Angela had been dead a week, and the DGSE didn't have the funds to pay anyone to sit in a car for that long.
Besides, he liked Madame Gagne's stories. They touched on his particular nostalgia for that time when Europe was rebuilding itself, and beginning anew. The short-lived Franco-American honeymoon. The French had loved these American jazz musicians, the Hollywood films shipped over by the boatload, and the English pop music they imitated with the ye-ye girls that filled Milo 's iPod. He brought up France Gall, and to his surprise Madame Gagne immediately launched into a brief rendition of 'Poupee de are, poupee de son.' His eyes glazed over, his cheeks warm.
Madame Gagne leaned closer and used her loose-fleshed fingers to squeeze his hand. 'You are thinking of your sister? Things like this-suicide, I mean. You must know there is nothing you can do. Life, it goes on. It must.'
She said this with the conviction of someone who knew, and he wondered how her husband had died. 'Listen,' he said. 'I haven't reserved a hotel room yet. Do you think that I…'
'Please,' she interrupted, squeezing again. 'It is paid through the month. You stay as long as you like.'
She let him in with a long key, handed it over, then expressed surprise that the place was such a mess. 'It was the police,' she said in a bitter tone, then remembered her English: 'Pigs. Tell me if they steal something. I will make the complaint.'
'I'm sure that won't be necessary,' he said and thanked her for her help. Then, almost as an afterthought, he said, 'Before my sister died, did she have any unexpected visitors? Some friends you hadn't seen before, or workmen?'
Madam Gagne's eyelids fell, and she rubbed his arm. 'You live in the hope, I see that. You don't want to believe what she did.'
'It's not that,' he began, but she held up a hand.
'The pigs, they ask this, too. But in the day, I work with my sister. Her flower shop. I see no one.'
Once she was gone, he took a bottle of Chardonnay from the refrigerator, filled a glass, then drank and refilled it. He sat on the couch to think over how to do this.
Do not sleep. Do not dream of Tina and Stef.
It was a simple one-bedroom, but unlike most French apartments the rooms were large. Diane Morel's people had been through it, a blunt search that left the kind of chaos that police all over the world never feel it's their duty to set right, and he knew he would have to focus on areas they would have missed.
Angela's search for the Tiger had been her pet project. She hadn't requested funding allowances, and she hadn't reported her progress to the embassy. So she probably hadn't stored her case notes in the embassy. They would have to be here-unless, of course, she had committed everything to memory. He hoped she hadn't been that brilliant.
He began with the kitchen. Kitchens offer the most options for concealment. There were water and gas pipes, appliances, and cabinets full of containers. To cover his movements, he tuned her stereo to a classic rock station that ran the gamut from sixties chanson to seventies progressive. He removed all the dishes and glasses from the cabinets and pulled back the cabinet papers. He checked the pipes for loose joints. He fingered the undersides of the drawers and the table, then went through everything in the refrigerator, dipping his fingers into marmalade, soft cheeses, and ground meat that had gone bad. He checked the seams of the refrigerator and pulled it out to look over the tubes gridded across its rear. Finding a screwdriver in a drawer, he disassembled the microwave, telephone, and food processor. After two hours, as the stereo played 'Heroin' by the Velvet Underground, he admitted defeat and proceeded to put everything back together.
He didn't need to do this, but he remembered how clean her apartment had been last week. Despite being exhausted and dirty, he didn't have the heart to leave the place in chaos. So he took his time-he had all night, after all-and worked until the kitchen was clean again.
Einner buzzed while he was taking apart the bathroom, and when he let him in the young Tourist handed over a greasy bag with a gyro and fries. He'd eaten his own dinner in a doorway up the street, watching for shadows. 'Not a peep. We should be fine, at least until morning.'
Because Milo didn't want to spend too long at the scene of Angela's death, he gave Einner the bedroom. He wasn't sure how much longer he could keep at this-he was bleary from fatigue-but he pushed on, settling beside the toilet and shaking the pipes leading to the water heater, then drawing his hand along the pipes' length. There. His finger caught the corner of a small aluminum box, the size of two thumbs side by side, magnetically attached to the pipe.
On the outside of the box was one of those reproductions of old French alcohol ads that Europhile New Yorkers buy in poster prints to cover their living rooms. A bobbed brunette in a red Victorian dress clasped her hands together in excitement, staring at a tray of glasses and a bottle of Marie Brizard mixer. A slogan read, PLAISIR D'ETE, PLEASURE OF SUMMER.
It was a magnetic key holder, and that's what it held. A single door key with a three-leaf-clover grip. There were no identifying features. He pocketed it and replaced the holder behind the pipe.
He didn't tell Einner about the key. There was no point in doing so until they had the next piece of the puzzle, but nothing else turned up. What they were faced with, in the end, was a clean apartment.
30
Einner took the deathbed, and Milo slept on the sofa. Unconsciousness came swiftly, and in the late morning he woke with the sheet knotted around his sweaty body and the key pinching the inside of his fist. He didn't remember taking it out of his pants.
They didn't leave until after noon. Madame Gagne appeared at the foot of the steps to greet them. Milo introduced his friend, Richard, and the old woman smiled sadly at Einner, as if he, too, had lost a sister.
It was raining again. As they ran to the car, Einner declared that he knew the finest place in all of Paris for a proper American breakfast. Milo, however, wanted to get moving. 'Twentieth District.'
Einner considered his wet windshield a moment. 'You're kidding. The DGSE headquarters?'
'She does work there, you know.'
'Yeah. And if our government's blaming you for Angela's murder, then the DGSE will happily hand you over.'
'Which is why I need your help. You have a gun?'
Einner reached beneath his seat and pulled out a small Pistolet Makarova. It disturbed him that he hadn't noticed Einner put it there. 'It's my backup. The one from yesterday's in the Main River.'
They took a lengthy route, heading out to Boulevard Adolphe Pinard, which circled the city. They drove south and took the exit for Boulevard Peripherique. After a roundabout, they continued down another lane until they had reached Boulevard Mortier. They rolled past the unassuming, rain-streaked DGSE building at number 141, then drove two more blocks to where, on the corner, Milo spotted a glassed-in phone booth. 'Pull over here and turn the car around.'
The rain drenched him again before he could reach the booth. The phone book had been stolen, so he dialed 12, information, and asked for the phone number to the DGSE's central office.
He was first put through an endless menu. It took five minutes before a male operator picked up. Milo said, 'Pourrais-je parler a Diane Morel?'
'Ne quittez pas,' said the operator, and after a moment of on-hold Muzak, he returned and said, 'La ligne est occupee.'
She was there, but on another line. Milo said, 'Je la rappellerai,' and hung up. He held up a finger for Einner's patience, waited another minute, then called again. The same operator picked up.
Deepening his voice, Milo said, 'II y a une bombe dans vos bureaux. Elle explosera dans dix minutes.' There is a bomb in your offices. It will explode in ten minutes.
He hung up and ran back to the car. 'Go.'
They drove back those two blocks and stopped at the intersection before the DGSE headquarters.
'Keep the engine running,' Milo said as, through the noise of the rain, they heard a faint two-toned alarm. 'You'll either drive forward or backward. I'll tell you.'
'The hell did you do?' Einner said as people began to emerge from the building. Not running, but not strolling
