James Patterson - Kill Me If You Can

“ Bonjour yourself,” she said. “It’s way too early in the morning to be this chipper. What have you been up to?”

“I woke up at six, went for a walk, grabbed some coffee, and then had a long, serious talk with the concierge.”

“About what?”

“Dinner. I had him make us a reservation at a nice little restaurant he recommended. It’s called Antico Martini.”

“It sounds Italian.”

“It should,” I said. “It’s in Venice.”

“Venice? Italy? We’re going to Venice for dinner?”

“That would be crazy,” I said. “So I had the concierge book us a hotel for a couple of nights.”

“But…but…” She was dumbfounded, and I hated to admit it, but I was having fun dumbfounding her. “But we just got here.”

“Hey, I’m feeling adventurous. We’ve already made love in one romantic city. Let’s do it again in another.”

“Just like that?” she said.

“Why not?” I said. “Didn’t we leave New York just like that? Come on, our flight leaves at ten fifteen.”

I got up, took my bag out of the closet, and started packing.

“I can’t believe it,” she said. She grabbed a pillow and threw it at me. “You are not only drop-dead amazing to look at, fantastic in bed, and wildly spontaneous, but you are also ridiculously romantic. Who cares if you’re going to be a poor struggling artist all your life?”

“Who cares?” I said. “I care.” I threw the pillow back at her.

She hugged the pillow to her chest. “I love you,” she said.

“You talking to me or the pillow?”

“Our plane leaves at ten fifteen?” she said.

“Yup.”

She looked at her watch. “It’s only seven oh five, and I’m a real fast packer.”

She lifted the pink nightshirt up over her head, tossed it on the floor, and slipped under the covers.

“I love you,” she repeated. “And I’m not talking to the pillow.”

MARTA KRALL CAUGHT the 7 p.m. Delta flight out of JFK. She had only one small suitcase, and despite the fact that there was plenty of room in first class to bring it on board, she checked it.

She touched down at Charles de Gaulle airport at 8:45 the next morning and went to the baggage carousel, where she was reunited with her bag.

She cleared customs, then found the nearest ladies’ room. She locked the stall door, sat on the toilet, and opened her bag. Her hair dryer was in the black drawstring case, exactly as she had packed it.

It wasn’t a working dryer. It was built for her by a mold maker in Holland. She used a paper clip to push a recessed button on the grip. The dryer popped open. Inside were the pieces of her Glock, each one held in place by a steel clasp.

It took only three minutes to assemble the gun.

Forty minutes later, she was in the lobby of the Hotel Bac Saint-Germain.

The front desk clerk was young, slender, and extremely beleaguered.

“No, madame. No one else has complained about the water pressure,” she told the guest on the other end of the phone. Her voice was calm, but her body language said otherwise. “Of course. I’ll send the engineer back to your room immediately. Yes. I know. Room three one four. Merci. ”

She hung up and smiled at Marta. “ Bonjour, madame. May I help you?”

“I’d like a room,” Marta said. “Preferably on the same floor as my friends Matthew Bannon and Katherine Sanborne.”

The clerk’s long bloodred fingernails clicked lightly on her keyboard. “I’m afraid you just missed them,” she said.

“Out sightseeing, I’m sure,” Marta said. “Do you happen to know when they’ll be back?”

“They’re not expected back. They checked out this morning.”

Marta stood at the front desk, cool and composed on the outside, boiling over on the inside.

“How strange,” she said calmly. “I guess I can FedEx the paperwork I was going to discuss with them. Did they leave the address of their next stop?”

“No, but I saw Monsieur Bannon talking with the concierge a couple of hours ago. He might be able to help you.”

The front desk phone rang, and after checking the caller ID, the clerk turned back to Marta. “Now, what size room are you looking for? They all have excellent water pressure.”

“You’re busy,” Marta said. “Why don’t you deal with room three fourteen, and I’ll see if the concierge knows where to find my friends.”

Marta walked across the lobby as the front desk clerk reluctantly picked up the phone.

The concierge was tall and trim and had thick, dark hair that was slicked back. He wore a well-tailored gray uniform with black piping and two crossed gold keys — the clefs d’or —on each lapel. He was currently engaged with a Japanese couple, and the language barrier made the slow communication process painful to watch.

After several minutes, he paused to nod to Marta. “Sorry to keep you waiting,” he said.

She didn’t know if he was just being polite or trying to let the couple know that there were other people who needed his attention, too. But he looked up several times and smiled at Marta.

Another five minutes passed before the concierge handed the couple a map, a packet of brochures, and a printout of their itinerary for the day. They thanked him profusely with head bows and several euros.

“Mademoiselle, I am Laurent,” he said, offering up his name quickly. “Sorry to keep you waiting. How can I be of service?”

She leaned forward and rested her hands on his desk so he could get a good look at her breasts. He didn’t seem all that interested. Ah, the French. She loved them.

“I was supposed to meet my friends here, but there seems to have been some miscommunication,” she said, lowering her voice to a whisper. “According to the front desk, they checked out this morning. I’m wondering if you know where they went.”

“These mix-ups happen all the time,” he said with a smile that showed a mouthful of perfectly straight, professionally whitened teeth. “What are their names?”

“Matthew Bannon and Katherine Sanborne.”

His lips tightened and the smile disappeared. He sat broom-up-his-ass straight in his chair. One second he looked like he was ready to invite himself up to her room, and the next he was transformed into the quintessentially cold, uncaring, unhelpful Parisian.

“I’m sorry, mademoiselle,” Laurent said, “but I have no forwarding address for your friends.”

It was clear he was lying through his cosmetically enhanced, pearly white teeth.

The question was why.

“Laurent,” Marta said sweetly. “Of course you know where they went. This may help jog your memory.” She slid fifty euros across his desk.

He ignored the money. “Whether I know or do not know is not relevant. The privacy of our guests is of utmost concern, and I’m not at liberty to say anything. Hotel policy.”

The cash bribe didn’t work. Marta leaned across his desk, her breasts almost out of their nest. “You can tell me,” she purred. “And you can surely imagine how grateful I would be.”

The concierge leaned in toward her and wagged a finger in her direction. “Mademoiselle, I absolutely cannot divulge any—”

Marta grabbed his finger and held it tight.

“I guess you’re not the breast man I thought you were,” she said. “How do you feel about fingers?”

His eyes widened, but he tried to maintain his composure. “What do you mean?”

“I mean,” she said, pressing hard on the top of his knuckle joint with her thumb and squeezing the rest of the digit with viselike strength, “how much do you care about your fingers?”