73
He sits on the park bench shifting his weight, pinches the side where he’d been shot to feel the pain again, a way to remind himself that he is alive and there are still things to be done. The rain has started up and he is cold, disgusted. He has called the middleman to let him know the two men have gone into the silver-domed house. He was told to wait, to find out who lived there.
He checks his watch; a half hour since they went in.
He recognized the man with the American as the one he had fought with, tall and definitely strong. Though he looks forward to a rematch. He does not like to lose a fight and rarely does. Where he comes from, losing a fight, losing anything, is inconceivable, even punishable.
An image blooms in his mind: his brother falling, blood spreading, soaking into the earth. Andrei, tall and towheaded at nineteen, older by one year, his best friend, his hero—and the promise they made to never be separated and how they had kept that promise, even as Andrei died in his arms. He sees men dying all around him—not men—boys, unprepared for combat. And for what? A war that even the former Soviet leader had referred to as a “disgraceful, bloody adventure.”
Was it then—when his brother died—that he stopped caring? Or was it seeing the masses of dead children killed by cluster bombs set off by the separatists or his own men? Who could tell? He squeezes his eyes shut, thinks that losing his brother has made it impossible for him to feel, when in fact what he has felt since that moment was that he too wanted to die.
The front door opens, and the image dissolves like a piece of old movie film caught in a projector, bubbling red and blistering.
The two men head down the steps. He tugs the hat lower on his face, but they are so deep in conversation they pass right in front without giving him a look. He hears the American say, “Lacoste,” has no idea what that means but makes a note to find out.
When they are a block away, the Russian checks the tracking device, watches the red dot turn a corner, gets up, stretches, and yawns. He is tired of all the watching and waiting, his patience and restraint exhausted at forty-one, or is it forty-two, his falsified papers changed so often he can’t remember. What he needs is action. Fun. He makes his way to the front door of the silver-domed house and raises the knocker.
74
“The Louvre called,” Smith said as he came back into the room after his cigarette break.
“That was fast. Didn’t you just send the pictures you took of Madame Leblond’s Mona Lisa?”
“Wouldn’t you call the person who sent you photos of another Mona Lisa if you were a curator at the Louvre?” Smith paused. “They’re going to let me have a look at the real painting, I used my INTERPOL clout, but there’s a hitch… I have to go alone.”
“What? I thought we were in this together. All for one and one for all. You called me your associate. Did you sell me out, Smith?”
“No. It’s just that they’re insisting on credentials, and you don’t have any.”
“And you do? Maybe not for long.” A low blow and I knew it, but I was pissed. I wanted to be there to see for myself, to be in on the discovery—whatever it was. I’d earned that much.
“That’s the deal, like it or—”
“The deal you made.”
“Look, I had enough to force their hand. I threatened to go public with what we had if they didn’t agree to let me see the painting, but that was it. You know I can’t back up my threat. I go to the Louvre tonight, after closing, a private viewing with the director. That’s the deal, and it’s final.”
So this was what it had come to, after all that had happened, after all I had risked—to be excluded. I stared at him a long minute, then sagged into a chair. “I told you I needed something, that maybe I’d write about this, and you agreed to that.”
“And perhaps you can, if that’s what you want.”
“It isn’t a question of want. My job might depend on it.” I stared out the window at the late-day sun, adrenaline and disappointment leaking out of me like air from a tire, along with all I had done, hoped for, and all I’d left behind. If I couldn’t write about the discovery, what was I supposed to do?
“Listen, I promise to tell you anything I discover. We did good work, my friend, and it’s not over yet.”
“It’s over for me.”
“Not true, and don’t whine, Perrone. It’s unattractive.”
“Oh really, you’re going to give me charm lessons? Next, you’ll be telling me to toughen up and be a man.”
“Nah,” Smith said, “I know that’s hopeless.” He smiled. I didn’t. “No matter what, we still need to investigate that list of collectors I gave you.”
“What makes you think I’m going to help you after this?”
“Because you want to know the truth as much as I do.”
75
He stands across the street, staring up at the hotel’s worn brick facade, shivering, Paris even colder than Florence. He promises himself a vacation, someplace warm, the Caribbean or, better yet, Miami Beach. He was there years ago and liked the pastel-colored hotels, the ocean waves, and the Cuban food, though he hadn’t had time to enjoy any of them, the job too fast—one day to locate the subject, second day to take him out, third day already leaving. This time, he will get a suite in one of those peach-colored hotels, order room service and a hooker. He is imagining lying in the Florida sun, his pale skin going pink, when his cell phone vibrates. He holds it away from his ear though he can still hear the middleman’s annoying nasal voice.
“We received your package.”
“Good,” he says, picturing himself taking the painting off the wall and placing it under his jacket, recalls the rich woman’s expensive smell, how he had demanded that she tell him what the two men wanted and how she told him they had been there about a painting and showed it to him, a forgery, a joke, she said, adding that the men had photographed it and that they were INTERPOL agents. That surprised him. Maybe the other guy, but not the American, at least he doesn’t think so.
“The boss was pleased,” the middleman says.
