There They Are! There They Are!
Crack, crack.
The fire in the hearth warmed the living-room air. The landlady, Sophia, disappeared into the room where the children were, while Armand took a seat in front of the fireplace with a blanket draped over his shoulders.
“An old flame? Or an affair? You two don’t look like ordinary acquaintances.”
Armand’s brow furrowed at Declan’s remark.
“Sophia is my sister.”
I shot Declan a glare. He quietly averted his eyes. Clueless bastard.
“Right after the Great War in Europe. The rest of the family left the island, but my sister stayed because of her foolish husband and his in-laws.”
“And the husband?”
“That idiot brother-in-law never once imagined he’d be conscripted. So now he’s put the whole family through hell.”
“But isn’t a head of household exempt from the draft?”
Armand snorted at Declan’s question.
“I wonder if the French government even knows what ‘head of household’ means. Especially in an overseas territory.”
So far, more than four hundred adult men had been conscripted. Out of a population of four thousand, once you subtracted the elderly, the women, and the children, every able-bodied man had been dragged off to the front.
For islanders who had always scraped by on fishing, it was the worst possible situation. After the war began, the French mainland cut off all support, and fishing itself ground to a halt. They had to find another way.
“So that was smuggling.”
“When an outsider like me brings contraband by boat, the old folks, the women, and the kids store it in the warehouses. They help load the ships, too.”
Some still fished, of course, but most of them were actively involved in the contraband trade just to stay alive.
I had been listening in silence. Now I spoke for the first time.
“Any news of Leonard?”
“Sophia says he loaded cargo at the harbor a fortnight ago and left. If my dates are right, he’ll be back in this port within a few days.”
When Leonard reached the harbor of Saint Pierre and Miquelon, he would have to be eliminated. I would have to find the means and the method myself.
The problem was the condition Armand had attached.
“Absolutely no murders on this island. More precisely, the fact itself must never come to light.”
Armand’s logic ran like this: if a killing occurred, investigators would be dispatched from the French mainland. They would tear the island apart and discover that the entire village was neck-deep in smuggling.
“And if word gets out that I was the one who removed Leonard, the customs officers and harbor officials will never deal with me again.”
Would they, really?
I did not share Armand’s view. If the whole island was involved in smuggling, weren’t the officials just as deep in it? Would they really throw away their own profits, report everything to the mainland, and blow the whole affair wide open?
Armand simply did not understand the true size of a corrupt man’s appetite. In my head I was already laying out a completely different plan.
The next morning.
A shadow fell across my face. When I opened my eyes, three children were staring down at me. All under ten; one of the girls was about Roa’s age.
“Hello.”
Startled, the children bolted for the kitchen. French voices soon rose in a noisy chatter, and Armand approached with an awkward smile.
“Don’t take it the wrong way. My adorable little nephews and nieces have never seen an Oriental before. Most of the islanders will be the same.”
“One walk around the village and we’ll be drowning in attention.”
“That’s why we slipped in secretly.”
To hide not only Armand but the rest of us as well, we had avoided the official routes, jumped from the ship, and swum ashore.
That plan started to go sideways almost immediately.
The door rattled open. Sophia rushed in, out of breath, as if she had already been somewhere that morning.
“Armand, I think we’ve been found out.”
“What are you talking about?”
“The gendarmerie has called a village committee meeting. They say people swam ashore last night.”
“What?!”
Every eye swung toward Declan—the one who had flailed around in the water.
“H-hey. There’s no proof it was me, right?”
While everyone glared openly at him, Sophia shook her head and offered another reason.
“It wasn’t because of him. The witness is Marcelline.”
“Damn it, that old woman again?”
She was the island’s resident spirit of the harbor—always sitting on the hill, staring blankly out to sea. Apparently she had watched us from the port last night.
“At this rate the gendarmes might search our house.”
They had been sent from the mainland to keep conscription running smoothly. In wartime they handled local order in place of the regular police; that was exactly why Leonard had to be removed somewhere other than the island.
Armand turned a wry smile on the children.
“Our little ones know how to keep their mouths shut. Right?”
“What are you talking about? They’ll search until they find out exactly who came onto this island.”
Sophia scowled in irritation.
Looking at how things were unfolding, our secret landing had already been discovered. Hiding would do no good. If the gendarmes and police started tearing the place apart, that would only make matters worse.
Besides, I already had Plan B ready just in case. I liked that plan better.
I stood up and summed up the situation.
“Only Armand needs to stay hidden. The rest of us are going back to the harbor.”
“What?”
“At worst they’ll suspect us of illegal entry. Now that we’re found out, what’s the point of hiding?”
The obsession with eliminating Leonard in secret was only shrinking our own room to maneuver. Why had I come to this island in the first place? Removing Leonard was a small matter. The real goal was to do business here.
Since things had come to this, we might as well walk out openly.
“This is the perfect chance to leave a good impression.”
