The Hanged Man (11 page)

“Good. Shall we call it a night?”

“Have you any leads on the cat burglar?”

Now it was Rousseau's turn to play it cagey. “We're working on it.”

Achille smiled. “Very well. Good evening, Rousseau.”

“Until we meet again, Professor.”

They walked up the nave together, past a saluting gendarme, and out the door into the mild night. They stopped for a moment. Rousseau glanced up.

“A fine night, Achille. Even above the lights of the city, you can see the stars. They're like our quarry. The stars hide in plain sight, but sooner or later they reveal themselves.”

Achille looked up and smiled at Rousseau's reflective observation. “Yes, indeed; it's very fine.” He said nothing in reference to the fugitive Boguslavsky.

After a moment of stargazing, they parted and went their separate ways.

5

ROSSIGNOL

w
here am I? How long have I been here?
Viktor Boguslavsky had posed that question to himself repeatedly, obsessively, and futilely. He had no answer, not even a clue.

He sat on a rough wooden stool behind a makeshift table—a few planks across a couple of empty flour barrels. A pallet occupied a corner to his right. He had slept there, but couldn't recall for how many nights or days.

Is it night? Is it day?
He didn't know. When he'd arrived at the safe house in Montmartre, they had taken everything he had not already burned—identity papers, money, ring, watch.

“Did you burn the codebook, ciphers, and formula as we instructed?” they'd asked.

“Yes, all of it,” he'd replied. “I understand why you took my identity papers. You're providing me with a forged passport. But why take my watch, my ring, my cash?”

“You'll have a new identity; we'll provide everything you need. There mustn't be a trace of Viktor Boguslavsky left for the police.”

They'd given him a drink to calm his nerves. After a few minutes, he'd felt ill. When he'd tried to get up to go to the lavatory, he'd become dizzy, disoriented. Then he'd collapsed, unconscious.

He'd woken on the pallet in the corner.
When was that?

He turned his attention to a tin plate, covered to keep out mice and bugs. The plate had been left for him, by whom he did not know. He lifted the cover, broke off a wedge of moldy yellow cheese, and placed it on a slice of stale brown bread. He chewed a mouthful with a disgusted frown, and then washed it down with a cup of sour wine taken from a half-emptied bottle.
Why are they feeding me this shit? Prisoners in the Conciergerie eat better than this.

As bad as this place was, at least it wasn't prison. Or was it? He was in a small, low-ceilinged cellar filled with dusty, empty shelves. What sort of goods might this place have once contained? He didn't venture a guess. Gray-green mold splotched the cracked, plastered walls; two ground-level windows had been boarded up; a couple of stubby candles stuck in wine bottles provided dim light; ventilation was poor and the place stank of damp, rot, and a slop bucket that he used for a privy. He did not want to think about what he'd do once the bucket was full.
Will someone at least have the decency to empty the slops?

He heard the distant cry of a steam whistle, the chuffing and rumbling of an approaching train. The sounds grew louder, the vibration more intense until it rattled the shelves. Then it passed, and everything was silent again.
I'm near a railway line. But what does that signify? It could be anywhere. Have I already been taken across the border? Which border?

There was one entrance, a door at the top of a rickety staircase. The door was locked day and night. When he knocked, no one answered. Even when he pounded and cursed, there was no reply.

Boguslavsky had studied medicine; he knew this place was a breeding ground for disease.
How much longer must I hide in this hole?
He turned his attention to a large black spider dangling from a web spun across the tops of two contiguous shelves.
I'm like a fly trapped in a damned web. I've done what they asked. When will someone come to free me, or at least to tell me where I go from here?

The clicking of a door lock and the sliding of a bolt broke in on his thoughts. Boguslavsky turned toward the entrance. “At last,” he muttered. “Perhaps now I'll get some answers.”

The dawn sky flushed crimson. Here and there, a brilliant golden flash pierced the scattering clouds. The Butte slept half-hidden in shadows, sporadically lit by street lamps, tiny points of light winding their way uphill and down like a procession of glow-worms.

On the Rue de l'Abreuvoir, a young
chiffonier
trudged upward, following the narrow street as it snaked its way toward the summit. Hunched over, he hauled a cart filled to overflowing with rags, old clothes, and odds and ends, his gleanings from hours of labor along miles of avenues, alleys, and boulevards. Puffing with exertion, he halted for a moment alongside a mossy wall. He eased back on the cart handles carefully, so as not to spill any of his treasures on the cobblestones.

He mopped his brow on a ragged sleeve, and then took a moment to admire the tranquil beauty of the scene. Here, the street was like a tree-shaded village lane, lined with vine-covered walls, wooden fences, and brightly painted two- and three-story houses.

Above the humble skyline loomed the rising dome of an unfinished Sacré-Cœur. Completion of the Basilica had been delayed for years due to political wrangling between the Left, who considered the church an affront to the Revolutionary spirit of
Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité,
and the Right, who viewed Sacré-Cœur as a symbol of their triumph over Jacobinism, Marxism, and Anarchy. But the young
chiffonier
did not think of politics. He had spent hours scanning the pavements and gutters like a miner panning for gold, and rummaging for buried treasure in the stinking, flyblown
poubelles
. Now, for a moment he could rest his aching muscles, look up, and wonder:
How beautiful it is.

