All Cry Chaos (36 page)

    That was true. They met at a juried exhibition in Paris in which she had exhibited and won a first prize. She was nowhere in sight when he approached her work—a wood-panel miniature that suggested a female nude or, possibly, a coconut palm downed in a storm. "What do you think?" a voice inquired from behind.

    "I'm not sure," he answered, eyes still on the miniature. "I believe I like it, though I couldn't tell you why. Is it for sale?" He turned and was startled by the directness of her gaze. Her hair was rolled into a tight bun through which she had stuck a brush. Her hands were smudged with that morning's palette, and she smelled of turpentine.

    "It's not for sale," she said. "But I'll give it to you."

    Which led to dinner, which in time led to her apartment.

    It was this history of Claire's leaving him and returning that gave Poincaré hope she would emerge from her present sorrows. When he woke, he found the workspace as she had left it months before: on an easel sat an unfinished urban scene, though he could not be sure. He thought he recognized city lights in a swath of reds and yellows. If he did not understand her art, exactly, he appreciated that others did. Claire had secured gallery representation in Paris, Milan, New York, Los Angeles, and Buenos Aires. She crated and sent off what she finished, and her agents sold what she sent. He came to regard her canvases as a series of moods made visual, much in the way melodies can evoke feeling.

    All these years later, Poincaré marveled at how Etienne had gotten the best of Claire: her fearlessness, for one, and her genius for thinking both spatially and in colors. He sat on the corner of the bed and pulled her pillow close, but the scent of her was gone. He circled the loft, trailing his hands across rolled tubes of paint and the contraption she used to stretch her canvases. He sorted through the junk she used as props. But try as he might, Poincaré could not summon Claire from any of it. The studio was no longer a living space.

    As he prepared to leave, he noticed leaning against a wall by the door a single crate addressed to her agent in New York. Poincaré knew what it was, the portrait she had teased him about months ago—the very idea of which he found mortifying. In the weeks he had spent in Lyon getting on her nerves by securing the house, she had asked several times if he would visit the studio and offer an opinion. "Aren't you curious to know how I see you?" she asked.

    "I am," he said. "But I also know that I'll see the piece and ask you not to sell it. You'll accuse me of meddling, which would be true, and we'll fight. So, no, I'd rather not."

    She had crated the painting, and he took a hammer claw and pulled the nails along the top edge, then turned the crate upside down, careful to keep his eyes averted. When Poincaré stepped to the middle of the room and looked, he grabbed a chair to steady himself; for Claire, who had said, "Believe me—it's abstract enough that no one will recognize you," had lied spectacularly. She had long disparaged art as photograph. He had never known her to render a close likeness of a bowl of fruit or a country lane, let alone a person. Yet here he was looking at his wiser, more generous self, wearing work clothes with a pruning shears in hand, seated on an upended box on the terrace at Fonroque, the oak tree behind and beyond that the vineyards. The hair was thin and graying; the musculature of his face was yielding to gravity. She was a faithful, pitiless recorder, which was precisely what plucked his heart: for though she showed a man who had climbed a steep hill in life and was easily a stride or two over its crest, she also showed someone who had gained by that effort. About the eyes and the mouth he saw a kindness at odds with the demands of brutalizing work. In the tilt of the head and the not-quite-resolute set of the jaw he recognized a dismay at how cruel the world could be. And in the strong hand that gripped the shears, he saw respect for someone who would answer that cruelty. Mostly what Poincaré saw was the artist's affection for her subject. He came upon the canvas like a widower who discovers the tenderest of letters from his beloved, never sent. The portrait desolated him.

Poincaré placed the Tyvek envelope on a desk before Hubert Levenger, who lifted the package to feel its heft. "Smaller than a breadbox, larger than a Rolex. A present—you shouldn't have."

    "A hard drive, Hubert—from an IBM laptop. There's a cable in there, too."

    "What's on it?"

    "A wall of numbers: eight million, give or take, single-spaced at five columns per screen. I'm hoping you can make some sense of it— tell me what I have. There's no other information on the drive that I could see, but maybe you can confirm that, too."

