9 Gaultier

Gaultier flew back to Paris to make a deal with the Serbians, spend time with his mistress, and perhaps even warn Collinson of trouble with the One-Armed Man. The night before, there had been much drinking and celebration with the Serbs, crates and crates of AK-47s that would ship from Marseille, and an odd assortment of used pistols he'd won in a card game in Martinique. The money wasn't much to speak of, but the Serbians had offered him a night of Jack Daniel's shots and champagne and prostitutes at a tourist club off the Champs Elysées called the White Stallion. All the women were from Ukraine and Russia and very intent on separating Gaultier from as many euros as they could, whispering in his ear all types of acts that held no interest for him. Still, it was fun and festive, and he'd gotten back to his flat and his mistress at a respectable time, finding himself up and showered early the next morning and reading Le Monde at Le Fumoir by midday.

He had a lovely Liga Privada going in a large ashtray, sitting outside and facing the Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois and the back of the Louvre. His mistress, Valerie, sat with him, smoking a skinny cigarette and drinking black coffee while thumbing through an enormous fashion magazine. She would bend back the pages to show him a list of where she wanted to shop after lunch. Almost always the Triangle d'Or.

"I'm afraid you'll have to go alone, my dear," he said in French. It sounded much more heartfelt in French. As most things do. "I have to see a friend."

She gave him a mock pout before returning to her magazines. She was just a girl, only now twenty, and perhaps even loved him a little. He'd done much work with her father some years ago and had been stunned by her beauty—properly curvy with devilish lips and short, curly brown hair—when she'd visited the south two years ago. He promised to take her to dinner the next time he was in Paris—a private table at Le Train Bleu laden with paté and steak tartare—and a short time later they'd worked out an arrangement. Of course, there were others. But he didn't ask. He only asked that she was available to him when he visited. And the whole charade had worked into a very sensible arrangement.

"Who is this friend?"

"Someone your father knew quite well," he said. "He's in some kind of trouble and I must warn him."

"Oh," she said, placing the phonebook-size Vogue down face-first on the glass-topped table, nearly knocking over his cigar. Her father had died in a most tragic auto accident that she didn't realize hadn't been an accident at all. "That sounds exciting. Is someone trying to kill him?"

Valerie was young but not exactly ignorant of her family's business.

"Yes," he said. "I think so. A man came to me in Egypt and threatened to cut off his penis."

She threw back her head and laughed. "Does this man deserve it?"

Gaultier picked up the cigar, considered the question and Valerie, and nodded his affirmation.

It was such a lovely time of year in Paris, a slight chill in the evening, the leaves falling from the trees along the Seine. The most wonderful golden light over the bridges and across the city. Lovers and tourists strolling the Pont Neuf. Everything was the same as when he'd been a child in his short pants and shirts with Peter Pan collars. Everything the same as when he'd been a student in 1968 with the riots. Levi's and dirty black T-shirts. His mother had called him a revolutionary, a Communist. Perhaps she was right. A little revolution time and again was quite healthy and very good for business.

"Would you like to make love after lunch?" Valerie asked.

"I wish there was time."

"And tonight?"

"Whatever you wish, my lovely," he said. "But after all your shopping, won't you be tired?"

She shook her head and laughed. The wonderful outline of the church spires over her shoulder looked almost like a charcoal sketch in the midday light. Collinson wasn't much of a friend, but Gaultier knew favors facilitated favors. This was more of an issue of mutual respect than anything. If the tables were turned, he'd expect Collinson to do very much the same thing. And the pesky issue of him telling the One-Armed Man where Collinson lived in America. He'd felt a gnawing sense of guilt since that indiscretion. Even upside down and staring at the Nile, he shouldn't have told that secret.

"Where exactly is Peter Collinson's flat?"

"Pardon?"

"Please," Gaultier said. "Let's not waste a lovely day arguing. I am quite aware you have another life."

Valerie shrugged. She picked up Gaultier's large cigar and took a long draw. She eyed him and placed her bare feet, separated from her Christian Louboutins, into his lap and wiggled her toes in the proper places.

"Oh," she said. "You meant a friend of my father's. I should have known."

"And?"

"I need a new handbag," she said. "A Birkin."

"Of course."

Gaultier reached into his jacket pocket, removed his wallet, and tossed an American Express Black card onto the glass table. He raised his eyebrows. She ran her hands through her short hair and bit her lip. She stifled a little laugh and scooped up the credit card.

"Does this help you remember the address?"

"Peter has a lovely apartment in the ninth," she said. "On the Haussmann Boulevard. A fourth-floor walk-up with a stunning view."

"Of course."

"If you must know, he's a bit of a timid lover," she said. "I had to teach him many new magic tricks."

"My dear," Gaultier said, plucking the cigar back. He respected Valerie. They were both prostitutes in their own ways. "I would expect nothing less. You are a born sorceress."

He took the Metro to the station at the Gare Saint-Lazare and walked the rest of the way.

Gaultier wore a gray-checked three-piece suit with a custom white dress shirt, black silk tie, and black handkerchief. His shoes were black Hermès crocodile and calfskin slippers and his cuff links, small enough to go largely unnoticed, were ivory and shaped like human skulls.

