Fatal Exchange

by Cindy M. Hogan

  I thought it was time to lighten the mood and crack a joke, but I had nothing, so I smiled instead.

  Like he knew I was searching for levity, he said, “You know, you need to take this seriously.” His eyes narrowed and they fixed on me, cold as stone. He stepped closer, the storms in his eyes making them appear almost black. “This is the way I make my living, Eva, and if you can’t respect it, I don’t know if we can work together.”

  I let my cheeks flame hot. “I’m sorry, Kamal.” I reached out for his arm. He yanked it away. My hand hung out there for a bit while I talked until it slowly fell to my side.

  The anger physically left his face but something like fear remained. “It’s okay. I get crazy with people who think what we do is easy or a joke. It’s hard work and it’s the only way I have to earn a living.” His sincerity rolled over me in waves. He spoke like he had some noble profession. There had to be something behind that conviction.

  Suddenly I felt a little bad for everything I’d thought and said about pickpockets. I’d forgotten they were people with feelings just doing what they considered their job. I bet almost none of them chose this line of work because they thought it was a good career move. Desperation caused people to do desperate things. They had to eat and have a place to stay. Perhaps they believed the end result justified the means. It still had to stop.

  “Fine. No more teasing.” I wondered if the fear I’d seen in him was due to his boss and what that boss would do to him if he got caught because of me. I noticed the shimmer of the scar on his left cheek. I wondered if he got that scar from doing something wrong.

  “You know, you really are lucky.” His face had a serious, pleased look. “You’re quite the lucky find.”

  I gave him a questioning look. I’d just messed up. “Present example excluded?”

  He chuckled. “You just have a way about you. I can tell you’ll get it fast.”

  I smiled, not sure how to respond. I didn’t want him to think I was too good to be true. I couldn’t have him suspect me of anything. “You sure know how to charm a girl.”

  He chuckled. So did I.

  “Hey, you know, I…uh, I skate a little, too,” I said, shyly. It would be great to find a few more opportunities to interact with Kamal.

  “Really? You should join us at the fountain sometime. We’re there pretty much every night.” He smiled warmly.

  “Thanks, I’d like that, but I’ll warn you that I’m not very good.”

  He looked over the crowds, and I noticed sweat beading up along his brow. The sun shone hot on my exposed skin, and as I breathed in, I couldn’t help but notice how the humid air felt thick in my lungs. “Want to get a drink?”

  He checked his watch. “Sure, I’ve got twenty minutes before I need to head out.”

  I grabbed a bottled lemonade, and he grabbed a Coke from a panini vendor just down the walkway from McDonalds. We sat on a small grassy hill that had a big maple tree at the top, giving us some shade, and twisted the caps open on our drinks. Busy people walked by, not paying us any attention, but Kamal’s eyes didn’t miss a single one. The next thing I knew, Kamal’s Coke dropped out of his hand, and he took off down the street. I stood up. “Kamal?” I shouted, but he kept running. So I ran after him, my lemonade in my hand.

  He was fast, and I had to really push it not to lose him in the crowds. He took a quick corner off the main walkway, and I followed. He turned again at the edge of a building, and I sped up but stopped abruptly as a terrible scene appeared before me. Kamal had a knife at a boy’s throat. I backed up and slid partially behind the stucco wall and a small dumpster. I looked behind me, no one was in the alley, and I slid further behind the dumpster so I wouldn’t be spotted by passersby, but still had full view of the scene in front of me. The boy Kamal had a hold of couldn’t have been older than fourteen. He still hadn’t experienced his growth spurt and stood only as tall as Kamal’s chest.

  “I don’t care if you are new. This is not your area, and now you have to pay. And you aren’t that new. I’ve seen you before.” His French took on a thicker Arabic accent in his anger. I swallowed hard, sweat dripping down my back as I watched.

