The Book Artist

by Mark Pryor

  A moment later, a reply came through. 10-4. PLEASE be careful.

  Tom grinned and typed back, I’m fine, Dad. Don’t worry. Hugo sent the thumbs-up emoji, and Tom put his phone away and looked through the window. Outside, Cofer straightened up. He set off again. Just to be sure, Tom left more than enough cash to cover his bill and moved away from his table, sank deeper into the café to stay out of sight. A moment later, Cofer drifted past the café’s entrance. Tom counted to ten and stepped outside.

  Where to now, amigo? he wondered. He set off after Cofer and pulled out his phone to try to guess where he might be going, but a quick glance at the map told him nothing useful, so he focused on keeping the man in sight, and not being seen himself.

  Five minutes later, Cofer turned a corner and Tom hurried to keep his eyes on him. Tom rounded the same corner and found himself at the edge of a pedestrian square looking at a busy market, one like so many in Europe, with stalls of bright flowers, fresh vegetables, and vendors selling art, handmade jewelry, and all manner of foods.

  “Shit, where did you go?” Tom muttered. He moved slowly through the crowd, eyes scanning for a flash of orange that would tell him where Cofer was. He caught a glimpse of him on the far side of the market. Tom moved closer and saw Cofer take a toothpick handed to him by the owner of a stall selling dried meats. Cofer picked the meat off delicately and chewed slowly. Then he dropped the toothpick into a trash barrel and nodded enthusiastically to the seller, who reached behind him and grabbed a long, dried sausage that was hanging from a hook like a lasso, and put it in a brown paper bag.

  Tom shifted to his left, hiding behind a rack of postcards in case Cofer turned his way, but he didn’t. He walked away from Tom toward the edge of the market and a stone archway that marked the opening to a picturesque, cobbled alleyway. Tom couldn’t tell whether there were more stores down there, but he had no intention of losing sight of the man who, as far as he knew, was looking for a confrontation. As long as he was in Tom’s sights, and not the other way around, Tom had the advantage.

  So he took a deep breath, crossed the narrow street that bordered the market, and followed Rick Cofer into the alleyway that, even in broad daylight and in the middle of a busy Amsterdam, suddenly felt empty, and very dangerous.

  Tom put his hand in his coat pocket and felt the weight of his gun, a .32 caliber Beretta. It was lighter than his favored 9mm Glock 19, but since he wasn’t supposed to be carrying a weapon at all in the Netherlands, he’d gone for something easier to conceal. It felt heavy enough, though, reassuring, and he touched it not because he needed it right then, but because the temperature in the narrow and deserted alley seemed to have dropped ten degrees. His own feet were the only sound he could hear for a full minute, until a soft whistling drifted back to him from ahead. Tom knew it was Cofer, and he tried to discern the tune in case it was meant as a warning, or maybe a taunt, a sign that Cofer knew he was there.

  Some obscure classical shit, Tom decided. Plenty of time in prison to listen to music, after all.

  Even so, Tom moved to the inside of the left-curving alleyway, just in case Cofer looked over his shoulder. Better to stumble into the man at close quarters than get in some kind of shoot-out at a distance. He had no idea whether Cofer was armed but had to assume so; to think otherwise was a potentially fatal mistake. Plus, as big as Cofer might be, Tom had scrapped with bigger, meaner sons-of-bitches than him over the years, and had not lost yet.

  Tom left his hand on the butt of the gun, just in case, and moved slowly forward, trying to walk as quietly as possible. Somewhere nearby, someone was cooking a meal with a lot of garlic, and it reminded Tom that he’d eaten little except pancakes, handfuls of cheese, and pastries all day. He shook his head to focus himself on the task at hand.

  He glanced to his left as the stone wall gave way to a doorway and a courtyard, a tidy space decorated with potted plants and several wooden benches. Tom couldn’t tell whether it was a privately owned place or open to the public but, more important, it didn’t contain Rick Cofer, who was still ahead of him, whistling as though everything in the world was right.

