by Barry Eisler
But still, she missed John. She had almost broken down and called him after that disastrous op with Fatima. There was no one else she could talk to, no one else who would have understood. Certainly not Kent, who had been part of it. That weight John had talked about . . . Delilah had her own to carry, and what happened to Fatima would always be part of it.
Her mobile lit up. She glanced at the screen and saw the call was blocked. She didn’t get many calls. A wrong number? She almost ignored it, but then for no particular reason picked up anyway. “Allo?”
There was a pause. Then John’s voice: “Hi, Delilah.”
She actually froze. Was he calling her? Was it really him? It was as though she had summoned him with a random thought.
Flustered and wanting badly not to show it, she said, “Is . . . everything all right?”
“Yeah, yeah, everything’s fine. Well, the usual complications, but . . . it’s good to hear your voice.”
She wanted to say it back. But she wouldn’t. Instead, careful to keep her tone neutral, she said, “Why are you calling?”
There was a long pause. He said, “I’m sorry.”
“For what?” She was pleased the perplexed tone she was trying for sounded genuine. But she was worried, too. What had moved him to call? And to apologize?
“For a lot,” he said. “For . . . more than I could explain in just a phone call.”
She realized her heart was pounding. She’d told herself so many times that if he ever called, she would show him she didn’t care. That he hadn’t hurt her. That she had moved on.
Instead, she heard herself say, “Then you should apologize some other way.”
There was a long beat. He said, “You mean . . . would in person be okay?”
“I don’t know. Would it?”
“I think so. I mean, I’d like that. If you would.”
“Yes. I’d like to hear you apologize in person.” Good. That seemed the right balance between receptiveness to his overture, and a demonstration that she was still somehow in charge.
“Delilah, there’s something else.”
Her worry escalated to outright fear. Did he have cancer or something?
“John, what is it?”
“I need your help.”
She would have laughed, but she was too furious with herself. And here she’d been worried he was dying or something.
“Ah, of course,” she said.
“It’s not why I’m calling. Not exactly. I mean, I should have called a long time ago.”
“But still. You’re calling because you need my help.”
“The one’s not related to the other, but yes. Dox and I both. And a woman he’s involved with. Maybe we could talk about that in person, too. But first, maybe we could just talk about . . . what an idiot I’ve been.”
She felt an infuriating rush of hope and shoved it away. “If we’re going to talk about you being an idiot, it would be a long discussion.”
“I hope it will be.”
“I guess we’ll see.”
“I can meet you anywhere you want. I’m here in Paris.”
“You’re in Paris?”
“Yes.”
“From when?” She didn’t want to seem like she cared, but it came out before she could stop it.
“From about an hour ago. I flew in this morning.”
She was angry at herself for being relieved that he hadn’t been here for weeks without telling her, but she couldn’t help it.
“Wherever’s good for you,” he said. “I’m not far from your neighborhood.”
Knowing John, that probably meant the Latin Quarter or Saint-Germain. She thought about just telling him where she was, and that he could come meet her if he wanted. But . . . maybe better to go back to the apartment first to change and put on some makeup. Nothing obvious or overdone, of course. She didn’t want it to seem as though she was trying to look good for him. But she knew how to look good without seeming to have tried. And why shouldn’t she look good? He should know what he lost.
“You know that place you liked?” she said, reflexively slipping back into oblique references, not that anyone was listening. “With the back room with all the dark wood, that you said was your favorite haven?”
The place was called La Palette, in Saint-Germain.
“I know it.”
“I’ll see you there in an hour.”
“Delilah.”
“Yes?”
There was a pause. “Thank you.”
“I don’t want your thanks,” she said, and clicked off.
She sat there for a moment, looking out at the passersby. She felt surreal. A roiling mix of anger, hope, fear, and confusion.
But most of all, anger. Anger at him for hurting her. Anger at herself for letting him. Anger at how vulnerable she felt from one stupid phone call, after all this time.
He hadn’t even called her because he missed her, because he was sorry, because he wanted her back. Not really. Or even if he felt those things on some level, they hadn’t been enough. What it took to get him to actually pick up the phone was whatever help he needed.
She would have called him back if she could. Told him that on second thought it was better if they didn’t meet. She was seeing someone, and didn’t want to complicate it.
Well, she could say much the same in person. That might be even better. Say it, and just walk away.
But how would she feel later, if whatever trouble he was in ended badly?
And what about Dox? She knew if she ever needed him, he would come running. How could she not do the same?
She hoped she wasn’t rationalizing. Inventing reasons to see John when really she should stay the hell away.
She didn’t think she was. Whether missing her would have been enough to call her or not, he never would have asked for help if the trouble weren’t serious. And whatever trouble was so serious that men like John and Dox couldn’t handle it alone had to be very bad indeed.
Well, she would learn more in an hour. She couldn’t very well decide what to do until then, could she? Maybe he didn’t just need her help. Maybe he needed her also in some better way.
