Dollar Down

by Sam Waite

  "I've been training her."

  "But she's never worked. This is a bad case, Pascal. There's been another... I don't know what we have, but Trevor Jones' body was found outside London."

  Pascal shrugged and raised his eyebrows. "No problem, she's good."

  "No problem," Marie hooked her thumbs into her belt and stuck out her chin. "I move like—"

  "A ghost. I already know." It turned out she really did. We tripled-teamed the PDVSA duo when they left their office that evening. They split up. Pascal stayed with one. Marie and I trailed the other. Our guy took evasive actions, stopped to check reflections in windows, doubled back along his path, walked into the front entrance of a building checked the area for faces then took a side exit. He turned down an alley. I gave him time to get ahead and almost followed, but Marie signaled for me to stop. A few minutes later, he walked back out. She'd known it was a dead-end.

  He finally went into a dingy couscous restaurant on a narrow side street off Rue Lafayette. Marie took an oversized tam out of her purse, stuffed her hair underneath it and pulled the band down to her eyes. Then she went into the restaurant. I waited inside the entry of an apartment building across the street and listened to my stomach rumble while I watched the restaurant's door. The most curious thing about this episode was why our man had taken evasive action. Maybe he was meeting a girlfriend or a boyfriend he didn't want his colleague to know about.

  Maybe a private business deal.

  The light in front of the restaurant was not good, but it was enough to see that one of the two men who got out of a taxi shortly thereafter bore a strong resemblance to photos of Cervantes. The other man appeared to be Middle Eastern. Could he be the Saudi Gavizon had told me about?

  I was in for a long wait. When I wasn't fielding stares from suspicious residents entering or leaving the apartment, I played mental games that mostly involved trying to convince my feet that they weren't tired and cold. They weren't that dumb. Their protest had grown about as loud as I could tolerate by the time a taxi stopped in front of the café an hour and seventeen minutes after Marie had followed Ruiz inside.

  All three of our targets got in the cab and left. A little later Marie came out. I walked toward her.

  "I guess you ate."

  She shook her head. "Only a little, I wanted to be ready to move. Are you hungry?"

  "I could eat anything I don't have to chase down and catch."

  "Do you like crepes? I know an excellent place."

  "Great, do they have wine?"

  She frowned. "I said crepes. You should have cider."

  "Hard cider?"

  "Of course."

  Off we went.

  The restaurant was on a side street near the eastern end of the Champs Elysées. It was picture-book cozy with tile mosaics of old-time kitchens and giant photographs of idyllic landscapes. I looked over a list of exotic ingredients for the crepe then settled on ham and cheese. Marie ordered scallops and spinach. No wonder she was elfin thin.

  In the couscous restaurant, she had taken a table well away from Ruiz. Her back had been turned toward him, so he wouldn't notice her face. When the other two arrived, she managed a quick look and took their photos with a mobile phone. She said she would email them to me. Otherwise, she didn't have much to add. She hadn't been able to hear any of their conversation.

  Half a crepe and a pitcher of cider later, Marie and I were getting on like old chums. She had an extraordinary story. Her mother had divorced her father not long after she was born. They spent a few years in Lyon, her mother's hometown. She vividly remembered the day that changed their lives, even though she'd been only six years old. It was just before the start of her first year in elementary school. Her mother took her to Paris to show her the city and to a performance of Cirque du Soleil, Circus of the Sun.

  She'd been so excited by the show that her mother let her hang around afterwards to meet some of the performers. Meanwhile, her mother met Marcel LaFey, the troupe's bookkeeper and the rest, as they say, was history rewritten. They went back to Lyon only to pack. Then they were off to Toledo and Toronto and Tokyo and many points in between.

  Within a few years, Marcel found a new job. Her mother left the circus with him, but Marie stayed to become a performer, a contortionist, by the time she was barely a teenager. A year later, she was also doing aerial acrobatics. That explained her strength as well as some of her wiles. A bad accident when she was sixteen dislocated her hip. It healed sufficiently so as not to be a hindrance in ordinary activity, but the injury made it hard to execute the extraordinary demands of the job. She stayed one more year to finish her high school studies with the troupe's tutors, and then bailed out at the next stop in Paris.

