Kill Me if You Can Read online

  She opened the front door, and the black guy with the cigarette grunted a polite but detached New York hello. The white guy followed her out of the building and stood at the top of the front steps.

  “Happy trails, Professor,” he said.

  She walked down the steps and onto Perry Street.

  She’d be back. To kill Matthew Bannon and the redneck bastard from apartment 1.

  Chapter 37

  GETTING THROUGH AIRPORT security at JFK turned out to be a snap. For me. I breezed through with my multimillion-dollar carry-on.

  Katherine, on the other hand, got caught red-handed, carrying a five-ounce tube of toothpaste into a three-ounce world.

  She was stopped by a TSA screener — a chunky Hispanic woman wearing a government-issue white shirt, black pants, blue latex gloves, a gold badge, and a name tag that said MORALES.

  “I’m going to have to confiscate this,” the screener said, pointing at the toothpaste.

  “I know the three-ounce rule,” Katherine said. “And yes, this is a five-ounce tube. But it’s more than half empty. There’s maybe only two ounces left.”

  “I appreciate that, Miss,” Morales said, “but you really don’t know the rule. All liquids, gels, and aerosols must be in three-ounce or smaller containers. Larger containers that are half-full or toothpaste tubes that are rolled up are not allowed on the aircraft.”

  “You’re joking,” Katherine said.

  “Miss, we do not joke here.”

  “For God’s sake,” Katherine said, “what do you think I’m going to do with half a tube of toothpaste? Blo—?”

  I clamped my hand on Katherine’s mouth before she could say the four words that would land us both in jail—blow up the plane.

  Katherine pulled away. “Matt, what the hell are you doing?” she barked as two more security screeners stepped in and flanked us on both sides.

  “I’ll tell you what he’s doing, Miss,” Morales said. “He’s saving your ass. Now, unless you want to miss your flight to Paris, you’d be smart to toss that toothpaste in that bin and be on your merry way.”

  I squeezed Katherine’s arm gently. “Please,” I said. “I promise I’ll buy you toothpaste in Paris.”

  “This is Tom’s of Maine,” she said. “They won’t have it in Paris.”

  “I’ll buy you French toothpaste. They make the best in the world.”

  “This one is called Tom’s Wicked Fresh and it’s all natural and it keeps my breath fresh for hours. It’s the only one I use.”

  I leaned close to her and whispered in her ear. “You may find this hard to believe, but we are about five seconds from being arrested, strip-searched, and thrown in jail for the night. I’ve never asked you to do anything for me on blind faith, but I’m asking you now. Please, please, please, give the nice lady your toothpaste, don’t utter another word, and I promise you that tomorrow morning we will be checking into our hotel, racing up to our room, peeling off our clothes, snuggling under the sheets, and I will kiss you over and over and over, even if your breath smells like a Paris sewer. Please?”

  She tossed the toothpaste in the bin.

  “Have a nice flight,” Morales said.

  “Thank you,” I said, bowing my head. “Thank you.”

  Morales smiled. She knew what I was thanking her for.

  I only wished I could have told her that she might have saved the world from Tom’s toothpaste but she missed the guy who was leaving the country with a bag full of diamonds he stole from a dead Russian.

  Chapter 38

  “Let’s find a bar,” I said as I propelled Katherine as far from security as I could. “I need a drink.”

  We found a little place close to our gate that served burgers and beer. I had one of each. Katherine didn’t want either, so she decided to backtrack to the Starbucks we had seen as we walked through the terminal.

  I sat at a small table, munching my burger, which was not hot, sipping my beer, which was not cold, and staring at the LCD flat-screen TV over the bar. It was tuned to a local news station. The sound was muted, and I was too far away to read the closed captioning.

  I was just starting to unwind from the toothpaste incident when I gagged so badly I almost puked my burger and beer all over the table. I wasn’t choking on the mediocre airport cuisine. What made me want to throw up was what I saw on the television screen.

