Harper looked back over his notes.
“So the last thing you remember clearly is leaving LP’s with Komarovsky?”
“That’s the third time you’ve asked me that one, why?”
“Stephan, the bartender, says he saw you leave through the lobby corridor. He says you were alone.”
“No way.”
“He also said, besides him and me, no one talked to you in the bar.”
“That’s nuts, Stephan always…”
She didn’t finish the sentence. Harper finished it for her.
“He always watches who you talk to, who you leave with.”
“He’s not my pimp, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“I don’t. And he’s got nothing to do with this, if that’s what you’re thinking. He’s your friend.”
“Then how can he say he didn’t see me with Komarovsky? I was sitting just fifteen feet from the bar.”
“Komarovsky and his goons are experts at getting in and out of places without being seen. And when they leave, it’s like they were never there.”
“But the place was packed, Harper.”
“Did you recognize the waiter that served the champagne?”
“I didn’t notice one way or the other, why?”
“No one else did, either. And the bottle didn’t come from the bar and neither Stephan nor any of his waiters saw the waiter who delivered it to your table.”
“That’s impossible.”
“Maybe, but it happened just the same. I’m guessing that’s how the drugs were first administered to you.”
“What about the needles and powders I found when I came to, or the oil on my skin?”
Harper stared at Katherine, the mad night flashing in his eyes. The cop in the cashmere coat raving about a breeding potion, as ancient as evil itself…
“What are you thinking, Harper?”
…you understand what all this means for Miss Taylor.
“I’m thinking…I’m thinking champagne was a gateway drug, made you receptive to the psychotropic drugs delivered later, without you ever knowing what hit you.”
“Huh?”
“The most effective way to drug someone into an alternate state of consciousness is to administer the drugs from a variety of sources over a period of time. So the subject isn’t alarmed at what’s happening.”
“Since when did you become such an expert on psychotropic dope?”
Katherine laughed to herself. “Man, what a tangled web we weave.”
“Sorry?”
“Not you, me. It’s weird, you know, when first I came to Lausanne I thought I’d made it to paradise. Look at me now.”
Harper did look at her a good long while, hearing the inspector’s voice again…a breeding potion…used by those who already rule this world…before skipping back through his notes.
“Tell me something, Miss Taylor, who helped you come to Lausanne?”
“What do you mean, who helped me?”
“You said you came here to get away from the IRS. Swiss residency visas are tough to get if you’re not a billionaire.”
“I didn’t have a problem, and I’m not a billionaire.”
“That’s the point. Who helped you?”
“A Swiss banker passing through Los Angeles. We sort of hit it off. He took care of moving my money to Geneva, visas, my flat.”
“Did he introduce you to Madame Badeaux?”
“Yeah, he did. The very night I met him.”
“So he was a member of the Two Hundred Club?”
Katherine stared at Harper. “How do you know about the Two Hundred Club?”
“I just do.”
“You’ve been talking to the police about me?”
“Other way around, actually. But don’t worry, Miss Taylor, I didn’t rat you out.”
“Sure, which is why I need you to be straight with me. The Two Hundred Club, who are they?”
Katherine pulled a smoke from her cigarette case and lit up.
“There’re two kinds of rich and powerful in the world, Harper. The ones who’ve got it and like to flaunt it and see themselves on the cover of Hello! Then there’s the other kind. The über-rich and powerful who don’t need to flaunt a fucking thing, because they own the world already.”
“They own the world?”
“That’s how Simone describes them. Her way of reminding us girls to keep our mouths shut.”
“Where did she find the girls to work for the club?”
“They’re recommended to her by members, the way I was.”
“Should be the other way around, shouldn’t it?”
“The Two Hundred Club is like a gourmet tasting club. Someone finds a new savory dish, he wants to pass it around to his pals. Simone managed the menu for them.”
“Did you ever see a list of members?”
“No way. The list was locked tight in Simone’s head.”
“So what did she do, as manager?”
“Booked our dates, took care of our money so we’d stay clear of the taxman, gave us allowances against our earnings. Mainly she made sure we were good little girls.”
“Good little girls.”
“You worked for the Two Hundred Club, you were exclusive to the Two Hundred Club. No jobs on the side, no getting it off for laughs with anyone who wasn’t a member.”
“No boyfriends?”
