Brainquake (20 page)

Lafitte poked his head in as Paul was picking up the rucksack.

“Don’t need it, Hank. Takes the fun out of carrying little Jean.”

They trailed Lafitte off the plank to the stone quay. Paul looked behind the barge at the tied-up tug. Then back at the barge. It was the first time he had seen it in daylight, the first time he’d been able to read its name: just like on the life preserver,
Jean Bourgois
.

“Named after Michelle’s grandfather, Hank. He was a hero in the French Resistance.”

“So were you, Zozo.”

Paul didn’t know what they were talking about, but didn’t ask. Later, Michelle could tell him. Carrying the baby in his arms, Lafitte led them the four hundred yards along the riverfront to a cement ramp, ascended it to a phone booth on a street crowded with people strolling and fast two-way traffic.

Lafitte phoned for a taxi, listened, hung up. “No taxi for twenty minutes. Let’s enjoy the walk to the bridge. We’ll flag a taxi there.”

Dressed in the faded, secondhand clothes Johnson had supplied, they made a strange contrast to the tug skipper in his dark suit, collar open, and his sea captain’s cap. They could only hope they remained anonymous, wouldn’t attract too many glances. Michelle caught Paul’s eye, saw the fear there. She squeezed his arm to reassure him. There were plenty of people walking in both directions along the low stone wall facing the Seine. Plenty dressed the way they were or worse. Even one or two with babies. And they wouldn’t stay out long. Lafitte had to be back before two.

As they walked, Lafitte enjoyed telling the baby all about the wonders of the Seine, pointing out different barges and tugs and a passing sightseeing boat.

“Hank, I want to thank you for letting Michelle name the baby Jean.”

“He liked the name the minute he heard it,” Michelle said.

“Didn’t know it was her grandfather’s, did you?” Lafitte bent his head to coo at the baby. “Your grandfather would have loved seeing you.” There was an undertone of sadness in his voice.

A car slowed down abreast of them. The driver shouted.

“Want a ride into town, Captain Lafitte?”

“No thanks, Jacques. Need the exercise.”

“Who’re your friends?”

“Visiting from the States!” Lafitte shouted back.

The driver waved, stepped on the gas. Paul and Michelle looked at each other with renewed apprehension.

* * *

In the plane taking her to Paris, Zara wasn’t getting any rest. She ate little. She spurned the drinks. The photos of Spikes’ latest killing clung to her. Paul was a mob man or Spikes wouldn’t be hunting him.

Bagman? No bagman was stupid enough to get himself involved in the gun-in-the-carriage/bomb mess triggered by somebody owing somebody $10,000. What was Paul’s real role? Collector of cash on its first step to laundering? Or he worked in the laundry? Or in Receiving? That made more sense. He would know the time and place for the drops, the code number of the bagman. Or a mole in Receiving? Or he knew a mole in Receiving. That way it might add up. Paul got the info from the mole, hijacked the bagman, killed him. $200,000 for a plane ride was nothing if he pirated millions.

But Spikes wouldn’t be assigned to find a pirate. There were plenty of enforcers for that kind of hunt. Spikes only went after people who knew names—people threatening to turn state’s evidence, people who could say too much. Crucifixion was for important betrayers, to silence and to punish and to set an example. A bagman gone rogue would be worth his attention. To keep the other bagmen in line and ensure the police got nothing from this one.

So let’s say Paul was a bagman. Using taxi driving as a cover. Nothing new about that. Paul’s isolated shack in the Battery. A loner. Didn’t say much. All that was a bagman’s brand. And they carried millions in cash day and night.

They must have trusted him. And he’d evidently been trustworthy, until he got a hard-on for Michelle. He must have been carrying a loaded bag the night Al came over and wound up dead. Had Paul shot him, or did Michelle do it with Paul’s gun? And how did Al fit into the picture? Maybe Paul’s last drop was the link that made the mafia assign Spikes, and Al was just collateral damage.

Either way, Spikes was after them now. The money was incidental. No matter how big the sum, they replaced it with more within days. Even millions could be lost without seriously hurting their bottom line. What couldn’t be tolerated was betrayal.

