Once Amanda and Ben disappeared inside, Henri went into the hotel bar, Jacques’ Américain, adjacent to the lobby. He ordered a Scotch from the bartender, who was actively putting the moves on a horse-faced brunette.
Henri sipped his drink and viewed the lobby through the bar’s back mirror. When he saw Ben come downstairs, Henri swiveled in the stool, watched as Ben handed his key to the concierge.
Henri made a mental note of the number under the key hook.
Chapter 108
IT WAS ALREADY half past eight p.m. by the time I reached the Place Vendôme, an enormous square with traffic lanes on four sides and a tall bronze memorial to Napoléon Bonaparte in the center. On the west side of the Place is Rue St.-Honoré, shopping paradise for the wealthy, and across the square was the drop-dead-fantastic French Gothic architecture of the Hôtel Ritz, all honey-colored stone and luminous demilune awnings over the doorways.
I stepped onto the red carpet and through a revolving door into the hotel lobby and stared at the richly colored sofas, chandeliers throwing soft light on the oil paintings, and happy faces of the guests.
I found the house phones in an alcove and asked the operator to ring Henri Benoit. My heartbeats counted off the seconds, and then the operator came back on and told me that Monsieur Benoit was expected but had not checked in. Would I care to leave a message?
I said, “I’ll call back. Merci.”
I had been right. Right.
Henri was in Paris. At least he would be very soon. He was staying at the Ritz.
As I hung up the phone I had an almost violent surge of emotion as I thought about all the innocent people Henri had killed. I thought about Levon and Barbara and about those suffocating days and nights I’d spent chained in a trailer, sitting face-to-face with a homicidal madman.
And then I thought about Henri threatening to kill Amanda.
I took a seat in a corner where I could watch the door, ducked behind the pages of a discarded copy of the International Herald Tribune, thinking this was the same as a stakeout in a squad car, minus the coffee and the bullshit from my partner.
I could sit here forever, because I’d finally gotten ahead of Henri, that freaking psychopath. He didn’t know I was here, but I knew he was coming.
Over the next interminable two hours, I imagined Henri coming into the hotel with a suit bag and checking in at the desk, and that whatever disguise he was in, I would recognize him immediately. I would follow him into the elevator and give him the same heart-attack surprise he’d once given me.
I was still unsure what I would do after that.
I thought I could probably restrain him, call the police, have them hold him on suspicion of killing Gina Prazzi.
Or maybe that was too chancy. Maybe I’d put a bullet in his head and turn myself in at the American embassy, deal with it after the fact.
I reviewed option one: The cops would ask me, “Who is Gina Prazzi? How do you know she’s dead?” I imagined showing them Henri’s film in which Gina’s dead body was never seen. If Henri had disposed of the body, he wouldn’t even be arrested.
But I’d be under suspicion. In fact, I would be suspect number one.
I ran through the second option, saw myself pulling the .38 on Henri, spinning him around, saying, “Hands against the wall, don’t move!” I liked the idea a lot.
That’s how I was thinking when, among the dozens of people crossing the lobby, I saw two beautiful women and a man pass in front of me, heading toward the front door. The women were young and stylish, English-speaking, laughing and talking over each other, directing their attention to the man sandwiched between them.
Their arms were entwined like school buddies, breaking apart when they reached the revolving door, the man hanging back to let the very attractive women go through first.
The rush I felt was miles ahead of my conscious thought. But I registered the man’s bland features, his build, the way he dressed.
He was very blond now, wearing large, black-framed eyeglasses, his posture slightly stooped.
This was exactly how Henri disguised himself. He’d told me that his disguises worked because they were so simple. He adopted a distinct way of walking or speaking, and then added a few distracting, but memorable visual cues. He became his new identity. Whatever identity he’d assumed, this much I knew.
The man with those two women was none other than Henri Benoit.
Chapter 109
I DROPPED the newspaper to the floor and followed the threesome with my eyes as the revolving door dispensed them one at a time into the street.
