Folly Du Jour - Barbara Cleverly [105]
Joe turned and raised the Luger. He watched the door Alice had mentioned, waiting. The door creaked open and the snub-nosed barrel of a pistol started to slide out. Joe fired. The gun crashed to the ground. Someone howled in pain. Joe fired again blindly through the wood. Two bullets remaining. He waited a heartbeat and fired them off, warning shots down the length of the corridor, then wiped the gun and threw it back towards Flavius’s body. He turned and leapt, three steps at a time, down the stairs. Alice had already disappeared.
When he reached the entrance to the jazz club he paused and listened. The music had stopped, women were shrieking, men shouting. He was in greater danger of being torn apart in a mêlée of angry jazz fans, he calculated, than by the wolves.
He turned and backed into the door, bumping it open. He held up both hands, clearly unarmed, and gestured with a hand towards the stairs, a soldier indicating an enemy position. He yelled, ‘Au secours! Help!’ He looked over his shoulder, eyes wide in alarm, and shouted into the horrified silence: ‘Hell! A feller goes to the john and World War Two breaks out over his head! What sort of joint is this?’
Two hearty Americans leapt to his rescue and dragged him backwards to safety into the café. All three of them were instantly caught up and struggling in the general surge towards the exit.
God! It was there! Joe hadn’t heard and really didn’t believe in Bonnefoye’s promised taxi but there it was, as he’d described it, panting and choking at the kerbside. A petulant Alice was locked in the back. Bonnefoye was leaning nonchalantly against the driver’s door. He greeted Joe as he dashed up and unlocked the rear door.
‘Do you mind, Joe? Sitting in the back? Standard procedure when we’re carrying a dangerous prisoner. The lady took me for the driver. Understandable, as I was sitting at the wheel. Jumped in and told me to drive to the Gare de Lyon. In quite a hurry. Peremptory, even. Promised me a reward if I arrived on bald tyres! Another woman fleeing your company? What on earth do you say to them, Joe?’
He climbed in behind the wheel and turned off the engine. ‘Well now – what do you have to tell me, Joe?’
‘Four others on the premises, you say?’ Bonnefoye was calm, enjoying the moment. ‘We found the rear exit and covered it. There’s a panier à salade round there blocking the alley and ten of our best boys raring to have a go. A section of the Vice Squad are on their way as well. They’ll go in and clear up. Um . . . heard the noise. Are we likely to put our feet in anything up there, Joe?’
‘I’m afraid so. One rather large casualty, bleeding copiously. Not our man – the doorman. Name’s Flavius. Not that he’s answering to it. Problem with his throat.’
‘It was self-defence!’ Alice spoke up firmly. ‘He was threatening me and the Commander had to shoot him.’
‘Much as I dislike contradicting a lady,’ said Bonnefoye pleasantly, ‘I have to say I think you’ve got that wrong, madame. Your guard was shot by one of the other bits of scum you keep about the place with the house gun. I expect if we search carefully we’ll find the . . .’
‘Luger,’ supplied Joe.
‘. . . Luger, yes. Wiped clean? Yes, of course. And we’ll establish that the fracas was no more than a fight over a girl. The usual. We’ll just have to wait and see which one confesses to what, won’t we? But I’m sure one of them will be only too pleased to assume responsibility. Do you want to stay and see the fun, Joe, or shall we take off for the Quai?’
‘Hold on a moment,’ said Joe, still getting his breath back.
Alice had shrunk away from him as he pushed himself into the back seat alongside her.
He stared at her and burst out laughing. ‘Two minutes ago this woman, you’d have sworn, was on her way to the Ritz, sporting the last word in cocktail frocks! And now look at her! Milady de Winter! Fully caped. Booted and spurred probably too if I could be bothered to check. And –’ he kicked a soft leather bag she’d pushed away behind