“That’s so, in a way, of course.
But from another angle—Well, let’s put it like this: I’ve been feeling much more at ease here since plague settled in.”
Rambert made no comment. Then he asked:
“And how does one approach this organization, as you call it?”
“Ah,” Cottard replied, “that’s none too easy. Come with me.”
It was four in the afternoon.
The town was warming up to boiling-point under a sultry sky.
Nobody was about, all shops were shuttered.
Cottard and Rambert walked some distance without speaking, under the arcades.
This was an hour of the day when the plague lay low, so to speak; the silence, the extinction of all color and movement, might have been due as much to the fierce sunlight as to the epidemic, and there was no telling if the air was heavy with menace or merely with dust and heat.
You had to look closely and take thought to realize that plague was here.
For it betrayed its presence only by negative signs.
Thus Cottard, who had affinities with it, drew Rambert’s attention to the absence of the dogs that in normal times would have been seen sprawling in the shadow of the doorways, panting trying to find a nonexistent patch of coolness.
They went along the boulevard des Palmiers, crossed the Place d’Armes, and then turned down toward the docks.
On the left was a cafe painted green, with a wide awning of coarse yellow canvas projecting over the sidewalk.
Cottard and Rambert wiped their brows on entering.
There were some small iron tables, also painted green, and folding chairs.
The room was empty, the air humming with flies; in a yellow cage on the bar a parrot squatted on its perch, all its feathers drooping.
Some old pictures of military scenes, covered with grime and cobwebs, adorned the walls.
On the tableis, including that at which Rambert was sitting, bird-droppings were drying, and he was puzzled whence they came until, after some wing-flappings, a handsome cock came hopping out of his retreat in a dark corner.
Just then the heat seemed to rise several degrees more.
Cottard took off his coat and banged on the table-top.
A very small man wearing a long blue apron that came nearly to his neck emerged from a doorway at the back, shouted a greeting to Cottard, and, vigorously kicking the cock out of his way, came up to the table. Raising his voice to drown the cock’s indignant cacklings, he asked what the gentlemen would like.
Cottard ordered white wine and asked: “Where’s Garcia?”
The dwarf replied that he’d not shown up at the cafe for several days.
“Think he’ll come this evening?”
“Well, I ain’t in his secrets—but you know when he usually comes, don’t you?”
“Yes. Really, it’s nothing very urgent; I only want him to know this friend of mine.”
The barkeeper rubbed his moist hands on the front of his apron.
“Ah, so this gentleman’s in business too?”
“Yes,” Cottard said.
The little man made a snuffling noise.
“All right. Come back this evening.
I’ll send the kid to warn him.”
After they had left, Rambert asked what the business in question might be.
“Why, smuggling, of course.
They get the stuff in past the sentries at the gates.
There’s plenty money in it.”
“I see.” Rambert paused for a moment, then asked: “And, I take it, they’ve friends in court?”
“You’ve said it!”
In the evening the awning was rolled up, the parrot squawking in its cage, and the small tables were surrounded by men in their shirt-sleeves.
When Cottard entered, one man, with a white shirt gaping on a brick-red chest and a straw hat planted well back on his head, rose to his feet.
He had a sun-tanned face, regular features, small black eyes, very white teeth, and two or three rings on his fingers. He looked about thirty.
“Hi!” he said to Cottard, ignoring Rambert. “Let’s have one at the bar.”
They drank three rounds in silence.
“How about a stroll?” Garcia suggested.
They walked toward the harbor. Garcia asked what he was wanted to do.
Cottard explained that it wasn’t really for a deal that he wanted to introduce his friend, M. Rambert, but only for what he called a “get-away.”
Puffing at his cigarette, Garcia walked straight ahead.
He asked some questions, always referring to Rambert as “he” and appearing not to notice his presence.