The Bookseller

by Mark Pryor

  The next step, he knew, was to try harder to find Max himself. His fingers hovered above the keyboard, the cursor blinking in the empty search box in front of him. Max was a friend and looking up his criminal history seemed like an invasion of privacy, a step too far. He didn't know why, but he felt sure that any wrongdoings would be ancient history, from a youth that Max had left behind long ago. Hugo was still not sure he wanted to know, but he couldn't think of any other way to find the old man.

  All he had was his first and last name, and even the latter he wasn't sure how to spell. He tried multiple variations on the spelling of “Cloche” and then, when he got nothing back, he tried variations on the name. After more than a dozen tries, running every name he could think of that began with “Cl-,” he sat back and ran his hands through his hair. He thought for a moment, then checked his watch and smiled at the realization that time didn't mean the same thing to Tom as it did to everyone else. He dialed his friend's number.

  Tom's voice came on the line after four rings. “I spy a French number, so Dr. Marston, I presume.”

  “Well done, Sherlock.”

  “Silence ‘lo these many years, then you can't get enough of me. What's up?”

  “You remember I said I had a little thing going on here?”

  “And here's where I make a joke about your little thing.”

  “Wouldn't be the first time. Anyway, you near your CIA gadgetry?”

  “Happens I am. It's the only way I can access global porn. The classy Malaysian stuff.”

  “Naturally,” said Hugo. “I need some information about someone, but I don't have much to go on.”

  “Hang on.” Hugo heard the clink of glasses, or perhaps bottles, being moved. “You've tried your local databases I assume?”

  “Yes, Tom, I managed to think of that.”

  “Good man. So what can you tell me?”

  “Max is the first name; I'd thought his last name was Cloche but I ran it, and every other name beginning with those first two letters, and came up empty.”

  “What else?”

  “No date of birth, I'd guess he's in his late sixties. He's a bouquiniste.”

  “OK. Anything else?”

  Hugo searched his mind for more clues, for some deeply buried memory that might point to Max's identity. “If I think of something I'll let you know.”

  “OK,” Tom said. Hugo could hear his friend's fingers working a keyboard, then Tom's voice, talking himself softly through the process. “Max and all its variations, in Paris, bookseller. Probably a union member, being a frog.”

  “Yes. And the bouquinistes have a union–”

  “I know,” Tom interrupted. “The SBP, I found it already. In his sixties, you say?”

  “Yes.” Early in the friendship Hugo had asked Max his age. The old man's response had been so colorful that Hugo had understood the meaning without recognizing many of the words themselves.

  “Let's see,” said Tom. “I have two candidates but I'd guess…crotchety looking fellow, with a rubbery nose?”

  “You found him?” Hugo sat up. “I'm at my computer, can you send me a picture?”

  “Just did. That him?”

  Hugo opened his e-mail account and clicked on the attachment to Tom's message. “You're a genius, Tom. That's him. Can you send whatever you have?”

  “Actually, not allowed to. The CIA retired me, I can't have them firing me, too. But you can take notes while I talk.”

  “Then talk.”

  “Maximilian Ivan Koche. German or Dutch I'd guess. Has an apartment on Rue Condorcet. Know it?”

  Koche. Dammit. Hugo got up. “Hang on,” he said, walking over to the large map on his wall. He found it just west of the Gare du Nord, the station that served routes to the north and to the United Kingdom. Just above Rue Condorcet was the Pigalle district, home to the famous Moulin Rouge cabaret and a multitude of sex shops. It was also home to many of the city's prostitutes, women and men who plied their trade in the winding side streets that led up to the tourist-heavy Montmartre district. “Near Pigalle,” he told Tom. “What else?”

  “According to this, he was born in 1938, which makes him over seventy years old.” Tom hummed as he clicked several times. “I was right. Again. Your buddy Max is German, born of a Hungarian mother and a German father, both Jews, in Dortmund. Looks like they lived there for a few years, until 1942, when their house was raided by those Nazi bastards. The whole family was arrested and sent to an internment camp at Le Vernet, in southern France.”

