Chasing Cezanne (26 page)

Lucy stopped at one of the stalls and made her first Parisian purchase: two tiny roses of the darkest red,
boutonnières
, which she put in the lapels of the men's jackets. “There,” she said. “Now you're ready to have your pictures taken.” They set off down the Rue Dauphine for the river and Paris's oldest bridge, named, naturally enough, the Pont Neuf.

An hour passed, a slightly silly hour of posing for Grandma Walcott against a selection of backgrounds chosen by Lucy and photographed in turn by Cyrus and Andre. When not behind the camera, each man took the part of an extra or a human prop—Andre on one knee in front of Lucy, Cyrus leering from behind a lamppost—until finally Andre was able to persuade a gendarme to take a picture of the three of them on the bridge, arms linked, the Ile de la Cite in the background. And when the gendarme agreed to have his picture taken with her, Lucy was sure it would be the talk of Barbados.

“It's funny,” she said as they were walking back to their appointment in the Rue des Saints-Pères. “All you ever hear is how snotty Parisians are. You know? Difficult,
rude, arrogant. But can you imagine getting a cop in New York to take your picture?”

“What you have to remember,” said Andre, “is that they're French first and cops second. And a proper Frenchman will always make an effort for a pretty face.”

“Quite right, too.” Cyrus looked at his watch, quickening his pace. “Is it far? I don't want to be late.”

As they were turning off the quay to go up the Rue des Saints-Pères, Paradou flicked the last of a chain of cigarette butts out of the car window, put away his magazine—several pages turned down at the corners for future reference—and concentrated on the street, looking for figures that matched the descriptions given to him by Holtz: a tall silver-haired man, well dressed; a younger man, dark, possibly with a camera; a slim, good-looking black girl. Not a difficult trio to spot. Paradou took the detonating device from the bag next to him on the passenger seat. Five to ten. Any minute now.

He saw them hurrying down from the direction of the Boulevard Saint-Germain, their faces animated and laughing, the girl almost having to run to keep up with the two men. He watched them dispassionately, seeing them not as people but as seventy-five thousand dollars on the hoof, his mind taken up with timing. Five minutes after going through the courtyard door, maybe a little more if the old one was slow up the stairs. And then,
paf!

They stopped outside the door as Cyrus took a scrap
of paper from his pocket, checking the code Franzen had given him before tapping it into the key pad. He stood aside to let the other two pass through, straightening his bow tie, a half-smile on his face. Paradou watched the door close behind them and checked his watch. He had decided to give them seven minutes.

They made their way across the courtyard and were looking for a buzzer to push by the front door, when it opened and a man came out wheeling a bicycle, a cellular phone to his ear. He brushed past them with hardly a glance, and they went through to the hallway. Cyrus consulted his scrap of paper again: top floor, right-hand door. They began to climb the stone staircase. Out on the street, Paradou's eyes never left his watch, impatient fingers tapping the steering wheel.

“Well,” said Cyrus, a little breathless as they reached the top of the stairs, “living up here would keep you fit.” Andre knocked twice; the deep note of the old brass knocker echoed against the walls; the door yielded to his touch on the handle and hung ajar. They waited, undecided.

“He must have left it open for us,” said Andre. “Come on.” He pushed open the door. “Nico! Good morning. We're here.”

They had stopped on the threshold, noses wrinkled against the pervasive smell of gas and feeling a little like trespassers, when there was the shuffle of slippered feet behind them in the hallway.

“
Il est parti
.” The voice, thin and suspicious, came from an elderly woman who had emerged from the neighboring apartment. She wiped her hands on a faded apron, bright old eyes flicking from Cyrus to Lucy to Andre. “
Parti,
” she said again.

“But he was expecting us,” said Andre.

