thrown.
'Sit down, Mr Klein. What can I do for you?'
'Find me a specialist with very specific qualifications. For a fee.'
Klein handed the fat envelope containing two hundred thousand French francs to the tanned man with brown hair and a face like that of a cadaver. Perugini opened the envelope, made a quick flip through the banknotes, dropped the envelope on the table as though it were nothing.
'What qualifications, Mr Klein?'
'Someone you can spare for several months. An expert with a hand-gun, an automatic weapon, a knife, also,' he added as though an afterthought, 'a first-rate scuba diver.'
'You don't ask for much, do you?'
'I pay quite a lot. It's a while since we last met – but you will have what I need, I know.'
'The hand-gun, the automatic weapon, the knife. He is a hard man you're wanting?'
Dressed in a white shirt open at the front and shorts, Perugini reached for a bottle of red wine, Klein shook his head and the Union Corse chief refilled his own glass. He patted his fat belly, sprawled short thick legs under the table as the Alsatian dropped the ball by his side.
The animal stared at Klein, bared his teeth and gave a snarl. Klein turned and gazed straight at the animal. He pushed his chair back a few inches. 'Cesar doesn't like you,' Perugini remarked. The dog backed away when Klein half-rose from his chair, gave a low yelp and flopped some distance away.
'Yes, a hard man,' Klein said, sitting down again. 'And he needs to have experience with explosives…'
Perugini threw his bony head back and laughed contemptuously, a weird cackling sound. 'All that for two hundred thousand francs! And my man is out of action for several months? You must be joking…'
Klein took out another fat envelope, tossed it on the table, waited. Perugini regarded it without touching it, drank more wine.
'How much in there?'
'Another two hundred thousand…'
'Double it and I may help…'
'Nonsense time is over.'
Klein's tone was cold, bleak. He reached forward under the low table, wrenched something attached to the under surface and produced a miniature tape recorder. His long fingers tore out the recorded tape reel, he turned to the dog and hurled the reel far out into the pool. Cesar dived in, swam underneath, came up with the mangled tape in his teeth.
'You shouldn't have done that,' Perugini snapped. 'I only have to flick my fingers and a couple of my boys come out that villa.' He waved a hand across the beach. 'The sea is wide and deep. A weighted corpse stays down forever…'
'Except that neither of us would be around for it to happen.'
'What does that mean?' Perugini asked, his eyes hooded.
'See those wooded hills behind your film-star villa?' Klein waved his own hand. 'Four men are up there, two watching us with field-glasses ever since I arrived. The other two have rocket launchers. We'd end up as jelly.'
'You're bluffing.' Perugini sounded uncertain, glanced up at the woods.
'Want to risk it?'
'OK.' Perugini had reached his position of power by taking fast decisions, by never taking unnecessary risks. 'You get your man – for the fee on the table. Louis Chabot. He is based in Marseilles. Here is the address.' He produced a crumpled notebook from his back pocket, scribbled on it, tore out the sheet and handed it to his guest. He was anxious to get rid of Klein. Something about the man's eyes disturbed him. He checked the second envelope, tossed it back on the table.
'Is that it, Klein?'
'Not quite. My fee buys absolute silence. See that rock sticking up out of the sea?'
Klein stood up, raised his right hand, dropped it in a chopping movement. There was a whooshing sound. Then a loud bang. Perugini stared at the rock where the explosion had happened. The top half had vanished, splinters of rock splattered the sea.
'Don't ever threaten me again,' Klein said and left.
Klein climbed the worn stone steps of the evil-smelling tenement building behind the Old Port to the first floor. The plaster was crumbling between the stonework. He paused outside the old heavy wooden door to Number Eleven. No sound from inside.
Using the phone number Perugini had scribbled on the scrap of paper with the address, he'd called Chabot, made an appointment for 11.30 a.m. It was now eleven o'clock. Klein liked to arrive early. You sometimes learned important things about a new recruit by catching them off guard. He rapped loudly on the door.
'Who the hell is it?' a man's voice called out in French.
'I phoned you earlier…'
'And you're early.' The door had opened on a thick chain, a swarthy, heavy-jowled face peered out. Naked to the flat waist. Trousers hastily thrown on. The man called to someone over his shoulder. 'Get dressed, get out…'
'No names,' Klein warned as the man unfastened the chain, gestured for him to come inside. 'You are Louis Chabot?'
'That's me.'
'You'll know who I come from then.' Klein handed him the scrap of paper when Chabot had relocked the door, glanced round the room.
'The mark at the bottom tells me.' He turned to the girl who had recently scrambled out of the bed against one wall. She'd had time to slip on her skirt, but like Chabot she was naked above the waist and had a pair of firm, rounded breasts. She stared saucily at Klein as she reached for a sweater, then pulled it over her head and slid her bare feet into shoes.
This is Cecile, my new girl,' Chabot introduced.
Her presence disturbed Klein: she'd had a good look at him, but he said nothing. Apart from the bed, which Cecile was hastily making up, the room was unexpectedly clean, neat.
Chabot put on a fresh striped shirt, buttoned it to the neck, then donned a linen jacket hanging over the back of a chair. On his instruction, Cecile took dirty glasses into the kitchen and washed them. She was a bottle blonde with a pretty gamine face and kept glancing at Klein when she was in the room.
He stood with his back to her, staring out of the window. It overlooked a jumble of ancient roofs on the far side of a narrow street. Lines of washing hung on makeshift clothes lines on flat rooftops, drying in the morning sun. Klein remained quite still as Cecile left.
'See you soon, dear,' Chabot called out to her. 'Don't do anything I would…'
'That's going to be a hell of a lot of fun.'
Then she was gone. Klein swung round, studied the Frenchman as he locked the door. About thirty, thick brown hair with brows to match, a hooked nose, pale blue eyes which didn't waver before his visitor's scrutiny, a brutal jaw. Heavily built, Chabot moved lightly on his small feet, his legs and arms long, his hands large, powerful- looking. Strangler's hands, Klein thought.
'Seen enough?' Chabot demanded. 'Want a drink?'
'Coffee.' He followed the Frenchman into the small kitchen. 'Who is that girl?'
'Cecile Lament. Hangs out at a bar along the street. The Wolf.' He was preparing cafe filtre. Klein said no milk, no sugar. 'It's our first week.' He glanced at Klein. 'If you have in mind what I think you have, she performs well. But only if she likes you. She likes you. Now, what's this all about? Do I measure up? You've been working that one out ever since you came in.'
'Know much about explosives?'
'Everything. Handle with care. Never trust them…'
'How did you get the knowledge?'
'Working in a stone quarry. Blasting rock. Everything I know I've learned legit. That way you don't get a police record.'
'Ever been inside?'
'Not a chance. Coffee's ready. Let's go into the other room, make ourselves comfortable…'
