by Joshua Corin
“Don’t say that. Look on the bright side. Maybe they only want to cut off your hands.”
Chapter 20
Finally.
Crystal giggled. She couldn’t help herself. She sounded like a toddler with a new toy, but she couldn’t help herself. She was on the plane. She was on the plane! She was on the plane and the plane was on its way to Paris!
She was so happy she worried she might ignite.
And wouldn’t that be perfect? WOMAN ON FLIGHT TO FRANCE SPONTANEOUSLY COMBUSTS. Why not? Given the events of the past twenty-four hours, was spontaneous combustion really off the table? Really?
Scott, of course, was stone-asleep. One milligram of Xanax had that effect on a person. Every now and then, his head dipped forward, and Crystal eased it back tenderly against the cushion at the top of his seat. Then she again looked out the window at the sky and the clouds. The whole wide world was below them. They were Peter Pan. They were free.
“Free,” she whispered.
Never before had the word felt more apt. Only moments ago, it seemed, she and Scott had been deposited in that terrible motel room and told to wait. Wait for what? Wait three days, apparently. Sure, she understood that the local PD had a job to do, and yes, she and Scott were the only eyewitnesses, but they had told them everything they knew and they had done so repeatedly. It was only happenstance that Crystal had remembered that last name on the list and only because, really, the name had been so unusual. Who named their child “Xanadu”? She and Scott had nothing else to offer in the investigation, and if they did, surely they could offer it by international call.
So when that cop from last night had shown up at their motel door and told them they were free—free!—to go, Crystal had literally jumped for joy. They were already packed. Crystal had spotted a cockroach in one of the motel room’s drawers.
The cop even drove them to the airport.
Free.
The other reason given for their sequestering at the motel was safety, but fortunately the police had come to the same conclusion she and Scott had reached: What could be a better shield between them and danger than four thousand miles of ocean?
Biggest moat ever, suckers!
Not that this would be the only moat she and Scott would see over the next week. If they stuck to their itinerary—or what was left of it—they still would be able to check out Mont-Saint-Michel. She opened the guidebook app downloaded to Scott’s phone and flipped through photographs of the ancient island fortress. They would have to take a tour bus to get there. The trip would take four hours, but what a four hours it would be, driving through the French countryside on the way to Normandy. Mont-Saint-Michel, so famous that it appeared on the Bayeux Tapestry…which she and Scott would see too because France was real! Paris was real! Their honeymoon was real!
Finally.
Crystal considered paying for the in-flight Internet. She hadn’t on the flight from Nebraska. Why bother with mindless distractions on a trip that brief? But a cross–Atlantic flight was another matter entirely, and she wasn’t about to pop one of Scott’s pills, if only because she wasn’t sure how many she would need to take. She may have been built like a mouse but she had the metabolism of a mountain lion and the tolerance of…well, of a teenager who had experimented widely and wildly in pharmaceuticals. One Xanax probably wouldn’t even make her yawn, and she was not going to risk an overdose this close to her dream country.
And so: the in-flight Internet.
She wouldn’t be restricted to the tiny phone either. She had her own ten-inch screen embedded on the back of the seat in front of her. She could play games, send messages to her friends and family, post to social media.
She also could check her mother-in-law’s spreadsheet. That had been her gift to the newlyweds. While they were away, she would tally each wedding gift they had received. She’d even shown Scott and Crystal how to access the spreadsheet remotely, if they wanted to check on her progress.
And Crystal was curious what bounty they had waiting for them back home.
No.
This week was not about home. This week was about France.
So instead, Crystal booted up another app on her husband’s phone, plugged in her earbuds, and practiced her conversational French. She was not going to be one of those ignorant Americans traveling abroad, asking native Parisians directions to the nearest McDonald’s.
“Pouvez-vous parler plus lentement?” she repeated.
