Dollar Down (5 page)

When Graham started to speak, Gatineau lifted his
hand for silence. "Mr. Sanchez, I'm sure you understand that it
is impossible for you to continue here."

"I've already told Alexandra that I am leaving. Actually,
I had planned to advise Sabine—Ms. Duveau—today that
prospects for finding Trevor weren't good."

"Then we're agreed. If you have any personal items in
the office, you should take them with you when you go. To
avoid bookkeeping, and..." He paused and raised his left
eyebrow a hair's breadth. "...legal difficulties, the firm will pay
you a month's salary, but there is no need for you in any way to
pursue your search for Trevor. The police have accepted that
he is missing and are handling the case. Do you agree?"

"It's more than fair."

"Ian might have a few questions, if you wouldn't mind
accommodating him. As for me,
adieu
, M. Sanchez."
When we stood to leave, I noticed a bald spot spreading
forward from the back of his head and an ungainly breadth to
his hips, characteristics, as I recall, that he shared with
Napoleon. Maybe that explained his attitude.

I didn't mind answering Graham's questions. It was the
accusations that redlined my pulse. He alluded to Sabine's
personal reputation. He came close to suggesting that the firm
might have been funding services other than a missing person
investigation. When I heard the words "nearly embezzlement,"
I stood.

"That's it," I said.

"No, I'm afraid it isn't."

Maybe it was just the act of standing, but my anger
flowed away. Ian Graham was no longer an irritant. He was a
shell filled with cravings for admiration, superiority,
promotion. They overwhelmed everything else about him and
made him small.

"If you expect your month's salary, sit back down. We
aren't finished."

I tried to keep my face stoic, but I couldn't. A little
Mona Lisa smile formed of its own will. As a comic, the guy was
good. Even his straight lines were funny.

"Lucky for you, we are finished." I walked out.

It wouldn't take long to pack and find a place to stay
other than Sabine's until I could book a flight home. If the firm
paid for a month, I'd come out ahead. If not, I hadn't lost much.
Either way it was good to be going. I figured fate had taken
enough odd turns the past week to last me a while.

I was wrong.

One glance at the man waiting in Sabine's flat told me
it was her husband. I think I might have recognized him, even if
we'd passed in the street. He was around fifty, more than six
feet tall, and trim. He moved with athletic grace, but most
telling were his eyes. They were like hers. I would have
expected to see anger or jealously. Instead, I saw curiosity and
anticipation of something outside my grasp.

"Mick Sanchez?"

I nodded.

"I suppose you know who I am."

"Mr. Duveau."

"No, I am—I was—Sabine's husband, but my name is
Geir Oddsson." A smile brushed his face like a distant memory.
"A wise choice, don't you think, to keep her maiden
name."

"Ms. Duveau thought I should stay here to work. To
avoid questions at the office."

"Sabine and I had no secrets from each other, at least I
don't think so. It had been that way for years. I won't say it
didn't bother me at first, but she could not deny who she was. I
could accept that or live without her. For me it was an easy
choice. Besides, I took my cue from her and decided that what
was good for the goose was good for the gander. I have no
regrets, but there was no one like Sabine."

"She said she loved you as passionately as the day you
married."

Mr. Oddsson's smile was thin. "As did I. You loved her,
didn't you Mr. Sanchez?"

I drew a breath and held it. That admission somehow
felt like a greater transgression than physical intimacy.

"You must have, in some fashion," he said.

"Who could not?"

"Quite so. Why don't we sit down? Would you like a
drink, Mr. Sanchez? May I call you Mick?"

I could have used a few shots of tequila, but accepted
the offered wine. Oddsson explained that he was, in one sense,
a househusband and, in another, Sabine's private banker. She
made the income; he invested it. Very shrewdly, by his own
admission. They had amassed considerable wealth, he said. I
believed him.

"What do you know about Sabine's death?" he
said.

"Just that it was sudden."

