In the salon, the music still played. Leclerc tuned his ears to the lilting, upbeat rhythm of the samba. An abstract painting hung on the wall above an aubergine couch. He wondered what it cost to buy a house like this, buy the drugs, the women, the art, and why all that money hadn’t brought Boubilas an ounce of common sense.
“Take it out,” he said to Guillo. The towel came out. Leclerc put down the bottle of champagne. “How much?”
Boubilas gulped down the air. “Five hundred thousand.”
Leclerc jumped to his feet, taking hold of the ponytail, yanking it. “Five hundred thousand what? Euros? Dollars? Pounds?”
“Dollars.”
“Who was Taleel working for?”
“I don’t know.”
Leclerc picked up the bottle. “Who was Taleel working for?”
“Really,” Boubilas spluttered, his damp face contorting with fear. “It’s strictly a transaction between agents. Mr. Bhatia and myself. I don’t know who his clients are.”
“When someone tells you to hand over five hundred thousand dollars, you ask.” Leclerc shook the bottle. “Now, who did he work for?”
The eyes squeezed shut and he shook his head. “I ca-!” Leclerc forced his head back and sprayed the champagne up the man’s nose. Standing above him, he alternately shook the bottle and sprayed, shook and sprayed, until the bottle was empty and he threw it on the ground.
“Please,” Boubilas managed, as he gasped for air. “Please-don’t make me-don’t-I won’t-”
Leclerc slapped him across the face and Boubilas shut up.
“No one knows I am here,” Leclerc said. “As far as the rest of the world is concerned, you kept your mouth shut until your lawyer gained your release. You’re a stand-up guy. Say anything you like. Just don’t say you won’t. If you don’t talk to me, I guarantee you’ll never say anything to anybody again. Who is Taleel with?”
Fear, worry, shame, hope: all these played across Boubilas’s face as he struggled to find an excuse that would permit him to reveal what he knew. Leclerc pulled back his sleeve to check the time: 12:07. He had all night. “Who?” he shouted, his face an inch from Boubilas.
“It was just business. With Michel-the one the papers called Taleel. I handled some rocks for him. Stuff from Sierra Leone, Nigeria, those places. I brokered their sale to the boys in Antwerp. Everything outside the cartels goes through there.”
The cartels. In this case, DeBeers and Russdiamant, not Medellín and Cali. The rocks he so cavalierly handled were known as “conflict diamonds,” mined by the regional warlords and sold off to fund their excursions into terror. Leclerc knew Africa well enough to be acquainted with their good works. The double amputations performed with the aid of a dull machete. The rape of teenage girls. The impressment of preadolescent boys into their private armies. And of course, murder. Murder and murder and murder. Leclerc felt his headache returning. The tap-tap-tap behind his eyes.
“It was Taleel, then, who brought you the rocks?” he asked.
“I knew him as Michel. Michel Fouquet, I swear it.”
“How often?”
“Maybe ten times. He would bring a few hundred carats of raw diamonds. Some of it good, some junk.”
Leclerc played back his conversation with Chapel earlier that evening. He recalled there had been a period when Neumann surmised Taleel was out of town. “Always Michel?”
“Yes.”
Leclerc told Guillo to find some more champagne. A magnum, if there was one. “One more chance.”
“There was another, but only once. I met him late at night. At the Buddha Bar. It’s very dark inside. I saw him for maybe two minutes. He passed me the stones in a case, then I left. Even then I could tell he didn’t like it. A handsome man. Short hair. Serious. He is somebody.”
“How old?”
“Forty. Forty-five.”
“When?”
“A year ago. April, I think.”
“Name?”
“Ange,” he gasped. “Mr. Ange.”
“And how did you pay him? The truth!”
“I wired the money to an account in Germany. Gemeinschaft Bank of Dresden. The Holy Land Charitable Trust. That was the name. My bank will give you the instructions. Credit Lyonnais. Ask for Mr. Monaco. I’m not lying. You’ll see.”
“This Mr. Ange, he is with Hijira?” Leclerc threw out the name, but Boubilas’s face registered no knowledge of it. The eyes stared at the ground, forlorn, abandoned.
“He is with Mr. Ange.”
With a warrant, Leclerc could make Boubilas sit for an Identikit artist, but by then Boubilas would be in a less cooperative mood. A warrant. Leclerc laughed at himself for even considering such a quaint notion. It was his time at the Sûreté. An hour inside police headquarters and he was beginning to think like a cop. The truth was that tomorrow morning at nine o’clock, Boubilas would be standing in front of his lawyer, screaming his head off about the brutality he’d suffered at the hands of the French secret service. She, in turn, would ream Gadbois a new asshole, and Gadbois would come calling to Leclerc. The only warrant Leclerc would see would be the one with his own name on it. No one needed that shit. Standing, he took a last look at Boubilas. What a fucking waste product.
“Okay, boys, I’ll see you outside.”
Schmid and Guillo left the room. Leclerc walked to the doorway. The pounding in his head was growing worse.
“That’s it?” Boubilas asked, wimpering as he struggled with his pants. “You finished with me?”
“What’s wrong? It wasn’t enough?”
Boubilas shook his head, cowering from a phantom blow. “I know it’s you, Leclerc. I recognize your voice. You can’t do this to a man. Torture him, force him to answer your questions. It won’t stand up, you know.”
“It doesn’t need to. No court will ever hear of it.”
“Oh, they’ll hear of it, all right.” He was talking through his tears. “Breaking into a man’s house, hurting him. They’ll hear it. Where are your friends? Probably going at Lisette upstairs. Join them. I’ll add rape to the charges.”
“Charges?” Something inside Leclerc snapped. One second, he was calm, disgusted by Boubilas, but ready to leave it at that. The next, he felt like he’d been the one tortured, and that it was his turn to seek retribution. Rushing across the room, he rammed the snout of his gun into Boubilas’s neck. “I wouldn’t recommend telling anyone you had visitors tonight. No matter where you run, I can find you. Tonight you had a little bath. Think of it as a warning to get your life in order. If you make me come back, I’ll break your neck. And you know the scariest part? I’ll do it while you’re sleeping. You won’t even know I was there. Okay?”
Boubilas shuddered, nodding his head.
“Good,” said Leclerc. “Alors, dors bien.”
Chapter 25
George Gabriel closed the door to his room, kicked off his tennis shoes, and flung himself onto his bed.
“No!” he shouted, burying his face in his pillow, his fist pounding the mattress.
He was leaving Paris tomorrow. Forever. After what his father had ordered him to do, he could never come back. The thought of fleeing terrified him. He felt like a small boy. He wanted to hide. To cry. He wanted to appeal to someone that it wasn’t fair, but there wasn’t anyone to listen to him. Not Amina, his father’s third wife. Not his real mother… wherever she was. Not his younger brothers or sisters. There was only Claudine, and she wasn’t family.