  Me.

  Me at Grand Central, holding a black medical bag with a bank of lockers behind me.

  “Holy shit,” I said.

  “Holy shit, what?” Katherine said, sitting down at the table with a grande cappuccino and a blueberry muffin.

  She sat facing away from the television.

  “Holy shit, I need another beer,” I said, jumping up and heading for the bar. I got there just in time to read the tail end of the closed captioning:…wanted for robbery. They flashed a phone number.

  And then they cut to a commercial.

  I looked around the bar to see how many other people had caught it. A dozen, maybe more. What else do people sitting around an airport bar do but stare at the TV? Hopefully they wouldn’t look up at me.

  I tucked my chin down, put one hand over my eyes, and studied the floor tiles as I walked back to the table where Katherine was sitting.

  “Where’s your beer?” she said.

  “I changed my mind,” I said. “You know what I really need?”

  “No.”

  “A hat.”

  I lifted the somewhat faded, definitely broken-in Yankees cap off her head. I put it on mine. It didn’t fit.

  “It’s way too small for your big head,” she said.

  “Well, let’s buy one that fits,” I said.

  “As soon as I finish,” she said, picking up her muffin and biting it.

  So we sat and talked. And then it happened again. My picture flashed on the TV screen.

  I didn’t try to read the closed captioning. I just kept my head down until Katherine polished off her cappuccino. Then we walked over to Hudson News. Katherine checked out the magazines, and I went to the gift shop.

  I was about to buy a Yankees baseball cap when I saw the berets. Absolument, I thought. Très français and a much better disguise. They had two colors — brown or red. I settled on brown.

  I moved over to the sunglasses rack and picked out a pair of mirror-lens wraparounds.

  Then I found Katherine. “What do you think?”

  She laughed out loud. “What happened to the baseball hat?”

  “I’m an artist. We’re going to France. I definitely need a beret. And sunglasses,” I said, putting on my shades. “Is this perfect or what?”

  “Or what,” said Katherine. But she was grinning.

  Chapter 39

  DINNER WAS SERVED about an hour into the flight to Paris.

  “At long last,” I said. “Fine French cooking. Maybe we should eat and critique our dinners.”

  I had the beef goulash; Katherine opted for the herbed chicken.

  “Bland, dry, overcooked,” she said after a few bites. “One star, and that’s only because I’m an easy marker. How about you?”

  “Four stars,” I said.

  Katherine threw me a look.

  “I think it’s the ambience,” I said, kissing the back of her neck. “And the company, of course.”

  As soon as the trays were cleared, we turned out the overhead lights and raised the armrest between our seats, and Katherine curled up against me, wrapped in a blanket and my arms.

  She zonked out in minutes. I couldn’t sleep.

  I loved this woman. What was I dragging her into?

  If that toothpaste incident had escalated one more notch, Katherine’s behavior might have branded us as troublemakers, but my carry-on bag would absolutely have landed us both in jail.

  What was I thinking? What had I gotten her involved in? Was I crazy? The questions were bouncing around in my brain like a beach ball at a rock concert.

  Somewhere along the way I fell
asleep, and I didn’t wake up till we were on our final approach to Orly airport. Looking out the window, we could see the lush vineyards and tiny red-roofed farmhouses that dotted the French countryside.

  “I can’t believe you’re actually taking me to Paris,” Katherine said, still snuggled up against me.

  “Believe it,” I said. Then I kissed her.

  She pulled away fast. “Matt, no. I have horrible morning breath.”

  “Are you kidding?” I said. “Your breath smells Wicked Fresh.”

  She punched me in the shoulder. “Matthew! You are so totally lying.” God, I loved this woman.

  The plane parked on the tarmac, and one of those big mobile lounges off-loaded the passengers and drove us to the terminal. All around me people were speaking French. The signs, the sounds, even the music piping through the PA, were French.

