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  “No. He doesn’t know I know.”

  “Ah-hah.… So, you’re going to file a complaint?”

  “That’s right, with the Public Prosecutor. Tomorrow morning. I found out Saturday, late Saturday night.”

  “I see, I see.…” He heaved a long sigh. “Well, then, you realize, Monsieur, we don’t know a thing until your complaint is in. But, of course, you’ll keep me posted, eh?”

  He leaned forward slightly, and continued:

  “Now you do think there’s a connection, there, between the disappearance and the fraud …”

  Geneviève stopped him.

  “Never, Monsieur! Impossible! Because, on the phone he told me …”

  “Excuse me. Think about it a minute, Madame. From a legal point of view, to take off with another woman, that’s a lot less serious than absconding …”

  “Geneviève!” Georges interrupted. “How could you not suspect it?”

  Givral let himself sink back, listening attentively.

  “You haven’t understood a thing I told you!” Geneviève said.

  “You can’t possibly explain it away …” George said.

  Geneviève was speechless with rage. The inspector watched brother and sister facing each other down. He pulled out his notebook again. Geneviève was spluttering:

  “But he didn’t know I’d shown you the accounts!”

  “He must have known he was in a corner,” Georges said.

  “No! Remember, he told me the deal had worked out, that everything would be all right?”

  “Sure. He was talking about running out.”

  “He would have told me,” she said. “He told me we were going to be happy together! Together!”

  “To keep you off the track! He was already late for his girl friend!”

  Geneviève seemed to shrink. There was silence. Givral broke it, very softly indeed.

  “According to you, then, he hasn’t disappeared? He’s simply skipped?”

  Still smarting from the battle, Georges turned on him.

  “The facts speak for themselves. My brother-in-law swindled me. I have the proofs, I’m holding them. Then he makes an appointment with his wife, but he takes off …”

  “With his girl friend,” Givral added.

  “You know!” Geneviève cried.

  “No, Madame, your brother just said so. Why didn’t you mention it yesterday, when you reported him missing?”

  Georges took over for her.

  “Listen to me a moment, Inspector. I’m going to explain. She suspected he was with a woman. There, that’s the truth. Well, we wanted the police to find him with her and get this woman’s name. That’s clear, isn’t it? My sister wants a divorce. Tomorrow we’re going to see a lawyer.”

  “That’s why Madame came here to stay with her brother?”

  “That’s unimportant,” Georges said.

  “I see. But, uh, if Madame hasn’t been back to her legal residence, how does she know Monsieur Courtois hasn’t come back?”

  “Whether he comes back or he doesn’t come back,” Georges shouted, “my sister doesn’t want anything more to do with that crook!”

  Geneviève’s eyes gleamed.

  “You know something, Inspector. He’s come back, hasn’t he?”

  She was suddenly mad with hope. She was ready to forgive everything. Before Givral could answer, she started shouting at her brother:

  “He’s come back! You see? You’re not going to file a complaint. I’ll sell my jewels, my furs, the apartment, we’ll live in the suburbs, but you’ll get your money back, I swear it!”

  Georges was flabbergasted.

  “What are you talking about, Geneviève? The inspector hasn’t said one word that could make you think …”

  She pivoted, gripped Givral by the lapels of his worn-out raincoat, shook him hard. He didn’t try to stop her.

  “I dropped by, Madame, at Rue Molitor … He wasn’t there. But he could have come in and left again …”

  “The maid’s there!” she wailed.

  “There, you see?” Georges said.

  Defeated. Frustrated again. She couldn’t go on like this, swinging from hatred to hope and back again.

  “No,” the inspector said, getting up. “There’s no one at your house just now; I rang quite a while.”

  “It’s the maid’s night out,” Geneviève explained, angry at the world.

  “One thing more,” Givral said. “Have you got a picture of your husband, Madame? Might help identify him, eh?”

  “Yes. At home.”

