The Devil's Banker (23 page)

Equal parts confused and enraged, Chapel pushed her away and stood. It wasn’t a seduction; it was a slaughter. “You should go,” he said.

Sarah gazed up at him. Reaching out, she ran a hand up his leg.

He felt dizzy, his resistance waning. “No, Sarah.”

“I can see it in your eyes, Adam. You need someone.”

“Maybe I do,” he said. “But I’ll be the one to choose who it is.”

She stood and kissed him again, moving her lips against his. “We need each other.”

Firmly, he grasped her arms and stepped away. “Go,” he said, and opened the door to the hall.

“You won’t last a minute out there,” she said breathlessly, pausing in the doorway.

“Why’s that?”

“You’re too honest. Don’t you see? You’re the last good man.”

Sarah didn’t look back as she walked down the hall.

Chapter 24

In the grand salon of NO. 6, Rue de la Victoire, Rafi Boubilas, proprietor of Royal Joailliers, was celebrating his release from Mortier Caserne. A gathering of his best friends stood round him, drinking champagne, sampling canapés, delivering hearty pats on the back. Lit by a magnificent crystal chandelier, framed by floor-to-ceiling windows, they might have been actors on a stage. Crouching next to the wall at the rear of the enclosed garden, Leclerc had a perfect view of the eighteenth-century hotel de ville.

The terrace doors opened. A man and woman stepped outside, accompanied by the snappy rhythms of a Brazilian samba. A joint was produced, a match lit, and the sour-sweet smell of marijuana drifted into the night.

Leclerc waited until the two returned inside the house, then snapped his fingers. A moment later, a black-clad figure dropped to the ground next to him, then another. Guillo and Schmid.

“Six of them,” he said. “The lawyer, too. It’s time they went home.”

Guillo opened a cell phone and dialed the Boubilas home. A young woman strolled across the salon and picked up the telephone. “Madam, this is the police. We have had some complaints from your neighbors about the noise. This is not the first time. Maybe it is time your party ends. Or would you prefer us to send a patrol?”

The woman answered the polite request with a not-so-polite instruction. Dutifully, she delivered the message to Boubilas along, it appeared, with an animated recounting of how she told
“les flics”
to fuck off. It was clear, even from a distance of twenty meters, that Boubilas did not share her sense of humor. Setting down his glass, he walked to his attorney and whispered a word in her ear. A few minutes later, the guests began to depart. As the bells of the St.-Michel cathedral tolled the midnight hour, the lawyer adjusted her beret, offered Boubilas her cheek, and left. Only Boubilas and his companion, a young woman, remained in the house.

“Showtime,” said Leclerc grimly.

Pulling a balaclava over his face, he set out across the lawn. The three moved silently, shadows in a shadowless night. Reaching the terrace, they dropped to the grass and rolled to the wall. Leclerc lifted his head, eyes making a quicksilver scan of the salon. Glasses littered the tables. Ashtrays brimmed to overflowing. A miniature mountain of cocaine adorned a mirror on the coffee table. But he saw no one.

With index and middle finger, he motioned to the next room, then commando-crawled beside the wall until he reached the second window. Again he popped up his head. It was Boubilas’s study, and the party boy himself entered as if on cue. Walking directly to a sturdy desk of polished oak, he picked up a silver straw and availed himself of a line of cocaine, throwing his head back and grunting like a sated pig as he finished.

The woman entered the room. She was too young, too blond, and too good-looking for an overweight lounge lizard like Boubilas. Her eyes spotted the coke, and a plastic smile stretched her cheeks. Joylessly, she followed his example, wiping the residue on her finger, and rubbing it into her gums. Sashaying to Boubilas, she pressed herself against him.

Leclerc led the men back to the terrace. Vaulting the stone railing, he crossed to the door and tried the handle. Locked. Withdrawing a folding knife from his pants, he threw open the blade and worked it into the doorjamb. The lock was as old as the home. A flick of the wrist and it gave.

Inside, they moved like wraiths. Silenced Beretta in hand, Leclerc navigated the hall, secretly hoping to be discovered so that he might be forced to use it. Moans issued from the dimly lit study. A last step delivered him to the doorway. The woman was on her knees, her head bobbing like a jackhammer, but to no avail. “It is okay?” she asked, after each bout.

Leclerc raised a hand and counted down on outstretched fingers.
Three . . . two . . . one.

They were on him before Boubilas could react. The girl was pushed to the ground, hands bounds with plastic ties, a wad of cotton cloth inserted into her mouth, a strip of duct tape to seal it.

