The Penny Thief

by Christophe Paul

  There was silence, and Tash’s breathing could be heard on the other end.

  “Do you have my house keys with you?” Maillard asked.

  “Yes, Dad, I have them where I always put them, together with mine.”

  “Come and stay tonight, and we’ll talk. Don’t go to your place, you hear me?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Tash, please, for once in your life, just listen to me. If anything happened to you, I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself,” Maillard implored in a tone that she wasn’t familiar with. She suddenly felt very afraid.

  “You have my word: I’ll sleep at your place tonight. Now I understand why Pierre-Gabriel called me so many times this morning.”

  “I have to see Henri tonight—he and I have a lot of things to talk about. Let me talk to him now, please.”

  There was a moment of hesitation, then Tash said, “He wants to talk to you.”

  Another moment of hesitation, and he heard Pichon’s voice on the telephone, honest and direct. “Good morning, Monsieur Maillard.”

  “Good morning, Henri. Pay attention to what I’m going to say to you. First, just to make sure we’re clear, I have to say that I am delighted my daughter is in good hands at last.”

  An astonished silence lingered.

  Maillard continued, “Second, Tash is in danger, and it’s important that tonight she takes shelter at my house, and especially that she doesn’t go to hers. Pierre-Gabriel knows about your pennies.”

  “I knew that already.”

  “I suppose you also know that he made a courtesy visit to you in the hospital. I saw your eyes open in a surveillance video.”

  “Now I understand what the detective was putting away in his pocket.”

  “Does Tash know anything about all this?”

  “Absolutely nothing.”

  “Perfect—I see we have the same mettle. I just told her that her husband had deciphered your Tash routines.”

  “It was only a matter of time.”

  “What she doesn’t know is that last night Pierre-Gabriel killed a man, thinking he was in possession of the key to the treasure trove.”

  There was a sigh and the sound of a chair moving. Henri had sat down. “Tash can stay here with me.”

  “No. Pierre-Gabriel knows where she is, or if he hasn’t realized it yet, he’ll find out soon. She’ll be safer at my house, that’s for sure. Apart from that, I need to see you tonight, at nine thirty at Relais de la Butte. That way you won’t have to travel far.”

  “I’m feeling better, and—”

  “Don’t worry, it works well for me. Can I count on you?”

  “Nine thirty, I’ll be there. And don’t worry about Tash, I’ll make sure she goes to your house.”

  Maillard went back to his table at the restaurant, where an unsettled Morgane watched him walk toward her. He seemed different and had recovered his arrogant demeanor. His skin was less pale, his gaze more luminous. Maillard was back, and that could only mean that he had found the key to unlock the door to the millions.

  “How is Tash?” she asked affectionately, trying to broach the subject, but the damn cell phone got up to its old tricks again. After checking who was calling, Maillard picked it up with a smile to excuse himself.

  “What’s up, Herbert? No, that’s not necessary, I just spoke to her and arranged to meet him tonight at nine thirty at his building. Do we know anything about the woman? Fine, as we agreed, by email. Bye.”

  He hung up and concentrated on Morgane. He knew she liked to eat at a particular time, otherwise she got out of sync and could turn into the most unpleasant person on Earth.

  “I’m sorry, what a lunch I’m giving you. Let’s order before you pass out—you look very pale.”

  54

  Jean-Philippe said good-bye to Pichon with a wave at the doors of Relais de la Butte. He opened his umbrella and strolled down Rue de Trois Frères toward Boulevard de Rochechouart to catch a taxi. He flashed a satisfied smile as Pichon ran back inside the café building to avoid getting wet.

  The forecast for the day turned out to be true, and a deluge on par with the Great Flood was pouring down on the gray rooftops of Paris.