“Maybe you remember my reaction to you when you came sniffing around at LP’s?”
“Miss Taylor, I wasn’t trying—”
“Yeah, yeah, you only wanted to borrow my newspaper. So you kept telling me, and it’s still cute. But what I’m saying is it doesn’t matter what you were doing, I was giving you the brush-off because that’s the way it was. Look, you have to realize what it’s like. I was so rolling in cash and gifts, I didn’t need or want anything on the side. Besides, I kind of got off on the whole scene. There’s a rush in fucking your way to the top. I’m sure it was the same for all the girls.”
“How so?”
“When you fuck the guys who own the world, you don’t bother with the boys who shine shoes for a living. No offense.”
“None taken.” Harper flipped through his notebook. “You said Komarovsky told you that you’d been recommended to him by members of the club and that Madame Badeaux said she’d checked around with the members. She told you they all knew who he was. Then in your last phone call to Madame Badeaux, she told you you’d been spotted in the States and brought to Lausanne to be groomed and sold to Komarovsky.”
Katherine puffed nervously on her smoke. “Yeah, so?”
“Did you ever meet any other women who worked for the club?”
“Simone’s number-one rule, no talking to the other girls.”
“No phone calls, no e-mails just to say hello?”
“Harper, I never met the other girls because I never knew who they were.”
“Why not?”
“Just the way Simone ran her shop. She didn’t want us trading pillow talk about the members.”
“Or knowing what the hell they were really up to.”
“What do you mean?”
Harper checked his notes again, found the quote. “‘Grooming and selling sweet little things like you is what I do…Monsieur Komarovsky holds fine affection for you.’ Those were Madame Badeaux’s words to you on the telephone.”
“Yeah, and what are you getting at?”
“Every club’s got a president.”
“You mean, I’m not the only one who’s been sold to Komarovsky?”
Harper watched Katherine lay her cigarette in the ashtray, saw something pass through her eyes.
“What is it, Miss Taylor?”
“It’s weird. It’s like trying to remember a dream days later. But I think I remember something from that night.”
“Tell me.”
“I sort of woke up, once. I mean, I was still drugged out, but I heard Komarovsky talking with the others. I remember hearing someone say the test was positive and I needed another dose of something, more psychowhatever stuff probably. And I remember Komarovsky saying I was to be taken to stay with the others.”
“Did they say who the others were?”
“No.”
“Did they say what kind of test?”
“No.”
“Can you remember anything else, anything at all?”
“Yeah, it was then or another time, but Komarovsky was reading my reviews from my coming-out party.”
“Reviews?”
“Yeah, reviews. Apparently I was the belle of…Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Where did these reviews come from?”
“What?”
“‘Reviews’ implies an audience of some kind.”
“You mean someone was watching it happen?”
“That would be my guess.”
“I was flying on all rockets, Harper, I couldn’t tell you more than I have. I don’t remember anything that makes sense till I saw myself on a computer screen.”
Harper flipped back a page.
“You said you saw yourself, thought it was a mirror, walked over and bumped the table, and the picture stopped for a second. Think back, walk through it again; what happened?”
“What do you mean, what happened? Some words came on the screen and I ran away.”
“What words?”
“Harper, I was fucked up and I’ve told you everything I can remember.”
“Tell me again.”
“How many times do we have to do this?”
“Till it makes sense. Tell me again.”
“I was in some kind of orgy with these bodies I couldn’t touch and I was carried to Komarovsky. Then I woke up on semen-stained sheets and I was masturbating on the Internet.”
“How do you know?”
“What do you mean, how do I know? There were six fucking cameras in the room, I saw myself on the computer screen.”
“How do you know you were on the Internet?”
“Because…because…there were words on the screen.”
“What did they say?”
Katherine closed her eyes, she saw herself in the room, standing before the laptop. “‘Connected at powerline hyperspeed’ or something…‘one hundred ninety-nine members online.’”
“And Komarovsky makes it two hundred.”
Katherine opened her eyes. Harper saw terrible fear rising.
“Jesus, who the hell is he?”
“You need to stay calm, Miss Taylor.”
“Fuck that, what I need is to get my money from that bitch Simone and split.”
“Simone Badeaux is dead.”
“Dead…how?”
“She was found in her flat about the same time you disappeared. She’d been flayed alive and beheaded, her body was left hanging by her ankles.”
