Private Paris Read online

  Two large gilt birdcages hung from the ceiling. In them women writhed against each other, oblivious, it seemed, to the crowded floor below them, where fifty or sixty provocatively dressed people danced and pulsed with the techno music.

  To the left there was a long bar crowded with hard drinkers and lascivious friends. Within moments of Mfune and Amé entering Le Chanticleer Rouge, couples and single women began offering to buy them drinks and teasing them about what could be enjoyed inside the tents.

  Amé turned them all down, saying, “We’re voyeurs for now.”

  The truth was that they were looking for someone. Ten minutes later, they spotted her at the satellite bar upstairs, drinking a salt-and-pepper martini. In her forties, with short silver hair and a long, lithe body clad in a pearl-colored pantsuit, she was watching a writhing group of people in a room with glass walls.

  “Ready?” Amé asked.

  Mfune nodded. “Let’s do this.”

  They sidled up next to her and ordered drinks. It didn’t take long for the woman to take her eyes off the orgy and glance their way. The instant she did, she turned fully toward them as Amé had suspected she would. Based on her surveillance, she knew that the woman liked black men and bisexual white women.

  “My, my,” the woman said. “And who might you two be?”

  Amé pursed lips glossed ruby red and smiled. “Lynette and Nico. And you?”

  “Lourdes,” she said. “I’ve never seen you here before. First time?”

  “First time for Nico,” Amé said, squeezing Mfune’s hand. “Not for me. I used to come here regularly with my lipstick girlfriends.”

  “I’ve done that too,” Lourdes said softly as she raised one eyebrow. “So fun.”

  The captain said, “You’re quite beautiful, Lourdes.”

  “And you, Nico, are the definition of a man’s man.”

  “You have no idea,” Amé said mischievously.

  Lourdes’s eyebrow went up again. “C’est vrai?”

  “Shockingly true,” Amé said, and pressed back languidly against Mfune, who beamed to expose that gold tooth.

  “I must say, you two have made me rather breathless,” Lourdes said, setting her drink down and fanning her face. “And my skin—look. It’s gooseflesh.”

  “We could solve that,” Amé said, “and any other problem you have.”

  “And I yours,” Lourdes said, beaming. “Shall we go someplace private?”

  Chapter 42

  LOURDES TRIED TO lead them into the dungeon, but Mfune said he’d feel better in one of the tents. Amé found an empty one at the back of the club.

  She let Lourdes and the captain enter the tent first. Glancing about, she saw no one else in the immediate vicinity—at least not in the visible vicinity. As Amé let down the flaps and tied them shut, she heard the smack of a paddle on flesh from the tent to the left, and cries of orgasm to their right.

  She turned and saw the king-size bed with fresh sheets, and the sex swing above it hanging from a cable that ran down through a hole in the tent peak. Lourdes was finishing the last of her drink and eyeing Mfune hungrily.

  “Do you like textures, Lourdes?” Amé asked, sinuously stroking her black gloves one against the other.

  “I like everything,” Lourdes said. “Engage my body. Engage my mind.”

  “I guess that’s a yes.”

  “It’s a definite yes,” Lourdes purred. “What did you have in mind?”

  “We want to worship you,” Amé said.

  “You’re our goddess tonight,” Mfune said.

  “You don’t know how right you are,” Lourdes said huskily, as the captain moved behind her and pressed his hips against her back. She trailed her hand along the side of his leg.

  Amé sandwiched the woman. She and Mfune caressed Lourdes through her clothes until she was trembling with desire.

  “Show us how beautiful the goddess is,” Amé said, standing back.

  Lourdes did a provocative striptease that left her naked except for her backstrap high heels.

  “You are a goddess,” Mfune said.

  “I want to see you too,” Lourdes said.

  “Not yet,” Amé said. “Lie back, Lourdes. Lose yourself in pleasure.”

  The woman hesitated, but only for a moment before scooting onto the bed and looking at them saucily. “I have to admit, being naked like this and you both in your clothes is a total turn-on.”

