Dance of the Angels

by Robert Morcet

  The Louis XV table from the national furniture collection was one of the most beautiful pieces in Paul Hervet’s office, which was decorated like that of a head of state. A real Louvre in miniature, boasting an authentic Aubusson tapestry that covered an entire wall, as well as Louis-Philippe furniture and knickknacks that cost a small fortune. The chief of police had slipped on his thin-framed glasses and was sorting out his paperwork. At nine thirty a.m. precisely, his personal secretary, Alphonse La Brette, entered. The very slim man with blond hair was there to go over the day’s schedule, just like he did every morning. Alphonse also carried a stack of mail, which he put down on the desk.

  “You are expected at the Élysée Palace at noon for lunch with the president and His Excellency the American ambassador,” announced La Brette in clipped tones.

  “The president is going to bore us to death again with his lesson on American literature,” said Hervet, who was in no mood for official receptions, and sighed.

  He quickly looked through his mail, some of which had been opened by staff responsible for sorting it. An envelope marked “Personal” grabbed his attention. He opened it right away.

  “At three o’clock, you are receiving the director of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry.”

  “Ah no, I asked for it to be—”

  Hervet stopped dead. He had just unfolded the “Personal” letter, and it had him frozen to his chair.

  The four lines, scrawled in an intentionally inept hand, made him feel like he’d just been punched in the stomach:

  Your pedophile tendencies and the porno business you manage will soon be a secret no longer. An amicable arrangement would be the only way for you to avoid the worst fate.

  Warmest regards.

  Hervet swiftly folded the letter and put it away in a drawer. It was a miracle that La Brette hadn’t noticed anything. The police chief’s face was white as chalk.

  “What arrangements should I make regarding the director of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry?”

  “You studied political science—sort it out yourself! And have my meeting at the Élysée Palace cancelled immediately!”

  “But that’s impossible. His Excellency the American ambassador will be there. Surely you realize it would be a breach of protocol. You cannot make such an affront to the president.”

  “The president annoys the fuck out of me,” snapped Hervet. “Tell him I’m confined to bed, that I’ve got hepatitis A, B, or C. Make up whatever you like, but leave me the fuck alone!”

  A stunned La Brette left the room more scandalized than if he had just witnessed his mother being sodomized by an entire division of the French Foreign Legion.

  Alone in his office, Hervet took out the letter again and carefully analyzed each word.

  That which he feared most in the world had caught up with him again: a blackmailer. The bank manager killed in the Sarcelles incident, God rest his soul, one of his best clients, had tried forcing him to cough up some dough in similar fashion. But where did this new one come from? Hervet desperately racked his brain. Who on earth knew about this except Tavernier and Le Goënec? What if this letter was from them? It might well be. At any rate, Nikita’s murder had their prints all over it.

  A whirl of questions assailed him. Ever since the death of the twins, Hervet had felt completely lost. If everything crumbled because of those two asshole cops, he would hunt them down and dance on their graves.

  The image of his father, a former secretary of foreign affairs, passed before his eyes. A public scandal of this caliber would kill him. Hervet felt control slipping from his grasp. This new blackmail was closing around him like a horrendous trap. If he didn’t find a miracle solution today, it would all be over for him.

  CHAPTER XVI

  Le Goënec pushed open the rusty gate, mounted his Honda, and rode onto the freeway toward Paris. For two days now, he had been holed up with Tavernier in a tiny shack, one of the Baron’s safe houses out in the eastern suburb of Montreuil. It was a secure place, and nobody else knew the address, not even Florence, who had gone to stay with a girlfriend until things quieted down. Every day, at five p.m. on the dot, Le Goënec called her from a phone booth for a few swiftly exchanged sweet nothings before returning to the front line. But the journalist had quite an imagination over the phone, and her husky voice had a pleasant tingling effect on Le Goënec when he heard her sensual growl on the other end of the line.

  “I want you,” the young woman said with a sigh. “When you return from your mission, I’m going to ravish you for an entire week.”

