Dollar Down (8 page)

"Great, do they have wine?"

She frowned. "I said crepes. You should have
cider."

"Hard cider?"

"Of course."

Off we went.

The restaurant was on a side street near the eastern
end of the Champs Elysées. It was picture-book cozy
with tile mosaics of old-time kitchens and giant photographs of
idyllic landscapes. I looked over a list of exotic ingredients for
the crepe then settled on ham and cheese. Marie ordered
scallops and spinach. No wonder she was elfin thin.

In the couscous restaurant, she had taken a table well
away from Ruiz. Her back had been turned toward him, so he
wouldn't notice her face. When the other two arrived, she
managed a quick look and took their photos with a mobile
phone. She said she would email them to me. Otherwise, she
didn't have much to add. She hadn't been able to hear any of
their conversation.

Half a crepe and a pitcher of cider later, Marie and I
were getting on like old chums. She had an extraordinary story.
Her mother had divorced her father not long after she was
born. They spent a few years in Lyon, her mother's hometown.
She vividly remembered the day that changed their lives, even
though she'd been only six years old. It was just before the
start of her first year in elementary school. Her mother took
her to Paris to show her the city and to a performance of
Cirque du Soleil, Circus of the Sun.

She'd been so excited by the show that her mother let
her hang around afterwards to meet some of the performers.
Meanwhile, her mother met Marcel LaFey, the troupe's
bookkeeper and the rest, as they say, was history rewritten.
They went back to Lyon only to pack. Then they were off to
Toledo and Toronto and Tokyo and many points in
between.

Within a few years, Marcel found a new job. Her
mother left the circus with him, but Marie stayed to become a
performer, a contortionist, by the time she was barely a
teenager. A year later, she was also doing aerial acrobatics.
That explained her strength as well as some of her wiles. A bad
accident when she was sixteen dislocated her hip. It healed
sufficiently so as not to be a hindrance in ordinary activity, but
the injury made it hard to execute the extraordinary demands
of the job. She stayed one more year to finish her high school
studies with the troupe's tutors, and then bailed out at the next
stop in Paris.

Now she was an apprentice investigator, just a month
shy of her twenty-second birthday.

Quite a life.

When I got back to Sabine's apartment I called
Oddsson to tell him about Trevor. Seething anger was palpable
in his voice when he said, "There must be a connection to her
work."

He was more convinced of a connection than I was. As
far as I knew, the PDVSA study was the only thing that tied
together the two murders—one in France and one in England.
The likelihood that police would cooperate on a joint
investigation was about zero, at least in the early stages. If
there was a connection they would probably start with the
wrong assumptions.

That fear was confirmed the next day when I got a call
from Oddson's lawyer to tell me that he had been arrested and
charged with Sabine's murder. Ironically, part of the rationale
for suspicion was Geir's rapid liquidation of assets, including
his putting her apartment on the market. That was the
property he'd said could cover the costs of an investigation to
find her killer.

The lawyer had his doubts about my effectiveness, but
he said he controlled a substantial fund that Geir had set aside
for expenses. He hoped it wasn't a waste.

So did I.

There are times when you can bear down hardest by
just letting go.

I had called Gavizon to see if he had any more
information on Cervantes' schedule and asked if there was any
reason for him to be in Paris. He said he'd check again, but as
far as he'd found, London was the only town on the
schedule.

Next I called Alexandra to see if Winchell's Mideast
headquarters in Dubai had turned up anything on the
Saudi.

"They've got only one name, Ibrahim. What are they
supposed to do with that? It's a common one, isn't it?"

I took her response to mean no. "I have a photo."

"Mike, I'm busy. I will talk to you later." The line went
dead.

I set out for a walk, not to go anywhere, just to be in
motion. When I focused on Oddsson's arrest, memories of
Sabine and possible connections among Cervantes, the Saudi
and Mumby overwhelmed my capacity for logical analysis.
When I tried to shake them, images of Trevor rose up.

