At first, he heard nothing.
Then he heard footsteps receding. Then he heard those same footsteps returning. Then he heard that knock again—tap-tap. Pause. Tap-tap-tap-tap.
“Bernie?” Kingsley said through the door.
“It’s a wanking joke, yes?”
He smiled only because Bernie couldn’t see him.
“Good job, Bernie. Breakfast?”
“Yes, Lieutenant.”
“And Bernie?”
“Yes, Lieutenant?”
“Don’t forget the coffee. That’s also protocol.”
“Yes, Lieutenant.”
“And Bernie?”
“Yes, Lieutenant?”
“Stop calling me Lieutenant.”
3
Bernie could never remember not to call him by his name or rank, but at least he knew how to fetch a decent breakfast. Kingsley hopped up on the kitchen counter and sat with his legs crossed like a schoolboy, devouring a croissant smothered with fresh strawberry jam. He washed it all down with a large stout cup of coffee, black, just the way he liked it. Meanwhile Bernie sat waiting at the little yellow table for two under the kitchen window. The garret flat was so small and narrow that Kingsley could have extended his leg and kicked Bernie in the head, had he any desire to do such a thing. Since Bernie had fed him and brought him coffee—above and beyond the call of duty—Kingsley left him un-kicked.
For the moment.
“You had company last night,” Bernie said, nodding at the empty wine bottle and the two glasses by the bed. A small brass bed, barely big enough for two, but that was fine by Kingsley as he was happy to let his companions sleep on top of him. Or, on occasion, underneath him. And who needed a big bed? The best sex he’d ever had in his life had been in a cot.
“I have company every night,” Kingsley said.
“Is that safe?” Bernie asked.
“Are you worried I’ll catch something?”
“Yes,” Bernie said. “A bullet.”
Kingsley reached over and turned the radio volume up a couple notches. He didn’t want them being overheard. He was supposed to be playing the part of an American in Paris. Anyone hearing him speaking French like a native with a classic Parisian accent to boot might get suspicious. The Police’s “Don’t Stand So Close to Me” was playing on the American radio station. Kingsley had always liked this song for some reason. A reason probably best left unexplored.
“I only fuck university students,” Kingsley said between bites. “They don’t even know where to buy pot, much less guns.”
“You might blow your cover.”
“Fucking university students is my cover,” he said, pointing to a small desk pushed against the back wall. On it sat a blue Smith-Corona Galaxie Deluxe XII typewriter with paper rolled inside and stacks of typewritten sheets on either side of it. They were all fake, of course. His cover was “John Kingsley Edge,” a twenty-seven-year-old American mystery novelist—as yet unpublished, living out his Hemingway-in-Paris dreams. And the words on those pages? Taken word for word from The Mirror Crack’d from Side to Side by Agatha Christie, the one English novel Kingsley had been able to find in the used bookshop two streets over. He doubted the Swiss and the Dutch and the Algerian and the German students he’d fucked the past three weeks were big enough fans of Miss Marple to notice, especially since he’d changed Miss Marple’s name in the book to Mr. Stearns.
Bernie’s eyes were still on the two empty wine glasses.
“Wish they’d let me go undercover,” Bernie said wistfully.
“Do you even speak English?” Kingsley asked, raising an eyebrow at Bernie. Poor Bernie. He sounded like a little boy wishing to be a spy when he grew up. Instead he was nothing more than an errand boy for the real spies. Probably as close as Bernie would ever get to his dream job.
“A little,” Bernie said. Un peu.
“You need more than a little English for this work,” Kingsley said. “I’m fluent, and I can speak without a French accent.” What he didn’t say was that he hated hiding his accent. It gave him a headache. Still, when he was out on the town meeting girls, he usually didn’t have to talk much to get them back to his place.
“How did you learn English so well? Are you actually a secret American? If you’re a secret American, does that mean it’s French you learned? No, you’re too good at it. You’d have to be a native—”
“Bernie, you know the rules.”
