The bartender poured me straight vodka and brought the bottle in true Russian style. I was impressed, considering the remoteness of my location. The brand was even a good Russian import. Most places back in the states would have tried to pass off a bottle of Smirnoff as true vodka. I tossed back the shot and put my glass down on the bar hard, just like all the Russian’s I had known did.
"Bergeron isn’t a bad place in season," the bartender said conversationally, "It isn’t as much fun this time of year."
"I can see that," I said, "You seem to be the only bet in town."
"At this time of night," he shrugged, "Not much else to do during the day either."
"Just out of curiosity," I asked him, "How far am I from someplace larger?"
"Lyon is about a hundred and fifty kilometers east," he said after a second of thought, "Paris is about 600 kilos northwest. Not much in this region that I can name."
I nodded and slugged down another shot of vodka, more for his benefit than mine. Ever since I had been brought back alcohol had about as much effect on me as a soft drink. I just wanted to keep him talking.
"Is there a place to stay still open around here?" I asked him.
"Madame Touraine's will have plenty of rooms," he said, "It’s around the corner. It’s obvious you’re not from around here. How did you come across an out of the way place like Bergeron?"
"I drove from Madrid," I lied, "My lack of skill with your language has gotten me lost."
"Should have taken the train," he said, "It’s faster and you don’t get lost in snowstorms that way."
I nodded and finished off another belt. He charged me fifty Euros, an exorbitant amount for only a few glasses of Vodka, but left uncomplaining. I stayed in the joint for a while longer, wanting to stay where it was warm. I danced a little and played like the alcohol was really having an effect on me.
The drunken swinger was having a good time with his ladies. He barely noticed it when I slipped his wallet out of his pocket and went to the rest room. I relieved him of about two thirds of his cash and one of his credit cards. I figured that he would think he spent it on the women while he was drunk. He was using Visa, so none of the fraudulent charges I was planning on putting on his card would be charged to him. To make him less suspicious of what happened I dropped the wallet on the floor near his table on my way out.
I briefly pondered spending the night at the motel, but didn’t want the hassles of registration. I walked outside of the village and looked at the houses. It was easy to tell which ones were inhabited, as there was smoke coming out of the chimneys. I went to one of the smokeless houses and looked in the window. It was abandoned, most likely somebody’s summer villa.
I grinned and slipped the lock just like I had done on the place where Karen and Jim were staying. It was just as cold inside as it had been outside, but there was no wind or snow inside. I checked the power and found that it was still, for some inexplicable reason, turned on.
I searched through the house and found much more than I did at the old abandoned house. There were several electric blankets and quite a bit of canned food. I ate a cold can of pasta while wrapped up in the electric blankets. It wasn’t a perfect situation, but it was good enough to last me until I could go around town the next day and figure a way out. I slept as well as I could under the circumstances, which, considering the situation wasn’t very well at all.
Chapter 7
I woke up with sun shining through the windows. I pulled off the electric blanket and stood up to greet yet another day. I was determined to find a way out of town and didn’t particularly care what it meant. Feeling exceptionally grimy I went into the bathroom and took a cold shower in even colder air.
I went back into town, trying to keep a low profile. I went into one of the clothing shops and picked out a set of warm clothing each for the three of us, complete with white gloves and hats. I paid for it with the stolen credit card, hoping that it would hold out for a little while.
I knew that cars were going to be dangerous for us. The police loved to stop foreigners and I didn’t have a set of identification that I could use without getting into more trouble. I decided to get a meal at the café and think the problem through. I sat down at the window table and just pointed to something on the menu that I couldn’t even read.
It turned out to be a really lousy soup, but nourishment was nourishment and I was getting hungry. The waitress wisely left me alone to look out the window while I sucked down that soup that tasted like it was strained through Jim’s sweat socks. I was amazed by one thing, and that was the complete and utter lack of cars. The roads even had yet to be plowed after the snowstorm that hit the night we landed in France.
The only things I saw moving in the area were skiers and the occasional snowmobile. That’s when I had my great idea. If it had snowed this far south in France, the good bets said that if I went north it was likely to have snow up there too. I laid down a fifty Euro note on the table, probably one hell of a lot more than the meal was worth, and walked out the door.
I knew that any place with as many snowmobiles as this place had had to have a place to service and sell them. I walked the streets for an hour before finding it, however, as it was part of a general hardware store. I made no conversation and just looked around the store. I may have been wearing a leather jacket, but I looked presentable enough despite the two days worth of beard growth.
I found the new snowmobile models and looked for the price tags. The small ones were running at around four thousand francs, whereas the one big enough to hold three of us was running at around ten thousand. I had done well the night before, but not that well. I left the store wondering how I could put that much together by nightfall.
It showed that even in the winter Bergeron still had some tourists around. The town was nowhere near as dead during the day as it was during the evening. I walked around some more and saw that the ski shops were doing well. I had no way of confirming the fact, but most likely this was a cross country ski area. I honestly didn’t care. I was already tiring of this town.
