Murder Without Pity (8 page)

“Boucher speaks good English,” Henri said over his shoulder.

“After his interrogation,” Cassel said, “I did a quick history on him; he acted too sure of himself for my taste. I discovered he lived for a time in London before the war as an exchange student.”

“Their code was certainly simple.”

“They must have prearranged everything. How Boucher would signal this Lenny for a contact. What time to call. What phone booth to dial.”

“What could be the motive for slipping the gift to us?” Henri asked.

“Boucher served on something called the Economic Inspection Board in Paris during the German Occupation.”

Henri eased up on the gas. Again he half-turned toward Stanislas.

He seemed no longer interested in small talk, Stanislas thought. This bit of history had triggered something in him. “The EIB wrote up volumes of black market regulations and punished hundreds of smugglers. Many by firing squad. He must have collected a number of enemies over the years.”

“Settling a score at this late date?” The van swerved. Henri steered back onto the street as another wave of mist rolled over them.

“It’s a remote possibility. Revenge,” Stanislas said.

“French revenge,” Henri added. “With no mercy or personal statute of limitations. More power to whoever hates that bastard.”

Stanislas rocked from Henri stomping on the gas pedal.

“You ask me,” the officer continued, “functionaries of the president sent the tape. They could have given us chaff from some illegal tap.”

“It could have come from a ministry, say Interior,” Stanislas said. “That could explain why you got the tape and not me.”

Henri slowed the van. “I thought you might want to see where he lives.”

Stanislas peeked through a slit in the curtain to a row of darkened luxury off to his right. “Who?”

Henri flexed his right hand outward, thumb up, forefinger stiff. “Collabo Boucher. We’re nearing his apartment in the sixteenth district. The Bois de Boulogne’s further west.” He idled the Renault, while he gave several slight upward kicks to his imaginary gun as he aimed toward a lighted window. “That’s his place. And that might be his silhouette.”

Stanislas let the curtain go limp. He had enough contact with this dirty man for the evening. The Léon Pincus dossier may have dragged up a vendetta from a long ago war that continued, a viciousness fought in the dark without mercy and without end from generation to generation. He feared an anxiety he couldn’t explain that before any resolution these enemies could turn his case deadly with him in the middle.

PROJECT JANUS

“Thirty cans with gasoline and fifty-eight empty wine bottles, the anti-terrorist squad unearthed in that garden. I saw the headline myself yesterday, waiting for my Mikhail at de Gaulle airport. Our Dray’s absolutely right. Streible and Fuchs too. Ayatollah shock troops are what those hooligan foreigners are with their hidden Molotov cocktail factories. The continent will go up in flames, if people like us don’t act soon. Did I tell you, Louis, Iranian tourists wanted to stay at my hotel in Moscow? I told my directors, ‘Let them make the Radisson their headquarters. Destroy it, if they want. But not my Palace Rustova.’” He gestured with his left hand to a restaurant on the right side of the street. A group of police had paused to study the menu displayed in the window. “Next time I slip into Paris, I take you there. They serve an excellent stuffed sturgeon.”

Boucher studied the police, fearing they’d approach. “You spent the first half of your life in the KGB, scheming to destroy us decadent Westerners, Gennadi. You’ll spend the second half making up for lost time with your Pierre Cardin buying sprees and your stuffed sturgeon.” He glanced over his shoulder. The car was still there, following at a discreet pace on Rue Daru. It had materialized from out of the darkness as soon as they had left that restaurant. Only its beams through the mist revealed its presence. He felt as if he were in a cross hairs as they walked on, while the police at last continued their patrol in the opposite direction.

Gennadi admired the shadowy outline of the domes of Saint-Alexandre-Nevsky Cathedral off to their left. “Its foggy like I’ve never seen. We are practically invisible. Still you are jumpy, Louis. You insisted on your chauffeur driving you to the restaurant, thereby denying me the pleasure of picking you up. You worried throughout our dinner—a feast at my considerable expense, let me add—and you continue to worry. Show some courtesy. Pay attention to your host, please.”

“Keep your voice down. I’m not used to conspiracies like you are.”

