by Chris Pavone
“Yes,” he agreed, “they certainly are.”
“WELL, WELL, WELL. Isn’t this a pleasant surprise?”
Kate was walking in the Grand Rue, lined with bakeries and chocolatiers and butchers, lingerie shops and shoe stores, pharmacies and jewelers. The pedestrian route was semi-open to traffic in the mornings, for deliveries. Small trucks were inching down the street, or parked in front of stores, idling. Shopgirls were unlocking doors, carrying boxes, checking hair and makeup; deliverymen were operating hydraulic lifts, pushing dollies, carrying bulky boxes. And here was so-called Bill Maclean, nonexistent currency trader from Chicago.
“Yes,” Kate said, “it certainly is. What gets you out of the office this morning?”
Kate had been wanting to tell Dexter about her research. She’d been partially amused by her discovery that the Macleans were on some level fictional. But she also imagined scenarios in which they were fugitives from bankruptcy, or in the witness-protection program, or mobsters in hiding. Bank robbers, murderers, dangerous criminals on the lam. Or maybe, even, they were CIA.
But there were a few impediments to telling Dexter about any of her suspicions. First was that Bill was rapidly becoming Dexter’s friend. His only friend. The two men had played tennis again followed by dinner again, and Dexter had come home late, and happy.
As a couple, Kate and Dexter had been to a wine tasting organized by the American Women’s Club; they’d been to a school mixer; they’d gone to the movies and the theater. They’d been invited to another family’s house for a dinner, and they’d hosted a different family. They knew some people. But it was really Kate who knew a few women, and Dexter was merely along, as a husband, making small talk with British bankers and Dutch lawyers and Swedish salesmen. But Bill Maclean was Dexter’s, and Kate didn’t want to take that away. She didn’t want to seem to be trying to take it away.
The second impediment was that she didn’t want to acknowledge that part of her impetus to Internet stalking was a long habit of trusting no one. A habit whose genesis was the self-knowledge that she herself was untrustworthy.
“Uh-oh.” Bill was smiling mischievously. “Looks like you’ve caught me.”
“At what?”
Third was she absolutely couldn’t admit that some of the motivation—a tiny part, but more than nonexistent—was sexual attraction.
“Well, my wife has left town. She went to Brussels this morning.”
Kate had reconciled herself to saying nothing to Dexter about the Macleans’s phantom nature. Not until—not unless—she discovered more. Or until she tried to discover more and failed to unearth anything, which would be its own discovery.
“So I’m walking around the ville”—Bill took a step closer, then another, then he whispered in her ear—“looking for a woman who I can spend the day in bed with.”
Kate’s mouth dropped open.
Bill’s smile grew, then he laughed. “Just kidding,” he said. He hefted a small shopping bag. “I needed something at the computer store.”
She slapped him on the chest, not too hard. “Bastard.” She stared at him, intrigued; he stared right back, playful. This could be a fun thing. Maybe it would benefit both Kate and Bill, perhaps in a way all four of them. A harmless little flirtation. Everyone has them.
“That was quite a maneuver you pulled in Paris,” Kate said. “Very brave. Very manly.”
“Oh pshaw.” Facetiously. “It was nothing.”
“Where’d you learn how to do that?”
“I didn’t learn anything,” he said. “That was just my lightning-fast reflexes.”
This didn’t seem true, but Kate knew better than to push. “Is Julia really in Brussels?”
“Yes. She went to see an old friend who’s passing through, for whatever reason it is that people go to Belgium.”
“An old friend from college?”
“No.”
“Where’d Julia go to college, anyway?” Kate kept her eyes glued to Bill’s, looking for a sign of evasion. There was none.
“University of Illinois.”
“And you? What’s your alma mater?”
“Wow.”
“Wow what?”
Bill looked left, then right. “I didn’t realize that I’d be on a job interview, here on the street. As you know, all’s I was hoping for was a midday dalliance.” He grinned. “But now that we’re in it, I have to ask: how much does this particular position pay?”
