Spitfire

by M. L. Huie

  Still Livy wondered at the speed of it all. She’d have bet everything she knew that she hadn’t been followed to the Ritz, unless it was by someone far more adept than her. Given her years out of the game, Livy wondered if rust had caused her to miss someone. No, she decided. Spotting a tail required patience, and she’d been extremely cautious, especially given that both Vance and Mirov had followed her earlier.

  It didn’t make sense.

  Livy drummed her fingers on the square table and thought back over the day. She quickly came to a conclusion she didn’t particularly like. A woman slaps a man in a hotel lift. So what? Frenchmen weren’t known for their subtlety in the presence of women. More than a few men got slapped in this town, she reasoned.

  No, someone had the ear of the Parisian police. Perhaps it was Gray. The Americans wielded considerable power in liberated Paris. But it seemed more likely that Nathalie had made the call.

  Unless Valentine had been at the Ritz with Nathalie that morning. Could that have been why Nathalie threatened her, and the reason for the recognition the Frenchwoman registered when Livy repeated her name? Valentine would want to be prepared for a confrontation with Olivia Nash. He’d want a meeting to be on his terms. That theory made as much sense as anything, even though sense had been decidedly lacking since her arrival in Paris.

  Livy put her head down on the table and tried to rest. She kicked her shoes off and thought back through what had happened since being picked up by the police. Naturally, Madame Riveaux had made an appearance. She’d stood on the doorstep, wearing her ubiquitous Oriental dressing gown, and told the police she’d always known Livy was trouble.

  At the station, the officer with the hooded eyes offered her tea, which she declined, while asking her the sort of routine questions you’d ask a foreigner who’d been arrested. The whole thing took no more than a half hour. Then he escorted her to a bland waiting room and left, adding, “Someone will be with you shortly.”

  Not my superior, not an officer from the British Embassy, not anyone specific. Someone.

  As ominous thoughts gathered in Livy’s head like heavy rain clouds on a May afternoon, she heard movement outside the room. The door at the end of the hallway opened, and boots clattered on the floor in her direction. An armed gendarme took a position outside. So someone had brought the military police along.

  Dear God. She’d caused an international incident on her first assignment.

  Then came the sound of a much different pair of shoes on the floor. Livy guessed the wearer of these soft-soled, probably expensive shoes must be the someone in question.

  He’d worn a similar suit the last time they’d met, but that had been almost two years ago. Then she’d known him by a different name. But now Livy knew that the man who stepped into the room was not named “Luc.” Some knew him as Mephisto, others as Edward Valentine.

  “Well, you have gotten yourself into a jam, haven’t you?” He spoke in English. Perhaps he didn’t want the muscle outside to understand their conversation.

  Valentine stood on the other side of the table near the wall. His easy smile and relaxed manner betrayed no hint that he knew the woman sitting at the table desperately wanted to kill him. He had the upper hand and didn’t need to say it.

  That didn’t stop Livy from wishing she had a pencil or something very sharp that she could shove into his eyes. God, she could rip his eyes out with her fingernails. If Sergeant Pierre in the hallway then unloaded his clip into her, she’d die satisfied.

  There would come a time for that. Just hold on, girl, she told herself. Hold on, and wait. The time’s coming.

  “Pity that our reunion has to happen in such a disagreeable place,” he said.

  Livy took a long look at him and wondered how she had ever found him trustworthy, even under the guise of Luc, the simple mechanic and résistant. Valentine’s long, angular face and wiry frame gave him an elegant silhouette. His tailored double-breasted suit fit him perfectly. The creases in his face—Livy guessed him to be in his midfifties—curled upward as he smiled, giving him a puckish air. But his brown eyes, which Livy had once found comforting and stalwart, now sparkled like a schoolboy who’d pulled a whole term’s worth of pranks and gotten away with them all.

  The man is a performer, Livy thought. His line of business is misdirection and trickery, and he’s good at it.

