by Mark Pryor
But her coffee was hot, strong, and served faster and cheaper than anywhere else in Paris. And, if she recognized your face, most of the time it came free when you ordered something stronger. It was a place for bouquinistes who needed a moment of warmth or shelter and for the men, and occasionally women, who worked nearby, sweeping the streets and emptying the tourists' trash cans. Hugo had been here at least once a month for the past two years, for the coffee and the atmosphere.
He'd been introduced to the place, and to Maman, by Max a couple of months after they became friends. Hugo wasn't the most avid book collector, but twenty years in law enforcement, mostly with the FBI, had meant a discerning and distrustful eye when it came to buying goods from the side of the road. He'd first met Max on a quick trip over from England, chancing across his stall and buying a book about late eighteenth-century serial killers. He'd reconnected with Max when he moved to Paris and soon found him to be one of the few sellers who derived joy not from the money he made from a sale, but from the very act of pressing a collector's item into the hands of an appreciative customer. Most of the time Hugo stopped by his stall to chat and bought something on a whim, often not paying until the next time he stopped by.
Once, Max had presented him with a set of first-edition books by Eric Ambler, Hugo's favorite author. Hugo had not found out until much later that the old man had squirreled them away one by one, seeking them out among his colleagues for months before presenting them with a flourish one summer morning.
There had always been something about the old man, his disinterest in money, a habit of deflecting conversation about himself with a wave of his hands, and the occasional far-off look that started in his eyes and quickly shut him off from the world. They were friends, Hugo knew, good friends, but whatever lurked within Max always had to be offered by the old man himself, not extracted. And, now that Hugo knew about his past, he understood why.
“L'Américain.” Maman said it every time he came in; a year ago with mistrust, but nowadays just to let him know she knew.
“Maman.” Hugo nodded and asked for a shot of her whisky. He'd soak it up with a sandwich later if he had to, but the burn of Maman's overpriced rot-gut was good for right now. He perched at the bar and slammed the first one, nodding at Maman for a second. He wrapped a hand around it and smiled his thanks as she shuffled over and slid a cup of coffee in front of him. He sipped from the glass, then stood to make way for two men who'd just entered the bar, rubbing warmth into their hands.
He found a table at the back of the room, sat down, and began to run Max's abduction back through his mind, step by step, trying to reduce it to a training-ground exercise to take the sting out of a real man's kidnapping, maybe his murder. He knew there was little more he could have done to save his old friend, but that didn't stop him from trying to think of something, or from finding fault with himself for letting it happen. At the very least he should have abided by the seven-foot rule: the minimum distance between an agent and a hostile, enough distance to draw a weapon before a man with a knife became dangerous. A rule he'd forgotten, or at least forgotten to observe. Too long out of the game, he thought.
He was staring into his coffee, watching the steam rise slowly over the black liquid, when a newspaper slapped down on the table and he heard a voice behind him.
“You like look a miserable bastard. Buy me a drink and I'll cheer you up.”
Hugo turned in his seat and a smile spread over his face. “Tom! What the hell are you doing here?”
“Tourist.” Tom grinned back, then looked around the bar. “Nice place you got here.”
“Isn't it? How the hell did you find me here?”
“Let's just say you have a lioness for a secretary.”
“A toothless one, apparently.” He'd told Emma about this place a long time ago; he couldn't even remember why. But she knew he came here with Max, must have guessed he'd be here now.
Hugo resisted the urge to put his friend in a bear hug. Chez Maman was a place where men nodded and shook hands with each other, then sat down. Hugs were reserved for after midnight when the orange-haired lady's hooch could be blamed.
Hugo gestured to the chair opposite him and stole a second look at Tom as he sat. Time had softened Hugo's own figure, but regular weight workouts and the occasional run had ensured that a core strength and fitness remained. Tom, on the other hand, had ballooned. The wiry figure of old had been obliterated by Tom's natural distaste for physical activity and his penchant for good food. And alcohol. Hugo knew better than to say anything, but seeing his friend huff his way into the chair, hearing the air whistle through his nose, was decidedly disappointing. He could probably get away with a comment on the thinning hair, but somehow his friend's shabby look and his watery, blood-shot eyes saddened Hugo and served to silence him.
