A Magnificent Crime (17 page)

I pulled out my cell phone and called Sophie. “That was fun, Soph. Thanks for playing. Just what I needed, actually, a little diversion for an hour.”

“What are you talking about? My fortune-teller called me. She said you never came.”

I frowned into the phone. “What? I was just there. I literally just left the shop. I'm walking along rue Poulet as we speak.”

There was a pause on the line. “Rue Poulet? Why are you there? No, I said rue Poisson. My fortune-teller is on rue Poisson.” She laughed, understanding dawning.
Poulet
was French for chicken, and
poisson
was French for fish.

“Well, I knew it was a word that started with
P
and it was a food name,” I said, starting to laugh too.

“Oh, there are a million fortune-tellers in Montmartre,” Sophie said. “You just went to the wrong one.”

Then I stopped laughing. “Wait, so I went to see a fortune-teller you
hadn't
spoken to first?”

“I guess so,” she said blithely.

I felt anything but blithe. A creeping shiver covered every inch of me.

 

I went back to my hotel. I needed a hot bath, and I needed it now.

I still hadn't heard from Gladys, and it was making me crazy. The fortune-teller as a distraction strategy—even as an alternative problem-solving strategy—had utterly backfired.

I opened the closet to retrieve a robe . . . and knew something was off. Where was my navy cashmere cardigan? I was sure I'd hung it up there earlier.

Frowning, I opened drawers and checked the armchair. By the time I crouched down to look under the bed, I had a very bad feeling.

Now, everyone misplaces things from time to time. And people don't typically panic over a missing sweater.

But as a thief, I notice when things are missing. I pay attention to these things. Because in my world it's hardly ever a coincidence.

I checked if anything else was missing. All my valuables, my purse, my passport, my iPod, everything was where it should be. Nothing else was gone.

Just my cardigan?

I lived a pretty messy existence, I admit. But I always had a sense of where I'd left things. It was like a constant mental inventory, like a big game of Memory, and I always knew when something was gone.

And there was no doubt in my mind that my cardigan was definitely gone. Which meant it had been taken.

My mouth felt dry. I began searching for signs of entry. As a pro, I could spot when someone had busted in, even if they were also a pro. But there was nothing. No scratches on the door handle. No sign that things had been moved about or overturned.

I started doubting myself. And laughing at my own ridiculousness. Why on earth would a thief break in here and steal
a cardigan?
Cold evening? Feeling a little chilly and couldn't be bothered to go back to his own place?

I must have left it somewhere. At a café maybe.

I guess I needed that bath more than I'd realized. The cardigan would turn up. I went into the bathroom and turned on the hot water. And tried to ignore the uneasiness between my shoulders that just wouldn't go away.

Ethan tried not to shudder as he walked through the doors to La Santé Prison in the Fourteenth Arrondissement. It wasn't the morning chill that made him feel cold as he entered the concrete and steel structure. Everywhere he looked, all he could see were steel bars, moldy concrete, locks and alarms. It was a building designed to contain people like him. Was it any wonder the very sight of it made him want to turn and walk very quickly in the opposite direction? Instead, though, he was voluntarily strolling in.

Ethan had been working all day on this lead. Now it was time to see if he could pull it off.

He knew they needed an insider's view of breaking into the Louvre. It wasn't something that currently occupied a spot on his own résumé, sadly. He'd done jobs in Paris, of course. You couldn't call yourself an art thief otherwise. But only from smaller galleries and private collections.

The Louvre was his white whale.

A buzzer sounded in the prison—harsh and jolting—as the security guards buzzed him through to the inner layers. To hide his discomfort, he straightened his suit, tugged on the starched cuffs of his shirt. He wore a sharp pin-striped three-piece and a Zegna silk tie that alone cost more than the guards' weekly wage. Ethan knew he looked good. Which was important. He had to play the part here.

Because although he'd never hit the Louvre himself, he did know someone who had. And today Ethan was posing as his lawyer.

The thief was an old acquaintance, a man named Bruno Murphy. Ethan had succeeded in tracking him down. For the most part. With just one catch.

The man was in prison.

Last night he'd called Montgomery to tell her about his plan. When she'd answered the phone, a smile had come over his face at the very sound of her voice. Which he quickly shook off. What the hell was he? A fifth grader with a crush?
Jesus.

