[ONE] The theory that usingFinal Tort V, the Payne fifty-eight-foot Hatteras, as a platform from which, as he watched the waves go up and down, Matt could do some really serious thinking-and, his father hoped, incidentally get some rest- would be an excellent idea did not work out well in practice largely because of her captain.
Her captain, retired Coast Guard chief petty officer Al Bowman, who had been with the Paynes since Matt was ten, when the family boat wasFinal Tort II, a much smaller Hatteras, was on vacation.
Matt had learned small-boat handling from Chief Bowman, and took not a little pride in knowing he had met Chief Bowman's criteria in that area. Usually, when they went out onFinal Tort V together, the chief would come to the bridge only to hand Matt another beer.
Standing in for him in his absence was another, much younger retired Coast Guard chief petty officer, who was visibly nervous when Matt went to the control console, fired up the engines, and asked him to let loose the lines, with the obvious intent of taking the vessel to sea with himself at the helm.
Even when Matt managed to get theFinal Tort V away from the wharf and into the wide Atlantic without running her aground, the stand-in captain never got far from Matt or the controls.
What was worse, however, was that the replacement captain had seen in theBulletin both the photograph of Matt getting off the Citation with Homer C. Daniels and the photograph of Matt, pistol in hand, in the parking lot near La Famiglia, and naturally presumed Matt would be delighted to tell him all about the murdering rapist, exchanging gunfire with a couple of armed robbers, and what it was really like to be a real-life Stan Colt. And incidentally, what's Stan Colt really like?
Compounding the problem was that the replacement captain was a really nice guy, the sort of man to whom one could not say, "I wish you'd shut the fuck up!" although that thought did run more than once through Matt's mind.
And finally, if there were fish in the Atlantic, none of them showed any interest whatever in the bait supposed to tempt them to any of the four lines Matt put in the water.
At 2 P.M., Matt said, "I think we'd might as well call it a day. You want to take her in?"
The replacement captain had been obviously pleased with the request for his professional services.
Matt, sitting in a fishing chair with his feet on the stern rail, watching the churning water, had time for two beers and some private thoughts before he saw that they were nearly at the dock and he would have to go forward and handle the lines.
He had reached no profound conclusions, except that he didn't want to do this again tomorrow.
When he went forward, he saw a familiar vehicle, a Buick Rendezvous with an antennae farm on its roof, sitting beside the house.
Michael J. O'Hara himself was sprawled in a lawn chaise on the wharf, drinking from the neck of a beer bottle. The chair was from the deck of the house. There was a portable cooler beside Mickey that he'd obviously brought with him.
He waved, but rose from the chair only when Matt called, "Hey, Mickey, want to grab the line?"
On the third try, he managed to do so, whereupon he inquired, "What am I supposed to do with it?"
Matt resisted the temptation to tell him the first thing that came to his mind, and instead said, "Wrap it, twice, around that pole, and then hang on to it."
When he saw that Mickey had done so, he went aft to handle the stern lines.
I wonder what he's doing here. Who cares? I really am glad to see him.
"You didn't answer your phone," Mickey said, by way of greeting. "I was about to call the cops."
"On the water, you call the Coast Guard, not the cops," Matt said. "Write that down."
"So why didn't you answer the phone?"
"I didn't have it turned on, for one thing," Matt said, helping himself to a beer from the cooler, "and for another, I was probably out of range."
"You're not supposed to be," O'Hara said.
"Well, sorry. My profound apologies."
"I meant of this," Mickey said, and patted his shirt pocket, which held what looked to Matt like a bulky cellular telephone. "They advertise worldwide service. They use satellites."
"Then I guess I didn't have my phone turned on."
"I guess not," Mickey said.
It occurred to Matt that unless they got off the wharf before the reserve captain got offFinal Tort V, he would probably be joining them for whatever happened next, which included a couple of beers, for sure, and then probably dinner.
Worse, that he would probably recognize Mickey's name, and start asking questions about what it was like being a famous journalist, and even worse than that, Mickey would delight in telling him.
"All I had for lunch was a ham and cheese sandwich," Matt said. "Let's go get something to eat."
"Steamed clams," Mickey announced. "I didn't have any lunch at all, and steamed clams seems like a splendid idea."
