Since most of the pickpockets I’d seen and heard were not French, but immigrants with thick foreign accents, I decided I should have one too. I practiced speaking French with a Portuguese accent. It was fun taking the language I’d learned in an intensive, immersive four month training program and molding it to what I needed.
Inside the Musée de l'Orangerie, I watched the pickpockets work. They definitely had a system, but I only saw four during the two hours I observed there. The other two from the fountain didn’t show up, and there were two new ones I hadn’t seen before. They had a rotation, I guessed.
Twenty-two percent of the people who entered the room sat on one of the benches at some point during their visit. Twenty percent took a trip to the restroom, and three of the guards were basically sleeping standing up for a good portion of their shift. There was only one escape route, and that involved going up a flight of stairs.
Perhaps Dufor had come here before going to our fatal exchange because he needed to find peace and calm before doing something super scary. Unfortunately, the façade of calm didn’t remain long.
I moved outside and positioned myself on a bench near the museum, presumably to create an amazing fashion design by pulling on the inspiration of my surroundings. Unfortunately, I was a terrible artist. It was good that I was really only reconnoitering and not actually drawing. I had a perfect view of the entrance and exit through the floor-to-ceiling windows that made up the exterior of the museum’s main floor. The sun played across my face and I could smell the baguette paninis sold on the street nearby.
The six pickpockets I’d seen during the day weren’t hard to spot as they came and went, but I did notice that a few had some sort of disguise on, varying their look in hopes of fooling the guards inside. I took pictures of them all, which was easy with my phone. I sent them to Ace, not sure if he could really do anything with them. But at least he would be collecting a nice file of intel, in case anything happened to me. I shook the thought out of my head and focused on observing the pickpockets.
After several hours of watching, I noticed something interesting. There was one guy—taller than the rest, probably the oldest of the kids at the museum that day—who seemed to be lifting things off the other pickers. That’s odd, I thought, as I watched him move by one of the younger boys and slide his hand into the kid’s bag. I focused my attention on the tall kid and watched him do the same thing three more times. Each time, just before the pick happened, the younger kid had gone to a particular fountain, then stopped in front of Monet’s water lily painting depicting early morning—they were signaling him, I realized.
He wasn’t taking all their stuff—just one thing each time. It was possible they were handing off the most valuable or most sensitive items to him. That was something to think about. If the kid who’d stolen my bag realized the drive could be important, would he have given it to this kid? This was another path I needed to follow. Maybe Kamal wasn’t the one I needed to focus on, after all. I definitely had to find out.
I tailed the tall kid for the rest of the day, and I saw him lift stuff off the other pickpockets a few more times. Once, I caught a glimpse of the item—it was an SD card, the kind used as backup memory in a camera. Not a drive exactly, but it did lend credibility to my theory that a drive might end up with him.
In the early afternoon, I watched him exit the building, walking casually down the stairs to the Tuileries Garden. I followed him down the many steps on the south side of l’Orangerie and onto the wide packed-gravel walkway of the gardens. This particular path led to the largest of the fountains, and he headed straight for it. I made sure to act like I was just on a nice walk in the park, looking for a bit of fresh air and relaxation, but in truth, I was watching for anything out of the ordinary and for anyone who could be watching me.
The tall pickpocket would speed up, then slow down and casually look over his shoulder now and then as he made his way. I walked around the small, perfectly manicured bushes and shrubs nearby, acting like I was just enjoying the beauty before me.
Before reaching the fountain, he took a left on a footpath and met someone at a café table in the gardens. The guy he met had his back to me. I switched seats so I could get a better look. I hadn’t seen him before. He had a very distinct scar running across his forehead and through his eyebrow. I would definitely remember him if I’d seen him. If the tall boy had ended up with my drive, it was likely he’d passed it to Scar, here. Maybe Kamal had nothing to do with the drive after all.
They drank what looked like sweet tea and talked like they were old friends. I bought a panini from a vendor nearby, sat on one of the green chairs, and watched them. Two almost identical bags sat on each