  “I’ve got one; I’ll get it,” Georges said. He didn’t want any delays.

  He left the hallway. Geneviève tried to avoid Givral’s eyes.

  “Your brother isn’t exactly in love with Monsieur Courtois, is he?”

  Slowly, Geneviève’s head traveled from right to left.

  “Maybe it’s my fault,” she admitted.

  “And you, Madame?”

  Taken aback, she raised her eyes.

  “Me?”

  “Yes, you. Are you in love with him?”

  The man suddenly seemed aglow with human warmth. She could have thrown herself on him, to cry, on an understanding shoulder at last. Georges, however, came in and handed him a snapshot; she recognized it.

  “Oh, no, not that one!” she cried. “He hadn’t shaved. It makes him look like a gangster.”

  “He is a gangster,” Georges said firmly.

  Givral pocketed the picture. He bowed jerkily.

  “Monsieur; Madame …”

  He tried to catch Geneviève’s eye, to flash her a last look of sympathy. No luck. He felt embarrassed, and dithered a little.

  “Well, there goes another day. Home to bed, eh?”

  Georges’ face lit up. An idea. He raised his arm.

  “Just a minute. Off duty, you’re just another citizen, is that right, Monsieur …?”

  “Givral.”

  “Monsieur Givral. And you can testify under oath, like any other citizen?”

  “Testify?” Geneviève asked, uneasy.

  “Yes,” Georges said, “I want to check out one of your theories.”

  The inspector’s eyes flickered, but only for a moment. “You’re not asking me officially, just personally, right?”

  “Precisely. Is that possible?”

  “Sure, of course … only, no cards up the sleeve, eh?”

  “You have my word.”

  “Georges! What’re you going to do now?” Geneviève said.

  “Don’t worry your little head about it. One second.”

  He sprang out of the hallway. The inspector put a hand on Geneviève’s arm.

  “Don’t worry at all, Madame. Everything works out in life … one way or another.”

  Chapter XI

  The innkeepers were having their Sunday after-dinner applejack, sprawling in the armchairs of their own lobby.

  “I don’t trust ’em,” Mathilde said suddenly.

  Charles raised one eyebrow into a fair imitation of a question mark.

  She jerked her chin toward the ceiling.

  “Your lovebirds. I don’t like the way they act.”

  “Act how?”

  “Hard to say. You never see ’em. Would you know ’em if you met ’em on the street?”

  “On the street, I don’t know. If they came back here, yes.”

  “Uh-huh,” she said. “So, if you never see ’em, that’s just the way it is, according to you. They slink around that room, they always stay in the shadows; if I bring up lunch, they just happen to be taking in the view at the window. All you ever see is their backs!”

  “You said yourself she’s not his wife,” Charles said. “If he’s doing a little cheating, damn right he doesn’t want to be recognized.”

  She shook her head and emptied her glass in one gulp.

  “What the hell are they up to, locked in up there?”
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br />   Charles’ shoulders started shaking in silent laughter. She stamped her foot.

  “Go see!” she commanded

  “Happy to,” he said.

  He got up with an effort. Noiselessly, be went up the stairs. The keyhole showed him two bodies stretched on the bed. Perfectly still.

  “Poor kids,” Charles thought, tenderly, “they’re asleep.”

  Fred was anything but asleep. He was watching Theresa through lowered eyelashes. In the quiet of the afternoon, he was trying to make sense out of the senseless: they were going to have a baby. What did that mean, having a baby?

  A gust of warm air filled the room. Theresa shrugged off her blanket. Her small breasts were exposed. Fred leaned over, already off the track. His stare woke her up. She smiled, and uncovered her stomach, still flat and firm.

  “Wondering how I’ll look in a few months?”

  “Yes,” he lied, “it’s, uh, all very strange. Not for you, you wouldn’t know. But me, you know, it’s … what d’you call it … it’s …”

  “Your responsibility?”

  He flared. But her slender arms curled around his neck and held him to her.

