LACKING VIRTUES (2 page)

They were close to a safe landing now, so close. Warehouses, factory buildings, and an eight-lane highway came toward them, the cars nearly full size.

They still had a chance. “Please, God,” Reverend Ogle said aloud. “Just this once.”

To no avail. The wing went up again – slowly, as if they were banking. Then, suddenly, the wing disappeared. It had broken off and flown away. In that moment Reverend Ogle rediscovered the Faith he did not know he had lost. A profound serenity came over him. He watched, his soul at peace, as the plane rolled, giving him a fine view of the spring-green earth with its red scars, and the Ford plant God had chosen to be his grave.

PART I

Chapter One

Paris

Summer 1999

Steven rolled over and grabbed the receiver, kicking free of the tangled sheets. His bed smelled of a perfume he didn’t like.

“LeConte.”

“Hello, Steven. This is Sophie.”

“Sophie, I’m glad you called. All I need is to be late for work again. Are you still upstairs?”

“No, darling, I’ve been at my office since nine.”

“What time is it?”

“Eleven.”

“What?” He squinted at the clock. “Damn French piece of junk. It never goes off.”

“It went off, Steven. I heard it through eighteen inches of concrete and parquet. I hear everything above a certain decibel in your flat. Now look outside, darling. It’s raining cats and dogs. I called the club before I left to make sure your lessons had been canceled.”

Steven glanced meekly through the shutters. “You shouldn’t look after me, Sophie. I’m hopeless.” 

“I have ulterior motives, darling. I’m planning to exploit you. If you’d care to come by my office, I think I can offer you an excellent reason to get out of bed in the morning. I’ll look for you around twelve thirty, okay?”

***

The traffic jam on Boulevard Saint Germain persuaded him to take his bike instead of a taxi. He zipped up his rain suit and guided the big Harley Davidson between lanes of stalled cars.

Paris, thought Steven, was a great place for a motorcycle. You could take one-ways the wrong way, use sidewalks when you needed them and respond to the city’s incessant noise with a roar of your own. And if the
flics
pulled you over, you were just one more dumb foreigner.

He crossed the Seine on the Pont Neuf and headed for the Opera District. He could hardly wait to see Sophie. Just being with her made him feel better about himself.

He’d never asked her how old she was but he figured she must be at least 70. A few years ago she had retired from her job as the
New York Time
’s Paris bureau chief. She could have given in to temptation and moved to one of those villages on the coast of Italy she loved. But instead of kicking back, she set up her own office and started to free-lance. He’d seen her pieces in the
Economist
,
Le Monde
and one of those German papers at the train station where the only thing he’d been able to read was her name.

He had met Sophie by chance when he moved into her apartment building a couple of years ago. She was a rabbi’s daughter from Trenton, which made her all the more exotic to this son of Anti-Semitic Protestants. She had natural blonde hair to match his, and when they walked down the street together – which was often these last few months – she said they stood out like a beacon in this dark-haired city.

By the time he pulled up in front of her office, the sun had broken through. He went upstairs. In the elegant foyer Monique, Sophie’s irritable but efficient French assistant, told him it would be a while until Madame Marx could see him.

Sophie swept into the leaden silence a few minutes later, propelled by her usual energy. She was wearing a flowered silk blouse and dark slacks, and looked terrific. She gave him a big hug and sent Monique off to lunch.

Sophie was more than just a great friend, thought Steven. She was a true soul mate. She shared his rebelliousness and contempt for bourgeois convention. Why these noble traits had contributed in equal measure to her success and his failure, he didn’t know.

“Hey, I’m starving,” he said. “Why don’t we debauch on the terrace at Pétits Pères? My aunt Janine will pay.”

“An enticing idea, darling, but first there are some things I want to talk to you about in private. You never know who’ll be listening in a Paris restaurant. I confess to an occasional bout of eavesdropping myself. Come.”

She opened the heavy carved door and led him into her inner sanctum, a large, airy room dedicated to one of the world’s great messes.

The place looked like it had been ripped apart by French counterterrorist agents. The furniture lay beneath a gargantuan litter of newspapers, books, faxes, notes, half-eaten boxes of chocolates, unwashed coffee cups, gifts wrapped with extravagant bows Sophie hadn’t had time to give, decrepit black typewriters, state-of-the art computers – just about everything, he thought, except domestic animals.

He didn’t know how she functioned in such chaos. She had explained to him the first time he came and beheld with an open mouth that there was an underlying order here, invisible to the uninitiated, an order one could not achieve with filing cabinets and neatness.

