by Chris Pavone
Schuyler seems to consider what possible threat it might be to take possession of this strange woman’s number. “Write it down?”
“Let me call you, then you’ll have it in your phone.”
“No, I don’t want your number in my phone? And I certainly don’t want you to have mine?”
“Why not?”
“Why not? Because I don’t trust you?”
Good for her. Kate scribbles down her number.
“Don’t follow me?”
“Of course not.”
Schuyler smiles at Kate’s naked display of disingenuousness, turns to the receptionist. “If this woman leaves, please call me immediately? And then call security too?”
* * *
Did Kate debate it? Not really. As soon as Peter said it, she knew how she was going to respond. It just took her a few seconds to do it.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
He didn’t argue. He just left it there, hanging between them in the hotel lobby, the invitation, reiterated in his silent stare.
“I can’t.”
She could. And she wanted to. The one night they’d shared fifteen years ago had been spectacular. But at the time, neither was in a position to pursue a relationship with the other. The next time Kate saw Peter, they were both married to other people.
“I’m sorry,” she said again, and before she changed her mind she aimed her good-night kiss unmistakably at the air beside his cheek, with her face angled away, for the avoidance of doubt. She marched to the elevator, to her room, she flung herself on the bed, her fingers working manically, her fantasies exceptionally vivid—this bed, now, me, him—and she came quickly and then again, fantasies intermingling with memories of that night in Morelia in the cheap hotel room where everything was done up in red and black and Gothic typefaces, Peter’s tight taut body, a clump of soft threadbare sheet in her mouth—
Then she lay sprawled in the bed, panting, one hand on a breast and the other between her legs, sticky thighs, the cool of the soft sheet on her hot skin. She gathered her breath, then her phone.
She was still debating, still had time to change her mind…
Kate typed quickly, paused. Should she say something more? Or something else? Or just keep it simple?
Yes, simpler is better.
Good night. Wish you were here.
She hit SEND, and waited for a reply, which came quickly:
Miss you too.
Then the symbol that meant he was still typing…more to come…
Come home soon. D.
Kate felt a bit righteous, then felt guilty for feeling righteous about something that shouldn’t even have been a question, taking candy from a baby, stealing from the collection jar, it goes without saying that you don’t do it, and you don’t congratulate yourself for not doing it.
Then she heard the knock on her door.
40
HONG KONG. 6:59 P.M.
“Okay, listen, seriously: why would I do this?”
The policeman doesn’t respond.
“It doesn’t make any sense, surely you see that, I mean…Look.” He takes a deep breath. Slow down, Shreve. Sound rational. “I’m successful here. I’m well-compensated, believe me. I have no debts. I’m loyal.”
“Loyal? Interesting word to use in this situation. You are an American citizen. Born in America. Correct? You are loyal to America?”
“Sure.”
“Yet you choose to work for a German bank? Why?”
“Why? What do you mean?”
“Why work for Germans, not Americans?”
“That’s a crazy question. Because it’s a good job. Because they pay me a lot.”
“Do you hate Germans, Mr. Shreve? Perhaps you are Jewish?”
“I’m not.”
“You hold grudges against the Nazis?”
“I’m not a fan, but seriously? Are you suggesting—”
“Do you have another reason to be anti-German?”
“I don’t have any reason to be anti-German. I’m not anti-German.”
“Then you are angry at another business in this building? Which is it?”
With each passing question, Shreve feels more and more like he has fallen into the twilight zone, an increasing sense of disorientation that began when he was lying on the marble floor, hands behind his head, someone’s foot in his back.
“The French bank? Or the expanding company?” The cop glances at his notepad. “4Syte?”
Shreve can’t handle this conversation. He’s crashing. “I want to speak to a lawyer.” Didn’t he say that already? “Didn’t I say that already?”
“A solicitor? Mr. Shreve: are you…how shall I put this? Are you altered?”
Oh, wow, no, Shreve really doesn’t want to go there. He’s not sure, precisely, what crime it is, in Hong Kong, cocaine use, possession, though he’s not in actual possession of any blow—is he?—no, so that doesn’t matter. But could the Hong Kong police forcibly drug-test him? And is using cocaine an actual crime? Or buying it? Selling it, obviously, sure. But he doesn’t do that. Almost ever. Never professionally.
Regardless of the criminal status of cocaine use, it obviously wouldn’t look good, not from a law-enforcement perspective, not from an employment one. Nor for that matter from a personal one.
Christ: his mother.
But embarrassment aside, how much of a legit disaster is this? Is it possible that Shreve is going to jail? In Hong Kong?
The police have gotten a lot less understanding with young Anglo-expat finance guys ever since Occupy Hong Kong, and that call-girl incident with the super-disturbed Brit dude. For the entire time Shreve has lived here, local law has sadly been a lot less willing to turn the traditional blind eye toward expats’ debauchery.
Shreve is sweating something fierce. The thing about Hong Kong that he didn’t realize beforehand: it’s tropical. Not just like South Florida, it’s not Miami Beach tropical, not San Diego. It’s Costa Rica tropical, equatorial. Here in this police station, it’s hot as fuck.
