The Little Burgundy: A Jeanne Dark Adventure

by Bill Jones Jr.

  I had very little time left. No such saviors seemed to be coming for me.

  I stood. “It doesn’t matter whether you tell me what I want to know or not,” I said. “I already know where you keep your master disk. I’ll get it myself. I’ve had your flat bugged.”

  “You’re full of shit,” Kovac said.

  “Then I guess I don’t know you’re moving your operation to Thailand either?”

  His mouth gapped open and he stared at Samuels. She returned his shocked look. My heart pounded so quickly I feared I would pass out. Thailand was nothing more than an educated guess. Until he mentioned moving, I assumed he would stay in Granada. Sometimes it is better to be lucky than smart.

  “You can’t let her get out of here, Samuels said.

  “What the hell do you want me to do?” he answered, showing her his handcuffs.

  “If you don’t mind, I don’t have time for your lovers’ spat. I will just collect the computer disk and be gone.”

  Kovac’s eyes flashed to the room to my left and then back to me. “Be my guest,” he said, full of bravura. “There’s no such data.” He jangled his cuffs, gesturing. “I keep everything right up here, in my head.”

  All of my time with Foss had added a skill to my repertoire—I was learning that people will unconsciously reveal truths with their bodies while lying with their mouth.

  “Oui, and I suppose that you keep nothing but porn on the computer in the other room.”

  My heart racing now, I stepped to my left, heading to grab the computer and leave. My mind was momentarily unfocused as I worried it would be a large computer that I couldn’t carry. I hoped I knew enough to figure out how to remove the disk drive. To make matters worse, my phone, which I still held in my right hand, began buzzing. That distraction was enough. Samuels whipped both legs toward me, the bleeding one included, clipping my legs and sweeping me from my feet. For seconds, the world sagged to slow-motion as my brain burned-in the images of what I expected to be my last moments. My legs went airborne, courtesy of my weak hip. My phone and keys flew in the air, landing near the sofa. I could hear the blue clatter of the phone and the crimson and lime jingle of my keys hitting the arm of the couch. The back of my head hit the carpeted floor, I saw a flash of white pain, and I heard Kovac’s voice say, “Get her gun!”

  Seconds later, I saw Samuels’s face hovering over mine. I was still holding the gun in my left hand. She grabbed my wrist and twisted it. A second ticked by. Samuels’s face torqued in rage. I heard, “Shoot her Monica! Shoot!”

  In my mind, I saw my mother’s face by the hated swimming pool, shouting, “Kick you lazy child!” I kicked, the heel of my right shoe hitting Monica Samuels right in her filthy chatte. Another second’s tick brought a wave of nausea as my mind imagined I heard her squish. She looked shocked and stumbled back a step.

  “Monica!” Kovac yelled. I looked at him for a half-second. He was unlatching his cuffs with my key.

  Samuels regained herself, glowered, lurching at me again and shrieked, “You …”

  I shot her in the chest. Then again.

  In those ticks of the clock, those three, all of the sound in the world stopped.

  Across the room, Kovac was frozen, his face showing disbelief rather than rage or hurt. Monica fell to her seat, clutching her chest. A tear running down her cheek stopped, looked at my matching teardrops, and fell to its death. “B-but it said you’d never shoot. Th-that’s why we wouldn’t send you out in the field without …”

  “Mon mari? But your profile never ask me what I would do if you shoot my husband and dump him in the river like a dog, you fucking ginger bitch!” My voice rose with each word, choler rising in my throat like bile, until with the last word, all that could be heard was the shrieking, amber fury of my broken heart.

  The sound startled Kovac from his frozen state and he charged at me. I turned the gun toward him, but he was too fast, hitting me across the mouth and sending me over a low table. I was dazed, but could see him scramble to retrieve both guns—mine and Samuels’s—before turning again toward me. Samuels lay on her back staring at the ceiling with dead eyes. I closed my eyes, awaiting death’s welcome embrace. Kovac raised a gun with his right hand. I remember trying to discern whose gun was about to kill me, when the unlocked door burst open, and a large streak roared into the room, slamming into Kovac. The impact dislodged the gun from the smaller man’s right hand, but he struggled against the intruder, trying to force his left hand toward … Hardesty.