“What did you think of it?”
“Me? I didn’t open it. I just sent it.”
He knows the middleman is lying. No question he opened the package and looked at the painting. In this business, everyone is a liar and a cheat, and knowledge is power.
“Are you watching them?”
“Yes,” he says, still distracted by flickering images of the rich woman and the sound of her protests as he twisted her pearls until she was quiet. A shame. He didn’t mean to. The moment got the better of him. Though he always needs to protect himself. Never leaves a witness, someone who can identify him. He does not tell the middleman any of this. Why should he? He has gotten them the information they want, plus the painting, a gift, free of charge. What do they care if he has a little fun, as long as the outcome is the same? They should thank him.
“Are you there? Did you hear me?”
“Yes,” he says, glancing up at the hotel window, its incandescent glow pulsing against the Paris night.
“They have the diary,” the middleman says. “The boss says it’s time you retrieved it.”
Finally, he thinks, though it doesn’t feel like enough. What about the American and the other man, the one who may be working for INTERPOL? He cannot just let them walk away.
76
We walked a few blocks, Smith needing to clear his head before his appointment at the Louvre. I shivered, pointed out that it was snowing.
“It never snows in Paris,” he said.
I turned my hands up toward the night sky, snowflakes melting in my palms. “This is called snow, Smith. And I’m freezing.”
He told me to stop being a wuss, patted my head like a dog.
I shrugged his hand off, tugged my jacket tighter. All I wanted was to go with him to the Louvre. “Everything tha
t’s happened,” I said, “it has to mean something.”
“I don’t know,” Smith said. “Sometimes things just happen. We make our choices and have to live with them, but we can’t control our destiny.”
“Wow, that’s deep,” I said, mocking him, but it made me think about the choices and risks I’d taken and my uncertain future, my destiny, looming.
Smith asked if I thought I’d made a bad choice in pursuing my great-grandfather’s story. I told him I didn’t know—and that was the truth.
“I have no doubt you’ll find a way to let this fuel you,” he said, “to do some good with what you’ve learned.”
I wasn’t so sure. Right now, it felt like the end of something, not the beginning I’d hoped for. I dug my hands deeper into my pockets as Smith led the way into a small park, a bronze plaque indicating it was the Jardin Catherine Labouré and that it used to house a convent.
The park was mostly dark, trees and vines forming a canopy above our heads, small pinspots of lamplight illuminating patches of ground and empty benches.
“Are you ready to take on the world’s most famous museum, maybe uncover a one hundred-and-eight-year-old secret?”
“Ready as I’ll ever be.” Smith tugged a pack of cigarettes from inside his coat. I told him he had to quit, and he promised he would, soon.
He had just flicked the lighter, his face lit up like a jack-o’-lantern, when I felt the kick, breath knocked out of me, and I went down. A dark silhouette of a man, club in one hand, something shiny and metallic in the other, slashing across Smith’s face, the two of them struggling. I got back up, but the club caught me above the ear—a white flare of pain as I stumbled back, saw Smith swinging and punching and the club tumbling to the ground, but the man kept thrusting and jabbing, seconds seen in fragments like a stuttering film, Smith falling as I got back up, climbed onto the guy’s back, tried to choke him, take him down, hearing voices from far away, “Arrêt! Arrêt!” growing louder and a whistle shrieking and the man breaking loose and running.
“Luke…” Smith whispered my name.
I leaned down, one of the overhead pinspots illuminating us dramatically as if we were on a stage, got my hand under his head, heard him suck in a breath. “Hang on,” I said. “You’ve got a date with the most famous woman in the world, remember?”
Smith managed a smile, gripped my hand as the whistles and shouts grew louder and the shadows became real.
77
The police station of the seventh arrondissement had blinding fluorescent light. I squinted, my eyes burning. Touched an aching bruise above my ear, recalled the shriek of whistles, the shadows that morphed into uniforms, watching them load Smith into the back of an ambulance, riding in a police car, my head ringing the whole time.
I was shuttled into a white room, spotlights mixed with cold fluorescents, one of the spots trained on me.
The French cops were out of a hard-boiled detective novel. Two of them, one young and mean with bad skin that gave him the look of a reptile, the other middle-aged and rumpled, reminded me of Columbo, playing nice, but not really. Their questions had started out routine and repetitive, but I’d answered them a dozen times and was tired of it.
The Reptile leaned over me, asked again, “Pourquois étiez-vous dans le parc?”
I stared at him as if I hadn’t understood.
Columbo said, “Give the man some space,” and added a phony smile. I knew he was playing me. For the umpteenth time, I said Smith and I had been in the park taking a walk. I didn’t say anything about the Louvre, figured that was none of their business.
The Reptile said, “In la neige—the snow?”
I told him, “Yeah, I wanted to make a snowman,” and he grabbed me by the shoulders and held me firm. The air in the room went thin and charged.
Columbo told him to take it easy, sat down opposite me, lighted a cigarette, offered me one. I shook my head. “We were taking a walk,” I repeated. “Is that illegal in France, like ketchup? Why the hell aren’t you looking for the guy who attacked us instead of wasting your time and mine?”
