The Cézanne Chase (30 page)

Her last words to LeToque were spoken as if she were reading a script and reading it badly. She replaced the receiver. “I don't know if he will go to the hotel,” she said.

Aukrust stared down at her. “He will go.”

She shook her head. “He wanted to know why. You didn't tell me, and I couldn't tell him.”

Gaby was trapped in the small booth. The air was hot and heavy with their perspiration and her cheap perfume. He pocketed the knife, then took her arm and backed out of the booth. In the lobby he told her to wait while he talked to a woman behind the desk then returned and said, “A taxi will be here shortly. It will take you to the Hôtel Gounod.” He put money into her hand.

“But you said I could drive to the hotel.”

“I've changed my mind.” He moved toward the door.

“But LeToque's car—what will I tell him?”

“You just told him you had an accident.”

“The Hôtel Gounod,” he reminded her. He drove the Porsche back to the shopping plaza, parked it in an unlighted area, then went to his own car.

It was nearing 7:45 and dark. There were lights in every room in Weisbord's house, including bright lights on either side of the front door. The garage was open but Weisbord's car was not in it. LeToque would be nearing the center of Nice. Aukrust parked his car at the foot of the driveway.

Voices came from somewhere along the street, a car door slammed closed, and the car was driven away. At the back of the house was a flight of wooden steps that went up to an open porch that ran the full width of the house. There were eight steps, and he went up half of them until he could see the windows in each of the three rooms along the rear of the house: the kitchen to his right, in the middle a dining room, to the left Weisbord's study. Aukrust's view into the latter room was partially blocked by curtains.

The housekeeper carried a tray of dishes into the kitchen and turned up the volume on an old black-and-white television. Flickering bluish images reflected off shining kitchen surfaces and her implacable face. He climbed the remaining steps onto the porch then went across the porch to the single large window in the study. The lawyer was at his desk, papers spread in front of him, lights shining from table and floor lamps. From where Aukrust stood, he could clearly see that Weisbord was underscoring the text of a letter or a contract. Smoke rose up from an ever-present cigarette teetering on the edge of a huge ashtray.

Suddenly Weisbord swiveled his chair and got to his feet. “Idi!” he shouted. “Idi, damnit, come here!” His shouting gave way to a fit of
coughing, and he managed to shout the name once more before he fell back into his chair.

Idi came to the doorway of his office, where she stood patiently, wiping her hands on a blue-and-white striped apron. “Oui?” she said simply, waiting for the wracking cough to subside.

“Has LeToque come back?”

“Non, monsieur.”

“Have you turned on all the lights?”

“Like you told me,” Idi replied.

“I told him not to go off, he'll pay for it, the bastard. Bring me a pitcher of water,” he commanded.

Weisbord went out of view for several seconds and returned to his desk holding a length of plastic tubing. He inserted the fittings into his nose, holding them in place by a strip of black elastic he slipped around his head.

Idi returned with a pitcher of fresh water, put it on his desk, and took an empty pitcher away.

Aukrust went quietly and quickly down the steps and out to his car where he took his medicine case and long, black raincoat from the back seat. He walked boldly to Weisbord's front door. By all outward appearances he might be an old acquaintance carrying a strange-looking little suitcase. Time was important; it was a few minutes before eight.

LeToque went through the revolving doors into the Hôtel Gounod and stopped in front of the concierge's desk beneath an ancient, ornate clock. He described Gaby to the second-shift concierge and received a “haven't-seen-her” shrug with upraised hands; then he went into the restaurant and was about to barge into the ladies room when Gaby rushed up and threw her arms around him.

“Where's Aukrust?”

“I don't know,” she continued to hug him. “I was frightened. It's his eyes and the way he talks and the knife,” she rambled on, rubbing at her tears and smudging blue eye-shadow over her cheeks. “He said that Weisbord told lies to the man at the art gallery in Geneva.”

“Aukrust's the liar,” LeToque said angrily.

“He took your car.”

“He called the police? You heard him?”

“No,” Gaby said in her frightened little voice.

Aukrust rapped with the lion's head knocker again. The door opened eight inches, all that the thick chain would allow. He stood in the light and greeted the housekeeper with his most disarming smile.

“Hello again. I've come back to pay respects to my old friend. Is Monsieur Weisbord home?”

Idi looked up at the big man, who stared back pleasantly at her. He wanted her to smile, to be unafraid. “You remember I was here—when was it? Last Tuesday, of course; you were taking the baskets out to the curb.”

There was a pause before she nodded. “I remember.”

“I'm leaving tomorrow, and this evening was free, so I've come again to surprise Freddy.”

The chain was strong, and the door was heavy. He could crash against it once, perhaps twice, but there was no certainty he could break the lock. He patted his leather case. “I have a bottle of his favorite wine.”

Idi looked at the medicine case, then her eyes moved slowly up to his face and stopped to inspect the bandages on his ear. He turned his head, his smile frozen.

 

LeToque pushed Gaby ahead of him into the hotel's revolving doors and when they were on the street, he began to run. “Hurry,” he shouted, “he's after the painting.”

 

The faintest glimmer of a smile showed on Idi's placid face. She closed the door, slid the chain away, then let the door swing open. Aukrust tilted his head in a bow of silent appreciation then walked past Idi into the front hallway. A stairway to the right circled its way to the second floor. Behind the stairs, the hall extended to the dining room with a door on the left, which, he was certain, led to the kitchen, and a door to the right, which would lead to Weisbord's study.

He put two fingers on his lips, inviting the housekeeper to share in the surprise, then whispered, “Show me where I can find him. I promise not to frighten him.”

