COUNTDOWN: 11 DAYS

Only LeFou was privy to the details, for only LeFou was trustworthy enough to assist with something as sinister as this. He and Gaston had once committed a murder together; he could certainly be relied upon for a comparatively small bit of mischief such as what was in store.

Gaston explained that he would arrange for Monsieur d'Arque to commit Maurice to the asylum; whether Maurice was crazy or not was moot, but no one in town would think it suspicious that he was being committed about this. Then, Gaston would step in, and seemingly by using his long held connections and friendship with d'Arque, would convince him to let Maurice go. But — and this was key to the plan — he would only take this trouble provided that Belle would marry him first.

"Would she?" asked LeFou.

"Guess!" smiled Gaston.

"Now I get it!" cried LeFou. "Let's go!"

Gaston could feel his heart starting to beat again. Things were not over with Belle! He lifted LeFou in his arms and joyously waltzed with him around the tavern, the two celebrating aloud their ingenious new scheme to win Belle's hand. No one plots like Gaston, takes cheap shots like Gaston, tries to persecute harmless crackpots like Gaston…

Though the details of the plan were unknown, the taverners could tell Gaston was on his way to solving his now-infamous Belle problem, and they began to earnestly congratulate him. But Gaston did not want to waste any time. The first thing he needed to do was come up with the ready money to bribe Monsieur d'Arque — it was generally understood one didn't bribe on credit, and certainly not when one hoped to put the plan forward right away. He also needed to get d'Arque into town with his wagon for collecting Maurice. That job was assigned to LeFou — "Go out there, and bring back Monsieur d'Arque."

The cousins split up, with LeFou walking the snowy road from town to the asylum.

Gaston went to retrieve his money from its safekeep. The little village had no banks; and the nearest thing they'd ever had in Gaston's lifetime had been a man called Vizard, who had set up shop with promises to guard and manage everyone's money. Turned out he was ripping off everyone who utilized his service. It was Gaston, aided by LeFou, who had finally put a stop to this behavior — by rather brutally murdering the man and disposing of his body in the form of dog food and animal bait, with the bones going to the colorman to become ivory black. Folks in the town suspected Gaston's involvement in Vizard's disappearance, and even suspected it was murder — but nobody faulted him. In fact, it had elevated the status of young Gaston as a guy who could get things done. Vizard was a problem that needed a remedy, and Gaston had been that solution.

The fact was, threatening to falsely imprison Maurice was scarcely the worst thing Gaston had ever done in his life. And just as before, this was an action that would be for the greater good — Belle wanted to be in love, he was sure of it. She would be happy once she accepted what was on offer. She just needed her dumb pig-headed female mind to comprehend what a great opportunity she was about to miss if she didn't hurry up and seize her lover while he was there to be had. No flower blooms forever.

His breath grew heavy. His heart warmed. What a wonderful plan he had devised! He could picture it already, his mock-sympathy at Belle's dilemma. Then the offer to fix it for her… but, he could only render a big favor like that to a family member… why, that would mean…

As he stormed up to his room and cut open his mattress, Gaston began to fantasize how wonderful Belle would feel pressed against him — her warmth, her softness, her smallness, her delicacy. He and she were like a pair of magnets, matched to draw each other. She pulled him, and now, through this, he could exert his own return force.

The passion was overwhelming him. He dug through his mattress, feathers flying all about as he felt out the little purse full of gold coins hidden within. This was how he banked now that Vizard was gone. When his large hands finally seized upon the cash, he yanked it out, taking several handfuls of feathers with it.

White fluff drifted about as Gaston examined the little cloth bag. This hard-earned, long-saved money would open the doors to his happiness. To Belle. To family. She would love laying in his strong arms; she would be soft, radiant; and she would never, ever hurt him. Surely once she realized her mistake, she never would…

Gaston couldn't help it. The warm fuzzies, the stress, the sheer joy filling him as he looked forward to his happy future… he had to lay down for a minute. Feathers went flying as he flopped onto the mattress.

He thought of Belle. Pictured her. And to think, she had accused him of having no imagination!

