it!”
“Thanks, pals.” I waved farewell. “Oh, one thing. How long can I be away? Only, Colonel Marimee said I’d be needed.”
“You should be able to get in enough pokes before tomorrow night, Lovejoy.” Guy leered, fell over. Veronique started to haul him upright. Somebody nearby relieved himself into a small bush. Another vomited. God. Ecstasy, at these prices?
“See you back at the hotel, troops. Sevenish do?”
They called seven’d be ample. So the Repository would be a midnight job. I had twenty-four hours. They could buy a hundred comas with my money, as long as I was free of them for a bit. As it was, I got free of them for much, much longer.
Gobbie drove us out of Zurich. I tried telling him the way we’d come, me and my golden pair. I vaguely remember road numbers, but things never look the same returning. The old Italian proverb came dimly from some old Western film, look behind, not before. Fine time to remember good advice when it’s pointless. He told me to stop telling him the way. Okay, so he knew the Continent and I didn’t. No need to get irascible.
Lysette was along. Never known such a quiet lass. She only spoke at the first Strasbourg sign. I’d dozed off.
“Why is that money necessary, Lovejoy? I have credit cards.”
She smelled nice. She’d been there when I’d phoned the upright, honest Dicko Chave. He’d promised to wire me a load of zlotniks against some antiques I’d found. That story wouldn’t have been enough to make him trust me. I’d had to invent a lovely unmarried lass I’d also discovered, as his new possible partner. He’d urged me to propose on his behalf. Poor old Dicko.
“The one commodity my addict custodians need is money. The scent of it winkled the time of the robbery from them.”
“They’ll steal it, Lovejoy,” from old Gobbie at the wheel, his face lit by the road lights. “You should have only pretended there was money coming.”
“No. They’d have guessed, then I’d have been in the soup.” I’d not said how much, but to addicts all money promises bliss.
We drove on. I’d not said anything to Lysette about the terrible truth that Gobbie’d made me face. I couldn’t. But I suspected she’d known the true story long since. As I had. And maybe poor Baff Bavington had. And poor Leon, the French divvy. And Jan Fotheringay her brother. Jesus, but I’m thick. That’s half my trouble. I’ll work something out, then ignore the obvious if it’s too horrible to contemplate. Birds are always picking at me for never facing up. Hateful, that they might be right. It’s as if I know the words, the tune, but don’t understand the song.
“Where did they go, love? Your three vans.”
“Lausanne.”
“Lausanne? Is that still in Switzerl -?”
“I’ve made a map with detailed directions, Lovejoy.” She spoke curtly. She meant I wasn’t worth talking to. Next breath she told me why. “I believe you already know the address.”
I hate it. A bloke ought to be allowed one or two tricks, even though they’re transparent. I mean, we’re not allowed to say when a woman’s deceit is obvious, are we? But they can say whatever they like. It galls me. Women have too many blinking privileges for my liking. “Did other vans turn up?”
“I counted eighteen, in Lausanne.”
So they probably all went there, By one route or another. I’d think of a cutting rejoinder to Lysette any second.
“Lovejoy?” Gobbie said gruffly. “We’re here. Paris. Where was it?”
The nausea rose within me. I’d been sick at my non-thought thoughts for a fortnight, longer even. Now I was back.
“Look,” I tried, surly. “We’ll stop for coffee. It’s almost ten o’clock. We’ve not stopped or anything—”
“
“Right, Gobbie.” Where had we driven, that night in Dreyfus’s trundlesome motor? Seine, Arc de Triomphe, Sacre Coeur, then doubled back to that sordid Paris-shouldn’t-have-such-districts near the sound of trains. I managed to direct us through the knitted thoroughfares. We parked, by a fluke, and walked.
Lysette walked with her arm through Gobbie’s, I noticed, narked. Gobbie occasionally made as if to glance at me, then avoided my eyes. It took us nearly an hour. We’d actually passed the doorway before I recognized the church-hall-type entrance down a few steps, cardboarded windows opposite, the same smell of cooking. It was wise to walk on by, in case one of those immobile beefy blokes had been left on watch.
“It’s here, Gobbie. That’s the way in.” Children were playing nearby, calling in foreign dialects. I didn’t look at them. It was dark, the street lighting furtive. “What now?”
“You two off out of it, Lovejoy. I’ll look round the district. Be at the corner in an hour, eh?”
Gobbie shuffled away on his quest. Lysette came with me, to a small caff near the Deux Magots. When she did speak it was so unexpected I almost spilled my coffee.
“I should have taken you to the Procope, Rue de l”Ancienne Comedie,” she said quietly. We were at a pavement table. “Benjamin Franklin went there. But your favourite would have been Voltaire. He also. And Napoleon.”
I would have liked Voltaire? How did she know? I knew I’d look him up sooner or later, be no wiser.
“There are whole books written on Parisian cafes, Lovejoy.” I quite liked my name, first time I could remember since Monique said it. “Hemingway objected when the proprietors of the Closerie des Lilas—from its lilacs, you