But if she was wrong? And all he wanted was some kind of professional favor, after which she would never hear from him again?
She was going to kill him.
chapter
thirty-seven
RAIN
Larison called as soon as they had cleared customs at CDG. Everything was fine.
“Good,” I said. “We didn’t have any problems, either. And the hotel I mentioned worked out. Dox and Livia should take it.”
It was a good room, and I’d seen the way Livia looked at it. Life was short. Let them enjoy themselves if they could. The rest of us could deal with something more spartan.
Or maybe the second room would be for just Horton and Larison. Maybe I would wind up at Delilah’s. I tried not to hope for it, but I could picture it so clearly. The simple wooden bed frame. The white sheets. The large casement windows, the curtains around them rippling inward, the sounds of distant traffic drifting in with the breeze. The feeling of moving inside her, her legs around my back, her breath hot on my face. Touching her the way I knew she liked to be touched. The sounds she would make. The words she would say. The way she would kiss the sweat from my shoulders after. How she would look in my eyes and need to say nothing, and I would wonder at how she could know me so well, and accept me so much, and how, after all the mistakes I’d made and the horrors I’d inflicted and endured, I could ever have earned such a reprieve.
Being back in Paris was whipsawing me between delight at a city I’d grown to love, and regret for how stupid I’d been, for how much time I’d wasted, for how I had probably blown it with her irrevocably. Tokyo was filled with so many ghosts for me. I had no idea how much I needed Paris to be for the living.
“The hotel sounds fine,” Larison said. “And Hort has already set up a meeting with some of his local contacts. We’re on our way to th
at now. No word yet from Treven, though.”
“That’s all right. I like that we got here beforehand. You said it yourself, less likely Graham will have time to position forces this way. Listen, we need to be careful with the firearms. I’ve seen guards examining bags at a few checkpoints. Aftermath of November 2015. I haven’t seen any pat downs, but bags are definitely getting opened.”
“No problem, I’ll relay that to the others.”
“Good. Why don’t we meet at the primary at fifteen hundred?”
The place we had agreed on in advance was in front of the Grande Galerie de l’Évolution, alongside the greenhouse overlooking the Jardin des Plantes. There was a library there from within which we would have a view of anyone attempting to approach through the garden. Of course, we had preset fallback locations and backup approaches as well. Encryption or no, I didn’t want us to ever have to say more over the phone than necessary, and besides, phones get lost, or don’t get reception, or any of a dozen other problems for which the solution is always preparation and redundancy.
“Works for me,” Larison said. “Any word from Delilah?”
“I’m on my way to meet her now.”
“You and Livia?”
“No, she wanted to wander around. Get acclimated. She’s never been here.”
“So just you.”
“Yes.”
“Good. Just so you know, everyone’s counting on you.”
“Great.”
“I’m joking. Well, not really.”
“I think you’ve been spending too much time with Dox.”
“He says good luck, by the way.”
“All right, I should go.”
“He says don’t be an idiot. Tell her you care. Look, don’t get mad, I’m just passing along a message.”
I clicked off. I should have known Larison wouldn’t sober up Dox, and that in fact Dox would rub off on Larison.
The sidewalk tables of La Palette were mostly full, but the back room I had liked so much was occupied by a single patron: an elegantly dressed older woman with a demitasse and a book open in front of her, who from her clothes and her ease I made as one of the nearby gallery owners enjoying her morning espresso before opening the store. I walked in and took the corner table in back, pleased at the feeling that the place had been waiting for me. Billie Holiday was playing quietly from unseen speakers. The acoustics were hushed. And it was pleasingly dim, even on this sunny morning, the walls all of dark wood, the ceiling painted ochre, the spare tables and chairs deep and comforting shades of brown. When the weather was good, the sidewalk tables were much more the draw for passing tourists and Parisians, but I always liked La Palette best from inside.
The pace of table service in Paris could be perplexing to Japanese, irritating to Americans, and unfathomable to, say, anyone accustomed to the almost supernatural speed of Hong Kong. But this time, I was glad no waiter disturbed me too promptly. It was my first moment alone since returning, and though I had enjoyed Livia’s reactions to the city, and her questions and what they revealed about her, I was also glad to finally have some solitude.
Which made sense. The majority of the time I had lived here, I’d spent by myself. Which I supposed made my demands on Delilah even more incomprehensible. In retrospect, I realized our balance had actually been good: she needed to travel for work; I needed time alone. So what had possessed me to push her and push her until something had snapped? Had I been trying to sabotage the best thing that had happened to me in longer than I cared to remember? Was I really that self-destructive?
Maybe I would ask Dox what he made of it. I’d been reluctant to before, fearful of the accuracy of his insights. But accurate insights might have helped me. Medicine isn’t supposed to taste good—that’s what candy is for. Medicine is supposed to make you better.