    "You have paperwork for this, I assume."

    He was an ascetic-looking man who neither wore nor consumed animal-derived products—the expression of a politics that Poincaré had learned early on not to discuss; for a single question usually led to long discourses and pamphlets delivered to the home. Otherwise, Poincaré had found Levenger to be an affable, dependable colleague. "In fact, the drive came into my possession without paperwork. Sorry."

    "I should know where this came from, Henri."

    "From an ongoing investigation."

    Levenger screwed up an eye. "Ludovici's bad habits rubbing off on you? Next you're going to say that if anyone asks, I never saw this."

    "Suit yourself." Poincaré handed him a slip of paper. "The password. Remember to type the uppercase
M
and the period. . . . Nice," he said, straightening one of Levenger's photos. "How many grandchildren now?"

    "Eight. The little one—with the curls—just turned five. You should hear her sing 'La Marseillaise.' She could melt the Wilkins Ice Shelf if global warming doesn't do it first." Levenger read the password aloud, more as a question than a statement: "There must be fifty characters here. The national treasury doesn't use passwords this long."

    Poincaré shrugged. "What do I know?"

    "More than you're saying. But we'll keep that between you and your Confessor. Do you suppose it's true?"

    "What's that?"

    "About mathematics and different things."

    Poincaré glanced at his watch. "Got to run, Hubert—to a meeting with the new director. I believe I'm about to retire. . . . And yes," he said, halfway out the door. "I do, for what it's worth."

"
I
'M
VERY
glad to meet you, Inspector!"

    
An American this time
, he thought, appraising his eighth Executive Director of Police Services. After the first was sacked for insubordination—having moved too aggressively to catch an art thief who turned out to be the press attaché at the Czech Embassy, which caused considerable embarrassment—Poincaré learned not to grow too fond of his bosses. The job was at least half political, and directors spent their days on phones and along corridors fighting two ends against a largely unsatisfying middle. There were the politically cautious who, out of deference to Interpol's international charter, squelched inquiries for fear of upsetting member nations. These were the know-nothings who bowed to autocrats crying 'internal affairs' whenever an inquiry threatened to expose corruption or abuses of power. Then there were the law enforcement professionals, the cops, who pushed hard for results in the field. There could be no serving both masters, so directors came and went. On occasion some were fired for cause, as Monforte had been, not politics; and it was in response to Monforte's perceived incompetence that Felix Robinson was hired: a former bureau head in Washington, famous for taking a statistical approach to crime—setting priorities in the field as if he were playing Sudoku.

    Poincaré expected an automaton but, on crossing the freshly laid carpet of what he continued to think of as Albert Monforte's office, found the director's desk to be reassuringly messy. Robinson apparently cared little for appearances, an impression strengthened by the coffee stain on his tie and a shirt that had been laundered well beyond its useful life. Poincaré extended a hand. "Sir, I've read the secretary general's letter on your qualifications. We're all impressed. Welcome to Interpol."

    "Felix, please."

    "Well, then. It's my pleasure. Henri."

    They sat on either side of Monforte's old desk.

    "I've read your file, Inspector. Bravo! Most agents burn out after fifteen or twenty years. What's your secret?"

    Poincaré observed him observing the courtesies. "I'm surrounded by good people, Felix—they keep me sharp."

    "Like Serge Laurent?"

    "Yes, like Serge."

    The director folded his hands and leaned forward. "You'll find me to be very direct, Henri. I'm aware that you and he are close. As you know, I'm sure, he's been investigating the Soldiers of Rapture— who'd be nothing but a boil on our collective ass if it weren't for what he's calling their schismatic cells. I have reason to believe Laurent is not healthy. Do you have an opinion?"

    It was a simple question with a thousand trapdoor answers. Poincaré was careful not to deny having just seen Serge. "I do have an opinion," he said. "Laurent is the finest agent I know. He'll pull himself from the field when he thinks he can't do the work."

    Robinson nodded. "We can add loyalty to your list of virtues. I know you were with him in Las Vegas."

    "He reported this?"

    "No."

