Stepping outside, he paused in the face of the rain, and ground out his cigarette on the terrasse.
"You speak excellent French, Mr. Thorne. I'm fluent, but I've never quite managed to shake off my accent."
"My mother was French."
"Ah, yes. I was forgetting. But then that makes it definite: I did know your father." He gave me a smile. "He was senior to me, rather exalted in fact. But I can clearly remember being charmed by your mother."
This was interesting, but I wasn't that surprised — the State Department, especially before 1950, was a very small world. I merely nodded, and watched his smile fade as I didn't pick up on our family connection. I found myself wondering now if he was homosexual — perhaps some buried prejudice was making me react negatively to him — but I didn't really think that he was. He wasn't an old man who liked boys; rather, he was an old man who still echoed certain ancient fashions of boyishness: he made me think of private schools, of rich kids in blazers and gray flannel pants. Now, reinforcing precisely this image, he thrust both hands deeply into his pockets and darted confidently into the traffic, crossing to the Seine side of the quai. I followed as best I could, and caught up to him at the top of a broad stone stairway leading down to the water. We were now virtually in the shadow of the Pont-Neuf; but here, down a level, the sound of the traffic was just a low rumble and the brackish pungency of the river cut through the gasoline fumes. Boats were tied up all along here; beyond them, glittering slightly with the first lights of evening, the Seine branched blackly around the He de la Cite. Most of the boats were barges, moored three deep: perhaps thirty or forty altogether. Some had shiny metal hulls; others, more elegant, were wood. But all were about a hundred feet long and of much the same design: a wheelhouse in the stern, with a long, low cabin running up to the prow. People were living on them; silhouetted against the misty lights of the Qte was an intricate cobweb of clotheslines, awnings, and canopies. I smelled a charcoal fire; somebody laughed; a radio was playing Mozart.
Hamilton had run on a little ahead. Now he stopped and waited for me. The rain had beaded on the heavy wool of his sweater and lent an even glossier sheen to his hair. He smiled. His face was long, the excellent features marked with heavy creases in his darkly tanned skin. "You'll have to be a bit acrobatic," he said, then, quite gracefully, leapt across to the first of the barges. It was scruffy, steel-hulled, the deck streaked with rust. Clumsily, I thumped after him, then scrambled across the deck, avoiding pails and bits of rope. He stopped on the far side, more or less in the middle of the boat, where the gunwales of this barge were bumpered against the next further out. Deftly, he then hopped up and over. This second barge seemed deserted, its deck a dark minefield of obstructions, but finally I reached the far side and — a middle-aged pirate — once more stormed over the gunwales.
As I straightened up and tried to catch my breath, I saw he still had his hands in his pockets: which, I will confess, didn't exactly endear him to me. He smiled. "Welcome to La Trom-pette, Mr. Thorne."
I looked around. I was standing on the deck of an old wooden barge. Its freshly varnished decks and polished brass fittings glowed softly in the light that filtered down from the great mansions in the Place Dauphine and the cars streaming across the Pont-Neuf.
It was all very impressive, and I wondered how discreet it could be. "You're absolutely sure you can't be traced here?"
He shook his head. "I bought her in the spring, but they've been fitting her out at Janville. They only brought her up this last week."
That sounded safe enough, and better than a hotel or a friend. I nodded, then followed him into the high, square wheelhouse. Here, shadows leapt up from kerosene lanterns, and the sounds of the great city retreated, replaced by the gentle creak of the hull. Everything was hushed, and with the rain trickling mistily over the windows, I had that childhood sense of being in a separate, far-off world. But then Hamilton flicked on an overhead light and I could see all the new brass and mahogany, the chart table that folded into the wall, the brassbound lockers, the new gimbaled lamps. The wheel, though, was old, a spoked circle of rusted iron rod. Hamilton put his hand on it and said, "It was all they said they could save, but I damn well made them save that."
Paul Hamilton, man of taste… He flicked off the light. The golden glow of the lanterns, and the flickering shadows, returned. Edging through a doorway, he beckoned.me, and I followed him down a short ladder to the main cabin. It was very large, a long, low mahogany chamber as cozy and plush as an Edwardian Club room. Toward the bow, one section was fitted up as the salon with built-in couches, a bookcase, even a television and stereo. Closer to us was a galley, a decors modemes assemblage of stainless-steel sinks, butcher-block counters, and cunning little gadget racks. He'd been working here; wrenches, bits of pipe, and a torch were laid out on a newspaper. By way of explanation, he slid open a door beneath one of the counters, revealing a large metal canister which he pinged with his fingernail.
"My great debate," he said. "Propane or NG, which was it to be? I just hooked it up this afternoon. I like propane better to cook with, but it's heavier than air, so if you get a leak it sinks into the bilges. Then poof… But NG goes straight out the window. Safe as houses."
"So I can smoke, you mean?"
"Please do. And have a seat. I'll even get you a drink, if you like."
The floor — sole? — was oiled teak. I walked through the galley and sat down on one of the couches. The dry, starched smell of new upholstery rose around me. On the other side of the room, Hamilton turned a brass catch on a neatly fitted locker, and a bar descended out of the bulkhead with various niches for bottles and implements. With his back to me, he splashed Johnnie Walker Red into crystal tumblers and murmured, "By the way, I trust you are being polite? No wires? Body recorders?"
I actually do own a Nagra, but that was back home in Charlottesville — which, right now, seemed a long way away. "Don't worry, Mr. Hamilton. This is just between us."
"Good. There wouldn't be much point talking at all if we couldn't speak frankly." He turned around, a glass in each hand. He smiled. And there was a condescending twist to this smile that acknowledged the hostility between us and suggested that I was being a bit of a bore… but he'd put up with me anyway. Then the smile faded and he handed me the glass. "So Brightman's dead?" he grunted.
I nodded.
"And bad men are chasing me?"
"Something like that."
"Because I'm supposed to have something that Brightman left with me?"
I sipped my whiskey. His wariness, overlaid with his face-tiousness, only increased my dislike of him. But I tried to keep my voice even. "If you don't mind, I'd like to start with my questions."
He shrugged. He seemed very cool. But when he tilted his head back to drink, I could again see the anxiety in his eyes, and his lips worked greedily at the rim of his glass. The glass came back down. He'd swigged a good inch of whiskey. Sitting, he crossed his legs and began rubbing the glass in little circles on his knee. "All right," he finally said, "but what if I don't want to answer?"
"I don't think you have a choice, Mr. Hamilton."
"That wouldn't be true, not quite. You'd be wrong to think that. But…" He smiled. "Go ahead."
The small lamps on the bulkheads spilled pools of yellowish light into the cozy, leathery, masculine gloom. I said, "I'll start at the obvious place. When did you last see Brightman?"
He took a more gentlemanly sip at his whiskey and smiled. "As you say, that is obvious — but I'm not sure I want to answer. Could I reserve it? Just for a moment? I told you I want to be frank — I'd rather you let me be honestly reticent than force me into a lie."