Paris Ransom

by Charles Rosenberg

  “Thank you,” I said, and sipped at the juice. I noticed Jenna staring at me, no doubt remembering the time I threw up on the cops when they were threatening me with the death penalty. Finally, I recovered my aplomb and managed to ask, “Madame, did you find out anything else?”

  “Yes. Following this I took a little of the tissue—skin and of blood—and studied them beneath a microscope. They have some cells.” She looked first at me and then at Jenna. “Even the movies with the grand budgets do not have these prosthetics with cells. There is no reason to do this.” I guess someone had told her we were from Los Angeles and thus experts on special effects or something.

  “Are you going to do more?” Bonpere asked.

  “Yes, we have sent the finger to a special lab, and they will say if I am right. And they will also say, if they can, when this happened. And here at our lab we will now match this finger to an international fingerprint database.” She paused. “Now I must ask a question.” She looked back and forth between me and Jenna. “Did either of you touch the box?”

  “Yes, we both did,” I said.

  “I did, too,” Bonpere said. “And so did the gentleman from the hotel, Bruno Bourdal. But I wore gloves, and Monsieur Bourdal informed me that he did, too.”

  “I will need to fingerprint Monsieur Tarza and Madame James so we can rule them out when we dust the box for prints. We already have your prints, Capitaine, and I have already taken prints from Monsieur Bourdal.” She smiled. “Just in case either you or the monsieur somehow touched the box without gloves on.”

  She opened her briefcase and rummaged in it. I expected her to take out an ink pad. Instead, she removed a small metal box with a glass top. She wiped each of our hands with what smelled like hand lotion, asked me to put my hand on the glass plate and clicked a button that made the box light up for a few seconds. She proceeded to take a whole-hand print, left and right, from each of us.

  “Why did you put lotion on our hands?” I asked.

  “This machine works better if your skin is not dried out.”

  “Oh.”

  Finished with printing us, Claudette headed for the door.

  “Thank you, Claudette,” Bonpere said, and we saw no more of Claudette.

  I assumed we were done and started to push my chair back, when the door opened again and in walked General Follet.

  What the hell is he doing here? I wondered. Jenna must have had the same thought, because I heard her suck in her breath.

  “Good evening, Capitaine,” the general said. “And good evening to you, Madame James and Monsieur Tarza. It is a pleasure to see you again.”

  I stood up and offered him my hand. “Good evening, General, it’s nice to see you again, too. But I thought you had retired.”

  “Yes, I am retired from the army, but I still do special assignments for the Brigade Criminelle de Paris.”

  “You were a general, but now you work with the police?”

  “Ah, Monsieur, in this country, the police are part of the military, just with special duties. That is why people like Captain Bonpere have military ranks. Why she is no longer called by the old title of Inspecteur. And the group I work with is not just the police, it is an elite unit of the police.”

  “Still, this is very unusual, a retired general working with the police.” My mind was at work trying putting it all together. Finally, I said, “So, General, if it is not secret, what kind of special assignments do you do?”

  “I cannot reveal all of that to you, but many involve terrorism and, in particular, its frequent funding source—money laundering.”

  “Does that mean you guys are still pursuing the crazy theory that Oscar was involved in money laundering?”

  “Yes. And it is not a crazy theory. I can explain it to you if you like.”

  Captain Bonpere, who had been sitting quietly through the entire exchange, spoke up. “I have already explained this to them, mon général.”

  “Yes,” I said. “You did, and we get it. But if this kidnapping is all about money laundering, how do you explain that the kidnappers just cut off Oscar’s finger and sent it to Jenna with a note demanding she give them the book?”

  General Follet looked momentarily perplexed. “I did not know this.”

  “Excuse me, Madame et Messieurs,” Bonpere said, “we do not yet know if it is truly Oscar’s finger that was cut. And if I must guess, it is not.”

  “You know,” Jenna said, “this is all very informative, but I need to go and check out of my hotel. I am already past the deadline, and they’re soon going to charge me for an extra day.”

  The general looked startled. “You are not going back to America, I hope?”

  “No, just moving to a cheaper place. I was originally going to go home to Los Angeles this evening, but now it’s clear I need to stick around.”

  “Good, good. I was worried that you might leave in the middle of our investigation. But you do not need to seek out a hotel. My late wife owned a lovely furnished apartment that I rent out. And as it happens, now that the Christmas season is over, it is empty for the next month. You could stay there without paying. And it will be easier to, uh, protect you there.”

  “Why do I need to be protected?”

  “The kidnappers think you have the book, obviously.”

  “Alright, thank you for the offer. I accept.”

  “Good. My driver can take us there in my car, and on the way we will stop at your hotel and I will make sure they do not charge you extra. We will also cancel your reservation at your new hotel, and we will be sure they do not charge you.”

  It was clear the meeting was over. We all stood up, and except for Jenna, participated in the usual post-meeting French goodbye pleasantries. But we dropped the expected à bientôt. No one says “see you soon” to the police, and especially not me. Jenna just said, “Later.” No one attempted to give anyone a kiss on the cheek.

