Paris Ransom

by Charles Rosenberg

  “Who is Madame Riboud?”

  “She is an older woman who lives in the 16th arrondissement. She is formidable to help people learn French. Especially the Americans. She can fix your accent terrible.”

  “You think I have a terrible accent?”

  “I exaggerate. It is not so terrible, but so . . . American. You know?”

  “I have had people tell me my accent is good.”

  “They tried to be kind, I think.”

  “Alright, I will do this, but on one condition.”

  “Which condition?”

  “You will take lessons in ‘the English.’”

  “Okay. I will.”

  I decided to change the topic. “Where do you think Oscar got the very rare inscribed copy of Les Misérables that he showed us?”

  “I do not know. Perhaps you should ask this of him.”

  “I want to. When he is willing to talk about it. Something bad is going on.”

  “Why do you say this?”

  “Think about it. Oscar needed to hide that box here for a few hours and asked us not tell anyone it was here. And when that girl’s father was mentioned he blanched. Not to mention that someone tried to snatch the box from him in the street.”

  “Did he not promise to call you this morning to explain?”

  “Yes, he did, but it’s already ten o’clock and I haven’t heard from him.”

  “Why do you not worry only after today has reached its end and he has not called? He enjoys his Christmas Day, maybe with the other friends, and perhaps this thing that happened yesterday is only a simple robbery. Even in this part of Paris this thing happens.”

  Oscar did not call me back on Christmas Day. Nor, despite multiple calls, emails and texts, did he call me back on the following six days. It was enormously frustrating, and I began to fear that Oscar was dead—that maybe the people who had attacked him in front of our building had tried again to grab the book and killed him in the process.

  On December 30, I told Tess, “I’m going to call the police and see if they can help me find Oscar.”

  “It is useless to call the police because they will not help you,” she said.

  “Why not?”

  “This is Paris. At this moment the police interest themselves only in terrorists and hoodlums.”

  On the morning of the thirty-first, Tess left to run errands. As soon as she was out the door I called and texted and emailed Oscar once again, but still got no response. I picked up Tess’s landline phone and called the Commissariat—the police station—in the 5th arrondissement and explained my problem to them, but avoided the mention of the attempted theft of the box on Christmas Eve.

  After extracting from me the admission that Oscar wasn’t a relative, wasn’t my law partner, wasn’t the other kind of partner either, and had a wife in New York, the officer told me that I was being a mouche du coche—which even I knew meant ‘busybody’—and that, in France, privacy, even that of foreigners, was highly valued. He closed by saying “occupe-toi de tes fesses,” which, even though I’d never heard the phrase before, I understood had to mean “mind your own business.” He had also used the informal tu form of address, which was insulting since he didn’t know me and I wasn’t a child. When I looked up the idiom for occupe-toi de tes fesses later, I found it literally means “mind your own buttocks.”

  I sulked for an hour, berating myself for not having mentioned the attempted theft. Surely had I told them, they would have helped me. I tried to shove the police putdown out of my mind by reading a book. Just as I concluded that I wasn’t going to get any reading done, Tess returned and said, “I have now chosen a place for dinner tonight. It is the restaurant Aux 2 Oliviers near the Jardin du Luxembourg.” As I watched, she texted Oscar and Jenna with the suggestion that we meet there at nine.

  “Good choice, Tess,” I said. “I like that place. But you know, I’ve always wondered whether it’s named for Laurence Oliver and his brother or for two olive trees.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Two olive trees, sans doute. Why would they wish to name their restaurant for this English actor and his brother?”

  Two beeps sounded on my cell phone only seconds apart. They were texts back from Jenna and then—to my astonishment and annoyance—from Oscar, both saying they would see us there at nine that evening. I immediately texted Oscar: Where the hell have you been? Trying to reach you for a week. The formerly techno-phobic Oscar, who until two years ago had had neither computer, nor cell phone, nor fax machine, responded instantly: Telu@din.

  By the time nine o’clock rolled around, and we were all seated at a small table at Aux 2 Oliviers, I was brim full of questions for Oscar. But every time I tried to bring the conversation around to the book and where he’d been and why he hadn’t responded to me for a week, Oscar put me off, at one point looking around and saying in a low voice, “This place is too small and too full of listening ears. We will talk of it later.”

  Finally, as the dinner wound to a close—we had lingered over our espressos and shared a wonderful tarte aux poires—I couldn’t stand it any longer. “Oscar, if you won’t talk about it here, let’s go back to Tess’s apartment and talk about it there. I am very worried about you.”

  “Robert, we do need to talk, but I would rather take a walk and talk about it then. That way we will be sure not to be overheard. Who knows who might have bugged Tess’s place?”

  “My place is not been bugged, merci,” Tess said.

  Oscar’s mouth turned down into a frown. “There’s no way to be certain of that.”

  Jenna finally chimed in. “Why don’t we all go for a walk, then?”

  “You walk, but I will leave you to walk without me,” Tess said. “I will return to my apartment and its bug. You can pay the bill, Robert.”