“That's better.” Tom settled in and looked around again. “I don't see any cocktail waitresses.”
“You won't,” Hugo smiled. “And don't try ordering from back here, either. What are you having?”
“Same as you. Load us up.”
Hugo went to the bar and brought back two beers and two double shots of whisky. A moment later Maman herself dropped a cup of coffee onto the table in front of Tom.
“On the house,” she said with a wink.
Hugo nudged Tom's shin with his foot as their eyes followed Maman's weighty shuffle back to the bar. “Never seen her do that before,” Hugo said. “You got something to tell me?”
“I don't kiss and tell. I sure as hell don't kiss that.”
Hugo sat back and his fingers played with his whisky glass, a smile on his face. “I can't believe you're here, Tom. It's good to see you.”
“Well, you sounded all sad and needy on the phone, plus I have this Marseille thing.” He smirked. “And playing in Paris is always fun.”
“You still like to play, huh? Why does that make me nervous?”
“You'll survive. What about you, still doing your Sherlock Holmes party trick? You used to pretend to hate it when I made you do that for the ladies.”
“Pretend?” He'd minded when Tom made him perform, but not too much. It looked like a party trick, that was true, but mostly it was a result of Hugo training himself to observe. And it was also true that he'd gotten the idea from Sherlock Holmes, who was able to startle people with his accurate deductions about where they'd been, or where they were going, through simple observations.
“Come on, you've not seen me for ages. Tell me something about myself.“
Hugo rolled his eyes. “Later maybe. I have something more interesting to talk about first.”
“The guy sounds like a control freak.” Tom had drained his whisky, half his beer, and was onto his coffee. “His office, the way he looked and talked, everything by the sounds of it. Jeez, the only person I know of who slaps people in public is you.”
“Funny.”
“Look, Hugo, it's also possible he was just fucking with you. He may not know anything at all, just hates nosey American reporters. And there ain't no sin in that.”
“Maybe. But he's definitely a control freak, I'd say actively paranoid. I just got the sense that he was hiding something. Correction: he was clearly hiding something.”
“That's the definition of paranoid, Hugo. They hide shit when they don't have to, they hide shit they don't even know about.”
“Yeah, I know.” Hugo sipped at his own coffee, now almost cold.
“So what the fuck can I do to help?”
“Do you think you can find out who bought the book? Get it back?”
“Dude, I can find the buyer. I can have him disappear in a car accident somewhere in Monaco if you like.”
Hugo looked at his friend and knew that he was only half-joking. Maybe not even half. “Let's keep it legit. He can have his money back and if the book turns out to have nothing to do with this, I'll give him first option to buy at a discount.”
“You sweet man. And if he doesn't want to give it up?”
“You got it.”
“You remember I said legit, right?”
“Yeah, you did say that. Anything else?”
“Yes, one thing. Think you can dig up anything on this Bruno Gravois?”
“Honestly Hugo, if there's anything on him then it's probably on the DCRI or DGSE databases. I'll look, but all these agencies now, CIA, FBI, and Interpol,” he snorted derisively, “they're all touchy feely, into sharing information and open access. Which means that we gather it, they use it. It's bullshit if you ask me, but of course no one does.”
“Of course.” Hugo drained his coffee. “Now, if the lecture's over, let's head out. I have work to do in the morning.”
“Work?” Tom raised his beer glass. “Fuck work.”
“Ah yes, you had something else in mind.”
“Meaning?”
“You're hoping I'll go to the Moulin Rouge with you tonight.”
Tom slapped the table with delight. “Now we're talking! Go on, do your thing.”
“For old time's sake, but I'm a little rusty so this is an easy one. We'll start with the fact that you are tech savvy, which means you get your news online. And yet you come here carrying a newspaper. It's crumpled, so you've finished with it, but you didn't read it here, obviously, so you probably got it from the airport or train station.”