  “Just you wait,” Amé said.

  Mfune walked around to Lourdes’s feet and began stroking them with the gloves, moving his hands slowly up her calves and pressing her knees apart.

  “God. Kiss me there,” Lourdes whispered.

  “Not yet,” Amé said, climbing onto the bed behind her. Reaching over Lourdes’s shoulders, she caressed the woman’s breasts. “Lie back now and shut your eyes. It will heighten your senses, make your climax more powerful.”

  The captain’s gloved hands were massaging Lourdes’s inner thighs now, and she gave in completely, sliding back off her elbows so that her head came naturally into Amé’s lap, where she sighed with contentment and closed her eyes.

  “You don’t know how much I’ve needed this,” Lourdes said.

  “We see that,” Amé said, looking at Mfune as he moved his gloves higher.

  Amé waited until Lourdes’s hips began a slow, sensuous squirm of anticipation, then reached over for one of the pillows.

  With the naked woman’s eyes still closed and her mouth slightly parted in pleasure, Amé brought the pillow smashing down on the woman’s face even as Mfune pinned her legs and hips to the bed. Lourdes almost immediately began to fight and writhe. Her arms shot up, grabbing for Amé.

  Her hands wrapped around the fabric of the black gloves covering Amé’s forearms and tried to tear them apart. She was strong, but Amé was stronger and threw her full weight onto the pillow even as Lourdes began to scream and whine. Muffled by the pillow, however, the noises sounded no different than other cries of ecstasy and spasm echoing from the tents all around them.

  A little more than a minute later, Lourdes’s struggles lessened, and then she collapsed. They held her there long after the tension and the spirit had left her.

  “Check her heart,” Amé whispered as the people in the tent to their left started paddling again.

  Mfune reached up, rested his hand on her chest a moment, and whispered, “She’s finished.”

  Only then did Amé allow herself a long exhale. She lifted the pillow to find Lourdes’s mouth slack and her open eyes dull and still.

  “You’re a martyr to the cause,” Amé whispered. “You’re a hero, Lourdes.”

  “Let’s get busy,” Mfune said. “We’ve got a lot to do.”

  Twenty minutes later, after peering out a slit in the tent flap and making sure there was no one wandering this part of the swingers’ club, they exited quickly. Mfune carried the sheets in a bundle under his arm. Amé drew the flaps of the tent shut, with the Do Not Disturb sign still up. They walked away knowing that under the rules that governed the Red Rooster, no one would enter the tent before closing, and that was hours away.

  They carried the sheets to the other side of the club and buried them in a hamper. Amé went into the women’s toilet, stripped off her gloves, and put them in her purse before washing her hands with scented soap to mask the odor of bleach. Only then did they head for the exit to Le Chanticleer Rouge.

  “Going so soon?” the cashier said. “The party’s just getting started.”

  “We’ve had our fun,” Amé said without turning back. “And we both have to work in the morning.”

  Chapter 43

  6th Arrondissement

  April 9, 12:20 a.m.

  WHEN THE WAITRESS cleared her throat, I startled.

  Looking around, I realized that Michele Herbert and I were the only patrons left in the restaurant. It seemed like minutes since we’d walked in the door, but we’d been talking for nearly three hours.

  At first our con
versation had been directed at the death of René Pincus and the tag. The graffiti expert had been getting pictures of the tag in various places in and around Paris. As of early that evening, she’d received pictures of sixty-two different iterations of the tag, but no explanation of its meaning.

  I told her about the men who’d shot up the Plaza Athénée, and their interest in the cigarette lighter that Kim Kopchinski kept on a chain around her neck. Michele agreed that it was an odd thing to ask about.

  “There’s a lot of danger in your life, I think,” she said.

  “At times,” I said.

  “Tell me about your life, Jack.”

  Usually I play things close to the vest, but Michele looked so radiant, and acted so, well, empathetic, that I started opening up to her. I told her about my fucked-up childhood and my dysfunctional family, especially my dad, who’d been a cop, a private investigator, a swindler, and a crook before dying as an inmate in a California penitentiary.

