Tamara’s father was in his early fifties, tall and well-built and tanned, with brown hair graying in dignified fashion around his ears. He wore a light gray herringbone suit and a black tie and looked every inch a Senator. He stepped down from his 727 into a brightly lighted cluster of officials, media people, and television cameras. A moment later his own claque of media people with their own equipment began to debark from the plane. I could make out bags and equipment labeled NBC, CBS, and ABC. Tamara and I watched from a distance while Payton waited for the others to set up shop. After a short speech to the cameras he turned finally toward the terminal.
A few minutes later he entered the VIP waiting room, attended by Commissaire Tama, Colonel Schneider, and a man who introduced himself as Bobby Lee Tanner, his campaign manager. Charles Wentworth Payton embraced Tamara dutifully, who seemed to recoil from his touch, and flashed me a politician’s smile as his hand brushed mine. Colonel Schneider failed to conceal his displeasure at seeing me. He muttered angrily to Tama, who shrugged and indicated Tamara with a flick of an eyebrow. Payton watched the exchange thoughtfully, then took me by the elbow and led me into the group that was sitting down in a corner of the room. Colonel Schneider averted his eyes.
Payton listened attentively while Tama described the situation. “These…paratroopers, then, have been arrested.”
“Detained for further questioning,” said Tama smoothly. “We’ve begun to receive information about them from Paris, and it is clear that they are of a dubious character. They were paratroop officers together in Algeria, and were then involved the attempted putsch against de Gaulle in 1961. They left the service and are believed to have joined the OAS, the Secret Army Organization, but this was never proven. In any case, the agencies fighting the OAS were not over-scrupulous in obtaining formal proof before…er, moving to action against OAS members. The fact that these three survived can be taken as either evidence of their non-involvement or of their slipperiness.”
“What’s that got to do with what’s happening now?” asked Bobby Lee Tanner. He spoke fast, fluent French with an abominable Texas accent that made Colonel Schneider wince.
“The OAS men were experts in terrorism, armed robbery, kidnapping, and murder,” said Tama equitably. “De Gaulle actually enlisted the aid of the French underworld to fight them on their own terms. It was a bloody period. Since the differences between the activities of the OAS and the criminal underworld were often rather slight, it was no great surprise when a number of OAS types eventually shifted allegiance and became full-fledged gangsters.”
“And that’s what these three have done?” said Payton. His French was like Tamara’s—smooth and with only a trace of accent.
“So it appears. They seem to belong to the milieu, the underworld, but have never been convicted of anything, or even been indicted, for that matter. Our information so far is that they have a number of business interest in southern France: trucking lines, janitorial services, bars and restaurants, hot-sheet hotels, which are traditionally favorite enterprises for legitimate-appearing crooks. They have been questioned from time to time about extortion and other strong-arm activities, but there has never been any suspicion of kidnapping, at least of respectable people. After all, the police are not always greatly concerned when they find the body of a gangster floating in Marseille harbor.”
“What about the Hotel Taaone?” I asked. “Do they own it or not?”
“A very complicated situation,” said Tama. “For the moment, let me say that the affair has been in various courts for over four years now with no end in sight. Tomorrow I hope to have a firmer grasp of the matter.”
I sat back with a grimace, no wiser than a moment before.
Tama caught my look. “Whatever the case,” he added, “it is clear that these men are not ordinary hoteliers. About the only undisputed fact in the case is that Monsieur West, who, with a certain justification, also claims to be the owner, is making monthly payments to the company owned by these men, but only under court order while waiting a clarification of the situation.
“Now then,” he went on briskly. “We have the incontrovertible evidence of the purse found on their boat that Mrs. Payton was on that boat sometime around the first of October. Also, her diary strongly indicates that not only did she…know them previous to that time, they also engaged her in acrimonious conversation regarding money. It’s hard to believe that the diary could be referring to anyone other than these three. Careful questioning of her Tahitian servants seems to put her disappearance at approximately October 1st. A further interesting point is that this ship, the Aventurier, sailed from Papeete harbor for three or four days just at that time. They say that they left to sail to Rangiroa, a four-day sail, but had to turn back after two days because of technical problems. There is no one who can confirm this.”
“But what about my mother?” blurted Tamara. “How is this helping her? What do they say about her?”
