“Good day, gentlemen,” Michel sang, trying to sound cheerful.
Leon leaned on the counter, sucking his teeth, flashing a contemptuous look at Michel. He wore a black leather jacket with a belt tightened across his midsection. It accented his barrel chest, and Michel had no doubt whatsoever that Leon had been endowed with a ferocious Napoleon complex and almost certainly despised gay people. He made a pulling motion with his fingers.
“No time for your queerish bullshitting. We need the money. Now.”
Michel nodded. “Give me a moment and I’ll get the payment together for you.”
Leon grabbed Michel’s wrist with his vise-like grip. “No payments, faggot. Your loan has matured. Today you pay this week’s juice and the full principle.”
Michel’s breathing picked up. He’d forgotten that the loan was a six-month term. The bloodsuckers had taken nearly the entire amount of principle in interest over the twenty-six week period. He arched his brows, trying to brighten his proposal. “Leon, I don’t have it right now. You can up my interest another point if you like.”
Leon jerked Michel’s body onto the counter, backhanding him in the eye with a vicious ringed hand. Blood immediately flowed down Michel’s face. “I don’t give a shit whether you have it or not! Take some of these rare fucking books and sell them, but get me my money today.”
The most valuable of Michel’s books were consigned through various sources. The remainder, if he were lucky, could be sold wholesale, but it would take weeks to have a valuation placed on them. And he was already leveraged to the hilt. If he were to try to take the books to another dealer, he’d be lucky to even get fifty percent of their wholesale worth. It would take too long to appease Leon and, even if it did, the sale would put him under, and likely in jail over his debts and some creative work with his taxes. Michel knew what happened to gay men in French prison; he had no desire to experience it for himself. He’d kill himself before it came to that. With a hand over his fresh cut, Michel stood and chewed on his lower lip. Just as the big one made a move around the counter, an idea burst into Michel’s mind. Not just an idea, a divine inspiration! He’d already been working on a less-exciting variation of it, but…yes, this quicker version would work.
It had to.
Bruno cocked his fist back as he closed on Michel. Michel raised his hands in a submissive gesture before he swung. “Wait, please!” he screamed.
Bruno reluctantly stopped, turning to Leon. Leon barely lifted his chin.
Feeling magically spared (for the moment), Michel gratefully exhaled and, with his hands still up, said, “What if I told you, within a day or two, I could pay you far, far more than what I owe you?”
Leon straightened, cocking his head, his voice a low growl. “Are you saying you’re not going to pay us today?”
Michel was taking deep breaths, trying to remain calm. It was time to take the chance. He carefully lowered his hands. “Gentlemen, just today I’ve come into possession…well, I’ve been retained to represent someone in selling something so rare, so valuable that I cannot even fathom its complete worth.”
The large man groaned loudly, pulling his fist back again. Leon shooed him backward with a flick of his hand. He leaned forward on the counter and pulled Michel’s Technicolor shirt so hard it popped two buttons. “Start talking.”
“If I can be allowed to pay you tomorrow, I will pay you double what I owe. If I’m not back here until Wednesday, triple. Thursday, quadruple. Get the picture? You can use everything I own as collateral.”
Bruno made another sound, a grunt, shaking his head.
Leon ignored him, his eyes locked on Michel. “This sounds somewhat interesting. So how do I know you’re not full of shit?”
“You’ll just have to trust me.”
“I don’t trust my mother.”
Michel spoke rapidly. “Please listen to me, Leon, and please believe me. Immediately after work I’m scheduled to cement the plans with my new, ah, partners, and tomorrow we will go to Paris to make the deal. I’m certain, by Thursday at the latest, that I can have you what I have promised.”
Leon’s left eye widened while his right narrowed. “And you say this thing’s value is immeasurable?”
Michel let out a nervous chuckle. “Perhaps I misspoke. What I meant is I don’t know its value, but it’s quite valuable to the right person. Just a simple book is all it is.”
“A book.”
“Oui.”
“Hmmm,” Leon mused, nodding and glancing back at Leon. “Okay, Michel, you’ve got a deal. We’ll be back here Wednesday, then back Thursday. Your deal of double, triple…all that shit is acceptable.”
