Angel City (16 page)

MEMORIAE RENATI DESCARTES

RECONDITIORIS DOCTRINAE

LAVDE

ET INGENII SVBTILITATE

PRAECELLENTISSIMI

Harper ran the words:
In memory of René Descartes, famous through the praise of a better founded science and the sharpness of his mind. First to defend the right of human reason and . . .
He stopped, sensing a presence behind him, then the same voice he'd heard over the phone at Gare de Lyon.

“It is strange to think the man who first articulated the concept of human reason as a proof of physical existence has no head,
non
?”

Harper looked back, saw the form of a man standing in the shadows of the ambulatory. Everything about it read
target acquired
.

“Sorry?”

The form stepped from the shadows. He looked a big man, the kind who could take care of himself in a barroom brawl. He wore dark blue glasses over his eyes, and a ragged scar ran down his right cheek. He had a head of wild black hair with a Ho Chi Minh beard to match. He nodded toward the tomb.

“Him. The one in the middle. Descartes. When he died in Stockholm, he was buried in a graveyard reserved for unbaptized infants. The French, being French, demanded his remains be returned to the land of his birth so that they might honor him. It took some time for his body to make the trip, and along the way, pieces of him disappeared. Some of his bones were fashioned into rings to be worn as jewelry. But it was his head that suffered the greatest indignity. The soldier responsible for the remains cut off the skull and replaced it with another. Descartes's skull became quite the objet d'art among the enlightened wealthy of Europe. It was bought and sold many times. Each owner participated in the grotesque practice of inscribing his own name into the skull. It's at the Palais de Chaillot, in the Musée de l'Homme. The rest of him is here. Quite the honor,
non
?”

Harper had been staring at the man's mug since he stepped from the shadows, waiting for an image association to lock on. Nothing. He looked at Descartes's tomb, then back to the man.

“If you say so. By the way, who are you?”

The big man walked into the chapel and stood before the tomb. He traced his fingers over the black marble slab where it read,
Now he relishes the sight of truth . . .
The man turned and faced Harper.

“My name is Astruc.”

Closer to him, Harper tried to read the eyes hidden behind the blue lenses. No luck.

“Astruc, right. And you know who I am, of course.”

“I do.”

A moment of silence passed between them.

“Right. So now that I'm here and you know who I am, perhaps you'd care to tell me why it is I'm here.”

Astruc tipped his head and looked behind Harper. “Search him, Goose.”

Harper felt a pair of hands run across his shoulders and down his back and sides. Feeling the pocket of his coat holding his wallet and cigarette case. The hands pulled them out quickly, tossed them to Astruc. The hands continued around Harper's waist and down his legs and ankles. They pulled away, and whoever owned the hands walked to the side of the chapel and into Harper's line of sight. It was the kid who'd been standing outside the church. The cowl of his sweatshirt was pulled from his head now. Harper stared at him.

Goose—the name fits,
Harper thought. The kid's long neck poked from his sweatshirt and his underdeveloped ears were pinned to the sides of a small round head. Harper tried to get a read on the kid's eyes. The irises were opaque, colorless, and glassy as hell. The kid was on something.
Swell,
Harper thought.
One
barroom brawler in blue shades, one kid stoned to the
bloody moon. Can't get a read on either of them.
Should be a swell evening.

“Greetings, kid,” Harper said.

The kid shifted his eyebrows downward and his hands made two quick, fluid moves. Middle fingers pointing to his chest and flipping up, then the three middle fingers of his right hand tapped the palm of his left. Took Harper two seconds to work out that the kid wasn't telling him to fuck off. The kid was deaf and aphonic; he was signing in slang,
What's up?

Harper looked at Astruc, pretending not to understand the gesture.

“Goose is being polite in his own way,” Astruc said.

“Sure he is.”

Astruc tossed back Harper's wallet and cigarette case without opening them. Harper slipped them into the pockets of his coat.

“Not even going to check my library card?”

“Why should I? I already know who you are. And I apologize for the search. I'm sure it's not what someone like you expects in a church. But given the way you're dressed, I needed to make sure you were as advertised.”