…

At the tavern, Gaston was in a cheery mood, even though the last patron had gone and the candles were out. He sat by the fireplace, sipping on beer to pass the time, admiring his trophies and his hypermasculine painted portrait, and wondering if he should get the limner to add Belle's image into the work of art. Having her painted in at his feet, arm around his thigh, would certainly add to the visual of the piece.

His mind kept wandering to visions of his future with this girl. She would surely be irked with him, at first — as losers generally are. Still, he knew it wouldn't take long before she'd see all the good he could offer her, and she'd forgive his unusual methods. It would all be nothing but a funny story to tell their children, someday.

He smiled so much that his face was beginning to hurt. Belle. Belle. Belle and him. He could see it all: he would go out, do his work, hunt, then return home to Belle's waiting arms, and she would want to know what he had done, and they could enjoy the meat he'd brought, and she could sit with him by the fire that was fueled by all those dumb books of hers, and… what else would they do? Ah, well, it would develop naturally. Once they were together, they could surely find all sorts of things to keep each other occupied.

He heard the sound of a horse-drawn cart coming to rest near the door. He listened carefully, then heard the sound of two men alighting. Gaston leapt from his chair and eagerly went to greet them.

He opened the door. A burst of cold air blasted him, while a rather chilled LeFou and d'Arque were revealed scowling in the cold before him. With a great smile, Gaston welcomed them and hurried them inside, by grabbing them both by the collars and hauling them to the comfiest seats. Monsieur d'Arque was plopped into the only chair with a back.

"Want a beer?" asked Gaston, remembering to be polite. His mother hadn't raised him a complete savage.

"Thank you, but I only drink sherry," answered d'Arque with all his usual stiffness.

LeFou in the meantime rose and poured himself a stein of beer with a foaming head taller than he was. He sat back down just as d'Arque and Gaston were getting down to business.

"I don't usually leave the asylum in the middle of the night," said d'Arque. Then, indicating LeFou, he added: "But he said you'd make it worth my while."

Gaston gulped down the last of his beer, his smile fading as he recalled what he'd had to do to earn all that cash. All the back-breaking repairs he'd done to properties. The doors he'd knocked on to collect rent, often to angry tenants who didn't want to see him. Or worse, sleazy women who were only too glad to see him, answering doors en negligée and acting like there wasn't a reason in the world he should refuse them.

But Belle. It was all for her. He tossed the purse across the table to d'Arque.

"Ah! I'm listening," said d'Arque, taking up a coin and rubbing it on his face like a gua sha.

"It's like this," began Gaston, whispering in his discomfort. He looked uneasily at LeFou. He usually didn't admit any kind of vulnerability in front of his cousin. The relationship with d'Arque was different. He had to explain to the man what was about, what he was thinking. "I've got my heart set on marrying Belle," he said, trying to hurry through the mushy stuff. "But she needs a little… persuasion."

LeFou laughed. "Turned him down flat!" he cried gleefully.

Gaston winced, and violently elbowed LeFou. "Everyone knows her father's a lunatic!" he continued, eyes flinching in fury as he sped through his words. "He was in here tonight, raving about a beast in a castle!"

"Maurice is harmless…" replied d'Arque, his face twisted like he was asking a question, though his tone cool as if simply making a statement. In his mind, he ran through how much of a problem the sane and resistant Maurice would be to keep in the asylum, versus how much money Gaston was really offering. He wasn't sure if it were a good trade for the trouble.

Gaston perceived the hesitation. "The point is," he said, slamming his fist on the table in anxiety, "Belle would do anything to keep him from being locked up."

"Yeah!" cried LeFou, laughing and trying to keep up the cheer. "Even marry him!"

Gaston raised his hand to slap LeFou but, in a strange and uncharacteristic moment of self-control, resisted the urge. There was a nobleman in the room. He had to make sure he didn't look like a hillbilly with no manners, getting into fights in mid-conversation… jeez, was this really the life he lived, that such things even had to be an issue?

Belle. Belle. Classy Belle didn't do this. He'd be with her soon.