  Now she was an apprentice investigator, just a month shy of her twenty-second birthday.

  Quite a life.

  When I got back to Sabine's apartment I called Oddsson to tell him about Trevor. Seething anger was palpable in his voice when he said, "There must be a connection to her work."

  He was more convinced of a connection than I was. As far as I knew, the PDVSA study was the only thing that tied together the two murders—one in France and one in England. The likelihood that police would cooperate on a joint investigation was about zero, at least in the early stages. If there was a connection they would probably start with the wrong assumptions.

  That fear was confirmed the next day when I got a call from Oddson's lawyer to tell me that he had been arrested and charged with Sabine's murder. Ironically, part of the rationale for suspicion was Geir's rapid liquidation of assets, including his putting her apartment on the market. That was the property he'd said could cover the costs of an investigation to find her killer.

  The lawyer had his doubts about my effectiveness, but he said he controlled a substantial fund that Geir had set aside for expenses. He hoped it wasn't a waste.

  So did I.

  Chapter 10

  There are times when you can bear down hardest by just letting go.

  I had called Gavizon to see if he had any more information on Cervantes' schedule and asked if there was any reason for him to be in Paris. He said he'd check again, but as far as he'd found, London was the only town on the schedule.

  Next I called Alexandra to see if Winchell's Mideast headquarters in Dubai had turned up anything on the Saudi.

  "They've got only one name, Ibrahim. What are they supposed to do with that? It's a common one, isn't it?"

  I took her response to mean no. "I have a photo."

  "Mike, I'm busy. I will talk to you later." The line went dead.

  I set out for a walk, not to go anywhere, just to be in motion. When I focused on Oddsson's arrest, memories of Sabine and possible connections among Cervantes, the Saudi and Mumby overwhelmed my capacity for logical analysis. When I tried to shake them, images of Trevor rose up.

  Giving up on trying to focus, I put my mind on free spin and took in the city as I strolled through it. When I did, Grandmas Fitzgerald and Sanchez joined me for a quality-time visit. They brought remembered aromas of homemade tortillas and ginger muffins, the unforgettable taste of mint tea and a soothing memory of warm soapy water and a gentle hand cleaning skinned knees. Best of all were their soul-healing hugs. By the time I reached the Seine, my psyche was riding an even keel.

  I'd also found out how condensed central Paris is. I'd walked halfway across it in what for me was an easy stroll. Notre Dame was just up river. I headed toward it and entered a warren of restaurants and cafes on the Right Bank. In a close skirmish with nostalgia, I stopped in front of a Tex-Mex eatery, checked the menu and passed it by. No reason to gamble that the fare might disappoint and break the mood.

  Without consciously thinking about it, I was mentally on the job again as I turned back toward Montmartre. The Venezuelans must be doing more than selling emulsified tar for PDVSA. I needed to know what that was. I also needed to know what happened to the twenty-five thousand euros that Trevor had sent to Mumby's bank and what
Mumby himself knew about it.

  I called Pascal and asked if he could set up video or at least audio surveillance devices in Ruiz's office and apartment. He said he'd get back.

  McNulty was next on my list. I called him, and he agreed to bug Mumby's home, but he didn't think he could get into the office. That was fine. I doubted we would get much from there anyway.

  Then I called my old boss. Abe Granger's company, Global Risk Management, had resources that I didn't. He said it was good to hear from me, but he didn't sound jovial about it. Nevertheless, he'd be happy to follow the trail of the twenty-five thousand euros. His good-bye was friendly. Must have been something I said, like my promise to pay by wire transfer for the service.

  Quick as that, I was done with business. It was growing dark out, and I had an evening to face. I called Alexandra again. She responded to my voice with an edge of irritation, but I plowed ahead anyway and invited her to dinner. No work agenda, I just didn't want to eat alone. To my surprise, she lost the edge and said yes.

