The Take

by Christopher Reich

  The arm extended. The grip on the pistol firmed.

  “Hold on,” said Simon. “Don’t do it. There’s a cop behind you.”

  “Really?” said Falconi, too old and too wise to fall for it.

  “Really,” said Simon, his eyes locked on the fast-moving figure behind Falconi.

  There was a sudden motion. A raised voice. The scuff of a boot. The older man reacted too slowly, turning his head as Nikki Perez brought down the butt of her pistol on his skull.

  Falconi collapsed to the ground, his gun clattering across the bricks.

  Nikki picked up the pistol, then gave him a nudge with her boot. Falconi didn’t move. “You okay?”

  “I think so,” said Simon. “How long have you been here?”

  “Long enough.”

  A small group stood outside the bar, watching them. A man ran inside, sounding the alarm.

  “Let’s go,” said Nikki. “Now.”

  She ran down the alley toward the Rue des Rosiers.

  Simon ran after her.

  “What was that back there?”

  Nikki was bent at the waist, hands on her thighs, catching her breath after the mad dash from Le Galleon Rouge.

  “What?”

  “Those moves. I thought you were going to kill him.”

  “Nothing,” said Simon, eyes trained for pursuers. “Just some stuff I picked up a while back.”

  “Another story you’ll have to tell me.”

  “Yeah,” said Simon. “One day.”

  “This is how you dress when you hit the town?”

  “You told me to ditch the suit.”

  “Gold chains. The shoes. You went all out.” A concerned look clouded her face. “You’re bleeding.”

  Simon followed her eyes to the droplets spattering the ground. He lifted his shirt to reveal a gash four inches long, laid to the bone. “Maybe I should have killed him.”

  “There’s an emergency room across the river. You can tell me what’s going on after you get fixed up.”

  Simon touched the wound and winced. Half an inch higher and the blade would have punctured the space between his ribs, most likely killing him. “Okay.”

  She raised a finger in warning. “The truth this time.”

  “Yeah,” said Simon. “Fine.” He followed her a few steps farther to an imposing motorcycle. “This yours?”

  “What did you expect? A pink Vespa?” Nikki unlocked her case and handed Simon her helmet. “Put it on.”

  Simon touched her arm. “Thank you, Detective,” he said. “That wasn’t going the way I’d planned.”

  “Really? I hadn’t noticed.” Nikki threw a leg over the seat. “Keep pressure on the wound,” she said, firing up the engine. “Any blood gets on my bike, you’re cleaning it off.”

  Wednesday

  Chapter 32

  Cloaked in the shadows opposite Le Galleon Rouge, Valentina waited for Luca Falconi to emerge. She wasn’t a smoker, but she lit a cigarette and tapped her foot like any other tramp waiting for her date.

  She’d arrived earlier, looking for the man who’d paid off Delacroix on behalf of Tino Coluzzi. Gaining entry had been a matter of loitering out front and asking the first man heading into the place where a girl could get a drink. Her leather miniskirt and tight blouse did the rest. In minutes she’d been seated at Falconi’s table, listening to a group of increasingly drunken criminals discuss their work. One made his living hijacking gasoline tankers. Another was a forger specializing in passports and identity cards for Middle Eastern refugees. All of them smelled as if they’d eaten garlic at every meal for the past month.

  Valentina was careful not to ask any questions about Tino Coluzzi, or, in fact, about anything that might betray her intentions. She laughed when they laughed. She drank when they drank. And she had a hand on Jack’s leg half the time and Falconi’s the other.

  Everything changed when the dark-haired man entered the bar and started asking questions about one of their friends. The drunken men were no longer so drunk. Even so, they hadn’t guarded their conversation. She learned that the man at the bar was interested in Tino Coluzzi, too, and they didn’t like it one bit. Valentina had a clear view of him. Even with the dim light and the pall of smoke, she recognized him at once. Blue suit. Purposeful gait. He was a man who left an impression. She’d seen him earlier in the day leaving the Hotel George V. He had to be the man Delacroix had mentioned. Simon Riske.

