Where the Wolf Lies

by Tyler Flynn

  Maxim strolled to the window, opened the French shutters by turning a lever halfway, and left them slightly ajar.

  “I grew up on a farm in the southeast of France, near Italy,” Maxim said. “So, I was slightly honest when I told you I was from Marseille. But my family has lived on the same farm, in the same town, for as long as anyone can remember. My grandfather was born and raised in the same home, where he later raised my father, who in turn raised my two older brothers and I with the help of my mother, a beautiful woman from Corsica. My brothers never became farmers, but that is another story for another time.” He took a long pull of his cigarette, its strong smoke rolling through the open window, yet it still managed to engulf the apartment with its aroma. “Our farm had sheep, a few dairy cows, chickens. It was nothing special, but it paid the bills, as you say. Generations lived there, as I said, and it was a tradition that the men were always in charge of the sheep, because that was the most dangerous job.

  “We would take the sheep to pasture to the rolling hillside above our house through a small forest. Our family always had herding dogs that would nip at the heels of the sheep. These dogs were smart—always a Belgian sheepdog—bred to guard and protect sheep. They would work all day, and at night they would stay in the house, sleeping by the fireplace, or in the summer lying on the cool tiles.”

  Maxim tapped on his cigarette with his index finger as he held it out the window. His face was pensive, as if he were back at the farm in his mind. Hart could almost see the memories scrolling across Maxim’s mind. Hart sat rigid, listening, trying to make sense of why Maxim was apparently in charge.

  Maxim continued after blowing smoke out of the window. “When I was a boy, these dogs would sleep in my room. They would play with me when I was just a gamin. It always amazed me how docile they were with me, even with the excitement of the running and screaming of a small boy. They did their job tirelessly, and would protect the sheep fiercely, but they could be the sweetest companions any boy could ask for, obedient and gentle.” Maxim took another drag and pushed the window open, peering further out down the street, blackened by night.

  Hart glanced at Clara, who seemed lost in thought, unengaged by Maxim’s story and uninterested in empathizing. Hart’s eyes pleaded for understanding, but she ignored him and rose and went to the kitchen, returning with a small metal ashtray, which she put on the coffee table. Hart rubbed the tiredness from his eyes.

  Maxim nodded at Clara with a smug smile before continuing. “My grandfather lived on the farm until he was ninety-six years old. He’d stopped working many years earlier, obviously, but he didn’t want to leave the place he’d lived all his life. With our family growing, the house had become cramped, but he never wanted to leave. I loved my grandfather, but I remember how he never trusted the dogs. He used them when he worked on the farm for many years, from the early 1920s up until the war and after. But he was always suspicious of them.” Maxim flicked his cigarette out of the open window, its orange glow somersaulting in the darkness. He’d lit another before it landed on the street.

  “I think this was because of the wolves. There used to be many in France, but they were killed off before World War Two. Now there are none. But when my grandfather herded the sheep as a young man, the dogs were meant for protection. Their job was to guard the sheep, to keep the wolves from the flock. My grandfather used to say that even though they are dogs and live in our houses, for thousands of years they’ve had wolf in their blood, and that is exactly why they could protect us from them. The wolf in them comes out, ready to defend, to fight. He once told me a story of how the dogs killed a wolf that attacked the flock, and during the fight he couldn’t tell what sounds came from the wolf or the dog. The true beast in the dogs was brought out because of the wolf.

  “They were gentle, but when they saw a pack of wolves lurking in the woods, they transformed into something else. Something they probably didn’t even know they could be. It takes a wolf to protect against a wolf. This is why my grandfather never liked the dogs; he said they were too close to wolves.”

  Maxim walked back to the table and put out his cigarette with several stabs in the metal ashtray that Clara had brought out. The smoldering ash glowed faintly as it lost its life, the smell rising into the room. Maxim blew the last bit of smoke from his lungs out through his nose.

  “There is an expression that was used to describe you to me, and I think it is quite accurate. Entre chien et loup. Because, Paul, you were once a dog who got involved with wolves, and now you’ve ended up becoming one yourself.”