“Thank y—”
Leon poked a finger that struck Michel’s face. “But if you don’t show, there won’t be a place on earth you can hide from me, you got that?”
Michel nodded, cross-eyed at the finger on his nose.
The two men exited, jingling the door bell, disappearing into the blustery day.
***
Leon and Bruno crossed the pedestrian walkway, taking window seats in the quiet café oblique from the book shop. Leon’s eyes were locked on the storefront of Michel’s store while Bruno yelled for two vodkas on ice.
“No, you idiot!” Leon said, viciously kicking Bruno under the table. Bruno grunted, looked as if he’d been slapped. The waitress made her way over, eyebrows arched. Leon smiled with his mouth only. “I apologize for my moronic associate. Please, a large bottle of mineral water, and two glasses…that’s all.”
“What was that for?” Bruno asked, rubbing his thick shin after the waitress walked away.
Leon closed his eyes, his scarred fists resting on the checkered tablecloth. “Bruno, sometimes you still manage to surprise me with your brainlessness.” His eyes opened. “Did you not hear everything the faggot just said? About something of immeasurable value?”
“Yeah.”
“And that he’s meeting his partners, probably more skinny fags, immediately after work?”
“Yeah.”
He spoke slowly. “Now Bruno…stay with me. Does that, in any way, give your pea-brain any type of bright idea, or at least a notion, even though your meanderings might be somewhat erroneous?”
“Err…err…what?”
Leon sighed. “Forget it. Knowing what we just learned, don’t you think it might be a good idea to watch Michel?”
“You mean because we don’t trust him?”
“Of course we don’t trust him, Bruno. We should never trust anyone other than a Glaive, especially a man who takes it up the ass!” Leon, exasperated, pulled down on his face with both hands. He reset his countenance and pointed a finger at Bruno. “So, starting now, we watch Michel, follow him if need be.”
“Okay.”
“That’s why we will abstain.”
A blank look from Bruno.
“Meaning, no vodka.” Leon’s pointing finger rotated to the book store, as if on a swivel. “And we steal whatever the hell it is that he’s been chosen to represent the sale of. Think about it, Bruno. If he’s not back until Thursday, he’s willing to pay us four-times what he’s owed. Would he say that if he weren’t about to make an incredibly large sum of money?”
Bruno’s face was cloudy. “Yeah, but he said it’s a book. What do we know about selling a book?”
Leon smiled a disillusioned, pained smile, closing his eyes and pressing on them, mumbling to the heavens about being cursed with such a dolt. His eyes sprung open. “Value is value, Bruno. I don’t give a shit who has the book, or what it’s about, if it has such value, we can determine a way to sell it.”
Bruno shrugged. Leon had probably lost him at the vodka, but it didn’t matter. The waitress arrived with their mineral water and, after Leon paid her and sent her away, he instructed Bruno on what to do.
“See the shop? I want you to tell me every time you see someone coming or going, okay?” His tone was that of an adult instructing a third-grader on what to do.
/> “Okay.”
“Very good, Bruno. Don’t think about anything else. Nothing at all. Just sit there, sip your water, and watch that door.”
Leon grabbed an already-read Le Monde from the next table, flipping to the sports page. He took another look at Bruno, staring across the street with a vacuous expression.
Why on earth did Nicky stick him with this connard?
***
As soon as Gerard returned, Michel sprang into action. He checked his watch. There was only a little over an hour before Monika and her big stud were to return. More importantly, the publishers would only be open for a short while.
“Did they leave?” Gerard asked, straining as if it pained him to even sully his mind with a single thought about the men. He gaped at Michel, screwing up his face. “What on earth happened to your cheek?”
“Never you mind,” Michel said, grabbing his mobile phone. “Stay out here, and no matter what…no matter what, Gerard…do not disturb me.”
Gerard placed his hands on his hips before giving a mock salute. “Well, yes sir.”
