Paris Ransom

by Charles Rosenberg

  “How much do you weigh?”

  “About one-twenty.”

  “I’d have to, in effect, press your weight from a squat.”

  “Not fully. I can climb onto your shoulders from a tall stack of books. So I could get on without your being at a full squat.”

  “I’m willing to give it a try.”

  We piled a few more books onto the stack and Jenna climbed from the top of the stack onto my shoulders, which I had bent forward. I managed, just, after she got on, to straighten up.

  “Where is the shoelace?” she asked.

  “It’s still wound around the shaft up there.”

  “I’ve got it. Now let’s see if this will work.”

  She sawed away at it for at least two minutes. My legs were beginning to ache and to vibrate a bit. I decided to make light of it to take my mind off of them. “Jenna, do you think your law school would approve of your doing this with a student?”

  “Shut up, Robert.”

  Just then she said, “Got it. The bolt’s retracted.”

  “Be careful, Jenna. When you push the trapdoor up, it may automatically release the ladder and knock both of us to the floor when it comes down. I’ll have to move quickly to get out of the way. That might bring you crashing down.”

  “I think right after I flip the trapdoor up, I can grab on to the edge and hoist myself up. You’ll be able to see the ladder coming at you and jump aside just as I hoist myself up.”

  “Can you chin yourself? Because that’s what you’ll be doing.”

  “I don’t know. But I’m gonna try.”

  “Say when.”

  “Okay. I’m going to try to flip the trapdoor up on the count of three. One . . . two . . . three.”

  I heard more than saw the door flip up and the ladder unfold and hurtle down at me. I jumped aside, and it missed me, just. I looked up and saw Jenna hanging onto the ledge, obviously unable to chin herself up to the floor above, and too far from the ladder to scramble onto it. I started for the ladder, hoping she’d be able to hang on long enough for me to climb up, reach out, grab her under the arms and hoist her to the floor.

  Which is when she fell. I caught her as best I could and we both crumpled to a heap on the floor.

  “Are you okay, Robert?”

  “Yeah, sort of. I don’t think anything is broken. Are you?”

  “Yeah. Let’s get out of here.”

  We got up and started up the ladder one at a time, Jenna first. When she had cleared the top, I put my foot on the bottom rung and heard running behind me. What? How could we have been down there so long and not have known someone else was down there, too? I spun around, intending to try to take out or at a minimum delay whoever was running toward me. At least Jenna would get away.

  It was Olga, still in a slinky dress, but tattered and dirty. “I come,” she said. My reaction to seeing her was somewhere between pole-axed that she was there and happy to have another friendly body if we needed to fight our way out. Or would she be an enemy?

  Jenna looked back down through the hole. “Where are you? Oh, shit.”

  I stepped aside and motioned Olga up the ladder. That way, if she was an enemy, she was in front of me, and somehow I felt safer. When the three of us were at the top, she said something to Jenna in Russian, and Jenna responded.

  “What did she say?”

  “That ‘that guy’ threw her in the basement.”

  “Ask her what she was doing here.”

  “Later. We need to get out of here.”

  Our cell phones were sitting on a table next to the trapdoor. So was a purse. We grabbed the phones and headed for the front. Olga grabbed the purse and stayed close to us. Jenna stopped abruptly, went back and scooped up the discarded hat. “Souvenir,” she said.

  Once outside, we looked around to see if anyone was watching us. We didn’t see anybody and started walking away from the store, fast. Or as fast as I could go with my laceless shoe flopping on and off of my foot.

  “We need to get out of Dodge,” I said.

  “Not to mention Digne,” Jenna said.

  We rejected going to the train station or a car rental place because that’s where they’d likely be looking for us.

  “What about calling the police?” Jenna asked.

  I thought about it for a second. “Who knows whose side they’re on down here?”

  “I know,” she said. “Our friend the cab driver.”

  Before she’d finished speaking, I had picked up my cell, dug his card out of my pocket and punched in the number. He picked up almost immediately.

  “Hi,” I said, “this is the guy who left you the five hundred euro tip. We need to get back to Paris right away. Can you take us? There’s another five hundred euros in it for you, plus we’ll pay for the gas.”

  “No problemo,” he said. “Shall I pick you up in an hour at your hotel?”

  “No, we need to go right now.” I looked around at the street signs and gave him a pickup point about two blocks from where we were at that moment.

  “Okay, I’ll see you there in five.”

  “I hope that we can really trust him,” Jenna said.

  “I don’t think we have much choice.”

  CHAPTER 30

  We walked to the pickup point, found a doorway nearby and huddled in it, trying to look inconspicuous.

  Olga said something to Jenna again in Russian.

  “What’d she say?”

  “She wants to come with us.”

  “Tell her okay, but also ask her what she’s doing here.”

  I listened to the Russian flow back and forth for a few seconds.

  “She says she is too upset to talk right now.”

  “Okay. We’ll try again later.”

  The cabbie arrived as promised, and we piled into the back, with Olga between us. I’d never been so relieved to get into a car.

