Fortune's Deadly Descent (6 page)

Moreau spins the glass with the tips of his fingers, like a blind man attempting to read a face. “
D’accord
,” he says at last. “Let’s…travel in another direction.”

He turns to me.

“But before we chase that rabbit through
la forêt
, have I told you I’ve been married to the unapologetic Madame Moreau for twenty years?”

When Benicio and I fail to respond, he goes on, “It is true. Twenty years, as of one month ago. And did I say that in France she is quite a well-known painter?”

“And what does she paint that she needs to apologize for?” Benicio asks in a voice that makes clear he’s playing along with nonsense.

“Madame Moreau paints landscapes,” he says. “Fields of lavender and cliffs, for instance. But they are not the pretty countrysides one’s
grand-mère
would hang above the buffet. Madame Moreau’s paintings are more abstract, more, let us say, unusual.” He can’t seem to keep his lips from producing a small, private grin. “
Non
, not for rooms where one wishes to have polite conversation. An English critic once called them ‘ribbons of human forms cutting through the ragged cliffs of Provence.’ The human forms are in various states of…grace, if you will. They sell for very fine sums, which is a fine thing for a man on a French gendarme’s salary.”

“Inspector,” Benicio says.

“Ah,
pardon
.
Oui
, the point. It’s getting late. The
unapologetic
refers to
une liaison
she had with a young sculptor. Ten years ago now.”

I feel myself recoil even as I silently do the math. Moreau’s wife must be about forty. Ten years ago she would have been thirty, her sculptor perhaps twenty?

“He was a student of hers. What a meal for the public. They ate and they ate of it.”

I’m fascinated now, despite myself.

I hear Benicio fidgeting. As he shifts his weight, the spindles in his chair wince.

“No need to give all the details,” Moreau says. “I will tell you, though, the worst part was thinking she intended to leave me.”

His eyes latch on to mine.

All I can do is stare back, waiting,

“But then,” he goes on, “after the immediate shock and anger, I saw that, in truth, I didn’t care what she’d done. Frenchmen are known for taking mistresses, and had the shoe been on the other foot…well, I must confess, it
was
once, briefly. But, you see, with my wife and her young sculptor, the same people who disapproved, who felt offended, even betrayed by her…if they had known of
my
affair I felt sure they’d have asked Madame Moreau to dismiss it at once.
Pourquoi faire tout un plat?
Why the big…” He stirs up the air with his hand. “Why all the tears? No need to leave your husband over
this
.”

He shrugs, looks from me to Benicio and back again, then says, “I fancy myself a modern man, unchained to the old ways. I loved my wife. I love her still. And here we are, years later, we’ve built a life, we have our daughter. I am still happily married to the
unapologetic Madame Moreau, and she is still happily married to me.”

“
Fantastique
,” Benicio says.

Moreau ignores the sarcasm. “Madame Hagen, you remind me a great deal of my wife. A beautiful, brilliant success. If I may say so.”

For the first time since Benny disappeared, I hear myself laugh, though it’s more of a surprised bark.

“You must attract many kinds of people to you,” Moreau says. “May I ask you, is it possible, in the last few months, that you met someone new?”

My face hardens. “I meet new people all the time.”

“
Bien sûr
. But, you see, I’m speaking now about someone you took a special liking to, someone you had a special fondness for—”

“This sounds like an accusation,” I say.

“
Non
. Certainly not.”

“It’s ridiculous. I’m sorry.”

“So the answer is no?”

“For god’s sake,” I say.

Benicio edges forward, stops just short of rising, his whole face reddening.

“Understand,” Moreau says, “I am trying to grasp a complete picture of your family. And by this I mean—”

“Hold
on
,” I say, waving him off. “If you’re asking am I having an affair with the man you think took Benny—”

“This is complicated business, Madame Hagen. Not too different from a plot in a novel, I suppose. There are threads, you see, that twist together in the most unlikely places. Surely you understand.”

“
Jesus Christ
,” Benicio says, throwing his hands in the air. “Enough.”

“It is not my intention to cause more pain,” Moreau says.