Kingsley had a working theory about how someone as dense as Bernie had managed to weasel his way into the inner circle of a very small, quiet, and secretive military intelligence agency. Long ago, he’d heard a story about the infamous Hope Diamond. When the owner of the cursed jewel, Harry Winston, sent the diamond to Washington DC, he hadn’t bothered with armed guards. No, he’d put it in a regular box and shipped it via the good old-fashioned United States Postal Service. No one expected something that valuable to get shipped through the post office, just as no one expected a man as young and dumb as Bernie to be carrying important intelligence documents either. Hiding in plain sight was the best place to hide.
Either that or Bernie was the nephew of someone very well-connected.
“What’s America like? Tell me that, at least,” Bernie said.
“Barbaric,” Kingsley said. “They eat butter on their croissants.”
Bernie screwed up his face in an expression of purest French disgust. “So you hated it there?”
“No, I didn’t hate it there,” Kingsley said, trying not to smile. “I did at first. It grows on you though. Like a tumor.”
“I bet American girls like French men. Right?”
“They like Englishmen better. They assume Frenchmen will cheat on them.”
Bernie’s eyes widened. “That’s rude. Why?”
“Because we do.”
“We do?”
Kingsley shrugged and nodded.
“That’s not very nice of us,” Bernie said, frowning.
“I don’t make the rules. But they will sleep with us for a night or two if you know enough English to get them into bed.”
“I know enough.”
“Say something in English,” Kingsley said before finishing off the last of his coffee.
“Euh…” Bernie paused so long Kingsley had time to finish off his breakfast. When Bernie started speaking again, it was in English. Very bad English.
“I ‘aave…”
“Go on, Bernie,” Kingsley said, not only in English but in his flawless American accent picked up from his mother who’d been born and raised in Maine. “You have what?”
“A zhab…pour…”
“For.”
“For you.”
“You have a job for me?” Kingsley repeated, lighting a Gauloise. He only allowed himself to smoke after eating these days. He wanted to quit, but the last thing he needed on a mission was his hands shaking as he went through nicotine withdrawal. He’d planned on cutting back by smoking only after he’d had an orgasm, but some days that was almost half a pack.
Three meals a day. Three cigarettes a day. It was as close as he got to self-restraint.
“I have a zahb for you,” Bernie said and smiled, proud of himself.
“I’m supposed to be on leave,” Kingsley said. “Medical leave.”
“Your physical results came back—you’re in perfect health. Try to stay that way.”
“I’m still sore,” Kingsley said, which was true…ish? “There’s no blood test for that.”
“They said you’d say that. So I’m supposed to tell you that if you’re in good enough shape to bring five different girls home five nights in a row, you can work.”
Kingsley pursed his lips but couldn’t argue the point. It was his own fault he’d gotten caught. Of course the house was being watched. Spies spied on spies. It’s what they did.
“Give me the dossier,” Kingsley said, wiping his hands off on a towel. Kingsley might be tasked with killing the target contained in the files—usually KGB o
r someone else the government had deemed too dangerous to continue being allowed to walk God’s green earth a week longer—but that didn’t mean he had to get crumbs all over their fucking dossier. The first dossier he’d ever been given had contained pictures of his target…and his target’s wife and three small children. Killing was the only part of his job he took seriously.
Bernie opened his bowling bag and took out a file folder, which he handed over.
“It’s a woman,” Kingsley said, staring at the photograph clipped just inside the flap. “A beautiful woman.”
“You think?” Bernie asked. “She’s wearing a widow’s veil over her face.”
Women didn’t wear black veils anymore. Kingsley couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen a woman in a widow’s veil, even at a funeral. They were no longer in fashion. They caught the eye. They made you look.
“A woman wouldn’t wear a veil over her face unless there was something under there worth veiling,” Kingsley said. “Trust me, she’s beautiful.”
