“Your family had money?” Maroc said, not really listening.
“Before the war we did, yes, a bit. Mostly in property speculation, apartments out in the sixteenth. In any case, I was sent up to Frankfurt to meet with a group of Jewish bankers. Typical of business travel back then, they insisted on entertaining us every night. We’d start in their fine, fancy homes, I’d meet their wives and children, the butlers and maids would serve the thick coffee, I’d pet the little dog, hello, hello, et cetera, but afterward the bankers always wanted to take us out for a bit of additional entertainment. Their wives would never come along. You see, this was their time with their mistresses. We would meet up with them in the city’s various cabarets. It wasn’t so bad, there were lots of dancing girls, we’d drink champagne and sing along with “Das Lila Lied” and pretty women would come along and shake their round asses on my lap and, well, it was fun.”
“Good for you.”
“Yes, well, one banker, Jacobson, he had this girl. Amazing. A drop-dead beauty. Big dark eyes. She was a Russian but unlike any Russian I’d ever known. I’d always found them lean and angled, but this one had full breasts, the kind you want to drop your face into, and a sweet round apple of an ass as well, maybe not the type for everyone but I liked it. Just looking at this girl stole the breath out of my lungs. Every night out with the bankers, I found a way to dance with her, and more than once—probably too many times.”
“I cannot imagine you dancing, Lecan.”
“Ha, ha, me neither now, that would be a pathetic sight. But you remember how it was then, jitterbugs and Charlestons and lots of legs kicking high. Jacobson’s girl was so mesmerizing, positively hypnotizing. I knew it was rude, trying to monopolize her like that; it did not look good, especially night after night. But I still can remember one waltz we danced, my hand on the soft flesh of her hip, the other hand aligned with her shoulder blade, her little smile, the delicious glint in her eye … well, looking back, I can see that the banker was jealous. I’m pretty sure that’s why I came home without the loan. Papa was very upset. We could have used that money, it turned out we needed it pretty desperately…” The little man’s story tapered off.
“So why are you telling me this?” Maroc yawned.
“Oh, because I saw her,” said the little man, becoming animated again. “Last night. I swear it was her. I was sitting outside at Chez Loup and she walked by. Not a ghost, and not a girl that looked like her, but Jacobson’s girl, looking exactly as she looked thirty years ago. I swear to the saints, the woman has not aged a day.”
“Lecan, you are an idiot.” Maroc chuckled as he rose to put his jacket on. “Either you had one too many last night or your mind is rotten for good. Now, do you want to come with me or do I have to do this alone? It’s time to go.” Lecan gave him a resigned shrug as they gathered up their overcoats, hats, and umbrellas and went out into the wet night.
The first stop was a half hour from the station. It took a few moments before an older woman answered the buzzer to let them up to her flat. She met them at the door.
“Yes?”
“Madame Bemm, I am Superintendent Maroc. This is Detective Lecan. I’m afraid we have some terrible news.” Maroc quickly explained the situation, how her son and his partner, in the course of a critical investigation, had disappeared without a trace. He said they did not have any suspects now, it could be Algerians, possibly the National Liberation Front, it was hard to say. Maroc tried to wrap up as fast as he could, generously ladling out words like “noble,” “brave,” “valiant,” and “heroic” to describe a man he had barely ever noticed.
As he talked, the old woman silently looked up at him, her eyes widening with confusion, and then refocusing, as if the various sounds Maroc was making were only slowly assembling into words she could comprehend. When he finished, her face went pale. She placed her hand on her chest and inhaled deeply, pausing mid-breath to suck in more air. Watching this small woman gulp up what seemed to be all the oxygen in the room, Maroc had a bad feeling about what was coming next. He tried, as best he could, to steel himself from the inevitable, looking nervously to Lecan for support, but when it came it was far worse than he had imagined, a loud, piercing wail of grief so shrill that went on for so long it seemed as if the old woman was intent on utterly destroying his eardrums. In the middle of her glass-cracking shriek, she lunged out and grabbed hold of him, pulling him close until her cry finally broke into choking sobs that she buried in his coat. Gingerly putting his arms around her, Maroc gave her an awkward, hesitant pat. “Now, now, have faith,” he said, despite being sure that the situation actually was hopeless. She could continue to weep and pound her small fists against his chest all she wanted, it would not change the fact that Bemm—and Vidot—were most likely dead.
