by Blake Pierce
John let out a long breath, his chest deflating like a leaky balloon jabbed with a needle. “I haven’t been avoiding you,” he said, but there was no conviction in it. “A case came up. I’m doing my job. Isn’t that what you pestered me about for nearly a week last time?”
Adele crossed her arms over her chest, causing her suit to wrinkle near the creases of her elbows. “John,” she said, “how stupid do you think I am?”
John leaned back, setting one elbow on the guardrail of the staircase. “Stupid? I’d never,” he said. He met her gaze without yielding.
She clenched her teeth. “You know what,” she said, “fine, if you don’t want to talk, be that way. I know what happened last time we spoke. Don’t pretend like it didn’t.”
At this, John’s cheeks flushed. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. We had some fun. Swam around that pool of Robert’s. So what?”
Adele raised an eyebrow at him, “Oh? You didn’t try to kiss me?”
It was like she’d shot him. John threw his hands to the sky. “I tried to kiss you? Right, you tried to kiss me.”
Adult shook her head. “That’s not how I remember it.”
John glared now. “American Princess comes into France, steals a kiss, steals some of my booze, and then makes stories up. You live in fantasy land, little girl.”
“You’re insufferable. I can’t even believe that I—”
“You what?” John’s lips curled into a smile again, and he studied her with a sharklike expression.
Adele stared back, refusing to give in to his predatory gaze. She hesitated, then said, in a gentler tone, “I didn’t avoid it because I don’t like you; I mean I don’t, not that way—I was just taken off guard is all. You didn’t have to leave.”
John snorted. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. If I did try to kiss you, I guarantee you it was the alcohol. I’m a man, you’re a woman. You’re okay looking, I suppose,” he said, giving her a long, lecherous look.
Adele knew he was trying to make her uncomfortable, and she refused to give in. She kept her eyes fixed on his and glimpsed a flash of shame. But just as quickly, he set his jaw, his cheeks compressing a bit. “I’m not the sort to ask twice, American Princess.”
Adele shook her head. “So you admit you did try to kiss me?”
He guffawed, and this time he leaned back, crossing his arms. “You missed me. No, don’t deny it. I can tell. You missed me. Do you dream about me?” He wiggled his dark eyebrows again.
Adele snorted. “Look, let’s forget that for a moment. Maybe I shouldn’t have invited you over to Robert’s. I don’t know. I didn’t mean to wound your fragile honor or anything.”
Adele knew it would injure his pride when she said it, which was exactly why she did. Two could play this game. It was probably best they kept things professional anyway. He was a reliable partner. Nauseatingly unprofessional, but reliable. He’d saved her life after all.
“Look, I don’t know what you’re working on,” she said, “but I could use your help.”
John cleared his throat. “Look, Adele, I wish I could, but I really am working another case. I’m quite busy. I’m not lucky enough to have multiple agencies supplying me with intel.”
“Fine,” Adele, raising her hands. “No, really, I get it. Whatever you’re working on is probably more interesting. I’m sure it’s something really fascinating. Not financial crime or accounting or a bunch of numbers on a screen or anything—I’m sure.”
John’s eyes narrowed. “I’ll have you know, I’m investigating a very serious, important case of embezzling.” He tugged at his black shirt, realizing the top button was undone. Before he finally had done it though, he seemed disgusted by his urge for modesty and left it unbuttoned, putting his hands on his hips in a defiant posture. “It’s an important case,” he insisted.
Adele hid a smirk. “Never said it wasn’t. I’m sure it’s very important. Very interesting. You can go over the numbers again, and again, and again. You get to talk to all sorts of interesting bankers and accountants.” She nodded. “Fascinating.”
He glared. “I like it better when you speak in English,” he said. “At least that way I don’t understand your drivel half the time. Actually, no, I like it better when you don’t speak at all.”
