Joe Schreiber: Perry's killer playlist

Things start to get blurry around the one-minute mark. Then around 1:22, you can see Gobi pivot with Monash still held up in front of her like a spastic puppet. At 1:29, there’s a gunshot-it’s Paula’s, and it’s headed nowhere in particular, ricocheting off the alley wall where the cops will later find it embedded in a trash can thirty meters away-and the driver’s-side door of the FedEx truck flings open, knocking Paula over sideways. I’m out of the frame at this point, temporarily blocked out by Nolan and the gendarmes, who are still charging forward until they realize somebody’s shooting.

At 1:33, Paula regains her balance, turns around, and fires a second shot, this one more deliberate, but too late. There’s a flicker of something moving into the truck, the door slamming shut.

If you pause the footage at 1:38, you can see my face pop back up in the foreground, looking straight up. The expression on my face says it all.

The truck is gone.

So is my family.

So is Gobi.

Which brings us here, Gobi.

Not quite, but close enough.

With everything that’s been written and broadcast and blogged about us in those final few hours in Paris, official and otherwise, you would think that the full story had been mapped out. And to the extent that the facts tell the story, that’s true. There were definitely aspects of the investigation that Nolan’s people withheld from the public, especially when the lead was still flying and the blood was still wet, but none of that really affected the outcome in any concrete way.

In the end it boiled down to this:

A woman, only twenty-four years old, died on top of the Eiffel Tower that night.

As far as the record is concerned, those are the facts.

Here is the rest.

The wet metal railing is flaking nine hundred feet up, rusty, worn smooth in places from the millions of eager hands that have gripped it over the years, gazing down over the lights of Paris. It’s so cold up here that I already can’t feel my fingertips, even with my hands stuffed down in the pockets of my parka. I stopped feeling my earlobes and the tip of my nose somewhere on the elevator ride to the top.

Despite the darkness and the temperature, plenty of tourists are still milling around up here posing for pictures, pointing out landmarks far below in a half-dozen different languages. Being here makes them feel glamorous somehow, part of something bigger than themselves. They act like celebrities at a photo shoot. They pose and preen. They air-kiss and vamp. They’ve got bottled water and hot chocolate and sandwiches from the bistro and plastic bags from the souvenir shop one floor below the main observation deck. There have been no additional security checks at ticket windows tonight, and why would there be? The afternoon’s assault off the rue Oberkampf was an isolated incident, the identity of its sole fatality not yet released to the public, but certainly not a cause for panic in the City of Lights. No one has mentioned anything to the authorities about keeping an eye on the Eiffel Tower in particular, because if such a person were to do that, neither one of us could have come up here.

I never would have seen you again.

And I see you now.

You’re standing twenty yards away, waiting for me on the opposite side of the platform with your arms crossed and your back to the railing. We’re a thousand feet above the most beautiful city in the world, and you’re only looking at me.

The wind and rain blow hard in my face, making my eyes water a little, and when I come closer and wipe them clear, I can see you’re bleeding. Not much, not yet. It’s running down your face from your right nostril. From here, I can’t tell whether you recognize me or not.

“Gobi.”

You smile sadly. You say something in Lithuanian. It sounds like a prayer.

“Where did you leave the FedEx van?”

You blink and gaze back at me.

“Where’s my family?”

Your eyes flick down and up to me again, almost tentatively, but without true recognition. It’s as if you’ve spotted someone in an airport, an old acquaintance whose face is familiar but whose name you can’t recall.

“I know you like them,” I say. “I know you’d never do anything to hurt them. Just tell me where they are.”

You smile again, then wince and touch your head, as if it suddenly hurts very badly.

“My mom and dad and my little sister, Annie,” I say. “You know them. You can picture their faces.”

You just shake your head.

Then, a few seconds later, you pull out the gun.

I don’t know when the police showed up. All it took was one particularly observant Tokyo schoolgirl somewhere off to our left to spot the pistol in Gobi’s hand and make a phone call, and within five minutes the observation platform had been cleared.

Then it was just us and the cops. For a long moment Gobi and I stood there watching Avenue Anatole France fill with police lights, turning it into a river of flickering blue along the truer, darker curve of the Seine itself. The next time the elevator door opened, it dispatched a wedge of gendarmes in what looked like full riot gear.

But when they saw what Gobi was doing with the gun, they kept on their side of the platform. One of them shouted something, and it doesn’t matter that I slept through two years of high school French-I got the gist. Let him go. Put it down. Hands up. All of that. Gobi ignored them completely, focusing all her attention on me.

“As tave myliu,” Gobi said. With her free hand, she reached out and brushed the wet hair out of my eyes. “Your hair is getting shaggy, mielasis. ” Then she pointed the pistol back at my head, underneath my chin.

“It doesn’t have to go this way.”

“Yes, it does.”

“Just tell me what you’ve done with my family. Tell me where they are.”

“One more must die.”

“Gobi, no, you’re sick. There’s a tumor in your brain. You’re not thinking clearly. Like on the train.”

“Au revoir.”

“Gobi.” I held up my hands. “You don’t need to do this anymore. As tave myliu. ”

Something changed in her eyes, not much, maybe just a subtle shift in the lights reflected in her pupils. I kissed her then, not even thinking about the gun, while she kept it jammed up my chin. Her mouth felt as cold as the metal barrel against my skin, her lips coming open and kissing me, the surprising warmth of her tongue, salty-sweet as it slipped inside and slid against mine. The gun was still there, pushing up hard against my jaw.

“How did you learn to say ‘I love you’ in Lithuanian?” she asked.

“Erich.”

“You are still jealous of him.”

I shook my head. “No.”

She put her lips to my ear. “Sixty-six rue de Turenne,” she murmured. “Is parking garage. They’re in the back.”

“Thank you.”

“And Perry.”

“Yes?”

“I am sorry.”

“Wh-”

She moved the gun from my head and put it against her own, placing the barrel to her temple. Too late, I saw how it was going to end.

“Gobi, no!”

She pulled the trigger.

Nothing happened.

I stared at her. She looked back at me.

“The safety.” I said. “It’s still on. You forgot-”

Then from somewhere behind me, a dark shape flew forward and crashed into her, knocking her to the floor of the platform.

Sitting up, I saw Gobi on her back, turning sideways, grappling with the dark-garbed figure on top of her. I saw the shining glint of buckles and a badge. One of the gendarmes had broken ranks, jumped out into the rain, and tackled her.