  “No luggage?” he asked.

  “No.”

  “What’s that all about?”

  “Do you recall that you told us that how you got to Digne was a long story?” I said.

  “Yes.”

  “This is, too. Just get going, please.”

  “Who’s the chick?”

  “Also a long story. We really need to go.”

  When we were about five minutes outside of town, Jenna began talking rapidly to Olga. Olga handed over her purse, and I watched Jenna go through it. “No cell phone so we’re okay there,” she said. “Her father won’t be tracking us.”

  “What about elsewhere on her?”

  “That dress doesn’t have any pockets, so I think we’re safe.”

  “You know, you better text Tess and tell her not to come find us in the hat store.”

  “Right. Shall I tell her everything that’s happened?”

  “Yes, and after that, I think we should call the general and tell him what’s gone down. We’re clearly out of our depth.”

  “You’re right, but—” She pointed at the cab driver.

  “Hey guys,” he said, “I saw her gesture in the mirror. Really, I don’t know what you’re up to, but I’m good. I don’t tell anyone what my fares say when they’re in my back seat. Cab driver privilege, you know? But if you want me to pull over somewhere so you can get out and talk in private—or want me to get out—that’s cool.”

  What went through my mind was that Tess had turned out to be a spook, the hat guy had turned out to be a killer, and the general had turned out to be allied with some elite police force instead of being in retirement from the army. Who knew who the cab driver would really turn out to be? But I decided that we might as well go for it. If we stopped, we wouldn’t be putting distance between ourselves and Digne. And if we didn’t call, we’d give the hat guy more time to get away or cover things up.

&nb
sp; Jenna called Tess while I called the general.

  We told them everything. Or at least, as it turned out later, I did.

  At the next substantial town, which took us about an hour to reach, we were joined by two unmarked police cars, which began to trail us at a discreet distance. I didn’t know if Tess had arranged it or if the general had. Either way, it was comforting.

  After we had been underway with our escort for a little while, Jenna had fallen asleep and I was just about to doze off when the cab driver said, “That’s a very interesting story you guys are involved in.”

  “I thought you didn’t listen,” I said.

  “I didn’t say I didn’t listen. I said I kept what I heard to myself. Anyway, there are a few small parts of the story you’re missing that might be of interest to you.”

  “Which are?”

  “Well, for one thing, that guy you met on the train? The priest?”

  “Yes?”

  “He’s the father of the hat store owner.”

  “I thought the guy we met on the train was a priest.”

  “He is. He had a kid before he became a priest, and the hat store guy is that kid. They’re really tight.”

  “So when the hat store guy said his father acquired the books, he must have acquired them—stolen them—directly from the church.”

  “That’s the rumor, although it was a long time ago, and they claim they bought the collection.”

  “What else is there to know?” Jenna asked.

  “I thought you were asleep, Jenna.”

  “I sleep with one ear open.”

  “Well,” the cab driver said, “first of all, it’s not a secret in town that those guys have all those books in their basement. Once in a while they even donate one to some good cause, like a church auction.”

  “That’s kind of them,” Jenna said.

  “Yeah, well, the story they tell is that they have a ‘special room’ where the really valuable books are kept. The ones with inscriptions by famous people. They’ve never donated any of those.”

  He stopped talking after that. We eventually stopped for a meal at a small roadside café. Our protectors stopped with us but sat at two separate tables, one on each side of us. I noticed Jenna go and buy three more throw-away cell phones.

  When she came back, I said, “Jenna, do you think those guys are our protectors, or are we their prisoners?”

  “Prisoners probably. As you know, I’m a wanted felon.”

  “Wow. What’s that about?” our cab driver friend asked.

  We told him. Then we moved on to something I really wanted to know. “What else can you tell us about the hat seller-book dealer?” I asked.

  “There has long been a rumor about a scam they run,” he said.

  “Which is?”

  “They apparently have some book that has an inscription in it from a famous person. But it’s only valuable if the inscription is real. They think it’s not real. So they offer it for sale and actually tell people they think it’s a forgery. But people buy it anyway.”

  “Why?”

  “Because our guys drop hints that it just might be real.”

  “Let me guess,” I said. “The sucker persuades himself that it is real.”

  “Yeah, and these guys offer the sucker a great deal. They sell it to him for more than it’s actually worth if there were no inscription but less than it would be worth if the inscription were real. A big bargain.”

  “Then what happens?”

  “The sucker takes it to antique book dealers in Paris and gets laughed at.”

  “And then tries to return it?”

  “Yeah. And our guys tell him, ‘Hey, we told you it was a fake. Why should we buy it back?”

  I could see it coming. “And then they split the difference with the guy and give him only half his money back?”

  “Right, and then they sell it again to the next sucker.”

  “Wait,” Jenna said. “This doesn’t sound like something a cab driver finds out about. Where did you hear this?”

  “From the wife, who works for the police chief.”

  “Do you always call her ‘the wife’?” Jenna asked.

  “Sure, is there a problem with that?”

  “Does she call you ‘the husband’?”

