Central Park

by Guillaume Musso

“Forget it,” Alice interrupted. “I’m going in on my own. You wait for me here, with the engine running, in case anything goes wrong.”

  “And what do I do if you’re not back in fifteen minutes? Call the police?”

  “I am the police,” she replied, getting out of the car.

  Seeing her walk toward the entrance, a doorman smiled and opened the door for her. She nodded her thanks and went into the lobby.

  It was a discreetly luxurious space that led into an elegant and dimly lit library-salon. A Chesterfield sofa and some armchairs were arranged around a large fireplace where two huge logs burned. Farther on, through glass doors, was a flower-filled interior courtyard reminiscent of Italy.

  “Welcome to the Greenwich, ma’am. What can I do for you?” asked a young woman with wispy auburn bangs. Her outfit conformed to the hotel’s eclectic, trendy décor: tortoiseshell glasses, a blouse with a geometric design, and a wrap skirt.

  “I’ve come to pick up a bag,” Alice announced, handing her the claim ticket.

  “Of course. Just one minute, please.”

  The woman gave the ticket to her male assistant, who disappeared into a small adjoining room and reemerged thirty seconds later with a black leather briefcase, the handle bearing a tag with the number 127.

  “Here you go, ma’am.”

  Too good to be true, Alice thought, taking the briefcase. She decided to push her luck. “Now I’d like you to tell me the name of the person who left this bag here.”

  The receptionist frowned. “Well, ma’am, I presumed it was you. Otherwise I wouldn’t have given it to you. If the bag does not belong to you, I would kindly ask you to return it—”

  “Detective Schafer, New York Police Department,” Alice said, unfazed. “I’m investigating a—”

  “You have a pretty strong French accent for a New York police detective,” the woman interrupted. “I’d like to see some identification.”

  “Just give me the customer’s name!” Alice demanded, raising her voice.

  “That’s enough. I’m calling the manager.”

  Realizing she had lost this duel, Alice retreated. Gripping the briefcase, she quickly crossed the lobby and went out the door.

  No sooner had she stepped outside than an alarm went off, a piercing siren that made every pedestrian on the street stare instantly at Alice. In a panic, she realized that the sound was coming not from the hotel, as she had first thought, but from the briefcase itself.

  She ran a few yards down the sidewalk, looking for Gabriel and the car. She was just about to cross the road, when an electric shock ran through her body.

  Dazed and breathless, she dropped the briefcase and collapsed onto the asphalt.

  Part Two

  Memory of Pain

  8

  Memory of Pain

  THE SIREN SCREAMED for a few seconds longer, then went silent as suddenly as it had come to life.

  Lying on the ground, Alice struggled to recover full consciousness. Her ears were buzzing and her vision was blurred, as if someone were holding a veil in front of her eyes. Still woozy, she saw a figure loom over her.

  “Get up!”

  Gabriel helped her to her feet and then guided her to the car. He put her in the passenger seat and went back to retrieve the briefcase, which was a little farther down the street.

  “Quick!” Alice said.

  He got in and started the car and drove off at full speed. A sudden turn to the right, then another, and they were back on the West Side Highway, which ran along the river.

  “Shit, they must have seen us!” Alice yelled, emerging from the mental fog caused by the electric shock. White as a sheet, she felt nauseated, and her heart was pounding. Her legs were weak. Bile burned inside her chest.

  “What happened to you?”

  “You saw for yourself!” she replied, exasperated. “The briefcase was booby-trapped. Someone must have known we were at the hotel. They must have remotely triggered the alarm and the electric shock.”

  “You sound kind of paranoid, you know.”

  “I wish you’d had that shock instead of me, Keyne! Listen, there’s no point in us trying to escape if someone is tracking our every move!”

  “But who does the briefcase belong to?”

  “They wouldn’t tell me.”

  The car sped north. The sun was bright on the horizon. To their left, there were ferries and sailboats floating on the Hudson, the skyscrapers of Jersey City, the metal gantries of old piers.

  Gabriel changed lanes to pass a van. When he turned to look at Alice, he noticed that she was gripping the knife she had stolen from the café and slashing at the lining of her leather jacket.

  “Stop! What the hell are you doing?”

  Trusting her instincts, she didn’t even bother responding to this. Carried away by her excitement, she reached down to remove her ankle boots and used the knife to cut off the heel of the first one.

  “Alice, my God, what’s the matter with you?”

  “This is what I was looking for!” she said, triumphantly brandishing a tiny casing that she had just extracted from her outer sole.

  “What is it, a microchip?”

  “No, a miniaturized GPS system. That’s how they were able to track us. And I would bet anything that you have the same thing in one of your shoes or in the lining of your jacket. Someone is following us in real time, Keyne. We need to change our clothes and our shoes. Now!”

  “All right,” he agreed, looking worried.

  Alice opened the window and threw the tiny snitch away, then picked up the briefcase. It was a rigid, smooth leather case with a double combination lock. The handle no longer seemed electrified. She tried to open the case but without success.

  “Hardly surprising,” Gabriel said.

