Mark Frost - The Second Objective

“Too much vin rouge ,” he said.

He collected the key from the desk, moved them into an elevator, alone, and rode up to the fourth floor. Pearson was out on his feet by the time they reached the door to room 417. Von Leinsdorf carried him inside, dropped him on the bed, set out the DO NOT DISTURB sign, and closed and locked the door.

Ile de la Cité, Paris

DECEMBER 21, 10:45 A.M.

Grannit’s eyes opened and automatically sought out Bernie Oster. He was sitting on the edge of a bed across the room, his right hand handcuffed to the bed frame, smoking a cigarette with his left. Bernie had suggested the cuffs himself before they bunked down, before Grannit had even considered it. For a moment, neither could summon the energy to speak. Grannit checked his watch; almost eleven o’clock. The fatigue that a full night’s sleep had only begun to remedy weighed on them even more heavily. They dragged themselves downstairs, and the hotel kitchen laid out its version of an American breakfast: scrambled eggs and mounds of fried potatoes, buttered rolls with dark jam, and thick black coffee. They ate in silence and abundance, then walked out onto the Ile de la Cité and smoked cigarettes in the biting wind while they stood at the rail and looked down the river.

“What’s that big church?” asked Bernie.

Grannit took a look. “I think that’s Notre Dame.”

“How’s their football team doing? I don’t see the stadium; is it around here?”

Grannit was about to respond until he saw the look on his face. “You always a wiseass?”

“Until Germany. Not a lot of laughs over here.”

Grannit turned and looked out over the city.

“I know you have to turn me in, no matter what,” said Bernie. “I want you to know I won’t ask you not to do that. I don’t expect any thanks. I just don’t want to die knowing that son of a bitch is still out there.”

“Why?”

“Once you told me about the general? A man like him’s so much more important. I’m nobody. What happens to me doesn’t matter at all.”

Grannit didn’t look at him.

“What did he say to you about Paris?”

“That he’d been here a lot. It’s his favorite city, but he’s not that nuts about the French.”

“Gee, you think? Where’d he learn the language?”

“English boarding school.”

Grannit flicked his cigarette into the river. “That could’ve prepared him for the SS.”

“Got some wiseass in you, too, huh?”

“Must be a neighborhood thing,” said Grannit, with as close as Bernie had seen to a smile.

“You never said. Which side of Park Slope you from?”

“South.”

“Really? What’d your dad do?”

“Let’s stay on Von Leinsdorf.”

Bernie remembered something. “Could you get a question to the MPs, have them ask it at their checkpoints?”

“What question?”

“Who plays center field for the Dodgers.”

“Most guys won’t even know that; it’s like a revolving door out there at Ebbets Field-”

“I know,” said Bernie. “I talked about it with Von Leinsdorf. He thinks it’s Joe DiMaggio.”

Grannit stopped short, looked at him, then took out his notebook and jotted it down. “Not bad, kid. So what about Paris?”

“His style, he’d go for the fanciest joints,” said Bernie. “Art, culture, he was up on all that stuff.”

“I don’t think he’ll be taking in a museum today.”

“Wait a second. He mentioned this hotel he liked once. I got the idea he must’ve stayed there. A good place to take a girl to dinner if you wanted to get laid.”

“What’s the name of it?”

“I don’t remember.”

“There’s a thousand fucking hotels in this city,” said Grannit.

“I know; it was like a guy’s name, I think- Jesus, I’m so tired. Maybe if I saw a list.”

Grannit headed back inside the hotel. The concierge handed them a dog-eared prewar Michelin guide from behind the counter. Bernie paged through it while Grannit placed a call to military police headquarters. He was on his way back when Bernie held up a finger, pointing with his other hand to a page of the book.

“Hotel Meurice.”

When Von Leinsdorf left that morning for the Hotel Meurice, he told Eddie Bennings to stay inside their rented garret until he returned that afternoon. Eddie promised he would, content to start his day with the K rations they’d brought up from the car. Within ten minutes, prompted by an enticing view of Montmartre and the attention span of a hummingbird, Eddie had talked himself into needing a cup of coffee for an eye-opener-what the hell, it was Paris, he’d only go out for a few minutes-and then there was that bakery he remembered around the corner where they sold those buttery brioche. That led him to look for a newsagent, where he picked up Stars and Stripes , see if they had the latest college football scores. The tabac next door to the newsstand was open for business so he picked up a pack of cigarettes, and when he saw the attached bar, he thought, What the fuck, after what I’ve been through the last few days, what’s one beer?

Three beers later, after exchanging pleasantries with the barkeep, a comely young woman sat down beside him at the counter and they struck up a lively conversation about her enthusiasm for all things American. Taken in by her adorable broken English, and forgetting that he was supposed to be a Danish businessman trying to secure postwar oil leases, he owned up to being American, and twenty minutes later he was banging the living daylights out of the mademoiselle in her room at a fleabag pension.

The trouble didn’t start for another twenty minutes, after they’d satisfied their physical needs and shared a few minutes of mutual, if not entirely sincere, postcoital appreciation. As Eddie was pulling on his pants, the young lady revealed that the joy they’d just shared was less the spontaneous expression of mutual affection he’d supposed it to be, so much as a routine, age-old business transaction for which she now expected to be paid accordingly. Eddie took exception, arguing, not without reason, that in order for such an arrangement between two parties to be considered binding it first required that he, the buyer, receive from her, the seller, adequate notification-prior to commencement of services and well before their conclusion-and then give answer to said proposal in the affirmative. The girl, who was seventeen, malnourished, and dumb as a ball-peen hammer, countered that as dazzled as she had been by his all-American personality, she had forgotten to mention it, and although she’d be happy to write off their brief encounter as a freebie, her pimp waiting in the tabac across the street would take a much dimmer view. Eddie responded that as far as he was concerned this fell under the category of “that’s your problem, bitch.” He slapped her around to reinforce his position, put on his overcoat, and left her place of business.

The pimp watched Eddie exit the pension, and waited a few minutes while finishing his first coffee of the day. On the short side, and swarthy, he bore a distinct tattoo of a knife between the thumb and fingers of his right hand. When his girl failed to appear, he sauntered up to her apartment. Appalled less by her physical condition and hysterical emotional state than by her failure to collect any cash, he gave her a more severe beating, emptied her purse, and went back to the street. Outraged that this American prick had flouted the conventions of their industry-the little whore claimed she’d been stiffed-the pimp asked the barkeep if he had seen which way the man went, then hurried off in that direction until he spotted his overcoat on a neighboring street. He followed the man until he entered a transient apartment building a few blocks up the hill. A plan on how to collect his debt took shape immediately.