his equally unfortunate peers, not so?"
"Probably. Sure."
"Then we must start with his reality, the environs in which he lived. We'll do it, I'll do it."
'jean-Pierre!" cried Giselle.
"What are you saying?"
"Our revival has no matinees. Only an idiot would play Coriolanus eight times a week. My days are free."
"And?" asked a disturbed Bressard, his eyebrows arched.
"As you have so generously implied, Henri, I am a passably adequate actor and I have access to every costume establishment in Paris. The attire will be no problem, and extremist makeup has always been one of my strengths. Before he passed away, Monsieur Olivier and I agreed that it was a dishonest artifice-the chameleon, he called it-but nevertheless more than half the battle.
I will enter the world where Jodelle existed and perhaps I'll get lucky. He had to talk to someone, I'm convinced of that."
"Those environs," said Latham, "that 'world' of his is pretty sordid and can be violent, Mr. Villier. If some of those characters think you have twenty francs, they'll break your legs for it. I carry a weapon, and without exaggeration, I felt I had to display it on five separate occasions during the past weeks. Also, most of those people are tight-lipped and don't like outsiders who ask questions;
in fact, they resent it strongly. I didn't get anywhere.
"Ah, but you are not an actor, monsieur, and in all frankness, your French could be improved upon. No doubt you prowled those streets in your normal clothes, your overall appearance not much different from what we see now, West-ce pas?"
"Well .. . yes. "
"Again, forgive me, but a clean-shaven man in rather decent attire and asking a question in hesitant French would hardly inspire confidence among jodelle's confreres in that world of his."
"Jean-Pierre, stop it!" exclaimed the actor's wife.
"What you're suggesting is out of the question! My feelings and your safety aside, your run-of-the-play contract forbids you to undertake physical risk. My God, you're not permitted to ski or play polo or even fly your plane!"
"But I won't be skiing or on a horse or flying my plane. I'm merely going across the city into various arrondissements to research atmosphere. It's far less than traveling to Saudi Arabia for a secondary film role."
"Merde!" cried Bressard.
"It's preposterous!"
"I didn't come here to ask such a thing of you, sir," said Latham.
"I came hoping you might know something that could help me.
You don't and I accept that. My government can hire people to do what you're suggesting."
"Then without false modesty I suggest that you wouldn't be getting the best. You do want the best, don3t you, Drew Latham, or have you forgotten your brother so uickly? Your anxiety tells me you haven't. He must be a fine man, a splendid older brother who undoubtedly helped you, guided you. Naturally you feel you owe him whatever you can. do."
"I'm concerned, yes, but that's-personal," interrupted the American sharply, "I'm a professional.",
"So am I, monsieur. And I owe the man we call jodelle every bit as much as you owe your brother. Perhaps more. He lost his wife and his first child fighting for all of us, then tragically consigned his own existence to a hell we can't imagine so that I might thrive. Oh, yes, I owe him professionally and personally. Also the woman, the young actress who was my natural mother, and the child whose first name I bear, the older brother who might have guided me. My debt is heavy, Drew Latham, and you will not stop me from paying something back. None of you will.. .. Be so kind as to come here tomorrow at noon. I'll be prepared and all the arrangements will be made."
Latham and Henri Bressard walked out of the imposing Villier house on the Pare Monceau to the official's car.
"Need I tell you that I don't like any of this?" said the Frenchman.
"Neither do I," agreed Drew.
"He may be a hell of an actor, but he's out of his depth."
"Depth? What depth? I simply don't like his going into the bowels of Paris where, if he's recognized, he could be assaulted for his money or even kidnapped for a ransom. You're saying something else' I believe. What is it?"
"I'm not sure, call it instinct. Something did happen to Jodelle, and it's a lot more than a deranged old man killing himself in front of the son he never acknowledged. The act itself was one of final desperation; he knew he had been beaten, irrevocably beaten."
"Yes, I heard Jean-Pierre's words," said Bressard,