Lovers and Liars Trilogy (148 page)

Mina had no idea where she was, or where the St. Vincent was.

She kept stopping passersby to ask them, but when they saw her clothes and her bare feet and her dyed hair, and when they smelled the vomit and saw the tears, their faces closed up. They didn’t want to know; they’d start turning away, and when she tried to catch hold of them and plead, they’d get angry and shake her off.

She could have gone to a policeman, of course. She saw two as she staggered then ran the last few yards of a street called the boulevard St. Michel; they were standing in the wide, busy street beyond, which was filled with traffic. She looked at the river beyond that. A bus hissed past her, very close. Mina jumped back, terrified. No, she thought, not the police. She didn’t want Star to be harmed, arrested; she wanted him to be stopped and helped. She wanted him to be taken to a doctor, to some quiet, soothing, hospital place.

No, not the police, she thought, and scurried across the street to the bridge, weaving between the hooting cars. Even then, when she was on the bridge, she didn’t see it. A woman she stopped, a woman kinder than the rest, turned and pointed it out.

“Mais, il est là,”
she said.
“En face, vous voyez
…”

And then, seeing Mina had not understood even this simple statement, she took her by the shoulders and pointed. And Mina saw it—a huge gray castle of a place: the St. Vincent; the name was written in curly bronze writing, huge letters, just above its entrance.

It all took so long, Mina thought. Every second seemed a minute, every minute an hour. Even when she was finally safe in some assistant manager’s office, even when the man called Rowland finally appeared, she could not seem to make him understand.

“Oh,
hurry,”
she cried, “you must hurry. He’s going in as a student, that’s what he plans. He has his admission ticket, he showed it to me. And he’s ill. He didn’t hurt me, you mustn’t think that. But he needs a doctor, and—”

She knew what the problem was: it was herself. She could not stop shaking or crying. The man called Rowland was kind: she could see he was trying to calm her and trying to understand, but all the information she had to give him was tangled up in her head.

The manager man seemed less angry now and sent for some water. The Englishman helped her into a chair and took her hand in his.

“Sip the water slowly,” he said. “Take your time, Mina…”

“There is no time—” She sprang to her feet. “We have to be quick. It’s
today.
It’s this
morning.
He has the gun, and the ammunition. Look,
look
…”

That was the moment, she thought later, when the Englishman began to understand; when she pulled out the gun catalogue which she had taken when Star was washing the previous night.

She pulled it out, unrolled it, flourished it in his face. Her hands were trembling and her voice was unsteady, but he was beginning to understand: she watched the realization dawn in his eyes:

“This is what he’s going to use…” She stabbed her fingers at the picture of a gun. “He’ll wait—until this Lazare man takes his bow—that’s what he said. Then he’s—He won’t really do it, I’m sure he won’t. It’s just that he’s
sick.
He says he’ll move down the aisle from the back, and—He doesn’t hate them, Maria and Jean Lazare. He says he does, but he wept when she died. It was the night she died that he bought this…”

Rowland looked down at the gun she was indicating to him. Seconds slipped by as he reshaped the confusion of her sentences, and the details of Star’s scenario finally slipped into place. The Cazarès collection was due to begin in under half an hour. The gun concerned was a black Beretta 93R, firing fifteen 9mm rounds per magazine. The ammunition to which she was pointing was a blue GECO hollow bullet. It contained a plastic core, which displaced when fired, so that as the bullet hit its target, it commenced a tumbling trajectory specifically designed to cause maximum tissue damage. With this ammunition, even a poor marksman could effect certain death.

“Mina,” he said quietly. “These gun magazines. How many of them did Star buy? Just one—or more than that?”

“Five.” She did not understand the importance of the question, Rowland could see. Her answer was little more than a whisper. “Five. He showed me how they slot in the handle. He laid them out for me, all five of them on the bed.”

Rowland turned to look at the assistant manager. His face was now ashen. His eyes flicked to the clock on the wall: its second hand ticked. Less than half an hour, Rowland thought; an auditorium filled with the rich and famous, with television cameras, with the assembled world press.
Star:
why had he not understood the implications of that chosen name?