Tama placed his hands on his knees and appeared to be studying them. “That is what I was coming to,” he said without looking up. “Confronted with the diary, one of them, Jean-Paul Luria, now maintains that he did indeed know your mother. He says, in fact, that he met her one evening in some nightclub and subsequently…became her lover on the boat.”
Charles Wentworth Payton pursed his lips meditatively but remained silent. “That’s not true!” shouted Tamara. “I don’t believe it, no matter what that diary says!”
Commissaire Tama permitted himself a thin smile. “Neither do we, Miss Payton. His account of their…tryst on the boat lacks conviction, and he is elusive about the date and actual setting. In fact, he has contradicted himself several times. If indeed he is, or was, a high-powered gangster, he is sadly out of training. Frankly, I don’t believe an innocent man could have so much trouble deciding whether or not he knows someone. Or he may simply be their weak link. The other two, Buisson and Baudchon, refuse to admit to anything whatsoever. Shown the evidence of the diary, they laugh. Clearly someone else, they say. Perhaps three 18-year-old sailors. In any case, I feel we are justified in detaining the three of them for further questioning.”
“Excellent,” said Payton briskly, getting to his feet. “I see that the matter is in very competent hands. I’m certain you will shortly find my poor wife, Danielle, and lift this terrible burden from our shoulders.
Tama and Schneider rose. “I’m glad to have your confidence,” said Tama. “Just one small point: are you still convinced that your wife’s kidnapping is a hoax? And if so, why?”
It was nicely timed. Payton’s lips clenched and he threw a look of hatred at Tamara. I could see that it’d take him a couple of terms in the Senate—if he ever got there—to learn to dissemble with the automatic skill of the veteran politician.
“I was mistaken,” he said shortly. “It is now obvious that my wife has indeed been kidnapped, and it is my dearest wish to find her in the quickest possible time.” He stepped forward and thrust out his hand. “Thank you gentlemen.” His face a picture of grave concern, he wrapped his arm around Tamara’s shoulder and led her to the door and the crowd of waiting media people.
Tama scowled after him.
Bobby Lee Tanner tapped me on the shoulder. I bent closer and he whispered in my ear. “He wants to talk to you privately. Come out to his house. Now.”
I looked at my watch and sighed. It was six minutes past midnight. “Why not?” I said.
* * * *
I sat alone with Payton in his library, sipping a weak Scotch. Payton had removed his jacket and tie and was drinking brandy. He no longer looked like a politician’s ideal. He looked like a sharp, tough publisher on the way up, ready to cut any throats that got in his way. I liked him better like this.
“I checked up on you, LaRoche,” he said, “after Tamara told me she’d hired you. The word from San Francisco is that you’re pretty good. At least you were good before you got yourself bounced off the force.”
“No worse than losing an election,” I said.
He made a noise that could have been half-laugh, half-yawn. “That’s why I’m talking to you right now instead of sleeping. It’s four in the morning, my time. Tamara’s already given you $10,000. I don’t know whether you’ve earned it or not, but I’ll pay you another $10,000 to find out what’s going on here.”
“So you still don’t believe in the kidnapping?”
He waved a hand wearily. “I don’t know what I think. But I do know that if I want to get elected I’m going to have to cover my ass every way I can. So as far as John Q. Public and the voters of the great state of New Mexico are concerned, my wife, Danielle, is really and truly kidnapped, and it will be well-publicized that we’ll do anything at all, pay any amount of money, to see her safely back. That’s the first thing. The second is that I have no desire at all to pay $5 million to a bunch of kidnappers—or to my goddamned wife either!”
“That’s who you think is behind it?”
“Of course. My wife and I have been fighting about our property settlement for years. She was rich when she married me and I had nothing. Now she wants half of everything I’ve made on my own, and that could run maybe a hundred million.” He shook his head. “I never heard about marriage contracts with separate property rights like they have here in Tahiti until it was too late. By the time I tried to get her to sign one she’d heard about them too. So no dice.”
“You think the $5 million is just her idea of a preliminary divorce settlement?”
“Exactly!” His lips drew back to reveal small, sharp teeth. “By God, LaRoche, that’s exactly what I think! That’s just the kind of crazy thing she’d do.”