Steven wasn’t sure he believed her, but he could not deny that her flawlessly crafted articles appeared, month after month, in the world’s best newspapers and magazines. This stood in painful contrast to the production record of his own orderly little studio on Rue Monge. He had sublet the place so he could isolate himself and write without distractions when he wasn’t teaching tennis. But in the years he had been in Paris, his own inner sanctum had turned out only unfinished pieces with dazzling leads.

He reached down to brush aside a heap of papers so he could find a place to sit. Sophie caught his arm. “Not those, darling! Over here.” 

She guided him to a Louis Quinze armchair hidden between a book pile and a fax mountain. When he was comfortably ensconced, she opened a folding chair and sat in front of him. “Now,” she said, “let’s talk about your tennis.”

“My tennis? I thought you had something interesting to propose.”

“Who’s to say I don’t? I know you’re good, but exactly
how
good?”

He looked at her suspiciously. “You don’t give a damn about sports, Sophie. Why the sudden interest?”

“Just answer my question, please.”

“Okay, I’m good and I could have been better if I’d worked at it. I was U.S. amateur champ my junior year in college. Everyone expected me to be the next Agassi.”

“You never told me this.”

“You always changed the subject when tennis came up.”

Sophie laughed. “I suppose that’s true. Why didn’t you turn pro?”

“Because it would have denied me the pleasure of sitting here at age twenty-seven unable to make a living. Seriously, Sophie, I just couldn’t bring myself to commit to such a regimented life. I wanted to enjoy my youth, if you know what I mean.”

“Of course. But you’re saying you were good enough to play on the tour if you’d chosen to?”

“I could have started in the top twenty. I beat some of the big names in exhibition matches.”

“I guess you were saving your talent for me.”

“What? I don’t get it.”

“Patience, darling.”

Sophie stood and took her habitual stroll around the office, always in a counter-clockwise direction, always punctuated by thoughtful pauses at landmarks he couldn’t identify beneath the mess.

Trying to make sense of what she had said was impossible, so he gazed out the window at the strange obelisk in the center of Place Vendôme. He was going to have to leave Paris soon if his writing didn’t produce some income. He’d spent most of his small inheritance from his aunt, and his paltry earnings from the tennis club would hardly pay the rent. His departure, if it came to that, would not be easy. He liked it here. Maybe it was those Huguenot genes he had inherited along with his French last name. Maybe it was his closeness with Sophie.

She finally ended her stroll and perched on the corner of her desk. “Steven, I want to offer you an assignment.”

“An assignment? Me?”

“Don’t celebrate yet. You might consider it beneath your dignity.”

“I have no dignity. I’m broke. My answer is Yes, and that’s final. Tell me what I’m supposed to do.”

“
The New York Times
has asked me to write a series on contemporary France. They want, among other things, a meaty piece on that racist bastard, Michelet. No one paid him any mind until the conservative coalition brought him into the government. I think we’ve underestimated him, Steven. Twenty percent of the popular vote is nothing to sneeze at. I think he’s dangerous.”

“Come on, Sophie, that’s the Holocaust speaking. The guy’s no French Hitler. He’s just another crackpot. Now that he’s Minister of Industry, his supporters will see he can’t do any better than anyone else. They’ll learn the hard way that foreign workers and Americans aren’t the cause of France’s problems.”

“I hope you’re right, Steven. But just in case you’re not, we’re going to dig around until we come up with enough dirt to bury him. I want things known about him that will turn his presence in the government into an international embarrassment for his country. Seek and ye shall find, kid.”

“You want
me
in on this historical vendetta of yours?”

“Very much, Steven. I plan to expand the Michelet research into a book on anti-Americanism in France. I’m too old to do the leg work. I need your help. I brought you here to ask for it. Want to hear more?”

“I guess. I’ve already accepted the job.”

“Steven . . . “

”Yes?”

“I’m about to introduce you to my wicked side. I take off the gloves when it comes to racism and fascism.”

“Your wicked side? Give me a break.”

She smiled. “How I’ve conned you, poor lamb. Listen, Steven, I need a secret weapon. I’ve made my choice. You, darling, are it.”

“Not me. You’re shopping in the wrong arsenal. There’s no way I can help.”

“Oh, but you can. Michelet has a daughter. My sources tell me the two of them don’t get along. The girl’s mother died when she was seven or eight and her father never remarried. He stuck her in one of those horrible Catholic convent schools and left her there. She lived a very protected life until last year.”

“What happened last year?”

“She turned eighteen. She started attending the university here in Paris. She lived at home with her father and housekeeper, but they couldn’t shield her from everything. She’s had a rough time adapting to the real world. Perhaps you can help her.”