The head bartender, a massive bald man with steel-rimmed glasses, picked up a telephone concealed below the far end of the bar and brought it to his ear. Jason watched him between the roving figures. The man’s eyes spun around the crowded room—what he heard appeared to be important; what he saw, dismissible. He spoke briefly, plunged his hand below the bar and kept it there for several moments; he had dialed. Again, he spoke quickly, then calmly replaced the phone out of sight. It was the kind of sequence described by old Fontaine on Tranquility Isle. Message received, message relayed. And at the end of that receiving line was the Jackal.
It was all he wanted to see that evening; there were things to consider, perhaps men to hire, as he had hired men in the past. Expendable men who meant nothing to him, people who could be paid or bribed, blackmailed or threatened into doing what he wanted them to do without explanation.
“I just spotted the man I was to meet here,” he said to the barely conscious Maurice and Ralph. “He wants me to go outside.”
“You’re leaving us?” whined the Belgian.
“Hey, man, you shouldn’t do thay-at,” added the young American from the South.
“Only for tonight.” Bourne leaned over the table. “I’m working with another légionnaire, someone who’s on to something that involves a lot of money. I don’t know you, but you seem like decent men.” Bourne pulled out his roll of bills and peeled off a thousand francs, five hundred for each of his companions. “Take this, both of you—shove it in your pockets, quickly!”
“Holy shee-itt!”
“Merde!”
“It’s no guarantee, but maybe we can use you. Keep your mouths shut and get out of here ten or fifteen minutes after I leave. Also, no more wine. I want you sober tomorrow. … When does this place open, Maurice?”
“I’m not sure it closes. I myself have been here at eight o’clock in the morning. Naturally, it is not so crowded—”
“Be here around noon. But with clear heads, all right?”
“I shall be le caporal extraordinaire of La Légion. The man that I once was! Should I wear my uniform?” Maurice belched.
“Hell, no.”
“Ah’ll wear a suit and a tie. I got a suit and a tie, honest!” The American hiccupped.
“No. Both of you be like you are now, but with your heads straight. Do you understand me?”
“You sound très américain, mon ami.”
“He sure do.”
“I’m not, but then the truth’s not a commodity here, is it?”
“Ah know what he means. I learned it real well. You kinda fib with a tie on.”
“No tie, Ralph. See you tomorrow.” Bourne slid out of the booth, and suddenly a thought struck him. Instead of heading for the door, he cautiously made his way to the far end of the bar and the huge bald bartender. No seats were available, so, again cautiously, politely, he squeezed sideways between two customers, ordered a Pemod and asked for a napkin on which to write a message, ostensibly personal, to no one who might concern the establishment. On the back of the napkin’s crude coat of arms, he wrote the following with his ballpoint pen in French:
The nest of a blackbird is worth a million francs. Object: confidential business advice. If interested, be at the old factory around the corner in thirty minutes. Where is the harm? An additional 5000 F for being there alone.
Bourne palmed the napkin along with a hundred-franc note and signaled the bartender, who adjusted his steel-rimmed glasses as if the unknown patron’s gesture were an impertinence. Slowly he moved his large body forward, and leaned his thick tattooed arms on the bar. “What is it?” he asked gruffly.
“I have written out a message for you,” replied the Chameleon, his eyes steady, focused on the bartender’s glasses. “I am by myself and hope you will consider the request. I am a man who carries wounds but I am not a poor man.” Bourne quickly but gently—very gently—reached for the bartender’s hand, passing the napkin and the franc note. With a final imploring look at the astonished man, Jason turned and headed for the door, his limp pronounced.
Outside, Bourne hurried up the cracked pavement toward the alley’s entrance. He judged that his interlude at the bar had taken between eight and twelve minutes. Knowing the bartender was watching him, he had purposely not tried to see if his two companions were still at the table, but he assumed they were. Tank Shirt and Field Jacket were not at their sharpest, and in their condition minutes did not count; he could only hope five hundred francs apiece might bring about a degree of responsibility and that they would leave soon as instructed. Oddly enough, he had more faith in Maurice-René than in the young American who called himself Ralph. A former corporal in the Foreign Legion was imbued with an automatic reflex where orders were concerned; he followed them blind drunk or blind sober. Jason hoped so; it was not mandatory, but he could use their assistance—if, if, the bartender at Le Coeur du Soldat had been sufficiently intrigued by the excessive sums of money, as well as by a solitary conversation with a cripple he could obviously kill with one tattooed arm.
Bourne waited in the street, the wash of the streetlights diminishing in the alley, fewer and fewer people going in or coming out, those arriving in better shape than those departing, all passing Jason without a glance at the derelict weaving against the brick.
Instinct prevailed. Tank Shirt pulled the much younger Field Jacket through the heavy door, and at one point after the door had swung shut, slapped the American across the face, telling him in unclear words to follow orders, for they were rich and could become much richer.
“It is better than being shot in Angola!” cried the former légionnaire, loud enough for Bourne to hear. “Why did they do that?”
Jason stopped them at the entrance to the alley, pulling both men around the edge of the brick building. “It’s me,” he said, his voice commanding.
“Sacrebleu … !”
“What the Gawdamn hell … !”
“Be quiet! You can make another five hundred francs tonight, if you want to. If not, there are twenty other men who will.”
“We are comrades!” protested Maurice-René.
“And Ah could bust your ass for scarin’ us like thay-at. … But mah buddy’s right, we’re comrades—that ain’t Commie stuff, is it, Maurice?”
“Taisez-vous!”
“That means shut up,” explained Bourne.
“Ah know thay-at. I hear it a lot—”
“Listen to me. Within the next few minutes the bartender in there may come out looking for me. He may, he also may not, I simply don’t know. He’s the large bald man wearing glasses. Do either of you know him?”
The American shrugged, but the Belgian nodded his floating head, his lips flat until he spoke. “His name is Santos and he is espagnol.”
“Spanish?”
“Or latino-américain. No one knows.”
Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, thought Jason. Carlos the Jackal, Venezuelan by birth, rejected terrorist, whom even the Soviets could not handle. Of course he would return to his own. “How well do you know him?”
It was the Belgian’s turn to shrug. “He is the complete authority where Le Coeur du Soldat is concerned. He has been known to crush men’s heads if they behave too badly. He always takes off his glasses first, and that is the first sign that something will happen that even proven soldiers do not care to witness. … If he is coming out here to see you, I would advise you to leave.”
“He may come because he wants to see me, not because he wants to harm me.”
“That is not Santos—”
“You don’t have to know the particulars, they don’t concern you. But if he does come out that door, I want you to engage him in conversation, can you do that?”
“Mais certainement. On several occasions I have slept on his couch upstairs, personally carried there by Santos himself when the cleaning women came in.”
“Upstairs?”
“He lives above the café on the second floor. It is said that he never leaves, never goes into the streets, even to the markets. Other people purchase all the supplies, or they are simply delivered.”
“I see.” Jason pulled out his money and distributed another five hundred francs to each weaving man. “Go back into the alley, and if Santos comes out, stop him and behave like you’ve had too much to drink. Ask him for money, a bottle, whatever.”
Like children, Maurice-René and Ralph clutched the franc notes, glancing at each other both as conspirators and as victors. François, the crazy légionnaire, was passing out money as if he printed it himself! Their collective enthusiasm grew.
“How long do you want us to hassle this turkey?” asked the American from the Deep South.