Meanwhile, d'Arque had figured out what Gaston was trying to say to him. The goal wasn't to keep Maurice in the asylum — only to use the threat of it to force Belle's hand. Money for nothing. "So you want me to throw her father into the asylum, unless she agrees to marry you?" He was actually rather amused by the kid's clever little plan. "Oh, that is despicable. Ha ha — I love it!"

D'Arque was a widower himself, and he knew that it took trickery and manipulation to get the girl one wanted. The young Gaston was simply behaving in accordance with male instinct — making a swift, decisive move that would get fast results.

Except one could hardly get fast results when the targets of the operation weren't available to be targeted.

It turned out that Maurice and Belle weren't at home that evening.

Gaston even barged into their house, finding the door unlocked, and double checked that Maurice wasn't just hiding inside and refusing to answer.

Standing alone in the home's empty parlor, Gaston could feel his heart sinking. Where on earth could they have gone? Maurice had been at the tavern just a few hours ago, so he had certainly returned from the fair. Belle usually didn't stray far from her father or her home, yet there was no response when he called her name. "They have to come back sometime! And when they do, we'll be ready for them," said Gaston, grabbing LeFou by the collar. He dragged his cousin outside the house and plopped him into a pile of snow by the stairway. "LeFou, don't move from that spot until Belle and her father come home!"

LeFou's response was said in vain; Gaston heard nothing, but he leapt automatically onto the back of the asylum's paddy wagon. The sudden force of his added weight impelled the horses to move rapidly. They rode only a short distance before control over the animals was regained, and d'Arque got down from the driver's perch.

"I take it that Maurice is not at home?" the aristocratic zombie inquired of his young friend.

"Nah, but I've got LeFou waiting for him," answered Gaston. "Crazy old loon probably wandered into the woods — Belle is, doubtless, looking for him. She should bring him home soon enough."

"If the wait won't be long," said d'Arque, "it would be a waste to go all the way back to the asylum. Particularly in this bad weather."

"Well, LeFou won't be at home till they get back. If you'd like to camp at my place, his bed is available," offered Gaston.

…

As they entered Gaston's home, full of antlers and animal skins and weapons, and finally the broken mirror still lying in pieces on the floor, the handsome youth suddenly did feel a strong pang of self consciousness. Maybe this was a ridiculous way for him to live. Maybe he was a weirdo. Could that be the reason that Belle didn't like him…?

No. No, it had to be that crazy father of hers, filling her head with crazy thoughts. She was all scrambled up inside. Didn't know what she was doing anymore. He would save her from that!

Gaston was embarrassed by the broken mirror and the means by which it had become so, but he was a man who could tell an easy fib when needed. "Sorry 'bout that mirror — it fell off the wall when I was on my out to see you. Didn't think I'd be having company before LeFou would clean it up!" At that he hauled d'Arque up and across the puddle of shards so that he would not risk cutting his thin-soled shoes on the glass. D'Arque's eyes widened, but he stiffly permitted the action.

In the kitchen Gaston was able to locate a dusty half-bottle of sherry in the back of a cupboard, which he offered to his guest. This was accepted, and the two men sat at the table to talk, anticipating that LeFou would arrive any minute with news of Maurice's return.

"So, it is the daughter of Maurice you've fallen for?" asked d'Arque, knowing full well that it was so, and simply being conversational.

"Belle," Gaston gushed affirmatively. As much stress as she'd brought him over the last 24 hours, he was still anxious to talk about her. "What a name, right? Perfect for her. There isn't anyone else in town like her. She's the best — the most beautiful of all! Once she comes around, I'll have the most perfect wife of anybody."

"I wish you the best," said d'Arque, giving a slight lift of his sherry glass. He proceeded to drink most of the beverage in a single, strangely aristocratic gulp that was full of stiffness and dignity. "I suppose you have already contemplated what you will do if Belle doesn't choose to accept your offer?"

"Belle wouldn't let her father rot in the asylum," said Gaston, smiling at the absurdity of the very image. He tried to picture her snobbishly refusing, dismissively telling him to take her crazy old father away, while pushing her nose into a book of pornographic pictures. It just wasn't Belle. "She always jumps to his defense. She'd do anything for him."

