Novel: Beware the Abandoned
Chapters 3 and 4
CHAPTER 3
MONTMARTRE
After quickly eating their meagre breakfast of coffee and croissants, Raymond and John were eager to explore the neighborhood. They made their way down the stairs to the street and headed East on Boulevard de Rochechouart. It is a wide street with a green boulevard that separates the traffic lanes. Both were carrying their umbrellas and small sketch pads.
They found a Metro entrance at the end of their block. Here, they crossed the street and turned North onto Rue de Steinkerque. This short street led to the elaborately manicured public gardens that bordered the walkways leading up the hill to the majestic Sacre-Coeur Basilica. Architecture snobs derogatorily describe the cathedral, covered in white stone, as looking like a salt shaker. To the tourists, it just looked large, old and impressive.
The neat garden pathways and stairways were crowded with tourists, babbling away excitedly in a rainbow of foreign languages. Finding a shaded bench, just inside the entrance to the gardens, John and Raymond sat down to study the players and the interplay. They soon began to draw in their sketch pads which were a prop, to disguise their true objective. Their umbrellas rested against their legs, ready to defend them, if necessary.
They sat for hours and watched the parade of tourists flow by. Initially, the permanent players in the park, eyed them suspiciously. However, within half an hour, Raymond and John were drawing no more interest than the park’s trees or the flowers. The players on this stage had concluded, from John and Raymond’s unusual apparel and demeanor, that they were neither potential victims to be fleeced nor policemen to be avoided.
It was not unusual to find artists in this park. For a hundred years, armies of artists had lived within walking distance of the Sacre-Coeur Basilica. They could usually find buyers for their paintings of the cathedral. The constant flow of tourists was always looking for souvenirs to take home to impress their neighbors.
John and Raymond’s attention was caught by a young boy, perhaps ten years old, approach a tourist. The boy held a string in his hand which he suddenly tied around the tourist’s finger. The surprised man chastised the boy and started to remove the string. The boy’s accomplice deftly removed the distracted man’s wallet from his back pocket and quickly disappeared into the crowd. The first boy quickly abandoned his string and ran away.
Later, an older girl with a clipboard, made her way among the milling tourists. She was looking for the most vulnerable. Stopping by an elderly woman with a shoulder bag, she asked if the tourist would sign a petition to provide a shelter for homeless children. The sympathetic tourist, removed her shoulder bag, and handed it to her elderly companion. As she began to sign the petition, an older boy appeared. He wrenched the bag from her elderly companion’s weak hands and ran. The girl with the petition disappeared in the confusion. The tourists’ screeches for help went unheeded until finally two unenthusiastic gendarmes strolled over to address the transgression.
Just inside the entrance to the gardens, an older woman, dressed in filthy rags, lay on the hard sidewalk shaking, seeming to be in great distress. She appeared to be suffering from some horrible neurological disease. A shiny tin can, strategically placed close to her, attracted spare change from sympathetic tourists. It worked well. John calculated that at least twenty percent of the tourists were moved by the pitiful performance.
Later in the afternoon, a large, expensive Mercedes pull up close to the park entrance. They watched, as that horribly disabled woman, leaped sprightly to her feet and quickly made her way to the Mercedes. Her money can, was clutched firmly in her grasp. It was full to the brim.
John turned to Raymond and laughed at this miraculous transformation. They agreed that such a performance deserved to be richly rewarded.
For the first week, they observed. Identifying, the most skilled of the child thieves, was not difficult.
The next week, they started to follow one boy that they both agreed had displayed the most skill and creativity. They did not get too close to their target, just close enough that the target was aware that he was under observation. It took another week before their target angrily confronted them and asked them why they were following him.
They told him that they had business proposition they wanted to discuss with him. He looked at them with suspicion. They asked their target if he were hungry and if he would accompany them to a restaurant. The only strangers who had ever previously propositioned him were pedophiles. He ran away.
The next day, they waited for him at his usual haunt. He saw them but ignored them. When they again followed him, his intelligence led him into the trap of curiosity. He said he would listen to them but it must be in the park. Over the afternoon, they explained who they were and what they had to offer.
