“Madame, you have been so helpful. Thank you. I’m sure as a woman you appreciate that in a case like this the police should act with urgence. Perhaps we could have got to the scene more quickly. It is of no importance now . . . of course I can comprehend your dilemma . . .”
What’s this now? What’s he implying?
“However, I’m sure that you want to do everything you can for justice. I cannot compel you to agree to my request, so I will simply request you and you will give me your answer . . .”
Lana doesn’t like the sound of this at all. There’s something in Fichet’s tone that’s not quite threatening but . . . weirdly moralizing.
“Obviously, as I already said, we would like you to make a statement. There is no particular urgence except perhaps how long you will be in Paris.”
To her shock he picks up her boarding pass from the bed. So casually.
“I notice this already. You are leaving tomorrow night. To Dublin.”
Unsettled though she is at this intrusiveness, Lana is distracted from any protest by what he now asks.
“Then perhaps my request is more urgent. The gentleman you saw, he is in our, ah, custody. It would help if you come with us now to identify him, from a . . . you say a lineup, no?”
So it ain’t over yet. Lana shakes her head firmly.
“No, no. I’m sorry. Really, but it’s impossible. An hour ago I was intending to go for a walk and find myself a nice bistro—and then—I mean, it must be nearly eleven now and I haven’t eaten yet. You can’t seriously think I want to see this man again—”
“But you will not be face-to-face. He will—”
“I know that, I’ve seen the movies, I know how it works. Look, maybe tomorrow. But right now I just want to forget about this. Go eat. Try to relax.”
Fichet shrugs, but the eyes are boring into her now.
“I comprehend. It is okay. It was only that tonight, now, it is easy. We are only five minutes away. In fifteen minutes it will be over for you. After we will bring you to any restaurant you want. But of course, I comprehend.”
“Tomorrow. Call me tomorrow morning.”
“No, do not worry. It will not be . . . A man like this, you see, he has the special lawyers. If it is only what the young woman claims, then the lawyers, they will say, ah, this is not evidence, he must go free tonight. Then tomorrow they make another delay, de-dah de-dah. You see? You will go back in Dublin. Maybe you will want to forget this. It is normal.”
Lana knows exactly what Fichet is doing. The sorrowful but resigned tone, the cynical shrug are transparent tactics, but potent all the same, the eyes probing for weakness. It’s working. How can she enjoy a meal now, while dwelling on her refusal, her guilt at turning away when another woman needed her support. Should she just get it over with? Even if he’s lying about the fifteen minutes, which of course he is, how long could it take? Won’t she eat better afterward, if she’s helped bring the whole affair to a more satisfying conclusion?
“You’re not really five minutes away, are you?”
“There is a car outside. At this time of night, of course, five minutes, I promise. If you say yes, I will arrange everything now, so they are ready for you when you come. No delay.”
How curious: There’s the voice, friendly, wheedling. Then there’s something beneath the voice, like a tremor, a warning. And behind the eyes, something colder, more frightening. But Lana knows well that after all that had happened and with her meds way overdue, her own instincts are utterly untrustworthy. What the hell.
“Oh, all right. Can you give me a moment to get ready?”
“Of course, Madame. And thank you.”
He takes out his phone and speed-dials as he marches from the room. After the door closes Lana can hear his murmur outside. She tosses one Risperdal and one Trileptal into her mouth and swigs Evian from the courtesy bottle. She should have done this hours ago. But she hadn’t, so there you go. Lesson learned, Lana. Or not, as the case might be. She throws her phone, keycard, and some money into her purse, puts on her coat, and opens the door. Fichet is with the other one near the elevator. What is it about the way his voice is a whisper? It registers with Lana as a boys’ club conspiracy. It makes her nervous, but only for a second. Fichet’s turn and smile dissolves the tableau and everything seems perfectly ordinary again.
“We are very grateful to you, Madame Gibson.”
BACK AT THE HOTEL, FEELING NO LESS NERVOUS, FERDIE PARKED BEHIND Vallette’s car. It was unoccupied. He had no desire to return to the Suite Imperial, but what choice did he have?