"What if she finds some other means to release him? Say, for instance, she makes arrangements for him to be kept elsewhere? I would have no control over that."

"Belle? Where else could she send him? I've seen their house; they are not rich. She couldn't hire a nurse!"

"I suppose you won't have a problem playing the nurse yourself. Maurice — if he's a lunatic as you say — should be less trouble for you than Michel, I imagine."

The corner of Gaston's mouth twisted into a half-frown. He recalled caring for Michel, cleaning up after Michel, the misery it was to have Michel in the house… "Once Belle's living with me, he won't be my problem anymore," said Gaston, gazing at the corner of the room where, back in the day, Michel had usually plopped to do his slobbering, grunting and gurgling. "In any case, I can afford a nurse. Hell, maybe I'll stick LeFou on the job. He'll need a new house once Belle's moved in here."

"The madman caring for the madman," said d'Arque, making a pun that played better in the original French. "Well, it sounds like you have everything under control," he said, finishing his drink.

"Very," said Gaston, feeling reassured.

"Except that the girl and her father are nowhere to be found," added d'Arque, as he refilled his own glass.

"You're not trying to talk me out of this, too?" asked Gaston, eyebrow raised in suspicion.

"My boy, I don't consider it any business of mine to influence your love life," replied d'Arque. "However, I am a paid participant in this scheme; I have an interest in ensuring that it all goes smoothly."

Gaston was quiet for a moment. "So if you weren't a paid participant," he asked almost shyly, "what would you think about this?"

"I've told you before: I love it. It's a moral masterpiece. Maurice has become a problem to you — you could easily kill him or… 'run him out of town' as I believe is the official story about Vizard. But you hold back. Why?"

D'Arque seemed like he had a ready answer, but Gaston interjected: "Well! You don't just go around killing people like they're animals."

"Certainly not. But there's times when it must be done, even if it requires a little more sentiment than an animal would merit. I would not have put it past you to reason everything out so that you would appear in the right to just smother him with a pillow while he sleeps… although I suppose that's not your style. You seem to enjoy the blood."

Gaston smiled a little at the thought of bright red blood splashing. But he regained himself. "But Belle wouldn't have liked that. She wouldn't be impressed if I were the man who killed her father. In fact, she'd hate that."

"Exactly. You care about the girl. Enough that you endeavored to think about what she wants. You're attempting to commit both a personal and a social good."

Well why wouldn't what's good for me be good for everyone else? thought Gaston.

"When I was married, I had the fortune to choose a wife whose family were already dead," continued d'Arque. "However, while my wife had no family, I was another matter. Marie learned — and I learned too — that when you marry, you marry the whole family. And I was the youngest boy, so there was a lot of family. Only my sister, Josephine, was younger," said d'Arque with a faint smile.

"Was? Is she dead?"

"Yes," said d'Arque, unsure whether Gaston had understood his actual point or not. "She was given a death sentence for murdering her husband." And he slugged down another glass of sherry. He began to pour more, but found there was barely a trickle remaining in the bottle. He scowled and drank it down anyway. "Monsieur Gaston," he said as amiably as he could, "If we have not received word about Maurice by now, perhaps we should retire for the night and wait to see what morning brings. I do have my usual duties to attend tomorrow."

"No problem," said Gaston, compelling a smile. In fact he felt too anxious to sleep — he hoped to have news of Belle's return at any minute, and wanted to be ready to spring to action the moment he heard. But he helped d'Arque to set up in LeFou's room for a few hours' nap, before the dawn would come.

Gaston retired into his own lonely and now rather mangled and feather-filled bed. There hadn't been time to stitch the mattress back together after cutting it open. He settled down, fully clothed, and noted a pinpoint of moonlight coming in through his wall.

Someone had drilled another peephole.

He was too tired to do anything about it. He decided to let the perverts stare, since he wasn't going to be up to anything tonight that would keep them entertained.

Though he should have been having his wedding night with Belle. He imagined her cool skin, her boney frame, her smallness, resting at his side. And he thus began to wonder what the wedding night would really be like. He never had been with a woman before.