  “I’m counting on you, Freddy. You’re all I can count on … Without you, I’m sunk.”

  She was pulling out all the stops. She wanted, she needed, a formal promise. Even one extracted when her body was driving her lover out of his right mind. Fred moaned, and hid his mouth in the hollow of her shoulder.

  Their host, embarrassed, left his observation post, swallowing hard.

  Downstairs, his wife cross-examined him.

  “Well? Did you see?”

  He grinned.

  “Hardly had time to get away from the keyhole. Are they fast at that age!”

  “Well! Tell me! What were they doing?”

  Charles sighed.

  “What d’you think they were doing? Ah, not like you and me, not any more.”

  Their eyes met, vaguely amused. She got up, her cheeks burning. Alcohol always did that to her. She caught him staring at her and laughed in his face.

  “Old pig. Better help me with the dishes instead.”

  “Instead?” he asked innocently.

  He put his arm around her waist, and they disappeared into the kitchen, laughing like children.

  Theresa lay quiet in Fred’s arms. At least, she trying to be quiet. But she kept trembling with patience. Finally, she simply spoke out:

  “Freddy. You haven’t answered my question.”

  Question? He didn’t trust questions on principle. He leaned back, resting his head on the headboard of the bed.

  “Which question?”

  “Can I depend on you?”

  “About what?”

  “About the baby,” she said distinctly.

  “Ah. Here we go again.”

  “Freddy!” she pleaded. “What’ll I do with the baby all by myself! I’ll never be able to manage!”

  “Don’t,” he snapped. “I know.” He folded his hands behind his neck. “The only thing I can’t figure is, why the hell don’t you trust me?”

  He was dodging a direct answer, skirting the trap.

  “I do trust you, Freddy. I know you’ll live up to your obligations.”

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake! What a mouth you’ve got. My obligations! What next?”

  She sat up straight, looking calmly into the boy’s eyes. He turned around immediately.

  “You really are too much, sometimes,” he said. “‘Obligations.’ It’s your attitude, you know? It doesn’t go down. A little tact, you know?”

  “Tact, that means you run out on me, right?”

  He would really give it to her now. But he couldn’t right away, somehow. And then it was too late. He sighed, the sigh of an adult who’d already explained the same thing a hundred times to a stubborn child. He drew her to him.

  “Sometimes I get carried away, huh? Sometimes I think, well, I’ve brought you up to my intellectual level. And then, bang! You come out with one of your remarks. Just so I won’t forget you’re the little soap-opera girl, same as I met you six months ago.”

  “But you love me anyway?”

  “You crazy? You got it into your head I don’t love you?”

  She burrowed into his arms. He was genuinely moved.

  “I’m scared, Freddy.”

  “What of?”

  “Because love isn’t all there is to it, any more. I’m going to have a baby. He’s got to have a father …”

  “Everybody’s got a father; that’s nature’s plan.” He was whispering in her ear, chewing the lobe to silence her. “Of course, kid. You can depend on me… You don’t even need to ask… But what the hell do you want me to do, eh? What d’you mean, depend on me? Depend on the old man, that’s what we’ve got to do.”

  “Your father’s got nothing to do with it,” she protested.

  “Ah, you, you don’t know which end is up. Hell, he’s got the loot, say what you please! And, so far, he’s dead set against us getting married.”

  “When he knows the reason …”

  “Nice reason. Oof, you never read anything, you. That’s when the bourgeois really shows his teeth. Takes off the gloves, sticks out the claws.”

  Theresa hid her face in her hands; a sob racked her whole body.

  “What’s he got against me? He doesn’t even know me.”

  Fred felt ashamed, took her in his arms again.

  “Well, he doesn’t really have anything against you, kid, it’s not that.… He wants me to get a job first.”

  “So do I!” she cried. “I want you to be a man! I want you to be able to take care of yourself without having to run to somebody else all the time, without having to steal things that don’t …”

  Fred was the picture of wounded dignity. It was one of his best acts.