He did not commit himself. The next day he returned with questions. He told them his name was Gabriel LaChance and that he worked for Andre, an adult who expected him to generate 200 Euros a day. In exchange, he received protection, a place to sleep and food. He was Andre’s top earner and Andre had warned him, if he ever ran away that he would find him and kill him. The boy wanted to know how they would protect him from Andre. He pointed out Andre to them.
Andre was tall, with long scraggly hair and a greasy beard. He was slouched against a pillar, a hundred feet away, observing his money makers at work. Andre’s snake like eyes kept shifting to Gabriel. He did not like any interference with his money machines. He made eye contact with Gabriel and then made a hand gesture for Gabriel to get back to work. He scowled at John and Raymond, making it very clear that they were interfering with his property.
John explained to Gabriel that as soon as he joined The Sanctuary, he would be immediately moved to a safe house. Within a few days, he would then be flown to the United States. Here, thousands of miles away from Andre, he would be safe. Gabriel said he needed more time to think about it.
For several weeks, at their Saturday meetings, with the other Parisian Sanctuarians, they discussed Gabriel. The group agreed that he was a good prospect.
Under Lester’s direction, a tentative plan was made to transport Gabriel to New Mexico. The passport of an American child, living in Paris, would be used to get him into the United States. The American boy’s parents would be paid well to transport Gabriel to New Mexico. Once he was in New Mexico, he would assume the identity of another child and Gabriel LaChance would disappear forever.
A few days later, after receiving a particularly vicious beating from Andre, Gabriel sought out John and Raymond. He told them he was ready to join The Sanctuary. Raymond immediately took out his cell phone and contacted Lester Simpson. Within minutes, The Sanctuary’s limousine appeared to remove Gabriel from danger.
John and Raymond noticed Andre, over the next few days, frantically searching for Gabriel. Someone told Andre that they had last seen Gabriel talking to the two strange looking artists. Andre did not know, what they had done to Gabriel, but he now believed they were responsible for his disappearance.
Late one afternoon, Andre sidled up to them and whispered that they would be sorry for having interfered in his business. John and Raymond grasped their umbrellas ready to defend themselves. They stared him down. Outnumbered this time, Andre angrily turned and strode off. They were now on their guard.
CHAPTER FOUR
MALCOLM
Each day as the sunset and the park emptied, they would always make their way back to their room to stow their drawing pad. Then, they would begin their evening ritual of wandering through the narrow, twisted lanes of old Montmartre looking for somewhere good to eat. Their generous food allowance and an almost infinite number of interesting restaurants made this choice difficult. Finally, hunger would force them to make a choice.
One day, just as they were leaving their building to begin their evening search, an artist they had often seen in the park, passed by carrying a blank canvas under his arm. He nodded at them, smiled and stopped. In what sounded like unaccented English to their ears, he asked, “Did you have a good day in the park?”
“Yes, we did. Are you an American?”
“No, I’m a Canadian.”
“Do you live close by?”
“Actually, I live in the building next to yours.”
“Really. We are just off to dinner. Would you like to join us?”
“Great idea. Wait here a minute while I run upstairs and put this canvas in my studio. Oh yes, I should introduce myself. My name is Malcolm Edwards.”
They introduced themselves and waited. In a few minutes, Malcolm returned and led them to what he said was his favorite restaurant. It was only a few blocks away. Over a delicious meal of stewed rabbit in a red wine sauce, they established a friendship.
Malcolm appeared to them to be very old. He was in his early sixties but the white, bushy beard and shoulder length hair made him look older. As they ate, he told them that he had owned a company in Canada which had been sold to a large American conglomerate.
The sale had given him total financial independence. At that time, he was only in his early fifties. Life was sweet. Unfortunately, within a year of the sale, his wife and only child were killed in a car accident. After the funeral, he left Toronto and everything that reminded him of them.
He had dreamed of a career as an artist. However, the responsibilities of providing for a wife and child had relegated this dream to a minor role in his life. He had always found time to paint but the growing demands of his successful business had relegated his painting to a hobby status.
Paris had been the mecca for artists for centuries. Malcolm wanted to explore why Paris had become this magnet for artists. He came to Paris and after living six months in a Montmartre apartment, he knew that this was where he wanted to spend the rest of his life. Having the financial resources, he bought the building on Boulevard de Rochechouart.
