The Boy Who Followed Ripley Read online

  “Miss-ter—”

  Tom looked from the blue sky into the smiling face of a rather short, rosy-lipped man with black mustache, who wore a horrible checked jacket and a necktie of gaudy stripes. He had also round, black-rimmed spectacles. Tom waited, saying nothing. The man looked not at all German, but one never knew.

  “Tom?”

  “Tom, yes.”

  “Eric Lanz,” he said with a short bow. “How do you do? And thank you for meeting me.” Eric was carrying two cases of brown plastic, both so small, they could be considered hand luggage on an airplane. “And greetings from Reeves!” Now his smile was broader as they walked toward Tom’s car, whose position Tom had indicated with a gesture. Eric Lanz spoke with a German accent, though a slight one.

  “Did you have a good trip?” Tom asked.

  “Yes! And I always enjoy France!” Eric Lanz said, as if he were setting foot on a Côte d’Azur beach, or maybe walking into a splendid museum of French culture somewhere.

  Tom felt in a thoroughly sour mood for some reason, but what did it matter? He would be polite, offer Eric dinner and bed and breakfast, and what else could Eric want? Eric declined to put his cases even in the back of the front seats of the Renault station wagon, but kept them at his own feet. Tom zoomed off toward home.

  “Ah-h,” said Eric, ripping off his mustache. “That’s better. And these Groucho Marx things.”

  Off came his spectacles, Tom saw with a glance to his right.

  “That Reeves! Too—much, as the English say. Two passports for something like diss?” Eric Lanz proceeded to effect the change in his passports from inside jacket pocket to something at the bottom and apparently in a bottom compartment of a shaving kit which he took from one of the awful plastic carryalls.

  Now in his pocket he had a passport looking more like himself, Tom supposed. What was his real name? Was his hair really black? What else did he do besides odd jobs for Reeves? Safecracking? Jewelry thieving on the Côte d’Azur? Tom preferred not to ask. “You live in Hamburg?” Tom asked in German, by way of being polite and also practicing his German.

  “Nein! West Berlin. Much more fun,” said Eric, in English.

  Maybe more remunerative too, Tom thought, if this chap was a runner for dope or illegal immigrants. What was the fellow carrying now? Only his shoes looked of quality, Tom noticed. “You have an appointment with someone tomorrow?” Tom asked, again in German.

  “Yes, in Paris. I shall be out of your ha-ar, as they say, by eight o’clock tomorrow morning, if that is agreeable to you. I am sorry, but it could not be arranged by Reeves that the—the man I am supposed to see would meet me at the airport. Because he is not here yet. Could not be.”

  They arrived at Villeperce. Since Eric Lanz seemed quite outgoing, Tom ventured to ask:

  “You’re bringing him something? What—if I may be so rude?”

  “Jewelry!” said Eric Lanz, almost giggling. “Ver-ry pretty. Pearls—which I know nobody these days cares about, but these are real ones. Also a necklace of Smaragd! Emeralds!”

  Well, well, Tom thought, and said nothing.

  “You like emeralds?”

  “Frankly no.” Tom particularly disliked emeralds, perhaps because Heloise, being blue-eyed, disliked green. Tom also thought he would not or did not care for women who would like emeralds or who wore green.

  “I was thinking of showing them to you. I am very pleased that I have got here,” Lanz said with an air of relief, as Tom drove through the open gates of Belle Ombre. “Now I can see your wonderful house which I have heard about from Reeves.”

  “Would you mind waiting here for a moment?”

  “You have guests?” Eric Lanz looked on the alert.

  “No-o.” Tom pulled his handbrake. He had seen a light in the window of his own room, and he supposed Frank was there. Back in a sec.” Tom leapt up the front steps and entered the living room.

  Heloise lay face down on the yellow sofa, reading a book, with her bare feet over the sofa’s arm. “By yourself?” she asked with surprise.

  “No, no, Eric’s outside. Billy’s back?”

  Heloise turned and sat up. “He is upstairs.”

  Tom went back to bring Eric Lanz in. He introduced the German to Heloise, then offered to show him to his room. Mme. Annette came into the living room then, and Tom said, “Monsieur Lanz, Madame Annette. Don’t trouble, madame, I shall show our guest his room.”

