Swimsuit

It did.

I read that the Château de Mirambeau was in France, in the wine country near Bordeaux. It had been built on the foundations of a medieval fortress founded in the eleventh century, reconstructed in the early 1800s, and turned into an expensive resort. Pictures on the hotel's Web site showed fields of sunflowers, vineyards, and the château itself, an elaborate fairy-tale construction of vaulted stone, capped with turrets surrounding a courtyard and formal gardens.

I searched the Web again, found the football scores and the market closings that I'd seen on the TV in Henri's room.

I realized that this video had been shot on Friday, the same night Amanda had brought home Cornish game hens and I had learned about the deaths of Sara and Wendy.

I put my hand over the bandage against my ribs and felt the banging of my heart. It was all clear to me now.

Two days ago, Henri was in France, about a five-hour drive from Paris. This coming week marked the begi

I had a pretty good idea where he might be.

Chapter 101

I slammed down the lid of my laptop, as if I could actually shut out the images Henri had left to my imagination.

Then I called Amanda, talking rapidly as I threw clothes into a suitcase.

“Henri sent me a video,” I told her. “Looks like he killed Gina Prazzi. Maybe he's doing cleanup. Getting rid of people who know him and what he's done. So we have to ask ourselves, Mandy, when the book is finished, what's he going to do to us?”

I told her my plan, and she argued with me, but I got the last word. “I can't just sit here. I have to do something.”

I called a cab, and once we were rolling I ripped the adhesive tape from my rib cage and stuck the tracking device underneath the cab's backseat.

Chapter 102

I caught a direct flight to Paris – midcabin coach, next to the window. As soon as I put the seatback down, my eyes slammed shut. I missed the movie, the precooked meals, and the cheap champagne, but I got about nine hours of sleep, waking only as the plane started its descent.

My bag shot down the luggage chute like it had missed me, and within twenty minutes of landing I was sitting in the backseat of a taxi.

I spoke to the driver in my broken French, told him where to take me: the Hôtel Singe-Vert, French for “Green Monkey.” I'd stayed there before and knew it to be a clean two-and-a-half-star lodging popular with journalists on location in the City of Lights.

I walked through the unma

The concierge's nametag read “Georges.” He was flabby, fiftyish, and pissed that he had to break off his phone conversation to deal with me. After Georges ran my credit card and locked my passport in the safe, I took the stairs, found my room on the third floor at the end of a frayed ru

The room was papered with cabbage roses and crowded with century-old furniture, jammed in wall to wall. But the bedding was fresh, and there was a TV and a high-speed Internet co

I dropped my bag down on the duvet and found a phone book. I'd been in Paris for an hour, and before I did another thing I had to get a gun.

Chapter 103

The French take handguns seriously. Permits are restricted to police and the military and a few security professionals, who have to lug their guns in cases, carry them in plain sight.

Still, in Paris, as in any big city, you can get a gun if you really want one. I spent the day prowling the Golden Drop, the drug-dealing sinkhole around the Basilica of Sacré-Coeur.

I paid two hundred euros for an old snub-nosed.38, a ladies' pistol with a two-inch barrel and six rounds in the chamber.

Back at the Green Monkey, Georges took my key off the board and pointed with his chin to a small heap on one of the sofas. “You have a guest.”

It took me a long moment to take in what I was seeing. I walked over, shook her shoulder, and called her name.

Amanda opened her eyes and stretched as I sat down beside her. She put her arms around my neck and kissed me, but I couldn't even kiss her back. She was supposed to be home, safe in L.A.

“Gee. Pretend you're glad to see me, okay? Paris is for lovers,” she said, smiling cautiously.

“Mandy, what in God's name are you thinking?”

“It's a little rash, I know. Look, I have something to tell you, Ben, and it could affect everything.”

“Cut to the chase, Mandy. What are you talking about?”

“I wanted to tell you face-to-face -”

“So you just got on a plane? Is it about Henri?”

“ No -”

“Then, Mandy, I'm sorry, but you have to go back. No, don't shake your head. You're a liability. Understand?”

“Well, thank you.”

Mandy was pouting now, which was rare for her, but I knew that the further I pushed her, the more obstinate she'd get. I could already smell the carpet burning as she dug in her heels.

“Have you eaten?” she asked me.

“I'm not hungry,” I said.

“I am. I'm a French chef. And we're in Paris.”

“This is not a vacation,” I said.

A half hour later, Mandy and I were seated at an outdoor café on the Rue des Pyramides. Night had blotted up the sunlight, the air was warm, and we had a clear view of a gilded statue of Saint Joan on her horse where our side street intersected with the Rue de Rivoli.

Mandy's mood had taken an upturn. In fact, she seemed almost high. She ordered in French, put away course after course, describing the preparation and rating the salad, the pâté, and the fruits de mer.

I made do with crackers and cheese and I drank strong coffee, my mind working on what I had to do, feeling the time rushing by.

“Just try this,” Mandy said, holding out a spoonful of crcme brulée.

“Honestly, Amanda,” I said with frank exasperation. “You shouldn't be here. I don't know what else to say to you.”

“Just say you love me, Benjy. I'm going to be the mother of your child.”

Chapter 104

I stared at Amanda; thirty-four years old, looking twenty-five, wearing a baby blue cardigan with ruffled collar and cuffs and a perfect Mona Lisa smile. She was astonishingly beautiful, never more so than at this very moment.

“Please say that you're happy,” she said.

I took the spoon out of her hand and put it down on her plate. I got out of my chair, placed one hand on each of her cheeks, and kissed her. Then I kissed her again. “You are the craziest girl I ever knew, trcs éto

“You're very amazing, too,” she said, beaming.

“Boy, do I love you,” I said.

“Moi aussi. Je t'aime you to pieces. But are you, Benjy? Are you happy?”

I turned to the waitress, said to her, “This lovely lady and I are going to have a baby.”

“It is your first baby?”

“Yes. And I love this woman so much, and I'm so happy about the baby I could fly circles around the moon.”

The waitress smiled broadly, kissed both my cheeks and Mandy's, then made a general a

I smiled at strangers, bowed to a beatific Amanda, and felt the flush of an unexpected and full-blown joy. Not long ago I was thanking God that I have no children. Now I was lit up brighter than I. M. Pei's glass pyramid at the Louvre.