Black money (7 page)

"Rumors don't bother me."

"But you're not the only person involved, now that you've married a local girl."

He saw my point. "Very well. I will tell you why I am here, in return for a quid pro quo. Tell me who is the man who tried to take my picture."

"His name is Harry Hendricks. He's a used-car salesman from the San Fernando Valley."

Martel's eyes were puzzled. "I never heard of him. Why did he try to photograph me?"

"Apparently someone paid him. He didn't say who."

"I can guess," Martel said darkly. "He was undoubtedly paid by the agents of le grand Charles."

"Who?"

"President de Gaulle, my enemy. He drove me out of my patrie - my native land. But my exile is not enough to satisfy him. He wants my life."

His voice was low and thrilling. Ginny shuddered. Even Peter looked impressed.

I said: "What has de Gaulle got against you?"

"I am a threat to his power."

"Are you one of the Algerie-Francaise gang?"

"We are not a gang," he retorted hotly. "We are a - how shall I say it? - a band of patriots. It is le grand Charles who is the enemy of his country. But I have said enough. Too much. If his agents have followed me here, as I believe, I must move on again."

He shrugged fatalistically, and looked around at the dark slopes and up at the star-pierced sky. It was a farewell look, consciously dramatic, as if the stars were part of his audience.

Ginny moved into the circle of his arm. "I'm going with you."

"Of course. I knew I would not be permitted to stay in Montevista. It is too beautiful. But I shall be taking a part of its beauty with me."

He kissed her hair. It hung sleek on her skull like a pale silk headcloth. She leaned against him. His hands went to her waist. Peter groaned and turned away toward the car.

"If you will excuse us now," Martel said to me, "we have plans to make. I've answered all your questions, have I not?"

"Just to nail it down, you could show me your passport."

He spread out his hands one either side of Ginny. "I wish I could, but I can't. I left France unofficially, shall we say?"

"How did you get your money out?"

"I had to leave much of it behind. But my family has holdings in other parts of the world."

"Is Martel your family name?"

He raised his hands, palms outward, like a map being held up. "My wife and I have been very patient with you. You don't want me to become impatient. Goodnight."

He spoke quietly, with all his force poised behind the words.

They went into the house, closing the heavy front door. On my way to my car I glanced into the front of the Bentley. There was no registration card visible. The things which Martel had taken from his cabana were piled helter-skelter on the back seat. This suggested that he was planning to leave very soon.

There was nothing I could do about it. I got in beside Peter, and turned down the driveway. He rode with his head down, saying nothing. When I stopped at the mailbox, he turned to me in a sort of violent lunge: "Do you believe him?"

"I don't know. Do you?"

"Ginny does," he said thoughtfully. "She knows him better than we do. He's very convincing."

"Too convincing. He has an answer for everything."

"Does that mean he's telling the truth?"

"He tells too much of it. A man in his position, wanted by the French government for plotting against de Gaulle, wouldn't spill his secrets to us. He wouldn't even tell his wife if he was smart. And Martel is smart."

"I can see that, the way he answered the professor's questions. What's the explanation, if he's lying? Who is he trying to fool?"

"Ginny, maybe. She married him."

Peter sighed. "I'm starved. I haven't really eaten since breakfast."

He climbed out of my car and started across the road to his Corvette. His foot kicked something which made a muted metallic noise. I peered out into the dark. It was the camera that Martel had smashed. I got out and picked it up and put it in my jacket pocket.

"What are you doing?"

Peter said.

"Nothing. Poking around."

"I was just thinking, they're serving dinner at the club tonight. If you'll have dinner with me, we can discuss what to do."

I was getting a little tired of his mournful company. But I was hungry, too. "I'll meet you there."

9

I WAS DELAYED on the way. A quarter of a mile down the road from Martel's driveway, a car was parked in the darkness under a live oak. Its lines resembled Harry Hendricks's Cadillac, and when I got out for a closer look with my flashlight, I saw that it was.

