Simon arrived at the Gare du Nord at four p.m. The station was hot and as crowded as a Moroccan bazaar. A new custom of placing pianos in train stations had spread across Europe. An elderly man with wild gray hair played a lively boogie to no one’s apparent appreciation. Simon kept a tight grip on his bag as he negotiated his way to the taxi stand. Young North African males accosted him at every step, aggressively demanding to help with his bag, shouting offers of rides in their own cars or on the back of a motorcycle. He ignored them.
Once outside, he was discouraged to find that the line for taxis stretched around the block. He turned the corner and walked north to where cabs joined the queue. He raised a hand in the air. A moment later, a liveried sedan pulled over. Cabbies didn’t like waiting any more than he.
“Quai des Orfèvres,” said Simon, climbing into the back seat.
“Oui, Monsieur.”
Simon handed him a ten-euro note. “Vite.”
The driver nodded officiously and put the car into gear.
Simon settled in and enjoyed the sights. On the way, he called the workshop. He informed his floor boss, Harry Mason, that he would be gone for a few days and that he should order the dynamometer for the engine shop. “You sure? That’s an expensive piece of kit.”
“Do it,” said Simon. “And pass me to Lucy.”
“She’s been working like a dervish on that Dino you started last night.”
“Is that so?”
“Odd, if you ask me.”
“Better keep a sharp eye, Harry. Maybe she’s after your job.”
“That’ll be the day.”
Simon waited as Harry Mason went to find Lucy. Traffic was only marginally awful. He gripped the armrest as the driver accelerated through the streets, then slowed dramatically to cross the Pont Neuf. He hated being driven by others, taxi drivers most of all.
“Where are you off to, then?” asked Lucy Brown by way of a hello.
“Paris. Business.”
“Never been.”
“One day I’ll take you. School trip.”
“For that guy who was in here this morning?”
Simon gritted his teeth as a work van zeroed in on them, only to veer away at the last moment. “Did you deposit the check?”
“Straightaway at lunch.”
“You know what I do when I make a little money? I buy myself a gift. Nothing too big. Just something to congratulate myself.”
“So what did you get, then?”
“A dynamometer for the shop. Just gave Harry the green light to order it.”
“Sexy.”
“Isn’t it, though?”
“Funny you mention that, because I already got something.”
“You did? What is it?”
“A watch.”
“I thought no one was wearing watches these days.”
“Oh, I’m not going to wear it. At least, not all the time.”
“You’re not?”
“Nope.”
“Okay,” said Simon. “I’ll bite. Why did you buy it?”
“So you’ll show me just how the hell you did what you did last night.”
“Goodbye, Lucy.”
The headquarters of the Paris police department, better known as the Police Judiciaire, or PJ, was located at 36 Quai des Orfèvres in a nineteenth-century stone building that ran the length of a city block along the Seine. Men and women hurried up and down the broad limestone stairs. New recruits in their royal-blue uniforms climbed aboard a bus to the academy. Police cars ferried in and out of the lot, beginning a shift or returning after a long day. The rest of Paris might have shut up shop and gone on vacation, but the police were afforded no such luxury. Certainly not after a high-profile robbery that had made headlines around the globe.
Simon presented himself at the reception and received his visitor’s badge and instructions to Commissaire Marc Dumont’s office on the fourth floor. He walked past the elevator and entered the interior stairwell, running up the three flights, partly to ease his anxiety, partly because he liked elevators even less than police stations.
Reaching the fourth-floor landing, he paused to straighten his jacket, then passed through a swinging door into the main hall. His timing was good and he spotted Marc Dumont heading toward him. “Marc.”
Dumont saw him and frowned. “Don’t you ever gain any weight?”
“English cooking.”
“Still no woman?”
“What are you? A cop?”
“No ring,” said Dumont, pointing at Simon’s left hand. “Besides, you look too happy.”
The two shook hands warmly and Dumont led the way into his private suite. Two secretaries sat at desks in an anteroom. “I’m expecting Detective Perez,” he said to one. “Send her in as soon as she arrives.”
The secretary’s expression soured. “As if I could stop her.”
Dumont continued into a large corner office overlooking the river. He dropped the dossiers he was carrying onto his desk and sat in a tall padded chair. “Coffee? Tea? I don’t usually drink in the office, but I’ll make an exception in your case.”
“Tea’s fine.”
Simon remained standing, taking in the room, the view. Life had been good to Dumont in the years since he’d last seen him. The French policeman was a little grayer, a little heavier. His suit was nicer and he wore a better wristwatch, though nothing compared to the Patek Philippe. Simon was pleased to note that the bullets Dumont had taken on his behalf had not left him with a limp.
The two had forged a tenuous friendship years earlier when Simon had enlisted his help in tracking down the daughter of an English financial executive. They’d found her in the drug den of her Serbian boyfriend in Paris. She didn’t come without a fight.
“So, Monsieur Riske, still chasing rich runaways?”
“Once was enough,” said Simon. “I’ve moved on to bigger and better things. Looks like you have as well.”
