Simon took a cab back to his hotel. He undressed and put on a robe, then ordered a light dinner from room service, including an order of fresh sardines and toast. He had an idea he might be drinking more than he’d like later in the evening, and the fish and bread was a proven measure to lessen the effects of alcohol. Waiting for the meal to arrive, he reviewed the notes from Delacroix’s phone. Once again, he was astounded as to the security man’s access to the prince’s most private data. The next step involved using that data—national identity number, credit card numbers, and more—to gain access to the prince’s email and phone records.
Dinner arrived punctually. He ate quickly, putting aside the sardines for later. Afterward, he rested for an hour, dozing fitfully. He woke at nine and showered. Toweling dry, he regarded himself in the mirror. The scar on his hip from the policeman’s bullet had hardened to a weal the size of a bottle cap. The bullet that had struck his shoulder had done more damage, shattering the clavicle and tearing the deltoid muscles, requiring two bouts on the operating table.
The result was an eight-inch incision that after all the years had gone white as bone. He had other scars, but these were from prison: a few puncture wounds in the abdomen, a nasty zigzag on his ribs courtesy of a serrated shank, and a patch on his thigh where he’d been scalded by boiling water. All these he viewed with bemusement. The other guy had gotten worse on every occasion.
Which brought him to the unsightly memento on his scalp.
He leaned closer to the mirror, running a finger along the jagged mark. Until a few years ago, his hairline had covered it entirely. But Father Time owed him no favors, nor did he expect any. He’d cheated death once too often. The scar on his forehead was a reminder that each day was a gift.
He closed his eyes, remembering the day long ago. He saw himself coming out of the shower, naked, unarmed, and wholly unawares. “Ledoux,” shouted someone behind him. He turned and stepped into the blow, delivered with an enemy’s worst intentions. The weapon was an iron bar fashioned from the leg of a prison cot, its leading edge sharpened like a hatchet. There had been no pain—not then, at least. There had been only a sickening crunch that exploded in the space between his ears and the leering face of the man who wanted him dead. He would forget neither as long as he lived.
Simon opened his eyes.
He still owed the other guy for that one.
Weak people avenge. Strong people forgive. Intelligent people ignore.
Another of the monsignor’s gems.
The jury was still out as to which of these Simon was.
Life in a box.
The cell measured ten paces by six.
Concrete walls that bled with damp.
A steel cot. No mattress. No blanket.
A hole in the floor.
A spigot.
A weak incandescent bulb protected by a sturdy cage that burned all day and all night.
Two meals a day.
Breakfast: bread, coffee. Dinner: boiled potato, egg, and, once a week, a square of dark chocolate.
No books.
No music.
No television.
No clocks.
Each day an endless journey to the boundary of his sanity.
Who betrayed you?
Every Sunday he was taken from his cell, escorted up the long stairway and into a small yard, confined on all sides by a twenty-foot-high wall. He knew it was Sunday because of the church bells. On the other side of the wall, cars drove past, mothers walked with their children, groups of men shouted on their way to the football match. Life went on.
Summer ended.
Fall.
The brief Marseille winter.
Spring.
A year passed.
Who betrayed you?
Another Sunday.
Finally, one hour outside. Sun on his face. The smell of grass. Of exhaust. Of the world in which he’d once lived.
A man was standing in the yard. A prisoner. Pale as chalk. Wild hair going gray, falling past his shoulders. Once a strong man. Broad beamed. Rangy. A face carved from stone. A man who refused to yield his dignity.
“My name is Paul.”
“Simon.”
They looked at each other and Simon could see by his expression that they shared a wretched condition.
“How are you, my son?” said Paul.
“Better now,” said Simon. And for a reason he did not know, nor could later explain, he approached the old man and hugged him, holding him close until his muscles weakened and he could hold him no longer. “Better,” Simon repeated.
“Me, too,” said Paul. “I thank you.”
The men walked to a corner of the yard, as far from the guard as they could get.
“How long?” asked Paul.
“A year,” said Simon. “I think. What month is it?”
“September.” Paul smiled. “I think.”
“And you? How long?”
Paul didn’t answer. He merely shook his head. Too long.
The guard appeared and ordered Paul inside. “Listen for me,” he said as he was led away.