  We met at an upscale restaurant near her office. At the waiter's advice, we ordered a bold claret "with complex hints of currants and black cherries" and a vibrant bouquet of some other fruit that wasn't a grape. Whatever it was, maybe raspberry, went fine with braised beef. Alexandra had no exotic tales to match Marie's. She grew up in a middleclass family, had an older brother and a younger sister. Her biggest adventure had been to study hard enough to win a scholarship to INSEAD. Her family would not have been able to afford the tuition. Her second biggest thrill had been landing a job with Winchell & Associates. That was even tougher competition than the scholarship.

  I kept my own stories to a minimum. Born in Laredo, way long time ago. Did a stint in the Air Force, wounded in Vietnam spotting for bombers, switched my occupational specialty to legal aide and served in Japan until my discharge. Did a year of law school before joining a global investigative agency. Started my own shop when I got ambitious. The ambitious part wasn't exactly accurate. I left over a conflict of human morality, but it was close enough for now.

  I also had apparitional visits from the warmest grandmothers in human history. I didn't tell Alexandra that. She might not understand. They had come along for the evening and one of them advised me to watch Alexandra's left cheekbone. You had to catch the light just right to see it. About half an inch below the outside corner of her eye was a small irregular patch of skin. It was set off by a subtle tinge of orange, a birthmark. I had expected to keep that observation to myself, but Grandma Fitzgerald goosed my psyche.

  "The imperfection that makes your beauty memorable," I said aloud.

  I couldn't quite decipher the look that Alexandra flashed at me, but it wasn't one I wanted to see twice. I made an embarrassed smile and shook my head. "I shouldn't drink bold claret. Here," I pointed to the corner of my eye, "there is a very light birthmark. Your features are so balanced, I was looking for something that wasn't a perfect fit."

  Alexandra smiled with her mouth and frowned with her eyes. "I was just surprised. That's something I wouldn't have expected you to say."

  "Me or anyone else, I would guess."

  She nodded and lost the frown. She also folded her napkin and laid it on the table.

  "Thank you for the evening. It was a refreshing break from work and..."

  Her voice faded. She didn't have to say anything about Sabine or Trevor.

  "You paid for drinks at the hotel," she reached for her handbag. "Let me get the check."

  "Not as long as I'm breathing. It was my invitation."

  "Well then, next time I'll invite you."

  I scowled.

  "Are you too proud to let a woman pay?"

  "I wouldn't call it pride, just the way I was brought up. My grandmothers wouldn't forgive me."

  I could hear the calculator clicking away in her mind.

  "Are they still alive?"

  I shook my head. In the glow of a good meal and friendly company and my what-a-good-boy-am-I appeal, I felt some mental hugs coming on.

  "Not physically anyway."

  Alexandra had the grace not to say anything about that comment, or anything else, for that matter. We said good night efficiently, no backward glances, no question of where do we go from here.

  I returned to Sabine's apartment and called Burroughs to ask if he'd received my package. He had.

  "Last time I talked to you, I asked you what you did for humor. I guess I know now, but I don't think it's funny. I don't mind a practical joke, even if it's on me. I just don't get it."

  "What joke?"

  "Nobody's that dumb. You didn't show this file to Bizet. What's going on?"

  "The computer file? I never said I showed that to Bizet. He only saw the paper notes."

  "Are you for real, Sanchez?"

  "I must be, because I have no idea what you're talking about."

  "The file wasn't encrypted, at least not if you can read Chinese."

  "It wasn't Chinese. It was garble."

  "Not if your software is configured to read BIG 5 character code, two-bytes."

  There was a moment of silence, then I heard Burroughs' laugh. It was loud.

  "You actually thought it was encrypted." He laughed again. "There aren't many items in the ASCII character set, so you need only one byte to represent a character. Chinese needs two bytes for its fifty thousand or so hanzi. If your software is reading one byte at a time, you get garble."