Kingsley could see the woman’s eyes through the open weave of the tulle. She was staring directly at the camera, which was rare. His targets never knew they were being targeted. Even most Frenchwomen smiled when they knew a camera was on them. Not this woman, even though it was clear she knew someone was photographing her. She didn’t look amused and she didn’t look defiant and she didn’t look shamefaced or shameless or even curious. She simply looked bored. Any woman who looked bored while being stalked and photographed was likely a very dangerous woman indeed.
“Why am I killing her?” Kingsley asked. He found it was hard to imagine this chic lady with the white fur collar of her black coat turned up had done anything to deserve being assassinated. Then again, he’d learned in his line of work that one could never judge by appearances.
“You aren’t,” Bernie said.
“I’m not? Then what am I doing with her? Surveillance? Reconnaissance?”
“Rescue.”
Kingsley narrowed his eyes at Bernie. This woman was not a woman who needed rescuing. Kingsley would bet his life on it.
“What’s going on here?” he asked Bernie.
“The colonel says this is an ‘unofficial’ assignment.”
“All our assignments are ‘unofficial.’ ”
“This is extra un-official,” Bernie said. “You can even turn it down if you want. Although the colonel might not be happy if you did that.”
“Let’s keep the colonel happy. Tell me everything.”
“Apparently a man has disappeared,” Bernie said. “Six months ago he disappeared for a week. Came back and didn’t tell anyone where he went. Now he’s gone again. He called the same phone number the day before both disappearances. Her phone number, they think.”
Bernie nodded at the file, at “her.”
“So?” Kingsley said. “A man has a right to run off with a woman if he wants to. Not telling people where he is makes him thoughtless, maybe even an ass, not a criminal. Or her.”
“They don’t want to arrest her. Or him. They just want someone to go in and talk him out. He’s young.”
“If they have her phone number, can’t they find her address? Send his mother to go talk to him.”
“Untraceable number, apparently. She’s got friends in high places. Someone’s protecting her privacy. Makes her very hard to find. The only option is for someone to meet her, talk their way in. Like you.”
Kingsley closed the file. “This assignment is a shit sandwich,” he said. “I’m not getting involved with someone’s family soap opera. It’s none of our business if somebody’s kid wants to screw an older woman.”
“I guess it would be none of our business,” Bernie said, “except the missing man is Colonel Masson’s nineteen-year-old nephew, Leon.”
Kingsley stared at Bernie. Stared and glared.
“What?” Bernie asked.
Kingsley opened the file again.
“Bernie, in the future, tell me the important part first.”
4
“Sorry,” Bernie said. “Should I start over then?”
“Yes, start at the beginning,” Kingsley said, uncrossing his legs and dropping down to the floor. “And go slowly. Pretend I’m you.”
“Why would I pretend you’re me?”
“Ah…just tell me,” Kingsley said.
“We don’t know her name,” Bernie began. He clasped his hands in his lap and one foot danced along the floor. “She goes by Madame. That’s all.”
“Madame?”
Bernie nodded. “We think she’s the leader of a cult.”
“A cult? Really? In France?” Kingsley couldn’t keep the surprise out of his voice. “Are you sure you’re not thinking of the Catholic Church?”
“This is a sex cult.”
“So it is the Catholic Church.”
Bernie blinked, his eyes dim as a five-watt bulb.
“Go on,” Kingsley said. “You now have my attention.”
“Some men…important men, have disappeared over the past ten years. They’ll be gone a week or two with no word to their families or friends at all, and then they’ll simply reappear, glassy-eyed and confused, standing outside their front doors with no idea how they got there.”
“Important men. Such as?”
“The son of an English duke. A minor Spanish prince. A wealthy North African financier. And now—”
“The colonel’s nephew.”
Bernie shrugged. “He was last seen getting into a wine-colored car. That was one month ago.”
“White wine or red?”
“Oh,” Bernie said. “I don’t know that part.”