“I'm going to go talk to this guy named Bruno Murphy,” he'd said.

“Okay. Why?”

“Because he's the only person I know who has successfully broken into the Louvre.”

“
No,
” she breathed. “That's perfect.”

It was slightly less perfect when he told her where the guy was currently located.

“But . . . how are you going to get any useful information?” she asked. “If you visit, won't your conversation be recorded?”

“That's why I'm going posed as his lawyer. It'll be a confidential conversation that way.”

There was a pause. “Isn't that kind of risky? Going to the enemy's nest that way?”

Ethan heard the worried edge in Montgomery's voice. And in spite of himself, he could feel a smile growing again.
She's concerned about me.

“Yes, there's a risk. But I think I can pull it off. Don't worry, Montgomery. I'll be fine.”

The smell of the prison as he walked in was the thing he was least prepared for, in spite of the notoriously bad reputation French prisons maintained. No amount of industrial cleaner would ever kill the smell of urine. Or tobacco. Prisoners—especially French prisoners—did little else other than smoke all day long.

Ethan had never been to prison, which was unusual for a career criminal, to be sure. Most crooks ended up in the pen from time to time. Usually just short stints, if they were lucky. It never seemed to stop them from falling back into old ways when they got out, of course.

But Ethan had never been caught.

So walking into this prison now, and being shown into a small concrete room featuring a door with steel bars, was not high on his wish list for Paris sightseeing. That he was obliged to leave his phone outside with the desk clerk served only to increase his discomfort. He was cut off from the outside world.

The door closed, and he waited.

And did his best to maintain his composure. Inside he felt like scaling the walls. Outside he hoped he looked cool. He knew he had a pretty good ability to appear unflappable—he'd been told this many times—but that didn't mean he never got stressed. He did. He just had a better poker face than most.

Something he was counting on today.

At last, the doors made a loud clunk as they were unlocked, and a prisoner was shown in.

Bruno was a tall, lanky man, much taller than Ethan. He had a long horse face and slightly asymmetric eyes: the left was just a little higher than the right. It was the face of a Picasso painting. Appropriate for an art thief, truly.

Ethan knew Bruno to be an agency man. He had worked for an American agency with a French branch. Bruno sat down and looked up at him with dead eyes. He pushed back a curtain of lanky hair, and then recognition dawned. A bitter fire kindled in Bruno's eyes.

The guard left, closing them inside the room. The room Ethan was trying his best not to think of as a cell.

Bruno gave a snort. “You've got balls, man. Showing up here, pretending to be legal counsel.”

Ethan smiled and gave a slight shrug. “It's good to see you again, Bruno.”

“Right. So, what do you want?”

Ethan nodded. The sooner they got down to business, the sooner he could get out of there. “I want to talk to you about the Louvre. You broke into it.”

Bruno nodded.

“How did you do it?” Ethan asked.

Bruno laughed, an unpleasant noise that sounded like he was coughing up a fur ball. “You want me to just describe it? Why?” He narrowed his eyes. “You planning to try the same thing?”

Ethan shrugged.

Bruno's mouth twisted angrily. “Did that son of a bitch Lafayette send you? Are you working with him now? Bastard. Fucking double-crosser.” He spat with rage.

Ethan had no idea who Lafayette was, but decided to play along. “Are you saying I shouldn't trust him?”

Bruno laughed again. “Sure. Trust him. Be my guest. He'll give you everything you need. Then fuck you up the ass if it suits him.”

“Okay, maybe you're right,” Ethan said. “Yeah, I'd had a feeling he wasn't a good partner. So can you help me instead?”

Bruno just stared at him a moment, studying Ethan's face. And then his expression went from merely unpleasant to downright hostile. His lips curled back. “You don't remember, do you?” Bruno said, eyes flashing with a vaguely psychotic spark. “That makes it even worse.”

Ethan's brain started spinning, trying to figure out what the man was talking about. He scanned through memories, anything that involved Bruno. And then—

Oh, shit.
Many, many years ago—like, maybe seven—Ethan had slept with Bruno's girlfriend. He'd totally forgotten about that. She'd been a bookings clerk at the Agency. It had meant very little to Ethan—obviously. He'd never figured it would come back to bite him in the ass now.

