The Grave Gourmet (10 page)

B
y the time she got to the front door the car was right in front of it, Momo's screeching stop punctuated by dark tread marks on the driveway. Capucine jumped into the front passenger seat and Momo floored the gas pedal. The Clio eased forward at its stately pace. “What happened?” Momo asked.

“He's a smart cookie. He faked a trip to the john, hid in an office, and doubled back once I passed him.”

“Well,” said Momo, “he's in a navy BMW 525 no more than twenty seconds ahead of us. We'll see him once we reach the road.”

Capucine nodded vigorously, talking excitedly into the microphone of the car radio, announcing to the PJ radio-control desk that they were giving chase to a suspect and that they would probably need the help of the Billancourt roadblock, but it would take a few minutes before she could announce the location.

They raced down the long Renault driveway, Momo rhythmically pumping the accelerator and swearing enthusiastically in the vain hope of getting the sluggish car to move faster. At the avenue du Général Leclerc he turned a hard left almost at full speed, tires complaining loudly, forcing an oncoming car to brake hard. The driver leaned out his window and was heard to yell something about “dirty Arab immigrants who steal French jobs and who should be driven back across the Mediterranean with whips.” Momo leaned out of the window, smiled sweetly at him, jerked his fist sharply upward, middle finger raised, and then banged the blue light loudly on the roof. He flicked a switch on the dash. The light began its arterial pulsing. He angrily flicked another switch. The car was filled with the deafening two-tone braying
pan pon pan pon
of the French police.

“Do you see him?” Capucine yelled over the din.

“Yeah. He's about two hundred yards ahead of us.”

The avenue Leclerc ran dead straight for about two miles until it reached the boulevard Périphérique, Paris's ring road. A mile ahead it went through an underpass that had been dug under a town square made up of the intersection of six streets. A perfect site for a roadblock. Capucine cupped her hand around the microphone against the wail of the siren and gave instructions that the Billancourt police were to put up a roadblock in the middle of the underpass.

They raced on, the BMW weaving skillfully in and out of traffic while the Renault labored to keep up. The Clio's speedometer read eighty-three miles an hour, ten miles less than promised in the sales brochure, but the brochure hadn't envisaged the car stuffed full of police officers. The BMW, of course, could go considerably faster than that, but it was hampered by traffic, no deterrent for the Clio since cars evaporated at the sound of the siren. It looked like a safe bet that they would be right behind when Etienne hit the roadblock.

Suddenly the BMW disappeared as it dropped down the ramp. When they arrived only seconds after, they could see the BMW already rocketing up the ramp on the far side of the underpass while the Billancourt gendarmes struggled awkwardly to extract a bulky roll of spike tape from a police van. All four shouted out a spontaneous “Merde!” as they shot by.

In under a minute Etienne would reach the Périphérique and be faced with a key tactical choice. He could get on the Périphérique, a six-lane highway, and attempt to capitalize on his speed advantage, or he could go straight into Paris's Sixteenth Arrondissement and hope to lose the police in side streets, or he could turn into the Bois de Boulogne and probably make even better speed than on the Périphérique, while keeping open the option of quickly turning off into the city.

He chose the Bois.

Momo nodded in approval. “That's what I would have done, too. You can get a lot of speed in the Bois. The Sixteenth Arrondissement runs its length so he can disappear in there whenever he wants. And in the Bois we won't be able to tell where he's going to go so we won't be able to set up roadblocks. He knows what he's doing. That's for sure.”

They raced north, skidding to the left around the hippodrome and into the stately woods of the Bois. The prostitutes were already out. The officers could see them ahead, prancing by the roadside, some bare breasted, some completely naked except for stiletto heels. By the time the police car came up they had vanished into the trees as if they had never existed. Capucine had a feeling that if the perp had had just thirty seconds more lead time, he would have tried a ruse with the hookers. But he didn't have a thirty-second lead.

They reached the long, dead-straight allée de Long-champ. Etienne stepped on the gas, accelerating to a hundred miles an hour, and shot away from the Clio. Within seconds he reached the Porte Maillot roundabout. It was obvious he hoped to leave the police far enough behind so he could disappear into the streets of the Seventeenth Arrondissement. But Capucine had called ahead and there were four Paris gendarmes on hand to note exactly where he went.

Etienne barreled up the avenue de La Grande Armée toward the Etoile roundabout and the Champs-Elysées. People stopped and heads turned as they roared by. “At least we're pleasing the tourists. Lord knows that's important,” Isabelle commented. “Maybe next time we can get Momo to wear a beret and tuck a baguette under his arm.”