“Good morning, Moïse.”

The
chiffonier
spun around, crouched defensively and flicked out a razor with the swift agility of a tomcat baring its claws. But in an instant, his feral snarl turned to a smile of recognition. He closed the razor, rose to his normal stance, and returned the greeting.

“Good morning, M. Lefebvre. You certainly gave me a start. What are you doing up here so early in the day?”

Achille glanced around; he'd taken precautions against being shadowed, but one could never be too careful. Satisfied that they were unobserved, he said, “I want a meeting with Le Boudin, in the Zone. Can you arrange it?”

“In the Zone, Monsieur?” He eyed the well-dressed inspector critically. “You can't go looking like that.”

Achille smiled. “I don't intend to, my friend. I'll go disguised, and we'll need to take precautions against surveillance. I want to meet your boss on his own ground, for security reasons. Of course, there's something in it for you.” He paused for effect, then said, “You look like you could use a cigarette.” Achille reached into his breast pocket and took out a silver case. “Here, take a whole pack—and the case, too.”

The
chiffonier
handled the offering as though it were a holy relic. He stroked it fondly and then placed it in his pants pocket. “Thank you, Monsieur. You know, when anyone says something bad about the cops, I say ‘But then there's Inspector Lefebvre.' And they reply, ‘Ah, yes, Lefebvre's a good man. Always on the square.' Don't worry, Monsieur, I'll arrange the meeting without fail. I'll get a message to you this evening with the details.”

“Very well, Moïse. Remember, I'm counting on you.” He looked up; the sun had risen, exposing them to the full light of day. “Now, we'd better break this up before someone sees us.”

The
chiffonier
nodded. “Of course, Inspector.
Au revoir
.” Moïse reached into his pocket, opened the case, took out a cigarette, and struck a match. Then he watched Achille's back until he rounded a corner and disappeared from view.

Rejuvenated by his good fortune, the
chiffonier
raised the cart handles and began his long descent to the boulevard.

Boguslavsky rested his elbows on the crude tabletop. His greasy fingers grasped a breast of roasted chicken; his teeth tore away gobbets of crisp, golden skin, yellow fat, and tender white meat. The ravenous chemist gorged himself to the point of choking. He dropped the half-devoured hunk of fowl on its tin plate, coughed into his fist to clear his throat, and then gulped
vin ordinaire
straight from the bottle. His airway cleared of chicken meat, he then returned to his feast.

A young man attired in a fashionable bicyclist's outfit—tweed flat cap, Norfolk jacket, and plus fours—observed the Russian with smirking condescension for what he considered a pitiful display of weakness.
How can we trust a man who can't control his appetites?
Revolted by Boguslavsky's unseemly voraciousness, the young man looked down and examined his carefully manicured nails. If the Russian had not been so focused on filling his belly, he might have noticed an incongruity in the youth, his small, slender frame, fine flaxen hair, beardless cheeks, soft white skin, and effeminate gestures in sharp contrast to his hawk-like blue eyes, firmly set mouth, hard, high-pitched monotone, and supreme self-confidence.

Boguslavsky finished his meal by wiping his mouth and beard on a serviette and belching into his hand. Then he smiled sheepishly, as if apologizing for his uncivilized table manners. “I'm sorry, comrade, but you must understand my condition. I haven't had a decent meal in days. And the drug you gave me—I assume it was chloral hydrate?—made me quite ill. You must admit that the conditions in this place are deplorable, unfit for human habitation.”

The young man had brought food, wine, cigarettes, soap, towels, a pitcher and washbasin, and a couple of books for the detainee's diversion. The cellar had been swept and dusted; the vermin killed, the slop bucket emptied and disinfected.
What more does he want?
the young man thought.

“We had to work fast, comrade. You were drugged for security reasons, which I trust you appreciate. As for the conditions, they are, of course, temporary, until we can relocate you. Sorry we can't put you up at the Grand Hotel.”

Boguslavsky did not appreciate the sarcasm, but the look on the youth's face defied any challenge on that ground. But the Russian couldn't help lodging a protest couched in courtesy. “Of course, you've done what you can and I'm grateful. But I gave you everything you wanted. I even participated in the execution of an old friend to prove my loyalty. With all due respect, you owe me.” Boguslavsky tried to soften his demand with a benign smile.

“You'll get all that's coming to you, in due course,” the youth replied with an unpleasant grin. “But for now, I advocate patience.”

“But, comrade,” Boguslavsky persisted. “Before I went into hiding, I heard that Inspector Lefebvre was leading the investigation. By all accounts, he's a brilliant detective.”

The young man shook his head; the cellar rang with shrill laughter. “You overestimate the Sûreté, my friend. Compared to the Okhrana, they're nothing but a bunch of bungling amateurs. We'll have the celebrated M. Lefebvre running around in circles, chasing his tail. You have my word on it.”

Boguslavsky stared at the young man. He was struck by the way this girlish youth could inspire confidence or instill fear with a slight adjustment of attitude, a gesture, a subtle change of expression, an inflection of the voice. Finally, he replied, “Very well, comrade. I trust you implicitly.”

The young man rose from his chair and dusted off his backside fastidiously. Then he took a moment to put on a pair of leather gloves before saying laconically, “Good. You'll be well attended to from now on and should have no complaints, as long as you follow instructions.”