I wasn’t sure if Kamal was watching me or if it was someone else, but someone would definitely be watching. If it was Kamal, I needed to be good—if it was his boss, I needed to be even better. I had to impress these guys and hopefully win a meeting with someone higher up the chain. If he didn’t have the drive, I needed to get a good idea of where else I could look.
The sheer size of the Louvre was daunting, but when I’d first arrived in Paris, I’d spent a little bit of time for several weeks making my way through it. Today I walked into a massive hall with arched, painted ceilings that was lined with enormous paintings on both sides. Benches lined the center along with planters that had been placed exactly in between the benches. I spotted my first mark.
She stared thoughtfully at a painting of a war scene from the 1600’s and her purse sat about an inch to her left. I could easily sit next to her and take my sweet time getting what I wanted out of it even though hundreds of people were passing through the area at all times. Just as I was about to pickpocket her, the hair raised on the back of my neck. I looked around and couldn’t pinpoint the threat. There was too much commotion all around. That’s when I noticed the camera. It was hidden at the top of one of the paintings to my left. Perhaps a security guard was watching me through a live feed. Even if that wasn’t the threat, I knew better than to go against my feelings. I moved away from that mark and chose someone else, then continued on to take from five other unsuspecting tourists.
I exited the Louvre to meet up with Kamal after the requisite forty minutes. As I walked toward him, I decided not to give him a tracked drive at our first meet. Instead, I gave him an empty drive.
We made the swap effortlessly, and then he sent me back to do the same thing again.
On the second drop, I got a big haul and handed him one tracked drive with all the other stolen property. It wasn’t until the third drop that I could see faint signs of the smile he was holding back. I assumed he was happy with my take. One of the tainted drives was mixed in again, and I cringed just a little bit thinking about him having two tracked drives already.
It seemed a bit heavy-handed to even give him two, but we didn’t have a lot of time. If one of the trackers didn’t work, hopefully the other would. I had one empty drive left and one tracked drive, the one intended for another pickpocket. I fingered it in my pocket, thinking. There wasn’t really a good candidate for it. I’d watched—all the pickpockets handed their stuff over to Kamal, one way or another. He’d just end up with it anyway. And two drives was suspicious enough, let alone three. No, I wouldn’t plant this last drive. I’d keep it. It might not be a bad idea to have one in reserve anyway.
“You’ve done really well,” Kamal said as soon as I met up with him the fourth time. “Let’s just meet at the end of your shift at four and see what you can get in that time.”
“Do I get a lunch break? I’m starving.” I shoved my hands into my pockets and rocked back on my heels.
“Sure. Make sure you get just as much as you did this morning by four o’clock, and you can take as long a break as you’d like.”
“Okay. You got it.” I pulled my hand out of my pocket and a drive fell to the ground. It was the third tracked drive. I winced inwardly. Swifter than I thought possible, Kamal shifted his foot over the drive. Heat rose in my chest.
“The stand at the end of the path down there,” he said, pointing, “serves a great panini and fries.”
I nodded, working hard for a couple of seconds to hide my exasperation with myself and act normal. How had I been so clumsy?
After pointing me in the right direction, he reached casually down and grabbed the drive as he retied his shoe.
I mouthed the word sorry as I walked away, hoping he would think I’d just made a beginner’s mistake.
I grabbed a turkey panini from the place Kamal had suggested near the entrance to the gardens from the Louvre and enjoyed the heat of the day on a shaded bench. At least, as much as I could. A little irritation niggled at me. I texted Ace with updates on what I was doing.
No one even gave me a second glance for entering the museum the fourth time in one day. It wasn’t unusual for tourists to enter and exit the Louvre on the same day because it was a place you could spend a week in and not see everything. People would leave to eat or just to take a break for a while. I went to the halls of statues this time and had to concentrate on the task at hand and not spend all my time gawking at the amazing sculptures. After only a few hours, my phone buzzed. It was Kamal. Meet me in Halle in the alley two streets south of the fountain.
Got it, I texted back in a rush. Instead of letting the niggling worry settle in, I ignored it in my excitement. Maybe I’d be able to be done with work early for the day. I had to walk right past Mad Dogs in order to get to