"There was a gray pallor in her face that implied a
heart attack, but she was in excellent health. She trained hard
and had physical examinations regularly. I know professional
athletes, people who appear in perfect health, die suddenly
from undetected heart conditions, but there's more." Geir
stared at his hands as he spoke. "She was in her study. There
was a disturbance around her. A lamp was tipped over. Items
from her desk were on the floor. I thought she might have tried
to stand. Perhaps grabbed for things as she fell. But the
positions—when I picked up—they didn't look right. I haven't
set a date for the funeral. I've ordered every examination
possible. I want to know exactly what happened."

He looked up at me.

"I want your help, Mick."

I hadn't expected the encounter. Certainly not the
overture. I shook my head. "I'm not the man you're looking for.
If you want to hire an investigator, I can recommend
someone."

"You're exactly who I'm looking for. When Sabine told
me about you, I had your background checked. Your former
supervisor, Abe Granger, was enthusiastic in his praise of your
professional skill and, more importantly, your integrity."

Abe had been my commander in Vietnam and my boss
at Global Risk Management. My departure from that agency
hadn't exactly been on friendly terms, but I still respected
him.

"Sabine told me about the work you did for Trevor
Jones. I also understand that you successfully directed a
politically charged murder investigation in Japan."

"I had a lot of help with that. I'm used to working in a
team. I thought I could take that experience and apply it to a
one-man operation. Now I'm not so sure. I've gotten nowhere
in locating Trevor."

"There could be a lot of reasons for Trevor to have
vanished. Do you think it was coincidence that two men broke
into his home the day he disappeared and that the only thing
missing was his computer?"

A simple burglary was a possibility. After I hit the guy
who went into the study, they might have panicked, grabbed
the easiest thing to sell and run. I shrugged.

Oddsson dismissed my doubt with a flick of his hand.
"You said you were used to teamwork. Assemble a team. This
flat is valued at more than seven hundred thousand euros. I
intend to sell it. It was Sabine's private lair. What better way to
use part of that money than to find the truth of her death."

"I had planned to take the first available flight home. I
think that's what I should do. You can find a better investigator
than me, Geir."

"Perhaps, locally. But, what if the investigation goes
beyond France?"

"Hire Abe."

"It isn't just about professional skill. If the medical
tests indicate Sabine's death was not from natural causes, I will
be the first suspect. That's how the minds of policemen work.
There are motives—a cuckold whose jealousy finally consumed
him, a grasping wretch who coveted his wife's share of their
wealth. Another investigator might share those
suspicions."

Oddsson swirled his wine slowly. "I have neither
jealously nor greed. I believe you know that. Even before you
responded to my question, I knew how you felt about Sabine.
Would you grant me, and her memory, the favor of staying
until the tests are complete? You can decide then whether to go
home or accept my request. If my instincts are correct, the
investigation will be difficult. We'll need more than
competence. We will need the impassioned tenacity, the love,
of an avenging angel, Mick Sanchez." He raised a toast.

As well as I can remember, no one had ever mistaken
me for an angel, avenging or otherwise. Oddsson obviously
couldn't hold his wine as well as he appeared to. Nevertheless,
I agreed to wait for the results. Two days later, medical
examiners reported they had found in Sabine's body traces of a
muscle relaxant that could induce heart failure.

I took the job.

The MEs couldn't say positively whether the drug had
induced Sabine's heart attack, but they found no physical
defect. As Oddsson had predicted, police grilled him about his
relationship with Sabine and about family finances.

I met him at their home, and he took me to her study
where she died. He laid a waist-high urn on its side.

"It had fallen so."

He pulled her chair about three feet away from her
desk and adjusted its angle, until he appeared satisfied.

"And books were there." He took three volumes from
her desk and laid them just to the left of her chair.

"Is that all?" I said.

"Yes."

It wasn't much, but it looked like a lot of action for
someone suffering a heart attack.

"What did the police say?"

"Nothing."

"Can you show me all possible entries into the
house?"

The doors had high-tech locks. The windows were
secured in ways that could not be violated without breaking
them. A functioning alarm system had not gone off.

