Swindler & Son Read online

  “You’re going to tell us where to find your new toys?” I ask, trying to narrow down the guidelines. “Or is that our job?”

  “Most of the time, we’ll tell you. There may be times where you’ll have to do some research—which you can charge for.”

  “I assume the requests will be very specific, which is why the items are so valuable.”

  “Correct.”

  “Are they already for sale?”

  “Sometimes. Sometimes they’re just out there somewhere.”

  “And if the owner doesn’t want to sell? Do you furnish us with an alternative?”

  “Sometimes,” Dieter says. “Most of the time, we want what we want.” Which means, Steal it if you have to, not our problem. Wonderful.

  “Anything in particular you want right now?” I’m just asking this to buy time to think, to find a loophole. I’m not finding any.

  Dieter leans back now. This conversation, he likes. “A Porsche 917—racing car from the Seventies.”

  “917K, 917 Langheck, 917-10 Spyder, 917-30? 12 or 16-cylinder?”

  “There are no 16-cylinders.”

  “There’s one in a private collection—in Estonia at the moment but I could have it in Paris next Friday.”

  “You know your 917’s.”

  “I have a couple of standing orders, for particular models, if they become available within a price range. As far as I can see, you don’t have a price range.”

  “I want a Le Mans winner.” Rahim first and now Dieter. Except Dieter will actually pay what it costs. And why not? When you have more money than God, of course, you’d want a Le Mans winner.

  “They’re in the Porsche museum,” Dieter continues. “So if you want to show—”

  “Actually, they’re not.”

  “Not what?”

  “The 1971 winner is in the Porsche museum, that’s true. But the 1970 ‘winner’ in the museum is actually chassis 001, which was a test car only, never raced. The real 1970 winner is chassis 023, which is in private hands with a historically incorrect paint job.”

  “Why haven’t I read that?”

  “I have the documents from Automobile Club de l’Ouest, who sanction Le Mans, citing the chassis number. I have the pictures we took at the Porsche museum, showing they have a substitute.”

  Dieter leans over the table. His smile is chilling. “Just make sure I get the winner,” he says.

  Cross Purposes

  -And so, because of the meeting, you decide Hastings and friends framed you for the bombing? Does that make sense?

  Does anything make sense? Maybe they weren’t framing me, maybe some enemy of theirs is trying to get at them through me, I don’t know. All I know is, they’re scary dudes into scarier shit than even I am used to and I leave that meeting, get mugged and find GIGN on my doorstep, all in the span of an hour. If nothing else, the timing is highly suspicious. Could all that really be a coincidence?

  -Einstein said ‘Coincidence is God’s way of remaining anonymous.’

  Yeah and Yogi Berra said, “That’s too coincidental to be a coincidence.”

  And that’s how I end up in the cold, three blocks from the veterinary hospital with Sara, eyeing the roundabouts and sizing up the taxicabs and trying to figure out the next step—with Hastings and friends a really bad chill up my spine that won’t go away.

  “Do you think somebody kidnapped Harry?” Sara asks.

  “If they kidnapped him, they’d be calling me for money.” I reach into my pocket and realize, “No, they can’t,” and I tell her about the mugging, my missing phone.

  “You think they mugged you to get your phone? So you wouldn’t interfere?”

  “You mean, someone else? Someone kidnapped Harry and somebody else kidnapped us to keep us from looking for Harry? Somebody who doesn’t know I can’t go to the police because they think I exploded the Rue Breguet?”

  “It sounded better a minute ago,” she admits. “You didn’t make that up about the bomb?”

  “Surete have my signature on the shipping certificate. Jacques Beltoise told me.”

  “He’s a moron. And a misogynist.”

  “He’s a French bureaucrat. And a man with zero imagination, so he didn’t make it up. Next.”

  I scan the horizon, roads running off in every direction, none of them taking me anywhere safe. So much for the long view.

