Kill Me If You Can (12 page)

Marta Krall checked
her Breitling Starliner and rang the doorbell to Leonard Karns’s apartment. One thirty-three in the afternoon. The building was drab, dilapidated, and depressingly quiet. Karns buzzed her in, and she took the stairs to apartment B4.

A short, fat lump in gray sweatpants and an olive-drab T-shirt that said
ART IS RESISTANCE
stood in the doorway.

“You Detective Krall?” he asked.

She smiled and nodded. Then she pointed to her throat and whispered, “Laryngitis.” She liked acting and had unsuccessfully attempted a transition from modeling to movies back in Germany.

“That sucks,” he said. “But no problem. I know what you’re here to find out.”

Marta smiled again.
Good boy.

She stepped into the apartment, and he shut the door. It was stuffy and smelled of burnt coffee. There was art all over the walls. Undoubtedly his. She stopped to look at one of the paintings and gave him a big thumbs-up.

“It’s called
Improbabilities Number Six,
” he said.

“Nice,” she whispered. It was true. She genuinely liked
Improbabilities Number 6.
It was powerful, meticulous, urban chic—nothing like the loser who painted it.

Marta tapped her hand to her heart to show how much she loved it. Karns’s eyes settled on her chest as he mumbled a shy thank-you.

Marta took the picture of the man she was trying to find and handed it to Karns.

“You’re going to give me the paperwork for the reward, right?” he said.

She waved him off with an
of course I will
gesture, and sat down on the sofa. She pulled her skirt up a little so he could get a good look at her legs. She took out a pad and pencil and sat waiting for him to speak.

“The guy you’re looking for is Matthew Bannon,” Karns said. “He’s in one of my classes at Parsons. Since you like my work, you’d hate his. He’s all technique. But he’s dead inside. No originality.”

Marta nodded and tried to communicate that she understood this idiot.

“Who did he rob, anyway?” Karns said.

Marta turned to a clean page on her pad and wrote
Where can I find him?

“Believe it or not, he’s been shacking up with the professor of our Group Critique class. Her name is Katherine Sanborne. She’s an asshole, just like he is. Talk about a conflict of mediocrity.”

He watched her write it down. “No, that’s not how she spells it,” he said.

He took the pad and wrote Katherine Sanborne in clear block letters. Marta wrote the words
Where is she
above the name and added a question mark after it.

“Just a sec,” Karns said. He scrambled over to his desk, opened a center drawer, and pulled out a packet of papers that were held together by two brass brads.

“This is the faculty directory,” he explained. “They don’t exactly give it out to students. I happened to get my hands on a copy. You never know when you might want to get in touch with one of your professors.”

Or stalk her.
Marta gave him another thumbs-up for his ingenuity.

He opened it to Katherine’s name in the directory. There were penciled doodles all around it. Karns had obviously spent time staring at it. Below Sanborne’s name were her address, home phone, cell phone, and e-mail. That was all Marta needed.

“And you think that zis Sanborne woman will be wiz Bannon?” Marta said loud and clear.

“Definitely,” Karns said. “Hey, how did you get your voice back like that?”

“I
sink
it’s a miracle,” Marta said.

Karns looked totally confused. “Are you German?” he said.

“What’s the difference?” Marta said as she crossed her legs like sharp scissors.

He never even saw the Glock. He was staring at Marta’s thighs, lightly licking his lips, as she pulled the trigger and blew most of his head off.

A few minutes later, Marta Krall casually walked down the steps and checked her watch as she left the building. She’d taken something to remember Leonard Karns by.
Improbabilities Number 6.

Like a lot
of young women who move to Manhattan, Katherine Sanborne couldn’t afford to live in a building with a doorman. So she invested in three heavy-duty locks for her front door. And none for her windows. As she had said to her concerned parents, “Who’s going to climb five stories up the side of the building? Spider-Man?”

Marta Krall didn’t have to climb up. She took the elevator to the roof, rappelled ten feet down, and went through the unlocked window. It took less than thirty seconds.

The apartment looked like it had been hit by Hurricane Katherine. Dresser drawers were open, and there were piles of clean clothes on the bed and the floor. Katherine had obviously packed and left in a hurry.

Marta was familiar with the scenario. Her target was on the run and he had invited his girlfriend to run with him.

But where were they going?

The first clue lay on Katherine’s four-by-five-foot dining room table: a red ribbon and a handful of postcards with pictures of the Eiffel Tower, the Arc de Triomphe, and other Paris landmarks.

There was also a bottle of French wine on the table.

Instinctively, Marta opened the refrigerator. It was single-girl-in-the-city sparse. But there, alongside the nonfat yogurt and the Coke Zero, were two baguettes and a chunk of creamy-rich 60-percent-butterfat Brie.

All part of Bannon’s romantic invitation, Marta decided.