It was amazing how much French she didn’t remember from high school. She had always considered herself a good student, at least in some subjects. And she certainly had enjoyed many of the activities in her French class—and especially would have enjoyed the trip abroad had she gone. Her favorite days in French III always involved the music. Her teacher, Madame Jerrie, always made sure that Fridays were jours de chansons—days of songs. She even brought in an old record player and taught them how to slide the disc out of its paper sleeve—careful, though, so as not to scratch the delicate black grooves with one’s fingernails. And then gently place the disc on the record player, lift the needle, and, with an even gentler touch, place the needle on the desired delicate black groove.
Crystal was especially fond of the Charles Trenet song “La Mer.”
“La mer/A bercé mon cœur pour la vie…”
“The sea/has calmed my heart forever…”
Again, Crystal peered out the window. Even in the dark, the sea would be there. Trenet’s sea. Her sea. Their sea.
She did manage an hour of sleep, somewhere near the Azores, and before long, both she and Scott were awake, and playing Scrabble on his phone when the flight attendant announced, in both English and French, that they were beginning their descent to Charles de Gaulle Airport, Paris.
Crystal squealed and bounced and giggled and, very nearly, spontaneously combusted.
Scott hugged her to his chest. Her enthusiasm, as always, was contagious. If he was going to enjoy this trip, it would be through her eyes, and that was fine by him, because it meant he would be by her side. What better honeymoon could anyone ask for?
“Did you sleep well?” she asked him, looking up into his eyes.
He nodded. She knew instantly that he was lying.
“Bad dreams?”
He shrugged. Lying again.
Her poor baby. Chained to a chair. Given a bloody lip that even now jutted out from the lower half of his face like a rubber tab. Her poor baby. He needed to learn how to compartmentalize. Crystal had no doubt, none at all, that eventually she would be haunted in her dreams and waking thoughts by the ghosts of those two crazy men, but for now…
For now, she nodded against his chest, and stayed there as they descended through the night sky, through ruffles of clouds, through electric light and onto the runway, which they landed on with a gentle bounce. Crystal’s head bounced too, gently. As they taxied toward the gate, she made a point not to peer out the window. Her first sight of Paris would be from the backseat of their cab. She wanted the Eiffel Tower to loom above her like the face of God.
Customs at De Gaulle was not too bad, but then again, it was only 5:30 A.M. local time. Even the security guards, steeled by fresh-roasted French coffee, appeared lethargic. Or perhaps it wasn’t lethargy at all, but nonchalance. One of the first French words Crystal ever learned. Nonchalance. Kissing cousin to blasé.
When a woman’s voice came over the loudspeaker to make an announcement, her first words were French. Crystal got goosebumps.
When their customs officer asked them the reason for their visit, he spoke English with a French accent. Crystal’s goosebumps got goosebumps.
Passing through customs, Scott and Crystal had no problem finding their baggage claim carousel, which they waited beside. This was it, the final threshold before they could leave the airport.
“When we get to the hotel,” she whispered, “I’m going to fuck you so hard that you won’t know en haut from en bas.”
“I don’t know en haut from en
bas right now.”
“Then it must’ve already begun.”
They kissed.
And since they were kissing, they didn’t notice the man and the woman, also in their twenties, who sidled up next to them beside the carousel, a step closer to the baggage chute than they were.
Chapter 21
“Le grand amour,” said the man.
Crystal opened one eye. Was he talking to her?
He was looking at her. He had a youthful mischievousness despite a set of god-awful nicotine-stained teeth. His wife/girlfriend was a beautiful waif. She was looking at Crystal as well.
The waif winked at her.
Crystal offered back a wan smile—oh the French and their provocative manners—and broke off the kiss.
“I think you have come to the right place,” said the man.
Scott cocked his head. “Hmm?”
“This is the city of love!” the man announced.
“This is the airport of love!” his companion added with a sarcastic flourish of her bone-like fingers.
Scott and Crystal grinned, accepted the compliment—this was a compliment, right?—and glanced back at the baggage chute. Any moment now the carousel would stir and their luggage would be coughed out of the chute one by one.
