A Tangled Web (47 page)

“Paris,” the guard snorted. “That's no reason to celebrate. Full of fags and weaklings, and they take you for everything you got. You know what's good for you, you'll stay here.”

“Well, but I have to go.” Robert struggled to sit up, and held out the bottle. “Have a drink in my honor, even if you don't like Paris.”

“Can't, Father, I'm working.”

“Just one, to wish me well. Now you've got me worried about how I'll get along there.”

“Well, one . . . what the hell.” He took a swig from the bottle and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “But that was to you, Father; not to Paris or anywhere but Marseilles.”

“Then we should drink to Marseilles. A great city.”

“Well, why not?”

Another bottle appeared from beneath Robert's cassock. The two men sat together beneath the illuminated window, drinking to the guard's wife, to his four sons and three daughters, to his brothers and sisters, to his grandfather who worked in an olive oil cooperative, and then to the olive oil cooperative. Robert was faking it with small sips but still he thought perhaps he could not hold out against the guard, until at last he saw the guard's head nod, jerk up, nod again, and at last stay down, his chin on his chest, gentle snores lifting the edge of his undershirt.

Robert walked to the corner of the warehouse, and Max joined him. “That gentleman has a capacity of truly staggering proportions. He has a key ring but I don't think we can get it off his belt.”

“Then we'll take the belt. But first bring him inside.”

They dragged the guard into his room, then unfastened his belt and pulled it through his pants loops. He snorted as they took off the key ring and the keys clattered together.

Max bent over him. “Sound asleep. How much did he drink?”

“Just under one bottle.”

“He'll have a good time explaining that tomorrow; more likely he'll fabricate a sudden attack of flu. Hold on while I check the logbook.”

He ran down the columned entries in the book on the guard's desk until he found the shipment being returned to Lacoste et fils. “Fifth floor. We'll walk; I don't want to chance the elevator. And we'll move fast, Robert; I don't know how often someone comes to check on the guards.”

He unlocked the warehouse door and they used the light from the guard's office to locate the stairway before locking the door behind them. Max jammed the key ring into his pants pocket and they made their way to the stairs. The staircase had windows at each landing, so they kept their flashlights off, guiding themselves in the blackness by keeping a hand on the wall. They climbed fast and steadily, counting five floors until they came to a steel door that Max eased open. “Ten minutes; less if possible.” He was breathing hard and thought fleetingly that he was out of shape; he ought to ride a bicycle like Robert, whose breathing had barely changed.

The windowless floor was pitch black and they turned on their small flashlights. There was a sudden scratching, and then a scampering sound. Robert spun around. “Who is that? It may be—”

“It's not your girl. It's a rat. The warehouses are full of them. You start on the left; I'll go to the right. Hurry.”

Narrow aisles stretched the length of the huge room between ghostly crates that loomed up in the narrow beams from their flashlights: crates as big as rooms and smaller ones stacked to the ceiling. Playing the flashlight beams on the shipper and destination stamped on each crate, they moved swiftly up and down the aisles, in dead silence. No sound penetrated from the dock below; the scampering had stopped. Max thought he might have suddenly gone deaf and he tapped his flashlight on a crate, for reassurance. Then, in the next aisle, he found his crate, and said, “Robert. Here. Quickly.”

“Where are you?”

“Here.” He shone the flashlight on the ceiling and Robert used the pinpoint of light as a guide to make his way up and down the aisles to him. “The crate is here; there's no sound from inside.”

“She doesn't know your voice. She'd be very still. Keep talking. It helps me find you.”

“Shall I recite poetry? Or tell tales from the Arabian Nights? Hurry, damn it; I want to get out of here.”

“Max, I can't leap over these crates and fly to you.”

“You haven't tried.”

Robert chuckled. He felt very close to Max, their voices mingling in the darkness, danger hanging in the air. He turned a corner and saw Max holding his flashlight up to the ceiling, and he grinned, even knowing Max could not see him, because he had found him and they were together. “Thank you for the beacon. But what now? How do we open the crate?”

