The boy appeared in the June sun just after Micky had closed her magazine. She was lying on the little pebbled beach at the foot of the promontory. At first he seemed enormous to her because he was standing over her in a white shirt and faded canvas trousers, but later she saw that he was of medium height, even rather short. He was very attractive though, with big black eyes, a straight nose, a girl’s mouth, and a curious way of standing stiffly with his shoulders hunched and his hands in his pockets.
For two or three weeks now, Micky and Do had been living in the villa at Cap Cadet. Micky was alone this afternoon because Do had taken the car to go and buy something or other in a shop in La Ciotat: a pair of slacks they had looked at together and which she found hideous, or some pink earrings, equally hideous. At any rate, that is what Micky told the boy later.
He came quietly, without disturbing the pebbles under his feet. He was slender, and he had the watchful quickness of a cat.
Micky put her sunglasses back on to get a better look at him. She sat up, holding up the unfastened top of her bikini with one hand. He asked her, without an accent, whether she was Micky. Then without waiting for the answer, he sat down beside her, not quite facing her, with a wonderfully fluid movement, as if this were all he did in life. She told him for form’s sake that it was a private beach and she would be grateful if he went away.
As she seemed to be having trouble fastening her bathing suit top behind her back, he leaned over quickly and before she realised it he had done it himself.
After that he said he was going for a swim. He took off his shirt, his trousers, and his espadrilles, and clad in an old pair of khaki shorts, he walked off towards the water.
He swam the way he walked, calmly, silently. He came back with short locks of brown hair plastered to his forehead, and searched his trouser pockets for cigarettes. He offered Micky a Gauloise which had lost almost half of its tobacco. A drop of water fell on the girl’s thigh as he gave her a light.
‘Do you know why I’m here?’
Micky replied that it was not hard to guess.
‘I’d be surprised,’ he said. ‘Oh, I have all the girls I want. I’ve been watching you for a week, but believe me, it’s not for that. Anyway, it’s your friend I’m watching. She’s not bad either, but what I’m interested in doesn’t show. It’s here.’
He placed a finger on his forehead, fell back and stretched out in the sun, his cigarette in his mouth and one arm under his head. After a full minute of silence he looked at her, took his Gauloise out of his mouth, and declared, ‘My God, you’re not curious?’
‘What do you want?’
‘Well, it’s about time. What do you think I want? Ten thousand? Five hundred thousand? What’s it worth to keep your little heart beating? The movie stars are insured. Arms, legs, the whole works. Are you insured?’
Micky seemed to relax. She took off her glasses so she would not be white around the eyes, and said she had already had this routine. He could keep his shirt on, literally.
‘Don’t get me wrong,’ he said. ‘I’m not selling insurance.’
‘I know that.’
‘I’m just a good guy. I know how to keep my eyes and ears open, and I want you to take advantage of some information. Besides, I don’t make much money. For a hundred thousand I’ll spill the beans.’
‘If I’d given in every time someone’s tried to get money out of me, I’d be through. Are you going to put your clothes on or not?’
He sat up as if he’d given up his strange ideas. Without moving his hips, just by lifting his legs a little, he put on his trousers. Micky found him fascinating to watch. Later she told him so. At the time she merely observed him through half-shut eyes.
‘First of all, Jeanne’s out of her mind,’ he declared, sitting very still, gazing at the sea. ‘Do you know what her sign is? Taurus. Look out for Taurus, sweetie, they’ve got the hide of an elephant. Everything in the head and nothing in the heart …’
Micky put her sunglasses back on. He looked at her, smiled, put on his shirt and espadrilles and got up. She held him back by the bottom of his trouser leg.
‘Where did you hear that?’
‘A hundred.’
‘You heard me say it, in a restaurant in Bandol. You heard us talking, didn’t you?’
‘I haven’t been to Bandol since last summer. I work in La Ciotat, at the post office. I get off at 4.30. I heard that today, less than an hour ago. I was about to leave. Have you made up your mind, yes or no?’
Micky got to her knees and, probably to gain time, asked him for another cigarette. He lit it himself and handed it to her as he had undoubtedly seen it done in the movies.
‘At the post office? Was it a phone call?’
‘Florence,’ he said. ‘I’m a good guy. I guarantee you, it’s easily worth a hundred! All I need is money, like everybody else. It’s nothing to you.’
‘You’re ridiculous, go away.’
‘Your friend was the one that made the call,’ he said. ‘The one on the other end talks like this: “Think it over. That will do. Hang up.”’