“Take her out,” Leclerc said.

Boubilas kept still as a rock, the snout of the Beretta pressed into the folds of his jaw. His pants had sunk to the floor and were bunched at his ankles. Leclerc glanced down. “I knew coke made it hard to get it up. I didn’t know it could make it disappear altogether.” And then he slugged Boubilas in the gut. Because he wanted to. Because he needed to get rid of his hate. Because it might prevent him from killing the worm later on.

“
Bonsoir,
Rafi. Know who this is?”

“Yes. Good evening, Captain.”

Boubilas sat on the leather couch. Guillo stood behind him, an encouraging hand laid on the jeweler’s shoulder.

“Time for a heart-to-heart,” Leclerc said, taking a knee so that he faced Boubilas directly. “I’ll tell you up front that I don’t give a shit about a trial, about proper statements. I’m not here for justice. Just for answers. I am here to stop something from happening. Okay? Something bad. You give me what I want, and my friends and I will go. Everyone chums. If you decide to be the tough guy, then things will go badly. First off, there’s that coke in there. What is it—an ounce? Not to mention your private stash on the table. What happened, the guests didn’t deserve the good stuff? Tell me, if I look around, think I’ll find some more?” When Boubilas didn’t answer, Leclerc patted his cheek twice. “All right, then, we start with something easy. What do you say? Yes? No?”

Still no answer.

Boubilas was fifty and sallow, a pudgy, pear-shaped man with the dissolute scowl of a lifelong substance abuser. The few strands of hair left to him he kept long and tied into a ponytail. Beads of sweat rolled down his forehead. He stank of fear.

“How much did you hand over to Taleel yesterday?”

“Five thousand dollars,” answered Boubilas.

“That right?” Standing, Leclerc wandered to the desk and picked up an open bottle of Taittinger champagne. He took a sip, pronounced it “not bad,” then returned to his place in front of Boubilas. He wanted to give him a few moments to think about his answer, to reflect upon this last stretch of sanity. “That’s your first and last lie tonight, okay? Look, just think of me as an old friend. No secrets. Let’s start again. How much?”

“Fifty thousand.” The eyes moved down and to the left. It was a rapid movement, quick as a blink, but Leclerc was trained to notice such things. It was a lie.

Swiftly, and with great skill, he acted. One hand flew to Boubilas’s forehead and forced it back so it hit the couch. The other shook the bottle of Taittinger violently, a thumb over its mouth, bringing the bottle to Boubilas’s upturned nose, where he released a stream of the agitated wine into his nasal cavity. As Boubilas began to scream, Guillo stuffed a towel into his mouth, and his body bucked as he sucked the liquid into his lungs. Leclerc had been made to understand that the process of drowning in plain air was most uncomfortable.

In the salon, the music still played. Leclerc tuned his ears to the lilting, upbeat rhythm of the samba. An abstract painting hung on the wall above an aubergine couch. He wondered what it cost to buy a house like this, buy the drugs, the women, the art, and why all that money hadn’t brought Boubilas an ounce of common sense.

“Take it out,” he said to Guillo. The towel came out. Leclerc put down the bottle of champagne. “How much?”

Boubilas gulped down the air. “Five hundred thousand.”

Leclerc jumped to his feet, taking hold of the ponytail, yanking it. “Five hundred thousand what? Euros? Dollars? Pounds?”

“Dollars.”

“Who was Taleel working for?”

“I don’t know.”

Leclerc picked up the bottle. “Who was Taleel working for?”

“Really,” Boubilas spluttered, his damp face contorting with fear. “It’s strictly a transaction between agents. Mr. Bhatia and myself. I don’t know who his clients are.”

“When someone tells you to hand over five hundred thousand dollars, you ask.” Leclerc shook the bottle. “Now, who did he work for?”

The eyes squeezed shut and he shook his head. “I ca—!” Leclerc forced his head back and sprayed the champagne up the man’s nose. Standing above him, he alternately shook the bottle and sprayed, shook and sprayed, until the bottle was empty and he threw it on the ground.

“Please,” Boubilas managed, as he gasped for air. “Please—don’t make me—don’t—I won’t—”

Leclerc slapped him across the face and Boubilas shut up.

“No one knows I am here,” Leclerc said. “As far as the rest of the world is concerned, you kept your mouth shut until your lawyer gained your release. You’re a stand-up guy. Say anything you like. Just don’t say
you won’t
. If you don’t talk to me, I guarantee you’ll never say anything to anybody again. Who is Taleel with?”

