The Paris Option - Страница 14

Chapter Seven

A heavy spring twilight settled like a darkening blanket on Seine-St-Denis on the north side of Paris, beyond the boulevard Périphérique. Smith paid his taxi driver and got out, smelling the metallic odor of ozone. The warm air was close, almost stifling with humidity, threatening rain.

Pausing on the sidewalk, he jammed his hands into his trench-coat pockets and studied a narrow, three-story beige brick apartment building. This was the address Mike Kerns had given him for Thérèse Chambord. The place was quaint, picturesque, with a peaked roof and decorative stonework, and it stood in a row of similar structures that had probably been constructed in the late fifties or early sixties. Her building appeared to be divided into three apartments, one to a floor. There were lights on in windows in each story.

He turned and surveyed the street, where cars were parked with two wheels up on the curbs in the French way. A sporty Ford cruised past, its headlights shooting funnels of white light into the dusk. The block was short, porch lights and street lamps glowed, and at the end, near an elevated rail service, rose an ultramodern, eight-story hotel of poured concrete, also painted beige, perhaps to blend in with the lower apartment buildings.

Wary, Smith turned on his heel and walked to the hotel. He stood in the lobby a half hour, cautiously watching through the glass walls, but no one followed him onto the street or into the hotel. No one went into or left Thérèse Chambord's building either.

He searched through the hotel until he found a service entrance that opened onto a cross street. He slipped out and hurried to the corner. Peering around, he saw no sign of surveillance at the lobby entrance or anywhere else in the neighborhood near Thérèse Chambord's apartment. There were few, if any, places to hide, except for the cars parked on both sides. But all appeared empty. With a nod to himself, he moved briskly-back to Mile. Chambord's address, still surveying all around.

In the recessed entryway, there was a white calling card with her name engraved on it, slid into the address slot for the third floor. He rang her bell and announced his name and purpose.

He rode the elevator up, and when it opened, she was standing in her open doorway, dressed in a slim white evening suit, a high-necked, off-white silk blouse, and high-heeled, ivory pumps. It was as if she were an Andy Warhol painting, white on white, with a violent and focusing touch of blood red in a pair of long, dangling earrings and again at her full lips. Then there was the contrast of her hair, satin black, suspended in an ebony cloud above her shoulders, theatrical and appealing. She was an actress all right. Still, her dramatic flair could also be the simple reflex of talent and experience.

A large black handbag hung over her left shoulder as if she were about to go out. He walked toward her.

She spoke flawless English, no trace of an accent. "I don't know what I can tell you about my father, or that poor man in the hospital they say might've been in his lab with him when when the bomb exploded, Mr.Smith, is it?"

"Dr. Jon Smith, yes. Can you give me ten minutes? Dr. Zellerbach is a very old and close friend. We grew up together."

She studied her watch, biting her lower lip with small, incredibly white teeth, as she calculated in her head. At last she nodded. "All right, ten minutes. Come in. I have a performance tonight, but I'll forgo a few minutes of yoga."

The apartment was not what he expected from the building's quaint facade. Two walls were composed entirely of glass, giving it a very modern feel. On a third wall, tall glass doors opened onto a wraparound balcony with a railing of stark, geometric wrought-iron patterns.

On the other hand, the rooms were large but not enormous, with elegant period furniture from Louis Quatorze to Second Empire, haphazardly mixed and heavily packed into the room in the Parisian fashion that never seemed cluttered and somehow ended up being totally, and improbably, harmonious. Smith glimpsed two bedrooms through half-open doors as well as a small but efficient kitchen. Regal, warm, comfortable, and contemporary.

"Please." Her swift glance looked him up and down, and she motioned to a sturdy Second Empire love seat.

He smiled. She had weighed him in that glance and seated him accordingly. She leaned back in a more delicate Louis Quinze armchair. At a distance, standing in the doorway, she had seemed tall, a large and imposing woman, but once she was up close and seated, he realized she was barely five foot six. It was her presence that was large. She filled a doorway and a room. He guessed that on stage she could appear any size she wanted, as well as coarse or delicate, young or old. She projected an image that was larger than she, a sense of self that could control a stage as it did a living room.