The old woman shrugged. That was of course possible, she said, but artists were irregular and not to be relied upon. Last night, there had been comings and goings. She—being a light sleeper, you understand, not from any vulgar curiosity, although one had a duty toward one's neighbor—she had heard noises. Evidently, the sounds of departure. And, she said, sniffing the air, it was clear that someone had left the gas on. She shook her head at such careless and clandestine behavior. “
Ils sont comme ça, les artistes. Un peu dingues
.”

Paradou saw the second hand of his watch mark the end of seven minutes, and he hit the button.

The double blast ripped through the apartment like a thunderclap, destroying the kitchen, one end of the studio, the skylight, the windows, and a good part of the roof. The force of the explosion, amplified by gas, blew the front door from its hinges, picked up the group on the landing, and threw all four of them against the wall. Then there was silence, except for the thud of a falling piece of masonry and the soft rain of settling debris.

And then, from the old woman, came a torrent of abuse as she struggled to push a dazed Cyrus from his reclining position across her chest. Andre shook his head against the painful ringing in his ears, felt the touch of
Lucy's hand on his shoulder. They both spoke at once: “Are you OK?” Two relieved nods.

“Cyrus? How about you?”

“Fine. I think.” He moved an arm gingerly, provoking another squawk from the old woman. “I'm sorry, madame. I beg your pardon. Andre, do tell her it wasn't intentional.”

Slowly, they disentangled themselves. Andre helped the old woman stand up. “We must call the
pompiers
,” he said to her. “May we use your phone?”

The old woman nodded, her hands instinctively smoothing the front of her apron. “Wipe your feet before you come in.”

Even filtered by distance and muffled by walls, the roar of the explosion had sounded reassuringly loud. Paradou wondered how soon it would be before the police and the fire department arrived. And an ambulance. He needed to see the bodies. Already, three or four passersby had stopped in front of the building, staring at the closed double doors to the courtyard and telling each other that something very grave had undoubtedly taken place. It wouldn't be long before the street was sealed off and getting out would be impossible. Paradou decided to risk a ticket, leave his car on the Boulevard Saint-Germain, and come back on foot, just another ghoul attracted by someone else's disaster.

Preceded by the tinny bleat of klaxons, a fire truck turned into the street and came to a halt outside the
building, followed by a police car, and then another. Within minutes, uniformed figures had taken over the area, throwing open the double doors, pushing aside the growing knot of spectators, diverting traffic, shouting instructions over the crackling hubbub of their walkie-talkies. Paradou put on dark glasses and attached himself to a small group of people on the sidewalk opposite the building.

The uniforms split up at the top of the stairs, a squad of
pompiers
moving cautiously through the ruins of Franzen's apartment, two police officers going next door to question the four survivors. The old woman was now sufficiently recovered from her shock to be indignant and was delivering a lecture to the senior police officer—a weary-looking man with an end-of-the-shift blue chin—on the scandalous irresponsibility of her neighbor. Even now one could smell the gas. They could all have been killed,
écrasés
, and she a woman of nervous disposition, alone except for her cat.

The police officer sighed and nodded with as much sympathy as he could muster. A
pompier
put his head around the door to report the absence of any bodies in the wreckage. The long process of taking names, addresses, and depositions began.

Paradou waited in vain for the hoped-for ambulance. As the minutes passed without any signs of further explosions, bloodshed, or corpses to divert them, the spectators were gradually drifting away, making his efforts to be unobtrusive more difficult. He looked up and down the street for a refuge, before ducking into an antiquarian
bookstore, where he positioned himself near the window, camouflaged as a browser with a leather-bound volume of Racine.

The police officer referred back through the pages of his notebook and looked up, rubbing his eyes. “I don't think I need detain you any longer,” he said to Andre. “One of my men will drive you all back to your hotel. I regret that you've had such an unfortunate experience in Paris.” He turned to the old woman. “Thank you for your cooperation, madame.”

“You will want me to come down to the station, I suppose.” She sighed heavily, the dutiful citizen. “For more of your questions.”

“No, madame. That won't be necessary.”

“Oh.” She stood in the doorway to watch them leave, mild disappointment on her face.