The Little Antique Shop Under the Eiffel Tower (32 page)

I spotted the old man with the red beret. His face was weathered, wrinkled from time outside: the salty winds in winter, and the sizzle of sunshine in summer. A cigarette hung from the side of his mouth, as he jabbered in French to someone. I scanned the tables looking for the typewriter, but could only see old books, swollen fat from the Seine air. There was no time for niceties. I tapped him on the shoulder, and he spun to face me. In his hands was the typewriter. But worse, standing behind him was Tristan. And they had been speaking French! He knew the language all along? Did he replay all my phone messages when he stole my bag? My cheeks were aflame. There was no time to think.

I spoke in rapid-fire French to the stall owner hoping to bamboozle Tristan with the speed of my sentences. “I want this typewriter! This man you cannot trust him! I will make sure it goes to the right person!” I was exclaiming so hard I drew the attention of passersby.

The man in the red beret frowned. “That may be, but he was here first. I have already made the deal.”

“Non! You can’t!” I hissed, while trying to throw an
it’s-all-under-control
smile to Tristan so he wouldn’t guess what was happening. He had the jewels. What did he need with this? “He’s American!” I tried another tack.

Red beret man’s forehead wrinkled. “So was Henry Miller.”

I huffed. He had me there. “Please, you’re making a mistake.” I took the typewriter from his hands.

Tristan’s face dropped. “Anouk, please. Just listen to me. I
need
this, and I can’t explain why right now.” His eyes searched mine. Why did he seem so sad? I knew him well enough to know a typewriter wouldn’t have provoked such a reaction – he looked positively stricken.

I stared at him, mind ticking. “Why do you want it? You don’t have a shop, Tristan. You don’t have customers. Can’t you let me have it?” I appealed to his caring side. Truth was, there wasn’t a whole lot of profit tied up in the machine, it was more sentimental, and I had customers who’d love it. And I just didn’t want him to have it because he didn’t deserve it.

The red beret man threw his hands in the air, and shook his head. “When someone wants to pay, let me know,” he said and went back to smoking.

Tristan nodded his thanks and turned back to me. “Why do you want it? Henry Miller was American. I thought you only wanted to protect French heritage?”

“Henry Miller wrote in Paris! He was one of us!” We were going in circles, and I knew whatever it was, it was about much more than the typewriter.

Tristan shook his head. “He only wrote here because his work was banned in America for being too promiscuous.” He raised an eyebrow.

“That may well be, but he fit here in Paris. The place shaped him as a writer.”

He sighed, a long weary sound. “Anouk, give me the typewriter. You can have it back later, I promise.”

“No.” Why would he need something so minor compared to what he was stealing? Maybe he took black market orders and tried to fulfill them no matter how small. But it didn’t make much sense.

“Anouk. Give me the typewriter and I promise I won’t ever butt in on another of your deals.”

“No…” I couldn’t trust him. I knew I’d never see it again. As foolish as I was making it, it felt damn good to stand up for myself, and say he couldn’t steal
or
buy things from under me. I wouldn’t have it.

“I’ll give you whatever you want, but I need
this
, and I’m not kidding around,” he said, his voice apprehensive.

“Why?” I was thrown off by the change in his demeanor. He sounded as though he’d lost his last friend in the world. His shoulders slumped wearily.

“I can’t discuss it with you. But trust me, I need this typewriter, and only this one.” He glanced this way and that, a worried expression on his face. If I didn’t know better I’d say he looked hunted. I had a feeling things were about to blow up in Tristan’s world. “You putting your fingerprints all over it isn’t helping,” he said, an edge to his voice.

Ah! The taunting postcards typed by the Postcard Bandit. Was this the one he typed them on? And if so how had it come into Red Beret’s hands?

I grimaced. “Evidence, is it?”

His face pained. “It’s not my fault.”

“What, Tristan? Whose fault is it then?”

We stood inches apart, like a Mexican standoff. He ran his hands through his hair, frustrated. “I don’t like this anymore than you do!” His tone was plaintive; maybe it was an addiction for him, like a gambler. He loved the thrill of the robbery, getting away with it, getting in and out so fast like some kind of superhuman.

“Then why do it?” I hissed back.

“I have to do it. Why do
you
do it?”

“It’s my job!”