  And then, a quick movement to his left. Tom turned and caught the dark silhouette of a man towering over him, just a split second of an image before a blinding pain raked across the top of his head and sent him into darkness, and straight to the ground.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  It came to Hugo on Monday morning. He’d received the two photos from Tom confirming Cofer’s presence in Amsterdam on Sunday, and he’d not stopped looking at them since. He’d also been antsy for the rest of the weekend, checking his phone constantly to see whether he’d missed a message from his friend. He hadn’t, and that made him more antsy.

  He slept fitfully Sunday night, turning up the volume on his phone and setting it on a saucer so there was no way he’d miss it if it rang, or even if Tom texted. Had it been anyone else, Hugo would’ve felt some sense of comfort that they knew what they were doing, would keep a cool head and not go rushing in. But not only was Tom more likely to crash about than a bull in a china shop was, Hugo was worried that his friend was overconfident. In the picture, Cofer looked lean, relaxed. Tom was not in the greatest shape of his life, and even when he was, that shape was slightly rounded.

  He fell asleep around three in the morning and woke at seven to a blank phone, and a clear idea of why Cofer was in Amsterdam. He called Ambassador Taylor, the only one right then he could talk to about this, and told him about the photos Tom had sent.

  “Shit,” Taylor said. “Cofer is really there?”

  “He is. And I know why.”

  “Tell me.”

  “He wanted to split us up. Me and Tom.”

  “You think?”

  “I do. There’s no earthly reason for him to go to somewhere completely strange to him. To pick a battle in a foreign country. The only reason I can think of is to bring us, and just one of us, to a place that we don’t know.”

  “Divide and conquer.”

  “Exactly,” Hugo said.

  “But how does he know whether or not you’re familiar with Amsterdam?”

  “He doesn’t. But he does know that we live and work here, in Paris. And that means anywhere else is better for him.”

  “Good point.”

  “And he’d guess, rightly as it turns out, that only one of us would come. The reckless one who doesn’t have a full-time job.”

  “Makes sense,” Taylor agreed.

  “Thing is, I’ve not heard from Tom since he sent those pictures.”

  “When was that?”

  “Yesterday afternoon.”

  “Have you tried calling?” Taylor asked. “Dumb question, I’m sure . . .”

  “No, it’s not. He told me not to. Doesn’t want the distraction.”

  “I see. I don’t suppose he has any tracking software on his phone.”

  “Not a chance,” Hugo said. “Your people are to thank for that.”

  “Yeah, CIA habits die hard. Dammit, what can I do to help?”

  “Is there any way you know of to figure out what passport Cofer came in on? If we can find that out, hotels still require guests to show them when they check in. I think the Dutch do that, don’t they?”

  “We can find out, for sure. That’s only helpful if he’s staying at a hotel, though.”

  “Tom left a message saying he was, one in the red-light district. I know, there are a million of those, but if hotels do that still, and if we can identify the passport he’s using, that’ll make figuring out which one a whole lot easier.”

  “That’s a lot of ifs, Hugo.”

  “I know.” Hugo frowned as he thought aloud. “But what bothers me is . . . passports are so hard to forge these days, with all the technology involved in making them. How does a recent convict manage that so fast? I wonder if he knows someone who can . . .” A light came on in Hugo’s head. “Holy shit.”

  “Hugo, what is it?”

  “His twin brother. He�
�s using his brother’s passport. He didn’t have to forge a new one, and how would he anyway?”

  “Damn. That’s smart.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Not you, him.”

  Hugo smiled grimly. “Yeah, but it’s also risky. Which tells me he’s not here to play games.”

  “Right,” Taylor said. “He’d know we’d bust him sooner or later like that.”

  Hugo was still deep in thought. “If Rick Cofer’s brother did have a passport, it’s been long enough that it would have expired. Rick would’ve had to apply for a new one in his brother’s name. I’ll get Ryan to check on whether the State Department issued one; that’ll be easy to find out.”

  “That’s good, Hugo. Let me know as soon as he gets an answer.”

  “I will, I promise.”

  “So, that’s a path to finding Cofer, but we also need to find Tom. What else can I do?”

  “Nothing, not for now. I don’t think there’s anything to be done until we hear from him.”