Reaching in his pocket, pulling out a card, he thought: an automatic weapon, five magazines each containing fifteen rounds, seventy-five bullets in total… He had a brief grim vision of possible carnage. He pressed the card into the manager’s trembling hands.

“Call that number,” he said. “Now. At once. Get me Luc Martigny. Get the police.”

The Mercedes that Star had been driving was a very expensive car. It was a 540i. Gini glanced into its pale leather interior. It was presumably stolen; moving out of sight of any windows above, she noted its license plates.

For one moment, as the car had first pulled up and she watched the young man emerge from it, she had not realized it was Star. The man getting out of this vehicle had been wearing a black suit, a white shirt and tie; he did have long black hair, but it was drawn back from his face and tied at the nape of his neck. He resembled some young, successful executive from one of the less straitlaced professions: he could have been in advertising, or have been a record producer—something like that. Then, as he closed the car door, she saw him full-face and her doubts disappeared. Star—movie-star good looks, just as the travelers had described him.

Her hunch had been that if Star did visit Mathilde Duval regularly, he must—sooner or later—turn up. Well, she had been right, but the timing surprised her. Juliette de Nerval had told Roland that Madame Duval was to be collected by limousine at ten-thirty that morning, taken to the Cazarès show, and brought back. So why was he here now?

Mathilde Duval’s apartment—again according to Rowland—was on the top floor of this building. Gini glanced up at its ranked windows, then frowned at the Mercedes. To park the car so flagrantly in a restricted zone suggested Star did not intend to stay long. She felt alarm then: Madame Duval was elderly and infirm—and she lived alone. Gini hesitated, then ran up the portico steps.

Her way was barred by massive locked doors. Peering through their glass panes, she could see through into a large marble-floored lobby dominated by a magnificent bronze-colored cage elevator. The lobby and the elevator were identical to those in Helen’s building. As in Helen’s building, there was no sign of a concierge guarding the lobby, which was deserted and silent. Gini wondered if this building was occupied mainly by those rich enough to own several homes, and whether, as in Helen’s building, the majority of the apartments here were often left empty for months at a time. She pressed her face against the glass. She could see the cables and counterweights; the elevator itself was on another floor.

She looked at the battery of bells and intercoms set into the wall next to her. She pressed two of those bells, for the other two apartments on the tenth floor, and obtained no reply. She began trying bells on lower floors; with her sixth attempt she was lucky. A woman answered, sounding impatient. Using a strong American accent, and speaking in what she hoped was convincingly poor French, Gini explained rapidly that she was staying with friends here. They’d given her the key to their apartment, but not the passkey to the front door.

“Oh, quelle bêtise
—
ces idiots…
” The woman embarked on a brief diatribe as to the annoyance of this situation, which happened on the average of four times a week. Then, after a few more wan pleas from Gini, she did what no inhabitant of an American city would have done—pressed the buzzer. Gini pushed back the doors and went in.

She moved toward the elevator shaft and looked up, feeling a prickle of fear run the length of her spine. The floor indicator arrow was pointing at ten; she could just see the base of the elevator high above her. She could hear nothing at all.

Suddenly, she froze. The elevator had whirred into life. She watched the cables, the counterweights begin to move. Star was coming down.

Wait, she thought; act like a resident. Just stand by the elevator—what could be more natural? Wait, and see if he comes down alone.

He did not come down alone. A woman who could have been only Mathilde Duval was standing next to him, supported by his arm. As the cage came to a rest, and Gini could see the old woman through the bars, she felt her heart flood with pity and fear for her. She was tiny and obviously frail. She was dressed with evident painstaking care, in an all-black outfit that might have been fashionable forty years before. She was wearing new black gloves, and her hands were trembling: Gini could not tell if this was caused by infirmity or fear. As Star reached for the doors, the old woman lifted her face and Gini tensed: Mathilde Duval, she realized, had acute glaucoma: her eyes were blue-white, milky, almost opaque.

“Bonjour, madame. Monsieur,”
Gini said as the gates opened. She gave the old woman a nod of polite greeting. Mathilde Duval did not respond or even turn her head. Virtually blind, Gini thought—also deaf.