Giving up on trying to focus, I put my mind on free spin
and took in the city as I strolled through it. When I did,
Grandmas Fitzgerald and Sanchez joined me for a quality-time
visit. They brought remembered aromas of homemade tortillas
and ginger muffins, the unforgettable taste of mint tea and a
soothing memory of warm soapy water and a gentle hand
cleaning skinned knees. Best of all were their soul-healing hugs.
By the time I reached the Seine, my psyche was riding an even
keel.

I'd also found out how condensed central Paris is. I'd
walked halfway across it in what for me was an easy stroll.
Notre Dame was just up river. I headed toward it and entered a
warren of restaurants and cafes on the Right Bank. In a close
skirmish with nostalgia, I stopped in front of a Tex-Mex eatery,
checked the menu and passed it by. No reason to gamble that
the fare might disappoint and break the mood.

Without consciously thinking about it, I was mentally
on the job again as I turned back toward Montmartre. The
Venezuelans must be doing more than selling emulsified tar for
PDVSA. I needed to know what that was. I also needed to know
what happened to the twenty-five thousand euros that Trevor
had sent to Mumby's bank and what Mumby himself knew
about it.

I called Pascal and asked if he could set up video or at
least audio surveillance devices in Ruiz's office and apartment.
He said he'd get back.

McNulty was next on my list. I called him, and he
agreed to bug Mumby's home, but he didn't think he could get
into the office. That was fine. I doubted we would get much
from there anyway.

Then I called my old boss. Abe Granger's company,
Global Risk Management, had resources that I didn't. He said it
was good to hear from me, but he didn't sound jovial about it.
Nevertheless, he'd be happy to follow the trail of the
twenty-five thousand euros. His good-bye was friendly. Must have
been something I said, like my promise to pay by wire transfer
for the service.

Quick as that, I was done with business. It was growing
dark out, and I had an evening to face. I called Alexandra again.
She responded to my voice with an edge of irritation, but I
plowed ahead anyway and invited her to dinner. No work
agenda, I just didn't want to eat alone. To my surprise, she lost
the edge and said yes.

We met at an upscale restaurant near her office. At the
waiter's advice, we ordered a bold claret "with complex hints
of currants and black cherries" and a vibrant bouquet of some
other fruit that wasn't a grape. Whatever it was, maybe
raspberry, went fine with braised beef. Alexandra had no
exotic tales to match Marie's. She grew up in a middleclass
family, had an older brother and a younger sister. Her biggest
adventure had been to study hard enough to win a scholarship
to INSEAD. Her family would not have been able to afford the
tuition. Her second biggest thrill had been landing a job with
Winchell & Associates. That was even tougher competition
than the scholarship.

I kept my own stories to a minimum. Born in Laredo,
way long time ago. Did a stint in the Air Force, wounded in
Vietnam spotting for bombers, switched my occupational
specialty to legal aide and served in Japan until my discharge.
Did a year of law school before joining a global investigative
agency. Started my own shop when I got ambitious. The
ambitious part wasn't exactly accurate. I left over a conflict of
human morality, but it was close enough for now.

I also had apparitional visits from the warmest
grandmothers in human history. I didn't tell Alexandra that.
She might not understand. They had come along for the
evening and one of them advised me to watch Alexandra's left
cheekbone. You had to catch the light just right to see it. About
half an inch below the outside corner of her eye was a small
irregular patch of skin. It was set off by a subtle tinge of orange,
a birthmark. I had expected to keep that observation to myself,
but Grandma Fitzgerald goosed my psyche.

"The imperfection that makes your beauty
memorable," I said aloud.

I couldn't quite decipher the look that Alexandra
flashed at me, but it wasn't one I wanted to see twice. I made
an embarrassed smile and shook my head. "I shouldn't drink
bold claret. Here," I pointed to the corner of my eye, "there is a
very light birthmark. Your features are so balanced, I was
looking for something that wasn't a perfect fit."