  When I turn back, Sara’s posed with hands on hips like Supergirl, sizing me up. “This is stupid,” she says. “You didn’t bring a bomb into Paris. You’re a swindler, a liar and a disappointment—but not a murderer.”

  “Wow. That’s what Rene said and he hardly knows me.”

  “I hardly know you.”

  “You knew everything worth knowing about me on our second date.”

  Another awkward silence follows while the wind bites and the snow flies hard in our faces. We start walking in the other direction, away from the wind, just to warm up.

  “I’ll get you a lawyer,” she says, “a good one, instead of that connected idiot you’ve got. You can fight them.”

  “I can’t fight this in court. It’s impossible.”

  “You don’t know that. There’s something out there—”

  “A jury is out there. The instant they release my name or picture, it’s over for me. No matter what, I’m ‘the Paris bomber’. ‘We didn’t realize how alienated he was—he seemed so quiet.’ I already own Catcher in the Rye—they won’t even have to plant it on my bookshelf.”

  “Those are just stories. The facts—”

  “Stories are all we have anymore. Facts require research, detachment. The fear comes too fast now for that kind of process.”

  “But the facts are on your side!” And she thinks I’m stubborn! “You’ve got to see—”

  “I don’t care about facts!” I burst and she looks stunned. Really? Really? “You’re the fact person here, not me! The network execs said you were ‘difficult’ and you held your head up and ignored them because the facts were on your side—and now you’re freelance, scrounging for airtime from the assholes who didn’t care about the facts.”

  “That’s cruel,” she says. I promised myself at the beginning I’d never make her cry—but then, I broke that vow a while ago.

  “It’s the truth,” I say. “Facts just aren’t enough anymore. It can’t just be true—it’s got to sell. The only way to fight a story is with a better story.

  “I’m not taking any pleas,” I hear myself say. “I’m not giving myself up. I’ve got to find out what’s behind this and prove my innocence.”

  It’s a delirious and slightly ridiculous moment but I’m not addressing her anymore. I’m fully aware that I’m mouthing movie dialogue but I’m really just talking to myself—and to any force in the universe that might want to prevent a normally corrupt person like myself from being convicted of even worse shit than I’ve actually done. I know of no proof that any such force actually exists, but, for the moment, I’m groveling to it like a penitent in the Ganges.

  Sara’s boiling, so much so that she doesn’t see the cone of snow collecting on the tip of her nose. I wipe it off—she nearly slugs me until she realizes what I’m doing. “You’ve got to get inside,” I say and her eyes clear.

  “So where do you need to go?” she says. “Figure it out, I’ll wait. I’ll get you there, then I’ll go.”

  “Don’t be a martyr!” Oops! Bad choice of words.

  “Right, you be the martyr! Did you bring the bomb to Paris?”

  “Of course not!”

  “Does anyone believe you?”

  “No!”

  “Well, there we are. You’re a hopeless case—my kind of story. What do we do about it?”

  This is that same determination that got Sara fired from networks, plural, over the years. The famous story was that she promised the Israeli prime minister she wouldn’t ask the question all the reporters wanted to ask. And got the interview specifically because of her promise. And then promptly aske
d the question anyway, the instant the cameras were rolling.

  Which, come to think of it, means she lied to him. I take a ludicrous satisfaction in her hypocrisy.

  -That’s what you were thinking about at that moment? Proving her wrong?

  No, actually I was thinking about getting her back.

  -Then and there? In the moment?

  You bet. All of a sudden, I could really see it in front of me, a straight line ahead.

  -You were willing to put her at risk to make that happen?

  Either you haven’t been listening or you’d know nobody ever puts Sara at risk for anything. Sara does what Sara wants.

  And, to tell the truth, I never fully accept I’m going to fail at anything. I’ve been in big trouble before, not like this maybe but bad, and in the middle of my life going up in flames, I’m thinking about what to do when it all blows over, how to explain things, how I can take advantage. The odds are ridiculous but I’m trying to work the angles.

  -Denial is a powerful form of ambition.

  Exactly.