  “And we will, Hugo. You know that, right? We will hear from him.”

  “We better. Because if Cofer’s as serious about this revenge plan as I think he is, silence is very bad news indeed.”

  Hugo needed to keep busy as the silence from Tom spread through Monday morning, so at lunchtime he called the l’Hôtel Toby and asked for Josh Reno. When Reno picked up, he sounded annoyed, Hugo thought.

  “Josh, this is Hugo Marston from the embassy.”

  “Oh, yeah. How can I help?”

  “I was wondering if we could sit down and talk.”

  “What about?”

  “I’m helping the police with their investigation,” Hugo said, keeping it vague. “But it’s also my job to look out for US citizens.”

  “I don’t need you to look out for me; I’m fine.”

  “Have you spoken to the French police again?”

  “Yes,” Reno said. “Of course. They interviewed everyone at the museum. Especially people who knew Alia, I’m sure.”

  “Well, like I said, I’m helping them and I’d like to talk to you myself. Just in case something was lost in translation.”

  “The French police just left, actually,” Reno said. “Yeah, that Marchand guy, his English is terrible.”

  “That’s what I’m talking about,” Hugo said, relieved Reno wasn’t pushing back too hard, or asking questions about Hugo’s motivations. “You have a few minutes this afternoon?”

  “Yeah, sure. I guess with . . . all this, I’m just a tourist now, I got all the time you need. Marchand asked me to stay put for a while, in Paris, but I’d like to get out of this hotel for a bit, so can we meet somewhere?”

  “I’ll tell you what. Since you’re a tourist, take a cab to Les Deux Magots on the boulevard Saint-Germain. I’ll pay for your cab, and buy you coffee there.”

  “OK,” Reno said. “Sounds like a good deal to me.”

  Forty minutes later, they sat across a small but shiny table inside the café, Hugo with his back to the red leather of the banquette, Josh Reno with his back to the inside of the café.

  “Fancy place,” Reno said. “But what’s with the maggot reference?”

  “Ah, no,” Hugo said with a smile. “Not maggot, but magot. One g and you don’t pronounce the t at the end.”

  “And it means?”

  “There was a fabric shop near here, in Rue de Buci. It sold silks linens, lingerie. The word magot is translated as a stocky, Far East figurine. If I remember rightly, it was named Les Deux Magots after a popular play. Anyway, in 1870-something, the business moved from there to here, and about ten years later was converted into a café.”

  “Not the obvious transition. Undies to coffee, but OK.”

  “Agreed,” Hugo said. “But what’s kind of neat is that the business was sold at the start of the First World War to a Monsieur Boulay, and the current manager is his great-great-granddaughter.”

  “Keeping it in the family, I like it.”

  “Me too. And in the years after the Second World War, it was filled with writers like Hemmingway, Sartre, and Camus. And, the reason I thought you’d like it, plenty of artists, too. Surrealist artists and some guy called Pablo Picasso.”

  “He used to come here?” Reno looked around, awed by not just the café’s opulence but its history, too.

  “He sure did.” A waiter arrived at the table, and Hugo ordered two grand crème coffees. “Anything to eat?” he asked Reno.

  “No, I’m good.”

  The waiter nodded his understanding and left them alone.

  “So, how’re you doing?” Hugo asked. “Losing a friend, being here in a foreign country, having to deal with it all. Must be tough.”

  “It is.” Reno looked down at the table. “I’ll be glad to get out of here, to be honest.”

  “Let me ask you. That night, you seemed in a better mood.”

  “I’m usually in a good . . . Oh, you mean after my little outburst at you and Alia.”

  “Right.”

  “I apologized; she forgave me. I was drunk and angry, but when I sobered up and thought about it all . . .” He looked out of the window and shrugged. “I mean, she can’t be expected to carry me forever, can she?”

  “I didn’t think she was doing that, carrying you.”

  “You know what I mean. She did more for me than I did her. I was helpful, yes, but it was never going to last forever, like I said.”

  “Do you have any clue who’d want to hurt her?” Hugo asked.

  “Not really, no.”

  “That doesn’t sound very definitive.”

