by Chris Knopf
“You’re trying to make me feel better.”
“You’re hard on yourself, Arthur. Maybe that’s what keeps you alive. Keeps us both alive, but I’m on your side, even when you’re not.”
I logged the return address from the FBI email.
[email protected].
I was almost disappointed by the simplicity of it all, though thinking the likelihood of there being a person named Eloise Harmon at the FBI was the same as having a crew of men in black chasing down aliens.
Then, with the exception of a single channel of communications, I killed off David Reinhart, without remorse.
CHAPTER 11
I called my sister Evelyn.
“I’m not even going to ask you where you are,” she said.
“Provence. In Aix-en-Provence.”
“Do you remember any of the French I taught you?”
“ Un peu. Any change in the government’s interest in Florencia’s scam?” I asked.
“Not that I know of. Why?’
“Just asking. Has Shelly Gross been around?”
“Not as far as I know,” she said. “Should he be?”
“Not necessarily.”
“I might be able to help you more if you’d stop being so cryptic,” she said.
“Florencia’s account in Grand Cayman was being watched. We got the contents out of the box, but were nearly snatched in the process. It looked like the FBI was involved, but we can’t be sure.”
“Oh, dear.”
“Evelyn, you probably were closer to Florencia than anyone but me. I want you to answer me honestly—did you ever suspect that she was having an affair?”
The phone was quiet a long time before she answered.
“Absolutely not. She loved you, Arthur, like crazy. I couldn’t have been her friend if she hadn’t.”
“Did you suspect she was skimming and lapping, laundering money and hiding it in an offshore account?”
“No. But it’s not the same.”
The conversation drifted into far less significant waters after that. Before signing off, she had one more thought.
“I will say one thing. I always wondered if all that noisy vivaciousness was hiding something very different. Something quietly sad.”
Psychologists will tell you that feelings are merely unarticulated thoughts. And possibly far more accurate. But only language can turn subconscious insight into serviceable ideas and concepts. And until Evelyn had spoken those words, I was unaware that I shared the same intuition.
Or was this a manufactured memory, empirical evidence in search of erstwhile intimation?
THE RADIO with its embedded tracking device spent the next week in the house up in the hills. With its position pinpointed by the GPS, I was able to use Google Earth to fly overhead and eke out a description of the property.
The main house was in a U shape, shadows from the tiled roof indicating a variety of story heights. Judging by the size of neighboring houses, there was easily 5,000 square feet of living space. A swimming pool was tucked inside the U, which was contained by a curved stone wall. How much of the surrounding land belonged to the estate was hard to estimate, though large pine trees and wild Provençal flora dominated the landscape, with only a few acres nearby cleared for cultivation.
Not bad for a retired colonel in the Guardia Civil.
THE ALARM for the tracking device went off at nine o’clock at night. We’d gone to bed early, reflecting the oddball schedule we’d fallen into, with no outside forces on hand to shape more regular behavior. I grabbed the smartphone off the table and forced my eyes to focus. The green dot was out of the house and starting down the long driveway at a good clip.
At the end of the drive, it turned right, retracing the route it took on the way in. I carried the phone around with me while I got dressed, and made a bucket of coffee. Natsumi wandered into the kitchen rubbing her eyes and muttering, “What’s going on?”
“Pure speculation, but I bet whoever picked up the radio at the post office left it in the car. Now it looks like he’s heading back to Aix.”
“Or she.”
“Or she. If it looks like the green dot is actually coming to town, I’ll go lie in wait.”
“To do what?” she asked.
“Identify our target. I don’t know after that. Depends on what I identify.”
It did indeed look as if the possessor of the radio was following the path back into town. I pulled up the tracking program on the laptop and showed Natsumi how to zoom in and out on the green dot.
“You can get close enough to pat that dot on the head. I’ll call you as soon as I know anything more.”
I drove to an entrance ramp at La Provençale about a mile outside of Aix and waited. I zoomed in as far as the program would let me, and set the tracking to continuous, thus following the green dot as it raced down the highway.
As it closed in on the end of my ramp, I took off, timing my entry so I could fall in directly behind the pursued vehicle. As luck would have it, there was only one car within my headlights, a late model crossover SUV with what looked like a Volkswagen logo stuck on the rear hatch. It was moving along rapidly, but I no longer feared a car able to outrun my rented Opel.
As hoped, the Volkswagen exited onto a main artery that led to the broad Route de Galice, and subsequently into the heart of Aix-en-Provence. I followed the vehicle into the snarl of streets north of the Cours Mirabeau, which delineated the major districts of the city. It pulled down a narrow street lined with restaurants and outdoor cafés, then took a sharp right down an even narrower lane where it stopped and parked along the curb. I drove past into a tiny courtyard, where I turned around and went back toward the Volkswagen. I drove by in time to see a short man with a head of thick black hair, broad in both shoulder and waist, pointing the remote key at the SUV, whose lights flashed in response.
I had my man.
I had to park in a residents-only parking zone in order to keep my eye on my quarry, who found his way to a street filled with nightlife, and subsequently disappeared into a dimly lit café. I waited for a few moments, then followed.
