Kelly was watching him, silent. His words were resonating in her mind, bringing back long-buried memories.
Why didn’t you get rid of the kid before she was born?
I tried to. It didn’t work.
He went on. “I grew up in half a dozen different foster homes, where nobody cared….”
These are your uncles. Don’t bother them.
“It seems I couldn’t do anything right….”
The dinner is lousy…. That dress is the wrong color for you…. You haven’t finished cleaning the bathrooms….
“They wanted me to quit school to work at a garage, but I—I wanted to be a scientist. They said I was too dumb….”
Kelly was becoming more and more engrossed in what he was saying.
I want to be a model.
All models are whores….
“I dreamed of going to college, but they said with the kind of work I would be doing, I—I didn’t need an education.”
What the hell do you need to go to school for? With your looks, you could peddle your ass….
“When I got a scholarship to MIT, my foster parents said I would probably flunk out, and should go to work at the garage….”
College? You’ll waste four years of your life….
Listening to this stranger was like hearing a replay of her own life. Kelly sat there, deeply touched, feeling the same painful emotions as the stranger seated across from her.
“When I finished MIT, I went to work for a branch of Kingsley International Group in Paris. But I was so lonely.” There was a long pause. “Somewhere, a long time ago, I read that the greatest thing in life was to find someone to love, who loved you…and I believed it.”
Kelly sat there, quiet.
Mark Harris said awkwardly, “But I never found that person and I was ready to give up. And then that day I saw you…” He could not go on.
He stood up, holding Angel in his arms. “I’m so ashamed about all this. I promise never to bother you again. Good-bye.”
Kelly watched him start to walk away. “Where are you going with my dog?” she called.
Mark Harris turned, confused. “I’m sorry?”
“Angel is mine. You gave her to me, didn’t you?”
Mark stood there, nonplussed. “Yes, but you said—”
“I’ll make a deal with you, Mr. Harris. I’ll keep Angel, but you can have visiting rights.”
It took him a moment and then his smile lit up the room. “You mean I can—you’ll let me—?”
Kelly said, “Why don’t we discuss it at dinner tonight?”
And Kelly had no idea that she had just set herself up as a target for assassination.
Chapter 11
Paris, France
AT REUILLY POLICE Headquarters on Hénard Street, in the Twelfth Arrondissement in Paris, an interrogation was taking place. The superintendent of the Eiffel Tower was being questioned by Detectives André Belmondo and Pierre Marais.
TOUR EIFFEL SUICIDE INVESTIGATION
Monday, May 6
10 A.M.
Subject: René Pascal
BELMONDO: Monsieur Pascal, we have reason to believe that Mark Harris, the man who supposedly fell from the observation deck of the Eiffel Tower, was murdered.
PASCAL: Murdered? But—I was told it was an accident and—
MARAIS: He could not possibly have fallen over that parapet by accident. It is much too high.
BELMONDO: And we have established that the victim was not suicidal. In fact, he had made elaborate plans with his wife for the weekend. She’s Kelly—the model.
PASCAL: I’m sorry, gentlemen, but I don’t see what that—why was I brought here?
MARAIS: To help us clarify a few matters. What time did the restaurant close that night?
PASCAL: At ten o’clock. Because of the storm, the Jules Verne was empty, so I decided to—
MARAIS: What time did the elevators shut down?
PASCAL: They usually run until midnight, but on that night, since there were no sightseers or diners, I closed them down at ten P.M.
BELMONDO: Including the elevator that goes to the observation deck?
PASCAL: Yes. All of them.
MARAIS: Is it possible for someone to get to the observation deck without using the elevator?
PASCAL: No. On that night everything was closed off. I don’t understand what this is all about. If—
BELMONDO: I will tell you what it is all about. Monsieur Harris was thrown from the observation deck. We know it was the observation deck because when we examined the parapet, the top had been scraped, and the cement embedded in the soles of his shoes were flakes that matched the scraped cement on the parapet. If the floor was locked off, and the elevators were not working, how did he get up there at midnight?
