by Ted Mooney
“Amazing.”
“And yet it is also normalno. Because life is always—how to say?—more receptive, even accommodating, to those who know how and when to act.” He turned to Véronique. “You agree, dushka?”
“Of course.” Then, to Max, “Don’t you?”
“Absolutely,” he answered. “To know … and not to act is not to know.”
And with that, at long last, Véronique seemed satisfied. More than satisfied. She seemed like a woman who, having bet everything on an intuition, had been proven almost supernaturally astute and deserving of the admiration that had, in any case, been hers all along. She had become, in the most complete sense, beautiful.
Reaching for the vodka bottle, she wordlessly poured them each the final round and replaced the bottle, upside-down, in its sleeve of ice. When all glasses were raised, she bestowed a lingering gaze on each man in turn and, with a smile that Max had never seen before, gave a toast: “Nu, budem!” She turned to him. “It means, ‘And now, let us live!’”
The three observed a moment of thoughtful silence, then drank.
Going downstairs, Max stumbled a little—he was very drunk—and Véronique took his arm to steady him. While Kukushkin gave the club manager some parting instructions, she said quietly to Max, “I’m still looking for that man I told you about, the man who has something of mine, something personal. His name is Thierry Colin, should you happen to run across him, as you very well might.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because Paris is quite small in some respects. And because now Kolya and I trust you completely.”
“That’s good to hear. In any case, I’m glad I’m not Thierry Colin, not in this small place.”
She threw a darting glance to see if Kukushkin was watching, and then, suppressing a giggle, kissed Max lavishly on the lips. “So am I,” she said, her eyes glittering. “That would be highly inconvenient.”
There was a limo waiting by the curb. Kukushkin offered him a ride, which Max politely declined. “It’s such a nice night, I think I’ll walk.” There was a full moon and a gathering fog, which, in combination, made the sky an unearthly white.
“You are going far?” asked Kukushkin, affecting muted concern for Max’s condition.
“No, no. Just down to the quai de la Tournelle.”
“But that is quite far,” protested Véronique. “Why don’t you come with us?”
At that moment the chauffeur opened the door for her, and Max had the fleeting impression that he’d seen the man before, he couldn’t remember when. “No, you’re very kind, but I think I need the air.”
“Excellent,” said Kukushkin. He and Max embraced. “We are friends, yes?”
“We are friends.”
“Good.” They embraced again. “We will see you soon, then.”
“Definitely.”
Kukushkin got in, then the chauffeur shut the door behind him and drove them smoothly away, Véronique’s arm waving a languid goodbye through the open window.
Only then did Max recall exactly when and where he had seen the driver before: he was one of the strangers who’d looked up at him from outside his studio on the day of Allegra’s arrival. But he had no time to consider the significance of this coincidence, because he now remembered he’d failed to turn his cell phone back on after the auction and had missed his daughter’s promised nine thirty check-in call.
In a near panic he switched it on. There were no messages from Allegra, but five from Eddie Bouvier. He punched in Eddie’s number.
CHAPTER 33
“YOU DIDN’T LISTEN to my messages,” Eddie said reprovingly. In his profession, phone messages were an art form and not to be taken lightly.
“I forgot to turn my cell back on till now. When I did, I saw you’d called, but it just seemed faster to get back to you, to call you … directly.”
“And you’re drunk.”
Max grimaced. He hadn’t realized it was that obvious. “Okay, maybe a little, I was with Russians. A Russian. One Russian. But I’m fine. It’s Allegra I’m worried about. She was supposed to call.”
“Then you can stop worrying. She’s right here, perfectly safe. The girls decided not to go to that party after all, so Odile brought them here for the night. They’re in Dominique’s room, planning how best to subjugate the male of our species.”
“Can I talk to her? Allegra, I mean?”
