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IF PASCALINE WAS INVOLVED in a conspiracy, at least it was not directed against my stomach. While I ate what I could of her prodigious breakfast, I decided Samantha’s absence was a stroke of luck. I had some risky things to do, and knowledge of them might endanger her and, through her, endanger me. If she had not invented her own excuse to leave me alone, I would have had to contrive something much less plausible.
From memory I dialed a number on the library phone. I was drumming my fingers on my knee before it had rung three times. The young voice that answered sounded bored.
"Robert!" I greeted the redheaded teenager. "Is your mother there? Can you talk?"
"Oh! Monsieur Quinn. Maman speaks no English. Did you run out of cigarettes again?"
"I quit smoking. Listen, I need your help on something important. Are you available?"
"Oui. It is Sunday morning. I shall tell Maman I am going to church."
"Please! My conscience can stand only so much." Robert thought that was funny, but as I explained my needs, his answers became sober, single syllables. Yes, he could meet me in half an hour at the bakery shop on the hill. Yes, he could bring a friend. And yes, he thought he could bring some firecrackers.
I had left myself a very short half hour to prepare, but I wasn’t the only one feeling the pressure of time. Soon Tom would return, replacing the clueless babysitter George Wrexham imagined me to be. A museum with a minimal staff would once again be filled with curious toursts armed with cameras.
And how much longer could he expect to control his paid thug, or the old plumber, or, for that matter, me?
To stop him, I needed to provide the police with facts they could use for an arrest. Searching Wrexham’s hotel room seemed like a logical place to start.
I checked the lighthouse with the binoculars, but for once Wrexham wasn’t there. I hoped he was somewhere other than his room, but I would find out for sure when I checked the keys in the lobby.
I exited the side gate and walked the block to the busier main road. There I sauntered through languid tourists and late churchgoers until I could wend my way uphill. Progressing at a pace my sore body could handle caused me to be late arriving at the bakery. Robert and his friend, Daniel, the brawny, dark-haired youth from his school gang, were already there.
I rested my hands on my knees to relieve my lungs. "Do you have the firecrackers?" I asked.
Robert made no note of my labored breathing, just showed me the dozen tiny red “cherry” bombs he had in his pocket.
"Light one," I said. “Please.”
Robert gave me an if-you-say-so shrug, lit one of the fuses with a match, and tossed the firecracker into the street. The bang was louder than a backfire but not as loud as an unmuffled motorcycle.
I nodded my approval. “Now I know how my warning signal sounds. By the way, the man’s name is George Wrexham, not Bandy. Mean anything to you?"
Both boys said no.
"No matter. I'm not moving as fast as usual, so at the first sign of him set off some of those. Then you guys clear out. Got it?"
Robert’s face fell. "Is that all you want?"
"No, there’s more."
My plan was for Robert and Daniel to start a fight in the hotel lobby, rough enough to force the desk man to leave his post to evict them. The time element was a little dicey, but with luck I’d be able to look up “Bandy’s” room number, snag the key, and hit the stairs before he returned. Not the most original ploy, I admit.
As we crossed the street, Robert asked the obvious question. Did I know Wrexham/Bandy’s room number?
I admitted I did not.
"Three eighteen," the teenager told me with a wink. "I saw it when I got his name from the book." He’d read the register. I should have remembered.
The hotel was a tall brick specimen converted from apartments into a shabby hotel. One price, one clerk, one stairway, no questions. I noted the rusty fire escape on the downhill side facing the Mediterranean looked unsafe. The front door had been propped open in honor of the approaching midday heat.
Only slightly larger than an ordinary living room, the lobby possessed a jagged, cut-up floor plan with a few choice places to duck out of sight. The boys went in without me and sat down at a low, round table scattered with magazines. They looked out of place and full of mischief. The clerk took less than a minute to approach them and ask their business in his establishment. The dramatic fight I had envisioned wasn’t even necessary.
Now standing, Robert eased himself into a position that put the man's back far from the doorway and me. The redhead’s lengthy story seemed to involve an uncle and a much anticipated brunch.
I made my move.
Finding two keys in the cubbyhole for room 318 was a good sign, but I still worried about how long Wrexham would be gone. Yet just as I reached my hand into the cubbyhole, Robert raised his voice. I glanced over to see him and his friend being hustled toward the exit. In a second the clerk would turn around and see me.
I grabbed a key and ran for the stairs without looking back.
Three eighteen was easy to locate among the five rooms on the third floor, but first I went to the end of the hall and the grimy window that opened onto the fire escape. Loosened by constant use, the window lifted smoothly. The cigarette butt rubbed out on an empty beer can explained it.
Robert’s friend, Daniel, paced the sidewalk in front of the bakery. I shot him a salute to signal my safe arrival, then pulled back inside, leaving the window open just in case.
For about a hundred heartbeats I held my ear to the door of room 318 and listened.
Nothing.
I unlocked the door. Nobody home. For the first time I was aware I was sweating.
There wasn’t much to see–a bed, a dresser, a closet, a bathroom. I set about searching everything as quickly and efficiently as possible.