  35

  Paris

  The motor whined and then roared with the downshifting. The jet-black Yamaha motorcycle sped up as it wove through the late-evening traffic. The drivers of the small Citroëns, Renaults, and white vans, the unofficial vehicles of Paris, were oblivious to the one of many mad riders zipping through the streets. But unlike the riders of the other motorcycles and Vespas, who might be racing home to a loved one or meeting a group of friends at dinner, Igor was on a kill order.

  He had arrived shortly after Clara, by a different means of transportation—a boutique private airline that specialized in discretion. The airline was expensive but practical. If they were ever asked to track down a flight manifest or cargo onboard, the airline usually had organizational problems. Excuse us for this incredibly foolish lapse. We have misplaced our records of the flight; you know computers these days. The one-way fare cost twice the amount of a normal private charter, but Igor didn’t give a damn, because Renard would pay for it. After all, it was his request that Igor come immediately.

  Once he landed, a car took him to an apartment that he rented year round in a thirty-unit building, with floor-to-ceiling bay windows. The five-floor building had been renovated and doubled as a home away from home for men who kept a mistress or two, along with several couples. The building was perfect cover, as its rich inhabitants kept to themselves, not interested in the comings and goings of others, unlike inquisitive retirees.

  The apartment worked perfectly for Igor. The layout was simple: a small gray kitchen, a living room with a single sofa, along with a table with four matching chairs. The walls were bright white, painted once and never given another thought. A clock hung above the couch. Its ticking was the apartment’s only noise, thanks to soundproofing, another feature Igor loved. There was one bedroom, with a queen-sized bed, although he’d never spent a night there, but the apartment had been lived in and had some secret upgrades of its own thanks to the main former tenant, a Jean Luc Bichot.

  In the bedroom, beneath the wooden floorboards to the right of the headboard, if one were to stomp down hard enough a hinge would pop up slightly, revealing a shallow black safe with a silver dial. Enter the correct eight-digit sequence, and the safe revealed cash, euros, pounds, and lira, along with three new small burner phones in their plastic casings, an Italian-made Beretta pistol, a small flashlight, and two sets of keys.

  When Igor had stopped by the apartment, he’d grabbed the key for the Yamaha in the garage and the Beretta. He stashed the pistol under his black leather riding jacket. It would do a messy and loud job, but there was little time for preparation. Sometimes people got in the way and had to be dealt with. Curiosity killed the cat, and it surely killed the boat captain, who saw too much. Now he was coming for Clara and Hart.

  The traffic thinned considerably once Igor was inside the Third Arrondissement, where the roads shrunk to cobblestone walkways. He shifted the bike into neutral and rolled past the iron gates of closed boulangeries, shops, and chocolatiers. For a moment, he wondered what it would be like waking up, baking bread, selling to customers all day, and then locking the doors and heading home for the evening. A simpler life, but he scoffed at even thinking of the possibility. Not for him; he knew that and accepted it. A deceitful life was what he lived, and he had a job to do.

  The address had been provided to him, but not much else. Renard had left instructions via an envelope that was waiting fo
r him on the airplane. It was a handwritten note on thick white paper, folded several times. On it was an address, along with a four-digit number Igor assumed was the door code, the apartment number, and one line.

  Your guests, both he and she, await your presence.

  Igor cursed his stupidity. He should have ensured Clara and Hart were there before the attack, but instead he had his own mess to clean up. He recognized he couldn’t wait a day. By then, the truth might come out, and with it, answers to questions neither Hart nor Clara knew existed. Renard had entrusted Igor with a job, and he was intent on seeing it through. The hit would have to look like a robbery gone wrong, a random burglary in a quiet neighborhood ending in senseless death, but the story would hold long enough for Igor to escape.