“Is that just a manner of speaking, or—”
“Is she really crazy?” he whispered. He rubbed a hand across his eyes. He set the brandy snifter down and eyed me somberly. “I’m going to tell you something, LaRoche, and if I find out that you’ve ever passed it on I’ll…I’ll kill you if I can. I’ll certainly break you. A lot of money can—”
“Sure,” I interrupted. “I’m trembling already. So either tell me or don’t. It’s getting late.”
Payton studied me a further moment. “All right,” he said. “Not many people know this, and my daughter, Tamara, in particular doesn’t. She adores her mother and must never learn it.”
“Cops have heard everything,” I said wearily. “Whatever you’re going to tell me, I’ve heard it five times in the last year.”
“If that’s true,” said Payton, “I feel sorry for you. And the whole world.” He stared down into his glass of cognac and began to talk.
In 1950, when Danielle Payton was thirteen years old, she was abducted by three men in a car as she returned from school one afternoon to her suburban home near Rochester, New York. The police were not brought in, and her father, an industrialist, secured her release with the payment of half a million dollars. Her abductors were never identified.
“Because of her old man,” said Payton disgustedly. “He refused to go to the police even after she was returned safely. He was some sort of a nut about sex. Danielle had been…raped several times. He got it into his head that she…had enjoyed it, had encouraged it, even. So he transferred the blame to her, as if she had been the criminal. His beautiful daughter, ruined. You can imagine what that did for her, psychologically. It’s a wonder she isn’t a basket case.”
“Not a pretty story,” I said. “But how does it relate—”
“—to anything else? I’m not sure, exactly. Neither are the psychiatrists. We’ve been married for twenty-four years now, ever since she turned twenty-one, and that kidnapping remains the central event in her life. The first time we had a serious quarrel, just after Tamara was born, Danielle simply disappeared. Two days later the police came to my house. They’d received a phone call saying that I was holding a kidnapped woman in the basement. A week later Danielle walked into a police station in Muncie, Indiana, and told them she had been kidnapped and raped by a man named Charles Wentworth Payton.”
He buried his face in his hands. “She was in…a clinic for six months after that. When she came out, I arranged for treatment from the finest psychiatrists in the world. After that…she was all right for a number of years. Then…wham! A kidnapping. And another. After a while we began to see patterns in them. The kidnappings were arranged so that Tamara never became aware of them. And while she was pretending to be kidnapped, she’d let herself be picked up by gangs of men and…well, you can imagine. And, finally, she never did it in Tahiti, only in the United States. When we realized that, I naturally encouraged her to spend as much time here as possible. And so far, it’s worked.”
“Up to now,” I said after a while. It had not been a cheerful story. “There are changes in the pattern. Why do you think they would change?”
“I don’t know. Maybe it’s the pressure of the divorce, of the election, her age, her astrological signs, who knows?”
“I thought you’d been arranging this divorce for years?”
“We have. It was nearly worked out three years ago, when Danielle suddenly had another one of her…episodes.” His eyes stared blindly into the past. “The worst. She reappeared one night with a gun and tried to murder me. She fired seven shots at close range. They all missed. It cost a small fortune to hush that one up.” He splashed more brandy into his glass. “Since then she’s been mostly in Tahiti. It cost me half a million bucks to have a shrink leave his practice in Los Angeles for two years and come down to live here in Tahiti. Just for her.”
I felt numb: that was something I didn’t hear five times a year.
“The shrink left a year ago. He said the best therapy seemed to be Danielle’s…orgies. He talked a lot about sublimation, role playing, baloney, baloney. I think he was crazy too. After that, I…just gave up. Said the hell with it. I gave her a million bucks if she’d stay away from me. I know what you’re thinking, LaRoche. So maybe that doesn’t make me husband of the year. Well, I can’t take it any more, do you hear?” His voice rose to a shout. “All my life I’ve been serving my country. You weren’t even born yet when I joined the Marine Corps in 1944—I was sixteen years old. I went through three island campaigns in the Pacific. I re-enlisted for the Korean War. After that I tried to help people, to bring them together, with my magazines. Now I want to do something more. I want to help straighten out this situation in Washington, to help get rid of these clowns who’ve screwed up our system and our wonderful country. That’s what I want to do, LaRoche, and by God I’ll do it!”
He sucked in air noisily between clenched teeth. “And no crazy bitch who fucks ten men at a time and tries to blow my head off is going to stop me!”