Page 44 of A Noble Affair
“You’re doing the right thing.” Her mom patted her hair. “I’ll be here for another week, and by then it will be routine for everyone. Don’t you worry about a thing.”
Louis stompedalong the muddy path next to the houses with no sidewalks. Without warning, he slipped and landed in the mud. Blood rushed to his cheeks, and he felt fury take hold of him as he reached over to grab his bag and get himself into an upright position. The fact that no one was there to see his humiliation, apart from an old lady in a housedress who was in the process of opening her shutters, did nothing to calm his rage.
First it was his dad. He chose today—the day when Louis had planned on ending things with Jean and Max and the whole drug scene to read him a lecture on the dangers of drugs and getting in over his head. As if he were a child that needed to be told what to do. He wasn’t even done with breakfast when his dad started in on him.
“—and when I get back from London, we’re going to have more of a regular schedule together to see how you’re doing and start taking a look at some of your homework.”
“I don’t need a babysitter, Papa,” he flashed back.
“That’s not what I meant—” His dad had looked hurt, but Louis shoved that out of his mind. Served him right. He had no right to meddlenowwhen for years he had been too busy to take notice of him. All that time when Louis was on his own and had no one to talk to besides Paltier.
And now his interview with Jean had not gone at all like he had expected. He thought he could end things cleanly and move on with his life, but he now knew it was not going to be that easy.
“I brought you something,”Jean had said, tossing a bag of weed on his lap by way of greeting. “It’s a freebie. To thank you for your service these last couple of months. There’s more where that came from if you continue to pull in the same amount of orders.” He seemed more cheerful than he had any right to be.
“Thanks,” Louis mumbled, stuffing the marijuana in his bag. There was no reason to say no to something free. “I need to talk to you about that. I want out.”
Louis looked at Jean now and was startled, then afraid.He had never seen such hardness in Jean’s eyes before. When Jean spoke, his voice was deceptively casual. “Where’s the money you owe me, Louis?”
Louis broke out in a sweat, though the late February air was chilly. “I’ll get it to you. I just need some time.”
“You shouldn’tneedtime. It’s simple. You give the goods, you get the money, you give it to me. Are youstealingfrom me?”
“No. No.” Louis’s voice cracked. “Someone stole from me twice after I made the drop. Both times it happened at the party. I think I was drugged—”
“Oh please. That’s a likely excuse. You were drugged on the stuffIgave you—the stuff you got for free because I trusted you to bring in more clients.” Jean’s voice got louder. “If you think you can rip me off, you don’t know who you’re dealing with.”
Louis stood suddenly from the park bench. He searched, but the quiet town brought no welcome sight of joggers, or anyone that could lend him a hand. “I promised I’d have it, and I will. It’s just that being robbed twice…the amount is getting too big. I’m not sure how…” Louis cast about in his mind for something to say that would satisfy this guy. “Didn’t you mention that I could do you a…a favor? Instead of paying you back?”
Jean had stood as well. “That favor was for the first couple a’ thousand.” He suddenly grabbed Louis’s prep school tie and pulled ittight. He could feel the pressure on his throat. “Do not. Mess. With me,” he growled.
Just as suddenly, Jean stepped back and laughed, patting a shaking Louis on the back. “I’ll call in that favor,” he said loudly. Two middle-aged men jogged by discussing when to plant spring bulbs, which seemed like such a ludicrous subject at that moment. Louis wanted to call out to them, but he had no idea what to say, and he wasn’t sure he could find his voice.
The two of them were silent until the men were out of sight, but Jean seemed to have relaxed. In any case, he made no more threats. “Here’s the deal. I’ll let you do the favor instead of paying me the huge amount of money you owe. And I’m being generous.”
Jean sat back down, indicating for Louis to follow. “This is what I want you to do. My uncle used to work as a gardener for your grandfather a long time ago.”
Louis knit his brows together, but Jean didn’t give him a chance to speak. “He had a set of gardening tools, wrapped in a leather pouch with a handle, and they had been passed down in the family. My uncle disappeared, and no one knows what happened to him. I want the tools, which are still in the château. They belong to my family anyway.”
Jean paused, and Louis waited for more. When Jean said nothing further, Louis was perplexed. “But…what makes you think the tools are still there? The shed is a mess, but the gardeners tend to know where everything is. Those tools would have been thrown out or put to use by now.”
“They’re not in the shed. In fact, they’re not outdoors at all. They’re in the basement.”
Louis’s mind drifted to the basement in the château, which—to a young boy—had been a disappointment. It was more open and light-filled than a boy with a good imagination could have liked. There was nothing very dungeon-like about it.Except maybe the wine cellar…Ever since he outgrew such fancies, he had barely set foot down there. Louis finally managed to speak. “How do you know?”
“My uncle told my aunt everything while he was still working there. There’s a stretch of stone corridor near the wine cellar where it’s not well lit. When you walk towards the cellar, you’ll pass through an archway that has a ledge cut into the stone just above your head—it’s where there used to be an iron gate that rolled up into it. The tools will be there towards the back of the ledge. You’ll probably need a stick to reach it.”
Many questions swirled through Louis’s mind, but he settled on one. “Why didn’t your aunt just ask for the tools? I’m sure my grandfather would have given them to her.”
“Yes, but then you wouldn’t have a way out of your own fix, would you?” Jean lit a cigarette. “When my uncle disappeared, the tools were the least of her worries and she forgot about them. Now she’s getting old, and I’d like to get them back for her. She’s nostalgic,” he added by way of explanation.
“This is worth all the money I owe you?” Louis’s voice was filled with disbelief.
“Don’t question me too closely if you want me toforgetthe money you owe.”
“I’ll be shocked ifthey’re still there.” Louis folded his arms with belligerence.
“They had better be, or you and I have a problem,” was Jean’s calm response that left Louis more disquieted than he had felt at the open menace.
