The Negotiator

“Miss Somerville?”

“Yes.”

“Evening. I’m Ronnie. This is Bernie and Arfur and Tel. Quinn asked us to look after you. The car’s right over here.”

Quinn drove into Marseilles in a cold and rainy dawn, the last day of November. He had the choice of flying to Ajaccio, the capital of Corsica, from Marignane Airport, and arriving the same day, or of taking the evening ferry and his car with him.

He elected the ferry. For one thing he would not have to rent a car in Ajaccio; for another, he could safely take the Smith & Wesson, still stuck in his waistband; and for a third, he felt he ought as a precaution to make some small purchases for the stay in Corsica.

The signs to the ferry port on the Quai de la Joliette were clear enough. The port was almost empty. The morning’s ferry from Ajaccio was docked, its passengers gone an hour before. The SNCM ticket office on the Boulevard des Dames was still closed. He parked and enjoyed breakfast while he waited.

At nine he bought himself a crossing on the ferry Napoléon for the coming night, due to leave at 8:00 P.M. and arrive at 7:00 the morning after. With his ticket he could lodge the Ascona in the passengers’ parking lot close to the J4 quai, from which the ferry would leave. This done, he walked back into the city to make his purchases.

The canvas holdall was easy enough to find, and a pharmacy yielded the washing things and shaving tackle to replace what he had abandoned at the Hôtel du Colisée in Paris. The search for a specialist men’s outfitters caused a number of shaken heads, but he eventually found it in the pedestrians-only rue St.-Ferréol just north of the Old Port.

The young salesman was helpful and the purchase of boots, jeans, belt, shirt, and hat posed no problem. When Quinn mentioned his last request, the young man’s eyebrows went up.

“You want what, m’sieur?”

Quinn repeated his need.

“I’m sorry, I don’t think such a thing could be for sale.”

He eyed the two large-denomination notes moving seductively through Quinn’s fingers.

“Perhaps in the storeroom? An old one of no further use?” suggested Quinn.

The young man glanced around.

“I will see, sir. May I take the holdall?”

He was in the storeroom at the rear for ten minutes. When he returned he opened the holdall for Quinn to peer inside.

“Marvelous,” said Quinn. “Just what I needed.”

He settled up, tipped the young man as promised, and left. The skies cleared and he lunched at an open café in the Old Port, spending an hour over coffee studying a large-scale map of Corsica. The only thing the attached gazetteer would say of Castelblanc was that it was in the Ospédale Range in the deep south of the island.

At eight the Napoléon eased herself out of the Gare Maritime and headed backwards into the roads. Quinn was enjoying a glass of wine in the Bar des Aigles, almost empty at that season of the year. As the ferry swung to bring her nose to the sea, the lights of Marseilles passed in review before the window, to be replaced by the old prison fortress of Château d’If, drifting past half a cable’s length away.

Fifteen minutes later she cleared Cap Croisette and was enveloped by the darkness and the open sea. Quinn went to dine in the Malmaison, returned to his cabin on D Deck, and turned in before eleven, his bedside clock set for six.

At about that hour Sam sat with her hosts in a small and isolated former farmhouse high in the hills behind Estepona. None of them lived in the house; it was used for storage and the occasional moment when one of their friends needed a little “privacy” from marauding detectives waving extradition warrants.

The five of them sat in a closed and shuttered room, now blue with cigarette smoke, playing poker. It had been Ronnie’s suggestion. They had been at it for three hours; only Ronnie and Sam remained in the game. Tel did not play; he served beer—drunk straight from the bottle and with an ample supply available in the crates along one wall. The other walls were also stacked, but with bales of an exotic leaf fresh in from Morocco and destined for export to countries farther north.

Arfur and Bernie had been cleaned out and sat glumly watching the last two players at the table. The “pot” of 1,000-peseta notes in the center of the table contained all they had brought with them, plus half of what Ronnie had and half th

e dollars in Sam’s possession, exchanged at the going dollar/peseta rate.

Sam eyed Ronnie’s remaining stash, pushed most of her own banknotes to the center, and raised him. He grinned, matched her raise, and asked to see her cards. She turned four of her cards face-up. Two kings, two tens. Ronnie grinned and up-faced his own hand: full house, three queens and two jacks. He reached for the pile of notes containing all he had, plus all Bernie and Arfur had brought, plus nine tenths of Sam’s thousand dollars. Sam flicked over her fifth card. The third king.

“Bloody ’ell,” he said and leaned back. Sam scooped the notes into a pile.

“S’truth,” said Bernie.

“ ’Ere, what you do for a living, Sam?” asked Arfur.

“Didn’t Quinn tell you?” she asked. “I’m a special agent with the FBI.”