“Understood,” said Gamache gravely.
The boy began to sweep while Armand leaned the stick against his chair, noticing that it was notched and etched and that the boy’s name was carved into it.
“What did he want this time?” Jean-Guy asked, as he and Annie joined them and watched the annoyed sweeping. “To warn you about an alien invasion?”
“That was last week.”
“Oui. I forgot. Are the Iroquois on the warpath?”
“Done that,” said Armand. “Peace has been restored. We gave them back the land.”
He looked over at the boy, who’d stopped sweeping and was now riding the broom like a steed, using the pan as a shield.
“He’s kind of sweet,” said Annie.
“Sweet? Godzilla is sweet. He’s a menace,” said Olivier, after getting the boy off the steed and refocusing him on the broken glass.
“We thought he was fun at first too. A real little character, until he came running in here telling us his house was burning down,” said Gabri.
“It wasn’t?” asked Annie.
“What do you think?” said Olivier. “We got the whole volunteer fire department rushing over there, only to find Al and Evie working in their garden.”
“We’ve tried talking to them about him,” said Gabri. “But Al just laughed and said he couldn’t get Laurent to stop, even if he wanted to. It’s in his nature.”
“Probably true,” said Myrna.
“Yeah, well, earthquakes and tornados are part of nature too,” said Gabri.
“So you really don’t think Clara can be convinced to help us with the sets,” said Brian. “We’re just a few weeks from opening night and we can use the help. It really is a great play, even if no one knows who wrote it.”
“What?” said Isabelle Lacoste, looking down at the cover sheet of the script and noticing for the first time that there was no name below the title.
“No one knows?” she asked. “Not even you?”
“Well, we know,” said Antoinette. “We’re just not saying.”
“Believe me,” said Gabri. “We’ve asked. I think it was David Beckham.”
“But he’s—” Jean-Guy started to say before Myrna cut him off.
“Don’t bother. Last week he decided Mark Wahlberg wrote it. Leave him his fantasies. And mine. David Beckham.” Her voice became dreamy. “He’d have to come to opening night. Alone. He and Victoria would’ve had a fight.”
“He’d stay in our B and B,” said Gabri. “He’d smell like leather and Old Spice.”
“He’d need a book to read, at bedtime,” said Myrna. “I’d bring some over—”
“Okay, enough,” said Jean-Guy.
“I want to hear more,” said Reine-Marie, and Armand looked at her with amusement.
“You’ll never guess who wrote the play,” said Brian, laughing and tapping the place where the name had been whited out. “You wouldn’t know him. A fellow named John Fleming.”
“Brian,” snapped Antoinette.
“What?”
“We agreed not to tell anyone.”
“No one’s ever heard of him,” said Brian.
“But that’s the point,” Antoinette huffed. “Acht.” She waved in his direction. “You’re a surveyor, what would you know about marketing. I wanted to build up mystery, suspense. Get people wondering. Maybe it was written by Michel Tremblay, or a lost classic by Tennessee Williams.”
“Or George Clooney,” said Gabri.
“Oooh, George Clooney,” said Myrna, and her eyes again became unfocused.
“John Fleming?” said Gamache. “Do you mind?” He reached out and picked the play up from the table and stared at the title. She Sat Down and Wept.
“We got in touch with the copyright people to see who we had to pay for permission, but they had no record of it or of any playwright by that name,” said Brian, as though he had to explain to the cops.
The script in Armand’s hand was dog-eared, stained with coffee, and covered in notes.
“It’s old,” said Reine-Marie.
The typeface was ragged, not the clean look of a computer, but rather the chunky print of a typewriter.
Armand nodded.
“What is it?” she asked quietly.
“Nothing.” He smiled but no laugh lines radiated from the corners of his eyes.
“I’m in the play too,” said Brian, holding up his copy of the script.
“My gay roommate,” Gabri explained to them.
“He’s not gay, and neither are you,” snapped Antoinette in exasperation.
“Don’t tell Olivier,” said Myrna. “He’ll be a little disappointed.”
“And very surprised,” said Gabri.
Decaying leaves still sticking to his torn jacket and jeans, the boy swept up the last of the broken glass and trudged back to the table.
“Just so you know,” he said, handing the broom and pan to Olivier. “I’m pretty sure there’re some diamonds in there.”
“Merci,” said Olivier.
“Come on,” said Armand, getting up and giving the stick back to the boy. “It’s getting late. Grab your bike. I’ll put it in my car and give you a lift home.”
“The gun was really, really big, patron,” said the boy, following Monsieur Gamache out of the bistro. “As big as this building. And there was a monster on it. With wings.”
“Of course there was,” they heard Armand say. “I’ll make sure it doesn’t hurt you.”
“And I’ll protect you,” said the boy, swishing the stick so violently it struck Armand in the knee.
“I hope you have another husband waiting in the wings,” said Antoinette. “I’m not sure this one will survive the walk to the car.”
They watched Armand put the bicycle in the back of the Volvo, then he put the stick in the backseat, but the boy took it out and stood firm. He was going nowhere without it in his hands. It was, after all, a dangerous world.
Armand admitted defeat and relented, though they could see him giving the boy ground rules.
“I’d go on match.com right now, if I were you,” said Myrna to Reine-Marie.
* * *
After a few kilometers the boy turned to Gamache.
“What’re you humming?”
“Was I humming?” said Armand, surprised.
“Oui.” And the boy perfectly reproduced the tune.
“It’s called ‘By the Waters of Babylon,’” said Armand. “A hymn.”
John Fleming. John Fleming. He associated the hymn with him, though Gamache could never figure out why.
It couldn’t be the same man, he thought. It’s a common name. He was seeing ghosts where none existed.
“We don’t go to church,” said the boy.
“Neither do we,” said Armand. “Not often anyway. Though sometimes I sit in the little one in Three Pines, when no one else’s there.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s peaceful.”
The boy nodded. “Sometimes I sit in the woods because it’s peaceful. But then the aliens arrive.”