  Upstairs, in the room which had just been Frank’s and where there was no sign of Frank now, Tom asked, “Was that all right? I introduced you to my wife as Eric Lanz?”

  “Ha-ha, my real name! Of course it’s all right here.” Eric set his plastic bags on the floor near the bed.

  “Good,” said Tom. “There’s the bath. Come down soon and have a drink with us.”

  Had there been any need, Tom was thinking by ten that evening, for Eric Lanz to spend the night at his house? Lanz was taking the 9:11 a.m. train tomorrow from Moret to Paris, and he could get a taxi to Moret, he assured Tom, if Tom preferred. Tom was driving all the way to Paris tomorrow with Frank, but he wasn’t going to tell Eric that.

  Over coffee, Eric Lanz talked about Berlin, and Tom only half listened. Such fun! Lots of places open all night. All kinds of people, individuals, freewheeling, anything went. Not many tourists, just the mainly stuffy foreigners who came invited to attend one kind of conference or another. Excellent beer. Lanz was drinking a brand called Mützig, available at the Moret supermarket, and declared it better than Heineken. “But for me it’s Pilsner-Urquell—vom Fass!” Eric Lanz seemed to admire Heloise and to be trying to put his best foot forward for her. Tom hoped Eric would not become inspired to haul out his gems tonight to show her. That would be funny! Showing a pretty woman his jewelry, then snatching it away again, because it wasn’t his to bestow.

  Now Eric was talking about possible industrial strikes in Germany which he said would be, if they came, the first since before Hitler. There was a certain fussiness about Eric, a neatness. He got up for a second time to admire the beige and black keyboard of the harpsichord. Heloise, bored to the point of nearly yawning, excused herself before coffee.

  “I wish you a pleasant night’s sleep, Monsieur Lanz,” said Heloise with a smile, and went upstairs.

  Eric Lanz was still gazing at her, as if he would have liked to make his night’s sleep more pleasant by sharing her bed. He was on his feet, almost falling forward, and he made a second little bow. “Madame!”

  “How is Reeves doing?” Tom asked casually. “Still in that flat!” Tom chuckled. Reeves and Gaby, the part-time housemaid, had not been in when the flat was bombed.

  “Yes, and with the same maid! Gaby! She is a darling. Fearless! Well, she likes Reeves. He gives a little excitement to her life, you know?”

  Tom shifted. “Could I see the jewels that you mentioned?” Tom thought he might as well improve his education.

  “Why not?” Eric Lanz was on his feet again, giving what Tom hoped was a final glance at his empty coffee cup, his empty Drambuie glass.

  They went up the stairs, into the guest room. The light showed under the door of Tom’s room. He had told the boy to lock the door from the inside, and Tom thought Frank would have done this, because it was a bit dramatic. Now Eric had opened one of the pudgy plastic cases and he groped at its very bottom—maybe into a false bottom—and produced a purple velvet-like cloth which he spread on the bed. Within this cloth were the jewels.

  The diamond and emerald necklace left Tom cold. He would not even have bought the thing, if he could have afforded it, not only not for Heloise, but not for anyone. There were also three or four rings, one a diamond of goodly size, another a separate emerald.

  “And these two—sapphire,” said Eric Lanz, relishing the word. “I won’t tell you where these came from. But they are valuable indeed.”

  Had Elizabeth Taylor been robbed lately, Tom wondered. Amazing, Tom thought, that people put value in such essentially ugly objects—ga
rish even—as this diamond and emerald necklace. Tom would have preferred to own a Dürer etching or a Rembrandt. Perhaps his taste was improving. Would he have been impressed by these jewels at the age of twenty-six, when he had been with Dickie Greenleaf in Mongibello? Maybe, but strictly by the monetary value of the objects. And that was bad enough. But now he wasn’t even impressed by that. He had improved. Tom sighed, and said, “Very pretty. And no one took a look in your cases at Charles de Gaulle?”

  Eric laughed gently. “No one bothers with me. With my crazy mustache, my boring?—yes, boring clothes, cheap and with no taste, nobody pays any attention. They say passing customs is a technique, an attitude. I have the right one, not too casual, but not at all anxious. That’s why Reeves likes me. To take things around for him, I mean.”

  “Where are these going to end up?”