“That depends,” she said, “on a number of factors.”
“Such as?”
“Well, where’d you receive your undergraduate degree?”
A quick look of confusion—maybe concern—flitted across his eyes, his forehead. But around the mouth, the smile remained frozen in place. “Chicago.”
“University of?”
“That’s right.”
“Not bad. Your major?”
“I got around.”
She arched an eyebrow.
“Let’s call it interdisciplinary.”
“Hmm. And graduate school?”
“None.”
“I see. Most recent position?”
“Senior partner for a boutique currency trading firm.”
“Why’d you leave?”
“Went out of business,” he said, with something that sounded like finality; this part of the game was over. But Bill was still wearing a small smug smile, the supremely confident look of one of those guys who’s competent at everything, at skiing and tennis and auto repairs and finish-carpentry, at communicating in languages he doesn’t speak, at tipping porters and bribing cops, at foreplay and oral sex.
“Listen,” he said, taking a step toward her, again, “to tell you the truth, my current gig is pretty good, and I just started it; I’m not really looking for a new one. So”—again, leaning in too far, his mouth right beside her head, his lips to her ear, making the hairs on her neck stand on end—“are we going to bed, or not?”
Bill was pretending it was a joke. But no one makes this joke unless it’s not one. It’s an excuse to open the door to a possibility; it’s an announcement, loud and clear, that the door is open. “Your husband, I believe, is also out of town.”
Although Kate had never been unfaithful, she’d been invited. More than a couple of times. It was this type of supposed joke that had been one of the more common forms of proposition.
Kate felt a chink in her armor, in her lifelong struggle against men like Bill: slick men, manipulative men, dangerous men. The opposite breed of beast from the man she’d married, the more civilized type that she’d willed herself, intellectually and pragmatically, to choose.
“No,” Kate said, shaking her head, but smiling, “we’re not going to bed,” fully cognizant that her answer sounded equivocal. Although she would never end up going there, she felt compelled to let Bill lead her along.
“If you say so,” he said.
KATE HAD LET down her vigilance, and had allowed the boys’ mess to migrate to the guest room, the office, the space where she now sat, waiting for the suddenly slow DSL connection to refresh a page, looking disgustedly around the room at the giant plastic vehicles—a human-limb-sized airplane, a helicopter, various police and fire vehicles—that were littering the floor. She felt compelled to clean up, but also repelled; she couldn’t stand picking up toys.
The screen blinked back to life, the page finished loading. There were three campuses for the University of Illinois: Urbana-Champaign graduated seven thousand per class; six thousand at Chicago; five thousand at Springfield. Some quick calculations ended at a universe of fifty thousand female U of I grads in the possible time span. How many could be named Julia?
As for Bill: there were fewer than fifteen hundred graduates per class at the University of Chicago, and there was no maiden-name issue.
Kate stared at the phone number on the screen, the handset in her hand. Was she really going to do this? Why?
Yes. Because she was innately distrustful, and professionall
y suspicious. Because she was bored. Because she couldn’t help herself.
“Yes,” said the woman at the registrar’s office, in the broad, flat Midwestern accent that neither Bill nor Julia seemed to have inherited from their homeland. “We had a William Maclean class of ’92. Could that be who you’re looking for?”
“I imagine so. Is there any way for you to e-mail me a photo?”
“No, I’m sorry. We don’t keep photo records of our alumni.”
“What about a yearbook?” Kate asked. “He must be in the yearbook.”
“Not all students choose to include their photos in yearbooks, ma’am.”
“Is there any way for you to check?” As sweetly as possible. “Please?”
No response. Kate thought the line had been disconnected. “Hello?”
“Yes, ma’am. I’ll check. Please hold.”