After a moment’s hesitation, Eddie said, “If I were you, Max, I’d wait until …”
“Oh, right, okay. Yes, I see what you mean.” He made a mighty effort to clear the slurry of syllables from his anesthetized tongue. “And Odile?”
“She’s at your friends’ houseboat, I think. For dinner.” After a pause, Eddie’s voice took on a different tone. “So you really didn’t listen to my messages, not at all?”
Max grew wary. “No, Eddie. I didn’t listen to them.”
“Because, besides letting you know that the girls were with me, what I wanted to tell you was … Listen carefully. You remember that detective I hired to investigate my brother’s fiancée?”
“Yes, of course.”
“He found out that the man she was seeing here in Paris, the one who died suddenly, was Sylvain Broch, your DVD pirate, so recently assassinated.”
“I knew it!” Max blurted. “I knew it! You mentioned last Friday at dinner that this other man your brother’s girlfriend was mixed up with, the guy in Paris, was at the same time seeing a woman whose husband had died—in a car accident, you said. This woman is Sophie Leclère, the late Broch’s lover and partner in the real-estate business. I’ve spoken with her twice.”
“Ah. I didn’t put it together at the time.” Eddie’s voice seemed to float away into the realms of troubled thought.
Awaiting its eventual return, Max watched a trio of young women, fashionably dressed and alight with laughter, gain easy entry to the club. One of them, wearing a gardenia in her jet-black hair, glanced back at Max before the door slammed shut. “What is it you want to tell me, Eddie?”
Eddie sighed. “It turns out that Broch, at least as far as the counterfeit-DVD business goes, was more like a middle manager. He rented that loft, yes, but he had an underling actually turn out the disks—his cousin, someone named Thierry Colin.”
“Are you sure?” Max had to laugh. “Thierry Colin?”
“Don’t tell me you know him.”
“No, but maybe fifteen minutes ago this girl asked me to keep an eye out for him, I’m bound to run into him soon, she said. Paris is a small place.”
“And who was the girl?”
“The girlfriend of the Russian I mentioned earlier, guy named Nikolai Kukushkin. A banker, I think.”
A silence. Eddie cleared his throat. “As you know, Max, I try not to be judgmental of people or their activities. It’s bad for business and inhibits one’s vision of what’s possible. But I have to say, as someone with your interests very much in mind, that the company you’ve been keeping lately is doubtful in the extreme. Thierry Colin worked for Broch, yes, but Broch himself worked for the gentleman you just mentioned. Colin was only paying off a gambling debt, but Kukushkin … he’s a known crime boss with many successful enterprises. Remember our talk about La Peau de l’Ours?” Eddie was seized momentarily by a coughing fit. “You do, of course.”
“And all this you just found out now?” Max asked.
“In point of fact, it was the detective who found it out. As he explained it to me, this Strasbourg girl has three great passions—besides herself, of course. Music, cocaine, and the folkways of the Russian mafia. Apparently Broch let it be known that he was well acquainted with Kukushkin, who has the added advantage, in her eyes, of coming from a famously musical Russian family. His father, in particular, was a great violinist—a genius, I’m told. So together these things drew her to Broch—his contacts, the stories he was privy to, her expectation of meeting Kukushkin.” Again Eddie sighed. “She’s very talented, very beautiful, and a true terro
r. And not so stupid that she didn’t guess who had arranged Broch’s death. My brother could hardly have been unaware that he, Gaspard, was just her backup prospect, her second choice in love. Yet he got lucky all the same, at least as he sees it.” Eddie sounded resigned. “One must have a very strong stomach to hire detectives, you know. Inevitably one finds out much more than one wishes.”
“So Kukushkin is La Peau de l’Ours?”
“We were never able to determine that. There may be someone above him. However …” His voice trailed off.
“However?” Max prompted.
“I want you to sever all contact with these people and come to my office first thing in the morning. There’s more to say, but not on the phone. We’ve been reckless enough already. Can I expect you at ten?”
“If you say so, Eddie. Sure.”
