“Michel says his father likened Nessim to mafioso; lending and protecting, filing bankruptcies, setting fires for insurance. Michel’s father hated their saying:
But before Aimee could pull up information as to Nessim on her terminal, loud beeping came from Rene’s screen. He shook his head and sat down. In the halogen light, his forehead shone with a fine sweat.
“Rogue programmers!” he said, his hands racing over the keyboard. “Concocting new viruses, corrupting data, breaking into private networks, leaving irritating messages on computer displays, posting porn on the Web site. The usual.”
“Our bread and butter, Rene,” she said.
“We need to work on Michel’s system before the dress rehearsal in Palais Royal. We’ve got work to do, cyber goddess.”
Biting back a smile, she said, “I prefer cyber diva.” She prised off her heeled sandal with her toe and pulled up the cryptographic hashes of the system files. She checked them against their known good backup to determine if any files were changed.
A few hours and several espressos from the downstairs cafe later, they found a chink in the security fire wall. Rene plugged it.
Then the fun part: putting the puzzle back together. Rene loved reconstructing the crackers’ route. Over a bottle of mineral water they identified vulnerabilities that a cracker would exploit and updated Michel’s system.
She didn’t tell him about Leo Frot. No reason for Rene to know.
STEFAN WOKE UP in his car parked by the cemetery, broke and hungry. He realized he’d overreacted the night before when he’d run. Why hadn’t he asked the concierge what had happened to Romain Figeac?
Now, when he reached the concierge’s
There was only one way to find out.
At the charred door, Stefan saw the yellow police tape, limp and dragging on the wet floor. He hit the timed light switch and his heart skipped. Right where he’d been standing the night before was a gouged hole. And there was a dent in the pillar on his right at eye level. A distinctive graze, like the mark of a bullet’s passing.
His second sense had been right. And all he knew was that he had to get out of there and not be stupid twice. Then he heard scraping from below in the stairwell.
And he ran. He headed up the stairs, onto the roof.
Stefan’s lungs burned. His pulse raced as his legs pumped. As he ran, he shed the raincoat, throwing it over the rooftop. Sweat poured down his shoulder blades.
Why hadn’t he found the exit, planned his escape route like he usually did when entering a new building? Careless, he’d grown too soft and careless. And look what had happened!
He was running for his life and hoping to God he could shinny up the slick roof tiles and climb down to that wrought-iron balcony filled with fat pink geraniums. With luck he could slip in through the balcony door, shoot through the apartment, then hotfoot it to the next street.
At least he’d kept in shape. Lifted those weights, did sit-ups at dawn every morning.
Damn geraniums … he landed, kicking dirt everywhere!
Stefan picked himself up and raced past the half-opened glass door. An old man in a hair net sat reading by dim green light. The cat in his lap hissed.
“Who are you? Get out!” the man sputtered, pushing his glasses up on his nose and trying to ward off the blow he anticipated.
But he spoke to Stefan’s wind.
Stefan slowed, cursing, unable to see in the pitch blackness. He felt his way along the raised linocrust lining the wall. With luck it would be a typical Sentier apartment—bedroom branching from hall to foyer to the front door.
He reached a smooth doorknob. Tried twisting but it didn’t budge.
Locked.
Bright light blinded him. The old man, bowlegged in too-tight long johns and with a rusty meat cleaver, stood in the foyer.
“I fought the
Stefan tried to flip the brass knob, but it stuck.
“
“You are a
“Get back, old man!”
Behind them, something thudded from the bedroom.
Stefan rotated the latch hard until his fingers hurt. It turned. Then he flipped the dead bolt, ran out, and slammed the door.
He grabbed the metal handrail, guiding himself down the steep serpentine stairs, careful to avoid the light switch. Keep moving, he told himself.
Once he got to the street he’d lose himself in the sidewalk crowds or in the Metro. Then double back to the Mercedes, get his suitcase full of the disguises he’d kept for years, just in case, from the trunk.
Stefan swung open the heavy Art Nouveau—style door, its glass held by curved metal strips. Flashes of red light, reflected on the glass, came from the
AS SHE LEFT THE OFFICE with Rene, Aimee carried Miles Davis in her straw bag.
“I’ve got shank bones in the fridge,” Rene said.
Miles Davis’s ears perked to attention.
“I’m happy to keep him tonight if you need to take care of the apartment.” Rene grinned.
A welcome breeze from the Seine sliced down rue du Louvre, rustling the plane trees. She waved goodbye as Rene, carrying Miles Davis in the bag, hopped the bus on Boulevard de Sebastopol that would drop him by his apartment near the Pompidou Center.
She called the police for information about the break-in but so far they had no news. Before returning home, she needed to think. She walked toward the Sentier.
She saw aging women displaying their wares on rue Saint Denis. When the pimps discarded them, the lucky ones shared a van with others, parked in Bois de Vincennes. Leaning in the shadows. Hiding their age.
A granite-hard life with no retirement benefits. No
Aimee remembered Huguette, or Madame Huguette, as her father insisted she call her. They’d lived across the hall from her until they moved in with her grandfather. Huguette had minded her after school after her mother left them.
Huguette had buttered thick
Every evening Huguette—who disguised her long ears with pixie wisps of hair—applied makeup, then poured herself into sparkly evening dresses. What glamorous work, thought eight-year-old Aimee, like going to a cocktail party!
“Bistro Gavroche … I’m a hostess seating customers,” Huguette had said. “Near the Strasbourg Saint Denis
