Steve Martini - Trader of secrets

Harry decided to get a change of scenery. Perhaps it would wake him up. He turned the key in the ignition, started the car, and turned on his headlights. He checked the side-view mirror for oncoming traffic, then pulled out of the parking space and did a U-turn directly in front of the canvas canopy over the entrance to the Hotel Saint-Jacques. He drove to the end of the block and turned right. This area of the Latin Quarter was a maze of one-way streets. The only way to drive around the block was to backtrack. By now they were used to it.

Two more right turns and Harry found himself on the rue Valette, the side street that bounded the Hotel Saint-Jacques on the right-hand corner up ahead. He planned to cross through the intersection of the rue des Ecoles and try to park on the other side, where he could lean back in the driver’s seat and watch the hotel entrance through his rearview mirror.

Before he got to the intersection, something caught his eye. Harry saw the lights on inside a small cafe at the corner of the alley just behind the Hotel Saint-Jacques. He had but one thought. Coffee!

He slowed to a crawl and looked for a parking space. There were none. Every spot was taken. The street was dark except for a few lamps that hung from the sides of the buildings. He could cross over the intersection, but then he’d have to walk back and cross the street directly in front of the Saint-Jacques and along the side of the hotel. Paul had given strict instructions that none of them were to go near the place. He had seen what happened to Herman.

Harry stopped the car in the middle of the street. He looked in his mirror to make sure no one was behind him; then he turned the wheel to the right and pulled into the brick-paved alley directly in front of the cafe. The two front wheels bounced as they crossed the swale into the alley. The car’s headlights flashed against the masonry wall of a six-story building perhaps a hundred feet away. The alley looked like a dead end.

The sudden bright lights scared two itinerants leaning over a blue bundle on the ground at the foot of the distant building. Bending over, they both looked back, white faces and stark eyes; they stared for a second into the blinding headlights. Suddenly they both turned and took off. They disappeared into an opening on the left side of the alley at the far end. It looked as if it might be a garage, but the opening was too small for a car. The two men had left their bundle behind.

Harry sat there for a moment looking, wondering what it was that he was seeing. The second he hit the bright beams he realized; there was a shoe with a foot in it sticking out of the end of the blue bundle.

Bruno’s two men scrambled down the steps of the passage du Clos Bruneau and clambered into the white van parked at the curb. The second they were inside, one of them slid the door closed.

“Where’s the body?” said Liquida.

Bruno translated. One of them answered in Russian as he pointed back toward the steps and the alley that ran behind several of the small hotels, including the Saint-Jacques. Then he pointed and said, “Politsiya!” something for which Liquida did not need a translation.

Bruno said something to the driver, and the man stepped on the gas. The van pulled away from the curb and down the rue des Ecoles headed for the A6, which would take them south through Lyon and on to Marseilles, where the private jet was waiting.

Harry had no cell phone. He considered whether to back out and take the car back to his hotel to get Paul and Joselyn or simply go into the cafe and have them call the police from there. He did neither. Instead he got out, locked the car, and began hoofing it back to the Hotel Claude Bernard. It was only a short block away. Harry was afraid if he took the car, he would have trouble finding a parking space once he got there.

Running part of the way and walking, he took less than three minutes to get to the room. By the time he knocked on the door he was breathless.

When Joselyn opened the door, she was already dressed and had her shoes on. She took one look at Harry and said, “What’s wrong?”

Harry had his hands on his knees, bent over, trying to catch his breath. He lifted one hand to point, but he couldn’t speak. Finally he said, “Body in the alley!”

“What? Where?”

“Hotel,” said Harry.

“Paul!” Joselyn turned and yelled toward the bathroom.

By the time we reach the car parked in the alley, it is still dark. Harry asks me if I want him to turn on the headlights, but I tell him no, not until we get up close and see what is there.

“Why don’t you take the keys and stay in the car,” I tell Joselyn.

“Why don’t you?”

“I’ll do it,” says Harry. “There’s an opening down there to the left. Do you see it?”

I can barely make it out in the dim light.

“That’s where they went,” says Harry. “I don’t know where it goes, but if they come back out, try to stay clear. I’ll use the headlights to blind them. Cream ’em against the wall with the car if I have to.”

“OK.” Joselyn and I step slowly toward the end of the alley as Harry gets back in the car. We can see the long rolled bundle lying on the ground. It is sort of crumpled against the foot of the building. As we draw closer, I can tell, whatever it is, it is wrapped in one of those blue plastic tarps that you can buy in any hardware store in the world.

I can’t see the foot until we get closer. Harry was right. As we get within a few feet, I can tell that the running shoe sticking out of the bundle has to belong to a man. It is too big for a woman.

“Maybe we should call the police,” says Joselyn.

“In a minute,” I tell her.

The bundle is tied with twine. Neither of us has a knife or anything sharp enough to cut it. I am left to find the end and try and untie the knot. I pull my hands inside the long sleeves of my sweater and roll the bundle toward me looking for the end of the twine. Each time I try to roll it, the bundle seems to want to roll back the other way. Lividity has taken over the body, and the blood has settled to the lowest point and solidified, creating a counterweight.

“What are you doing?” says Joselyn.

“I’m trying to untie the knot.”

“Leave it alone. Let’s get out of here.”

“Go and sit in the car with Harry,” I tell her.

“Not unless you’re coming.”

“Watch the alley. Make sure nobody comes in behind us,” I tell her.

It takes me a good two minutes to find the knot and to push the heavy cotton twine backward, using my thumb and my fingernails to untie it. Once the knot is undone, it becomes easy to unwind the string from around the outside of the bundled tarp.

As I am doing this I am looking overhead to see if there are any surveillance cameras in or near the alley. It doesn’t look like it, but I can’t be sure. Using the inside of my sleeves, I pull the edge of the tarp and roll the body out.

The inside of the tarp is covered in blood, some of it clotted, some dried.

Joselyn looks away and covers her mouth with her hand. “Let’s get out of here. Why are we doing this?”

“Because I need to know what’s going on. Why don’t you go back to the car,” I tell her.

“No. I’m OK.”

The victim looks to be maybe forty years old with dark hair. The body is matted with blood. His flesh is the color of a bleached cotton sheet, pure white. There is a puncture wound in his throat, traces of blood still seeping from it.

He’s wearing a buttoned dress shirt and light-colored cotton jeans of some kind. I can see that there is nothing in the breast pocket of his shirt. I feel the pockets of his pants, front and back. They are empty.