Hotel Pastis (38 page)

Simon put the phone down and looked through his messages. Two calls from Caroline in Antibes. A call from Enrico. A journalist wanting an interview, preferably over lunch in the hotel restaurant. A formidable bar bill, unpaid for several days, signed with a flourish by Uncle William. Simon pushed the scraps of paper away and went to look for Ernest and Françoise. They’d know, if anyone did, what Boone was up to.

The General was having a problem deciding on the exact figure. He’d started relatively low, at a million francs, and then reconsidered. A kidnap, even an involuntary one like this, was a serious crime with serious penalties. A big risk—and it should have a big reward, enough to set them all up for life. He opened the French-English dictionary that he’d bought before coming down to the barn and looked across the trestle table at Boone’s unshaven, wary face.

“Alors, jeune homme. Votre famille—”
he pointed to the word in the dictionary—“
est où?
Where?”

“America. New York City, but my daddy travels a
lot.” Boone made one of his hands take off from the table.
“Beaucoup d’avion.”

The General nodded, and licked his index finger, turning over the pages until he came to the word he was looking for. He was interested to find that it was almost the same. “
Votre papa
. Rich?”

Boone had passed another uncomfortable and frightening night in the company of the big man called Claude and that mean little mother who kept playing with a knife. This guy seemed reasonable, unthreatening, almost friendly. Now that it looked as though they weren’t going to slice him up, he felt an enormous flood of relief.

“Sure he’s rich.” Boone nodded encouragingly. “Loaded.”

The General frowned and turned to L.

Boone shifted his position on the hard chair. He ached from sleeping on the dirt floor. What were they going to do with him? Sounded like ransom, and his relief faded as he remembered stories he’d read in the papers of kidnappers sending fingers and ears through the mail to encourage prompt payment. Shoot. He’d better do all he could to keep this guy friendly. Maybe they’d let him call Simon. He could help, and he was close.

“
Monsieur? J’ai un ami, anglais
. Runs the Hotel Pastis in Brassiere.
Je téléphone?
” Boone held his hand up to his ear. “He’s loaded too.
Pas de problème
.” He did his best to smile.

For another hour, the dictionary passed back and forth across the table as the General gradually discovered what he needed to know. It looked promising—promising, but complicated. They’d need to get out of France very quickly, and they’d need false passports. That meant a trip to Marseille and a bucket of cash. The General mentally added another million to the ransom
and wondered whether Boone’s English friend was capable of raising that much in a short time.

“Bon.”
The General closed the dictionary and lit a cigarette. The young man had been a piece of bad luck, but it might all work out very well. It was true what they showed on the
télé
—Texans were rich.

He turned to the Borels and Jojo, who were on the day shift. “I’ve got to go and make a few calls. I’ll be back in an hour or so with some food.” He nodded towards Boone. “I don’t think he’ll try anything.”

Jojo came closer to the General, so he could whisper. “What are we going to do with him?”

“Sell him, my friend.” The General stroked his moustache with the back of his hand. “Sell him back to his rich papa.”

Jojo shook his head in admiration.
“C’est pas con.”

The General always saved telephone numbers. It was the habit of a methodical man, a man who thought ahead. One never knew when a contact from the past might come in useful. He placed the call to a bar in the Vieux Port in Marseille, and a voice he’d last heard in prison answered.

“I need a small service,” the General said. “It’s delicate, you know? I was wondering if that friend of yours could help.”

The voice sounded guarded. “Which friend?”

“The
patron
. Enrico.”

“What kind of service?”

“Immigration. I need some passports in a hurry.”

“I’ll have a word. Where can I reach you?”

The General gave him a number, and then added, “Listen, I can call him myself.”

“Better if I talk to him.”

Better for whom? the General thought. Greedy bastard. Everybody wants a cut these days. “Thanks. I appreciate it.”

The voice laughed. “What are friends for?”

Simon finished a hurried dinner and took a glass of Calvados up to the reception office to sustain him through the disagreeable conversation ahead of him. Caroline had left a third message, hinting at an urgent problem and leaving a number where she could be reached on Cap d’Antibes.

He made the mistake of asking her if she was enjoying herself. She wasn’t. The boat was cramped and uncomfortable, she’d been seasick twice, and the boat’s owner, Jonathan’s friend, was behaving like Captain Bligh. But that was nothing compared to the news she had just received from London.

