Louis Shalako
Capucine’s heart was full as she packed her
handbasket, with whatever she’d bought, whatever she could afford on her
limited pay. Whatever was in the garden. Whatever she could scrounge,
essentially.
Quite frankly, she didn’t know what to think of all of
this—
Thoughts of Éliott and the old man filled her mind
as she left her mother’s house, and headed off, up the road, and onto the trail
leading to the woods, the river, and ultimately to the cliff-place. It was
another brilliant morning, and she didn’t have to work until one o’clock.
The load tugged at her arm, to the extent she had to
shift sides from time to time. The grass was still wet and the dew was cool on
her toes.
There was yet another bottle of cognac in there,
more beer. There were still more small cartons of cigars.
Éliott had given her some money, quite a bit of
money, actually, and a list, and a note. After going to the police station,
sworn to secrecy and on his mysterious errand, she’d done a bit of shopping in
town. The basket was heavy indeed, the load this time including clean, white
towels and a couple of washcloths, laundry soap in addition to the food.
There were other thoughts.
He’d asked for a book from the library, a book of
signs. If that didn’t make the heart skip a beat, nothing would. She’d brought
him that the day before, and she wondered how he was making out with it.
Admittedly, it might be a tough read for the uninterested or the uninitiated.
It was Éliott more than the old man that plagued her
thoughts these days, and nights.
While she liked him, and he obviously liked her, his
intentions were anything but clear.
As for her imagination, it was working overtime
lately, not just in the romantic sense, but also in a kind of sheer,
unmitigated terror—
If he was a liar, he was very good at it, and she
wanted to believe him so very badly. His attempts to sign with her were either
very sweet or very cynical, she could not quite decide which.
He was also very good with the old man, a sign of
something, something she wasn’t too sure of. If it was a kind of manipulation,
what could he ever hope to gain from it? The old man had nothing of his own,
nothing to steal in the first place.
Perhaps it was a sincere wish to help, and yet the
challenges would be almost insurmountable.
The average person wouldn’t have bothered. It was
all too easy to write them off and to move on with one’s own business. He
seemed to have an awful lot of money, for a drifter, and that didn’t seem all
too likely either.
And then there was her—
She was a normal, healthy young woman, who also just
happened to be deaf. She had always been alone, and she’d known that from a
very young age. It really was all up to her in this world. She was different,
in a world that did not easily accept such differences. Not unnaturally, her
thoughts had, in the privacy of her own room and in the darkness of the night,
turned to thoughts of érotisme et transgression. She had no shame on that score. The Church didn’t know everything,
although God might, (a rather uncomfortable thought), but the human body, the
human mind, the very soul of a person was nourished far more by pleasure,
rather than by any amount of pain and suffering.
Which had their place, to be sure—
There might even be such a thing as love.
It was also pure fantasy, much of the time, and she
knew that as well.
She had been hurt before.
Upon reflection, it would seem that she had been
lonely, and that for a very long time now.
Capucine was a good Catholic, whatever that meant.
But.
Sooner or later, Éliott would have to show his true
colours.
Only time would tell, but something was sure to
happen.
It always did.
***
The sun had gone behind a cloud, and the birds had
held up for a moment, but only for a moment.
When the man stepped out onto the trail before her,
up in the hills as she was now, at first, she simply didn’t comprehend the
reality. She knew the trail, and the side trails, and this man had just stepped
out of the bushes. Her initial thought was that he was lost. More likely, just
having a quick pee and then moving on. It meant nothing, until a second man had
stepped out from the other side. Had he been urinating as well? She kept
walking, prepared to ignore them, but she stopped dead when she realized both
had pistols, and those pistols were leveled right at her—
She gasped, turned to run, although that was
hopeless enough at a distance of ten or twelve metres. She knew that much. The
bushes, the forest were right there—
This is when she screamed. Two more men had come out
of the bushes behind her, and one of them was right there in her face, and his
big hands clawed at her, her arms and her sweater and her basket. They were
right on her, dragging her to the ground, controlling her, and more than
anything, trying to prevent her inevitable, one good scream. Another man, this
one in a grey suit, stepped out of the bushes with a look of anticipation on
his face.
Biting at a hand, throwing punches, trying to get at
someone’s testicles with an elbow, a knee, a fist, the man cursed as she let
out one good, long, all-encompassing, blood-curdling, heart-stopping scream.
A big hard hand clamped down again and cut it off—
“Good girl. That’s a good girl, just shut up now,
all right.” He held the gun in front of her eyes and gave her arm a good twist.
“I’ll bet they heard that one—” Someone said as she
cried. “It’s too bad she can’t hear us, it might be better...”
She was sobbing, and he gave her a cuff on the ear.
“…oh, look. I wonder what’s in that lovely picnic
basket…” Another voice, this one was pure evil.
Struggle as she might, she wasn’t getting away and
they hauled her to her feet. Jerking from side to side, she tried to break the
hold.
