The Apocalypse Watch (67 page)

“
Monsieur le directeur?
”

“Yeah, that’s the guy. He says what I wrote down is
encredeebal
.”

“Get out of my way!” yelled the second guard, running up the corridor and rushing into the suite. “
Where …?
” His question was stopped by an aikido chop to his neck, followed by a two-fingered prong to the space below his ribcage, the combination leaving the guard temporarily breathless and unconscious, but again without harm. Drew pulled him over to the couch and performed the same exercise he had with the first Deuxième officer, only with necessary variations. He lay prone
on the pillows, legs and arms stretched and tied to the sofa’s feet, mouth gagged, but his head angled, with no loss of air. Latham’s final gesture was to yank out the telephones in both rooms. He was now free to begin the hunt.

H
e walked up the steps of Phyllis Cranston’s apartment house in the rue Pavée, entered the lobby, and pressed the bell for her flat. There was no answer, so he kept ringing, thinking she might be in a stupor, if Witkowski’s opinion was justified. He was about to give up, when an obese, elderly woman came out of the locked hallway, noticed the button he was pressing, and spoke in French.

“You looking for the Butterfly?”

“I’m not sure I understand you.”

“
Ah, Américain
. Your French is terrible,” she added in English. “I was the sorriest woman in Paris when your airdromes left France.”

“You know Miss Cranston?”

“Who here does not? She’s a sweet thing and once was very pretty, as I was. Why should I tell you anything else?”

“Because I have to speak with her, it’s urgent.”

“Because you’re ‘horny,’ as you Americans call it? Let me tell you, monsieur, she may have the malady, but she is no whore!”

“I’m not looking for a whore, madame. I’m trying to find someone who can give me information I need very quickly, and that person is Phyllis Cranston.”

“
Hmm
,” mused the old woman, studying Drew. “You are not looking to take advantage of her because of her malady? If you are, you should know that her friends in this building protect her. She is, as I said, sweet and kind and helps out people who need help. We are not poor here, but many of us are close to being so, what with the taxes and the high prices. The Butterfly is free with her
American money and never asks for repayment. On her days off she cares for children so their mothers can work. You will not harm her, not
here
.”

“I don’t want to harm her, and I’m not looking for a Mother Teresa. I told you, I want to find her because she may have information I need.”

“Do not mention
catholique
to me, monsieur. I am a Catholic, but we told that filthy priest to stay away from her!”

Bingo
, thought Latham.

“A priest?”

“He took advantage of her, he
still
takes advantage of her!”

“How?”

“He comes late at night, and the absolution he’s looking for is between his two legs!”

“She accepts him?”

“She feels she has no choice. He’s her confessor.”

“Son of a
bitch
! Listen to me, I
have
to find her. I’ve spoken to that priest and he gave me her name. Not for the reason you might think, only because he may have said things to her he shouldn’t have said.”

“And who are you?”

“Someone who, believe it or not, is fighting France’s battle as much as I am my own country’s. The Nazis, madame, the goddamned Nazis are beginning to march again all over Europe! I know that sounds melodramatic, but it’s true.”

“I was a small child and saw them execute people in the streets,” said the old woman, whispering, her lined face pinched. “They can do it again?”

“They’re a long way from it, but we’ve got to stop them
now
.”

“How is our Butterfly involved?”

“She was given information she may have innocently imparted to others. Or perhaps not innocently. That’s as honest as I can be. If she’s not here, where is she?”

“I was about to tell you to go to Les Trois Couronnes, a café down the street, but it is past midnight, and you need not go there. She’s right behind you, being helped up the
steps by her neighbor, Monsieur Du Bois. As is quite apparent, her malady is that she drinks too much wine. There are things she has to forget, monsieur, and she does it with wine.”

“Do you know what they are?”

“It is not my business to know, and what I know I keep to myself. We take care of our Butterfly, here.”

“Will you accompany me to her flat so you can see for yourselves, both you and Monsieur Du Bois, that I mean no harm to her? That I merely want to ask her a few questions?”

