“Deal.”
“What’s yours?”
“Call Luc. I mean, it’s too late now. But call him in the morning and feel him out on what’s going on. He wasn’t even at the restaurant tonight. And he didn’t answer the phone at the house.”
“Maybe he’s with his boys.”
“They’re in Normandy, with Brigitte’s mother,” I said.
“So maybe he’s in Normandy, too. I get it. You don’t want to call there because you don’t want to deal with Brigitte?”
If that’s what Joan wanted to think, it was okay with me. “Exactly.”
“Fine. I’ll call in the morning. Ready for my favor?”
The driver was weaving erratically up Park Avenue. I told him that I wasn’t in a hurry to get home.
“Sure. What is it?”
“So I think I figured out what might be behind the whole Baby Mo case, and I really think you should tell Battaglia and your colleagues about this. Your boss is getting slammed in the international press, you know.”
“So I hear. And now my beloved friend, best known for writing fiction, is going to enlighten us before we head into the grand jury tomorrow. Shoot me.”
“You know the French think this is all a conspiracy, don’t you? A setup.”
“Oui, Joanie. Un coup monté.”
“So you get it?”
“We just can’t figure who framed the sucker,” I said, hoping the sarcasm in my voice wasn’t too off-putting. “There’s no sign of his Ivorian presidential rival anywhere in the Eurotel. No Ivorians anywhere, actually. And President Sarkozy didn’t leave any fingerprints. Totally disinterested. The guy in line to take over the WEB position worldwide seems as bored with Mo’s sexual escapades as any good economist would be. Who’s your perp in all this treachery?”
“Hold on, Alex. I’m serious,” Joan said. “Kali. His wife, Kali.”
“Of course,” I said, stifling a laugh as the cab screeched to a stop at a red light. “Kalissatou Gil-Darsin. Who was, by the way, in Paris at the time this happened. Motive? Coconspirators? I bet Battaglia will just fall in my lap when I tell him you solved this for us.”
“Who has a better motive than his wife? Are you kidding? Think of it, Alex. Suppose she knew about all this womanizing that’s obviously been going on forever. There she is, one of the most magnificent, most desirable women in the world, and her husband’s chasing every piece of tail there is. First young journalists in France, then coworkers, then the mother of the journalist. I mean, c’mon, Alex.”
“So Kali set up the maid?”
“Well, not personally. But she’s the mastermind behind all this. She hired thugs to do it. Who was in that room next to Baby Mo’s? The one the maid went in and out of, before and after? Do your guys know the answer to that?”
“How do you know about the before and after?”
“That maid’s lawyer was all over the news tonight. Even she made a statement. I’m so serious, Alex. Kali knows his weakness, his Achilles’ heel, better than anyone. He’s been embarrassing her for years with all his affairs and his harassment of women, whether it’s at conferences or in his own offices.”
“You’ve got a great imagination, Joanie.”
“Don’t dismiss me. You promised you’d tell Battaglia.”
“As soon as I figure out why Kali would want to humiliate herself so publicly by creating an even bigger scandal than whatever has been going on with MGD for years. She could have just divorced him, Joan. Or killed him. I’d do that before I’d spend the twenty or thirty million his legal fees are going to cost.”
“Well, this is the angle that intrigues me-a conspiracy, a frame, a setup. Jim has all his sources from the African bureau at the newspaper working on it.”
“Very helpful,” I said. “Excuse me a minute, Joanie. Sir, there’s a driveway on the left halfway down the block that you can pull into.”
“You still there?”
“I’m almost home.”
“Someday I’m going to solve one of your cases and you’re not going to know how to thank me.”
“Driver-stop!” I called out as he raced past the entrance to my building. He braked to a stop fifty feet beyond and I handed him the money and waited for change.
“I’m home, Joanie. Call you tomorrow,” I said, and shut off my phone as I got out of the cab and stepped onto the sidewalk.
I walked toward the mouth of the driveway that cut through in front of my building. Three teenagers came running from the opposite direction. I pulled my bag up on my shoulder and hugged it close to my body. But they weren’t interested in me and continued running ahead, toward the better-lighted avenue.
As I turned onto the pavement beside the drive, a man came forward out of the shadows and tried to block my path. I stepped to my right but he grabbed the sleeve of my jacket and tugged me back toward him.
I clutched my bag even tighter as I yelled out the names of a couple of the doormen, hoping that one of them would be on duty. “Oscar! Vinny!”
“Don’t scream, Ms. Cooper,” the man said as I wrenched my arm away and stumbled backward, almost falling to the ground. “Don’t scream.”
He was older than I and taller, unshaven, with dark, wavy hair and dressed in sweats. He didn’t look like a mugger and he didn’t have a weapon.
“You want money?” I asked. He started to extend his arm to me and I called out for the doormen again.
“Don’t be a fool, Ms. Cooper. I just want to talk to you.”
I took a step toward him and kicked him in the kneecap. I was aiming higher but was too tired and off-balance to lift my leg. He doubled over and I ran past him, grabbing the revolving door and spinning myself inside to the safety of the attended lobby.
TWENTY-FIVE
“We didn’t hear you or we would have come out,” one of the evening doormen said, looking to the other for support. “We thought you knew that guy.”
I was out of breath and wanted to be out of sight, not in the glass-fronted facade of the apartment building. I went straight to the elevator and pressed the button. “What gave you that idea?”
“He came to the door to ask for you several hours ago. Then he went away and came back with coffee.” I had stepped into the elevator when the doorman said, “He told us he was a friend of Mr. Rouget’s.”
I held the door open, my head pounding as I tried to think why any friend of Luc’s would intercept me at the door to my home. “I don’t know the man. If he shows up again, call 911.”
“Certainly, Ms. Cooper.”
Once inside my apartment, I bolted the door behind me, turned on the lights, played the three messages on my answering machine-one from my mother and two from friends-and poured an inch of a single malt Scotch that was on my bar, to drink neat.
I dialed Mike’s cell.
“Yeah?”
“Where are you?” I asked.
“Still in the car. On my way to the canal. What’s up?”
“Some guy was waiting for me outside the apartment, like for hours.”
“Did he get lucky?”
“Very lucky. When I kicked him I missed my target. I’m serious, Mike. He came at me and tried to grab me. Knew my name and had been hanging around waiting for me. Told the doormen he was a friend of Luc’s.”
“So he probably was.”
“That’s crazy. Luc would have given him my number.”
“Maybe not. I told Luc today I didn’t want either of you calling each other so your numbers wouldn’t show up on phone records, in case things went far enough for a prosecutor to ask for those,” Mike said. “Did this guy scare you?”
“Not as much as what you just said does,” I said, sipping on the Scotch.
“Lock the door, pour yourself a double-”
“I’m ahead of you. Just wanted to make sure Luc didn’t mention anything about sending someone to talk to me.”
“Not a word. I’ll call you in the morning.”
I undressed and took a steaming hot shower, scrubbing the smells of the Gowanus off my skin and out of my hair. I slipped into an aqua silk nightshirt and set myself up on the bed with my laptop.