“That will never happen. They’ll look at you with suspicion, not goodwill. And if anything goes wrong…”
“Then why don’t you pray that nothing goes wrong?”
I fixed him with a hard stare. Armand flinched and opened his mouth in panic.
“You… you haven’t forgotten you accepted my commission—”
“Enough. We’ll handle it. You just stay quietly out of sight and don’t get caught.”
Armand chewed his lip, then finally shook his head as if to say do whatever you want.
“Suit yourself.”
At my glance, Phyllis, Declan, and Hubert rose with me. When we stepped outside, the coastline filled our view. From here it was impossible to tell which direction the harbor lay.
A little undignified, but I went back inside and asked Sophia.
“Which way is the harbor?”
“……Behind the house. Go down the hill.”
“Then we’ll see you later.”
We followed the slope down toward the harbor. Sophia’s house stood apart, but the houses near the port were packed tightly together. The alleys were so narrow and steep that two people could barely pass.
Wearing masks and scarves without the slightest hesitation, we pushed through the clustered houses toward the water.
Then a sharp voice suddenly rang out from the air above us.
“Les voilà! Les voilà!”
On a high hill that overlooked the entire harbor, the island’s resident spirit Armand had mentioned was waving and shouting at the top of her lungs.
“That old woman’s eyesight is something else.”
“Right, Boss? Must be from living by the sea.”
We were still half-laughing when men came running to block our path—gendarmes sent from the French mainland.
“Ne bougez pas!”
Under the eyes of the whole town we were marched to the gendarmerie post at the harbor. Inside, two familiar faces stared at us in shock: Captain River Grey and Carly.
“Don’t tell me you got caught? We kept insisting we didn’t know anything.”
“Change of plans. Tell them we got drunk and jumped in the water.”
“Holy shit, you think they’ll buy that?”
We were all questioned together. One of the gendarmes who spoke English interrogated us.
“So you’re saying you went into the water drunk at night?”
“I don’t remember clearly. But that seems to be the case.”
“No other purpose?”
“If we’d had another purpose we wouldn’t have walked in on our own two feet. When I came to, I was on the beach.”
Next they pressed River Grey.
“Why did you lie? You said there were only two people on the boat.”
“They suddenly disappeared and I panicked… I never even heard a splash.”
The gendarme asked the fundamental question.
“So why did Americans come to this island?”
“Business.”
“Hah. What kind of business could you possibly be doing?”
When he sneered I pulled a business card from my wallet. It was damp from the water, but the gendarme’s eyes still swept me from head to toe once he read it.
“Sales Director, Silver Chain Logistics?”
“We’re looking for overseas distribution hubs. Saint Pierre and Miquelon is one of the candidates.”
I slipped a twenty-dollar bill from the wallet and passed it under the table. After a quick glance around, the gendarme pocketed the money smoothly.
“We never intended to cause a disturbance. I hope you’ll be generous.”
“Even so, you won’t take a single step until your identities are confirmed.”
“Of course.”
Because of the war, the United States had required passports for overseas travelers since July 1918. Photographs were not yet attached; physical descriptions were written instead. In that respect I was completely transparent.
While the French gendarmes used the harbor telephone to verify our identities, we were held in something like a detention cell. We were killing time there when a sudden commotion broke out.
Despite the gendarmes’ attempts to stop her, an old woman appeared before us. At a glance it was Marcelline, the island spirit who had spotted us at the harbor.
She grabbed the iron bars without ceremony and cried out.
“Mon fils est venu avec moi aussi, n’est-ce pas? J’en suis sûr, je l’ai vu en rêve. Je l’ai vu revenir. Il est forcément venu avec moi, hein?”
“The hell is she saying? One more word and—”
Smack.
I cuffed Declan hard on the back of the head as he growled at the old woman.
“You little shit. Where’s your respect?”
“Boss, that damn hag is the reason everything went sideways!”
“You don’t know about Plan B? If you don’t want to die, shut your mouth.”
Declan clamped his lips shut. A moment later the English-speaking gendarme returned, looking uncomfortable, and tried to lead the old woman away by the arm.
“What’s she saying?”
“……She wants to know if her son came with us. She saw him in a dream.”
“Her son?”
The gendarme’s face turned bitter.
“Both her boys were conscripted. The older one died at the front last year.”
So the old woman had been watching the harbor like a guardian spirit, desperately hoping her second son would return safely.
“I had no idea… ugh.”
Declan clamped a fist over his own mouth. Leaving his ridiculous expression behind, I gave the old woman a gentle smile.
“In a few days you’ll hear good news. Your second son will come home safe as well.”
“Don’t give her false hope. She’s already out in the freezing wind every day. Her health isn’t good.”
“I see. What day is it today, by the way?”
The gendarme frowned and tossed the answer out.
“November sixth.”
“Five days left.”
“What?”
“Nothing. Just tell her he’ll be back soon.”
Even while making no effort to hide his annoyance, the gendarme relayed my words. The way her face lit up told me everything.