Just then Micky heard the MG pull up in front of the villa: Do coming back. She lowered her dark glasses, looked the boy up and down one more time, and told him all right, he would have the money if the information was worth it.
‘I’ll talk when I see the hundred,’ he said. ‘Be at the tabac in Les Lecques tonight at midnight. There’s an outdoor movie in the courtyard. I’ll be there.’
He left without another word. Micky waited for Do to come and find her. When the girl arrived in her bathing suit with a towel over her shoulders, looking relaxed and happy, Micky told herself that she would not go to the tabac tonight or ever. It was late and the sun was getting low.
‘What did you do?’
‘Nothing,’ said Do. ‘Just loafed around. How’s the water?’
She was wearing the pink earrings. She went into the water the way she always did, first carefully wetting herself all over, then jumping in with a loud war whoop.
On the way to Bandol for dinner that evening, Micky glanced at the tabac in Les Lecques as they went by. In the courtyard behind the building she saw lights and film posters.
‘I met a strange boy this afternoon,’ she told Do. ‘A strange boy with strange ideas.’
And since Do did not respond, she added that she was going to have fun in this place after all.
At twenty minutes to twelve she took Do back to the villa, said she had forgotten to stop at the chemist’s, that one would be open in La Ciotat. She turned the headlights back on and left.
At ten minutes to twelve she left the car in a little side street near the Les Lecques bar-tabac and went into a canvas-covered courtyard. Sitting on a folding chair, she saw the end of a cloak-and-dagger film without being able to locate her little crook among the other spectators.
When she came out he was waiting for her, standing in front of the counter of the bar-tabac with his eyes glued to the television set, the sleeves of a navy-blue sweater knotted around his neck.
‘Let’s sit down,’ he said, bringing his glass.
On an empty terrace, behind glass partitions constantly doused in light from car headlights, Micky took from the pocket of her cardigan two ten-thousand-franc notes and one five-thousand-franc note.
‘If what you have to tell me is so interesting, you’ll get the rest.’
‘I’m a good guy. I trust you. Anyway, I know that right now you want to get home.’
He took the notes, folded them carefully, and put them in his pocket. He said that a few days ago he had transmitted a telegram from Florence. Since the errand boy was out for the morning, he had had to deliver it himself.
‘Café de la Désirade, in La Ciotat.’
‘What does this have to do with me?’ said Micky.
‘It was addressed to you.’
‘I don’t receive my mail in cafés.’
‘Your friend does. It was she who came for it. I know, because she stopped at the post office a few minutes later. I admit that at the time I still thought nothing of it. I got interested when she wanted to call Florence. The girl who put the call through is a pal of mine. I listened in. I found out it was the person who sent the telegram.’
‘Who, in Florence?’
‘I don’t know. The telegram wasn’t signed. It’s a girl who answers the phone. She sounds like somebody who knows what she wants. Unless I’m mistaken, she’s the one you get in touch with when you need money. Know who it is?’
Micky nodded her head, a little pale.
‘What did the telegram say?’
‘That’s the hard part,’ said the boy, making a face. ‘I think someone’s impersonating you for the dough, something like that, but if it’s more serious I have to be covered. What if I make a mistake and you have to go to the cops? What would happen to me? I don’t want anyone to think this is blackmail.’
‘There’s no question of my going to the police.’
‘That’s what I thought. Too much talk. Anyway, all I want is to be covered.’
‘Whatever happens, I promise I won’t talk about you. Is that what you want?’
‘Very funny,’ said the boy. ‘I don’t know anything about you and I couldn’t care less. The same goes for your promises. The receipt for the telegram is my only guarantee. Sign the book, and we’re in business.’
He explained that there was a record of the receipt of telegrams. As a rule the delivery boy did not bother to ask for a signature. He only made a note of the date and put an X in the blank space.
‘You sign in the space for your telegram as if you had received it yourself at the Café de la Désirade, and if you double-cross me, I can still defend myself.’
Micky replied that he could not be serious, that she was already bored with the whole business. He could consider himself lucky to have made twenty-five thousand francs out of such drivel. She was tired; she would leave him to his pleasures.
She got up and left the terrace. He caught up with her in front of the MG in the dark little street. He gave her back the notes, leaned over and kissed her lightly on the mouth, opened the car door, took from the seat a big black notebook that had somehow got there, whispered, ‘Clarissa coupling. Fondly,’ and was gone.
