by Mark Pryor
“Oui.”
“By whom?”
“I don't know. Not exactly.” She went back to placing books on the metal shelves, talking to him with twitches of the head and sidelong glances down the street. “About a month ago Bruno Gravois, the head of the SBP, called a meeting of all members. Most of us were there. Gravois told us that the Chambre de Commerce et Industrie in Paris, along with the Office du Tourisme, wanted to give the Seine un ravalement.” A facelift. “You know how it is, Monsieur Marston. A year ago we got a new government, which means we got a new crop of bureaucrats with bright ideas. Monsieur Gravois said we would get severance packages for signing over our stalls to him.”
“And what was he going to do with them?”
“He said he was working with the Chambre and the Office du Tourisme to update them and put in new bouquinistes.”
“‘He said,'” Hugo repeated. “You don't believe him.”
Her laugh was more of a cackle and her breath hit him from fully six feet away. The mint she was sucking did little to hide the distinctive, sweet tang of alcohol. “Did you see that weasel Chabot? If that's his idea of attracting tourists, then Paris might as well fall into the Seine and float away. The man doesn't know which side of a postcard to write on, let alone anything about books.” She looked up and down the sidewalk again. “I don't know what is happening, monsieur, but I know it's not being done for the good of Paris.”
“But they can't force you out, can they?”
“No?” She snorted.
“If you're frightened and think they'll force you out, why not take the severance?”
She cackled again and reached under a folding wooden chair. She pulled an almost-empty bottle out of a brown paper bag and shook it. Vodka. “See this? You give me a lump of money and I'll stick it straight into my liver. At least when I work I am forced to drink myself to death slowly. If I am still alive when the money is gone, what then? What else can I do to make a living?”
Fair enough, Hugo thought. “Do you have any idea why he's replacing all the bouquinistes?”
“I assume he's putting his friends in place and takinga cut. Why else?”
Why indeed. Easy enough to make that kind of agreement with friends and acquaintances. Legal too, if you papered it right. Certainly a lot easier and more legit than extorting it from hundreds of unwilling sellers. But replacing all those bouquinistes was expensive and a lot of trouble, even assuming most were happy to take the money and get out of the cold. And what about the others, like Madame Benoit? And Max?
“That man you were arguing with last week,” Hugo said, “who was he?”
“Him?” She spat. “That salaud. One of Gravois's capitaines.”
“Capitaines?”
“That's what he calls them. He has three or four men who keep an eye on us to make sure we're not selling more postcards than books, telling us when our stalls are too untidy. They are men like Chabot who know nothing of the tradition of les bouquinistes, and they don't care. They are like Chabot, but with strong arms and angry faces.”
“Why was he harassing you?”
“Why? Because I'm still here. I don't make trouble for them and I try to do what they say. But that isn't always enough, monsieur, because at the end of each working day, I am still here.”
“I see.” Hugo offered his hand again. “Is one of those capitaines called Nica?”
“I don't know their names.”
“The one I'm thinking of, he's tall like me, with a face like it's carved out of rock.”
“Maybe. I turn the other way when I see them coming monsieur, so ‘maybe’ is all I can say.”
“OK. Thank you for your time, Madame Benoit.” He turned to leave.
“Monsieur Mouton—”
“Marston,” he corrected gently. “But please, call me Hugo.”
“Oui, oui, Hugo. Have you thought—” she blew her nose into an enormous handkerchief, “have you talked to Ceci?”
“Who?”
“She was the last chief of the SBP.”
“Before Gravois?”
“Oui. I think perhaps she was the first to be removed. She is a good woman and very wise. If something is going on, she might know.”
“Might?” Good enough. “Where do I find her?”
She frowned and shook her head. “I think your badge might help you find her.”
“Her last name at least?” The look on her face told Hugo that Ceci had never had a last name to her bouquinistes, that the idea of her with a last name was an oddity. He replaced his hat and smiled. “Never mind, I'll find her.”
