Paris Ransom

by Charles Rosenberg

“What’s ‘brioche’?”

  “You really don’t know?” she asked.

  “No, should I?”

  “I would have thought that, given your education . . . well, never mind. It’s a little sweet bun, made with eggs and butter. Kind of like a dry, sweet muffin, although there’s not anything truly like it in the US. Next time you’re in a patisserie here, ask for one.”

  “Okay, I will. And now I see why you think it’s funny. It would be like someone in America having the last name Pie.”

  “Exactly.”

  “But it gets better,” Lars said, smiling broadly.

  “I don’t think it’s all that funny, Lars.”

  “I do. Tell her! Come on.”

  “Okay, he is originally from Camembert.”

  Lars had doubled over with laughter and managed to wheeze out, “Brioche from Camembert! Can you imagine any worse combination?”

  He was laughing so hard that other people in the restaurant were staring at us. I didn’t think it was all that funny, but I tried to laugh, too. I guess it was all the wine he had drunk.

  “I suppose,” I said, “it would be like having the last name Pie and being from Apple Valley, which is a town near LA.”

  Eventually, in order to avoid seeming too interested in the brioche story, I turned the talk back to diplomatic immunity and similar topics. At about ten o’clock, I thanked them. We exchanged business cards—I was careful to give them only my UCLA email address—and promised to meet again sometime, somewhere. They staggered out, and I watched them go.

  I had gotten what I wanted. Oscar’s real name and where he was from.

  CHAPTER 16

  I got up very early in the morning, went to a patisserie around the corner and ordered a brioche. I sat on a nearby park bench and ate it. I didn’t like it much. Unlike Robert, who enjoys foreign cuisine, I’m more of a down-home girl when it comes to food.

  While I ate, I tried to figure out whether Oscar’s real name could help me find the hotel where he had been staying. Since the police hadn’t been able to find him at any hotel under the name Oscar Quesana, was it possible he had reserved a room under his original name, Oscar Brioche?

  I went to an Internet café—my searches on the Net would be harder for the general to spy on there than if I used the Wi-Fi in the apartment. After a little work, I rejected my first hypothesis: that Oscar had changed his name legally in the United States but not bothered to tell the French government, just kept his old name on his passport and used it to register at a hotel. That wouldn’t work because the name on his US green card had to match the name on his French passport. Nor could he have used his old French identity card to register, because, according to what I read, those had to be updated regularly and the format had been revised.

  Then it hit me: Perhaps he had simply taken his old French passport—from before he changed his name—and hired a forger to update the picture, issue date and expiration date. The original name and other pieces of information on the passport would already have been correct. How hard would that have been for Oscar to accomplish? And how useful—he would have been able to stay in a French hotel without using the name Oscar Quesana.

  My first Internet search on the issue turned up three ads from people offering to sell me entirely new fake French passports. If those were available, it couldn’t have taken much for some forger to update the issue date on a real French passport instead.

  And here was the clincher: I discovered that a French person who registers at a hotel needs to show either a current French identity card or a current passport. Oscar wouldn’t have had a current French identity card with his original last name on it. But if he got a forger to update his old passport by adding a current issue date to it, he could have registered at a hotel as Oscar Brioche. That way, anyone looking for him as Oscar Quesana would fail to find him.

  I was immediately suspicious of my own conclusion, though. Couldn’t the police, even assuming they didn’t know about Oscar’s name change, have found him just by looking for anyone registered at a Paris hotel who used the first name Oscar? It wasn’t that common a name in France. Could Oscar have updated the passport with a new first name, too? It seemed logical.

  Next I looked at the genealogical records for Orne, the department—much like a county in the United States—in which the town of Camembert is located. After not too much work, I found that a Georges Brioche had lived in Orne, born there in 1920 and died there in 2005, age eighty-five. His wife, Marie Dupont Brioche, had been born there in 1922 and died in 2007 in Paris, also age eighty-five. In a different database, I found that they had had one child, born in 1950, but I couldn’t immediately find a name or gender. If that child was Oscar, it fit because Oscar was, according to Robert, now sixty-five.

  But, brilliant as my detective work and suppositions were, they didn’t really help me much, because I couldn’t go around and ask every hotel in Paris if they had a Monsieur Brioche registered. The police could, of course, but I wanted to get there first.

  I decided to go and kick the problem around with Robert. He might be becoming too cautious in his old age, but he still had a first-rate mind. I decided not to call, but just to show up.

  When I got to Tess and Robert’s place, the concierge did not appear to speak English—he indicated by sign language that he needed to call up for permission to let me in. Just then, however, a black town car pulled up in front—he appeared to spot it on a little video screen he had in his glass cubicle—and he went to welcome some people and usher them through the double glass doors into the elevator lobby. He finally turned back to me, called up to the apartment and let me go up.

  Robert gave me a hug, and said, “Welcome. But why didn’t you just call me on your cell and let me know that you were coming?”

  “I’m trying to avoid using either of my cell phones, including the throw-away one, as much as possible. I’m paranoid that the general not only reads my texts, but may listen in, too.”

