The Day After Tomorrow_ A Novel - Allan Folsom [76]
Abruptly she turned to Von Holden. “Do you have a first name?”
“Pascal.”
“Pascal?” She’d never heard the name. “Is it Spanish or Italian?”
Shrugging, Von Holden grinned. “Both, either, neither,” he said. “I was born in Argentina.”
41
* * *
OSBORN STARED at the telephone and wondered if he had the strength to try it again. He’d already made three attempts without success. He doubted he could make three more.
Coming out of the woods at dawn he’d found himself in what he thought, in the early light, to be farmland. Nearby was a small shack that was locked but had a water connection outside. Turning the spigot, he drank deeply. Then, tearing back his trousers, he washed as much of the wound as he could. Most of the external bleeding had stopped and he’d been able to release the tourniquet without its starting again.
After that he must have passed out, because the next he knew two young men carrying golf clubs were looking down at him, asking him in French if he was all right. What he’d thought was farmland turned out to be a golf course.
Now he sat in the clubhouse, staring at the telephone of the wall. Vera was all he could think about. Where was she? In the shower? No, not for so long. At work? Maybe He wasn’t sure. He’d lost track of her schedule, the days she was on and off.
The manager of the clubhouse, a small, pencil-thin man named Levigne, had wanted to call the police, but Osborn had convinced him he’d only had an accident and that someone would come to pick him up. He was afraid of the tall man. But he was also afraid of the police. Most likely they’d already found Kanarack’s car. It would have been impounded, listed as stolen or abandoned. But when his body floated up someplace downriver, they’d have gone over it with a toothbrush and magnifying glass. Osborn’s fingerprints were all over it and they had his fingerprints. Barras himself had taken them that first night when they’d picked him up for attacking Kanarack in the café and then jumping the Métro turnstile in pursuit of him.
When had that been?
Osborn glanced at his watch. Today was Saturday. It had been Monday when he’d first seen Kanarack. Six days. That was all? After almost thirty years? And now Kanarack was dead. And after everything, his intricate plans, the police, Jean Packard . . . After everything, still he had no answer. His father’s death was as much of a mystery now as it had been before.
There was a sound and he looked up. A heavy-set man was using the phone. Outside, golfers were moving toward the first tee. The early haze had become bright sun. The first day without overcast since he’d come to France. The golf course was near Vernon, twenty or more highway miles from Paris. The Seine, as it snaked back and forth through the countryside, had to have taken him at least twice that far. How long he’d been in the water, or how far he’d walked in the darkness, he didn’t know.
On the table in front of him Osborn saw the dregs of the strong coffee the manager, Levigne, had brought him without charge. Fingering the cup, he picked it up and drained what was left, then set it back down. Just that, the effort of lifting a small cup and drinking, had tired him.
Across the room, the man hung up the phone and went outside. What if the tall man suddenly came in? He still had Kanarack’s pistol in his jacket pocket. Did he have the strength to take it out, aim and fire? He’d practiced with a handgun for years and was good at it. Target ranges in Santa Monica and in the San Fernando and Conejo valieys. Why he’d done it, he didn’t know. As an act of working out aggression? As a sport? As a defense against ever-increasing city crime? Or had it been something else? Something leading him toward a day when he would need it.
He looked back at the phone. Try. Once more. You have to!
By now his leg had stiffened and he was afraid movement would start the bleeding again. Further, the shock of his ordeal was wearing off and with