Babayaga: A Novel (15 page)

“So we are missing a pair of policemen, a police car, and a tongue,” concluded the officer, summing up his report.

Superintendent Maroc said nothing. One of the missing policemen, the smug and judgmental Vidot, had always been a constant pain, and in any other circumstance Maroc would have been happy to see him gone. The other, Bemm, was unknown to the superintendent. Maroc had only recently been appointed to the station, did not intend on staying long in the position, and had very little interest in getting to know any of the men. The only reason he had taken any note of Vidot was because the man was so perfectly insufferable.

“Should we inform the families?” asked the officer.

Maroc shook his head. “No, not yet. Call tomorrow and tell them that Vidot and Bemm are off on an important undercover assignment. Maybe they’ll turn up. I don’t want any trouble or newspaper coverage on this.”

Over a year ago, Maroc’s benefactor, Papon, had been promoted to prefect of police and had promised to find a prominent position for Maroc in the customs section, where opportunities for furtive profit abounded. No suitable position had been available at the time, so Maroc had been temporarily assigned this job, while Papon arranged for personnel to be reshuffled. Maroc knew he had to be reasonably patient, all he had wanted was peace and quiet in the interim, and for the first few months he had gotten his wish: the normal parade of pickpockets, petty burglars, counterfeit rings, and abusive spouses (sometimes fatally so—wives were occasionally beaten and strangled, just as husbands occasionally ran into cooking knives) had done little to disturb the station’s smooth operation.

But now, suddenly, a series of bizarre and inexplicable events had begun erupting all over Paris. On the same night that a machine gun had been fired out of a car at Senator Mitterrand, a few blocks away a man was found hanging dead on the spikes above rue Rataud. The first story had, fortunately, overshadowed the second, and while the Mitterrand case proceeded to quickly unravel into a farce (the politician seemingly set up his own assassination attempt in a foolish ploy to gain popular sympathy), the second case had only grown more complex. The loss of a patrol car along with two of the policemen who had been investigating the Leon Vallet murder was not a story that could be easily kept under wraps, and when it did come to light it would certainly not reflect well on the superintendent.

Through the open doorway, Maroc stared down the empty hall, thinking that while he had never enjoyed the sight of the self-righteous Vidot, with his sarcastic, all-knowing little grin, he sincerely hoped for nothing more than to see the man come sailing into his office now, smug smile and all. But looking at his watch and realizing he would not be getting home to bed until at least three, he suspected the chance of such a simple solution was small. His gut told him that solving this would be drawn out and complicated, and, he reflected with a heavy sigh, there was rarely any profit in complications.

“Tomorrow morning, go through the shopkeeper’s inventory,” Maroc said, returning his attention to the officer. “See if anything is missing. And tell Gilbert down in the morgue to keep both his and the corpse’s mouth shut. At this point, any loose tongues will only confuse things.”

II

“Surrealism!” shouted Guizot.

Will had returned from lunch to find his client bouncing up and down in his office waiting for him. Hanging his hat and coat up behind the door, Will sat down at his desk. “
Pardonnez-moi, Monsieur Guizot
. I’m sorry to have kept you waiting. I didn’t know we had an appointment.”

“We did not!” His client grinned and opened his arms as if ready for a hug. “I had a vision, Will! A magnificent bolt of illuminating lightning! I was smacked right in the brainpan just as you were smacked in that eye of yours! Ha ha. Really, though, what happened to your poor face? An angry husband?”

Will blushed, embarrassed. He had not come up with a good story for how he got his bruise. He was about to attempt one when, over Guizot’s shoulder, he saw Brandon striding down the hallway. He had not expected the American until later, but he figured he might as well set things straight now. Thinking it over the night before, Will had decided that, despite all their drama, Oliver and his friends were merely silly and ridiculous creatures. There was nothing here that could not be managed. The knife, the Hoffmann-La Roche file, and all the other nonsense would get sorted as soon as Will had a chance to sit down with Brandon and lay it all out. All he had to do now was politely steer Guizot out of his office so that he could talk with his American friend.

“You know, Guizot, I hate to tell you this, but another client of mine has just arrived for a meeting. One that was actually scheduled.”

