“Therese, I don’t care if she’s the reincarnation of Marilyn Monroe. What matters is if she’s telling the truth. If she is, then she doesn’t work for Crassberg, in Geneva or anywhere else. That means, what? I’m not sure. So the limousine outside her house was her lover coming to pick her up?”
“No. Her lover is already at this island place where she’s going to meet with her. The limousine is from her company.”
“Collette’s modeling agency?”
“No, her lover’s company.”
“Her? Her lover is a woman?”
“Yes. That is not so strange in the world of ‘Haute Couture’, and in the world of ‘Ballet’, also.”
She gave me a look of mild surprise, at my perceived naiveté, I assumed.
“Is the company named ‘Crassberg’?”
“Yes. I asked because I knew you would. A big financial company, but not a bank.”
The fact was that it just hadn’t clicked, and it explained a lot. It was fitting together, if I took a few liberties. Like assuming that Meir was the ‘lover’, which had turned out to be the case, and Collette was just what she said she was, a model. Her place could still have been used for the on-line work that Meir was up to without Collette knowing much about anything. If she was a model, then she would be off working on location most of the time, anyway.
The trick right now was—the limousine waiting in front of her house—who had sent it, and who was driving it. Either way, the grey men, or a legitimate limo driver, they’d know the answer to what airport and what flight she was to be on. Not much use showing up if you don’t know where to take your passenger. I flipped back to the Evie/Ronnie channel.
“Evie, you and I are going for a chat with the limousine driver. Bring one of your new little ‘friends’. Ronnie, can you hold the fort for a few minutes?”
“Sure. I followed what they were talking about, and it sounds legitimate, but take care anyway. While you’re over there you might as well check the Meir place.”
“Roger that.”
Therese and Evie changed places in about thirty seconds. Evie had the rocket launcher and a few rounds as well, in a small sports bag that she tucked between her legs and the seat, holding it steady while we moved. The common kind of bag that you found everywhere these days, in use for any number of reasons, and all sporting some multi-national’s logo. Usually. Evie’s bag was plain black, with pockets and pouches all over it, but no ‘Nike’, or ‘Reebok’ legend on the side. Just the way I would have one. In fact, it was very similar to one in my closet at home.
As soon as Evie was seated and strapped, I pulled a vicious U-turn and then another one ten blocks later, leaving us parked about thirty meters behind the limousine. I hit the window switch and went to get the keys as I got out, then left them where they were. With Evie in the car, I didn’t think robbery was going to be an issue.
She was acting like one of those ‘car buddies’ that you can buy in L.A. to supposedly ward off the car-jackers. Her window was wide open, and if I called for it, I was sure that there would be a missile up the tailpipe of that limo so fast I might not even have time to hit the ground first. She was in a ‘mission mode’ for sure, with her eyes on the scene, unwaveringly.
I crossed in front of the hood of the car as I headed for the sidewalk, and the heat radiating from the big-block power plant was tangible as I passed by. That reminded me, I had to stop for gas again soon. That sucker slurped fuel like a kid with a Dairy Queen milkshake in August.
I casually strolled up the avenue, with both of my hands in my jacket pockets, trying to present an unassuming image. The back of the limo was visually impenetrable because of the darkly tinted windows, and it was a fairly cloudy night to boot, so there wasn’t even a little moonlight to go by. It still could be anyone in the car. A real limo driver, a hit squad, a bevy of models, who knew?
I was within ten meters of the car when the driver’s door opened and the driver started to get out. I had the H&K in my right hand by now, arm down low, the gun behind my leg as I moved. I didn’t think it was any of Enrico’s people, it was just a feeling I had, but still, one never knew.
By the time the driver had gotten out and closed the door behind him I was convinced that he wasn’t anything more than he was supposed to be, a limo driver. He looked French, wore a nice uniform and cap, and walked the way ordinary people walked. Without covering their back, or hiding a weapon. His suit was cut in a tailored fashion, and he was very trim. There was no place I could see for tucking away a serious gun of any kind, which meant he wasn’t a threat to me. He also broke the pattern of Enrico’s men by leaving the car. His drivers had a tendency to stay put behind the wheel for fast extraction.
He looked young, maybe twenty-two or twenty-three years old. Not slim because he was muscled from training, slim because he was young, and it came naturally to his body. He was focused on the doorway of Collette’s building, and he glanced at his watch as he stepped into the glow of the lights on the outside landing at the door. That’s when I stepped in behind him and tapped him on the shoulder.
I knew Evie was watching the limo and everything else on the street around us like a hawk, so I left it to her. She knew how to do her job.
The kid was startled, but he didn’t go for me or anything like that. He was just what he appeared to be. A driver with a pickup that was running late. He was almost fair-haired, but not quite. Sort of a dirty blonde, and it spilled well over his collar at the back, in what looked to me like natural curls. With the cap on, he could be mostly bald for all I knew, but I doubted it. He had the look of someone who’d seen his fair share of romance in his young life, or maybe it was just that French ‘attitude’ thing. I’d made him nervous slipping up from behind the way I did, but as soon as he’d turned, his blue eyes had focused directly on the badge in my left hand. The word Interpol stood out like a neon sign in any language.
