He nodded.
'Goddamn rental cars,' said Mann.
'Ten francs each,' I bargained.
'Twenty was the price you yourself set,' said the barman.
I looked at Mann. 'But no duplicates,' Mann warned him.
'We'll have the duplicates too,' I contradicted. 'But we must have the dates for each number.'
Page by page the man went through the book until we had a list of dates and numbers going back nearly two years. We finished our beers and drank two more.
'The same registration!' said Mann excitedly. 'That makes four times the same number.' He drained his beer, wiped his mouth and then pulled a face. 'It could be that it's a small rental company, or that he asks for that particular car.'
'I don't think so,' I said. 'Rental companies usually unload their cars every year or two. Those dates are too far apart. Here it is back at the beginning, soon after Dean moved here, and then again last August.'
'Always at holiday times,' said Mann.
'Yes,' I said. 'Always at a time when rental companies might not have had a car available. It must be his own car.'
'The first lucky break we've had,' said Mann.
'Mine host feels the same way about it,' I said as we watched the man tucking a small fortune into his wallet. The man looked up and smiled at us.
'Goodbye and thank you,' I said. 'I'm sorry about the boy.'
'My son had it coming to him,' said the barman. 'But there is eight francs to pay for your beers.'
Chapter Eleven
It took forty-eight hours to trace the car registration. It belonged to a very old four-door Fiat that for over eight years had been owned by Madame Lucie Simone Valentin, a nurse, born in Le Puy in the Haute-Loire, now residing in Paris, at Porte de la Villette, across the canal from one of the biggest abattoirs in Europe.
This particular part of north-east Paris is not noted for its historical monuments, cathedrals or fine restaurants. 'Madame Valentin's home was in a nineteenth-century slum, with echoing staircases, broken light- fittings and an all-pervading smell of stale food. It was just beginning to snow when we got there. Across the street two yellow monsters were eating walls and snorting brick-dust. Number ninety-four was at the very top. It was a garret. Painted up, crowded with antique furniture and sited so as to overlook Notre Dame, it would have been the sort of place that Hollywood set-designers call Paris. But this apartment had no such view. It faced another block, twice as tall and three times as gloomy. There was no chance that Gene Kelly would answer the door.
'Yes?' She had been beautiful once. She wore a handmade sweater that was less than perfectly knitted, and her hair was styled into the sort of permanent wave that you can do at home.
'We would like to talk to you about your car, Madame Valentin,' I said.
'I can explain about that,' she said. 'I thought it would need only new sparking plugs. By the end of the month it will all be paid.' She paused. From the floor below came the sound of tango music.
'We are not from the service station,' said Mann. 'We want to talk to you about Mr Henry Dean.'
'You are Americans?' She said it in good English.
'Cheri,' she called to someone behind her. 'Cheri, it is for you.' To us she said, 'Henry has to be at work at six o'clock.' She pronounced his name in the French manner: Henri.
The concierge had mentioned that a man lived with her. I had expected someone quite different to the pink- faced youngster who now smiled and offered his hand. He was dressed in a newly pressed set of working clothes, a Total badge sewn over the heart.
'I'm Major Mann, U.S. Army, Retired. I work for the State Department in Washington. I'd like to come in and speak with you.'
'I know all about you,' said the boy. 'Dad sent a message. He said he's being held in custody by the police. He said it was all a misunderstanding, but that you guys were straight and you'd do the right thing by him.'
'You're Hank Dean's son?' said Mann.
'Yes, sir, I certainly am,' said the boy. He grinned. 'Henry Hope Dean. Do you want to see my passport?'
'That won't be necessary,' said Mann.
'Come in, come in,' said the boy. 'Lucie darling, get the bottle of Scotch whisky that we were saving for my birthday.'
The room was very clean, and almost unnaturally tidy, like a holiday cottage prepared for new arrivals. And, like such rented places, this was sparsely furnished with cheap bamboo chairs and unpainted cupboards. There were some Impressionist reproductions tacked to the faded wallpaper and a lot of books piled on the floor in stacks.
The boy indicated which were the best chairs and got out his precious bottle of whisky. I sat down and wondered when I'd have enough strength to get up again. It was four nights since either of us had had a full night's sleep. I saw Mann sip his Scotch. I poured a lot of water into mine.
'Who would want to get your father into trouble?' Mann asked.
'Well, I don't know much about the work he once did for the Government,'
'We'll talk to other people about that,' said Mann. 'I mean, amongst the people you know, who would want to see your father in trouble, or in prison or even dead?'
'No one,' said the boy. 'You know Dad… he can be ex asperating at times, he can be pretty outspoken, and stubborn with it. I suppose I could imagine him getting into a brawl — but not this kind of scrape. Dad was swell company…
'It's supposed to look impossible,' said Mann. 'You send a man a bundle of money so big he can't bear to turn it in — then you tell the cops he's got it.' I watched Mann's face, trying to decide whether he already pronounced Hank Dean innocent. He saw me watching him, and turned away.
'Gee, a quarter of a million bucks,' said the boy. 'You'd have to be really sore at someone to leave that kind of bread in his mail box.'
Lucie Valentin came into the room with coffee for us. The cheap crockery was brightly polished and there was a crisply starched linen tray-cover. She put it on the bamboo table, and then sat on the arm of the chair the boy occupied. She put her arm around him in a maternal gesture. 'Perhaps you should go and see your father, darling,' she said. 'You can take the car.'
'If I may be personal,' I said to the woman. 'How did you get along with Hank Dean?'
'I met him only twice,' said Lucie Valentin.
'Lucie wanted to get the whole thing out in the open,' said the boy. 'Lucie and I are going to be married, and real soon, but I've got to make it O.K. with Dad.'
'And he objects to Lucie?'
'He liked her,' said the boy. 'I know he did, and still does'. He patted her arm, looked at her and smiled. 'But the truth is that Dad would like me to marry an American girl.'
'Really?' I said.
'Oh, sure, Dad comes on very strong about how cosmopolitan he is, but Dad is an American, his French marks him as an American, and he's very self-conscious about that.'
'And your French is fluent?'
'I've grown up here. Most of the people I work with think I am a Parisian. And I think like a Frenchman — it hurts Dad when I say that, but it's true — I could never be really happy in the United States… nor married to an American girl.'
He smiled. The way that he'd said 'girl' was a way of saying that he preferred a 'woman'. Lucie Valentin was a lot older than the boy; he didn't have to say that Hank Dean didn't like that either.
'And there is Lucie's divorce,' said the boy. 'That is the real difficulty. The Church doesn't recognize it' — he shrugged — 'and neither does Dad.'
