The Prisoner's Wife

by Gerard Macdonald

  “In fact, he was Persian. Not Arab.”

  Wincing, the concierge stopped scratching. She flexed her finger joints. “Arthritis,” she explained. “Un cafard. It’s living in this cursed marsh.” Danielle translated. The woman gestured into space. “He’s gone, your man. Arab, Persian, whatever he was.”

  Shawn had understood this. “Ask where he’s gone.”

  Danielle glanced at him. To the concierge she said, “Madame, how exactly did my husband leave?”

  “He was, I am sorry to tell you this, mamselle, your pretty man was criminal. A crook.”

  The man spooning up soup said, “Terroriste, non?”

  “Cops came,” said the concierge. “The CRS, I think, they have taken him. They hit him, bof”—she struck the side of her own firmly coiffed head—“they put on cuffs”—she showed veined wrists—“a thing in his mouth, they put on him a bag, the head, you understand, then in a car. The back of a car. Pouf. Gone.”

  “In which direction?”

  The concierge pointed east.

  “What kind of car?”

  The concierge shrugged. “Black.”

  Without looking up from his plate, the man at the table said, “Suédois. Volvo.”

  “Darius was kidnapped,” Danielle told Shawn. “Or someone was. Cuffed, bagged, gagged. Driven away.”

  “Okay,” Shawn said. He wondered about the words she used. “If that’s all this witch knows, tell her thank you. We have a lunch date.” He put a hand on her arm. “It’s okay. Don’t be like that. We’ll find him.”

  Danielle looked at him, expressionless. She thanked the concierge.

  “Who does he say is a witch?”

  “You speak English?”

  “Elle, un peu,” said the man at the table. “Plus que moi.” He’d finished his soup and was eating a dry baguette while reading a racing page. He marked something with a pencil.

  “Good luck with your Arab,” the concierge said. “It’s true, not all are thieves. But most.”

  “You need to feed the dog,” said Danielle.

  She led the way back up to street level. “Could have been anyone,” she told Shawn. “The man kidnapped.”

  In a gutter still full of water, a pigeon struggled to breathe. One wing was torn off, leaving a bloodied stump. The other wing flapped. Shawn bent to wring the bird’s neck.

  Danielle pulled him back. “Don’t.”

  “Come on,” he said. “It’s in pain.”

  “You think pain ends with death?” Ignoring the handkerchief he offered, she wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “Leave me alone. It’s okay. I can find him without you.”

  “Not if the Agency has him. He could be in any one of a dozen countries. You’d never even find the damn jail. We have them all over—like, seventeen countries.” He pointed his right thumb downward. “No chance, Danielle.”

  It was the first time he’d said her name.

  She took a deep breath, thinking that through. “Who is this lunch date? Who do you know in Paris?”

  He was reading a text on his phone. Wondering, too, when he might share a bed with this girl. How much that might set back his recovery program.

  He said, “Bobby Walters. That’s my buddy. Based at the embassy.” He paused, then said, “We grew up together.”

  “In America?”

  “Mmm. Alabama. Turkey Forge. Neighbors. Bobby was one of those fat, sad kind of kids. People used to hit him, on principle. He didn’t play sports. First time he’s left off the team, right there on the field, starts crying. After that, no one used his name. He wasn’t Bobby anymore. He was the kid who cried.” Shawn paused, thinking back. “Used to walk him to school, you know? Stop guys beating up on him.”

  “And you,” she said. “Of course you were, what is the word? Sportif?”

  “Played football,” Shawn said. “I was on the team back then. Hard to imagine, I know.”

  Danielle led the way into the traffic-free rue de Béarn.

  “Yet this sad, fat boy,” she said, “he is the one who has work.”

  “Moral in there, someplace,” Shawn said. “That’s why we’re meeting him. Bobby has access to a database, Main Core. Just don’t cry on me if you don’t like what you hear.”

  She was walking fast now, down rue Saint-Gilles.

  “I wouldn’t cry in front of you. Tell me again, the proper name? Your friend?”

  “Robert Hamilton Walters.”

  “Will I like him?”

  Shawn said, “Will you like Bobby? Who gives a damn? It’s not what matters.”

  “So? Confide in me—what does matter?”

  “We want to sound him out. See if he’ll help find your husband.”

