He could not do it; he could not pull the trigger. He lowered the gun, standing helpless by the marble column as Conklin climbed into his car.
The car. He had to get back to Paris. There was a way. It had been there all along. She had been there!
He rapped on the door, his mind racing, facts analyzed, absorbed and discarded as rapidly as they came to him, a strategy evolving. Marie recognized the knock; she opened the door.
“Dear God, look at you! What happened?”
“No time,” he said, rushing toward the telephone across the room. “It was a trap. They’re convinced I turned, sold out to Carlos.”
“What?”
“They say I flew into New York last week, last Friday. That I killed five people … among them a brother.” Jason closed his eyes briefly. “There was a brother—is a brother. I don’t know, I can’t think about it now.”
“You never left Paris! You can prove it!”
“How? Eight, ten hours, that’s all I’d need. And eight or ten hours unaccounted for is all they need now. Who’s going to come forward?”
“I will. You’ve been with me.”
“They think you’re part of it,” said Bourne, picking up the telephone and dialing. “The theft, the turning, Port Noir, the whole damn thing. They’ve locked you into me. Carlos engineered this down to the last fragment of a fingerprint. Christ! Did he put it together!”
“What are you doing? Whom are you calling?”
“Our backup, remember? The only one we’ve got. Villiers. Villiers’ wife. She’s the one. Were going to take her, break her, put her on a hundred racks if we have to. But we won’t have to; she won’t fight because she can’t win. … Goddamn it, why doesn’t he answer?”
“The private phone’s in his office. It’s three in the morning. He’s probably—”
“He’s on! General? Is that you?” Jason had to ask; the voice on the line was oddly quiet, but not the quiet of interrupted sleep.
“Yes, it is I, my young friend. I apologize for the delay. I’ve been upstairs with my wife.”
“That’s whom I’m calling about. We’ve got to move. Now. Alert French Intelligence, Interpol and the American Embassy but tell them not to interfere until I’ve seen her, talked to her. We have to talk.”
“I don’t think so, Mr. Bourne. … Yes, I know your name, my friend. As for your talking to my wife, however, I’m afraid that’s not possible. You see, I’ve killed her.”
33
Jason stared at the hotel room wall, at the flock paper with the faded designs that spiraled into one another in meaningless contortions of worn fabric. “Why?” he said quietly into the phone. “I thought you understood.”
“I tried, my friend,” said Villiers, his voice beyond anger or sorrow. “The saints know I tried, but I could not help myself. I kept looking at her … seeing the son she did not bear behind her, killed by the pig animal that was her mentor. My whore was someone else’s whore … the animal’s whore. It could not be otherwise, and as I learned, it was not. I think she saw the outrage in my eyes, heaven knows it was there.” The general paused, the memory painful now. “She not only saw the outrage, but the truth. She saw that I knew. What she was, what she had been during the years we’d spent together. At the end, I gave her the chance I told you I would give her.”
“To kill you?”
“Yes. It wasn’t difficult. Between our beds is a nightstand with a weapon in the drawer. She lay on her bed, Goya’s Maja, splendid in her arrogance, dismissing me with her private thoughts, as I was consumed by my own. I opened the drawer for a book of matches and walked back to my chair and my pipe, leaving the drawer open, the handle of the gun very much in evidence.
“It was my silence, I imagine, and the fact that I could not take my eyes off her that forced her to acknowledge me, then concentrate on me. The tension between us had grown to the point where very little had to be said to burst the floodgates, and—God help me—I said it. I heard myself asking, ‘Why did you do it?’ Then the accusation became complete. I called her my whore, the whore that killed my son.
“She stared at me for several moments, her eyes breaking away once to glance at the open drawer and the gun … and the telephone. I stood up, the embers in my pipe glowing, loose … chauffé au rouge. She spun her legs off the bed, put both hands into that open drawer and took out the gun. I did not stop her, instead I had to hear the words, from her own lips, hear my own indictment of myself as well as hers. What I heard will go to my grave with me, for there will be honor left by my person and the person of my son. We will not be scorned by those who’ve given less than us. Never.”
“General …” Bourne shook his head, unable to think clearly, knowing he had to find the seconds in order to find his thoughts. “General, what happened? She gave you my name. How? You’ve got to tell me that. Please.”
“Willingly. She said you were an insignificant gunman who wished to step into the shoes of a giant. That you were a thief out of Zurich, a man your own people disowned.”
“Did she say who those people were?”
“If she did I didn’t hear. I was blind, deaf, my rage uncontrolled. But you have nothing to fear from me. The chapter is closed, my life over with a telephone call.”
“No!” Jason shouted. “Don’t do that! Not now.”
“I must.”
“Please. Don’t settle for Carlos’ whore. Get Carlos! Trap Carlos!”
“Reaping scorn on my name by lying with that whore? Manipulated by the animal’s slut?”
“Goddamn you—what about your son? Five sticks of dynamite on rue du Bac!”
“Leave him in peace. Leave me in peace. It’s over.”
“It’s not over! Listen to me! Give a moment, that’s all I ask.” The images in Jason’s mind raced furiously across his eyes, clashing, supplanting one another. But these images had meaning. Purpose. He could feel Marie’s hand on his arm, gripping him firmly, somehow anchoring his body to a mooring of reality. “Did anyone hear the gunshot?”
“There was no gunshot. The coup de grâce is misunderstood in these times. I prefer its original intent. To still the suffering of a wounded comrade or a respected enemy. It is not used for a whore.”
“What do you mean? You said you killed her.”
“I strangled her, forcing her eyes to look into mine as the breath went out of her body.”
“She had your gun on you …”
“Ineffective when one’s eyes are burning from the loose embers of a pipe. It’s immaterial now; she might have won.”
“She did win if you let it stop here! Can’t you see that? Carlos wins! She broke you! And you didn’t have the brains to do anything but choke her to death! You talk about scorn? You’re buying it all; there’s nothing left but scorn!”
“Why do you persist, Monsieur Bourne?” asked Villiers wearily. “I expect no charity from you, nor from anyone. Simply leave me alone. I accept what is. You accomplish nothing.”
“I will if I can get you to listen to me! Get Carlos, trap Carlos! How many times do I have to say it? He’s the one you want! He squares it all for you! And he’s the one I need! Without him I’m dead. We’re dead. For God’s sake, listen to me!”
“I would like to help you, but there’s no way I can. Or will, if you like.”
“There is.” The images came into focus. He knew where he was, where he was going. The meaning and the purpose came together. “Reverse the trap. Walk away from it untouched, with everything you’ve got in place.”
“I don’t understand. How is that possible?”
“You didn’t kill your wife. I did!”
“Jason!” Marie screamed, clutching his arm.
“I know what I’m doing,” said Bourne. “For the first time, I really know what I’m doing. It’s funny, but I think I’ve known it from the beginning.”
Parc Monceau was quiet, the street deserted, a few porch lights shimmering in the cold, mistlike rain, all the windows along the row of neat, expensive houses dark, except for the residence of André François Villiers, legend of Saint-Cyr and Normandy, member of France’s National Assembly … wife killer. The front windows above and to the left of the porch glowed dimly. It was the bedroom wherein the master of the house had killed the mistress of the house, where a memory-ridden old soldier had choked the life out of an assassin’s whore.