Idi gestured to follow her. “He is in there.” She pointed to a door that was off a short jog in the hall.

Aukrust said, “And the kitchen is there?” He pointed to it, and
she nodded. “That's where you'll be?” She nodded again. “I'll come for glasses if he wants to taste the wine.”

He stopped outside the study and waited for Idi to go into the kitchen—go back to your damned television, he thought—smiling at her, waiting until she backed away. He remained by the door until he heard music and voices coming from the television then went back to the front hall and up to the second floor.

During all the hours he had kept the house under observation, Aukrust imagined the size and purpose of each room. He had guessed correctly that Weisbord's bedroom was the center room in the front of the house. He felt along the wall for a light switch. A single bulb in a ceiling fixture illuminated a collection of heavy furniture, including a wide bed flanked by two night tables and, as Gaby had described, the portrait on the wall over the bed, suspended from the same nail that had most likely held a crucifix while Cécile was alive. He placed the painting face down on the bed, peeled back the heavy protective paper, and removed four screws that held the stretcher and canvas to the frame. He folded his raincoat around the painting, pushed the frame under the bed, turned off the light and returned to the hallway on the first floor. Everything was as he left it seven minutes before, except that the television blared even louder.

Slowly he turned the handle on the study door then leaned against it until the door was open several inches. Sounds in the room were a gentle rustling of papers and an occasional small eruption of Weisbord's wheeze. He opened the door wider, enough to see Weisbord in profile, still bent over his work. He let himself into the room and closed the door. His back was against a row of bookshelves, and he crouched and moved toward the old lawyer. Now he could hear the gentle hiss of the oxygen as it passed through the valve on top of the cylinder.

Several more feet and he could touch the oxygen flow regulator. He put on a pair of cotton gloves, then knelt next to the cylinder. The gauge in the flow regulator was set at two in a calibration from one to eight, and he turned the regulator to eight. Weisbord was now receiving a maximum flow of oxygen, a seemingly acceptable condition; however, Aukrust knew that too much oxygen would cause a decrease in respiration and an increase in the retention of carbon dioxide. Because Weisbord had not reached a critical point with his emphysema, the rich oxygen infusion he was receiving would induce a momentary euphoria, followed by drowsiness.

Aukrust pulled his medicine case next to him and took out a
green cylinder the size of a portable oxygen supply. But instead of oxygen, the unmarked cylinder contained nitrogen.

LeToque flashed his lights, then pressed hard on the accelerator, veered left, and sideswiped the oncoming car. Glass and chrome sprinkled over the street like sparkling confetti. LeToque braked and jumped from the car to find there was a hole where the left headlight had been but apparently no puncture in the radiator. The other driver stormed over to register an angry complaint, but LeToque pushed him aside, got into the car and drove away. It was 8:21.

 

Weisbord had slumped back in his chair, struggling to stay awake, noticing dimly that the tubes had come loose. Clumsily, he put the cannula back into his nose and looked with lazy puzzlement at the tubing that snaked across his stomach and over his legs. Then his head sagged, enough to signal that he had fallen asleep. Aukrust separated the plastic tubing from the oxygen supply and inserted it into the fitting on top of the cylinder of nitrogen.

He turned the valve, sending nitrogen into Weisbord's badly weakened lungs. Ninety seconds of pure nitrogen, and the buildup of carbon dioxide would reach the danger level. Continued intake of the nitrogen would create cyanosis: His skin would turn blue, and he would die.

 

LeToque broke clear of the clogged city traffic. Weisbord's conservative sedan lacked the power of LeToque's Porsche, and he swore at the unexpected traffic that slowed his progress. He turned onto the Boulevard Gambetta, south of the Saint Étienne district.

“How much longer?” Gaby asked.

“Five minutes, without these fucking cars.”

 

Weisbord was dead. Put plainly, he had suffocated. Aukrust picked him up as if he were no more than a child's body and placed him in the oversize-chair, where it seemed that Frédéric Weisbord had been reduced to a final insignificance. Then Aukrust reattached the tubing to the oxygen cylinder.

He picked up the phone and asked for the police.

“I am calling from Monsieur Frédéric Weisbord's home. He's had a severe attack of his lung illness, and I can't find a pulse, but I'm
not a doctor. Can you send an ambulance?” He gave the address then in answer to a question said, “A friend.” Then he put down the receiver, took off his gloves, and slipped them into a pocket.

Aukrust followed the sound of the television into the kitchen, where, showing great agitation, he called Idi into the study.

“I have called the police.... It was so terrible. We were talking, he was happy to see me. Then the coughing, and he had a terrible seizure. I'm surprised you didn't hear.”

“No, the television. But he always coughed.” Idi spoke as if it didn't matter what she said or what the stranger who had come to surprise Monsieur Weisbord said or even that Monsieur Weisbord had suffered a fatal seizure. She pressed two fingers against the side of his neck and leaned down to listen for any sound of breathing. Then she straightened. “He's dead,” she said with utter simplicity.

Aukrust gestured helplessly. “I was about to open the wine. I told you it was his favorite.” He wiped the bottle with his handkerchief as if to make it a more presentable gift. “It's yours.” He placed it on the desk.

Aukrust picked up his raincoat and medicine case, looked carefully about the study, then walked past the housekeeper and let himself out the front door. He ran to his car; when he reached it the time was 8:41.

A siren sounded in the distance. Then another, the two-note hee-haw of a police siren. The sounds became louder. Lights came on in houses up and down the street. Then came flashing lights, and an ambulance pulled into the driveway, a police car immediately behind it.