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

Alice exploded. “Stop treating me like an imbecile! Are you seriously trying to convince me that this guy and you became so friendly that he gave you a car from his collection? And anyway, the price tag is still on the box.”

Gabriel gave her a hostile stare before lighting the cigarette that he had tucked behind his ear. He took a few drags. The odor of tobacco filled the car, and Alice lowered her window to get rid of the smoke. She kept staring hard at her partner, scrutinizing his dark eyes, his angry expression, hoping to pierce his secretiveness and guess at some hidden truth.

And suddenly, it came to her: “You have a son,” she murmured, as if talking to herself.

He froze. There was silence.

She went on. “You bought the toy for him.”

He turned toward her. His black eyes gleamed like oil. Alice realized she had touched a nerve.

“Yes,” he admitted, taking a drag on his cigarette, “I have a little boy. I just wanted to get him a gift. Is that okay with you?”

Embarrassed, Alice wasn’t sure she wanted to continue this conversation. But she did anyway, asking in a soft voice: “What’s his name?”

Gabriel turned up the volume on the radio and shook his head. He had not expected this untimely intrusion into his privacy.

“I think we have more important problems to deal with, Schafer.”

His expression grew sad. He blinked several times and finally said: “His name is Theo. He’s six.”

From his intonation, Alice realized that this was a painful subject.

Moved, she turned down the music and made a peace offering. “It’s a nice little car,” she said, holding the miniature Shelby. “I bet he’ll like it.”

Suddenly, Keyne grabbed the toy from her hand and threw it out the window. “It’s no use. I never see him anyway.”

“Gabriel, no!”

She gripped the steering wheel, forcing him to stop the car. Incensed, he slammed on the brakes, pulled over to the side of the road, and leaped out of the car.

Alice watched him walk away in the rearview mirror. They were on a narrow road that wound down toward a valley. She saw Gabriel sit on a rocky outcropping that jutted into the void like the plank of a ship. He finished his cigarette and immediately lit another one. Alice got out of the car, picked up the toy from where it was lying on the grassy roadside a few yards back, then walked up to Gabriel.

“I’m sorry,” she said, joining him on the rock.

“Don’t sit there, it’s dangerous.”

“If it’s dangerous for me, it’s dangerous for you too.” She leaned forward and saw a lake down below. The ephemeral palette of fall colors was vividly reflected in the water.

“Why don’t you see him more often?”

He made a dismissive gesture. “He lives in London with his mother. It’s a long story.”

She stole a cigarette from him, but the wind made it difficult to light. He handed her his and, just when she was least expecting it, unburdened his heart to her.

“I haven’t always worked for the FBI. Before I joined the Bureau, I was a street cop in Chicago.” He narrowed his eyes, letting the memories rise to the surface of his mind. “Chicago is where I was born, and it’s where I met my wife. The two of us grew up in Ukrainian Village, the neighborhood where a lot of the Eastern European immigrants live. It’s a pretty quiet place, northwest of the Loop.”

“Were you in the homicide unit?”

“Yeah, on the South Side, which covers some of the city’s toughest neighborhoods: Englewood, New City…”

He took a long drag on his cigarette before continuing. “Those areas are all run by gangs. They’re places of fear and despair, and as a cop, there’s not much you can do. Whole neighborhoods under the control of little thugs with guns who think they’re Scarface. They rule through terror.”

Memories filled his mind. A past he preferred to keep at a distance but that was now, against his will, submerging him again.

“Don’t you ever get the feeling that we—cops, I mean—are working for the dead? If you think about it, they’re our real clients. They’re the ones we’re accountable to. They’re the ones who haunt us at night when we fail to find their murderers. My wife often used to complain about that: ‘You spend more time with the dead than the living.’ I guess she was right, when it comes down to it—”

Alice interrupted Gabriel. “That’s not true! We work for their families, for the people who loved them, to allow them to grieve, to give them justice, to make sure that the killers never do it again!”

He frowned doubtfully and continued his story. “Well, one day, I decided to really help the living. In Englewood, I was in daily contact with a mediators’ association. They were all types of people, a lot of them social workers and local ex-cons, who had joined together to try to do what police, as representatives of the law, couldn’t—smooth things out, de-escalate conflicts, reduce tensions. And, most important, save the people who could still be saved.”

“The youngest ones?”

“The ones who weren’t drug addicts yet. Sometimes, the volunteers would blur the lines of legality. A few times, I helped them ‘exfiltrate’ young prostitutes from the neighborhood by providing them with fake IDs, some money seized from arrested drug dealers, a train ticket for the West Coast, a place to stay once they got there, the promise of a job…”

Like Paul, Alice thought in spite of herself.

The forest was reflected in Gabriel’s eyes, giving his gaze a disturbing intensity. “I was so sure I was doing good, I didn’t realize the risks I was taking. I’d decided to ignore all the warnings and threats I received. That was dumb—pimps and drug lords don’t just sit back and take it if you rob them of their livelihood.”

He kept talking, silences punctuating his words. “In January 2009, my wife’s younger sister was supposed to go skiing for the weekend with her