He scoffed. “I could say the same thing.”

I raised my eyebrows. “Some job.”

He scrunched his eyes closed. “I don’t normally get emotionally invested. You’ve made this very hard.”

“Emotionally invested? Well, sorry for making you care about something other than greed.” I choked on the end of my sentence. I’d thought there’d been something real between us. In his kisses there had been something, something he couldn’t have faked…could he? My mind snapped back to the times he’d been there for me, the things he’d said to comfort me. If that was all pretend then he was a damn fine actor.

“Greed?” He reared back as if I’d slapped him. “You don’t know how much I’ve suffered because of you! It’s impossible to do my
job
–” he made air quotes “– knowing what’s going to happen! And you don’t give a damn! You’re fighting me all the way.”

“Because your
job
–” I mimicked his air quotes with one hand “– is all built on a lie! And I will fight you to the death because it’s my
job
!” Our conversation escalated as frustration got the better of us.

“Sometimes I want to shake you until you see sense!” He gripped my arms and stared into my eyes, the typewriter marooned between us.

“Yeah? Sometimes I want to trip you over so I can watch you fall! Why can’t you just be who you pretend to be?”

He rubbed his palms wearily over his face. “Because it’s my goddamn job, Anouk! Why can’t you just sell antiques and leave it at that?”

“What nerve you have! Why can’t I? Because you keep stealing them from me!”

He scoffed. “You are the most infuriating woman I’ve ever met!”

I shook my head. “You are unbelievable, Monsieur Black.”

“When all this blows up, I just want you to know…” His voice was a whisper. “To know…”

“To know what? It wasn’t your fault?” Tears pricked my eyes and I wanted to berate myself for caring so much. I hastily blinked them away.

“Damn it. To know
I didn’t want to do it
. I wanted to run the opposite way, and let you go…”

“Oh, thanks, Tristan. I’m that repulsive to you?”

“What aren’t you understanding, Anouk?” He cupped my face, and stared into my eyes, searching for an answer that wasn’t there. After shaking his head at my confusion he pressed his lips against mine, kissing me like it was the last time he’d see me. In the heat of the moment I kissed him back hard, as all sorts of emotions coursed through me, but mostly that he’d go to jail and I’d never see him again. It felt like a goodbye kiss and I rued Cupid for making me feel anything for someone like Tristan.

The stall owner took the typewriter from my hands, shaking his head at us.

I felt as though we stood at a crossroads, facing off at each other. On tiptoes, I laced my hands behind his neck, and closed my eyes, kissing him with all I had, because curse fate, and wrong choices, and untrustworthy men, to hell with all of it. I’d give him one long passionate goodbye kiss on my terms.

Breathless, we parted, and stood stock-still. I grappled with what to say, how to warn him, but he knew, and he didn’t care. That was the most galling part.

“Au revoir, Tristan. Remember you brought this on yourself.”

Pain flashed across his features. “Don’t do it, Anouk.”

He thought I’d tell the gendarmes. “Go get your typewriter.” A sob escaped as I trudged away.

Later that night, I spoke to the empty apartment about the huge diamond arriving at the Cloutier auction house. It took all my might to be animated, as if I was on the phone to Madame, excited by the prospect of bidding on such a stunning jewel. Was he listening?

Chapter Twenty-Seven

“You kissed him,
again
?” Madame Dupont asked, her voice incredulous.

“It was the last kiss. It was goodbye. Au revoir.” I fluttered my hands uselessly.

She surveyed me. “We don’t have to catch him…”

“Madame. Yes, we do! I gave him the chance to back away, and he chose not to.” I wanted to see it for myself, see him rob a place. I could still walk away and not say a word, but I had to see it first.

She fussed with the newspaper on her lap, the one with eye holes cut out. I would have laughed at her folly, but I wasn’t in the mood.

“OK,” she said. “Then let’s get him.”

My hands shook. “He shouldn’t have stolen the Cartier jewels.”

“Oui.”

My stomach knotted. “Or the pink diamonds.”

“Oui.”

“But mostly the Cartier. That was going too far.”

“I understand.”

“There’s stealing and then there’s being greedy and the Cartier was one step too far. One giant leap into all sorts of wrong.”

“You don’t have to justify it to me. I know.”

“He never said he was supporting an orphanage, or building a hospital, did he?”