Harper waited for the big man to spill the rest of the advert; he didn't.

“I suppose you can't be too careful, even in a church,” Harper said. “By the way, you haven't told me what it is you do, Astruc.”

“No, I have not. And for the time being, you do not need to know. All you need to know is, from this moment, I am in charge. Is that clear?”

Harper nodded.

“Right. Well, now we've sorted that one, what's next?”

Astruc stepped closer to Harper, eyeing him from foot to head.

“Next? Next is easy. Next you take off your tie with whatever it is you had for lunch on it, and you come with me.”

Harper followed the big man out of the church. The kid tailed after Harper. They crossed the road toward Les Deux Magots. The chatter of voices and clatter of plates seeped through lighted windows. Astruc pointed to an outside table where they could talk privately. They both sat with their backs to the café windows. Harper saw l'Église de Saint-Germain-des-Prés across the road. The limestone façade and bell tower made for a nice view. Astruc wasn't taking in the view of the church, though; his eyes were on the Saint-Germain-des-Prés Métro stop across Boulevard Saint-Germain.

Harper looked left, saw Goose in the shadows of a nearby doorway, watching passersby. Hoodie over his head, hands tucked into the pouch of his sweatshirt.
The kid is good with shadows
, Harper thought.

“How old is the kid?” Harper said.

“Twenty-six.”

“You're joking.”

Astruc kept his eyes locked on the Saint-Germain-des-Prés Métro.

“Along with being deaf, Goose suffers from a form of paedomorphosis. His facial features did not mature with the rest of his body. As you can imagine, he grew up being tormented as a freak of nature.”

Harper threw a glance at Goose again. Still watching passersby from the shadows.
Maybe that's why he's good with shadows,
Harper thought.
Spent his whole life growing up in them,
hiding from the cold gazes of strangers.

“Sure, I can imagine it,” Harper said.

Astruc looked at Harper.

“If you need to speak with him, look him directly in the eyes and speak normally. He'll read your lips. And don't underestimate him. His IQ is above two hundred, along with having a photographic memory.”

“Impressive,” Harper said. “What's the connection?”

“Connection?”

“You. Him. What's the connection?”

Astruc stared at Harper.

“He is my pupil. I am his teacher. It has been this way since I found him and saved him from evil.”

“Evil, right.”

A white-aproned waiter came outside. Astruc gave him the order: single malt, neat,
trois fois
. He turned his eyes back to the Saint-Germain-des-Prés Métro stop.

“Expecting someone else, then?” Harper said.

“What?”

“Three drinks.”

“Yes, I am expecting someone. Someone you must meet. He'll be here shortly.”

Harper checked his watch. Almost 21:00 hours. He was due to report back to the inspector at the bottom of the hour.

“Who am I meeting and why?”

“You ask many questions,” Astruc said.

“Blame it on Descartes. All that Cartesian skepticism.”

Astruc raised an eyebrow.

“I didn't realize your particular line of work allowed for sarcasm.”

Harper didn't know how to answer that one. As yet he still didn't know what his particular line of work was supposed to be.

“Call it my amusing hobby, then.
Ergo
, who are we meeting, and why?”

Astruc found a cigarillo and lighter in the pocket of his coat. He anchored the smoke between his teeth and lit up.

“His name is Gilles Lambert. He's a
commis aux dossiers
in the mayor's office of the fourteenth arrondissement.”

Harper ran the words.

“A file clerk?”

“Yes, a file clerk. One who spends his days in a small office making little tick marks along columns of tax revenues collected from local businesses. A very ordinary Parisian in every way, except for his own amusing hobby.”

“Which is?”

“He likes to spend his weekends exploring
les carrières
.”