Her head became heavy and pain came, behind her right eye. Migraine. She rubbed it with the heel of her hand, willing it to go away. She was wasting time trying to figure out the details. This was a simple manhunt. They could worry about the details after she had Paul safely in custody.

But the puzzle haunted her and her headache got worse. From the day she put on her badge, she learned that it was almost impossible to nail a bagman. So little was known about them. But this time it was a must—she had to nail Paul before Spikes could.

The Commissioner had faxed Interpol in Paris. Half of France was sweeping for clues, from the Brobant farm to St. Lo, Caen, Dunkirk, Lilles, Nantes. She was headed for Paris, at the Commissioner’s instruction. They were probably countries away by now but she had to start somewhere. And maybe they’d stayed put—Paris was easy to get lost in. At least she knew they’d flown to France. That was a start.

Why her? She’d seen them, both of them, could recognize them if she saw them again. Even through a disguise. They needed her there. And frankly she’d lobbied to go. Not just to keep Paul from the crucifier’s hammer, but to bring down the man wielding the hammer himself.

Spikes had been on her radar for years. Not just hers, but as long as he insisted on plying his trade on her streets, she took it personally. Would she shoot Spikes on sight? Never! Would she torture him? She sure as hell would. She wanted the name of the man who gave Spikes his assignments, and she’d break every rule a cop has taken an oath to uphold. To get the name of that man out of Spikes, she would make the Spanish Inquisition, the KKK’s bonfire lynching parties and Hitler’s concentration camp methods look like child’s play.

She found the Interpol man waiting for her at Charles de Gaulle Airport. Driving through heavy traffic toward Paris, he showed her the photo of the crucified woman at Brobant’s farmhouse.

She filled him in with more details. He wasn’t optimistic. By this time, Paul must have had a cosmetic job.

“Maybe,” she said.

And of course Michelle’s blurred photo was of little help. Probably they’d deposited the baby somewhere, making the search for them more difficult. Interpol was checking every hotel, every recently rented furnished or unfurnished apartment, every rented or purchased house in the Paris suburbs.

The Interpol man asked her about Spikes.

“What does he look like, Lieutenant?”

“Nobody knows.”

“You have no informer in the organization?”

“Sure we do. But none of them know what he looks like either.”

“But he knows what you look like.”

“Yes.”

“No offense, but they sent the wrong detective.”

“I insisted. If they ordered me not to go, I’d have come on my own.”

They were approaching the Champs-Élysées. The Interpol man honked his horn to wake up a slow-moving driver ahead of him.

“There are still some moderately priced hotels here.”

“I hope so.”

“On a tight expense account?”

“Tighter than a drum. I’ve got to produce receipts for every bribe.”

The Interpol man sighed. “That’s the song we have to sing every day. Last week I bribed a smuggler with Dom Perignon. How could I ask for receipts? How could I convince my superior I did not drink all that champagne with the girls at the Crazy Horse? Even murder calls for a receipt.”

* * *

The shop on the Champs-Élysées was crowded with tourists, parents with children, grandmothers out shopping to spoil the next generation as they’d never spoiled the previous one. Eight clerks weren’t enough to handle the crowd. The shelves were piled high with pink and blue clothes for infants, colorful prints for older children, all kinds of toys that made the children in the store shout and squeal. Many languages mingled with the crying of babies. It was Babel without the tower.

Lafitte wanted to buy everything for the baby. Pants, shirts, shoes the baby would grow into. His enthusiasm was contagious. Boxes were piled high on a table for him near the counter. And through it all he never gave Paul the baby to hold.

Michelle came out of the change booth across the street, all the American hundreds turned into francs. She pushed through the crowd, waited for the green light, crossed the wide street to a phone booth that had three compartments separated by windows. In one compartment three teenage fans from the music festival were jammed in, all trying to grab the phone to talk to their friend in San Francisco. In the second compartment a young woman was telling her husband why she couldn’t stand the sight of him and refused to tell him where she was calling him from.

In the third compartment Michelle was talking to Eddie.

“We’re in Paris. That’s right. Trying to blend in. He’s wearing a beard. Zara still on your ass?” He said something meant to be reassuring. She could only make out every other word. “Grab the first plane here,” she told him. “Check into the Trainee Hotel in Montmartre. Stay glued to the phone. Everything’s got to be handled in steps. Steps.
Steps.
Yes, that’s right. Trainee. T-R-A-I—That’s right. I’ll tell you the minute you get here.”

