J. Janes - Carousel

Kohler began to crawl forward through the flotsam. There was still no light. Louis … where was Louis?

Again the shrill voice came. ‘You attack a veteran, a man who faced death for his country, eh? A captain, my friends. Captains do exist! It’s that shit Corbet, that Major next to her who’s been talking, eh? Well, my fines, take this and this! ’

The shots cannonaded through the caverns and the tunnels, echoing as he shouted, ‘ME, I CAN SHOOT BETTER THAN HIM!’

It had to be the Captain Dupuis of the one leg. Again Louis made an attempt. ‘Monsieur, please! I merely want to talk to you.’

‘Questions, eh? More questions. Then talk , you parasite! Suck at the blood of an innocent man. Give out a few more of your lousy sous, you cheapskate.’

‘Francs … I gave you one hundred francs.’

‘PISS OFF!’ Three shots came rapidly. ‘DON’T COUNT, MY FINE. I’VE TWO GUNS, OR HADN’T YOU NOTICED? I always have them. That saved my ass at Verdun and I’ve kept by the rule ever since. One for rats like you and the other one inside the tunic, eh, just in case you stir and need a little more!’

The tunnels must be endless. The water was cold and still ankle-deep. Had he missed a turning?

Kohler doubled back. The stench was pitiful. Gott im Himmel , was it safe to strike a match?

‘When … when did you last see Roland Minou talking to the one upstairs, that girl’s lover?’ hazarded Louis.

‘ Lover? ’ came the shrill accusation, but from where? That bastard? It’s men like him who take advantage of sweet young girls like that. I’ll show him. I’ll put one of these up against that forehead of his. He can laugh all he wants, my fines, but it’ll be the last laugh he gives!’

St-Cyr tried to ease his cramped legs. Madame Minou gave a yelp, then a pitiful entreaty. ‘ Captain , you must stop the shooting! Roland did not kill her.’

‘You lying old sow. I’ve seen the way you leered at that little pigeon. A virgin for your son, eh? Well listen good, madame. That bastard son of yours has been in and out of this shit box of a hotel more times than you can count! He met that rapist of young girls in the Bistro Caban. That little shit of a hood told the industrialist exactly where things were at.’

‘What things … what things?’ Hermann … where was Hermann?

‘THE GIRL!’ shouted Dupuis, reloading the revolver. ‘The virgin , you bloodsuckers. Roland wanted her cherry, so he put the squeeze on the rapist!’

Four more shots were fired with uncanny ability. ‘He’d been following her for months, eh? He knew where she went and what she was up to. One night he even followed her into the villa at Number twenty-three and stole a few things for himself. Now leave me alone. Alone , I say, or I’ll do something crazy. CRAZY! A virgin … she was a virgin, you idiots!’

The bastard was completely mad. ‘Louis … Louis, where the hell are you?’

‘Nowhere,’ came a timid voice, quite near now. ‘He’s got two guns, Hermann. Remember?’

‘In the Name of Jesus, messieurs, your company is a great trouble to me!’

‘Be quiet, madame. Don’t interfere with police officers engaged in their duties. Keep your head down and your heart beating.’

Five minutes passed and then another five, but by then Kohler had finally found them.

‘He … he has gone out by the other way, messieurs. Through the tunnels. He will not come back, not that one.’

‘Where … where do the tunnels end?’ asked Kohler.

The woman gasped as she struggled to sit up. ‘Beneath the church. That one will go there, to Father Eugene. He will seek sanctuary.’

‘With two guns and on crutches?’ scoffed Kohler, finding his matches at last.

‘Yes … yes. With two revolvers or pistols. I … I never can remember which are which.’

But she’d known he’d had them in his room!

Kohler struck a match. ‘One has a cylinder like that, madame, the other hasn’t.’

She licked her lips in doubt. ‘Then he has one of each, monsieur. The pistol and the revolver.’

‘A nine-millimetre, Louis?’

‘Probably, Hermann, but then … Ah, my new suit, my new coat! Son of a bitch!’

Another match was called for and then a bundle of them. Madame Minou was still wallowing at their feet. ‘He has the wire, messieurs. A coil of it to … to tie up the bedsprings. Me, I … I have forgotten about this until now.’

The deceitful old sow.

St-Cyr leaned down to help her up. ‘Your memory amazes me, madame. We’ll be lucky to keep one jump ahead of it. The church, Hermann. We must go there now.’

‘I’ll get Oona and Audit. They’ll have heard the shots, Louis, and thought the worst.’

A gun battle. ‘Dupuis must have seen you taking them past his room, Hermann. He panicked and thought we’d come for him. Madame and I saw him hurrying down the stairs, but he was nimble, so nimble. He shot past me and made for the cellars.’

‘Wait for me. Let me find out what’s happened upstairs.’

The room was empty. The iron bedstead had been removed and now that end of the mattress and springs rested on the floor.

‘Oona?’ he cried out. ‘Louis … Louis …’ Gott im Himmel !

Kohler began to run. There was a Turkish at the far end of the corridor, the handle a piece of porcelain slime. He put a foot up and yanked. Major Corbet, that shit Dupuis had been roundly castigating in the cellars, was squatting. ‘Where … where the hell did they go?’ shouted Kohler.

‘Both to the street. The woman first and then, at least some ten minutes later, the giver of unwanted pates and liqueurs.’ Was nothing private in this place? ‘Please do me the honour of closing the door.’

Kohler left him to it. Oona … Oona … Bastard … Bastard. The door slammed shut only to bounce back but by then he was going down the stairs two at a time.

‘Louis … Louis, they’re gone! I can’t believe it.’

St-Cyr squeezed the last of the water from a trouser leg and went calmly up the stairs.

Yes … yes, it was quite true. Audit had escaped custody. There was a small notebook in the hall. As he thumbed through it, the telephone number of the Bureau Otto came up and he, too, started to run.

The bedstead was jammed into a crack in the courtyard’s outer wall. One loop of iron had been snapped off.

Audit was now a free agent. There was no sign of Oona Van der Lynn.

‘The Villa Audit, the Church of Saint Bernard, the bal musette on the corner?’ offered Hermann.

Since there were no lights, St-Cyr said, ‘You to the bal and the villa. Me to the church.’

‘Take care.’

‘You too my old one.’

‘That God of yours won’t care, Louis. He’ll simply laugh at us.’

Which was true. God mocked. God was the High Court Jester on the carousel.

From the zinc to the cluttered tables, the sea of faces measured zero, and in the bal musette behind the cafe, the crowded couples clung to each other as much for warmth as love.

Kohler hunted the dance floor beneath the ball of slivered mirrors. The lights were low, the tobacco smoke thick and reeking of cheap perfume. Older men with young girls; middle-aged wives with husbands or lovers they could no longer trust. Couples turning, turning, going round and round. Where … where the hell was Oona?

The accordian wept, a disinterested drummer made eyes at the ceiling while the piano player forgot one hand to lift a glass to his lips. There wasn’t a German uniform anywhere, not one Nazi or one of their sympathizers. Only himself.

People were beginning to take notice of him. The music was braying Resistance … Resistance … The place began to smell of it, to cry out Hostages … You bastards took thirty of them!