Jim McGill 02 The Hangman's Companion Read online

  It was nearly midnight now, but having talked with Jim, hearing him express his unquestioning, unshakable faith in her, she felt renewed in her energy, her self-confidence. It had never occurred to Jim to tell her she needn’t worry about him and Regional Security Officer Gabriella Casale. Having lost one beloved husband — Andy Grant — to a violent death, the president wasn’t shy about acquiring all pertinent information regarding the personnel safeguarding James J. McGill. Ms. Casale’s dossier included a photo and a biography. She was highly regarded, multilingual, an altogether striking woman. A perfect foil for a tabloid headline: The President’s Henchman’s Mistress. Jim might have — probably had — thought of the possibility he might be used in such a way. But he hadn’t thought it worth mentioning to her that she had nothing to worry about. He expected her to have the same faith in him that he had in her.

  Patti started to think what she and Jim might do together in Paris…

  But her self-indulgence lasted only a moment. Then she summoned the discipline to return her focus to China and Japan and the Republic of Korea. East Asia in general. That was where her new defense plan had the greatest chance of going awry. Awry being a euphemism for leading to war, the deaths of millions, and—

  No. Rewriting her plan to include a major war involving China didn’t work for her, made no sense. In the old days, when China was still an underdeveloped nation, still a militantly Maoist country, the risk of war would have been far greater. Now that China’s economy was fast catching up to Japan’s as the second largest in the world, Beijing had too much to lose to start a serious war—one with the possibility of going nuclear— or even to be lured into such a conflict without existential provocation.

  Even so, great tensions would be released when the United States took a step back. The burner would be turned up under the historic feelings of enmity that always simmered between Japan and both China and South Korea. And relaxing the steady pressure of a robust U.S. military presence in the region might embolden the Chinese military. With its rapidly growing navy, China might take the disastrous misstep of invading Taiwan. Measures had to be taken to prevent that and other catastrophes.

  The president picked up a fresh pad of paper and began to outline her ideas. Formulate her vision for a better world. Never thinking of herself as someone given to megalomania. A reporter for the New York Times had once asked her about the power of the presidency and if the occupant of the Oval Office didn’t have to be a little crazy to exercise that power to its full extent. Patti had answered it was the fear of not doing everything she could to safeguard the United States that kept her awake at night.

  She didn’t know if she’d been busy remaking the world for minutes or hours when there was a knock at her door. At this hour, she thought, it couldn’t be good news.

  Celsus Crogher stepped into the room. The president saw his face was blank, as usual. That was a small measure of comfort. Jim had told her how Celsus had cried while telling him Deke Ky had been shot. So chances were nobody close to Celsus—and therefore her—had been killed.

  “I saw you had your light on, ma’am,” he said.

  “Yes, Celsus,” she said. “What is it?”

  “The president of France, ma’am.”

  “Yes?”

  “He’d like to know if it’s too late to pay you a visit.”

  Patti saw a tiny flicker of disapproval in the SAC’s eyes.

  “Please send him in, Celsus,” the president said.

  Pigalle, Paris

  25

  Gabbi Casale’s dad had warned her never to visit the red-light district of Paris. Had warned her more than once, in fact. The first time had been when Gabbi was fourteen. She had just finished her freshman year at Maine East High School in the Chicago suburb of Park Ridge.

  The family was taking its first trip abroad. Mom — Marianne Rogers — was the most popular language teacher at Maine East and had been invited to participate in a six-week teacher exchange with a school in Neuilly-sur-Seine, an upscale suburb on the western boundary of Paris. Dad — State Senator Tomaso (Tom) Casale of Illinois’s 33rd senatorial district and a top-earning State Farm agent — had appointed himself director of planning and security for the trip.

  To his credit, Dad had everything organized to a fare-thee-well. Their passports — with photos everyone actually liked — were in hand; the limo to take them to the airport was waiting when they stepped out the front door; the flight — miracle of miracles — departed O’Hare on time and arrived punctually at Charles de Gaulle airport; a pleasant driver found them as soon as they cleared customs and took them to the apartment Dad had rented.

