The Black Hawk

Thirty-two

HAWKER STOOD AT THE WINDOW OF THE CAFÉ DE la Régence, waiting for Owl.

The café was silent around him. The owners had grumbled their way off into the night. It was just him and Owl. She was off in the storeroom, doing something or other.

It was dark outside. This late, they snuffed the big lamps in the arches of the arcade. The shops of the Palais Royale closed up tight. The shopkeepers went home. He could just barely hear the rumble of voices and music from the gaming rooms upstairs. A café down at the far end of the colonnade was offering Gypsy music.

A few fools were still coming and going. Englishmen and Germans, mostly, determined to lick up the last dregs of foreign sin. Easy work for pickpockets, that lot. A couple whores hadn’t given up yet. They’d be the ones too old or too shabby to get into the gaming rooms, out looking for men dimwitted enough to touch them. Every once in a while, a gendarme walked by, keeping the peace.

Four hours till dawn.

Carruthers was going to ask him where Pax was headed. He could say he didn’t know. Lots of routes out of Paris when you knew the city as well as Pax did.

Owl came up behind him, making the right amount of noise. Enough to say she was there, not enough to break his concentration.

She said, “You did not know he was a Caché?”

“No.” The French had done a thorough, convincing job. “Your friend told you?”

“Not so exactly. My colleague pretends to know Pax not at all. He has made a poor choice.” Owl was reflected a little in the glass of the window, like a serious, disapproving ghost. “He lies to me, ’Awker, despite the years we have worked together.”

“Does he?”

“He twists like a worm on the hook to avoid betraying a fellow Caché. I am supposed to be blind to the drama enacted under my nose and stupid as well. I have sent my friend away and told him to keep his mouth shut. I will deal with him later. For many reasons, he will keep silent.”

“That’s good.”

She was watching him, first in the surface of the window, then she turned to study him frankly. “You will give Paxton up to your superiors?”

“In the morning.”

“You have no choice, I suppose.”

“None.” When Carruthers set him to tracking down Pax, he didn’t know what he’d do.

He was mirrored in the glass, next to Owl. It looked like he was standing out there in the night, staring in.

“Listen to me.” Owl unpinned the top of her apron, first one side, and then the other, and untied the band at the waist, businesslike and calm. “Listen, ’Awker.”

“I am.”

“You are not, but I will let that pass.” She discarded the apron impatiently onto a table and pushed in front of him, between him and the window. She put her hand flat on his chest, and he had to look at her. “I will say nothing of this to my superiors.”

He wanted to shake his head to clear it. He wasn’t thinking well. “Why?”

“It is no honor to France to pursue one of the Cachés, after so many years.” She shrugged angrily. “We did not behave well toward them.”

If Pax didn’t have the French after him, that was better odds. Doyle would say—

Doyle had trained both of them. Him and Pax. He’d have to tell Doyle . . .

“We French speak always of love, but friendship is harder. Incomparably harder. Take your coat off and come help me.”

She wanted help with chairs. The tables, each with a chessboard built into the top, stood in an orderly line. Long padded benches went down one side. Chairs on the other.

“Over there.” She pointed.

Fine. He moved chairs. They were rush seats and slat, light to handle. Chess players didn’t need a lot of creature comforts. He took them two at a time to the front.

“Now the tables.” She’d already picked one up.

They fitted tables against the wall. When that was done, she put her hand on his arm and stopped him. “I did not know about Paxton.”

“I believe you.”

“It was . . .” Her eyes were intense on him, searching his face. “You know it was inevitable that we should plant one or two Cachés in your midst. Le bon Dieu alone knows how many agents you have inserted into the Police Secrète.”

“Don’t ask me.”

“I will not. I will say this also, mon ami.” She looked upon the crowded furniture. “I do not know every agent we French keep in England, but I do not think Pax is ours. I think he is loyal to you English.”

“Probably.”

“Will you have to kill him anyway?”

“Most likely.”

She said quietly, “You, yourself?”

“Not with these.” He lifted his hands. “I’m just going to give him to the men who will kill him. I’ll do it about five hours from now.”

Light and fast, she touched his left hand and his right where he held them out. “I see. I see most clearly. It is damnable. Let us finish this.”

Finish. Why were they moving tables? Seemed like they were going to shift one of the benches now.

She said, “He has money? Paxton.”

“A good bit. All of mine, plus everything I took this morning. And a couple of watches and the ring.”

“That will make good bribes. I try always to bribe with jewelry. It makes men secretive. Take the other end of this. It is heavy, is it not? This is very sturdy furniture in this café.”

Owl pointed to where she wanted it relocated. Fine. Just fine.

She said, “The hour before dawn is a good time to steal horses. One might be twenty miles away from Paris by noon. Now. You back up. Yes. That is right.”

They walked the bench a ways. Set it down next to the other one.

“He will be disguised by now. He is a very good agent if he has your respect, as I think he does. Push this closer.” She straightened and wiped the palms of her hands on her skirt. “That is good.” The benches, side by side, close together, pleased her. “I will get my cloak. It is in the storage room.”

When she came back, she brought the lantern and her cloak. She began removing bits and pieces from her cloak and setting them out on the table. A pouch of coins. A knife. Her little pistol. A box for bullets and powder.

“He is a good agent, your Paxton?”

He cleared his throat. “Very good. The best. Good as I am.”

She shook the cloak, testing to see whether anything fell out, and tossed it across the two benches.

“He has money and knowledge of the countryside and five hours’ head start. ’Awker, you and I have run from armies of Austrians with far less than that.”

The light stood on the table between the two of them. The dark was all around. Quiet. Intimate.

She said, “Tomorrow, you will go to your headquarters and betray an old friendship. Then you will argue for his life. You will bargain and find allies and you will keep him alive. I have faith in you.”

She stood before him and picked at the knot in his cravat. He was wearing just a turn around the neck and a square knot in front. Simple. The kind of neckcloth a chess fanatic might wear.

She tugged it loose, pulled the length away, and dropped it.

He saw what he should have seen a while back. “You’ve made a bed.”

“For us.”