James Patterson: French Kiss

Detective Martinez remains focused completely on the street scene. But God, I need some coffee, some air. I begin speaking.

“Listen. If I could just jump out for a minute and-”

As I’m about to finish the sentence, two vans-one black, one red-turn into the garage next door to Taylor Antiquities.

Our cell phones automatically buzz with a loud sirenlike sound. The doors of the unmarked police cars begin to open.

As Maria and I hit the street, she speaks.

“It looks like our evidence has finally arrived.”

Martinez and I rush into Taylor Antiquities. There are no customers. A skinny middle-aged guy sits at a desk in the rear of the store, and a typical debutante-a young blond woman in a white linen skirt and a black shirt-is dusting some small, silver-topped jars.

It is immediately clear to both of them that we’re not here to buy an ancient Thai penholder. We are easily identified as two very unpleasant-looking cops, the male foolishly dressed in an expensive waterlogged suit, the woman in too-tight khaki pants. Maria and I are each holding our NYPD IDs in our left hands and our pistols in our right hands.

“You. Freeze!” Maria shouts at the blond woman.

I yell the same thing at the guy at the desk.

“You freeze, too, sir,” I say.

From our two pre-bust surveillance visits I recognize the man as Blaise Ansel, the owner of Taylor Antiquities.

Ansel begins walking toward us.

I yell again. “I said freeze, Mr. Ansel. This…is…a…drug…raid.”

“This is police-department madness,” Ansel says, and now he is almost next to us. The debutante hasn’t moved a muscle.

“Cuff him, Luc. He’s resisting.” Maria is pissed.

Ansel throws his hands into the air. “No. No. I am not resisting anything but the intrusion. I am freezing. Look.”

Although I have seen him before, I have never heard him speak. His accent is foreign, thick. It’s an accent that’s easy for anyone to identify. Ansel is a Frenchman. Son of a bitch. One of ours.

As Ansel freezes, three patrol cars, lights flashing, pull up in front of the store. Then I tell the young woman to join us. She doesn’t move. She doesn’t speak.

“Please join us,” Maria says. Now the woman moves to us. Slowly. Cautiously.

“Your name, ma’am?” I ask.

“Monica Ansel,” she replies.

Blaise Ansel looks at Martinez and me.

“She’s my wife.”

There’s got to be a twenty-year age difference between the two of them, but Maria and I remain stone-faced. Maria taps on her cell phone and begins reading aloud from the screen.

“To make this clear: we are conducting a drug search based on probable cause. Premises and connected premises are 861 Madison Avenue, New York, New York, in the borough of Manhattan, June 21, 2016. Premises title: Taylor Antiquities, Inc. Chairman and owner: Blaise Martin Ansel. Company president: Blaise Martin Ansel.”

Maria taps the screen and pushes another button.

“This is being recorded,” she says.

I would never have read the order to search, but Maria is strictly by the book.

“This is preposterous,” says Blaise Ansel.

Maria does not address Ansel’s comment. She simply says, “I want you to know that detectives and officers are currently positioned in your delivery dock, your garage, and your rooftop. They will be interviewing all parties of interest. It is our assignment to interview both you and the woman you’ve identified as your wife.”

“Drugs? Are you mad?” yells Ansel. “This shop is a museum-quality repository of rare antiques. Look. Look.”

Ansel quickly moves to one of the display tables. He holds up a carved mahogany box. “A fifteenth-century tea chest,” he says. He lifts the lid of the box. “What do you see inside? Cocaine? Heroin? Marijuana?”

It is obvious that Maria has decided to allow Ansel to continue his slightly crazed demonstration.

“This-this, too,” Ansel says as he moves to a pine trunk set on four spindly legs. “An American colonial sugar safe. Nothing inside. No crystal meth, no sugar.”

Ansel is about to present two painted Chinese-looking bowls when the rear entrance to the shop opens and Imani Williams enters. Detective Williams is agitated. She is also très belle.

“Not a damn thing in those two vans,” she says. “Police mechanics are searching the undersides, but there’s nothing but a bunch of empty gold cigarette boxes and twelve Iranian silk rugs in the cargo. We tested for drug traces. They all came up negative.”

I think I catch an exchange of glances between Monsieur and Madame Ansel. I think . I’m not sure. But the more I think, well, the more sure I become.

“Detective Williams,” I say. “Do you think you could fill in for me for a few minutes to assist Detective Martinez with the Ansel interview?”

“Yeah, sure,” says Williams. “Where you going?”

“I just need to…I’m not sure…look around.”

“Tell the truth, Moncrief. You’ve been craving a cup of joe since you got here,” says Maria Martinez.

“Can’t fool you, partner,” I say.

I open the shop door. I’m out.

The suffocating air on Madison Avenue almost shimmers with heat.

Where have all the beautiful people gone? East Hampton? Bar Harbor? The South of France?

I walk the block. I watch a man polish the handrail alongside the steps of Saint James’ Church. I see the tourists line up outside Ladurée, the French macaron store.

A young African American man, maybe eighteen years old, walks near me. He is bare-chested. He seems even sweatier than I am. The young man’s T-shirt is tied around his neck, and he is guzzling from a quart-size bottle of water.

“Where’d you get that?” I ask.

“A dude like you can go to that fancy-ass cookie store. You got five bills, that’ll get you a soda there,” he says.

“But where’d you get that bottle, the water you’re drinking?” I ask again.

“Us poor bros go to Kenny’s. You’re practically in it right now.”

He gestures toward 71st Street between Madison and Park Avenues. As the kid moves away, I figure that the “fancy-ass cookie store” is Ladurée. I am equidistant between a five-dollar soda and a cheaper but larger bottle of water. Why waste Papa’s generous allowance on fancy-ass soda?

Kenny’s is a tiny storefront, a place you should find closer to Ninth Avenue than Madison Avenue. Behind the counter is a Middle Eastern-type guy. Kenny? He peddles only newspapers, cigarettes, lottery tickets, and, for some reason, Dial soap.

I examine the contents of Kenny’s small refrigerated case. It holds many bottles, all of them the same-the no-name water that the shirtless young man was drinking. At the moment that water looks to me like heaven in a bottle.

“I’m going to take two of these bottles,” I say.

“One second, please, sir,” says the man behind the counter, then he addresses another man who is wheeling four brown cartons of candy into the store. The cartons are printed with the name and logo for Snickers. The man steering the dolly looks very much like the counterman. Is he Kenny? Is anybody Kenny? I consider buying a Snickers bar. No. The wet Armani suit is already growing tighter.

“How many more boxes are there, Hector?” the counterman asks.

“At least fifteen more,” comes the response. Then “Kenny” turns to me.

“And you, sir?” the counterman asks.

“No. Nothing,” I say. “Sorry.”

I leave the tiny store and break into a run. I am around the corner on Madison Avenue. I punch the button on my phone marked 4. Direct connection to Martinez. All I can think is: What the hell? Twenty cartons of candy stored in a shop the size of a closet? Twenty cartons of Snickers in a store that doesn’t even sell candy?