  At first I thought Kamal was going to kill the boy, but instead he did something much worse. He pointed the tip of his knife at the boy’s cheek, using his other forearm to hold the boy’s face against the wall as he started to carve. I closed my eyes and held back a scream. When I opened them, the hysterical boy had a bloody star carved into his cheek. My hand flew to my mouth. “Next time,” Kamal said in a scary whisper, I take your hand.” He let the boy slump down to the ground, cries of agony spilling from his mouth as he clutched his bleeding cheek. Kamal wiped the blood from his knife on the boy’s shirt and after spitting on the boy, turned back the way he’d come.

  I jerked back, duck walking from behind the dumpster and hurrying around the corner. Sucking in a hard breath, I stood and took off. Something told me it was better if Kamal didn’t know I’d witnessed what he’d just done. I weaved through all the people on the sidewalks and retook my seat under the tree. I picked up Kamal’s Coke and put the lid on, surprised only a little had spilled. It was my luck that he took his time to get back, so I was able to catch my breath and calm down.

  I sipped my lemonade and tried to erase the memory of what I’d seen. Kamal, whom I’d thought had a soft spot for runaways, had cut that boy in a vicious way that was certain to leave scars, and then threatened to maim him permanently. My body buzzed with disgust, and a shallow fear welled up in my chest. What I’d thought was a petty, nuisance crime was much darker and more terrible than I’d imagined.

  When Kamal touched me on the shoulder, I startled, jerking around to see him standing above me.

  “Jumpy?”

  “You scared me. Where did you go? I’ve been worried.”

  He sat down and picked up his soda, unscrewed the cap and took a drink. “There was a problem I needed to take care of. Nothing you have to worry about.” Strain registered on his face and the thumb of his other hand pressed on his chin while his index finger pressed on his temple.

  “Well, you could have told me why you were leaving.” My face flushed, so I finished off my lemonade and leaned back against the tree, knees up and the empty lemonade bottle tapping on my knees, pretending I was relaxed.

  “I didn’t know I would be leaving until I just did. And while you need to tell me about your whereabouts, I don’t have to account for mine.” He took a long drink of his soda and then twisted the top on.

  We sat in awkward silence for a few minutes until his watch beeped. He immediately stood up and said, “Well, this is where I leave you. See you tomorrow. Upper entrance to the Louvre at nine.” The sun was low in the sky, light hitting harshly off store windows.

  “That’s pretty late. Why not earlier?”

  “The museum doesn’t open until then.”

  “I think I like the thirty percent rate better than the ten percent rate. You could help me practice more before it’s all official. We could meet just a little early, at eight.”

  “Wish I could, but I have somewhere to be at eight. An appointment.”

  “Okay. See you tomorrow.” My life of crime would officially begin at the glass pyramid of the Louvre.

  I headed down the street to go home, but quickly changed my course once I knew Kamal was out of sight and not following me. It didn’t take me long to locate him. He was strolling home, in no hurry.

  I followed him, making sure I wouldn’t be spotted, which wasn’t easy considering he knew what I looked like and I had no disguise with me. We passed a few blocks of small businesses that had apartments on top and continued into an area of apartments without businesses. At least he was walking on a street that had a bunch of nooks and crannies I could hide in. I had to count my blessings even though I had to hide every ten feet.

  He entered a small apartment building at the end of a long row. The blue, peeling paint contrasted sharply with the red trim as well as
the attached building which was olive green. The flaking paint left large patches of exposed tan stucco. A small alley dead-ended on the exposed side of the building. A light on the second story blinked on. Bingo. I knew where he lived. Tomorrow I’d be visiting his humble home, hopefully in the morning when he went to his appointment. I watched for a while, trying to determine if he lived with anyone else. It appeared he was the only one there.

  I stewed the whole way home. Having the knowledge of where he lived and when he’d be gone was huge. I’d be in and out of that little apartment in under ten minutes and hopefully have the drive, but what if something went wrong? What I really needed was a shadow and some listening devices to put into his apartment. That way, if I wasn’t able to find the drive for some reason, I’d have a backup plan.

  Once I was back in my apartment, I called Ace, hoping he was in a place where he could talk. The phone rang twice. Three times. A fourth. I almost hung up, but just when I was about to, I heard Ace’s gruff voice on the line.

  “Ace here.”

  I breathed a sigh of relief. “Listen, are you in a place where you can talk?”