Malcolm rented out the ground floor of his building to a grocer. The rooms on the other floors were rented out to artists as studios, except for the top floor. This is where he had his apartment. He also kept a large studio, at the top of the first landing. It had a large window that overlooked the busy street. The door to his studio was always open when he was in residence, so he could keep an eye on the comings and goings in his building.
Over the years, his studio had become the unofficial meeting place for the neighborhood artists. They drank his free coffee and warmed the comfortable chairs that circled his easel. As Malcolm stood, painting at his easel, he would periodically pause to participate in their passionate arguments. Colors, artists, techniques, composition, framing, shadows, clients, thieving gallery owners, lying politicians and relationships were the participant’s usual topics.
With no real need for more money, Malcolm put little effort into selling his paintings. The walls of his studio and the halls of the entire building were crowded with his paintings. He painted for the pure joy he got from creating images.
Selling paintings is hard work and requires a dedicated, consistent effort. Malcolm wanted to spend the rest of his life doing exactly what he wanted to do and that did not include chasing after gallery owners and collectors. Some of his inventory did momentarily shrink. A rare buyer would stumble upon one of his paintings or Malcolm would give one to a friend as a present.
When they finished their dinner, Malcolm invited them back to his studio for coffee. They followed him back to his building and up the stairs. Within five minutes, after he unlocked his studio door and turned on the lights, they heard the clump of footsteps on the stairs. Other artists, who had been waiting for the light go on in his studio window, now gathered.
Now most evenings, Raymond and John joined the group in Malcolm’s studio. As the evening wore on, often only the two of them and Malcolm would be left.
Being only students of business, John and Raymond were interested in taking advantage of Malcolm’s decades of real business experience. They described to him the business opportunities that they were considering when their two-year commitment ended. Malcolm was intrigued by the whole concept of The Sanctuary and the grant that they would receive to establish a business.
One day, he suggested that they should consider building a commercial collection agency. He explained that this was where he had acquired his wealth. It was an enterprise that they had never been exposed to. When Malcolm explained in detail how the business worked, they were intrigued.
For more than a year, Malcolm taught them how to make money operating a commercial collection agency. He shared with them the contents of his laptop. It was full of letters, proposals, operating manuals and articles that brought the business alive. They transferred much of this documentation to their own laptop.
What intrigued Raymond, when he reviewed the documentation, was how much of the operation could be computerized for even greater efficiency. Motivated by Malcolm’s concepts, Raymond built sophisticated systems in their laptop. He showed Malcolm the computer systems that he had created. Malcolm enthusiastically encouraged their initiative while tactfully pointing out problem areas that he thought needed further work.
Raymond would never see his systems being used. Man plans. God laughs.
During the day, Raymond and John’s hours were filled with observing possible recruits for The Sanctuary. Their evenings were dedicated to building and refining the systems they would use to build their commercial collection agency.
As their first acquisition, Gabriel motivated them to search for more candidates. Every few months, they were responsible for a few of the smartest and the brightest of child thieves disappearing from Paris streets. Andre and the other controllers were enraged at this theft of their best resources.
The two years flew by. As their departure date approached, they became more and more excited about leaving Paris and establishing their commercial collection agency.
Their final day in Paris was spent preparing for their new life. Fashionable new clothes were bought. On returning to their room with their purchases, they took great pleasure in consigning their black shoes, white shirts and black pants to the trash. They were amused when returning to the street, dressed in their new attire, that their neighbors, who had seen them daily for the two years, did not recognize them.
They packed and prepared to go out for one last celebratory dinner. They had hoped that Malcolm would join them but he had a rare meeting with an art dealer, interested in his work, and could not make it. Since they would be leaving for airport early in the morning, they said their final goodbyes to him and promised that they would keep in touch.
It was almost midnight when they left the restaurant and strolled home through the dark, empty streets of Montmartre. As always, they carried their umbrellas.
They talked as they made their way home for the last time. Excitedly, they speculated about how much money The Sanctuary would grant them and where the best location to establish their collection agency should be. John walked on the outside closest to the road. Raymond was on the inside, next to the buildings that lined the poorly lit street. The hard soles and heels of their new shoes echoed in the quiet street as they approached the entrance to an alley. Both had celebrated with a little too much of the restaurant’s cheap red wine. They were feeling relaxed, pleased with their lot in life and dulled by the wine. They were looking forward to their beds and to flying home in the morning.
