Apart from Quito, in a fashion. Poincaré watched the president of the Indigenous Liberation Front, this once-modest herder turned economist, ascend a portable platform erected as a kind of forward battlement. The moment he stepped to the microphone, one eye cocked on the cameras, Poincaré understood: Quito would use the technology of the West against itself, just as he had appropriated the Internet to assemble a virtual nation from across the globe. He spoke simply and briefly. He was addressing the world.
My name is Eduardo Quito. I am the son, the grandson, and the great-grandson of herders extending back before the Spanish invasion. Originally, my people were farmers. The ones that Spanish axes and pikes did not kill, measles infected and killed. My fathers and mothers fled to the mountains, but the soldiers pursued us. We suffered and died. Hundreds of us live now, where once there were hundreds of thousands. I struggle to teach my young ones the old ways, but I weep because I know so few of them myself. My name is Eduardo Quito.
He reached into a large earthenware bowl and produced what looked to be a pebble, the size one shakes from a shoe. He held the pea-stone aloft for all to see, turned, and heaved it over the barricades at the police line. It clinked off the riot shield of an officer who could not have been more than a year out of the academy. Quito turned and helped an old woman to the stage. She was dressed in leather leggings and a leather parka lined with white fur that fluttered in an updraft off the river. "Mother," he said. "Speak." She did. And so did man after woman after man. A reindeer herder from Lapland; a bushman from the Kalahari; a Lakota Sioux; a Kaiapo shaman from the Amazon. Slowly and without direction, hundreds of men and women formed a queue that snaked through the rally grounds to the makeshift stage. Each, in turn, told a story of a world undone, then held a pebble to the crowd and hurled it at the police. Many wept; now and again, someone raised a keening cry. All the while, drummers kept their rhythm.
Poincaré's cell phone rang. The number showed Lyon, and he ignored it. The phone rang again and he turned it off. By 3 PM, he sensed agitation among the police, who endured one pebble after the next clinking off their riot shields. Mounted security had begun to restrain skittish horses. Not only had Quito outmaneuvered the Canadians, he was baiting them. The vigil was now being broadcast to the world, bounced off satellites and doubtless across the park to the presidents and prime ministers who sat, so well guarded, in the Chateau.
Evening fell. Organizers had set up food stations, but local vendors from within and without the walls of Old Québec had begun arriving with sandwiches and encouragement, shouting Viva la manifestation! A crowd of onlookers swelled and began jeering the police. Poincaré had not anticipated such a long rally, but Quito had: cooks began dispensing soup and coffee; chairs were being set out for the elders; marshals with signs kept orderly queues. One speaker followed the next when Poincaré noted a short man with a broad face and chocolate skin stepping to the microphone. The gesture is what caught Poincaré's eye. Before speaking, the man raised his arms. "Brothers and Sisters!" he cried:
"I am of the Pitjantjatjara people from the Western Desert of the land invaders call Australia. When I was six, agents of the occupying government stole me and a whole generation from our homes to be raised in mission settlements. To civilize us. To make us serve them. I ran at the age eight, and they caught me and beat me. I ran two years later. I ran for good at the age of twelve to drink whiskey and wander. The old ways are lost. The new ways are empty. My parents died not knowing what became of their children. I am a Pitjantjatjara from the Western Desert of the land invaders call Australia."
The man stepped from the microphone, opened a penknife, held his free hand aloft, and ran the blade across his palm. Blood flowed, and into the blood he ground a pebble. Don't do this, thought Poincaré. You're winning. Don't. But the man turned and whipped the pebble across the barricade, letting the penknife fall harmlessly to the platform. The stone clinked off a riot shield and left a red dot. It was in a strange quarter-time that Poincaré observed the stunned silence that followed. He watched as if in slow motion an earthquake opened a fissure at his feet. The equilibrium that had held all day cracked. He heard a whistle, and the melee was on.
ILF delegates rushed the barricades, throwing anything they could find at the police, who responded with tear gas and rubber bullets. Men and women fell, putting hands to bloody heads, screaming. A cookstove overturned and a grease fire started. Delegates who had pressed forward on the attack began stampeding to Poincaré's right, separating him from Ludovici. The police broke through the barricade, advancing with riot clubs. To his left and behind, rows of shops cut off all escape, and Poincaré was caught in a pincer. The truncheons fell first across the drummers, who held their positions and suffered the blows as if they were standard-bearers in battle. They dropped in place. Tear gas boiled from canisters. Some delegates, on their knees with arms raised, prayed; others wrapped shirts around their faces and threw cobblestones. The cameras caught it all.
A policeman bludgeoned a man standing to Poincaré's left, then turned and raised his club. As Poincaré crouched to shield himself, he heard a jolt—the sound of a strong electric current as the policeman fell, breathing but twitching. Then a gong went off in his head and his body went limp. But before losing consciousness, he felt a pair of strong hands lifting beneath his arms and carrying him off.