  Not long after, we found ourselves ensconced in the back seat of the general’s black Citroën, complete with uniformed driver. Between the siren and the three-star flag waving on the bumper, the traffic seemed to melt away. When we arrived at the George V, we were met not only by Bruno and the hotel’s general manager, but by the hotel’s chief of protocol. Who knew hotels even had such things?

  The bill proved not to be a problem—there were no extra charges for the late checkout—and we were soon on our way to the general’s wife’s apartment, which was not far from the Panthéon, the domed, neo-classical monument on a hill in which France buries many of its cultural and political heroes and, on occasion, military ones as well. Victor Hugo is buried there.

  On arrival at the general’s wife’s building, I was pleased to see that there was no concierge. The apartment itself, which was on a high floor, was large and beautiful. It was furnished in a comfortable contemporary style—no lions’ feet on anything—with a gorgeous view over the rooftops of a major science campus of the Sorbonne. The apartment even had a small balcony with a table and chairs. The kitchen, too, was well done, spacious and modern, with every appliance you could ever want, including an espresso machine.

  After we had toured the place, and the general was preparing to leave, Jenna turned to him, and said, “Thank you so much for this place, General. It’s gorgeous. So much better than a hotel. I can’t thank you enough.”

  “You are most welcome,” he said. “And should you wish to reach me, there is a landline phone on the table in the kitchen. If you dial ‘72,’ it will reach me. We used to live here, and the phone still knows me. Also, I will give each of you a card. It has my cell number on it and a code word. If someone else answers, they will know, if you have the code, that you are an authorized caller.”

  “Thank you,” Jenna said. “Can I ask a favor of you?”

  “Of course. What is it?”

  “Will you take the espresso machine w
ith you? I’m a coffee addict and I’m trying hard to break the habit. That devil machine will be too much of a temptation.”

  “Of course. I will have someone take it away.”

  After the general’s driver had collected the machine, the usual polite French goodbyes were said, this time with full-bore cheek kissing. When I pressed my face close to the general’s, I said, “I will walk out with you.”

  Which I did, saying to Jenna that I’d be right back.

  Once we were in the building’s lobby, I said, “Why will Jenna be safer here? There’s no guard, not even a concierge, and although a mugger would need the keypad number to get in the front door, I don’t imagine it’s hard to get in without it.” And as I said it, I thought to myself how surprising it was for me to want a concierge.

  “You are right to be concerned, Robert. However, I have assigned a team of agents to keep watch over the building and Jenna while she is here. They will be discreet—you should not be able to detect them—but they will be here if needed. Trust me.”

  “I do, General. But let me ask one more thing.”

  “Yes?”

  “What are you doing to find Oscar?”

  “We are doing a lot. Why don’t you and Jenna meet me for breakfast tomorrow, and I will brief you? There is a café around the corner called Le Café Grand Pain. I will see you there at eight o’clock. You may bring Tess if you wish.”

  “Sounds good. But wouldn’t it be better to meet somewhere more private?”

  “No. In fact, if someone ends up observing us, my security people will be able to follow them and it will be a plus.”

  “What if instead of observing us, General, they kill us?”

  “This is not that kind of matter.”

  I sighed and said, “Okay, if you say so.”

  “Robert, now that you have asked me your one more thing—two things, actually—I have something else to ask of you.”

  “What?”

  “Please stop trying to find Oscar yourself. It is dangerous.”

  “Shouldn’t we at least respond to the message in the box? We can just text back.”

  “The message was addressed to Jenna, so under French law she can respond if she wishes. But we strongly advise you not to respond at all.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “We have dealt with many kidnappings, and although there are those in which you might wish to negotiate, this is one where we feel to negotiate is to assure the death of the victim.”

  “Why?”

  “Because everything about this seems amateurish. And amateurs get nervous and kill.”

  Something seemed wrong with that logic, and I said so. “General, not too long ago, you were telling us this looked like a staged kidnapping by professional money-launderers. Now you say it’s amateurish. Which is it?”

  “With the arrival of the ransom notes and the severed finger—whether it belongs to Oscar or not—we have changed our views.”

  “You think it’s a real kidnapping done by amateurs?”

  “No, we think it may be a staged kidnapping by amateurs that is now somehow spinning out of control, and one in which Oscar is no longer fully in on it and is suddenly at risk.”

  I decided to let the contradictions in that go for the moment and said, “And if Jenna doesn’t respond to the note, what will you do instead?”

  “We will find him and rescue him.”

  Or, I thought to myself, you will kill him in the effort.

  I went back into the apartment, made sure that Jenna was okay, and then headed home.

  CHAPTER 13

  The next morning, Jenna and I were at Le Café Grand Pain early. I had invited Tess to join us, but she had declined, saying she had other things to do. The café was typical—there was a rather cavernous and somewhat gloomy interior with a bar at which no one was sitting and tables at which there were no patrons. With the weather considerably warmed up, the place to be was out front.

