Lloyds had lost $12.8 billion. GM had lost $9.6 billion. The US Senate had approved a $787 billion stimulus package. The Federal Reserve bought $1.2 trillion. The November rain sounded like birds pecking on tin.
Clouds were moving fast across Paris. A worker in white overalls behind the riot barriers was smoking a cigarette, his back against the wind. The traffic was busy: angry horns, blurting motorcycles, police vehicles. The protestors in La Défense had surrounded the office building with bullhorns and chants. Cameras flashed as Ivo Fraine ducked into his waiting S8. The financier was small-framed, thin, athletically built but not for sport. Ivo was a scrapper who had worked his way up from poor beginnings. In newspaper photographs his wife Marie appeared elegant. Her father was in government. It was through his father-in-law that Ivo had arranged investment in oil exploration in Bakassi. The protestors angered by this business decision pelted the chauffeured Audi with eggs. The police countered with batons.
Aurélie watched standing with her hands in the pockets of her leather jacket. After Ivo had been driven away and the demonstration had broken up she went to an internet cafe in Rue d’Odessa and logged into the Gmail account she shared with TropicalDandy which contained a single email that was never sent, only updated by either party. TropicalDandy wrote that Ivo, Marie and their two children lived in a fourth floor apartment in Passy with a Chubb monitored fire and security alarm connected to a receiving center via a dedicated 24/7 line. When not working at his office or spending time with his family Ivo’s weekly routine required spending Tuesday evenings in Bagneux.
On a Tuesday at six Aurélie shouted herself a taxi. The apartment building at the address in Bagneux was being cleaned. The workers had chosen to not properly close the hose on the water blaster high up on the scaffolding which now dripped water across the entrance in a constant rain. Residents concerned to avoid getting wet were less scrupulous about protecting the front door’s security keypad. After an hour waiting across the street not listening to music on her broken 40GB iPod Classic Aurélie had observed the security entrance code for half-a-dozen residences.
Ivo Fraine’s Audi pulled up outside the building quite early, around nine. Ivo’s passenger opened the door before the vehicle had stopped moving which forced the driver to brake. The woman was about Aurélie’s age with a heart-shaped face and dark curls. When Ivo stepped out to try to reason with her she took a swing at him. Ivo tried to laugh it off and she went for his face with her fists. Ivo’s driver got between the two of them and dragged his boss back to the car. The woman shouted insults at the limousine as it drove away. After it was gone she staggered in a circle running her hands through her long dark hair, cursing and stamping the ground. When her anger was finally exhausted she went into the building. A few minutes later a light came on high up in the scaffolding. The window was on the second-to-top floor. Aurélie looped the cord of her earbuds around her fingers as she wondered what Ivo and his date had been arguing about.
She received an answer the next day at an internet café in Rue du Moulin des Prés. TropicalDandy wrote in their shared email that Ivo Fraine and his family had left for a holiday in Buenos Aires in an apartment as beautiful as so many others left vacant in the city after Videla. The financier would be gone for two weeks. No wonder his mistress was furious.
That night a light rain was falling as Aurélie waited outside the apartment building in Bagneux. When the woman left she protected her hair with a scarf which prevented her noticing Aurélie following her to the Metro.
Both women disembarked at Rue Saint-Maur. The Lucky Clover was a short walk from the station in a narrow side street with juvenile graffiti on the shutters. A bottle of bourbon lay smashed on the sidewalk. The music coming from inside the nightclub sounded terrible. Aurélie left the woman to go inside and took the Metro back to Bagneux . She ducked her head under the dripping scaffolding as she punched in one of the neighbours’ security code. The waiting elevator looked like a cage. Aurélie took the stairs.
The woman’s apartment was locked. The lock on the front door was biaxial. Aurélie unzipped her narrow tools wallet. She slipped a filed blank into the lock so its revised shoulder touched the lock facing and tapped it with a screwdriver and there was a click as the lock pins jumped and the tensed key sprang back. She tucked the wallet back into the pocket of her leather jacket and stepped inside.
