by A W Hartoin
“Nope,” he said. “Not today.”
“Why not?”
He leaned back in the little wooden chair he was perched on and stretched. All his muscles flexed under the perfectly-fitted silk polo Madam Ziegler picked out for him. It was so soft, it molded into the curves of his six pack, and I was momentarily transfixed. “Because we’re going to the Louvre. You said Friday is the best day.”
“Oh yeah. Uh huh.”
“What?”
I sipped my café crème to clear my head. I wanted to say how good he looked and perhaps purr a little, but by now I knew better. It would only make him uncomfortable. “I was thinking about what we should see.”
He rolled the cup between his hands and gave me a boyish grin. “Everything.”
I checked the time. “Everything in seven hours…in the Louvre.”
Chuck pumped his fist. “We can do it.”
“Everything it is.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
We didn’t see everything in the Louvre. Not even close. Chuck didn’t realize the immensity of the museum until we got off the metro and entered the mall beneath it. The crowds were insane. The line for the bathrooms started at the elevator. Chuck had to use his long arms to push our way through.
“I thought you said it wasn’t going to be too bad today?” he asked.
“Wait for it,” I said.
We made it through the entrance area into the long corridor filled with swanky shops, Lalique and the like.
“Do we need tickets?” Chuck asked.
“Museum pass,” I said. “We’re good.”
He squeezed my hand and said, “There it is. There it is,” as the inverse pyramid came into view.
I glanced back at Aaron, who had a hint of a smile. I squeezed Chuck’s hand back. “Pretty awesome, huh?”
“You know, I never thought I’d come to Paris,” he said, dragging me over for pictures next to the point.
I asked the group ahead of us to take our pictures and we posed with Aaron for a few shots. Chuck was grinning like mad. I thanked our picture taker and quickly emailed the best pic to The Girls and Mom.
“Alright then,” I said. “What do you want to see first?”
“The Islamic section.”
I blinked. Didn’t see that coming. “Not the Mona Lisa? Winged Victory?”
“We’ll get to that.” He took me over to the information desk, searched for a map in English among the many languages and then studied it intensely. “Okay. I think we go in through Richelieu. Where’s the gate?”
“We have to go through security first.” I led them over to the line that Chuck thought was long, but it was minuscule compared to what it would’ve been that morning. The line went fast and we were through and headed for the Islamic section before I knew it. To my dismay, Chuck and Aaron were serious about Islamic art and we spent an hour and a half in the new building designed to look like a sand dune from the top. I ended up sitting on a chair and watching them read placards while thinking about Angela and the identity of the Panera guy. He was the key and I feared, not a good guy at all with his stolen credit cards. What had she gotten herself into?
From Islamic art, we went to the showstopper, the Mona Lisa. We hit it at the right time and the room was nearly empty. We went to the Egyptian section and my guys moved so slowly, I was pretty sure the rest of the day would be in there. The collection was huge, no, ginormous. Chuck wasn’t really an art person, but he knew a lot about the Egyptians, dynasties, and whatnot. My favorite section of the museum was the Dutch masters, so I knew almost nothing.
I must’ve looked bored, because after two hours with the Egyptians, Chuck asked, “Are we taking too long in here?”
“Not at all. I was thinking about where the closest bathroom is,” I said.
Chuck consulted the map and gave me a set of hopeless directions that I pretended to understand and then headed off in the wrong direction. Aaron spun me around and pointed past a case of coffins.
“Got it,” I said, somewhat surprised that they were letting me go alone. We hadn’t seen anyone suspicious, but I wasn’t convinced that we’d know Poinaré if we saw him. There was security in every other room and I found myself feeling safe and secure in the former palace. Poinaré didn’t seem like the type to waste his time. If he was following me in hopes of finding some mysterious destination, there wasn’t much point in tracking me around the Louvre.
