine chloride,” he said, reading the label. Handing it back, he shook his head. “No idea. Local prescription, though. Check it out.”
Just then a uniformed patrolman showed the hotel concierge into the room. Vera was with him.
“Messieurs. This is the young lady who placed the call.”
Darkness and wet was all Paul Osborn knew. He was lying somewhere facedown in a spongy sand. Where he was or even what time it was, he had no idea. Somewhere nearby he heard the rush of water and was thankful he was no longer in it. Exhausted, he felt sleep begin to descend and with it came a darkness blacker than that around him and it came to him that it was death and if he didn’t do something quickly he would die.
Picking his head up, he cried out for help. But there was only silence and the rushing water. Who would have heard him anyway in the pitch-black and in the middle of God knew where? But the fear of death and the effort of calling out had picked up his heart rate and sharpened his senses. For the first time he felt pain, a deep throbbing toward the back of his left thigh. Reaching down, he touched it lightly and felt the warm stick of blood.
“Damn,” he cursed hoarsely.
Pulling himself up on his elbows, he tried to ascertain where he was. The ground beneath him was soft, moss on top of mushy sand. Putting out his left hand, he touched water. Shifting to his right, he was surprised to find something that felt like a fallen tree only inches from his face. Somehow he’d come ashore, either under his own power or pushed there by the current. His mind flashed to the horrid sight of Kanarack’s mutilated body clinging to him in midriver, then being rushed off by the force of the water. As quickly he thought of the man on the embankment. The tall man in the hat who had obviously shot them both.
Suddenly it occurred to him that he might have somehow followed him and be waiting close by for daylight to finish what he had started. Osborn had no way of knowing how badly wounded he was, how much blood he’d lost or if he could even stand. But he had to try. He couldn’t stay where he was even if the tall man was near, because if he did there was every chance he would bleed to death.
Inching forward, he reached for the fallen tree. Grasping it with one hand, he pulled himself toward it. As he did, searing pain stabbed through him and he cried out without thinking. Recovering, he lay still, his senses alert. If the tall man were near, Osborn’s cry would bring him straight toward him. Holding his breath, he listened but heard only the moving river.
Unbuckling his belt, he pulled it from his waist, looped it around his left thigh above the wound, and buckled it. Then, finding a stick, he put it through the belt and twisted it several times until the strap tightened around his leg in a tourniquet. Nearly a minute passed before he could begin to feel the numbness. As it did, the pain eased a little. Holding the tourniquet tight with his left hand, Osborn pulled against the tree with his right. Struggling, he got his good leg under him and in a minute he was standing. Again, he listened. Again, he heard nothing but the rushing water.
Reaching out in the darkness, he found a dead branch the width of his wrist and broke it off. As he did, he felt a weight in his jacket pocket. Balancing himself against the tree, he reached in and felt his fingers close around the hard steel of the automatic he’d taken from Henri Kanarack. He’d forgotten about it and was amazed it hadn’t come loose on his journey downriver. He had no idea if it would work or not. Still, just pointing it would give him advantage over most men. It might even give him a moment against the tall man. Picking up the tree branch, he used it as half crutch, half cane, and started off in the darkness, away from the sound of the river.
39
Saturday, October 8, 3:15 A.M.
AGNES DEMBLON sat in the living room of her apartment working on her second pack of Gitanes since midnight and staring at the telephone. She still wore the same wrinkled suit she’d worn at the office all day Friday. She hadn’t eaten or even brushed her teeth. By now, Henri should have been back or at least called. Somehow she should have heard from him. But she hadn’t. Something had gone wrong, she was sure. What, though? Even if the American had been a professional, Kanarack would have handled him with the same efficiency he had Jean Packard.
How many years had it been since he’d first pulled her hair and lifted up her skirt in front of everyone in the play yard of the Second Street School in Bridgeport, Connecticut. Agnes had been in the first grade and Henri Kanarack—no, Albert Merriman!—in the fourth grade when it had happened. He’d done it and laughed and then swaggered off with his friends to tease a fat boy and punch him and make him cry. That same afternoon Agnes got even. Following him home from school, she sneaked up behind him when he’d stopped to look j at something. Stretching to her full height with both hands over her head, she brought a huge rock down on the top of his head. She remembered him hitting the : pavement, with blood everywhere. She remembered actually thinking she’d killed him, until he suddenly reached out and tried to grab her ankle and she ran off. It had been the beginning of a relationship that had lasted more than forty years. How was it the same kind of people always sought each other out, even from the beginning.
Agnes stood up and rubbed out a Gitane in an overflowing ashtray. It was now 3:30 in the morning. Saturdays the bakery was open a half day. In less than two hours she would have to leave for work. Then she remembered Henri had her car. That meant taking the Metro, if it was open that early. She didn’t know. It had been that long since she’d last done that.
Thinking she might have to call a taxi, she went into her room, took off her clothes and put on her robe. Then, setting her alarm for 4:45, she lay down on the bed. Pulling the top blanket over her, she turned out the light and lay back. If she could sleep, seventy-five minutes would be better than nothing.
Across the street, Bernhard Oven, the tall man, sat behind the wheel of a dark green Ford and looked at his watch. 3:37 A.M.
On the seat beside him was a small black rectangle that looked like the remote control to a television set. In the upper lefthand corner was a digital timer. Picking it up, he set the timer at three minutes, thirty-three seconds. Then, starting the Ford’s engine, he pushed a small red button at the bottom right of the black rectangle. The timer activated and began counting down in tenths of seconds toward 0:0:00.
Glancing across at the darkened apartment building once more, Bernhard Oven put the car in gear and drove off.
3:32:16.
Strung across the cluttered floor in the basement of Agnes Demblon’s apartment building were seven very