“With this.” Max handed Robert his flashlight, took a chisel from his pocket, and began to pry open the side facing them.

Robert held the flashlight. “Do you remember the time I said I felt that we were two boys smoking behind the barn where the grown-ups couldn't find us?”

“How does it happen that a priest understands the rush one gets from danger? Most priests live unnaturally secluded lives; you're an anomaly, and even you—”

“There are more of us than you think, my friend, who believe that God looks kindly on action.”

“But even you don't court danger; you simply do good.”

“There is nothing simple about it. No, I don't court danger, Max, but I recognize its seductive nature. One could get hooked, as the young people say.”

“Well, maybe you do court it; probably we all do. No game would seem worth the candle if it had no danger and we weren't sure that it had the potential to explode in our faces.” He eased the heavy wood from the crate; it screeched faintly as it pulled away from its nails.

“Jana!” Robert exclaimed. He knelt as Max pulled the wood aside. “My dear, dear Jana!”

She was sitting between the wheels of the front-end loader, her knees to her chin, her arms around her legs. “Robert?” Her eyes, enormous in her small thin face, looked up at them blindly and Robert lowered his flashlight and reached in to help her out. She staggered a little,
holding on to him. “I'm sorry; I've been here for a while.”

“When did you hear about customs?”

“About six hours ago, and I got back in here right away; I thought I shouldn't wait.”

“Very wise. Jana, this is my friend, Max Lacoste. We have him to thank for getting you here. Max, this is Jana Corley.”

“We'll talk later,” Max said impatiently. “Is anything left in here? Food? Water? Evacuation bags?”

“No. We cleaned it out on board. We thought they might have dogs.”

“So if we hadn't found you . . .”

“I would have been very uncomfortable.”

“Admirable.” He made a swift survey of the interior of the crate, then took a hammer from his belt and hammered the crate shut. “Hurry.” He led the way to the staircase and they ran down it in the darkness, their hands on the walls for guidance.

They had been in the warehouse for seven minutes.

Max locked the door and handed Robert the key ring. “You and Jana put it on him; I'll watch at the corner.” He was breathing hard again; his legs felt rubbery. Damn it, I'm in lousy shape. He looked to left and right along the empty stretch of dock. I'll go with Sabrina on her bike rides; maybe go back to tennis. When we leave France, I'll get back in shape.

Robert and Jana joined him and he led them around the corner of the warehouse to the street behind it, and then through an alley to another street, this one brightly lit, lined with bars, cafés and strip joints. Prostitutes stood at street corners, couples strolled, a family with a baby in a backpack stood debating where to eat. Music blared from open doors to the sidewalks where men sat at tables drinking beer, playing cards, bantering with passersby and with the prostitutes who wandered over for companionship, then drifted back to their corners.

“The car is this way,” Max said, but Robert put a hand on his arm.

“Perhaps we could get Jana something to eat before we leave. It's a long ride to Cavaillon.”

“I'd rather get started; it's after midnight. Jana, can you wait a couple of hours?”

He looked down at her. It had been dark in the warehouse but now they were standing beside the brightly lit window of a café. Customers on the other side of the glass were only a few inches from them, talking and gesticulating, but Jana was not looking at them; she was looking at Max and as their eyes met, he knew she recognized him.

They all come from privileged families; have I told you that?

Jana Corley, Max thought. Small, blond, thin, extremely pretty, with a tilt to her head and an easy walk that showed she had been brought up with wealth.

They are wealthy, well educated, accustomed to luxury and the indulgences of a world that admires and rewards wealth more than poverty.

In other words, she came from the social circles in which Max Stuyvesant had been visible and prominent. Corley, he thought again. He had met a Corley—Richard, Ramsay, Ralph, something like that. He owned factories in Manchester, Max remembered, and had a home somewhere outside London. They had met, he thought, once or twice at Olivia Chasson's garden parties. And Jana could have been there.