  “I wouldn’t miss that for anything in the world.”

  If he wanted to see his beloved again, then it was vital he stay alive. As he stepped out of the booth, Le Goënec did his best to hide his budding erection from the lady waiting to use the phone.

  Le Goënec rode along the riverside expressway to the Place du Châtelet and headed toward Rue Saint-Denis. Aristotle’s phone call had brought him some solace. Barely twenty-four hours after their meeting, Aristotle had found the name of the manager of a sex shop, the exclusive distributor of Little Perverts. For extremely discerning connoisseurs.

  It’s a thriving business, Le Goënec thought to himself as he looked inside the Sex-Center. The shelves were stuffed with all kinds of gadgets, magazines, and videos. Large arrows pointed upstairs to the peep-show booths and the “massage” room. Businessmen with neutral expressions thumbed discreetly through hard-core magazines. Le Goënec imitated these aficionados of age-restricted shenanigans so as not to be noticed. First he looked at a German publication with some surprisingly inventive lesbianism, then at a rather odd magazine in which a busty blonde offered her charms to a pair of randy dwarves.

  The man sitting at the checkout fitted Aristotle’s description exactly. No doubt about it, it was Omar Bensoussan, Paris’s uncontested pedophilia specialist.

  After taking his look around the shop, Le Goënec walked up to the checkout and, in a confidential tone, said, “Maybe you can help me? I’m looking for a rather special tape.”

  “You’ve got plenty of choice here. What are you after? S and M? Anal? Fisting?”

  “Children.”

  Bensoussan didn’t balk, scrutinizing his client with fresh interest before saying, “You realize that’s illegal in France. But I know there’s a Danish import.”

  Their eyes met. The sex specialist was clearly on his guard.

  “I’ve heard of a film called Little Perverts. A friend told me it was an amateur tape.”

  “Who sent you?”

  “Someone in showbiz. A famous singer from the ’60s.”

  The allusion to Antonio finally reassured Bensoussan.

  “OK, but I’ve run out of copies. It’ll take a few days.”

  “I can wait.”

  “Come back next week. But be careful. You need to be extremely discreet if you don’t want any trouble.”

  “Do you know if they’re planning any other shoots? I’d like to take part in one of these films.”

  A flicker of mistrust appeared on Bensoussan’s face. Alarm bells immediately rang in his head, but he tried not to let anything show when he said, “Listen, I don’t know what you’re looking for, exactly. I’m a distributor. They deliver me the products, and that’s it.”

  “I’ll come back,” said Le Goënec.

  Lawyer Georges Murat arrived at the front gate of Santé Prison around eleven a.m. His specialty was organized crime, and he was used to defending murderers of all kinds. For certain cases, he acted as what is commonly called a shyster. He was due in court that afternoon to plead one of these very cases. This business needed to be wrapped up as quickly as possible. When Paul Hervet had called him, the crafty lawyer didn’t think twice about doubling his rates. A special service like this came at a special price. He thought with satisfaction about the two hundred thousand francs he was goin
g to stuff in his pockets. Hervet had promised to double the stake once the operation was over. The lawyer could finally buy himself that little farmhouse in Normandy looking out over cowpat-studded fields. His love of dough and green pastures often made him blind, so much so that he had now accepted an offer that could fuck up his career or even cost him his life. Murat followed the guard through the maze of passageways lined with surveillance cameras. The repetitive sounds of gates and armored doors being unlocked and then locked again accompanied them all the way to the visiting room.

  “I’ll go get your client, sir.”

  The lawyer sat alone between the filthy walls of the tiny room. The only notable features were a window covered by bars, an old table bearing revolutionary slogans engraved with a shiv, and two rickety chairs. He almost felt at home.

  Steps echoed in the passageway. The heavy door opened and there was Alain Malric, somewhat thinner than when Murat had last visited, at least three months ago. There was a crazy gleam in the convict’s eye.

  The guard closed the door of the visiting room, leaving them alone inside.