That afternoon, as Simon lay on his cot, hands behind his head, staring at a monstrous centipede that had emerged from a crack in the ceiling, asking himself if he were hungry enough to eat it, he heard a tap, tap, tap coming from the wall. It was a new sound, divorced from the pinging of the generator and the buzzing of the light bulb and the stomping of the guards’ feet as they walked up and down the stairs.
Tap, tap, tap.
Simon rolled off his cot and grabbed his spoon. He tapped it against the wall, but it was fashioned of such flimsy metal, it made little sound.
The tapping stopped.
A week passed. And another. Two precious Sundays and no other man in the yard. And then, one more week later, Paul was there again. A miracle.
“Tell me about yourself.”
Simon did. A life story delivered in one hour—less, even—a blitz of emotion, of hope, and of regret. Last, he told about his crime, about the day he was betrayed.
“What is his name?” asked Paul.
“I can’t,” said Simon.
“But you know?”
“Yes. I know.”
“And so?”
“He’s for me.”
In parting, Paul said: “Two paces from the back wall. Five fingers above the floor. Dig.”
And then he was gone.
Simon dug, using the handle of his spoon. He didn’t fear being discovered. The guard came morning and night to pass his meal through a slat in the steel door. Never more. Once, a long time ago, the wall had been impenetrable. Time and damp had weakened it, had softened hardest concrete to malleable mush. His small metal pick made easy headway through the rotting concrete and plaster. In a few days, he had fashioned a hole the width of his fist that extended nearly to his shoulder. At times he could hear Paul digging, too, and his spirits soared. It was not a question of escape but of communication. Of human interaction. Of grasping on to his only chance of maintaining his sanity.
One day the two inconsequential tunnels met.
Simon was saved.
His name was Paul Deschutes. He had been educated in Belgium and taken the vows of priesthood. For a time, he was a servant of Christ, a soldier of Ignatius Loyola. A Jesuit. But no longer. More he would not say, except that he deserved his punishment.
It was his wish to help Simon. He proposed to give him the education he had chosen to forgo, if Simon was willing. He would be the Abbé Faria to Simon’s Edmond Dantès. They were in Marseille, after all. Life would imitate fiction.
Simon had no idea who Faria was or, for that matter, Edmond Dantès. The only Dumas he knew was a goalie who’d played with Bordeaux ten years earlier. His knowledge of literature, math, and science was an eighth grader’s. The last book he’d read was about Lucky Luke and Black Bart. It was a comic book.
He told Paul this. He said he had no use for book learning, that he knew how to hot-wire a car in thirty seconds and how to cover an armored car’s vents with wet towels to force the guards to open the doors. He knew how to drive fast and to reload a pistol before the empty magazine hit the ground. He knew how to touch a woman so she’d never want to leave him and to kiss her like he loved her. That was enough.
To which Paul laughed. But then he grew serious and asked a simple question: “Do you want to come back to this place?”
Simon said no. He could not return. To come back would be to die.
“Well, then,” said Paul.
And so they began.
Every morning after eating his breakfast and making his ablutions (a word he only learned in the course of that tumultuous year), Simon would lie on the floor and listen as Paul lectured. For three hours in the morning and three hours in the afternoon, Paul would cover a dizzying range of subjects. He would speak about Picasso, the Second World War, and the works of Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus. About Napoleon and Bauhaus and Max Planck and Albert Einstein. About the Meiji Restoration and Arthur Rubinstein. A wildly random survey course on the learnings of Paul Deschutes in his seventy-three years on planet Earth.
There was also instruction in language. Simon was already trilingual. While English was his mother tongue, he was also fluent in French and Italian. To which Paul added Spanish and Russian.
But the area where Simon shined brightest was mathematics, and his abilities were all the more impressive as he had no materials with which to write the multitude of equations and concepts Paul discussed. His mind possessed the rare ability to hold abstract figures and apply sophisticated numerical concepts to them. When Paul talked about “the x and y axis,” Simon saw them effortlessly. When Paul recited the value of pi to the twentieth digit, Simon could repeat it instantly, and remember it the next day. And the next. When Paul explained the theory of prime numbers, Simon grasped it immediately and, without prompting, could list primes in order until you asked him to stop.
And so they worked. Day in, day out.
In time, Paul revealed more about himself. He’d lived all over the world. He’d taught at prestigious universities. He’d risen in the hierarchy of the Catholic Church. For five years he’d served as the monsignor of Lyon. And then came the fall. A love of alcohol that he could no longer keep hidden. A greater love for women that he could no longer suppress. An affair. A child out of wedlock. Separation from the Church. Worse, an estrangement from God. An abandonment of principles. A descent into debauchery. Drugs. Crime. He gave details sparingly. His regrets were many. Over and over, he said he deserved his punishment. That he had sinned and fallen from God’s grace.
