French Kiss, page 13
The cop coughed, his mouth opening wide in disbelief. M. Mabuse saw his hand fumbling with his holstered gun, drew the man’s head and shoulders through the car window until the cop’s thick upper torso was pinioned there. Then he leisurely reached up, jamming his stiffened thumbs under the mirror-lensed sunglasses, plunging them deep into the cop’s sockets.
The scream was just what M. Mabuse needed to hear, confirmation of the pain human beings suffer as they are dying, beating back for that fleeting moment the eerie sounds of the bombs rushing downward through smoke-filled skies.
In the damp grass, at the rim of the highway, M. Mabuse watched with a manic intensity the ribbons of color pass him by, the endless lines of cars, of humanity, trooping like soldiers to the final battle.
But out where he crouched, alone in the darkness of a midnight that never ended, there was only space, limitless, undefined, an emptiness more terrible by far than death.
Alix Layne was staring at the faded black-and-white photo of herself in the oak-tree swing. She sat on the piano stool, leaning on her forearms, which were crossed over the wooden top.
It was very quiet in the apartment. Dan was asleep, finally, after reading in bed until three. The girl upstairs had stopped her flute exercises and, thank God, the Connors next door had finished their quotidian fight.
The windows were open wide, but even the rush of traffic was subdued. Occasionally, Spanish voices were raised in altercation or laughter, like brief communiques from another world.
And Christopher Haye was gone.
Alix wondered what to make of Christopher Haye. Or, more accurately, what to make of her feelings for him. After many boyfriends, six or seven love affairs, and a twelve-year marriage, Alix was still waiting for her knight in shining armor. You’re no hero, she had said to Christopher.
She had met her husband, Dick, in college. He was a radical, wry and gifted—at least when he was focused in on a cause, like the war in Vietnam. She remembered the time he had publicly debated with the college dean on the pros and cons of the war. She had been so proud of him.
But after the war, it seemed, Dick’s focus had spun away. While she was working by day and going to law school at night, Dick was trying to write the great American novel that would sum up the state of the nation in the post-Vietnam era.
At first, money was no problem. There was Alix’s job at Saks Fifth Avenue, and her law-school tuition and expenses were being paid with a trust her grandfather had left her for this purpose.
But, gradually, it became clear that Dick couldn’t or wouldn’t write anything at all, let alone the great American novel. Instead, he seemed to take his frustrations out on her, waiting until she got home after classes, exhausted from her dual life, to vent his anger.
Alix, who spent her nights learning the American justice system, coming to appreciate its innate fairness and egalitarianism, had been in no frame of mind to hear this. Nevertheless, Dick persisted.
And so it went. Until he insisted that she have a baby. “We’re not a family,” he said. “Maybe that’s what’s wrong with us. We’re two separate people, in their own separate orbits. A baby will bring us together. It will bring us peace.”
But, instead, the child had fractured what was already a fragile situation. Dan’s birth polarized two people who were already slipping away from one another.
For one thing, Alix resented the further burden her pregnancy put on her. Dick still had not gotten a job, though he claimed to be out searching for one every day. “There’s nothing out there, I tell you,” he would say. “Nothing but laborers’ work.” Alix, still working behind the Clinique counter in Saks, found this irony tough to take.
But take it she did, because she had thought she loved Dick. She suspected that she would never again find a man who knew what it was she liked, and when. Certainly, she knew that never again would she be able to duplicate the fascinating, complex discussions she and Dick had had on world politics, religion, history, and art. He was not, like her previous lovers, dense when it came to understanding, or to emotion, two things that were of profound importance to her. He was so smart, so knowing, such a good lover, and so tender and patient with Dan.
Staring now at the photo of her as a child growing up in Ohio, she felt tears come to her eyes. How she longed to sit in that swing again, beneath the cool shade of the oak tree. She closed her eyes, could feel the strong, comforting presence of her grandfather. She could smell his warm scent, a little spicy with cologne, a bit musky with tobacco—how she loved it when, laughing with delight, he let her fill his pipe for him!
She could feel the vitality of him as his square, work-roughened hands gripped the ropes, setting the swing to vibrating. “Ready, Princess?” he would whisper in her ear. Then he would give one powerful push, and she would be off.
Why had her marriage failed? Even after all this time, Alix could not stop asking that question. It had not been that they had simply ceased to love one another, as had been the case with so many of their friends from college.
How easy the present would be, Alix thought, if she had discovered that Dick was having an affair. That was like finding roaches in your apartment, it was cut and dried, you knew what to do, get the Black Flag out, and go to it. Had Dick been fooling around, she could have accepted that, a pothole in the road of life, we all have to hit some once in a while. All her friends could sympathize, she was now a member of, as it were, the club. She could hate him, feel confident in that hate, and understand what had transpired to place her in this present.
But life was never that uncomplicated. She remembered a winter when her grandfather had taken her to fish in a frozen lake. Staring down through the ice, she had seen something moving, a shadow, nothing more. And she was unaccountably frightened, not knowing what was down there, and what it portended.