  -And a river in Egypt.

  I’ll bet when they print the transcript, they leave out your jokes.

  Anyway, so now I’m settling on a clear plan: there’s somebody out there behind all this, pulling the strings. And I have to find him.

  “Okay,” I say. “I need your help.”

  “What?” It doesn’t feel like a big deal to me but her eyes light up.

  “I need you to call Diamante. We’re divorced—I’ll gamble that GIGN isn’t tracking your phone. Ask him if he’s seen Harry and if he’s checked the boudoir. Tell him exactly that, make sure he’s heard it, then hang up immediately.”

  “He’ll understand that?”

  “Yeah.”

  She’s off the phone in seconds. “He was with people,” she reports, hanging up. “I heard voices. He rushed me off.”

  “All the better.”

  “It sounds like the flics are there.”

  “That’s okay—he got the message or he wouldn’t have rushed you off.”

  “So now what?”

  “Now I meet him and you go home.”

  Of course, I know better. She shakes her head immediately.

  “No.”

  “Look—”

  “You look. You’re a total screw-up but I know you didn’t do this,” she says, taking control, as usual. “I’ve spent the last twenty years walking into dangerous situations for people who needed help. You need me.”

  “I can handle myself.”

  “I definitely improve your odds. Where’s the boudoir?”

  ~~~

  The boudoir is on the Rue Auger, a tiny cupola set back on a rooftop in the middle of the block. Harry’s not here, either.

  “What is this place?”

  “Harry’s second apartment, for trysts.”

  “He loves Diamante. He still has trysts?”

  “Maybe. Maybe he just wants to think he still could.”

  I haven’t been here a lot lately but the place doesn’t look disturbed. A coffee cup sits in the sink and unspoiled milk in the door of the refrigerator.

  “What are we searching for?”

  “First off, his laptop.”

  “Where is it?”

  “Usually on the table, right here.” I’ve always loved the work nook under the round porthole window across from the fireplace. But no laptop.

  I start pulling open bedroom drawers and check under the bed, just in case. Sara opens the kitchen cupboards—I’ve seen Harry stuff magazines, articles of clothing and even pairs of boots onto a kitchen shelf due to unexpected company. But no boots, no laptop.

  And then the stairs creak and the door pops opens and Diamante hustles in, leather coat flapping.

  “Did they follow you?”

  “Of course, they followed me! I lost them in the bathroom at Gare du Nord, it’s too dangerous for them. How the hell did we move a bomb?”

  “I swear to God we didn’t! I hope to God we didn’t! Tell me you brought your laptop?”

  He pulls it out of his bag. “Harry’s not here? Now I’m worried.”

  “You didn’t see him? Last night?”

  He shakes his head. “I assumed he was here.”

  “Who can tell?” Harry couldn’t make a bed if they were giving out prizes. “Did we move the bomb? Find out, find out!”

  “Well, I guess we already know.” Diamante pulls a sheet of paper from his jacket pocket. “The flics gave me this—it’s a copy of the shipping certificate, signed by you, ‘demolition equipment’ to Baksheer Nimtokwu.” He sees I’m drawing a blank. “You don’t watch the news? The bomber. They shot him dead in a gunfight two hours ago in Nanterre.”

  I look over the cert. “Is it real? Someone forged my signature.”

  “I’ve done it,” Diamante mutters, not looking up. Sara raises her hand as well.

  Diamante’s laptop boots. He sets up the VPN connection and waits for it to connect to our office system.

  “How could we not know about this?”

  “More to the point,” Sara says, “how did the flics find it if you didn’t know about it?” The question sits in the air for just a moment, until she answers. “Makes you think someone led them there, doesn’t it?” As soon as she says it, it seems obvious.

  “How?”

  “That’s the easy part,” Diamante says, clicking away. “They hacked our system and added a cert.”

  “No, that wouldn’t do it,” I say. “It’s got my signature.”

  “Forged.”

  “Even moreso. They didn’t just stick on a phony signature, they got far enough into our system to find a genuine one to copy.”

  “So they edited one we’d already used. The question is, who benefits from you in jail?” Diamante asks.