He picked up the portable cooler and started down the wharf.
"Are we going out tomorrow?" the reserve captain called down from theFinal Tort V.
"I'll call you," Matt said.
In the Rendezvous, Mickey asked,
"You okay, Matty?"
"I'm fine."
"I heard you came apart for a while."
"I came apart for a while, but I'm fine now."
Mickey handed him his cellular telephone.
"Call Denny Coughlin and tell him. He's worried about you."
"He sent you down here to keep me company?"
"He told me how to get here," O'Hara said. "You have to dial Zero Zero One first."
"Zero Zero One first?"
"That's the United States," O'Hara explained.
"I thought that's where we were."
"That's a worldwide telephone. You have to dial the country code first. Call Denny, for Christ's sake."
Matt punched in the numbers, including the Zero Zero One country code, then the Philadelphia area code, and then Commissioner Coughlin's number, and was finally connected with him.
He told him that he was fine, thank you; that Mickey had found him; that they were in his car en route to get some steamed clams; and that he felt fine, thank you, nothing has changed in the thirty seconds since you asked me that the first time.
"Is Mickey going to be in the way, Matty? He really wanted to see you. I thought maybe you'd like some company, so I told him where to find you."
"I'm glad you did. Thank you."
"Well, have a couple of beers, but get some rest. And give me a call every once in a while, okay?"
"I'll do it," Matt said, and pushed the Off button.
They sat at the bar of the Ocean Vue Bar amp; Grill and viewed the ocean while eating two dozen steamers and drinking two Heinekens each. Aside from "Hand me the Tabasco, please," there was not much conversation.
Matt pushed the second tin tray of empty mollusk shells away from him, finished his beer, signaled for another round, and then asked,
"Can I ask you a personal question, Mick?"
"Shoot."
"Have you ever been out of the country?"
"No. Why should I have been?"
"Then what's with the worldwide dial Zero Zero One as the country code telephone all about?"
"I'm thinking of going to Europe," Mickey said.
"Really? What for?"
"Actually, Matty, that's one of the reasons I came all the way over here. The other was to apologize for not coming to see you after Doc Michaels told me that he let you out of the loony bin. I was busy."
"You have been discussing my mental condition with Dr. Michaels, I gather?"
"He said medical ethics prohibited his discussing your case with me, but apropos of nothing whatever, there was nothing wrong with you that a little rest wouldn't fix. He's a good guy."
"And he suggested you come to see me?"
"No," Mickey said, his tone suggesting that even the question surprised him. "What happened was after I heard that you'd been in and out of the loony bin, I called your mother, and she gave me the runaround about where you were, so I called your father, ditto, and I began to have visions of you in a rubber room somewhere, so I went and saw Doc Michaels, and he told me… what I told you he told me… so I called Denny and asked him where you were, and he told me. So I came."
"Tell me about Europe."
"I told you I was busy. What it was was that I was involved in a contractual dispute with my employers."
"About what?"
"I knocked my city editor on his ass," Mickey said. "With a bloody nose."
"Why?"
"It was a matter of journalistic principle," Mickey said. "The lawyers for theBulletin said it was justification for my termination, unless I apologized to the sonofabitch, which I will do the morning after the Pope gives birth to triplets."
"So where does the matter stand now?" Matt said, smiling.
"Casimir responded that in this era of political correctness, it is not professionally acceptable behavior for a supervisor, before a room full of his fellow employees, to call an underling 'you insane Shanty Irish sonofabitch'…"
"He actually called you that?" Matt asked, on the edge of laughter.
Mickey nodded, smiling, and went on, obviously quoting Bolinski verbatim,
"…'and to threaten a distinguished Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist such as Mr. O'Hara, before the same gathering of his peers, with using his influence to ensure that Mr. O'Hara would never find employment again, even with theNational Enquirer, a periodical generally held in contempt by responsible journalists.' "
"He did that?"
"As blood dripped down his chin from his bloody nose onto his shirt," Mickey said.
"What set you two off?" Matt asked.
"That's not important. The sonofabitch has never liked me, and vice versa. It just happened."
"So what's going to happen?"