HOW MANY hours later he was not sure, but Poincaré woke to bright lights in a room with sofas, a coffee table, and a wet bar. "Paolo?" He blinked and put a hand to his throbbing forehead. "How did you—" Ludovici was nowhere to be seen. When Poincaré attempted to stand, a hand at his shoulder restrained him.
"You took a nasty blow," said a familiar voice. "Lucky for you our people were in place. Now you know what life is like on our side of the barricades!"
"Quito?"
"At your service, Inspector." He stepped into Poincaré's field view, joined by a man who looked a good deal like him, though younger and even more powerfully built. "You have my assistant Juan to thank for your . . . how do you people say it? Your extraction."
Poincaré sat up and realized he was well clear of the riot, in the calm of a hotel suite. Quito began pacing before him on a carpet. "Believe it or not, Inspector, I did not want violence. We were gaining the world's sympathy. I felt it!"
Poincaré agreed. "It was brilliant theater. But as for not expecting a riot—every moment of that rally was planned. I suppose you put the Aborigine up there to incite the crowd?"
"That's an offensive word."
"The man who cut himself. Did you stage that, too?"
Quito stopped his pacing. "What can I say? I create sculpture gardens that people inhabit. I'm an artist, Inspector, and these actions are my art. You saw how these events bring out passions. I didn't put him up to it. I wish he hadn't cut himself—but then, what did he do wrong? It was only a pebble, no different than the rest. I assure you that spilt blood, in itself, is not the problem. The problem is that for 500 years it's been our blood, never yours." "For what it's worth, you won my sympathy out there." "It's too late for that," said Quito, who resumed his pacing. "I told you in Amsterdam: we will no longer wait quietly for others to rescue us."
"You'll be crushed."
"We are already crushed."
Poincaré felt a bandage on his forehead. "What happened?"
"What happened is that one of Canada's finest knocked you across the head with a truncheon. I'd been watching for you in the crowd since your assistant told me you were coming. I must say you weren't hard to miss with your pale skin and suit!" Quito laughed. "When my security hurried me from the trouble, I had Juan go back and bring you to a car—but he was a bit late. At the moment, you're outside the city in a secure location.
"I took the liberty of having my physician sew you up while you were unconscious. Not your first battle scars, I think!" Again, Poincaré ran fingers along the bandage and, indeed, felt a ridge of stitches. Quito seemed to read his mind. "Consider it a memento, Inspector.
Something to remember me by every time you pass a mirror. And don't worry. We Indigenes believe in germ theory. My physician used sterile needles and antiseptics and left these for you—" He fished in his pocket for a pill bottle. "A few days worth of Bactrim, I believe, just to make certain no nasty bugs invaded your system."
"Your physician?"
"Don't look so surprised. The potentates in the Chateau have theirs. As I get older, my wife insists I travel with one. What did you expect from a poor Andean herder—a poultice of chewed tobacco? Ha!"
"What happened to my partner?"
"The young man was arrested with everyone else. But the police released people this evening before ever charging them—under orders from a magistrate who watched the event on television. She said she was moved to tears. Mr. Ludovici is likely back at your hotel, worrying about you."
Poincaré tried to stand. "Should he be?"
"You dishonor me. Juan will drive you to the hotel when we're done here. You know, I liked you from the first time we met. It's our tenaz—our bull-doggedness. You're still here, on your case, even after all your sorrow. I was stricken to learn of your family's misfortune and the death of your granddaughter. Who would do such a thing—that man I overheard you talking about in Amsterdam?"
Poincaré stared at him.
"Bad news travels, I'm afraid."
"I came on business, Professor."
"I'm sure you did. But I've told you everything I know about Fenster's murder. You have new questions for me, perhaps. It would be a shame to have come all this way and taken seven stitches for nothing." Quito nodded to his assistant, who stepped into an adjacent room and closed the door. "Inspector, what can I do for you?"
Poincaré pushed himself to his feet and walked unsteadily to a table. He set out three photographs of Dana Chambi.
Quito reached immediately for one. "Dana!"
"So you know her?"
"Of course. The ILF sponsored her studies at Harvard. She could never have afforded the airfare to Boston, let alone tuition. She'd already been accepted into the doctoral program, but the university had no money to offer. So she applied for an ILF scholarship and we—the committee responsible for these things—reviewed her application and sponsored her. A terrifically bright woman, but a bit erratic recently."
Poincaré lowered himself into a chair. "She just happened to work for Fenster."
"Why not? She found him, then found me. There were no hard feelings between James and me when our collaboration ended."
"You're telling me that of all the mathematicians in the world for Dana Chambi to study with, she found James Fenster—who just happened to have collaborated with you? Did Fenster know of the connection?"
"I never asked. Should I have?"
"You're calling it a coincidence?"
"Purely."
"In what way had she been erratic, Professor?"