The fact was that Dick had never been unfaithful to her. Even now, she knew from the unceasing letters he wrote her (after she refused to take his calls) that he still loved her, that she was, in his own words, the only woman he ever loved, whom he ever would love.
The end of her marriage was like that gray day on the frozen lake, peering under the ice with a mixture of terror and fascination. Something mysterious and unknown was moving there. Dick simply could not deal with what she had become: a success not only in the world—from Dick’s viewpoint that was bad enough (”What happened,” he wrote, “to the good, old days when I could always find you smelling good at Saks?”)—but in a field of endeavor dominated by men. If only she had wanted to be something else, a therapist or a teacher, perhaps, something feminine—or, at least, unisex—he could have forgiven her those desires.
When it all came out like a torrent of filth from a long pent-up sewer, that was bad enough. But he also succeeded in making Alix feel as if the marriage breakup had been her fault. Her fault that she had wanted to be a lawyer; her fault that she was successful. As if ambition and success were deficiencies.
Which meant that in a way she was still not free of Dick even though they did not live together, she no longer carried his name (though, of course, Dan did, like baggage from another lifetime), and he no longer had visitation rights. If, she thought, I have done such a thorough job of cutting him off, how is it that I still feel the bastard’s claws in my back?
With a sigh she got up. Outside, someone was playing on a harmonica a tune, whose name she could not remember, from
Rubber Soul. She went into the bathroom to brush her teeth, and saw herself in the mirror. She remembered the look in Christopher Haye’s eyes when she had laughed. Perhaps—was it possible?—that was the first time he had seen her laugh.
All her life people had told Alix that she was beautiful, but she did not particularly believe it. She would listen dreamily, as if they were talking about someone else, someone in a film. Because when she looked at herself, all she could see were the faults: mouth too wide, nose not straight, the list was too long and too depressing to trot out at a moment’s notice. That was saved for when she really wanted to beat up on herself, for those times when she looked at Dan, and thought, as Christopher Haye had said, that the boy needed a daddy, too.
Christopher Haye. Her thoughts kept running back to him, like a river to the sea. She had been aware of him for a long time, aware that she was attracted to him. But she had done nothing about that attraction. And now that he had made the first move, how would she respond? In truth, she did not know. She was tired of being disappointed by men, but she still loved them enough not to be defeated. Never defeated.
In her mind the Beatles song from Rubber Soul, plaintive on the harmonica, drifted back through the years. Until she was dancing again with her grandfather, on the wide, warped steps of their house in Ohio, wind shivering the oak leaves, a whippoorwill adding counterpoint to the music, and thick, lemon light cascading over them from the parlor.
Life was so simple then. Alix had been so happy.
What had happened?
Soutane sat down under the striped awning of Le Safari. The restaurant had been a favorite of Terry’s, the one in which the photo of them had been taken.
Terry had preferred it because it was at the eastern end of Nice, well past the opera house where the tourists flooded the streets. Soutane liked it because, in the cool beneath Le Safari’s awning, one could watch romantic strollers idling away the morning amid the flower stalls of the open-air market on Cours Saleya.
It was late enough now so that most of the shoppers were gone. Many of the stalls were already closed, and those that were still open had little left in the way of goods. Sellers were hosing down their individual areas or leaning on their counters, gossiping among themselves while they smoked or drank a bit of wine.
Soutane had chosen this time, and this spot, after careful consideration. She had returned from Mun’s villa in Vence late last night. Which was why she was here now, sipping a Campari and soda at Le Safari. Her unknown shadow had been looking for something in the house—something of Terry’s. He hadn’t found it. But he obviously needed to find out where it was or, alternatively, who had it. Which was why he was still following her.
Through dark glasses she watched the activity at the flower market winding down. The sun was very strong and, it being overhead, there were almost no shadows. She had chosen this time of day—late morning—because there would be just the right amount of people on the street. If she had come earlier, she would have risked missing her tail in the throngs that clogged the market. Later in the day the street would be emptier. A tail would be more cautious, and she might miss him then, too.
Soutane had no illusions about herself. She knew she was beautiful, and desirable as well, which was not always the case in women. She had golden skin, and features that appeared as much Polynesian as they were Asian. She wore her black hair long, pulled back from her wide forehead in a thick plait. Her only piece of jewelry was a ring of carved red jade that was precious because Terry had given it to her.
She knew that, too, she was far from typical. Her spirit had been forged in the furnace of suffering. She was of French-Khmer parentage, and this had shaped her spirit. It forced her to be strong.
It had been her Cambodian mother’s misfortune to fall in love with power. She had married a Frenchman. But the strength this conflict provided—being married to a member of the ruling colonial power in Cambodia—also had its negative side. The often bitter love between her parents, born of her mother’s sorrow and anger at what had become of her country at the hands of the French, had hardened her, setting up its own conflict that resonated through Soutane’s life. This steellike temper went against her mother’s Buddhist teachings, which demanded that she take only meritorious actions.
Thus Soutane’s parents had gifted her. Their war—a mirror of history’s war—lived on inside their child.
