Word: rayons
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Bulb-Nosed Hero. Some five months after Tycoon Walter's death, opportunity presented itself to a small restaurant owner in Cap d'Antibes. He was Camille Rayon, a tough, bulb-nosed ex-paratrooper. Resistance hero and fanatical Gaullist. Rayon was approached by a general's aide who begged his help in disposing of a salopard (louse) who "compromises the great national work." Who was the salopard? Answer: Paulo Guillaume, now 22, and concluding his military service in Algeria...
...Rayon was interested. Two days later, he insists, Dr. Lacour appeared, explained that young Paulo was the shame of the Walter family because he was betraying France by secretly working with the rebel F.L.N. underground in Algeria. Lacour, he declared, offered 5,000,000 francs ($119,000) to have Paulo rubbed out. Rayon agreed, and two weeks later both men met in the bar of the Aletti Hotel in Algiers, where Dr. Lacour pointed out Paulo. Rayon uneasily saw that the boy was wearing battle dress. He told Lacour that ''Algiers did not seem to be the ideal...
...next several months Rayon promised much, did nothing. Young Paulo, after his discharge, got a steward's job at Paris' Orly Airport, and was content to live simply and anonymously. Rayon, on his trail, said he felt sorry for Paulo, bought him a drink, and told him the truth. The young heir said he was not surprised, and added, "I don't care about their filthy money." But he agreed to disappear for a time...
Closed Drawer. Old Paratrooper Rayon then met Dr. Lacour at a cafe on the Champs-Elysées, told him Paulo had been strangled and thrown into the Seine. Dr. Lacour passed over 4,000,000 francs, later paid 16 million more. Rayon, as fidgety a hero-villain as fiction has ever provided, went home to Antibes, was back in Paris three days later to tell his story to his lawyer, who had him sign a declaration. The lawyer gave it to Examining Magistrate Jacques Batigne, who read it, reflected, and then apparently filed it in his desk drawer, where...
Patriotic Effort. Paulo, Maïté and the lawyer rushed to Magistrate Batigne with Maïté's story. At long last, the magistrate pulled Rayon's signed statement from his drawer, put the case in the hands...