The two men had come alone then. He walked on, trying to weigh how this affected his plan for the following day. The Lieutenant Pearson scenario had given him a straight-ahead path to the end, but the identity would be compromised by any thorough search of the hotel. He had to assume that would happen, and couldn’t risk using it now.
His mind scrambled after solutions. Pearson had eliminated his need for Eddie Bennings-he’d planned to dispense with him on his return to Montmartre-but now he’d have to keep that scenario in play. And the Corsican, Ververt, as well.
He stepped off a curb without noticing and his foot hit the pavement, jarring him. He felt a violent, visceral shift disrupt his mind from his innermost self, and for a moment all thought of the mission was forgotten. His obsessive focus lifted, he was suddenly, keenly aware of the grid of the Paris streets and how much they reminded him of his own rigid mental discipline; straight lines and angles, geometric precision. He saw perfection and power in their clean, spare rigor. Civilization had reached an apex in this miracle of order, and he wanted nothing more than to inhabit them forever, walking down these broad avenues and regimented streets. He felt that if these buildings, all the people, even the streets themselves faded from view, the deep underlying meaning that their physical reality masked and could only hint at would be revealed. Patterns that unlocked all the uncertainties of existence. It was a moment of grace freed from time and circumstance, transcendent and full, but it was shadowed by a dawning awareness just beyond his comprehension that something dreadful had been done to him. A yawning darkness opened behind him, hideous forms of primal terror lurched at him out of it. He saw himself being held down in a malformed coffin, squirming to escape unseen hands. His head was missing, then it looked up at him from inside his attaché case, and horror like none he’d ever known lit up his mind-
A horn sounded, a screech of brakes. His attaché hit the pavement. He had walked blindly into the middle of a street and nearly been hit by a jeep full of MPs. He waved an apology, picked up his case, and walked on. They watched him go and he felt their eyes on him until they drove away. As quickly as it had come, back in reality, his waking nightmare vanished. He saw the Café de la Paix straight ahead across the street.
The newspaper he’d left on the table was gone. In its place, a pair of gloves and a blue scarf.
The signal. Contact. His mind found navigable points again. Now he could make all the pieces fit together. He crossed the street, and stepped down the stairs to the Madeleine metro station.
Grannit and Bernie spent twenty minutes with the manager at the front desk, who promised them they could question the rest of their staff and the hotel residents. Over two hundred officers billeted at the Meurice, but most were out during the day. Grannit said they were prepared to wait until every last one had been cleared.
Bernie sat near the front desk while Grannit telephoned Inspector Massou. He was out of the office, so Grannit left word to call them at the hotel. He joined Bernie a short time later, waiting for the staff to assemble and keeping an eye on the door in case Von Leinsdorf showed.
As he walked up the stairs at the Abbesses metro station, Von Leinsdorf heard choral music, looked up, and caught sight of a modest Gothic church, St. Pierre de Montmartre, perched on the hill before him just below the Sacre Coeur. The voices drew him forward. He had never had religious feelings-following the Party line, he believed only in the Father, not the Son-but he craved a few minutes in the presence of that music. He slipped inside and stood near the back of the church. A choir stood in a stall below the altar, lit by candlelight, performing a medieval chanson. The ancient music fed a hunger in Von Leinsdorf he hadn’t known he possessed. The mysterious feeling of peace that had overwhelmed him as he walked the streets crept back into his mind, shadowed by that same black foreboding. He went weak for a moment, breaking into a sweat, and had to brace himself against a pew.
What is this?
A priest appeared at his side. Was he all right?
Yes, yes, he just needed a rest.
Von Leinsdorf slid into a pew and let his eyes drift up and around the chapel. He vaguely remembered that this was the oldest church in Paris. A bank of windows on one side had been shattered by a bomb, and he could see a storm drawing into the late afternoon sky above. He closed his eyes for a moment.
When he opened them again, he saw through the broken windows that the sky had turned pitch black. He glanced at his watch. Over an hour had vanished. He looked around, startled. The music had stopped, the choir was gone. The same priest was talking with a gendarme at the back of the church. Von Leinsdorf got up quickly, gathered his things, and walked out.
33
Montmartre
DECEMBER 19, 6:30 P.M.
Eddie Bennings heard him on the stairs before he came through the door. Von Leinsdorf was wearing a long greatcoat when he entered their garret and he immediately went into the second room to change. Bennings, who was pitching pennies against a bare wall in the front room, under the light of the room’s only lamp, never saw the British uniform.
“Where you been, Dick? I was starting to worry,” said Eddie.
“Nothing to worry about,” said Von Leinsdorf from the other room. “Making arrangements. What was your day like?”
“Boring. Just sitting around on my ass.”
Bennings had decided not to mention his own outing that morning. He picked up Stars and Stripes while he waited and made conversation.
“Did you hear they can’t find Glenn Miller? They think his plane went down over the Channel.”
“When did that happen?”
Von Leinsdorf came out dressed in civilian clothes. He carried a greatcoat and was using a needle and thread to sew a flap inside its left front panel. Bennings glanced at him without curiosity and went back to his paper.
“Don’t know. Last few days. On his way to Paris to organize a Christmas concert.”
“Was it the Krauts?” asked Von Leinsdorf.
“Had to be. Crying shame, isn’t it? You know how many times that guy’s music got me laid? I got no quarrel with the Krauts, but I’d like to get my hands on the punks who did this. Man, I’m starving. Haven’t been out all day.”
“Where did you get the newspaper?”
“Found it downstairs.”
“So you did go out,” said Von Leinsdorf.
“I went out once, briefly, for a pack of cigarettes.”
Von Leinsdorf moved to the window and looked out the curtains. The clouds had lowered and the rain that had threatened was starting to fall.
“Did you speak to anyone?”
“No, Christ, no. You want to get something to eat? What time we meeting him?”
“Seven.”
“What time is it now?”
“Half past six.”
Von Leinsdorf saw two men standing across the street from the entrance to the building. Both were looking up at the attic window. He turned off the lamp inside the room, retrieved his binoculars, and took a closer look at them.
A gendarme and a smaller, swarthy-faced man, a civilian. Both unfamiliar. Not who he’d expected.
“Something wrong?” asked Eddie.
“I don’t know yet.”
“So what do you say we grab some grub?”
“We’ll get something at the club.”
When they walked outside and started down the hill through the winding streets toward Ververt’s club, the two men across the street were gone. They arrived ten minutes ahead of schedule, tapped on the front window, and waited for someone to appear. Von Leinsdorf knew they were being followed, probably by the gendarme and his companion, but never caught a glimpse of them. One of Ververt’s men opened the front door of the jazz club and they went inside.