Across the street Zara cried, “
Stop!
”

* * *

The Interpol man braked hard. The angry driver of the car behind them swerved wildly, missing the Interpol car by an inch. Cars further back began to honk. Zara ignored it, strained her eyes on the dark profile in the phone booth. The hair was black. She wore a ratty torn shirt like some of the kids Zara had seen on the street, in town for the concert. But that profile—she remembered Michelle gazing out the back of the ambulance. Zara hopped out, zigzagged through the fast two-way speeding traffic. The green light for pedestrians came on. The horde swarmed at Zara. She reached the phone booth.

Michelle was gone.

Zara scanned the street for a glimpse of her. She hopped up and down, giving her height an even better view, hoping to spot that shirt, the hair. She was wasting time. She broke into a sprint, shoved through people. More were in front of her. She elbowed her way and spotted Michelle headed into the shop.

Zara charged in after her but couldn’t get through the people without physically shoving them aside. Already she was drawing stares, hissed curses. There were disadvantages to being a six-foot-tall black woman in Paris—anywhere, but worse here than in New York. Already she saw a uniformed policeman plunging through the crowd toward her. Now came the explanations, the showing of credentials, the countless apologies. But meanwhile Michelle would get away. She searched faces. No Paul. No Michelle. Damn it. But at least she knew they were here.

Zara crossed her arms over her chest and walked toward the French officer.

* * *

Lafitte was grimly holding the baby flanked by Paul and Michelle in the taxi headed toward the Seine. The open trunk was jammed with his purchases.

“You’re not freeloading!” Lafitte growled. “You’re not spongers! It was my idea! I wanted to pay because I’m selfish. It would have made me feel good. Picking out all those things made me feel good, goddam it! And I was feeling great until you picked up the tab behind my back!”

“We’re sorry, Zozo.”

“At least let’s split what Hank spent.”

“We’re not broke, Zozo.”

“You’re not staying at the Ritz, are you?”

“I wanted to stay with you, Zozo.”

That calmed him down a bit. He managed a smile.

“Okay. Hank dropped a wad. We’ll go to the track and you’ll win some of it back. That’ll make me feel better.”

Lafitte told the driver to stop at the newsstand for an
International Herald Tribune
. “Maybe you’d like to read how the horses are running in the States, Hank.”

Paul took the paper, but didn’t turn to the racing pages. He flipped through the front pages instead, to see if his picture was there, or Michelle’s. He was relieved not to see them. But then under
WORLD BRIEFS
a story caught his eye. He read:

BODY IN PHOTO STUDIO VICTIM OF MAFIA SLAYING (NY, AP)

…the mutilated body found in the back room of the studio was identified as William Johnson, 61. His tongue had been cut out gangland style, customarily a punishment for betrayal…

Paul’s head rumbled with pain. He waited for the playing of the flute. It came.

In pink Johnson was crawling through giant ice cubes… reached for his opium pipe, lit it with a giant torch, took a puff. The pipe dropped. His tongue fell from his mouth, pink lava spilling down the ice. The lava turned red. The ice cubes melted. Red lava smothered Johnson’s death cry, yelling for Paul
.

The brainquake was over. Gone was the sound of the flute and gone was the color of pink and red. The words of the news item danced. Paul took a moment. He made out the words and read on:

Johnson, who had a criminal record, was believed to be involved in the international drug trade. His testicles were also amputated.

Lafitte opened boxes and packages in the big living room in front of the baby. The baby kept crying until a toy monkey was placed in his hands. When Lafitte took the monkey away and replaced it with a toy giraffe, the baby cried. Lafitte put the monkey back in the baby’s hands.

The baby stopped crying and kept pulling the monkey’s tail. Paul and Michelle watched. The baby couldn’t understand. No music came from the monkey.

That night in his room, Lafitte was asleep and snoring.

In their room the baby was asleep in his new crib, the monkey held close to him. Moonlight washed through the curtains. Michelle was in the chair, staring at the baby. Then she glanced up at Paul standing at the window, his back to her. The silence was heavy. She knew, without his showing it, how hard the news had hit him.