  The door to Le Galleon Rouge swung open. Luca Falconi walked out, an ice pack held to the back of his head. She called his name. “Are you all right? Someone said there was a fight.”

  Of course, she knew there had been a fight, as did everyone in the place. Falconi had run inside afterward screaming about Eddie’s head being knocked in and Jack having his arm ripped off. In the chaos, she’d hurried outside in time to see Riske in full flight turning the corner. It had been a difficult decision whether to follow him or to stay with Falconi.

  “Guy that was here earlier,” said Falconi. “Troublemaker. That’s all.”

  “And your friends? Are they all right?”

  “Let’s not talk about them.”

  She put a hand on his arm. “I wanted to thank you for the drinks.”

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  “No, really.” She gave him a smile that was too warm by half.

  Luca looked at her. “Tell you what, I could use a coffee. You?”

  “It’s late, but thanks anyway. Maybe next time.”

  “I make a mean espresso.”

  “I need to get home. I have work in the morning.”

  “You don’t have to stay long. It’s not far. I could use a hand getting home.”

  “That’s three reasons. How can I say no?” Valentina smiled. “All right. But I can only stay for a minute.”

  Falconi put an arm around her shoulder. “Just a few blocks. And don’t you worry. I’m a gentleman. Word of honor.”

  Valentina allowed herself to be pulled closer. When his hand fell to her rear and began to fondle her buttocks, she moaned and put an arm around his waist.

  She didn’t mind that he wasn’t a gentleman.

  She wasn’t a lady.

  Word of honor.

  “Strip,” commanded Valentina.

  She stood near Luca Falconi in his bedroom on the top floor of a modern building a fifteen-minute walk from Le Galleon Rouge. She’d put up with his groping the entire way, allowing him to nuzzle her neck and whisper garlicky nothings in her ear. Once upstairs, he’d forgone his famous espresso in favor of generous snifters of grappa. He’d continued his seduction, playing French disco music from the 1970s and singing along as he put a hand up her skirt. After another grappa and an hour of being pawed, she decided it was time to go to work.

  “Me?” Falconi smiled nervously. “My clothes? Now?”

  Valentina ran a fingernail along the underside of his chin. “Yes, you. Yes, now. And, yes, all of them.”

  “But the espresso…”

  “Forget the espresso.” Valentina unbuttoned her blouse and, when it was open, unclasped her brassiere and thrust her bare chest toward him. “Let me show you how.”

  Falconi fell upon her like a hungry wolf, kneading her breasts, putting a greedy mouth to her nipple. She gasped and threw back her head. “Luca,” she moaned.

  His reply was a pig-like grunt.

  She counted to five then pushed him away gently. “Strip, I said.”

  Falconi stepped back, eyes wide with desire, nearly tripping over his own feet. “La diavola!” he said.

  Growing impatient, Valentina helped with the last few buttons, then adroitly unbuckled his belt. By now Falconi was panting heavily enough that she feared he might drop dead of a heart attack before she could get any information out of him. Falling to her knees, she pulled his trousers to the floor, then yanked down his boxer shorts and told him to step clear.

  Falconi obeyed. A moment later, he stood naked before her, his pale, flabby breasts lying
flat on his chest, his belly cascading over his waist in waves of fat beribboned with stretch marks. Somewhere, she supposed, the man had a penis, but she could see only a nest of gray pubic hair peeking from the marble-colored lard.

  “It takes time,” he said ashamedly.

  Valentina kissed him delicately. “We have all night, chéri.”

  As he lumbered onto the mattress, she took off her blouse and brassiere and unzipped her skirt. She allowed him plenty of time to regard her, feeling her power over him grow.

  “Come,” he said, extending a hand.

  Valentina smiled and put a foot onto the bed.

  Falconi labored to sit up against the headboard, one hand manipulating himself. His eyes opened wider as she climbed onto the bed and straddled him. She moved closer, lowering herself, grabbing a fistful of hair and guiding his face to her womanhood. She felt an inexpert tongue against her and cried out. He redoubled his efforts, hands cupping her buttocks. She moaned again.