After a while, the old woman finally calmed down. She sat on a chair, staring glumly at the floor as Maroc explained the next steps, how they would wait a bit longer to be sure, and then, if no better news arrived, there would be a small ceremony at the station. The mayor would come, of course, and her son would be posthumously awarded many honors and medals. She would also receive standard insurance compensation, and her son’s pension would help her weather this great loss. When Maroc finally began to make his excuses to leave, and he and Lecan started for the door, she watched them go with a desperate, silent sadness. Her eyes looked like spoons brimming over, ready to spill again. Maroc could not get out of there fast enough.
Vidot’s apartment was not too far away, but by the time they got there the light drizzle had grown into a deluge and they had to jump over swelling gutters to reach the building’s front door. Luckily, they did not have to wait out in the rain as they were buzzed in right away. They climbed the stairs to the flat and when they knocked at the apartment door, a woman quickly answered. Her bright smile faded instantly at the sight of them. “Yes, can I help you?”
“Are you Madame Vidot?” asked Maroc.
“I am.”
“I am Superintendent Maroc. This is Detective Lecan. I am afraid—”
The loud buzz of the downstairs doorbell interrupted him. She did not answer it.
“I am afraid we have some unfortunate news,” Maroc continued.
“Oh?” she said, her face turning white. “Is this about my husband?”
Again, the doorbell buzzed, and again she did not answer it.
“I’m sorry.” Maroc smiled politely. “Are you expecting company?”
“It is nothing, no one,” she stammered. “Please, go on.”
Maroc was about to continue with his speech when Lecan stepped forward. “Madame, perhaps you should invite us in. The news we have is serious and inappropriate for hallway conversation. And please, let up whoever is waiting. The weather is terrible and we would not want to be the cause of their inconvenience.”
“Yes, I’m sorry, please come in.” She opened the door for them. As they entered the modest apartment, Lecan gave Maroc a knowing look. “But I am sure,” she said, “whoever is outside will go—” The buzzer rang a third time, its duration implying a certain impatience.
“Please,” said Lecan, “invite him up.”
Blushing, Madam Vidot pushed the front door button. The three of them waited in the silent apartment, listening to the rain against the window and the footsteps climbing the stairs. When the knock came at the door, Adèle went to open it. Before she could say a word, the man burst in and immediately started removing his soaked hat and coat. “My God, it’s terrible out! Were you napping? Oh, my little dove, I can’t wait to get out of these wet clothes and—”
It was only then that he looked up and saw the two policemen.
“Good evening,” said Maroc with a grin. “I am Superintendent Maroc, and this is my colleague, Detective Lecan. And may I ask who might you be?”
Less than an hour later the two policemen headed back to the station, huddled beneath their two umbrellas and engrossed in a rigorous debate. Maroc was convinced that Madame Vidot and t
his Alberto Perruci, who was undoubtedly her paramour, were now the primary suspects in the case. Clearly they had murdered her husband and probably Bemm too, perhaps as an unintended consequence. Lecan insisted this was not necessarily so. Maroc pointed to the statistics, how in most murder cases involving married couples, it almost always turned out that the spouse had done it. Lecan agreed that history supported Maroc, but also pointed out that this was France, where, if adultery led inevitably to murder, then piles of new corpses would be lining the streets every morning. Lecan told Maroc that he suspected a more sinister end, perhaps related to the case Vidot had been investigating. By the time they reached the station, Maroc had agreed with Lecan that while infidelity did not necessarily lead to homicide (if it did, he agreed, most Frenchmen would be dead), he still needed answers, and this pair was the closest thing he had to a lead. The death of Leon Vallet was proving to be a dead end, with no clear leads to follow. But these two were acting suspicious right under their noses. Therefore he would put the wife and her lover under surveillance, as it was the only constructive thing he could think of to do.