“…right lads. Let’s get on with it.”
She cried more bitter tears as one of them knocked
her on the head with the barrel of his gun and then they were dragging her
along, helpless but still mostly on her feet.
***
When the scream came, Éliott didn’t know what to think. It was so unfamiliar out here. His initial thought was a bird, perhaps an eagle or something big like that taking a rabbit, perhaps right outside that very door. Admittedly, he didn’t know too much about such things.
When the pair of them heard voices, men’s voices,
not too far away, clearly coming up along the trail, and then the scream came
again, it could only mean one thing.
Éliott was up like a shot, knocking the chair over
backwards as he hastened to the door, where not incidentally, he had hung his
coat—and in an inner pocket of that rather offensively-plaid hunting jacket was
his pistol and a spare clip.
He knew the shotgun was loaded. The hermit had
acknowledged that there were a couple or three spare shells kicking around the
house. The hermit was up, heading down towards the back of the place, and
Éliott was peeking out through a crack in the curtains.
There wasn’t anything much to be seen.
“I’m coming.” The hermit stuck close to the left
wall, coming up to where the shotgun leaned against the wall. “See anything?”
“Not yet.”
“Here.” Coming across past the door, the old man
snapped a match and lit up a couple of the thin, black cheroots.
He stuck one into the corner of Éliott’s mouth.
“Thank you.” Holy—but the hermit was a fairly cool
customer.
There was someone out there, a voice.
“Maintenon! Inspector Gilles Maintenon! I want to
talk to you.”
The hermit looked at Éliott.
“Who in the hell is this Inspector Gilles fucking
Maintenon?”
Éliott’s lip curled in feral humour.
“How in the hell would I know—” He thought. “Just
keep quiet—they’ll get to it. Anyhow, I reckon they’ve got Capucine. She must
have been due, just about now.”
A quick glance at the watch confirmed it.
It was time to speak up. He opened up the door, just
a few centimetres.
“I’m terribly sorry. There’s no one here by that
name. Are you sure you have the right address?”
“We’re not after you, asshole. We’re not too
interested in the girl. It’s Maintenon we want.”
“Show me the girl.” Looking over, the hermit was
getting redder and redder in the face and Éliott had better do something quick
or the old fucker would probably go bolting out there, both barrels blazing.
“Otherwise, fuck right off, Monsieur.”
“Come on out and have a look—if you’re so tough.”
The hermit was at his shoulder, shotgun in the left
hand, something black and heavy in the other. It was a gun—a Beretta, small
calibre, semi-automatic pistol. Éliott’s jaw dropped, but what the hell.
“Here.”
“Hang on.”
Two guns were better than one. He quickly undid the
belt to slide the holster of his own MAB, standard issue, onto his right hip.
The hermit’s eyes popped a little at the sight of that, but he didn’t object.
As for the Beretta, it appeared to be loaded, it was fairly clean and important
things like that.
“Thank you.”
“It’s me they want, boy. You don’t have to go out
there.”
“Yeah, fuck, but who in the hell are you?”
The hermit stared at him.
“And why you, anyways?”
The hermit shook his head.
He chewed on a lip, thinking.
“I don’t know. I’ve been sort of hoping that it
would all come back to me.” He pushed in close again and took a quick turn at
looking out a crack in the curtains. “They say another good blow on the head
will do it sometimes…I rather have my doubts, or I might have even given it a
try. There are plenty of rocks
around…”
That voice came again.
“We haven’t got all day, sonny boy. In about a
minute we’re going to start breaking bones, maybe even cutting the girl. You
understand, asshole?”
Éliott yelled right back.
“Yeah, I understand. Asshole.” I’ll cut you first, motherfucker—
He pointed and the hermit scooted back to the other
side. In a low voice, Éliott gave him the simplest possible instructions, in
the hopes that he might even be able to do it.
“You don’t have to go out there either, you know. In
which case, they’re probably just coming in anyways. It’s your choice. You do
have five shells. They’ll push her in the door first.”
“I know. I know.” He nodded. “The trouble is, of
course, is that I want to—”
“Huh.”
“Let’s get these bastards.”
“I agree, sir. Let’s get these fucking bastards…”
This time of day, the sun would be above that cliff.
The interior would be all shadow. Opening the door, wide open, as far as it
would go, left-handed and using a broken old shovel, staying back in the
dimness as far as possible, he called out again.
“All right. I’m coming out—and you’d better be
playing straight with this one.” He put the shovel down, nice and quiet.
He pulled up the right hand shirt tail and tucked it
into the top of his trousers. It wouldn’t do to get all snagged up there. He
twisted the butt of the pistol so it stuck out a little, hopefully making it
easier to grab in a hurry.
He gave the hermit a little nod and stepped, very
cautiously, hands sort of held half-high, well out in front of him, hands going
out the door first, and then he came out into the light.
It was just like they said—they wanted Gilles, not
him.
END
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Chapter Thirteen.
Chapter Twenty-Seven.
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