Central Park by Guillaume Musso (ebook reader macos .TXT) 📕

Alfa Romeo drives along narrow Rue des Bernardins and joins the Pont de l’Archevêché, the “lovers’ bridge,” its guardrails covered with thousands of padlocks shining in the night.

Paul switches on the dome light, looks around, and finally spots his cell phone on the floor. Keeping one hand on the steering wheel, he leans down to pick it up. When he sits back up, he is dazzled by a headlight and realizes, to his shock, that a motorcycle is coming right at him on this one-way bridge. It’s too late to brake. Paul jerks the wheel right to avoid the collision. The Alfa Romeo skids onto the sidewalk, takes off, and collides with a streetlamp before ripping open the bridge’s metal barrier.

Paul is dead before his car falls into the Seine.

I remember

that on one day,

November 21, 2011,

out of pride, out of vanity, out of sheer blindness,

I killed my baby.

And I killed my husband.

12Free Jazz

MUFFLED BY THE bathwater, the ringing of the telephone takes a while to reach Alice’s brain. Startled, she snaps out of her reverie. She grabs a towel, wraps herself in it, and reaches for her cell phone.

“Schafer,” she says.

“Alice? It’s me.”

“Seymour! Finally!”

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah, but I need information. Did you find anything?”

“I got your fingerprint. Nice work. I think it’s usable. I put Savignon on the case. He’s sending it to the lab now, and we should have the results in half an hour.”

“Okay. What else? The security cameras in the parking garage?”

“I went over to Franklin-Roosevelt and looked at their tapes, but you can’t see much. Your car entered the garage at eight twelve p.m. and came out again at twelve seventeen a.m.”

“Could you see me on the video?”

“No, not really…”

Goddamn it! “Was I alone when I came out? Was I driving?”

“It’s not clear. The camera picked up your license plate, but the inside of the car is too dark to see.”

“Shit, I don’t believe this! Have you tried manipulating the images?”

“Yeah, but it didn’t help. Their hardware is crap. And I’ll warn you now: I haven’t found anything from the airports. Without a warrant, it’s impossible to access their databases or their stored video. This would be a whole lot easier if we informed Taillandier about it.”

“Absolutely not. Did you talk to my friends?”

“Yeah, all three. Sounds like you had a lot to drink, Alice. They were worried about you. Malika and Karine offered to go with you, but you refused.”

“Please tell me you have something else, Seymour.”

“Yep, I saved the best for last. Are you alone?”

“Yes, why?”

“It’s about your friend Gabriel Keyne. Castelli did some checking on him. There is no trace, anywhere, of a jazz pianist with that name.”

“Listen, he’s not Ray Charles or Michel Legrand. He’s strictly small-time—”

“Come on, you know Castelli. He’s the best researcher in the division. If there had been anything to find, he would have found it. But there’s nothing. Nada! There are dozens of Gabriel Keynes, but none of them are musicians or in any way connected with jazz. And I haven’t even told you the best bit yet.”

Seymour let his phrase hang, as if waiting for a drumroll.

Spit it out, for God’s sake!

“You told me he claimed to have played at the Brown Sugar Club in Dublin last night?”

“That’s what he told me.”

“Well, it’s not true. Castelli called the owner of the club—they had a salsa-and-mambo night yesterday. The only guys onstage were members of a big Cuban orchestra who arrived that morning from Havana.”

Alice was stunned by this revelation. She was having trouble getting her head around it. Strangely, she caught herself thinking up excuses to defend Gabriel: Maybe he was using a stage name? Maybe he was part of a group? Maybe…

“I don’t know who this guy really is,” Seymour said. “I’m still digging. But until we discover his real identity, you should watch your back.”

She hung up and remained motionless for a few seconds. No, her theories were bullshit. The truth was, she’d been suckered. She had let her guard down, and Keyne had lied to her from the moment they first met.

But why?

She quickly dressed and shoved all her belongings into the bag. She could feel the fear spreading through her veins. Heart pounding, she walked downstairs, gun held out in front of her. “Keyne?” she shouted as she moved into the living room. Staying close to the walls, she stole furtively into the kitchen, her hand gripped tightly around the butt of the pistol. Nothing. The loft was empty.

In the middle of the table, next to the wine bottle, she found a note scrawled on the back of an envelope.

Alice,

I found the car, but the tank is nearly empty. I’m going out to fill it. I’ll meet you in the hookah bar across the street.

Gabriel

PS: I hope you like Moroccan pastries.

13Hookah Bar

ALICE WENT HURTLING down the stairs and out onto the street. She had put her gun back in its holster and was carrying her satchel over one shoulder. The cold wind carried the scent of apricots, spices, and powdered sugar. She saw the Mustang parked out in front of the hookah bar; it had a cream-colored body, shiny chrome bumpers, blue racing stripes—a sleeping tiger ready to roar.

On her guard, she crossed the road and pushed open the door of the Nefertiti Bar.

The interior was an eclectic blend of Arabic and Western influences; scattered haphazardly throughout the room were low tables, overstuffed armchairs, and gold-embroidered cushions, but there were also shelves overflowing with books, an upright piano, an old bar made of zinc and polished oak, and even a dartboard straight from an English pub.

It had a pleasant, relaxed, early-afternoon atmosphere, full of autumn sunlight. Hipster college students with laptops cohabited harmoniously with the neighborhood’s elderly Egyptians and North Africans, who tranquilly pulled on their hookahs. The sweet fumes mingled with the scent of mint tea, creating an all-enveloping olfactory cocoon.

Sitting at a table, Gabriel had already started playing chess with a long-haired geek dressed in an