  “No. She doesn’t speak English.”

  “Leave it, Jenna,” I said. “We’ve got a long drive still back to Paris. I’m going to try to sleep some.”

  It took us another seven hours to get there. Our cab driver seemed not to want to exceed the speed limit with the cops trailing us.

  About two hours outside of Paris, Jenna’s cell buzzed. She looked down at a text message.

  “Shit. It’s from the kidnappers.”

  “What does it say?”

  “It says, ‘We know you have book now. Confirm and we arrange pickup. DO NOT TELL POLICE.’”

  Jenna bent over her cell and tapped out a reply.

  “What did you say?”

  “I said, ‘we don’t have book. you have Oscar. we have Olga. will trade you.’”

  “You think Olga’s father, Igor, is on the other end of all this?”

  “Yes.”

  Her cell buzzed again.

  “What’s it say this time?”

  “It says, ‘who is Olga?’ But I think that’s bullshit. They know damn well who she is. And I think she knows where the book is. And maybe where Oscar is, too. I’m not gonna bother to respond.”

  “Speaking of who is Olga, you should try again to find out more from her,” I said. “Start with who she is and what she’s doing here. She should be recovered by now from the shock of being locked in that basement.”

  Jenna gave it a try, and I listened for a while as they conversed in Russian. Eventually, I dozed off. Later, Jenna poked me in the shoulder, and I woke up with a start.

  “Wake up! I learned some things.”

  “What things?”

  “She says her father brought her here to follow Oscar. That he knew Oscar had bought the book, but her father wanted to buy it from Oscar. But he wouldn’t sell for a price her father wanted to pay.”

  “I’m suspicious. Why is she telling you anything?”

  “She’s scared and thinks she’s in over her head. She just wants to forget the whole thing and go to college.”

  “I don’t know if I’m buying it, but what else did she say?”

  “That she followed Oscar to Digne during the week after Christmas and watched him go in carrying a big box. She says he came out without the box. She figured that he had left the signed copy of Les Misérables at the hat store, and she went back after the store closed yesterday to try to find it. She got caught and put in the basement.”

  “Did she say who told her to look for it there?” I asked.

  “She said it was her own idea, that her father didn’t know about her plans. That she wanted to impress him by showing him she wasn’t just a young nobody.”

  “Typical of young adults these days, I guess. Did you learn anything else, Jenna?”

  “No, and when I began to press her for more details, especially about her father, she clammed up.”

  “Do you believe her? About what she said?”

  “Not really, Robert. I feel like she’s leaving something out.”

  “Maybe she was looking for the authenticator that Oscar said he found.”

  “That would make sense in a way, but I wasn’t going to ask her about it directly since she might not yet know about it.”

  The rest of the way to Paris, we all mostly dozed. Once in Paris, we stopped at Jenna’s hotel, and one of the plainclothes officers who had been trailing us accompanied her inside to collect her belongings. As we left, I saw the owner standing in the doorway glaring at us. Then we went to Tess’s.<
br />
  We paid the cab driver and bid him goodbye. “Hey,” he said, “thanks so much. I’m going to bring the wife and kid up here for a few days of a little unexpected vacation. They’ve never been to Paris. So if you need anything, give me a holler.” He waved and drove off.

  When we walked into the building, the concierge seemed to have acquired a new friend in the form of a uniformed cop, who was standing post by the elevator. In the apartment, Tess greeted each of us with a hug and a kiss on both cheeks—including Olga—gave us some hot chocolate and put us to bed. I tried to tell her the story the cab driver had told us, but she said, “Demain. Tomorrow. You both need to sleep well. Jenna has a big day. She will see the magistrate at ten in the morning. At nine, she will meet with my lawyer, Maître Bertrand. He is very, very good. And he speaks excellent English. Better than mine.” She turned and smiled at me.

  Olga went to bed first, on the pull-out couch in my study. After her door was closed, Jenna said, “Tess, do you have some twine and a scissors?”

  “Yes. I will obtain them.” She went into the kitchen, and I heard a drawer open. She came back a minute later and handed Jenna a ball of white twine and a small scissors. “What will you do with them?”

  “I don’t want Olga to escape during the night.”

  “Are you going to tie her up? She is not a prisoner,” Tess said.

  “No. But if she gets up and goes somewhere tonight, I’m going to follow her.”

  Jenna took the ball of twine, wrapped several loops around the doorknob on my study door, then unwound the string as she walked into the guest room, where she was sleeping. She cut the string and tied the loose end to a small alarm clock that was sitting on a night table.

  “If she opens the door, this will wake me up, and I’ll see what she’s up to.”

  “Who teaches you this?” Tess asked.

  “My Uncle Freddie. He called it a ‘poor man’s door alarm.’”

  After that, we all went to bed.

  The next morning, Tess, Jenna and I were all seated at the breakfast table sipping coffee and munching on pastries, which Tess had gone out to fetch. Olga was apparently still asleep.

  “Well, Jenna, did Olga get up during the night?” I asked.

  “Yes.”