Dollar Down by Sam Waite

weakness. The perfection of
her physical beauty ironically made her forgettable. There was
no flaw to stick in the mind to imply character. If she had
disciplined her psyche to appear flawless as well, the irony was
even greater. She would gain only the invisibility of
perfection.
    "How can I be part of something I know nothing
about?"
    "Sensible question. Someone might believe you know
more than you do, or the study could be a façade."
    This was her cue for an arched eyebrow or a sneer, but
her face was placid. "We in the firm advise organizations on
ways to increase revenue or sales or earnings. That's all. It's a
simple career, if you focus on its essence. We don't deal in
conspiracies."
    Naiveté at that level was hard for me to follow.
She'd just defined the goal of ninety percent of all conspiracies
ever conceived. Of the rest, eight percent could be written off
to psychotic flakes. The last two percent were saints and
idealists, who had their own psychoses to deal with.
    "Bizet might disagree. He clearly wanted to isolate
himself from this."
    Alexandra looked toward the window again, but there
was little to see. The sky was growing dark quickly.
    "So might Trevor," I said, "if he's alive."
    "Are you going to call Jim Burroughs?"
    "I'll give him a try, but without a reference or
introduction, it's likely to be a tough sell."
    "I'll search for his name in the firm's data base. If he's
worked with Bizet, it might show up. He must be well known in
his field. Someone else in the firm might be able to help. If I can
find a name you can use as a reference, I'll call you."
    During our drive, I managed to learn that Alexandra
had never married, was an only child and had graduated from
INSEAD on a scholarship. She also had a Chihuahua named
Maximilan, after the emperor of Mexico. The original
Maximilan had been an Austrian who had ruled Mexico under
France's Napoleon III. He was an idealist who bankrupted the
nation with social reforms. When France pulled out of Mexico,
Maximilan stayed with his beloved people, who promptly
executed him.
    Maybe Alexandra was aware of her personal ironies
after all.
    When we arrived in Paris, she went to her office to
make night calls to Venezuela and, I suppose, to look for
colleagues who might know Jim Burroughs.
    I called Pascal. He asked me to meet him on his "turf."
That turned out to be near Gare de L'Est, a major, but dreary,
Metro terminal. I spent ten minutes of wrong turns and back
tracks through twisting corridors coated in fading paint and
concrete stairs rutted from decades of footfalls to get to the
street. When I emerged from that dismal underground, I
looked back at the station's façade. In Paris fashion, it
was grand.
    I crossed the Boulevard de Magenta, as broad as a
football field, and found the bus stop Pascal had described. He
was waiting on a bench.
    "You're late, Irish."
    "I got turned around." I pointed my thumb toward the
station building.
    Pascal looked puzzled.
    "Lost."
    He tilted his head toward the station and
frowned.
    I left it alone. "Which way?"
    "Have you had dinner?"
    "No."
    We went down another broad street. Garish
signboards advertised discount clothing shops and cheap Asian
restaurants. I didn't take a nose count, but pedestrians
appeared to be seventy percent African, both Arabs and blacks.
We turned down an alley, to be greeted by two rows of Indian
hawkers outside restaurants. The first guy in line was
obviously the top dog. He gave a hard spiel and looked
offended when we passed him by. Pascal headed straight for a
place farther down. I couldn't figure why he'd chosen one over
another. Their menus were posted outside. They all looked the
same.
    Maybe he liked the ceramic figure of an elephant head
on a man's body or the table that needed napkins under one leg
to keep it from wobbling or the scenic route through a waiters'
station and another dining area to get to the restroom,
constructed of powder-blue plaster unobstructed by
doors.
    Maybe it had the