Anything Considered (14 page)

“So it was. Well, that’s the French for you. Always thinking about their rations.”

——

With a grateful swoop, the Mercedes nosed into one of Villefranche’s precious parking spots. Bennett and Anna
walked down to the row of restaurants on the quay. It was early for dinner, and the waiters were still at work on the outdoor tables, clipping on the paper covers, dealing out cutlery and glasses like cards, having one last cigarette before the torrent of customers, in varying stages of sunburn, descended on the port.

After browsing through the remarkably similar menus on display—Bennett had a theory that there was a single giant kitchen serving all the restaurants—they chose a table with a view of the setting sun. Bennett picked up the wine list with a sigh of satisfaction, then looked up at Anna.

“You do drink wine, don’t you?”

“Why not?”

“Well, military background, Jewish …”

“Do you mean kosher?”

“That’s the word.”

“I ate a ham sandwich, didn’t I?”

Bennett looked up to see the smile. “How could I forget? Snatching the crust from a workingman’s mouth. You ought to be ashamed of yourself.”

“Although,” Anna said as Bennett went back to the list, “there’s a lot about the Jewish faith that makes sense.”

“Oh, I’m sure. Do you like white or pink?”

“Circumcision, for a start.”

“Fine. Great. We’ll have pink.”

For half an hour or so, they forgot who they were supposed to be, and talked like any other couple thrown together by chance and finding the experience interesting, even pleasurable. Anna’s knowledge of France was limited to Paris, and she asked Bennett to tell her about the
south. He spoke of Saint-Martin and Avignon and Aix, of the people and the seasons, always lightly but with an affectionate enthusiasm that came through the banter. More than once, Anna felt her guard begin to slip—a guard that had been put up after her experience with Poe and hadn’t been seriously challenged since. And more than once, Bennett had to stop himself from staring at her quite so obviously, as the setting sun painted light on her skin and picked up the shine of her eyes.

Their waiter brought them back to real life.
“Monsieur Bennett? Téléphone.”

Puzzled and irritated, Bennett followed the waiter into the restaurant and picked up the phone. “Yes?”

“You must excuse me for disturbing your intimate little dinner.” Poe’s voice didn’t sound in the least apologetic. “Is everything arranged with Tuzzi’s people?”

“Yes. We’re getting on the boat tomorrow evening.”

“Splendid. I’m so glad that you and Miss Hersh are having such fun. Quite the shoppers, aren’t you?”

“How did you know we were here?”

“I told you we’d keep a friendly eye on you. Let’s hope that the next time we speak, you’ll have good news.
Bon appétit.
”

Bennett paused on his way back to the table and looked along the quay, now becoming noisier and more crowded. Somewhere in this apparently innocent swirl of people were Poe’s human Dobermans. They were looking at him now. They would be watching him have dinner. They’d follow him back to Monaco. He wondered if they’d bugged the apartment.

Anna saw the tightness of Bennett’s mouth as he sat down. “Let me guess,” she said. “That was our beloved leader, letting us know he’s on our case. Am I right?”

Bennett nodded and poured some more wine. “They must have been tailing us all day. Not a pleasant feeling, is it?”

“I told you. He’s not a pleasant guy.”

They ate without speaking for a few minutes, glancing around from time to time at the neighboring tables, now all occupied. Surrounding their silence were snatches of cheerful conversation in a variety of languages, the sound of laughter, the clink of glasses raised in holiday toasts. Another jolly evening on the Riviera. Bennett’s appetite deserted him, and he pushed his plate away.

“Well,” he said, “have you got any ideas about tomorrow?”

Anna leaned over and speared a forkful of the
pommes frites
that Bennett had left. “Depends where Tuzzi keeps the case. The bidders will want to see it, and there may be a chance to do the switch, but I wouldn’t bet on it.” She chewed, swallowed, and shrugged. “I think we’d have better luck after the auction. Follow the buyer, and jump him once we get off the boat.”

Bennett began to understand why Poe had recruited Anna. “Have you had much experience at that sort of thing? Jumping people?”

She looked at him with a half-smile. “More than you, I guess.”

“That’s settled, then. I’ll hold your coat.”

The mood was gone. Bennett paid the bill, and, leaving
the quay, they walked up the steep street that led to where they had parked. As they came up to a
bar-tabac
, Bennett went in to buy a newspaper and a cigar. Anna looked at the knot of tourists in front of the counter, agonizing over their choice of postcards. “I’ll meet you at the car, OK?”