  “Don’t mind me! Do go on. Steal things that don’t …”

  “Oh, Freddy!”

  She fell back, completely shattered, agonized over what she’d done. He didn’t know what to do with the pain he’d provoked. So he went into another act. He struck his chest.

  “Yes, indeed. That’s me. Boy son of a bitch. Everything I teach you just dribbles out the other ear, uh? You’re still going by the rules, still cheering for their lousy society, still ready to do your bit for the good old decline and fall. And you want to put me in with the forty million morons! The goddam sheep! As if I was just anybody. Just because my bank balance isn’t as big as my mind. No, you know what? I’m all by myself here, kid, all by myself.”

  He was pacing up and down the room. His face was shining with insincerity. For once, Theresa didn’t let him stop her. When he came past the bed, she seized his wrist.

  “Fred. We are going to have a baby!”

  The plural included him. For keeps. His face fell, and with it the mask of the man of the world. Behind it, stark naked, was the face of a kid scared to death by a job too big for him. It only showed for a fraction of a second, but Theresa saw it. She dropped his hand.

  “Fred, for God’s sake, be a man …”

  He pointed at Theresa’s naked body and laughed feebly.

  “What. Fifteen minutes ago, you found out who’s …”

  “No. I thought so. But making love isn’t enough to make a man.”

  “Uh-huh. And the baby, it’s not mine?”

  “Yes. But making a baby doesn’t make a man either. Anybody can do it.”

  He couldn’t face himself as she was revealing him. He had to find another target; he took one at random.

  “To me it had to happen!” he shouted, waving his hands at the ceiling. “Great balls of fire! Everybody makes love! Everybody in the world! Hey, you saw them, this morning, the two greaseballs on the road? What d’you think they were doing in the back of the Jag? You get one guess. Goddam three-million-franc Jag. No, I’ll tell you what, for me, bricks drop on the head. Not for them.”

 
“How do you know?” she said. “Did you ever think they might have troubles too?”

  She was kneeling on the bed, glaring at him, fighting back for the first time; fighting for the child and for him, determined to push him back on the pedestal he kept climbing down from. Here was something new; he was taken aback.

  “All right, maybe they’ve got troubles,” he said, his voice wavering. “Only he can smile right through them, you know. That’s what you don’t understand, he’s got money; it’s not like me!”

  He tried to pull her back down onto the bed. She freed herself, she was running strong.

  “Who says he’s got money? Who told you?”

  “Ah, what do you know? He comes here for a trip, the greaseball. Paying his way with what, coffee grounds? And I’ll tell you what else. He’s got the loot right on him, the fat rat.”

  Now he was on technical ground; good territory for escape. He sailed right onto it, tapping his palm with the back of his hand for emphasis.

  “You’re in over your head, kid, you don’t have the facts. They can’t leave their own country, the foreigners, with all their loot. It’s against the law. So, what do they do? Black market. They get the back-room boys, some other foreigners, to give ’em francs for the local play-money. Only trouble is, they can’t open an account here. Where’d they put the loot? They’ve got to cart it around on ’em. You should see the wallet on your fat friend from Brazil, must be coming apart every which way.… Two hundred, what do I know, maybe three hundred big bills. Now d’you understand, bonehead?”

  That should turn her off. But Theresa got up and stood in front of him, naked and eloquent:

  “So? What if he’s got a million francs in his pocket, just what does that do for us, d’you mind telling me?”

  Fred’s eyes narrowed.

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning, since last night you’ve been avoiding answering my question.…” She took a deep breath: “Fred, you’re nothing but a coward!”

  The slap came all by itself. They were both surprised. He looked at the hand that had struck out so easily. She looked at the boy who’d confirmed her judgment so soon.

  “You’d be better off hitting me here,” she hissed, pointing to her stomach. “At least you might get rid of the baby that way. You’re no use for anything else.”