I headed for the main door, thinking I could see where Henri was going, buy some time to come up with a plan. But before I reached the revolving door, a clump of tourists surged in front of me, staggering and giggling and bunching up inside the blades of the door as I stood by wanting to scream, “You assholes, get out of my way!”
By the time I got outside, Henri and the two women were far ahead of me, walking along the arcade that lined the west side of the street.
They were now heading down the Rue de Castiglione and toward the Rue de Rivoli. I just caught a glimpse of them turning left when I reached the corner.
Then I saw the two pretty women standing with their heads together in front of a designer shoe store, and I saw Henri’s white-blond hair far up ahead.
As I tried to keep him in sight, he disappeared down into the Tuileries Métro station at the end of the street.
I ran across the stream of traffic, ran down the stairs to the platform, but the station is one of the Métro’s busiest, and I couldn’t see Henri.
I tried to look everywhere at once, my eyes piercing the clots of travelers weaving through the station.
And there he was, at the far end of the platform. Suddenly he turned toward me, and I froze. For one eternal minute, I felt completely vulnerable, as if I’d been illuminated with a spotlight on a black stage.
He had to see me.
I was in his direct line of sight.
But he didn’t react, and I continued to stare at him while my feet behaved as though they were glued to the cement.
Then his image seemed to shift and clarify. Now that I was looking at him straight on, I saw the length of his nose, the height of his forehead, his receding chin.
Was I this crazy?
I’d been so sure — but I was just as sure now that I’d gotten it all wrong. That I was a dumb-ass, a total jerk, a failure as a sleuth. The man I had just followed from the Ritz? He wasn’t Henri at all.
Chapter 110
I CLIMBED UP out of the Métro, remembering that I’d told Mandy I’d be back in an hour or so but had now been gone for three.
I walked back to the Hôtel Singe-Vert empty-handed, no chocolates, no flowers, no jewelry. I had nothing to show for my Ritz-to-Métro escapade except one scrap of information that could turn out to be critical.
Henri had booked a room at the Ritz.
The lobby of our small hotel was deserted, although a cloud of cigarette smoke and loud conversation floated out from the bar and into the shabby main room.
The concierge desk was closed.
I went behind the desk and grabbed my key from the hook.
I took the stairs to my room, more than anything wanting to sleep.
I knocked on the door, called Mandy’s name, and when she didn’t answer, I turned the knob, ready to tell Mandy that she had no right to be girlish and irresponsible anymore. She had to be careful for two.
I opened the door and felt instantly that something was wrong. Mandy wasn’t in bed. Was she in the bathroom? Was she okay?
I stepped into the room, calling her name, and the door slammed behind me. I swung around and tried to make sense of the impossible.
A black man was holding Mandy, his left arm crossing her chest, his right hand with a gun to her head. He was wearing latex gloves. Blue ones. I’d seen gloves exactly like those before.
My eyes went to Mandy’s face. She was gagge
d. Her eyes were wild, and she was grunting a wordless scream.
The black man grinned at me, tightened his hold on her, and pointed the gun at me.
“Amanda,” the man said. “Look who’s home? We’ve been waiting for a long time, haven’t we, sweetheart? But it’s been fun, right?”
All the fragments of information came together: the blue gloves, the familiar tone, the pale gray eyes, and the stage makeup. I wasn’t mistaken this time. I’d heard hours of his voice piped directly into my ear. It was Henri. But how had he found us here?
My mind spun in a hundred directions, all at once.
I’d gone to Paris out of fear. But now that Henri had come to my door, I wasn’t afraid anymore. I was furious, and my veins were pumping a hundred percent adrenaline, lifting-a-car-off-a-baby-carriage kind of adrenaline, the running-into-a-burning-building kind of damn-it-to-hell rush.
I whipped the .38 out of my waistband, pulled back the hammer, yelled, “Let her go.”