Instead of heading down the Champs-Elysées, Etienne turned down the avenue Marceau toward the Seine. At the bottom of the hill he rocketed onto the voie sur berge, the four-lane thoroughfare that parallels the Seine almost at water level.

Mistake. They had him. There was no way he could get off the voie before the police could set up a roadblock. Capucine got busy on the radio.

They reached the denouement in the Fourth Arrondissement, four miles away. Etienne had increased his lead gradually, gaining nearly a quarter of a mile on the Clio. At the Hôtel de Ville—Paris's town hall—Etienne made his move and soared up the exit ramp. Ironically it was the same exit he would have taken if he had been going directly to the Police Judiciaire's headquarters.

From the Clio Capucine could see the two navy blue police vans parked on either side of the top of the ramp. She imagined she heard the shark's teeth of wickedly curved spurs burst and shred the tires. The BMW skidded across the avenue out of control on its steel wheels in a fireworks of sparks until it hit the far curb, hard.

Etienne leaped out and ran. Two gendarmes on the street yelled. Momo squeaked the tiny Clio through the opening as the tape was pulled back and shot diagonally across the avenue, catching up to Etienne at the steel fence around the plaza in front of the town hall. Capucine jumped out, pulled her Sig out from the small of her back, held it high over her head, and fired all fifteen shots into the air as fast as she could pull the trigger. The staccato was so tight it sounded a single shearing noise like a huge sheet being torn in two. Etienne froze, bent at the waist, his arms stretched out horizontally. The crowd in front of the Hôtel de Ville dispersed in a confused run like a flock of alarmed pigeons. Capucine continued to hold her pistol in the air, tripped the extractor lever, caught the empty magazine as it fell, slammed in a new one, and snicked the slide back in place. Momo stared at her with admiration.

A
bove all else the French police love of a show of force. Less than a minute after Etienne surrendered, three additional vans arrived discharging over forty uniformed police officers. Some of these concerned themselves with controlling the steadily increasing crowd and blocking traffic in front of the Hôtel de Ville, but most just milled around looking officious. There was much shaking of hands and expressions of camaraderie between units. At the epicenter Etienne stood silent, his hands handcuffed behind his back, waiting patiently, surrounded by Capucine and her three brigadiers, who had all holstered their guns. No one spoke. All five were catching their breath after the chase.

After a short pause Etienne looked down at Capucine, smiled boyishly, and said, “Well, I guess you caught me.” Capucine looked at him evenly, not answering.

A large navy blue Peugeot 407 pulled up. Two burly plainclothesmen got out, took Etienne firmly but gently by the upper arms, and eased him into the backseat of the car. The two plainclothesmen slid into the front seats while Capucine pushed into the vacant back next to Etienne. They drove the two blocks to the Quai des Orfèvres with the erratic sharp bursts of acceleration characteristic of police drivers, the car's siren wailing its deafening complaint and the blue light pulsing like the throb of a migraine.

At the Quai des Orfèvres Etienne was taken directly to the second-level basement, through a studded steel door with a judas window, and into a large, damp room well below the water level of the Seine. The room was shockingly silent after the commotion on the street. Ancient green paint flaked humidly from the walls. In the exact center of the room was a scarred oak table with a metal chair at either side. A single light hung from the ceiling, its dented dome lighting casting a tight spot of light onto the table. Save for the hypnotic swaying of the shadows, waving back and forth like seaweed on an ocean bed as the lamp pendulated in the breeze from the open door, Capucine thought the scene would have been perfect as a set for a third degree in a low-budget film.

Etienne's pockets had been emptied and the contents examined closely and laid out on the table: an American passport in the name of Guy Thomas with an unusual number of airport entry stamps, a cell phone, a few coins, and a brand-new wallet containing only two credit cards, three of the Etienne DGSE business cards, a few euro notes, and a laminated plastic New York State driver's license, also in the name of Guy Thomas. Nothing else.

The prisoner's hands were held by two pairs of handcuffs, each clipped to the crossbar between the legs of the chair. He had enough freedom of movement to lean forward but not enough to rise from the chair.

In the room were six police officers, including Capucine, anonymous in the shadows.

An amiable round man in his shirtsleeves, straight out of a thirties detective film, an old-style Manurhin revolver sagging in a sweat-blackened leather holster in his armpit, began the questioning. Given the threatening mood of the scene, he was unnaturally polite and cheerful as he paced around the prisoner with a pronounced limp. Capucine had never seen him before.