“Good. I’ll see you then, Max. And stay safe.” He hung up before Max could reply.
Lowering his phone, Max stared at it for some seconds, as if it might somehow provide the information he required. Then he snapped it shut and began walking, as briskly as his current state would permit, toward the quai de la Tournelle.
Barely had he reached la Place Beauvau, however, a few blocks east of the auction house, when he stopped, thunderstruck, to stare up at the sky. The moonlit fog burned a pearlescent white that bathed the city in an uncanny, seemingly sourceless brilliance that illuminated everything, leaving no shadows. The effect resembled neither day nor night. It seemed to refer to something he’d once known quite well but had long since forgotten. He wanted it back.
Flipping his phone open, he called Jacques at home. To his relief, he answered on the second ring.
“Sorry to hijack you like this,” Max said, “but I need you to bring the cameras and sound equipment down to the Nachtvlinder as soon as possible. No, wait, not down to the boat. Stay at street level, I’ll meet you there. Take the Citroën.”
“You can’t be serious. At this hour?”
“Is that a problem?”
Jacques muffled the mouthpiece with his palm, and though Max couldn’t make out the words, he knew his assistant was having a whispered but increasingly rancorous exchange with his companion of the moment. While Jacques preferred living alone, he had a rotating cast of women, about whom Max found it expedient not to inquire, precisely so that he could make sudden requests like tonight’s. This unspoken arrangement, he suspected, also suited Jacques’s social needs at least as often as not.
Some seconds later, he was back on the line. “This is going to cost me, you know.”
In the background, the girl unleashed a steady stream of invective at Jacques and men in general, who, Max had to admit, from time to time probably deserved it. A glass shattered against the wall. Then what sounded like a bottle.
“But?” Max ventured.
“But,” his assistant allowed, “it is becoming a bit claustrophobic in here, now that you mention it. I think maybe some time outdoors might do me good.”
“As soon as you can, then.” Max didn’t want to lose the light.
“On my way, boss.”
Snapping shut the phone, Max quickened his pace.
Not the light, not the moment, not anything.
CHAPTER 34
DINNER WITH RACHEL and Groot, which for Odile consisted of nothing more than a glass of iced lime water and a few token artichoke leaves, had an unexpectedly bracing effect on her. The three of them sat topside, under moon-blanched skies, and while her hosts contentedly ate the calf’s liver they’d seared in thick slices on the hibachi, Odile outlined her plan.
She had, she explained, met three people who desperately needed to get out of Paris before dawn. Though they’d done nothing illegal, they were being avidly sought by both the local authorities and various members of a Russian crime syndicate. All the main transportation hubs out of the city were being watched. In any other circumstance, she noted, she would’ve left them to their fate, but because she’d been convinced their case was special, with possible consequences far beyond what could now be known, she felt obliged to help them if she could.
“Ja, ja,” Groot said. “Go on.”
So she reminded Rachel of the picture of the doctor that the CRS had shown her and, without going into detail, explained that the other two people were just minders, escorting this scientist out of the country because the French police wrongly suspected him of being a bioterrorist. The Russians were another story. But the point was that this researcher had made a rare medical breakthrough that might very well save tens of thousands of lives, maybe hundreds of thousands, even more. All he needed now was to get to England and safety.
Groot smiled. “This isn’t like you, Odile. You’ve become a humanist, practically Dutch, one might say. Though without the hypocrisy, I hope.”
“I have my own reasons for asking you this favor. Will you do it?”
“You want us to take these people to England?”
“Yes. I’m sure they’ll pay.” She laughed. “Actually, I don’t know that at all. But Max told me you might be planning a maiden voyage, so I thought …”
Rachel frowned and turned to Groot. “Are we? A maiden voyage?”
“I was considering it. Though only if it would please you.”
“But what about Max’s film?”