Oddsson offered a month's advance. I told him I had
already hired Jorge to help me, and I might need more help. It
could get expensive. He repeated the value of the flat,
seven hundred thousand euros. Use whatever I needed, he said.

I would use the extra cash to pay off Jorge's source in
the president's office and to broaden the investigation. Caracas
was covered; that left England. There were things in that
country that I wanted checked. I called Rocky McNulty, a
former pro featherweight with a heavyweight name. He was
Scottish, but he worked for a London investigative agency. He
had a chameleon's personality. Grim as a gravedigger in private,
but on the job, he could charm his way past the palace guard.
I'd also seen him knock out a man half again his size with one
punch. He agreed to find what he could on Mumby, the
investment banker, as well as on Trevor.

I called Alexandra. She was on another line.

Four calls later, I got through and asked her to meet
me.

She refused.

I called back.

Her secretary said she was busy.

I had Gavizon call from Venezuela and pose as a PDVSA
employee. He told Alexandra that a company executive was in
Paris on business. The client wanted a personal briefing at his
hotel.

She arrived on time.

I was right behind her. "
Bonsoir,
" I said with a
smile.

She turned around and scowled. "What do you
want?"

"About thirty minutes, minimum."

She kept the scowl while deciding whether to leave or
talk to me.

"Sabine might have been murdered," I said. "No
evidence of that, but not beyond the possible."

Alexandra tried to speak, but the words seemed to
catch in her throat.

"Police are investigating. Sabine's husband is sure he'll
be a suspect. He's already been interrogated and he's hired me
to double-check the police. I don't know much yet, but I'm
working on the assumption that it's related to the study. Will
you talk to me? This PDVSA study looks like a dangerous piece
of work."

We went to the hotel lounge and ordered drinks.

"First, I'd like to ask you to keep whatever I tell you
confidential," I said.

"That's awkward for me. If I know anything that could
affect the study, I should tell the project manager."

"Ian Graham? He's a pompous twit."

Alexandra turned down the corners of her mouth.
"He's no twit."

"OK, so I'm only half right."

"Most of the partners are pompous. Our clients expect
it."

A joke. Progress. I smiled. "All right then, would you
agree to tell me what you want to tell Graham or anyone else,
before you say it?"

She nodded, but then wagged her index finger at me. "I
will talk to you first, but, you don't have a veto on what I say to
anyone else."

I showed her a copy of Trevor's chart.

She studied the notations for several minutes, but I
couldn't guess what she made of them. Her face was placid as
usual. "Do you know what these mean?"

"No, but there's a name next to one of the equations,
Bizet. I found a Philippe Bizet in Trevor's address book. I'm
going to call him."

If I hadn't been watching closely, I might not have
noticed Alexandra's jaw clench, as she slipped into
deep-thought mode, but her frown was obvious.

"Philippe Bizet used to be in the firm. I can contact him
for you. Do you mind if I keep the chart?"

"No, but..."

"There's no point in speculation. Are you still staying at
Sabine's flat?"

"Yes."

"I'll call you." She stood, put on her coat and slipped
the chart into her pocket. "You'll get the check, won't
you?"

She sauntered away, her heels languid castanets
striking the flagstone floor.
Bonne nuit
, Alexandra.

As I sipped another nightcap, I shifted as many mental
gears as I could. Maybe Trevor was a bad guy in something that
I didn't know about. If so, why had he called me? Maybe
Sabine's husband really was a jealous cuckold and was playing
me like a double-string banjo. So why would he order medical
tests, if they might implicate him? Who was the Saudi Gavizon
had told me about?

The only idea I had was another way to spend
Oddsson's money. I could run checks, in Venezuela and Paris,
on each client team member. Of the original five, there were
only two left on a permanent basis.

I went back to the flat and called Gavizon. For an extra
two hundred dollars, he said he would tell his agency to pull
him off his other cases. He was a good man to work with. Cash
defined his loyalties, and the bidding was low.