There was nobody in the decayed Cadillac, no registration on the steering post, and nothing in the dash compartment but a Los Angeles freeway map which was several years old and as obsolete as the Cadillac. Harry had probably borrowed the car from the used car lot where he worked.

I lifted the hood and felt the engine. It was warm. I could imagine Harry skulking around in the bush near Martel's house. I thought of waiting for him, but my stomach decided against it. I could check on him later at the Breakwater Hotel.

I did call on Mrs. Bagshaw before dinner. I parked beside the deserted tennis court and made my way through the dense gloom under the eucalyptus trees to her cottage. She appeared at the door in a stiff, rustling gown, with a rope of pearls lying cold on her crepe bosom.

"I was just about to go out. But I did make the call you suggested."

It seemed to have upset her. Under her rouge, or because of it, she looked years older. She said without quite meeting my eyes: "My friends in Georgetown don't know Francis Martel, at least under that name. I can't understand it. He spoke of them with such zest and familiarity. He knew all about their house."

"He could have got that information from a servant."

"But he knows Washington," she said. "I couldn't be mistaken about that. And I'm still personally convinced he knows or knew the Plimsolls - my friends in Georgetown. Perhaps he knew them under another name than Francis Martel."

"That's possible, too. Did you describe him to them?"

"It was Colonel Plimsoll I talked to, and I did make some attempt to describe him, yes. But it's difficult to describe someone, particularly these Latin types - they all look alike to me. The Colonel said if I could send him a picture of Martel - ?"

"I'm sorry, I have no picture."

"Then I don't know what I can do." Her voice was apologetic, but there was an undertone of unwanted guilt, which made it almost accusing. "I can't assume the responsibility for him, or for Miss Fablon. People have to look out for themselves in this world."

"The older ones try to look out for the younger ones, though."

"I brought up my own family," she said sharply, "sometimes under conditions which I would hesitate to describe. If Virginia made an unfortunate choice in men, it's hardly surprising. Her father did what he did when she was at a most vulnerable age. And even in life Roy Fablon was no great bargain." She shook her curls. "I'm expected for dinner now. You really must excuse me."

The word had a double meaning. Excuse. Forgive.

I walked around the pool enclosure to the main club-house. A bevy of expensive-looking people went in ahead of me. From behind the front desk Ella Strome greeted each of them by name. But she seemed a little remote, consciously out of things.

"You look like a vestal virgin."

"I've been married twice," she said dryly. "Mr. Jamieson is expecting you in the dining room."

"Let him wait. I've only been married once."

"You're not doing your duty to American womanhood," she said with a smile which failed to touch her eyes.

"You sound as if you didn't enjoy being married."

"Being married was all right, it was the men I was married to. Do I project a maternal image or something?"

"No."

"I must. I seem to attract very peculiar types. Both of my husbands were peculiar types. It couldn't be pure chance. There aren't that many peculiar types."

"Yes, there are. Speaking of peculiar types, what's your opinion of Mr. Martel?"

"I have no particular opinion. He always treated me politely."

Her hands came together on the polished black desk and pushed against each other, fingertip to fingertip. "Why don't you ask Mr. Stoll about him? He had a run-in with him, I believe."

"Who's Mr. Stoll?"

"The manager of the club."

I found him in the office behind the reception desk. The walnut-paneled walls were hung with photographs of parties and tennis matches and other sporting events. Stoll looked like a non-participant. He was a handsome cold-eyed man of forty, overdressed, with the little graces of a pleaser and a pleaser's lack of resonance. The nameplate on the desk said: "Reto Stoll, Manager."

He became quite cordial when I told him I was working for the Jamiesons. "Sit down, Mr. Archer."

He had a faint German accent. "What can I do for you?"

I sat facing him across his desk. "Mrs. Strome said you had some trouble with Martel."

"A little, yes. But it's in the past. Let bygones be bygones, particularly since Mr. Martel is leaving us."

"Is he leaving because of the trouble with you?"

"Partly, I suppose. I didn't ask him to leave on account of it. On the other hand I didn't urge him to stay when he finally announced his intention of leaving. I breathed a sigh of relief when he turned in his keys today and paid his bill."