  I told her about my mom’s death, and about my borderline-psycho twin brother, Tommy, and some of the stuff he’d pulled in the past. I even told her about the marines, my time in Afghanistan, and the helicopter crash that still haunted me.

  “How terrible it must have been for you and your friend Del Rio to walk away from it when so many others died,” she’d said.

  “It was the worst thing that has ever happened to me,” I admitted. “In some ways I don’t think I’ll ever get over it.”

  “We all have such moments in our lives,” Michele said. “These are the times that define us, no?”

  “In some ways, I guess how we handle tragedy defines us,” I replied. “Have you had such moments?”

  She got sad then, and nodded. “I saw my parents die when I was nine.”

  “Jesus. How awful. What happened?”

  “A train accident in Italy on their twelfth anniversary,” she said.

  Michele was sent to her only living relative, her mother’s older sister, who was divorced and had two children of her own. Her aunt squandered Michele’s inheritance and treated her horribly.

  “I found art in school and retreated into it,” she said. “Out of that loss and that mistreatment came my life and my life’s work.”

  That’s when the waitress cleared her throat.

  “We should go,” I said.

  We apologized and left a generous tip. Outside I was more than pleased when Michele put her arm through mine. We walked and talked for another hour. Around two, we were strolling across the Pont Saint-Louis.

  “I could talk like this all night with you, but I must go home,” Michele said as we crossed the bridge. “I have an eleven o’clock class.”

  A cab pulled onto the bridge and I hailed it. Opening the rear door, I said, “Thanks for the fine company and conversation.”

  “I had a wonderful evening.”

  “I’ll call tomorrow, see if you’ve gotten any more pictures of the tag.”

  “Or I can call you.”

  “Either way,” I said, and closed the door, thinking she was a remarkable woman. Gorgeous, yes, but a whole lot more.

  After watching the taxi drive off, I headed east, hoping to find another cab on the Boulevard Henri IV. Halfway there, my cell phone rang.

  I dug the phone out of my pants, looked at caller ID, frowned.

  “Up late, Louis?”

  “I was just awoken by Investigateur Hoskins, who needs our forensics help again,” he growled. “AB-16 has struck a third time, and once more they didn’t pull any punches.”

  “Who was the victim?”

  “Lourdes Latrelle,” he said. “One of France’s foremost intellectuals and best-known writers.”

  Chapter 44

  6th Arrondissement

  2:58 a.m.

  WEARING GLOVES, ROCK-CLIMBING shoes, and dark clothes, Epée adjusted the straps on his knapsack as he walked along the Rue Mazarine. His heart was beating wildly because he believed that the greatest act of his life was at hand.

  It was audacious. It was daring. It was absolutely in-your-face, and Epée was beside himself with excitement. He hung a right onto the narrow sidewalk that ran between the Rue de Seine and a huge, five-story limestone building. The road ahead curved left. The wall of the building traveled a deeper arc, which created a larger, triangular space between it and the road.

  Motorcyclists often parked there during the day, when it was in use almost constantly by pedestrians. But at that hour, the Rue de Seine and the sidewalks that bordered it were empty. Epée broke into a jog toward an arched passage, seeing through it to the bright lights of the Quai de Conti.

  Instead of entering the passageway, he looked around one last time before taking two steps to a stout metal downspout that dropped straight down from the eaves and roof high overhead. Hefty metal brackets every thirty inches held the drainpipe solidly to the wall. Epée grabbed hold of the second bracket and then stepped up onto the first, finding that the gummy soft soles of the climbing shoes easily clung to the protruding half inch of metal.

  In seconds, Epée clambered up the pipe and onto the narrow second floor ledge, where he paused to take in the scene below him. Still empty. He did the same at the third floor, and was near the top of the drain when he heard voices.

