It was the girl, of course. He’d known for quite some time that his son was seeing her. How could a father fail to notice when his boy had grown into a man? This, too, was his failure. He’d been slow to react. Soft. Sentimental. He’d informed himself about the girl’s family, where she lived, her record in school. She was kuffar, but a respectable child. A good student. A mature girl not given to childish fancy. Clearly, he’d missed something and he knew what that “something” was. He’d committed every father’s cardinal sin: He’d thought his son was different.
Marc Gabriel knew then that he, too, had succumbed to the rot.
The taxi dipped as it exited the freeway at the Porte de Clignacourt. Gabriel counted off the familiar sights, feeling calmer in the city he never wanted to see again. Two days, he said to himself. Two days until he was free of all of this. Until the desert wind seared his longing cheek.
“Rue Clemenceau,” called the cabbie over his shoulder as the taxi rounded a corner. “Which building?”
“One more block. There, that’s the one.” Gabriel pointed to a modern metal-and-glass apartment building halfway down the street. As the taxi braked, he closed his eyes and imagined a fist wrapped around his heart, clenched, constricting all emotion. George was his oldest, the firstborn, but he had six younger boys from his other wives. He would choose a successor from their ranks.
After paying the cabbie, he took his bag and walked up to the entrance.
“Ah, Henri,” he said, all camaraderie and good humor. “Have you seen the boy?”
“Me?” answered the Senegalese doorman. “No, sir.”
Gabriel couldn’t help but pick up on the man’s hesitation. Either Henri was a terrible liar or a first-rate con man. Snapping a hundred-euro note from his wallet, he pressed it into the doorman’s hand. “Our usual deaclass="underline" a little something for your family, a little something for mine. The boy and I had a little disagreement. My wife is worried sick. You understand?”
Henri smiled sheepishly. “Two of them leave ’bout thirty minutes ago.”
“Really?” Gabriel affected amusement at the news. “Any idea of their destination?”
“Don’t know, sir, but the girl, she had a bag.”
“A purse?”
“No, a traveling bag. Bigger than yours.”
“That right?” Gabriel peeled off another bill, and Henri’s allegiance to his tenant, feeble to begin with, crumbled entirely.
“They cross the Pont d’Iéna, sir. Heading to the sixteenth, I think.” Suddenly, he smiled and his teeth shone like ivory. “I say to her, with a bag like that you need a taxi. Claudine say what she need is money for a taxi. Would I lend her some? She always joking, that girl.”
“She must be quite funny,” said Gabriel as he left the building. “I’d like to meet her one day.”
“Hurry up,” Claudine urged George Gabriel. “You can walk faster than that.”
“I can, but I don’t want to. We have plenty of time. No point in drawing attention to ourselves.”
“But everyone is walking fast-” Claudine caught herself. “You’re not thinking about your father? You said he only got back this morning.”
“His flight landed at seven-fifteen. That’s an hour ago.”
“You checked?”
“Of course.”
Claudine shot him a look that said he was being ridiculous.
“By now, he’ll know.”
“And then?”
Silently, George enumerated the possibilities. None was pleasant. “I don’t know.” Reaching for her hand, he brought it to his mouth and kissed it.
“Don’t draw attention to us,” she chastised him.
“He doesn’t know I have a girlfriend. You’re my cover.”
George Gabriel squinted into the morning sun. He had never spent the entire night with Claudine. Holding her in his arms as he awoke, he’d tasted, if only for a few minutes, what the rest of his life might be like. He was looking forward to arriving in Ibiza. She’d told him about the farmhouse and the pond it overlooked and the warm waters of the Mediterranean. He knew exactly where he wished to be tomorrow morning, and whose eyes he wished to look into when he woke.
Seeing the ATM a half block ahead, he nudged Claudine and the two stopped walking. “The code is 821985,” he said, handing her the bank card.
“Your birthday?”
“Just get the money and bring it back.”
“What else would I do?” Claudine rose on her tippy-toes and kissed him. “Aren’t you going to wish me luck?”
Marc Gabriel knew where his son would go. It had nothing to do with telepathy, premonition, or coincidence. It was a simple case of a father knowing his son.
Pointing to the nearest corner, Gabriel signaled the cabbie to stop. On the pavement, he set off down the block, an eye trained on the ATM cut into the wall of the Neuilly branch of the BLP. He’d given his son the bank card a year ago in April, when Gabriel had traveled to Israel to recruit the Professor and it was necessary for George to handle the weekly payments. The boy had done a competent job. Afterward, Gabriel had allowed him to keep the card, advising him to use it only for emergencies. He’d never given George much allowance. When his son needed something, he came to his office, they discussed it, and most times, Gabriel agreed. In the past sixteen months, the boy hadn’t made any unauthorized withdrawals, and Gabriel had viewed his fiscal discipline as proof of his maturity.
Taking up a position in a recessed storefront of a men’s boutique, Gabriel had an unobstructed view of the cash machine. Its current customer was an older man, wearing a black beret and leaning on a cane. Gabriel swept his eyes back and forth along the sidewalk for any sign of his son. Even among the throng of pedestrians, a man six feet two inches tall would be easy to notice.
It was a busy morning. Cars zipped back and forth on either side of the grassy median. Among them were a fair number of vans making their early deliveries. Dry cleaners, florists, caterers, cleaning services. An armored car lumbered to a halt in front of the bank, momentarily blocking his view. The rear doors opened. Two officers carrying gray twill sacks entered the bank.
Gabriel left his vantage point and advanced a few yards up the sidewalk. A woman had taken up position at the ATM. He looked past her, his eyes darting from man to man, seeking out his son’s clean-shaven skull, the broad shoulders, the dark, smoldering gaze. He wondered if George might have gone to another machine. A second ATM was only three blocks away, but as it was situated across the street from the local police prefecture, Gabriel doubted that he would go there. Besides, it was that much farther from Claudine’s building.
Claudine.
Gabriel returned his eyes to the woman at the ATM. For a moment, he’d forgotten that his son was traveling in a female’s company. He took a closer look at her, catching the subtle tap-tap-tap of her heel, the deft looks to her right and left. Though he’d informed himself about Claudine’s background, he’d never actually seen her. Could that be his son’s Claudine? He dismissed the thought. He’d thought of Claudine as a girl, but this was a woman with full breasts, childbearing hips, and an assured dignity about her. She looked too old for his son, but then Western teenagers prided themselves on looking more mature than their age. The overt and sickening seduction of the male species began at the age of twelve these days. The bared midriffs, the exaggerated bosoms, the whorish makeup.
Then he saw it and his heart jumped.
The girl-the woman-Claudine, yes it had to be her!-looked to her left, and catching someone’s eye, patted the air lightly with her hand as if to say “Calm down. I’ll be right there.”