The Bookseller (7 page)

He began to read more on the history of the bouquinistes and was surprised to see that they were tightly regulated, even today. At least, in theory. From what he was seeing, they were initially prohibited from selling anything but books, but with the advent of international tourism they had banded together to form a semiofficial union, Le Syndicat Des Bouquinistes de Paris, or SBP. With more than two hundred members operating in the most tourist-friendly parts of Paris, and with the weight of history behind them, the government had relented on this rule and allowed them to sell souvenirs—as long as they carried three times as many books as they did mini-Eiffel Towers and postcards.
Apparently the SBP had managed to keep their rent low, too, a nominal amount. Hugo was no economist but he knew a good deal when he saw one. Low rent, prime location, and an ever-renewing supply of customers. No wonder there was an eight-year wait to become a bouquiniste. It also explained how the Seine's band of booksellers were able to undercut the book shops and tourist boutiques.

A knock at the door interrupted him, and he stood as Ambassador Taylor came in.

Rotund, balding, and somewhere around average height, one could walk past J. Bradford Taylor on the street and, assuming you noticed him at all, would imagine him to be a bank clerk or accountant. Actually, Hugo had joked with Ambassador Taylor over brandy one night that he'd make a master criminal—utterly unrecognizable and hugely intelligent. Typical of the ambassador, he'd taken the joke as a compliment.

“Morning, sir,” Hugo said.

“Morning to you. Aren't you on vacation?” He gestured for Hugo to sit, and plopped down in a chair opposite him.

“Yes and no. Something came up.”

“So I heard. I got your messages and made a couple of calls.”

“Thank you.”

“Don't thank me, Hugo, I'm not going to be any help.”

“How's that?”

“I talked to a couple of people and they say there's nothing much to investigate. Which confused me. What the hell's going on?”

Hugo leaned forward, the last hope of official cooperation evaporating before his eyes. “Ambassador, a friend was kidnapped in front of me. A man with a gun took him from his book stall by Pont Neuf.”

“You saw this?”

“I was right there, I couldn't do a damn thing except call the police afterwards. The detective made all the right moves but never really…I don't know.” Hugo sat back. “It's hard to explain. He went through the motions, but since a couple of people told a different story, he's just thrown up his hands and stopped looking.”

Taylor stroked his chin. “That's very odd. Why would he do that?”

“I have no idea, but I was hoping you might be able to find out.”

“I'm sorry Hugo, but this is one of those jurisdictional things.” He held up a hand as Hugo started to protest. “Yes, I know, we both hate that kind of talk, but the fact remains. If they don't want to investigate, there's nothing you or I can do about it. And I know what you're thinking, but don't. We have a sensitive conference coming up, our friends from Zimbabwe, and this isn't the time to be ruffling French feathers.”

“Honestly, ambassador, right now I don't care about French feathers.”

“Well I do,” Taylor said, standing. “And you better start because that's your job. I'm sorry about your friend, Hugo, I mean that. But if the locals are satisfied there was no crime, then what can I do? Between nothing and very little. Which,” he added, holding up a warning finger, “is what I want you to be doing.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning you stand down, vacation or not.”

 

 

When Emma walked into his office with a cup of coffee, Hugo was staring into space.

“Hugo, you look pale. Are you OK?”

“Yes, fine. Just thinking, that's all. I just had some…news.”

“Oh dear. Bad news, from the look on your face. And the look on the ambassador's when he walked out.”

Hugo looked up. “Oh, I'm not worried about him. He has a job to do. No, this is something else, something good but mysterious, you might say.”

“Care to share? We could use some excitement around here.”

“Lions and Martians not enough for you?” He thanked her for the coffee and, when she left, he turned back to his computer.

What had that bouquiniste said his name was? Ah yes, Jean Chabot.

One of the things Hugo had done as embassy security chief was to negotiate access for himself and senior members of his staff to the databases of France's foreign intelligence agency, the Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure, or DGSE, and the databases of the French version of the FBI, the Direction Centrale du Renseignement Intérieur, or DCRI. If he'd wanted to, he could also tap into Interpol's global communications system, known as I-24/7. He'd try that next, if nothing came up.

He first logged into the DCRI's system. The latest generation of crime-fighting software, it could search for crimes or criminals using the barest of details. A name, a place, a date, or even a
modus operandi
would bring back results. Not always fast, it was nonetheless thorough, and his first thought was to have it track down that bastard Nica. But
his fingers hovered over the keyboard. Presumably the man's first name, but short for Nicolas? Nicholas? Nikolas? Too many possibilities. Instead, he filled two search boxes with the names “Jean” and “Chabot.”

