Angel City

by Jon Steele

  “Greetings, kid,” Harper said.

  The kid shifted his eyebrows downward and his hands made two quick, fluid moves. Middle fingers pointing to his chest and flipping up, then the three middle fingers of his right hand tapped the palm of his left. Took Harper two seconds to work out that the kid wasn’t telling him to fuck off. The kid was deaf and aphonic; he was signing in slang, What’s up?

  Harper looked at Astruc, pretending not to understand the gesture.

  “Goose is being polite in his own way,” Astruc said.

  “Sure he is.”

  Astruc tossed back Harper’s wallet and cigarette case without opening them. Harper slipped them into the pockets of his coat.

  “Not even going to check my library card?”

  “Why should I? I already know who you are. And I apologize for the search. I’m sure it’s not what someone like you expects in a church. But given the way you’re dressed, I needed to make sure you were as advertised.”

  Harper waited for the big man to spill the rest of the advert; he didn’t.

  “I suppose you can’t be too careful, even in a church,” Harper said. “By the way, you haven’t told me what it is you do, Astruc.”

  “No, I have not. And for the time being, you do not need to know. All you need to know is, from this moment, I am in charge. Is that clear?”

  Harper nodded.

  “Right. Well, now we’ve sorted that one, what’s next?”

  Astruc stepped closer to Harper, eyeing him from foot to head.

  “Next? Next is easy. Next you take off your tie with whatever it is you had for lunch on it, and you come with me.”

  Harper followed the big man out of the church. The kid tailed after Harper. They crossed the road toward Les Deux Magots. The chatter of voices and clatter of plates seeped through lighted windows. Astruc pointed to an outside table where they could talk privately. They both sat with their backs to the café windows. Harper saw l’Église de Saint-Germain-des-Prés across the road. The limestone façade and bell tower made for a nice view. Astruc wasn’t taking in the view of the church, though; his eyes were on the Saint-Germain-des-Prés Métro stop across Boulevard Saint-Germain.

  Harper looked left, saw Goose in the shadows of a nearby doorway, watching passersby. Hoodie over his head, hands tucked into the pouch of his sweatshirt. The kid is good with shadows, Harper thought.

  “How old is the kid?” Harper said.

  “Twenty-six.”

  “You’re joking.”

  Astruc kept his eyes locked on the Saint-Germain-des-Prés Métro.

  “Along with being deaf, Goose suffers from a form of paedomorphosis. His facial features did not mature with the rest of his body. As you can imagine, he grew up being tormented as a freak of nature.”

  Harper threw a glance at Goose again. Still watching passersby from the shadows. Maybe that’s why he’s good with shadows, Harper thought. Spent his whole life growing up in them, hiding from the cold gazes of strangers.

  “Sure, I can imagine it,” Harper said.

  Astruc looked at Harper.

  “If you need to speak with him, look him directly in the eyes and speak normally. He’ll read your lips. And don’t underestimate him. His IQ is above two hundred, along with having a photographic memory.”

  “Impressive,” Harper said. “What’s the connection?”

  “Connection?”

  “You. Him. What’s the connection?”

  Astruc stared at Harper.

  “He is my pupil. I am his teacher. It has been this way since I found him and saved him from evil.”

  “Evil, right.”

  A white-aproned waiter came outside. Astruc gave him the order: single malt, neat, trois fois. He turned his eyes back to the Saint-Germain-des-Prés Métro stop.

  “Expecting someone else, then?” Harper said.

  “What?”

  “Three drinks.”

  “Yes, I am expecting someone. Someone you must meet. He’ll be here shortly.”

  Harper checked his watch. Almost 21:00 hours. He was due to report back to the inspector at the bottom of the hour.

  “Who am I meeting and why?”

  “You ask many questions,” Astruc said.

  “Blame it on Descartes. All that Cartesian skepticism.”

  Astruc raised an eyebrow.

  “I didn’t realize your particular line of work allowed for sarcasm.”

  Harper didn’t know how to answer that one. As yet he still didn’t know what his particular line of work was supposed to be.