  Once he made it inside, Henri stood at the door until the timed hallway light went out. He was outraged and scared by the two-hour conversation with Maillard. Tash’s father had started talking about the past, his friendship with Henri’s uncle, his help with the Pichon case for Henri’s adoption thirty-four years ago. Then they touched on darker subjects, such as Loiseau’s visit that morning, Garibaldi’s death, and Pichon’s name painted on the wall with the blood of the dead man. They talked over the recent development of Henri’s becoming a person of interest for the police and the bank, not to mention what Tash would think, seeing her lover from a different perspective. Maillard had the key to Henri’s salvation and the evidence that implicated him. He proposed a deal: he wanted half the diverted pennies, and Henri would be free of all suspicion while Tash would never find out anything.

  During the course of the pitiful conversation, Pichon had time to think. He knew that Maillard was mostly bluffing. The police had nothing on Henri, and if it was true that his name was on the wall at Garibaldi’s place, why didn’t the famous Loiseau come to arrest him? He was beside himself, and he decided to teach Maillard a lesson to intimidate him and show him that it wouldn’t be easy to scare Henri, let alone gamble with Tash. But first he had to distract his guardian angel.

  Henri exited the back door of Relais de la Butte to a small patio where they kept the garbage cans. He climbed on one of them to get to the wall and reach the second courtyard, narrower and longer, which he crossed quickly to enter through a partly glass main door leading to Rue des Trois Frères, next to the café. He peered out discreetly before leaving and saw that Maillard was walking a few yards ahead. Pichon was about to push open the door when he saw a silhouette in a raincoat holding an umbrella emerge from the shadows and slowly follow Maillard.

  The man walked in front of the door where Pichon was watching. Despite the rain, the faded yellow light of the lampposts, and the shadow from the umbrella, it was easy to recognize the figure: it was Pierre-Gabriel, with his gigantic bruise and tortoiseshell glasses, holding his temple.

  55

  Pierre-Gabriel was struggling with his migraine. At last Jean-Philippe had said good-bye to Pichon, who ran back inside to avoid the rain.

  Pierre-Gabriel checked the time: 11:42 p.m. The two men had chatted for more than two hours at a table near a window. The waiter, whom Pierre-Gabriel had seen at the hospital without his outfit, approached them several times, moments during which Maillard suspended the conversation. It looked like a secret business meeting. Tash didn’t appear—she’d probably gone home. He’d deal with her on his return. And if she wasn’t home, he knew where to find her: at Pichon’s house, no doubt.

  He emerged from the shadows, struggling against the pangs of pain in his head, and went after Maillard, following closely. He couldn’t let his father-in-law escape now. He had visual evidence that Morgane was right—Pichon and Maillard were on the same team. It was time to get information out of the old man, he thought, touching the stun gun in the right pocket of his raincoat.

  Morgane had called him as soon as she finished her lunch with Maillard to tell him what had transpired, and she was obviously upset. She informed him of the visit by the superintendent of the criminal brigade, Maillard’s conversation with Tash and Pichon, and the call with someone named Herbert, who couldn’t be anyone other than Maillard’s close friend Inspector Lenoir. The possible date with Pichon at 9:30 p.m., which turned out to be true. Maillard and Lenoir were hot on the trail of a woman who couldn’t be anyone other than Morgane. She was being cornered.

  When Pierre-Gabriel hung up with Morgane, he had a hunch. He was being followed. He looked out the window at the stree
t, but there were no pedestrians loitering around or sitting on a bench reading the newspaper. He couldn’t see anyone in the cars because of the reflections. He decided to make sure and stepped out to buy a bottle of orange juice at the grocery store on the next corner. Lo and behold, he’d barely reached the end of the first block when he heard a car door close quietly. He didn’t turn around, just kept going and entered the store. He caught sight of a man in the reflection of the glass door. Inside, he hid behind a shelf of cookies and chocolates and peered through the glass. It was starting to rain. The man seemed to hesitate for a minute, then decided to go back to the car. Pierre-Gabriel had identified his tail.

  Morgane called Pierre-Gabriel late in the afternoon to give him Pichon’s address, which she’d obtained from a colleague in HR; he preferred not to ask how she did it. They decided that Pierre-Gabriel would spy on Maillard and Pichon, and then, with the facts in hand, he’d decide one way or another. Morgane was truly scared and begged him not to get into any more trouble.