“So,” he said in a calm, reassuring voice, like a pediatrician encouraging a frightened child to tell where it hurt. “Why don't you start out by telling us who you are.”

The prisoner smiled easily. “Of course. My name is Guy Thomas and I'm an American here on a week's vacation.” When he had been chatting with Capucine in front of the Hôtel de Ville his fluent French would have passed him as a native. Now he spoke with a strong American accent in elementary pidgin French.

The officer smiled. “Of course you are. But let's start with the basics: age, address, employer, address in Paris.”

The prisoner explained confidently, wearing a patient smile, that he worked for a software company in New York; was on vacation in Paris, where he liked to come as often as he could; and was staying at the apartment of a friend who happened to be out of town.

“Excellent,” said the detective with an encouraging smile. “Now comes the interesting part. Please explain what you were doing at Renault that resulted in your attempting to escape from the police at high speed for over eight miles.”

“Yes,” the prisoner replied in halting French. “I have to say I'm a bit annoyed about that. I went to Renault to inquire about buying a car and having it sent home. They're very difficult to come by in the States, you know. While I was there a woman started yelling at me. I didn't really understand what she said, but she chased me down the hall. I made it to my car, but she kept after me. I had no idea she was a policewoman. I'm guessing she thought I was someone else, but I still think I may have to complain to the embassy. I'm also going to have to insist you release me immediately.”

A young squint-eyed detective loomed up from the shadows behind the prisoner. “Listen, asshole,” he said through clenched teeth, “you're not going anywhere. We have the right to keep you for seventy-two hours and I can promise you you're not going to leave this room for a single one of them. And by then, fuckface, we're going to know all there is to know about you. Then you're going to go to another room down the hall just like this one and that will be your first step on a journey that will keep you behind bars for the rest of your life. You'd better believe it. And you're not going to be feeling all that healthy on that journey.” He laughed menacingly.

The angry detective retreated back into the gloom like a moray eel slithering back into its hole in the rock. It was all very much like a stage play. Throughout the tirade the older detective had continued to gaze at the prisoner placidly. “Tell me again.” He smiled almost apologetically. “So you come to Paris frequently on vacation and one day decided it would be fun to buy a car—”

The prisoner was made to repeat his story again, and again, and once again. The hours clumped on leadenly. People came and went in the room, held whispered conversations in the corners, came and went again. The prisoner seemed hardly to tire and told his silly story over and over with his patient little smile as if he were talking to children or maybe even the illiterate officials of a barbarous Third World country. The older detective remained unassailably affable, and the younger one undulated out episodically to spit his venom in brief spurts.

In the course of those long hours Capucine remained almost invisible in the penumbra, saying nothing but occasionally receiving whispered reports. It seemed that one of the numerous airport stamps corresponded to the date the prisoner claimed he had arrived in France the last time, and he was actually staying at the address he gave, an apartment rented by an individual who had not yet been located. They had not had confirmation of his New York employment but would call at three
A.M
. Paris time when New York offices opened.

After several hours of this the steel door opened with a grating shriek and Tallon strode in. The ambiance changed as palpably as if a battery of lights had been switched on. Tallon approached the desk and stared hard at the prisoner for a few heartbeats. “Why don't you cut the crap? It's not getting you anywhere,” he said.

Etienne widened his eyes in a pantomime of surprise. “What you mean?” he asked. His French, which had been improving gradually as the interrogation went on, reverted to its initial beginner's level.

“You're a Trag operative. You've been impersonating a DGSE agent, a crime punishable by fifteen years' imprisonment. You've attempted to escape arresting officers, provoking an incident endangering innocent citizens, another crime punishable by imprisonment. You're also the prime suspect in a capital crime. In the blink of an eye I can send you up for over twenty years. Start talking!”

The prisoner tirelessly resumed his litany. “Monsieur, I don't know if your colleagues have told you, but I am an American on vacation in Paris. I went to Renault to buy a car and that woman started chasing me.”

Tallon started to walk around the table in angry gyres.

“I work for the Brianfield Office Systems Company in New York. I'm an American citizen. That woma—”

The impact was deafening in the small room. From behind Tallon had hit the prisoner on the top of the head with a thick book. Etienne uttered not a sound. Drops of blood appeared in his ears. Gently he put his head down on the table, his face turned sideways, breathing shallowly, his eyes open, unseeing.

The young officer who had been playing the bad-cop role picked Etienne's head up by the hair and slapped him twice on his left cheek, using the inside of his hand so he wouldn't leave marks.

