“Bourdon’s what you want, isn’t he?” she asked. “Some kind of vendetta?”
“Call it payback time.” Teynard rolled his pant cuff up to midcalf. Above his sock, she saw a flesh-colored prosthesis. “He shot my kneecap to bits. They removed my leg to my thigh and called me lucky. Now it’s my turn to make him lucky.”
“I see,” she said.
“Do you?” Teynard had warmed up. “They’re lice. Punks who called it a political statement when they blew people up or threw bank-robbery money from the Metro windows. Calling it capitalism for the masses. But Jules Bourdon, he was a smart arnaqueur, a con who used the idiots. And he’s never stopped.”
“So Jules Bourdon fled to Senegal … why?”
“Not a lot of options when you’re wanted on several continents,” Teynard said. “He worked there as a mercenary.”
“What does Romain Figeac have to do with it?”
“Figeac had a score to settle, too. Seems his wife’s baby was Bourdon’s. Not his. He wanted the world to know what a con man Bourdon really was.”
“So Jules Bourdon killed Figeac before Figeac could expose him? And Ousmane was killed because he hid Idrissa?”
Teynard’s eyes narrowed. “Something like that. I could have sworn time stood still when I saw you,” Teynard said. His voice had changed. It was low and full of something. Some dark emotion riding near the surface.
“Why?” But she knew.
“She took my breath away,” he said.
Aimée’s hand shook. The way he said it made her sick. Like he had some claim on her.
He took in her reaction. “Has she been in contact with you?”
So he was looking for her mother, too.
Aimée shook her head.
“And you wouldn’t tell me if she had,” Teynard said.
STEFAN RUBBED HIS EYES. His back hurt from sleeping in the stiff chair. He’d ordered a meal from the café opposite, had it brought up. He’d spent the whole night and day watching. A woman had gone into the building. The only things visible now were silhouettes in the Action-Réaction window.
Stefan wished he had company. But he was alone as orange dusk painted the red tile rooftops. He wanted to talk; talk about the past, his feelings, the things he wanted to do. Outline his plan to own a garage specializing in Mercedes restoration.
He fingered the card she’d given him. Turned it over in his grease lined palm, remembered her engaging silence and how she was the spitting image of her mother.
He reached for the old-fashioned black phone.
Friday Afternoon
“OUI.” AIMÉE ANSWERED her cell phone, turning away from Teynard. She winked, signaling the café owner for two more espressos.
Silence. Was it Etienne?
“Allô?”
“Have some time to talk?” asked Stefan.
“Tell me where and when.” She stood and walked to the counter, away from Teynard.
A pause.
She repeated it; maybe he hadn’t heard her.
“My therapist said I should talk it out.”
Aimée bit back her surprise. “Please do, Stefan, I’m listening.”
“For years I’ve wanted to talk with someone,” he said. “I have to share the burden.”
He sounded broken, older than he was. It dawned on her that she’d have to protect him.
“People are chasing me.”
“Who?” She wondered who else besides Europol and the DST. Teynard?
“Talk to me, Stefan,” she said. “Have you seen my mother?”
“Jules came back. Sooner or later he’ll show at Action-Réaction,” he said. “Chances are she’s with him.”
Aimée’s heart sank. Didn’t her mother want to see her? Or had she been watching Aimée, following her, even as Aimée was seeking her? But purposely not making contact as René had warned.
“Where are you? I’ll help.”
His voice sagged. “Help me? I doubt it once you hear what I’ve done.”
“Weren’t you a little fish caught swimming with the sharks?” she said. “Or did you become a shark, too?”
“The old hunter,” he said, his voice jagged with regret. “I buried his things under a tree. His family should know what happened to him.”
She nodded. “Making some amends will help you.” She held back the questions about her mother, realizing Stefan had to unburden himself in his own way.
Then what sounded like a glass shattering.
“Ça va?”
“Later,” he said and she heard the dial tone.
He’d wanted to talk but something had happened. She slapped the counter … so close, yet again out of her reach!
She hit the call-back key.
The phone rang and rang. She was worried. The steaming espressos were on the counter and she reached for them.
But Teynard had opened the door and was walking down the passage. Rude again.
She grabbed the first bill in her pocket, threw down a hundred-franc note, and rushed after him. Pedestrians crowded the busy corner of rue de Turbigo. She ran to catch up with him. He stood at the curb facing the zebra crossing stripes, his back to her, white hair glinting in the late afternoon sun.
“Look, Monsieur Teynard, you’ve got to stop … ,” she called out.
He turned and the rest of her phrase was lost in the revving of a motor scooter.
She raised her hand to shield her eyes from the sun. “We didn’t finish talking.” They were still several feet apart.
“Quit following me,” he said.
Teynard’s annoyed look turned to surprise. His shoulders jerked. Then jerked and jerked again.
And she knew something was wrong.
He clutched his side, grimacing as if in pain.
Aimée pushed through the crowd of hot, tired Parisians. Several exclaimed in irritation. Teynard staggered toward her, then slumped to his knees, as the crowd parted around him. A woman screamed as he reached for the handle of her baby stroller. Three gaping red-black holes showed in his linen jacket. Teynard staggered and fell face down onto the hot pavement.
Startled, Aimée looked up to see the scooter with a black-helmeted driver pull away. A battered green scooter. The rest of her view was cut off as a bus pulled up and the pedestrian throng crossed the street.
Everything had happened in seconds.
“Call a doctor!” someone shouted.
And then it hit her. The green scooter was the one René had loaned her. Her spine tingled. Someone had stolen it. Teynard had been shot by someone riding her scooter. And if she wasn’t mistaken, that someone was Jules Bourdon.
So he was watching her. Or Gisela was. Or her mother? Waiting for her to lead them to the diamonds?
Scared, she backed away. She heard murmurs in the crowd … “raised her arm” … “following him.” Were they talking about her? The eyes of the couple standing next to her narrowed in suspicion.
An ambulance siren bleated, coming closer. She tried to melt into the crowd. Disappear. She had no wish to explain and no time to spend at the Commissariat. She was being hunted, too.
She’d almost made it to the passage when the woman with the stroller looked over and pointed at her. “Her … her … it was her … she shot him!”
As Aimée turned her heel broke.
She took off both shoes and ran.
“Stop … don’t let her get away!” the woman yelled.
Aimée ran by the two sculptures of Commerce and Industry flanking the white stone of Passage du Bourg-l’Abbe.
The café owner came out, waving a fifty-franc bill at her. “Keep the change!” she yelled. Footsteps sounded behind her. There was a loud ouff as he knocked whoever was chasing her to the ground. She turned around to see the café owner wave and give a big grin.
She ran out of the passage and turned right onto rue Saint Denis. Sex shops and wholesale clothing stores lined the street. She entered the first one and plunked five hundred francs on the smudged glass counter, careful to avoid touching it.