  “Kevin!” I shouted, my mind whirling.

  He did not respond, but continued his struggle against Kovac. They fought there, crashing over furniture and all but shredding the living room. I grabbed the remaining weapon and aimed at the fighting men, but had no clear shot. Then a gunshot rang out, whizzing over my head and forcing me face first onto the carpet.

  “You son of a bitch!” I heard Hardesty shout. He grabbed Kovac with his strong right hand, taking the man just below the chin, and charged forward, across the living room, barreling through the patio doors, across the balcony, and with a great, heaving grunt, shoved the screaming man over the fifth-floor balcony head first to his death.

  I reached him just as Kovac’s body hit the pavement with a sickening thud, the sound pinging in my ears as his head cracked against the stones. Hardesty stood there, panting, exhausted, holding his chest with his left arm. The world went fuzzy then, as I unleashed all of my anguish in that room, crying so hard my chest hurt, my diaphragm went numb, and I lost the remainder of my voice. There was the numbing din of what I thought was police rushing through the door in a wave, but it registered in my conscious mind only as a dim fog.

  As clarity fell from me, Monsieur Hardesty’s chubby arms held me as he whispered, “Don’t give up hope, Jeanne. Don’t give up.”

  23 - Free as a Jaybird

  It had taken me those last few minutes with Samuels and Kovac to admit to myself what Kevin Hardesty knew as soon as I called him the day before. I expected Foss to die and went to Spain not to wrap up the case or avenge his murder, but to die as he died. In my mind, there was a small chance I’d get the information I needed to solve the puzzle and Hardesty would arrange for Kovac to be jailed for his crime. There was another, still minute, but greater chance that I’d meet Monica Samuels one last time. I brought a weapon just in case, never expecting to use it on her, but to take my own life were I caught. I wouldn’t give her the satisfaction of doing the deed herself. My actual expectation was that I would intrude on the alpha male criminal mastermind, Kovac—the Moriarty to my diminished Holmes—and would be executed there for my cheekiness.

  Nevertheless, the universe or the gods be praised, one’s life is not one’s to take. Kovac was just another criminal motivated by fear and opportunity rather than intellect. It was a bond we shared. Through the sheer luck of the foolish, Hardesty was able to trace my location via my phone’s GPS in time to save my life. In our one call, he first admonished and then pleaded with me not to take Kovac on by myself, but to wait until he could arrange arrest papers via Interpol. I chose not to wait. I wanted to be with my Foss.

  I’ve had many gifts in my life. The one I’d never mustered was faith—shimmering, florid faith borne of love, of joy, of happy endings. After Spain, however, when I returned to London buoyed by the belief that impossibilities were just the turbulent colors of probability dimmed to gray by the faithless, I received the final gift—this time from Foss. I had hope. As I cleared customs at London’s City Airport, I was greeted by my sister’s glowing smile. We needed no words and exchanged naught but kisses and joyful tears. We went straight to the Institute, where Hardesty had Foss moved without his doctors’ knowledge. Kevin had then hastened to Granada via military helicopter and hadn’t known to tell my sister. Her frantically trying to reach me was due to arriving at the hospital where Foss had been a patient only to be told he’d gone without permission. Jette and I had a long discussion on the different connotations of the word gone i
n English. She was horrified to discover I took her text to mean he’d died.

  At seventeen minutes after eleven, Foss awoke. His swelling had been reduced to normal levels, and Doctor Phillips ended the course of medicines that had induced his coma. He had an entry wound in his side that cracked two ribs before stopping and another that entered his shoulder and exited his back. Both missed vital organs. Most of his worry had been blood loss and the second head trauma since arriving in London. He’d been bullet-riddled on this case, but other than a transfusion and recovery time from his fall, he was none the worse for wear. My synesthetic brain perceived the jagged redness of his wounds as long streaks of green, the color of nurturing. He was my hero, my protector, my love. Doctors predicted he’d be in the Institute’s hospital another week to ten days. However, Jette and I had already arranged for him to be transferred home the next day where he could be given proper care by those who loved him. Home meant Luberon—the name sounding music in my head for the first time in my life.