“Lawyer,” he repeats. He wouldn’t be surprised if a goddamned tarantula appeared, crawled across the table. A scorpion. “Or embassy.” He doesn’t know which. He wants the cop to choose. “Listen,” Shreve says, trying again to adopt a reasonable tone. “Listen.” He has to focus here. “That thing—whatever it is, I never even saw it—was not in my bag when I left the gym. Someone must have put it in my bag when I was at the restaurant.”
“Yes, you asserted that before. Why would anyone do such a thing? Explain that to me. Please. I want to understand.”
“I don’t know. I guess to get it into the building?”
“But the X-ray machines are not a secret, Mr. Shreve. The failure was foreseeable.”
It’s true, it doesn’t make any fucking sense, nothing does, Shreve hasn’t been able to come up with any plausible explanation since those first seconds lying on the lobby floor with his face pressed against the marble, an entirely new perspective on the space, the architecture, on the whole world, when your eyes are just inches off the ground, from there absolutely everything is up. Shreve was accustomed to looking down on things.
He inhabits that lobby for a few minutes every day, yet could not until today have been able to tell you what color the floor was.
“I don’t know, man.” Is this a Midnight Express scenario he’s facing?
It’s a peachy, rosy marble streaked with brown and magenta veins, the lobby floor.
Shreve sniffles—of course he sniffles, he’s been sniffling for hours. “I really don’t.” And he realizes that this sniffle is a different sort, not the sniffle of someone who’d ingested eight fatties of high-grade blow, but the sniffle of someone who’s being interrogated by the police halfway around the world from home, without his passport, without a lawyer, w
ithout any understanding of why someone—why anyone—would plant a bomb in his gym bag, would leave him literally holding the bag. The sniffle of someone who’s crying.
41
VENICE. 1:08 P.M.
It’s good to be outside, in the semi-fresh air, surrounded by the ambient noise of Venetian life, drowning Matteo’s sobbing into the purring of the vaporetti motors, and the water glurping in its currents and eddies, splashing against the canal banks, and the low-pitched rumble of the tradesmen’s wheelbarrows laden with mortar and bricks and big bags of sand, and the tinkle-rattles of hand-trucks delivering cases of beer to the tabaccheria, and the scratch-scratch of a wide wicker broom against stone as the woman in the blue work-shirt sweeps the plaza, she’s here every day, greeting all the other municipal workers and shopkeepers and waiters, the collective staff of the campo.
Around the corner, the stonemason keeps a soprano beat, chiseling away at a façade, another structure undergoing prettification. Nearly every surface in this city is visibly damaged, or eroded, chipping, falling apart, plaster giving way to the brick underneath, the brick to wood, cracks in everything, iron welts fastened to marble plinths to forestall expansion, mottled paint jobs, weeds growing from walls, peeling paint and water stains and soot streaks, the accumulated grunge of centuries, of millennia, all these blemishes somehow appealing, shabby chic.
A stroller is counterproductive here, with all the steps of all the bridges, up and down, up and down, every bridge an opportunity to jostle a child out of sleep, which is often her point in being outdoors in the first place. This is exactly why she’s wandering these narrow streets now, with the baby harnessed to her chest, trying to get the little fucker to nap.
The only time she ever brings the stroller is to go to the Coop, using the thing as a dual-purpose baby carrier and shopping cart. It’s a five-minute walk with two bridges to cross, six steps times two at the first, seven times two at the second, not easy, but easier than lugging groceries with the dead-weight of a child hanging off her shoulders, straining her lower back, which hasn’t completely recovered from the strain of being pregnant. One of the many strains of being pregnant.
She is no whiner, no stranger to difficulty. She has done a lot of hard things. But until this baby, none of the difficulties had been surprises. She’d had no illusions about what she was attempting in her career, what adversities she’d be facing. She was prepared for all of it, she diligently managed her expectations, she always erred on the side of over-preparation, anticipating that things would be harder than they turned out to be.
There, she always thought: that wasn’t so bad. Until this baby.
She turns off the street into a sotoportego, one of those low dark passageways burrowed through buildings’ street levels. This one ends at a quiet narrow canal, alongside which she walks for a minute before it too ends at a small bridge, where she crosses to the other side of the canal, turns another corner.
It’s quiet here, off the main calle, away from the tourists thronged on the banks of the Grand Canal, hanging off the Rialto. There are no landmarks here, none of Venice’s top-ten must-see attractions, just normal life, small churches and modest piazzi, grocery stores and this tabaccheria here, whose owner Lorenzo lives in the neighborhood, she has met his wife, he has met her husband, they all shared a drink in the campo a few months ago.
Lorenzo is the type of shopkeeper who knows everyone in the neighborhood, who keeps a watchful eye on everything; the type of local who can be a real asset. He collects packages for her, important mail—her apartment’s mailbox is insecure, she explained. This is one of the favors she pays him for, but mostly it’s an arrangement whose main purpose is merely to have an arrangement, for the eventuality when she will really need someone to rely upon. Tonight.
“Ciao Susanna!” Lorenzo calls out. She waves back.
