Mark Frost - The Second Objective

“You gonna have to hold that shut till they get here?” asked Bernie.

“Maybe,” said Grannit. “Latch seems a little iffy.”

“Want me to do it?”

“You could find some tape.”

Bernie turned for the door, then stopped. “If I was gonna run, this would be a pretty good time to do it.”

“I can’t argue with that,” he said.

“I’ll get the tape,” Bernie said.

Just after Bernie left the room, the phone on the bedside table rang. Grannit looked at it, looked at Pearson’s body on the bed, looked at the closet door, and glanced at his watch: 8:25. Bernie returned not long after the phone stopped ringing, with a roll of black electrical tape. They applied the entire roll to the front of the armoire, then tested to make sure the door wouldn’t swing open if they let go. When they were sure the tape would hold, they backed away toward the exit. The phone beside the bed rang again. They looked at each other.

“Want me to get that?” asked Bernie.

Grannit sighed, walked over, and picked up the phone, keeping an eye on the armoire.

“Four-seventeen,” he said.

“I was asked to call,” said the voice. “This is Inspector Massou.”

“Inspector, this is Lieutenant Grannit. We’re at the Hotel Meurice. Von Leinsdorf was here.”

“When?”

“Earlier today, just after lunch.”

In a Montmartre apartment, Inspector Massou turned with the phone in his hand and looked out the window, into the passageway of the boarding house.

“We’ve got him here now,” he said. “Get downstairs. I’ll send a car.”

Montmartre

DECEMBER 21, 9:20 P.M.

The police car deposited Grannit and Bernie outside the entrance to the boarding house. The area had been cordoned off by police, their black vans parked up and down the street, flares on cobblestones lighting up the night. Inspector Massou greeted them as they came out of the car and walked them toward the building. He gestured toward an ambulance that was pulling away.

“Two dead,” said Massou. “This is one of the men you’re seeking?”

He handed Grannit a pair of dog tags. Grannit checked them under his flashlight: Eddie Bennings.

“Yes,” said Grannit.

“He died before they could get him in the ambulance.”

“Where’s Von Leinsdorf?”

“Army Counter Intelligence arrived ten minutes ago. They’ve got him in the car.”

Massou nodded toward the first of two black sedans with U.S. plates. The back door of the first car was open, blocked by a man leaning down to talk to someone inside.

Grannit picked up his pace toward the car, just as the man leaning in closed the door and started toward him, followed by his partner. Both wore hats and belted trench coats, the CIC’s unofficial uniform. Grannit showed his badge, ready to blow past them.

“Whoa, whoa, what’s your hurry, soldier?” asked the CIC man.

“I need to see that man,” said Grannit.

“CIC’s taking this, Lieutenant,” said the man, showing his credentials. “Major Whiting. Special detail to SHAEF Command.”

Grannit trained his flashlight on the man’s SHAEF pass. “Headquarters” was spelled correctly. He relaxed.

Bernie ran up alongside the sedan as it pulled away and saw Von Leinsdorf in the backseat. Von Leinsdorf met his eye for a moment, staring at him blankly, without emotion, then looked away before they drove out of sight.

Maybe he doesn’t feel anything. Maybe he can’t. Even when they line him up to shoot him in the heart. Somewhere in his sick soul he’ll welcome the bullet.

Bernie signaled to Grannit that they had the right man.

“We’ve been tracking him for a week,” said Grannit.

“I’m aware of that, Lieutenant,” said Whiting, gesturing to his assistant to make a note. “You’ll feature prominently in our report.”

“Where you taking him?” asked Grannit.

“He’ll be processed and questioned at SHAEF headquarters. After that it’s up to the G2. We’d like your report, come in tomorrow morning, eight o’clock. Where do you think he was headed?”

“The Trianon Palace at Versailles. Where General Eisenhower’s holed up.”

“We’ll let ’ em know Ike can get back to business, thanks to you. Good work, Lieutenant.”

Whiting shook Grannit’s hand, saluted, and headed back to the second black sedan. His assistant got in to drive, alongside a third man, a uniformed MP.

Massou joined Grannit as they drove away, and walked him through the crime scene.

“An MP came on them here in the middle of a dispute,” said Massou. “Between your two men and a Paris patrolman, from the local precinct. He’s the other body. I’m told he has been under investigation for corruption. The MP says he drew a gun. They had officers here within fifteen minutes of the shootings.”

“The MP that just left with them?”

“They wanted to get his statement,” said Massou.

Grannit watched the sedan edge past the police vans and drive away. Bernie stood under the roofline, out of the way, looking out at the narrow, winding streets that reminded him of Greenwich Village set on the side of a hill. The rain that had fallen earlier had turned to snow.

“Did you question him first?” asked Grannit.

“I did, briefly.”

Massou borrowed a flashlight and walked Grannit through the alley. “The patrolman had a gun on the two fugitives when the MP arrived. There was some confusion. He said the German, Von Leinsdorf, showed him a counterfeit American badge.”

“How do you read it?”

Massou shrugged. “The patrolman waited for them here, under the stairs.” With the end of his umbrella he pointed to a couple of cigarette butts near the back wall. “A robbery, or something more complex. The MP hears raised voices, walks into it. Our patrolman panics, shots are fired. Two men die. There’s blood on the wall, on the ground. But the monster you’re after is in hand, so does the rest really matter?”

“I guess not.”

One of Massou’s men brought him a glass of beer. “Would you care for something? Wine, or brandy? Coffee perhaps.”

Grannit shook his head. Massou extended the invitation to Bernie, who declined.

“My officer’s gun was never fired,” said Massou. “It seems the MP was quicker on the draw. The only other anomaly is this.”

He produced a straight razor from his pocket.

“It was lying on the street. Perhaps it belonged to the dead American, Bennings?”

“Hard to say,” said Grannit.

“Just another night in Montmartre,” said Massou, wearily. “Chasing a murderer, through the middle of a war.”

Grannit pulled his flashlight, bent down, and took a look at a bloodstain on the ground. Working back from there, he found a bullet hole in the wall and dug it out with a penknife.

“It’s from a Colt,” said Grannit, pocketing the slug. “The MP’s gun.”

Massou finished the beer and handed the glass back to one of his men. “You should have a look at the apartment upstairs.”

Grannit and Bernie followed Inspector Massou upstairs to the apartment. He told them the concierge had confirmed that Von Leinsdorf and Bennings had lodged there for two days. Grannit took a look around, found an empty jerrican in the back room and an edition of Stars and Stripes , but little else of interest. They walked back downstairs a few minutes later.

“Is there anything else I can do for you, Lieutenant?” asked Massou.

“I don’t know what it would be.”

“The driver will take you where you wish to go,” said Massou, putting on his hat. “The end of the hunt is never what it should be.”

“No, it isn’t.”

Massou shook Grannit’s hand and then turned to Bernie with penetrating but not unkind scrutiny. “It’s none of my business, young man, but you’re not a military policeman, are you?”