Kate used the ensuing silence to wonder whether Dexter would ever examine their phone bill. And if he did, whether he would ask Kate why she was placing calls to Chicago, of all places; he of course knew she had no friends in Chicago. And if he did look at the bill, and ask her about it, whether she would answer with the truth, or … maybe she would claim this was some type of customer-service issue, something involving … what? … what could be the fake reason—
“I’m sorry, ma’am. It looks like William Maclean was one of those students in the class of ’92 who chose not to include his photo in the yearbook.”
“That’s too bad.” Not to mention incongruous: the man Kate knew was not someone who would forgo a portrait. And he never would’ve been.
10
Alone again. Not really alone: with the children, but no husband.
Kate sat down at the computer, again.
What would be the most logical, obvious reason to create fake identities? She opened the browser, her mind meandering …
Her first thought, her strongest instinct, was that it would be to hide from something horrible. Something unforgivable and unforgettable that one of them had done. A crime. A murder, and he—she?—had been acquitted, but their lives ruined. So they left the country.
Or it could have been nonviolent, white-collar: he was an embezzler, a crooked accountant. A CFO cooking the books, and he’d sold out the CEO in return for immunity. His reputation was ruined, his social standing unrecoverable, so they were starting afresh.
Or it was her. She could’ve just served a ten-year sentence for—what? Corrupting a minor? DWI manslaughter? He’d waited for her, neither patiently nor faithfully, but waited nevertheless. She was released. They changed their names and left the country.
Kate opened a spreadsheet, ready to type in names and dates and criminal acts. She returned to the web, and found the Chicago news sites. She started browsing, one crime at a time, looking for photographs of the accused, the convicted, the acquitted, the released.
“I’M SORRY TO tell you,” Evan had said, “that we’re not going to lift your cover.”
This was as Kate had expected, after all she’d done, and seen. In a way, the permanent cover was a relief, removing her own decision making from the equation. If she was forbidden to tell anyone, she didn’t have to decide not to.
“I see. Okay.”
Evan considered her closely, probably trying to determine the extent to which she was disappointed, or frustrated, or angered by this decision. She wasn’t any of those.
“And that, Kate, is it.”
“Is what?”
“We’re finished.”
Kate glanced at her watch. It was eleven thirty in the morning. “For today?”
“Forever.”
“Oh.” She didn’t push back her chair, or stand, or move in any way. She didn’t want this part to be over. Because when this part was over, it was the end of the whole thing. Her whole career. “Really?”
Evan stood. “Really.” His hand out. The bitter end.
KATE’S STREET TURNED gently and then ended abruptly, like many European streets. In the States the streets were all long and straight, extending for miles, stretching as far as anyone could see, dozens or scores or hundreds of blocks. Europe vs. America, in a nutshell. The French don’t even have a word for the idea of a city block.
A barrier stood at the entrance to the rue du Rost, red and white diagonal stripes on a strip of steel sitting atop sawhorses, RUE BARRÉE painted in neat stenciled block letters, black paint. A policeman stood at inattentive attention, chatting up a woman in a short apron. A waitress on a cigarette break.
Kate walked past the palace gates, watched the guards notice and dismiss her. She looked one in the eye, a fresh-faced man wearing rimless glasses, and attempted a smile, but he didn’t react. The parking area back there was filled with cars, and people, and activity.
She crossed the street and entered a building and buzzed a bell.
“Come on up!” Julia exclaimed through the intercom.
The elevator was tiny, like her own. It must have been challenging for the architects and engineers, finding a way to carve elevator shafts into all these ancient buildings.
“Welcome.” Julia was holding the door open with one hand, using the other to usher Kate inside. There seemed something antiquated in the gentility of this gesture; something mannered, but not ironic. Something odd. “So nice to have you over, finally.”
Kate walked in tentatively, still not used to wandering around people’s homes in the middle of the day. Back in Washington, the only places she’d wandered in daytime besides her own offices were field trips to the State Department or Capitol Hill. When she’d socialized at night, it had usually been in restaurants, at theaters. In public places. It felt intimate to be in Julia’s apartment, alone with her, in the middle of the day. It felt illicit.
