Murder Without Pity Read Online Free PDF

reached the stage.
    “…and that’s what this Center is too, unrepentant in its humanitaria….”
    Now past the white carnation stand in front of the blue curtains, rushing toward Anna with his left hand in his coat pocket, right hand swinging in rhythm with his aggressive stride.
    “…and today, tragically, we hear once more extremist voices,” Stanislas heard Anna say, while he also was aware now of whispers around him from puzzled guests and of Jules’s sharp intake of breath, and a cry of “To your right, that man!” coming from someone in the audience, and Anna seemed to understand something was wrong for she twisted her head in the man’s direction, brushing back her hair behind an ear, as if for a clearer view. “Guards!” Stanislas shouted.
    “Stop him!” Jules yelled, waving frantically at the man.
    The man hurled himself against the podium. Anna stopped in midsentence, her eyes wide with shock. He knocked the microphone away from her with his palm and cupped a hand to her ear.
    He appeared to talk forever, and Stanislas heard the whispers rise to murmurs around the ballroom, delivering no doubt the same message about some disaster the cell phone callers had given. Maybe someone had assassinated the president. Maybe terrorists had bombed another metro.
    The tall, double doors at each entrance were jerked open. Anna, looking pale, gripped the microphone with both hands. “Ladies and gentlemen, the police have asked us to leave the hotel at once. File out by the closest exit. Calmly, please.” The man hurried her down the steps and over to her table. Together, she and Stanislas helped Jules to his feet. Others had already moved into the corridors.
    Most guests huddled under umbrellas in the drizzle a few blocks from the hotel. A few couples descended to the shelter of a nearby metro. The night was quiet. Stanislas overheard several celebrants state with certainty the riot police must have dispersed the Fuchs and Dray militants once the benefit had begun.
    Jules stabbed another cigarette into his mouth. Anna Attali begged him not to smoke. He lit up anyway, the odd tension between them returning, Stanislas noticed.
    She wandered over to Stanislas and apologized. The head of the Paris police had warned the Center about a possible terrorist bomb threat, she explained. But the directors refused to let extremists intimidate and had voted to hold the benefit anyway.
    Something faint and menacing drifted out of the mist to their right further down the avenue. Its sound was leaden, and as it punched louder with mounting fury, it remained Stanislas of soldiers tramping out drumbeats from their boots. It wasn’t a chant he heard this time. The louder it pounded toward them, the more it sounded like a marching song he had heard somewhere long ago.
    A musician stared off into the distance. Jules also turned in that direction. His mouth cracked open. His cigarette fell from his lips onto the wet pavement. Next to him a woman draped in a shawl began to wail. One by one, pulled by curiosity, then seemingly gripped by communal fear, Anna, Gustave, Buffi, and others stared off into the darkness. Anna clutched Stanislas’s arm as though frightened. Jules cursed and shook his little fist. The old woman with the shawl continued wailing. Anna grabbed his arm tighter, and Stanislas began to say something till the song blasted out of the dark in a rowdy beer hall rage—“March! March! March! Close up ranks! March! March! March! Raise high our honored banner for our fatherland!”—and he had to cup a hand to her ear and shout above the fury of the radicals, who hadn’t disbanded, after all. “It’ll be okay. The police will arrive any minute. It’ll be over shortly.”
    She continued staring at the threatening darkness. “Over shortly, this?” She at last brought herself to glance at him. “No, I don’t think so, Monsieur Cassel. These extremists may be fewer in numbers these days. But they remain deadly.