But now, here, with Simon, he could begin his penance. He could try to atone. Teaching brought him closer to his God, even if his God chose to keep his distance.
Simon called him “Monsignor Paul.”
A warm spring morning in the yard, the air buzzing with keen, fresh scents of awakening, the earth damp, sprigs of grass pushing through the mud. Beyond the walls, the chirping of happy children walking with their parents to church, the chatter of families on a sunny, promising Sunday morning. And inside the walls, an hour of respite from the damning isolation.
“Why are you here?” asked the monsignor.
“You know why,” said Simon, and he began to explain about the morning so many months before when he and his crew had been betrayed.
“I don’t mean that. I mean here. In the hole.”
The question took Simon by surprise. Surely they had discussed the circumstances of their segregation at some point during the past months.
“I killed someone for Signor Bonfanti,” he said. “Didn’t I tell you?”
The monsignor continued and Simon knew he was after something. “So it was punishment?”
“Not exactly.”
“Oh?”
For once, it was Simon’s turn to perplex his mentor. “It was my choice.”
“To come here? To spend your days in a bug-infested cell smaller than a shoe box?” The monsignor shook his large, shaggy head, laughing dryly at this impossibility. Simon had never seen him smile so broadly. The priest’s teeth were straight and white, and he became ten years younger on the spot.
“What’s so funny?”
A wave of the hand. “Nothing. Please go on.”
Simon explained about his agreement with Bonfanti and explained that after killing the Egyptian, Al-Faris, he had been given a choice. He could give up the name of the man who’d betrayed his crew or he could serve an indefinite sentence in the hole.
“And you refused?” said the monsignor.
Simon didn’t reply. He was standing there, wasn’t he?
“Why?”
“Why do you think?”
“Because you’re a tough bastard who doesn’t forget or forgive.”
“That’s about right.” The answer pleased Simon and he couldn’t ignore the surge of pride, the reflexive swelling of his chest.
“Sure you made the right decision?”
“I’ve had eighteen months to think it over.”
“And you don’t know how much longer you’ll be here?”
Simon shook his head and the monsignor looked away, his face screwed up in the way it got when he was thinking. After a minute, he returned his gaze to Simon.
“How do you know it’s going to be worth it?” he asked.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, this fellow you’re after may have died since then,” the priest explained reasonably. “Or he may have moved away. Maybe he found God.”
“Coluzzi? No. He’s alive. I can feel it. And he definitely hasn’t found God. I’ll see him again.”
“And when you do?”
“I’ll do what I have to do.”
“Take his life?”
“He’s getting off easy dying. The way I see it, he killed four of my friends.”
“And nothing you can do will bring them back,” said the monsignor, adding force to his words for the first time that morning. “Do you think they would do the same for you? Pretty expensive ticket to punch.”
Simon wanted to say yes, but in truth, he didn’t know. He could only answer for himself.
“I guess, Simon, my question is, are you really here for them or are you here, suffering like this, for yourself?”
“I’m here because I have to be.”
“That may be so, but it isn’t you who made that decision.”
“What does that mean? Who else made it for me?”
The priest shrugged and Simon knew that it was his way of saying that there were mysteries in the world and that any man who thought he knew all the answers was a fool. After a moment, he drew nearer.
“You’re not here,” he said, “because you blame this man, this Coluzzi. You’re here because you blame yourself.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“‘It is mine to avenge,’ sayeth the Lord. ‘I will repay. In due time, their foot will slip. Their day of disaster is near and their doom rushes upon them.’”
“Save the Bible for the next guy.”
“I believe that’s you. How many more do you think I will have the chance to help?”
“Plenty.”
“Look at me.”
“Don’t talk like that.”
Simon cast his gaze elsewhere. In the short time they’d known each other, the priest had grown visibly weaker, his skin grayer, his shoulders more stooped.
The monsignor put his hands on Simon’s shoulders and looked into his eyes. “‘Do not repay evil with evil,’” he said slowly, meaningfully. “‘Repay evil with blessing, because to this you were called so you may inherit a blessing.’”
“You’ve got a lot of them up your sleeve this morning.”