On the seventh floor, the elevator doors opened to silence. The place seemed unoccupied. The door of the master bedroom hung open. Ferdie approached it carefully. What now? The first thing he saw was the chair that had held Caramel Girl. It was overturned and her gag and ties were scattered on the floor. Then he saw the foot visible at the end of the bed. A highly polished oxford shoe. Ferdie’s instinct was to exit quietly, but he couldn’t help wanting to confirm that it was Vallette. Dead, with any luck. He took as few steps as needed to see . . . Marcel. Knocked out but still breathing.
Ferdie backed quickly out of the room. Then ran to the elevator. The way his luck was going, he’d be caught here and nailed for this mess too.
Reaching the cocoon of the DS21, he had to control his breathing, wait for his heartbeat to slow, tell himself over and over that, whatever had happened up there, he had an alibi, he had just returned from driving Monsieur Fournier home, he knew nothing about anything. Suddenly he remembered the JPEG of Caramel Girl on his laptop. He needed to trash that immediately. As he bent to retrieve it from under his seat, a knock on the window nearly stopped his heart. Oscar. He rolled it down.
Oscar flicked his eyes toward the hotel entrance and whispered, “You recognize her?”
Her, what her? A quick check in the side mirror showed it was not Caramel Girl. Thankfully. Even in the shadowy light there was no mistaking the American blonde. With Vallette. Jesus. He nodded.
“Good. We’ll take her in your car. I’ll drive. You sit in the back with her.”
Apart from objecting to anyone else driving his beautiful car—even Monsieur Fournier, who fortunately never seemed interested—this instruction made no sense to Ferdie. Why not take her in Vallette’s car?
Oscar whispered, “Stay down until she gets in. In case she recognizes you.”
Ferdie continued watching in the side mirror. He guessed from Oscar’s languid demeanor that neither he nor Vallette knew anything about Caramel Girl’s escape. As Vallette and the blonde approached, a shadowy figure appeared from the hotel entrance calling, “Madame! S’il vous plait!” There was no mistaking the shape of the uniform: a bellhop.
His bellhop.
CROSSING THE LOBBY, LANA IS ALREADY FEELING MORE LIGHTHEARTED. Perhaps it has something to do with the jazz trio’s latest number, which is fast and playful. She knows it, she’s sure she knows it, although it’s impossible to get past the trio’s flourishes and hum the basic melody, so the title eludes her. Perhaps she’s feeling not just safe now, but a little bit Hollywood, flanked by two Parisian detectives escorting her to the exit. Perhaps she really needs to get out of the hotel and onto the streets, so being requested to attend a police station to identify a possible sex offender seems a reasonable trade-off.
Outside, the mild Parisian night air intensifies Lana’s desire to go walk around the city. Soon, she tells herself, soon she will be that happy wanderer, that flâneur breathing in the graceful old beauty of every street, enchanted by the hum from the corner cafés, those serious faces and voices for whom every conversation has the urgency of a life-changing encounter. Of course, she’s not quite free yet. Things had veered alarmingly off course in the last hour or so and in a kind of shocking way, but now were back on track. And she had learned something: keep the crazier whims in check. And chill. Chill, chill, chill. A gorgeous meal and definitely no alcohol; relaxing with a decaf grand crème; observing the beautif
ul inhabitants of a beautiful city meander by would be excitement enough. In truth, now that it’s a reality, Lana is also kind of looking forward to the lineup, even if it feels like something from one of those dumb lists that magazines and blogs love to feature: Top Ten Weird Experiences Everyone Should Have at Least Once. As long as, she hopes, the thing doesn’t drag on and is reasonably hassle-free.
Inspector Fichet guides her to the left, still under the arches outside the hotel. His colleague moves ahead toward a beautiful old Citroën that looks like it’s from a 1970s French movie. She’s surprised that the police are still using them. He bends forward and taps the driver’s window. There’s something about him in profile. Lana had glanced his way in the elevator a minute earlier and had the same feeling, but had decided it was just the surprising subtlety of his fragrance, Serge Lutens or something like it. Like Fichet. Do all Parisian detectives wear expensive cologne?
