Swimsuit - James Patterson [80]
In fact, he couldn’t believe it. He wanted to ask the driver, Do you see what I see? Is that Ben Hawkins and Amanda Diaz? Because I think I’ve lost my mind.
Then Hawkins wiggled the metal frame chair, turning it, sitting so that he faced the street, and Henri knew without a doubt. It was Ben. When he’d last checked, Hawkins and the girl had been in L.A.
Henri’s mind flashed back over the weekend to late on Saturday night, after he’d shot Gina. He’d e-mailed the video to Ben, but he hadn’t checked the GPS tracker, not then. Not for a couple of days.
Had Ben discovered and discarded the chip?
For a moment, Henri felt something completely new to him. He was afraid. Afraid that he was getting sloppy, losing his hard-won discipline, losing his grip. He couldn’t let that happen.
Never again.
Henri barked at the driver, saying that he couldn’t wait any longer. He pushed a wad of bills into the driver’s hand, grabbed his bag and briefcase, and got out of the cab on the street side.
He walked between cars, before doubling back to the sidewalk. Moving quickly, he ducked into an alcove between two storefronts only ten yards or so from the brasserie.
Henri watched, his heart racing, as Ben and Amanda left the restaurant and walked arm in arm, east up Rivoli.
When they had gone far enough ahead, Henri fell in behind them, keeping them in view as they reached the Singe-Vert, a small hotel on Place André Malraux.
Once Amanda and Ben disappeared inside, Henri went into the hotel bar, Jacques’ Américain, adjacent to the lobby. He ordered a Scotch from the bartender, who was actively putting the moves on a horse-faced brunette.
Henri sipped his drink and viewed the lobby through the bar’s back mirror. When he saw Ben come downstairs, Henri swiveled in the stool, watched as Ben handed his key to the concierge.
Henri made a mental note of the number under the key hook.
Chapter 108
IT WAS ALREADY half past eight p.m. by the time I reached the Place Vendôme, an enormous square with traffic lanes on four sides and a tall bronze memorial to Napoléon Bonaparte in the center. On the west side of the Place is Rue St.-Honoré, shopping paradise for the wealthy, and across the square was the drop-dead-fantastic French Gothic architecture of the Hôtel Ritz, all honey-colored stone and luminous demilune awnings over the doorways.
I stepped onto the red carpet and through a revolving door into the hotel lobby and stared at the richly colored sofas, chandeliers throwing soft light on the oil paintings, and happy faces of the guests.
I found the house phones in an alcove and asked the operator to ring Henri Benoit. My heartbeats counted off the seconds, and then the operator came back on and told me that Monsieur Benoit was expected but had not checked in. Would I care to leave a message?
I said, “I’ll call back. Merci.”
I had been right. Right.
Henri was in Paris. At least he would be very soon. He was staying at the Ritz.
As I hung up the phone I had an almost violent surge of emotion as I thought about all the innocent people Henri had killed. I thought about Levon and Barbara and about those suffocating days and nights I’d spent chained in a trailer, sitting face-to-face with a homicidal madman.
And then I thought about Henri threatening to kill Amanda.
I took a seat in a corner where I could watch the door, ducked behind the pages of a discarded copy of the International Herald Tribune, thinking this was the same as a stakeout in a squad car, minus the coffee and the bullshit from my partner.
I could sit here forever, because I’d finally gotten ahead of Henri, that freaking psychopath. He didn’t know I was here, but I knew he was coming.
Over the next interminable two hours, I imagined Henri coming into the hotel with a suit bag and checking in at the desk, and that whatever disguise he was in, I would recognize him immediately. I would follow