It was all Jonathan’s fault, Caroline said with the unshakeable conviction of the woman who is never wrong. An investment opportunity he’d recommended. A sure thing, he’d said—until yesterday, when he’d had a call saying that the company had gone down the drain, taking Caroline’s hard-earned alimony with it. And now she was destitute.

Simon made his second mistake and asked if she’d thought of getting a job. There was a shocked silence as Caroline looked into the abyss of regular employment, and Simon held the phone away from his ear in anticipation of the tirade to come.

He endured it up to the point where the lawyers, never too far from Caroline’s thoughts, were summoned as reinforcements, and then gently put the phone down.

It rang almost immediately. Simon finished his Calvados. The phone continued to ring. Shit.

“Caroline, we’ll talk about this when you’ve calmed down.”

“Monsieur Shaw?” A man’s voice, French.

“Oui.”

“Monsieur Shaw, I have a friend of yours.”

There was a pause, and then a strained voice came on the line. “Simon? It’s Boone.”

“Boone! Where the hell are you? We were worried about you.”

“I don’t know, man. In some phone booth in the middle of nowhere. Simon, there are these guys—”

“Are you okay?”

“So far. Listen—”

The phone was taken away from Boone; Simon heard the mutter of other voices, and then the Frenchman came back on the line.

“Pay attention, Monsieur Shaw. The young man is not harmed. He can be released very quickly. You will make the organisation.” There was the clink of another coin being fed into the slot. “Monsieur Shaw?”

“I’m listening.”

“
Bon
. You will arrange ten million French francs, in cash. You understand?”

“Ten million.”

“In cash. I will telephone tomorrow night at the same time with the instructions for delivery. And Monsieur Shaw?”

“Yes?”

“Don’t talk to the police. That would be a mistake.”

The line went dead. Simon sat for a few moments, remembering Boone’s voice, tight and scared. He looked at his watch. Late afternoon in New York—if Boone’s
father was in New York. And if he knew the number. He started to call international enquiries and then changed his mind. Ziegler would have the number.

“Bob? Simon Shaw.”

“Is this important? I’m up to my ass over here.”

“It’s Parker’s son. He’s been kidnapped.”

“Holy shit.” Ziegler switched off his squawk box and picked up the phone. His voice sounded close and irritated. “Are you sure?”

“He’s been missing from school for a couple of days. I just had a call from the people who’ve got him. I spoke to Boone too. Yes, I’m sure.”

“Jesus. Have you told the police?”

“No police. Listen, I’ve got to talk to Parker. They want ten million francs to let him go, and they want it in twenty-four hours.”

“What’s that in money?”

“Nearly two million dollars. Give me Parker’s number in New York.”

“Forget it. He’s on his way to Tokyo. Left this morning.”

“Shit.”

“You’re goddamn right, shit.”

Simon could hear the laughter of some guests as they came up from the bar and wished each other goodnight. “Bob, I don’t have ten million francs in my back pocket. Can the agency put up the money?”

Ziegler’s voice sounded reluctant. “It’s a lot of dough.”

Simon decided to appeal to Ziegler’s humanitarian instincts. “It’s a big client, Bob.”

There was a pause while Ziegler considered the possible benefits that might come from providing an urgent personal service to Hampton Parker. If that didn’t lock the account in for ten years, nothing would.

Ziegler made up his mind. “The important thing is the kid, right? Human life is at stake here. Let it never be said that this agency doesn’t have a fucking heart.” Ziegler was making notes as he spoke. This would make a terrific press release. “Okay. We’ll wire the money over to your bank, and I’ll get hold of Parker somehow and fill him in. Stay by the phone. He’ll probably want to talk to you.”

Simon gave Ziegler the details of his bank in Cavaillon. “It’s got to be here by this time tomorrow, Bob. Okay?”

“Sure, sure.” The tone of Ziegler’s voice changed. “There’s just one detail.”

“What’s that?”

“Security for the money. I’m CEO of this agency, responsible to the shareholders. If I start raiding the till for two million bucks, my ass could be in a sling.”

Simon could hardly believe what he heard. “For Christ’s sake, Bob—the boy could be killed while you’re pissing around arranging a bloody mortgage!”

Ziegler continued as though he hadn’t heard. “Tell you what I’ll do.” His voice became breezy, almost cheerful. “I’ll cut a corner here. I’ll get legal to fax you over a one-page agreement. Just sign it and fax it back. That’ll cover me. Then we’ll wire the money.”