  Malric stared at his lawyer for a few moments. He was no choirboy. Before being captured, Malric had been wanted in France and internationally for a series of holdups, abductions, and murders. Murat managed to disguise his very real unease. He had never liked finding himself one-on-one with “the Beast,” as the journalists of Détective magazine had dubbed Malric. But this time, the stakes were different.

  “What’s up, Murat? How much longer you gonna let me rot in this shit hole?” said Malric. “What about the retrial? Didn’t you mention a procedural error last time?”

  “I can offer you better than that: freedom,” Murat said, leaning over the table that separated them. “But on one particular condition.”

  Malric frowned, his thick eyebrows knitting together as he said, “What are you talking about exactly? If you’ve come to jerk me around—”

  “Cool it, Malric. I’m offering you a chance to break out of here, with zero risk.”

  “Stop your bullshit right there, or I’ll punch your face in! What exactly do you want with me?”

  “My offer is entirely serious. But nobody’s forcing you to accept it.”

  Malric looked hard at the lawyer, who appeared quite relaxed. This was definitely the first time someone had proposed anything this crazy to him. Murat was clearly not a man of high morals. He had been mixed up in some corruption business that resulted in the downfall of a Belgian steel magnate. But it was a big step from that to arranging the escape of a convict.

  “I like to understand exactly how people are trying to fuck me over, Murat.”

  “Every minute counts, and this business is of the utmost importance,” said Murat. “You’ll know more once you’re free. Right now, you and I just have to trust each other.”

  “Go get fucked,” Malric said, laughing hysterically. “It would take a lot of dough for me to put my life in your filthy paws.”

  “If only you knew how right you are. This is a paid escape, arranged by someone in a very high place.”

  “Well, you’d better tell me, then. I don’t soil my hands for just any old guy.”

  “Calm down, Malric. I’m offering you freedom, a lovely wad of cash, and a passport to leave France when you have completed your mission. But I need an answer right now.”

  Malric thought about it. For Murat to take this many risks, it really had to be a hot ticket. He wasn’t the kind of guy to risk his career for a dodgy racket.

  “If you try and screw me over, I can guarantee you I’ll fuck you up good and proper. You’ll even have to dig your own grave.”

  Murat didn’t doubt this for a second.

  Malric tried to stay calm in his isolation cell, which was designated “for particularly dangerous inmates.” In a few moments, he would trigger the first stage of his escape. Back in the visiting room, Murat had handed him two white lozenges. They would cause serious diarrhea and a fever.

  “Swallow one now, here, in front of me,” Malric had demanded of his lawyer. “I don’t want to be the victim of an ‘accident.’”

  “You’re joking!”

  “Well, find someone else, then.”

  The lawyer had given in, for he was now past the point of no return. The thought of receiving his second payment of two hundred thousand francs gave him the courage to accept temporary intestinal discomfort. When the guard returned to get him, Murat had to dash to the restroom for an evacuation of his bowels, the likes of which he had never known.

  The Beast nervously consulted his watch again: one a.m. The time was right. He reluctantly swallowed his pill and lay down on his bed.

  “It’ll happen during the third patrol,” he’d been told by Jacques Lemaître, one of the guards involved in the plan. “I’ll be on duty to make sure all goes as planned.”

  Now, the steps of the rookie guard making his rounds echoed in the corridor leading to the isolation cells. The guard checked each cell, and the clinking of the peepholes came closer to door number 13. Malric, his heart pounding and his guts burning with whatever those pills were, held himself ready. If this all went wrong, the punishment would be severe.

  “Oh, shit! Fuck! It hurts! My stomach’s killing me,” he moaned, not having to pretend.

  The dumbfounded young guard looked at Malric lying curled up, clutching his stomach, face slick with sweat, twisting, turning, and moaning. It looked serious. Regulations prohibited the guard from unlocking a cell on his own. A higher-ranking guard always had to be present. But each minute counted, and Malric was wailing more and more, his eyes pleading. An awful gurgling sound came from the prisoner’s stomach.

