“What about his background? Do we have intel on him?”
Tom rubbed his chin. “Again, not much. But you have to understand that’s not unusual. What we look for is, well, what we see in his case. Kid influenced by religion, and he was from an early age, and then disappears into the mountains, goes off the grid for a year. We know for sure he was in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir six months ago. We can thank our Indian friends and their paranoia about the region for that.”
“And you know what he was doing.”
Tom admired his wine glass. “He sure as hell wasn’t picking grapes and stomping them into wine.”
“Any legitimate reason to be up there?”
“Goat herding. That’s a legitimate reason to be up there.”
Hugo shook his head and smiled. “OK, I get it. Just trying to make sure we’re going after a guilty man.”
“‘We’? You leave him alone. Your job is to make damn sure nothing is missed at the other end of the hunt.”
“Père Lachaise.”
“Right.”
They ate in silence for a moment, enjoying the warmth of the day and watching people pass by. Hugo noted how fast Tom was drinking, though, and filled his own wine glass up, drawing from the well so that Tom would have less.
“Your next move, then,” asked Hugo. “What is it?”
“A nap, by my reckoning.”
“Great way to run an investigation.”
Tom’s face, already red from the drink, colored more. “This isn’t some pissant murder, Hugo. I have resources and I’m using them to find that bastard. It’s CIA shit, which means that when the man at the top pushes buttons, other people do shit.” He sat back, glaring angrily at the passers-by. “And while they are, the boss gets to take a nap. You have a problem with that?”
Hugo shrugged. “I’m not paying your salary, so do whatever you like. Boss.”
“Just make sure you do your shit right. That’s all you need to worry about.” Tom reached for his wine glass but, when he saw it was as empty as the carafe, he grabbed at Hugo’s, spilling half on the paper table cloth before getting it under control.
“Tom, listen.” Hugo leaned forward and kept his voice low. “You have to stop. Or at least slow down. You can’t clock out at noon every day, someone will notice. Someone who matters. If you want to keep this consulting gig, and I’m guessing you do, you have to turn it around.”
“I’m fine.”
“No, you’re not. You let a hooker have the run of my apartment the other morning because you were passed out. You’re drunk and angry at the world before most people have had their second coffee. You’re the best investigator I’ve ever known, Tom, I mean that. But you can’t hide here forever, coasting on your reputation. It can’t last. You said it yourself, this is the CIA.”
Tom stared over Hugo’s shoulder, silent. Hugo went on.
“You’re also my best friend, and I’m worried about your health. I’m no Adonis but you used to be able to run me into the ground.” Hugo tried a smile. “Couldn’t do push-ups to save your skinny life, but you could run like the wind.”
“Yeah?” Tom said, turning wet eyes onto Hugo. “Not much need for running these days. Not much need for any of that action-man crap.”
“Times haven’t changed that much, Tom. Point is to be ready when you need to be. You’re not ready, not even close.” Hugo’s phone buzzed in his pocket and he looked down at the display, glad for the interruption. It showed Claudia’s name, so he answered. “Hey,” he said, “what’s up?”
“You free right now?”
“Is this business or pleasure?”
“Business, sadly. But important.”
“Sure. What have you got?”
“I found out a little something about your dead girl, Abida Kiani, and her boyfriend.”
“Maxwell Holmes?”
“Nope. Al Zakiri. Turns out they have a connection to Jane Avril after all. You might want to tell Tom.”
Hugo looked at his friend, slumped low in his chair, a frown on his face and his eyes drooping. He looks like an old man, Hugo thought.
“I might indeed,” Hugo said. “We can meet right now if you want. Where are you?”
Hugo got his instructions and hung up. He paid the bill, stirring Tom into insincere protests that he never would have made if he’d been sober.
“We could stay and have another carafe,” he mumbled, as Hugo stood.
“Love to, but I have a lead to chase down.”
“Oh? Something I should know about?”
“If it is,” Hugo said, “I’ll wake you.”
Chapter Eighteen
This was the Paris Hugo had not seen, not once in the three years he’d lived here. The part of the city that existed for a different kind of foreigner, the kind who spoke little French and who scrubbed the streets for his money, prying tin cans and plastic bottles from the gutters, tugging dropped coins from the cracks in the sidewalk, and, as a treat for himself, picking up half-smoked cigarettes that promised several good lungfuls after that first bitter drag.
Hugo sat in the back of a taxi, letting the driver find the little street where Claudia waited. A laundromat that sold coffee, she’d said, her interview would be done by the time he got there. Hurry, she’d said, telling him by her tone what he could now see with his own eyes: this part of the city was no place for a native Parisian.
The cabbie was a stranger, too, and so drove slowly, hunched over the steering wheel looking for the place as Hugo watched a band of three young men prowling the sidewalk, their faces expressionless with boredom or lost hope.
He’d seen that look before, in other cities, and knew that if he dared look closely he’d see their lion eyes, watchful, wary, predatory. This was Paris but it could have been Berlin, London, or South Central Los Angeles. Even the street signs were gone, torn down in fits of anger, boredom, or perhaps for weapons.
The car passed through a tunnel, fifty yards of graffiti that scrolled in and out of patches of yellow light. Out of the tunnel and Hugo saw that most of the streetlamps were broken and the remaining ones, he sensed, were useful not for the light they gave out but for the shadows between them. Here, in this part of the city, the good people sat behind curtained windows, afraid and wondering how their neighborhood had come to this. Outside, the pavement belonged to the young men, and a few women, who had nothing to lose, little to gain, and despite the bleak streets and boarded-up buildings, guarded their territory jealously.
The cabbie took Hugo’s money without counting it, as if showing cash here were inviting danger. Hugo watched the car peel away from the curb and wondered how he’d get home, where the nearest metro stop was. The sidewalk was empty except for the slim figure of a young girl, her head down, scurrying as if merely being seen would cause her pain. The girl slowed as she reached a ten-foot-high poster of a beautiful brunette bedecked in sequins and feathers. Hugo recognized the picture. The woman’s face was all over the city, the dancer known as “Mimi.” Everywhere else she was an advertisement for the entertainment district of Pigalle, but here she was a touch of much-needed beauty, and maybe even hope, in a dirty, bleak, world.
Hugo turned and walked into the laundromat, seeing the relief on Claudia’s face as she rose from her little table at the back of the room. He looked around at the rows of industrial washers, to his left, and dryers, on his right, the hum and thump of the cleaning process a sound he’d not heard since college. He moved forward to hug Claudia, catching the eye of a wizened man with dark skin who watched them as he stacked coffee cups into a pyramid on the bar. Behind the old man, a coffee maker hissed steam. A cigarette hung from his lower lip, smoke spiraling in front of his face.
“Nice joint,” Hugo said in Claudia’s ear.