“I left anti-gang last year,” said Dumont, referring to the division charged with handling important robberies and kidnappings. “Like you, I have moved up in the world. I’m part of l’État-Major these days. I’m officially a bureaucrat.”
“Don’t tell me the bad guys finally got to you.”
“Twenty years was enough. I got sick of being shot at by stoned teenagers. And you, Riske, staying out of gunfights?”
“As best I can. I still owe you one.”
“I thought it was the other way around.”
“I didn’t take the bullet.”
Dumont laughed or grunted. With the French, it was hard to tell the difference.
Simon had phoned before leaving to provide Dumont with a few details about the man he was looking for. He’d purposely kept the description short and vague. A professional criminal active in Paris. Someone from the south. Bouches-du-Rhône. Côte d’Azur. Possibly a Corsican. His preferred targets were art, jewels, and historical artifacts. Worked with a team.
“Mind telling me what he did?” Dumont had asked.
“He stole something that belonged to a client. Something valuable.”
“In Paris?”
“Yes. A few days ago. That’s all I can give you for now.”
A secretary arrived with tea. Dumont poured two cups. “Sugar?”
“Please,” said Simon. “And milk.” He accepted the cup and sat down. “I appreciate you seeing me. I know you have your hands full. Any luck?”
“Nothing yet,” said Dumont as he arranged the papers on his desk into neat piles. “Slavs or Russians, I’m sure. These guys were trained. Burned the vehicles. Didn’t leave a print. The prince was dropping a fortune around town. He might as well have painted a bull’s-eye on his back.”
“Well,” said Simon, settling himself in his chair, “good luck.”
“We’ll find them sooner or later. Someone will brag about it…either here or in Zagreb or Moscow. Crooks can’t keep their mouths shut.”
“Lucky for us.”
“Between you and me, I’m not sure why we should care,” said Dumont quietly, as if passing along a secret. “The prince didn’t stick around long enough to file a report. He was on his plane and out of the country forty minutes after it all went down.”
“Maybe he didn’t want to talk,” said Simon in the same restrained tone. “You know who he is, don’t you?”
“Yes,” said Dumont. “But how do you?”
Simon shrugged. “Maybe he wasn’t here just to shop.”
“Oh?”
There was a knock on the door and Dumont’s countenance went from dark to darker. He shouted, “Come in,” but he was a beat late. A slim, energetic woman dressed in tattered jeans and a black T-shirt entered.
“Commissaire,” she said, taking up position directly in front of Dumont’s desk. “Reporting as ordered.”
Dumont pasted a smile onto his face. “Simon, may I present Detective Nicolette Perez.”
Simon stood. “How do you do?”
The woman turned toward him and shook his hand, gripping it a little too hard, meeting his gaze long enough to make it clear she didn’t want to be there. “Nikki. Nice to meet you.”
“The pleasure’s mine.”
“Detective Perez came into anti-gang a few months after I left,” said Dumont. “Since then she’s taken the lead on several high-profile cases. I informed her about the inquiries you’re making on behalf of your client.”
“It would help if he actually told us what he knew,” she said to Dumont.
“Mr. Riske is a friend of the PJ,” said Dumont reprovingly. “You will extend him every courtesy.”
“It’s all right,” said Simon. “I know I’m taking her away from her job.”
“Do you?” said Nikki Perez. “How very understanding.”
He looked at her closely. She had tousled brown hair that fell to her shoulders and a streak of blue thrown in toward the back to show that she made her own rules. Her brown eyes were large and unapologetic, and they went nicely with a wide, expressive mouth cast until now in a frown. She wore little or no makeup and Simon didn’t think she needed any. No fingernail polish, but slender hands and nice nails. He had a thing about hands. He also had a thing about guns, and she was carrying a SIG Sauer with an extra-wide grip on her belt that said she was all business.
She dropped into the chair adjacent to Simon’s and stretched a leg out in front of her. “Look,” she said. “We have a half-dozen organized crime groups working the city today. Russians, Slavs, Africans, and a few others. The Corsicans are way down the list. Mostly they’re into protection, gambling, prostitution. Once in a while they bring in a crew to take down a bank or a jewelry store. There hasn’t been anything reported that even remotely fits what you’re looking into. No stores knocked off. No paintings stolen from private collections. No thefts of expensive jewelry. Not much more I can add.”
“I’m happy to give you some more details,” said Simon. “My client doesn’t want the theft made public.”
“It’s a crazy time. I’m sure you’ve seen the news. I’ve got a lot of work. Like I said, I haven’t heard a thing.” She stood and smiled woodenly. “Good luck, all the same.”
“Detective Perez,” said Dumont. “I’m certain you can offer Mr. Riske a few minutes of your time…no matter how valuable it may be.”
“Sure,” she said, moving to the door. “Maybe tomorrow…or the next day.”
Dumont stood. “This afternoon.”
“But, Commissaire, I told you…”
“Especially given your current status.” Dumont stared at her for as long as it takes a spark to die, then returned his attention to Simon. “As I said, Nikki would be more than happy to speak with you.”
Nikki Perez ran an exasperated hand through her hair, sighing for dramatic effect, before looking Simon’s way. “All right, then, let’s go.”
