Mathilde took a long sip. “I am so excited to see you. What has it been, twenty-four years? And as soon as I see you, it is like we live on the same street for all these years. You know, I got this job because of you.”
“Me? How did I manage that?”
“Your letters helped keep my English good. I followed what was going on in America because I knew you and you were there. This hotel caters to many Americans. I always am telling my guests from New York, I have a cousin there, she is a big cop.”
“That must make them nervous.”
“No, I tell them, you are with bureau of federal investigation.”
“Actually, not so much anymore. Now, I work more at the White House.”
“The White House, like Clinton?”
“Well, that was a few years back, but yes, that’s the place.”
“He was so sexy. I went to see him speak in Paris once. He make the room all…all…swoon.”
“He was never my type, but I understand the attraction.”
“There were thousands of French girls who would have cued up to be his Lupinsky.”
“Lewinsky, but I get your point.”
“So, what is it that you do for, who is it? Michelle?”
“It’s Mitchell.”
“Yes, I am sorry, but no Clinton that one.”
“No, no he’s more the father figure. Not a sex symbol.”
“Too bad, it would make your job more intriguing,” Mathilde said as she snapped a breadstick in half and chomped down on one end.
“Mathilde, you make me feel like I have never had sex before in my life.”
“If you are not having sex four, five times a week, then you aren’t having sex.”
“Come on, don’t give me that; you really do it almost every day?”
“Look around; you are in France, and the most playful part. One of the chambermaids, she is huge and she has pimples on her face. A man has to search to find her pussy and yet she is making love more than me.”
“You are terrible — ”
“It is true; everyone here is always making the love.”
“Well, it might be sex but I wouldn’t necessarily call it making love.”
“Ah, you speak like it has grown back and you are once again a virgin.”
“Might as well. I am so busy all the time.”
“But look at you. You are beautiful and you have a great body. I would kill to have your tits; don’t you meet men?”
“Yes, but half the time I am trying to put them in jail and the other half, they are afraid I will. I travel a lot and at the end of the day, I just don’t have it in me.”
“That is the problem, you don’t have it in you — enough!”
Brooke laughed, but that one landed a stomach punch from the inside out. “Hey, I got an idea; let’s talk about something else. How is your father? My dear Uncle Daniel.”
The conversation took a small detour as the courses came out. But Mathilde eventually started discussing the men in her life.
“… and I call him the choker. All he wants to do is choke me with his penis — very rough, but after, he is so gentle and attentive; he gives me many orgasms.”
Brooke kept looking around, but no one seemed fazed by Mathilde’s now totally explicit recitation of each and every man with whom she had sex, her little nicknames for them, and the size and ability of their manhood.
“… he, of course, wants to do the anal thing… but with him, I don’t so much…”
As her cousin went on with a litany of various ways men had entered her and she them, Brooke drifted off into an internal soliloquy of remorse over her own pathetic love life. A few months ago she was blown off a ship and almost died in the ocean. Two years prior, she had nearly been killed in a foiled terrorist plot to launch a poisonous gas cloud over New York City. A brave retired detective had saved her life and the lives of millions in the metropolitan area by sacrificing his own. In another case, she had stared down a mastermind terrorist, the scariest man she’d ever met, and got him to blink first, which led to the unraveling of a nuclear bomb plot. But she had relegated her joy, her happiness, to somewhere after doing the laundry on her to-do list.
Mathilde was now painfully describing her soreness from a well-hung guy who must have been her Wednesday booty call, or was she up to Friday? Brooke had lost count.
“Brooke, Brooke. Are you somewhere else? Did you hear what I said about his — what’s wrong?”
“Nothing, I was just thinking—never mind.”
“No, I have been talking all the time. What is on your head?”
“You got me thinking; here you are living a life where you have sex more than I work out, and it just…just makes you think, that’s all.”
“Who is he?”
Brooke didn’t bother to play cute with a, ‘Why, whomever do you mean?’ ploy. Mathilde had broken many barriers tonight. “I met him briefly. He saved my life actually.”
“Ooo this is good! Go on.”
“He is unbelievable; he is the captain of a ship.”
“A big one?”
“Yes, it’s a submarine…”
“No, his cock, does he have a big one?”
“You are unbelievable! When did you turn into such a sex fiend?”
“Right after I started getting my period. I was in school — ”
Brooke held up her hand, “Hey wait, we are talking about me now.”
“Yes, yes, I’m sorry; I will tell you about Claude and Jeremy later.”
Brooke was about to speak when what Mathilde said finally registered, “TWO? At what, thirteen?” The she stopped herself and held up her hand, “Ah no, I don’t want to hear this now — back to me.” Brooke shook off the image of a thirteen-year-old Mathilde kissing two boys under the stairwell between history and math. “Anyway he’s got the most trusting eyes, he’s big and strong, and he just bristles with maleness.”