  Once inside, he kissed his wife, his daughter, his infant son, Gianni, and told them all, “… and on the seventh day, Senator Casale rested.”

  The senator retired to his bedroom and slept through till the next morning. He then took his family to breakfast. He took his wife to her new school and met — inspected — her new colleagues. He took his children to the U.S. Embassy on the Avenue Gabriel.

  Tom Casale was a close political ally of the governor of Illinois, who in turn was great friends with the U.S. ambassador to France. After meeting the eminent diplomat and introducing his children to him, Tom was turned over to a counselor of commercial affairs. The two men planned to stroll in the nearby Jardin des Tuileries, Tom pushing Gianni in the pram that had been waiting for them at their new French apartment, and discuss the business possibilities available in France to a preeminent American insurance company—State Farm.

  Gabbi was left to tour some of the city’s cultural venues in the care of a Dartmouth student doing a summer internship at the embassy. The intern, Daniel Ahearn, passed paternal muster from a visual standpoint, but just in case his judgment was spotty, the senator told him, “Keep her away from Pigalle.”

  “Yes, sir,” young Ahearn said promptly.

  For emphasis, Tom Casale turned to his daughter. “No Pigalle.”

  “Sì, padre.”

  That made the senator smile. Gabbi’s mother had been teaching her French from the time she was in diapers. Tom had lost the Italian he’d learned as a child from his mother, but Gabbi, on her own, had sought out Nonna Casale to learn Italian. Tom knew his daughter used Italian when she wanted to butter him up, but he loved it anyway.

  With a goodbye kiss on Gabbi’s cheek, father and daughter went their separate ways on that sunny morning in Paris. As soon as it was safe to speak freely, Gabbi asked her escort, “May I call you Danny?”

  “Sure,” he replied.

  She asked that he call her Gabbi, and he agreed to that, too.

  “Parlez-vous francais, Danny?”

  “Oui, ma mère est du Québec.” My mom’s from Quebec.

  Gabbi was pleased to hear that and from that point forward, except at the embassy or when the senator was around, she and Danny conversed in French. The better to fit in with their surroundings.

  “My father has never been to France before,” she told Danny.

  “No?”

  “No. So what can he know about this Pigalle place?”

  “Your dad seems pretty well prepared. A guy who does his homework.”

  Gabbi had to agree with that, and she was impressed that Danny had sized him up so fast.

  “Yeah,” she said. “He probably did a lot of reading. So Pigalle’s a dangerous place?”

  Danny looked down at her. He had a height advantage of several inches. Then he looked away as if trying to decide how to respond.

  “You can tell me the truth,” Gabbi said. “I know how to keep a secret.”

  Danny looked back at her and smiled. “Yeah? That’s a good thing to know.”

  “So, tell me.”

  “How old are you?”

  “Fourteen. How old are you?”

  “Twenty. You ever have a boyfriend?”

  “No.” Gabbi had to sacrifice a measure of pride to admit that. She’d wanted to have a boyfriend for a couple years now. She asked, “Y
ou have a girlfriend?”

  Danny nodded and showed Gabbi a picture. His girlfriend was gorgeous. Red hair, green eyes, a great smile and the kind of figure Gabbi could only hope she’d have someday.

  “Do you miss her?” she asked.

  “Yeah. But she’s coming over to see me my last couple of weeks here. We’re going to have a good time.”

  Gabbi was too young to know exactly what that meant, but just the way Danny had said it almost made her swoon. Before she got too carried away, she moved back on point.

  “So what’s all this got to do with Pigalle, and me?”

  “Well,” Danny said, “let’s say my girl had told me if I went away to do an internship in Paris, we were finished. And let’s say I came anyway and was over here feeling lonely, maybe even a little angry at my ex-girlfriend.”

  “Yeah?”