  She maintained this position for two minutes by her watch, enough time for his neck to cramp, then stepped back, still towering above him.

  “My pill,” he said, eyes shooting toward the bathroom.

  “Go get it.”

  Falconi slid to the side of the bed and, after much exertion, put his feet onto the floor. His work had winded him and he sat hunkered over, unable to stand.

  She saw her moment.

  “Luca? Darling?”

  “Yes?”

  As Falconi turned his head, Valentina wrapped her left arm around his neck and locked it into place with her right. He struggled for thirty seconds, then went limp.

  Not dead.

  Unconscious.

  When Falconi came to, his prospects for sexual gratification had dimmed considerably. He lay on the bed, ankles and wrists bound with duct tape, another length of tape stretched across his mouth.

  Valentina brandished a steel box cutter before his eyes, its razor-sharp blade extended. Her handbag was too small to carry the pistol she’d used on Delacroix. There had been no place to hide it in her skirt. Besides, it was unwise to fire a pistol in an apartment building at this hour. Even with a noise suppressor, the sound might carry through the walls. She was a polite guest. She didn’t want to wake the neighbors. The duct tape was Falconi’s.

  The box cutter fell to his testicles. The blade nicked the wrinkled, sagging flesh. Falconi jolted.

  “Tell me,” she said, “where I can find Tino Coluzzi.”

  Chapter 33

  It was past three when Simon and Nikki emerged from the hospital. Around them, the city lay asleep. Traffic was so light as to be nonexistent. There was only the creaking of the barges moored nearby, rising and falling with the tide, and the whistling of a steady breeze.

  Lights burned from a bakery nearby. Nikki found the door unlocked. A bell tinkled as she entered. “Wait here,” she said.

  Simon sat down on the curb and gingerly probed the bandage beneath the fresh shirt he’d been given by the emergency room nurses. He had twenty stitches to add to his inventory of battle scars, not that he was counting. Nikki had accompanied him into the treatment bay while the doctor sewed him up. She was a tough woman, hardened by dint of her job. Even so, she’d been unable to keep herself from wincing when she viewed his torso.

  She returned a minute later, a bag of croissants in hand. She sat down next to him, offering him one. Simon devoured it in two bites, mess be damned. “Helluva lot better than sardines,” he said between chews.

  “Excuse me?”

  “What? Oh, nothing.” He took a second croissant and ate it more slowly. A ruminative mood had come over him. He looked at the empty sidewalks, searching for another person. They were alone. “So,” he began, looking over at Nikki. “Why’d you come?”

  “I’m a detective,” she replied, as if the answer were obvious. “You weren’t telling me the truth, at least not all of it. I didn’t have any pressing engagements so I thought I’d stop by and see for myself what was going on. I didn’t know about you, did I?”

  Simon followed her eyes to the tattoo on his forearm. “Proudest day of my life when I got that.”

  “How old were you?”

  “Eighteen.”

  “You started young.”

  “I thought I was grown up. A man. One thing’s for sure. They didn’t appreciate anyone asking about Tino Coluzzi.”

  “But you’re one of them.”

  “Not anymore. Guess it showed.” Just then Simon remembered the StingRay he’d cached prior to entering the bar. “Get up,” he said. “I left something back there.”

  “We’re not going back to that bar.”

  “Not there. Just down the street.”

  “What?”

  “A StingRay. A surveillance device that—”

  “I know what a StingRay is. What are you doing with one?”

  “It comes in handy.”

  “So you didn’t expect to find Coluzzi there?”

  “Odds were against it. I thought I’d let them find him for me.”

  “By calling to warn him that someone’s asking questions about him.”

  “That and something more.”

  “Oh?”

  “That it was someone from the old neighborhood.”

  Nikki reacted a second late, her body lurching as if she’d received a body blow. “You know Tino Coluzzi?”

  “I do.”

  Nikki dropped the rest of her croissant into the bag. “Strangely, I’m not surprised.”

