The Diaries - 01 (22 page)

“They may not know
any identity.
 
So a search for me, or a
general sweep on someone fitting my description.”

“What went down?”

“Think bad.
 
Real bad.
 
Justified in your eyes, and mine, but maybe not in the eyes of the civvies.”

“You’re okay?”

“Five by five,
sir,” Gage answered, feeling no small amount of pride that Hunter cared enough
to ask.

Hunter took
another sip, humming for a moment as he must have been thinking.
 
“I’m pretty much out of the loop, son.
 
Do you know what kind of damned favors I’ll
have to call in for this?”
 

“I wouldn’t ask
unless it was dire.”

“All right, I’ll make
a few calls.
 
Hell, might be interesting
to see if I’ve got any juice left.”

“Sir, this thing
may not be fully hot yet, so if you could grab that intel for me at double-time,
I can un-ass before they realize I’m gone.”

“Call me back in
half an hour,” answered Hunter.
 
He
clicked off without another word.

Gage started the
stopwatch on his Timex and stepped to the car, telling Monika to lean her seat
back and rest if she could.
 
He hid
himself in a stand of evergreens, keeping a lookout for the police or anyone
walking by.
 
Gage created a blackness in
his mind, securing their location and nothing else.
 
There was no sign of any search, no distant
sirens to be heard.
 
He called Hunter
back exactly thirty minutes later.

“Sir?”

“You’re all clear.
 
There’s nothing at all.
 
Nichts
.
 
Something about a team of bank-robbers down
in Marseilles, but that’s it, a local search.
 
I was pretty certain that wasn’t you. My guy was completely confident
that there’s nothing laid on, federal, state, or local.
 
You should be good to go.”

Gage let out a
deep breath, though slightly puzzled.
 
“Thank you, sir.
 
I owe you.”

“You don’t owe me
a damned thing.”

Gage was silent.

Hunter cleared his
throat.
 
“How have you been handling the
aftereffects?”

“About as badly as
anyone with a conscience can.”

“We didn’t know,
and you certainly didn’t know.
 
There was
no intel about those,” the colonel paused a long moment, “those two.
 
And you, of all people, should be able to
forgive yourself.
 
You tried to cease the
action.”

“I know, sir.
 
Thank you for your assistance.”
 
Gage replaced the receiver to avoid going any
farther.
 
He allowed his head to lean
against the cool Plexiglas, willing his mind to push back the thoughts of that
nightmarish scene three years before.

A minute later, the
small Volkswagen’s tires squealed as Monika made a hard u-turn and accelerated
toward the border.

 
***

Tuesday, November 3

It
was 9:40 a.m.
 
Gerard
Micheaux
was
always early.
 
Late people annoyed him to
no end and, as his mother had always told him, being late was a sign of disrespect.
 
The shop opened at 10 a.m., and Gerard liked
to be ready to go when he unlocked the door, even though there hadn’t been many
customers lately.
 
Michel, perpetually hung
over from booze or coke—whatever his budget allowed for—normally didn’t show
his face until the middle of the afternoon.
 
The small crush Gerard once had on him was now long gone.
 
Michel wasn’t his type, not at all.
 
Too ostentatious.
 
Too unstable.
 
But he paid well and, after the relationship Gerard had just come out
of, mercy knew he needed the money.

White breath
escaped his mouth as he balanced his cappuccino and croissant in his left hand,
working the lock with his right.
 
He
heard the bell as he entered, frowning when he realized the alarm was not on.

“
C’est
le
bordel
.”
 
Michel had no doubt come back, as he often
did, probably drunk.
 
Gerard would have
to check the cash drawer; it was usually the reason for the proprietor’s late
night visits.
 
Probably found a young
one, spoiling him with expensive fruity drinks from money he didn’t have to
spend.
 

“One day that man
is going to get us robbed or killed,” Gerard muttered as he placed his items on
the counter, unknowingly correct on both assertions.
 
If Michel had taken the cash he would have to
rush over to the bank and get the remainder of their money, which wasn’t much,
just so he could make change if someone actually purchased something.
 
He smelled ammonia and pine-scented cleaner,
absently wondering if the cleaning crew had arranged to come on a different
night.
 
But their night was normally
Wednesday.
 
At the thermostat, Gerard
warmed the room and stepped into the back so he could retrieve the rarest books
from the safe.

When Gerard
flipped the fluorescent lights on, he screamed.
 
There was no dead body on the floor, no traces of blood of
violence.
 
But what made Gerard cry out
were the three men standing around the room, one of whom he recognized.
 
The one in the middle, the short one with the
pug nose and bleary eyes, held a cup of coffee in his right hand.
 
In his left hand was a small gold revolver;
it was pointed directly at Gerard’s gut as the man spoke in working-class, Parisian
French.

“Good morning,
Gerard, you’re early.
 
But that’s good
because we have a few questions for you before we’re on our way.”
 
He smiled wickedly.
 
“And we are in quite a hurry.”

A half hour had
passed.
 
The rare book store had been due
to open ten minutes earlier; there had been no customers as of yet.
 
France is not a country that puts great value
on punctuality.
 
Had a customer pulled on
the locked door, they would have glanced at their watch, shrugged, moved
on.
 
And in the event that happened,
Bruno kept watch from behind the curtain so he could tell Nicky to silence
their torture victim.

In the back room,
bathed in clean fluorescent light, was the bleeding body of Gerard
Micheaux
.
 
He was a
tall, thin man, his feet hanging off the backlit work table displaying long,
curled toes.
 
Thick white rope had been
wrapped around his neck, his torso, and his knees.
 
He was held tightly in place, able to move
only in millimeters each time he was sliced with the out-of-the-package razor.

Nicky was using one
of his favorite interrogation methods and was narcissistic enough to think he
had invented it.
 
He walked around the
fifty-five-year-old man’s naked body, dragging the box cutter’s dull, cold
backside across Gerard’s skin, satisfied as he saw each segment of the body act
independently, cringing, as if it just wanted the cutter to spare it and move
onto the next limb or organ.

“Tell me the rest,
Gerard.
 
Leave nothing out or I’m going
to go carving on your man-piercing cock next.”

Gerard’s body shuddered
with silent sobs.
 
His eyes were clenched
shut, unable to see the forty-two cuts, independently struggling to coagulate
enough to keep his body from slipping farther into shock than it already had.
 
He swallowed thickly.
 
“Sir, I have told you everything I know.
 
Absolutely everything.
 
Anything else I tell you I will have to make
up, and I have no reason whatsoever to lie.
 
Please!”

Marcel stood at
the rear of the back room, smoking a cigarette, exhausted and thoroughly
disgusted.
 
The cuts were completely
unnecessary.
 
This man would have told
them everything simply by being threatened.
 
Having seen enough, he dropped the cigarette in his empty coffee cup and
stepped to Nicky, his voice a whisper in the boss’s ear.

“Is this
necessary?
 
You’re leaving too much of a
trail.”

Nicky cut his eyes
to Marcel.
 
“There will be
no
trail.”

“Okay, fine.
 
But this didn’t have to happen.
 
He would’ve told us what we wanted.”

“Perhaps,
Marcel.
 
Perhaps.”
 
Nicky studied him for a moment, finally
leaning close again and whispering only for him to hear.
 
“Watch me finish him.”

He walked back to
the table and leaned over Gerard, telling him to open his eyes.
 
“So you say Michel’s cousin brought an American
man here?
 
But my men say the man with
her spoke German.
 
So which is he?”

Gerard’s answer
was lightning quick.
 
“He
is
American.
 
I’m sure of it.
 
He just lives in Germany.”
 
Gerard squeezed his eyes shut again.
 
Nicky patted him again, stifling his laughter
as the gay Frenchman flinched each time he was touched or heard any sort of
sound.

“Stay with me,
Gerard.
 
We’re almost done.”
 
He leaned closer.
 
“The man, his name is Gregory, and the girl’s
name is Monika?
 
And she is from
Saarbrücken
?
 
You are
certain of this?”

“Yes.”

“One hundred
percent?”

“
Oui
,” Gerard
answered, shuddering violently.
 

“Again, who were
they?”

“She is Michel’s
cousin—that’s all.
 
They were just trying
to sell a book…some rare diary…and Michel saw it as an opportunity to repay
you.”
 
Gerard began to quiver.

Nicky stepped
backward, expecting vomit at any moment.
 
“And what was this book, this rare diary?”

Gerard coughed as
phlegm was beginning to clog his throat.
 
“Michel wouldn’t tell me.
 
All I
know is he thought it was worth a great deal and that there were more.
 
And then he made me leave.”

“When you say ‘a
great deal’?” Nicky asked, using a tone one might for their best friend.

“I don’t really
know,” Gerard answered, stifling his sobs.
 
“But the way he was acting, running around, calling people, doing
research, it could have been incredibly valuable, at least to him.”

“How much?”

“I’ve no idea.”

“Millions?” Nicky
asked in high tenor.

“Very doubtful,
sir,” Gerard managed.
 
“Books are rarely
worth more than thousands.
 
If it was
very rare, perhaps a hundred thousand euro.”

Nicky looked up at
Marcel.

“C’mon, that’s
enough, Nicky.
 
Let’s leave him.
 
He won’t ever speak of this, will you
Gerard?”
 

Gerard, full of
hope, insisted he would take it to the grave.
 
Marcel believed him.

Nicky stared at
Marcel with sheer contempt. “Mercy?
 
For
a faggot?”
 
He flipped the blade over and
gritted his teeth, touching Gerard’s upper chest.
 
“Do you know how much I hate homos?”
 
He pulled the blade back, preparing to gash
Gerard’s throat.

“Nicky, wait!”
Marcel yelled.
 

Nicky stopped with
the blade in mid-air.
 
Gerard was on the
verge of screaming, but he choked it back, hoping for some sort of eleventh-hour
reprieve.

Marcel held both
palms up to Nicky.
 
“Don’t do it, Nicky.
 
The blood from these small cuts can be wiped
from the table, but if you go to his neck we’ll have to start all over.
 
We don’t have to kill this guy.”

Nicky hesitated a
moment before nodding.
 
He lowered the
blade and nicked Gerard on his nipple.
 
Then he leaned to his ear and whispered, “Your lucky day.”

Thinking he was
about to be spared, Gerard exhaled loudly, unaware that it would be his last
breath.
 
As his body began to relax,
Bruno stepped in and covered Gerard’s mouth and nose with strip after strip of thick,
industrial tape.

Nicky grinned at
Marcel, gesturing to the dying man like a hostess shows a new car on a game
show.
 
“See…no mess.”

Marcel dropped his
hands to his side and shook his head resignedly.
 
Another
death.
 
Another missing person.
 
The trail grows wider and bloodier every
day.
 
Where will he stop?
 
Marcel couldn’t save Gerard now, watching as
the man’s body began to buck against the heavy rope.
 
Tiny wisps of breath escaped from a crease in
the tape—not enough to add five more seconds to the doomed man’s life.
 
Marcel turned away and stepped from the rear
of the store, dry-swallowing three Tylenol in the cold morning air.