  “Yes, Halluis, I’m working on that right now.”

  Ah, so there were others who could hear him. I’d have to be quick and hope Ace wouldn’t accidentally give us away. He could be really good under pressure, but he sometimes underestimated himself and got nervous.

  I gave him a concise rundown of what I’d discovered then started to tell him what I needed. “I need help finding out where Kamal keeps the drives before selling them. I know he has an appointment in the morning, so his apartment will be empty.”

  “What do you want me to do about it?”

  I balked for a second at his tone, then remembered he was supposedly talking to Halluis. “I need a lookout shadow. And in case the drive isn’t in his apartment, can you get me a few drives with GPS trackers on them? That way I can give them to Kamal, and we can follow the signal to where he keeps them.”

  “I’m afraid you’re on your own with that, Halluis,” Ace said. “I can get you the tech, of course, but with you being so far away, I can’t support it.”

  I cringed, trying to parse the meaning behind his words. From the sound of things, Halluis was gone somewhere—what did Siron have him doing? That meant he couldn’t be my shadow. But Ace had said he could get the tech.

  “No on the shadow, yes on the drives?” I clarified.

  “That’s right.” He paused a second. “Just, be careful out there… man.”

  “Thanks, Ace. I’ll be all right. Just get me the drives.”

  Chapter 8

  In the morning, I found three flash drives had been pushed through my mail slot, along with an envelope along with a bag of chocolate gummy bears. The coded note explained that two of the drives had the same tracking system on them, and the third had a different system. I was to give one of each type to Kamal, then try to plant the other one on another pickpocket, someone who might be likely to lead us to the drive buyer. The plan seemed solid, but something about it made me nervous. At the end was a postscript that read, Siron’s got Halluis in Calais, tailing one of Dufor’s business partners. It’s a dead end. We hope he’ll be back soon. I found some stuff on Dufor, don’t know if it will be useful.

  I slipped the drives into my pocket, happy to have some of Ace’s handiwork, along with the two I’d bought the night before to use as decoys. I took some time to rough up a couple of them, make them look used rather than brand new. All five were different—I didn’t want anything about them to expose that they’d come from the same person: me.

  I pulled out the information on Dufor that Ace had included and glanced quickly over the page. 54 years old, divorced, no kids, a sister in Coulogne, but no other living relatives. Mostly kept to himself, but he liked art and books. He was a numbers guy, an accountant, and before working at Sécurité Un, he’d worked for a small financial firm in Paris.

  That’s it? I thought. It was no help at all. There was nothing there that offered any clue to explain Dufor’s doodles. Still, Coulogne wasn’t far from Calais, and since Halluis was already up that way anyway… I texted Ace on the secure line.

  Can you have Halluis look into the sister? She might give us some insight.

  If you say so.

  I sighed. It would probably be a dead end. All the more reason to focus on Kamal.

  I got to his apartment a few minutes after eight a.m. and confirmed that he had left and no one else lived there. I had no idea how long he would be gone or where he was going, so I needed to work fast.

  I climbed the narrow stairs and found myself on a small landing. While the outside had been bright and colorful, the hallways were a drab gray. Each level only had two apartments. I picked the lock and walked in with only a bit of hesitation. The first thing I ran into was the kitchen. From there, the apartment opened up into a very small studio. The smell of acetone and paint hit me. I looked around the room in shock.

  He was an artist. A painter. “Hmm,” I said, frowning. Five easels with canvases on them dominated the room. In the far corner was a small cot-like bed, and on the wall with the window hung the TV. A small chest of drawers butted up against the bed, and that was it. Everything was in order, nothing out of place, almost like he’d been in the army or something. I turned around and looked back at the strip of a kitchen and headed in there. I opened all the oak cupboards.

  When I opened the silverware drawer, it felt unusually heavy. I examined one of the forks, and it wasn’t particularly sturdy and didn’t weigh much. I pulled the drawer out the rest of the way and examined it more closely. It definitely had a false bottom. I found the catch and opened it. Inside was a lot of money, jewelry, a laptop, and various other expensive items—more than a young guy living on his own should have, and I was reminded that he was a pickpocket. I whipped out the laptop and booted it up, praying it didn’t have a password. It did. Who was I kidding? This boy was a professional thief. Of course he’d protect against other thieves.