“
Pain
? This isn’t pain,” I say. “This is
harassment
.”

“We can’t be sure that this stranger on the train took your son.”

“So
I’m
still your main suspect?”

“I did not say that.”

“This is so absurd. Anyone who knows me knows how much I love Benicio. You must have asked people about us.”

“As you know, we wish to avoid calling attention to Benny’s disappearance, but I did speak to Oliver—he assured me just how much you love your husband, Madame Hagen.”

I don’t bother to correct him on the technicality of marriage.

“
Oliver
?” Benicio asks. “When did you talk to Oliver?”

Before Moreau can answer, Benicio jumps back in. “No. I’m asking you to leave. You’ll have to speak to our lawyer from now on.”

Moreau pauses. “Very well, Monsieur Martin. But I’ll be in Zurich another twenty-four hours. It shouldn’t take longer than that.”

“
What
shouldn’t take longer than that?” Benicio asks.

I grip the pillow, ready to hurl it.

“Or perhaps less time if you’ll allow me one more question? Madame Hagen?”

I hold Benicio back with one hand. “OK, what’s your question?”

“I appreciate it. My question is this: Did you plan to run away with this man and your son and start a new life?”

It takes a second, but then I know, instinctively, that I’ll return to this moment for the rest of my life. I’ll remember the silence,
so voluminous, so present. I let go of the pillow. This is what they plan to pin on me. They
never
believed a call for ransom would come. They’re here to watch me, to wait for me to crack.

Moreau slowly sets his sights on Benicio while reaching to pet Pinto’s head. My loyal dog leans her ear into his hand for a scratch.

I wait for Benicio to say something.

When it feels as if the string holding the entire room together is about to snap, Benicio finally opens his mouth. “Celia?” he says. “What is he talking about?”

“We know he was texting you,” Moreau says. “Your phone records indicate you were sending messages about the trip, and your feelings for one another.”

It’s as if the breath is sucked from my chest. This can’t be happening. I simply do not know the man in the photograph. Someone is
setting me up
.

Benicio thrusts himself deeper into his chair, fingers clamped on the armrests.

“He’s lying, Benicio,” I say. “He’s screwing with us.
Someone
is screwing with us. I’ve never laid eyes on that man in my life.”

No one seems to hear me. Moreau’s gaze is fixed on Benicio with an intensity, a
menace
I haven’t seen until now; Benicio is glaring straight back at him. “Monsieur Martin,” Moreau finally says, “I have a question for you as well.”

“No,” I say. “We’re done. I’m calling our lawyer.”

“As you wish,” Moreau says. “But I cannot leave without asking Monsieur Martin if he has shared with you how often he’s been in touch with his old friend Emily.”

It takes a second to register what he’s said. Emily.
Emily Sandstrom?

“This may be something to share with your lawyer as well.”

I’m afraid for a moment that Benicio will lunge at Moreau.

“
Benicio
.”

He doesn’t look at me.

“Honey?”

“We share the same agent,” Benicio says, still glaring at Moreau.

My heart flops.

“Did you know this, Madame Hagen?”

“Wait. What did you say?” I ask Benicio.

“She and I share the same agent. It’s nothing.”

“Many years ago you were engaged to be married to her,” Moreau says. “Is this not so?”

A suffocating silence bears down on the room. I need to get out of this bed, this house. What the hell is going on?

Moreau leans forward and places his hand atop mine.

Pinto inches deeper into my lap, and Moreau offers me a joyless smile. I glance down to see his thick, dry fingers holding my hand to the wrist. It takes a moment before I realize he’s trying to steady the trembling.

One quiet evening, when Benny was nearly six, he bounced into the front room where Benicio and I were drinking wine and reading by the fire. “How did you two meet?” he asked.

I dropped my book in my lap, lowered my reading glasses, and glanced over at Benicio.

“Why are you asking?” Benicio said.

“Because I don’t
know
,” Benny answered.

I smiled at his logic, even as I dreaded answering the question. “What makes you ask
now
is what I think Papi means.”

“Because Elisa told me her parents met on the Internet and that made them special.”