Alexandra smiled with her mouth and frowned with
her eyes. "I was just surprised. That's something I wouldn't
have expected you to say."

"Me or anyone else, I would guess."

She nodded and lost the frown. She also folded her
napkin and laid it on the table.

"Thank you for the evening. It was a refreshing break
from work and..."

Her voice faded. She didn't have to say anything about
Sabine or Trevor.

"You paid for drinks at the hotel," she reached for her
handbag. "Let me get the check."

"Not as long as I'm breathing. It was my
invitation."

"Well then, next time I'll invite you."

I scowled.

"Are you too proud to let a woman pay?"

"I wouldn't call it pride, just the way I was brought up.
My grandmothers wouldn't forgive me."

I could hear the calculator clicking away in her
mind.

"Are they still alive?"

I shook my head. In the glow of a good meal and
friendly company and my what-a-good-boy-am-I appeal, I felt
some mental hugs coming on.

"Not physically anyway."

Alexandra had the grace not to say anything about that
comment, or anything else, for that matter. We said good night
efficiently, no backward glances, no question of where do we
go from here.

I returned to Sabine's apartment and called Burroughs
to ask if he'd received my package. He had.

"Last time I talked to you, I asked you what you did for
humor. I guess I know now, but I don't think it's funny. I don't
mind a practical joke, even if it's on me. I just don't get it."

"What joke?"

"Nobody's that dumb. You didn't show this file to Bizet.
What's going on?"

"The computer file? I never said I showed that to Bizet.
He only saw the paper notes."

"Are you for real, Sanchez?"

"I must be, because I have no idea what you're talking
about."

"The file wasn't encrypted, at least not if you can read
Chinese."

"It wasn't Chinese. It was garble."

"Not if your software is configured to read BIG 5
character code, two-bytes."

There was a moment of silence, then I heard
Burroughs' laugh. It was loud.

"You actually thought it was encrypted." He laughed
again. "There aren't many items in the ASCII character set, so
you need only one byte to represent a character. Chinese needs
two bytes for its fifty thousand or so
hanzi
. If your
software is reading one byte at a time, you get garble."

I knew that. It just hadn't occurred to me that might be
the problem. "Thanks I'll have it translated. What about the
notes?"

"I need to talk to Bizet."

"If you need verification about where they came from,
let's try something else. I promised I wouldn't give out his
name."

"You didn't. I'll explain it to him, and I don't need
verification. No one trying to trick me would have such a
clueless request for decryption. I need his ideas for describing
a model on the dollar fall. No normal factors could cause that,
but it isn't impossible technically. With a corporate stock or
even an index, if it falls too fast too far, say five percent or ten
percent in one session, the exchange simply stops trading it,
automatic trigger. There is no such mechanism in the foreign
exchange market. No exchange owns the dollar."

"Let me know what you find out."

"I've done this much because of Bizet's name. I
wouldn't mind knowing a little more about who Sanchez
is."

I described my relationship with Winchell &
Associates and the deaths of Sabine and Trevor. As soon as I
hung up, I called Bizet and explained what had happened.
Better that he hear it from me. I also asked him not to mention
Mumby to Burroughs. They might be pals.

Winchell's computer system used a proprietary
application for word processing. By default, that was the
application that had opened the Chinese file, which it was not
designed to display. I opened it again in an off-the-shelf
program that could read Chinese. I couldn't. Without knowing
the contents, there was little point in speculating on a China
connection. Market information would have been the best
guess, but there were twenty pages. That was too dense for a
Winchell description of who's buying what. The firm's
documents tended to be short and full of graphs.

It was very late, but I decided to take my chances with
an abusive-language response and called Alexandra. She
mumbled into the phone.

"This is Mick."

More mumbling. It was warm and throaty, not the
sound of a marble goddess.

"I woke you."

"Unn."

"You'll have to trust me on this. It's important enough
to write down. Do you have pencil and paper?"

"Yes."

"The encrypted files, they weren't encrypted. It was
Chinese. I'll explain later. Can you get a translation?"