As they passed the entrance to the alley, John caught a sudden flash out of the corner of his eye. Raymond crumbled to the ground. He had been stabbed in the heart. The attacker now lunged for John. Spinning quickly, John managed to club Raymond’s attacker in the temple with his umbrella’s handle.
John didn’t know if that was what killed the attacker or when the attacker’s head had hit the concrete curb. There had been a wet and hollow sound when his head had hit the curb. A sound John had last heard when he had dropped a watermelon onto a concrete floor.
A second attacker, with his knife drawn, now leaped out of the alley. John, moved backwards into the street, fending him off with the umbrella. Using the umbrella’s handle, he was finally able to twist the knife out of the second attackers hand. It clattered to the ground. John swiftly picked it up.
Disarmed and seeing his accomplice’s smashed, bloody body on the ground, the second attacker turned and ran. John raced after him with the knife firmly grasped in his hand. Being younger and in better shape, he quickly caught up to the attacker. Reaching out, he grabbed the attacker’s long scraggly hair with one hand and yanked his head back, exposing his throat. With one quick, sweeping motion, John cut that throat from ear-to-ear, almost severing the attacker’s head. It was only when he stared down at the blood gushing from the attacker’s severed arteries that he realized it was Andre.
He wiped the blade and handle of the knife on Andre’s shirt and dropped the knife beside the still body. Remembering the instructions that they had received on their arrival in Paris. He looked for evidence that could connect this murder scene to The Sanctuary. Walking back to Raymond’s body, he retrieved Raymond’s cellular phone and his wallet. He checked Raymond’s pockets for anything else that might connect the body to The Sanctuary. Finding nothing, he walked away, intent on quickly putting as much distance as possible between himself and the three bodies.
Blocks away, he stopped in a door way, pulled out his own cellphone and phoned Lester Simpson’s emergency number. The phone rang just once, a sleepy Lester answered it. John explained what had happened. Simpson, who was now wide awake, asked, “Did you get Raymond’s wallet?”
“Yes, and his cellular phone as well.”
“Good. It is doubtful that the police will ever be able to identify him or connect him to The Sanctuary. How far are you from home?”
“About five minutes.”
“Okay, get back there. Pack everything. Leave nothing behind. I’ll have a car over there within half an hour. In France, unlike the United States, you are guilty until proven innocent. This could get messy. We’ve got to remove you while we still can.”
“What about Raymond’s body?”
Lester paused before answering. He sought comforting words but realized such words did not exist, “I know you were close to him and this sounds terrible but right now my sole concern is flying you out of here in the morning and removing any link between The Sanctuary and those three bodies. With no next of kin, only we will miss Raymond. The French authorities will bury the body after they complete their investigation. Now go. The car will soon be there.”
As he raced back to the room, he could not shake the feeling that he was having a nightmare and would soon wake up. It did not seem real. One minute, the two of them had been laughing and making plans for the rest of their lives and the next moment Raymond was gone. They would never again share hopes and fears. Raymond would never be there to protect his back and he, Raymond’s back. Why was he spared, instead of Raymond? Was it luck? Fate?
While he felt no remorse for having killed the two men, he did feel that somehow that he should feel remorse. After all, he was responsible for taking two lives. It frightened him that taking the two lives had affected him no more than if he had swatted two irritating mosquitos. Was he a psycho killer? Was it the martial arts training that had automatically taken over his body and responded instinctively to the attack? Was it the kill, or be killed, lessons he had learned on the rough streets of Los Angeles?
There really was no one, other than him, to mourn. Raymond’s life seemed to have made no more of an impression than footprints on a beach washed away by the tide. John wondered, for the first time in his life, if anyone would mourn him when he was gone and whether it mattered. He had accepted the concept of life being temporary but facing the reality of how quickly it could be ended, was traumatic. The Sanctuary had lost on their investment in Raymond
When he got back to the room, he hurriedly packed his bag with the laptop and everything linked to Raymond. This included Raymond’s passport and his plane tickets.
When he went down to the street, he was surprised to find the Mercedes was already waiting for him. He felt he had lived a lifetime in the last hour. The driver took him back to the Mission, to wait a few hours, before they headed to the airport.
END