I wandered around aimlessly, going the wrong way every time until I finally figured it out. I was always wrong. If I thought that I should go left, right was the correct way to go. Once I decided to do the opposite, I found the bathroom. I used the same plan going back, although I started second-guessing myself and made several wrong turns. Chuck texted me, asking if I was okay.
“I got lost,” I texted back.
He sent me a laughing emoji. Smug, good sense of direction having bastard.
I did find my way to the Egyptians again and made it back to the coffin case, but they’d moved. No surprise there. My phone vibrated again and I answered tersely, “I’m coming.”
“To where?” asked a raspy, almost unintelligible voice.
“Who is this?” I asked, the hairs rising on the back of my neck.
“Spidermonkey.”
I looked at the screen and it was him. I blew out a breath and leaned on the icy cold archway next to the coffin case. “Does Loretta know you have the phone? You don’t sound so good.”
“She’s forgiven me,” he said. “She had to.”
“Had to doesn’t sound likely.”
“She had two very good reasons,” said Spidermonkey.
“Oh really? Two good reasons to forgive you for hiding a second, somewhat illegal, occupation and lying to her a lot? Do tell.”
“Loretta made the sushi that nearly killed me.”
I smiled in spite of myself. Salmonella poisoning was no laughing matter. “That’s a good reason, but not nearly enough.”
“That’s what she said. You did the rest of the convincing.”
“Me? I hardly said anything,” I said.
Spidermonkey hesitated and then said, “It was enough.”
“Come on. There’s no way. She thought you were having an affair with me.”
“Well…it wasn’t so much what you said.”
“What else is there?” I asked.
“You. Loretta googled you,” said Spidermonkey, sounding dejected. I’d never heard that in his voice before.
“Oh, no. Now she’ll think I’m a brazen hussy, a slut, or worse. Why’d you let her?”
“Good grief. Do you think my wife asks my permission? She googled you and she doesn’t think you’re a slut. More importantly, she doesn’t think we’re having an affair.”
I rubbed my forehead. “I don’t see how that’s possible.”
“She saw you and…decided that a woman who looks like you would never have an affair with an old goat like me. She used the word “goat”. Goat. I’m her husband. I was handsome back in my day.”
“It’s still your day and you are handsome.” I could picture Spidermonkey, lower lip poking out. His feelings were hurt. “She’s just upset.”
And right.
Spidermonkey was about the same age as my grandpa. Ew.
“I’m not that old,” he said.
“You’re not,” I replied, hoping this thread was at an end.
“So you’d date me if you weren’t attached?”
Er…
“I never thought about it.” Time to change the conversation in a big way. “So is this why you called? To ask me out?”
“I’m not asking you out, Mercy. Have you lost your mind?” asked Spidermonkey.
There was a burst of laughter somewhere in the vicinity of my cyber sleuth.
“So why are you calling?” I asked.
Spidermonkey told Loretta to pipe down. She didn’t and he continued amid laughter.
“I have information for you. Are you alone?” he ask
ed.
“For the moment.”
Spidermonkey wasn’t allowed to get out of bed, so he’d been working my cases with a vengeance under Loretta’s direct supervision.
“Brace yourself. You aren’t going to like this,” he said.
“Lay it on me. I expect nothing good,” I said.
Spidermonkey was right. I wasn’t happy. The credit cards the Panera guy used were from a military data breach from something called AAFES, basically the military’s version of Wal-Mart. The numbers belonged to soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. Whoever had stolen the data was smart. They used the numbers after the member was killed—right after, before the family could cancel the cards or pay any attention. Hundreds of thousands worth of charges had gone through, causing no end of trouble for the families. Angela’s affair was that kind of guy. Fabulous. She really knew how to pick ‘em.
“So can you trace those particular cards?” I asked.
“I can follow the charges and get a picture of the guy who used them. Identity? I don’t know. Security camera footage from that long ago is a no go.”
“But you’ll be able to figure out the family?”
Loretta said something about the Fibonaccis. When Spidermonkey answered me, he sounded harassed, “You’re worried it’s Calpurnia?”