Hugo walked away from the stall, ambling slowly beside the river. He stopped occasionally to stare into its depths, but the surface slid beneath him, a lid of impenetrable steel protecting its secrets with no hope that it would hand out answers, or even comfort, today.
As he walked, he thought about coincidences. To him, life was too chaotic and random for them not to pop up now and again. Put differently, as he'd once explained to the church-going Christine, he did not believe in fate. Fate and religion, he'd said, were for those who didn't want to take control of their own lives—or weren't able to. Much easier to believe in fate or a slew of gods than to accept a universe of chaos. With a god or fate behind you, you could place your future in someone else's hands, let them be responsible, and when it went wrong you had a convenient patsy. Christine had argued with him, of course, blue eyes blazing at his heresy, but he always suspected her anger was to cover her own fear that she agreed with him. She certainly couldn't change his mind. No, those oddities that people ascribed to God and fate, the chance meetings with old friends or the car that swerved off the road and narrowly missed the little boy, they were nothing but coincidence and luck. Coincidence and luck were real, and if you didn't recognize their existence then you were looking for meaning where it didn't exist.
This meant that Max's disappearance immediately after selling him a book worth hundreds of thousands of dollars could be nothing more than chance.
And yet his mystical sixth sense, the one that conflicted with his views on God and the unknown, kept ticking away, nagging him to forget chance and happenstance and tie these random events together into a meaningful package.
Hugo shook his head, frustrated at twisting himself into unhelpful knots. He turned, crossed the street, and began to walk home the way he'd come, cutting south before hitting Max's stall—he still thought of it as Max's—and onto Rue Guénégaud. As he walked, he called Emma.
“Can I buy you lunch?” he asked.
“I brought mine.”
“It'll keep 'til tomorrow.”
“I don't eat leftovers on Saturdays. Are you planning to tell me what you're up to? If so, and you're paying for dessert, then I'm in.”
“Yes,” he said, “that's why I called.” He hesitated, and she heard that, too.
“What do you need, Hugo?”
“Just a tiny favor. I need to know the name and whereabouts of a woman named Ceci. She used to be the head of the SBP before Gravois.”
Emma snorted, delicately. “I told you her name once before. I'll look it up again and bring it to lunch. Where?”
Hugo wanted somewhere close to the embassy. “Brasserie Trudeau. It's been a week since I've eaten there. See you at one.”
He checked his watch and saw he had plenty of time to go back to his apartment, shower, and grab Tom.
Hugo had always done his best thinking while walking . He decided that a meander through the Luxembourg gardens could only help.
As he passed down Rue de Sévres he noticed a new boutique directly across the street, the storefront wearing a fresh coat of dark red paint and the large window filled with hats. Another store that would last a few months, Hugo figured, as he slipped between two parked cars and trotted across the street. A blue Renault clattered toward him and honked feebly, its driver annoyed rather than at risk, but it startled Hugo enough to propel his final step into a leap for the safety of the pavemen
t. As he landed, he pivoted as elegantly as he was able in order to avoid crashing into a man who'd been window shopping himself, a man alerted to Hugo's presence by the horn.
They locked eyes for just a second, and Hugo felt a hole open in the pit of his stomach. He stood still on the sidewalk as the man in his cloth cap lowered his head, muttered something in French, and walked quickly away. Hugo watched the man's back, testing his own instincts, knowing that if he were right, two things would happen. Both did; the man reached the end of the block and made a sharp right down a side street, and as he disappeared from view he pulled a cell phone from his pocket and began dialing.
This was no coincidence. He pulled out his own phone and dialed Claudia.
“Hugo!” Her voice was flooded with relief. “I'm so glad, I've been worried but didn't dare call. I thought you were furious with me.”
“And I thought maybe my dinner companion had put you off me,” he said.
She laughed, a gentle sound down the phone. “Non, Hugo. I know you went home alone. But can we meet? We should probably talk about all this.”
“Sure, but not right now. Listen, something's going on, and I really do need some answers.”
“OK. What is it?”