  “Hello?” I heard Foss say from the next bed. His voice sounded groggy, but strong. “Hello?” he repeated.

  I pushed back the curtain that separated us and stepped onto the floor. He blinked, tried to lift his left arm and saw it was constricted by tubes and monitors. “What the hell happened?” he asked. He squinted at me as though I were a ghost. “What are you wearing? Where am I?”

  I lifted his covers and slipped myself inside, careful not to brush against his wounds. “You’re in the Institute.”

  “The Institute.” He rubbed his newly bald head while his brain struggled through the fog of medications to remember. I knew that feeling well.

  “Oui. You were hurt and have been in hospital for over a week.”

  “A week.” He blinked at me, too slowly for my liking. “Are you hurt? Why are you in a gown?”

  “I checked in to be with you.”

  “Checked into the Institute.” He pronounced it as a statement, but it wasn’t, I knew.

  I leaned my cheek to his, stilling his next question with a finger. “Monsieur Hardesty made arrangements for me to stay by your side. He was grateful that we wrapped up the case.” I spent the next thirty minutes filling him in on the details of the case, and a further ten minutes fielding his questions regarding his injury and prognosis. It was typical Foss to be more interested in the arrests that followed securing Kovac’s files than whether he would live long enough to attend their trials. When he got around to asking if he’d had any permanent damage, I said, “You’re going to be fine, better than fine. You’re going to be my husband.” I felt myself grin.

  “I’m surprised you didn’t marry me when I was unconscious.”

  The first smile rose that from his full lips was crooked, so I straightened it with my fingers.

  “They wouldn’t let me, something about the wrong type of visa. Such silly red tape.”

  “There is the whole your husband is in a coma issue too.”

  “Non, I know your answer. I would have answered for you.”

  He laughed at me, which I didn’t understand. I was being romantic and serious. Before I could get mad, he leaned to me for a kiss. “I adore you,” he said. It was a lingering, too-long-delayed reunion. When we released each other, he looked at me beneath the covers. “I can’t believe you’re in a see-through negligee.”

  “Why can’t you believe it? It’s a private room.” I sat up to take it off when my phone began buzzing. I wanted to throw it out the window, but it was locked.

  “Don’t answer it,” Foss said, tugging at my gown with his left arm.

  “Stop that. You’ll pull the stitches from your shoulder.” I answered the phone, putting it on speaker. “Oui, Kevin, he is awake now. Juliette will be here in the morning, and we will all escape to sunny France.”

  “That’s great, Dark,” he said. “So now maybe you can turn your attention to business matters. It seems that some information has been leaked to the press—info we consider classified—regarding the workings of the escort service.”

  “Really? What info?”

  “Oh, sources of weaponized polonium, names of government officials implicated in the sex ring … oh, and let’s see … hmm, the name of my old boss came up.”

  I looked at Foss who was shaking his head at me. “Wow, that was some good investigative journalism. What did they say about your boss?” I asked. I stifled my laugh with my hand.

  “Well, I can’t really repeat it, since it’s still classified, but suffice it to say I’m now Acting Director and our group’s new liaison with the CIA. Apparently a very high official in the CIA also had his name come up in the investigation.”

  I put the phone on mute. “I gave Rob and Leanne Kovac’s files.”

  “How in the hell did you get the files past Hardesty?”

  “I was distraught and told him I needed to go freshen up. In the next room was Kovac’s computer to which was attached an external drive. I took it.”

  “What if none of the files had been on the computer? You’d have compromised the only evidence trail the government had for prosecution.” He raised his voice at me, so I turned my back to him. No breasts for the mean husband.

  “Hello? Is anyone there?”

  “Oui, Kevin, I’m sorry. Foss was in pain and I had to fix him.”

  “You’re the source of my pain,” he muttered.