  “We’ll find a way to break the lock later. For now, let’s just concentrate on finding somewhere discreet where we can buy new clothes.”

  Eyelids drooping, Alice massaged her temples. Her migraine was coming back, and her eyes were burning. She searched through the glove compartment and fished out an old pair of sunglasses that she had spotted earlier. They had glittery cat’s-eye frames. She put them on. The architectural diversity of this part of the city mesmerized her and made her head spin. From afar, she recognized the bluish outline of the Standard Hotel, like an enormous open book perched on stilts, rising above the High Line. There was something chaotic and jarring about this clash of modern buildings—all geometric lines in glass and steel—and the red brick of old New York.

  And then, like a pearl-colored iceberg in the distance, an irregularly shaped translucent building broke up the skyline and dazzled the surrounding landscape with an unreal light.

  They wandered around for a while between the Meatpacking District and Chelsea before finding a little boutique on Twenty-Seventh Street that was like a cross between a military-surplus store and a thrift shop. It was a long single room filled with a glorious mess of clothes, a mix of combat gear and designer labels.

  “Be quick, Keyne,” Alice said sternly as they entered. “We’re not here for a nice, relaxed shopping trip. Understood?”

  They rummaged through the racks of clothes and shoes—combat boots, canvas lace-ups, bomber jackets, fleeces, camouflage jackets, leather belts, kaffiyehs.

  Alice quickly found a black turtleneck sweater, a fitted T-shirt, a pair of jeans, a pair of ankle boots, and a putty-colored army jacket.

  Gabriel was not as decisive.

  “Hurry up! Look, just take this and this,” she urged, throwing him a pair of khaki pants and a faded cotton shirt.

  “But it’s not exactly the right size, and it’s not my style either.”

  “Look, it’s not Saturday night and you’re not going out to pick up girls, Keyne,” she replied, unbuttoning her blouse.

  The pianist completed his outfit with a pair of work boots and a three-quarter-length coat with a sheepskin collar. Alice spotted an old holster she could carry her Glock in and a canvas
satchel with two leather straps. There were no changing rooms, so they undressed and dressed within a few yards of each other. Gabriel could not resist stealing a sideways glance at Alice.

  “Don’t ogle me, you pervert!” she scolded him, covering her bare torso with the wool sweater.

  She said it more vehemently than she’d intended, and Gabriel looked away sheepishly. What he saw had chilled him, however: a long scar running from Alice’s belly button down to her crotch.

  “A hundred and seventy for all of it,” said the store owner, a huge, stocky bald man with a long, ZZ Top–style beard.

  While Gabriel finished taking off his shoes, Alice went out to the street and threw all their old clothes into a trash can. The only thing she kept was a scrap of bloodstained fabric torn from her blouse.

  Evidence, she thought, slipping it into her army satchel.

  Noticing a little bodega on the other side of the road, she crossed the street and bought some wet wipes to clean herself up, a packet of ibuprofen for her headache, and a small bottle of water. Then she had an idea. She retraced her steps, looked through the aisles, and finally found a small section devoted to cell phones. She chose the most basic model, for $14.99, and also bought a 120-minute prepaid phone card.

  Coming out of the store with her purchases, she was surprised by a gust of wind. The sun was still shining brightly, but the air was cold and blustery now, with dead leaves and clouds of dust whipping around in a frenzy. She put her hand to her face to protect her eyes. Leaning against the hood of the car, Gabriel watched her.

  “Waiting for someone?” she teased.

  Waving one of his old shoes at her, he said, “You were right: there was a bug in my sneaker too.” And, like a basketball player, he threw the Converse into the nearest garbage can. It hit the rim and fell inside. “Whoo, a three-pointer!”

  Alice rolled her eyes. “Have you finished screwing around now? Can we go?”

  A little wounded, he turned up the collar of his jacket and shrugged, like a kid who had just been scolded.

  Alice sat in the driver’s seat and placed the bag from the convenience store and her canvas satchel on the back seat, next to the briefcase.

  “We have to find a way to open that thing.”

  “Let me take care of that,” Gabriel said, buckling his seat belt.

  To put as much distance as they could between their bugged shoes and themselves, they drove farther north, crossing Hell’s Kitchen to Forty-Eighth Street. They parked in a dead end that led to a community garden, where a group of children were picking pumpkins, watched over by their schoolteacher.

  It was a quiet neighborhood. No tourists, no crowds. So quiet, in fact, that it was hard to believe they were still in New York. They parked under the yellow foliage of a maple tree. Orange rays of sunlight filtered through its branches, intensifying this feeling of tranquility.

  “So what do you have in mind for the briefcase?” she asked, pulling the parking brake.

  “I’m going to use the knife you stole to open the locks. They don’t look very solid to me.”

  She sighed. “You’ve got to be kidding.”

  “Do you have a better idea?”

  “No, but yours will never work.”

  “We’ll see!” he said defiantly, turning to the back seat to pick up the briefcase.

  She gave him the knife and watched, skeptically, as he attempted to insert the blade between the jaws of the lock with no luck. After a while, losing patience, Gabriel tried to force it, but the knife slipped and grazed his palm. “Ow!”

