“All the Sûreté’ll know is that we had to fight it out, killing you one by one. It’ll be a hell of a story-make me look like a hero. And the local cops’ll eat it up ’cause that’s the way they wish a lot of these things would turn out.”
I slowly pulled back the gun’s hammer.
“You’re full of shit,” the one I’d focused on said, his words straight from some American action movie and his accent sounding as if the dialogue had been dubbed into French and back again.
“You think so?”
We were interrupted by a loud noise and a sharp cry from far down the boxcar.
I leaned into the man’s face. “What’s your name?”
“Didier.”
“Well, let me tell you, Didier, I’ve been shot at, punched, drugged, and half frozen to death by you flamers, all of which has given birth to a giant case of the don’t-give-a-shits. I’m home free here-the helpless victim fighting to save his life. Even if the Sûreté does smell a rat, they’ll cut me some slack because we’re all brothers and you’re not. Face it-you’re out of luck.”
There was another yell from the gloom. Didier tried to raise his head. “What’s he doin’?”
“Willy doesn’t talk as much as I do,” I explained. “Gets right down to business. Guarantees him more fun that way.”
“This is a crock. I watch TV. I know the ‘good cop-bad cop’ routine.”
I believed him about the TV. “You want to risk your friend’s health on that?” I asked.
He closed his eyes briefly. The man next to him said something, which Didier answered tiredly.
He then looked at me again. “We got you pegged. Your sidekick ain’t much, but he’s no torturer. Besides, the guy he grabbed don’t speak English.”
“So you say.” But I was as impressed by his insight as I’d been by his John Wayne imitation. This was a step above the average thug.
Didier sighed heavily. “It don’t matter anyway. You already won without knowin’ it. I’ll talk, but not because of this little comedy.”
“Why, then?”
He hesitated, as if taking one last measure of a final step forward. “Marcel Deschamps is in a car near here, waiting for us.”
That caught me unawares. “I thought he was almost dead.”
“He is-this deal was a gamble, to buy his son time.”
“Michel?”
Didier made a sour expression. “It’s complicated. He better tell you himself.”
“Who says he’ll want to talk to me?”
“I do. The three of us are about all he has left.”
“What about the three who grabbed me?”
“Goons-bought and paid for. They had no idea.”
I looked at him suspiciously. “We’ve been studying the Deschamps organization pretty closely,” I said. “I don’t remember anyone high up named Didier.”
His voice sounded tired. “We’re not on the inside. We’re hired guns-worked for Marcel for years, and now Michel. Marcel didn’t trust his own people no more, so he used us behind the scenes.”
I thought about that for a moment. Marcel’s having private operatives didn’t surprise me, but given Michel’s reputation, I hadn’t expected him in the same context. Then again, little of anything we’d guessed about this bunch had turned out to be true. “You kill Guidry?”
That brought a defensive reaction. “No way. We get things done, find things out. But we’re not triggermen. That was Michel all by his lonesome.”
“The way we heard it, Michel can barely wipe his own ass.”
“Old news. He’s a snot nose, and Picard and Guidry helped keep him in the dark so they could make the grab after his father croaked. But Marcel tumbled and faked being sicker than he was. He’s the one who put Michel and us together and then trained Michel so their power play would blow up in their face.” He paused and then added, “Of course, that was Plan A, before Michel turned into a magic act and came out of the top hat as full-fledged wacko.”
My headache had faded over time. It now caught its second wind. “Did he kill Sawyer?”
“Guidry did that and put a contract on you before. He was paranoid you’d pin Jean’s death on him.”
“We already had.”
Didier smiled and shook his head, by now totally free of any inhibitions about talking. “In your dreams. You’ve been wrong from the start. Guidry didn’t kill Jean Deschamps. He was just in the right place at the right time.”
“What do you mean?”
But this time he didn’t play along. “Enough. We got to get back to Marcel. The motor’s off-he’ll start getting cold. You want to take me to him and leave the other two with the gimp, fine, but I’m done talking till I make sure Marcel’s okay.”
