“Why did Figeac write the words agit888?”
Vigot shook his head. “That’s all I know. Romain always said if he’d published the article the magazine would have taken off.”
“What happened to the article?”
“Sartre published it. That took courage, given the climate then. He looked like a toad, did you know that? Don’t think me cruel, Sartre said it himself,” Vigot said. “Just leave Christian alone, he’s had a rough time.” He gestured to the waiter for another drink and stood up. “I’m going to the rest room. When I return, you’ll be gone, won’t you?”
His gait was unsteady as he moved past the table. He turned and looked at her, his eyes unfocused and very tired. “Leave me alone. I like to get drunk in peace.”
SHE LEFT the café to the chorus of invitations to join the men at the bar for more bière brulée. What did it mean if her mother had helped translate an interview with Haader? But she felt there was more to what Vigot had said. And that there were boxes of Figeac’s work unaccounted for.
Still at sea, she hurried along Boulevard Saint Germain. Back at Tallimard, she hit the kickstart on the scooter and gunned the engine. She’d counted on Vigot enlightening her as to how Figeac was connected to her mother.
But she thought he knew more than he was telling.
She called René on her cell phone.
“Allô?” She heard René’s fingers striking keys on the keyboard in the background. Then an insistent low buzz.
“Etienne Mabry wants you to call him.”
A brief frisson of excitement hit her, then faded. Of course, it must concern Christian Figeac.
Aimée held the phone between her ear and neck as she rode across Pont Royal. The Seine breeze whipped up her skirt, scattered the perched pigeons from the large letter N incised on the bridge by Napoleon’s orders.
“He needs your help with”—low static, clicks—“before we go.”
Something sounded odd. The phone line was tapped.
“Hold on, René, I’ll be there soon.” She hung up. The office was five minutes away but she didn’t want to tell him and the others who were listening that she was meeting Christian at the bank. She stuck her phone in her pocket.
She sped along the Quai des Tuileries, turned left under the Louvre’s arcade, and veered by the Carousel roundabout past the Pyramide.
It bothered her that their phone line was tapped. A lot.
She squeezed her brakes before the Number 39 bus threaded the narrow grime-blackened arches to cross rue de Rivoli, almost flattening her against the Louvre’s portal. She inhaled a big breath of exhaust.
Tuesday Afternoon
ALAIN VIGOT LOCKED his office door and set the silver flask on his polished cherry-wood desk. He lifted it up quickly. The flask had left an oval of spilled Scotch and he wiped it up with his sleeve.
Beside the window overlooking the publishing house courtyard near Saint Germain, framed book jackets filled Vigot’s wall. In the place of honor stood the photo of Figeac receiving the Prix Goncourt. Figeac, oblivious of his own talent, had taken it for granted.
But for Alain, as his editor, it had been the ultimate triumph—the writer he’d discovered and nurtured, baby-sat through drinking bouts, the birth of a son, disastrous political choices, a failed marriage and bitter divorce—to see him so honored.
He stared at the box of Romain Figeac’s work. Inside lay partial manuscripts and dog-eared photos from Tallimard’s banquets honoring Figeac. The last one had been an affair to remember. Jana, Figeac’s movie star wife, once the darling of Godard and the New Wave cinema, was there with her entourage of radicals. Jana had gone from being his muse to orchestrating his downfall. And her own.
Bored and restless when not working, Jana treated her son as if he were an untrained puppy when she even noticed him. Her cocaine-and-champagne lifestyle took a toll on her looks, yet she remained a temptress who drove Figeac crazy. Crazy in love with her. The miscarriage and her suicide five years later on its ghoulish anniversary had ended Figeac’s writing, as far as he was concerned.
Alain conceded he’d been jealous of her … the self-absorbed bitch. Figeac had even banked her terrorist lover’s loot for her, the loot of the supposed father of the child he’d always claimed was his.
Earlier that day Alain had submitted his resignation to Tallimard. He knew the time had come to withdraw from the world of publishing, which was being transformed by electronic books and on-demand publishing. Who knew what else they’d dream up? It was not Figeac’s or his world anymore … the bottom line was what counted. Not literacy or literature. Who even used pen and ink anymore?
He’d burn the contents of this box personally. Let Figeac be remembered as the great writer he’d been, not the alcoholic hack who’d become obsessed with his wife’s terrorist lover. But first he’d read what was inside the manila envelope Figeac had sent him before he killed himself.
Tuesday Afternoon
RENÉ LOOKED UP as Aimée walked into the office.
“Christian Figeac cancelled your meeting,” he said.
Disappointed, she walked toward her desk. Christian had given her big checks yet reneged on their deal. Was he in more trouble?
René wore a headset while working at his terminal. He pointed to the phone on her desk. The red light blinked; she picked it up.
“Oui?” she said.
“Frésnes Prison visiting hours start at two P.M.,” Morbier said. “Prisoner number 3978. Today.”
Aimée looked at her watch. “But it’s …”
“Up to you,” Morbier interrupted. “The prisoner’s scheduled for transit and my contact’s retiring tomorrow.”
“Give me that number again,” she said, snatching a pen and writing the numbers on her palm.
“I’m taking Marc,” he said. “We’re leaving for Brittany en vacances.”
“Merci,” she said, but Morbier had already hung up.
Apprehensive, she looked past the paperwork on her desk at René. “The phone’s buzzing worries me, René.”
“Maybe it’s time to check for bugs, the wireless kind,” he said, his fingers pausing on the keyboard. “Exterminator is my middle name.”
She grabbed her jacket, tried it on, then threw it on the chair.
René’s eyes narrowed to green slits.
“Problems?”
“What do you wear to prison?”
“Depends how long you’re staying,” René said. “Short-term, the linen works. Long-term, a jumpsuit with stripes. Why?”
“I’m visiting Jutta Hald’s former cell mate,” she said, scanning the faxes. “I’ll knock this out later.”
René gestured toward her linen jacket. “You mean we’re postponing the sushi?”
“Désolée!” She slapped her cheek. Sometimes she forgot to eat. Or that other people did.
“Here’s Christian’s check for fifty thousand francs,” she said. “Should tide us over.”
René whistled.
That should mollify him and take care of some bills. “Don’t forget to deposit it.”
“I suppose you’ll be eternally grateful to me,” René said, pulling off his headset.
“And treat you to sushi every week.”
AIMÉE BOARDED the dark pink Metro line for Porte d’Orleans. She hadn’t had time to ask Morbier who this prisoner was and what she was in for.
She exited on the péripherique side and found bus number 187, the only public transport to Frésnes Prison.
Most of the bus passengers were African or of Arab descent, and female. An older French woman, haggard and bleary-eyed, pounded on the folding bus doors as they closed. With a shrug, the driver let her on. Women clutched babies and prisoners’ laundry bags, as they tried to get past the folding strollers.