James Patterson - French Kiss

The room has no table, no chairs. It is bare except for the emergency button, three clubs, and three mace cartridges that hang on the wall.

The door opens with the same horror-film creak as the door in the previous interview room. Tomas Wren once again accompanies the prisoner, but Ramus apparently warrants three guards to keep him under control. What’s more, I suspect that the handcuffs behind Ramus’s back will not be removed.

Ramus is gaunt, thin as a man with a disease. His nose is too big for his face. His eyes are too small for his face. Yet all his characteristics come together to form a frightening but handsome man. He could be an aging fashion model.

Years ago, during his booking, his trials, and his sentencing, Ramus spat on the floor whenever he saw me. When this vulgarity earned him a club to the head from a policeman or a prison guard, Ramus didn’t care. It was worth a little pain to demonstrate his hatred for the detective who had brought him down.

Ramus does not disappoint this time. Upon seeing me he immediately lobs a small puddle of spittle in my direction.

I sense madness-not only in Ramus but also in myself. I reach across and grab him by the chin. I push his head back as far as it will go without snapping it off. I know the guards probably hate Ramus as much as I do. I know they won’t stop me. I could beat Ramus if I wished to.

“My partner! My lover!” I shout. “It was you!”

He just stares at me. He twists his neck forcefully, trying to relieve the pain of my assault. I let go of his chin, then shout again.

“You have sources on the outside who can do such things!”

Now Ramus smiles. Then he speaks. The voice is rough, the words staccato.

“You are a fool, Moncrief. I have sources, yes. But anyone inside this pit of hell can buy influence outside. Put the pieces together, Moncrief. Are you so stupid?”

He spits again. Then he just stares at me. I speak more softly now.

“You will burn in hell…and I cannot wait for that time! I cannot wait for God to burn you. And you will do more than die and burn. You will first suffer. And then die and burn. I will see to it.”

He says, “When I heard that your two women friends were killed I was happy. I was joyful.”

My heart is beating hard. My chest is heaving up and down. Ramus continues.

“Some men are very powerful…sometimes even more powerful in the shadows of a prison than they are on the streets of the city.”

I feel my hand and both my arms tense up completely. In seconds I will be at him once again. This time I will force my hand around his neck. Then I will force my fingers around his Adam’s apple. Then…

He speaks again.

“Believe whatever you want, Moncrief. It is of no meaning to me. As I say, you are a stupid, pathetic fool. When will you learn? Where I am concerned, you are powerless. The boss? He is Ramus.”

The tension and strength suddenly drain from my body. My arms fall to my side. I am the victim of a perfect crime.

I bow my head. I have solved the case, but the women closest to me are gone.

I try to control my shaking limbs. I try to hold my feelings inside me.

“Get him out of here,” I say to the guards.

Ramus says nothing more. They lead him out. It’s over.

The next afternoon K. Burke and I fly back to New York City.

Closure. K. Burke is smart enough and now knows me well enough not to talk about “closure,” a glib and wishful concept. Nothing closes. At least not completely.

Friends and colleagues and family will say (and some have said already), “You’re lucky. At least you’re young and rich and handsome. You’ll get over this. You’ll find a way to learn to move on.”

I will nod affirmatively, but only to stop their chatter. Then my response will be simple: “No. Those qualities-youth, wealth, physical attributes-are randomly distributed. They protect you from very little of life’s real agonies.”

Menashe Boaz and I speak on the telephone. He is still in Norway with his film-“wrapping in three days.” His voice, predictably, is somber. I am one of the few people who knows precisely how he feels. With my complete agreement, he decides that he will send two assistants to New York to oversee clearing out Dalia’s apartment. Sad? It is beyond sad. Menashe and I cannot have this conversation without the occasional tear. It is a miracle that we can have the conversation at all.

“I don’t want a thing from Dalia’s apartment,” I tell him. I never want to enter the place again.

Any book I’ve left there I will never finish reading. Any suit in her closet I will never wear again. The real keepsakes are all inside me. A handful of wonderful photographs are on my phone.

Full of jet lag, fatigue, tension, and sorrow, K. Burke and I speak with Inspector Elliott at the precinct. I describe in broad strokes our time in Paris. Burke describes the same thing, but in much greater detail. I say the words I’ve been aching to say: “The case is solved.”

When our two hours with Elliott are over, I tell K. Burke that her memory is “astonishing. I mean it.”

She says, “Almost as good as yours. I mean it.”

We return to the detective pool-piles of files, the endless recorded phone messages, the crime blotter. I see that Burke is not her usual ambitious self. She is shuffling papers, typing slowly on her computer.

“Something is troubling you, Detective?” I say.

She looks up at me and speaks. “I’m angry that Ramus has brought us down. I know that’s stupid. I know the case is solved. But he has committed the perfect crime. He can kill and get away with it. It really pisses me off. I can only imagine how you must feel.”

“Life goes on, K. Burke. Who knows? Maybe tomorrow will be a little bit better,” I say.

Detective Burke smiles. Then she speaks.

“Exactly. Who knows?”

La maison centrale de Clairvaux

All prisoners are equal in the mess hall. At least that’s the way it’s supposed to be. Same horrid food, same rancid beverages. But in prison, those who have money also have influence. And those with money and influence live a little better.

Marcel Ballard supplies two kitchen workers with a weekly supply of filtered Gauloises cigarettes. So the workers show their gratitude by heaping larger mounds of instant mashed potatoes on Ballard’s plate and by giving him a double serving of the awful industrial cheese that is supplied after the meal. On some lucky occasions, Ballard goes to take a slug of water from his tin cup and finds that a kitchen ally has replaced the water with beer or, better still, a good amount of Pernod.

Adrien Ramus has even more influence than Ballard. Ramus, you see, has even more bribery material at his disposal. Even Tomas Wren has snapped at the bait Ramus dangles. Because he gives Wren the occasional gift of a few grams of cocaine, Ramus has a relatively easy time of it in isolation-a private cell, a radio. Ramus sells many things to many prisoners. He always has a supply of marijuana for those who want to get high and access to local attorneys for those who want to get out.

It is Tuesday’s supper. The menu never changes. Sunday is a greasy chicken thigh with canned asparagus spears that smell like socks. Monday is spaghetti in a tasteless oil. And then Tuesday. Tuesday at Clairvaux is always-unalterably, predictably-white beans, gray meat in brown gravy, canned spinach, and a thin slice of cheap unidentifiable white cheese.

Guards patrol the aisles.

No conversation is allowed. But that rule is constantly broken, usually with a shout-out declaring, “This food is shit.” Sometimes there’s a warning from someone just on the edge of sanity, a “Stop staring at me or I’ll slice off your balls” or “You are vomiting on me, gros trou du cul. ” That charming phrase translates as “you big asshole.”