  He had to freeze in an awkward position when a couple came through the arched walkway from the Quai de Conti, lingered, and kissed before finally continuing south on the Rue de Seine. Epée’s fingers were cramping before the couple was gone, and for the first time he thought about the long fall to the pavement.

  No way. Not when he was this close to becoming a legend.

  Epée had rehearsed this climb dozens of times. He’d taken photographs of the route from every angle and pored over them, studying every inch of the building’s face, eaves, and roofline until he believed he could climb it blindfolded.

  He shinnied up against the eaves where the downspout disappeared. He got his right foot up onto a ledge about three inches wide.

  Epée rotated his body over into a three-point bridge, with his left foot free. His core trembled as he pushed hard against his right hand and right toe before he stabbed up and over the eaves with his left hand, catching the bottom of the roof. He took a strained breath and then transferred his weight entirely to his left hand, and dangled there for a split second before throwing up his right hand and grabbing the roof.

  Grunting with effort, he pulled his head, shoulders, and ribs up onto the roof. He scooted sideways into a valley where several rooflines came together and squirmed his hips and legs up into it.

  Epée lay there, soaking wet and panting with effort, but also knowing that the worst of it had been conquered. When he’d regained some of his strength, he got up on all fours and used opposing pressure to ascend the roof as a climber would a chimney opening in a rock. He made the ridge a few moments later and sat there, straddling it.

  Before la crise, with the spotlights shining on the front of the building, he’d have been easy to spot up there. But the recession had forced Paris to shut off the lights on its famous buildings and monuments after midnight. In the dark like this, he might as well have been a phantom.

  Twisting around, Epée quickly surveyed the avenue and the pedestrian bridge that crossed the Seine to the Louvre Museum, which was also dark. There was no one on the bridge that he could see, and very few cars on the avenue. He got up on the curving peak of the roof and followed it toward a giant domed tower that rose fifty feet above the main building.

  To his relief, he found the safety line, a three-quarter-inch cable discreetly mounted up the side of the tower, exactly where he’d spotted it the month before. Men cleaning the walls of grime, restoring the pale limestone color, had put the line up, and Epée used it now. Unzipping his jacket, he felt for the mechanical devices known as Jumars that were attached to a harness he wore and favored by rock climbers. The cams of these devices ran only in one direction: up. When pressure was applied downward, they locked.

  Ep�
�e unclipped one of the ascenders. He attached it and the one still tied to the harness to the safety line, and then frogged up the side of the tower, taking rests at the various articulations in the dome.

  The last ledge was underhung, and Epée had to make another contortionist move to get up onto it, right next to the base of the cupola. In daylight or under lights, the mosaics were a deep, cerulean blue. But now they were black as coal, which suited Epée’s purposes perfectly.

  He got in position in line with the Louvre and the Pont des Arts bridge, looking straight down on the plaza in front of the building and the Quai de Conti. He paused a moment to reflect on the sheer magnitude of the moment.

  Then he got out the spray paint and set to work.

  Chapter 45

  11th Arrondissement

  3:40 a.m.

  ACCORDING TO LOUIS, Le Chanticleer Rouge was the greatest of Parisian clubs for les échangistes, the swingers of France. Like most things French when it came to sex, the practice of going to places like the Red Rooster to engage in anonymous physical relations was accepted with a shrug.

  Politicians and their wives did it. So did the big bankers and their girlfriends. That infamous chairman of the International Monetary Fund practically lived in one of these clubs. So did well-known painters, musicians, and television personalities, and, of course, writers.

  That last category included Lourdes Latrelle, the famous French author, novelist, and television personality, who, ironically enough, was best known for being an expert on the politics of gender and sex. I say ‘ironically’ not only because her corpse was found in a swingers’ club, but because she’d been hung upside down and naked from a sex swing.

  Black parachute cord tied to her wrists ran out to the tent supports and held her arms in that upside-down-cross position. As with the other victims, her face was bloated by the blood rushing to her head. A crude version of the AB-16 tag had been drawn on the victim’s belly with lipstick.