IT WAS ELEVEN IN the morning when he unlocked the door to Pierce’s apartment and let himself in. The living room was dark, the shades drawn, the room quiet.
The first gunshot startled him.
Raynaud dived behind the couch, seeing the bright yellow-white light from the barrel of the gun, and catching a glimpse of two figures sitting on a couch in the far corner: Pierce, with a shotgun in his hand, and Dominique, standing in a nightgown.
He dropped to the ground, and heard the sound of the gun being cocked.
“Hey,” he said, “listen to me—”
The second shot roared within the confines of the room. There was now dense, acrid, smoke.
“Hey, Richard, listen—”
Raynaud stuck his head up over the couch.
The third blast sent him ducking again.
“You son of a bitch,” Pierce said, “I ought to kill you. Maybe I will kill you.”
Still another shot, and then a metallic snap as the breech was broken open.
Raynaud leapt for the door. It would take Pierce a few moments to reload, and perhaps…
To his surprise, the stock of the gun struck him on the shoulder, knocking him against the wall. Pierce had thrown it. The gun clattered to the floor and Raynaud stopped, pausing at the door.
Pierce was laughing, and Dominique tittered girlishly.
“What the hell?”
Pierce continued to laugh, clutching his stomach. He walked to the couch and collapsed on it, doubled over in mirth.
Then Raynaud noticed. No bullet holes. No buckshot scatter. Nothing. The apartment was unmarked. With the laughter ringing in his ears, he picked up the gun and ejected the shells.
Blanks.
“Did I scare you?” Pierce said, still laughing. “Did I?”
“You scared me,” Raynaud said.
“You poor bastard, you ran like a rabbit.”
Pierce’s eyes were filled with tears. He continued to laugh.
“You jumped like you’d been goosed. Jesus. Jesus.”
Raynaud held the gun in his hands. “It wasn’t funny.”
“Funny? Christ, it was hilarious. If only you could have seen…” Pierce sat up and wiped his eyes with his sleeve. “Jesus, if only you could have seen yourself.”
“It wasn’t funny.”
Pierce stopped laughing and sulked. “It was.”
“No, it wasn’t.”
“But they were only blanks, for Christ’s sake.”
“It wasn’t funny.”
“You’ve been too long in the jungle, lad.”
“Don’t call me lad.”
Pierce got up. He walked over to Raynaud, and took the shotgun out of his hands.
“All right,” he said. “I won’t.” He hefted the gun in his hands, feeling the weight. “Like it?”
“Beautiful,” Raynaud said.
“I got it from Harrods. On sale.”
“That’s nice.”
“Did you have a good time last night, Charles boy?”
“Don’t call me boy.”
“Did you have a good time last night?”
“Not very.”
“How strange,” Pierce said. “She’s usually very good in bed. Was she tired?”
“She was upset.”
“Oh, that’s too bad.”
“She didn’t care for your little display.”
“A shame. Bloody shame.” He smiled. “And did you comfort her?”
“Some,” Raynaud said.
There was a knock at the door. Pierce opened it and said, “Come in, officer.”
A bobby stepped hesitantly into the room, and looked around at the thick blue smoke.
“Sorry, sir, but we heard shots…”
“That’s quite all right,” Pierce said. “You were right to investigate.”
The bobby stared at Pierce, then Raynaud, and finally Dominique curled up on the couch. Nobody said anything.
“Is there, ah, something wrong, sir?”
“Not at all,” Pierce said. “I was merely shooting at my good friend, Charles Raynaud. You see, he spent the night with my fiancée.”
Raynaud said nothing. His early, furious anger was cooling; he watched Pierce, trying to understand what he was doing.
“Shooting at him, sir?” the bobby said.
“Yes. Blanks, of course.”
“That’s illegal, sir,” the bobby said. “You should be aware that any use of a deadly weapon—”
“Oh, I know that,” Pierce said. “But in this case nobody is going to press charges. Mr. Raynaud is my house guest. He is visiting here from Mexico for a few days. We are old friends, you see.”
The bobby frowned and sniffed the smoke. He continued to stand hesitantly by the door, not really stepping into the room. He was being circumspect; this was, after all, Belgravia. One couldn’t treat Belgravia residents like Cheapside riffraff.
“Do you mind, sir, if I ask the gentleman about that?”
Pierce stepped back. “Not at all.”
“Sir,” the bobby said to Raynaud, “if you wish to press charges on this matter, you will have to—”
“No charges,” Raynaud said grimly.
“You’re quite certain, sir?”
“Quite certain.”
The bobby nodded and shook his head, bewildered. “Very good, sir. Sorry to disturb you all.”