She closed the apartment curtains before switching on the light. Glasses were piled in the sink. There was a whisper of movement in the radiator. Cigarette butts in the ashtray. A bent spoon burned black. The workstation was a little sliding desk. The laptop was an IBM ThinkPad X.A yin-yang button was Blu-tacked to its lid. The library books on the desk had not been stamped. Lucky Strikes, a bangle bracelet plaited from strips of reclaimed plastic, an anarchist feminist flag sticker, a ninja star, guitar picks, a leaking ballpoint pen and a matchbook for the Lucky Clover: the woman was a regular customer.
The user name and password written on the Post-It note lying beside the ThinkPad was zoe74 / zoe74pwpw. Zoe’s machine was slow to boot up. Bookmarks for song tabs, the Federation Anarchiste (FAF), Cercle Social, the Bureau of Social Secrets. Columns from the San Francisco Examiner 1960-1971. The West African Anarkismo Newswire. Aurélie searched the browser cache: an online order for vitamins, the Christie’s catalogue, the weather, more news, news, boring social media. Apart from automated bill notices and spam Zoe’s email box was empty. Aurélie clicked through the folders and documents on the drive. Sixty-four gigabytes, 90 per cent full. A lot music but not enough. The drive had been partitioned under a different user name and password. Zoe had a whole other life in there, locked away.
Zoe’s underwear was pegged out to dry in the bathroom. Aurélie went through the cabinet and the drawers, the cupboards, the laundry. The real medicine kit was behind the toilet cistern: a hypodermic and two needles wrapped in a rubber band. The glass hypodermic was a real antique, as smooth as a champagne flute. The blue and white capsules from the bottle with a blank pharmacy label could be ground up and injected but they were not as good as the real thing.
Aurélie returned everything to its place. Before she left she threw herself into the corner of the desk until her ribcage was sufficiently bruised.
*
By the time Aurélie got back to the Lucky Clover one of the two bands playing that night had finished but entry was still full price. She paid the woman on the door who pocketed the money instead of putting it in the till. The bouncer eyed Aurélie’s pale wrist as the woman stamped it with ink.
The proportions of the Lucky Clover would have made it an excellent shooting gallery. On the stage at the end of the room the second band was playing Louie Louie, badly. The audience were dressed like the covers of records that had been released before they were born: rappers in pressed sweats, punks with good teeth. A boy in a leather jacket and a girl in a Ben Sherman shirt were having a competition to see who could care less. Aurélie bought a warm beer in a glass scalloped with cleaning fluid and leaned against the counter not drinking it.
Zoe was standing at the counter with a man Aurélie took to be the woman’s dealer. He was bald with a silly string moustache and a dog that did not like to be patted too hard: ne pas rapide. Aurélie had to shout to make herself heard over the band. She lifted her shirt to show the injuries she had sustained at La Defense. She yelled that the police were pigs. Bakassi stood on the coastal region between Nigeria and Cameroon. Drilling for oil would poison the delicate marshlands, Zoe shouted. After listening to the problems of the world for half an hour her dealer rolled his eyes and moved on.
At midnight the band finished and the Lucky Clover threw everyone out and Aurélie and Zoe walked back to the Metro arm-in-arm.
In Bagneux Aurélie stood back from the front door as Zoe fumbled with her key. The view from the apartment kitchenette was a pattern of grey saw-tooth rooftops. Zoe went into the bathroom and came out with the needle kit. Her dealer had given her the good shit this time. You have you watch these bastards, they are dishonest. She dissolved the smack in a little bubble of water in a teaspoon with a candle, stirring it with the needle tip. She drew the fluid into the needle through a cigarette filter and sat up on the counter and spread her legs and injected it and went pale and fell back and the syringe dropped out.
Later after she stumbled into the bathroom and threw up Aurélie wiped the filth off her mouth and carried her back to the bed where she rolled wet and happy and rosily warm, tumbling in the current of her thoughts. Aurélie made herself a cup of tea. In the early hours of the morning Zoe began to mumble. The industrial revolution was when we started to fuck things up. Cutting down forests and burning fossil fuels. The extra carbon dioxide produced was being absorbed by the oceans and that was making the water more acidic. The rate of acidification is ten times faster than any period on the last 55 million years. When it passed a certain point the organisms at the start of the food chain would die and then the little fish and then bigger fish and the billions of people who live on the coastlines starve or migrate and there are wars and it is coming and what are we doing about it? Nothing. We need to take action. This was a revolution. This was war.