Then he sat back, lifted his boots onto his desk, and took a careful sip of Emma's hot coffee. Perfect, as always. Why he couldn't make it this good at home, he'd no clue. Even using her written instructions, and the exact same beans and coffee-concocting equipment, he ended up producing either a witch-thin potion or a bitter, burnt-tasting brew.

He took another sip and watched as a thick bar on his computer screen filled up from left to right. It paused at ninety-nine percent and then flashed up twelve hits on Frenchmen named “Jean Chabot.” Only three were in Paris, so he started with those. The first was a bust: a black male killed in prison two years ago. The second and third Jean Chabots were also not his man, a quick glance at the pictures showed that much. He ventured further afield, choosing a Chabot from Toulouse. Not him. The next one was from Pau, a town Hugo knew from following the Tour de France religiously every year. Down near the Pyrénées, one of the mountain stages of that race usually began or ended there.

This Jean Chabot
was
his man, the too-close eyes and thin mouth unmistakable. He had six convictions, all for theft-related offenses, the most petty was a shoplifting charge when he was twenty and the most serious an armed robbery, for which he spent four years behind bars. What struck Hugo was that each of Chabot's crimes was in southwestern France, three in the city of Pau itself, two more in Biarritz, and the other one in Lourdes. Nothing at all in Paris.

Which meant that Hugo now had two questions that he couldn't answer.

First, why would a humble bouquiniste get kidnapped? Second, how did a not-so-petty criminal from the Pyrénées-Atlantiques Department end up in possession of one of the most coveted bookstalls in Paris? He didn't believe that Chabot didn't know Max, or at least know of him. But if Chabot wasn't talking, there wasn't a lot he could do about it. Yet.

The next step, he knew, was to try harder to find Max himself. His
fingers hovered above the keyboard, the cursor blinking in the empty search box in front of him. Max was a friend and looking up his criminal history seemed like an invasion of privacy, a step too far. He didn't know why, but he felt sure that any wrongdoings would be ancient history, from a youth that Max had left behind long ago. Hugo was still not sure he wanted to know, but he couldn't think of any other way to find the old man.

All he had was his first and last name, and even the latter he wasn't sure how to spell. He tried multiple variations on the spelling of “Cloche” and then, when he got nothing back, he tried variations on the name. After more than a dozen tries, running every name he could think of that began with “Cl-,” he sat back and ran his hands through his hair. He thought for a moment, then checked his watch and smiled at the realization that time didn't mean the same thing to Tom as it did to everyone else. He dialed his friend's number.

Tom's voice came on the line after four rings. “I spy a French number, so Dr. Marston, I presume.”

“Well done, Sherlock.”

“Silence ‘lo these many years, then you can't get enough of me. What's up?”

“You remember I said I had a little thing going on here?”

“And here's where I make a joke about your little thing.”

“Wouldn't be the first time. Anyway, you near your CIA gadgetry?”

“Happens I am. It's the only way I can access global porn. The classy Malaysian stuff.”

“Naturally,” said Hugo. “I need some information about someone, but I don't have much to go on.”

“Hang on.” Hugo heard the clink of glasses, or perhaps bottles, being moved. “You've tried your local databases I assume?”

“Yes, Tom, I managed to think of that.”

“Good man. So what can you tell me?”

“Max is the first name; I'd thought his last name was Cloche but I ran it, and every other name beginning with those first two letters, and came up empty.”

“What else?”

“No date of birth, I'd guess he's in his late sixties. He's a bouquiniste.”

“OK. Anything else?”

Hugo searched his mind for more clues, for some deeply buried memory that might point to Max's identity. “If I think of something I'll let you know.”

“OK,” Tom said. Hugo could hear his friend's fingers working a keyboard, then Tom's voice, talking himself softly through the process. “Max and all its variations, in Paris, bookseller. Probably a union member, being a frog.”

“Yes. And the bouquinistes have a union–”

“I know,” Tom interrupted. “The SBP, I found it already. In his sixties, you say?”

“Yes.” Early in the friendship Hugo had asked Max his age. The old man's response had been so colorful that Hugo had understood the meaning without recognizing many of the words themselves.

“Let's see,” said Tom. “I have two candidates but I'd guess…crotchety looking fellow, with a rubbery nose?”