  “Jesus Christ, concentrate on what you’re doing!” Alice scolded.

  Gabriel gave up. His face was serious now. Something was very obviously bothering him.

  “What’s up with you?” she demanded.

  “You.”

  “Me?”

  “Back in the store, I saw the scar on your stomach…what happened to you?”

  Alice’s face suddenly darkened. She opened her mouth to retort, but, overcome by a vast weariness, she turned away, sighing as she rubbed her eyes. This guy was just going to keep causing her problems. She’d sensed it from the very beginning.

  When she opened her eyes again, her lip was trembling. The pain was returning. The memories resurfacing, large as life.

  “Who did that to you, Alice?” he insisted.

  Gabriel could feel that he was trespassing on sensitive ground. He said more softly, “How do you expect us to get out of this fix if we can’t even trust each other?”

  Alice took a drink of water. Her determination not to confront the past was fading.

  “It was early November three years ago,” she began. That was where the story started—with the murder of the young schoolteacher named Clara Maturin…

  I remember…

  Two and a half years ago

  A year of blood and fury

  Another Woman Murdered

  in the West of Paris

  (Le Parisien, May 11, 2011)

  Nathalie Roussel, a 26-year-old flight attendant, was found this morning strangled in her home on Rue Meissonnier, a quiet street in the 17th arrondissement. The young woman lived alone and was described by her neighbors as “a quiet person who kept to herself and often traveled for work.” The man who lived across the hall from her saw her a few hours before she was murdered: “She was in a good mood because she’d just bought tickets to see a concert the next day at the Olympia. She didn’t act as if anything was wrong.”

  According to sources close to the investigation, several witnesses claim to have seen a man rushing from the premises and driving away on a Piaggio three-wheel scooter. The suspect is described as a man of medium height and slim build, wearing a dark-colored motorcycle helmet.

  The investigation is being carried out by the judicial police. Initial reports do not suggest that theft was the primary motive for the attack, even though the victim’s cell phone appears to have been taken.

  This murder has strange similarities to that of Clara Maturin, a young schoolteacher in the 16th arrondissement, who was savagely strangled with a nylon stocking in November of last year. Asked about these similarities, the public prosecutor said that nothing was being ruled out at this stage of the investigation.

  Murders in the West of Paris:

  Police Suspect a Serial Killer

  (Le Parisien, May 11, 2011)

  Forensic analysis shows that flight attendant Nathalie Roussel was strangled with a pair of tights belonging to Clara Maturin, the young schoolteacher murdered last November, says a source close to the investigation.

  This fact, until now kept secret by the police, establishes a macabre link between the victims, leading investigators to believe they are tracking a fetish killer whose modus operandi is to use the underwear of his previous victim to murder the next one.

  For the moment, the police refuse to confirm this conjecture.

  New Murder Victim

  in the 16th Arrondissement

  (Le Parisien, August 19, 2011)

  Maud Morel, a nurse at the American Hospital in Neuilly, was murdered the day before yesterday, in the evening, in her apartment on Avenue de Malakoff. The building’s concierge discovered the young woman’s body this morning. She had been savagely strangled with a pair of stockings.

  Although police refuse to confirm it officially, this last detail would seem to point to an obvious connection between this homicide and those committed last November and this May in the 16th and 17th arrondissements.

  While the motive for the murders remains mysterious, investigators are certain that the three women knew their attacker well enough that they did not suspect him. All three victims were found inside their apartments without any suggestion of breaking and entering. Another disturbing detail: none of the victims’ cell phones have yet been found.

  Murders in the West of Paris:

  More Clues Point Toward a Serial Killer

  (Le Parisien, August 20, 2011)

  After the savage
murder of Maud Morel, a nurse from the American Hospital in Neuilly who was murdered three days ago, investigators no longer have any doubt that there is a link between this homicide and the two others committed in the same area since November of last year.

  Questioned about the possibility of this being the work of a serial killer, the public prosecutor was forced to acknowledge that “the three murders do show similarities in their MOs.” The pair of stockings with which Mademoiselle Morel was strangled belonged to Nathalie Roussel, the flight attendant murdered last spring, who was herself strangled with a pair of tights belonging to the schoolteacher Clara Maturin.

  This fact has led to a rethinking of the judicial treatment of the three crimes. They are now under the authority of a single investigating judge. Questioned yesterday on the France 2 television news, the minister of the interior assured viewers that “all human and material resources are and will be mobilized to find the person or people responsible for these crimes.”

  Murders in the West of Paris:

  A Suspect in Custody

  (Le Parisien, August 21, 2011)

  A taxi driver considered to be a serious suspect in the series of murders committed since November in the west of Paris was questioned and placed in custody on Friday evening. A search of his home led to the discovery of the cell phone belonging to the killer’s latest victim, Maud Morel.

  Taxi Driver Released!

  (Le Parisien, August 21, 2011)

  …The man has an alibi for all three murders.

  Questioned by police, he stated that Maud Morel was a passenger in his taxi a few days earlier, and that the young woman simply left her phone in his taxi.

  Another Woman Murdered: