"I said to her, 'So you're famous,' and she laughed," Chandonne says.
"Had you ever seen her on television?" Berger asks him.
"I don't watch much television." He slowly blows out smoke. "Now, of course, I don't watch anything. I can't see."
"Just answer the question, sir. I didn't ask how much television you watch but if you had ever seen Susan Pless on television."
I strain to recognize his voice as fear tickles over my flesh and my hands begin to shake. His voice is completely unfa- miliar. It sounds nothing like the voice outside my door. Police. Ma 'am, -we've gotten a call about a suspicious person on your property.
"I don't remember seeing her on television," Chandonne replies.
"What happened next?" Berger asks him.
"We ate. We drank the wine, and I asked her if she would like to go somewhere and have a little champagne."
"Somewhere? Where were you staying?"
"In the Barbizon Hotel, but not under my real name. I had just gotten in from Paris and was only in New York a few days."
"What was the name you signed in under?"
"I don't remember."
"How did you pay?"
"Cash."
"And you'd come to New York for what reason?"
"I was very frightened."
Inside my conference room, Marino shifts in his chair and blows out in disgust. He editorializes again. "Hold on to your hats, folks. Here comes the good part."
"Frightened?" Berger's voice sounds on the tape. "What were you frightened of?"
"These people who are after me. Your government. That's what this whole thing is about." Chandonne touches his bandages again, this time with one hand, then with the one holding the Camel cigarette. Smokes curls around his head. "Because they are using me_have been using me_to get to my family. Because of untrue rumors about my family…"
"Hold on. Hold on a minute," Berger interrupts.
Out of the corner of my eye I see Marino angrily shaking his head. He leans back in his chair and crosses his arms over his swollen gut. "You get what you ask for," he mutters, and I can only assume he means that Berger should never have interviewed Chandonne. It was a mistake. The tape is going to hurt more than it will help.
"Captain, please," the real Berger in this room says to Marino in a tone that means business, while her voice on tape asks Chandonne, "Sir, who is using you?"
"FBI, Interpol. Maybe even CIA. I don't know exactly."
"Yeah," Marino sarcastically pipes up from the table. "He don't mention ATF 'cause no one's ever heard of ATF. It's not even in spellcheck."
His hatred for Talley in addition to what is happening to Lucy's career has metastasized into Marino's hating all of ATF. Berger says nothing this time. She ignores him. On tape she confronts Chandonne, her no-nonsense nature marching forth, "Sir, I need you to understand how important it is for you to tell the truth now. Do you understand how important it is that you are absolutely truthful with me?"
"I tell the truth," he softly, earnestly says. "I know it sounds unbelievable. It seems incredible, but it all has to do with my powerful family. Everyone in France knows of them. They have lived for hundreds of years on Ile Saint-Louis and it's rumored they are connected with organized crime, like the Mafia, which isn't true at all. This is where the confusion comes. I've never lived with them."
"You're part of this powerful family, though. Their son?"
"Yes."
"Do you have brothers and sisters?"
"I had a brother. Thomas."
"Had?"
"He's dead. You know that. He's why I'm here."
"I would like to get back to that. But let's talk about your family in Paris. Are you telling me you don't live with your family and have never lived with them?"
"Never."
"Why is that? Why have you never lived with your fam-ily?"
"They've never wanted me. When I was very young they paid a childless couple to take care of me so no one would
know."
"Know what?"
"That I am Monsieur Thierry Chandonne's son."
"Why wouldn't your father want people to know you're his son?"
"You look at me and ask such a question?" Anger tightens his mouth.
"I'm asking you the question. Why wouldn't your father want people to know you're his son?"
"Oh, all right. I will pretend you don't notice my appearance. You are very kind to pretend you don't notice." A sneer creeps into his voice. "I have a severe medical condition. Shame, my family is ashamed of me."
"Where does the couple live? These people who you say took care of you?"
"Quai de 1'Horloge, very near the Conciergerie."
"The prison? Where Marie Antoinette was detained during the French Revolution?"
"The Conciergerie is very famous, of course. A tourist place. People seem so preoccupied with prisons, torture chambers and beheadings. Especially Americans. I've never understood it. And you will kill me. The United States will kill me easily. You people kill everyone. It is all part of the big plan, the conspiracy."
"Where exactly on the Quai de 1'Horloge? I thought that entire huge block was the Palais de Justice and the Conciergerie." Berger pronounces French like one who speaks it. "Yes, there are some apartments, very expensive ones. You're saying your foster home was there?"
"Very near there."
"What is the name of this couple?"
"Olivier and Christine Chabaud. Sadly, they are both dead, for many years."
"What did they do? Their occupations?"
"He was a boucher. She was a coiffeureuse"
"A butcher and a hairdresser?" Berger's tone hints that she doesn't believe him and knows damn well he is mocking her and all of us. Jean-Baptiste Chandonne is a butcher. He is dressed in hair.
"A butcher and a hairdresser, yes," Chandonne affirms.
"Did you ever see your family, the Chandonnes, while you were living with these other people near the prison?"
"Now and then I would show up at the house. Always after dark so people wouldn't see me."
"So people wouldn't see you? Why didn't you want people to see you?"
"It's as I've said." He taps an ash blindly. "My family didn't want people to know I am their son. There would have been much made of it. He's very, very well known. I can't really blame him. So I would go late at night when it was dark and the streets on He Saint-Louis were deserted, and I would sometimes get money from them or other things."
"Would they let you into the house?" Berger is desperate to place him inside the family house so authorities can have probable cause for a search warrant. I can see already that Chandonne is a master of the game. He knows damn well why she wants to place him inside the incredible Chandonne hotel particulier on lie Saint-Louis, a house I actually saw with my own eyes when I was recently in Paris. There will be no search warrant in my lifetime.
"Yes. But I wouldn't stay long, and I didn't go into all the rooms," he is telling Berger as he calmly smokes. "There are many rooms in my family's house that I have never been in. Only the kitchen, and, let me see, the kitchen and the servants' quarters and just inside the door. For the most part, you see, I have taken care of myself."
"Sir, when was the last time you visited your family's home?"
"Oh, no time recently. Two years, at least. I really don't remember."
"You don't remember? If you don't know, just say you don't know. I'm not asking you to guess."