Any moment now…
Scott and Crystal held hands.
“Where are you staying?” the man asked them.
Scott and Crystal squeezed each other’s hands. They faced forward. They didn’t respond.
“I am asking because we could maybe share a taxi.”
Scott and Crystal did not respond.
The carousel stirred to life.
The man clicked his yellow teeth. “Êtes-vous sourds?”
Crystal tried to translate the words in her head. He was asking them a question. “Are you”…and then a word she didn’t know. Sword? Are you a sword?
The chute coughed up suitcase after suitcase. At least 50 percent of the luggage was black. Crystal nibbled on her lower lip and hoped their suitcases came soon. She needed to leave the vicinity of this man and woman.
Was it possible that they were merely a friendly couple? Of course. More than likely in fact. However, were Scott and Crystal willing to take that chance? Hell no.
And so they remained as silent as sunshine and waited for their suitcases to come, or for the French couple’s suitcases to come, or for an earthquake to swallow them all. Did Paris even have earthquakes? Of course not. This was Paris.
Scott picked up their two suitcases—which were not black but instead green (his) and purple (hers)—and then he and Crystal strode toward the exit. They did not look back to see if the French couple was watching them go or if they wore scowls on their pretty faces or if they were mouthing the words Rude Americans. They could have been dancing a waltz on the carousel for all Scott and Crystal knew, or cared to know. The French couple was in the past, extinct, along with the plane ride from Atlanta and the infested motel room and the repetitive policemen and Phillip Wilkerson with his gun and the Haitian with his saw and the delay in their initial flight and all of it, all of it, all of it.
As if to fortify their optimism, they had no trouble at all snagging a taxi. It was silver-white and labeled PARISIEN on its rooftop glow bar and Crystal felt that dizzying giddiness return to her toes and climb up her legs and shoot through her torso and electrify her arms and turn her face into silver-white incandescence.
She and Scott made out in the back of the cab. The driver kept his eyes on the road and an arm out the window so that every minute or so he could ash his cigarette. The airport became highway became suburb became Paris, and suddenly the whole cab filled with light—real light—and Scott and Crystal parted lips and with still parted lips gazed with the wonderment of aliens at the magnificence in glass and marble and steel.
“So this is heaven,” muttered Crystal.
And Scott could find no cause for rebuttal.
They arrived at the Hotel Zola shortly after 7 A.M. and made love in their room shortly at 7:15 A.M. At 7:30 A.M., ravenous but not about to order room service—never room service, never—they both headed down to the hotel café for an early morning snack. Crystal, in passable French, ordered them a pair of chocolate croissants and two green-bottle Kronenbourg lagers. She carried them to one of the café’s round tables while Scott went to find the men’s room.
Aside from the clerk behind the counter, they had the café all to themselves. Crystal imagined that they had Paris all to themselves. Heaven, at their whim and fancy.
Then the waif from the airport sat down across from Crystal and flashed her teeth and spoke in heavily accented English: “Hello again.”
Crystal, who considered herself by now, given the events of the past two days, immune to surprise, was too astonished to speak. Astonished and confused. Astonished and confused and terrified.
“This is an excellent hotel,” the woman went on. “I have never stayed here, but I can recognize good taste. What made you choose it?”
Was this really happening? Crystal glanced over at the clerk behind the counter.
He was no longer behind the counter.
“He is taking a smoke break,” the thin woman said. “He will be back when we are through. I like your hair. Did you do it yourself?”
“Who are you?”
“Ah yes. I am Mathilde. My husband is François. Your husband is Scott. You are Crystal. You are the first Crystal I have ever met. Have you ever met a Mathilde?”
Crystal had not before met a Mathilde, and she was fairly certain she still hadn’t, that this woman’s name was not really Mathilde. She was also fairly certain that the surprising events of the past two days, which she and Scott had left behind in Atlanta, had stowed aboard their airplane and followed them to Paris. To heaven.
“What do you want?” she asked the waif who called herself Mathilde.