  I took off my sunglasses and my beret. I was thousands of miles away from New York, where my picture was being flashed on a TV screen every ten minutes. I felt safe. Nobody would be looking for me here.

  Chapter 40

  THE ARTIST KNOWN as Leonard Karns had a nearly pathological crush on Katherine Sanborne, and that was just one of the reasons he hated that muscle-bound, no-talent Matthew Bannon. Bannon and the professor were an item. No doubt about that. But now Karns had a way to get back at both of them.

  God, he despised Bannon and Sanborne. For one thing, they were into Realism, even into portraits. Karns hated portraits. “If that’s all you’re going to do,” he said one day in his Group Critique class, “you might as well work at a carnival.” One girl left the room in tears.

  Karns was a Big Bang! artist. Big Bang! was the new, hip abstract painting for the twenty-first century. Big Bang! surged with energy and exploded with color. The imagery emanated from computer technology, quantum physics, genetics, and other complex contemporary issues. That, as far as Leonard Karns was concerned, was art.

  Losers like Matthew Bannon were stuck in time, painting variations on pictures that had been done years ago and sucked even back then.

  Karns was sitting in his pathetic apartment, thinking about Bannon, when his picture suddenly flashed on his TV, and the announcer said he was wanted for robbery.

  And there was a reward.

  He dialed the number on the TV screen and got a recording. A Detective Rice told him to leave his information and said that his call would be returned as soon as possible.

  “I know the guy you’re looking for,” Karns said into the machine. “The robbery suspect. I saw his picture on TV. He goes to art school with me. I also know where he lives. Call me.”

  Karns gave his name and phone number. He was about to hang up when he had to add a delicious afterthought. “Plus, the guy is a total fraud as an artist.”

  Chapter 41

  SOONER OR LATER I figured Katherine would ask the one question I was hoping to avoid. It turned out to be sooner. We were still in the airport, and I had stopped at a currency-exchange window to trade dollars for euros. Katherine handed me some cash from her wallet.

  “That’s okay,” I said. “I got it.”

  She laughed. “What do you mean you got it? You’re not paying for both of us. Absolutely not. No way, Matthew.”

  “Sure I am,” I said. “I invited you to join me in Paris. My treat.”

  “Hey, Matt, I invited you to join me at Parsons,” she said. “I don’t remember springing for your tuition.”

  “This is different. It’s a date. Happens to be in Paris. Guy pays.”

  “Not if he’s a struggling artist.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” I said, trying not to make this a macho thing, which it wasn’t. Well, maybe it was. “I recently came into some money.”

  “Oh, Matt, I hope you’re not spending the money you got for your paintings,” she said.

  “No,” I said, keeping it playful. “This is different. Trust me, okay?”

  “You came into some money?” she said. “How come you never mentioned it before? What money is this?”

  “It’s too crazy,” I said. “I figured you wouldn’t believe me.”

  “Try me,” she said.

  I shrugged. “Okay. I found a big bag of diamonds in a train station.”

  “And I’m having tea with the queen of England,” she said.

  “Hey, if you invite me along, I’ll pay.”

  She wrapped both arms around me. “You are the most generous, lovable, adorable man I ever met,” she said. “But you’re a terrible liar. If you found a bag of diamonds, you’d give it back.”

  She kissed me long and hard, and the subject of how I could afford the vacation was dropped. At least for now.

  We breezed through customs — I guess the French don’t have diamond-sniffing dogs. We were both too tired to even think of hopping on a bus and saving money, so we headed for the taxi rank and got into a sleek, comfortable black Peugeot.

  The driver was a robust man with a gray beard and a broad smile. “You are going to where?” he said.

  “The Hotel Bac Saint-Germain,” I said. “You know where it is?”

  “Oui, monsieur,” he said. “You are very in luck. It is the only hotel in all of Paris I know where to find.”

  Katherine and I both laughed.

  “You speak English, and you’re funny,” I said.