He sat by himself at a table along the wall, facing the door to the café. He was around forty and had a broad forehead and massive Gallic nose. He held a glass filled with an unidentifiable amber liquor with both hands, which were thick with short fingers showing the battering of hard manual labor. I looked around the place as if searching for someone, and then not finding her, turned and left.
I went across the street to an outdoor café and sat in a seat with a clear view of the man’s hangout. I ordered a coffee and called Natsumi.
“Do you think you can flirt in French?” I asked her.
“C’est possible.”
“How quickly can you doll yourself up and slip into something sexy?”
“Are you suggesting what I think you’re suggesting?”
“He’s drinking alone in a bar on the Rue de Pourcieux.” I gave her the exact address. “Not a bad looking guy, though I doubt many exotic Asian women come on to him. And by the way, he’s way too young to be our colonel.”
“I hope he’s a leg man. I don’t have much in the way of cleavage,” she said.
“I’ll be at the café across the street, so I’ll see you go in. Then I’ll follow and stand at the bar.”
“There’s no guarantee here, you know,” she said. “Femme fatale wouldn’t be high on my list of life skills.”
“Nah, go on. You’re a natural.”
About twenty minutes later a cab pulled up and Natsumi got out, carefully I’m sure, given the startling shortness of her black skirt, nicely complemented by a pair of high black boots. She held a clutch to her white silk blouse and had a brilliant blue silk scarf around her neck, the only thing I recognized.
I waited another ten minutes, then ambled over to the café. Through the window, I could see our mark still alone at his table, but he sat up straighter and had mustered a
slight grin that almost seemed natural on his meaty puss. Natsumi sat at a table nearby in full view of his, and had her legs crossed. She sipped at a tall glass of red wine and was saying something to him that I couldn’t make out.
I decided it was time to go inside. I was happy to see an empty stool available at the bar, since the persistent soreness in my leg made standing still far more tiring than even a long walk. I sat, then ordered a brandy, ice water and a basket of bread.
It wasn’t long before Natsumi joined the man at his table. He waved to the sole waiter, who brought them fresh drinks. He was now doing most of the talking, while Natsumi listened with rapt attention. When I walked past their table on the way to the WC, it sounded as if he was mixing some heavily accented English in with the French.
“ Ça doit etre très dur labeur,” I heard Natsumi say. That must be really hard work.
The Frenchman’s capacity was formidable, but eventually Natsumi’s encouragement to continually refill began to have an effect, proven by his own journey to the restroom which involved a noticeable heel to port.
Natsumi checked her lipstick in a tiny round compact taken from her clutch, in almost a caricature of feminine preoccupation. Then she hooked a finger at the waiter, who brought over another round. Back at the table, the Frenchman stared at the drink as if wondering how it got there. Natsumi raised her wine in salutation, and they clinked glasses.
I texted her. “Ready to bug out?”
“Ready,” she wrote back.
“Say you need to make a call outside then run for it.”
“Not in these boots.”
From her hand gestures, it looked like she was telling him to stay put, that she’d be right back. Ten minutes later he was still looking toward the door, but his squared-off shoulders had begun to sag back into their original position.
Knowing how the guy drove, I hoped we hadn’t just committed vehicular manslaughter.
WHEN I got back to the flat, Natsumi had already changed into sweatpants and a T-shirt.
“Where did you get that little black number?” I asked. “And the boots?”
“The boots I bought yesterday. I was going to surprise you, which I guess I did. The skirt is one you’ve seen. I just shortened it with some duct tape. You can use that stuff for anything.”
“What did you think of our Frenchman?”
“Don’t let Monsieur Arnold hear you say that. He’s Alsatian. And damn proud of it.”
“Ah.”
“He’s the full-time caretaker of the Château de Saint Sébastien. He’s got a 6,000-square-foot house, a few barns and a lot of little outbuildings, and seventy-five acres, mostly forest and garrigue, to look after.”
“Who’s the boss?”
“A Spaniard named Fulgenzia Bolaños de Sepúlveda.”
“A woman.”
“Si. A very rich woman who visits her château maybe a dozen times a year, including her big annual event in the spring.”
“A social event?”
“More like a business meeting, he thinks, because he clears the furniture out of the biggest room in the house and sets up chairs theater style. He doesn’t know what they talk about, because the Madame makes him leave for the week they’re there and brings in temporary housekeepers. Wouldn’t matter anyway. Christian can’t speak a word of Spanish.”
“Christian Arnold. Sounds Alsatian. I bet he hasn’t been on the job very long.”
“Two years. The Madame recruited him off a big farm up in Alsace. He was single, no kids, bored with growing hops, thought it would be romantic to live in Provence. Now he’s not bored, since there’s so much work to get done, but he’s lonely as hell.”
“You didn’t happen to get his phone number did you?”
She handed me a damp paper napkin.
“His mobile. Although he might hate me now for ditching him.”
“Does the Madame have a Monsieur?”
“Nope. Not that he can determine. He called her la vieille chatte dingue. Something like, that crazy old pussy, and I don’t mean the feline variety. Though it sounds worse than it is. He actually seemed to like her. Maybe because she’s the only company he gets.”