  “I might go to Pigalle, if I were that kind of guy.”

  “I don’t get it.”

  “Pigalle is the kind of place where a guy can find a new girlfriend — for money.”

  26

  Gabbi had been innocent enough at the time that she still hadn’t understood. What did money have to do with friendship? But Danny had been too nice a guy to explain. He’d only told her the light would dawn as she got older, and if someone was going to take the fall for wising her up, it wasn’t going to be him.

  Now as she walked briskly along the Boulevard de Clichy after midnight, Gabbi thought one visit to Pigalle was more than enough to be wised up. She’d returned to Paris following her sophomore year at the School of the Art Institute to do her own summer internship at the U.S. embassy, and she tacked a semester abroad on to that. Once again, Dad had told her: “Stay away from Pigalle. Now more than ever.”

  By that time, Gabbi had learned about the intersection of intimacy and commerce. Not that she understood why any guy who wasn’t an ogre or over forty had to pay for sex. The way the college girls she knew were giving it away, there had to be a glut on the market. Especially if a guy was a painter. Good God, to be rendered in oil on canvas, girls couldn’t get out of their clothes fast enough. It didn’t matter whether the guy wielding the brush had any real talent. And what happened while the paint dried was only natural.

  It was also to be expected that a college coed, an adult before the law, a woman in body and somewhat in mind, should not acquiesce to paternal demands as easily as a young girl had.

  “Dad,” Gabbi had said, “Pigalle was named for Jean-Baptiste Pigalle, a sculptor. Toulouse-Lautrec, Picasso, and Van Gogh all lived there. Pigalle has a museum honoring Salvador Dali.”

  She’d thought about mentioning the Moulin Rouge being there as well. But she’d heard a story from Mom about Dad walking out on a revue in Las Vegas when the chorus line pranced in topless. That was when a moment of epiphany hit Gabbi: Jeez, was that what her father was afraid of, that she’d be tempted to dance with her boobs bare in a French girly-show?

  All her father had said was, “Remember who’s paying your freight, kiddo.”

  She growled at him, with an Italian undertone to let him know she was serious.

  For her first six months in Paris, she performed her embassy chores with a dedication that won glowing letters of commendation. In the tiny rented room she called her own, she painted like a madwoman and sold several small pieces she’d later wish she had back. Being an overachiever, she even tutored children of foreign diplomats in American English, saving every sous she earned. At the end of the semester, she sent her father a letter and a photocopy of the bank account she’d opened in her own name. The balance was the equivalent of $5,000. She told him with the contacts she’d made, and the letters of references she’d earned, she’d be able to find work in Paris, and she was thinking of applying for permanent residence in France.

  She would make her decision after she visited Pigalle.

  The senator replied by express mail.

  “Congratulations on becoming an adult. I’m sure you’ll make wise choices. Mom and Gianni say hello.”

  27

  At the time she received it, that bit of paternal jiujitsu had infuriated her. But after visiting Pigalle she better understood Mark Twain’s words. She was astonished how much her father had learned since the time she was fourteen.

  The excursion to Pigalle had left her feeling depressed. The neighborhood might have once been home to some of the greatest names in art, but what drew the tourists by the busload was a profession even older that the paintings done in the Cave of Lascaux. There were streetwalkers on the district’s side streets — the girlfriends Danny Ahearn had mentioned. On the main drag, the Boulevard de Clichy, the merchandising of sex approached hypermarket scales. Any carnal thought that could be imagined had been given form, and usually substance, too. Nude revues, strip clubs with less costuming and choreography, videos, peep shows, pornography, toys.

  It was all too much. Way too much. Gabbi had come to think of herself as a liberated woman, and she was making her way in the world. But she had yet to find any time for a serious boyfriend. When she did, though, she didn’t want it to be with any guy who’d look at her like the guys on the street leering at the photos of nudes in the windows. Any guy who tried —

  To grab her. Someone reached out right there on the street and grabbed her wrist, started saying something about her being a rare find. That was as far as he got before her training kicked in. Once the family had returned from their first trip to France, Dad had enrolled her in aikido lessons. He’d said she would need it to keep all the high school jocks honest. But that night in Paris it worked just fine on the greasy guy with the toothpick in his mouth. She broke his grip while he was still trying to talk, and then she put him in an arm lock that brought him to his knees.