The monsignor put back his head and smelled the air. “I have hope, Simon, and my hope is you.”
But the hours in the yard were not just for examining his soul. The monsignor had more practical advice to pass along, some of which surprised Simon, and at first even hurt him.
“Hit me.”
Another Sunday. Cold and rain instead of the spring sunshine. An atmosphere of gloom inside the yard, and outside, where no voices could be heard, no joyous cries from passing children. Just quiet, and quiet was the enemy when you spent your days locked up alone in a cell underground.
“Did you say ‘Hit me’?” asked Simon.
The monsignor nodded easily, as if this were the most normal request in the world. “In the face. Here. A jab to the cheek.”
“I will not.”
“Frightened you might hurt me?”
“You should be frightened, not me.”
“All right. Suit yourself.”
Simon enjoyed an uneasy laugh, when suddenly something slapped him in the face and his cheek smarted. “Hey!”
The monsignor had assumed a fighting stance, feet shoulder-width apart, hands raised.
“Did you just hit me?” asked Simon.
The priest nodded and motioned with his fingers for Simon to approach. “Do as I tell you. Don’t worry.”
Simon studied the priest, appraising him in a new and not entirely friendly manner. “You’re sure?”
“Go for it.”
Simon smiled at such juvenile words coming from the smartest man he’d ever met. He raised his fists and threw a tentative punch. The monsignor batted it away. Simon tried again, harder this time. Again the priest blocked it, redirecting the blow in a manner that caused Simon to lose his balance and stumble.
Retaking his position, Simon decided to let the priest have one, a real haymaker, the results be damned. He hadn’t figured the monsignor to be a big mouth, but, hey, if he wanted to get punched, Simon was willing to oblige.
He shifted his weight onto the balls of his feet. He moved this way and that, shoulders bobbing, then threw a punch, restraint leaving him as he struck out, putting all his muscle behind it.
His wrist snapped and the punch hit nothing but air. This time the priest took hold of his fist and tossed him over his hip and onto the dirt, where he landed flat on his back.
Simon scrambled to his feet. “How?” he asked, winded. “What…”
“I wasn’t always a man of the cloth,” said the monsignor.
“Where did you learn that? I mean, whatever that is that you just did. Karate or kung fu or—”
“Not karate. Something I picked up in Mozambique.”
“Where?”
“A country in Africa. Lots of jungle. Beautiful beaches. And the women…” The monsignor caught himself. “Anyway, it’s Portuguese and Brazilian and a mix of some others. I don’t know that it has a name. Would you like to learn?”
Simon answered in a heartbeat. “Absolutely.”
Simon shook himself awake. He’d been dozing.
He rose from the bed and opened his laptop, typing in “Le Galleon Rouge.” A map showed its location on a side street not far from the Place des Vosges. There was a picture of the bar, too. A sign above the door advertised its name. Otherwise, there was no indication what was inside. Le Galleon Rouge was not trawling for customers.
He closed the laptop and went to the closet. He didn’t need Nikki Perez to tell him how to dress. Black V-neck T-shirt, jeans, and ankle boots with zippers. Crucifix and braided chain around the neck. Pinkie ring with amethyst. Pomade for his hair. He’d come prepared. But the clothing was only window dressing. His entry card to Le Galleon Rouge was inked on his forearm. The tattoo designating him as a member of La Brise de Mer.
Two tasks remained before he could go. First, he accessed an app on his laptop, checked that the wireless connection was robust, and set it to record. Then he opened his metal briefcase—or as he liked to think of it, his “bag of tricks”—and removed his newest addition. The StingRay was the size and shape of a fat pack of cigarettes, made of black metal. The only visible controls were an on/off switch and a tiny bulb that burned green to indicate the unit was activated. Originally, it had been designed to allow law enforcement authorities to locate and track cellular phones, and it worked by mimicking a wireless carrier’s cell tower in order to force all nearby mobile phones to connect to it instead of the real tower. Simon had opted to purchase the latest version, code-named Hailstorm. Hailstorm attracted all calls in a given location, recorded their conversations, and, by a trick of wizardry, collected all data stored on those phones. Emails, texts, call logs, photographs—everything. It was an indiscriminate beast that cared as much about an individual’s privacy as a Peeping Tom. At twenty thousand dollars a copy, it had better be.
Satisfied he was giving the enemy as little chance as possible, Simon slipped the StingRay unit into his jacket pocket and turned to his last bit of business. The sardines.