Ivo Fraine’s mistress was the first to suggest revenge.
After Zoe passed out the second time Aurélie rolled her into the recovery position so she wouldn’t choke in her sleep and left her there, her breath shallow, her cheek cupped by her own drool.
Outside it was dawn. The arrondissement was cold. The rain was falling more heavily and the streets were silver and mirrors and the passing cars made a sound like tearing paper. It was a new day in Paris and the sky was a filthy grey.
*
A fortnight later Aurélie disguised herself with black dress and red Fendi bag and a Nikon D90 to crash the party at the Hotel Olivet. After twelve months of renovation the hotel was celebrating its re-opening with a select list of invited guests including London bankers, Russian oligarchs and American businessmen: ideal candidates for the social pages, Aurélie explained to the doorman as she slipped cash into his palm. Once inside Aurélie did not sample the croccantino di foie gras or the Saint Jacques Normand with Camargue salt and grilled leek vinaigrette and candied orange or the green risotto or the variation of sea bass with strawberries. She dawdled behind the topiaries until she saw Ivo Fraine arrive with Zoe and disappeared with her into the men’s room.
Half an hour later Ivo and the woman who wasn’t his wife reappeared and began making their way through the crowd. They were on coke, not smack: their eyes were as wide as saucers. Zoe was wearied by the switch in tempo but she had an elegant way of hiding her face with her Givenchy handbag as she threw up in a champagne bucket. Ivo ignored her. The financier inserted himself into a conversation with people more his standing and left his date standing knock-kneed. Zoe looked too excited when she spotted Aurélie and too serious when she remembered what she was here for and too nervous when she wiped the smile from her face. For a moment Aurélie wondered if the whole thing was about to go pear-shaped but somehow Zoe made it to the other side of the room. Aurélie took her by the arm and guided her behind the bushes. Zoe was talking, talking but clamped her mouth shut as Aurélie put her finger to the her lips. She had what Aurélie needed. She glanced around theatrically before pressing the Luck Clover matchbook into Aurélie’s hand.
Aurélie took a few more photos of guests for cover before she left. As she walked out of the hotel she dropped the D90 in the trash. She was shivering in the cold in her stupid black dress. She ran to the Metro holding the Fendi purse against her chest with folded arms as if the gesture made any difference.
*
Passy station at night was a blast of cold air. Underneath the yellow lamps the stone steps were the colour of stale butter. The door to the apartment building where Ivo lived with his family was black steel with frosted panes. Aurélie put a plastic bag over her hand to punch in the security code. The door’s electric mechanism ground open on unforgiving gears. The full-length mirrors in the lobby multiplied her entrance. She ignored the glowing elevator shaft and took the unlit staircase two steps at a time.
The penthouse entry was a single door. Aurélie examined it with the pocket Maglite she had taken from her Fendi clutch. The alarm contacts were in the upper right and lower right points of the frame. There were two locks. The topmost was a six-wafer Fichet 480, the lower a mortice. She took the lock-pick wallet out of her purse and held the torch in her mouth and she set to work, her breath whistling softly.
The Fichet took nine minutes to open. The mortice was more difficult, requiring a lifter, two tension tools and three picks. Spit was collecting in the corner of her mouth where she was holding the Maglite but she did not stop to wipe it away. After quarter of an hour the movement relented and snapped in a circle. Aurélie opened the door. The red light of the security alarm was flashing. In thirty seconds the siren would sound and an automatic call would be sent to the security company receiving center. Aurélie took out the Lucky Clover matchbook on which Zoe had written the alarm code and punched the numbers in. The red light went steady. Aurélie stepped inside.
Ivo Fraine’s apartment was blue: the colour of dreams. Polished floor, bare walls. Coats and bags hanging on a hat stand, a dying fern behind a set of glass doors. The chandelier cast patterns on the dining room table. The windows made framed pictures of the night outside.