Katherine’s computer was sitting on her desk. Marta booted it up. No password required, because, once again, the prevailing thought process was
I don’t have anything worth stealing, and even if I did, how could anyone get into my apartment?

Marta opened Katherine’s e-mail in-box. The last message was from Beth Sanborne.

Marta checked the sent mail. Katherine’s response had the flight details, and she’d followed up with
Don’t know the hotel yet. Will text you from Paris.

She shut down the computer and called Etienne Gravois at Interpol.

“This Matthew Bannon you found for me is on his way to Paris,” she said. “He’s traveling with another American, Katherine Sanborne. They should have landed at Orly the day before yesterday. I need a confirmation.”

“Hold on,” Gravois said. Twenty seconds later he was back. “They cleared passport control Saturday, no problem. He’s a student. Should they have flagged him?”

“No, he’s not a terrorist,” Marta said. “Just a small nuisance I have to deal with.”

“Yes,” Gravois said. “I know how efficient you can be with nuisances.”

“And don’t ever forget it,” Krall said. “Where are they staying?”

“The Bac Saint-Germain.”

“Is that a decent hotel?”

“It’s not the George Cinq, but it’s clean and it’s in the Quartier Saint-Germain-des-Prés, which is very vibrant, very artsy. It’s quite nice.”

“Good,” Marta said. “I’d hate to stay in a dump.”

Marta was hungry.
She softened the bread and cheese in Katherine’s microwave, found a corkscrew for the wine, and ate a late lunch. While she was eating, she called Chukov.

“I know who has your diamonds and where they are,” she said.

“Who? Where?” Chukov made no attempt to hide his anxiety.

“A man named Matthew Bannon has them. He’s in Paris.”

“Paris?”

“Yes, he and his girlfriend are on the run,” Marta said. “But he has no idea I’m running after him. I’ll get a flight tonight and be there tomorrow.”

“Fly coach,” Chukov said.

“Marta Krall doesn’t travel in coach.”

“All right, all right, but don’t stay at some thousand-dollar-a-night hotel. This whole thing has cost us a fortune already.”

“Relax,” she said, enjoying listening to him whine about a few dollars when there were millions at stake. “I’ll be staying in the same hotel as Bannon and his lady friend, in the Quartier Saint-Germain-des-Prés. And despite the fact that I’ve been told it’s very vibrant and very artsy, I won’t be staying long.”

“What’s the name of the hotel?” Chukov said.

“Why do you ask? Are you going to send champagne to my room? Or are you planning to call your friend the Ghost to back me up?”

“I am not calling the Ghost,” Chukov said, trying to sound indignant at the suggestion. “I told you I want you to kill the Ghost. As far as I’m concerned, we still have an agreement. Unless you’ve decided to back out.”

“Not at all,” Marta said. “But information has a way of leaking, and if I tell you where I’m staying, the Ghost might find me before I find him. I’ll call you from Paris,” she said and ended the call.

Marta left Katherine’s apartment through the front door.

Chukov immediately called the Ghost. “The man you’re looking for is named Matthew Bannon. He and his girlfriend are in Paris. Their hotel is somewhere in the Quartier Saint-Germain-des-Prés. Can you find him?”

“Yes.”

“I hope so,” Chukov said. “So far it looks like I’m the one doing all the work.”

He hung up. The noose was tightening around the neck of the young man who had his diamonds. And now Chukov had two assassins competing to track him down. Once he had the diamonds back, he’d be happy to pay Marta Krall for killing the Ghost.

He smiled to himself.
In an ideal world,
he thought,
they would kill each other.

Katherine was sitting
up in bed when I got back to the room.

“
Bonjour,
sleepyhead,” I said as I sat down beside her.

She was wearing a pale pink nightshirt made of the softest, silkiest cotton I ever touched. The neckline had a tiny little bow in the center, totally nonfunctional but definitely adorable.

I gave her a quick kiss.

“
Bonjour
yourself,” she said. “It’s way too early in the morning to be this chipper. What have you been up to?”

“I woke up at six, went for a walk, grabbed some coffee, and then had a long, serious talk with the concierge.”

“About what?”

“Dinner. I had him make us a reservation at a nice little restaurant he recommended. It’s called Antico Martini.”

“It sounds Italian.”

“It should,” I said. “It’s in Venice.”

“Venice? Italy? We’re going to Venice for dinner?”

“That would be crazy,” I said. “So I had the concierge book us a hotel for a couple of nights.”

“But…but…” She was dumbfounded, and I hated to admit it, but I was having fun dumbfounding her. “But we just got here.”

“Hey, I’m feeling adventurous. We’ve already made love in one romantic city. Let’s do it again in another.”

“Just like that?” she said.