"We have entered a thirty-day cooling-off period, during which they hope that I will change my mind about apologizing-they know I won't-and the Bull hopes Kennedy will make a full and public apology for his reprehensible remarks and behavior to me-which he just might. During this period, I have withdrawn my professional services from theBulletin. I still get paid, of course."
"So what can we two rejects of society as we know it do for the next thirty days?" Matt asked.
"That's what I came to talk to you about," Mickey said.
"Whiskey and wild, wild women? You want to go to Atlantic City? What about Vegas?"
"Casimir has this nutty idea-has had it for years-that I should write a book."
"You told me about that, Mick. And I told you it doesn't sound nutty to me at all."
"The original idea was a collection of stuff that I've done, Matt, and I even started putting stuff together for that."
"I know."
"But what Casimir did now was call some publisher and tell him that what they really needed was a book about Fort Festung, and I was just the guy to write it."
"Why him?"
"Casimir said the Frogs can't stall much longer-he looked into it, I suppose-and they're going to extradite the slimy sonofabitch."
"I agree with the Bull," Matt said. "If they send Festung back, it'd be national news. That'd sell a lot of books. And you are just the guy to write it."
"Yeah, well, anyway they threw a lot of money at me- which I don't have to give back, by the way, even if I don't write the book, or they don't like it-and I'm going to France to have a look at him."
"Hence the worldwide telephone?"
"Yeah. My mother goes bananas in the nursing home unless I call her once a day. I think it's nine dollars a minute or something when you use it, but what the hell."
"The more I think about this, it's a great idea," Matt said.
"Come with me," O'Hara said.
"What?"
"Come with me. What else have you got to do?"
"Wow!" Matt said. "That came out of left field."
"You've been there, right? You even speak a little Frog?"
"Very little," Matt said. "Ouvrez la porte de mon oncle. That means 'open the door of my uncle,' if you're taking notes."
"That's more than I speak. Come on, Matt. Everything on me, of course."
Matt didn't reply.
"I already know all I have to know about the sonofabitch, so all I have to do is take a quick look at this farmhouse, maybe get a couple of pictures of it, him and his wife, then we can go to Paris, or wherever, drink a lot of wine, and cherchez la femme."
"Mick, if I didn't think this was be nice to poor, loony Matt time, I actually think I'd go with you."
"I want you to go because I don't want to go by myself, okay?" O'Hara said.
Jesus, he means that. Mr. Front Page himself, the battling brawler of the city room, is afraid to leave Philadelphia by himself.
What the hell, why not? What else have I got to do?
"What the hell, Mick, why not?" Matt said.
Mickey took out the cellular, pushed one button, and then put the instrument to his ear.
"What happened to the Zero Zero One routine?" Matt asked.
"The Bull's got one of these, too. They store a hundred numbers of other people with one of them," Mickey explained, then held up his hand to cut Matt off.
"Antoinette, this is Michael. Would it be possible for me to speak with Casimir, please?"
It took several minutes for Mr. Bolinski to get on the line. He explained he was floating around the pool.
"Matt says he'll go, Casimir," O'Hara said. "Set it up."
Bolinski said something Matt couldn't hear.
"You got a passport? Is tomorrow night too soon for you?" Mickey asked.
"Yes and no," Matt said.
"That's fine with Matt, Casimir. Set it up."
Bolinski said something else Matt couldn't hear.
"He's fine. He was exhausted, is all."
Mickey broke the connection after Bolinski said something else.
"The Bull says he's glad to hear you're okay."
"That's nice of him."
Mickey pushed another button on his worldwide telephone and put it to his ear.
"Hi, Mom!" he began. "How you doing?"
He spoke with his mother for five minutes, then handed the cellular to Matt.
"You want to call your mom?"
"Not particularly."
"She's your mother, for Christ's sake. Call her."
Matt called his mother and told her that he was fine, thank you, and that he was going to Paris tomorrow night with Mickey O'Hara.
[TWO] When Air France Flight 2110 deposited them at Charles de Gaulle International Airport in Paris the second morning later, French customs showed great interest in Mr. O'Hara's brand-new luggage-a last-minute purchase after Matt suggested that if they were going to be gone a couple of weeks Mickey would need more space than his zipper bag with the Philadelphia 76ers logotype would provide-and went through it suspiciously before gesturing they could pass.