As she spoke, Brooke realized she sounded like the girl in the hall in high school who was all ‘dreamy’ over some jock, but never so much as kissed him. Here, Mathilde was ready to open the Happy Hooker Ranch and she was still damp over some guy she barely knew and never slept with. Pathetic was the word that kept bouncing off her brain. But still, she kept talking like an infatuated teen. “He is one of a handful of men on the planet who is trusted to command a weapon with the power to destroy dozens of cities and millions of people. Getting close to that kind of power is intoxicating. I tried to deny that but I can’t. He is a rare breed; the Navy makes sure of that and I can’t stop thinking about him.”
“Go to him and fuck him,” Mathilde said as if she were suggesting bringing him a cup of coffee.
Brooke wanted to say something — some objection to Mathilde’s crude suggestion. But she couldn’t. She tried, but no words came out. Was it that simple? Had she miscalculated? Then it hit her. “But what if that isn’t enough?” she said, leaning over the table so as not to broadcast her fear to the entire restaurant.
“If he has a small zizi, better to find out now.”
“No, no, you lunatic, not his thing. What if just ‘doing it’ isn’t enough? What if I want him more, want to be with him, want to make him my world? Where would I go? What part of my world would I have to give up to keep him?”
“My beautiful cousin, you think too much with your head.”
“You obviously don’t have that problem?” Brooke couldn’t bring back the words; she was sorry before she finished the sentence. “Oh, I didn’t mean that, Mathilde.”
“But it’s true; my heart and my pussy are two separate things. I want that kind of relationship you are looking for but it doesn’t always happen. In the meantime, I have fun. I have needs and I make sure they are meeting.”
“Well, just the same, it was an awful thing for me to say.” The moment hung. “Do you really? Do you really want that too?”
Mathilde gestured to their barely eaten appetizers. “It is like food; you want to have a fabulous dinner i
n the best place in the world with the best wine and the best service. This does not mean you don’t also eat a hamburger when you are hungry?”
“I guess that’s a healthy way to look at it if you make it a veggie burger.”
“Veggie? Oh yes, no meat! That is your problem, no meat!”
They both laughed, and with that, the tension shattered and the night became beautiful again to Brooke. They lingered on till one in the morning, then strolled back up the steep hill, formerly the province of mountain goats, hence the name Chèvre d’Or — Golden Goat. They hugged at the room’s door.
“Oh, it was great seeing you, Mathilde. I love your life. You are happy and doing what you want.”
“Brooke, don’t listen to me too much, I work in a hotel and people are always coming here to find romance. It is all around me all the time. You — you are out in the world, exciting job, FBI, now the Clinton Girl. Don’t let my silly affairs sway you. Your captain will come to you; he may be one-in-a-million, but you, my cousin, are one-in-a-billion. Bonne chance.
“Bonne chance, Mathilde.” Brooke went into her room and out onto the terrace to view the lights twinkling all the way to Nice. A lone airliner was silently lifting into the night sky. She looked out over the sea and imagined that beneath those waves was a trillion-dollar boy’s toy. Her Mush giving orders and thinking of her. Her head was floating; she had drunk more tonight than in a month. She flopped down on the chaise, and with the moon bright overhead and knowing there was no one higher than her perch who could see, her fingers wandered and she visited with Mush once again.
∞§∞
Joey was scanning the London Times, the first English language daily paper available at the embassy each morning, as he sat on the veranda and sipped his espresso. He read about the latest sex scandal to capture the attention of the British. Under the scathing headline, “Saudi Royal Sex Scandal,” he read about the bodyguard of an Arabian prince who had been found dead in Switzerland. Seems the security man had taken to a hooker in a dance club and had been seen following her out of the club. His body had been found in a cheap hotel and the police were assuming he and the prostitute’s pimp had an altercation, during which he was stabbed to death. The article ended with a statement from the royal family. “We regret the death of our trusted and loyal aide. His dalliance into this regrettable incident is not in the tradition or countenance of the Prince or the Royal Family. May Allah have mercy.”
Joey had done some protective service detail as a New York City cop during the General Assembly, and knew the children of the royals were holy terrors. His cop’s sense told him there was no way the prince wasn’t somehow involved in this. In fact, back in the seventies, one of the biggest, loudest playboy “princes” was the son of a big Arab construction tycoon, who burned up the cobblestone streets in lower Manhattan with his Ferrari and held sway over ten of the hottest clubs and their precious female constituents. This privileged offspring started his day at 7 p.m. and ended it in some after-hours shindig in a series of hotel suites about sunrise. He was a playboy of the first order. His name was Osama Bin Laden.
Just then an embassy staff member knocked on the doorframe that led to the veranda at the ambassador’s residence. “Mr. Palumbo, there is a Director Dupré at reception.”
Joey found the director in the library. “Thank you for coming on such short notice. How did you get in here?”
“My brother-in-law works here as your community information officer.”
Joey couldn’t find the words so he smiled and said, “In August 1997, were you involved in an investigation of the death of a priest at the Sofitel? I have the file and it is signed by a Sergeant Dupré, who I assume isn’t another brother-in-law.”
“No, yes, that is me. As I remember, I found no evidence of foul play. How, may I ask, did you come into possession of that police file?”
“It is the underlying case the judge used to snag Sicard from us at the station.”