He touched his cap and left. Pierce closed the door behind him, leaned back, and smiled at Raynaud.
“Expertly done,” Raynaud said.
“I thought so.”
“What was the point?”
“No point,” Pierce said.
Raynaud said nothing. He realized quite clearly that Pierce had used the incident to make certain the police knew a lot about Raynaud. It was a bizarre incident; there would be talk among the police; everyone would soon know that there was a strange American friend of Richard Pierce who had allegedly slept with Pierce’s fiancée and at whom shots had been fired from a shotgun.
The police would keep that in the back of their minds. Pierce had seen to that.
Why?
Raynaud said, “I have a business meeting this morning. You’ll have to do without me.”
“Charles, I’m paying you to be at my side.”
“You’re also shooting at me,” Raynaud said. He walked to the door and left, while Richard stood there and watched. As he walked down the stairs he paused for a moment to listen. Quite distinctly, he heard Richard and Dominique laughing.
Laughing about what? he wondered, and continued on down.
Lucienne was wearing a blue silk jumpsuit. Her feet were bare as she paced up and down in the living room beneath the glowering portrait of Herbert.
“You shouldn’t have left him alone,” she said.
“It was important.”
“I’m paying you to watch him.”
Raynaud shrugged. “I’m unreliable.”
“Charles, for a thousand a day…”
“Listen,” he said, “what does Richard know about you and me?”
“Know? He knows nothing.”
“Are you sure?”
“Of course, Charles. Why?”
“He is acting strangely.”
“How do you mean?”
He shrugged. He was not going to tell her about the incident with the gun. He was not going to tell Lucienne any more than he had to.
“Tell me, Charles.”
“It’s hard to explain.”
She said, “Was he very drunk last night?”
“Yes. Very.”
“I heard there was a scene,” she said.
He wondered briefly how she had heard. “There was.”
“What happened?”
“Nothing much. He made a fool of himself.”
She sighed. “As usual. You were with him all night?”
“No,” Raynaud said. “I wasn’t with him all night. He had a girl and he didn’t want me with him all night.”
“I see.” She puffed on a cigarette, and stubbed it out nervously. “A thousand dollars a day is a lot of money.”
“I’m earning it.”
“You seem to spend a lot of time away from him.”
“Not much,” Raynaud said.
“Where were you last night?”
“I spent most of the evening reading.”
“Reading what?”
“War and Peace,” he said.
“Enjoy it?”
“Too complicated,” he said, “for my taste.”
The maid came in and said, “It’s eleven, madam.”
She nodded, and said to Raynaud, “Come with me.”
They went to a room painted bright yellow. It was not large, and the ceiling was low; in the center was a padded leather couch, and overhead was a bank of a dozen sunlamps. Lucienne flicked on a switch and glaring light poured down on the couch.
“We don’t all live in the jungle, you know,” she said, as she began to undress. She did it slowly and gracefully, knowing he would watch. “London is very low on that vitamin, what is it?”
“D,” Raynaud said.
“Yes. Vitamin D.”
She lay down on the couch and relaxed. At her side was a timer, which she set. A quiet ticking could be heard.
“Ten minutes on a side,” she said. “It is like cooking a steak.” She smiled. “I loathe being pale.”
Her skin was the color of burnt honey. “You’re not pale,” he said. And then he remembered Sandra’s skin, a natural olive, and smooth.
“When I was younger, I would lie on the beach at Menton until I was almost black. And my hair was lighter then.”
“You miss France?”
“I miss the sun. Not France. France is a nation tied to the past, still dreaming of Napoleon. When I think of my father…”
She lapsed into silence.
“In Lyon?”
“Yes. He was a military man, a colonel. Very strict. He did not smoke or drink, and when he was angry, he would beat us. With his brass-tipped cane. Sometimes he even beat my mother.”
“When did you leave home?”
“When I was fourteen. I met a nice boy and stayed with him. Not all night, just until midnight. Then I went home, feeling strange and happy and womanly. My father—he was very sick then—was waiting with his cane. I took one look and ran away.”
“Have you gone back?”
“No. Never. Sometimes I write to my mother, and sometimes I send her money. But I have no desire to go back to Lyon.”
Raynaud leaned against the wall. He was silent, thinking about Sandra and what she had said.
A buzzer sounded. Lucienne reset the timer and turned on her stomach.
“They say it gives you cancer,” she said, “but I am not worried.”
He said nothing, still thinking.
“You’re very quiet, Charles.”
“Thinking.”
“About what?”
“Richard.”
She arched her back into a hard, sensual curve beneath the hot white light of the sunlamps. “Charles,” she said, “I have an itch. Would you scratch it?”