What were the chances that one of Robert's idealistic young people would know Max Stuyvesant and would be smuggled into France in one of Max's crates on the one night that Max was there?

Not one chance in a million.

Except that it had happened. Because such things did happen all the time. People marveled at such coincidences, but they shrugged them off, saying “Small world” . . . one more proof that life was strange.

And so Max Stuyvesant, with a new name and newly
bearded, his hair dyed since he had last been in London almost a year before, stood on a raucous harbor street in Marseilles at twelve-thirty in the morning in the middle of July, and looked into the eyes of a blond radical activist and knew that she knew him.

Jana's eyes widened as their look held. “What did you say your name was?” she asked.

“Max Lacoste.” His large body was very still. He expects me to expose him, Jana thought. She felt the unreality of everything that was happening: she was tired and stiff and keyed up from the last twenty-four hours, and now she was talking to a man she had last seen drinking champagne at a garden party in Kent, a man who was allowing everyone to believe him dead. And now he expected her to expose him. But why would I? she thought. He's helping Robert, and Robert is the best man in the world and he probably knows what's going on with him a lot better than I do, and Robert says he got me out of Chile. I'm not going to mess up his story, whatever it is. What good would it do?

She held out her thin hand. “How do you do. It's because of you that I'm here?”

“It was my company's shipment.”

“And it was your people who gave me food and water in Chile?”

“Yes.”

“And you were here to open my prison. I do thank you. You must think very highly of Robert and of what he's doing.”

“We are good friends,” Robert said. “Jana, shall we get you something to eat?”

“No, thank you, Robert, but I can wait. How long is it to . . . where are we going?”

“To Cavaillon. You'll come home with me just for tonight; tomorrow you return to London. It's two hours to Cavaillon, probably less, with Max driving. But you should have something—”

“Robert, I'm fine.”

“Just a minute.” Max went into the café. He returned shortly and handed her a paper bag. “Ham sandwiches and coffee. You can eat in the car.”

“Thank you.” But he was walking ahead and she and Robert walked quickly to catch up to him.

In the car, she devoured a sandwich, drank the coffee, then curled up on the back seat and fell asleep. She woke only long enough to realize they were in Cavaillon, to see Max's long look as she said goodbye, and to feel Robert's hand under her arm as he helped her up some stairs and onto a couch already made up with sheets and a light blanket.

The next morning there was barely time to discuss her work as they drove to Avignon, where she would catch a plane for Paris and then London. “A vacation,” Robert said. “We will not talk about any more work for you for a while. You were in Chile for eight months; that is a long stint.”

“I just want to know what you're thinking of, for me.”

“I'm not, not yet. There is time, Jana; don't you want to play for a little while? Don't you have a young man to see?”

“Yes, but—”

“Then for now that is what you should be doing.” He kissed her on both cheeks and held her close. “I am so proud of you. And grateful; you keep my hope alive. Now go; you'll miss your plane. I'll call you in a few weeks.”

He is so good, Jana thought, and that was what she told Alan that night, when they were in his bed in London. “He doesn't want anything for himself; he just wants people to be happy. And to see justice done.”

“I'll bet he gets a kick out of it, though,” Alan said lazily. He lay beside her, his head propped on his arm, stroking her body. “God, you're thin. It looks as if you haven't eaten for eight months.”

“I ate what the peasants ate. What does that mean: he gets a kick out of it?”

“Oh, cops and robbers, cowboys and Indians, bad guys
and good guys. It's a lot more exciting than sprinkling holy water.”

“He does more than that; he runs a school,”

“So it's more exciting than running a school.”

“Well, of course it is. But he really thinks he can make the world better. For everybody, but especially for poor people.”

“I know, you tell me that all the time. But everybody likes excitement, you know: danger or just a few thrills. You do, or you wouldn't go to those places. In fact, I want to talk to you about that.”

No, Jana thought; not now. I like you, someday I might love you, but right now I don't want to get married; I don't want to stop what I'm doing. I'm only twenty-six; I'm not ready to settle down.