I guess he didn’t believe I would fire. Henri smirked at me, said, “Drop your gun, Ben. I just want to talk.”
I walked up to the maniac and put the gun’s muzzle against his forehead. He grinned, gold tooth winking, part of his latest disguise. I got off one shot at the exact moment that he kneed me in the thigh. I was sent crashing backward into a desk, the wooden legs shattering as I went down.
My first thought — had I shot Mandy? But I saw blood flowing from Henri’s arm and heard the clatter of his gun sliding across the wooden floor.
He shoved Mandy away from him, hard, and she fell on me. I rolled her off my chest, and as I tried to sit, Henri pinned me — with his foot on my wrist, looking down with contempt.
“Why couldn’t you just do your job, Ben? If you’d just done your job, we wouldn’t be having this little problem, but now I can’t trust you. I only wish I’d brought my camera.”
He leaned down, bent my fingers back, and peeled the gun from my hand. Then he aimed it — first at me, and then at Mandy.
“Now, who wants to die first?” Henri said. “Vous or vous?”
Chapter 111
EVERYTHING WENT white in front of my eyes. This was it, wasn’t it? Amanda and I were going to die. I felt Henri’s breath on my face as he screwed the muzzle of the .38 into my right eye. Mandy tried to scream through her gag.
Henri barked at her, “Shut up.”
She did.
Water filled my eyes then. Maybe it was from the pain, or the fierce regret that I’d never see Amanda again. That she would die too. That our child would never be born.
Henri fired the gun — directly into the carpet next to my ear, deafening me. Then he yanked my head and shouted into my ear.
“Write the fucking book, Ben. Go home and do your job. I’m going to call you every night in L.A., and if you don’t pick up the phone, I will find you. You know I’ll do it, and I promise you both, You won’t get a second chance.”
The gun was pulled away my face. Henri grabbed up a duffel bag and a briefcase with his good hand and arm, slammed the door on his way out. I heard his footsteps receding down the stairs.
I turned to Mandy. The gag was a pillowcase pulled across the inside of her mouth and was knotted at the back of her head. I plucked at the knot, my fingers trembling, and when she was free, I took her into my arms and rocked her back and forth, back and forth.
“Are you okay, honey? Did he hurt you?”
She was crying, saying she was fine.
“You’re sure?”
“Go,” she said. “I know you want to go after him.”
I crawled around, feeling under the spindly legs and ruffled skirts of the wall-to-wall collection of antique furniture, saying, “You know I’ve got to. He’ll still be watching us, Mandy.”
I found Henri’s Ruger under the dresser and wrapped my hand tightly around the grip. I twisted open the blood-slicked doorknob and shouted to Mandy that I’d be back soon.
Leaning heavily on the banister, I walked off the pain in my thigh as I made my way down the stairs, trying to hurry, knowing that I had to kill Henri somehow.
Chapter 112
THE SKY WAS BLACK, but the streetlights and the large and perpetually booked Hôtel du Louvre next door had just about turned night into day. The two hotels were only a few hundred yards from the Tuileries, the huge public garden outside the Louvre.
This week some kind of carnival was going on there: games, big rides, oompah music, the works. Even at this late hour, giddy tourists and folks with kids flowed out onto the sidewalk, adding their raucous laughter to the sharp shocks of fireworks and blaring car horns. It reminded me of a scene from a French movie, maybe one that I’d watched somewhere.
I followed a thin trail of blood out to the street, but it disappeared a few yards from the front door. Henri had done his disappearing act again. Had he gone into the Hôtel du Louvre to hide? Had he lucked out and caught a taxi?
I was staring through the crowds when I heard police sirens coming up the Place André Malraux.
Obviously, shots had been reported. Plus, I’d been seen running around with a gun.
I stuffed Henri’s Ruger into a potted planter outside the Hôtel du Louvre. Then I gamely limped into the lobby, sat in an overstuffed chair, and thought about how I would approach the agents de police.