  “Or,” Sara counters, “on the run. The guys that kidnapped us just wanted to keep us out of circulation.”

  “Kidnapped?”

  “Proto Toulouanda and Rene Baudelaire took us for a ride. Literally. They dumped us as soon as they found out we were persons of interest. Those guys are pros—they don’t take a piss without getting paid first. Whoever hired them didn’t tell them anything about the bomb.”

  “Or didn’t know about it,” Sara says. “I think there’s two strands—one wants you in jail, the other is afraid of what you might tell the police.”

  “I know something?” My thoughts jump immediately to Hastings and Mr. Woczynski but they want me loose, acquiring Dieter’s little toys. “It’s news to me, honest to God.”

  She sighs. “Or the kidnapping was a diversion, because there’s evidence somewhere, here or in the office or Harry’s apartment, that would prove your innocence?”

  “Here’s the cert,” Diamante says, waiting for the document on the laptop screen to sharpen. He frowns at the result.

  “What’s the matter? Is it there?”

  “It’s here—but it’s wrong.”

  We all gather in the light of the flickering screen.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Look—every cert carries a unique identifier, three three-digit sequences. The first set is right—”

  “So, like you said, they hacked us.”

  “Yeah, but the middle three, we won’t get to that sequence for another month or two.”

  “What’s your point?” Diamante’s understanding of machines and systems is far beyond that of us organic units. Everyone knows this but him.

  “Why jump to a cert we weren’t using? Why go to the trouble of figuring out and using next month’s number sequence? How could you even guess that online?”

  I grab Sara’s phone out of her hand and hand it to Diamante. “Call the office.”

  Clarice answers and I take the phone from him.

  “I need you to find a cert, right away. 942 762 837. It’s not the regular book but it’s got to be there someplace. Find it, take a picture of it and text it to this number right away!”

  “What’s going on
?” Sara says when I ring off.

  -Yes, what is going on? You’ve lost me.

  Okay, sorry—the shipping business has been around a long time and shipping certs have not yet caught up with the digital age. We keep digital certificates in our records so we can do searches and check records off-site but in the vast majority of the world, you can’t legally ship anything without a physical certificate—an actual piece of paper, a notarized form. Several copies, to be exact, at very least one for our paper files at the office and one that must be stored in the ship’s manifest.

  Diamante’s point is, if someone just wanted to hack our system to produce a phony shipping cert, they would have edited one of our existing certificates and sent that to the cops. No reason there to find a real cert number we hadn’t used yet.

  -But if the theft was of a real paper certificate—

  See? You are a detective. If it’s paper, they would need one we hadn’t used—and, if they didn’t want us to notice, one from next month would be ideal.

  -So did that suggest your innocence?

  Actually, the opposite. It suggests that someone used one of our real, legal-document certs to really ship the bomb to Paris.

  -Oh.

  Yeah—oh. That takes the wind out of all our sails. Now we’re waiting for Clarice to ring back with what might be horrible news. That kind of waiting is terrible. Time just gasps and collapses in the corner.

  Finally, I feel a buzz in my palm. There’s a picture, though it takes a second to resolve on screen.

  “It’s a real cert,” I groan.

  Except it isn’t.

  “It’s the same number—and signature—as the one Diamante got from the police. But it’s not going to Paris.”

  The cert shows a small container assigned to a ship, the Mercury Venture.

  “Mercury Venture—I know that name,” Diamante says, and clicks through our database. “Small freighter, we’ve used it before. Notes say it left Karachi this morning for Hong Kong. Scheduled to arrive in three weeks.”

  “But it’s the same number as the Paris cert.”

  “They couldn’t use it for both?” Sara asks.

  Diamante shakes his head. “There’s only one paper cert. They made it look like they were shipping to Hong Kong so we wouldn’t stop the bomb to Paris.”