  Eric was now refolding the purple cloth with the finery inside. “I do not know. That is not my worry. I have a date tomorrow in Paris.”

  “Where?”

  Now Eric smiled. “Very public place. St Germain area. But I don’t think I should tell you exactly where or exactly the time,” he said teasingly, and laughed.

  Tom smiled also, not caring. It was almost as silly as the Italian Count Bertolozzi affair. The Count had been an overnight guest at Belle Ombre carrying, unbeknownst to the Count, microfilm in his toothpaste tube. Tom had had to steal the toothpaste tube, he recalled, on Reeves’s request, from the bathroom which Eric Lanz had now. “Have you a clock, or shall I ask Madame Annette to awaken you, Eric?”

  “Oh, I have a Wecker—a waker-clock, thank you. I should say we take off a little after eight? I should like to avoid taking a taxi, but if the hour is too early for you—”

  “No problem,” Tom interrupted pleasantly. “I’m very flexible as to hours. Sleep well, Eric.” Tom went out, aware that Eric thought he had not sufficiently admired his jewels.

  Tom realized that he had forgotten his pajamas, and he disliked sleeping nude. Nudity could come later in the night, if one wanted it, was Tom’s feeling. With some hesitation, he rapped gently on the door of his room with his fingertips. A light was still visible under the door. “Tom,” he whispered at the crack of the door, hearing the boy’s light and probably barefoot tread.

  Frank opened the door, smiling broadly.

  Tom put a finger to his lips, went in, relocked the door, and whispered, “Pajamas, sorry.” He got them from his bathroom, and also his house slippers.

  “He’s in there? What kind of fellow?” Frank asked, indicating the next room.

  “Never mind that. He’ll be gone tomorrow morning just after eight. You stay in this room till I get back from Moret. All right, Frank?” Tom noticed that the mole on the boy’s right cheek was again visible, because Frank had washed or had a bath.

  “Yes, sir,” Frank said.

  “Good night.” Tom hesitated, then gave the boy a pat on his arm. “Glad you’re home safe.”

  Frank smiled. “G’night, sir.”

  “Lock the door,” Tom whispered, before he opened the door and went out. Tom paused long enough to hear the slide of the lock. Under the German’s door a light showed, and Tom faintly heard running water in the bathroom, a melodious humming, and Tom recognized “Frag Nicht Warum Ich Weine”—a sweet, sentimental little waltz! Tom bent over with silent laughter.

  Tom paused in front of Heloise’s door, wondering suddenly if and when Johnny Pierson might turn up in France with a private detective to look for his brother. That was a nuisance, a little problem. When he and the boy went to the American Embassy area tomorrow—the neighborhood was convenient for passport photos—couldn’t Johnny be making inquiries at the embassy about his brother? Why worry, since it hadn’t happened yet, Tom told himself. And what if it did? Why should he guard Frank so zealously, just because Frank wanted to hide himself? Was he becoming as cloak-and-dagger as Reeves Minot? Tom tapped on Heloise’s door.

  “Come in,” said Heloise.

  THE NEXT MORNING, Tom drove Eric Lanz, still mustacheless, to Moret for the 9:11 train. Eric was in good spirits, talking about the farmland they were driving through, the inferior corn for cattle which people could be eating if it were better corn, the all-round subsidized inefficiency of the French farmer.

  “Still—it is nice to be in France. I shall visit a couple of art exhibits today, since my rendezvous will be finished at—um—early.”

  Tom didn’t care what time the rendezvous was, but he had thought to visit Beaubourg with Frank, as there was a major exhibit on now called “Paris-Berlin,” and it would be a hell of a coincidence if Eric were there when he and the boy were, because Eric just might be aware of the disappearance of Frank Pierson. Funny, Tom thought, that so far no newspaper had suggested that Frank might have been kidnapped, though of course kidnappers usually announced their ransom demands pretty quickly. Evidently the family believed that Frank had run away on his own and was still on his own. It would be a splendid time for crooks to demand ransom money, claiming that they had the boy when they hadn’t. Why not? Tom smiled at the idea.

  “What is funny? I should think it is not very funny for you as an American,” said Eric, trying to be light, but at his most Germanic. He had been talking about the falling dollar, and the inadequate policies of President Carter, as compared with the sagacious housekeeping of Helmut Schmidt’s government.