Emerging from the shop, he paused under a streetlamp to read the headline of the day. Preelection politics, accusations and promises. He tucked the paper under his arm and turned the corner into the tiny square where he’d left the Mercedes. Anna was standing by the car, talking to a man. One of Poe’s goons, he thought, delivering yet another message of goodwill. He quickened his step.

It was over before he had time to shout. He saw the man raise his arm, the blur of Anna’s hand slapping his face, the backward jerk of his head, and then the violent forward jerk as Anna pulled his head against the bar of the forearm that she’d jammed against his throat. The man’s legs buckled, and he went down like a dropped sack.

Bennett found his voice. “Anna! Are you all right?”

She looked up from the carcass on the ground and took a breath. “I’m fine. Look at this.” Pointing to the driver’s window of the car, she pulled out a long strip of steel that had been inserted between the edge of the door and the glass. “Little creep. Another thirty seconds, and he’d have been in.”

Bennett bent over the body. “What the hell did you do to him?”

“Basic chokehold. He’ll be out for two or three minutes.”
She yawned and walked around to the passenger side of the car. “Let’s go. It’s been a long day.”

Bennett drove slowly, Anna drowsing beside him. For the second time in a few days, he’d been witness to violence. Shimo had been terrifying, but there had been a ritualized detachment about his demonstration, and the only casualty had been a length of bamboo. Anna had put a man down, could easily have killed him had she wanted to, and apparently with no more emotion than the Japanese had shown. It was another unpleasant reminder that he was caught up in what might be a rough game.

They got back to Monaco as the first stars were appearing over the casino to welcome the disconsolate early gamblers coming out, luck and money exhausted, dreams of caviar and Krug replaced by more affordable thoughts of beer and sandwiches. Long, sleek cars dropped off their passengers at the Hôtel de Paris, and the lobby was alive with the sound of air kisses and the soft click of colliding necklaces as the girls and their temporary uncles gathered for dinner. Nothing would have been nicer, thought Bennett, than to take Anna in for a glass of champagne and forget about tomorrow. He looked at her, curled in a jet-lagged sleep next to him, and shook her gently by the shoulder.

“We’re here.”

He followed her into the apartment and downstairs to the bedroom, where he dropped the shopping bags next to the bed. “Thanks,” said Anna, and slid the window open to catch the night breeze. “Where’s your room?”

“Well, this was it, actually.”

“Tough luck, buster.” She dropped onto the bed with a sigh. “Enjoy the couch.”

“You don’t mind if I take a quick shower?”

“Be my guest.”

By the time he came out of the bathroom, she was sprawled across the bed, one arm curled around a pillow, her face younger and softer in sleep. Bennett considered doing her the kindness of taking off her boots, but thought better of it. She’d probably think he was trying to steal them, execute the basic response kick, and send him through the window. With one last look at her face, he turned off the light and went upstairs to his chaste and uncomfortable couch.

He poured himself a whisky and sat in the darkness, thinking of how his life had changed so abruptly, how far away Saint-Martin seemed, how close he now was to dangerous people. Shutting his eyes, he saw again the sudden pull of Anna’s hand on the back of the man’s head, the slump of the unconscious body. He drained the glass, shook his head, and reached for the bottle.

BENNETT woke to the sound of France Musique on the radio and the smell of brewing coffee. For one semiconscious moment he thought he was back in Saint-Martin, with Georgette in the kitchen and a pleasant, uncomplicated, danger-free day ahead of him. Then he became aware of the stiffness from a cramped night’s sleep, opened his eyes, and raised his head cautiously from the makeshift pillow of his rolled-up trousers. His neck ached. Someone seemed to have embedded a screwdriver in his skull while he had slept and was turning it every time he moved. He looked down to see shoes, socks, shirt, empty whisky bottle, and overturned glass on the floor beside him. He groaned, pushed himself off the couch, and felt his way into the kitchen.

“You look like shit,” Anna said brightly. “Coffee?”

Nodding, Bennett watched with eyes half closed against the light as she filled a cup and passed it to him. She looked fresh and rested, and smelled of mimosa from one of Poe’s expensive soaps. Bennett looked down at his rumpled shorts and scratched his unshaven jaw. He felt like shit, too.