Guizot looked out the window and saw Brandon. “Let him wait!” he said, eagerly rubbing his hands together. “I need to tell you about this. Two minutes is all I ask, simply listen. It is a story about my wife. My wife, you see, is far more sophisticated than me and she likes to spend all our money on cultured things. First-edition books, lithographs, etchings, rare photographic prints, any bullshit that seems important, she buys it up. So guess what she comes home with last week?”

Will shook his head. “I have no idea.”

“She comes home from the gallery with a painting of a giant horse’s ass sticking out of a wall. Unbelievable, right?”

“I never would have guessed it.”

“Absolutely. I immediately hate this thing. I tell her this, I say, ‘What is this absurdity? This is insane!’ She says to me, ‘It is not insane. It is Surrealism.’ I tell her to get rid of it. She says no. I insist. She cries, a lot, but in the end she returns the painting and gets me my money back.”

Will was only partly listening. He looked out past Guizot again and saw two men he did not recognize enter the office hall. They shook hands with Brandon and the three waited together.

“Stop being so distracted. I am your client, look at me, Will.”

“I apologize, you have my full attention.” He could not help smiling at Guizot’s serious toue.

“Okay. Now, here is the incredible part,” Guizot continued. “Two nights ago I dreamt about this painting. I thought nothing of it. But then, last night, I had a dream about it again! This damn horse’s ass, I can’t get it out of my head!”

“Maybe you feel guilty for making your wife return it.”

“What are you, my psychiatrist? To hell with my wife. The point is, this Surrealism, it interrupts the way you think. It puts nonsense into your mind and disrupts your consciousness, twisting reality around. And this, Will, this is what my advertising must do! So, I want you to help me make an advertisement that is absolutely surreal, absurd, utterly insane, one that threatens to make my customers all go absolutely mad. That is what I want! Do you understand?”

Looking at the wild-eyed man jumping around before him, Will wondered if, despite the fact that Guizot himself was acting nuts, there could be the kernel of an idea here. But Will knew his client, and he knew he would be back in the office in two days’ time with a completely different harebrained scheme. The important thing he had to do right now was wrap up this meeting and go talk with Brandon. “I understand, I get it, I will start researching this approach right away,” Will said, escorting Guizot to the door. “Maybe check in with me a couple of days from now.”

“Wait—” Guizot began to protest, but Will cut him off.

“I like your idea. Intriguing. But I have to wrap this up, as I told you, I have a client meeting.” He gestured toward Brandon and the other two, whom his secretary was now guiding toward a conference room.

“Huh.” Guizot sniffed the air toward Brandon. “What do you sell for those guys?”

“Pharmaceuticals,” Will said, surprised to have come up with a lie so fast.

“Ah, I see,” said Guizot. “Drug peddlers. I don’t trust any of them.”

“Well, they’re certainly handy when you have a hangover. Listen, check in with me on Wednesday. I’ll have some progress for you by then.” He patted Guizot on the back and sent him off down the hallway. Then he went back to his desk, snatched up the Bayer file, and went to meet Brandon and his friends in the conference room.

Entering the room, Will looked at them seated around the table. He immediately took it as a bad sign that they had not removed their hats.

“Will, this is Mike Mitchell and Caleb White,” Brandon said. “I asked them to join me here today, hope you don’t mind.”

“Sure. No problem. Can I get you guys anything? Coffee?” Will said, sitting down.

“It’s fine, your girl is getting some for us,” said Brandon.

Will set the file on the desk. “Well, I have the Bayer research right here for you but there are a few things I wanted to talk about first,” Will said, wondering where exactly he was going to begin. When he met Oliver at the party? The scene in the back room at the bar? Or when Boris hit him with the phone book?

“Sorry, whatever you got is gonna have to wait,” said Brandon, reaching into his briefcase and pulling out a thick envelope, which he tossed onto the table in front of Will. Picking it up, Will intuitively knew what it contained even before he opened it.

Sure enough, there was the Hoffmann-La Roche file, though not the report itself, only low-quality photographs of its contents. Many of the pictures were blurred, others captured only part of a page—whoever had snapped them had been in a rush. Will briefly considered blurting out some attempt at an explanation, but a voice in his head told him to wait, there was more bad news coming.

“So what is this about?” he asked.