“I’m the one who should be frightened. I’m half your age and therefore by my calculation risk twice as long in prison. I’ve lived this long because I stuff a rabbit’s foot in my pocket whenever I go out? Believe me, I know when someone’s following. Your Gennadi’s had years of experience. Relax. We’re out for an after-dinner Saturday stroll. A Frenchman and a Russian, each strengthening a centuries-old friendship between two great powers.”

Boucher eyed him sideways. Their rendezvous had unexpectedly turned into a Stolichnaya evening. Gennadi had gotten too boisterous at dinner for him to reveal the summons without provoking a scene. Was now any safer? “You’ve too much confidence. We aren’t in your Moscow where you know your way around.”

Gennadi slapped him on the back. “Show some respect, Louis. Remember, I’m putting my money on the line for this project.”

“That’s beside the point.”

Gennadi swayed as he brushed away crumbs from his droopy mustache. “And what is the point? You will kindly inform me.”

Boucher clutched Gennadi’s shoulder. “Where do you think we are? Club Med because we don’t have your Wild West shootouts, at least not yet? Gennadi Primakov, listen to me. Paris has become dangerous. That examining magistrate’s summoned me for a second hearing.”

Gennadi stopped and lolled his head toward Boucher. “Oh?”

“I got his order in this morning’s mail.”

“He is suspicious?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Think hard, Louis. I can’t afford your ‘not sure.’ None of us can at this point. We’ve gone too far.”

“You think I’ve thought about stuffed sturgeon since I got the summons? Of course, I’ve thought about it. I told the truth at that interrogation. As far as I’m concerned, the man who approached me that morning was a bum. I know nothing about what happened afterwards to him. But suppose that Monsieur Cassel still suspects me and has undercover police out? Understand now why I don’t like being in the open? That’s my point.”

Gennadi frowned, as though finally sensing danger through his stupor. He slipped his left hand inside his overcoat pocket, pulled out his cell phone, which he gripped awkwardly, and muttered something in Russian. Then: “If things heat up, and you must disappear—”

“No, no, my family. You understand?”

“You think I have no heart because I’m Russian businessman? I have family too. But consider my suggestion as an option. Why not my hotel outside Rome?”

Boucher turned to Gennadi; the suggestion appalled him. “We Bouchers have rooted ourselves in French soil for centuries. You may not have any love for your country. Don’t think that attitude extends to anyone in my family. We aren’t the problem. We aren’t the ones who must leave. Isn’t that what this is all about?”

The car that had followed ballooned out of the mist and glided to the curb a step behind them. It was a black Citroën, Boucher noticed, and Gestapo agents nodded at him as they swaggered out of it. His heart pounded. He felt panic build

“You….”

The image vanished. He glanced across to Gennadi. He had unconsciously revealed his flashback to that former spy, who had caught on to him? But no, he was wrong, he saw. Gennadi simply yanked the rear door open with two fingers of his left hand as a hook, while his right coat sleeve fluttered in the breeze.

“…go first,” the Russian said to him.

Boucher slowed his breathing to relax as he ducked inside.

Seated beside Boucher, Gennadi fumbled with the gold latch that secured a panel against the back of the passenger seat. A small fold-out table dropped down. Still using his left hand, Gennadi gripped a gold pen from a pocket woven into the rear paneling. It slipped from his grasp and disappeared between their legs.

Gennadi leaned down and ranged his left hand around in the darkness. “I’ve given one of my men—also ex-KGB—another title: Vice President in Charge of Opening Presents From Lovely Natashas. Ah, there it is.” He straightened, gripping his pen between two mangled fingers. “That way I increase my chances of keeping attached my remaining hand and also my head. You think competition in the West is rough? Try running a business in the East. Now then, under what name should I have the corporation registered, please?”

“I’m to hear you out first.”

“Whatever our good friend wishes. The money is as much his as mine. My idea: I know an attorney, who has marvelous ability with numbers. He has helped me better live with what taxes I must pay in Russia, so he is expert in these matters. Don’t worry. I don’t use the name Janus when we talk. Simply that I have some project in mind. The rough outline is he proposes a corporate shell already on the shelf. Bylaws, etc. one hundred percent ready to go. He opens an account in the corporation’s name, TransEuropa-something, this lawyer suggests, but whatever name our good friend wishes. Something that sounds respectable, and he makes a deposit.”

“That large an amount will alert the authorities?”