She met him again on the road outside Les Lecques, standing calmly on an embankment waiting for a ride. Micky found him a little too clever. However, she parked her car a bit further on and waited for him to get in. With his stiff shoulders, his fluid movements, and his lowered eyes, he still looked like a bad boy, but he could not conceal his satisfaction.
‘Do you have something to write with?’
He handed her a pencil and opened the black notebook.
‘Where do I sign?’
‘Here.’
He examined the signature carefully by the light of the dashboard, leaning so close that she smelled his hair and asked him what he put on it.
‘A man’s cologne, a brand you can only get in Algeria. I served in the army down there.’
‘It’s quite repulsive. Move away, and tell me again what that telegram says.’
He repeated: ‘Clarissa coupling. Fondly.’ Then he repeated three times all he remembered of the first telephone call. He had listened to another one that day, just before he decided to come to the beach and speak to her. He had been hanging around the outskirts of the villa for the past week from five o’clock in the afternoon until dinner time.
Micky said nothing. Eventually he fell silent too. After reflecting for a long minute with knitted brows, she put the car into first and started off again. She drove him to the port of La Ciotat, where the cafés were still open, and a big boat was sleeping surrounded by little ones. Before he got out, he asked her whether she was worried about what he had told her.
‘I don’t know yet.’
‘Do you want me to find out what’s going on?’
‘Go away and forget about it.’
‘Okay.’
He got out of the car, but before closing the door he leaned over and held out his hand.
‘I’ll forget about it, but first …’
She gave him the twenty-five thousand francs.
At two o’clock in the morning when she went up to the first floor, Domenica was asleep. Micky entered the first bathroom by the hall door. The name ‘Clarissa’ reminded her of something, she did not know what, and it was connected with the bathroom. She turned on the light and saw the trademark on the water heater. Her eyes followed the gas pipe up to the top of the walls.
‘Anything the matter?’ asked Domenica, stirring in her bed in the next room.
‘Need your toothpaste.’
Micky put out the light, went out through the hall, and went to bed.
A little before noon the next day, Micky told Madame Yvette that she and Do would have lunch in Cassis. She apologised for forgetting to tell her about it and gave her an errand to do in the afternoon.
Stopping the MG in front of the post office in La Ciotat, she told Do, ‘Come on, there’s something I’ve been meaning to send for days now. It keeps slipping my mind.’
They went inside. Micky studied her friend’s face out of the corner of her eye: Do was visibly ill at ease. As bad luck would have it, an employee asked pleasantly, ‘Is it for Florence?’
Micky pretended not to have heard, took a telegram form from a counter, and wrote out a message to Jeanne Murneau. She had given it a lot of thought before going to sleep, and had planned every word:
‘Forgive me, desperate, money, I kiss you a thousand times everywhere: forehead, eyes, nose, mouth, hands, feet, be nice, I’m crying, your Mi.’
If Jeanne found the words strange and was worried, it would put a stop to the plan. She would have had her chance.
Micky showed the message to Do, who read it without finding it either particularly amusing or particularly strange.
‘I think it’s quite funny,’ said Micky. ‘Just what the doctor ordered. Will you take it to the window? I’ll wait for you in the car.’
The boy from the night before, still in a white shirt, was stamping papers behind a window. He had seen them come into the post office and was standing nearby. He followed Micky out.
‘What are you going to do?’
‘Nothing,’ said Micky. ‘If you want the rest of the money, you’re the one who’s going to do it. When you leave at five, go right to the villa. The housekeeper will be out. Go up to the first floor, first door on the right. It’s a bathroom. After that you’re on your own. You’ll need a monkey wrench.’
‘What do they have against you?’ he said.
‘Not a clue. If I’ve understood, you will too. Report tonight at the tabac. Around ten, if that’s convenient for you.’
‘What will you have with you?’
‘I can give you twenty-five thousand francs more. After that, you may have to wait a few days.’
‘Look, so far for me this is strictly girl stuff. If it turns out to be anything more serious, count me out.’
‘As soon as I know what’s going on it won’t be serious,’ said Micky. ‘Besides, you’re right: it’s strictly girl stuff.’
He waited for her that night in the little street where she had parked the night before.
‘Don’t get out,’ he said. ‘We’re leaving. I don’t want to be seen twice with you in the same place.’
They drove along the Les Lecques beach, then Micky took the road to Bandol.
‘I’m not getting mixed up in anything like this,’ he said. ‘Not even for ten times the money.’
‘I need you.’
‘All you have to do is get the cops pronto. You won’t have to draw them a picture. All they have to do is unscrew the pipe and read the telegram: those two are out to get you.’