  “Call it my amusing hobby, then. Ergo, who are we meeting, and why?”

  Astruc found a cigarillo and lighter in the pocket of his coat. He anchored the smoke between his teeth and lit up.

  “His name is Gilles Lambert. He’s a commis aux dossiers in the mayor’s office of the fourteenth arrondissement.”

  Harper ran the words.

  “A file clerk?”

  “Yes, a file clerk. One who spends his days in a small office making little tick marks along columns of tax revenues collected from local businesses. A very ordinary Parisian in every way, except for his own amusing hobby.”

  “Which is?”

  “He likes to spend his weekends exploring les carrières.”

  Those words flashed Harper back to last night, returning from Grandvaux after his meeting with the cop in the cashmere coat. The midnight show at GG’s had come and gone, so Mutt and Jeff dropped Harper at his flat. Went in, turned on the telly. Tuned to the History Channel, like always. Presently wrapping up episode six of The Ascent of Man. He mixed a vodka tonic, sat out on the small balcony with a view of the cathedral. He lit a smoke, listened to the bells ring for two o’clock. He watched le guet, the new one, round the tower with a lantern and call the hour over Lausanne. But with the wind blowing from the north, her voice carried the words of comfort out over the lake. Then, as if by wizardry, the voice on the telly said, “Coming up next on the History Channel: The Underground Mysteries of Paris.”

  Big surprise: Half the program deals with les carrières.

  First century: Romans discover limestone deposits on the banks of the Seine and start digging. Fast forward: Paris is a city built of stone. Demand is high. Every official building, every palace, every church, is dressed in the limestone mined from the quarries of Paris. Miners spread out, follow the veins, excavating a maze of tunnels under the city. Seventeenth century: The veins are played out and the tunnels abandoned. They become the trading routes of smugglers and thieves trying to avoid the king’s taxmen. Plague visits Paris. The city’s streets are overrun with rotting corpses. Skeletons are dug up from the city’s cemeteries and dumped in the tunnels to make room for the newly dead.

  Harper snapped back to nowtimes.

  “You’re talking about the catacombs.”

  Astruc shook his head.

  “The catacombs are barely a kilometer of the tunnels. Kept very tidy for the tourists. Skulls neatly arranged, dusted twice a month. The rest of the tunnels, all three hundred kilometers of them, are somewhat less welcoming. But there are Parisians who find them irresistible—they are known as cataphiles.”

  The waiter returned with the drinks. Harper watched Astruc lift his glass and check the nose. Harper didn’t drink. He leaned back in his chair, tried to fade from Astruc’s consciousness, get a read on the man’s manner of thinking. As if sensing movement, Astruc turned to Harper.

  “You do not care for the whiskey?”

  Harper stared at the man’s blue lenses. Swell, the sensitive sort, Harper thought.

  “Just interested in knowing why I’m waiting to meet someone whose idea of fun is spending his days off underground, wandering through tunnels.”

  Astruc sipped at his drink and pointed his cigarillo toward the Métro.

>   “You’re about to find out.”

  A tall, skinny chap was coming up the steps of the Saint-Germain-des-Prés Métro. He wore a blue windbreaker on top of a black shirt, and his workmen trousers were tucked into a pair of Wellington boots. He carried a canvas backpack. He stood at the corner, waiting for the light to change. When it did, the skinny man stood a moment as if unable to decide whether to take the next step. He did, finally, only to find himself halfway across the boulevard when the lights changed again. He dodged an onslaught of unforgiving traffic and made his way to the cobblestone square of Saint-Germain-des-Prés. He faced the entrance of the church as the last bell faded away. He genuflected, bowed his head, made the sign of the cross.

  “Your commis aux dossiers seems the religious sort,” Harper said.

  Astruc removed smoldering ash from the tip of his cigarillo.

  “French Catholics can be sentimental when it comes to their faith. Especially when confronted with evil.”

  Harper heard something in Astruc’s voice. Longing, maybe, not to mention it was the second time he was laying a riff about evil.

