The Loo Sanction (35 page)

“You're my good right hand, Jean-Luc. I don't know what I'd do without you.”

She kissed me good-night and turned out the bathroom light, and the crepe paper chains disappeared into the dark of the high ceiling.

I lay on my daybed in the front room, which never got totally dark because a streetlamp cast a diagonal slab of light from one corner to the other. I was looking up at the ceiling, intrigued by how, each time a car passed out on the street, the edge-ghost of its headlights slid through and around the chandelier rosette in the middle of which a single lightbulb dangled from a paint-stiffened wire. I lay there for what was, for a kid, a long time, maybe ten minutes, until I thought Mother was asleep, then I eased out of bed stealthily and went to the window to watch for my father's arrival. He'd be the one coming down the street carrying the string-tied baker's box with a green cake that he'd finally found after going from one end of Albany to the other, and I would sneak out onto the stoop and beckon him in, putting my finger across my lips to signal him to walk on tiptoes, and we'd put the cake in the middle of the kitchen table and open the green soda carefully, so the
pffffft
sound wasn't too loud, and we'd get everything ready, then we'd go into the bedroom and wake Mother and Anne-Marie, and they'd be surprised and all smiles and . . .

I heard a faint sound from the back bedroom. I knew that sound, and hated it. My mother was crying softly to herself, as she did only when the bad breaks and the loneliness and ill health built up until they overwhelmed her. She cried when she was afraid, and the thought of my mother being afraid frightened me in turn, because if that buoyant, energetic woman couldn't handle whatever the problem was, what chance did I have? Sometimes, I would go to her and pat her shoulder and kiss her wet, salty cheek, but I always felt so helpless that the pit of my stomach would burn. Precocious at games and arithmetic, I had learned a couple of months earlier how to play two-handed “honeymoon” pinochle, her favorite game and one that reminded her of her father. Sometimes playing pinochle took her mind off our problems. But the cards were deep in one of our boxes somewhere, and anyway, I didn't feel like sitting with her, helpless and hopeless. Everything would be fine when my father got back. Even if he hadn't managed to find a green cake . . . but I was sure he would . . . he'd care for Mother when she was sick and kiss her tears away when she was blue and play pinochle with her and take responsibility for keeping the family well and happy, and I'd just play my story games, and everything would be fine. I put my cheek against the cool windowpane so I could look as far up the empty street as possible. People passed by occasionally: lone men walking slowly, their fists deep in their pockets, wishing this night were over; women hastening to get somewhere on time; young couples with their arms around each other's waist, keeping hip contact by stepping out with their inside legs at the same time, wishing this night would go on forever. When a car passed, the edge of its headlights rippled over the brick facades on both sides of the street and lit up my ceiling briefly. I considered slipping into my shoes and going out onto the stoop to await my father's arrival, but the night was cold, so I sat on the edge of my bed with my Hudson Bay blanket around me Indian-style and watched the street, as I would do night after night.

My father never came. But, of course, you have anticipated that for some time.

A MASTER STORYTELLER

praised by critics and readers for over thirty years, Trevanian's novels have been translated into more than fourteen languages and have sold millions of copies worldwide.

THE CRAZYLADIES OF PEARL STREET

1-4000-8036-3
$24.95 hardcover (Canada: $32.95)

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Copyright © 1973 by Trevanian

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Three Rivers Press, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

www.crownpublishing.com

Three Rivers Press and the Tugboat design are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

Originally published in hardcover in the United States by Crown Publishers, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, in 1973.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Trevanian.

The loo sanction : a novel / Trevanian.—1st paperback ed.

1. Art historians—Fiction.         2. London (England)—Fiction. 3. Intelligence service—Fiction.         4. Extortion—Fiction.         I. Title.

PS3570.R44L66 2005

813'.54—dc22 2004029743

eISBN: 978-0-307-23841-2

v3.0