  With that, she got up abruptly and left. That didn’t surprise me much. When Tess was miffed at something, she sometimes just departed. I watched her at the front, talking to the maître d’, clearly asking him to call her a cab, which arrived only minutes later as I arranged to pay the tab.

  It was almost midnight as Jenna, Oscar and I headed for the front door. We were clearly shutting the place down, as most of the other diners had long ago departed, heading home or to their celebrations. The owner was standing by the door, ready to wish us a bonne année. The three of us stepped out into a steady drizzle. Oscar was the only one of the three of us who had had the good sense to bring an umbrella, which he popped open, then offered to Jenna.

  “No thanks. I’ve got this beret on and this fur coat, so I’ll be okay unless it turns into a downpour.”

  I kind of expected he’d offer it to me next, but he didn’t.

  The restaurant was across from the French Senate building, a stark white, hulking edifice on the edge of the Jardin. We turned left out of the restaurant and then quickly left again, heading down into the narrow streets near the Odéon theater.

  “Well, Oscar, is this obscure enough a place that you’re confident there are no bugs?” I asked.

  He paused and looked around. “Yes.”

  “Okay then, what is going on with you?”

  “I have had the feeling the last few weeks that I am being followed, but I’ve never been able to catch anyone doing it. It’s just that every once in a while I’ll be out walking and the hair on the back of my neck will stand up.”

  “Are these worries why you didn’t return my messages, Oscar?”

  “Yes. I think my phone may be bugged. I think someone is after my inscribed copy of Les Misérables.”

  “Have you carried it with you the whole time?” I asked. “Why not put it in a safe place, like a vault?”

  “I do at night. But I have to carry it with me. I’m trying to get an even better price for the book than I’ve already been offered, and I have to show it to the collectors and dealers so they can se
e it for themselves. And have their doubts about its authenticity put to rest.”

  “Have you been in Paris the whole time since we last saw you?”

  “No, I’ve been traveling. Paris is not the only place with antiquarian book dealers and collectors. And I’ve been to places where wealthy foreign collectors vacation in the winter. The Côte d’Azur and the ski resorts.”

  “Where did you get the book?”

  “At a place in the South of France that had a large collection of old books, some dating back almost two hundred years. I bought Les Misérables and a couple of other books.”

  Jenna, who had been silent, broke in. “Did the seller know about the Hugo inscription on Les Misérables?”

  “Oh yes. He is very open about the fact that many people think the inscription and the drawing are forgeries.”

  “But you bought it anyway.”

  “Yes. This book is not unknown to people who collect forgeries, and there are such people. But I have done the research and found the authenticator for this book. And so I paid the man a slightly higher price than he thinks it’s worth, but not so high a price as to indicate its true value or make anyone think it has the huge value I believe it does.”

  “So, do you think it was ethical to buy it ‘for a slightly higher price’ without telling him about the authentication you found?” Jenna asked.

  “He could have done the same research I did. In my view, having information someone else doesn’t have doesn’t mean the purchase is fraudulent unless they lacked the same opportunity you had to find out the truth. And anyway . . .”

  The rest of Oscar’s answer was drowned out by the bang of private firecrackers being set off just down the block from us. Then, suddenly, a bright white fire-cracker dropped directly in front of us with a loud pop, and I heard teenage laughter from one of the windows above. It was starting to rain more heavily, and I suggested we look for an open café, if there was one open this late on New Year’s Eve, where we could get out of the rain and away from the firecrackers.

  Just then another one, red this time, exploded in front of us.

  “Shit,” I said. “We’re gonna get hurt if we don’t get out of here.”

  A few seconds later, I heard the sound of car tires rolling on wet pavement, and a large black Mercedes pulled up alongside us and stopped. Both back doors flew open and two men, not tall but big, and wearing masks, grabbed Oscar and pushed him into the back seat. It was over in a few seconds.

  The car accelerated away. Jenna grabbed her cell phone and snapped two quick pictures of the departing car. The flash from the camera illuminated the night, competing with the flare of a third firecracker, this one blue, that fell in the middle of the street.

  CHAPTER 5

  Jenna managed to snap one more picture as the car careened around the corner and sped out of sight. She lowered the phone and we both stood there for a second or two, stunned.

  “I’ll call the police,” I said.

  “Maybe there’s a cop near here.”

  We both swiveled our heads, looking. There was no one—no cops, no other pedestrians—and it was eerily quiet. The firecrackers had, at least for the moment, stopped raining down on us. I looked up and saw no lights in the windows above us on either side of the street.

  “Do you know the number, Robert?”

  “I do.” I punched in 112, which is the pan-European all-purpose emergency number. It rang for at least two minutes before it was finally picked up.

  “Allo,” the voice said, “s’il vous plaît dites-moi votre nom et votre problème.”

  I knew that 112 operators are trained to speak several languages or to pass you off to someone who spoke your language. But since the matter was urgent, I thought it would be fastest to answer in French so I’d be sure to be understood. First, as requested, I stated my name. After that I said clearly and simply that my friend had been just been kidnappé off the street and shoved into a car. The operator said she was so sorry, but she could understand neither my name nor what I had just said, and could I please repeat. I said it all again, slowly.