  “This StingRay’s the souped-up model,” Simon went on, eager to get over the difficult spot. “It captures all calls made within the vicinity. It can also mirror the SIM cards, which gives us the key to extract all the data a phone holds.”

  “That’s illegal.”

  “If you’re caught,” said Simon. “Are you going to tell on me?”

  “Depends. I’m no friend of the men who tried to beat you up—”

  “To kill me.”

  “But I don’t like a stranger coming into my city and taking the law into his own hands. Frankly, it pisses me off. I want to know what’s going on. All of it. Who are you and why are you really here?”

  As Simon tried to stand, he felt the sutures pull. He extended a hand. Nikki eyed it warily before helping him to his feet.

  “Let’s get the StingRay,” he said. “Maybe there’s something on it that will help both of us.”

  Chapter 34

  Five hundred miles to the south, in his cliff-top hideout, Tino Coluzzi couldn’t sleep.

  Rising from bed, he walked to the kitchen, made himself an espresso, and took it onto the terrace. A three-quarter moon hung low over the horizon, casting a pale stripe across the sea. He remembered that day in the yard. He’d gotten into another scrape, one he couldn’t trade his way out of, and had drawn a sentence at Les Baums. There was Ledoux, waiting, giving him the look. He knew. What other choice did he have? It was a matter of self-preservation. If he’d waited a day longer, he would have been the one on a stretcher with a blanket covering his face. There would have been no lack of takers.

  And now it turned out that Ledoux wasn’t dead after all, and that somehow, someway, he knew about the letter. What else was Coluzzi supposed to think he meant by telling Falconi that Coluzzi had something that wasn’t his? Something he still had time to return? Had Ledoux become a cop? Was that it? Coluzzi dismissed the idea out of hand. It wasn’t possible. Not the Ledoux he’d known.

  He picked up his phone, staring at the blank screen, wondering why Luca Falconi hadn’t called back with news that Ledoux was dead and with a picture to prove it. He paced the length of the terrace, beside himself with worry. Something had gone wrong. He could feel it. He didn’t want to betray his anxiety by calling Falconi, but finally he decided he had no choice. Swearing to make Falconi pay, he placed the call.

  The phone rang and rang while Coluzzi urged him to pick up.

  And then he did. “Luca, that you?” Coluzzi waited for a re
ply. “Luca?” He could feel the other party’s presence on the line. “Who’s there?” he asked, fearing the worst. “Ledoux, is that you?”

  “No,” said a female voice. “It isn’t Mr. Ledoux. I’m his competitor.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You need to give us back what is ours.”

  “Let me talk to Luca.”

  “That won’t be possible.”

  “What did you do to him?”

  “The same thing I did to Monsieur Delacroix. It’s getting dangerous to be a friend of yours.”

  “Delacroix wasn’t a friend. Let me talk to your boss.”

  “That is not an option.”

  “Do as I say!”

  “I know where you are, Mr. Coluzzi. Your friend was very talkative. He told me about your hideout on top of the cliff. In fact, I feel like I know you already. All we need to do is set a time and place for the exchange. I can be there in a few hours. Be reasonable. This doesn’t have to end badly.”

  “I’ll take my chances, darling. Tell your boss I’ll be in touch. Ciao.”

  Coluzzi ended the call. Immediately, he opened the back of his phone and ripped out the SIM card, dumping it down the neck of an empty bottle of wine. He found a container of ammonia, added a few fingers to the bottle, and shook it all up. He waited a minute, letting the solvent go to work on the card, then flung the bottle off the terrace, along with the phone. He had five more burners inside just like it.

  Shaken, Coluzzi returned to his bedroom and retrieved the suitcase holding the prince’s money from the floor safe under his bed. He laid out the money on the dining room table. Six stacks, ten packets each.

  He had a rule. Never give out the take too soon. You needed a cooling-off period after a big job. There was always some guy who was unable to contain his excitement, to keep his game face on, who went out and got sloppy drunk and proceeded to brag about his accomplishments. Over time, Coluzzi had weeded out the loudmouths. He trusted his crew with his life. Still, a rule was a rule.