  How she hated him. He’d taken Peter from her. At the worst possible time. One night together and then never again. Livy still loved him. She couldn’t deny it, here in the presence of his murderer. She knew it in the very core of her being that she’d loved Peter Scobee as she’d never loved any man in her life, and this slick bastard had taken all that away.

  “I understand your taking offense at Diablo’s performance of the ace-of-spades deck,” he said, grinning. “After all, you’ve had a chance to see me do it, and he is a bit of a bumbler.”

  Livy forced herself to look at the table. Looking at his hideous grin right now would provoke her to do something stupid.

  “It’s a shame you never had the chance to see me perform. Onstage, that is. The bullet catch—that was the piéce de résistance of my act. Do you know it? It’s elegantly simple but quite dangerous. Someone fires a gun at the magician and he catches the bullet. It has been done a million different ways, of course, but I always caught the bullet with my hand. More impressive than catching it on a plate, yes? You have to be careful with it. The great Chung Ling Soo was killed doing it. Houdini was afraid to even try.”

  Livy kept her head down as tears pushed at the corners of her eyes. Her pulse thumped in her temples as Valentine droned on about his act.

  “This isn’t the time for boasting though, is it? You’ve come here to—what—make us a business proposition for my network on behalf of His Majesty? How awkward it must be. Negotiating with the likes of me.”

  He lowered his voice. “I know you hate me, Livy. Of course you do. But you also must understand the war was a different game. Played under different rules.”

  “A game?” she said, her voice harsh and breathless.

  “Oh my dear, we are still playing it. The only difference is there is less shooting. And, of course, the sides have changed. You came here to bring me over to your side, didn’t you—dear Olivia?”

  Livy finally peeled her eyes from the knotholes in the tabletop and took him in. His eyebrows arched, waiting for an answer.

  “You were lucky to survive the last war—Luc,” she said, trying to keep the emotion out of her voice. “I’m trying to give you a chance to survive this one.”

  He took a step in, unbuttoned his suit coat, and stretched out in the chair opposite her. Valentine’s long legs reached the other side of the table, nudging hers as he made himself comfortable.

  “How very difficult this must be for you. I imagine most women of your sort are back home. Getting married. Saving their ration coupons and trying to keep the larder stocked. But not you. Dear Livy Nash, sent back out into the field, and her first assignment is me. How you must feel. I can only imagine.”

  Then his joker’s smile vanished and something like shame flashed across his lean features.

  “Do you remember that old Citroën I repaired for you and Peter to drive to Paris? Got the car started, changed the flat, and sent the two of you on your way? Do you remember I sweated all the way through my shirt? It was so hot that day I nearly passed out. You see, Livy, I had to get you on your way so the roadblock could stop you and Peter. They were expecting you at a certain time, and I had to make sure you got there.” He leaned forward, less than a foot away from her face. Livy could see the nicotine stains on his front teeth and smell the espresso on his breath.

  “I know our shared past is—complicated. But if we are to work together, on the same side, we have to put all that behind us,” he said. “Don’t you agree?”

  Livy didn’t mind the proximity now. She could see the large pores in his cheeks. More signs that Valentine was just flesh and bone and could
be torn apart almost as easily as skinning an animal.

  “Yes. Let’s put it all behind us,” Livy hissed. “Why don’t you start by telling me how you are even alive? That shell should have at least left a few marks on you.”

  Valentine shrugged his shoulders. “When they dragged you away, Faber and I started for his car. He heard the shell just before it hit. Pushed me down. The worst of the blast was several meters away. I did, however, chip a tooth.” He glanced at his watch and stood up. “Oh my, it looks as if my time with you is almost up. The gendarme outside has other engagements,” Valentine said, jerking his head at the armed officer outside the door. “Money can buy anything in free Paris. You’d do well to remember that.”

  He rebuttoned his jacket and turned to go, but Livy’s voice stopped him.

  “Why should anyone buy the services of a second-rate magician?”

  Valentine tapped on the small window, and the gendarme opened the door. The man known as Mephisto held up a finger and turned back to Livy.