“Well, we were hoping you could clarify that for us.” Brandon’s tone was different, less like the arrogant collegial jock that Will had known for so long and more like a stern border patrol agent, cold and procedural. “Our people recognized it right away as one of your company’s reports, the format is identical, the language is similar. Even without any letterhead, that is easy enough to prove. Now the interesting thing is where we found it. An agent of ours managed to snap these photographs this morning when the file was being shuffled through the Soviet embassy.”

“The Soviet—?” Will was confused.

“Yes,” said Brandon. “Seems like the Reds have got their eyes and ears working here in your shop as well.”

Will let it sink in. He could not believe it. He had been both beaten and betrayed. Why had he assumed that Oliver was working on his side? The arch, upper-class accent had no doubt misled him; it would never have occurred to him that someone as clearly aristocratic and moneyed as Oliver would support the Communists. Not much about that man made any sense, but still it seemed like there had to be another explanation.

Will quickly ran through his options, for at the moment the idea of coming clean with the truth seemed very unwise. He was apparently guilty of handing over private documents to a Soviet agent. It probably would not matter that he had been blackmailed into it. After all, a great number of history’s spies had undoubtedly begun as the unfortunate victims of set-ups and extortion, but the faultless roots of their errors did not matter much to the firing squad. Will realized he should have gone to Brandon immediately, he could plainly see that, in the same way that he could also see, painfully, that it was absolutely too late now. It didn’t matter, either, that the files were, for the most part, strategically useless documents; the enemy was the enemy, and he had, somewhat inadvertently, but certainly not inadvertently enough, provided the enemy with information. He needed time, and he needed to find Oliver. There had to be an explanation. “Of course, I want to help in any way I can. What are your next steps?”

“Well, right now I honestly don’t have time to work on this. I’ve got some bigger things going on. But the agency is concerned about it, so I’d like to hand the case over to Mitchell and White here to sort out. If you could get them copies of your agency’s personnel files, they’ll sniff out where your possible leaks might be,” said Brandon. “Of course, we can’t arrest anyone ourselves, and bringing the French authorities into it probably wouldn’t be smart. But once the suspects are identified, we can take the appropriate action.”

“I see,” said Will, nodding along. “Okay, no problem, I’ll talk to personnel and have copies of the files for your guys the day after tomorrow. Wednesday afternoon at the latest. But I really don’t think you’re gonna find anyone of interest here. It is only an advertising agency, after all, it’s not exactly thick with espionage.”

Brandon grinned and got up. “Well, it’s thick enough. The file came out of this office. That’s all we know now. We’ll figure out the rest. Thanks for your cooperation.” He started to leave, and then stopped. “Oh, what was it you wanted to discuss?”

Will smiled and shook his head. “Doesn’t matter, it can wait. Don’t forget this.” He slid the Bayer file across the desk.

“Right.” Brandon said, picking it up. “Thanks again. We’ll be in touch.” He headed out, followed by his two silent colleagues, whose names Will had already forgotten.

Sitting there, Will’s mind went back to Guizot, his wife, and the story of the painting. He felt like he was the horse’s ass sticking out from the wall. But it did not feel terribly surreal, it felt all too real.

III

The ugly old woman had replaced Madame Vertan. She was quite different from the cold and efficient Madame Vertan, who had never said a word but only stared at the patients as she worked with a look of stoic judgment. This new woman never stopped talking, mostly to herself, as she changed bedpans, laid out linens and towels, and sloshed the mop bucket about. At first Noelle wondered if she was another one of the hospital’s patients, because she seemed a bit loopy, raw and rude, even slightly frightening. But by the second day of having her around, Noelle realized the old woman was utterly harmless, even entertaining.

“Bah, all this piss smells like poison,” the old woman said, dumping the bedpan’s contents into a bucket. “It’s the pills they stuff you with and the lousy food. It’s a wonder you’re not stone dead with the swill they make you choke down.” Another time, as she was mopping the hall, she said, “What a bird knows, she flies south with. What a pig knows, dies in his sty. Ha ha.” Later that afternoon, the old woman, down on her knees with the scrub brush, seemed almost lost in a reverie, going back and forth in muttering conversation with herself: “The prince’s winter chalet? Remember? No, where? Prussia, you fool. Yes, yes, he fed us peacock with pickled radishes and sherry wine, there was stuffed goose and marrow, pigs’ cheeks and oysters and abalone. Ha, that was a meal…”