Louis Shalako
“How much authorization do we need.”
It was one hell of a question.
Alphonse had finally been located. Roger, as it
turned out, was in some big meeting with the Minister and a bunch of other
bigwigs, and would be out of touch for quite some time according to his
personal secretary.
“Fuck. Is the car gassed up?” Hubert would have
liked to have had the opportunity to phone home and let Emanuelle know what was
up.
“Both tanks.” Alphonse nodded and Garnier grinned.
“Both tanks—” He and Eugenie had laughed at that
one.
Eugenie was still there, unable to tear herself
away. She was also aware of Hubert’s marital status, what with her job and all.
“Would you like me to give Emanuelle a call?”
“Yes. Thank you. Thank you, ever so much. Boys, fuck
it. Let’s go.”
They could buy a tooth-brush or whatever at a truck
stop. Hubert still had a fair whack of cash on hand—he hadn’t actually gotten
around to turning it in, due to the fact that LeBeaux was still missing, and
rendering accounts would have been complicated by that fact.
It would have left too many loose ends and the
accountants absolutely hated that.
So did he—
He sat down and cranked a fresh sheet into the
typewriter.
He looked at the Mademoiselle.
“This note’s for Roger, or Levain, okay? Make sure
he sees all of this stuff, please. Call down and let your boss know what we’re
doing, okay. Tell him to keep it under his hat.” His hands flew over the keys
and fuck the typos anyways.
“It’s authorized—” Alphonse. “Authorized by events.”
“Don’t you worry, Alphonse. I’ll make it stick.” And
she would, too.
They were already grabbing their hats and bolting
for the hall. Hubert scooted back and slammed open a desk drawer.
“My gun.” He held it up to show her and then he
remembered one last thing. “Ah—please answer the phone, and make a note of it.
Name, phone and incident report number. Someone will be back soon enough…”
Then he was gone.
Hopefully, but Levain, LeBref, Firmin…Margot.
Someone would be along.
Looking around, Eugenie picked a chair and settled
into it.
She might be in for a wait. She reached for a phone,
as Monsieur Piffard would be wondering just exactly where she’d gotten off to.
***
"...thirteen hours, gentlemen."
Unbelievable—
“Thirteen hours, gentlemen. Sure beats taking the
locals all the way—eight hundred and something, ah, sixteen, fucking
kilometres. Probably a record run, when you think about it.” Alphonse pulled a
little black book from the glovebox, reaching across a bleary-eyed Garnier’s
semi-inert form to do it. “Thirteen hours and seven minutes.”
Giving the tip of his pencil a lick, he began noting
it all down for posterity under the overhead light.
“Oh, Jesus.” It was well before dawn, a moonless
night, and the stars blazed over the mountainside.
Hubert had been cramped up in the back seat for
about the last five hours, although they’d rotated through, each of them taking
a shift at the wheel, and each of them having some time to stretch the legs at
one or two short stops along the way. He’d been trying for some kind of fitful
sleep, and not having much luck so far. Time for that had run out.
Putting the book away again, Alphonse reached under
the seat and pulled out a holster with a big, black revolver in it. Opening up
the door, he stuck out a leg, but had to pause and kind of think about it for a
second.
“Oh, Jesus.”
“Oh, Jesus, is right. Fuck, is more like it.” Martin
Garnier was stiff and sore, not so much from the bumpy ride, sheer hell along
some stretches, but also from bracing, just to hold himself in place in
imminent expectations of a deadly crash, and taking up permanent residence as
the saying went.
Alphonse in particular, had raced through the night,
out on the open road and with traffic light.
“I can’t believe it—have you ever considered Le
Mans, or the Grand Prix or anything like that…the Mille Miglia, perhaps?”
Garnier.
“No. Not really. Those guys are mostly pussies
anyways. But, we did it.” Alphonse. “We have arrived, gentlemen. Make sure
she’s locked up.”
Two more car doors opened, as cautiously and as
quietly as possible. They were at the gate to the logging road. The engine
ticked softly as things cooled down under the hood. They could smell hot oil
and dirt, mixed together in about equal proportions. What had once been
scrupulously-clean bodywork was now slathered in road dust. There were insects
all over the front end and windshield, and bits of asphalt stuck on behind the
fenders, down low. This from an unfortunate road-building project. They’d had
no choice but to slow down to a ludicrous twenty-five kilometres per hour, and
to sit and wait when the flagman said. Just about then, it was like all of them
at once had this terrible, sudden urge to shit—sheer tension, but there you
have it.
Hubert, with the knapsack slung over one shoulder,
had just closed the rear passenger door when Martin went all wobbly and he had
to catch him on the way to the ground.
“Whoa, Buddy, hang on there—”
Alphonse hurried around the front of the vehicle to
grab on and help hold Martin up.
“Altitude sickness.”
“Sure—and maybe a touch of carbon monoxide poisoning
too.” As for Hubert, he was a bit light-headed himself. “Fuck.’
“It’s okay, guys. I just stood up a little too fast,
that’s all.” Martin planted his feet and sort of shook them off, as by the
looks of him he wasn’t ready yet, and they weren’t quite ready to let go—
He gave them a wacky grin—
“Anyone got a smoke?”
“Come on boy, stand up straight. Put your hand on
the roof. Take a couple of long, slow breaths and blow out hard.”
“All right, all right.”
“Right. We go in, dead silent. No talking. Five
metres apart, guns drawn, safeties on—got it? Let’s not shoot each other in the
ass, okay.” He held up a small pair of binoculars, hanging on a strap about the
neck. “Let’s get in as close as we can and maybe get a look at the place.”
Hubert nodded.
“Sure, Alphonse. Whatever you say. Do you want to
lead off?”
Without a word, the old veteran slipped under the
gate, just a big steel pipe across a couple of posts, all painted yellow, and
then headed up the trail, and very dark it was in there too. He slowed up while
they could still see him, waiting.
The crickets, which had reigned supreme, had gone
dead quiet as this new presence made itself known.
“Come on, buddy.” It was barely a whisper, and with
Martin following along, Hubert had better get going or they’d never catch him.
“I’m all right.”
Martin slung his own pack and by this time it was
well over five metres. Ducking low, he went under the gate, pistol drawn but
not cocked…not just yet.
Just to be sure, he found the safety button.
One little push, and that is all it takes, he
thought.
She’s all set to go.
END
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Chapter Thirteen.
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| Real change is incremental. |
Chapter Twenty-Seven.
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