“Of course, maybe in the end we will find that Vidot simply ran away with a lover of his own,” suggested Lecan.
“Yes, maybe he ran away with Bemm,” Maroc said, and they shared a good laugh at that.
II
Tumbling down toward the street from Billy and Dottie’s apartment, Vidot realized that his whole life would not, as the cliché put it, flash before his eyes. In fact, he had abundant time for regrets, second thoughts, and even philosophical ruminations, for, thanks to the air pressure and the updraft, what would have been a plunge of mere seconds for a heavier mortal man took substantially longer for a falling flea: it was as if he had tumbled off a tall cliff perched above a kilometers-deep canyon and it would now take considerable time for him to cover the vast distance before he reached the bottom. So, as he fell, he could contemplate all the many lapses in judgment that had brought him to this grim and unfortunate end.
Then, unexpectedly, a brisk breeze picked up from below. This gentle but firm wind, buffeting off the side of the building, completely ceased his descent and began forcing him up and aloft. In fact, as it quickly billowed him out over the rooftop, he found himself at an altitude of such atmospheric activity that it quickly became evident that he would not be returning to earth anytime soon. In surprising bursts and swirling currents, curious eddies, and elliptical wafts, he proceeded to spin and sail up across the high terraces, tiles, and chimneys of Paris, his soul now laughing in a nervous ecstasy of relief as he sailed over the spires of churches and soared past garret windows and bright tin peaks. In absolute amazement, he glided over the spiderwebbed alleyways of the Marais and then out past the Hôtel de Ville. Cars and pedestrians clogged the streets beneath him. He was high up now, gazing across to where Montmartre itself gazed out over the city. He was swept along in the wind, admiring the twin steeples of Notre-Dame as he passed, along with the dogged, devilish gargoyles of St. Jacques.
Relaxing in his good fortune, he began to figure out how to surf the wind’s current. By twisting, turning, and balling himself up while extending his long legs out into the air, he found a way to achieve some slight control. Aiming himself down the length of the Avenue Montaigne, he rode a buffeting gust and was shot clear across the river. Then, gleefully aiming himself again, he floated between the iron latticework of the Eiffel Tower. He soared out, up along Haussmann’s grand boulevards all the way to Montparnasse. There the spinning wind’s pressure changed and took him swooping down so that he found himself dancing along only meters above the black and gray hats of a small crowd of people. The breeze sped up again, and as he sailed over the street he caught a glimpse of a pretty blond girl selling newspapers, followed by a man pushing a movie camera in a baby carriage. What a marvelous city, he thought, captivating and mesmerizing even in its most pedestrian moments, those scenes composed of singular beauty that were almost camouflaged and lost amid its myriad wonders.
The gusting wind now shifted direction as it shot him up once more, blowing him back hundreds of meters above the Champ de Mars to where a lonely red balloon floated by. The sight reminded him of those first heroes of flight, his countrymen, who, long before the airplane, rose from crowded and cheering Parisian courtyards in their gilded and satin hot-air palaces. Filled with delight, and flying now back over the river, he passed the Tuileries. He tossed and turned in the cool breeze. He was beginning to think he could happily spend days up above Paris, riding high and repeatedly crisscrossing the Seine, a tiny observing angel keeping a keen, watchful eye on his fair city and its sweet and sinful inhabitants, when suddenly, as he was passing over the courtyard of the grand Hôtel de Crillon, the capricious winds absolutely died and Vidot found himself falling once again, straight down until he landed smack in the middle of an overflowing garbage can.
Stunned, quite happy to be alive, and, as far as he could tell, miraculously uninjured, Vidot rousted himself up from the piled debris and hopped out onto the base of a nearby drainpipe. He had barely time to catch his breath before he saw a large, lumbering shadow passing by, and, without any hesitation, he leapt onto it, wholly intent on resuming the journey to the station he had been pursuing before he was waylaid by Billy and Dottie.