“Airport. Free in the business class lounge.”
“And yet you still have it, so I have to presume that you saw something that caught your eye and made you want to hang on to it. Otherwise, obviously, you would have disposed of the paper long before you got here.”
“So far so good.”
“So, knowing you, the something that caught your eye will either be drinkable or have long, sleek legs. Rule out booze because I can't think of anything drink-related that would cause you to hang on to a newspaper for hours. Which leaves us with the legs. Now, regular strip joints don't advertize in major newspapers, so I'm guessing it's something higher class and aimed at tourists, which brings me to the Moulin Rouge.”
“Impressive.”
“I'm not done, because you can go there any time you like, so why the newspaper today? That's made easier because I also know that you're a cheap bastard, which makes me suspect there's a coupon or discount advertized for tonight. Maybe tomorrow night.”
“Fuck, I've missed you.” Tom was grinning broadly, unfolding the paper to the full-page ad. At least half of the page was taken up by the long, bare legs of a dancer. “Her name is Mimi and she's a goddamn marvel, a star as good as any from the past. For her show tonight it's buy one ticket, a friend gets in for free. Shall we?”
“She is beautiful. But you know that buying a ticket doesn't entitle you to sleep with her?”
“My dear friend,” Tom wagged a finger. “I think that's for her to decide, not you. Well?”
Hugo stood and patted his friend's head. “Good to see you, too, Tom. No dancing girls, but I do have booze at home. You coming?”
It was early afternoon the next day when Hugo fixed himself a sandwich and flipped on the coffee maker for his third cup, and Tom's first. More whisky, several pints of water, and a host of war stories had kept them up well past midnight and neither man's body had seen fit to stir before the noon bells clanged.
As the coffee brewed and Tom took a shower, Hugo turned on the computer in his study, now Tom's bedroom, and was logging in when the doorbell rang. Hugo checked his security monitor, wondering if Claudia had decided to stop by rather than return the message he'd left with her. Instead, he saw a young man with the beginnings of a Mohawk fidgeting on the doorstep. He wore a blue parka with an insignia on the breast and blue nylon pants with a black stripe down the sides. Delivery boy, and apparently Dimitrios wasn't at his station to let him in. Hugo picked up his phone and unlocked the door remotely. A minute later he opened his apartment door and took an envelope from the young man, thanked him with some coins, and retreated back inside.
The envelope, unmarked, was between white and cream in color and so expensive it was almost cloth. Thin, too, so no more than a letter inside. The thinner the safer, Hugo knew. He went to his desk and searched for his letter opener, an ornate wooden knife given him by the head of a Namibian delegation who'd been impressed by the size and efficiency of the security detail Hugo had provided. He slipped it into the corner of the envelope and scythed it open. Inside, as he'd suspected, a single piece of paper. He pulled the letter out and sat down to read.
It was written in English, in an elegant, sloping hand. From the broadness of the letters and the lack of indentation on the back, Hugo could see it was written with a fountain pen. No doubt an expensive one. The paper was embossed with raised, silver lettering and, of all things, a coat of arms belonging to one Gérard de Roussillon, le Comte d'Auvergne. On the page was written:
Monsieur Marston:
Please forgive the short notice, I am not in the habit of imposing without a fair degree of warning. However, if you find yourself available I would be very grateful if you could spare me and a few of my friends an hour or two of your time. In a poor attempt to make amends for my late invitation, I will send a car for you at seven o'clock. Please dress for dinner.
I look forward to meeting you.
It was not, Hugo knew, as much an invitation as a summons. And he had no idea why it had come to him. He tried but failed to remember an official function at the embassy involving a count. But he'd come across a lot of people whose names and backgrounds he didn't know, people who often wanted to curry favor with Americans. This guy could be one of them.
