“New identity in your bag, I assume?”
“That’s the wonderful thing about Europe now. One can flit about from country to country and not worry about passports and such.”
“You’ll need one to get into Switzerland.”
Pendrith smiled. “Oh, you are a clever chap.”
“I don’t know where else a man on the run would keep his money. They will find you.”
“Probably, sooner or later. But if it’s later, then all to the good. Gives me time to write my memoirs, set the record straight.” He stood. “I want you to know, Hugo, I didn’t kill any of them. Not one.”
“Then why can’t you tell me what’s going on? If you’re innocent, I can help you, Pendrith, for God’s sake—”
Pendrith shook his head, a sad smile on his face. “I didn’t say I was innocent, now did I?”
“Then—”
“Don’t be the first, old boy. I don’t want your blood on my hands, any more than I wanted those others. Don’t follow me, you know perfectly well that I’ll see if you do.” He patted his pocket. “And I really don’t want to see you.”
“Pendrith, two movie stars are dead. Every cop on the planet will be hunting for you. God knows what kind of reward, or even how many rewards, will be offered for your capture. If you didn’t kill anyone then you know as well as I do there is a very good chance—”
“Fine.” Pendrith held up a hand. “You’re right. Look, I have to take care of some things first, though. Meet me back here in an hour.”
“How do I know you’ll be here?”
“You don’t. But it’s the best offer you’re going to get.”
Hugo nodded, then watched through the large window as Pendrith passed in front of the café and headed north toward the River Seine, away from his apartment. The old man walked with his hands thrust deep into his pockets and his shoulders hunched forward, as if trying to make himself smaller, as if afraid a pair of eyes other than Hugo’s might be watching.
Hugo waited for five minutes, then paid for his food and left. He walked the same way Pendrith had gone, cursing when he saw a side road that curved back toward the old man’s building. He did go there, after all. Hugo kept straight, though, intending to keep his word and be back at the café in one hour. He thought about staying put, keeping his vantage point over the front of the place. But to what end? Hugo was sure there’d be a back exit, which Pendrith would use now that he knew Hugo was there. And if he did have a gun, there was an outside chance he’d use it.
In any case, an hour sitting and waiting would be torture. Better to get his Paris fix, to exercise his legs and his mind and let the chill November air work its magic on his senses. He crossed the busy intersection with Boulevard Saint-Germain, where the aromas of Paris welcomed him as he passed by, the warm smell of baking, the mustiness of the cheese shop, and the fresh, almost metallic, smells of the poissonerie, the fish shop, and its neighbor, the butcher.
And then he was on the Quai de Montebello, standing beside a café named Panis, waiting for the light to change. Opposite him was the Pont au Double, the pedestrian-only bridge that took foot traffic to the Cathedral of Notre Dame, which he could see from where he stood.
At a break in the traffic he crossed the road and walked west, away from the bridge, soon pausing at a riverfront bookstall. These stalls were Parisian landmarks, each one made up of four metal boxes fixed to the stone wall overlooking the Seine. The boxes were green, and each was about six feet long and full of postcards, key chains, and other trinkets, as well as secondhand books. The seller, the bouquiniste, smiled a greeting, and Hugo practiced his French, asking whether they’d had snow and asking him how business had been. After a few minutes browsing, Hugo bought a postcard with Merlyn vaguely in mind, then continued along the sidewalk.
As he walked, he glanced over at the River Seine on his right. The water was high, confirming the bouquiniste’s tale of no snow but plentiful rain, and Hugo stopped for a moment, leaning against the stone balustrade, watching the debris being swept along by the current. The river looked heavy, sluggish, rolling lazily past him, squeezed by its stone banks like charcoal paint being squeezed from a tube onto an artist’s palette.
He straightened and checked his watch, then kept moving when he saw how little time had passed. As he approached the most historic of the bridges, Pont Neuf, he spotted another bouquiniste open for business and slowed. The seller was an older man with a large red nose and a shuffling gait. His head was topped with the traditional beret, and Hugo wondered if that was just for the tourists, like him.
“Bonjour, monsieur,” Hugo said. He stopped in front of the second of the metal boxes bolted to the wall.
“Bonjour,” said the old man. “Américain?”
“Oui,” Hugo said, continuing in French, “Is it that obvious?”
The man smiled and nodded downward, toward Hugo’s cowboy boots, then went back to arranging his stall. Hugo looked over the books, surprised to see more than battered copies of the classics and mainstream thrillers. One book in particular caught his eye, partly because it was one of the few in English. It was a hardback, pocket-sized but thick, titled Hidden Horror: The World’s Most Evil and Least Known Serial Killers. A subject close to his own heart. He picked up the book and started to flick through it.
He had, of course, heard of most of the men and women mentioned, but he was nonetheless impressed at the research that had gone into the book. Even a brief look told him new things about Texan Joe Ball, who fed his victims to his pet alligators, and about Elizabeth Bathory, who tortured and killed hundreds of girls in various castles in Hungary back in the 1500s.
And then his eye fell onto a picture of New Orleans, a drawing showing the French Quarter as it looked in 1916. He started to read the text and felt a rising excitement as several pieces of information reached out and grabbed, pulling him completely into the tale of the killer from the Big Easy.
He needed to buy this book, to stop himself from reading the whole thing here, but he skipped to the end of the passage to learn one fact: the New Orleans killer had never been identified.
Hugo held the book up. “Combien?” How much?
The old man shuffled over. “It’s written on the back, non?”
Hugo looked. “Not this one.”
“Merde.” The seller took the book. “I don’t know, maybe five euros?”
Hugo thought he’d misheard. The book was in good shape, maybe not even secondhand, so he dug out a ten-euro note and handed it over. “Keep the change.”
“You want something else for your money? Maybe something French,” the old man winked, “you speak it well, I suppose you can read it?”
“With the help of a dictionary,” Hugo said. He offered his hand. “Hugo Marston.”
The old man seem surprised but took Hugo’s hand. “Max.” He winked again. “Just Max.”
“Enchanté.”
“You live here, monsieur?”
“No. I’d like to, though. Maybe I can arrange it.”
“If so, you will have to buy some real shoes, I think.”
“Then maybe I won’t,” Hugo smiled. “These are very comfortable and I’ve worn cowboys boots for the last forty years. I’m not sure my feet would appreciate fancy French shoes at this point.”
They talked about books for a couple of minutes, then the weather, until Hugo looked at his watch and said he had to go. They shook hands again, and Hugo started back the way he’d come, the Seine rolling along on his left, carrying a pair of tourist boats toward the Isle de la Cité ahead of him. He patted the book in his pocket, his mind wanting to toy with the possibilities that had leapt at him from its pages, whispers of a connection, just possibly, to the first murder that had captured his interest in England, a murder that was now a hundred years old.