The panelled study was hung with art. The pieces had been chosen for their value as investments: there was no aesthetic or conceptual shape to the collection. A tiny Picasso sketch on canvas for his 1957 Las Meninas hung next to one of the artist’s late period linocuts, of a bowl of fruit; an Eric Fischl still life loomed over a Wyndham Lewis pencil portrait. The silver pieces looked chintzy. There was a toy that could have been a modern work or belonged to one of the children. Aurélie ignored them, turning instead to the antique china cabinet. She used a knife from the apartment’s kitchen drawer to jimmy the cabinet drawers. Inside was a large oban format box covered in linen and fastened with a red ribbon. When she raised the lid the sheet of acid-free paper on top fluttered in the absence of a breeze. She lifted the translucent sheet. Beneath the blue light of the room’s night the white surf of the wave curled like a paw. The peak in the distance emerged from striations of light and dark blue. The prows of the fishing boats slid out from beneath the swell. The decking of the boats was as pale as the sky. The fishermen hunched across their oars were in clothes the colour as the water. The crest of the water was repeated many times. Katsushika Hokusai, dated 1831, from the series Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji. Under the wave off Kanagawa. She picked it up by its edges and turned it in the blue light of the apartment. The signature read ‘From the brush of Hokusai changing to Itsu.’ The artist changed his name when he was 60. The Great Wave was his chance to begin again.
She returned the woodblock back in the oban box. From the bedroom closet she stole a nylon gym bag to carry the box in. The selection of expensive coats on the hat stand belonged to Ivo’s wife. Aurélie chose the one that was warmest, and left.
*
TropicalDandy had asked to trade on Pont Saint-Michel at 6am. As Aurélie crossed the bridge a tour barge was passing beneath, warbling its prerecorded guide. The steps down to the green water were a narrow slot in the stone. As she descended the surrounding granite muffled the barge’s narration. The cold issue of the river offered a different perspective of Paris. A tramp s’ suburb of blankets and cardboard lined its banks. Dusty plastic roses elaborated a moored and shuttered restaurant barge. A group of loud teenagers wandering further along the riverside were doubtless up to no good at this hour: coming home late, looking for trouble.
TropicalDandy was waiting at the tapered foot of the bridge beneath a line of trees whipped leafless by winter. He was dressed in a blue denim jacket with a fleeced hood, heavy black sweat pants, brown leather gloves, yellow Timberland boots and a white knitted cap but he was still shivering. As Aurélie approached the package in the young man’s arms wriggled violently: he had brought a baby with him. The infant’s hands grabbed at the air. Aurélie unzipped the gym bag. When TropicalDandy saw the oban box he was visibly relieved. He had brought the cash in an envelope inside the baby’s blanket. When he held out the envelope Aurélie zipped up the sports bag and stepped back.
‘I want more,’ she said.
‘This is the price we agreed on.’
‘I’m taking all the risk. I want all the money.’
‘This is all I have.’
‘After your cut.’
‘I worked hard for this as well. I gave you information.’
‘You gave me a name. I had to do everything else.’
‘I told you — I don’t have more. This is it.’
‘Then I’ll deal directly with your buyer.’
‘The deal is you deal with me.’
‘Go tell him you lost the sale.’
‘You can’t speak to him. He lives too far away.’
‘I have plenty of time.’
The baby had started to cry. TropicalDandy jiggled it to make it quiet. Above them a little man had come to stand on the bridge to watch the tourist barge pass. TropicalDandy turned to keep his face out of the man’s sight. Aurélie waited with her hands in the pockets of her stolen coat, the gym bag hanging off her shoulder. She knew TropicalDandy was angry but what could he do? He couldn’t grab the bag off her while he was holding a baby. Aurélie looked back at the man on the bridge. He was still standing above them, apparently engrossed in the unremarkable sight of the barge. He was either very bad at looking inconspicuous or he didn’t care. Aurélie continued to stare at him but he wouldn’t meet her eye so she ruled him out as a threat. The baby was really wailing now. It was way too cold down here for a kid. TropicalDandy was breathing rapidly, his puffs of breath fogging the air. They both knew she could wait longer than he could. She could stand here all day if that was what it took. All he had to offer her was money and he didn’t have enough.
A minute later, he folded. He was bright enough to do the math. He said he would see what he would do. Aurélie thanked the middle-man as if he’d ever had a choice. The tourist barge had turned the corner of the river now. When she looked back up at the bridge the little man who had been so absorbed in it was gone.