Michel rushed into the very rear of the back room, switching on the desk lamp. He opened the contacts section of his phone, choosing the search function. He typed the word “publisher”, watching as it returned pages of contacts. Within those contacts, he typed “Paris”. There were six results. Michel scanned them. Yes. Yes. No way. Yes. No. Yes.
Four possibilities, all enormous publishing houses with a strong presence worldwide. He would need senior editors, but he also knew enough about publishing to know that they wouldn’t be able to make the deal on their own, especially out of their Paris office. Not the kind of deal he was going to ask for.
But that was okay. Once they realized the magnitude of what he possessed, they’d be on the phone to New York or London, begging for a preemptive blank check.
He called the first one, one of the largest publishers in the world, specializing in everything from children’s picture books to intricate medical textbooks. He asked for a junior editor he’d met at the Frankfurt Book Fair last year. Voice mail. Michel touched zero, telling the operator he needed to speak to him immediately.
“Well, sir, he’s obviously busy if he didn’t pick—”
“Just get him, lady! If your company misses out on this because of your obstinacy, you’ll be a part of France’s thirteen-percent unemployment.”
A pause before her curt reply. “One moment.”
Michel willed himself to be patient as he heard the hideous on-hold music. After three-minutes, the young editor answered. Michel reminded him of who he was, hearing the irritation in the editor’s voice when he asked what the fuss was all about.
“Go right now to your most senior editor and tell him or her that tomorrow, at the Ritz Paris, there will be an auction for a volume of diaries.”
The editor exhaled so loudly it modulated the reception on the phone. “Diaries? You pulled me from the Monday staff meeting for this?”
“Just tell the senior most editor…is it a man or a woman?”
The editor’s voice was monotone. “She’s a woman, a ball-buster, and doesn’t like junior editors hitting her up with hollow, bullshit requests on busy Mondays.”
Michel snorted. “Then tell her that you’re the last publisher I’ve called, and that many others will be there, and these diaries will be the most earth-shattering, news-worthy literary finds since those of Anne Frank.” He paused. “Scratch that…bigger than Anne Frank. I can guarantee you movies, ancillary books and studies, nightly news coverage for months…not weeks…months. These diaries will shatter almost every notion about one of, if not the, most famous and notorious person to live in the twentieth century.”
The junior editor was silent.
“Are you there?”
“I barely know you, Monsieur Brink. If you’re exaggerating it could get me—”
“I’m not exaggerating, not one little whit, and that’s all I’m revealing for now. This is the biggest literary event in your lifetime, and right now, you can be a hero…or you can fuck it all up.” Michel let that sink in for a few seconds. “You’ve got five minutes. I’ll hold.”
“But she’s in the staff meeting!”
“Imagine her missing out on this because you didn’t have the balls to interrupt a piss-ant meeting about e-readers and some sappy romantic novel that will be forgotten two months after it’s published.”
“Then tell me more. Tell me who the diaries are about.”
“Nothing more. Four and a half minutes.”
Michel was put back on hold, to the same pathetic music. He leaned back in the chair, imagining the price the diaries would command. Ten-million euro. Twenty-million? How do you put a price on Hitler screwing a Jew, and fathering a child by her? This would be the biggest publishing coup since…since…he threw his hands up as a grin split his face…Michel couldn’t find anything comparable.
As the music droned on, he thought about the presentation at the Ritz. It has to be utterly perfect. Quick but expansive. Enough to make the editors shit their pants but not so much that it won’t leave them dying to hear—
Oh shit, it just hit him. Monika or her American better have a credit card with a decent line on it, or we’ll have to meet in one of the lobbies. Wouldn’t that be embarrassing?
Then again, maybe the cozy Bar Hemingway would be most appropriate. Situated in the back corner of the Ritz, it opens around five in the afternoon. Perhaps, if given a taste of what’s about to occur, the general manager of the hotel will agree to a private meeting prior to the bar’s opening, if for no other reason to be able to say his famous literary tavern hosted the inking of the largest deal in publishing history.