  Lined up on the sidewalk on bentwood chairs facing outward, dozens of people sat at small marble-topped tables, sipping their morning espresso in white demitasse cups and munching on buttery croissants while brushing the inevitable crumbs off their laps. In my five years in Paris, I had yet to meet anyone who could emerge crumb-less from an encounter with a croissant.

  The appointed time, eight o’clock, came and went, with no sign of the general. After a while we decided not to wait for him. I ordered an espresso; Jenna ordered an herbal tea (causing the waiter to give her an odd look since the French don’t much like tea, and especially not in the morning).

  While we waited, we watched the parade of people walking by, which is, after all, the great joy of a Parisian café—university students on their way to class, rucksacks on their backs, dressed-to-the-nines; twenty- and thirtysomethings heading off to work; and mothers escorting their small children to school. The only difference between those kids and little kids back home was that the backpacks slung over their tiny French shoulders sported French corporate logos. But America is everywhere, so we also saw several branded with Minnie, Mickey and other assorted Disney mice, plus at least one Angry Birds lunch box.

  The general finally arrived, pulled up a chair and joined us at our table.

  “Bonjour, Jenna, bonjour, Robert,” he said. “Sorry to be late.” It was the most perfunctory apology I’d heard in a long time.

  “Well,” he continued, “I assume no one has bothered you since we last met.” He looked directly at Jenna.

  “I’ve been fine,” she said.

  “Me too,” I added. “I went back to Tess’s last night and all seemed as before.”

  A waiter came up, and the general ordered an almond croissant and a café Americano, the latter being an espresso with enough hot water added to it to fill up an American-style coffee cup. Americanos, though, bear little resemblance to a real American cup of coffee. I had long ago concluded that if you want a good, plain cup of American coffee in Paris, you should go directly to McDonald’s. There are more than fifty of them in Paris.

  Jenna and I were anxious, of course, to hear what the police had found out. Had we been in America, I would have cut right to the chase and asked. But the French have a different ethic about food. I had come to think of it as the “half-croissant rule.” You don’t bring up business until half the croissant is gone. Unfortunately, the general was a slow eater. Finally, half his croissant was gone, and it seemed to me okay to talk business.

  “General, Jenna and I are most eager to hear what’s happening with the search for Oscar. You said last night that you’d made a good deal of progress and would give us a report.”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “And so?”

  He looked around to see if anyone was close enough to overhear. Apparently satisfied with the security of our location, he said, very quietly, “The first thing we have discovered, working with our American colleagues at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, is that Oscar withdrew a hundred thousand US dollars in cash from his bank account in New York several days before he came to France.”

  “If he brought that to France,” I said, “wouldn’t he have had to declare on the customs form that he was carrying such as large amount of cash?”

  “Yes, and he did declare it.”

  Jenna spoke up. “Didn’t French customs interview him as to what he was going to do with it?”

  “Yes, Madame, they did.”

  “Well, what did he say?”

  “He said that he was intending to buy some antiques and that he tended to get a better price if he paid in cash.”

  “But it was in dollars.”

  “Yes, but some people here are happy to get dollars, particularly those in the business of money laundering. Dollars are still more widely used there than euros. Drug dealers in particular savor dollars.”

  “You�
��re not suggesting he was a drug dealer?”

  “It’s one possibility, among others, that we’ve been exploring.” He stopped talking, looked around, including behind him, and said, “Perhaps this would be a good time to return to the apartment to continue our discussion.”

  “What’s wrong with here?”

  “If you look at the café directly across the street, you will see a gentleman in a tweed jacket. He has been staring directly at our table since I got here. I’m going to have a man from my security detail check him out and follow him if he leaves, but I’d prefer to be elsewhere when that occurs.”

  It occurred to me that the guy might have been staring at our table because his table was directly opposite ours. But I let it go. We paid the bill and left. As we walked back to the apartment, I looked to see if I could detect the general’s security detail. Unless they were secreted among the backpack-toting grade-schoolers, they were invisible.

  Once in the apartment, we continued discussing the police investigation. Jenna was anxious to find out more about the finger.

  “General, have you been able to match the finger?”

  “No. The preliminary genetic test tells us it’s a finger from a man. And an anatomist has told us it is a right-hand ring finger. We also had a dermatologist inspect it, and she confirmed that the skin is consistent with the skin of a man in his fifties or sixties who hasn’t had a lot of sun exposure. So what we’ve got is that the finger came from a male of about Oscar’s age. And it’s a ring finger from the right hand. That’s it.”

  “Maybe,” Jenna said, “we could try again to find Pandy. She might have pictures of Oscar’s hands or be able to identify his finger from a photo.”

  “Oh, we already located her and interviewed her. I’m sorry. I should have told you. The NYPD is amazing when you want to find someone.”

  I felt my face getting red. “Shit!” I said. “Don’t you think you could have let us know as soon as you found her?” They’d let me go on desperately calling her. It was embarrassing.

  “There’s no need to use profanity, Robert.”