  “What about you, Astruc? You the sentimental sort when it comes to faith?”

  Astruc took another draw from his cigarillo. Words rolled from his mouth on a cloud of smoke.

  “Once a Catholic, always a Catholic.”

  The tall skinny man named Gilles Lambert rose from his knee and turned toward Les Deux Magots. He spotted Astruc, stood still one more moment before deciding to cross the cobblestone square.

  “And he’s nervous,” Harper said.

  “Very. Which is why you are here.”

  “Sorry?”

  “You’re a comforter of men, are you not?”

  Harper stared at Astruc, knew the man behind the blue lenses was playing him.

  “If you say so.”

  There was no shaking of hands or formal introduction as Gilles Lambert reached the table; the skinny man simply shrank into an empty chair. Astruc nodded to Harper.

  “Gilles, this is the one I told you about. He’ll be coming with us, as I promised you, for the protection of your soul.”

  Lambert nodded. Astruc pushed a glass of whiskey to him. “Here, Gilles, take a drink.”

  “Merci.”

  Lambert slowly sipped, then again. Harper saw the man’s eyes were more than nervous; they were awash with fright. The kind that’d make a man kneel in front of a church to sign himself, then reach for 86-proof alcohol as backup. Harper watched him sip to the bottom of his glass.

  “Could . . . could I have one more before we go?” he said.

  Astruc gestured to the waiter at the café doors: Encore, trois fois. He turned to Lambert.

  “We’re grateful you chose to help us, Gilles.”

  “Oui, mais . . . though I’m not sure we should continue as planned. The police hacked into my website and posted a message to all cataphiles: ‘Ne pas entrer les carrières. Danger de mort.’ They’re saying anyone going down there could be killed. And that’s not all. I saw municipal workers dumping cement down the access tunnels near Hôpital Cochin in the middle of the night. I’ve been told the same thing is happening near Montparnasse Cemetery. They’re sealing off the center of the Great South System, and—”

  Astruc interrupted Lambert.

  “But you know a way in that doesn’t use an access tunnel, don’t you, Gilles?”

  “Oui, mais il est très dangereux. We must crawl through tunnels that have not been reinforced.”

  Harper watched Astruc lean close to Lambert.

  “Gilles, you know the police are trying to cover up what you found down there. But you are a man of faith, a believer in the teachings of Holy Mother Church. It is that faith that caused you to turn to your priest for guidance. He baptized you, gave you your first communion. I know he counseled you that for the sake of your immortal soul, you must trust me.”

  “Oui. He said these things to me.”

  Harper stared at Astruc. The big man in the blue shades was laying it on thick. Round two arrived, Lambert sipped slowly this time. Harper picked up his own drink and was mid-sip when he heard Lambert’s voice:

  “And you, you are a priest sent by His Holiness the Pope, truly?”

  Harper’s glass nearly dropped when he realized Lambert was talking to him.

  “What?”

  “Pardonnez-moi, mon père, I don’t mean to be rude. Monsieur Astruc told me you would not be wearing a collar tonight. But must we really go back down there?”

  Harper slammed back his whiskey, rested his glass on the table. A priest? That’s my bloody cover? He looked at Astruc.

  “Why don’t you explain the details, as you’re in charge?”

  “Of course,” Astruc said. “Gilles, Father Harper is a priest of the Dominican Order. He is also a professor of ancient languages at Lausanne University. In that capacity, he serves His Holiness as an advisor on matters of Church history. When I approached your confessor to discuss what you had found in the cavern, your confessor was concerned for the state of your soul, as am I. He insisted on contacting his superiors in the Vatican, and the matter was referred to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. This office reports directly to the Pope, and upon hearing of your case, His Holiness requested Father Harper be part of the investigation, for both the benefit of the Church and the protection of your soul. Is this not the truth, Father Harper?”