“I need to know if your father is having me followed.”
“What?” Her surprise sounded genuine. “No, of course not. That's ridiculous, Hugo, why would he?”
“You tell me.”
“Hugo, wait. Are you saying you're being followed? Right now?”
“Yes. Earlier this morning I almost bumped into a man. He wore a cloth cap and was keeping his face away from me. I didn't think anything of it at the time. But just now, I ran into him again.”
“That doesn't mean—”
“I know, it wouldn't usually. Except, an hour ago he was in a hurry. I just ran into him a block away from where I first saw him. A man doesn't hurry like that and cover two blocks in an hour. And the way he scurried away from me, both times. I'm sure, Claudia.”
“There could be other explanations. Coincidence? Maybe he was hurrying to an appointment nearby and is hurrying to another one now.”
“As soon as he noticed me, he went to the end of the block and turned right. Before he made it, his phone was in his hand. He was letting someone know I'd spotted him. Oh, and just so you know, the street he turned down was Rue Récamier.”
“I don't know it.”
“It's a pedestrian street, no cars, and a dead end.” Which means he doesn't live around here, Hugo thought, else he'd know that. And it also means that he'll be back this way any minute.
“Hugo, you're not going to confront him, are you?”
“What a good idea,” he said lightly, “thanks for suggesting it.”
“No, Hugo, it's not a suggestion. He may have a weapon.”
“Then that'll make two of us.”
“This is Paris, Hugo, not the Wild West. You can't have a shootout. Merde.”
Hugo moved into the hat shop and ignored the irritated glance from its proprietor. He stationed himself behind a mannequin and watched through the window. He aimed his next words at both women, saying, “Don't worry, I won't make a mess.” He tried to keep his tone light, but wasn't sure how it had come out.
“Look, can you meet me for lunch?” Claudia said.
“No, I have a date, sorry.” That sounded petty, so he added, “with my secretary, Emma. She has some information for me.”
“OK. Dinner?”
“A drink. Maybe dinner.”
They agreed to meet at the intersection of three streets, Rues de Buci, Mazarine, and Dauphine, at seven o'clock. That would give them a choice of two cafés right there, and another nearby.
A moment after Hugo rang off, the man in the hat appeared at the corner and lit a cigarette, his eyes darting up and down the street. OK, amateur, let's see where you're going. Hugo moved further into the store and looked around. A gray Homburg sat atop the wire head of a two-headed mannequin. Trendy mannequins for traditional hats, thought Hugo, very Paris. He picked it up. His size. A lot like his own fedora, but different enough to change his outline. The middle-aged proprietor, whose wild, bleached blonde hair would defy any hat, moved toward him.
“This one is perfect.” He pulled notes from his wallet and handed them over with a smile. “In a bit of a hurry, though.”
“D'accord. Un sac, monsieur?”
“Oui.” He took the bag and put his own black hat into it. He stuck the new hat on his head and slipped off his coat, turned it inside out, and put it back on. It wasn't designed to be reversible but its muted wool lining would do the trick from a distance. “Merci.” He took one more look through the window and strode out of the store in the direction his follower had taken. At the corner he saw the man talking on the phone as he hurried along the sidewalk. Hugo followed him for two blocks with ease, staying directly behind him and using other pedestrians, mail boxes, and streetlamps as light cover. If the man turned around, all he'd see would be foot traffic and, maybe, occasional glimpses of a man wearing an unfamiliar coat and hat, his face invisible.
He trailed the man south as they continued along Rue de Sévres. If he didn't live in this area, Hugo figured he would probably take the metro. But the man marched right past the entrance to the station at Sévres–Babylon and then past the Vaneau stop. Hugo checked his pace when he realized that his interest in the man had brought him a little too close.
