“Fuck you.” There was a pause. “Actually, I'm now retired. Retired and getting bored out of my mind.”
“Seriously? I didn't get the party invite. When did that happen?”
“Well, it's a half-assed retirement. Occasional consulting, mostly sitting around waiting for the phone to ring. You spend years learning how to pick locks, follow spies, and torture Arabs and then, when you know what the fuck you are doing, they give you a wristwatch and tell you to fuck off.”
“Was it a nice watch?”
“Screw you. Anyway, I begged them not to do it so they put me on the Europe desk, as a consultant like I said. Right now they have their eyes on a couple of corporate-espionage douche bags in Marseilles, so I might pop over and see you one of these days. And I have all my access codes and a fancy new computer at home, so if there's anything I can do to help out with your stuff, just call.”
“Thanks. I don't think there's anything right now, but you never know.”
“OK. Genuine offer, so call if I can help.”
Hugo heard an unfamiliar note in his friend's voice, a mix of disappointment and entreaty, like a kid finding his second most-wanted toy under the tree at Christmas. Hugo prodded, gently. “You sure you're OK?”
“Yeah, just a little bored. Didn't mean to be needy, but you know how it goes; seems like geezers of our generation are all getting pulled out of the field, one way or another. Most spooks my age are retired or dead, and as a reward for staying alive they gave me a crappy desk job.”
“Staying warm, dry, and safe isn't so bad. That's what I do.”
“Yeah, I keep telling myself that. Trouble is, I'm not listening. But shit, I'm lucky to be around still, so I'm fine, just letting off steam.”
Hugo heard his friend yawn. “OK,” he said. “Then I'll let you get to sleep.”
“Yeah, I need your permission for that. Anything else?”
“Yes. I like the idea of you coming to see me sometime. Call if you can make it. Or just show up, OK?”
Hugo opened the large windows in the living room and stepped out onto the small, iron balcony that overlooked Rue Jacob. He had willingly paid extra to live on the fifth floor, wanting to be high enough so that the noise of foot and road traffic could be shut out or allowed in whenever he wanted. He inhaled deeply and let the crisp air drift past him into his apartment. Raised on a ranch outside of Austin, city living had taken some getting used to. No matter the weather, he preferred to have fresh air in the apartment. It was one of his quirks that Christine, always cold, had failed to appreciate.
The street lay under a blanket of white, and the snow on the few parked cars showed that a good four inches had fallen in the night. The gray sky was tinged with blue now, and a breeze blew the occasional puff of white from the rooftops. Someone nearby had a fire going and the air was scented with wood smoke. After a minute he shivered and went inside, closing the windows behind him. He put on a second pot of coffee and, as it brewed, he stood by the gas fire in his living room, thinking about the day before.
Who had said Max got on the boat voluntarily? Had the cops been to his apartment and found him alive and well? He wanted to go there himself, but without help from the police he had no real way of finding out where the old man lived.
Tom. Of course! Hugo dialed his friend's number, suddenly excited at the chance to do something, but after five rings it went to voicemail and Hugo snapped his phone shut in frustration. He looked around the room, as if inspiration lay waiting to be discovered, a feeling growing within him that he had to be doing something. He remembered the business card from the Agatha Christie novel, fetched it, and carried it into the spare bedroom, which he'd converted into his office. Another frustration. The store on Rue Barrault, advertised on the card, wasn't open yet and wouldn't be for three hours.
Hugo sat at his desk to do some embassy work. It didn't need doing, it could wait until after his vacation, but until he could do something for Max his mind needed the distraction.
An envoy from Zimbabwe was coming to Paris to meet with select American and European dignitaries. As the United States had never colonized any part of Africa, the US Embassy was often a good place for those types of meetings, free from the taint of history. Ironic, Hugo always thought, given America's leading role in the slave trade and more recent financing of certain political leaders in the Congo. But it wasn't his job to worry about the politics. He had to make sure the various security details coordinated so that there weren't fifty bodyguards and twenty armored cars for three dignitaries. Especially at the US Embassy, he liked to have his men take on the close supervision. In truth, most of the third world visitors liked it, too. They knew how well-trained his men were and, sometimes, they didn't entirely trust their own.
He worked slowly, with several breaks for coffee and visits to the balcony to enjoy the cool but slowly warming day. It took him two full hours to synthesize the schedules of the visitors, and to rearrange those of his chief agents to make sure each one managed a shift for the five days of the visit.
At eight-thirty he switched off his computer. Still an hour until the book store opened, but there was somewhere he needed to go first. Just to see.
Outside the street was empty except for an old couple brushing snow from their car with their sleeves. They paid Hugo no attention as he passed, heading toward Rue de Buci. Ever the Texan, he still had an urge to greet people on the street, but after years of being ignored or looked at as if he were selling something, he'd learned to do as the locals did: tuck his head down, watch his step, and mind his own way.
As he rounded into Rue de Buci he caught the aromas of its market. Most compelling was the stall of fresh fish. Row after row of cod, haddock, and octopus, and behind them the wiry fishmonger eyeing passersby as he wielded a bloody hatchet over his chopping block, a purple scarf wound tightly around his neck. Hugo had always been amused that beside the fishmonger's was the florist's stand, bursting with wild and greenhouse blooms. A weekly battle of the senses, with the dead fish always triumphing over the dying flowers.
He stopped at a café and bought a croissant and a cup of coffee, swallowing both at the bar, then headed back outside.
At the end of Rue de Buci he turned left onto Rue Dauphine, named for the son of Henry IV roughly four hundred years before, and headed north toward the Seine. This street was busier and Hugo turned up his collar to fend off the melting snow blown from the trees, whose branches waved and rustled overhead as the wind gathered itself.
He picked his way past the slush and melting ice and five minutes later was back at the Quai des Grands Augustins, waiting for a break in the traffic. He crossed, his heart quickening as he spotted a figure at Max's open stall, a man taking money from a young lady who labored under a backpack that was roughly the same size as she was. Hugo hurried toward them, hardly daring to hope for the impossible.
Thirty yards away he stopped and his heart sank.
The man had turned away from the girl toward Hugo, a smirk on his face. He was smaller and thinner than Max, and considerably younger. He looked a little like the mailman Hugo had known as a kid, a man nicknamed by his parents (rather unkindly, he'd always thought) the Weasel. Hugo started forward again, taking in the man's features. He had a delicate and very un-French nose, a weak fulcrum for the man's thin lips and close eyes. His whole face seemed narrow, Hugo thought, as if he'd spent his life with his head in his hands.
As Hugo drew nearer, the man looked him up and down without subtlety.
“Bonjour, monsieur,” the man said, his eyes on Hugo's clothes. Hugo wondered if the man was counting the threads in his coat as a proxy for the fullness of his wallet. “Are you looking for anything in particular? I have plenty of rare books, you see, and a few items of a more…mature nature, if monsieur is interested.”