She could feel Star’s eyes boring into her. Her mind was still flashing with uncertainty: speak, or remain silent? Do nothing now, or intervene?

Mathilde Duval herself made intervention imperative. As she stepped out into the lobby, she staggered and almost fell. Star’s arm tightened around her. He hauled her back onto her feet and tried to hasten her progress.

The old woman crept forward a few more steps, then came to a halt. She pressed her hand against her chest.

“Un moment, Christophe,”
Gini heard her say.
“Tu marches trop vite pour moi…Souviens-toi, je suis vieille maintenant.”

Star ignored the plea. He looked as if he would drag her out of the lobby if necessary. Gini heard him give a low curse. He began to tug at the woman’s arm. Gini stepped forward.

“Madame Duval?” she said.
“Vous êtes malade? Je peux vous aider? Un moment, monsieur
…”

Mathilde Duval’s lips were blue; she was breathing with difficulty. Gini looked up, met Star’s unwavering gaze. She began on a new plea: there was a bench, perhaps if Madame Duval sat down for a little while? She saw Star hesitate before he complied. He looked at the woman’s lips, and then helped Gini to assist her to the bench. Gini sat down beside her; Star drew back.

Taking Madame Duval’s hand in hers, Gini began making further suggestions—anything that might buy her time. Perhaps a doctor should be called? Perhaps it was unwise for Madame Duval to venture outside on such a day, when it was beginning to rain, and bitterly cold… The suggestions bought her about thirty seconds. Star’s eyes never left her face once.

“You’re not French. You’re American, right?” He was reaching into his pocket. He took out a small container of pills.

“Oh, yes, I am.” Gini gave him a quick glance. “I didn’t realize—listen, she really doesn’t look too well. Her lips are blue, and—”

“Do you live in this building?”

He was taking one tiny pill from the container, his eyes still intent on her face. His voice, Gini thought, his odd, low, attractive yet unidentifiable voice was just as described.

“What? Oh, yes—I do.”

It seemed the safe answer. She could hardly claim to be visiting, yet recognize Madame Duval. Star seemed to accept the reply anyway.

“She has angina,” he said in even tones. “She’s eighty-five years old. She just needs one of these pills. She dissolves them under her tongue. They’re magic. In a couple of minutes she’ll be fine.”

He slipped the tiny pill between Madame Duval’s lips as he said this. She gave a sightless little smile of gratitude, her milky eyes turned to a space two feet to the side of him. Star straightened.

He said: “Show me your key.”

“I’m sorry?” Gini looked up at him. His face betrayed no emotion whatsoever.

“Your key. You live here, so I guess you have a key, right?”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake…” Gini rose. “What is this? Of course I have a key. I live on the sixth floor. Look, I really think we should call a doctor…”

“I agree.” He smiled. “Let’s go right up to your apartment and call one now. I’ll come with you.”

Gini felt fear, and she knew her fear and her indecision showed in her face.

Then, he did not hesitate. He gave a small frown and put his hand in the pocket of his black suit.

“Oh, shit,” he said in a mild way. “The cards said to expect the unexpected. This morning. That’s what they said. I guess they were right.”

He spoke in a distant, unemotional tone. He gave a small sigh, then a shrug, and took out a gun. He lifted it with steady hands and an expression of slight irritation on his face. Gini looked at the gun, which was now pointing directly at her chest, from a range of three feet.

“Look, please…” she began. “I don’t understand. I just wanted to help Madame Duval…”

Star was not listening. He frowned.

“Can you drive?” he said.

Gini was trying to obey all the rules. Avoid eye contact; speak reasonably; do not show fear.

“Yes, I can drive, but—listen—”

She stopped. She realized she had just made a foolish admission and Star had noticed her reaction; he was extremely quick.

“That’s okay.” He sounded almost kind. “You gave me the right answer. If you’d said you couldn’t drive, I’d have had to shoot you now. I don’t really want to do that yet. It could make a noise; a mess. It could fuck up my plans… I have to cover every eventuality, you see. I have to be flexible, resourceful. I was born that way—so that’s cool. Now, walk out to that Mercedes outside. It’s not locked. Get in the driver’s seat. I’ll get in back with Madame Duval.”