Free The Boy Who Followed Ripley by Patricia Highsmith Page A

poked it into Frank’s hand. “Water?”
    “A little.”
    Tom added some water from the sink tap, and handed the glass back to Frank. “This will loosen you up, not necessarily your tongue,” Tom murmured. Tom made himself a gin and tonic without ice, though Mme. Annette wanted at once to get some out of the refrigerator. “Let’s go back,” Tom said to Frank, nodding toward the living room.
    They went back, took their places at the table with their drinks, and Mme. Annette almost at once brought the first course of her homemade jellied consommé. Heloise chattered away about her Adventure Cruise for late September. Noëlle had rung her that morning with some more details.
    “The Antarctic,” said Heloise with joy. “We may need—oh—just imagine the kind of clothes! Two pairs of gloves at once!”
    Longjohns, Tom was thinking. “Or do they turn on central heating somewhere at that price?”
    “O-oh, Tome!” Heloise said with good humor.
    She knew he didn’t give a damn about the cost. Jacques Plisson was probably making Heloise a present of the trip, since he knew Tom was not going.
    Frank asked how long the cruise would last, and how many people would be on the boat—this from Frank in French—and Tom found himself appreciative of the boy’s upbringing, those old customs of writing thank-you letters three days after receiving a present, whether one liked the present or the aunt who had given it, or not. The average American boy aged sixteen would not have been able to keep such cool, Tom thought, under the circumstances. When Mme. Annette passed the lamb chop platter for the second helping—four remained on the platter and Heloise had eaten only one—Tom served Frank with a third chop.
    Then the telephone rang.
    “I’ll get it,” Tom said. “Excuse me.” Odd to have a phone call in the sacred French lunch hour, and Tom was not expecting a call. “Hello,” Tom said.
    “Hello, Tom! It’s Reeves.”
    “Hang on, would you?” Tom laid the telephone down on the table and said to Heloise, “Long distance. I’ll take it upstairs so I don’t shout.” Tom ran up the stairs, lifted the telephone in his room, and told Reeves to hang on again. Tom went down and hung up the downstairs telephone. Meanwhile he was thinking that it was a piece of luck that Reeves had rung, because a new passport for Frank might well be in order, and Reeves was just the man for that. “Back again,” said Tom. “What’s new, my friend?”
    “Oh, not too much ,” Reeves Minot said in his hoarse, naïve-sounding American voice. “Just a little—uh—well, that’s why I’m calling. Can you put a friend up—for one night?”
    Tom did not like the idea just now. “When?”
    “Tomorrow night. His name is Eric Lanz. Coming from here. He can make it to Moret, so you won’t have to pick him up at the airport, but—best if he doesn’t stay at a hotel in Paris overnight.”
    Tom squeezed the telephone nervously. The man was carrying something, of course. Reeves was a fence, mainly. “Sure. Yes, sure,” Tom said, thinking if he demurred, Reeves would not be so forthcoming when Tom put in his own request. “For one night only?”
    “Yes, that’s all. Then he’s going to Paris. You’ll see. Can’t explain more.”
    “I’m to meet him at Moret? What does he look like?”
    “He’ll know you. He’s in his late thirties, not very tall, black hair. Got the timetable here, Tom, and Eric can make the eight-nineteen tomorrow night. Arrival time, that is.”
    “Very—good,” said Tom.
    “You don’t sound very keen. But it’s sort of important, Tom, and I’d be—”
    “Of course I’ll do it, Reeves old boy! While you’re here—on the line—I’m going to need an American passport. I’ll send a photo to you express Monday and you ought to have it by Wednesday latest. I assume you’re in Hamburg?”
    “Sure, same place,” said Reeves cozily, as if he were running a teashop, but Reeves’s apartment house