[JJ06] Quicksand

by Gigi Pandian

  “Exactly,” Marius said. “That’s enough talk about business. Now about my book—”

  The awkwardness of knowing your room is bugged doesn’t fade. At least not within a day. I slept far away from Lane that night, and it took me ages to fall asleep.

  In the morning, I found a note in plain sight.

  Had to go out to get some things together. Marius is with me. Dante will go with you if you want to go anywhere.

  Did Lane really think I was going to go sightseeing while he was off planning a heist? A heist that wasn’t a heist. Dammit, I hated that I was such a sound sleeper.

  I grabbed my cell phone and checked for email and text messages. Which, of course, I now knew North was reading as well. I threw the phone onto the couch.

  I flipped on the TV, expecting to find everything in French. Besides news channels in multiple languages, it was.

  A strange feeling snuck up on me as I stared at the television, hitting me with full force. I was homesick.

  It was a strange sensation, and not one I was used to experiencing. I’m used to feeling like I don’t fit in. My dad is an American who went to India to find himself, and he stayed on after he met my mom. I spent the first seven years of my life in Goa. After my mom died, my dad moved my brother and me to Berkeley. I’m used to being asked “where I’m from” in both places I’m from. Lane had grown up overseas after spending the early part of his childhood in the Midwest. That experience of being uprooted at a young age and never quite fitting in is one of the things we had in common. But this situation was different. I was in a country and a situation that were both truly foreign to me. I didn’t speak the language, I was being coerced into going along with a frightful plan, and my sort-of boyfriend was out in Paris without me, planning the art heist we’d been forced to go along with. I’d say I had a right to feel homesick.

  I found my phone between the couch cushions and pulled up Sanjay’s number. An illustrated poster from one of his “Hindi Houdini” magic tours popped up on the screen. I felt immediately better looking at the silhouette of Sanjay in a bowler hat, his arms raised as he conjured a fierce Kathakali dancer. The illustration was in the classic style of the magic posters of the early 1900s, where magicians like Thurston and Kellar were drawn with apparitions of ghosts and devils swirling around them.

  I stopped myself before hitting the button to call Sanjay. Not just because it was the middle of the night in San Francisco, but because I couldn’t tell him anything that was going on.

  Then it hit me. Even though I couldn’t get help through conventional means without being found out, I knew how to communicate with Sanjay in an unconventional way. Sanjay had taught me how to read minds when I helped him with a magic show. It wasn’t actually reading minds, but that was the trick. It was knowing how to communicate with your accomplice in a secret way that the audience didn’t understand. This time, instead of the crowd of a theater, North was my audience.

  Since North would be reading everything I typed onto my phone, I could use that to my advantage. My plan wasn’t to ask Sanjay to call the police. I could have done that myself, but unfortunately Lane was right that it would be a terrible idea. My idea in contacting Sanjay was to find out if I could communicate with him like this, in case there was an opportunity in which sending a coded message would help.

  Sanjay had a magician friend in France, so I decided that’s what I’d ask him about. The email I composed used the principles of the mind reading trick, in which we could either use coded words that meant other words, or signal different letters of the alphabet, for more complex messages. I had to do the latter in this case.

  I constructed a short email telling him on the surface that the France trip was a bust—but that underneath was asking the question of what his magician friend’s name was, and if he’d be someone I should be interested in visiting while in France.

  The trickier part was thinking of how to signal to Sanjay that he should read the email as a coded message in the first place.

  I lay back on the brocade couch and stared at the ceiling, pretending to be frustrated that I couldn’t email with my friend openly—which was easy, since I wasn’t pretending. I couldn’t see any surveillance cameras, which made them all the more creepy. North’s tiny cameras could be anywhere.

  Focus, Jaya. The last time Sanjay and I had done the mind-reading illusion together was at the Folsom Street Theatre. I hoped that would be a big enough signal. I sat up and finished the email, smiling as I typed the last line: “I hope your current show is going as well as our show at the Folsom Street Theatre.” The show had been a disaster, and he knew I would never say anything otherwise.

  Sanjay loved puzzles, so he would easily believe that if I was bored, I would make the effort of writing him emails in code, just because.

  While I waited to hear back from him, I ordered room service: a full French breakfast of coffee, croissants, bread, jam, butter. When it arrived, I was disappointed by how small each of the items was, but then I took a bite of a croissant. I don’t know what they put in the croissants in France, but the sensation of them melting in my mouth stimulated my senses almost enough to make me forget how apprehensive I was.

  By the time I’d polished off the last fluffy croissant dipped in black cherry jam, Sanjay had already emailed me back.

  Sorry everything blows. Anyway, sadly this illusion eludes new assistant. Really, everyone needs a usable distraction. (How hard is that? That’s the whole point of a magician’s assistant! Do I ask too much???) Nevermind about new trick.

  Endearingly,

  Sanjay

  I smiled to myself. There was no way Sanjay would have written such an awkward email if it wasn’t a code. Bad grammar, using the word “trick” to describe one of his illusions, and a clunky sign-off. The parenthetical part of the message was his real voice, so I knew to omit that part of the message when I decoded it.