  She glanced up. “I still don’t know about you, Mr. Maguire—why you look for Darius.”

  “Told you,” Shawn said. “Full disclosure. I find him, I get paid.”

  Ahead lay the ordered beauty of the place des Vosges.

  “You are paid to track him? Darius? Who would pay for that?”

  “Who’ll pay? Pakistani guy. Businessman, in a little trouble. Name of Ayub Abbasi.”

  “Why?” she asked. “Tell me, why does he pay?”

  From the north, they entered the place: the old city’s oldest square.

  “You’re asking me why?” said Shawn. “Why Abbasi wants your husband? Long story. Not sure I even know it all.” He pointed toward Ma Bourgogne. “We meet Bobby, you’ll hear some of it.”

  9

  PARIS, PLACE DES VOSGES, 21 MAY 2004

  Like a couple, like lovers, Shawn and Danielle walked together down the rue de Béarn, on the north side of place des Vosges and entered a cloister on the square’s perimeter. An old woman in a patterned headscarf played a violin, small as a toy, the music a slow, haunting dance. She’d placed a man’s hat, holding five coins, on the tiles at her feet.

  “Be honest, now,” Shawn said. “The concierge—”

  Danielle shrugged. “Come on, Mr. Maguire. The man she saw—”

  “—being kidnapped—”

  “—he could be anyone. Woman like that, she will think any dark-skinned man is an Arab. What she calls an Arab. Les beurs. Of course, all are thieves. Maybe it was Darius. Maybe not.” She paused, then said, “Let me tell you, we have a strange marriage, I and Darius. All the time I’ve known him, he’s been disappearing.” She turned to look at Shawn. “If I don’t hear in the next few days, okay, I shall be worried. More. Now, not so much.”

  Beside them, the old woman played her slow music: a waltz. Danielle spread her arms. “Do you dance?” she asked. “Darius would dance.”

  Shawn shook his head. “Never learned.”

  Stopping, glancing at Shawn, Danielle dropped coins in the old woman’s upturned hat. “I thought everyone could dance. Really? You never learned?”

  “I was in school,” Shawn said, “they made me go to dance class. I’m talking small-town Alabama. Turkey Forge.” They were walking westward now, along the cloister. “Boys and girls, Sunday-go-to-meeting clothes. In a parish hall, this was. Cured me.” After a moment, he added, “That’s where I met Martha. My wife.”

  She stopped in the cloister, facing him. “You met—you met in dance class? It’s true?”

  “Well,” he said, “sure. I met her there—she wasn’t my wife back then. We were kids. Three other wives before Martha, but she was the first I met. Last one I married.”

  “You told me you don’t have a wife.”

  “I don’t. Martha died. Cancer.” He took her arm. “Come talk with Bobby Walters.”

  10

  PARIS, PLACE DES VOSGES, 21 MAY 2004

  Watching the street outside Ma Bourgogne, Bobby Walters believed, for a moment, he’d found again the girl he’d met on the boulevard Haussmann: the one who told him all was for sale, except love. Then he saw that this girl, though different, was another of the women he wished to meet. Not cover-girl cute, but cool. Confident. Unaggressive, he’d guess. (His second wife, the a
ctress, had displayed all the female aggression he could suffer in this life.) Thick, shoulder-length hair, this girl outside in the place. Minimal ass, wide mouth in just the kind of feline face Bobby fancied. Wearing jeans, and boots with heels. Looking elegant with it. They could do that in this town: low-rent elegance.

  Inspection finished, Bobby checked out the girl’s man. By definition, this kind of arm candy needs a male arm to be the candy on.

  Bobby saw that the arm here belonged to his buddy, Shawn Maguire. Absorbing that fact—knowing that Shawn was three years older, and, for Christ’s sake, a human train wreck—Bobby felt fate had dealt him a losing hand. He’d thought this before, in connection with Shawn and women. He leaned across the table and pulled out two chairs.

  Outside the restaurant, Shawn had paused in the square’s cloister. “You still have not told me what you do.”

  “In your trade,” Danielle said, “I thought you would know. You have knowledge about my husband. I’m still not sure how.”

  He shook his head. “Don’t know about you. Tell me.”

  She spread suntanned arms. “Art historian, moi.”

  “There’s a living in that?”