  I knew that. It just hadn't occurred to me that might be the problem. "Thanks I'll have it translated. What about the notes?"

  "I need to talk to Bizet."

  "If you need verification about where they came from, let's try something else. I promised I wouldn't give out his name."

  "You didn't. I'll explain it to him, and I don't need verification. No one trying to trick me would have such a clueless request for decryption. I need his ideas for describing a model on the dollar fall. No normal factors could cause that, but it isn't impossible technically. With a corporate stock or even an index, if it falls too fast too far, say five percent or ten percent in one session, the exchange simply stops trading it, automatic trigger. There is no such mechanism in the foreign exchange market. No exchange owns the dollar."

  "Let me know what you find out."

  "I've done this much because of Bizet's name. I wouldn't mind knowing a little more about who Sanchez is."

  I described my relationship with Winchell & Associates and the deaths of Sabine and Trevor. As soon as I hung up, I called Bizet and explained what had happened. Better that he hear it from me. I also asked him not to mention Mumby to Burroughs. They might be pals.

  Winchell's computer system used a proprietary application for word processing. By default, that was the application that had opened the Chinese file, which it was not designed to display. I opened it again in an off-the-shelf program that could read Chinese. I couldn't. Without knowing the contents, there was little point in speculating on a China connection. Market information would have been the best guess, but there were twenty pages. That was too dense for a Winchell description of who's buying what. The firm's documents tended to be short and full of graphs.

  It was very late, but I decided to take my chances with an abusive-language response and called Alexandra. She mumbled into the phone.

  "This is Mick."

  More mumbling. It was warm and throaty, not the sound of a marble goddess.

  "I woke you."

  "Unn."

  "You'll have to trust me on this. It's important enough to write down. Do you have pencil and paper?"

  "Yes."

  "The encrypted files, they weren't encrypted. It was Chinese. I'll explain later. Can you get a translation?"

  "Yes."

  I paused and asked, "Can you get one quick?"

  Alexandra had more to say than yes or no. I couldn't make out what it was, but I pardoned her French.

  Chapter 11

  The next day, Oddsson's lawyer arranged a visit for me. He s
aid the evidence against him was weak, and he should be released soon. Maybe so, but that didn't solve the issue of Sabine's death. I assured everyone that I was making progress.

  Oddsson said, "Thanks."

  The lawyer sneered politely.

  I called Alexandra to see how the translation was going.

  "It isn't going at all. My computer is broken. The hard disk just died. The systems administrator put in a new one, but I lost all my data."

  "That's OK. I have the file and a printout."

  "No, it isn't OK. I lost everything, not just the Chinese file. I have back-ups to about a month ago, but from then on, the best I can do is to try to restore the data from paper reports. The translation is not a high priority for me right now."

  I thanked her and promised to stay in touch. Since I didn't know any Chinese translators, I checked the Web. Instead of looking for the cheapest bidder, I went for proximity and found someone nearly next door.

  When I called, the translator's wife answered. She was French. Her husband was Taiwanese. He was a free-lance translator and a sidewalk artist. Right now he was with the artists in Montmartre.

  The square, surrounded by bistros and cafes, was crowded with painters and tourists. I wandered through a mini-world of red-nosed clowns, amber cityscapes and yellow bicycles. A girl, about ten years old, with long lashes and haunting eyes sat patiently as an artist recorded her face to canvas and passing tourists recorded it to snapshots and video. Toward the center of the square, the only Chinese man among the painters was intently adding oil accents to a canvas no bigger than six by nine inches. The image was a door. All of his paintings were of doors. I stood behind him a while wondering if he drew portals as a philosophical statement or if he just liked rectangles. Either way, the art was good. I tested my pronunciation of "looks good" in Mandarin. "Piaoliang."

  He looked up and smiled. "Xie xie, ni de Zhongguo hwa shou de hen hau."

  My pronunciation must have worked. He thanked me and complimented my Chinese.

  "That's as far as I go, Mr. Li."