The Day After Tomorrow_ A Novel - Allan Folsom [107]
Lifting the pillow, he brought out Kanarack’s gun and hefted it in his hand. Tipping it toward him, he saw the hole where death came out. It looked easy. Even seductive. The simplest way of all. No more fear of the police, or of the tall man. Best of all, his pain would be instantly gone.
He wondered why he hadn’t thought of it before.
56
* * *
FIFTEEN MINUTES later, at a quarter to six, Bernhard Oven rang the front bell to 18 Quai de Bethune and waited. He’d chosen to begin his search for the American with Vera Monneray’s building, eliminating it first and then going on from there if necessary.
There was a click of the latch and Philippe, buttoning the top button of the tunic to his green uniform under double chin, opened the door.
“Bonsoir, monsieur,” he said, apologizing for keeping the gentleman waiting.
“I have a delivery from the pharmacy at Sainte Anne hospital, sent by Doctor Monneray. She said to relay that it was urgent,” Oven said in French.
“To whom?” Philippe was puzzled.
“To you, I suppose. The doorman at this address. That’s all I know.”
“The pharmacy, are you certain?”
“Do I look like a deliveryman? Monsieur, of course I’m certain. It’s medicine, needed urgently. That’s why I, the assistant manager, was sent all the way across town on a Sunday evening.”
Philippe paused. The day before he had helped Vera bring Paul Osborn up the service stairs to her apartment from a car parked on the back street. Later in the day he’d helped her take him, heavily sedated after an operation, up to the hidden room under the eaves.
Osborn, he knew, had needed medical attention. Undoubtedly he still did, otherwise why would this delivery have come from the hospital pharmacy on a Sunday evening at Vera’s request?
“Merci, monsieur,” he said, and Oven handed him an official receipt book and a pen.
“Sign for it, please.”
“Oui.” Nodding, Philippe signed.
“Bonsoir,” Oven said, then turned and walked away.
Closing the door, Philippe looked at the package, then quickly walked to the desk. Picking up the phone, he dialed Vera’s private number at work.
Five minutes later, Bernhard Oven lifted the steel cover from the telephone panel in the basement of 18 Quai de Bethune, plugged a tiny earphone into a microrecorder connected to the front-desk phone line and hit “play.” He heard the doorman’s explanation of what had happened, followed by an alarmed female voice that had to be Mademoiselle Monneray’s.
“Philippe!” she said. “I sent no package, no prescription. Open it, see what it is.”
There was a rustling of paper followed by a grunt, then the doorman’s voice once more.
“It’s messy.... It—it looks like a medicine vial. Like doctors use when they give you a—”
Vera cut him off. “What does it say on the label?” Oven took note of the concern in her voice and smiled at it.
“It says . . . Excuse me, I have to get my glasses.” There was a clunking sound as Philippe put down the phone. A moment later he came back on the line. “It says—’.5ml tetanus toxoid.’ “
“Jesus Christ!” Vera gasped.
“What is it, mademoiselle?”
“Philippe, did you recognize the man? Was he one of the police?”
“No, mademoiselle.”
“Was he tall?”
“Très”—Very.
“Put the vial in your own kitchen trash and do nothing. I’m leaving the hospital now. I’ll need your help when I get there.”
“Oui, mademoiselle.”
There was a distinctive click as Vera hung up, then the line went dead.
Calmly, Bernhard Oven unplugged the earphone from the microrecorder and unhooked the recorder from the phone line. A moment later he replaced the cover to the telephone console, turned out the light and retraced his steps up the service stairs.
It was 6:15 in the evening. All he had to do was wait.
Less than five miles away, McVey sat alone at a table at an outdoor café on the Place Victor Hugo. To his right, a young woman in