He was busy asking me what this was all about while I marched him back down the sidewalk to the ‘Vette. I spoke softly into the PinMic.
“Evie, you don’t also happen to be fluent in Parisian, do you?”
“As a matter of fact, I am, boss.”
“I’m not your boss.”
“We’re on a sortie. You’re in command. You’re the boss.”
“Never mind. I’m going to leave this young fellow with you. Find out all he knows while I check the apartment across the street.”
“Will do.”
As we got further from his limousine, and closer to the ‘Vette, the driver, going by the name Jaques Urtell, started getting more animated and vocal about my dragging him away from his work. I used my most polite Montreal east-end French to tell him to shut his mouth until he was told to open it. That seemed to work, as his protestations died down immediately. Maybe he’d heard about Montreal cops.
I had put the H&K back into the holster before tapping him on the shoulder at the doorway to Collette’s building. As we approached the car Evie stepped out, looking rather leggy as she exited the sports car. Jacques whole manner changed instantly. With the French, they can’t help it. If a woman is presented, they turn on the charm. He started smiling, so I slapped him on the back of the head. He stopped smiling.
Evie held out her badge, and his manner changed again. I don’t know if he’d thought I’d been setting him up for a date or what, but that wasn’t my problem. It was Evie’s. I didn’t figure this kid for any trouble, and Evie took over as I kept walking, around the driver’s side to get the keys. No keys, no temptation. If Evie needed the car, there was a spare set under the mat on the driver’s side. Isn’t there always? I still liked the feel of the keys in my pocket. I was probably still reacting a bit like a kid with a new toy, but what the hey. This was one toy I’d wanted since they first appeared on the streets of Montreal when I was a kid. Now I had one. Wow. Life, what a blast.
There was light traffic at best, and I crossed the street easily even though it was a dual carriageway. I went into t
he entryway of the building across the street that had just recently housed Heidi Meir. This was a more upscale setup than the other side of the main drag.
The doorman opened the door for me, and the separate security guard was paying full attention, sitting behind a semi-circle of communications and video surveillance equipment, with several different telephones littering the desk below the marble-topped construct. This guy was older, maybe in his fifties, and he’d served in the forces at some time in his life, and from the look he was giving me right now, he was probably a career man in the forces. Non-comm. He’d spotted the fact that I was loaded for bear, and stood up from his comfortable seat before I’d arrived at his station. When he stood, it was easy to see that the uniform he wore was backed up by a nine mm Glock in a web belt holster. Maybe he’d been Navy. The web belt was white, and the message was plain. ‘You got a gun, well I got a gun too, so what’.
As I arrived at the station I leaned both of my elbows on the dark green marble surrounding him. This showed that I wasn’t about to draw down on him immediately, and I did it to cool him off a bit. There was tension building in the air between us. I smiled at him and opened my left hand, bearing the all-important ‘Badge’. He never took his eyes off me, but he did hold out his hand to accept the badge for scrutiny. That’s where I drew the line.
“Interpol.”
At that he hesitated a bit, and then chanced a look at the badge. It backed up what I’d just said, but didn’t entirely cut the ice with this guy. I was going to get tired of being slowed down in second or two here. He started to jabber something or other but I held up my right pointing finger to my lips, and without saying a thing, I was able to quiet him down. His diatribe trickled off to a stutter, then nothing.
I reached down slowly and picked up a notepad from the desk in front of him, his eyes locked on mine the whole time. On the notepad, I wrote the number of the apartment I wanted, and I touched the telephone and slowly shook my finger. At the same time, I touched my earpiece, showing him that I was online and backed up by a team, verifying the Interpol thing as much as possible.
He eased up some, it showed in his shoulders as he relaxed his tension level just enough to show me that he might not like it, but he was buying it. There was a moment of hesitation, then he gave me the briefest of nods, and sat back in his chair and punched in a few commands on his main keyboard. That brought up a display of the hallway on the penthouse floor. There were no other doors than the one penthouse apartment. It must have been huge. No grey men were waiting there. I nodded back at the security guard, whose name was Roland, according to his security picture ID pinned to his left breast pocket.
“Merci, Roland. Seulement. Cinque minutes.”
“D’accord.”
I headed towards the small bank of elevators. All three of them. As soon as I touched the ‘up’ button the last one in the row slid open invitingly. I stepped inside, scanned the oak panels and smoked mirroring then hit the button for number four, the top floor, and therefore the penthouse floor. As I hit the button, the doors started closing right away, and I slipped back out just before they could seal me in. As soon as I entered the path of the doors, they reversed direction and opened up again. Sensors. A little modernization had hit this place not so long ago, obviously. The exterior may be a century or two past its opening day, but the interior looked just like any other modern high-security condominium.
The stairwell was right across from the elevator bank, in the corner. I hit the door hard, and using the handrail for the leverage it gave me, I leaped my way up to the first landing, and came to a dead stop, listening—nothing—I was up the next three floors the same way, swinging and leaping from the handrail.