“Why not?” I said. “Didn’t we leave New York
just like that?
Come on, our flight leaves at ten fifteen.”

I got up, took my bag out of the closet, and started packing.

“I can’t believe it,” she said. She grabbed a pillow and threw it at me. “You are not only drop-dead amazing to look at, fantastic in bed, and wildly spontaneous, but you are also ridiculously romantic. Who cares if you’re going to be a poor struggling artist all your life?”

“Who cares?” I said. “I care.” I threw the pillow back at her.

She hugged the pillow to her chest. “I love you,” she said.

“You talking to me or the pillow?”

“Our plane leaves at ten fifteen?” she said.

“Yup.”

She looked at her watch. “It’s only seven oh five, and I’m a real fast packer.”

She lifted the pink nightshirt up over her head, tossed it on the floor, and slipped under the covers.

“I love you,” she repeated. “And I’m not talking to the pillow.”

Marta Krall caught
the 7 p.m. Delta flight out of JFK. She had only one small suitcase, and despite the fact that there was plenty of room in first class to bring it on board, she checked it.

She touched down at Charles de Gaulle airport at 8:45 the next morning and went to the baggage carousel, where she was reunited with her bag.

She cleared customs, then found the nearest ladies’ room. She locked the stall door, sat on the toilet, and opened her bag. Her hair dryer was in the black drawstring case, exactly as she had packed it.

It wasn’t a working dryer. It was built for her by a mold maker in Holland. She used a paper clip to push a recessed button on the grip. The dryer popped open. Inside were the pieces of her Glock, each one held in place by a steel clasp.

It took only three minutes to assemble the gun.

Forty minutes later, she was in the lobby of the Hotel Bac Saint-Germain.

The front desk clerk was young, slender, and extremely beleaguered.

“No, madame. No one else has complained about the water pressure,” she told the guest on the other end of the phone. Her voice was calm, but her body language said otherwise. “Of course. I’ll send the engineer back to your room immediately. Yes. I know. Room three one four.
Merci.
”

She hung up and smiled at Marta. “
Bonjour, madame.
May I help you?”

“I’d like a room,” Marta said. “Preferably on the same floor as my friends Matthew Bannon and Katherine Sanborne.”

The clerk’s long bloodred fingernails clicked lightly on her keyboard. “I’m afraid you just missed them,” she said.

“Out sightseeing, I’m sure,” Marta said. “Do you happen to know when they’ll be back?”

“They’re not expected back. They checked out this morning.”

Marta stood at the front desk, cool and composed on the outside, boiling over on the inside.

“How strange,” she said calmly. “I guess I can FedEx the paperwork I was going to discuss with them. Did they leave the address of their next stop?”

“No, but I saw Monsieur Bannon talking with the concierge a couple of hours ago. He might be able to help you.”

The front desk phone rang, and after checking the caller ID, the clerk turned back to Marta. “Now, what size room are you looking for? They
all
have excellent water pressure.”

“You’re busy,” Marta said. “Why don’t you deal with room three fourteen, and I’ll see if the concierge knows where to find my friends.”

Marta walked across the lobby as the front desk clerk reluctantly picked up the phone.

The concierge was tall and trim and had thick, dark hair that was slicked back. He wore a well-tailored gray uniform with black piping and two crossed gold keys—the
clefs d’or
—on each lapel. He was currently engaged with a Japanese couple, and the language barrier made the slow communication process painful to watch.

After several minutes, he paused to nod to Marta. “Sorry to keep you waiting,” he said.

She didn’t know if he was just being polite or trying to let the couple know that there were other people who needed his attention, too. But he looked up several times and smiled at Marta.

Another five minutes passed before the concierge handed the couple a map, a packet of brochures, and a printout of their itinerary for the day. They thanked him profusely with head bows and several euros.

“Mademoiselle, I am Laurent,” he said, offering up his name quickly. “Sorry to keep you waiting. How can I be of service?”

She leaned forward and rested her hands on his desk so he could get a good look at her breasts. He didn’t seem all that interested.
Ah, the French.
She loved them.

“I was supposed to meet my friends here, but there seems to have been some miscommunication,” she said, lowering her voice to a whisper. “According to the front desk, they checked out this morning. I’m wondering if you know where they went.”

“These mix-ups happen all the time,” he said with a smile that showed a mouthful of perfectly straight, professionally whitened teeth. “What are their names?”

“Matthew Bannon and Katherine Sanborne.”

His lips tightened and the smile disappeared. He sat broom-up-his-ass straight in his chair. One second he looked like he was ready to invite himself up to her room, and the next he was transformed into the quintessentially cold, uncaring, unhelpful Parisian.

“I’m sorry, mademoiselle,” Laurent said, “but I have no forwarding address for your friends.”

It was clear he was lying through his cosmetically enhanced, pearly white teeth.

The question was why.