  It was time for Pierre-Gabriel to go out, and it wasn’t easy to give the slip to the experienced detective trailing him. He left the building through the back door, jumped into the garden next door, and wound up on the next street over. Ten minutes later he was on the subway, heading to an appointment the other person didn’t know he’d made.

  In Passage des Abbesses, he almost bumped into Maillard, who’d stopped at the top of the stairs that were partially under construction. Maillard was holding his umbrella in one hand and using the cell phone with the other. Pierre-Gabriel saw Maillard’s grimace of contempt, illuminated by the light of the telephone. He approached one step, hearing Maillard say “Slut” from between clenched teeth as he read Morgane’s name on the screen.

  “Fuck you,” said Pierre-Gabriel in Maillard’s ear, administering a shock with the stun gun that went through the other man’s raincoat. Then Pierre-Gabriel pushed him down the stairs.

  Maillard was taken aback—he’d recognized the voice of his attacker just before falling down the stairs.

  Then Maillard was frozen a few stairs below on the first landing. The shock had been buffered by his clothes. Pierre-Gabriel had counted on this, and he stooped over his father-in-law to turn him around.

  “Sir, have you hurt yourself?” he asked, mocking Maillard. Jean-Philippe looked at him with a mix of rage and panic. His whole body ached, but he wasn’t sure if it was from the fall or the electric shock.

  “Give me the accounts, old man. I know you have them, and you’ve made a deal with those fuckers,” Pierre-Gabriel said, clenching his teeth from the migraine that became a lot sharper from bending over. The pain was so strong that he nearly passed out. He stood up and felt slightly nauseated.

  Maillard glanced at him, terrified. Pierre-Gabriel seemed to be both ill and out of his mind—his eyes were crazy. “You should see a doctor,” he managed to say.

  Pierre-Gabriel punched him in the face and pinned him down, putting his knee on Maillard’s chest and making it hard for him to breathe.

  “Don’t be clever. I saw you two talking at the restaurant.”

  Maillard didn’t know how he was going to get out of this one. At this hour, and with this kind of rain, nobody was out, and he’d lost his cell phone and umbrella in the fall. But he could talk and move his left arm. His hand was touching something smooth—a stone? No, a small tile. He had to distract his son-in-law for long enough to be able to slam it in his face, right on the bruise, if possible. Then he would have to get out of there any way he could: screaming, dragging himself.

  “They’re written on a piece of paper,” he whispered.

  “Speak up, old man.”

  “They’re written on a piece of paper,” repeated Maillard with visible effort.

  Pierre-Gabriel bent over further, despite feeling like his head was about to explode. “Where?”

  Maillard picked up the tile and thrust as hard as he could. “I don’t know anything, you moron!”

  The blow didn’t have the desired effect, nor did it quite hit the target. It landed under Pierre-Gabriel’s right ear, brushing his temple, and Pierre-Gabriel almost fainted from the pain. “Son of a bitch!” he yelped, now entirely out of his mind. He pulled the stun gun from his soaking raincoat and calmly put it in front of Maillard’s face.

  “You’ve missed your chance, old man. I’m going to finish you off, and then I’ll go get your daughter, and Pichon will sing. Everything would have been easier if it hadn’t been for your greed.”

  Maillard tried to figure out what to do, but Pierre-Gabriel put the stun gun to his neck and pushed the button again and again. Maillard’s eyes went blank, and he stopped moving. Pierre-Gabriel picked up the tile and smashed Maillard’s face with all his might, experiencing a feeling of déjà vu.

  His head ached terribly, and a strong wave of nausea took hold of him. He had to get away. He couldn’t throw up there.

  56

  Henri Pichon opened the door slightly. Maillard wasn’t that far away, standing at the top of the stairs of Passage des Abbesses. The three-quarter view that Henri had, overshadowed by the umbrella, allowed him to guess that Maillard was checking something on his phone.

  Pierre-Gabriel, staggering, almost bumped into Maillard, but Maillard was so focused on what he was doing that he didn’t notice or think it was important.