  “Sorry,” Tom said, “I was thinking of Schmidt’s or somebody’s remark—‘The financial affairs of America are now in the hands of rank amateurs.’ ”

  “Correct!”

  They were at the Moret station now, and Eric had no time to continue. Handshaking and many thanks.

  “Have a good day!” Tom called.

  “Same to you!” Eric Lanz smiled and was off, with his two plastic carryalls firmly in his hands.

  Tom drove back to Villeperce, spotted the postman’s yellow van in mid-village making its usual rounds, and knew that the post would be on time today at 9:30. But it reminded Tom of a little chore that would be easier to do here than in crowded Paris. He stopped outside the post office, and went in. That morning, with his first coffee, he had gone downstairs and written a note to Reeves. “. . . The boy is 16, 17, but not younger, 5 ft. 10 in., brown straight hair, born anywhere in USA. Send the thing to me soon as pos. express. Tell me what I’ll owe you. Thanks in advance, in haste. E.L. here. All okay, it seems. Tom.” In the Villeperce post office, Tom paid the extra nine francs for the red express label, which the girl behind the grill pasted on the envelope for him. She started to take his letter, remarked that it wasn’t sealed, and Tom told her that he had something else to put in it. Tom took the envelope home with him.

  Frank was in the living room, dressed, finishing his breakfast.

  Heloise was evidently still upstairs.

  “Good morning. How are you?” Tom asked. “Sleep well?”

  Frank had stood up, with his air of respect for Tom which made Tom a bit uneasy. The boy’s face was sometimes radiant, almost as if he were looking at the girl Teresa with whom he was in love. “Yes, sir. You took your friend to Moret, Madame Annette told me.”

  “He’s gone, yes. We’ll take off in maybe twenty minutes. Okay?” Tom looked at the boy’s tan polo-neck sweater, and supposed it would be all right for a passport photo. In the photograph in France-Dimanche, maybe his passport photograph, Frank wore a shirt and tie. All the better if Frank looked less formal. Tom went closer to the boy and said, “Keep the right-hand part in your hair, but loosen it as much as you can top and sides for the photograph today. I’ll remind you again. Got a comb to take with you?”

  Frank nodded. “Yes, sir.”

  “And that pancake?” The boy had covered the mole, Tom saw, but he had to keep it covered all day.

  “Got it, yes.” The boy touched his right back pocket.

  Tom went upstairs and saw that Mme. Annette was changing the sheets in the room that had been Eric Lanz’s, and thriftily replacing them with the same o
nes Frank had been sleeping on before. It reminded Tom of yesterday, when the boy had insisted that Mme. Annette not change Tom’s sheets. Frank had seemed to prefer to sleep on them, and Mme. Annette had appeared to think this quite sensible.

  “You and the young man will be back tonight, Monsieur Tome?”

  “Yes, in time for dinner, I should think.” Tom heard the postman’s van and his handbrake. From the closet in his room, Tom got an old blue blazer, which had always been a bit small for him. Tom didn’t want the passport photograph to include Frank’s interesting diamond-patterned tweed jacket, in case Frank elected to wear it today.

  The row of shoes on the floor of his closet caught Tom’s eye. All shined to perfection! All lined up like soldiers! He had never seen such a gleam on the Gucci loafers, such a deep glow in the cordovans. Even his patent leather evening slippers, with their silly grosgrain bows, had new highlights. Frank’s work, Tom knew. Mme. Annette occasionally gave them a brushup, but nothing like this. Tom was impressed. Frank Pierson, heir to millions, polishing his shoes! Tom closed his closet door and went down with the blazer.

  The post looked uninteresting, two or three bank envelopes which Tom did not bother opening, a letter to Heloise whose envelope was addressed in her friend Noëlle’s handwriting. Tom ripped the brown paper off the International Herald-Tribune. Frank was still in the living room, and Tom said, “Brought this for you to wear instead of that tweed. Old one of mine.”

  Frank put the jacket on carefully, and with obvious pleasure. The sleeves were a bit long, but the boy flexed his arms gently and said, “Just marvelous! Thank you.”

  “In fact, you can keep it.”

  Frank’s smile widened. “Thank you—really. Excuse me, I’ll be down in a minute.” He ran upstairs.