Robert Ludlum - The Bourne Identity

“Come back to me. No matter what happens, come back to me.”

The lighting was soft and dramatic, pinpoint spotlights shining down from the dark brown ceiling, bathing manikins and expensively dressed clients in pools of flattering yellows. The jewelry and accessories counters were lined with black velvet, silks of bright red and green tastefully flowing above the midnight sheen, glistening eruptions of gold and silver caught in the recessed frame lights.

The aisles curved graciously in semicircles, giving an illusion of space that was not there, for Les Classiques, though hardly small, was not a large emporium. It was, however, a beautifully appointed store on one of the most costly strips of real estate in Paris. Fitting rooms with doors of tinted glass were at the rear, beneath a balcony where the offices of management were located. A carpeted staircase rose on the right beside an elevated switchboard in front of which sat an oddly out-of-place middle-aged man dressed in a conservative business suit, operating the console, speaking into a mouthpiece that was an extension of his single earphone.

The clerks were mostly women, tall, slender, gaunt of face and body, living postmortems of former fashion models whose tastes and intelligence had carried them beyond their sisters in the trade, other practices no longer feasible. The few men in evidence were also slender; reedlike figures emphasized by form-fitting clothes, gestures rapid, stances balletically defiant.

Light romantic music floated out of the dark ceiling, quiet crescendos abstractly punctuated by the beams of the miniature spotlights. Jason wandered through the aisles, studying manikins, touching the fabric, making his own appraisals. They covered his essential bewilderment. Where was the confusion, the anxiety he expected to find at the core of Carlos’ message center? He glanced up at the open office doors and the single corridor that bisected the small complex. Men and women walked casually about as they did on the main floor, every now and then stopping one another, exchanging pleasantries or scraps of relevantly irrelevant information. Gossip. Nowhere was there the slightest sense of urgency, no sign at all that a vital trap had exploded in their faces, an imported killer—the only man in Paris who worked for Carlos and could identify the target—shot in the head, dead in the back of an armored van on the Quai de la Rapée.

It was incredible, if only because the whole atmosphere was the opposite of what he had anticipated. Not that he expected to find chaos, far from it; the soldiers of Carlos were too controlled for that. Still he had expected something. And here there were no strained faces, or darting eyes, no abrupt movements that signified alarm. Nothing whatsoever was unusual; the elegant world of haute couture continued to spin in its elegant orbit, unmindful of events that should have thrown its axis off balance.

Still, there was a private telephone somewhere and someone who not only spoke for Carlos but was also empowered to set in motion three killers on the hunt. A woman …

He saw her, it had to be her. Halfway down the carpeted staircase, a tall imperious woman with a face that age and cosmetics had rendered into a cold mask of itself. She was stopped by a reedlike male clerk who held out a salesbook for the woman’s approval; she looked at it, then glanced down at the floor, at a nervous, middle-aged man by a nearby jewelry counter. The glance was brief but pointed, the message clear. All right, mon ami, pick up your bauble but pay your bill soon. Otherwise you could be embarrassed next time. Or worse. I might call your wife. In milliseconds the rebuke was over; a smile as false as it was broad cracked the mask, and with a nod and a flourish the woman took a pencil from the clerk and initialed the sales slip. She continued down the staircase, the clerk following, leaning forward in further conversation. It was obvious he was flattering her; she turned on the bottom step, touching her crown of streaked dark hair and tapped his wrist in a gesture of thanks.

There was little placidity in the woman’s eyes. They were as aware as any pair of eyes Bourne had ever seen, except perhaps behind gold-rimmed glasses in Zurich.

Instinct. She was his objective; it remained how to reach her. The first moves of the pavane had to be subtle, neither too much nor too little, but warranting attention. She had to come to him.

The next few minutes astonished Jason—which was to say he astonished himself. The term was “role-playing,” he understood that, but what shocked him was the ease with which he slid into a character far from himself—as he knew himself. Where minutes before he had made appraisals, he now made inspections, pulling garments from their individual racks, holding the fabrics up to the light. He peered closely at stitchings, examined buttons and buttonholes, brushing his fingers across collars, fluffing them up, then letting them fall. He was a judge of fine clothes, a schooled buyer who knew what he wanted and rapidly disregarded that which did not suit his tastes. The only items he did not examine were the price tags; obviously they held no interest for him.

The fact that they did not prodded the interest of the imperious woman who kept glancing over in his direction. A sales clerk, her concave body floating upright on the carpet, approached him; he smiled courteously, but said he preferred to browse by himself. Less than thirty seconds later he was behind three manikins, each dressed in the most expensive designs to be found in Les Classiques.

He raised his eyebrows, his mouth set in silent approval as he squinted between the plastic figures at the woman beyond the counter. She whispered to the clerk who had spoken to him; the former model shook her head, shrugging.

Bourne stood arms akimbo, billowing his cheeks, his breath escaping slowly as his eyes shifted from one manikin to another, he was an uncertain man about to make up his mind. And a potential client in that situation, especially one who did not look at prices, needed assistance from the most knowledgeable person in the vicinity; he was irresistible. The regal woman touched her hair and gracefully negotiated the aisles toward him. The pavane had come to its first conclusion; the dancers bowed, preparing for the gavotte.

“I see you’ve gravitated to our better items, monsieur,” said the woman in English, a presumption obviously based on the judgment of a practiced eye.

“I trust I have,” replied Jason. “You’ve got an interesting collection here, but one does have to ferret, doesn’t one?”

“The ever-present and inevitable scale of values, monsieur. However, all our designs are exclusive.”

“Cela va sans dire, madame.”

“Ah, vous parlez français?”

“Un peu. Passably.”

“You are American?”

“I’m rarely there,” said Bourne. “You say these are made for you alone?”

“Oh, yes. Our designer is under exclusive contract; I’m sure you’ve heard of him. René Bergeron.”

Jason frowned. “Yes. I have. Very respected, but he’s never made a breakthrough, has he?”

“He will, monsieur. It’s inevitable; his reputation grows each season. A number of years ago he worked for St. Laurent, then Givenchy. Some say he did far more than cut the patterns, if you know what I mean.”

“It’s not hard to follow.”

“And how those cats try to push him in the background! It’s disgraceful! Because he adores women; he flatters them and does not make them into little boys, vous comprenez?”

“Je vous comprends parfaitement.”

“He’ll emerge worldwide one day soon and they’ll not be able to touch the hems of his creations. Think of these as the works of an emerging master, monsieur.”

“You’re very convincing. I’ll take these three. I assume they’re in the size twelve range.”