“My husband, François, is right now talking with your husband, Scott. My husband, François, loves talking with people. He can carry on a conversation for hours with people he’s met only minutes earlier. Sometimes I think François is fonder of strangers than his own wife. But I love him, as you love your husband, Scott. May I use your napkin?”
Crystal hadn’t realized she was clutching her croissant’s napkin so tightly. She lifted her hand. Mathilde took the napkin, but left the chocolate croissant, which still had not been touched at all, on its saucer. Mathilde then took out a roller-ball pen from her purse and proceeded to scrawl, in blue ink, two illegible words on the napkin. She then passed the napkin back to Crystal.
“What’s this?” asked Crystal.
“It’s a napkin,” Mathilde answered, without a hint of condescension. “Please now take out your phone and call the police in America and tell them that you remembered another name on the list—it is a miracle!—and this is the name you remembered.”
“I can’t read what you wrote.”
Mathilde frowned, took the napkin back, reread her handwriting, and sighed. Then she flipped the napkin over and rewrote the two words—first name, last name—in large capital letters, the way a child might. Then she passed the napkin back across the table.
“Is this better?”
“ ‘Jorge Samorrasa’?”
“Yes.”
“Who’s ‘Jorge Samorrasa’?”
“The name you remembered. Because it’s a miracle. Now call.”
Crystal frowned. “I don’t understand. Was his name really on the list?”
“Crystal, my husband, François, is with your husband, Scott. They are having a conversation in a private place and the conversation is going well because my husband, François, loves to talk. So understand why he will be so upset when I call him and tell him that you are not cooperating. François does not want to hurt your husband, Scott. François has made a new friend. But François will hurt him a lot and they are in a private place and no one will be able to stop what is happening. Please call the police and tell them the name. Call th
em now or I will call François.”
Crystal took out her phone. Stared at it. Tears soaked her eyes.
“What is wrong?”
Through hot tears, Crystal glared at the waifish woman. “I don’t have their phone number!”
“Oh. Well. Then we shall google.”
Crystal took a deep breath and began to search through her web browser for the information she needed. Her cheeks carried salt water to the corners of her lips.
Meanwhile, Mathilde reached across the table and tugged off a corner of the chocolate croissant, asking afterward, “Do you mind?”
Chapter 22
The call came in at 1:46 A.M. Atlanta time. Detective Chau, riding shotgun, didn’t recognize the phone number, so he answered his phone with a touch of hesitancy.
“This is Chau.”
They were stopped at a light, a block away from the Peachtree Marriott.
“Detective…hi…this is, um, Crystal…McCormick?”
Konquist pointed out the cupcake place, Sugar Hills. Chau smacked Konquist’s hand down and put his phone on speaker.
“Mrs. McCormick,” he said, “where are you?”
McCormick? Konquist’s eyes boggled. Chau indicated that he should pull over.
“I’m…we’re…what do you…we’re in Paris. We got here OK. We landed not too long ago.”
So it was true. Another piece of the puzzle. Henry Hoyt had driven the McCormicks to the airport and they had boarded a flight. The question remained, though: Why had Henry put his career and freedom on the line just to get these two witnesses sent across the pond? Earlier that day, Konquist and Chau had sat down with Hoyt’s partner, Alicia Cumen, but she had been completely unhelpful. It soon became clear that she had not been with Hoyt at the Airport Motel, and she had become quite defensive about the fact that the two detectives suspected some kind of foul play, even if they had been intentionally vague as to the details. They had retreated from her apartment, and Konquist, who had been fond of Officer Cumen for a while now, had felt like a heel for the rest of the day. When it came time for his shift to begin, Henry Hoyt had called in sick. Meanwhile, a unit had been posted outside his home. If he was harboring thoughts of slipping away under the cover of darkness, he would be followed and he would be detained. Chau and Konquist had been intending to query the staff of the Peachtree Marriott about the enigmatic Van Dykes, but then came this phone call from abroad.