“Special?” Benicio said.

Benny nodded.

“Well, hmm,” Benicio said. “I think the way Mutti and I met is
far
more
interesting
.”

When Benny looked away for a second, I pursed my lips, drew a line across my throat, and madly shook my head
no
.

“I was an explorer in the Mexican jungle,” Benicio said, and I relaxed. “And Mutti was caught in a panther trap set by
hunters, you know those giant nets that swing from a tree? I cut her down, and we lived happily ever after.”

Benny took this in.

“Don’t believe a word of that,” I said. “
I
was the explorer, and your papi was captured by a gang of incredibly clever spider monkeys. They’d dug a hole in the ground and covered it with big branches, and he fell right in. Oh, you should have heard how he begged me to throw him a rope. It was pitiful!”

“Come on!” Benny said.

“OK,” Benicio said. “I was doing gardening work at a condominium in Puerto Vallarta, and one day Mutti came there on vacation. She sat down by the pool—in one of those long chairs and she covered herself all over with smelly coconut oil…”

I raise my eyebrow at him.

“I was minding my own business, of course, working very hard, scooping bugs out of the water with a net, and trimming the camellia bushes,
snip snip
. But then, all of a sudden, she started talking to me, asking me questions—”

“Papi! You didn’t do gardening work.”

“No, I
did
.”

I laughed. “
Schatz
, this is actually true. Well,
part
of it’s true, the part where I was sitting by the pool and he was working. Then we just started talking, the way people do, and…the rest is history.”

Benny narrowed his eyes, deciding whether to believe us or not.

It had been a long time since I’d thought of those first moments by the pool—hearing Benicio’s work boots on the concrete apron with my eyes closed, the sound of his tools, and then hearing his voice for the first time—only hours after setting
down in Mexico with Jonathon and Oliver. The real story is that I got bored with sunbathing and took out my favorite Joella Lundstrum novel, and, after a while, Benicio approached me and asked what I was reading. If the afternoon had played out even a little differently, Benny wouldn’t have been there years later to ask the question of how we met. Such a flimsy thread to hang the weight of a life on. Answering Benny that day had left me with a curious longing, as if I’d lost something I was sure I hadn’t lost, as if I’d caught a glimpse of all the ghostly trails leading to other outcomes. I remember being very aware, suddenly, in a gut way, that one of those alternative paths led to Emily, the woman Benicio apparently still loved at the time we met, a path no less plausible than the one leading to me. I thought of all the things Benny didn’t know about us, things I prayed he’d never find out. In any case, not long after we met at the pool, Benicio and I were kidnapped, and in the long hours of waiting to learn what Isabel and their cousin Leon would do with us, we began to open up to each other. It was then I first heard of Emily.

“Long story made short,” Benicio had told me, “my parents were killed when a bus they were traveling in was forced off the road into a ravine. They had debts on their property that we didn’t know about. I snuck into the States to help pay them and got a job in a frozen food factory in LA. I sent every dollar home that I didn’t need to survive. I’d always been the class clown, and one night at a comedy club I started to banter with a comedian on stage and it turned out I was funnier than he was. One thing led to another and I became part of the comedy scene. I even had a couple of small parts in movies you’ve probably never heard of.”

“Try me,” I said.

“
Austin’s Willing Execution
.”

“A comedy?”

“Hilarious.”

“Never heard of it.”

“Told you. The other was
In the Company of Harold’s Daughter
.”

“You were in that? My
god
. Oliver has that. He’s watched it a hundred times.”

“And you?” Benicio asked.

“Nope.”

“I rest my case. Anyway,” he continued with a smile, “I sent even more money home and after a while I figured the debts had been paid. What I didn’t know was that Leon had taken some of the money and started a business on the side. You get my drift. He hired my sister. I got deported, and the rest you know.”

I flipped my hand over and squeezed his fingers. My scabby, rope-scarred wrist seemed to glare up at us. “What happened to the woman you were engaged to?” I asked.

This seemed to catch him off guard. “Emily. Yes, well, Emily went on to marry a guy I did shows with. I always thought he was the one who called the INS.”