  “English is not so necessary. But to drive a taxi you must have big sense of humor,” he said as he guided the car toward a ramp that said A106.

  “Where are we staying?” Katherine asked me.

  “It’s a little hotel I found online. It’s on the Left Bank, in the Quartier Saint-Germain-des-Prés, which is the hippest, coolest section in all of Paris.”

  “And about to get hipper and cooler,” she said.

  The driver laughed. “You two cool hipsters are art lovers?” he said.

  “Oui,” Katherine said.

  “The district where you are staying, there are art galleries on every street corner,” he said. “And many cafés, and beautiful shops, and crazy, wonderful people.”

  “That’s why we’re here,” I said. “We heard you had room for two more crazies.”

  “You like Aznavour?” he asked, sliding a CD into the sound system.

  “Who doesn’t?” I said.

  And then the seductive voice of Charles Aznavour filled the cab.

  If you’re not in love when you get to Paris, you will be when you leave. If you’re already in love, it only gets better.

  Katherine curled up in my arms, with her head on my chest, and for the rest of the ride, we were serenaded by the sexiest tenor in all of France, possibly in the world.

  “Are your eyes open or closed?” Katherine whispered to me at one point.

  “Open.”

  “Mine, too,” she said.

  Why would anyone close his eyes in Paris? I thought. Wherever you look, everything is just so incredibly romantic. Even being stuck in traffic. With a woman like Katherine.

  Chapter 42

  THE HOTEL WAS colorful, modern, and cheap — only 110 euros a night. Our room wasn’t ready when we checked in, so a bellman escorted us to a cozy little restaurant on the seventh-floor terrace, where we enjoyed steaming cups of frothy café au lait, flaky buttery croissants, strawberry jam, fresh fruit, yogurt, and a magnificent view of the entire district.

  Forty minutes later the bellman returned and took us to our room. He set down the bags, and I tipped him, hung the NE PAS DéRANGER sign on the doorknob, and locked the door.

  Katherine and I hadn’t been alone since she came by my apartment an eternity ago, and we couldn’t wait to get our hands on each other. Within seconds, our clothes were strewn on the floor and we were under smooth, cool sheets.

  The sex was a little fast, but the afterglow lasted much longer. We talked, then drifted off to sleep. Katherine woke me three hours later, and again we made love, this time slowly and tenderly, then took a long, hot shower together and headed out to explore Paris.

 
“Where to first?” I said. “I can think of a dozen places I want to go. Right off the top of my head.”

  “Lunch,” Katherine said. “But you have to let me buy.”

  “Lunch?” I said. “Okay, sure.”

  “Good. We have a one-thirty reservation.”

  “We do?”

  “I decided to stick with the surprise theme of our vacation.”

  We caught a taxi. “Le Jules Verne restaurant,” she told the driver. Ten minutes later he dropped us off at the base of the Eiffel Tower. We walked under the tower to a yellow awning, where we were greeted by a smiling maître d’.

  “Sanborne,” Katherine said. “We have a reservation for two.”

  “I called from New York,” Katherine told me as the maître d’ checked his book. “It’s kind of popular. I was hoping to get a dinner rez, but that was impossible.”

  We took a private elevator to a magnificent room that was suspended from the steel latticework of the Eiffel Tower. It afforded us a spectacular panoramic view of the city below.

  A tuxedoed host escorted us to a table near the center of the room.

  “There’s a six-week wait for a window table,” Katherine explained.

  “I hope that’s not an apology for this one. I’m floored.”

  It was the most fantastic lunch I had ever had. And the most expensive. I almost choked when I looked at the prices on the menu.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Katherine said. “If you can spend all your ‘newfound diamonds’ on everything else, the least I can do is buy lunch.”

  We were sipping champagne when the waiter brought a small, intricately decorated chocolate cake with a single candle in the center to the couple sitting at the next table. White-haired, well-dressed, and from the way they held hands across the table, very much in love, they had to be in their eighties.

  The woman blew out the candle.