“You will not be alone with her, I can assure you of that. There’ll be no priests in fancy street clothing.”

Phyllis Cranston was a diminutive woman of forty-five or fifty, her figure compact, even athletic. Although unsteady on her feet, each foot was planted firmly, defiantly, both admitting and denying her state of drunkenness.

“So who’s going to make some
coffee
?” she demanded in a solidly nasal midwestern American accent as she fell back in a chair at the far end of her flat, her companion, Du Bois, at her side.

“I’ve got it on the stove, Butterfly, don’t you worry,” said the old woman from the lobby.

“Just who is this creep?” asked Cranston, gesturing at Latham.

“An American,
mon chou
, who knows that dirty priest we told you to stay away from.”

“That pig forgives old broads like me, because we’re the only women he can get! Is this bastard one of them? Did he come here to get his rocks off?”

“I’m the last person you could imagine being a priest,” said Drew softly, calmly. “And as to sexual satisfaction, I’m very much committed to a lady who takes care of those needs and whom I expect to stay with for the rest of my life, with or without religious sanction.”

“Boy, you sound like a real square! Where are you from, baby?”

“Connecticut, originally. Where are you from? Indiana or Ohio, or maybe northern Missouri?”

“Hey, you’re pretty much on target, macho-boy. I’m a St. Louis girl, born and brought up in the parochial system—what a drag, right?”

“I wouldn’t know.”

“But how did you know I was from that part of the good old U.S.A.?”

“Your accent. I’m trained to spot such things.”

“No kidding?… Hey, thanks for the java, Eloise.” The embassy secretary accepted the mug of coffee and took several sips, shaking her head after each. “I guess you figure I’m a real loser, don’t you?” she continued, looking at Latham, then suddenly sitting up, staring at him. “Wait a minute, I
know
you! You’re the Cons-Op officer!”

“That’s right, Phyllis.”

“What the hell are you
doing
here?”

“Father Manfried Neuman, he gave me your name.”

“That
prick
! So you could
fire
me?”

“I see no reason to fire you, Phyllis—”

“Then why are you here?”

“Father Neuman, that’s why. He told you who a Colonel Webster was, didn’t he? That he was a deep-cover American intelligence officer from the embassy who was going underground with a new identity, a new appearance. He told you that, didn’t he?”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake, he was so full of shit, you couldn’t find an outhouse big enough. He did that all the time, especially when he got so excited I thought he’d tear my bottom apart. It was like he was playin’ God, telling secrets only God would know, and then when he came off, exploded, he’d grab my face and say God would condemn me to the fires of hell if I ever repeated what he said.”

“Why are you telling me now?”

“
Why?
” Phyllis Cranston drank a large portion of her coffee. She answered simply. “Because my friends here explained to me that I was a damn fool. I’m a good person, Mr. Whatever-your-name-is—and I have a problem which is confined to these few streets. So go to hell.”

“Beyond the obvious, what is your problem, Phyllis?”

“I will answer that for you, Monsieur
Américain
,” said the old lady. “This bilingual child of French parents lost her husband and three children in the American Midwest floods of ’ninety-one. The raging river by their house destroyed everything. Only she survived, clinging to the rocks until rescued. Why do you think she looks after the children here whenever she can?”

“I have to ask her one more question, the only question, really.”

“What is it, Mr. Latham—that is your name, isn’t it?” said Phyllis Cranston, sitting up, now more exhausted than drunk.

“After Father Neuman told you who I was—whom did
you
tell?”

“I’m trying to remember.… Yeah, in the peak of a hangover, I told Bobby Durbane in the comm center, and a lower-pool stenographer I hardly know, not even her name.”

“Thank you,” said Latham. “And good night, Phyllis.”

Drew walked down the steps of the apartment house in the rue Pavée; a bewildered man. He had no idea who the pool stenographer could be, but her status hardly suggested much influence. Robert Durbane, however, was a shock. Bobby Durbane, the gray fox of the comm center, the veteran expert of ethereal communications, the man who only days earlier had Drew on his mysterious grids and sent out embassy vehicles to rescue him from a neo assault? It was beyond understanding. Durbane was the quiet man, the ascetic, the intellectual who pored over his esoteric crossword puzzles and double crostics, who was so generous to his crew that he frequently took the midnight-to-dawn shifts so his subordinates could get some rest from the daily bombardments.