Fear, worry, shame, hope: all these played across Boubilas’s face as he struggled to find an excuse that would permit him to reveal what he knew. Leclerc pulled back his sleeve to check the time: 12:07. He had all night. “Who?” he shouted, his face an inch from Boubilas.

“It was just business. With Michel—the one the papers called Taleel. I handled some rocks for him. Stuff from Sierra Leone, Nigeria, those places. I brokered their sale to the boys in Antwerp. Everything outside the cartels goes through there.”

The cartels.
In this case, DeBeers and Russdiamant, not Medellín and Cali. The rocks he so cavalierly handled were known as “conflict diamonds,” mined by the regional warlords and sold off to fund their excursions into terror. Leclerc knew Africa well enough to be acquainted with their good works. The double amputations performed with the aid of a dull machete. The rape of teenage girls. The impressment of preadolescent boys into their private armies. And of course, murder. Murder and murder and murder. Leclerc felt his headache returning. The tap-tap-tap behind his eyes.

“It was Taleel, then, who brought you the rocks?” he asked.

“I knew him as Michel. Michel Fouquet, I swear it.”

“How often?”

“Maybe ten times. He would bring a few hundred carats of raw diamonds. Some of it good, some junk.”

Leclerc played back his conversation with Chapel earlier that evening. He recalled there had been a period when Neumann surmised Taleel was out of town. “Always Michel?”

“Yes.”

Leclerc told Guillo to find some more champagne. A magnum, if there was one. “One more chance.”

“There was another, but only once. I met him late at night. At the Buddha Bar. It’s very dark inside. I saw him for maybe two minutes. He passed me the stones in a case, then I left. Even then I could tell he didn’t like it. A handsome man. Short hair. Serious. He is somebody.”

“How old?”

“Forty. Forty-five.”

“When?”

“A year ago. April, I think.”

“Name?”

“Ange,” he gasped. “Mr. Ange.”

“And how did you pay him? The truth!”

“I wired the money to an account in Germany. Gemeinschaft Bank of Dresden. The Holy Land Charitable Trust. That was the name. My bank will give you the instructions. Credit Lyonnais. Ask for Mr. Monaco. I’m not lying. You’ll see.”

“This Mr. Ange, he is with Hijira?” Leclerc threw out the name, but Boubilas’s face registered no knowledge of it. The eyes stared at the ground, forlorn, abandoned.

“He is with Mr. Ange.”

With a warrant, Leclerc could make Boubilas sit for an Identikit artist, but by then Boubilas would be in a less cooperative mood.
A warrant.
Leclerc laughed at himself for even considering such a quaint notion. It was his time at the Sûreté. An hour inside police headquarters and he was beginning to think like a cop. The truth was that tomorrow morning at nine o’clock, Boubilas would be standing in front of his lawyer, screaming his head off about the brutality he’d suffered at the hands of the French secret service. She, in turn, would ream Gadbois a new asshole, and Gadbois would come calling to Leclerc. The only warrant Leclerc would see would be the one with his own name on it. No one needed that shit. Standing, he took a last look at Boubilas. What a fucking waste product.

“Okay, boys, I’ll see you outside.”

Schmid and Guillo left the room. Leclerc walked to the doorway. The pounding in his head was growing worse.

“That’s it?” Boubilas asked, wimpering as he struggled with his pants. “You finished with me?”

“What’s wrong? It wasn’t enough?”

Boubilas shook his head, cowering from a phantom blow. “I know it’s you, Leclerc. I recognize your voice. You can’t do this to a man. Torture him, force him to answer your questions. It won’t stand up, you know.”

“It doesn’t need to. No court will ever hear of it.”

“Oh, they’ll hear of it, all right.” He was talking through his tears. “Breaking into a man’s house, hurting him. They’ll hear it. Where are your friends? Probably going at Lisette upstairs. Join them. I’ll add rape to the charges.”

“Charges?”
Something inside Leclerc snapped. One second, he was calm, disgusted by Boubilas, but ready to leave it at that. The next, he felt like he’d been the one tortured, and that it was his turn to seek retribution. Rushing across the room, he rammed the snout of his gun into Boubilas’s neck. “I wouldn’t recommend telling anyone you had visitors tonight. No matter where you run, I can find you. Tonight you had a little bath. Think of it as a warning to get your life in order. If you make me come back, I’ll break your neck. And you know the scariest part? I’ll do it while you’re sleeping. You won’t even know I was there. Okay?”