“She’s not there now, I take it.”
“No. And won’t be for another few weeks.”
By now I was at the computer searching for Fulgenzia Bolaños de Sepúlveda. In America, it’s a whole lot easier to track down someone named Horatio Hortence than Bill Smith. Same with Señorita Bolaños de Sepúlveda. There couldn’t be that many of them.
I was almost right about that. There were none. At least none that attracted the attention of Google’s omniscient bots.
I turned to Natsumi. “I liked the boots. You looked great.”
“In a slutty sort of way.”
“What was your cover story?” I asked.
“Looking for real estate for my rich parents back in Japan who always dreamed of retiring to Provence. I thought that might wrangle me an invitation to his place, but he didn’t bite. In fact, he said he was under strict orders to never let anyone set foot on the property.”
“What kind of a guy do you think he is? How safe did you feel with him?”
“He was pretty sweet, all in all. For a rough farmer-type character. Just wicked horny, and who can blame him.”
“How would you feel about one more date?” I asked.
“Depends.”
I told her my plan. She calls Arnold and apologizes for disappearing on him. Couldn’t get off the phone with a neurotic girlfriend until it was too late to call. Would like to see him again, but during the day.
“You want a tour of Aix. Keeps you out among the public. Meanwhile, I’m breaking and entering, seeing what I can dig up at the château.”
She poked me gently in the chest.
“Okay, but don’t start getting pimp fantasies. A café table is as close as anyone’s going to get to this chatte dingue.”
TWO DAYS later I was walking through the Provençale woods with my smartphone in my hand and pack on my back. I had a new pair of hiking boots and a light rip-resistant jacket designed for the exact purpose they were being put to. I had a compass and a second handheld GPS just in case the phone fell in a stream or had a sudden software glitch.
It was ten in the morning. Natsumi had texted me while I waited in the Opel that she and Christian were having a lovely late breakfast under the plane trees of the Cours Mirabeau. I left the car in a little glade accessed by an unpaved road I’d spotted on my first trip into the hills, and I was now within the confines of the Saint Sébastien estate, as shown by no-trespassing signs posted with great frequency.
The early autumn day was pleasingly on the cool side, though the sun, still close to the horizon, was bright and difficult to block with the rim of my baseball cap. The woods were thick, but frequently opened up on garrigue—treeless spaces filled with local varieties of bramble and dense shrubbery, like kermes oak, juniper and wild thyme. The ground was littered with the pale grey rocks, designed to twist ankles, that seemed ubiquitous around the Mediterranean region. Which meant I spent as much time looking down as I did staring at the smartphone or surveying the landscape around me.
It took about an hour of strenuous hiking before I came on the first man-made landmark, a stone structure enclosing an ancient well once used to water livestock. I fixed it on Google Earth and the smartphone, and created a waypoint on the GPS. The house was about twenty minutes away, assuming the same speed-overground. I pressed on.
The blue dot representing me came within theoretical eyeshot of the main house about the same time I actually did. It was a mostly stone dwelling made up of several buildings of different heights cobbled together in an orderly fashion, which I knew from the aerials was in the shape of a U.
There wasn’t much in the way of landscaping beyond a few pergolas buried under mounds of roses, honeysuckle and wisteria, and small patio seating areas furnished with heavy iron tables and chairs and teak chaise longues.
>
I moved through the aromatic air and searched the exterior of the house for a way in other than the front door. I found what I was looking for near the end of a perpendicular leg of the U. There were no little signs alerting the criminal class that this building was equipped with an alarm system, as there would be in America, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t.
I studied the door frame and those of nearby windows, but found no telltales, like brass contacts, blinking motion sensors or errant narrow gauge wires, not that these things were usually visible from the outside.
While thus engaged, I didn’t notice the actual domestic defense apparatus walk up and sniff the small of my back.
I turned to see a Dogue de Bordeaux, a dog the size of a stunted elephant with a grotesquely wrinkled head about twice that of a beach ball. I looked at him and he looked at me for nearly a minute.
“What a beautiful dog,” I said in French. “Would you like a treat?”
I unwrapped and handed him a gooey energy bar.
He took it and left about a quart of slime behind, covering my hand and halfway up my forearm. I petted his gigantic head and his thin tail began to wag.
“You are a very distinguished gentleman,” I said, this time in English. “I think maybe you’ve been miscast as a ferocious guard dog. At least, that’s what I hope.”
As I intensified scratching the furrows between the big flaps of skin covered in short, reddish brown fur, he thrust his head forward, challenging the strength of my hand. The downward Churchillian cast to his face belied what seemed like sheer pleasure at being thus attended to. When I got my other hand into the action, he reared up and lapped a slippery tongue from chin to forehead across my face. I repressed the thought that he probably outweighed me by about forty pounds and could have taken the whole of my head in his mouth.
“You are a total mush, you know that?” I said. “Thank God.”
I told him in French to sit and give me his paw. He got the first part, and failure at the second likely meant I didn’t use the correct French. I gave a few commands in Spanish, which he took to more readily.