  “I've heard of it,” said Hugo. “Where the hell are you getting this stuff?”

  “Can't tell you that,” Tom said. “But you'll see in a minute why someone kept a file on him.”

  “Good. Go on.”

  “OK, so they were at Le Vernet for two years, alive and together, but in July of 1944 they were loaded onto a train and shipped east to Dachau.” Tom's tone changed, and Hugo knew that even his world-weary and flippant friend felt the weight of that period of history. “According to this, Max was the only one to survive and was liberated from Dachau in 1945. He was adopted by a French colonel and his wife and raised in a suburb of Paris.” Which explained why Hugo had never detected a foreign accent. “But then more shitty luck,” Tom went on. “When Max was twelve, in May of 1950, his adoptive father and mother were killed in a car accident while the family was on vacation in Brittany. Max was the only one to survive.”

  Hugo shook his head. So much about the old man he hadn't known. “Go on. I'm still curious why you guys have a file on him.”

  Tom chuckled. “Not technically our file, but we're coming to the interesting part. In 1963 Max attended the marriage of lawyer Serge Klarsfeld to his wife, Beate. Those names ring a bell?”

  “Yes, but I can't place them.”

  “Two of France's most famous Nazi-hunters.”

  “And the reason that file exists,” said Hugo.

  “Right. Moving on. Max spent the '60s with the Klarsfelds chasing Nazis, including those responsible for wiping out his family. According to this, French authorities suspected that Max helped the Klarsfelds abduct former Gestapo chief Kurt Lischka in 1971. No proof, although when the couple was arrested for the kidnap, Max led the campaign to free them from jail. That happened pretty quickly, a lot of people joined the campaign, and they went back to work once they were released, Max helping the couple with more Nazi captures, including Klaus Barbie and Jean Leguay.”

  “Nice work,” Hugo said.

  “Yeah, until Leguay was let go without facing trial. This says Max lost heart after that.”

  “Who was Leguay?” Hugo asked.

  “A high-ranking police official in the Vichy government, and one of the most senior collaborators with the Nazis during their World War II occupation of France. A second set of charges was filed against him in 1986, but he was let go before trial. Again.”

  “Amazing,” Hugo said. “I had no idea.”

  “This Max guy is a friend?” Tom asked. “He in trouble?”

  “Yeah. Most definitely.”

  “Anything else I can do to help?”

  “Not right now. But I'll let you know if that changes.”

  They hung up, and Hugo sat with his elbows on his desk, staring into his now-cold coffee.

  Rarely did a human being surprise him. Twenty-plus years in law enforcement saw to that, and with his behavioral training and experience in the field he usually found himself able to predict most people's odd behavior, or spot someone with a colorful history. But not this time. What stories the old man must have. And Hugo found himself pleased, somehow, that in a manner of speaking they were in the same line of work: catching bad guys. He'd failed his friend, let him be kidnapped, and that was reason enough to track Max down. But now the old man's compelling history added to Hugo's already fierce determination to find his friend.

  Not to mention, of course, Hugo owed him a pair of cowboy boots.

  That night, Hugo walked along the left bank of the Se
ine. It was almost eight o'clock and the green metal boxes attached to the stone walls were closed and locked tight, the sellers all gone. The air sat heavy and cold around him as he walked, and once he slipped on a patch of black ice on the sidewalk. He'd already paid a visit to Max's home, getting there by taxi an hour after talking to Tom. No one was there, either in Max's apartment or in any of the other four in the building. He'd brought his tools and could have picked the lock, but there were too many people still around, it was too early for that kind of clandestine activity. Reluctantly he'd left the place, knowing he'd return with a plan, a definite way to get through the front door. Now, he avoided Max's stall by cutting down the narrow Rue de Nevers. It made no sense, but he didn't feel ready to see it again. He felt as if it were a crime scene and, by returning to it full of questions rather than answers, the metal boxes might become contaminated and never give up their secrets.