Adele smirked now, returning the same grin John had flashed earlier. “Oh?” she said. “Pity that. Because if I could speak, I would tell you we have a case with three dead girls.” She fixed her eyes on John, some of the humor fading from her tone. “He’s killing them at a three-day pace. We’re on track for a lot of bodies if we don’t do something quick. There’s no physical evidence, no DNA, no fingerprints. He steals their kidneys. Last crime scene had a video, but we couldn’t see his face. He wore gloves. Found a pool of water suggesting perhaps he had ice in the toolbox. The working theory right now is that he’s been harvesting their kidneys to sell on the black market. It’s an organ harvesting case. Which, of course, compared to embezzlement is boring. It’s nothing.”
John’s lips tightened the more she spoke. He was now frowning. As she trailed off, he grunted, “Interpol have any files?”
Adele nodded. “Robert is combing through them right now. Due to the nature of this new task force, they’re only giving one of us access at a time. But by the end of it, I think we’ll find a connection. There has to be.”
When she looked back, John was watching her with a slight smile on his lips. When he noticed her looking, though, he quickly coughed and turned away, glancing up the stairs. “Look,” he said, hesitantly, “have you thought to look in organized crime?”
Adele shook her head. “We discussed it, but thought to start with Interpol’s cold ones.”
John nodded. “Makes sense, but I’ve actually worked a couple of cases. Three years ago…” He hesitated, trailing off.
“Three years ago what?”
He looked her straight in the eyes. “I didn’t try to kiss you. I just got a little too close. It was the alcohol.”
“Fine,” Adele waved her hand, “you didn’t try to kiss me. Totally professional. What were you saying?”
John seemed to settle. “Three years ago I worked a case with organ harvesting. A group of Serbians operating in France. They offered twenty-five thousand euros for a good set of lungs, kidneys, liver, anything.”
Adele stared. “A group? How proliferate?”
John shook his head. “Not entirely sure. We didn’t get all the books. We did, however, shut down the ring. We caught the Serbians. A lot of desperate and poor in France were coming here, some of them offering their own kidneys, or whatever organs they could spare without dying. Twenty-five thousand euros is a lot of money.”
Adele felt her stomach churn. “Right,” she said, “and so you shut them down?”
John nodded. “It was messed up, Adele. I saw some things… and I’ve seen a lot.”
“What do you think this has to do with my case?”
“The Serbians often didn’t pay. People would come, go under, have their organs removed, or bring some poor hapless victim who didn’t know any better, and prey on them. They would take the organs, sometimes killing the person, and then leave. They wouldn’t pay. They left these people poor, broken, no money, with injuries and poorly done stitches. Sometimes they wouldn’t even stitch them back up, and would just leave them on their operating tables in a back warehouse, bleeding out; when they would wake from the anesthesia, they would be in pain, minus an organ, and no money to show for it. There were more than a few of those cases where I had to visit someone in the hospital and watch while surgeons repaired the messy job of the organ harvesters.”
Adele shivered in horror.
He sighed. “You know what… fuck those guys. Fine, I’m in. I’ll help. But I can’t tell you anything it sounds like you don’t know. There is one angle, though.”
Adele watched, waiting for him to continue.
“I did have a contact. A French criminal. Not Ser
bian, but he worked with them, adjacent. He turned informant to get off without penalty.”
“So he gave up a crime ring in order to avoid a prison sentence?” Adele asked. “Bold move.”
“Anyway,” said John, “I think I know where to start.”
“If you want, we can meet up tomorrow morning and—”
John snorted. “Who said anything about morning? Come with me, American Princess.” He turned and began hurrying up the stairs; Adele fell into step. She felt like he was moving faster than necessary, just to force her to jog to keep up with his lanky strides. As they moved, John fished his phone from his pocket, and pressed it to his ear.
“Who are you calling?” she asked, following him onto the first-floor landing and moving toward the sliding doors that entered the parking lot.
“My contact,” said John. “He still works in France.”
Adele frowned. “We’re going to go meet with a criminal?”