  This was it. I needed Ace. I pulled out my phone and dialed the secure number I’d found with the drive this morning.

  “This is Ace.” His voice was clipped, tense.

  I got straight to the point. “I found a laptop. It’s got a password, and I need in.”

  “Tell me everything you see in the room.” His voice was so low, I had to concentrate to hear him. He was alone enough that he could talk to me, but Siron must be nearby. I breathed a quick prayer that we wouldn’t get caught.

  “Five easels with canvases, some painted and some not. A very small bed. A chest of drawers. Three prints of paintings on the walls.” Despite the increased tension, I couldn’t resist teasing him a little. “I’m looking in his underwear drawer right now. Would you like to know his preferred color?”

  “Not unless they’re full of lace and frilly. That could give me ideas for the password at least.”

  “Nope, just plain white briefs. Sorry.”

  I thought I heard a faint chuckle. “Are the paintings on the walls his? Can you tell?”

  I moved toward them. “Not by him. Looks like a Van Gogh print? Yep. They’re all Van Gogh’s.”

  “Try Van Gogh.”

  “As the password or the username?”

  “You don’t even have the username?” He groaned.

  “Nope.” Now he sighed.

  “Can you see an HDMI cable?”

  “Yes.”

  “Great. Attach it to your phone and then to the computer.”

  “Is this going to take long? I have no idea how long he’s going to be gone,” I said, taking the cable in my hands.

  “I need a good fifteen minutes.”

  My eyes flicked wide, but I said nothing. Fifteen minutes was a long time. I’d have to keep a good watch. I needed to get to Kamal’s phone and copy and change his SIM card so we could get access to his phone calls. Too bad I hadn’t asked Ace for listening devices yesterday. I’d have to get some of those soon.


  Time crawled by as I waited for Ace to work his magic on the laptop. “I’m almost there. Give me three minutes, and I’ll have your username and password.”

  I’d already been here too long. According to my watch eleven minutes had passed, and I’d wanted to be out in ten. I looked at Kamal’s paintings. The two that looked completed were colorful and completely different from each other. One depicted a family of five sitting in a park eating a picnic dinner. The other was of the same family, inside a parlor, two of them sitting, comforting each other and two standing, looking into a small casket wherein the youngest of the family lay dead. I felt a sudden bout of sadness well up inside me. The emotion in both pictures, while in stark contrast to each other, was very real. Even I could tell he was good for being so young.

  “I’m in,” Ace said. “You have a drive for the info?”

  I thought about the drives in my pocket. I was sure they were too small to hold everything on that computer. “I don’t. Can you download it?”

  “I can, but it will take a good thirty minutes to do it remotely.”

  “Seriously?” I huffed and without waiting for his reply said, “Let’s get as much as we can. Hopefully we get the important stuff before I have to leave.”

  “Agreed. I’m going to hang up and work on something for Siron. Can you see the progress bar at the bottom of the screen?”

  “I can.” It read 8%.

  “Just watch that and disconnect when it says 100%.”

  “Will do.”

  “Good luck.”

  “Wait, Ace. Thank you so much for helping me and risking so much. I truly appreciate it.”

  There was a pause. “You know I wouldn’t let you down. And no pressure, but it’s up to you to make sure I don’t get fired. Find that drive.”

  I imagined the bemused smile he was sure to have on his face. “I will. Don’t worry. I will.”

  The line went dead. I scoured every inch of the apartment again, even looking for hidden floor safes, and as I did, I made sure everything was in the exact location it had been when I’d entered the room. The front door would be out for an escape path if Kamal returned, so I made sure I could get out the window just above his small cot. I had to use a knife and pry the paint-sealed window open. I opened and shut it several times, using some oil from the kitchen to make the sliding action smooth and quiet. Just outside it was a small veranda where one person might stand. Unfortunately, had someone chosen to stand on it, his view would consist of nothing but the brick wall of the neighboring building.