George Wrexham kept his necessities to a minimum. The dop kit on the edge of the bathroom sink contained only shaving items and a tube of toothpaste. However, the box of tissues on the glass shelf felt too heavy. I dug down to the bottom with my fingers and found a set of tiny tools I assumed were lock picks. Not much good on the bicycle lock I used on the side gate, but maybe George had a bolt-cutter, too. Or a hired thug.
The closet contained five shirts, a pair of slacks, and a traveler's garment bag. Every other clothing item remained in a suitcase under the narrow bed. If escape became necessary, Wrexham would be ready to go in under a minute.
In with his underwear in the suitcase was a box of ammunition for a small gun. My nerves hummed as I searched, but I couldn’t find the gun. I feared for the boys out on the street. I feared for Samantha, and Pascaline, and Henri. My body was tensed for flight, yet I didn’t dare leave. Something more was there for me to find, and I intended to stay until I found it.
Wrexham’s hiding places were so simple and the room so stark I began to despair. I had been searching ten minutes. Ten long minutes. I wanted to abandon caution and rip the place apart, but then Wrexham would know I’d gone on the offensive.
I took a breath and calmed myself as I would before aiming a rifle. Then I set about completing my search. Pull out an empty dresser drawer, turn it over, put it back. My arms shook from the sheer frustration of it. What I was doing seemed insane.
When something finally turned up, I almost missed it because of my own impatience. Paper crackled against my leg where I rested the last dresser drawer. An opened envelope had been taped on the underside.
The paper was thick and faded with age. In a brown masculine scrawl the words “To be opened upon my death” had been written. Time no longer mattered. I slid out the letter and unfolded it.
"My son George," it read. "Every man commits a crime or two in his lifetime. Some are intentional, some not. Some are acts of omission, such as standing idle while another person is injured. Others, more grievous and damned, we commit with malicious intent, and for those we will pay dearly during our life and perhaps forever. If the latter is so, then I am faced with eternal punishment, for I killed another human being for profit and spite–my father, Hugh Wrexham, or "Marsford," as he came to call himself.
"At the time I was desperate. All my attempts to support myself and small family had failed. For so long I had expected to live as my father did, untroubled by the exigencies of life, that I allowed myself to become unsuited for reality. The harshness of this fact was too much for my pride. Rather than blaming myself, I blamed my father for my fate. I knew a generous pension was provided me in his will, which he foolishly read to us on his 50th birthday. With his death, I would have the life he allowed me to believe I deserved, but which he so cruelly denied me.
"Father's mind, always erratic and unpredictable, took an unfathomable twist. On the night he read us his will, he also claimed he intended to take his own life on his sixtieth birthday. The reasons were known only to him, and in time he abandoned the idea. However, the die had been cast. I had only to follow his script in order to get away with murder.
"Now, seeing your mother and you provided for was my only source of joy, and that a clouded one. As time wore on, I considered suicide myself. Yet as much as I hated what I’d done, I valued my own poor life more.”
A popping sound came up from the street, so I skipped the “Father...greatest treasure...chosen work,” blather and read last paragraph, the begging for forgiveness part.
“...please don't hate me for my sins. I have paid..." Two more sharp cracks coming from the street. "I have paid my debt a hundredfold and only burden you with this confession so that someone who might understand may know the truth." It was signed, "Silas Wrexham."
There was no ignoring the firecrackers now.
I refolded the letter and replaced it in the envelope taped to the drawer.
I shoved the drawer back in the bureau and took a quick look around.
Everything appeared to be in order, yet I had to do one more thing before I left. It would use valuable moments, but it had to be done. Not knowing his position slicked my skin with sweat. Was he on the sidewalk? In the building? Mounting the stairs? I rounded the bed, opened the closet door, unzipped the garment bag, and shuffled through the clothes inside.
Sadly, I found what I was looking for–a sport coat with leather buttons. On the left sleeve loose black threads dangled where a cuff button had once been. The leather on the remaining button bore scratches identical to those on the one I found in Lily’s bathrobe pocket.
George Wrexham had pushed an old woman down stone stairs to her death, and according to the firecrackers popping on the street, now he was closing in on me.
There was no elevator, and it was too late for the stairs. I ran to my open window and jumped onto the metal platform with a reverberating thump.
After I carefully lowered the window and ducked my head below the sill, time slowed to a crawl. Had George Wrexham been halfway down the hill when the boys set off the first firecracker? Was he carrying coffee he didn’t want to spill? Was he even coming into the hotel?
Seconds later I heard him. He strode toward his door with purpose and went inside. I couldn’t say whether the door shut behind him.
The fire escape would have been my best route to the street, but that was not the hand I was dealt. I descended down five rungs only to discover the ladder wasn’t connected to the next landing. A two-and-a-half story drop ended with a cement driveway.
Nothing to do but climb back to the third floor where George Wrexham might be waiting with a coffee in his hand, or maybe a gun.
Only one way to find out.
I lifted the window.