Katherine reached for her burning cigarette, fumbled it, her hands shaking. “I am so getting the fuck out of here.”
“There’s nowhere to go, Miss Taylor.”
“Can you tell me those freaks won’t find me in the cathedral? Can you tell me they don’t already know where I am?”
“They may already know.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“The fact you’re here and they’re leaving you alone means you’re safe. For now.”
“What makes you so sure?”
“Call it a hunch.”
“A hunch, are you serious? I’ve got a news flash for you, this isn’t the Middle Ages, sanctuary went out with Quasimodo. I’m getting the fuck out of here!”
“And what about the lad with the lantern?”
“What about him?”
“He is giving you sanctuary and there’s every chance he’ll be slaughtered for doing it. That’s what Komarovsky’s goons told you, didn’t they? They’d kill anyone who helped you escape.”
Katherine jumped up and pulled off her sweater. “Fuck you, Harper! Look what they did to me!”
Harper saw the scratches and bite marks on her breasts and stomach.
“I’m sorry, Miss Taylor. I’m sorry for what’s happened to you. Doesn’t change the fact that if you run, a helpless lad will be slaughtered.”
Katherine slammed her fists on the table. She fell into the chair and put on her sweater. She dropped her head in her hands, took a few calming breaths.
“You really know how to make a girl feel guilty, don’t you?”
“Just telling you the way it is.”
She looked at Harper a moment. “Why don’t you ever call me Katherine, or just Kat?”
“Sorry?”
“My name’s Katherine. You never say it.”
Harper said the name in his head, couldn’t quite get it past his lips. “Don’t really know. Feels like it’s against the rules, like no laundry on Sundays.”
“That makes sense—not.”
Harper lit a smoke. “No, I suppose not. What’s the lad call you?”
“Marc? Come to think of it, he’s never said my name, either. Then again, it’s not what he calls me, it’s what he thinks I am.”
“What’s that?”
“Promise you won’t laugh?”
“Sure.”
“Marc thinks Lausanne is full of lost angels. Last night, he lit up the nave with candles to tell me I was an angel, too. His mother told him a story once, about an angel coming to the cathedral and how he had to protect her.”
“Blimey.”
“I know. Poor guy can hardly stand up straight and he’s got it in his head it’s his duty to protect me till I find a way home. Kind of funny, huh?”
“Actually, I’d say it’s quite the compliment.”
“I know. I don’t deserve it.”
“Don’t be hard on yourself, Miss Taylor.”
“No?” She touched the tin can with the picture of the Matterhorn on the lid. “You know what’s in here? Nearly a hundred thousand Swiss.”
“Nest egg from the flat?”
“Isn’t mine—it’s Marc’s. His family was rich. His grandmother lived in a castle of some kind. Anyways, know what I was doing when you showed up?”
“Stealing the money and taking off?”
“That’s right, leave him thinking he’d imagined the whole thing. Or I thought I might fuck him silly as trade in kind. Truth is, I didn’t give a damn what happened to him.”
Harper took a thoughtful draw from his smoke. “You’re still here, Miss Taylor.”
“Yeah, so?”
“Maybe the lad wasn’t too far off about you.”
“Nice try, Harper, but I’m only here because you showed up in the nick of time.”
Harper looked at the clock on the wall: eleven forty-five. He gathered his notes.
“Speaking of which, I have to meet someone, I’ll be back this evening. We’ll try and figure a way to get you out of here. A way that doesn’t get the lad killed.”
“Where are you going?”
“See the man with the bloody answers.”
“What kind of answers?”
“The kind that tell me why nothing in this bloody town feels like an accident.”
“Huh?”
“Intersecting lines of causality, Miss Taylor. Things happening in this place for a reason we can’t see.”
“Wow, where’d that one come from?”
“No idea, just something I heard somewhere.” Harper stood, slid the bottle of vitamin E toward her. “Four times a day, Miss Taylor. I’ll be back this evening.”
“Promise?”
“Sure.”
He ground out his smoke, picked up his notebook, and stuffed it in his coat. He looked at her without speaking.
“What is it, Harper?”
“I don’t ever remember making a promise.”
“What, like, in your entire life?”
“Not the life I can remember, at any rate.”
“Well, for the record, you just did. To me and Marc both.”