  “I guess I must share your view, Jenna, or I wouldn’t have bought that throw-away to call the embassy. Anyway, what can I do for you?”

  “I wanted to let you know that I learned Oscar’s real name.”

  “Tell me. I’m all ears.”

  “First you have to promise me you won’t tell the police.”

  “Why shouldn’t we? It’s a clue they can use to find Oscar.”

  “I’m not persuaded that they’re really trying to find him,” I said. “But even if they are, if they get the name they’ll find his hotel and get there before me.”

  “Okay, I promise, Jenna. Now tell me.”

  “His name is Oscar Brioche.”

  “Brioche? Really?”

  “Yes.”

  “That name will seem funny here in France. A lot of people will end up laughing at it.”

  “It’s even funnier than that,” I said. “His family is from Camembert.”

  “Oh my God. That will cause people to double over with laughter.”

  Just then Tess walked in from somewhere in the back of the apartment.

  “Bonjour, Jenna. Ça va?”

  After almost ten days in France, I had finally learned that that meant, “How’s it going?” I responded, as best I could, that it was going well, “Ça va bien.”

  “You will learn French well one day,” she said, smiling. “I will now change to English for you.” She looked at Robert and added, “and for him,” and laughed.

  Robert, I noticed, did not laugh.

  “Well, Jenna has just come to tell us that she has figured out that Oscar is French by origin,” Robert said.

  “Vraiment? Truly? This hits me like a thunderbolt.”

  “Not only that, but his real name is Oscar Brioche, and he is originally from Camembert.”

  Tess began to laugh uncontrollably. After her laughter had subsided, she loo
ked at me and asked, “How did you learn this?”

  “I got some people from the US embassy drunk on great wine.”

  “That is very clever.”

  “Yes, but I am really no closer to knowing which hotel he was staying at.”

  “Why do you not tell the police and let them use that name to check?”

  “Because arriving at his hotel before the police get there will permit me to look things over before they mess up the scene. And I hope you will not tell them.”

  “I will keep your secret. Would you like a piece of baguette? I have just bought some fresh ones this morning and I think they remain good.”

  “Yes, thank you.”

  We all sat down at the kitchen table, and I was soon biting into bread and jam, and sipping tea. After a while, I hit Robert and Tess with the idea I’d had while waiting for the concierge to greet the guests who had arrived by cab. “I noticed that the concierge has a camera with which he can watch the outside of the building.”

  “Yes,” Tess said. “We have installed it maybe two years now.”

  “Does it record on tape or disk?”

  “I do not know. Why?”

  “Christmas Eve was not much more than a week ago. If it records and it has not been erased, there may be a recording of Oscar arriving. If so, maybe we can identify by number the cab that brought him here and ask the cab driver where he picked him up. I think they keep a log of that. Maybe the pickup was at his hotel.”

  “This is a brilliant idea, Jenna,” Tess said. “Robert, why do you not go down and demand of Monsieur Martin if this exists?”

  Robert didn’t look very happy at the idea. “Tess, Pierre and I are not on the best of terms. I think you should ask him.”

  “I will do so, but if we are to be married you must treat him with more of respect so he will do the same thing for you. And to show that respect, you should call him by his last name, Martin. You always call him Pierre.”

  “What? You must be kidding about my not treating him with respect. And he is welcome to call me by my first name. I get tired of all this French formality shit.”

  “It is not shit! And he will not call you by your first name even if you ask him to. But this does not matter now. I will go.” And she was out the door, not even bothering to close it behind her.

  She was back only a few minutes later. “Hélas, Jenna, Monsieur Martin says it does register the image, but he does not turn on the feature that does this.”

  “Why not?”

  “He says that if someone arrives, he knows they are arrived, and he does not need to look at it later to see that they did.”

  “That’s ridiculous.”

  “Jenna, he is not Parisian. He is from Ariège. So he is not so sophisticated.”

  I looked at Robert. “Ariège?”

  “It’s like saying he’s from Fresno.”

  “Oh.”

  Tess was continuing with the excuses. “And he has been sick with crise de foie.”

  Robert was smirking. “He’s an idiot and you should fire Monsieur Martin,” he said. “And, by the way, crise de foie means ‘liver problem,’ and it means nothing at all except that the French are obsessed with their livers.”

  I decided that we needed to move on. The idea had been a bust and I had no time to get involved in a dispute between the two of them. I wanted to talk to Robert some more, but not in Tess’s apartment. I didn’t think it was likely bugged, but I couldn’t be sure.

  “Would you guys like to go for a walk in the park?” I asked. “I need the exercise.”

  “I would,” Robert said.

  “I do not wish to do this,” Tess said. “But before you go, there is something I must discuss with you both.”

  “What?” I asked.

  “Please come into my study.”

  CHAPTER 17

  We walked back to Tess’s study, and she gestured for us to sit in the two comfortable chairs. After we were seated, she took a tiny key from a desk drawer, crouched down and opened a small half-height closet. It was lined with bookshelves. She reached in and pulled out a large book with the same kind of transparent plastic cover that Oscar had used to protect his books.