    Robinson let that settle in for a moment as Poincaré formed a clearer picture of the man before him. "The Soldiers of Rapture," continued the director, "with their al Qaeda-like network are so decentralized that the best we're able to do is disrupt single actions. Which we've done. Just this past week there was a person slated for execution in Lucerne. Inspector Laurent got this information to us in a timely fashion—the target was a woman working in the clean energy field, and we eliminated the cell. Which is well and good, of course, but operations designed to save individuals drain our limited resources. I've been hired to move Interpol in a more focused, costefficient direction with bigger results. You've been around for nearly three decades. I don't believe we can afford any longer to rescue individuals. What do you think?"

    Again, Robinson folded his hands and waited.

    What Poincaré thought was that the new director likely earned his stripes setting landmines and watching how others reacted when they stepped on one. What he said was, "It's always worth saving a life. I don't envy anyone in your position having to make those calls."

    The director nodded. "In Texas we have an expression,
Cut the
crap
. In your new role, I'll be counting on you to speak plainly. Straight talk, please."

    "My new role," said Poincaré. "Ludovici mentioned something about this."

    "That's right. I want you to become supervising agent for all field operations, a post I'm just creating. A large responsibility. The position is strategic, not operational. I want you to upgrade the general quality of thinking in the field, the investigative IQ if you will. You're to be a mentor and sounding board to our agents. Beyond that, you'll get to define the job. There's no one who knows strategy better or who has better instincts, and I want you out of the field, effective immediately, to take on this work."

    "I'm flattered," said Poincaré.

    "I don't flatter people," said the director. "I need help."

    "I suppose I'd be sitting behind a desk here in Lyon?"

    "Correct. But there's no reason you couldn't do this work from Fonroque. I understand you own a vineyard. You can send me some wine—though I've been advised to have it tested for arsenic."

    Poincaré smiled. "Straight talk, Felix. What if I decline?"

    "It will play out as follows," said Robinson. "By the end of the day, you're to submit your Interpol credentials and firearms to the clerk on the first floor. They have a list downstairs of everything in your locker, so I'm sure you'll be scrupulous. If you accept the position, which I hope you will, we'll issue an amended credential giving you the highest security clearance in this building, equivalent to my own. But beyond Interpol headquarters, your authority ends. You are no longer a field agent, Henri. If you decline, then we'll have a watch for you and a pension. Maybe a farewell party with stale cake. You know the drill."

    Poincaré knew the drill.

    "I've asked Paolo Ludovici to stand by. You'll debrief him on the ammonium perchlorate investigation and turn over all your case notes. Do you understand?"

    "And you're taking this action now because—"

    "Because as far as work in the field is concerned, I believe you've lost your perspective. That business in The Hague, when you attended the trial of the Bosnian . . .
that
was a mistake. The sergeant-at-arms reported admitting you to the courtroom wearing a firearm. To the trial of a man who had assaulted your family? I don't believe you were exercising optimal judgment at that moment, and an error on your part would have reflected badly on Interpol. The report took a few weeks to find my desk, but had I known I would have pulled you from the field immediately. So you've been living on borrowed time, though neither of us knew it."

    Poincaré liked Robinson. Nothing he said had struck a false note, and the man would do Interpol a world of good. He said: "I'm moved by your confidence in me, Felix."

    "Inspector, I'm trying to give you a soft landing here. I need the help, and I will fill this position with or without you. Believe me, if I wanted you gone, I'd simply force your retirement. So take it or leave it, as we say in America. Think this over. In the meantime, your Interpol privileges are suspended as of five o'clock. We'll maintain your computer access to our servers as a courtesy—so you can monitor Ludovici's progress on the case. He's in his office, waiting for your files." Robinson walked around his desk. "From what I've read and all I've heard, Henri, you're too valuable for us to let you get killed out there because you're distracted. Whether or not you accept the new position, you're done with field work. And it's not that I don't understand the distraction. What happened to your family is unspeakable. And to whatever extent Interpol failed you in its protection, we are reviewing and correcting procedures—an effort I am personally overseeing. But in the meantime, I will not add to the misery by seeing you killed. Good day, Inspector."