‘It’s more complicated than that,’ said Micky. ‘I can’t go to the police. I need you to stop this, but I’ll need Domenica even more, and for years. Don’t try to understand, I don’t feel like explaining.’
‘The one in Florence, who is she?’
‘Her name is Jeanne.’
‘Does she want your money that bad?’
‘Actually, I don’t think she does. Anyway that’s not the real reason, but that doesn’t concern anyone: the police, or you, or Domenica.’
She was silent until they reached Bandol. They drove to the casino at the end of the beach, but they did not get out when she turned off the engine.
‘Do you see how they’re going to do it?’ asked Micky, turning to the boy.
That night she was wearing turquoise trousers, sandals, and the cardigan of the night before. She had taken the key out of the ignition and several times as she talked she pressed it against her cheek.
‘I spent ten minutes in that bathroom,’ said the boy. ‘I saw that “Clarissa” was the trademark on the water heater. I unscrewed the coupling nut over the window. That cardboard thing is all damp and soggy. There are other couplings in the hall, but I didn’t bother to look at them. One is enough for their purposes. All they need is a closed room and the pilot light of the water heater. Who took care of the installation? It’s new.’
‘A plumber in La Ciotat.’
‘But who was there when the work was being done?’
‘Jeanne must have come down in February or March. She’s the one who took care of that.’
‘Then she may have an identical nut. This is a special kind of nut. Even if the coupling was shot, it wouldn’t let the gas escape fast enough to cause an explosion. And if they broke a nut, it would show. They must have another one.’
‘Are you willing to help me?’
‘What’s in it for me?’
‘What you asked for: ten times as much.’
‘First I’d really like to know what’s going on inside your head,’ he said, after a moment’s thought. ‘The imitation thing over the phone is surprising, but it makes sense. I’ve watched that girl better than anyone ever will, for hours at a time. She’s sure to go through with it.’
‘I don’t think so,’ said Micky.
‘What are you planning to do?’
‘Nothing, I told you. I need you to keep watching her. Jeanne will soon be here. What I would like to know is, when do they plan to set fire to the house.’
‘They may not have decided yet.’
‘When they do decide, I want to know about it. If I do, I guarantee nothing will happen, nothing at all.’
‘Good. I’ll try. Is that all?’
‘Most evenings there’s no one in the villa for hours at a time. Could you check the condition of the cardboard thing after we’ve left? Maybe that will tell us something. I won’t be able to keep her from going ahead with it. All she has to do is close the door when she takes a bath.’
‘Why don’t you confront them with it point-blank?’ asked the boy. ‘Do you know what you’re playing with right now?’
‘Fire,’ said Micky. Laughing briefly, joylessly, she started the engine.
On the way back she talked mostly about him, about the way he moved, which she liked. He was thinking that she was pretty, the most attractive girl he had ever known, but that he ought to be sensible. Even if she agreed on the spot to go somewhere with him and let him make love to her, ten times a hundred thousand francs would last longer than the moment they would spend together.
As if she could read his mind, she took one hand off the wheel and gave him the money she had promised for the evening.
Anyway, he lived with his parents, and it was always difficult to find somewhere.
He did what she asked. Four times in one week he saw the girls go off in the MG to spend the evening God knew where. He got into the villa through the garage which was always open, and examined the coupling.
He ran into the little heiress with the long black hair twice: one afternoon when she was alone on the beach at the foot of the promontory, and one evening at a restaurant in the port of La Ciotat. She seemed relaxed, as if she were sure she had the situation in hand. She maintained that nothing was going to happen.
Her attitude changed abruptly after the arrival of the tall girl with the golden hair.
He watched all three of them for another whole week before Micky got in touch with him. Usually he stayed on the edge of the road behind the house, but sometimes he came near and listened to their voices in the rooms. One afternoon Micky came back alone from the little beach, barefoot, in a bathing suit. She made an appointment with him for that evening.
They met at the port in La Ciotat. She did not get out of the MG. She gave him five ten-thousand-franc notes and announced that she no longer required his services. For his information, the tall girl had noticed him several times near the house. Anyway, the plan was only a joke; she knew that now. She advised him good-naturedly to be happy with the money he had received and to forget the whole thing. If he bothered her in any way at all, she was determined to make it unpleasant for him and she had ways of doing so.
Before leaving, the MG went ten yards, stopped, and backed up again until it drew level with the boy. Micky leaned over the door and said, ‘By the way, I don’t even know your name.’
He replied that there was no reason why she should.