“Willy?” I shouted over my shoulder. “Bring the other guy back.”
He did so, still dragging his prize like a sack along the floor. The man’s mouth had been taped shut, and there wasn’t a mark on him. Willy was looking satisfied with his playacting as a torturer. “You get what you wanted?” he asked.
I pointed at Didier. “He nailed you from the start, not that it matters. He’s spilling his guts anyhow. Marcel Deschamps is in a car near here, waiting for these three. I’m going to have a talk with him, if you don’t mind babysitting the other two.”
“I don’t mind,” he said, “but I’d like to scope the scene before you stick your head into another trap.”
I conceded the point. We bundled Didier’s companions together, back-to-back, left them temporarily in the boxcar, and escorted Didier, still bound and now gagged, out of the rail yard, across a service road, and to a row of trees lining a parking lot behind a dark, empty-looking warehouse. Alone in the lot was a white delivery van. Didier pointed his chin toward it.
“He in there?” I asked.
He nodded.
Willy left our side and disappeared into the shadows hemming us in, as quietly as the gentle breeze that occasionally wafted in off the ice-solid water beyond the tracks.
Fifteen minutes later, Willy reappeared. “It’s clear. I’ll keep watch for a while after you get in, then go back to the others. How long’s the train staying put?”
I removed the duct tape from Didier’s mouth. He gasped with the pain, compressed his lips several times, and finally said, “Seven tomorrow morning.”
He and I crossed the parking lot. I walked up to the sliding side door of the van, placed Didier before me as a shield, and pulled it open. Before us in the feeble light from the overhead dome lay Marcel Deschamps, propped up on a camp cot, swathed like a baby in layers of blankets. He didn’t look startled at the sudden intrusion. I even half wondered if he was still alive.
Until his eyes moved.
“Deschamps?” I asked. “You okay?”
He said something in French to Didier.
“English,” I ordered.
Didier answered first in French and then turned to me. “I only told him we’d screwed up, and that I’d been shooting straight with you. Can I start the engine and get the heater going?”
I unwrapped the wire from around his hands and let him climb up between the front seats to get behind the steering wheel. “You touch the gear lever and I’ll blow your head off,” I cautioned him, as I quickly patted down Marcel’s blankets for weapons.
I needn’t have been so cautious. Didier kept his word, clambering back to Deschamps to tuck him in more comfortably. Throughout, Marcel’s gloved hands lay still on his lap and his eyes remained at half mast.
“You feel well enough to speak?” I asked him, at last climbing in myself and slamming the door shut behind me.
“A little,” was the whispered reply.
I decided not to waste time. “I need to know about your father’s death.”
If possible, the face before me paled even further, and Marcel moved the fingers of one hand in Didier’s direction. “Tell him.”
“Jean Deschamps was sort of nutty about finding Antoine’s killer,” Didier began. “He tracked down Roger Scott because he thought Scott and his son had been tight during the war. According to what Jean had been told, Scott was a schoolteacher before the war, and maybe a good judge of human character. Jean wanted to pick his brains about Antoine. Turns out Scott was actually Charlie Webber, and that him and Antoine had found a treasure just outside Rome-a buried trunk in a fancy villa, jammed with jewelry, rare art, and gold. But one of ’em got greedy, Webber killed Antoine, making it look like a combat death, and then changed his name after he got shot and paralyzed later. I have no clue how Jean knew Antoine had been whacked in the first place, but he sure didn’t know Scott and Webber were the same. What happened when Jean and Webber met is a mystery-Guidry was the only other one there and being the swift bodyguard he was, he was outside the room. But for some reason Webber ended up sticking Jean with an ice pick. Didn’t do him much good, ’course. He might’ve been strong enough to knock somebody off, but he still couldn’t get out of that wheelchair. Guidry came running in, put two and two together, and saw the chance of a lifetime.”