I looked for obvious tourists and lifted a couple more wallets. I took half the cash from each one and dropped the rest in an area where it would be found and hopefully returned. I was doing fairly well, up another grand after lifting about six wallets. I decided to go and get out of the cold for a bit.
I had just entered one of the ski shops, thinking that they might have a place to grab a cup of coffee. Sure enough, they had their coffee shop and I was walking over to the counter when a large man started barking at me. For a second I thought he was a relative of the punk whose knees I’d broken the night before.
I then saw the logo on his jacket, which was the same as the logo on the front of the store. I tried telling him in straight English that all I wanted was a cup of coffee, but that seemed to infuriate him more. He was ranting and raving and I was quite sure that I was about to be attacked again.
Not intending to get into it in broad daylight I scurried towards the door. The man shouted something after slamming the door behind me. I had lost my balance in my hurry to get outside that I went right down on my ass in the slush.
"What the hell?" I said to myself as I looked back in the store in bewilderment.
"That was Old Henri," a very nice looking young woman said to me in English as she held out a hand to help me up, "He has hated Americans ever since his wife ran off with one nearly twenty years ago. Most of the tourists know to avoid his joint and go to Knobby’s down the street."
"Thanks," I said as I took her hand to get up, "Wait a second, how did you know I was an American?"
"Henri only does that to Americans, or people he mistakes for Americans," the young woman explained, "It’s too bad, really. He has the best ski supplies in town. Still, Knobby knows his stuff too."
"I see," I nodded as I checked her out, blonde hair down to her very nice legs, "Is there any place I
could buy you a cup of coffee? That’s all I was trying to get out of there anyway?"
"I really don’t have time right now," She said with a smile that could melt ice, "The café around the corner should be able to handle your needs though. And if you’re really offended by Henri, you can report it to the deputy. He speaks English as well as I do and very few people here would be sorry to see Henri get a complaint. He’s been a blight on this town for years."
"That’s ok," I said, "Nothing hurt but my pride. If I need skis I’ll gladly get them somewhere else."
"Ok," she said with a smile, "See you around!"
With that she bounded down the snow-covered street leaving me standing there with a goofy smile on my face. I thought about what she had said about Old Henri. I suddenly knew where I was going to get the rest of the money I needed. It was going to require me staying in town one more night, but the chance to get Henri back for the earlier embarrassment was just too good to pass up.
I stayed in the alleys and in the background as much as possible for the rest of the day, keeping an eye on the ski shop as I did so. The young lady was right, Henri really did do quite a bit of business, despite the fact that he tossed at least two more people out the door. One poor sod even returned twice to be thrown out repeatedly. It was really like the Soup Nazi, the poor sods kept coming back for more.
When the sun went down the shop started going about closing up. I saw the young woman at the coffee counter go out first. I slipped into the alley next to the ski shop and peeked into the windows. I figured that I wouldn’t be getting too lucky that night until I saw him heading towards his safe with the money. I knew then that I had a chance.
I managed to get in a good position to see the numbers he dialed in on the safe to open it. I memorized it really quick, 32 right, 42 left, 8 right. I grinned and watched to see what his next action would be. I almost blew it when I dropped to the ground, but luckily Old Henri wrote it off to just hearing things.
I watched him leave and lock up the store behind him. My opportunity was coming forth and I was glad of it. I went around to the back of the store and checked out the locks on the door. They were solid, so I started checking the lower windows. Evidently my luck was holding out, because they were using really old latch locks that most of the world had given up on fifty years before.
I used my knife to go under the sill and push the old latch back. It went easily and the window opened with no problem whatsoever. I slid into the window and dropped down into the basement. I left my old flight jacket with the new clothing in the bag underneath the snow in the alley so that I wouldn’t leave any identifiable traces.
I looked through the stuff in the store, finding the usual crap. I don’t know why that shop was so popular, as it was just like any other crappy ski shop I’d been in for years. I looked around all the rooms to make sure I was alone, because I intended to cover my tracks well.
Henri’s office was cluttered with all sorts of papers. I briefly considered looking through them until I remembered that they would be in French, just like everything else. Ignoring the rest of the garbage I opened up the safe in the room and pulled out the cash, leaving the credit card receipts alone. He did do an amazing business all right, there had to be a good fifteen thousand Euros in there, all in small bills or coins.
I shoveled them out of the safe and into a bag with Henri’s stupid logo on the front of it. I was nearly out the door when I realized that I had to cover the theft somehow. I buried the money in the snow with the clothes and my jacket and went back inside to give that bastard Henri a show he’d never forget.
Arson is a subjective thing. I knew that it would destroy the shop for sure if I did it right, and with the snow covering everything the likelihood of it destroying anything else was minimal. I went into Henri’s office and started looking for a good way to start an accidental fire.
Now I didn’t hate Henri enough to want him to be accused of arson, so I wanted to make it good. I looked down and saw an old electrical outlet that I knew was the source of my fire. I smiled and pulled out my knife and used it to unscrew the outlet to take a closer look at the wiring.