Susanna. Not exactly the name she was given at birth, but it’s close, the Italian version. It’s what she has been going by, here. It’s her new name, part of her new life, her new plan.
What do you do when none of your schemes pan out? When everything comes crashing down—when you lose a fortune, a career, and a baby all within forty-eight hours? How do you come back from that?
Here is what she told herself: coming back is what makes you you. Coming back is how you get to deserve it. Coming back is everything. So stop your whining, get off the couch, and get the fuck back to work.
* * *
Two weeks ago, in a moment of what she now realizes was fatigue-induced delirium, she started researching babysitters, nannies, options that they’d already discussed and dismissed, decided they shouldn’t pursue, couldn’t do. But she was falling apart, losing confidence in her certainties.
It was then, at her weakest point, when her faith in humanity was restored, because the kid finally relented: Matteo fell asleep quickly, then slept soundly for eight hours straight. And so did she.
She awoke refreshed, amazed that it was past dawn, double-checking her clock against her watch against her phone, unwilling to believe that it was really seven-thirty in the morning.
Yes, she could make it. No need for babysitters, no strangers in this household, no way, no how. It won’t be long now, and then her husband will be back, this time for good. And they will, finally, be rich.
Today is it. If all goes well, he’ll be back with her tomorrow. And at this moment all seems to be going well. There’s still plenty of time for everything to go sideways, but she’s prepared for that too. She’s prepared for everything, even the things she doesn’t know to be prepared for.
She sometimes has trouble identifying what it is that she actually wants, versus what she believes she’s supposed to want. In an ideal world, they’d be the same. But she doesn’t live in an ideal world. No one does, though some people choose to pretend. She has never been one of them. Which is why she’s walking through the streets of Venice, with her newborn snuggled against her chest, and a semiautomatic handgun in her pocket.
42
PARIS. 1:14 P.M.
Kate waits. Office workers are pouring out on their way to lunch, the three-course prix fixe, out and back within an hour.
It shouldn’t be long before Schuyler returns with the CEO himself, a guy who thinks he’ll be making a fortune today. Not if Kate is right about what’s going on here.
She sends another request to Dexter: Also check to see if we have bday candles.
He responds quickly: Yup. Is that snarky? Is he tired of the to-do list she’s scattershooting into his day? Well, she thinks, fuck you too.
She can feel the receptionist appraising her. Kate is increasingly aware that she’s illegitimate here, exposed, sitting alone with this suspicious sentinel, in an office that any second now may discover that they’re being assailed, and she may look a lot like an assailant.
A new message, this one from Inez: She is ringing bell.
It had taken nine minutes for Schuyler to get to the apartment.
Still outside. With a woman, I believe concierge.
The previous text in Kate’s stream is from school, a wordy one; the head of school is new to texting, doesn’t make any attempt at brevity. Despite today’s events, we are trying to have a normal day. However, we do understand if any family would be more comfortable collecting their children, so as to be together during this stressful time. If so, please be sure to ring the main office before arriving, to facilitate a minimum of disruption. Thank you so very much.
Normal school day.
Another ding: She went inside.
The kids are scratching away at math problems, they’re memorizing verb conjugations, they’re doing all the normal things, running around the courtyard at recess, kicking a ball, playing tag. Not huddled around screens watching footage of an ongoing terrorism event, freaking them out about a danger that’s looming outside the high stone walls. It was the right decisio
n, leaving them at school.
Kate’s phone buzzes. She picks it up, listens.
“Hi Dominique, it’s Schuyler?”
This is an intercept of Schuyler’s phone, transmitted to Kate’s line. As if Kate is on a conference call, muted: she can hear the connection, but can’t participate in the conversation.
“Schuyler, ça va?”
The other call participants don’t know she’s listening in. This was what Kate accomplished in Schuyler’s office: cloning the young woman’s cellular line. You think your phone is safe, just sitting there in plain sight, home-screen locked, password-protected? You’re wrong.
“No. I’m at Mr. Forsyth’s apartment, talking to the security guard? He says that at a quarter after nine, a man from the US Department of State showed up, with a pair of Parisian police? The official stayed in the apartment for a half-hour, then they all left? Mr. Forsyth told the guard—his name is Didier—that they were taking him someplace secure? For his protection?”
Protection? Is that possible? Would the embassy send someone to retrieve an American executive during a terrorist attack? Maybe. But not solely because of a generalized threat. At any given moment there are tens of thousands of Americans in Paris.
“Et Colette?”
“Elle aussi, she went with Mr. Forsyth.” The assistant who might be fucking him. That makes sense. “Didier says that his instructions were to remain at the apartment, to keep it secure, for Mr. Forsyth’s return? Once the attack is over?”
If this purported protection guy isn’t really State, but is actually Agency, that’s more plausible. Especially if the CIA has a particular interest in Hunter Forsyth. Why would they? Maybe Forsyth’s business dealings are a matter of national security. Or maybe there’s a specific threat against Forsyth.
“Dominique, has anyone from the American government called Mr. Forsyth’s office?”
“Non.”
Or maybe Forsyth is an asset.