Out of the Dark Read Online Free PDF Page B

not show the slightest sign of impatience. As for me, I stayed where I was in the booth, like in those nightmares where you can't stand up because your legs are as heavy as lead. From time to time I turned toward Jacqueline, wanting to ask her to leave this café and walk with me to the Gare de Lyon. We would have taken a night train, and the next morning we would have found ourselves on the Riviera or in Italy.
    The car was parked a little farther up the Rue Cujas, where the sidewalk became steps with iron handrails. Jacqueline got into the front seat.
    Cartaud asked me for the address of my hotel, and we took the Rue Saint-Jacques to reach the Boulevard Saint­Germain.
    'If understand correctly, ' he said, 'you all live in hotels …'
    He turned his head toward Van Bever and me. He looked us over again with his sardonic smile, and I had the feeling he saw us as utterly insignificant.
    'A very Bohemian life, in other words …'
    Maybe he was trying to strike a flippant and sympathetic tone. If so, he was doing it awkwardly, as older people do who are intimidated by youth.
    'And how long will you go on living in hotels?'
    This time he was talking to Jacqueline. She was smoking and dropping the ash out the half-open window.
    'Until we can leave Paris,' she said. 'It all depends on our American friend who lives on Majorca.'
    A little earlier, I had looked for a book by this McGivern person in the English bookstore on the quai but found nothing. The only proof of his existence was the envelope with the Majorcan address that I had seen in Jacqueline's hand that first day. But I wasn't sure the name on the envelope was 'McGivern.'
    'Are you sure you can count on him?' Cartaud asked.
    Van Bever, sitting next to me, seemed uncomfortable. Finally Jacqueline said:
    'Of course … He suggested we come to Majorca.'
    She was speaking in a matter-of-fact tone I didn't recognize. I got the impression that she wanted to lord it over Cartaud with this 'American friend' and to let him know that he, Cartaud, wasn't the only one interested in her and Van Bever.
    He stopped the car in front of my hotel. So this was my cue to say goodnight, and I was afraid I would never see them again, like those afternoons when I waited for them in the Café Dante. Cartaud wouldn't take them straight back to their hotel, and they would end the evening together somewhere on the Right Rank. Or they might even have one last drink somewhere in this neighborhood. But they wanted to get rid of me first.
    Van Bever got out of the car, leaving the door open. I thought I saw Cartaud's hand brush Jacqueline's knee, but it might have been an illusion caused by the semidarkness.
    She had said good-bye to me, very quietly. Cartaud had favored me with a noncommittal good-night. I was clearly in the way. Standing on the sidewalk, Van Beck had waited for me to get out of the car. And he had shaken my hand. 'One of these days in the Café Dante, maybe,' he'd said.
    At the door of the hotel, I turned around. Van Bever waved at me and got back in the car. The door slammed. Now he was alone in the rear seat.
    The car started off in the direction of the Seine. That was also the way to the Austerlitz and Lyon train stations, and I thought to myself that they were going to leave Paris.
    Before going upstairs to my room I asked the night clerk for a telephone book, but I wasn't quite sure how to spell 'Cartaud,' and I found listings for Carrau, Cartaud, Carrault, Cartaux, Carteau, Carteaud, Cartcaux. None of them was named Pierre.
    I couldn't get to sleep, and I regretted not having asked Cartaud some questions. But would he have answered? If he had really gone to dental school, did he have a practice now? I tried to imagine him in a white dentist's smock, receiving patients in his office. Then my thoughts returned to Jacqueline, and Cartaud's hand on her knee. Maybe Van Bever could explain some of this for me. I slept restlessly. In my dream, names written in glowing letters were