Harper opened the door; an almost blinding light filled the loge. He turned back to Katherine again.
“How did the lad’s mother know he’d be in the cathedral one day?”
“What?”
“You said the lad’s mother told him a story about an angel coming to the cathedral. How did she know?”
“Gee, I don’t know.”
“A what?”
“Was he born in Lausanne?”
“No, Quebec. His mother died when he was a little boy. His father and grandmother were Swiss, they brought him here and put him in a school with kids like him.”
“Like him.”
“Well, let’s face it, Marc is a little out-there. I don’t mean that in a bad way.”
Harper stared at her a moment.
The lad with a lantern, a hooker on the run, a drunk who couldn’t remember ever making a promise. We few, we happy few, he thought. Three more lines of intersecting causality in Lausanne.
“Does he see things, things that aren’t there?”
“Oh yeah, big-time. He calls it imagining.”
“Imagining.”
“Yeah. In Marc’s world the cathedral is full of imaginary friends. Knights in armor, teasing shadows, dead bishops, lost angels. He tried to get me to go down into the crypt to say hello to the skeletons under the altar. All sort of freaked me out at first. Now it’s part of his charm. And he keeps drifting off to something he calls before times, but he says it like one word, beforetimes. He sort of zones out and sees himself somewhere in the past. Always comes back with the funniest stories. But you know something? He really loves this place. You should see him with the bells. It’s as if Marc thinks this place is alive. And he’s got it into his head that if he doesn’t protect the cathedral and the bells and keep his lantern going at night, then the angels would be lost forever. Funny, huh?”
Harper looked at her without speaking for a long moment. He turned, stared out of the door and off the balcony.
The midday sun reflecting off the ice-covered peaks above Évian. Fierce light coming back and hitting him straight in the eyes.
“Harper?”
“Hell of a view from up here, isn’t it?”
Sept cent deux…sept cent trois…sept cent quatre…”
Rochat stepped onto the esplanade and looked at the cathedral. The prophets and saints carved in the façade stood motionless in the chilly shade, waiting for the winter sun to swing around and wake them from their sleep. He looked down Escaliers du Marché. Nothing but empty planks.
“All is well, Rochat.”
He shuffled to the great arch above the main doors and stood beneath the statues in their niches. He rapped Monsieur Moses on his toes.
“Pardonnez-moi, I know you’re still sleeping. But if you see any bad shadows coming up Escaliers du Marché, please stomp your feet and toss your tablets at them and chase them away, d’accord? Merci, à bientôt.”
He shuffled along the façade to the corner of the belfry tower. He stopped. Something caught his eye on the cobblestones. A long unmoving shadow stretching over the esplanade. His eyes followed the shadow to a pair of shoes and up to the detectiveman. He was standing near the fountain.
“Hello, mate.”
“Bonjour, monsieur.”
“Do you have a minute for a chat?”
“I have a minute for a chat.”
Rochat shuffled over with the shopping bags as Harper took a drink of water from the fountain. Harper stood, dabbed at his lips with the back of his hand.
“You know, this really is very good water.”
“Merci. We have our own source in Lausanne.”
“So everybody in Lausanne gets the same water in their kitchen taps?”
“Oui.”
“Then why do the locals drink water from plastic bottles in this town?”
Rochat thought about it. “I don’t know.”
“More for us then, eh?”
“Oui.”
Harper leaned down for another drink, wiped his lips, and straightened up. He looked toward Escaliers du Marché and then down toward Café de l’Évêché.
“Are you here to come to the cathedral now, monsieur?”
“No, I have to meet someone in the nave after the noon bells. Just checking to see if I’m being followed.”
Rochat looked around the esplanade, back toward Escaliers du Marché.
“I don’t see anyone, monsieur.”
“Probably because they already know where I am.”
“Who?”
“Good guys, bad guys.”
Rochat thought about it. “Pardonnez-moi, monsieur, but you are real?”
“Sorry?”
“I don’t mean to be impolite. I’m just a little confused.”
“Some days are better than others in the imagining-things department?”
Rochat nodded. Harper smiled.
“In that case, I’m as real as the last time you saw me.”
“D’accord.” Rochat set down the shopping bags. Harper pointed to the boxes inside, all wrapped in ribbons and bows.
“You’ve been shopping for Miss Taylor.”