  “That’s where you are wrong, my dear. I am an excellent magician.”

  * * *

  Minutes went by and Livy didn’t move. She stared at the door long after Valentine and the guard had left and replayed the entire conversation in her head. Each time she came to the same conclusion. All this was about money. Valentine had paid to put her in jail so they’d have a safe spot to begin negotiations. He’d said, “Money can buy anything in free Paris.” His services and the entire Mephisto network would go to the highest bidder.

  Fleming’s orders had been clear: retrieve the list and confirm its authenticity. He’d authorized her to pay Nathalie for the list. Livy guessed the same would apply to Valentine.

  She could promise him a nice estate in Hampstead, tickets to Covent Garden, and an audience with King George. Frankly, the thought of giving the bastard anything made her sick.

  At some point in her ruminating, Livy fell asleep in the small chair, her head resting on the square table.

  “Mademoiselle.” The officer with the hooded eyes stood in the open doorway, gesturing outside. Livy had no idea how long she’d slept. She rubbed her eyes and followed him back to a small waiting area where a police officer presided over a long desk with rows and rows of keys positioned behind him in a wire cage. The officer gave Livy’s name to the guard and waited while he found her purse and passport.

  “So Diablo or Jabot or whatever that round little magician calls himself isn’t pressing charges, then?” Livy said.

  “I have no idea, Mademoiselle Nash. I have been asked to release you into another’s custody,” he said, with more than a hint of annoyance. “You are out of my hands now.”

  Just then the door to the street opened and sunlight flooded in. A man in a suit and fedora stepped inside.

  “Please wait outside, monsieur. We are almost done with her.”

  “Will do, officer,” Tom Vance said, giving Livy a wink. “I’m in no hurry.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  “At some point, you’re going to have to say something.”

  Since leaving the jail and hopping into a waiting cab, Livy Nash had given Tom Vance the deluxe silent treatment. Vance, who apparently enjoyed the sound of his own voice and, on occasion, the sound of others, had kept up a steady litany of comments about the scenery, all in an attempt to get Livy to say something more than the address of her room, which she had grunted at the driver upon entering the cab.

  Vance sighed and adjusted his blue silk tie as the taxi bounced along the narrow Paris streets. At last the driver left the Trocadéro district and turned on to the Pont d’léna, another of the city’s historic bridges that spanned the Seine.

  If Livy’s silence angered Vance, then so be it. He’d gotten her out of jail as the emissary of Charles Gray, the American who’d warned her to stay out of his territory. Back in London, she’d felt reasonably certain that Vance fancied her. The way he kept his eyes on her all the time and smiled whenever she looked at him. A woman could sense these things. Now she felt like a fool. All Vance’s talk of being an ally felt even emptier now, since he appeared to be nothing more than Professor Gray’s errand boy.

  “All right, you can give me the cold shoulder all you want, but we need to talk before you run off,” Vance said as the taxi slowed a block away from Madame Riveaux’s.

  “On the left now,” Livy snapped at the driver.

  The taxi stopped, and Livy leapt out like a hostage escaping captivity. Vance hopped out of the far side of the cab, shouting in his broken French for the taxi to wait. The driver protested but kept the engine running.

  Vance caught her about ten feet from the front door, grabbed her right elbow, and spun her toward him. Livy came to a stop about a hand’s width away from Vance’s nose.

  “I’ve already assaulted one man today. Shall we make it two?” Livy said.

  Vance released her elbow and took a step back. “I’m sure you mean business, Livy. But so do I. And right now your business is my business.”

  “I think we’ve had this conversation once or twice before, Mr. Vance.”

  “I know you think I’m the bad guy here, but I’m not. You’ve probably also figured out that Gray had something to do with me bailing you out. He did. But the only reason Gray knew you’d been arrested was because he’s pals with the prefect of police. Turns out that officer was worried about you.”

  “Worried? He arrested me.”

  “He had no choice. His orders came from higher up.”

  “So he arrested me, then got worried and called the Yanks to bail me out?”