“This would be part of it,” Odile said. “He was going to tell you, but I guess he hasn’t gotten around to it yet.” Fascinated, she saw she was veering giddily into improvisation and reckless untruth. She had no idea what she might say next.
“So they’re fugitives,” Groot said. “How did you leave it with them?”
“They’ll be here at midnight.”
Rachel and Groot looked at each other, consulting silently. It occurred to Odile that they would very likely be getting married after all.
Groot pushed himself away from the table and stretched. “Ja, okay. I think we can do this. If Rachel agrees, of course.” Stifling a yawn, he stood, laid his napkin beside his plate, and went below, leaving the women to talk.
“I know I’m asking a lot,” said Odile, “but I have to live with myself.”
“It’s all right. These Russians, though, they’re the ones who firebombed us?”
“Yes.”
“And the three people who want to go to England. There’s the doctor whose picture I saw. But the other two?”
“One is the guy I went to Moscow with to pick up the flags. The other’s his girlfriend. They’re all working together, more or less.”
“Sounds complicated.”
“Maybe, but not for us. As long as we get them out of here.”
“I see.” Rachel took off her glasses, polished the lenses on an edge of the tablecloth, and put them back on. Peering at her friend curiously, she said, “Anything else you want to tell me?”
In the distance, a lone siren bloomed.
“No,” Odile replied. She glanced reflexively at her watch, then attempted a smile. “Not really.”
• • •
MAX HAD BEEN WAITING no more than ten minutes when Jacques pulled up in the Citroën and got out. The two men stood wordlessly together, taking in the light.
“I’ve never seen anything like it. Will it photograph? Is it real?”
“A full moon refracted by fog,” said Max. “No shadows. I’ve never seen this either.”
“What are we shooting? Do we have a scene?”
“I don’t know.” Max threw his cigar into the street. “If not, we’ll make one up. But let’s get down there before anything changes.”
They unloaded the cameras and sound equipment, then headed down the stone steps to the quai.
“I think the best idea is for you to set up right there, by the retaining wall, so you can get the boat as a whole. I’ll take the other camera on board and see what’s happening. Rachel and Odile were topside until a little while ago—I saw them from across the river—but they must’ve gone below, probably to join Groot. I’ll roust them.”
“Yes, this is good.”
“But Jacques, I want you to use your judgment. If you think you’ve got enough from your angle, or if I can’t get them up into the light soon enough, or even if you just see something good that I’m missing, come on board. Quietly. You’ll know what to do.”
Nodding, Jacques surveyed the scene, mapping it out in his mind. “And that blue light on top there? What does that mean?”
“It means that God is a camera,” said Max, who’d forgotten he was still drunk.
On the quai, he watched Jacques set up his vidcam and tripod, then train it on the Nachtvlinder. After taking a look through the viewfinder himself, Max was satisfied. “Okay, ready?”
Jacques nodded. “Let’s do it.”
Going up the gangway, Max took care to make as little noise as possible. He thought it odd that those on board wouldn’t be topside in this light—once-in-a-lifetime light, the light of rapture and unforeseeable outcomes. Of course, he couldn’t expect others to see what he pictured, at least not until he put a frame around it. And even then, how many? But it didn’t matter. Doing it was the thing.
Once aboard, he could hear Rachel, Groot, and Odile conversing softly below, and he had to stop for a moment to ask himself what, exactly, he wanted from them. So much of what had just happened—the auction, his encounter with Kukushkin and Véronique, his phone call with Eddie—had yet to sort itself out in his mind that he was operating more impulsively than usual, operating, it had to be admitted, like someone half drunk. Yet he thought maybe impulse was just what he needed right now. Forces larger than himself, whose true nature remained unclear, had allowed him a glimpse of the world as it really was, and all his instincts told him to pursue it with every resource he could muster. I know more than I know, he thought. He waited a little longer for something to contradict him—reason, perhaps, or ordinary good sense—but nothing did. He shouldered his equipment and descended the companionway steps.