PASCAL: I don’t know. Without an elevator, it would be—it would be impossible.
MARAIS: But an elevator was used to take Monsieur Harris up to the observation tower, and to take up his assassin—or assassins—and bring them down again.
BELMONDO: Could a stranger run the elevators?
PASCAL: No. The operators never leave them when they are on duty, and at night the elevators are locked down with a special key.
MARAIS: How many keys are there?
PASCAL: Three. I have one, and the other two are kept here.
BELMONDO: You are certain that the last elevator was shut down at ten o’clock?
PASCAL: Yes.
MARAIS: Who was running it?
PASCAL: Toth. Gérard Toth.
MARAIS: I would like to speak with him.
PASCAL: So would I.
MARAIS: I beg your pardon?
PASCAL: Toth has not shown up for work since that night. I called his apartment. There was no answer. I got hold of his landlord. Toth has moved out.
MARAIS: And left no forwarding address?
PASCAL: That’s right. He’s vanished into thin air.
“ ‘VANISHED INTO THIN air’? Are we talking about the Great Houdini or a damned elevator operator?”
The speaker was Secretary General Claude Renaud, in charge of Interpol Headquarters. Renaud was a short, dynamic man in his fifties, who had worked his way up the police hierarchy over a period of twenty years.
Renaud was chairing a meeting in the main conference room at the seven-story Interpol Headquarters, the international police organization that is the clearinghouse of information for 126 police forces in 78 countries. The building was located in Saint-Cloud, six miles west of Paris, and the headquarters was manned by former detectives from the Sûreté Nationale, and the Paris Préfecture.
There were twelve men seated at the large conference table. They had been questioning Detective Belmondo for the past hour.
Secretary General Renaud said sourly, “So you and Detective Marais were unable to get any information about how a man was murdered in an area it would be impossible for him to be in, in the first place, and impossible for his assassins to get to or escape from? Is that what you’re telling me?”
“Marais and I talked to everyone who—”
“Never mind. You may go.”
“Yes, sir.”
They watched the chastened detective walk out of the room.
Secretary General Renaud turned to the group. “During your investigations, have any one of you come across a man named Prima?”
They were thoughtful a moment and then shook their heads. “No. Who is Prima?”
“We don’t know. His name was scribbled on a note found in the jacket pocket of a dead man in New York. We think there’s a connection.” He sighed. “Gentlemen, we have a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. In the fifteen years I have been in this office, we have investigated serial killers, international gangs, mayhem, patricide, and every other crime imaginable.” He paused. “But in all those years, I have never come across anything like this. I am sending a NOTICE to the New York office….”
FRANK BIGLEY, CHIEF of Manhattan detectives, was reading the file Secretary General Renaud had sent when Earl Greenburg and Robert Praegitzer entered his office.
“You wanted to see us, Chief?”
“Yes. Sit down.”
They each took a chair.
Chief Bigley held up the paper. “This is a NOTICE that Interpol sent this morning.” He started reading. “Six years ago, a Japanese scientist named Akira Iso committed suicide, hanging himself in his hotel room in Tokyo. Mr. Iso was in perfect health, had just received a promotion, and was reported to be in high spirits.”
“Japan? What does that have to do with—?”
“Let me go on. Three years ago, Madeleine Smith, a thirty-two-year-old Swiss scientist, turned on the gas in her Zurich apartment and committed suicide. She was pregnant and about to marry the father of her baby. Friends said they’d never seen her happier.” He looked up at the two detectives. “In the past three days: a Berliner named Sonja Verbrugge drowned herself in her bathtub. The same night Mark Harris, an American, did a swan dive off the observation deck of the Eiffel Tower. A day later, a Canadian named Gary Reynolds crashed his Cessna into a mountain near Denver.”
Greenburg and Praegitzer were listening, more and more puzzled.
“And yesterday, you two found the body of Richard Stevens on the bank of the East River.”