  He turned left again, making his way onto Rue Dauphine, heading toward his apartment. He wasn't ready to call it a night, though; he was restless and needed to be around people. Even if that meant sitting alone in a bar. He slowed, gazing into the windows of the tiny stores that made up these narrow streets, one-room boutiques that sold not much to hardly anyone. There were dozens of them in this arrondissement, and he often wondered how they paid the rent.

  He found an empty table under a heating lamp at a café on Rue Andre Mazet. It was busy for a Monday night, but it pleased him to be out in a crowd. He ordered a scotch, and when the waiter returned he opened his wallet and took out a ten Euro note. The woman at the small table next to him stared at his wallet. She tried to be subtle about it but the edge of her table touched Hugo's, and their chairs were just inches apart. And, Hugo would have to admit, her presence had already attracted his attention, the moment she walked into the café. He sipped his drink and took the opportunity to look at her a little more closely. She was a few years younger than him, maybe mid-thirties, with light brown hair that she wore short, an almost-bob. Stylish and pretty, but with a hardness to the face that almost certainly dissuaded strange men from making conversation.

  As he put his glass down, she caught him looking. He was about to apologize, when she did.

  “Je m'excuse, monsieur,” she said, nodding at his wallet. “I noticed your badge. You are a cop?”

  “Non. Not exactly.” So it wasn't the money. “I work at the US Embassy, in security.”

  “Bien. You speak French very well.” She looked at his wallet again and switched to English. “You should know better than to carry so much cash.” A smile accompanied the reprimand.

  He patted the bulge under his suit and returned the smile. “The US Embassy, remember.”

  “Ah yes, you Americans and your guns. Perhaps I can help you lighten your wallet.”

  “Excuse me?” America or France, Hugo knew that a certain type of working girl, usually the more attractive ones, plied their trade in bars, restaurants, and cafés rather than on the street. But he'd never actually been propositioned before, and he wasn't even sure if that's what was happening now.

  “By buying me a drink,” she said, putting out her hand. “Claudia Roux.” She put her other hand into her bag and pulled out her own credentials. “A journalist.”

  “I'm sorry, of course, I thought…I'm Hugo Marston,” he added hurriedly.

  “I know what you thought, Monsieur Marston, and I'm not sure whether to be flattered or appalled.” Her eyes reflected neither, though the slight curl at the corners of her mouth suggested amusement.

  “I'm sorry,” he said, “I should be appalled, not you.” He caught the waiter's eye and when he came over, Hugo turned to his companion. “What would you like?”

  She spoke directly to the waiter. “Un whisky, s'il vous plait.” She held up a hand, stalling the young man. “Have you eaten yet, Monsieur Marston?”

  “Actually, no.”

  She turned back to the waiter. “Alors, deux omelettes. Vous avez les cepes toujours?”

  “Oui madam. Deux omelettes avec cepes?”

  “Oui.” She smiled at Hugo. “You are married, I take it.” It was a statement, not a question.

  “Why do you say that?” Hugo asked.

  “You should see your face. You are not used to having a woman order for you.”

  He nodded. “That's true.” His southern belle, Christine, would have let them both starve before she ordered for him at a restaurant. “But I'm not married, not anymore.”

  She watched him closely as he spoke and Hugo couldn't help but hold her gaze. She had hazel eyes, utterly flawless, and once he'd noticed them the toughness she carried about her like a cloak softened considerably. Her eyes matched perfectly a thick stripe of color in the scarf wound around her neck. Hugo wondered whether that was intentional, perhaps the gift of an observant friend or lover.

  “Not anymore?” she said. “Then we are either celebrating or commiserating, no? Either way, we should order wine with dinner.”

  “Fine by me,” Hugo said. “So what exactly did you order? Omelets, yes, but ‘cepes’?”

  “A type of mushroom. The best type. The Italians call them porcini but the ones they grow around Bordeaux are different, I would swear to it. Much better. We're a little late in the season but some chefs keep a good supply, and it seems we're in luck. You've never had them?”