The thing that gets most arsonists caught is the fact that they don’t particularly want to have to burn themselves in the process. I didn’t have that particular problem. Another peculiar side effect of the serum is that I can’t burn. I don’t understand it either, but it does come in handy at times.
I looked at the old wiring and found that it probably dated back to well before the Second World War. I pulled a little bit of the old insulation off both the positive wires and let them spark a bit. Before long the sparks were flying all over the place. The fires were already starting when I put the outlet back together so it would appear that it was a simple electrical fire.
The only thing I didn’t count on was the barrel of ski cleaning fluid on the floor. I didn’t know what it was and wasn’t able to read the label. But seconds after the fire got to it the whole barrel went up, creating a small explosion that sent me flying through the office wall.
It shook me up a bit and it took me a few seconds to get to my feet. I knew that the cavalry wouldn’t be too far away, so I got up quick and rushed back into the office. The office was raging by this time and I barely was able to close the safe before I had to leave again. The heat may not have burned, but it was still uncomfortable as hell.
I was about to exit through a side window when I heard a familiar creak and felt the floor giving way under me. The explosion had blown down more than anything, and evidently he kept some extremely flammable matter down there. I was swallowed into the flames with an involuntary scream. I had no idea a goddamned ski shop would go up like that.
I came to my senses and managed to make my way to the window I’d broken in to at the start. My clothes were completely on fire as by the time I went out the window again. I looked around for people, but they weren’t quite there yet. I knew I had little time. I dove head first into the snow and put the fire on my clothing out. Next I dug into the snow bank and quickly retrieved the money and clothes.
I was in way over my head. My clothes were nothing but ashes really, so I made tracks away from the blaze into the woods. As soon as I was far enough into the trees to have been rendered invisible I knocked off the smoldering remains of my old clothing. First warm, then cold, I really wasn’t having a good day.
I quickly dressed in my new set of clothing, hoping I didn’t smell too badly like smoke. I walked back to the edge of the woods to see what was going on at the store. It was all up in flames by then. People were coming out of the woodwork too. I decided to take it on the run before someone figured out that I smelled like fire.
I had money now and that was the important thing. The next important thing was to get the hell out of dodge. I walked over to the area behind the discotheque and waited for the crowd to disperse a little. When it just got bigger and bigger I just shook my head. I didn’t know it would go like this.
I walked around a bit more and saw what I really needed. A large snowmobile was left unattended and running. Nobody was watching it, so I hopped on and steered it onto the snowmobile trail heading out of town. Either nobody noticed or nobody was able to follow me fast enough.
I followed the trail until I saw many divergent paths. At this point I created another one and started heading north again until I had the town far enough behind me. I could still see the flames from a distance, giving me a beacon which way to go.
All was good when the snow started to fly. I managed to make it to the house that I’d stayed in the night before. I parked the machine next to the house and covered it with a healthy dose of snow. By the time I got inside and out of the cold the snow was coming down in droves. I sighed and ate another cold can of pasta while I watched it come down. Wrapping up in the electric blanket again I tried to put out of my mind what I’d done that day. It took a while, but I mana
ged to get my body to sleep.
Chapter 8
I woke up the next morning feeling a little better. I fired down another can of pasta, a food that I was quickly becoming sick of. I stood up and looked out the window to see just how bad the snow had gotten. It seemed like it was going to be a rather long winter for central France, as another foot or so had fallen since I had gone to sleep.
I was thinking about going back to the town for some more food, but after what I did there the day before I thought that going back was a bad idea. I instead decided to scour the house I was in for anything that would make the trek north a little easier.
I went through the rooms again, finding little new. The pantry was still fairly well stocked, so I took everything I could load into bags. Evidently the owners of this house liked to backpack in the woods. I took three of the five bags so that we’d each have one. I put as much food as I could in there as well as the extra sets of clothes.
In my search I found some more blankets and some matches. The last thing I packed, almost as an afterthought, was a little transistor radio. When I was certain I had everything I could possibly grab from this house I went out and began to uncover the snowmobile.
It took me a good thirty minutes to uncover the foot or more of snow that had accumulated on it over night. Not bad, considering all I had to do the job were my hands and a half rotted plank that I found leaning against the house.
I tied the bags on the snowmobile and managed to get the machine to start. Finding the house where Karen and Jim were hiding was going to be a bitch. My trail from a few days earlier was long covered with another batch of snow. I knew it was vaguely west, so I started running in that direction.
I guess everyone decided to stay inside that day, because I didn’t run into anyone as I headed west. I was moving along at a good clip too so I figured that I should be able to make the trip in about thirty minutes. Not bad, considering it took me four hours about two days before.
I had covered quite a distance and was almost to the point of being able to enjoy hot-dogging around in the snow when I heard the engine begin to die. I brought the machine to a halt in the snow to try to figure out what was going wrong. I managed to pop the hood and look around the engine.