“Hush,” said John. He held out a finger and actually pushed it against her lips. Adele slapped his hand away, glaring, and John smirked again as he moved through the doors into the parking lot, gesturing she should follow.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
By the time John pulled his sports car to a grumbling halt along the ridged curb outside the café, night had fallen.
Adele was still staring at the luxurious interior of the vehicle, shaking her head. “This can’t possibly be government issue,” she said, glaring at John.
He smirked back at her, tapping the steering wheel. “No?” he said. “I thought Yankee Doodle Dandies liked cars like this.”
She rolled her eyes. “Some of us think cars likes these are compensating for something small.” This time it was her turn to give John a significant glance and flip her eyes down.
His expression became rather fixed. “I can assure you, American Princess, there’s nothing small about—”
“Right, fine,” Adele said, hurriedly. “Who are we here to see then?”
Still glaring at her through narrowed eyes, John said, “My contact. Name of Francis. No given second name—learned that when we arrested him. He just goes by Francis—I don’t think his parents could bother giving him another.”
Adele nodded. “You guys friendly?”
John winked. “Come now, of course. Everyone likes me.”
“That does nothing to put me at ease,” Adele muttered. Stomach twisting, she followed John out of the sports car. She shut the door behind her, glancing back at the tinted windows and the glossy black paint. Vaguely, she wondered how on earth John had gotten permission to use this as his official government vehicle. DGSI allowed operatives to bend rules for the sake of collaring criminals, but she would’ve loved to be at the pitch meeting for this gas-guzzling excuse for a mode of transportation.
Then again, this was the same man who had a speakeasy in a government building’s basement. John’s lengthy gait picked up as he moved toward the seedy café’s door. Adele could practically see smoke coming from within, twisting up past the low roof. Four panes of glass occupied the wooden green door, but the paint was chipped, and one of the sections of glass was missing.
Adele stared at the café. She only knew what it was due to John. Otherwise, she couldn’t see any sign or name suggesting this was a place of business. A series of red umbrellas hemmed in the front porch, wrapped in straps like leather above a few round tables.
Beer cans littered the ground around the sidewalk, and the windows of the café itself were painted black. They weren’t tinted; it was as if someone had actually spray-painted them from the outside. The adjacent red brick building displayed all sorts of obscene drawings and graffiti. But the café itself hadn’t been vandalized. Adele frowned. She’d once been on a case with Robert, years ago, where he’d told her that any place in a seedy part of a neighborhood which wasn’t tagged meant the owner had a reputation.
“What is this place?” she said.
John, though, stepped through the small, rusted gate circling the makeshift porch and headed for the door with the missing glass section. “Try to look less like a cop,” he called. “And if anyone tries to make a move on you in there, shoot them.”
Adele stared after him, but then fell into step, the unease in her gut only rising. The tall agent pushed open the door. No bell announced his presence. As Adele followed after him, she was assailed by the smell of smoke. She forced herself to breathe through her mouth in slow, puffing breaths.
On their left, a low bar was occupied by a few patrons nursing drinks. They drank straight out of their respective bottles. John nodded toward a large, rotund woman behind the counter. She wore a white apron streaked with yellow and red. The woman glanced back at John and didn’t return his greeting. Her eyes flitted to Adele, and her impassive expression remained as emphatic as a slab of granite. Her eyes tracked them across the room as John and Adele moved through the café.
On the other side of the room, small, circular tables occupied a space in front of neon vending machines and fridges lined with soda bottles. The bottles themselves were half empty, as if people had drunk them before putting them back in the fridges.
“Can I help you?” the large woman behind the counter called out. She had addressed the question to Adele. Adele shrugged and gave a small nod toward John.
John looked over. “Where’s Francis?”