  “Something like that. It’s—complicated.”

  Livy snarled. “I speak and understand English, so why don’t you try explaining yourself.”

  “Okay. Okay. The prefect got in touch with Gray, because he knew you had a visitor.”

  “If the police didn’t want me having visitors, why didn’t they stop it?” Vance opened his mouth to speak, but Livy cut in. “And don’t you dare say it’s complicated!”

  “Look, will you wait while I pay off this cabby? Just one minute?’

  “Fine.”

  Vance handed a stack of francs to the disgruntled driver, who wasted no time leaving. Livy waited, feeling as if the Americans were treating her like a third division team trying to compete with the first. Vance took the time to straighten his tie and pat his hair down as he walked back to her. Always so cocksure, these Americans. Maybe that’s why they bounced.

  “Can we go somewhere—less in the open maybe—and talk?” Vance said, still playing the contrite and attentive suitor.

  “I think here will do.”

  “All right, I’ll make it quick. Who was your visitor today?”

  “Me auntie from Preston.”

  Vance didn’t laugh. “Livy—I am not your enemy. We’re here for the same thing.”

  “You keep saying that, Mr. Vance. Shall we compare notes about the Grand Guignol?”

  “Let’s start with Nathalie Billerant,” he said, stepping closer to her. “Or maybe the magician you beat up at the Ritz this afternoon.”

  “What can I say? I don’t like rubbish magic acts.”

  Vance looked down, and for the first time Livy thought he might actually get angry.

  “I really am trying to work with you, and—well—protect you. And before you interrupt and tell me you don’t need protection, let me just say that Charles Gray has the clout to put your behind on the next plane back to London if he wanted. As far as I know, he may be arranging that right now. This operation is very important to him. He wants Valentine. We may not have much time.”

  “We?”

  “I’ve known Fleming for years. He worked in Washington trying to push the U.S. into the war. I know how he thinks. We, you and me—my country and yours—we want the network. We want Valentine. Once we have it, we share it. We’re allies.”

  “Is that why you took me to dinner in London, Mr. Vance? Because we’re allies?”

 
Before Tom could consider a reply, Madame Riveaux’s door opened and the dragon lady herself stood on the stoop, laughing alongside the tall and perpetually smiling Andrei Mirov.

  The two men regarded each other for a moment before the Russian broke the silence.

  “What is the saying? Three’s a crowd?”

  Livy watched the tall, older Russian and the young, bouncy American size each other up like peacocks preening. Mirov finally broke the silent battle of egos.

  “Forgive me, Miss Nash. I was just talking with your charming landlady here,” he said, without a trace of irony. Madame Riveaux blinked at the tall Russian coquettishly as Mirov bid her good-day. She gave Livy yet another glare and disappeared inside.

  “And you, my friend, I do not believe I have had the pleasure.”

  “Tom Vance,” he said, smiling cautiously. “And you are?”

  “Andrei Mirov. A pleasure, Mr. Vance,” he said, laying on the accent a little thick so that the American’s name sounded more like “Veents.”

  “What brings you to Paris, Mr.—um—Mee-roff.”

  “My name, ha, it is challenge for the American tongue. I am a writer. Many writers come to Paris for inspiration. Your Hemingway and Scott Fitzgerald, for instance.”

  “Not too many Russian writers can get away these days.”

  “Maybe they love their country too much to leave. And what do you do, Meester Veents? Maybe you work for Coca-Cola?”

  “I’m a journalist. Miss Nash and I are colleagues.”

  “Ah. A fellow seeker of the truth, then.”

  “Something like that.”

  “I wish you luck in finding it. The truth can be—dangerous.” Mirov let that hang in the air for a moment before going back to the stumbling-foreigner routine. “Oh, maybe I use wrong word. Dangerous? Is right?”

  “You’re laying it on a little thick, comrade,” Vance said.

  Livy’d had enough. “You’re both exhausting. So, if you’re planning to continue your little pissing match, you’ll be doing so without me.”

  Both men turned and looked at her.