“Not really. She seems to have some standards,” I said.
“Don’t romanticize the woman, Mercy.”
“I’m not. You’re the one who told me that she got out of the sex trade.”
“This is credit card fraud.”
“Preying on dead soldiers. It’s pretty freaking low. I don’t see Calpurnia doing that and I doubt anyone with the Fibonaccis would start something up with Phillip Riley’s wife. You’d have to have a death wish.”
“I agree with you on that.”
Chuck and Aaron came around the corner.
“Here comes Chuck,” I said, loudly.
Chuck’s grin changed to the frown. “Who is it?”
“Spidermonkey,” I answered and then said into the phone, “Have you got anything for us?”
Spidermonkey laughed. It sounded painful. “I do.”
“Am I going to like it?” I asked.
“It’s disconcerting at best,” he said.
Disconcerting was right. Spidermonkey made short work of the New York Law firm, discovering pretty quickly that United Shipping and Steel was a client and had been for a hundred and fifty years. United was the client behind the check on the Marais apartment once a year.
“Why does that name sound familiar?” I asked.
“Because it’s owned by the Lawrences”
I went blank for a second. “The Lawrences…who…wait. You mean Nicky’s family.”
“Yes. That’s how I knew who to look at. I saw the company on the client list. Novak didn’t know the name. It would’ve taken weeks to sift through client files.”
The Lawrences. Stella Bled Lawrence’s in-laws. If I’d been thinking of the last thing I expected, that would’ve been it.
“Do they own the apartment? The Lawrences, I mean,” I said.
Chuck poked me and I held up a finger.
“Not as far as I can tell.” He paused again and then said, “It gets stranger. Guess who’s keeping an eye on the apartment now.”
“Not my parents,” I said. “That would be weirder.”
“Close.”
“Seriously?”
“Big Steve.”
Big Steve Warnock? What did he have to do with anything?
“Did he work at United or something?” I asked.
“No. Never. But he knows the Bleds and we know the apartment has something to do with them.”
I shook my head. “We don’t know that. There’s no evidence, just these tenuous connections.”
“It’s a big coincidence.”
Chuck poked me again. “Tell me or I’m stealing that phone.”
“Big Steve’s doing the watching on the Marais apartment.”
Chuck put his hand over his mouth and walked away.
“Mercy?” asked Spidermonkey. “Think. Have you ever seen any closeness or connection between Big Steve and the Bleds?”
“He doesn’t work for them, but they know each other socially,” I said.
“Have you seen him at the mansion?”
I searched my memory. I’d spent half my life in the Bled mansion. People came and went. There was nothing odd about it. The Girls were social. “Sure, but they know each other.”
“How? Through your mom?” asked Spidermonkey.
“That can’t be it. Big Steve started on the apartment in 1980.”
Spidermonkey said something to Loretta before coming back to me. “That’s right. I think we can surmise one thing.”
“What’s that?” I asked.
“The apartment is the key. You have to get in there, but you’ll have to lose the Corsican first.”
I looked at the ceiling. “He must know by now that I don’t have access to it. If he works for The Klinefeld Group, what’s he after? They clearly know about the apartment. What do they need me for?”
“Maybe they can’t get in.”
“Maybe. But if they killed Werner Richter over the apartment, that’s a long time to wait.”
Spidermonkey attempted to clear his throat and failed. His voice was getting so bad I could barely make out his words. “You’re there, trying to get in the place. Maybe they think that means the box, or whatever it is, is in there.”
There was a tussle on the other end of the line and Loretta took over. “That’s enough. He needs to rest.”
“Thanks, Loretta. I’ll call you if anything happens.” I hung up and looked at Chuck pacing in front of a display of funerary tablets.
“We have to get in there,” he said. “Tomorrow.”
Aaron took my arm and started to lead me away from the Egyptian celebration of death.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“Chocolate.”