Quickly determining that he was riding the rear end of a common rat, Vidot scurried below to the safety of the belly. There, the warmth of the rodent’s flesh struck another intuitive nerve. Vidot realized that, amid all the drama, he had not eaten in a couple of days. Without pause, he sank his teeth in and sucked deeply, filling his abdomen with warm blood, which caused him to slip into the familiar rich ecstasy of semiconsciousness that often accompanied his more gluttonous meals. In his daze, he failed to notice that his rat was not, in fact, carrying him down the streets but instead had ducked through a sewer grate and crawled up though a small hidden hole that led directly into the side of the building. Slipping behind plaster walls and climbing up the frame of the service-elevator shaft, the rat made its way steadily along the narrow warrens, finally emerging from behind a radiator inside a sumptuous hotel suite.
Coming out of his dazed stupor, Vidot was entirely shocked to hear a familiar voice in the room, one he had never expected he would ever hear again. “Ah, there you are,” said Elga. “Been out playing in the gutters, eh? You are such the little man, Max, you go out for your evening stroll and you come home smelling funny.”
III
Guizot was weeping, his head down on the conference room desk, banging his fist against its polished surface. Will tried to offer him his handkerchief, but Guizot ignored the gesture. It was fine with Will, he was happy to wait. At that moment, Brandon was on his way over to Will’s office from the embassy, and so Will was happy to kill time listening to Guizot’s hysterical theatrics, knowing that this meeting was going to be better than the next one.
“I am the destroyer, Will, the destroyer!” Guizot wept.
“I honestly think you’re being a little dramatic,” Will said.
When Will had left his apartment, hours before, Zoya had still been sleeping. After showering, shaving, and putting on his gray suit, he had left a short note on the bedside asking her to call him when she woke. He drew a heart on the note and then kissed her cheek before grabbing his hat and heading out the door. The minute he reached the street, he had regretted leaving her side.
It wasn’t only the physical intimacy he had enjoyed, though they had fit together like perfect puzzle pieces and the passion had charged and thrilled him in a way it had not for a long while. But the conversation they shared at the restaurant had made him feel better too. He was a little foggy on exactly how much of his story he had shared with her (he had lost count how many vodka shots they’d put down), but, walking down the street, he felt relaxed and unburdened for the first time in weeks. He remembered the good-humored way she listened to him, a sly smile crossing her lips as he talked (what had he said, exactly?). Continuing along the avenue
, a part of him longed to turn around and race back to his bed. He wanted to crawl between the warm sheets again, to feel her skin, to slide between her legs, to flutter her eyes awake.
He wondered how many men found such intensity in a woman’s arms. Most of them thought they did, no doubt, that was the spark that drove lust onward. But did they really, or was it usually some thinner, cheaper version? And when it was good like this, how long did the feeling last? Is this how married men felt? Did those husbands still ache and pine to roll in their wives’ embrace as they went through their tedious days, and when they were out with their wives, did they inch closer so that their fingers were never far from touching? He had felt he was being a little ridiculous, like a daydreaming character out of some silly romantic movie, but these were refreshing emotions for him, so he savored their rawness, sucking at them as one does a candy, wondering if he should give in to his desire and rush back to her side. If he turned around now, in five minutes’ time he could be naked, holding her in his arms, kissing that perfect soft spot below her collarbone and still only be an hour or so late for work. But as tempted as he was, practical realities held him in check. He had already wasted the previous day gallivanting about town on Oliver’s wild adventure. He needed to get back on top of things.
Thinking of Oliver reminded him that Zoya had not clarified much there. Was she seeing both of them now? Or had she smoothly switched over like a busy traveler changing trains? What would Oliver think, or say? And should Will even care? After all, the man had been nothing but a whirlwind of distractions and destruction since they first crossed paths, and now he had managed to tangle himself up in both Will’s professional and personal life. No, Will decided, he wouldn’t worry about Oliver.