“Relax,” Columbo said.
“I was just attacked by a knife-wielding, club-swinging thug, and you’re telling me to relax? That the best you can do?”
“Where were you going?” the Reptile asked again.
“How about home?” I said. “Unless you’re arresting me.”
The Reptile put his face in mine, so close I could smell the garlic on his breath, and grabbed me by the shoulders again. One of us might have thrown a punch—I know I was ready—if just then, the door hadn’t opened.
The inspector, fortysomething, cropped hennaed hair, gray suit tight across the bust, a badge pinned to her lapel: Danielle Cabenal, General Assembly, Lyon, France. She dismissed the cops with a cool nod, sat down, and placed her hands on the table. Her nails were short, perfectly filed, free of polish.
“You came all the way from Lyon?” I asked.
“It is a very quick flight,” she said, her English clipped.
“What time is it?” I’d lost track, had no idea what I’d done with my cell phone.
“Morning,” she said, nearly 10:00 a.m. “I am sorry.”
I told her I was okay, just a little bruised.
“I was referring to Analyst Smith.”
“What about him?”
“His condition is critical. I am afraid he is not expected to live.”
A rush of heat skittered through my body, followed by a chill. I stood up fast, blood rushing to my head, grabbed hold of the chair to steady myself. “That can’t be… He had some cuts and bruises but—”
“I am afraid it was much worse than that,” Cabenal said, her face sphinxlike. “Internal bleeding, blood loss—”
“But I was with him. He smiled, for Christ’s sake. He’s got to be okay.”
“According to the doctors, no. I am sorry,” she said again, but she didn’t sound or look sorry.
“Where is he, which hospital? I want to see him.”
“That is impossible. He is in critical care. In the unlikely event that he survives, there will be no communication between the two of you ever again.”
“I can’t even find out if he’s okay?”
Cabenal pressed her lips together as if words were piling up behind them that she did not want to let out. Then she did. “If Analyst Smith survives, he will be fired—he is already fired, his actions indefensible—and you will have no further contact with him. Do you understand?” She stared at me, waiting for an answer.
“I’ll make a deal. If you—”
“We are not making any deals, Mr. Perrone.”
“Just let me know if he’s okay, that’s all I want. Otherwise”—I met her gaze—“I’ll pursue it on my own, and I don’t see how you can stop me.”
Inspector Cabenal’s eyes narrowed. “I can stop you, Mr. Perrone, and I will. But fine, if he lives, I will let you know. But you will not be in touch with him again. That’s the deal. Are we clear?”
I gave her a barely discernible nod.
“All right then.” Cabenal folded her hands on the table again, all business. She told me they had been through Smith’s computer and notes. “I know you were helping him, a mistake to get a civilian involved—and that was the least of it. He had no authority to be doing any of this.”
“Doing what?” I arranged my face into a mask of innocence.
The inspector raised an eyebrow, the only part of her face that moved. “There is no need to be coy, Mr. Perrone. We know what he was after, that he was on his way to the Louvre Museum. Did he tell you he was authorized to do such a job?”
“No. In fact, he let me know he wasn’t, that he was acting on his own.”
“That is not the way INTERPOL works,” Cabenal snapped. She took a short breath, rearranged her features back into a cool mas
k, smoothed a hand over her tight-fitting jacket. “He would surely have been fired for that alone.”
“I don’t know anything about INTERPOL,” I said, “but I can tell you Smith is a good man, a dedicated man.”
“INTERPOL will take over the case now, working with the Paris police. That is the way it is done. We have a red notice out for the man who attacked you and Analyst Smith.”
Cabenal asked what I could tell her about him. I started to describe him, and she stopped me, disappeared, and returned with a forensic artist, the old-fashioned kind, one who worked with charcoal and a sketch pad. He asked Cabenal to leave us alone.
“I find it works better if I’m alone with a witness,” he said.
Cabenal hesitated, lips pursed, but she left.
I sat with the guy, an American named Nate Rodriguez, on loan to the Paris police for some big case he was not allowed to discuss. An intense though likable guy about my age, a New Yorker who made me miss home and also made me comfortable and got me talking. I gave the description, and Rodriguez stopped me several times to clarify—the shape of the man’s face—“round…no, square and broad”—the man’s nose—“flat, almost as if it had been squashed”—and his eyes—“deep set, pale, blue or gray, almost colorless.”
I watched the sketch artist use an eraser to remove most of the tone from the man’s eyes, the drawing taking shape. “You’re good at this,” I said.
“I’ve been doing it a while,” he said.
“His teeth,” I said, seeing the man’s sneering smile. “They were short and discolored.”
“You have a good visual memory,” Rodriguez said, his hand and charcoal moving on the paper while I added details as they came to me. After a while, he turned the pad around so I could have a look.
“Almost,” I said, directing him to expand the jaw, lower the brow, and make the mouth wider while keeping the lips thin. He erased and redrew according to my direction, the two of us in sync. After another fifteen, twenty minutes, he turned the pad around again.
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