  He was screaming by that time, making what sounded like threats in some language Gabbi didn’t recognize. She decided immediately that she had to finish what she’d started. She increased the pressure on his arm and proned him out. Then she stepped on the back of his right knee, got a nice big popping sound. The guy would have a hell of a time just standing on that leg now; no way was he going to chase after her.

  Gabbi left him lying there still yelling at her. As she quickly walked away, she thought she heard him call her a putain, a whore. Was that what he had been looking for, someone to sell him sex? But then Gabbi saw on the opposite side of the street two young women who to her eye probably were hookers. They were pointing and laughing at the man Gabbi had hurt, as if his comeuppance had a personal meaning to them. That notion was reinforced when both of them blew kisses at Gabbi and called out, “Vive les femmes fortes!”

  In American: You go, girl!

  Which made Gabbi wonder if her assailant hadn’t been a john but a pimp looking to add to his roster of talent. The thought made Gabbi shudder and start to run.

  She never told her father of the incident, but she thanked God she’d had him to look out for her. And she felt sorry for all the girls who never had such a man in their lives.

  Yet here she was cruising Pigalle alone once again.

  Not only wouldn’t her father like it, she was sure the president’s henchman would feel the same displeasure. He was an involved dad, too. She’d heard it in his voice when he took the calls from his daughters.

  But Gabbi had the idea that if she looked something like the blonde who’d been under the Pont d’Iéna with Glen Kinnard and Thierry Duchamp, and if that blonde had worked as a stripper, as Arno Durand had suggested to McGill, then maybe one of the creeps who worked the door of some sex club in Pigalle would mistake her for the missing woman.

  Call out to her, “Hey, Josette.” Or Marie. Or Cerise.

  Establish himself as a link to the woman McGill wanted to find.

  And if the creep tried to lay a hand on her when she ignored him, well, she had experience with that. Only now she was older, stronger, better trained, and a whole lot more wised up.

  Even so, she missed the two Gypsy kids, Alexandru and Ana creep
ing along behind her. They’d spotted her ten minutes ago and had been tailing her ever since.

  Georgetown

  28

  Sweetie looked at the Caller ID and answered the office phone. “McGill Investigations, Inc. We make house calls.”

  “You solve cases by dint of shoe leather, not navel gazing?” McGill asked.

  “We usually pray for divine intervention. Sometimes, we even get it.”

  “Close to the Almighty, are you?”

  “Not badly positioned for a sinner,” Sweetie answered. “How are you doing?”

  McGill told her, “I beat up my client.”

  “I can’t let you go anywhere.”

  “The investigating magistrate seems to like me, and his bodyguard is studying my moves.”

  “Never pass up an opportunity to learn something new.” Sweetie gave it a beat then asked, “You see what the newsies are saying about Patti?”

  McGill said, “I saw a local tabloid. I talked with Patti a little while ago. Told her I didn’t believe a word of it.”

  “Me neither. But I had to wonder if it wasn’t inevitable that someone would attack her that way. What with her background in modeling and acting.”

  McGill mused on the notion a moment. “It might go beyond that. Maybe now that the gender line has been crossed in the Oval Office, any female president who doesn’t look like Golda Meir will have to be very guarded about any display of affection. Not give a sliver of opportunity for misinterpretation, lest the sleaze merchants pounce.”

  Sweetie asked, “What about you? You doing anything that could be misconstrued?”

  “My new bodyguard is a good-looking woman from the State Department’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security.”

  “How good looking?”

  “Like she could be your cousin, only with a European flair.”

  “Some guys have all the luck. Patti, me, and now a knockout State Department cop.”