Kingsley met Bernie’s eyes. “You’re someone’s nephew, aren’t you?”
Bernie looked sheepish and guilty. “Yes.”
“Whose?” Kingsley demanded.
“My aunt’s.”
Kingsley counted to five in both French and English and then smiled at Bernie. “So it’s a sex cult. Run by a woman who goes only by Madame. And the colonel wants me to go there and check on Leon, and convince him it’s time to come home. Where’s this woman live?”
“Apparently her château is off the map. The phone number is untraceable.”
“She does have friends in high places. Wait, did you say château?”
“Yes, she lives in a château,” Bernie said. “Does that mean something to you?”
“Maybe,” Kingsley said. “But I can’t remember why.”
“Will you take the job?” Bernie asked.
“Why me?”
“Why you?”
“Why am I being sent on this job?” Kingsley asked.
“I don’t know. I’m only the messenger.”
“You’re a messenger who eavesdrops. Why me?”
Bernie flushed. He looked guilty as a little boy who’d seen his first naked girl in a movie. “I might have heard the colonel say something about you being a good fit for the job.”
“Why?” Kingsley asked, eying Bernie meaningfully.
“He used a phrase, but I don’t know it.”
“What phrase?”
“It’s English,” Bernie said. “Something like, uh…oeuf trader? Egg broker?”
“Rough trade?” Kingsley asked.
Bernie’s eyes lit up. “That!” Then he paused. “What’s it mean?”
“It means the colonel thinks I’ll fuck anyone,” Kingsley said. He decided not to tell Bernie the phrase specifically referred to working-class men who had sex with men with money and for money. That was a conversation Bernie was not ready to have yet. Or Kingsley.
“But…you will fuck anyone.”
“I won’t,” Kingsley said, insulted. “I’ll fuck almost anyone. There’s a difference.”
“Who wouldn’t you fuck?” Bernie sounded skeptical.
Kingsley flipped another page in the file. “Nazis.”
Kingsley found the file woefully lacking in useful information. No addresses. No photographs apart from the one of Madame
. There was a phone number written on the file. That was about it for useful information.
“I need to know more about her,” Kingsley said. “What else did you overhear?”
“Three different agents have already tried getting to Madame. Only one of them has gotten further than a first phone call. It’s like she gives them a test, and they all fail, but they don’t know what the test is, so they don’t know how to pass it.”
“I’m not saying I’m doing this job,” Kingsley said. “But if I were going to do it…what do I do? What’s the first step?”
“You’re supposed to go to a payphone. Call the number on the file. When whoever answers, you say ‘looking glass.’ ” Bernie was speaking French to him, but the password—“looking glass”—he’d said in English. That seemed significant, though Kingsley couldn’t say why.
“Looking glass?”
“A mirror,” Bernie said.
“I know what it means,” Kingsley said. “If I can get to her, what’s my cover?”
“Tell her you’re a friend of the family, and they’ve asked to look into Leon’s disappearance. She’s made all the other agents immediately, so the less you lie to her, the better. She’ll probably make you, too, but she might still bite if she likes you. They don’t think she’s dangerous. I mean, she probably won’t try to kill you.”
“Probably?” Where had Kingsley heard that before?
Bernie nodded, smiling.
“Anything else?” Kingsley asked. “Anything at all? Anything that might help me not get ‘probably’ killed by her?”
“Oh, one thing. They worship a book.”
“Every cult worships a book. It’s called The Bible.”
“No,” Bernie said. “Different book.”
Once more he went into his bowling bag and produced the book in question.
“This book,” Bernie said.
Kingsley didn’t take it from him. He only looked at it. It was Histoire d’O—Story of O—by Pauline Réage, the most notorious novel of sadomasochism of the twentieth century. In the book, a young woman’s lover takes her to a house in Roissy where she’s ravished and imprisoned and trained to be the perfect slave. No, not a house.
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