She would probably…

He might be able to…

Was it true that women…?

You know, best let Belle take charge of it all. She was the one who was always reading dirty books.

…

Soon as Gaston's eyes opened, he wondered if Belle had come home.

Secondly he was surprised that he had fallen asleep at all. He had been so anxious and excited for his plan. Yet, he'd had so little rest with the prior night's wedding arrangements, maybe he really did tire himself out.

He'd gone to bed fully clothed and now sprang up without a thought to his appearance. He ran into the parlor, and downstairs, hoping to find LeFou coming up the road. He threw open the door — but only a box of sixty eggs awaited him.

Ah, that's right. Life did go on, didn't it? Gaston hauled up the crate himself, and in the kitchen all alone, he dutifully began swallowing gallinaceous ova like they were vitamin pills.

When he had very first undertaken his egg regimen, he had cracked them into a glass before swallowing them. He didn't like that. It reminded him too much of the incident that begat the need to bulk up: namely how, through bullying and intimidation, he'd been forced by a person he'd believed was a friend to submit to some activities he had not wanted to do at all. He didn't like to let himself remember it. Runny egg whites. Gaston gagged slightly even remembering that much.

He pushed the thought aside and hurried through the eggs, the daily talisman which made him big and strong so nothing like that would ever happen again, no matter how obsessed the townspeople became with him.

His daily exercise schedule had been disrupted for the past few days. He figured if LeFou wasn't in with news, and d'Arque wasn't awake yet, he should get in a few pushups to keep his arms in shape. He had only done about twenty when he heard d'Arque emerge from LeFou's room.

"Bonjour," said Gaston as he hurriedly got up from the floor. He dusted off his knees, frowning as he realized how he must look.

"Good morning," said d'Arque with his customary slothfulness.

"Sleep well?"

"Not particularly. Whoever sleeps in that bed seems to store a small arsenal of weapons inside of the pillows; and till dawn I could hear a trio of females outside the window, fighting over viewing rights to a peep-hole into your bedroom."

"Oh," Gaston responded, heart sinking in a dismay that could have become embarrassment if he didn't resent the townsfolk's behavior so much. "Sorry about that. Can't help what goes on in this town. But, I'm sure it'll all slow down once I'm a married man."

"I am sure," said d'Arque. "Speaking of which, am I to take it that there has been no word about Maurice?"

"Not yet, but it's early."

"Well, notwithstanding, I should be making my way back to the asylum. I left a man tied up in the crawlspace above my office, and he seemed quite anxious to get out. I'd better make sure he hasn't escaped — and will not. Whenever Maurice turns up, you'll be able to find me easily."

Gaston was disappointed. "Don't want to stay for a little breakfast?"

"No, thank you, Monsieur LeGume."

Gaston broke into a blush at the formal name. "Guess I'd better wait here in case LeFou comes. You… gonna be alright driving back to the asylum alone?"

"I don't expect any issues."

The men said their farewells, and d'Arque left for his work.

Gaston was alone in the house.

All alone.

What to do? What to do? There were the daily situps and pushups, of course. He had to do several thousand to maintain his strength, but he was so accustomed to it that he could knock those off in an hour. He cleaned up the mirror shards on the floor. He stitched up his mattress. He checked on the horses, to ensure they had plenty of food and water. He gave his horse, Tencendur, a brushing, thinking all the while of what on earth could be keeping Belle so long? One could almost believe Maurice's crazy story that she was locked in a dungeon somewhere. But more likely she was chasing down Maurice after he'd gotten himself into another scrape, probably fallen from his horse or something. But where on earth could they have gone? Maybe Maurice had taken her somewhere, needed her help moving some cumbersome and explosive invention to another fair…

Oh God, what if they exploded? He tried to recall if he'd heard any explosions on that night. He had been making such a ruckus singing in the tavern that he might not have heard something like that. If they exploded out on that empty road through the woods — well, who would have heard them?

Gaston grabbed his keys, and from the wall took his rifle and powder horn, and he hurried out of the house. In a few minutes he was on Tencendur's back and galloping out to the forest.

If Belle was in trouble there wasn't time to lose.