Outside Customs, a man in a chauffeur's cap was waiting for them, holding a sign lettered "M. O'Hara."
He drove them, in a new Mercedes, to the George V Hotel, where they were installed in a two-bedroom, two-bath, sitting room suite on a corner of the building. From two windows in the sitting room, if they looked carefully, they could see the Champs Elysees, a block away.
They unpacked their luggage and then walked over to the Champs Elysees, took a quick look at the Arc de Triomphe at the other end, and went in search of breakfast.
Then they went to the U.S. Embassy at the foot of the hill, where-after Mickey threatened him with calling Pennsylvania's junior senator right then and on his worldwide telephone-the press officer somewhat reluctantly promised to be prepared to give him the latest developments vis-a-vis the extradition of Isaac Festung once a day when Mickey called.
As they left the embassy, Matt said they were within walking distance of two famous Paris landmarks, the Louvre Museum and Harry's New York Bar.
"Let's take a quick look at the museum," Mickey said. "Just so we can say we saw it. And then we'll go to the bar and hoist a few."
They went into the museum a few minutes before eleven and left a few minutes more than eight hours later, when at closing time three museum guards-immune to Mickey's argument that he was the press, for Christ's sake, and entitled to a little consideration-escorted them out.
He immediately announced to Matt that they were going to have to come back tomorrow.
"I could spend all goddamn day in there just looking at Venus de Milo," Mickey said.
They called their respective maternal parents while sitting at the bar in Harry's. When Matt told his mother they had spent most of the day in the Louvre, and had only minutes before arrived at Harry's Bar, she chuckled knowingly.
"Have a good time, sweetheart," she said. "But get some rest."
When they left Harry's four beers and an hour later, and were walking toward the Opera, where Matt remembered a restaurant his father particularly liked, Mickey offered a philosophical/historical/literary observation:
"Did you know that's the joint where Hemingway used to hang out?" he asked.
"I heard."
"Did you know that before he became a writer, he was a newspaperman?"
"I heard that too."
"I don't mean some schmuck on a small-town rag, he worked for theHerald-Tribune, here," Mickey said. "He gave a speech one time where he said he thought working on a newspaper was the best training he ever had to become a writer."
"I didn't know that, but I'm sure he was right," Matt said.
"Yeah," Mickey said, thoughtfully. "He probably was."
Am I in the company of the next Tom Clancy? The next Whatshisname, the guy who made millions writing about dinosaurs?
"When do you want to go to Cognac-Boeuf, Mick?"
"What's that?"
"That's where Festung is."
"Soon, but not right away. I told you, I want to go back to the Louvre. You can't see half what they have in that place in one day, for Christ's sake."
Over the next five days, they developed a routine. On waking, while Matt ordered their room-service breakfast, and while waiting for it to be delivered, Mickey first got on the phone to the embassy's press officer, then would get on the Internet with Matt's laptop, go to theBulletin's Web site, and catch up on what was happening in Philadelphia.
After breakfast, they took a cab to the Louvre. Matt thus got to see more of the museum than he'd seen in his previous- more than a dozen-visits to the City of Lights. Once they went out of the museum to lunch, but that took too much time for Mickey, so the other days they had eaten lunch standing up at a museum concession.
He did manage to get Mickey briefly to the top of the Eiffel Tower-to which Mickey's reaction was "What's the big deal?" and "Are you sure it's safe? It's rusty all over"- and to Napoleon's Tomb, but that was about all.
They called their respective maternal parents daily, usually from Harry's New York Bar after the Louvre closed. And then they went to dinner, and after that, twice, to jazz places on the East Bank.
Matt realized that he was having a good time, largely because Mickey was what his father described as "a good traveling companion."
On the morning of the sixth day, Mickey called, "Hey, you better take a look at this!"
Matt, munching a croissant, walked to where Mickey was at his laptop. The screen showed the front page of theBulletin, and for a moment Matt didn't understand what he was being shown. And then, in the "Inside Today's Bulletin" box, he saw: "Police Arrest Two in Fast-Food Restaurant Murder. Page 3, Section 2."
There wasn't much of a story there, even though it had a double byline on it.