“How did you know?”
“I had a chat with her in the belfry before you got here.”
Rochat pulled the ring of keys from his overcoat to make sure they were there. He shook them to make sure they were real.
“Did I leave the tower door unlocked?”
“No, it was locked, but I managed. Reminds me, I saw heavy iron braces in the alcove behind the door.”
“From the days of invadermen.”
“Who?”
“Invadermen who came to Lausanne, and it was the duty of le guet to set the braces at the door to protect the cathedral.”
“Invadermen, right. Well, it might be a good idea to reset the braces after you go in. What do you think?”
“About what, monsieur?”
“When you go inside. You could set the braces against the doors. Can you manage on your own?”
“I can manage on my own. I’m very strong from my legs up.”
“That’s good.” Harper watched the lad again, seeing a maze of crooked wheels in his head trying to spin. “Something on your mind, mate?”
Rochat looked toward Escaliers du Marché, turned back.
“Those men from the bad shadows, the ones who crushed her wings, they’re back. I saw their shadows. They followed me and chased me at Place de la Palud. That’s why I asked Monsieur Moses to keep the watch at the old staircase.”
“Moses?”
Rochat turned, pointed to the stone statues at the cathedral doors. “He’s the grumpy-looking one holding the stone tablets. His feet are made of stone, so if he stomps his feet and throws his stone tablets at them he can make a lot of noise and chase away the bad shadows. That’s what I imagined. Sometimes the things I imagine are real and sometimes they’re just imaginations. And sometimes it’s very confusing because there was an accident when I was born. But I’m very sure the bad shadows were real. Do you imagine things, monsieur?”
“Does a rough night followed by watching the sun come up five or six times in one morning count?”
“I don’t know what that means.”
“Me neither, but it’s time to find out. Listen, later, I’d like to take you up on your offer to hide in the cathedral. Would that be all right? We could take turns keeping an eye out for any bad—”
“Invader—”
“—shadows.”
“—men.”
Harper chuckled. Rochat watched him closely.
“Did we make a joke, monsieur?”
“I believe we did.”
Rochat thought about it. “It was funny.”
“It was at that. So after my meeting in the nave, I’ll collect my kit and run around town till nightfall, then I’ll come back. You’ll need to keep an eye out for me. I’ll be waiting right here after dark, all right?”
“D’accord.” Rochat picked up the shopping bags. “If you don’t mind my asking, monsieur, who are you meeting in the cathedral?”
“Monsieur Gabriel.”
“I don’t know who he is.”
“He stands at the crossing square every day at noon. Watches the light through the rose window.”
“I’ve never seen him.”
“You must have. Bit of a tramp. The nun in the gift shop tells me he comes to the cathedral every day around noon for meditations.”
“Sœur Fabienne?”
“Yeah, that’s her.”
Harper saw Rochat’s eyes lose focus for a few seconds. He slowly blinked.
“I imagined beforetimes to remember something about Sœur Fabienne.”
“What?”
“She died three years ago. Madame Buhlmann works in the gift shop now.”
“I just saw her, three days ago.”
Rochat looked at the cathedral, then back at Harper. “That’s how imagining works, monsieur. I hear the timbers.”
A great, deep sound exploded in the sky. Harper raised his eyes to the belfry as pigeons scattered and Marie-Madeleine rang out over the esplanade, obliterating every sound in the world till the twelfth bell faded away. Harper lowered his eyes; the lad was gone. He heard the sound of iron braces falling into place behind the red door to the belfry.
“Bloody hell, just keeps getting better.”
He walked to the cathedral entrance, pulled open the heavy wooden door. The smell of old earth rushed out and the heavy purple curtain hanging in the archway billowed in the draft. Harper stepped into the narthex and waited for the wooden door to close behind him with a coffinlike thud. The curtain settled. As his eyes adjusted to the dim light he couldn’t keep them from looking up at Headless Mary, Mother of God. Watching him with her unseen eyes. He moved ahead and pulled the curtain aside. He stepped into the nave. His whole being instantly drawn into the illusion of infinite space. He saw the long shaft of tubular light rushing through the giant stained-glass window in the south transept wall. Cutting through the dull gray gloom of the nave and falling on the decrepit form standing at the center of the crossing square.
“Right. Monsieur Gabriel, I presume.”