What a lovely day. And the promise of a lovely night. He didn't care in the least that Valerie had been with Collinson; however, his pride did resent that she'd taught Collinson some well-guarded tricks that Gaultier had learned as a young man in Hong Kong. What a waste. The double-crested dragon was his go-to performance, and much too intimate and sensual for an American to perform. Despite her bravado, he doubted Collinson had the stamina and suppleness to actually pull it off. Valerie had probably lied, trying to puncture his nonexistent ego because Gaultier had been spending so much time away from Paris. The double-crested dragon was what tied them even more deeply than his black AmEx. Dragon a double, she'd whisper to him, hands clenching the headboard as if she were an animal in a zoo.

He strolled past the Galeries Lafayette and crossed over the bustling hub where Haussmann met the Rue de Halévy and la Chaussée-d'Antin, filled with luxury shoe shops, newsstands, and brightly lit lingerie stores. More shops and outdoor cafés, mostly empty in midmorning. He followed Haussmann into a quiet stretch lined with trees and bicycle racks, where he saw the apartment entrance beside the Flores café. Tall blue doors opened into a marble lobby with shabby old furniture, dying plants, and a row of copper mailboxes tarnished bright green.

He found the staircase and took his time making his way to the fourth floor and Collinson's apartment. He wondered how many times Valerie had walked up these same steps, meeting Collinson in her black lingerie under her Burberry overcoat, letting the coat drop to the floor with a giggle as if unwrapping a very special gift.

Gaultier knocked on the door. An old woman passed him in the hall, offering a bonjour, an ancient dachshund in a knitted sweater trailing behind. She didn't even glance at Gaultier as she passed, calling out to the dog. "Saucisse."

Gaultier knocked again and waited until the woman had gone into the stairwell.

He slipped his hand into his suit jacket and brought out a small lock-picking kit. Within seconds he'd opened the door and closed it behind him.

Instantly he was greeted by a familiar and horrid smell. The thick old door must've masked it from the hall. The great windows facing Haussmann had been opened wide, long white curtains billowing in the brisk wind. Gaultier reached for the silk handkerchief in his breast pocket and covered his mouth, nearly gagging.

He spotted a pair of overturned leather chairs, cushions splayed on the floor, and an empty bottle of wine in a red puddle. He got down on his haunches and looked at the bottle without daring to touch it. What a shame. A bottle of '99 Petrus Gran Vin.

He followed the buzz of the flies to two bodies on the floor. Both men, both dressed in black and wearing hoodies, their guns fallen close to where they'd been shot. Very slowly and very carefully, Gaultier moved toward them, waving away the flies. He reached for a Mont Blanc pen in his suit jacket and pulled the hoodie from one of the men's faces. He was Pashtun and young, with wide, empty brown eyes and a wisp of a beard and mustache. The other had a shaved head and cleanly shaved face, lying flat with his head twisted at an ugly angle, a hole in the center of his forehead. Gaultier kept walking, moving into the apartment hallway. A third man had been shot dead in the kitchen. He also appeared to be Pashtun, only much older, with closely cropped gray hair and a bulbous nose. He lay on his back and had been shot many times in the center of his body. The blood had pooled and congealed near the humming refrigerator. The Taliban in Paris?

Collinson. Collinson.Quick and efficient work with a handgun, most definitely a suppressor, in order not to gain the attention of the old woman and Saucisse down the hall. Saucisse would've probably not liked the gunshots.

In the large bedroom, with its tall windows looking down upon Haussmann, sat an open leather grip on an unmade bed, half filled with dress shirts, pants, and socks. Inside, he discovered an unused 9 mm clip and a combat knife still in its black leather sheath. A pair of black lace panties lay loose under the sheets, along with a used condom and a pair of men's undershorts.

After a quick search, Gaultier found the closets nearly empty, with only two suits and one pair of black lace-up shoes. A quick look around and under the bed revealed a cell phone that appeared to have been dropped and lost.

Gaultier slipped the phone into his pocket and was making his way to the exit when someone began to knock on the big apartment door. He stopped walking and listened. The knocking was forceful and rude. He heard the jangling of keys and pressed his back against the wall. He pulled out his pistol, a nifty little SIG P series that was small enough not to ruin the perfect cut of his suit.

Did he really want to kill the proprietor? Or the cleaning woman? It would give him absolutely no pleasure, but neither would being caught by the police and connected to the murder of three men in an American's apartment.

Soon the knocking stopped. Gaultier let out his breath.

He pushed off the wall and walked back into the living room and kitchen, again covering his face from the congealing blood, feces, and all the hungry flies. It reminded him of digging all those graves in the Congo, the smell never really leaving him. A horrid, bloody time that he wished he could forget forever.

He slipped out the front door, wiped the prints off the knob, and made his way into the stairwell and out into the fresh air of Haussmann. He strolled as he watched a patrol car arrive, blue lights flickering, in front of the café. A short, bald man in dungarees met the police and pointed up to Collinson's apartment. Gaultier waited until they'd disappeared into the building before he walked in the opposite direction, coming to the busy intersection and ducking down into the Metro.

The three men couldn't have been dead more than twenty-four hours. Either the One-Armed Man had neglected his information and come straight to Paris, or a completely new crew was after Collinson. Either way, Gaultier was done. The American had done the double dragon to himself.