The Confessor (12 page)

‘You have them?’ he asked.

The driver nodded. ‘Blue Opel. License number BD – 611 – AX.’ His accent was flat and nasal, an echo from a Bible-belt wheat field, and his face was straight out of a Boys Scouts poster. ‘There’s two of them?’

‘Yes. Not sure how that will sit. I will call. Go.’

The driver cracked his knuckles, curling each finger inward toward his palms, and then swung into traffic, three cars behind their quarry. The cab was following signs that read ‘PARIS – A6B’.

The Frenchman tapped at his cell, and while he waited glanced at the driver, who was less than half his age. It seemed they were all half his age these days. This one was two years out of the army, a year into freelance, full of brass and questions – gung ho, as they liked to say in the States.

‘We are leaving the airport,’ he reported to the cell. ‘Matheson is here. Disguised. And he has another man with him.’ He drew the edge of his thumbnail slowly up and down the deep cleft in his chin. It was an old habit, proof of deep focus. ‘All right,’ he said, and clicked off. ‘If they split up we each take one.’

The driver kept his gaze on the road. ‘Yessir.’

The Frenchman took a pen from behind his ear and looked at the puzzle in his lap.

‘Dewey . . .’ he said. ‘A favor, please. Do not call me “sir”. You are not in the military anymore – and I feel old enough as it is.’

The driver gave a quick nod. ‘Right,’ he said.

The Frenchman checked his watch, and wrote the time down on the newspaper’s margin. Dewey glanced over.

‘That is one excellent watch, Victor.’

Victor raised his wrist. ‘A Zannetti Dragon.’ He looked at the large facing – a gold and green Chinese dragon made up of thousands of tiny impressions. He thought back. Milan . . . 2003 . . . the race car driver who raped the girl . . . delivered to her family. ‘When a job is done, I always buy something in that city before I leave. A ritual, I suppose.’ He looked back down to the puzzle.

‘I get that,’ said Dewey. ‘Cool.’

Dewey was jazzed to the max. The job was a real step up – the money, the action – and working with the Frenchman was like winning the lottery. The dude was the pros’ pro – he could teach him a lot – and if Dewey didn’t screw up maybe Victor would hook him up with another gig. It was as good as it gets. Put some more coins in the jukebox, ladies. Dewey’s gonna dance with every one of you tonight.

‘Question,’ he said.

‘Yes?’

‘Have you ever killed someone in the job?’

The Frenchman filled in an answer with neat, block letters. The only ability that had improved in the last ten years was his crossword puzzle skills. Everything else was in a lessening mode. Not at a high enough rate or degree that anyone else was aware of it – it was still his secret, and cunning and experience still masked a host of things – but in his profession, the first time someone noticed would likely be the last.
C’est la vie
.

‘Why would you want to know that, Dewey?’

‘Professional curiosity, I guess. I mean . . . You being a heavy hitter so long . . . I was just wondering about it – what it feels like. That’s all.’

‘I’ll give you two answers. Yes, I have. And – it doesn’t
feel
like anything. That’s why I’ve been able to do this for so long.’

Dewey nodded. ‘Right. I get that.’

The Frenchman doubted the declaration. Dewey was a kill virgin who probably assumed there was little or no difference between lobbing a grenade into a dark, open door – and putting the nose of a gun to the back of a skull and pulling the trigger. The Frenchman knew the difference, and he also knew the folly of trying to describe it to someone who didn’t.

Harry stood on the thin mini-balcony of his room at Hotel Littré, leaning on the wrought-iron railing, looking down at Rue Littré – a narrow, one-way, single-block street. Except for two riders on motor-scooters, there’d been no traffic for ten minutes. The hotel, off Rue de Rennes, was a small, gray-stone, five-story accommodation. Their adjoining rooms were on the second floor – high ceilings with ornate molding, bathrooms with cream-colored pedestal sinks, and a mini-bar with Bonnat chocolates, half-bottles of red Bordeaux, and some packs of flatbread and brie.

‘Harry . . .’

Harry leaned back inside. Matheson was in the doorway that linked their rooms, dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt.

‘I have to get going. I’ll be all over the city looking for spots. And I’ve been thinking . . . It might be better if you aren’t at the rendezvous – so it’s just a one-on-one. Keep his stress down.’

‘Well . . . He doesn’t have to see me – but I want to be there. I can be nearby.’