Simon thanked Dumont all too quickly, hurrying to catch the detective at the elevator, sliding in as the doors closed.
“Still here?” she said.
“Like gum on your shoe.”
“More like something else. Come on. I need a coffee.”
She was first out of the elevator and made a beeline through the reception area and out the front doors. She took the stairs two at a time and turned right once she hit the sidewalk. Simon turned left.
“Hey,” she called. “This way.”
“I know a better place.” He continued up the Quai des Orfèvres. After a moment, he heard her footsteps behind him.
“Fifteen minutes,” she said. “That’s all I have for a ‘friend of the PJ.’”
“More than I need.”
Simon turned onto a street lined with cafés and restaurants. Waiters wearing white aprons stood on the sidewalk next to chalkboards advertising daily specials. The Notre-Dame was a few blocks away and its towers loomed over the rooftops.
He cut into an alley and opened the back door of an unmarked building. A spiral staircase led to a coffee bar on the first floor. Locals sat at tables lining the wall. Simon walked to the counter. “One espresso and one…”
“Café crème.” Nikki took a tobacco tin from her pocket and opened it. Inside were rolling papers and a lighter. She began fashioning a cigarette. “I’m impressed,” she said. “You know Julien’s.”
“I was at school here for a year.”
“Sorbonne?”
“Sciences Po. I studied mathematics.”
“That must have been a while ago.”
“Ten years.”
“That’s all?” she asked with sarcasm.
“I started late.”
Nikki flicked her tongue across the paper and sealed the cigarette. Simon plucked it out of her hand. “Hey,” she protested, throwing out a hand to grab the cigarette back.
“Foul habit.”
“You have some nerve!”
He looked at his watch. “Eight more minutes. I think you can wait that long.”
The barman placed the demitasses of espresso and coffee on the counter. Simon sipped his slowly. He was remembering his year at the Sciences Po, the nation’s elite business university. He’d come to earn a master’s in mathematics after finishing his undergraduate degree in London. He’d lived in a fourth-floor walk-up in Montmartre and worked nights and weekends doing odd jobs to cover living expenses.
Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.
It had all been part of the monsignor’s plan for him. Yeats by way of a jail yard priest.
“Five minutes, Mr. Riske.”
Simon finished his espresso. “I need everything you have on three people. Paul Modriani, Salvatore Brigantino, and Tino Coluzzi.”
“You’ve narrowed down your list.”
“I hope that helps.”
Nikki set her elbows on the counter. “Modriani ran things five years ago, but he’s retired. He has a restaurant in Lyon, where he spends his time. You can forget him. I haven’t heard anything about Brigantino for years. His son manages a casino in the Bois de Boulogne. Gambling’s not my jurisdiction. I heard Coluzzi’s name a year ago in connection with a theft of a shipment of prescription medication—OxyContin, opioids, something like that. Nothing since. He’s probably back down south. Now it’s your turn.”
“Like I told Commissaire Dumont, I’m looking for something valuable that was stolen from my client.”
“And a little birdie whispered in your ear that it was stolen by one of these men.”
“Exactly.”
“What is it that you’re looking for?”
“A letter.”
“You’re serious? What are you going after next?” she asked with a smirk. “A pen?”
“They didn’t take the pen,” said Simon.
“Very funny,” said Nikki. “If you know so much already, why do you need me?”
“Reliability. Confirmation.”
“You dragged me away from the biggest theft in the last six months to find a letter?” She looked at the ceiling, shaking her head. “I know what you are, coming here in your expensive suit and your expensive shoes, calling in a favor from the commissaire. You’re a fixer. The guy that does somebody else’s dirty work. The commissaire told me about your last job—finding the runaway heiress who’d fallen in love with her coke dealer. Classy. What is it this time? Tracking down an incriminating letter one of your rich friends dashed off to his much younger girlfriend? Well, then. Another worthy cause for the Paris police. At least I don’t have to worry about being shot.”
“Not by the bad guys,” said Simon.
“Tough guy, eh?”
“Not especially.”
Nikki stepped closer, her fingers tracing a path along his lapel. “Must be some letter.”
He took her hand from his jacket and lowered it to her side. “Point me in the right direction. I’ll take it from there.”
Still, Nikki didn’t move. She stared at him, not bothering to disguise her contempt. Simon held her gaze. Her brown eyes had flecks of gold and he caught a hint of expensive perfume. He decided he liked the streak of blue. It was fading and he wondered when she’d put it in and why.
“Time’s up,” she said, before sliding down the counter and collecting her tobacco tin. “I’ll ask around about your friends from down south.”
He threw a ten-euro note on the bar. “Sooner rather than later.”
“I have other cases that take precedent on a letter.”
Simon buttoned his jacket and reached for the door, but she was there before him. She paused, halfway out the door. “Hey, Riske, my cigarette.”
“I gave it back to you.”
“Actually, you didn’t.”
“You sure?”
Nikki fished out the tobacco tin and opened it with a thumb. The cigarette lay inside. “How…?”
“Talk to you tomorrow,” said Simon.