The Prisoner's Wife by Gerard Macdonald Page B

don’t have a wife.”
    â€œI don’t. Martha died. Cancer.” He took her arm. “Come talk with Bobby Walters.”

 
    10
    PARIS, PLACE DES VOSGES, 21 MAY 2004
    Watching the street outside Ma Bourgogne, Bobby Walters believed, for a moment, he’d found again the girl he’d met on the boulevard Haussmann: the one who told him all was for sale, except love. Then he saw that this girl, though different, was another of the women he wished to meet. Not cover-girl cute, but cool. Confident. Unaggressive, he’d guess. (His second wife, the actress, had displayed all the female aggression he could suffer in this life.) Thick, shoulder-length hair, this girl outside in the place . Minimal ass, wide mouth in just the kind of feline face Bobby fancied. Wearing jeans, and boots with heels. Looking elegant with it. They could do that in this town: low-rent elegance.
    Inspection finished, Bobby checked out the girl’s man. By definition, this kind of arm candy needs a male arm to be the candy on.
    Bobby saw that the arm here belonged to his buddy, Shawn Maguire. Absorbing that fact—knowing that Shawn was three years older, and, for Christ’s sake, a human train wreck—Bobby felt fate had dealt him a losing hand. He’d thought this before, in connection with Shawn and women. He leaned across the table and pulled out two chairs.
    Outside the restaurant, Shawn had paused in the square’s cloister. “You still have not told me what you do.”
    â€œIn your trade,” Danielle said, “I thought you would know. You have knowledge about my husband. I’m still not sure how.”
    He shook his head. “Don’t know about you. Tell me.”
    She spread suntanned arms. “Art historian, moi. ”
    â€œThere’s a living in that?”
    â€œThere is, if you do what I do. I tell rich men whether or not they’re buying fakes. Suppose you’re a hardware guy from Atlanta about to spend fifty mil on El Greco. Trust me, I’m a cheap date.”
    â€œAre you right? About the artworks?”
    Danielle checked the time. “They’ll never know, will they? I mean, who can tell?”
    â€œYou must think you can.”
    â€œI think I can. Some of the greatest paintings in the Prado are forgeries. We cannot prove it, one way or the other. Will they let me examine the canvas? No way.” She moved toward the restaurant entrance. “Come. Let’s meet this friend you say might help.”
    *   *   *
    Following Danielle into Ma Bourgogne, Shawn held out a hand to his childhood buddy: the man who’d been his partner in three covert actions. For a moment, he recalled heat, intolerable heat; a burning building in Peshawar where both men, locked in a cellar, came close to incineration.
    â€œMr. Walters,” he said, “looking good.”
    â€œYou mean fat,” said Bobby. “I’ll tell you something. Thinner than I was when you saw me this morning.” He wasn’t looking at Shawn. “You planning introductions here?”
    â€œDanielle Baptiste,” Shawn said. He took a chair. “Robert Hamilton Walters. You don’t have a drink.”
    â€œI’m not drinking,” Bobby said. He made hushing signs. “Please. It’s not like it’s a virgin birth.” He spread his hands. “What’s so strange? I’m on a diet, same as this lady.”
    Danielle, seated, considered Bobby. He wondered what she saw. “ Non, pas moi, monsieur . Not I. No régime. ”
    Bobby was still staring. His recall of bodies was better than his memory for faces. “Do we know each other?”
    Danielle shook her head.
    â€œDamn,” he said. “I’ve seen you somewhere.”
    She bit a breadstick, smiling, saying nothing.
    â€œTV? Magazines?”
    â€œUnderwear,” she said. “You must be one of those people who sign up for catalogs. It’s okay.