R. Ellory - A Quiet Vendetta

The entire ambience of the place was enough to make his skin crawl.

They followed the man and were shown into a room that Hartmann guessed must have been at the front of the building. It was from here that came the only light in the house, and that light stood in the corner and barely illuminated the place enough for them to see Feraud.

But he was there, no doubt of it. Hartmann sensed the man.

His eyes adjusted to the gloom, and then he caught the shape of a ghost rising from behind a high-backed chair. It was cigarette smoke, a plume of cigarette smoke that arabesqued in curlicues towards the ceiling.

The Creole nodded towards the chair, and then turned and left the room.

‘Gentlemen,’ Feraud said, and his voice was like something dead and buried and now crawling its way up through damp gravel.

Verlaine went first, walking slowly towards the window, Hartmann a step or two behind him. When they reached the end of the room Hartmann could see that two chairs had been set against the wall, evidently for their audience with Feraud. The man was like Lucifer’s Pope.

Verlaine sat down first, Hartmann followed suit, and when he looked up he was shocked by the appearance of the old man before him. Feraud’s skin was almost translucent, paper-thin and yellowed. His hair, what little there was, was thin and frail, like strands of damp cotton adhering to his skull. The wrinkles on his face gave the impression of a man burned and healed, the lines deep and irregular and almost painful to see.

‘I asked you not to come back,’ Feraud said, and as he spoke smoke issued from his nose and his mouth.

Verlaine nodded. He glanced at Hartmann but Hartmann was transfixed by Feraud.

‘You did this thing for me?’ Feraud asked.

‘I did,’ Verlaine said. ‘The case will never reach the Circuit.’

Feraud nodded. ‘An eye for an eye.’

‘This is Ray Hartmann,’ Verlaine started.

Feraud raised his hand and smiled. ‘I know who it is, Mr Verlaine. I know exactly who Ray Hartmann is.’

Feraud turned his eyes towards Hartmann, eyes like small dark stones set into his face. ‘You have come home, I understand,’ Feraud said, which was the second time someone had made that comment. The first time it had been Perez, right there on the telephone while Hartmann was in the FBI Field Office.

‘It doesn’t leave you, does it, Mr Hartmann?’

Hartmann raised his eyebrows.

‘New Orleans… the sounds and the smells, the colors, the people, the language. It is a place all its own, eh?’

Hartmann nodded. The man was voicing thoughts he had possessed only a little while before. He felt as if Feraud could see right through him, that the man had an ability to wear his skin, to see what he was thinking, to know what he was feeling right in that very moment. Antoine Feraud and Ernesto Perez were perhaps more like brothers than he and Danny had ever been.

‘So you have come with your ironic name to find out what I know,’ Feraud said.

Hartmann frowned and shook his head.

‘Hartmann,’ Feraud said. ‘Hart-man… your name. You have come down here to find our heart man.’ Feraud laughed at his own play on words. Ray Hartmann felt ready to puke.

‘And what makes you think I know any more than what I have already told Mr Verlaine?’

Hartmann took his heart in his hands. ‘Because we have spoken with Mr Perez… Ernesto Perez. You remember him, Mr Feraud?’

Feraud smiled. ‘Perhaps, perhaps not. I am a very old man. I have met a very great many people throughout my life and I cannot be expected to recall every single one.’

‘But this one I think you do remember, Mr Feraud… because he came down here many years ago and did some things for you and Charles Ducane that it would be difficult to forget.’

Feraud nodded. He seemed to be acknowledging the fact that what Hartmann was saying was true.

‘And what is it that you think I can tell you?’ Feraud asked.

‘Why he’s come back,’ Hartmann said. ‘Why he’s done this… kidnapped Charles Ducane’s daughter, what he has done with her.’

Feraud shook his head. ‘What he has done with her I do not know. Why he has done this? That is an altogether simpler question.’

‘And the answer?’ Hartmann asked.

‘The answer you will have to get from Mr Perez.’

‘Mr Perez is taking a great deal of time arriving at that answer, Mr Feraud, and I am not sure we have that much time.’

Feraud smiled. ‘I am sure that if Mr Perez is anything close to the man you think he is he knows exactly what he is doing and how it will transpire. Perhaps Mr Perez has already killed the girl… perhaps he has already sunk her body into the everglades and he is just biding his time, seeing how long he can keep you people interested before he tells you what he’s done. I understand that he has killed someone else already, a man found in the trunk of a car some days ago.’

Hartmann nodded. ‘Yes, that’s right… well, as far as we can gather Perez was the one who killed this man.’

‘Don’t underestimate him, Mr Hartmann. That is all I am able and willing to tell you. You have a dangerous man here in New Orleans, and I am sure that if his reputation is anything to go by he is capable of an awful lot more than just the killing of one man.’

‘And you are not willing to help us?’ Hartmann asked.

Feraud waved Hartmann’s question aside as if it was of no significance at all. ‘And for what reason? What reason on God’s green earth could I have for wanting to help you and your Federal people?’

‘Because he might have come down here to seek an audience with you also?’ Hartmann asked.

Feraud laughed. ‘This man of yours, he would not get within a hundred yards of me.’

‘Anyone can be killed, Mr Feraud… anyone at all, even the president of the United States can be killed if the killer is willing to stake everything on such a venture.’

‘I am sure, Mr Hartmann, that if your Mr Perez had it in his mind to kill me he would have made his attempt before turning himself over to you. I understand that you have him safe and secure in the city, that he is guarded at all times by a significant number of federal agents. First of all he would have to find his way out of there, and then he would have to come through my people to reach me. The likelihood of Mr Perez accomplishing such a thing is a matter for dreams, not for reality.’

‘So you are not willing to divulge any further information, Mr Feraud?’

‘Divulge any further information, Mr Hartmann? You speak as if you believe I know more than I am telling you.’

‘I am convinced of it.’

‘Be convinced,’ Feraud said. ‘Be as convinced as you like. They are your thoughts and you are more than welcome to them… now, if you don’t mind, I am very tired. I am an old man, I know nothing more of this man Perez, and even if I did I can imagine that you would be the very last people on the earth I would want to share such information with.’

‘And what about Ducane himself?’ Hartmann asked.

Feraud turned and looked at him. He blinked slowly, like a lizard, and he pinned Hartmann to the spot with an unerring gaze. ‘What about Charles Ducane?’

‘Your involvement with him,’ Hartmann said matter-of-factly. ‘The fact that you and he have known each other for a great many years, that you have transacted certain business arrangements… that certain favors have been granted.’

‘You assume a great deal, Mr Hartmann,’ Feraud said.

‘I assume nothing, Mr Feraud. I merely make reference to certain things that have been forthcoming in my conversations with Mr Perez.’

‘And you believe everything he is telling you?’

Hartmann nodded. ‘I believe something unless it is challenged or proven wrong.’