“I’m going to get some croissants,” said Anna. “Why don’t you take a shower?”

He nodded cautiously. “Yes, Sergeant. Ablutions. Fall in for breakfast at 0800 hours.” He shuffled off toward the bathroom, clutching his coffee with both hands. She watched him go, caught herself staring at his tanned back and the way it tapered into narrow hips.

Half an hour later, fortified by aspirin and protected from the glare of the morning by sunglasses, he joined Anna on the terrace. He had nicked himself shaving, and was dabbing at his chin. He saw her looking at it. “Wounded in action,” he said. “You’ll have to take over. I’m going on sick leave.”

“My hero.” She passed him a croissant. “I’ve been thinking,” she said. “Say we don’t switch the cases on the boat. That means we have to follow the buyer.”

Bennett bit into the buttery pastry and felt it float in his mouth. The aspirin was starting to work. Maybe he would survive the day.

“Big problem,” Anna said. “How are we going to follow him? The car will be back in Cannes.”

Bennett forced himself to engage his mind, which was only just beginning to master the problems of physical coordination required to deal with breakfast. As Anna said, the car would be in Cannes, and they would be leaving the boat at some unspecified port along the coast. Would the buyer arrange someone to meet him? Almost certainly, probably to take him to the nearest airport. How do you jump someone if you’re on foot and he’s in a car? Or do
you take a cab and follow him? And then what? Bennett felt a fresh stab of discomfort in his skull, but somewhere, fighting through the dregs of his hangover, was a solution struggling to emerge.

“Bennett? You still there?”

He held out his cup for more coffee, and with it came inspiration. Poe’s men would be tracking the boat. Poe’s men would be waiting wherever it stopped. Poe’s men would have a car, and a small arsenal of weapons. Poe’s men could do the dirty work. It was simple. All they had to do was identify the buyer to the goons, and leave it to them. Immensely cheered by the thought, Bennett beamed at Anna and brandished the remains of his croissant energetically, like a conductor urging his orchestra to swoop into the finale. “Reinforcements,” he said. “That’s the thing. Bring in the troops.”

Anna listened while he explained. “No,” she said, “I don’t go for it. If we let Poe’s guys get the case back, I won’t get paid.” She looked at him unblinking, her face set. “I’m counting on that fifty grand. So are the doctors.”

Bennett persisted, becoming increasingly excited at the thought of a neat and painless resolution. “Let me talk to Poe. Look, it’s only a fallback, if we can’t make the switch. Better than losing the case altogether, isn’t it?”

Anna said nothing. She was beginning to make plans of her own for the case, and they didn’t include any assistance from Poe. But telling Bennett about them now would be an unnecessary complication. And so, after a lengthy
and mostly genuine show of reluctance, she agreed that he should make the call.

Ten minutes later, with a grin of triumph, he came back from talking to Poe. “It’s all set,” he said. “The goons will meet us off the boat. They’ll be dressed as French cops. If we haven’t made the switch, we give them the fake case. They’ll stop the buyer on the road, pretend to be looking for drugs or counterfeit Camembert or something, and search his car. They’ll distract him, take the real case, and plant the fake one.” Bennett paused and shook his head. “He’s a devious old bugger, Poe. He
wants
the buyer to find out he’s bought a fake—which won’t take him long once he gets it to a laboratory—and then go after Tuzzi. Do you know what he said? ‘That should take his mind off chasing girls around Ibiza.’ ”

“He’s a great one to talk.”

Bennett’s hangover was giving way to giddy euphoria. He was off the hook. All they had to do was play their parts for a day or two, lose convincingly at the auction, and pass the case and the problem over to Poe’s private police force. His tender head had miraculously recovered. A small celebration was in order.

He beamed at Anna. “Now, Miss Hersh, I know it’s against company policy for executives and their secretaries to fraternize socially, but under the circumstances I think the rules can be bent a little, don’t you?”

His face was a study in happiness. Anna couldn’t help smiling back. “What exactly do you have in mind? An office party?”

“Lunch, Miss Hersh. Lunch.” He looked at her over the top of his sunglasses. “Will you do me a favor? Wear a skirt? Proper shoes? We’ll go to Chez Bacon, and the chef will come out and kiss the hem of your garment, astounded by such a ravishing customer. Promise. And it’s great fish.”