"She would file reports, updating us on her progress. When we heard nothing last May, after the spring term, and June passed, we tried contacting her. Nothing. Now we're worried and have been looking. She's left Harvard, you know."
"Yes, I know."
"She's one of us, Inspector. I want to help her find a new position so she can complete her studies. We Indigenes need all our Dana Chambis if we're to improve our lives. She thought she was studying disease prevention, but I've been grooming her for a leadership position in the ILF. I won't live forever."
Poincaré's neck was stiff and he wanted a drink. But not here.
"So you must have been impressed with Dana. Everyone is. She could not possibly be connected to Fenster's murder. You don't honestly believe this?"
"I don't believe anything just yet," said Poincaré. Which was true. On the one hand, she had been in Paris and Amsterdam. On the other, by all accounts—Roy's, Bell's, Quito's, and even his own based on a ten-minute interview—she was no killer. "Did you see Ms. Chambi in Amsterdam?" he asked. "She was there on the days leading up to the bombing."
Quito looked genuinely surprised by the news. "Impossible," he said. "She would have known about the Amsterdam action against the WTO. She would have found me. I was not exactly hiding. This is hard to believe."
"I have hotel records and an authenticated signature. Believe it."
"Assisting Fenster?"
"Or not."
"She had no reason to harm him."
"Then who set that bomb?"
Quito walked to the window and lifted a curtain. "We went through this. There's nothing I can add, except to remind you that proximity does not make a murderer of me—or her. Dana could not have done this."
Poincaré had to turn his entire body to see Quito. "She was in Amsterdam. I saw her once after that, in Cambridge. Now she's gone and does not, apparently, wish to be found by me, you, or anyone."
Quito crossed the room and held out his hand. "Let's make a pact, you and I. If I find Dana, I'll ring you up. If you find her, you can return the favor. Good evening . . . and take care."
"But another question," said Poincaré.
"I don't think so, Inspector. Go rest. You are looking very, very tired."
CHAPTER 28
"I checked every hospital," said Ludovici when Poincaré entered the hotel lobby at 2 AM. "I called walk-in clinics. I called the morgue. Christ, Henri, you don't look much better than a corpse."
Poincaré explained what he could remember, which left him unable to account for roughly two hours. The policeman with the truncheon had gone down, tasered. Someone else had clubbed him—possibly Quito's own man. But there was no reconstructing that now, and in either case the pounding in his head made speculation pointless. He had been clubbed, and he felt unsteady and nauseated. "I don't believe Quito," he said. "He's not telling what he knows about Chambi."
Ludovici rolled his eyes. "Don't start with this again." An ugly bruise colored his cheekbone, and he walked with a limp.
"Paolo, I've got a week to do this my way. See you in Lyon." Poincaré started for the elevator.
"Alright. Fine. How about we don't talk shop and both take something to kill the pain. You know that I actually knocked one cop cold. He didn't give a fuck when I flashed a badge in his face. The man was a lunatic once he crossed the barricades. What kind of training do they give their people out here?" Ludovici pointed to an alcove: "I ordered two glasses and a bottle, figuring you'd show up sooner or later. Come on, you can tell me about all the other riots you've been in, and I can tell you about the suit I'm going to bring against the Canadians for police brutality."
That night, Poincaré did not sleep. He drank with Ludovici until 4 AM. Then, sending him off to his sniper competition, he wandered to his room, using the walls for support. After examining his wound— Quito's physician had laid down a neat row of stitches—he opened Fenster's case folders on the bed and set Rainier's and Chambi's photos beside them. He thumbed through the images from Fenster's gallery but could not attach a story to any of it, though with an instinct approaching certainty he knew that pertinent pieces of paper were arrayed before him. He reconsidered the photo of a single leaf—an image that for months, even while away from the case in Fonroque, had fascinated him. Fenster's cropping of the image invited a close inspection of the extraordinary in the absolutely mundane. A leaf.
This time, the image caused Poincaré discomfort in the extreme, for when he saw it he thought of maps: streets and neighborhoods and house plots. On visiting a city, he was in the habit of printing maps from the Internet—aerial views that would give him a broad sense of distances and direction. He retrieved his map of Québec, then folded it into quadrants and laid that on the bed, beside the leaf.
This was no metaphor. Cities were not like leaves but rather were leaves in some essential way: a single principle that was deeper than biology, prior to biology, organized both. Poincaré studied the shared structures—the avenues for fuel, waste removal, and communication. No cell existed without a route back to a main line; cells were contiguous until a sharp border was r
eached; vital operations within cells kept the larger organism functioning. Cities, leaves. What else? Poincaré saw it, what Fenster had seen; but still he resisted Fenster's move from things one could touch—leaves and cracks in asphalt—to entities as abstract as the global economy and the districts of France. He took pen to paper and sketched the flow of letters of credit, trade agreements, and tariffs as if they were components of an organism that grew routes for transport to and from centers of production. He could see it; he could not accept it.
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