James Patterson - French Kiss

“I met with Ballard’s wife. She had a newborn, three months old, their fourth child. So I did her a favor, but not without asking for something in return. I persuaded Ballard to confess to the crime and to help us identify the other trainers who were drugging the horses. He cooperated. So thanks to my intervention-and that of my superiors-he was allowed to plead to a lesser charge. Instead of homicide volontaire, he was only charged with-”

“Let me guess,” says K. Burke. “Homicide in volontaire.”

“You are both a legal and linguistic genius, K. Burke.”

I grab some of the Longchamp papers and go through them quickly. “I’m glad I did what I did,” I say. “Madame Ballard is a good woman.”

“And the husband? Is he grateful?” K. Burke asks as she continues to study the screen intensely.

“He has written to me many times in gratitude. But one must keep in mind that he did kill a man.”

Burke presses a computer key and begins reading about a drug gang working out of Saint-Denis.

“What does this mean, Moncrief? Logement social. ”

“In New York they call it public housing. A group of heroin dealers had set up a virtual drug supermarket in the basement there. Once I realized that some of our Parisian detectives were involved in the scheme, it was fairly easy-but frightening-to bust.”

“How’d you figure out that your own cops were involved?” she asks.

“I simply felt it,” I say.

“Of course,” she says with a bit of sarcasm. “I should have known.”

We continue flipping through the cases on the computer. But like the race fixing and murder at Longchamp, like the drug bust in Saint-Denis, all my former cases seem to be a million miles away from New York. No instinct propelled me. No fingerprint arose.

We studied the cold cases also. The kidnapping of the Ugandan ambassador’s daughter (unsolved). The rape of an elderly nun at midnight in the Bois de Boulogne (unsolved, but what in hell was an elderly nun doing in that huge park at midnight?). An American woman with whom I had a brief romantic fling, Callie Hansen, who had been abducted for three days by a notorious husband-and-wife team that we were never able to apprehend. Again, nothing clicked.

We come across a street murder near Moulin Rouge. According to the report on the computer screen, one of the witnesses was a woman named Monica Ansel. Aha! Blaise Ansel had been the owner of Taylor Antiquities, the store on East 71st Street. Could Monica Ansel be his wife? But Monica Ansel, the woman who witnessed the crime at Moulin Rouge, was seventy-one years old.

“Damn!” I say, and I toss the papers from the Longchamp report to the floor. “I have wasted my time and yours, K. Burke. Plus I have wasted a good deal of money. And what do I have to show for it? De la merde. ”

Even with her limited knowledge of French, K. Burke is able to translate.

“I agree,” she says. “Shit.”

K. Burke sits outdoors at a small bistro table on rue Vieille du Temple. She is alone. Moncrief had asked if he could be by himself for a while. “I must walk. I must think. Perhaps I must mourn. Do you mind?” Moncrief had said.

“I understand,” she said, and she did understand. “I don’t need a chaperone.”

She sips a glass of strong cider and eats a buckwheat crepe stuffed with ham and Gruyère. It is eight o’clock, a fairly early dinner by French standards. At one table sits a family of German tourists-very blond parents with two very beautiful teenage daughters. At another, an older couple (French, Burke suspects) eating and chewing and drinking slowly and carefully. Finally, there are two young Frenchwomen who appear to be…yes, K. Burke is right…very much in love with each other.

Burke’s own heart is still breaking for Moncrief, but she must admit that she is enjoying being alone for a few hours.

Back in her hotel room, she takes a warm bath. A healthy dose of lavender bath oils; a natural sea sponge. Afterward, she dries herself off with the thick white bath sheets and douses herself with a nice dose of the accompanying lavender powder.

She slips on her sleep shirt, and she’s about to slide under the sheets when her phone buzzes. A text message.

R U Back in yr room? All is well? Mncrf.

She imagines Moncrief in some mysterious part of Paris, at a zinc bar with a big snifter of brandy. She is thankful for his thoughtfulness.

Yes. K. Burke.

But then, for just a moment she considers her own uneasiness. She simply cannot get used to not having a gun to check. So she does the next best thing: she checks that the door is double-locked. She adjusts the air-conditioning, making the temperature low enough for her to happily snuggle under the thick satin comforter. Within a few minutes she is asleep.

Two hours later, she is wide awake. It is barely past midnight, and Burke is afraid that jet lag is playing games with her sleep schedule. Now she may be up for hours. She takes a few deep breaths. The air makes her feel at least a little better. Maybe she will get back to sleep. Maybe she should use the bathroom. Yes, maybe. Or maybe that will prevent her from falling asleep again. On the other hand…

There is a sound in the room. At first she thinks it’s the air conditioner kicking back into gear. Perhaps it is the noise from the busy rue de Rivoli below. She sits up in bed. The noise. Again. Burke realizes now that the sound is coming from the door to her hotel room. Some sort of key? What the hell?

“Who’s there?” she shouts.

No answer.

“Who’s there?”

Goddamn it. Why doesn’t she have a gun?

She should have insisted that Moncrief get them guns. He was right. She feels naked without it.

She rolls quickly-catching herself in the thick covers, afraid in the dark-toward the other side of the bed. She drops to the floor and slides beneath the bed just as a shaft of bright light from the hallway pierces the darkness. Someone else is in the room with her. She moves farther underneath the bed. Jesus Christ, she thinks. This is an awful comedy, a French farce-the woman hiding beneath the bed.

As soon as she hears the door close, the light from the hallway disappears.

“Don’t move, Detective!” a muffled, foreign-sounding voice hisses.

Then a gunshot.

The bullet hits the floor about a foot away from her hand. There’s a quick loud snapping sound. A spark on the blue carpet. She tries to move farther under the bed. There is no room. It is so unlike her to not know what to do, to not fight back, to not plot an escape. This feeling of fright is foreign to her.

Another bullet. This one spits its way fiercely through the mattress above her. It hits the floor also.

Another bullet. No spark. No connection.

A groan. A quick thud.

Then a voice.

“K. Burke! It is safe. All is well.”

Hotel management and guests in their pajamas almost immediately begin gathering in the hall.

K. Burke emerges from under the bed. We embrace each other the way friends do, friends who have successfully come through a horrible experience together.

“You saved…” she begins. She is shaking. She folds her arms in front of herself. She is working to compose herself.

“I know,” I say. I pat her on the back. I am like an old soccer coach with an injured player.

Burke pulls away from me. She blinks-on purpose-a few times, and those simple eye gestures seem to clear her head and calm her nerves. She is immediately back to a completely professional state. She has become the efficient K. Burke I am used to. We both look down at the body. She moves to a nearby closet and wraps herself quickly in a Le Meurice terry-cloth bathrobe.