The moment the old woman left the cell, River Grey turned to me.
“You sure about what you just said? Is that why you loaded that other cargo too?”
“Is anything in this world ever certain? It’s only a matter of probability.”
Besides weapons, River Grey’s ship carried other items Armand knew nothing about.
We spent a full day in the cell before the identity checks finally finished. But another major barrier remained: entry permits.
We had never officially obtained French entry papers. In fact, the complicated procedures were one of the reasons we had tried to slip in illegally in the first place.
“We won’t make an issue of it—on the condition that you leave immediately.”
“Wait. Can’t we just get the entry permits issued here?”
Local authority to issue entry permits rested with the governor and the gendarmerie commander. The condition was a recommendation or guarantee from an influential figure.
“Think anyone in America would actually vouch for you?”
“What makes you think no one would?”
When the gendarme asked with a mocking face, I answered right back.
An influential figure who would guarantee me. The first name that came to mind was Big Tom Foley of Tammany Hall. But his reach was limited.
Tammany Hall called its officers and executives “sachems,” like Native American chiefs. Big Tom Foley was only a sachem with strong influence in his own district—not a national figure.
What I needed now was someone far more powerful than Foley: the Grand Sachem of Tammany Hall, the man to whom I had repeatedly paid political “contributions” thinly disguised as bribes.
“Charles Francis Murphy. Contact him.”
I found the name and number in my notebook and gave them over. The gendarme took the slip of paper with a dubious look. My men wore similar expressions.
“Boss, you actually know Charles Murphy?”
“If you’re lying we’re completely fucked, Boss.”
“Let’s just escape, Boss. If we run for the boat we can leave right now—right, River?”
These kids really had no faith.
A short while later the gendarme reappeared with the commander himself. Everyone’s eyes went wide.
“You’re Kieran?”
“It’s an honor to meet you.”
Pouring money into the Grand Sachem of Tammany Hall had been worth every dollar. Charles Francis Murphy truly was the man who controlled New York State politics—politics, police, immigration, the port authority, everything.
Thanks to that, the gendarmerie commander was now interested in me. This was why connections mattered.
“So what business brings you to Saint Pierre and Miquelon?”
If I answered well here, I might even reach the governor.
Liquor would be too obvious. Better to throw out something else. Among the countless business ideas floating in my head, I pulled one out.
Something that used the island’s rich fishing grounds. A bait project that would sound tempting whether it worked or not…
“I’m thinking of building a cannery.”
“A cannery?”
Whether a canning company on Saint Pierre and Miquelon was actually feasible or profitable would need careful study. But I wasn’t going to start it tomorrow, so what did it matter?
Canned goods had already advanced to the point where a can opener could cut a neat circle around the lid. Of course there was still a long way to go. I had already filed a patent for a future-style redesign of those crude openers. I had also patented the pull-tab method that let you open a can by lifting a ring on the lid. An improved stay-on-tab version could wait another ten years.
“When you think of France, you think of canning, don’t you?”
The commander’s mouth curved upward.
It wasn’t a random remark. Canning itself had begun in France. Napoleon had sealed food in glass bottles with complete sterilization for his armies. French pride. Touching on canned goods had been extremely effective.
And after hearing my detailed knowledge of can lids, the commander looked completely absorbed in what I was saying.
“A cannery… Not bad. Join the governor for dinner.”
Just like that I found myself dining with the governor, my men left behind, sitting face-to-face with the island’s authorities. However—
“A cannery is fine. The sea is full of fish. The problem is there’s no one left to catch them.”
The governor was more realistic than the gendarmerie commander.
“Unfortunately a cannery simply isn’t practical right now. Because of this damned war, fishing has all but stopped.”
“The war will be over soon anyway. The German army won’t last another week.”
At my words the governor and the commander both burst into hearty laughter. Naturally they didn’t believe me.
“If only that were true.”
“Ideals and reality are two different things.”
“I consider myself thoroughly realistic.”
They did not listen carefully. They more or less let my words drift past them. Still, the meal had been highly meaningful.
My companions and I were now free to walk the island wearing scarves and masks.
“If I’d known it would turn out like this I wouldn’t have jumped in the water and started swimming. People really should just walk around openly.”
“Exactly. This might actually be better. Should we go tell Armand?”
“Leave him. And you think this was luck? The boss just played it perfectly.”
I had woven the situation rather well. I nodded with quiet satisfaction at my men’s words.
“But we’re not actually scouting sites for a cannery, right, Boss?”
“We’re looking for warehouses. Factories cost too much money.”
“That’s our boss. The second he opens his mouth the lies come out smooth as silk.”
Armand was still buried underground, hiding. Leonard appeared in the harbor of Saint Pierre and Miquelon on November 8th—the third day after our arrival on the island.
“Well, well. You’ve all had a rough time of it.”
When we ran into him on the pier, a giant question mark floated above Leonard’s head. He looked me up and down with an expression of pure disbelief.
“Who the hell are you?”