  If Harper had a choice, he wouldn’t believe a bloody word of what he was hearing. Flying blind, such a bloody thrill. No choice but to stay with the cover. Even if it meant furthering the torment of the skinny, frightened man looking at him and waiting for an answer. Is that not the truth, Father Harper? Harper leaned toward Gilles Lambert.

  “I want you to listen to my voice. I have been sent here, and I’ll be with you. I’ll protect you. Do you hear me?”

  Lambert nodded.

  “Yes, yes, I hear you, mon père. And I believe you.” He clutched his stomach. “But you must excuse me, my bowels haven’t been well; not since I found them.”

  He hurried into the café and disappeared down the stairs to the toilets.

  Harper thought about calling for round three. Deciding it might not fit his pastoral image, he studied Astruc instead. Didn’t look the sort who could possibly have a contact in the Vatican, let alone a man who took his marching orders from the Pope, or anyone. Then again, once a Catholic, always a Catholic. Those were the big man’s own words. Maybe that was his truth. Astruc gave a smirking excuse for a smile, as if reading Harper’s thoughts.

  “Something is on your mind, Father Harper?”

  “Loads. For the moment I’d settle for finding out what that man found down there that’s turned him into a nervous wreck.”

  “You were not informed?”

  Harper shrugged. “You know how it is with Dominicans; our superior gives us an order, we don’t ask questions. Besides, I was led to believe you’d be filling in the blanks. Or is that not the case?”

  Astruc stared at Harper. Even hidden behind the blue shades, Harper could tell it was a cold stare. And the big man let it hang like an icicle till he turned and called to the shadows.

  “Goose, donnez-moi la mobile.”

  Goose walked over, pulled an iPhone from the pouch of his sweatshirt, gave it to Astruc.

  “Merci,” Astruc said. “Ramènez la bagnole.”

  Goose double-timed it back to the shadows and disappeared.

  Astruc tapped at the mobile screen with his thick thumbs.

  “There is a network of quarries under Lycée Montaigne. They were used as bomb shelters during the Second World War by the Nazis. They’re like most of the tunnels and quarries under Paris: forbidden to enter. Over the last six weeks, there’s been a building project in the sixth, very near the Lycée. They were using pile drivers to lay the f
oundations. They hit a fissure between two adjoining plates of bedrock, sending a shock wave through the sixth arrondissement. It registered two-point-five on the Richter scale. Not enough to cause any real damage, but enough to make it onto TF1. Gilles was watching the news that evening and knew it had happened close to the quarries of Lycée Montaigne. He went down for a look the next day. He found a half-meter-wide crack in one of the walls of the bunkers. He looked in with his flashlight, saw it connected to a passage. He couldn’t resist crawling in.”

  Astruc checked for Gilles Lambert through the windows of the café.

  “I realize he doesn’t look it at the moment, but Gilles is the best cataphile in Paris. He knows the tunnels like the back of his hand. His website is the Holy Bible of cataphiles. He knew the passage had never appeared on any map drawn up by l’Inspection générale des carrières. More, the passage followed a seam of crystalized magma.”

  “Meaning what?”

  “In geological terms, the passage shouldn’t be there at all.”

  Harper’s senses sharpened.

  “And?”

  “The passage sloped down into the Earth, straight as an arrow, never turning.”

  “How far?”

  “I don’t know. But at the bottom of the passage, Gilles discovered a cavern carved from solid black rock. There were coves cut into the walls. It was there Gilles Lambert came face-to-face with evil.”

  “Define ‘evil.’”

  Astruc lay the iPhone on the table, pushed it across to Harper. On screen: close-up shots of a naked, headless corpse in a morgue. The body had been flayed, its arms and hands crossed over the chest.

  “There were one hundred of them,” Astruc said. “All butchered in the same manner. As you can see, they’re quite old.”

  Harper continued to flip through the photographs. One hundred tables in a large open building, one hundred headless and skinned bodies on the tables. As he flipped through the photographs, Harper realized “quite old” was an understatement. The exposed muscles and tendons were leathered. Looked like a convention of mutilated mummies, all of them with their arms crossed over their chests.