Peril Is My Pay by Stephen Marlowe

Author:Stephen Marlowe [Marlowe, Stephen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: detective, mystery, noir
ISBN: 9781453252529
Google: rKjyj5Widx8C
Amazon: B001LJZCLQ
Publisher: Fawcett
Published: 1960-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWELVE

I WAS WEARING MY .44 Magnum in the shoulder rig when we stepped off the Pan-Am DC-7 at Le Bourget airport in Paris.

There’d been no problem about the Magnum in Italy. I’d cleared it with the authorities before leaving the States, an easy thing to do when you have a friend who is Assistant Chief of Protocol at the State Department.

Here in France it was different. We’d caught the Wednesday night flight from Rome, and I had as much business wearing a Magnum as I’d have had smuggling a kilo of raw heroin into Paris. But when I’d needed the gun in Rome it had been back in my room at the Eliseo in my B-4 bag. From now on it would go everywhere I went. I had a hunch I would need it before we left France.

We checked through douane control after picking up our luggage. No one noticed the slight bulge under my lapel. I gave my B-4 bag and Lois’ suitcase to a porter, and we headed for the information desk.

Lois said: “Don’t look so grumpy, Chet. You won’t regret taking me with you.”

“I’m not grumpy. I’m wondering if we can get a flight to Quimper.”

A charwoman in a black smock was mopping the tile floor near the information desk. “I’ve never been to France before,” Lois said. “Have you?” The flight had changed her. She seemed eager for what lay ahead now, not scared or bewildered.

“Once,” I said.

“Business or pleasure?”

“Business.”

“Were you alone?”

“No.” It occurred to me then that on my other trip to France I’d been seeking Pericles Andros too.

“There, you see?” Lois said triumphantly, using the sort of female logic a mere male will never understand.

I hadn’t wanted to take her with me, but Pan-Am’s wasn’t the only flight to Paris. “Look, it’s final, I’m going with you,” she had argued in her room at the Flora in Rome. “Or I’m going myself if you don’t take me. Wouldn’t you rather be able to keep an eye on me?” I’d admitted that. “I won’t get in the way, Chet. I promise. But Hilda called me because she needed me. I’m going. Don’t argue with me.”

“I’m not arguing with you. You’re arguing with yourself. Go on and pack your bag.”

While she’d done that, I’d called the Guardia Finanza. Colonel Talese had flown to Domodossola to close the net on Carnuvale’s smuggling contacts there. I left a message containing what knowledge we had of the situation in Quimper. I said Talese could find me at the Hotel L’Epée.

Now at Le Bourget Airport in Paris I asked the information clerk: “When’s the next plane to Quimper?”

His answer surprised me. “Three daily, m’sieu. At seven, at noon, at five in the afternoon. You may secure a reservation at the Air France desk.”

I looked at my watch. It was half-past one in the morning. We’d be on our way to Quimper in five and a half hours.

Lois nudged me. “Three flights a day? That’s wonderful. Until today I never even heard of Quimper.

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