  I wished I could have written out the message on a notepad to more easily decode it, but the cameras were watching. I read the email slowly, reading it for what it truly meant.

  Sorry

  everything

  blows.

  Anyway,

  sadly

  this

  illusion

  eludes

  new-assistant.

  Really,

  everyone

  needs

  a

  usable

  distraction.

  Nevermind

  about

  new

  trick.

  Endearingly,

  Sanjay

  Sébastien Renaud. Nantes.

  The name of a man and a city in France. The code had worked. I now had a way to communicate with the outside world that only I knew about.

  CHAPTER 12

  I was simultaneously giddy and disappointed. My code had worked! Maybe being a magician was cooler than I thought.

  But...my efforts hadn’t led to anything I could use. I didn’t have anything to ask Sanjay in code that would help me out of the situation I was stuck in.

  Even if I could convey to Sanjay the gravity of the situation, what could he do? If he sent the police, that would be an even bigger disaster than the mess I was already in. North and his associates had distanced themselves from the crime, leaving Lane to take the fall. And even if Sanjay’s French friend could help me in some way, he wasn’t in Paris.

  What I needed was a run to help me think. I usually went for a run in Golden Gate Park nearly every day, and I’d packed my running shoes. I wondered if my shadow would be able to keep up with me. I could probably lose him, but I’d already established that was a bad idea.

  I flung myself back down on the couch—and immediately shot up again. I had too much adrenaline coursing through me to sit still.
I went to the side table where the hotel had provided bountiful information about Paris. Locating a map of the city, I looked in the street index. Finding the street I was after, I smiled to myself. Normally I would have found it frustrating to find my way in a new city where the names of streets changed every few blocks, but in this situation, it was a stroke of luck. The street I was after was only three blocks long.

  I closed the map and thought about my options. Emboldened by my success at conversing with Sanjay in code, I decided to try something with more immediate results.

  Creepy Dante was the man assigned to watch me if I left the hotel. He didn’t seem to be the brightest of men. North thought Lane was the bigger risk. Sometimes it was nice to be underestimated.

  “Dante!” I called out to the ceiling. “I’d like to go out!”

  Less than a minute later, the hotel room door opened and an unsmiling Dante walked in.

  “I’d like to go on a walk,” I said.

  I wouldn’t have been surprised if he grunted his answer, but he simply nodded.

  The weather forecast predicted it might snow, so we bundled in coats before setting out for a walk under the stormy sky. I flipped up the collar of my thick black coat as the doorman held the door open for us.

  “I heard that Rue Sainte-Croix de la Bretonnerie is beautiful,” I said. “Do you know how to get there?”

  “In the Marais,” he said, his breath visible in the crisp air. “That’s a long walk from here.”

  I realized I hadn’t heard him speak before. He spoke with an Italian accent. More importantly, his voice was strong. That gave me pause. Perhaps I’d misjudged Dante. I’d assumed he was hired for his brawn rather than intellect, but perhaps he was simply the silent type. If so, dare I risk the real reason for my walk to Rue Sainte-Croix de la Bretonnerie?

  “Good,” I said, after only a moment’s hesitation. “I need some exercise.”

  He eyed me with disdain as he pulled gloves on. “Let’s take a taxi.”

  “What’s the point of a walk if it’s not a walk?” I said.

  He muttered something under his breath that I guessed to be an Italian swear word, then glanced right and left. “This way.”

  Even under gray skies and the strangest of situations, Paris took my breath away with its beauty. No wonder nobody could believe I’d never previously visited the city. Modern shops and apartments were housed in stunning old buildings, many of which I’m sure had been there for centuries.

  I wondered if it was my heightened alertness that brought out an added appreciation to the details of my surroundings. The threat of danger created a more acute experience of living. I wasn’t merely walking down a street lined with cafes full of people drinking coffee, smoking, and speaking various languages under heat lamps. Instead, I breathed in the scents of the swirling cigarette smoke from a group of Spaniards drinking espresso, the fragrant ham-and-cheese baguettes toasting under the watchful eye of a café’s chef, and the subtle perfumes of French women walking purposefully down the street in stiletto heels higher than my own. I noticed routes I could use to escape, if the need should occur, down a narrow alley bracketed by colorful apartment buildings, across a nearly-hidden courtyard with shadows cast by arches and barren trees, and through a heavy gate for delivery vehicles that stood ajar.

  The thirty-minute walk helped me relax—until I saw a sign indicating we had entered the Marais neighborhood. The purpose of this visit wasn’t to see a pretty street, as I’d told Dante. I was fairly confident Hugo had wanted to tell Lane something he wasn’t able to while Marius was there. He mentioned the street he lived on, as well as a piece of art in the window. It had struck me as an odd thing to say at the time—but not if he wanted Lane to find him.

  There was no way for Lane to seek out Hugo while he was with Marius, but I was hoping the details of the museum conversation hadn’t reached Dante. So far, that seemed to be the case. Dante hadn’t raised an objection when I mentioned the street name.

  “Americans,” Dante mumbled, looking around at the apartment buildings on Rue Sainte-Croix de la Bretonnerie that must have been over a hundred years old. “If you want real history, you should visit Rome.”