When I got to the top I could hear the elevator coming to a stop directly across from me, and then the doors started to open. The only instant of possible inattention if there was a grey man waiting for me. If there were two, I’d have no surprise at all.
I burst through the door in a rolling tumble with both the Colt and the H&K in my hands. As I cleared the door I saw right away that there was nobody else in the hallway but me. Excellent.
I put the Colt away as I stood up from my crouch, and keeping the H&K in my right hand, I walked over to the only door on the floor and blew out both hinges with a double trigger pull. The shots were close enough together that they sounded like one, and I had no illusions about whether or not they heard that downstairs at the security desk. They’d have had to be deaf not to.
The door exploded inwards, as I followed the gunshots with my body, throwing myself through the opening as the door teetered on a security chain, the only thing left holding it up. When I hit the door passing through, that broke too, and the door dropped flat to the floor. By that time, I was through the living room and into the bedroom. The place was empty, I could feel it, but I kept the H&K in a two-handed grip, facing the ceiling. The ceiling. I scanned the ceilings, no juice. I was getting sloppy, and I’d have to watch that in the coming hours and days.
In about four minutes I ransacked the whole place. Not one significant personal item was left. Oh, the closets were full of designer clothes, and the bathrooms had all of the prerequisite ‘women’s things’ on and in the counter and medicine chest, but this lady was gone. Neither did I find a computer of any type whatsoever. A clean break.
I was back out of the apartment and in the hallway. The sounds of clumping feet and laboured breathing told me the older guy at the security desk was on his way up, but carefully. I took the first elevator that showed, expecting no one, and getting just what I expected. The lift took me softly down to the main floor, and as it opened I threw myself out into a roll again, coming to my feet with my back against the opposite wall. The doorman had stepped out onto the sidewalk, probably to guide the Gendarmes when they showed up. That could be any second now so I didn’t waste any time. With both guns holstered, I walked out of the revolving doors and into the street.
The doorman whirled as he heard me coming out, and backed away fearfully. I held out my badge, shouted, “Interpol.”, and kept going across the median and to the ‘Vette.
Evie had Monsieur Urtell eating out of her hand by the time I got back, and it had only been five minutes. They were both lounging about on the sidewalk, chatting when I walked up to them.
“Well boss, I got what we need, which Jacques here won’t tell anyone for the next hour, after which he’s free to do whatever he wants to.”
“What is it exactly that guarantees his one-hour silence?”
“Fear of dying.”
I accepted that, coming from Evie. One thing I’d learned in the last couple of days was that she knew what she was doing. If she felt he wouldn’t talk for an hour, I’d believe her. That’s all the time we needed anyway. Just enough to be out of the neighbourhood before getting caught up in the standard morass of red tape and follow-up paperwork. I looked directly at Jacques, who appeared to be just a little nervous when I did, and hooked my thumb back in the direction of his limousine.
“Vite!”
He didn’t need much more encouragement. He was off like a shot. No fond farewells or anything. Evie jumped into the passenger seat and strapped down as I took over the driver’s side. Turning the key brought the big-block Chevy engine to life with a growl that made the car shake and rumble. I slipped it into first gear and we were away. As we passed the Audi, parked further down the street, it pulled out into line behind us, hitting the gas hard to match speed. In five more minutes, we were out of the town and back on the highway, headed for Paris.
~
Chapter Thirty-Five
O
nce our mini-motorcade had put a few miles between the town of Chambéry and ourselves, we turned off onto a larger thoroughfare that went straight as an arrow from our highway to the main road into Paris.
The upshot of Therese’s chat with Collette, and Evie’s chat with Jacques, was that their stories matched. Jacques had been carrying the ticket for the Bahamas
, which told us where Ms. Meir had scurried off to. Collette had given us the inside scoop on her relationship with Heidi Meir, but I didn’t see yet how that was going to be very relevant.
Her flight had been planned for two hours from the time the limo’ was there to pick her up, plenty enough time to get back to Geneva International Airport and catch the plane. There was also a booking at the Bahama Hilton, with a reservation number. At our first road stop, just about seventy kilometers from Paris I linked to the Web, downloaded my mail, and checked some of this stuff out myself. It was easy to verify that the reservation had been made with a corporate credit card. Guess whose?
If Heidi Meir wasn’t at the hotel yet, she would be. It struck me as odd that she wouldn’t have a home of some kind there, which would make for a much-enhanced getaway of the romantic type. The trouble was, it was a getaway all right, but the romantic part was an afterthought. It occurred to me that there might be two reasons for not having Collette go directly to her home, and that one would be security, and the other might be that she was still in the closet. To my mind, this was the least of her problems right now, but who knew where she rated exposure on her personal priority list.
After decrypting the mail from Walter, I was in possession of valuable information. Finally.
Walter had managed to track down the bank in Sao Paulo that was being used to move the hot money into and out of Brazil. La Banca D’Angélica Santa Cordoba. Which I think translated loosely as the bank of the angelic Saint Cordoba. Whatever.
The Diamond Dust on Dragonfly Wings: A Jeffry Claxton Mystery Novel Page 83
