'Not exactly,' she quickly added. 'They're family type hotels. You get room and three meals for about 30 francs a day, and that's where all the action is, you know, Left Bank.'
Yes, Bolan knew. 'Thirty francs a day is cheap?'
She wrinkled her nose. 'That's only about five dollars.'
The game could go on indefinitely. Bolan decided to end it. 'Yeah, that's cheap,' he agreed. 'Okay, maybe I'll try your Left Bank.'
'Pension de St. Germain,' she reminded him.
'Okay.'
'I'm Nancy Walker.'
Bolan smiled. 'Sounds like a brand of whiskey.'
'No, wine,' she flashed back, vamping him with an ultra-feminine smile, 'Heady, romantic, nice to the taste and absolutely no hangover.'
She left him standing there, open-mouthed and re-fleeting that the Gil Martins of the world certainly had it made. He finished his coffee and returned to his seat, arriving there as the seat belt announcement was being delivered.
Bolan buckled in and watched the man across the aisle. Yes, he decided, there were certain superficial similarities — he could see how the stewardess could have been misled into her erroneous conclusion. Martin was a surly type. He had spent the entire trip absorbed in a paperback book, sporadically dozing, awakening, and grimly returning to the reading, then dozing again — totally anti-social and ignoring repeated approaches by the stewardess and the passenger alongside him.
Bolan suddenly grinned to himself, a vision forming in his mind. Maybe, for a short while, Gil Martin, who the hell ever he was, would know how it felt to not have it made. If Bolan could be mistaken for Martin, then why couldn't Martin be mistaken for Bolan? If the French gendarmes were waiting down there at Orly, with copies of those composite photos of Bolan's new face to guide them, there could be a real comic opera down at the customs gate.
Things could be swiftly set straight, of course, with no more damage than the ruffling of a celebrity's tail- feathers, but the diversion could be enough to get the Executioner into Paris. It was something worth hoping for.
Bolan's fingers toyed with his false plumage and his mind toyed with this new hope. It would be nice, he reflected, for a while to simply have it made, to play and laugh and luxuriate in relaxed human companionship. Not that much hope, buddy, he chided himself. That's Paris down there, not Oz or Wonderland. Your hands are alive to kill, not to lovingly stroke a pulsing female form. You're the Executioner, damn you, not the playboy of the western world. Yeah, but it would be nice. For a while. The Executioner in Paris, gay Paris.
Bolan abruptly flung the idea from his mind. That was hell down there, not Paris. Only the strong and the resolute walked through hell. He meant to make that walk. And exit standing. A war awaited him, commanded him.
Goodbye, Paris. Hello, Hell.
4
Engagement at Orly
After a brief delay in the holding pattern and an instrument landing through a dense ground fog, they were down, and off, and streaming inside the terminal building, Bolan keeping Gil Martin in sight, sleepy-eyed inspectors amiably waving them on through Passport Control with not even a glance at the precious documents. Bolan could hardly believe it, then he did not believe it at all. An inspector stuck out a hand as Bolan drew abreast and said softly, 'Vetre passeport, s'il vous plait.'
Bolan sighed and produced the little folder. 'Okay,' he said in as bored a reply as he could manage, 'Le voici.' He had not used his French for some years, except in the rather limited and infrequent brushes with French- speaking Indo-Chinese, but he was happy to be able to handle the small formalities with as little fuss as possible.
Gil Martin had been stopped also, Bolan noted with some satisfaction, and was not faring quite so well; he obviously handled French not at all, and an English-speaking inspector was being dispatched to the scene.
Bolan's inspector was smiling at him and comparing his face with the image on the passport. Bolan fingered the growth at his face and lightly commented, 'La moustache, les pattes; c'est un difference, eh?'
The inspector chuckled and replied, 'Vive le difference, Monsieur Ruggi. Combien de temps comptezvous rester?'
He wanted to know how long Bolan would be in France. 'A few days,' Bolan told him. 'Quelques jours.'
The inspector smiled again and returned the passport. 'Bon visite, Monsieur.'
Bolan thanked him and went on toward the customs section. A porter intercepted him and tried to take his bags, insisting that he could smooth his way and save him money. Bolan declined, kept his bags, and selected a fast-moving line. The inspection seemed to be little more than a formality, with most of the delay being caused by the confusion of the passengers rather than by the officials. Bolan lit a cigarette and casually looked back for a progress check on Gil Martin. The look-alike had finally cleared Passport Control and was hurrying into the customs area, following closely on the heels of a porter who was carrying an overnighter and a matching larger bag. To an untrained eye, this was the status on Gil Martin; to Bolan's eyes, much more was developing. Martin was quietly and inconspicuously being surrounded by a crew of plainclothes cops who, even without Martin's knowledge, were maneuvering him toward one of the private inspection rooms. At the last minute, Martin seemed to realize what was happening. He balked at the doorway and raised his voice in an angry argument but was pushed on through, the door closing behind him and sealing in the heated discussion.
Bolan grinned and moved on to the inspection desk. He declared 40 cigarettes and no booze, and was courteously passed through without inspection. At this point, he dropped the casual pose and began moving in an attitude of planned haste. That could be Bolan back there in that private room just as easily as Martin; he wanted out and gone before the error was discovered. He stopped at the Orly bureau de change and took on a supply of francs, then went directly to a ticket window and bought space to New York on a flight leaving later that day. Then he found the door marked Messieurs and went into a private closet, stripped off his coat, retrieved his gun and sideleather from the suitcase, and strapped it on. Next he deposited his luggage in an airport locker and went out to find transportation into town.
It was late enough that dawn should have been edging into the night sky, but the fog had thickened if anything and the outside lighting was making a very limited penetration and eerily illuminating the transportation circle. People were moving about here and there through the soupy stuff but Bolan experienced a feeling of isolation in the surrealistic scene. Something in the atmosphere there cautioned the Executioner and prompted him to step away from the entrance to the terminal, where the light was fairly good, and into the misty shadows beside the building. A crowded air-porter bus wheeled through and disappeared. A suggestion of vehicles occupied a barely visible taxi station some yards up the drive; two private autos idled at the curb just below Bolan, their headlamps muffled and impotent in the heavy mists.
Then out through the lighted doorway strode Gil Martin, an angry scowl distorting his face. The same porter followed immediately behind with the luggage. Martin pulled up almost within touching distance of Bolan and turned about to snarl at the porter, 'Get the lead out! Get a cab over here, I'm not walking another step. I oughta go straight on to Rome, I shouldn't even go into this nutfarm of a town. I don't know what the hell I...'
The porter had silently deposited the baggage on the sidewalk and raised his hands in some sort of signal. Instantly another man came through the doorway and stepped up behind Martin; the American immediately ceased his snarling complaints and froze and a small leather case fell from his hands. One of the vehicles which Bolan had noticed earlier eased forward, a door opened and another man moved onto the sidewalk; then Martin was entering the vehicle and the porter was hastily throwing the bags into the luggage compartment. Bolan marveled at the smoothness of the snatch, aware that he had recognized it as such only when it was too late to intervene; the vehicle was disappearing into the fog, the second car following closely.