The woman’s expression softened a bit. Instead of distrustful, now she looked curious. She waved a hand toward the stairs in the back of the café and then returned her attention to a customer who was banging his glass against the marble counter. Besides the smoke, the cafe smelled like a locker room and talcum powder. A few of the men sitting around tables made eyes at her. Most had strange tattoos up and down their arms; some had even tattooed their knuckles, their fingers, and their faces. One man had tattoos like tears down the sides of his eyes.
“Like I said,” John said, “if any of them try anything, shoot them.” He spoke loud enough so the patrons heard, and most turned back to their drinks.
“What is this place?” Adele repeated, keeping her voice low.
John said, “A hangout. For the sorts of people we put behind bars.” He added this last part in a quiet voice. “They’ve seen me here before, but they don’t know where I work. Probably best they don’t find out either,” he added, still quiet.
He winked, as if to offset the words themselves, but Adele only felt more at unease. She kept her jacket buttoned in the front, the length covering her weapon and her badge. Her Interpol temporary credentials were still in her suit pocket.
“Should’ve told me before we got here,” Adele growled, eyes still fixed on the staircase.
John reached the top of the stairs and looked at her. “Just don’t let them see the cuffs, right?” Then, he turned and took the steps. She noted he didn’t reach out to touch the railing. The metal bar looked greasy. She kept her own hands at her sides as she too descended. The smell from downstairs, if at all possible, was less offensive than upstairs.
A pool table occupied a back wall with no windows. A couple of arcade slot machines and a poker table were populated by a group of men and a couple women. No one paid attention as they entered the basement save two men in black suits.
The men both stepped forward from where they’d been stationed against a square pillar, frowning at the newcomers. Their suits bulged near their waistbands, suggesting they carried weapons which Adele guessed were probably illegal. Both men held out halting hands. “Names?” they asked.
John eyed them both. “I’m here to see Francis.”
The larger of the two suits grunted, adjusting his jacket. He turned his head and shouted, “Francis! Visitors.”
There was a pause, then a groaning sound from behind a black curtain in the back of the room. The curtain cordoned off part of the basement behind both the billiards and the poker table. The groaning sound became a resigned sigh, and a frail hand poked through the curtains, brushing aside the fabric.
A man emerged, wearing a hoodie and sweatpants. He had sallow cheeks and a skeletal face. He looked like he might have had Korean and French heritage, but when he approached, he spoke seamless French. “What is it?” he asked, looking around. Then his eyes flicked from the guards to John. His expression became rather fixed.
“How’s it going, Francis?” said John with a wink. “Tried calling.” The sallow-faced man named Francis stared. A pink tongue darted out to wet his lips.
He sniffed a couple of times and wiped his hand across the back of his nose. “What are you doing here?” he said, quickly.
Adele glanced between the man and John, trying to get a read on the situation. The guards were also doing a quick survey, and they didn’t look particularly pleased. “Do you know this twerp?” asked the muscular guard, jabbing a thumb at John.
“That’s right, do you know me?” John said, putting a weight of significance behind the words. “Because, if you don’t, I can introduce myself. I can tell everyone where I’m from, what I need, how we know each other…” He trailed off, allowing the words to linger.
With each subsequent phrase, the man named Francis seemed to pale even more. He adjusted his hood, tugging at the drawstrings and twisting them. At last, he let them go, allowing them to unwind with a twirl. “I know him,” Francis said jerkily. “He’s a guest.”
Francis beckoned at John with a jerking motion and the guards stepped aside. Adele watched as Francis slipped a finger into his hoodie pocket and pulled out a crisp role of hundred-euro bills. He peeled off a few of the bills and tucked them into the jacket pockets of both the guards. “No need to tell upstairs, hey?” Francis murmured beneath his breath.
The guards looked away now, their eyes fixed on the staircase as if John and Adele weren’t even there.
John strolled past, giving each man a wink, and he allowed Francis to guide the two of them to the back of the room, past the poker table and the billiards room. They reached the black curtain on a shower rail. Adele glanced up and down the room and spotted more tattoos she recognized as gang affiliated.