Matheson played with it. ‘Okay. That’ll work. You staying in or going out?’

‘Probably out. Wander around. Be a tourist.’

Matheson headed for the door. ‘I’ll call when I’m heading back.’

‘David . . . Wait.’

Matheson glanced back. ‘What is it?’

‘Geiger’s alive.’

The words pulled Matheson to a full stop and spun him around like a top.

‘
What?
’

‘I found out two days ago.’

‘Jesus . . .’

‘He’s in Brooklyn. Making furniture. The feds know too.’

‘Jesus Christ . . .’

‘Yeah.’

‘
Jesus – fucking –Christ . . .
’ Somewhere in Matheson’s astonishment was the start of a thought . . .and then it kicked in. ‘Does Ez know?’

‘I told Geiger he had to tell him – so Ezra knows by now or
I’ll
tell him when we get back.’

Matheson was nodding very slowly, like a man getting a first, sweet taste of clemency. ‘This will change Ezra’s life.’

Harry nodded.

‘Thank you for telling me, Harry.’

‘I probably shouldn’t have – but I figured Ezra would tell you, eventually – so . . .’

Matheson took in a deep breath, to keep things from spilling out. ‘Gotta go. See you tonight.’

‘Right.’

Matheson stepped out into the hall and closed the door behind him.

Harry turned back to the view. He’d stayed awake the whole flight but wasn’t sleepy. His body’s clock had adjusted itself – not to the time difference, but to the anticipation of events. Harry had a picture in his mind, of his passion – shattered long ago, pieces flying like shrapnel, embedded in him all these years – and now some magnet was alive at his center, pulling the shards free and drawing them back together . . .

The concierge looked at her computer screen. ‘Pour une nuit?’

‘Oui.’ The Frenchman handed her a credit card.

‘Merci, monsieur.’

He didn’t turn around when Matheson came out of the elevator into the lobby and headed for the front door.

‘Bonne journée, monsieur,’ said the concierge, but Matheson either didn’t hear her or was too wrapped up in his own thoughts to answer – and went out the door.

Harry watched Matheson come out of the lobby and head toward Rue de Rennes. Overhead, the clouds were sliding by in blockish clumps, and every so often the sun’s rays slipped through and lacquered the buildings with the diaphanous shimmer that had brought thousands of painters to the City of Light like believers trekking to Mecca.

The café was on Rue St Jacques, the street-level space of a three-story residence whose apartments’ tall, white shutters were in serious need of a coat of paint. The last time Harry had stood here, the place had been a noisy, family-run boulangerie in its third decade, known for its croissants and brioche. The tinted-glass frontage and red door were the same, but now there was an oval, wooden plaque above them with an engraved name: SOLEIL COUCHANT. On his last night in Brooklyn, Harry had gone on Google Maps, found Rue St Jacques and strolled digitally down the street till he found the storefront. He was an amateur with the language but he knew the word – ‘Couchant’ was French for ‘sunset’ – and he knew why it had been chosen.

He stepped to the door’s glass to get a better view inside. Half a dozen patrons sat at tables beneath the spill of pin-spot pendants hanging from the high, pressed-tin ceiling.

‘Excusez moi . . .’

Harry turned to a man in a turtleneck and winter vest. The Frenchman had raised one patient brow.

‘Après vous?’

Harry’s mind stuttered for a moment at the decision.

‘Oui,’ he said.

The Frenchman made an elegant after-you gesture. Harry turned the knob – and when he opened the door a sweet, crisp jingle of an overhead bell sounded. He went inside.

The smell of rich, potent coffee was as seductive as the nymph Calypso. Renovative sleight of hand had created extra space without any actual expansion. There were fifteen small tables with beige granite tops and deco-style bistro bases. The floor was dark slate, the walls paneled with old-fashioned wainscoting. On the left was a mahogany bar with leather and brass stools, and Miles Davis floated through the air leaving a honeyed aural coating on everything. The overall effect was as close to time travel as one could achieve, and the owner’s opinion was clear: If you were looking for coffee and a few moments of peace, or sought a stronger libation and a state closer to thoughtlessness – the past was preferable to the present.

Harry sat down at the bar. The bartender and the waitress – in their twenties, lean and attractive in black dress shirts and gray slacks – were huddled at the wide, three-tap espresso machine. She pushed a square white button and they waited. The machine began to grumble unpleasantly, then gave out a wet belch and went silent. The pair looked at each other and frowned, then noticed Harry. The bartender came over.