It was strange. I’d been alone for so long. And in an hour or so, I would be with her again, even if only briefly and badly. So for the moment, I relished the feeling of sitting in that dusky haven of a back room, a little relic from my recent past. I felt like Schrödinger’s cat. She would come, or not come. She would take me in, or throw me out. She would forgive me, or tell me to fuck off. And in that narrow, purgatorial space, a feeling crept in, a kind of mourning for my younger self and all his terrible choices, and a wish that I could somehow tell him what I knew now and help him for both our sakes to get it right, and a grief that such a thing was impossible, the young man’s blindness irreparable, his mistakes immutable, the consequences irreversible. And then I smiled, thinking of mono no aware, the sadness of being human, aware of the irony of having traveled all the way to Paris to feel something so quintessentially Japanese.
A half hour passed. The gallery woman left. Several more people, also looking like locals of one kind or another, drifted in. I ordered an omelette aux champignons and an orange pressée, and finished both. I had another espresso. At the end of the hour, she still hadn’t come.
Maybe I should have given her the sat-phone number. Maybe something had come up, and she couldn’t reach me. Maybe I should call her again. I wondered why she had chosen this place, rather than one of her Marais haunts. I had always liked the Left Bank more than she did; was the choice an attempt to accommodate me? Or was it a way of saying, I’m going to keep you away from my neighborhood, from my life? Or was I missing something entirely?
Finally, over ninety minutes after we had first talked, she showed. She stood for a moment in the doorway, probably letting her eyes adjust from the sun outside. She was wearing jeans and suede boots, a combination I always liked on her. And a leather bolero. Her hair was down, and her beauty wasn’t just moving—it was also a stinging rebuke.
She saw me and walked over. I stood, my heart pounding.
“John,” she said. “It’s nice to see you.”
Whatever I’d been expecting, it hadn’t been that. “It’s good to see you,” I said. I wanted to add really good, but thought it would come out wrong.
We stood there awkwardly for a moment. Then I gestured to the table. “Do you want to sit?” I had selected the corner table so we could sit ninety degrees from each other and both have a view of the entrance.
She nodded. “Sure.”
We sat. Up close, and without the light outside silhouetting her, I could see a few new lines. I didn’t care. She looked more beautiful than ever, and it hurt.
There were so many things I wanted to say. I missed you. I’m sorry. I’m an idiot.
I love you.
But none of them came out.
“So,” she said after too long a silence. “What is this help you need?”
Tell her, you fucking idiot. Tell her.
But I didn’t. Instead, for the next forty minutes, I briefed her on everything that had happened, culminating in our trip to Paris this very morning.
When I was done, she said, “This is bad. I know OGE. Mossad uses them.”
“Apparently, everybody uses them.”
“Exactly. Graham doesn’t really have enemies. Only clients. Some of them quite powerful.”
“Well, you know me. I only piss off the best people.”
I thought she would at least smile at that, but she didn’t. She said, “And what is it you hope I can do for you?”
I was aware on some level that we shouldn’t be talking about the plan yet, that business first was the wrong approach here. But business was also the more familiar terrain, the less fraught topic, and I didn’t listen to whatever voice was telling me I was getting it wrong.
“I’m not sure yet,” I said. “I won’t be able to propose something meaningful until we have more detailed intel from Treven. But the general idea is, if you can lure Graham into a position where he’s detached from his bodyguards, it’ll be an opportunity for us to interrogate him. With the intel we have, we probably could just kill him, despite his protection. And it might still come to that. But what we really need is information. Why is this guy Arrington so hell-bent on covering up a child-p
ornography ring? What’s he using the information for? Who does this really involve? If we don’t know those things, just killing Graham might not end the threat. And it won’t dismantle the ring.”
She looked off to the side and drummed her fingers on the table. Then she said, “When did fighting child pornography become a thing for you?”
It felt at least as much a provocation as a question, but I thought for a moment anyway. “When it was right in front of me,” I said. “And I realized I was in a position to either do something about it or just pretend I don’t care.”
“I see.”
“What are you getting at?”
“I just want to make sure you’re clear in your mind why you’re doing all this.”
“If you saw that video Livia showed us, you’d understand.”
“I’d like to meet her. She sounds quite special.”
“I think she is.”
“You trust her?”
“I haven’t known her long enough to say. But Dox trusts her.”
“He trusts more easily than you.”
“You’re saying he’s the weak link in the chain?”
“I’m saying it sounds like this woman has drawn four people, and now possibly a fifth, into a war she’s fighting. Her war.”
“I told you, Graham came after me before I’d even heard of Livia.”
“But do you have more need of her, or she of you?”
“I’d say it’s mutual. It was her intel that led to our breakthrough on Arrington. Until then, we knew Graham was probably just muscle, but we didn’t know for whom.”
“Is her intel anything you can verify?”
I looked at her. “Am I missing something?”
“That’s what I’m trying to understand.”
“Why are you so . . . cynical on this?”
“If you think my questions come from cynicism, it makes me even more concerned.”