He ate them with plenty of toast and butter and didn’t bother brushing his teeth when he’d finished.
When in Rome…
On the way out of the room, he passed a full-length mirror. A low-class, street-smart hoodlum stared back. He froze, shaken by the image. He was looking at the man he’d almost become.
Somewhere—in heaven or in hell—Monsignor Paul was smiling.
A fifteen-minute cab ride took Simon to the Marais. He got out at the Église Saint-Paul-Saint-Louis and walked a block to the Rue des Rosiers. Le Marais was an historical district popular with tourists. The streets were lined by old government buildings, maisons de villes, and churches dating from the fourteenth century. At night, when traffic quieted and the sidewalks grew deserted, it was easy to lose one’s place in time. Even now, Simon could imagine the wheels of a tumbrel cart clattering over the cobblestones, delivering its unfortunate charge to the Place de la Concorde for his date with the guillotine.
He spotted the sign for Le Galleon Rouge. In ten steps, he was miles away from the quaint, clean streets. Garbage bags lined the sidewalk. Pools of grease sullied the road. Urban music blared from an open window. The side street was like any other gritty alley in the wrong part of town.
Nearing the bar, Simon slipped the StingRay from his pocket and dropped it behind one of the garbage bags. A man stood near the entry, leaning unsteadily against the wall. He looked at Simon, then pushed open the door with one arm. “Salut.”
“Salut.” Simon stepped inside, pausing to allow his eyes to adjust to the low light. It was a small room, choked with cigarette smoke, tables to one side, video poker games on the wall, and a foosball table in the corner. At 10:30, the place was half full but lively, a few couples dancing to Italian disco music. He walked to the bar and propped his elbows on the counter, aware that all eyes were on him. He might look like one of them, but he was an outsider, and outsiders were not to be trusted.
He ordered a beer and remained standing, facing straight ahead. The bartender set the glass on the counter. “Visiting?”
“Quick trip.”
“Know anyone in town?”
“I’ve been away for a while.”
The bartender’s eyes gave him the once-over. He saw the tattoo and the penny dropped. “This one’s on the house.”
Simon raised his glass.
The bartender left and Simon gave a look over his shoulder. The place was filling up, mostly men in their thirties and forties and their dates. The women ranged from brassy blondes showing too much flesh to dark-haired matrons who looked like they’d come straight from Mass. From the corner of his eye, he noticed the bartender speaking to an older man at the end of the counter. The man’s eyes turned to Simon. He smiled faintly and made his way over. “Mind?” he asked, pointing at an empty stool.
“All yours.”
“Luca Falconi,” he said.
“Simon Ledoux.” If he was visiting the old gang, he might as well use his old name.
Falconi offered a meaty hand. He was pushing sixty, wavy hair dyed black as oil, an extra thirty pounds hanging from his gut. “Laurent told me you’d been away. Where were you, on vacation?”
“Down south.”
“Les Baums?”
Simon nodded and sipped his beer. “It was a while ago. I’ve been out of the country a few years.”
“What brings you here?”
“Looking for a friend.”
“Maybe I can help.”
“His name is Tino Coluzzi. We go way back.”
“Coluzzi, eh?” Falconi made a show of searching for the name, eyes moving here and there, mouth twisted in puzzlement. To Simon’s eye, it was a poor performance. “Doesn’t ring a bell.”
“He’s a little taller than me. Better looking. I heard he liked this place.”
“Really? Where’d you hear that?”
“Nowhere special. In fact, we did some work together back in the day.”
“Can’t help you. Not a name to me.”
“Too bad. I wanted to give him a message. You see, he has something I’m looking for. He might have found it by accident, but he needs to give it back. Otherwise, he could get into a lot of trouble. I wouldn’t want anything to happen to him.”
“Sounds serious.”
“It is what it is.”
Falconi considered this, his eyes never leaving Simon’s. “What did you say your name was again?”
“Ledoux. Simon Ledoux.”
“Well, Mr. Ledoux, like I said, I can’t help you.”
“Tell him there’s still time. No hard feelings. Just in case you remember.”
Falconi raised his glass. “Stay out of trouble.”
“I’ll try.” Simon went back to minding his own business. Falconi disappeared into the back office. Simon had a good idea what he was up to. It looked like Nikki Perez was right about this being Coluzzi’s hangout.