  From then on, everything happened in quick succession: Pierre-Gabriel brutally pushed his father-in-law down the stairs; stood there for a few seconds, looking at something Pichon couldn’t see; and after quickly checking that nobody was watching, disappeared from Pichon’s sight down the stairs.

  Pichon stayed in the shadows, aware that he had just witnessed something dramatic, and had a feeling of moral defeat. He was witnessing the struggle for power, for lots of money. Pichon hadn’t ever cared about the money. He’d never touched a single penny he’d taken.

  It all began a few years after he started his job at the bank. It was a challenging game to steal from one of the biggest banks of Europe, penny by penny, day after day, without anyone noticing. With the first program, he extracted about eighty cents a day, and it was fun. Then he branched out to other transactions, and the sum rose to several hundred cents. He continued to build up until he reached more than a hundred thousand pennies a day.

  Back in current time, Pichon quickly drew near the stairs and peeked around the corner at the moment when Maillard tried to smash in Pierre-Gabriel’s face with a tile, saying, “I don’t know anything, you moron!”

  Pierre-Gabriel faltered briefly, and it looked like he was about to fall. Then he got hold of himself, pulled the stun gun out of his pocket, and waved it in front of Maillard’s face, threatening him.

  Henri was confused: What should he do? Intervene and keep the deranged Pierre-Gabriel from committing another crime? Give them the money? Or stand back and let them kill each other?

  An inkling of morality prompted him to intervene. He was going to come out of his hiding place when he heard Pierre-Gabriel threaten Tash—the scent of the money had turned them both into monsters. First her father, now her husband. He hoped they devoured each other. Even though he would have given them everything, he knew he’d always live with the underhanded threat in some way or another, and he couldn’t allow this. He’d waited seventeen years to see his dream come true, the dream of having the woman he loved in his arms.

  He watched as Pierre-Gabriel lunged with the stun gun and pressed it against Maillard’s body, how he picked up the tile and hit him with all his might, then escaped, hobbling down the stairs after picking up Maillard’s umbrella.

  Pichon, soaked to the bone, waited for him to disappear from sight, made sure no one was there, and started to walk down the stairs. His right foot bumped into an object that went flying two steps below and lit up—the cell phone. He picked it up and put it away; he’d look at it later.

  He d
rew near the limp body of Maillard, who was bleeding heavily. The blow from the tile had sunk in the left side of his skull. He looked awful. Henri undid Maillard’s coat and jacket and found his wallet and a checkbook in an inside pocket. He took the wallet and left the checkbook so that he could be easily identified.

  “Hey, you! What are you doing?” yelled a man from the top of the stairs, protected by his umbrella.

  “I was walking my dog, and I found him lying here. It looks like he took a bad fall, and he’s badly injured. Do you have a phone to call for help? I didn’t bring mine.”

  “Yes, of course. I’ll call the police right away.”

  “Maybe it’s best to call the fire department.”

  “You’re right, best to call the fire department. Hey, what about your dog?”

  “Shit! He’s wandered off. Can you see him up there? He’s a dwarf Yorkshire Terrier.”

  The man looked around. “No, he’s not here.”

  “Shit! Can you take charge? I’ll be right back.”

  Pichon got up, continuing to take care not to show his face, and walked down the street calling his dog.

  “Hercules! Hercules, cupcake, where are you? Come here, Hercules.”

  When he reached the bottom of the street, he turned around, saying to the man who was stooping over Maillard, “Found him! I’ll be right back. Hercules, come here! Stay!”

  Then he ran as fast as he could.

  57

  “We’re sure you were the last person who was with Jean-Philippe Maillard last night.”

  “We parted at around eleven thirty, maybe a little later. Why? Is anything wrong?”

  There was no answer, only silence from the superintendent, something he thought of as a psychological game, and it made Henri smile on the inside.

  “Listen, Inspector—”

  “Superintendent Loiseau.”

  Pichon again smiled inside, remembering how on the previous day, Tash’s father had repeatedly said the name wrong as he narrated his visit, calling the man Lemerle, Lapie, Lecorbeau, but never Loiseau.