“Not if we find a no-questions bank. After that, it’s simply a bank-to-bank transfer. Say look, I ask as someone who’s known you many years, what is this? You sound suspicious.”

“I also understand something about this kind of operation. The Americans prefer the Caribbean. The British, Gibraltar. But these tidbits don’t make me an expert in money laundering.”

“Tidbits is what you call my work?”

“We’re playing for big stakes. I must ask questions, not just because I’m supposed to. For my grandchildren’s future, too.”

Out of the mist ahead a policeman loomed in the headlights. He shrilled his whistle at them. His hand shot out demanding they stop. Mikhail braked suddenly.

An outburst of klaxons beyond the cop cut through the fog. A motorcade of jeeps, vans, and trucks, police motorcyclists as escorts, sped past the intersection with Rue du Faubourg-Saint-Honoré.

Gennadi belched as he leaned back into darkness, out of the policeman’s sight. Boucher pressed back, too. Had the government proclaimed martial law and a curfew? Called out the army? Declared a stop-and-search?

He felt trapped in the one-way street in the stuffy Citroën with this reckless half-drunk. A sudden image came to him, and he began huffing in ragged breaths.

“You’re sick, Louis?” Gennadi whispered. “Maybe it was that roast lamb. My Mikhail can take you home, if you want. Mikhail, see if there’s something in the glove compartment for him.”

“No, no, I have my own.” Boucher fumbled inside a coat pocket for his pill case. Throwing his head back, he swallowed a tranquilizer. “My doctor recommended certain pills for my digestion.”

But the image stayed with him…the liberation of Paris. A convoy of trucks. Resistance fighters jumping out. Swarming over Rue Daru. Slamming him against a wall. Torturing him into confessing his work with the Gestapo, everything.

The tightness in his chest and legs began to ease. He saw Mikhail tap his impatience on the steering wheel as the last of the motorcade swept past. He saw Gennadi still leaning back out of sight of the policeman. Neither indicated he had noticed anything other than a bad reaction to a meal. Yet the terror of feeling exposed remained. How had he ever let himself get involved in acting as a money finder? That crazy scheme might collapse on him and his family at any moment from any reason. From a policeman conducting a random stop. Or from a criminal investigator. And this time, he feared, neither his contacts or position could save him.

BEGGAR, THIEF, SPY?

“What’s the military doing over there?”

Stanislas glanced up from reading Monsieur Lenoir’s deposition, realized his driver-bodyguard had idled the Peugeot, and said something. Gazing out on the mist-fouled morning, he knew only that they had braked somewhere south of Boulevard de la Villette. The shift of fog along the sidewalk off to his right revealed the presence of spectators. Somewhere a woman pleaded to someone she was frightened and wanted to leave. Through a clearing to his left, he could see a little street barricaded to entry; further down, armored vehicles clustered in front of a building.

“An anonymous phone tip,” a man with a husky voice answered.

The man dipped his head, and Stanislas saw he was a motorcycle cop directing traffic past.

“There’s a huge armament cache uncovered in a warehouse,” the cop explained. “I didn’t believe it till I peeked inside. Stockpiles of AK 47s, helmet-piercing AR-18 rifles, VP70 pistols. Enough to equip one regiment of terrorists. And to turn part of Paris into a slaughterhouse.”

“I wouldn’t doubt it, the way things are heating up,” the chauffeur said.

Stanislas glanced at his wristwatch. Whatever some terrorist group might plan didn’t interest him. He had his cases, and he didn’t want to be late for one of them. Could they proceed to the witness’s studio? he asked his driver. He had an appointment at 10:30, remember?

“Which one are you? The easygoing one? Or the one who forgot his appointment with me?” Monsieur Lenoir, in the dimness from a floor high above, shifted his feet, sending down a sprinkling of dirt.

“I’m Monsieur Cassel.” Stanislas, at the bottom of the ground floor stairs, stepped aside. After a moment he cupped a hand above his eyes and squinted up into the tunnel of half-light, trying to glimpse the pensioner.

“The forgetful one,” Monsieur Lenoir said. “I marked the date on my calendar. See how conscientious I am? I’ll tell you something else, something I told your clerk when he called a second time. I never met a Léon Pincus. Eight times, I repeated that if you count both calls your clerk made to me. You’ve had time to think that over. Yet you still insist on questioning me.”