“Well, if we can’t be discreet, let’s do it in full view,” Capestan declared.
Key West Island, South Florida
May 2, 1993
The air was extremely humid and heavy with the scent of salt and flowers. Two emerald-green parakeets were fluttering around the banyan tree, whose roots were mangling the road surface. The colors, the warmth, the silence. Alexandre never wanted to go back to France.
He was going to have to, though, to tend to Attila.
Attila. The nickname spoke volumes. The little boy was exploring the bottom part of the garden under Alexandre’s watchful eye. He was wielding a spade that was normally reserved for building sand castles, slamming it into one trunk after the next. He had never used that spade to build anything. Alexandre sighed and mopped his sweaty forehead with his handkerchief.
The young man who owned the bike rental shack waved to him as he walked down the street. His trusty, dignified pirate’s parrot was perched on his shoulder, swaying from side to side. They swaggered into Sloppy Joe’s on Duval Street. What Alexandre would have done for a nice glass of bourbon. France. No more diving; no more days draped in linen and cotton. Back to work, which meant wool and uniforms. The brief dalliance had run its course.
A rooster appeared on the opposite roadside. There were never many cars on these broad, tree-lined streets, and if there were they went at a gentle pace. The unperturbed rooster was in no hurry itself as it made its way toward Alexandre’s open gate. He tried to scare it away with a whistle, but the fowl was stubborn as well as stupid. It was normal for the roosters there to roam wild, since the locals trained them to hunt and eat scorpions. The roosters respected their side of the bargain, and in return they expected to be left in peace. With its comb held high and its chest puffed out, the rooster came farther into the garden. Attila spotted it straightaway and tore toward it, brandishing the spade and yelling at the top of his lungs. Alexandre abruptly shot out his hand to intercept the child and clung onto him. Red-faced and furious, Attila thrashed his limbs in every direction, but soon he tired himself out and succumbed to Alexandre’s viselike grip.
“He’s got the blood of a guerrillero,” the boy’s mother said, with a twinkle of Cuban pride in her eye.
“Guerrilleros are only for times of revolution, Rosa” came the reply.
His wife had just pulled up in her mud-spattered white jeep. She put the hand brake on and got out of the car, then headed around to the passenger side. She unfastened the seat belt and carefully took little Gabriel in her arms. The tears had long since dried on the child’s cheeks, and in his hand he had one of those colorful lollipops the doctor lets you have. The bandage around his little finger made it hard to hold. Alexandre felt a tightness in his chest and looked searchingly at Rosa. She waited until she was by his side before pointing to the Band-Aid on Gabriel’s ear.
“They couldn’t sew it back: the lobe was torn off.”
39
“Do you think that if number 36 had been at number 38, they still would have called it 36?” Dax said.
Évrard pretended to think it through before giving her answer:
“No.”
Sitting on the stone wall of the quai des Orfèvres embankment, opposite the entrance to the headquarters of the Parisian section of the police judiciaire, she was observing the windows on the third floor, which is where the management had their offices.
“Yeah, number 38 sounds bad,” Dax went on. “Could be worse, though. Could have been number 132, flat B. Can you imagine? ‘Open up! Number 132, Flat B here.’ They’d have to find another name, I’m telling you.”
Évrard smiled and let her gaze drift down the Seine. A boatman was steering his barge with a steady hand behind the thick glass of his wheelhouse, enjoying his morning coffee with careful, deliberate sips as the early autumn sunshine broke through the trees, bridges, and apartment buildings. Évrard envied the traveler’s freedom. She kicked her legs alternately to get some kind of rhythm and keep herself awake in the monotony of the surveillance. The grainy stone scratched her through the fabric of her jeans.
Today she had been paired up with Dax for Buron’s surveillance, and she was hoping that the saying about sticks and stones and words would ring true. On top of her windbreaker she was sporting a T-shirt that Orsini, ever the man of letters, had decorated with the slogan COMMISSARIAT ON STRIKE. Capestan’s idea. Since undercover surveillance was not an option, they were pretending to be pickets—the ideal excuse to be both stationary and conspicuous. Plus, with no equipment and even fewer rights, the commissaire reminded them that their relegated squad had plenty to complain about. Évrard had not been convinced by this strategy, objecting that Buron wouldn’t risk going anywhere if he knew they were outside. Capestan had insisted: “He’ll never suspect we’re tailing him, he’ll think it’s a genuine strike. He thinks we’re a bunch of idiots. And anyway, that’s not the point—we still don’t know what we’re looking for, but we do know there’s a link with number 36, so best we keep an eye on what happens there. Let’s see who does respond to our presence.”
Dax, sitting on the wall next to her, had also daubed his T-shirt in fat, slightly smudged block capitals saying THE FORCE IS NOT WITH US. Helpful as ever, he and Lewitz had come up with A PIECE 4 THE POLICE; CASH, NOT TRASH; and a variety of football-related slogans. Capestan felt apprehensive about this bombardment and ended up going for the least moronic suggestion. She did, however, decide it was best to split up the two friends on this mission.
And so Dax and Évrard had arrived at 8:00 a.m., and barely a minute into