Finally, I was going to have to explain Henri and everything else to the cops.
I wondered what the hell I was going to say.
Chapter 113
THE SIRENS GOT louder and louder, my shoulders and neck stiffened, and then the looping wail passed the hotel and continued on toward the Tuileries. When I was sure it was over, I reclaimed Henri’s gun, made my way back to the Singe-Verts, and climbed the stairs like an old man. I knocked on the door to my room, said, “Mandy, it’s me. I’m alone. You can open the door.”
Seconds later, she did. Her face was tear-stained, and there were bruises at the corners of her mouth from the gag. I opened my arms to her, and Mandy fell against me, sobbing like a child who might never be soothed again.
I held her, swayed with her for a long while. Then I undressed us both and helped her into bed. I shut off the overhead light, leaving on only a small boudoir lamp on the night table. I slid under the covers, and took Mandy into my arms. She pressed her face to my chest, tethered herself to my body with her arms and legs.
“Talk to me, honey,” I said. “Tell me everything.”
“He knocked on the door,” she finally said. “He said he had flowers. Is that the most simpleminded trick ever? But I believed him, Ben.”
“He said they were from me?”
“I think so. Yeah, he did.”
“I wonder — how did he know we were here? What tipped him? I don’t get it.”
“When I unlocked the door, he kicked it open and grabbed me.”
“I wish I’d killed him, Mandy.”
“I didn’t know who he was. A black man. He wrenched my arms behind my back. I couldn’t move. He said… oh, this makes me sick,” she said, crying again.
“What did he say?”
“ ‘I love you, Amanda.’ ”
I was listening to Mandy and hearing echoes at the same time. Henri had told me that he’d loved Gina. He’d loved Julia. How long would Henri have waited to prove his love to Mandy by raping her and strangling her with those blue gloves on his hands?
I whispered, “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.”
“I’m the jerk who came here, Benjy. Oh, God, how long was he here? Three hours? I’m sorry. I didn’t understand until now what those three days with him must have been like for you.”
She started crying again, and I hushed her, told her over and over that everything would be all right.
“Don’t take this the wrong way,” she said, her voice ragged and strained. “But what makes you so sure?”
I got out of bed, opened my laptop, and booked two morning flights back to the States.
Chapter 114
IT W
AS WELL after midnight, and I was still pacing the room. I took some Tylenol, got back under the covers with Amanda, but I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t even shut my eyes for more than a few seconds.
The TV was small and old, but I turned it on and found CNN.
I watched the headline news, bolted upright when the talking head said, “Police have no suspects in the murder of Gina Prazzi, heiress to the Prazzi shipping fortune. She was found murdered in a room at the exclusive French resort Château de Mirambeau.”
When Gina Prazzi’s face came on the screen, I felt as though I knew her intimately. I’d watched her pass in front of the camera in the hotel room, not knowing that her life was about to end.
I said, “Mandy, Mandy,” shook her arm. But she turned away, settled even more deeply into the feather bed and sleep.
I watched the police captain brief the press on TV, his speech translated and recapped for those just tuning in. Ms. Prazzi had checked into the Château de Mirambeau alone. The housekeepers believed that two people stayed in the room, but no other guest was seen. The police were not releasing any further information about the murder at this time.
That was enough for me. I knew the full story, but what I hadn’t known was that Gina Prazzi was a real name, not an alias.
What other lies had Henri told me? For what possible reason? Why had he lied — in order to tell me the truth?
I stared at the TV screen as the anchor said, “In the Netherlands, a young woman was found murdered this morning in Amsterdam. What brings this tragedy to the attention of international criminalists is that elements of this girl’s death are similar to elements of the murders of the two young women in Barbados, and also to the famous American swimsuit models who were murdered this spring in Hawaii.”
I dialed up the volume as the faces came on the screen: Sara Russo, Wendy Emerson, Kim McDaniels, and Julia Winkler, and now another face, a young woman whose name was Mieke Helsloot.