  Hart was already over at Clara’s house, probably consoling her after the painful day, Igor thought to himself as he looked up and found the street he was searching for. The small blue sign with a green frame affixed to the white stucco of the building said “Rue de Turenne.” Clara’s driver had dropped them both off, according to Renard, who, acting as a concerned employer, asked the driver to notify him via text when Clara was returned home.

  The street was empty, apart from an old man who walked his beagle, which sniffed every inch of sidewalk before raising a leg against the wall at the furthest end of the street. There was a garbage bin on the corner of the street closest to him, its contents spilling over the sides. A yellow plastic bag overhung from the bin and lazily blew in the evening breeze. Igor grabbed it and stuffed some rumpled-up napkins and a discarded falafel wrapper in the bag, so if he were spotted in the building, he would be a man bringing home a late dinner.

  He walked to the doorway, gave one final glance down the street, saw a large black Mercedes parked halfway on the sidewalk, and thought nothing of it. Another wealthy Parisian creating their own rules. He punched the code in and slipped into the building.

  36

  Paris

  “I’m a what?”

  Hart sat dumbfounded, glaring at Maxim. He could feel Clara’s eyes sweeping over him and turned to catch her gazing at his hands. Hart’s right hand was curled into a fist, the left resting on top, rubbing his thumb back and forth. She looked up at him as if she had read something written on his skin.

  Maxim huffed and stood. “Paul, there isn’t an easy way to say this, and you’re obviously not forthcoming with us, so let’s cut through the crap, shall we?”

  His tone was even, but his words jolted Hart further into confusion, which his face tried to hide with little success.

  Clara held her hand up for Maxim to stop. She pursed her lips and nodded, accepting what she had to do. She looked at the ceiling and then at Hart before speaking.

  “Paul, I’m not just an employee of Monsieur Renard. I am currently an undercover agent for the Direction Générale de la Sécurité Intérieure, the DGSI, as part of their financial crimes unit. We’ve suspected Renard has been avoiding taxes through various offshore companies and pass-through accounts scattered about Europe and perhaps the United States, costing France and the European Union hundreds of millions of dollars in fraudulent tax filings.”

  Hart felt his throat tighten as the room began to spin. He strained to get oxygen, like he was walking into a hurricane with gale-force winds stealing the breath his lungs couldn’t catch. His mouth became dry, but his eyes remained alert, darting from Clara to the floor, to Maxim, and finally back to her. She sat on the chair, her right leg tucked up under her, her other one dangling, not quite touching the floor. Hart took her in as if for the first time. Just moments ago, she seemed so innocent and beautiful, but now Hart saw an agent on a mission—and who had lied to him.

  He covered his face in disbelief as he grappled with the revelation. Who is this woman? His first instinct was to ask for an attorney, but before he could say the words they disappeared, chased away by the reality that he’d done nothing wrong.

  His mind moved slowly, like a tractor-trailer hauling a heavy load up a steep hill, its engine straining, and when it was time to shift gears for more power, all momentum was lost as it lurched to a stop.

  “You’re who?” Hart retorted, the words all he could manage to spit out.

  “Not just me, Maxim is too.” She nodded in the direction of the man whom Hart had come to know as the driver Maxim. “He’s my commanding officer.”

  Hart swiveled his head to Maxim, who sat, expressionless, on his chair. Because of his new title, Maxim was more menacing than he had been mere minutes ago. Hart tried to slow his breathing and not look like he’d seen a ghost, but with little success.

  “What does this have to do with me?” Hart’s delivery was purposeful.

  Maxim smacked the coffee table with his fist and stood, causing the metal ashtray to jump in the air and land with a loud clank. His face became severe, his jaw muscles tensing. The ashtray flipped around, the metal ringing throughout the apartment, the noise barely covering Maxim’s heavy breathing. He turned to walk away, stopped, and spun back towards Hart.

  Maxim pointed at Hart. “We can help if you’re honest with us. Tell us what you know, how long you’ve been helping him, and we’ll make things easier for you, for your company.”