Joey had read a lot of expressions on the faces of a lot of criminals, bosses, and women. Dupré’s read as genuinely surprised. Joey decided to push a few buttons. “Director, you set me up. You were in on this whole charade.”
“Yes, I could see why you would think that. May I see the file?”
Joey handed him the folder. “You are not denying it then?”
“I am not denying that you think it. I want to see if I should apologize or thank you.”
Joey looked at the French cop wondering what his angle was. Dupré studied all the papers, the reports, and the little stamps and signatures. After a few minutes he said, “Would you like to come with me?”
“Where?”
“To find out who this Sicard is.”
Ten minutes later, they were at the back door of a mosque. The director reached down, unstrapped a small .32 caliber pistol from his leg and handed it to Joey. “Just in case.” He then unsnapped the strap on his service Glock and left his jacket buttons opened.
Joey stuffed the .32 into his waist and let his coat hang free as well. The director knocked on the door. Soon it was opened by a man in imam’s garb.
“Ah my friend, perhaps you have a minute to chat,” Dupré said sweetly as he flashed his French tin.
“Of course,” the man of Allah responded to the man of the law.
“Are we alone?”
“Yes. Who is this man?”
“He is working with me; he is here to observe.”
“What can I help you with?”
“I was thinking the other day of when I interviewed you years ago in the case of Friar Gregory; you remember that unfortunate affair?”
“Yes. Very tragic.”
“Indeed. Back then you were working as a counterman at the hotel. You said there was no one who inquired or came to see the priest prior to his being found dead.”
“If that is what I said then, that is what happened.”
Suddenly, Dupré pushed his forearm across the man’s chest and dropped him back across a table, knocking over a vase and some artifacts, which crashed on the floor, reverberating throughout the entire old stone church-turned-mosque. Dupré pulled his gun and stuck it in the man’s chest.
Joey was observing this interesting interrogation technique when he heard hurried footsteps approaching the room, Dupré cocked his head toward the door and Joey pulled the .32 cal. When five men burst in he waved it at them saying only, “Uh, uh, uuuh!”
Dupré pulled out a picture of Sicard. “You never told me about this man.”
“I never…”
“Don’t even think of lying, and don’t waste our time. Now, who is this man?” Dupré emphasized his request with a jab of the 9mm to the rib cage.
“He is one of you. No?” The man said, scared out of his wits.
“I ask the questions. How do you know him?”
“He’s a killer, an assassin.”
“Who was he to kill?”
“Why, don’t you know?”
“Refresh my memory, si vous plez.”
“The Pope.”
Joey tightened the grip on his pistol and felt a chill run down his spine.
Five minutes later they emerged from the side of the mosque, got in Dupré’s car and sped away.
“I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess what I saw back there wasn’t recommended Metro police procedure.”
“Here, as director of intelligence, I have more — latitude.”
“So now Sicard is an assassin. Hired by whom to kill the Pope?”
“Time to dig; how’s your French?”
“Sucks, but I have an associate who is part French. She’ll be in Paris early this afternoon.”
“I’ll start without her; join me at my headquarters at two p.m.”
XII. QUIET LITTLE WEEKEND
Bill had hoped for good weather. This little family outing was going to be a real once in a lifetime experience. President Mitchell had offered him Camp David. It was the perk of all perks. He felt odd, loading up the
Escalade as if they were going to the beach, but instead going to a historic place where world leaders hobnobbed. Little Richard Ross Hiccock would ride the ‘horseys’ and fish in the lake where presidents and their families played.
Janice was looking forward to it as well. Bill planned to spend a lot of time with Richie, and she was looking forward to some downtime and a chance to get back to writing more of her book on brain disorders. Janice came out of the house with Richie and a little bag of stuff. Bill snapped his fingers and ran back inside the house; a second later he emerged, locked the front door, and got in the front seat. “I almost forgot my Nikon. I want to have some good pictures of this.”
On the drive to Fredrick, Maryland, they chatted about whether or not to change the pool service, if they should get a bigger TV for the family room, and if they should invite both sets of parents to the house for the holidays. All in all, a pretty mundane conversation to have on the way to an ultra-class resort with a detachment of US marines as a personal protection force.
Bill’s secure phone rang. He couldn’t find it. Janice started moving around the things in the front seat, and then looked in the back. Richie had it and was waving it around as it rang.
She answered it and then handed it to Bill saying with an air of resignation, “Hold for POTUS.” She knew a call from the President of the United States couldn’t be good. She only heard Bill’s end.
“Yes sir. Of course, sir, I completely understand. No, not at all. Of course. Thank you, sir.” He ended the call and placed the phone in his shirt pocket.
“So…”
“Last week a particle physicist had a breakthrough.”
“Okay, and the president called you — why?”
“He wants me to meet with this guy.”
“When?”
“Tomorrow.”
“Oh, Bill; we were counting on this weekend.”
“We are still having our weekend. The president is flying this guy in and he’s going to come to Camp David. It should only be a few hours. I’m sorry, but it is his place, you know.”
The God Particle Page 13