“You found him?” Hugo sat up. “I'm at my computer, can you send me a picture?”

“Just did. That him?”

Hugo opened his e-mail account and clicked on the attachment to Tom's message. “You're a genius, Tom. That's him. Can you send whatever you have?”

“Actually, not allowed to. The CIA retired me, I can't have them firing me, too. But you can take notes while I talk.”

“Then talk.”

“Maximilian Ivan Koche. German or Dutch I'd guess. Has an apartment on Rue Condorcet. Know it?”

Koche. Dammit
. Hugo got up. “Hang on,” he said, walking over to the large map on his wall. He found it just west of the Gare du Nord, the station that served routes to the north and to the United Kingdom. Just above Rue Condorcet was the Pigalle district, home to the famous Moulin Rouge cabaret and a multitude of sex shops. It was also home
to many of the city's prostitutes, women and men who plied their trade in the winding side streets that led up to the tourist-heavy Montmartre district. “Near Pigalle,” he told Tom. “What else?”

“According to this, he was born in 1938, which makes him over seventy years old.” Tom hummed as he clicked several times. “I was right. Again. Your buddy Max is German, born of a Hungarian mother and a German father, both Jews, in Dortmund. Looks like they lived there for a few years, until 1942, when their house was raided by those Nazi bastards. The whole family was arrested and sent to an internment camp at Le Vernet, in southern France.”

“I've heard of it,” said Hugo. “Where the hell are you getting this stuff?”

“Can't tell you that,” Tom said. “But you'll see in a minute why someone kept a file on him.”

“Good. Go on.”

“OK, so they were at Le Vernet for two years, alive and together, but in July of 1944 they were loaded onto a train and shipped east to Dachau.” Tom's tone changed, and Hugo knew that even his world-weary and flippant friend felt the weight of that period of history. “According to this, Max was the only one to survive and was liberated from Dachau in 1945. He was adopted by a French colonel and his wife and raised in a suburb of Paris.” Which explained why Hugo had never detected a foreign accent. “But then more shitty luck,” Tom went on. “When Max was twelve, in May of 1950, his adoptive father and mother were killed in a car accident while the family was on vacation in Brittany. Max was the only one to survive.”

Hugo shook his head. So much about the old man he hadn't known. “Go on. I'm still curious why you guys have a file on him.”

Tom chuckled. “Not technically our file, but we're coming to the interesting part. In 1963 Max attended the marriage of lawyer Serge Klarsfeld to his wife, Beate. Those names ring a bell?”

“Yes, but I can't place them.”

“Two of France's most famous Nazi-hunters.”

“And the reason that file exists,” said Hugo.

“Right. Moving on. Max spent the '60s with the Klarsfelds chasing
Nazis, including those responsible for wiping out his family. According to this, French authorities suspected that Max helped the Klarsfelds abduct former Gestapo chief Kurt Lischka in 1971. No proof, although when the couple was arrested for the kidnap, Max led the campaign to free them from jail. That happened pretty quickly, a lot of people joined the campaign, and they went back to work once they were released, Max helping the couple with more Nazi captures, including Klaus Barbie and Jean Leguay.”

“Nice work,” Hugo said.

“Yeah, until Leguay was let go without facing trial. This says Max lost heart after that.”

“Who was Leguay?” Hugo asked.

“A high-ranking police official in the Vichy government, and one of the most senior collaborators with the Nazis during their World War II occupation of France. A second set of charges was filed against him in 1986, but he was let go before trial. Again.”

“Amazing,” Hugo said. “I had no idea.”

“This Max guy is a friend?” Tom asked. “He in trouble?”

“Yeah. Most definitely.”

“Anything else I can do to help?”

“Not right now. But I'll let you know if that changes.”

They hung up, and Hugo sat with his elbows on his desk, staring into his now-cold coffee.

Rarely did a human being surprise him. Twenty-plus years in law enforcement saw to that, and with his behavioral training and experience in the field he usually found himself able to predict most people's odd behavior, or spot someone with a colorful history. But not this time. What stories the old man must have. And Hugo found himself pleased, somehow, that in a manner of speaking they were in the same line of work: catching bad guys. He'd failed his friend, let him be kidnapped, and that was reason enough to track Max down. But now the old man's compelling history added to Hugo's already fierce determination to find his friend.

Not to mention, of course, Hugo owed him a pair of cowboy boots.