  Clara sat up, stretching her legs and sitting on the edge of her chair. “We’ve always known that Renard had help from outside his company. When Bichot left, we lost our only lead. We knew he conspired several different ways, laundering money and evading taxes, but we didn’t know to what extent. What’s the purpose of hiding hundreds of millions of dollars if you are already a multibillion-dollar company? We caught Bichot, giving him the option of going to jail for a long time as the sole person responsible, or pointing us in the direction of those who were and go away quietly. He gave up Renard, but the information was vague, incomplete. Before we could get the entire story or even more factual evidence, Bichot disappeared, we think killed.”

  Hart held up his hand for her to stop and shook his head. “You told me he ran away. Now you’re telling me not only was he laundering money or whatever it was you’re saying he did, but that he was killed.” His eyes widened when he said the last word; the talk of murder made him feel like he’d been kicked in the gut.

  Clara solemnly nodded. “We believe he was killed. He was never found, but we find it hard to believe he was skilled enough to evade us.”

  Hart scoffed. “So, you don’t actually know if he even was killed? I am getting the impression there are a lot of accusations being thrown around on some pretty thin evidence. Because I’m a banker and met with Renard I suddenly become a suspect? I don’t appreciate this. I was just doing as my company told me to do. Nothing more, nothing less.”

  He slumped back into the plush couch. His mind raced through his options—what he could do, where he could go—until the ugly thought raised its head again that Clara had lied to him. Neatly and professionally, from the moment he’d met her.

  He hadn’t realized he’d fallen for her when he saw her in the restaurant. Their conversation flowed smoothly as they drank red wine, their interest in one another genuine, and their smiles real. Or so I thought. Maybe he’d fallen for the woman she pretended to be.

  The room began to swirl around him. She lied. He began to feel nauseous, as if someone had cracked an egg over his head, the broken yolk rolling down to cover his head as the numb tingling took over. He realized he was having an anxiety attack.

  Being accused of criminal activities and being with people he thought he knew but didn’t were the reasons for the torment he felt, but the realization that the woman he had fallen for lied to him was devastating. He’d fallen for the lie, and the newfound truth put the past in a different light, lit by the explosion of his former reality.

  Hart pinched the bridge of his nose and laughed quietly, suddenly finding hilarity in his predicament. He’d been helping a man he’d met only a week ago commit tax evasion by two undercover French DGSI agents, yet his concern was that the woman he’d been
falling for, and sleeping with, lied to him.

  Hart shook his head. “Why bring this up tonight? What caused this sudden confrontation? And”—he held up his hand to Maxim, who opened his mouth before closing it—“why aren’t we at your offices, in some kind of government building, rather than Clara’s apartment?”

  Hart thought he’d brought up valid points, reassuring himself that he had this all wrong and he wasn’t in nearly as much trouble as alleged.

  Maxim lit up with delight. “Ah, but now you’ve asked the right questions.” He tapped his temple. “Smart, Paul. We have you here because my agent”—he tilted his head towards Clara and held his hand in her direction like a waiter offering the plat du jour—“managed to compromise the investigation by, how do you say, screwing the suspect?”

  Clara’s face flushed a shade of crimson. She uncrossed her legs and folded them over again, her right ankle on the opposite leg, unable to sit still. Hart saw her look of sadness and resignation managed to hide the flicker of anger behind her eyes.

  Hart pursed his lips and chewed on the predicament they both had stumbled into. Perhaps Clara’s uneasiness at times with him was explained by her career, the constant reluctant tango between desire and contempt—the feelings she showed and the job she had to do. She often seemed to dance between the two. He thought of her betrayal, the events leading up to the lie making more sense, the questioning of him at the museum, and the night at the Savoy, when she came to his room late; her anger when he’d gotten her from the train station. Was it all a ploy?

  She stood. The strand of unruly hair once again fell down, as did her defenses, betrayed by a swift exhale and her raising her chin towards Maxim. She seemed to brush herself off, straighten her jeans, and remained standing.

  “As I’ve said in my report, and with my years of experience, I do not believe Paul was the mastermind behind all of this but rather caught up in Renard’s businesses.”