  “There is, if you do what I do. I tell rich men whether or not they’re buying fakes. Suppose you’re a hardware guy from Atlanta about to spend fifty mil on El Greco. Trust me, I’m a cheap date.”

  “Are you right? About the artworks?”

  Danielle checked the time. “They’ll never know, will they? I mean, who can tell?”

  “You must think you can.”

  “I think I can. Some of the greatest paintings in the Prado are forgeries. We cannot prove it, one way or the other. Will they let me examine the canvas? No way.” She moved toward the restaurant entrance. “Come. Let’s meet this friend you say might help.”

  * * *

  Following Danielle into Ma Bourgogne, Shawn held out a hand to his childhood buddy: the man who’d been his partner in three covert actions. For a moment, he recalled heat, intolerable heat; a burning building in Peshawar where both men, locked in a cellar, came close to incineration.

  “Mr. Walters,” he said, “looking good.”

  “You mean fat,” said Bobby. “I’ll tell you something. Thinner than I was when you saw me this morning.” He wasn’t looking at Shawn. “You planning introductions here?”

  “Danielle Baptiste,” Shawn said. He took a chair. “Robert Hamilton Walters. You don’t have a drink.”

  “I’m not drinking,” Bobby said. He made hushing signs. “Please. It’s not like it’s a virgin birth.” He spread his hands. “What’s so strange? I’m on a diet, same as this lady.”

  Danielle, seated, considered Bobby. He wondered what she saw. “Non, pas moi, monsieur. Not I. No régime.”

  Bobby was still staring. His recall of bodies was better than his memory for faces. “Do we know each other?”

  Danielle shook her head.

  “Damn,” he said. “I’ve seen you somewhere.”

  She bit a breadstick, smiling, saying nothing.

  “TV? Magazines?”

  “Underwear,” she said. “You must be one of those people who sign up for catalogs. It’s okay. Really. Men do.”

  “Bobby,” Shawn said, “shame.”

  “I was young,” she said. “Doing my degree. I was persuaded. Three catalogs. Victoria’s Secret. I hear they still use the pictures.”

  Bobby took two breadsticks and edged the glass away from Danielle. Grissini did nothing for a man’s hunger, but right now that was all he could see to eat.

  “Knew it wasn’t just your face I remembered.”

  Danielle slid the half-full breadstick glass right across to Bobby’s side of the table. “Mr. Maguire says you are based at the embassy. How is that?”

  “How is that, or how is Paris? Paris is full of beautiful thin women who don’t fancy overweight Americans. So I’m learning.” To Shawn he said, “Apropos, what do you think of the mustache?”

  Shawn considered. “Might look good, on a different face.”

  “That’s what you get from friends,” Bob said to the woman. “Honesty. Can we please order some food? Something with fries? These days I’m always starving. That’s diets for you. Shawn, I need to talk.”

  Shawn spread his hands. “This is me.”

  There was silence. Danielle beckoned a distant waiter, threading his way between tables.

  “Okay,” Bobby said finally. “What I want to know is, how do you deal with it? Being out of work, I mean. Like, retirement.”

  Danielle watched the two men.

  “Years back,” Bobby told her, “anytime I screwed up, I’d think, damn, it’s not that bad. Next time, I’ll get it right. Last year or so—” He stopped and waved at the waiter.

  “Time runs out,” Shawn told his friend. “You and me, we’re getting to a place, there’s no next time. Pass five-oh, Bob, that’s it, pretty much. No second act. Not in the Agency.”

  “My God,” said Danielle, “you two. Whistling past the graveyard—is that American?”

  “It is,” Bobby told her. “I’ll have steak and fries. You order. You look like you talk French.”

  “Here, Bourgogne, they talk English. It is a tourist place.”

  “Yeah, right,” Bobby said. “Tell them steak well done. Fizzy water, not Evian. Salty, that stuff. Like drinking brine. Plus, we need salt. Pouring salt, you know? Not that flaky stuff. You notice, they never put salt on the table, these days? What are they doing—they think it’s unhealthy or something? Tell them mustard, not French. Ballpark mustard. Big jar of ketchup. Heinz, if it’s all they’ve got.”

  “Mr. Walters,” she said, “this is Paris. They will not have Heinz. They will not have ketchup.”