“Don't go to sleep on us now, you little cunt.” He shook the prisoner by the hair until his eyes snapped into focus.

“Again,” ordered Tallon.

“I'm an American citizen. I came to Paris for a week's va—”

The impact was just as loud, just as shocking the second time. The blood was now oozing from his ears and trickling down his neck onto his collar.

The process continued for some time. At each iteration the prisoner became increasingly oblivious, repeating his story in a mumble that became decreasingly audible. His face progressively turned a pasty cadaverous white. Finally he sank onto the table for good. The bad cop was unable to rouse him.

Tallon looked disgusted. “Pfuuuf,” as if to say, “Look what they send us nowadays.” He beckoned Capucine with his finger and said brusquely, “Call the duty doctor. Have him checked every fifteen minutes. No stimulants. No painkillers. Call me if his blood pressure goes below 70/50 or if he wakes up. I'll be in my office.”

Tallon marched out, followed by the other officers, leaving Capucine alone with her prisoner.

 

The doctor came. He cleaned the blood out of the prisoner's ears, took his blood pressure, snorted, said it was hardly worth checking every fifteen minutes. But he did peer through the judas every now and then. The prisoner lay immobile, head on the table, breathing in flat little breaths. His color was bad. The hours continued to trudge on oppressively.

Deep into the night the prisoner woke slowly and fell backward in the chair. He started to shake his head to clear it but stopped suddenly as if in sharp pain. He pivoted his body for a cautious look around the room and saw that it was empty except for Capucine. “Can I have some water…please,” he bleated in perfect French.

Expressionless, Capucine pressed a small button inset into the door frame. A uniformed policeman appeared. “Bring a small tin of juice,” she ordered.

When it came she held the three-inch aluminum can to the prisoner's lips and let him sip slowly. A bit of his color returned along with a hint of sparkle to his eyes.

“You're being a fool, you know,” she said with a slight smile. “I'll have to call the commissaire principal back down here in a minute. He really doesn't like you. He'll go on beating you until you talk sensibly or you collapse for good. If that happens, there'll be a good chance you'll have a subdural hematoma. That would not be good for you since you'd be parked in a normal detention cell upstairs waiting for a deportation order, which would come topped up with a writ of
interdiction du territoire
that would keep you out of France forever, and then, in the fullness of time, they'd put you on a flight to New York. You'd have a blood leak in your brain for at least a week before you could see a real doctor. You know what the consequence of that might be?”

The prisoner thought for a moment. “You might have a point there,” he said with a sheepish smile. “Stop him from hitting me with that goddamn phone book and I'll tell you my tale.”

“It's not a phone book anymore. We stopped using them when they made them smaller. It's the directory of French lawyers. Heavier and far more appropriate, don't you think?”

The prisoner's mirth emerged as the feeblest of snorts. But Capucine suspected it might be the first real laughter that room had heard in a good many years.

“Well, okay,” he began. “I have no idea how you found out, but you're right. I am a Trag operative.”

 

Capucine left the Quai des Orfèvres at 6:30 in the morning. Guy Thomas, which apparently was his real name, had given his statement. Given it again. And would give it a third time before it was printed out for him to sign. He would remain handcuffed to the chair in the damp room far below river level until he was taken to the juge d'instruction. Tallon definitely did not like him.

Driving home she made a small detour to the bakery that made the particularly good croissants, bought six
pur beurres
, and then went home. Alexandre was sound asleep on his back, his stomach a gentle and endearing convexity in the bedclothes. He snored quietly, a deeply reassuring sound to Capucine.

She took a long shower using a new bar of Hermès soap, part of a basket someone had given her for her birthday. The smell was cloying but the soap succeeded in eradicating the interrogation-cell stench of sweat and fear and dissipating a good part of the wretchedness of the evening.

Alexandre awoke clear-eyed and smiling and came into the bathroom to brush his teeth. “Most men would be alarmed if their gorgeous wives dragged themselves in at the crack of dawn, but I'm confident your rashest peccancy was biffing evildoers.”

“Biffing is not the sort of word the Police Judiciaire use. That's because the reality is far too inhuman to joke about.”

“Angel, I know all about it, trust me. All journalists do,” he said, taking her in his arms. “Don't quote me, but I suppose it has to be done.”

Capucine pulled away and said brightly, “Come on, I brought croissants. Let's have breakfast. I'll tell you what happened.”

Capucine edged Alexandre away from the Pasquini, deftly produced two frothy cups of café au lait, and consumed one of the croissants with appetite. She was licking the butter off her fingers and contemplating a second croissant when Alexandre became impatient.