“Sign what and fax it back?”

“Call it insurance, buddy. You pledge your shares in the agency, you get your money.”

Simon was speechless.

“I’ll get on to it right now. You should have the fax in an hour, okay? Talk to you soon.”

Simon went down to the bar and made for the Calvados. Nicole and Ernest, sitting at a table going over the evening’s bills, watched him as he took a glass and a
bottle and came over to join them. He told them the news in a flat, matter-of-fact voice. And then they sat, asking each other unanswerable questions about the kidnappers and Boone, waiting.

The fax came through. Simon barely read it before signing it and sending it back. He’d heard somewhere that faxes weren’t considered binding, but Ziegler probably had the whole legal department working on that at the moment. Little bastard.

Simon told Nicole and Ernest to go to bed and sat in the office with a pot of coffee waiting for the phone to ring.

The call finally came at four in the morning, Hampton Parker’s voice sounding thin with worry. Simon heard the intake of breath as he drew on a cigarette. He was at Tokyo airport, waiting for his plane to be refuelled and the flight plan to Paris approved. From there, he’d charter something smaller to get down to Avignon. He’d be bringing two men with him. They’d need somewhere to stay. He spoke in a controlled, mechanical way about details until the end of the conversation.

“You don’t think they’ve hurt him?”

“No,” Simon said, with as much conviction as he could find. “He said he was fine. He sounded a bit shaken, that’s all.”

“He’s my only boy, you know. The rest are girls. He’s a good boy, too.”

“We all like him very much.”

“Those sons of bitches.”

“Try not to worry. We’ll do everything they ask.”

“Appreciate it. I’ll talk to you from Paris.”

There was nothing to do but go to bed and wait for tomorrow, but Simon was wide awake, agitated by tension and too much coffee. He went back to the house
and upstairs to the bedroom. Nicole was breathing softly, one brown arm across his pillow. He bent down to kiss her shoulder, and she smiled in her sleep.

The bedroom was hot, despite the open windows. All through the first half of July, temperatures had been above a hundred, and even the thick stone walls of the house felt warm. Simon undressed, stood under a cool shower for five minutes, and went downstairs with a towel round his waist. He opened the door to the terrace and moved a chair so that he could sit facing the dawn, thinking evil thoughts about the possibility of Caroline being kidnapped. She’d probably give the kidnappers one of her monologues and her lawyer’s phone number, and
they’d
pay to get rid of her. Maybe they’d accept Ziegler in part exchange. Simon yawned and rubbed at the grittiness in his eyes and blinked as the first blinding sliver of sun appeared over the deep blue mass of the mountain. It was going to be another hot and beautiful day, wonderful weather for arranging a ten million–franc ransom. He stretched, felt the rattan chair bite into his back, and heard someone down in the village greeting the morning with the prolonged, racking rasp of a forty-a-day cough.

T
he two detectives were waiting for Simon when he arrived at the hotel just before nine. The director of the school at Lacoste, knowing nothing of the kidnap but becoming increasingly worried about his missing student, had called in the police. Once the nationality and the financial eminence of the student’s father had been disclosed, responsibility for the investigation had been passed upwards from the local
gendarmerie
. And now Avignon’s finest, short and dark and longing for coffee, had arrived to deal with the case of the missing boy.

Simon showed them in to the reception office and was aware of eau de cologne and garlic. His offer of coffee was gratefully accepted, the sight of Françoise as 
she bent to put the tray on the desk noted and enjoyed; cigarettes were lit, and the notebooks came out.

“Before you ask any questions,” Simon said, “I think I have to tell you what has happened.”

At first, the detectives were pleased. Only in a professional sense, of course, but now the case had assumed some real importance. A missing person, even a missing person from a rich American family, was one thing. A kidnapped person, however, was something altogether more exciting. They were no longer investigating a possible accident; they were in at the start of a certain crime. Glory and promotion, the gratitude of a billionaire father, even a brief, stern-faced appearance on national television—all these thoughts passed through the minds of the detectives as they listened carefully and made notes, stopping only to ask for more coffee and another sight of the quite admirable bottom and tanned legs of Françoise. What a stroke of luck, they thought, that they hadn’t been given the bank job at Isle-sur-Sorgue instead.