“Madame. S’il vous plait, Madame Gibson!”
Lana looks back. The figure standing in the hotel entrance is no more than a silhouette against the warm gold of Le Chev’s interior light, but she instantly recognizes the slim frame and cello-like voice of the bellhop. Laurent, as she liked to think of him, is holding up something.
“Your cigarettes, Madame. I think you have lost them.”
What’s this about? She couldn’t have dropped a pack of cigarettes she didn’t have. Why would Laurent think they were hers? Yet something in his tone is saying this is not any kind of mistake. She hears Fichet telling his guy to get the cigarettes and at the same time Laurent speaks again and now she detects real urgency. “Your Gauloises, Madame.”
Is this the pack the young woman had left at the bar and Lana had left on the smoking terrace?
“It’s all right, Inspector. I think I can get my own cigarettes.”
Close-up, Laurent’s eyes look wary, but his voice remains loudly cheerful as he places a pack of Gauloises in her hand.
“I am happy I found it in time, Madame.”
And his sweet smiling lips scarcely move as he whispers.
“They are going to kill you.”
11 PM
Lana searches for the wink in the eye, although it’s pretty clear that she’s not being punked. The idea that a bellhop at an exclusive Parisian hotel would mess with a guest’s head is just as outlandish as the idea that two French detectives intend to murder an innocent American tourist, yet it was as if Laurent, or whatever his name is, had turned some unformed, unacknowledged fear into actual words. She stares at him with intensity, while speaking as casually as he.
“Thank you for that.”
When she turns back, Fichet and the other no longer seem like the musky clean-cut forces of Law and Order, but something more predatory hovering in the shadows. And that old Citroën now looks all wrong. Her instinct, already unsettled, shifts in favor of the bellhop’s warning. Her eye is drawn to Fichet’s colleague, still at the car window, muttering to a driver she can’t see. That profile, just like in the elevator only minutes ago, what is it about him?—and a surprising image flashes in her head: the high-backed chair where she’d been tripped earlier, the arm sticking out and . . . What big ears you have. And now she has another flash: the photo that young brat had waved so contemptuously in her face at the Hopper, with the man in the background, smirking as he turned away, his face in profile: It can’t be the same guy? In the hotel, at the Hopper, now here? But you think it is, don’t you, Lana?
What is going on? Who are these people?
The questions and doubts are like the kind of leak that doesn’t gush, but seeps through cracks and dribbles down walls: obvious stuff she should have considered before. Fichet had arrived so quickly after her police call. Sure, the young woman might have told him, but could he have tracked her to her room so fast? She hadn’t asked for identification. How dumb!
Though she’d promised herself to avoid anything connected with her last Paris misadventure, and especially not to even think about Nathan, she can’t prevent a sudden memory: the arrest they’d both witnessed on rue Serpente one afternoon, a bust involving two wailing Eastern Europeans and four undercover detectives, all unshaven, in jeans and sneakers. No crisp suits or expensive cologne. Of course these guys are not detectives. It’s obvious now that they are somehow linked to the naked man on the seventh floor and that for some reason they have been watching her since early this afternoon.
The urgent whisper behind her has the effect of a starting gun.
“Believe me, Madame Gibson. Run!”
And she flies. At least it’s a head start. Behind her she hears the grunts and bumps of some kind of scuffle, but doesn’t dare look back to check if poor little Laurent is getting himself hurt trying to delay those guys. It’s hard enough in the shadows under the arches to stay upright at speed, especially in pumps not made for fleeing a posse of phony cops. Running had never been one of Lana’s talents. Back in high school, athletic activity of any kind had been the least cool thing in her set, and though elation makes her more hyper, it’s never going to turn her into Flo-Jo. She takes the first turn up a narrower street, praying to spot a taxi, or a real police car, or maybe a bar or café big and crowded enough to allow her some chance to . . . to what? It’s hopeless. Her only surprise is that none of them has caught up with her yet.