“Thanks for having me.” Kate passed through the foyer into a long room that served as living and dining rooms, with a bank of windows in the western wall. Through every window was a view of the palais, richly swagged curtains and wrought-iron gates, balustraded balconies and sandstone turrets, an unfamiliar flag flying on top.
Julia noticed Kate staring at the palace. She followed Kate’s gaze to the flagpole. “The flag is up,” Julia said. “This means the grand duke is in residence.”
“Really?” Kate asked. “That’s true?”
“Yes. And it’s lowered when he’s not in the building.”
“But that flag? That’s not the Luxembourg flag.”
“Oh?” Julia joined Kate at the window. “You’re right. That’s the Italian flag, I think. That means an important Italian is visiting. The prime minister, maybe? Or the president? What do they have in Italy?”
“Both.” Kate reminded herself to not be too much of an expert. Added, “I think.”
“Well”—Julia shrugged—“one of them’s over there now.”
“I bet you never lived across the street from a monarch before.”
Julia laughed.
“Where have you lived?”
“Different parts of Chicago.”
“Your whole life?”
“Nearly.” Julia turned away. “I’ll go make the coffee. A cappuccino for you?”
This was typical of Julia’s discreet evasion. She never outright refused to answer a question, but rather responded without specifics, deflecting the question back at the asker, turning the conversation away from her history without drawing any attention to the redirection. But that’s exactly what had captured Kate’s attention, aroused her suspicion.
Sometimes, Julia simply found an excuse to leave the room.
“A cappuccino would be great.”
Kate looked into the palace yard, a ground cover of tan gravel under a canopy of pines and chestnuts. A dozen cars, nearly all of them deep blue Audi sedans. For license plates, the cars had panels of two stripes, blue and orange, with no numbers or letters or any identification. The single non-Audi, the car parked nearest the porte cochere, was a vintage Rolls-Royce, grand and gleaming in a blue that matched all the other cars�
��or, probably, it was vice versa. The Rolls’s license plate consisted solely of a crown.
Royalty. Very different from merely rich.
A handful of Luxembourgeois military were loitering in the backyard, near a cluster of men in different uniforms; these must’ve been Italians. A few security-looking guys wearing black suits stood off to the side, looking more alert than the uniformed personnel.
Kate could hear the crunch of gravel under the hard soles of the patent-leather shoes of the tall man who was striding across the yard, wearing a cutaway military jacket with epaulets. The Luxembourgeois military came to attention and saluted the man as he strode by, not pausing or slowing down or glancing at anyone.
The Italian military didn’t salute, but they did bring their bearings erect, and they stopped talking and watched him until he’d entered the porte cochere, his heels clicking on the wood tiles, a much quieter driveway for horses’ hooves than one paved in stone.
She began to turn from the window, but something caught her eye: on the second floor, up near her level, someone was opening a towering French door to a narrow balcony. An elegant man in a dark suit stepped outside, and surveyed the scene in the yard below. He reached into his jacket, pulled out a packet of cigarettes, and bumped one out. He lit the cigarette with a gold lighter, and leaned on the low stone wall.
Kate could see now that his necktie, which at first glance looked like solid navy, was a deep-hued paisley in blues and purples; it was a lovely tie.
As the crow flies, this man was not more than thirty yards away.
It would, Kate couldn’t help thinking, be an incredibly easy shot.
THE MAN ON the palace balcony took a deep drag of his cigarette, exhaled a big puff, then three perfect smoke rings. Kate could see his eyes scanning the pebbled lot below.
This was exactly the type of setup Kate had used at Payne’s Bay. An innocuous seasonal rental with a perfect sight line. But in Barbados it had been a three-hundred-yard shot. Here, you’d barely even need a scope.
“It’s sort of addicting, isn’t it?” Julia asked. “Watching the goings-on over there.”