  “Get out of here. Everyone has ketchup. Tell them extra fries on the side. Crispy. Extra thin.”

  “Alumettes.”

  “If you say so. Nothing green.” Bobby turned to Shawn. “Okay, talk to me. Fess up. What’s it like on the outside?”

  Shawn felt the phone in his pocket vibrate. Sound was off.

  “You’re thinking of leaving? You’d do that? Quit the Company?”

  Bobby glanced at Danielle. She was speaking with a waiter who looked like an art student. He lowered his voice. “Last month, Rockford says to me, ‘Bob, you ever think about leaving the Agency?’ I say, ‘Mr. Rockford, that’s all I think about.’” He picked two more breadsticks. “When you and me went in, you know? We thought we were doing something that was, like, worth doing—”

  “Back in the day.”

  Bobby moved his hand toward Danielle’s hand. Just touching.

  “Shawn, I’m serious. I have a problem here.”

  Danielle moved her hand away. Bobby was sweating a little. He saw that the girl, finished ordering, was paying attention. He wondered what it would take to pry her away from Shawn.

  “Off the record,” he told her. “You’re not hearing this.”

  “Or not understanding.”

  To Shawn, Bobby said, “You’re free and clear. You could say what’s happening.”

  “With intel?”

  “You could tell it. Tell them it’s a clusterfuck, excuse my French.”

  “Not the right expression,” Danielle said, “when you are in France.”

  Bobby ignored her. Sex was sex, business was business. To Shawn he said, “I have access, up to a level. I can give you background. You’re out of the heat. You can publish.” He finished the breadsticks. “Make me feel I did something worthwhile.”

  Danielle checked through texts on her phone.

  Bobby stopped talking while an overelegant waiter set out cutlery, then began again, speaking to Shawn. “Your field, son. Remember? Before Twin Towers—you told me, AfPak, that’s the threat. Not goddamn Iraq. You said ISI built the Taliban. Set up 9/11.”

  “You mean,” Danielle asked, looking up, “Pakistan? Planned 9/11? Not bin Laden?”

  Bobby was startled to hear an underwear model
ask a question of this caliber. “I didn’t say that. Bin Laden exists.”

  “You said—”

  “Listen,” Bobby told Danielle, “do the math, girl. No secret—this was a big operation. Twenty, twenty-one guys in place on the U.S. mainland—these are camel jockeys, right? Don’t know squat about the place, don’t speak the language, don’t know New York from New Year. You got to support them, train them to fly, get the timing right, all the planes in the air the same time, heading where they should be heading, God help us.” Bobby glanced around. It seemed no one was listening. “That’s an intel operation. Not a trick you do solo. Not if you’re some Saudi God-freak sitting in the boonies.”

  The waiter brought three steak frites. Absently Bobby started eating Danielle’s fries.

  “So,” he said to Shawn, “do it. Publish. Let the world know. Maybe we won’t lose this war.”

  Danielle smacked away Bobby’s hand. “Eat your own frites. What war will we not lose?”

  “Afghanistan. Where d’you think? Day two, day three, we lost Iraq.”

  “They say—”

  “Sure. We say. Like we say we won Vietnam. Mission accomplished.” He shrugged and went back to his food.

  Shawn looked out to the square, thinking it through. He said, “Bobby, we have a different question. You pick up on Darius Osmani?”

  “My husband,” said Danielle.

  Bobby was chewing his steak. Steak was one thing America did a whole lot better.

  “Tried this morning,” Bobby said to Shawn. “It’s an access issue. The level I have gives me Osmani’s dead file. It’s tagged, by the way, as read by you.” He noticed the woman was paying attention. “A year back, something like that.”

  “No indication where the guy is now?”

  Again, Bobby registered the quality of Danielle’s attention. “Can’t tell you. There may be. My access won’t let me in.”

  “Let’s say,” Shawn said, “just hypothetically, let’s say folks from the Agency pick up a person on a Paris street. Let’s say those same guys don’t want to put him on trial, but they do want to question him. Enhanced interrogation. Where would they take him these days?”

  Bobby paused, his fork halfway to his open mouth. “Bagram,” he said finally. “Amman, Fes, Rabat, Poland, Syria, or—why the fuck are you asking? You just said, you don’t even know we have him.”