  We walked slowly down the street, which was lined with shops on the ground floor and apartments above. If Hugo had indeed been trying to tell us where he lived, his window must be visible from the street. Dante startled me by grabbing my arm. I tensed. Had it finally dawned on him what I was doing? He shook his head, and pointed resolutely at a ladder propped against a building, steering me away from it, so neither of us would walk underneath it. It was difficult to conceal a smile.

  Two blocks in, I stopped abruptly. A statue with angel wings was silhouetted in a second floor window. It was Michelangelo’s Angel statue, and I was relieved to see it was a reproduction. I’m not an expert on art, but it was much too small to be real. This had to be Hugo’s apartment.

  “Must you walk so slowly?” Dante asked, rubbing his gloved hands together. I was full of too much adrenaline to mind the cold.

  “Since we’re here,” I said, “I thought we might visit Hugo. He seemed like such an interesting man when I met him yesterday.”

  His brown eyes narrowed as realization dawned on him. “Hugo?”

  “That’s who told me this was a beautiful street worth visiting,” I said, hoping my voice wasn’t shaking along with my pounding heart.

  Dante shrugged. “As long as he has the heat on in his apartment.”

  A thick blue door to the apartments was nestled in between a small general market and a pastry shop. Dante rang Hugo’s buzzer in front of the building, then scowled at me as we waited. “He’s not home.”

  “Try again.”

  Dante did as I asked, then shook his head. “We take a taxi back.”

  He started walking in the direction of a larger street, presumably to find that taxi. I stood still. I’d come this far. I couldn’t give up so easily. I spotted a green trash bin on wheels underneath an awning of the next building over. I ran up to it.

  “Hey!” Dante called out, running after me.

  “I’m not going anywhere,” I said as I pulled the heavy trash bin underneath Hugo’s window. “I want to get a better look inside. Maybe his buzzer is broken.” Hugo had said he’d be home, hadn’t he? Unless I’d read too much into his words... “Help me up onto this trash can.”

  “Americans,” Dante grumbled again, but did as I asked without question, steadying me as my heel sank into the plastic.

  Balancing on the trash bin several feet off the ground didn’t lift me high enough to see directly into the window—but the little I saw made me lose my balance.

  Dante grunted as I fell into his arms. As I struggled to stand up, I dislodged the contents of his coat pocket. A piece of chocolate wrapped in wax paper, several euros in large denominations, and colorful receipts from a tailor in Paris and an artisan chocolatier in Saint-Malo all fluttered to the sidewalk.

  “We need to call the police,” I said, not trying to disguise my shaking voice.

  Dante grabbed my forearms forcefully, a coldness in his eyes that scared me more than what I’d just seen. “No police. Why do you want them?”

  “The angel’s wing,” I whispered. “It’s covered in blood.”

  CHAPTER 13

  Dante wouldn’t let me call the police.

  He hoisted himself onto the trash can to see for himself. The lid sagged under his weight, and crumpled newspapers poked out from the strained edges. A nearby proprietor yelled at him. The incomprehensible words Dante said back to him caused the man to retreat into his shop.

  He hopped down and grabbed my arm, pulling me along until we’d turned down two side streets and reached a more crowded main drag. I tripped several times, and would have fallen if Dante hadn’t maintained his firm grip on me. I bare
ly saw the street in front of me. All I could think about was what must have transpired to leave the swath of blood on the statue. Was Hugo lying dead on the floor beyond my field of view?

  “Stay there,” Dante said, shoving me against a recessed nook next to an apartment complex door.

  The tiny cars on the busy street and well-dressed people on the bustling sidewalk seemed to go past me in slow motion. I watched Dante pull out his phone and bark angry French words. I heard my name and Hugo’s, but didn’t understand much else. He glared at me as he clicked off the phone.

  “We wait here,” Dante said, motioning to one of Paris’s ubiquitous cafes only a few yards away.

  Mutely, I let Dante take my arm and guide me to a small table under a heat lamp. Should I scream and have Dante arrested? That way I could call the police. What if Hugo wasn’t dead, but dying?

  I opened my mouth, but no sound came out. It gave me a moment to think. North said he’d created a file on me for drunk and disorderly conduct in France. Could he really do that? Even if I risked going to the police, would they believe me?

  “Drink,” Dante said, holding a glass of wine under my nose.

  “What if he’s—”

  “We aren’t monsters.” Dante shook his head sadly, and I saw the first trace of humanity in him I’d noticed. “North will go to the apartment. If Hugo is injured, he’ll help.”

  The change in Dante’s tone was so unexpected that I found myself believing him. A moment later, he went back to glaring at me. He continued to glare at me for the next fifteen minutes, until North stepped out of a taxi. Instead of sitting down with us, he motioned for us to join him in the taxi.

  I thought North would be angry about my trying to talk with Hugo, but I was wrong. His face showed concern, but I saw no trace of anger as I eased into the seat next to him. “He wasn’t there,” North said quietly. He was no longer enjoying himself. The laugh lines on his face were now lines of misery. Was he upset to learn that something had happened to Hugo? Or did he regret what he’d have to do to me after I’d attempted to contact Hugo?