  “Look, Dark, I’ll make this simple. Kovac arranged most killings via accomplices in the UK and Germany. One of them is singing like a bird just to make sure he’s charged in the UK where there’s no death penalty. The police there have already started making arrests. We have what we need, the press has what it wants, and everybody is happy. That is, unless it slips out that certain parties took classified evidence that was attached to an active, government investigation.”

  “You mean the investigation that the new Acting Director had personally taken charge of when he allowed classified data to be removed from under his nose?”

  I muted the phone again because my partner started giggling.

  After a few moments, Hardesty spoke again. There was the crimson of embarrassment in his words. “Touché. I guess we’re even in culpability there.” He sighed. “So much for my blackmail scheme.”

  “Blackmail for what?” Foss asked, “Danishes?”

  “Be nice to me, Cain. I saved your fiancée’s life.” I nodded and Foss looked as though he might throw up from the realization that he’d be forever indebted to Hardesty. My cherubic rescuer continued. “I planned on blackmailing your partner, wife, or whatever you two are to come work for me. I need an assistant deputy director, and I think Jeanne’s my guy. Girl. Woman.”

  I muted the phone again so I could call him names.

  Foss took it from me. “I thought the fact that she isn’t a U.S. citizen would preclude that, along with the other thing.” He gave me an odd look.

  “She’ll be the wife of a U.S. citizen and I’ll personally vouch for her if it comes to that. I can have her citizenship papers back-dated to before she came onboard. What do you say, Jeanne? Your new country needs you.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said, “but I already have a partner. Besides, I am a citizen of the world.” I hung up the phone.

  “You really have got to learn the English word for au revoir.”

  I never understand Foss’s jokes.

  “Tell me,” he said, “when you first called Hardesty, how’d you know he wasn’t Samuels’s sponsor?”

  “It was because he described himself and her as roughly equals when we started the case. With her ego, I knew she’d only ever consider someone her sponsor who was very high up in the government’s ranks.”

  “Makes sense.”

  “Besides, my intuition told me he likes you and is your friend. I trusted you have good judgment with people.”

  “Wow, I’m honored,” he said, turning to hug me. He groaned in pain. “Jesus this hurts.”

  “Here, this will cheer you up.” I handed him his p
hone. On it was an emailed photo from Rosie, on the beach in Fiji. She was as naked as a jaybird and holding a glass of red wine. The caption read, You blew it, mate.

  “Why doesn’t that girl ever wear clothes?”

  “Because she loves you.”

  “Can I keep it?”

  “No, that is for our case files. I am calling this one La Cas de la Petite Bourgogne – The Case of The Little Burgundy.” He pouted at me. “Here, you can keep this one. This is from today.”

  The second photo was of Rosie standing in a tropical setting, surrounded by kids. Under the photo was an caption that read, Thanks for making both of my dreams come true. Love you madly, Rosie.

  “She doesn’t say where she is, but I suspect the Philippines.”

  “What’s she doing in the Philippines?”

  “Apparently, she decided to save children the old fashioned way, one at a time.”

  “I thought prostitution was the old-fashioned way.”

  I laughed and gave him a playful slap. “She used her earnings to open a house for abandoned and orphaned children.”

  “Well damn, good for her.” He lay there for a moment staring at the light fixture, and then turned to me. “You know, that was a pretty lucrative position you just turned down, and it comes with a U.S. Citizenship. It would make things easier once we settle down.”

  I didn’t respond directly, because my thoughts turned to my grandfather, that dear, purple spirit. In my entire childhood, my grand-père had been my hero. He sheltered me, believed in me, challenged me intellectually, and ensured that I believed in myself enough to be successful when it would have been easy to crumble like grit under my mother’s boot heel. His only dying wish for me, in endowing me wealth, was that I never tell my husband about it until I was legally protected. However, I realized, that just as my mother wasn’t always wrong, grand-père wasn’t always right.

  “We don’t need his job, baby, and we don’t need to live in the States unless you want to.”

  “What do you mean? Live in Luberon and do what, grow flowers?”