Night Probe! - Night Probe! Part 37
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Night Probe! Part 37

Gly stopped in midstep. He abruptly realized an oversight that he should have realized before. Guerrier's teeth were too perfect. It dawned on him that they must have been false.

He crouched out of vision of the approaching bodyguard and ran back to the bedroom. Five seconds and he held them in his hand. Where did the old man keep them until morning? He must soak them in a cleaning solution. The bedside table was bare except for a clock. He found a plastic bowl filled with blue liquid on the bathroom counter. There was no time for him to analyze the contents. He dropped in the dentures.

Gly opened the bedroom door just as the bodyguard was reaching for the knob from his side in the hall.

"Oh, Monsieur Villon, I thought you and the premier might like some tea."

Gly nodded over his shoulder toward the lump on the bed. "Jules said he felt tired. I think he was asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow."

The bodyguard took his word for it. "Would you like a cup before you leave, sir?"

Gly closed the door. "Thank you, no. I must be getting along."

They returned to the foyer together. The bodyguard set down the tray and helped him into his coat. Gly lingered on the threshold, making certain Guerrier's man saw the Mercedes.

He bid a good-night and started the car. The gate opened and he swung onto the deserted street. Eight blocks away he parked at the curb between two large homes. He locked the doors and stomped the ignition key into the ground with his heel. What could be more common than a Mercedes-Benz sitting in a stylish residential district, he figured. People who lived in mansions seldom talked to their neighbors. Each would probably think the car belonged to friends visiting next door. The car would be ignored for days.

Gly was on a bus back to Quebec at ten past ten. The exotic poison he had concocted was still in his pocket. It was a foolproof method of murder, used by the Communist intelligence service. No pathologist could detect its presence in a corpse with certainty.

The decision to use the pillow was a spur-of-the-moment afterthought. It seemed a fitting tool for Gly's fetish for inconformity.

Most murderers followed a pattern, developed a routine modus operandi, preferred a particular weapon. Gly's pattern was that he didn't have one. Every kill was completely different in execution from the last. He left no strings to connect him with the past.

He felt a flush of excitement. He had cleared the first hurdle. One more remained, the trickiest, most sensitive one of them all.

Danielle lay in bed and watched the smoke of her cigarette curl toward the ceiling. She was only dimly aware of the warm little bedroom in the remote cottage outside Ottawa, the gathering darkness of the evening, the firm, smooth body beside her.

She sat up and looked at her watch. The interlude was over, and she felt a regret that it could not go on indefinitely. Responsibility beckoned and she was compelled to reenter reality. "Time for you to go?" he asked, stirring beside her.

She nodded. "I must play the dutiful wife and visit my husband in the hospital."

"I don't envy you. Hospitals are nightmares in white."

"I've become used to it by now."

"How is Charles coming along?"

"The doctors say he can come home in a few weeks."

"Come home to what?" he said contemptuously. "The country is rudderless. If an election were held tomorrow, he would surely be defeated."

"All to our advantage." She rose from the bed and began dressing. "With Jules Guerrier out of the way the timing is perfect for you to resign from the cabinet and publicly announce your candidacy for President of Quebec."

"I'll have to draft my speech carefully. The idea is to come on like a savior. I cannot afford to be cast as a rat jumping a sinking ship."

She came over and sat down beside him. The faint smell of his maleness aroused her again. She placed a hand on his chest and could feel his heartbeat.

"You were not the same man this afternoon, Henri." His face seemed to take on a concerned look. "How so?"

"You were more brutal in your lovemaking. Almost cruel."

"I thought you'd enjoy the change."

"I did." She smiled and kissed him. "You even felt different inside me."

"I can't imagine why," he said casually.

"Neither can I, but I loved it."

Reluctantly she pushed herself away and stood up. She put on her coat and gloves. He lay there, watching her.

She paused and looked down, giving him a penetrating look. "You never told me how you arranged to make Jules Guerrier's death appear natural."

A chilling expression came into his eyes. "There are some things you are better off not knowing."

She looked as though she'd been slapped in the face. "We never had secrets between us before."

"We do now," he said impassively.

She did not know how to react to his sudden coldness. She had never seen him like this and it stunned her. "You sound angry. Is it something I've said?"

He glanced at her uninterestedly and shrugged. "I expected more from you, Danielle."

"More?"

"You've told me nothing about Charles that I can't read in a newspaper."

She looked at him questioningly. "What do you want to know?"

"The man's inner thoughts. Conversations with other cabinet ministers. How does he intend to deal with Quebec after the separation? Is he thinking of resigning? Damn it, I need information, and you're not delivering."

She held out her hands expressively. "Charles has changed since the plane crash. He's become more secretive. He doesn't confide in me as before."

His eyes went dark. "Then you've become useless to me." She averted her face, the hurt and anger swelling in her breast.

"Don't bother contacting me again," he went on icily, "unless you have something important to say. I'm taking no more risks for boring sex games."

Danielle ran for the door, and then she turned. "You son of a bitch!" she choked through a sob.

How odd, she thought, that she had never seen the monster in him before. She suppressed a shudder and wiped at the tears with the back of her hand as she fled.

His laughter followed her to the car and rang in her ears during the drive to the hospital.

She could not know that back in the bedroom of the cottage Foss Gly lay highly pleased with himself for passing his final test with flying colors.

The President's chief of staff nodded an indifferent greeting and remained seated behind his desk as Pitt was ushered into his office. He glanced up without smiling. "Take a chair, Mr. Pitt. The President will be with you in a few minutes."

There was no offer of a handshake, so Pitt set his briefcase on the carpet and took a couch by the window.