‘Bonjour, monsieur . . .’

‘Café crème, please.’

‘Très bien.’ The bartender turned round and went to work, pouring coffee into a large cup. ‘Where are you from in America? New York?’

‘That’s right.’

The bartender grinned over his shoulder. ‘I like to try and guess.’

‘Merde! Je m’en fous, Marcel! Il est encore foutu.’

It was a woman’s voice, ripe with righteous anger. Harry had always felt French made cursing something of an art form, and he knew a few.
‘Shit! I don’t give a fuck, Marcel! It’s fucking broken again!’
she had said.

A slim woman in an oversized, long-sleeved, cream-colored blouse and pleated slacks marched out of a back room, cell phone to her ear. Her hair was the color of a penny and rested in waves on her shoulders. Her face had striking, wide planes. If someone saw her, they would remember her.

‘Faut résoudre le problème, Marcel! Fix it! Now!’ She punched off the call, sat down at the end of the bar, and slammed her palm down. Her two employees flinched. ‘Trou du cul!’ she growled, elevating ‘Asshole!’ to a poetic realm.

Then she glanced up and saw Harry staring at her. The sudden outbreak of so many feelings at once made the woman’s expression a spectacle – shock striking the forehead and etching three stiff lines across it . . . recognition widening the pale blue eyes as the pupils flared . . . something lighter-than-air raising the ends of her lips up an infinitesimal degree – and ruling over it all, a sorrow instantly rekindled.

‘Hello, Chris,’ said Harry.

He’d always been able to read her moods, no matter how subtle, but not now. And she seemed to be in the same state – caught up in the swirl of her feelings and uncertain where she was going to land. She stood up and walked to him, close enough that he could smell the single drop of Chanel No. 5 she always dabbed behind each ear.

‘Hello, Harry,’ she said.

The inches between them could be measured in years. They could be measured by the slow, crawling ebb of intimacy in spite of love and want – and by the unstoppable, off-kilter turning of lives – when winter had come but never left, and the chill and inescapable shiver finally became too much to bear.

‘This is very strange, right?’ said Harry.

‘Yes, it is. Very.’

‘You think a hug is doable?’

He opened his arms. It might have been that she agreed, or perhaps just needed some kind of anchor in the vertigo of the moment – but she leaned into him, and their arms gently closed round each other. She hadn’t put on any weight.

He put his lips to her ear. ‘How do you say “I’ve missed you” in French?’ He felt the muscles in her slim back beneath the silk tense, and then soften.

‘Tu m’as manqué,’ she said, and took a step back. Seeing her faint smile rise was like watching a memory come back to life. ‘You know how to say that, Harry. You heard it every day when you came home.’

There was a dreamy buzz seeping into the whole event – the throwback look of the place, the waitress and bartender in Harry’s line of sight staring curiously, the soul-chilled jazz, the rickety rope-bridge between them that spanned thirteen years and a deep, mist-filled crevasse where joy and hope lay.

Christine turned to her employees. ‘André . . . Nicole . . . This is Harry Boddicker. We used to be married.’

First came the widening of eyes at the news that their boss had ever had a husband, then the intensified refocusing on Harry with that new knowledge in mind.

‘Yeah, I know,’ Harry said to them. ‘I got that look all the time. Kind of a beauty and the beast thing – right?’ The bartender and waitress managed grins to try and mask their embarrassment. ‘Feel like a walk, Chris?’

The simplest of questions seemed to have her stumped. Her gaze drifted to the floor, as if the answer might be written on it. She sighed so deeply that the sheer silk of her blouse fluttered, then she turned to the bar.

‘André,’ she said, ‘call me when Marcel is here.’

The bartender nodded, and Christine picked up her cell phone.

‘Yes, Harry,’ she said, ‘let’s walk,’ and they headed for the door. She grabbed her coat off an antique rack and they went out.

The man in the turtleneck was sitting at a corner table, watching them over the rim of his teacup. His thumbnail played at his chin’s cleft and his eyes never left them until they had turned right and walked out of sight. He put a few coins on the table, picked up his
Tribune
and walked out to the street. The couple was strolling slowly, and as he headed their way he took out his cell and made a call.