“Did you see everything?”
Aaron shrugged and Chuck caught up with us but stayed silent. I wondered what he was thinking, but I didn’t ask because I didn’t know what I was thinking. As we walked out of the Sully wing back into Richelieu, I started to feel more and more uneasy. Something wasn’t right. We were missing something. I was missing something.
We went to Angelina and ordered the famous hot chocolate. Aaron watched me like a hawk and garnered some teasing. I made little moans of pleasure and sniffed my cup repeatedly, making Aaron wiggle in his seat and fidget. He deserved it. If he had a cooking show, it would be The Needy Chef.
Finally, Chuck broke up and couldn’t stop laughing. “Stop. You’re being mean.”
I pushed Aaron’s shoulder. “You know yours is better. Do I really have to say it?”
“Yes,” he said.
I rolled my eyes. “Yours is better.”
“How?”
Oh dear lord.
I proceeded to explain the betterness of Aaron’s hot chocolate. At a certain point, I ran out of adjectives and resorted to really good. It did take my mind off the uneasiness. When we left, Chuck decided to throw me a bone and we went to see some paintings. We worked our way from Holland through all the French works. I got lost in the faces, the stories that I would never know. Battle scenes, landscapes, and fruit had no thrall for me. It was the people I loved. We reached a portrait of a wealthy French family of three by de Largillierre. The parents and their daughter were unknown and I always wondered about them, rich, handsome, and years before the revolution would destroy their world. I couldn’t stop looking and thinking about the mysteries behind their smooth faces. There was a point when Chuck started sighing. He was long done. Portraits weren’t his thing.
“One more minute and we’ll go to the moats,” I said.
He brightened up and clapped Aaron on the back. I heard Aaron ask about dinner when they exited the section. Dinner was much more interesting than the medieval foundations t
o Aaron. I turned back to the painting for one last look. The mysteries remained, but all their troubles were over. Mine were just beginning.
Chapter Twenty-four
Leaving the portrait gave me an uneasiness that stayed with me through the Medieval Louvre and a late dinner at Le Boui Boui on Rue Marie Stuart. A fabulously perfect meal, but even the aligot couldn’t ease my mind.
When we got back to the apartment, Blackie was waiting for me in Elias’s bedroom. He sat on the dresser next to the shy woman’s portrait, looking imperious. I tried in vain to shoo him. Instead, he followed me into my dreams. New Orleans in Nana’s house, crowded with people and one black cat in the center of the party. No, it wasn’t a party. Some of the people were dead—not gross, rotting dead, just no longer alive. My great-grandparents were there and some of the Bleds that I only knew from pictures. Among the living were my parents, Nana and Pop Pop, Uncle Morty, Aaron, and The Girls. Chuck wasn’t there. I wove through the crowd, avoiding sloshing champagne flutes and unwanted hugs, to look for him. I caught a glimpse of a broad shoulder outside the glass wall, but someone grabbed me and pulled me back.
I woke up with a jolt and lay cuddled in the pit under the unblinking gaze of Blackie, still on the dresser. There was no going back to sleep, so I went through everything that had happened since we’d been in Paris. I didn’t dwell on the incident in the sewer. Monsieur Barre said no one had come looking for us and a quick check of the news confirmed that the body hadn’t been found yet. I couldn’t afford to think about it. My therapist said I was doing well, but that anything could spiral me back into starvation and self-recrimination. No, I wouldn’t be thinking about the guy who would’ve happily killed Chuck and Aaron. There’d be no thinking and no mourning for the wicked.
My thoughts led back to the soothing portraiture. Just as I was drifting off, my eyes flew open. “Chuck.”
I dug Novak’s phone out from under my rear. “It’s me. I got it.”
Novak sounded woozy. “Got what. Who is this?”
“It’s Mercy. I got it. The Corsicans were after me, only me.”
He yawned. “We know that.”
“We thought we knew, but we didn’t know. Ya know?”