  “Here,” she said, rising and handing it to me. “This is the first volume of Les Misérables, like the one Oscar showed you on Christmas Eve, except it has no inscription. It is plain.”

  Robert opened it to the title page. “It appears to be a first edition in English, also the American printing.”

  “Yes, it is.”

  Robert handed it to me and asked, “Do you have the other four volumes, too?”

  “Yes, but that is not all that I have.” She crouched down again and extracted another volume and handed it to Robert, who opened it to the title page. “Ah, this is a copy in English of The Hunchback of Notre-Dame. Is it also a first edition?”

  “Yes. And I also have two more famous Victor Hugo novels, all first editions in English. You can look if you wish.”

  Robert was still paging through The Hunchback of Notre-Dame. Finally, he passed it to me, and asked of Tess, “Why does this matter?”

  “It matters because I know you want to find Oscar’s book. I think that I can help this by the people I know in these special stores who know editions in English of Monsieur Hugo.”

  “You already connected me up to that antiquarian book dealer, Monsieur Deutsch.”

  “Yes, but as you have learned, he does not know much the English Hugo editions. I can give you the names of people who do.”

  “Why will that help?” he asked.

  “A book like this one Oscar showed to us does not appear by magic. Someone else knows about it.”

  Robert got up and began to pace the room. “Tess, let me just say that I do not like it when you keep things from me. Like you also kept from me that you are a spy.”

  “I am not a spy.”

  “And now you have kept the fact that you own a first edition of Les Misérables from me, too. Is there anything else?”

  “No.” She paused. “Eh bien, yes.”

  “What?”

  “The general, he is also a collector of ancient books.”

  I broke into the conversation. “Why is that important, Tess?”

  “Because, Jenna, I have fear that if this book of Oscar’s is found by the general, he will find a way to guard it for himself.”

  “Are you also a collector?” I asked. “Or do you just have these four novels?”

  “I have just these four.”

  “Then why do you know all these book dealers?” I asked.

  “Once upon a time I thought of selling these books. When I was young and poor. But at the final I was not able to do it.”

  “What I don’t understand is why you didn’t simply tell me, when this whole thing came up, that you also owned a first edition of Les Misérables in English,” Robert said. “I mean, what is the big deal?”

  “You would ask me where I got it, n’est-ce pas?”

  “Yes, I would. So let me ask. Where did you get it?”

  “There is a story with these, you see. And it is a story that embarrasses me.”

  “You stole them?”

  “Ah, non. Certainly not. Do you wish me to tell you the story?”

  Robert and I both said yes at the same time. My yes, though, was primarily to stop Robert and Tess from bickering about something that didn’t seem all that important. So she had a copy of Les Misérables and had not told him about it? So what?

  “Okay, I will tell you,” Tess said. “But to begin, Robert, please take the first volume of Les Misérables and read the first line aloud.”

  Robert took the book back from me, opened it and read, “An hour before sunset, on the evening of a day in the beginning of October 1815, a man traveling afoot entered the little town o
f D———.”

  “Exactement,” she said.

  “Huh? Exactly what?”

  “Do you not know what ‘D’ is for?”

  “No, I don’t. Should I?”

  “Everyone in France knows, but I forget, you are not French. Victor Hugo meant it to be the city of Digne. It is a small town in the mountains, about three hours north from Nice if you drive your car. Now it is named Digne-les-Bains because it has hot pools. And it has many tourists.”

  “Tess, just tell us the effing story,” Robert said.

  “I will if you will please be quiet. During the Great War, in 1914, when the Boches—I am sorry, that is what my grandmother called them—I mean the Germans, were only forty kilometers from Paris and you could almost hear the great guns, the family of my great-grandmother became worried, and they sent their only daughter, Dauphine, to Digne, where they had friends. They thought it was very far from trouble. My great-grandmother, she had only seventeen years then.”

  “So she became Dauphine from Digne,” Robert said, laughing.

  “This rhyme is not funny, Robert.”

  “Ok,” he continued, “but I’m guessing Dauphine in Digne ran into some kind of trouble that didn’t involve the Germans.”

  “This is true. She had a liaison with a priest in Digne.”

  “An affair?”

  “Yes. And he was not just a village priest, but a monseigneur, a man sophisticated and who traveled the world. And who was a collector.”

  There was suddenly a silence in the room. Robert was looking at his hands and saying nothing, and Tess appeared to be waiting for someone else to pick up the questioning.

  “What did the priest collect?” I asked.

  “He collected first editions of Victor Hugo’s novels. In many languages. They were not so rare one hundred years ago as today.”

  “And why did the priest collect them?”

  “Because he was from Digne, and Les Misérables, like I just showed, commences in Digne.”

  “Did your grandmother stay there?” I asked.

  “No, no,” she said. “Certainly not. This liaison was discovered in Digne. It was a grand scandale. She was sent back to Paris on the next train. But before she left, she took first editions of four Victor Hugo novels and put them in her trunk.”