  “Chief, chief, come quick. The inmate in 13 looks like he’s dying!”

  Senior guard Lemaître ran down the passageway, cursing for show. Fifty-two years old, the former riot policeman had been fired for clubbing a female nurse at a demonstration. He had then joined the penitentiary staff, with a resultant drop in salary. The jackpot the lawyer had offered him came at just the right moment; he’d be debt-free in no time.

  “Open the door, Franck; we’ll see what’s going on.”

  Malric continued to groan. He thought he might die for real.

  “What’s wrong with you, Malric?”

  The young guard came closer, fascinated by the symptoms, saying, “The doctor should be here any minute.”

  Malric knew that in just a few moments he would be on the other side of the wall. That one thought kept him alert. The time for the second phase of the plan had arrived. With astonishing speed, the con whipped out a makeshift tin-plate dagger—a deadly weapon in his hands. The blade punctured the young guard’s belly several times, like a knife through butter.

  “You’re crazy, Malric,” shouted a horrified Lemaître. “You were only meant to knock him out!”

  “I don’t like to take any risks. Come on, let’s go!”

  Lemaître backed out of the cell and led the way down the corridor. Just one false step and Malric would slit his throat. Maybe he figured on doing that, anyway. Risking his life for fifty thousand francs was starting to look like a bad move. Lemaître cursed himself for having agreed to this. If the lawyer didn’t do as he’d promised, the escape would end with him dying in a pool of his own blood.

  “We’re going to the exercise yard,” whispered Lemaître, gathering the little courage he had left. “I’ve stashed a rope with a grappling iron. A black BMW’s waiting for you on the other side of the wall.”

  “How about the guard in the watchtower?”

  “I put so much Valium in his thermos he’ll sleep till morning.”

  “What’s your alibi?”

  “You’ll hit me on the back of the neck, but not too hard.”

  Malric nodded, and the two partners in crime walked into the exercise yard. Outside, a light fog enveloped the
sinister buildings dating from Napoleon’s time. Pure madness, thought Lemaître, advancing cautiously. It’s suicidal craziness helping this lunatic to escape. Behind him, Malric fought a wave of nausea, but his desire to make it over the wall was so strong it gave him wings. Nothing could stop him now.

  The screw had done his job well. Up in the turret, the sentry supposed to be watching the wall of the exercise yard was snoring soundly.

  “Hurry up, Malric. I put the grappling iron behind the bush.”

  Without a word, the gangster grabbed Lemaître, wrapped his right arm around his neck, and twisted, killing him immediately with a dull crack of the vertebrae. The body of the senior guard fell facedown in the dust. This was the Malric method: no witnesses, no problems.

  He scurried over to the bush with surprising ease and picked up the grappling iron. It took four attempts before he managed to snag the hook on the worn stone. Malric pulled himself all the way up the rope. His four daily hours of exercise were really paying off now. From the top of the wall, he spotted the BMW, its purring engine sweet music to his ears. If a patrol car drove past by chance, it would be straight back to solitary and his old sentence plus another thirty years on top of that for double murder and an attempted escape. There wasn’t a second to lose.

  Malric made a swift descent and hurried toward the car. He got behind the wheel and the roaring engine broke the night’s quiet as he floored the accelerator and shot up Boulevard Arago, running every red light. Suddenly he felt the cold tip of a gun barrel press into the back of his neck.

  “Evening, Mr. Malric. Everything go OK?”

  Malric scrutinized the rearview mirror, trying to get a proper look at the shadowy figure with the gun. Useless to try anything. It really would be a shame to die just having broken out. But was he truly free?

  “Who are you?”

  “No questions and no sudden moves, or you’re dead.”

  The criminal remained silent and eased the BMW into a more cautious speed, glancing in the rearview whenever he could. The man in the backseat was balding, with an imposing build that commanded respect. Malric could tell from his tone of voice that the guy was no sucker.