She patted my hand. “Anouk…”

“I know, I know, sometimes people are just made wrong. And despite his charm, his beautiful face, his soft lips, his saunter, his laugh, you know that really loud obnoxious one that is really quite cute after a while…”

She nodded solemnly.

“Well, aside from all that, he’s rotten to the core. Because of the Cartier.”

She didn’t speak, but her lips twitched like she was about to laugh.

“What?” I asked.

“Nothing, nothing. Are we going to catch him or just sit here all night?”

I took a deep, steadying breath. “Let’s catch him.”

Madame Dupont gunned the engine and we zoomed through the boulevards, coming to an abrupt stop near the auction house.

Facing me, she said, “If you want out of this whole charade, just let me know. No one knows the things we do aside from Dion and Lilou. We don’t have to tell the gendarmes… That’s all I’m going to say.”

I didn’t trust myself to speak so I just nodded. We waited in silence until darkness fell. I was stiff from holding myself tight in the small space of the cramped rental car.

“I’ll be glad when these stake-outs are over,” Madame Dupont lamented. “My old bones suffer.”

I patted her knee. “You’ve done a great job, Madame. You’ve been the brains. And we’ll have to thank Dion – he sure is resourceful.”

She laughed. “I’ll miss spending the nights with you, though.”

“Back to reading the marriage announcements for me.”

An hour passed, and still nothing. The streets grew quiet as people hurried home, and locked themselves away as midnight approached. “Maybe he got the hint?” I asked hopefully.

“He’s biding his time.”

“You’re probably right.”

Madame Dupont fiddled with her night-vision goggles. “What if he’s getting in through the side door? Should we go and check it out?”

“It’s not likely he’d go through the front door, I suppose.” What if I caught him mid break-in?

“I’ll go,” Madame Dupont said.

“Non, non. I’ll go. I got us into this mess.”

“Be quick,” she said. “And take the ghost phone in case you need me.”

I nodded and snuck out of the car, running behind trees, and stopping to sneak a look around before running to the next. I crossed the street, and hid behind a lamp pole, which was insufficient in girth to hide my curves. Tiptoeing around the side entrance, I found the laneway silent. Even the shadows didn’t move.

With a glance up, I saw CCTV cameras hooked to the building. There was no way he could get in without being seen this way. I ran to the back of the auction house, my heart hammering at my audacity, knowing full well I’d be seen on the very same CCTV. I just hoped our instincts were correct and he’d have heard my bluster about the huge diamond arriving. Then I could at least explain to the gendarmes why I was sneaking around.

At the back I tried the big oval door, and found it unlocked. My hand froze on the door handle. Was this a setup? Why would it be unlocked with so many valuables inside? I remembered back to Gustave saying Monsieur Cloutier was getting more doddery and forgetting to lock up, but it seemed too coincidental. My mind screamed be careful, but I shoved the thought away, and walked inside. Imagine if they caught me? What would I say?
Oh, it was unlocked, I was hoping to catch the thief red-handed…
I was going to get myself arrested but something told me to keep going.

In the pitch black, I kept close to the wall, arms wide, feeling my way along in the dark. Why weren’t the lights on? Usually the auction houses were lit up like it was daytime, in order for the security guards to make their rounds. Something wasn’t right…

Somewhere in the distance a buzz rang out, like the muted sound of some kind of power tool. I froze. Was he making his way in? My heart seized, but I had to confront him.

Think of the antiques! Vive La France!

Edging steadily along the cool wall, my fingertips touched on something in my path. As gently as I could, I made out the shape, a display case, and inched around it without knocking whatever artifacts it housed. My breathing was shallow with concentration. I took a deep steadying gulp of air before dropping to my knees, and crawling toward the sound. Couldn’t the guards hear it? Why hadn’t they come for me yet?

On all fours, I could orient myself better. The noise grew more insistent. Obviously no alarms had been tripped or they’d already been overridden because my presence hadn’t sounded any. Unless they were silent alarms? So did the sixty seconds start from when he was inside? Really, this could all be over in one quick minute if the newspapers had got their facts right. I gulped; it would be just my luck to be caught in the crossfire… My blood ran cold. Had he been setting me up all along? Maybe I’d played right into his hands thinking I was catching him when he was really entrapping me.