  “Not that I know of.” When they arrived, he discovered that she was right. Rich but light, without the meaty, overpowering taste of other mushrooms, such as the ubiquitous portabella. Cooked in butter and garlic, he guessed, and only now did he realize how hungry he was. The waiter arrived with another basket of bread.

  “So what kind of journalist are you?” Hugo asked between bites.

  “Newspaper. A police reporter for Le Monde. Robbery, rape, murder, all that stuff. Drugs, too, that's my current interest. The cops are seeing a lot more of that lately, which means I'm writing about it more.” She smiled and tore a piece of bread in half. “The whole European Union thing. You open the borders up to tourists and trade and guess what else you get.”

  “That makes sense.”

  “Believe me, the dealers think so. The cops are starting a new antidrugs task force. I'm kissing a lot of butt to get info about it, get an exclusive or two.” She was switching between French and English and had used the slang cul for “butt,” which made Hugo smile. The way she said it, the language and her soft voice, it actually sounded elegant.

  “I see.” Hugo poured them more wine. “And are drugs more interesting than robberies or murder?”

  “Usually. More back story. A murder or a robbery just happens and that's it. They're not like on television, the murders we have here. They're quick and senseless, almost always. But with drugs there's often intrigue, drama, and real people touched by them. Plus, I'm tired of looking at dead bodies.”

  “I understand that.” He told her a little about his time in the FBI, working out of the Houston office as a profiler, showing up to murder scenes and having to dispassionately evaluate why the killer had gouged out the eyes of the victim. Too often a child. He'd had his successes, but success for him usually meant catching the bad guy after the event, not stopping him before. And that kind of success took its toll, which is why, he told Claudia, when he'd been offered the chance to get out of the trenches and travel a little, he jumped at it. No need to mention Ellie.

  “But I think you miss it, no?” Again the cocked head as she looked at him.

  “Maybe I do. A little.” He looked at Claudia. “So you have good contacts at the prefecture?”

  She batted her eyelids dramatically. “What do you think?”

  He laughed. Of course she did. “Good. Do you do favors for American cops?”

  “That depends on the favor.” She forked the last bite of her omelet into her mouth and chewed. “And it depends on what's in it for me.”

  Hugo laughed gently. “I think you'd do this cop a favor even if there was nothing in it for you.”

  Del
icate eyebrows rose high. “Why is that?”

  “Just guessing. How about I pay for dinner?”

  He did, and afterwards they went to Hugo's apartment, where they drank brandy by the fire. She was a more enthusiastic listener than talker, mentioning only her “humble roots,” a father with some health problems who was turning to religion in his later years, and the lack of a mother growing up. She'd had a short marriage but didn't say whether it ended well or badly, and then she peppered him with questions about Texas. When they had exchanged enough background information and small talk, they went to bed.

  Her lovemaking was adept, intense, her breath sweet with the night's liquor and her body as firm as he'd imagined it. He felt out of practice, because he was. She, without meaning to be, was like a dance instructor, guiding her talented but rusty student, and somehow he didn't mind the direction because he knew it meant she was getting what she wanted, and that was what he wanted.

  She left in the night, thinking he was asleep. He watched her silhouette glide about the room gathering clothes and then dressing. She paused by the bed before letting herself out, just for a moment. She didn't leave a phone number or e-mail address.

  A cop and a journalist would be able to find each other, if they wanted.

  When he awoke, Hugo was glad to be alone. He hadn't thought about the morning after but as he made coffee he did, and the idea of awkward chatter disturbed him. Far better to part without diluting the memory with idle pleasantries. Then again, it'd been a while since this apartment had heard a female voice, so maybe the chatter would have been bearable.

  It was Tuesday now, almost nine o'clock when he closed the apartment door behind him. He had three tasks for the day. The first was to find a bite to eat and some more coffee, the second was to ask Claudia for that favor and maybe arrange lunch or dinner together, and the third was to get inside Max's apartment on Rue Condorcet. But food and coffee first.