Or was there another Robert Durbane, a far more secretive one? A man who chose the deserted, early morning hours so he could send his own messages through the ether to others who precalibrated his unknown frequencies and read his codes. And why had the armed embassy cars with all their firepower arrived barely a minute after
the Nazi limousine had swung around the street, spraying their bullets everywhere, killing a neo named
C-Zwölf
? Had
Bobby Durbane
orchestrated the would-be massacre by alerting the Nazis first? These were questions that had to be answered; the unknown embassy pool stenographer had to be tracked down as well. Both could wait until morning; now it was time for Father Neuman’s adviser, Antoine Lavolette, retired priest and former intelligence cryptanalyst.

The address was easily gotten from the telephone book. Latham found a vacant taxi two blocks east. It was nearly one o’clock in the morning, just the hour, he decided, to confront the elderly Father Lavolette, defrocked man of God, who possessed secrets that might have to be pried out of him.

The house in the quai de Grenelle was a substantial three-story structure of white stone and freshly painted strips of green wood, bringing to mind a Mondrian canvas. The owner also had to be substantial, at least in income, for the neighborhood rivaled the avenue Montaigne in upscale opulence; it was not for the marginally rich, only the rich. The former cryptanalyst and retired man of the cloth had done very well for himself in the material world.

Drew walked up the short flight of steps to the enameled green door, the shining brass of the bell plate and the knob casement glistening in the wash of the street lamps. He rang the bell and waited; it was twenty-six minutes after one o’clock in the morning. At 1:29 the door was opened by a startled woman in a bathrobe; she was perhaps in her late thirties, her light brown hair mussed from sleep.

“My God, what do you want at this hour?” she blurted out in French. “The household is asleep!”

“
Vous parlez anglais?
” asked Latham, holding out his black-bordered embassy identification, a document that was both reassuring and intimidating.

“
Un peu
,” replied the apparent housekeeper nervously.

“I must see Monsieur Lavolette. It’s a matter of great importance and cannot wait until morning.”

“You stay outside, I’ll get my husband.”

“He’s Monsieur Lavolette?”

“No, he is the
patron
’s chauffeur … among other things. He also speaks
anglais
more better. Outside!”

The door was slammed shut, forcing Drew out on the small brick porch. The only comforting fact was that the woman turned on the carriage lights that flanked the entrance. Moments later the door opened again, revealing a large, heavyset man, also in a bathrobe, broad of face and with a chest and shoulders that qualified him as a potential linebacker who would not need much padding. Beyond his menacing size, Latham’s eyes were drawn to the bulge in his right bathrobe pocket; the black steel of an automatic’s handle was clearly visible through the gap at the top.

“What business do you have with the
patron
, monsieur?” asked the man in a surprisingly gentle voice.

“Government business,” answered Drew, again holding out his identification. “It can be relayed only to Monsieur Lavolette himself.” The chauffeur took the ID and studied it in the foyer’s light.

“The American government?”

“My branch is intelligence, I work with the Deuxième.”

“
Ahh
, the Deuxième, the Service d’Etranger, the secret corps of the Sûreté, and now the Americans. When will you leave the
patron
alone?”

“He’s a man of great experience and wisdom, and there are always urgent matters.”

“He’s also an old man who needs his sleep, especially since his wife passed away. He spends exhausting hours in his chapel speaking to her and God.”

“Still, I
have
to see him. He’d want me to; a friend of his could be in terrible trouble over an event that concerns the governments of France and the United States.”

“You people always scream ‘emergency,’ and when your conditions are met, you sit on the information for weeks, months, even years.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because I worked for you people for years, and that’s all I’ll say about it. Tell me, why should I believe you?”

“Because, goddammit, I’m here! At one-thirty in the morning.”