The Enemy

“Let’s go,” he said.

“When did you call her last?”

“The day before yesterday. It was your turn next.”

We moved off and walked down the avenue, side by side, matching our pace to the leisurely stroll of the people around us.

“Want breakfast first?” I said. “We don’t want to wake her.”

“The nurse will let us in.”

There was a car abandoned halfway up on the sidewalk. It had been in some kind of an accident. It had a smashed fender and a flat tire. We stepped out into the street to pass it by. Saw a large black vehicle double-parked on the road forty yards ahead.

We stared at it.

“Un corbillard,” Joe said.

A hearse.

We stared at it. Tried to figure which building it was waiting at. Tried to gauge the distance. The head-on perspective made it difficult. I glanced upward at the rooflines. First came a limestone Belle Époque facade, seven stories high. Then a drop to my mother’s plainer six-story building. I traced my gaze vertically all the way down the frontage. To the street. To the hearse. It was parked right in front of my mother’s door.

We ran.

There was a man in a black silk hat standing on the sidewalk. The street door to my mother’s building was open. We glanced at the man in the hat and went in through the door to the courtyard. The concierge was standing in her doorway. She had a handkerchief in her hand and tears in her eyes. She paid us no attention. We headed for the elevator. Rode up to five. The elevator was agonizingly slow.

The door to the apartment was standing open. I could see men in black coats inside. Three of them. We went in. The men in the coats stood back. They said nothing. The girl with the luminous eyes came out of the kitchen. She looked pale. She stopped when she saw us. Then she turned and walked slowly across the room to meet us.

“What?” Joe said.

She didn’t answer.

“When?” I said.

“Last night,” she said. “It was very peaceful.”

The men in the coats realized who we must be and shuffled out into the hallway. They were very quiet. They made no noise at all. Joe took an unsteady step and sat down on the sofa. I stayed where I was. I stood still in the middle of the floor.

“When?” I said again.

“At midnight,” the girl said. “In her sleep.”

I closed my eyes. Opened them again a minute later. The girl was still there. Her eyes were on mine.

“Were you with her?” I said.

She nodded.

“All the time,” she said.

“Was there a doctor here?”

“She sent him away.”

“What happened?”

“She said she felt well. She went to bed at eleven. She slept an hour, and then she just stopped breathing.”

I looked up at the ceiling. “Was she in pain?”

“Not at the end.”

“But she said she felt well.”

“Her time had come. I’ve seen it before.”

I looked at her, and then I looked away.

“Would you like to see her?” the girl said.

“Joe?” I said. He shook his head. Stayed on the sofa. I stepped toward the bedroom. There was a mahogany coffin set up on velvet-padded trestles next to the bed. It was lined with white silk and it was empty. My mother’s body was still in the bed. The sheets were made up around her. Her head was resting gently on the pillow and her arms were crossed over her chest outside the covers. Her eyes were closed. She was barely recognizable.

Summer had asked me: Does it upset you to see dead people?

No, I had said.

Why not? she had asked me.

I don’t know, I had said.

I had never seen my father’s body. I was away somewhere when he died. It had been a heart thing. Some VA hospital had done its best, but it was hopeless from the start. I had flown in on the morning of the funeral and had left again the same night.

Funeral, I thought.

Joe will handle it.

I stayed by my mother’s bed for five long minutes, eyes open, eyes dry. Then I turned and stepped back into the living room. It was crowded again. The croques-morts were back. The pallbearers. And there was an old man on the sofa, next to Joe. He was sitting stiffly. There were two walking sticks propped next to him. He had thin gray hair and a heavy dark suit with a tiny ribbon in the buttonhole. Red, white, and blue, maybe a Croix de Guerre ribbon, or the Medaille de la Résistance. He had a small cardboard box balanced on his bony knees. It was tied with a piece of faded red string.

“This is Monsieur Lamonnier,” Joe said. “Family friend.”

The old guy grabbed his sticks and started to struggle up to shake my hand but I waved him back down and stepped over close. He was maybe seventy-five or eighty. He was lean and dried-out and relatively tall for a Frenchman.

“You’re the one she called Reacher,” he said.

I nodded.

“That’s me,” I said. “I don’t remember you.”

“We never met. But I knew your mother a long time.”

“Thanks for stopping by.”

“You too,” he said.

Touché, I thought.

“What’s in the box?” I said.