She’s wheezing now and maybe hallucinating because she sees a little yellow car that looks like a loaf of bread on wheels cruise slowly by, with a young woman in the driver’s seat hanging her head out the window, jabbering at Lana in French and gesticulating behind. She dares to check over her shoulder and sees Big Ears pretty much in grabbing distance. When she turns her head again the yellow loaf car is still keeping pace with her and the female driver now reaches back and pushes open the back door. There’s no doubt that her jabbering is an invitation to get inside and, with Big Ears bearing down, there’s no time to question it. Lana switches direction, lurches between two parked cars, and lunges toward the hanging door, but her efforts to clamber in are frustrated by the young driver’s inability to keep an even pace. The loaf of bread shudders, the open back door swings with every jerk and jolt. Now Lana feels a meaty paw almost grip her jacket. She has to take a chance. She dives and gets her head and arms in. Her hand stretches and finds the corner of the driver’s seat. The young woman squeals delighted encouragement and the car picks up speed just as determined fingers claw at Lana’s ankle. Clinging to the driver’s seat with one hand, she whacks him frantically with her purse in the other. The yellow loaf is now going alarmingly fast, given her precarious situation, but at least it’s making things a lot harder for Big Ears. He loses hold, but his flailing hand snatches her purse away.
Lana wrenches herself inside and stares miserably out the back window at the men and her lost purse. Her phone, her money gone. Stupefied by the turn of events, she is only barely aware of the young woman shrieking something over and over, but finally recognizes some actual words and pulls the door shut as requested.
IT FELT PECULIAR TO BE SITTING COMFORTABLY WATCHING THIS SUDDEN commotion in a side mirror. Ferdie didn’t know exactly what the young pimp had said to make the blond American run away, but it confirmed they were in collusion. Oscar and Vallette would catch her without too much exertion, despite the laughable efforts of the bellhop to slow them down. A collision with Oscar’s 110 kilos was never going to end well for the boy. He went down hard. Vallette and Oscar careered round the corner. Ferdie had no desire to join in the chase.
The bellhop was still on the ground. He could hear his groans and was reminded that it was the boy who introduced him to Caramel Girl. Oh Christ, had he helped her escape too? As one of the staff he could access the Suite Imperial. That whispered conversation with the guy in the porkpie might be part of this after all. As quickly as jabbing pain would allow, Ferdie got out of the car and limped to the bellhop. He knelt and grabbed him by the hair, then remembered that he was outside an exclusive hotel with CCTV cameras capturing everythin
g; also, that he was hopelessly unconvincing at threats. Vallette would return shortly having nabbed the blond American. It was not the time or place to try to extract useful information from this little prick. So Ferdie smiled and turned the hair grab into a tousle.
“Hey, my friend. Come on, can you stand?”
He put an arm around the bellhop and helped him up.
“Did you hit your head off the ground?”
“No, but my wrist. I think it might be sprained. And my jaw hurts.”
Contact with Oscar’s head at full tilt would do that, Ferdie thought. They staggered together into the hotel. Modestly he accepted the thanks of several horrified staff and limped back out. Before he had a chance to light a cigarette, Vallette and Oscar appeared around the corner, still in a big hurry but without the blonde, though Oscar was clutching her purse. Ferdie bit his lip; now was not the time for a witty comment. Oscar ran past, but Vallette stopped and pointed a finger at him.
“Report to me at seven in the morning.”
He didn’t move for another few moments, almost looking at him, his eyes fixed somewhere close to Ferdie’s left shoulder. It seemed like he had more to say. Or do. It was easy to imagine him turning violent right now. The sound of Oscar pulling away broke the spell. Then, to Ferdie’s shock, Vallette marched to the DS21 and got into the driver’s seat. It was only when the engine started that it dawned on him he was being left behind.
What She Saw Page 6