It will be perfect! Champagne for everyone. Good champagne, too. Michel would have them bring in a tray of their finest desserts and coffee. He would introduce Monika and Gregory telling them beforehand, no matter what was said, to keep quiet. And then, with great fanfare, Michel would give a five-minute oratory on the diaries, making the senior editors wait until the very end of his speech to learn of their shocking content. Upon digesting what they’d just heard, the editors would be beside themselves, the gargantuan sales numbers already whirring in their minds like runaway ticker-tape. But of course they would want to see the diaries. Michel would bring along a box of his acid-free latex gloves, making everything seem incredibly well thought out. He was the expert here. That had to be established from the first ten seconds. They knew all about new books; but it was he, Michel Brink, who was master of the antique.
He would allow the editors perhaps fifteen minutes each to examine the diaries, and then one more hour to get on the phone and finalize their tender. The publishers would have to offer sealed bids, on thick Ritz stationary. No conditions, no damned lawyers, just the name of the publisher and an advance of the sales. There would be a reading of the bids and a fifteen-minute window for a second bid, and that would be it. The final shot. He and Monika and the American would retain the rights, and would demand twenty percent of every printed copy sold. He would demand half, or even more, for electronic versions. Period. The publishers wouldn’t like the terms, but they would pay. Someone would surely pay.
And Michel, like any good agent, would take home twenty-five percent of the advance. Twenty-five percent!
Tomorrow evening, after years of pretending to be, Michel Brink would finally be rich.
He leaned back, warmth flushing his face as he imagined the villa he would buy on the southern coast of Spain. Not some gauche beachfront monstrosity, but something tasteful, up in the hills with an azure Mediterranean view. He would want a swimming pool—the infinity kind he’d seen at the opulent hotel in Monaco—a cabana, and a personal library, air-conditioned and loaded with the good books he’d labored so long to sell but never had the time to enjoy at his leisure. Oh, how glorious it all will be! They would get to know him in town, the locals brimming with pleasure each time he graced their establishment with his presence, an
d his ubiquitous money.
And no relationships. None! Michel would give that time, lots of time. Everything changes when a person has money, and all of a sudden he becomes far more alluring to a wider range of people. Especially those lacking good intentions. No, he would take things slow, making his home and his new life his focus. He’d stay clear of the coke and booze, instead focusing on a healthy lifestyle with the finest fresh fruits and lobster salads. He’d enlist a trainer (females only…no relationships!) telling her he wanted to be no more than seventy-five kilos by spring. Maybe he would even keep the shop in Metz as a novelty, allowing Gerard to be the general manager. He could return for a few weeks every summer, riding back in on his white horse just to survey his king—
“Michel?” The junior editor. Breathless.
“Oui?”
“She wasn’t pleased with the interruption, but she was gallingly intrigued, I might term it. She said she will be there.”
“Good. 3 p.m. sharp. She should ask the concierge for the location within the hotel. Tell her to come alone.”
“Alone?”
“Those are my conditions. Thank you and good day.” Michel hung up the phone, clasping his hands in front of him in a victory pose. The cut under his eye hurt from his smiling so broadly but the smile faded. There was more work to do. He wrote the name of the publisher on his legal tablet, placing a bold check mark beside the name. Then he wrote the other three. Once he was done setting up the meeting with each of them, he needed to think about how to get Monika and her friend Gregory on board with his grand plan.
He could do it somehow. He had to.
Michel dialed the next number.
Chapter 6
Detective Damien Ellis dropped his bags in the small hotel, using his phrase book to speak to the attendant at the front desk. After washing his face and brushing his teeth, he grabbed his just-started Stephen King novel—one of the oldest ones—and followed the clerk’s directions to a restaurant on the hillside near the center of the city. It was a fine, cold day, the remaining snow blowing like dust on the pedestrian streets. Being from the southern U.S., even after several duty stations with frequent winter weather, snow was still somewhat of a novelty to him. He took his time as he walked, focusing on the positives in his life. He was healthy, possessed a keen mind, had a little money in the bank, and—most important of all—he was on vacation. His sadness had left him on the train; Rose would want him to have a good time on this trip, and that’s what he intended to do. His mouth tingled from the anticipation of his first glass of fine red wine. He smacked his lips, tugging on his hat as he passed two elderly women.
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