  “Well, I mean.” Reno fell silent and sat back as the waiter arrived with their coffees. “Merci,” he said.

  “You mean what?” Hugo pressed.

  “Look, everyone in the world has people who . . .” Reno glanced to his right as an older gentleman took a seat two tables away. The American lowered his voice but, to Hugo, the old man seemed lost in his own world and paid them no mind. “I mean, there are people who weren’t one hundred percent in love with Alia, or at least had possible reasons not to be. But, to me at least, that’s a far cry from having a reason to murder her.”

  “That’s very true,” Hugo said. “But what looks like a poor motive to you might seem like a strong one to someone else. In other words, if she upset someone, you may not think it’s a big deal. But the person who was upset, well, they may see things differently.”

  “Sure,” Reno agreed. “Even so, what I’m telling you is I don’t think I know of anyone who has anything close to a reason to kill Alia. Even someone super sensitive, or super angry.”

  “Got it. So tell me who might have a reason to be faintly annoyed with her.”

  “Apart from me, you mean?”

  “Apart from you,” Hugo said with a smile.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Hugo watched Reno as the wheels spun in his head. He was a handsome young man, and perhaps brighter than Hugo had initially credited him. Hugo resolved to check out the man’s art, even though it was supposed to be quite modern, which wasn’t usually his taste. Hugo looked to his right as the old man reached for his tall glass of beer. His fingers trembled a little, and as he raised it, the sweating glass slipped through his fingers and dropped onto the table with a crash, tipping over and spilling beer over the tabletop and sending a cascade onto the floor.

  Josh Reno leapt up, grabbing the napkins in front of him, and from the table between them, and hurried to the old man, who just sat there looking stunned. Hugo looked around for a waiter, but there wasn’t one close, and the pair of them standing by the door and chatting paid them no heed.

  Reno mopped up the beer as best he could and waved to someone behind Hugo. He turned to see a woman, a manager perhaps, hurry between tables with a large white cloth in her hand. She gently hip-checked Reno out of the way, with a smile and a Merci, as she took his place cleaning up the mess.

  Nice guy, Hugo thought as Reno plopped back into his seat smelling f
aintly of beer. Or a nice performance. Hugo suppressed a smile, chiding himself for being so uncharitable, so suspicious.

  “Now, where were we?” Reno asked, taking a sip and then frowning at his now-cold coffee.

  “You were about to tell me who might have had issues, even minor ones, with Alia.”

  “Right.” He shifted in his seat and wouldn’t meet Hugo’s eye. “You know, my mother taught me not to speak ill of people behind their backs, or gossip.”

  “So did mine. But then my mother never investigated a murder. Did yours?”

  “No.”

  “Josh, look. Alia is dead. And you may not want to gossip, or say bad things about people. You obviously think that whatever it is you know is irrelevant, and that’s fine. But right now you don’t get to make that decision.”

  “What decision?”

  “That virtue trumps necessity.”

  “But if the information is irrelev—”

  “You don’t get to make that decision either,” Hugo said more forcefully.

  “OK, fine. It’s not that big of a deal,” Reno said defensively.

  “I’m listening.”

  “It’s just that JD has a thing . . . had a thing for Alia. Held a candle for her, you might say.”

  “She was a beautiful woman.”

  “And JD was well aware of that,” Reno said.

  “Did anything ever happen between the two of them?”

  “I’m not sure, but . . .” Reno paused, this time looking Hugo in the eye. “Well, something happened. Early on.”

  “Tell me.”

  “It was at one of her first shows, or first after she’d met the Rollos.”

  “They were bankrolling it?”

  “Yes, they were. Not to the extent they did later, but yeah.”

  “What happened?”

  “I can only tell you what I saw. It was at an art studio in San Francisco, I don’t even remember what she was showing. But at one point she was gone and I went looking for her. I went to the office and was about to knock on the door when it opened, and JD kinda pushed past me. Alia was inside, by herself. She was red in the face.” He took a deep breath and shook his head slowly. “I felt super awkward, so when she just said, ‘Shut the door and give me a minute,’ I was more than happy to.”