He thanked her and asked, "Did you know Marty Dr. Zellerbach was working with your father?"

"Not for sure, no. My father and I were close, but we lived such busy and separate lives that we didn't see each other as much as we would've liked. We talked often on the telephone, though, and I recall he mentioned once he'd gotten the oddest and most wonderful collaborator an eccentric recluse from America who suffered from an obscure autistic disorder. But the fellow was also a computer genius. He implied that this Dr. Z, as he called him, had simply walked in one morning, fresh from the airport, and volunteered to be part of the research. When Dad realized who he was, and what he could do, he showed him everything. Dr. Z was soon advancing Dad's work with the most original innovations. But that's all I know about your friend." She added, "I'm sorry."

She was sorry. Smith could hear it in her voice. Sorry for Marty, for her father, for herself, and for Smith. It was in her eyes, too, the impact of her father's shocking disappearance, the conclusion that it must mean he had been killed. An impact that left her walking in a mental limbo neither in the present nor in the past, but suspended between.

He saw pain in her eyes. "It's a lot harder for you," he said. "At least Marty has a good chance."

"Yes." She gave a vague nod. "I suppose that's true."

"Did your father say anything that led you to think someone might've wanted to murder him? Someone whom he was afraid might try to steal his work?"

"No. As I said, Dr. Smith, we saw each other infrequently, but even less so these last twelve months. In fact, we talked on the telephone less often, too. He was deeply immersed in his lab."

"Did you know what he was working on?"

"Yes, the DNA computer. Everyone knew what the project was. He hated secrets in science. He always said there was no place for such ego-centered nonsense."

"From what I've heard, that was true up until last year. Any idea what happened to change him?"

"No." There was no hesitation.

"What about new friends? Women? Envious colleagues? A need for money?"

She almost smiled. "Women? No, I think not. Of course, a child, especially a daughter, never knows for certain, but my father barely had time for my mother when she was alive, even though he was devoted to her. She knew that, and it enabled her to put up with her giant rival his laboratory. Dad was, as you Americans would say, a workaholic. He had no need for money and never even spent his large salary. He had few friends, only colleagues. None was new or particularly envious that I knew about. But then, they had no reason to be. All his associates had great reputations of their own."

Smith believed her. The profile was prevalent among world-class scientists, especially the workaholic part. Enormous envy was unusual their egos were far too big to envy anyone. Compete, yes. Competition was fierce, and nothing delighted them more than the false starts, wrong lines of reasoning, and errors of their rivals. But if a competitor got ahead on the same project, they would be far more likely to applaud and then go to work improving on the other person's success.

He asked, "When you did talk to him, was there a hint he was close to the goal? A working prototype?"

She shook her head, and the cloud of long black hair resettled on her shoulders. "No. I'd remember that."

"How about your intuition? You say you and he were close."

She thought about it long enough to glance nervously at her watch. "There was a sense about him a feeling of elation the last time we had lunch. We were at a bistro near the Pasteur."

"When?"

"Oh, perhaps three weeks ago, probably less." She looked at the watch again and stood up. "I really must go." She smiled at him, a bold, direct smile. "Would you like to come to the theater tonight? See the performance and perhaps talk over dinner later?"

Smith smiled in return. "I'd like nothing better, but not tonight. Rain check, as we Americans say?"

She chuckled. "You'll have to tell me the derivation of that phrase sometime."

"It'll be my pleasure."

"Do you have a car?"

Smith admitted he did not.

"May I drive you? I'll take you wherever you want." She locked the apartment door behind them, and they rode down in the elevator together.

In the intimate space, she smelled of spring lilacs. At the apartment building's front door, Smith pushed it open and gallantly held it.

In appreciation, Thérèse Chambord gave him a dazzling smile of the perfect white teeth. "Merci beaucoup." She walked through.

Smith watched her step into the dark night, elegant and composed in her white evening suit. It was one of those moments of personal enjoyment that he would not have minded lasting. He repressed a sigh, smiled at himself, and started to follow. He felt the motion before it actually registered. The door slammed back into him. Hard. Caught completely off guard, he skidded back and landed awkwardly on the floor.