Those words flashed Harper back to last night, returning from Grandvaux after his meeting with the cop in the cashmere coat. The midnight show at GG's had come and gone, so Mutt and Jeff dropped Harper at his flat. Went in, turned on the telly. Tuned to the History Channel, like always. Presently wrapping up episode six of
The Ascent of Man
. He mixed a vodka tonic, sat out on the small balcony with a view of the cathedral. He lit a smoke, listened to the bells ring for two o'clock. He watched
le guet
, the new one, round the tower with a lantern and call the hour over Lausanne. But with the wind blowing from the north, her voice carried the words of comfort out over the lake. Then, as if by wizardry, the voice on the telly said, “Coming up next on the History Channel:
The Underground Mysteries of Paris
.”

Big surprise: Half the program deals with
les carrières
.

First century: Romans discover limestone deposits on the banks of the Seine and start digging. Fast forward: Paris is a city built of stone. Demand is high. Every official building, every palace, every church, is dressed in the limestone mined from the quarries of Paris. Miners spread out, follow the veins, excavating a maze of tunnels under the city. Seventeenth century: The veins are played out and the tunnels abandoned. They become the trading routes of smugglers and thieves trying to avoid the king's taxmen. Plague visits Paris. The city's streets are overrun with rotting corpses. Skeletons are dug up from the city's cemeteries and dumped in the tunnels to make room for the newly dead.

Harper snapped back to nowtimes.

“You're talking about the catacombs.”

Astruc shook his head.

“The catacombs are barely a kilometer of the tunnels. Kept very tidy for the tourists. Skulls neatly arranged, dusted twice a month. The rest of the tunnels, all three hundred kilometers of them, are somewhat less welcoming. But there are Parisians who find them irresistible—they are known as cataphiles.”

The waiter returned with the drinks. Harper watched Astruc lift his glass and check the nose. Harper didn't drink. He leaned back in his chair, tried to fade from Astruc's consciousness, get a read on the man's manner of thinking. As if sensing movement, Astruc turned to Harper.

“You do not care for the whiskey?”

Harper stared at the man's blue lenses.
Swell, the sensitive sort,
Harper thought.

“Just interested in knowing why I'm waiting to meet someone whose idea of fun is spending his days off underground, wandering through tunnels.”

Astruc sipped at his drink and pointed his cigarillo toward the Métro.

“You're about to find out.”

A tall, skinny chap was coming up the steps of the Saint-Germain-des-Prés Métro. He wore a blue windbreaker on top of a black shirt, and his workmen trousers were tucked into a pair of Wellington boots. He carried a canvas backpack. He stood at the corner, waiting for the light to change. When it did, the skinny man stood a moment as if unable to decide whether to take the next step. He did, finally, only to find himself halfway across the boulevard when the lights changed again. He dodged an onslaught of unforgiving traffic and made his way to the cobblestone square of Saint-Germain-des-Prés. He faced the entrance of the church as the last bell faded away. He genuflected, bowed his head, made the sign of the cross.

“Your
commis aux dossiers
seems the religious sort,” Harper said.

Astruc removed smoldering ash from the tip of his cigarillo.

“French Catholics can be sentimental when it comes to their faith. Especially when confronted with evil.”

Harper heard something in Astruc's voice. Longing, maybe, not to mention it was the second time he was laying a riff about evil.

“What about you, Astruc? You the sentimental sort when it comes to faith?”

Astruc took another draw from his cigarillo. Words rolled from his mouth on a cloud of smoke.

“Once a Catholic, always a Catholic.”

The tall skinny man named Gilles Lambert rose from his knee and turned toward Les Deux Magots. He spotted Astruc, stood still one more moment before deciding to cross the cobblestone square.

“And he's nervous,” Harper said.

“Very. Which is why you are here.”

“Sorry?”

“You're a comforter of men, are you not?”

Harper stared at Astruc, knew the man behind the blue lenses was playing him.

“If you say so.”

There was no shaking of hands or formal introduction as Gilles Lambert reached the table; the skinny man simply shrank into an empty chair. Astruc nodded to Harper.

“Gilles, this is the one I told you about. He'll be coming with us, as I promised you, for the protection of your soul.”

Lambert nodded. Astruc pushed a glass of whiskey to him. “Here, Gilles, take a drink.”