  Then she said, “You are an American, n’est-ce pas?”

  “Yes.”

  “It is okay, I speak English. What is your name and what is the problem?”

  “I’m Robert Tarza, and my friend Oscar Quesana has just been kidnapped while walking down the street—shoved into the back of a car by two men.”

  She asked where I was and then for more details—a description of the car, of Oscar and of the men who grabbed him. She also asked whether anyone was with me. When I had finished, she said, “Stay where you are, and if there are any witnesses, please ask them to stay also. I will send the police to you soon. But it is Saint-Sylvestre. I am sorry, I do not know this phrase in English.”

  “New Year’s Eve.”

  “Yes, and so the police, they are very busy with the voyous everywhere. They will be with you as soon as possible, but this may not be so soon. Again, do not leave, and please leave your phone not in use. I may have need to telephone you.”

  Jenna had been leaning against me—I could feel her shivering—straining to hear. “I couldn’t make all of that out. What’d she say?”

  “She said the police will be here soon, but because it’s New Year’s Eve, they are busy with the hoodlums. I assume she meant the revelers are busy burning cars, which is a New Year’s Eve French tradition.”

  “Around here?”

  “No, mostly in the poorer areas in the suburbs, but I guess a lot of police are tied up out there.”

  “Jeez.”

  “Jenna, call Tess and tell her what’s happened. The 112 operator asked me to keep my phone open.”

  After a moment, she said, “There’s no answer on her cell. It rang into voice mail. I left a message.”

  “Try the home phone.”

  I could hear the number ringing on Jenna’s phone.

  “No answer there, either, and no voice mail pickup.” Jenna glanced at her watch. “Did you note the time it happened?”

  “Not exactly. I’d guess we’ve been here two or three minutes.”

  “We need to do something, Robert. We can’t just stand here doing nothing.”

  “What do you suggest?”

  “Let’s try to call him.”

  I watched her dial, tap the button for speakerphone, and we listened together. It rang five times and then went to voice mail, where Oscar’s abrupt message said, as it always did, “Leave a message.”

  We looked at one another, and we both clearly had the same thought: what message do you leave for someone who’s been kidnapped?

  I spoke first, “Oscar, it’s Robert and Jenna. Call us and tell us what’s going on. Please.” Then she ended the call.

  “I know it sounds crazy,” I said, “but why don’t you email him, too?”

  “Will do.”

  I watched her tap in a message.

  “What did you say?”

  “I just asked him to please get in touch.”

  “Any response?”

  “It’s weird.”

  “What?”

  “It bounced back. It says ‘Temporarily Out of Office.’”

  “Do you think he did that, or the kidnappers?”

  “I have no idea.”

  After Jenna put her phone back in her pocket, she looked at me and said, “What if they come back?”

  “Why would they come back?”

  “To kill us?”

  “I don’t think kidnappers come back.”

  “Based on what, your experience with kidnappings?”

  “No. But I’m staying. You can do whatever you want.”

  She chose to stay, so we just stood there in the drizzle, the water running down our noses, waiting for the police. As is typical of many Paris streets, there was now
here nearby to shelter ourselves—no indented doorways or overhangs, just blank walls, gates and shops closed tight with metal shutters. We could have moved down the block where there was an indented nook of sorts, but without speaking we clearly both knew we shouldn’t abandon the exact place where the car had pulled to the curb.

  CHAPTER 6

  It took the police almost fifteen minutes to get there. When they finally did come, we heard them before we saw them—the distinctive whoop, whoop of a Parisian police siren, followed seconds later by a white Peugeot, the word POLICE emblazoned within a blue side-stripe, a blue light bar flashing on top. It screeched to a stop in front of us, and two officers jumped out. A second car followed close behind and seemed almost to exhale two more cops.

  Suddenly, the almost pitch black of the late night was replaced by four police officers standing amidst blinding blue lights, three with their guns drawn.

  The officer who seemed in charge—and was gunless—approached us, while the other three stood back.

  “What is going on?” he asked in French.

  I told him, and he, at least, seemed to understand my French. When I’d finished telling him what had happened, I asked him if he had any parapluies—umbrellas—and he produced two from somewhere. By then, a paddy wagon, what the French call colloquially, for some reason unknown to me, a panier à salade (literally, a salad shaker), had also arrived.

  The cops then spoke briefly among themselves, and the leader turned back to me and asked, “Do you have any idea why this man was picked up?”

  “He wasn’t picked up, he was kidnapped.”

  “Yes, yes. I understand your interpretation of what happened. But I ask again if you know why.”

  “All I know is that he had recently purchased a very rare antiquarian book and he feared that someone was after him for it.”

  “Rare books, Monsieur, are sometimes used to launder money. Was your friend involved in that?”

  It took me a second to understand what he had asked me, because the French phrase for money laundering—le blanchiment d’argent—literally the cleaning of money, wasn’t in my daily vocabulary, so I needed to translate it.