In the ten or so minutes since Soutane had sat down, perhaps three dozen people inhabited her narrow view of the environment. This did not include anyone who was in and out within the span of thirty seconds. No one seemed out of place. A couple of young Frenchmen, giving her the eye, had sat down at a table that would afford them the best view of her long legs. Soutane covered her appreciative smile with the rim of her glass.
The last of the flower sellers in the street had packed up and left. A family of six were eating poisson and pate au pistou at the next table. The lanky waiter came out of the restaurant’s doorway to serve the two young Frenchmen. When he came by Soutane’s table, she ordered another Campari and soda.
The second time the Jesuit priest walked by he caught Soutane’s attention. She had marked him, as she had all the passersby, when she had first seen him. He had come down the Cours Saleya from the direction of the opera house, and the odd thing was that when he reappeared, he came from the same direction. That would mean that, rather than returning from some errand, he had circled around. To make another pass?
This time, however, he lingered, pausing beneath the awning of one of the touristy pizza joints down the street. He did not buy anything, which was his second mistake. He got out an oversized handkerchief, and mopped his brow.
Soutane studiously ignored him. The waiter brought her drink. When, after another few minutes, the Jesuit had not moved, she got up and went inside the restaurant, where it was as dark and cool as night. Fresh fruit was piled atop a curved mahogany bar.
She asked for directions to the lavatory even though she knew perfectly well that it was to the right and to the rear.
Back there, it was like being at the bottom of a well. Both light and sound were distorted. Shadows, grotesquely elongated, swept across the walls as if painted with a surrealist’s brush. The burst of conversation from diners at the inner tables drifted to her overlaid with echoes created in the tiny space.
Soutane went into the cubicle, pulled the door shut behind her. She stood motionless, seemingly doing nothing. But, in fact, she was listening. At length she heard the soft tread of careful footsteps.
It was very quiet in the close, dank cubicle. Soutane could no longer hear his approach, but she could feel his proximity. She willed her body to relax as she watched the door handle slowly turn. She had not locked the door, and now it began to open.
She turned so that her right side was to the door. As she did so, she lifted her skirt over her hips; she was naked underneath.
The door squealed on its old hinges. She saw the Jesuit standing in the shadows of the threshold. His black robes made him seem somehow sinister, like a raven appearing in a field at noon.
“Oui, monsieur?” she said.
“Pardon, madame.” But he hesitated. For an instant, as if magnetized, his eyes were drawn to the patch of curling hair between her thighs.
All the time Soutane needed to jam the rigid tips of her fingers into his solar plexus. The priest doubled over, and she slammed the top of his head against the doorframe, hauled him into the cubicle.
But his left hand was already coming up, she saw the glint of a knife blade. She calmly placed the pad of her thumb along the right side of his nose, pressed inward. He groaned, his fingers uncurling so that the knife clattered to the cracked tile floor.
“Who are you?” Soutane said. Again, the pressure at the facial nerve juncture. The Jesuit’s eyes rolled back into his head.
“Why are you following me?”
And again.
“What did you hope to find in my house?”
The Jesuit’s tongue came out. He mouthed silent words, swallowed. Pain filled his eyes like a torrent. “The For-Forest of Swords,” he finally managed to get out.
“What?” Soutane shook him. “What did you say?”
The Jesuit repeated what he had said.
“I don’t believe it,” Soutane said. The Prey Dauw, Forest of Swords, was, as far as she knew, a myth. It was a three-bladed weapon forged, it was said, to immobilize Buddha. In any event it was a symbol of power, a potent talisman kept alive by practitioners of the Muy Puan.
The Muy Puan was an outlaw book of Theravadan scripture. Normally the Theravadans taught that four of the thirty-one planes of existence were hells. The Muy Puan disputed that teaching. It preached, rather, that there were fully one thousand hells and, further, it purported to describe ways in which one could invoke the devils, demons, and false bodhisattvas who were consigned there.
Many younger Khmer, especially in the larger cities, no doubt had never heard of the Muy Puan. But the members of the Burmese mountain tribes in the north, the Shan, the Wa, Lahu, and Akha certainly had. They shared with the Khmer a deep belief in Theravadan Buddhism, of which the Muy Puan was a part. In their dialect it was known as the Ta Taun. Fear of its text ruled their lives. The thought that the Prey Dauw, the major talisman of the Muy Puan, actually existed was appalling.
The person who possessed the Forest of Swords would wield unlimited power in the Shan State. It would mean an end to the perpetual wars between the opium warlords of the Shan Plateau. It would mean the complete domination of the world’s major supply of opium by one person, whereas now there were many who divided up that control. It meant, in effect, that virtually unlimited power, as well as wealth, would be in the hands of a single human being.
“You are lying!” Soutane found that she was shouting. “There is no Forest of Swords! It is a myth perpetuated by the superstitious.”
“I myself have seen part of it,” the priest said. “I fell upon my knees when I saw it. I could feel the ripples of its power in the room, a cold fire that does not burn. There can be no doubt. It is the knife out of legend, the smallest of the three pieces.” He grimaced with the pain that would not end.
“You expect me to believe that?”