Stoll spread his manicured hand on the front of his double-breasted waistcoat.

"Why?"

"The man was a volcano. He could erupt at any moment. We like a quiet friendly atmosphere in our club."

"Tell me about the trouble you had with him. It may be important. What did he do?"

"He offered to kill me. Do you want the whole story from the beginning?"

"Please."

"It happened several weeks ago. Mr. Martel ordered a drink brought up to his cabana. Absinthe. The bar-boy was busy so I took it up myself. I sometimes do that as a special courtesy. Miss Fablon was with him. They were talking in French. Since French is one of my native languages I hesitated behind the screen and listened. I wasn't consciously eavesdropping."

Stoll raised his eyes to the ceiling, virtuously. "But he appeared to think that I was spying on him. He jumped up and attacked me."

"With his fists?"

"With a sword."

His hand went down his body to his stomach. "He had a sword concealed in a bamboo cane."

"I've seen the cane. Did he actually stick you?"

"He held the point of it to my body."

Stoll fondled the precious curve of his belly through his striped pants. "Fortunately Miss Fablon got him calmed down, and he apologized. But I was never at ease with him in the club again."

"What were they talking about when you overheard them?"

"He was doing all the talking. It sounded to me like some kind of mysticism. He was saying how this philosopher believed that thinking was the basis of everything - la source de tout."

His mind moved back and forth between the two languages. "But Mr. Martel said the 'philosophe' was wrong. 'Realite' didn't come into being until two people thought together. So the basis of everything was 'l'amour'."

The corners of Stoll's mouth turned down. "It didn't make much sense to me."

"Did it to her?"

"Naturally. He was making love to her. That was the point. He was angry because I interrupted him in the middle of his pitch. When I think back over the episode, I'm convinced the man is psychopathological. Ordinary men don't get so excited over such a little thing."

He clenched his fist, not very tight. "I should have asked him to give up his guest privileges then and there."

"I'm surprised you didn't."

He colored faintly. "Well, you know, he is - or was - Mrs. Bagshaw's protege. She's one of our oldest members, and now she's moved into the cottage next to mine - I hated to upset her. I feel my essential role is that of a - buffer."

He raised his eyes to the ceiling again, as if the god of innkeepers resided just over his head. "I try to stand between our members and the unpleasantness of life."

"You're very good at it, I'm sure."

He accepted the compliment formally with a bow. "Thank you, Mr. Archer. The Tennis Club is known in the trade as one of the better run clubs. I've given it ten years of my life, and I was trained in the hotel schools of Zurich and Lausanne."

"What did you mean when you said that French was one of your native languages?"

He smiled. "I have four native languages. French and German and Italian and Romansch. I was born in the Romansch section of Switzerland, in Silvaplana."

His tongue caressed the name.

"Where was Martel born, Mr. Stoll?"

"I have asked myself that question. He claims to be Parisian, Mrs. Bagshaw tells me. But from what little I heard of it, his French is not Paris French. It is too provincial, too formal. Perhaps it is Canadian, or South American. I don't know. I am not a linguistic scientist."

"You're the next thing to it," I said encouragingly. "So you think he might be Canadian or South American?"

"That's just a guess. I'm not really familiar with Canadian or South American French. But I'm quite sure Martel is not Parisian."

I thanked Stoll. He bowed me out.

I had noticed a bulletin board on the wall outside his office. Pinned to its cord surface were some blownup candid pictures of people dancing at a party. Below them, like a reminder of purgatory at the gates of paradise, was a typed list of seven members who were behind with their dues. Mrs. Roy Fablon was one of them.

I mentioned this to Ella.

"Yes, Mrs. Fablon's been having a hard time recently. She told me some of her investments went sour. I hated to post her name, but those are the rules."

"It raises an interesting question. Do you think Virginia Fablon is after Martel's money."

She shook her head. "It wouldn't make sense. She was going to marry Peter Jamieson. The Jamiesons have ten times as much money as Mr. Martel ever dreamed of."

"Do you know that?"