Hugo turned back to his computer and typed his host's name into a search engine, but other than a few links to books on French nobility, there was nothing of note on the first page of results. Hugo clicked onto the second page and saw a reference to “G. de Roussillon.” The description indicated that, assuming it was the same man, le Comte d'Auvergne was a client. Hugo clicked on the link and the image of worn, leather-bound books appeared. It was the website for the bookshop belonging to Pierre Vasson, perhaps the most expensive and connected of the country's sellers of “livres anciens et d'occasion.” Hugo had been there several times, more to browse than buy, such were the prices. The image of the Rimbaud sprang into his mind, the connection too obvious not to rear its head. Not another coincidence, surely.
Hugo had loved books since he was a child, but they were starting to give him a headache.
He considered calling Emma to get more background on de Roussillon but couldn't face the inevitable questions in her voice, so he dialed Claudia's number instead. Again no answer, and when he rang off he felt a little foolish. The last thing he wanted to do was chase her away by appearing overly eager.
Dating games. Jesus.
And that line, Dress for dinner. Where Hugo came from that meant jeans and cowboy boots, but in embassy-speak it meant black tie, though he could have guessed that a tuxedo was required just from the silken stationary. Still, he didn't own shiny black shoes and didn't feel obliged to rush out and buy any at such short notice, so the cowboy boots would stay.
Tom emerged from the shower and Hugo excused himself, having already seen too much of his friend. When he handed him hot coffee five minutes later, Tom also took the letter.
“Am I your date?” he said.
“Not the kind of place where excessive drinking and swearing is welcome, by the looks of the envelope.”
“Fair enough,” Tom said. “I got my list of things to do from you yesterday, anyway. Want me to look into this guy first?”
“No,” said Hugo. “I kind of like surprises.”
The car was there at ten minutes before seven, a black Mercedes chauffeured by a willowy man in his sixties wearing a gray suit and a white, neatly trimmed mustache. The driver opened the rear door for Hugo with the merest of bows and drove in silence, in a cautious but assertive way that told Hugo he'd received police or milita
ry training once upon a time. They headed west, gliding alongside the Seine, the water drifting in and out of view as the night's fog folded itself around it and them.
After a couple of miles they slanted northward, and Hugo's sense of direction was rewarded when they passed the Memorial to the Martyrs. They were headed to Nueilly-sur-Seine, one of the wealthiest areas in Paris, not far out enough to lose cachet as a suburb but not close enough to suffer the trials and tribulations of impermanence, which was the frequent result of tourist fluctuations. The families and some of the homes in the neighborhood had been there for hundreds of years and, God willing, would be there hundreds more.
The driver slowed and turned onto Boulevard D'Argenson, a boulevard in every sense, and not by chance did it intersect with Boulevard Chateau. Wide but quiet, the road was as straight as an arrow, perfectly spaced plane trees a first line of defense against traffic. The trees shaded the road and a broad cobbled sidewalk, on the other side of which ran a continuous stretch of bushes and shrubbery that provided color, and privacy, to the expensive homes behind. A minute later the car slowed again and crunched into the gravel driveway of one of the homes, a miniature chateau in stone that had a square, three-story tower at each corner. To his right, a pond lapped at the corner of the house, almost moat-like, deep green under the security lights. Impressive, Hugo thought, even for this street. He couldn't help notice the absence of gates on these driveways, a lack of security Hugo had observed ever since he'd taken the job in Paris. The French did not believe in preemptive measures, he'd found—an attitude that took some adjusting to, but that was also somehow reassuring.
Two other cars were in the driveway, parked as if they belonged there. An ancient but clean Range Rover and a spotless Bentley, also pre-1990s. Hugo wondered whether he was the only guest, but thought it more likely that everyone else attending had chauffeurs, all of whom were off somewhere smoking and grumbling about their bosses. His driver slipped out of the car and opened the passenger door for Hugo, who stepped out and thanked the man in French. Hugo turned to look at the house, admire really. The curtains were closed in all the windows and they glowed golden in the dark. He smelled wood smoke from one of the chimneys.