Ethan held his hands outward in a gesture of supplication. “Dude, I can explain—”

“Are you for real? Are you fucking kidding?” Bruno was getting increasingly agitated. Ethan started sweating.

“I should
out
you right now,” Bruno said. And then laughed. It was the short, barking laugh of someone who is seriously pissed and right on the edge of five-alarm crazy. “Of course I can't, though. How's that for irony? I pled not guilty. So how would I know another professional thief? I'd be incriminating myself.” He was rambling to himself, a very concerning sight.

“I appreciate that,” Ethan said.

“Don't. I might decide to take a chance, after all. You need to get the fuck out. Before I do change my mind.”

Ethan could tell he was serious. It was time to fold his hand.

“Much obliged, Bruno. Good luck to you.” He called for the guard and exited quickly.

Well, that sucked. The encounter had proved way less helpful than he'd hoped. Except for one piece of information.

A name:
Lafayette.

Stone saints glared down at me as I walked through the great oak doors into Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris. A gloomy drizzle filled the sky outside. The inside somehow managed to be even more gloomy.

Perhaps it was the smell of burning candles with a faint undertone of sweat—people who prayed were nervous, evidently. Tall Gothic windows surrounded a black-and-white chessboard floor. Honey-colored stone archways and columns soared to the heavens. Wooden chairs, arranged in perfect rows, appeared to have been lined up by a worker wielding a ruler. And a bad case of OCD.

I shivered; the air was drafty and cold.

Faulkner had wanted this meeting. He had more or less demanded it, saying he required a progress update. I wiped my hands on my pants and tried to get some saliva into my mouth.

Of course, this could be a trap. Maybe he'd changed his mind. Maybe he was growing tired of all this and would simply decide to get his satisfaction.

But I couldn't have refused to meet him. And I couldn't find anyone to come with me. Ethan wasn't answering his phone. I tried not to think about the fact that he was going to La Santé Prison today.

One thing was for sure. I needed to convince Faulkner to give me some more time. Because there was no way I was going to get the Hope before the week was up, like he'd wanted.

Maybe if I had been able to retrieve all Severin's fingerprints.
Maybe.
But not now. And there was no way I was going into the Louvre anything less than spectacularly well prepared.

So I would just have to ask Faulkner for a short extension.

I spotted him by a side alcove, standing in a trench coat, holding a drippy umbrella. I walked to the alcove, stopping to pick up a small votive candle from a table and to drop a coin in the box, and stood beside him in front of an oil painting of Saint Peter.

“The stained-glass windows are spectacular, aren't they?” I said casually, as though talking to a stranger.

There was silence. And then, “I prefer to look at the gravestones. They're people I've never heard of, and that fascinates me.”

There weren't many people in this corner of the cathedral. The one nearby woman wandered off to examine the organ pipes farther away.

After another pause, Faulkner said, “You are on schedule, I trust?”

“Er, well, that's something I wanted to talk to you about.”

He said nothing.

So I kept talking. “I know you wanted me to do this job before the end of the week. But it's impossible.” I had to make him understand the intricacies involved. “There are a lot of things at play here. It's not a simple job.”

“Miss Montgomery, the details are of no interest to me. I do not care how you do it. Only that you do it. And soon.”

Sweat trickled between my shoulder blades. Maybe hoping he was going to be reasonable was too much to ask. What was I going to do if he refused to give me more time?

“I will, however, consider your request,” he said.

I exhaled the air I'd been holding in.

“Now, there's one other thing you need to know,” Faulkner said. “You appear to have popped up on the radar of an Interpol agent. Or, at least, the idea that a thief is targeting the Louvre has.”

This was a punch in the stomach.

“What? How do you know?”

He shrugged, disinterested. “What you need to understand is that if you go down for this, I am not going down with you. Shake Interpol, or I will cut you loose. There will be no connection between you and me. The name of the Interpol agent is Ludolf Hendrickx. And, evidently, he has just turned up in town.” He shook out his umbrella, readying to leave.

“Here in Paris?”

Faulkner pulled up the collar to his trench coat and opened his umbrella, heedless of any superstitions about opening umbrellas indoors. “Take care of it, Miss Montgomery.”

“I'll do my best,” I said.

I swallowed. I had no idea how I was going to do that.