Hugo paused at the entrance to the Vaneau metro and studied the map, a hint of an idea in his mind. He found the street they were on and then picked out the next station along this road. He traced a finger north from it, his suspicion confirmed. We have that in common, Hugo thought, looking at the man's back. You'd rather walk an extra two blocks and get a direct train than have to wait ten or fifteen minutes underground to change trains. He was headed, Hugo was sure, to the next metro stop, Duroc, where he could take the train all the way to Place de Clichy. The stop closest to the offices of the SBP.
Hugo reached for his phone, intending to cancel his lunch, but it rang before he could pull it from his pocket. Emma. “Hey,” he said, “you're not ditching me, are you?”
“Yes and no. Lunch is off, but blame Ambassador Taylor.”
“Why?” Hugo started walking again, his eyes still on the man ahead. “Doesn't he know I'm on vacation?”
“He knows you're not in America, if that's what you mean.”
“It's not. And you're supposed to run interference for me on this stuff.”
“I did,” she said. “And I'm very good at it, but it turns out that I'm just a secretary and he's some sort of ambassador.”
“Ah, for a moment I thought missing lunch meant missing out on your sarcasm.”
A gentle peal of laughter. “I wonder where I get it from?”
“Fine. Look, I'm in the middle of something, so what's going on?”
“He didn't say. Remember the whole secretary-versus-ambassador thing? But he wants to see you right away.”
“Right away?”
“His words.”
If it were anyone else, Hugo would make him wait. Especially under these circumstances. But Ambassador Taylor wasn't just his boss, he was a man Hugo respected. If he was calling Hugo in from his vacation there was a good reason, and Hugo wasn't going to ignore it. Even if he chose to, what would his explanation sound like? Sorry, ambassador, I was following a man who I think had been following me for some unknown reason but possibly related to the bouquiniste whose apartment I broke into, the one you told me to stop investigating.
“OK,” he said, “it'll take me thirty minutes or so to get in, but tell him I'll be there.”
“Will do.”
“Thanks.” Hugo slowed and watched the man in the hat trot down the steps to the Duroc metro station, allowing himself some satisfaction from an accurate deduction. He was about to hang up when a thought struck him. “Oh, Emma, did you manage to find Ceci for me?”
“Sure did. I'll print out e
verything I have, which isn't much, so stop by here first. And Hugo? Seeing as you're bailing on me for lunch, you can pick me up a pastry. Something nice for dessert.”
She hung up before he could respond, and Hugo smiled. He turned around and started walking back the way he had come, dialing Tom to let him know where he was and keeping his eyes peeled for a patisserie.
Most of the murder scenes that Hugo had worked as an FBI agent involved children or people from the lower economic classes. Children, he'd realized, were easier targets and more fragile and, in Hugo's experience, rich people simply didn't kill each other in ways that attracted the attention of the FBI.
Once, though, while he was attending a conference in Philadelphia, he'd been asked to drive out to a grand house tucked away in the Pennsylvania countryside where the wealthy male owner had been killed in his study. On the way there, Hugo and a colleague had joked quietly about the butler using the lead piping, but when they walked into the room all humor fled.
The victim sat upright in his chair, and would have been staring at them if his head had still been attached to his shoulders. A crime scene tech had found it in a hollow globe normally used for storing drinks. It had been carefully positioned so when the lid was lifted, the elderly man's look of surprise would mirror the look on the face of the person who found him. Rather clever, Hugo had thought. His other thought was that the man's ornate study was forever ruined: blood had squirted from the dead man's neck, drenching the walls and ceiling. From the mess, Hugo estimated that the killer had tilted the body back and forth, spraying as much as he could. A waste of a life and a beautiful room.
Hugo thought of this case every time he met with Ambassador Taylor because the similarities between his office and the murder victim's study were inescapable. Both were lined with bookcases, a rolling staircase giving access to the higher tomes, both had stone fireplaces behind impressive mahogany desks, both had matching leather couches sitting face-en-face, and both sported heavy oil paintings of men on horseback carrying weapons as they chased down hares, foxes, and other men. Hugo had meant to find out whether, by chance, the same interior designer had constructed both but he'd never cared quite enough to ask, the similarities only seeming important when he was in the room.