French Kiss

Chapter 2

My partner, Detective Maria Martinez, is seated on the driver’s side of an unmarked police car at 71st Street and Madison Avenue.

While keeping her eyes on the surrounding area, Maria unlocks the passenger door. I slide in, drowning in perspiration. She glances at me for a second, then speaks.

“Man. What’s the deal? Did you put your suit on first and then take your shower?”

“Funny,” I say. “Sorry I’m late.”

“You should have little business cards with that phrase on it-‘Sorry I’m late.’”

I’m certain that Maria Martinez doesn’t care whether I’m late. Unlike a lot of my detective colleagues, she doesn’t mind that I’m not big on “protocol.” I’m late a lot. I do a lot of careless things. I bring ammo for a Glock 22 when I’m packing a Glock 27. I like a glass or two of white wine with lunch…it’s a long list. But Maria overlooks most of it.

My other idiosyncrasies she has come to accept, more or less. I must have a proper déjeuner. That’s lunch. No mere sandwich will do. What’s more, a glass or two of good wine never did anything but enhance the flavor of a lunch.

You see, Maria “gets” me. Even better, she knows what I know: together we’re a cool combination of her procedure-driven methods and my purely instinct-driven methods.

“So where are we with this bust?” I say.

“We’re still sitting on our butts. That’s where we are,” she says. Then she gives details.

“They got two pairs of cops on the other side of the street, and two other detectives-Imani Williams and Henry Whatever-the-Hell-His-Long-Polish-Name-Is-at the end of the block. That team’ll go into the garage.

“Then there’s another team behind the garage. They’ll hold back and then go into the garage.

“Then they got three guys on the roof of the target building.”

The target building is a large former town house that’s now home to a store called Taylor Antiquities. It’s a place filled with the fancy antique pieces lusted after by trust-fund babies and hedge-fund hotshots. Maria and I have already cased Taylor Antiquities a few times. It’s a store where you can lay down your Amex Centurion card and walk away with a white jade vase from the Yuan dynasty or purchase the four-poster bed where John and Abigail Adams reportedly conceived little John Quincy.

“And what about us?”

“Our assignment spot is inside the store,” she says.

“No. I want to be where the action is,” I say.

“Be careful what you wish for,” Maria says. “Do what they tell you. We’re inside the store. Over and out. Meanwhile, how about watching the street with me?”

Maria Martinez is total cop. At the moment she is heart-and-soul into the surveillance. Her eyes dart from the east side of the street to the west. Every few seconds, she glances into the rearview mirror. Follows it with a quick look into the side-view mirror. Searches straight ahead. Then she does it all over again.

Me? Well, I’m looking around, but I’m also wondering if I can take a minute off to grab a cardboard cup of lousy American coffee.

Don’t get me wrong. And don’t be put off by what I said about my impatience with “procedure.” No. I am very cool with being a detective. In fact, I’ve wanted to be a detective since I was four years old. I’m also very good at my job. And I’ve got the résumé to prove it.

Last year in Pigalle, one of the roughest parts of Paris, I solved a drug-related gang homicide and made three on-the-scene arrests. Just me and a twenty-five-year-old traffic cop.

I was happy. I was successful. For a few days I was even famous.

The next morning the name Luc Moncrief was all over the newspapers and the Internet. A rough translation of the headline on the front page of Le Monde:

Oldest pigalle drug gang smashed by youngest Paris detective-Luc Moncrief

Underneath was this subhead:

Parisian Heartthrob Hauls in Pigalle Drug Lords

The paparazzi had always been somewhat interested in whom I was dating; after that, they were obsessed. Club owners comped my table with bottles of Perrier-Jouët Champagne. Even my father, the chairman of a giant pharmaceuticals company, gave me one of his rare compliments.

“Very nice job…for a playboy. Now I hope you’ve got this ‘detective thing’ out of your system.”

I told him thank you, but I did not tell him that “this detective thing” was not out of my system. Or that I enjoyed the very generous monthly allowance that he gave me too much.

So when my capitaine supérieur announced that the NYPD wanted to trade one of their art-forgery detectives for one of our Paris drug enforcement detectives for a few months, I jumped at the offer. From my point of view, it was a chance to reconnect with my former lover, Dalia Boaz. From my Parisian lieutenant point of view, it was an opportunity to add some needed discipline and learning to my instinctive approach to detective work.

So here I am. On Madison Avenue, my eyes are burning with sweat. I can actually feel the perspiration squishing around in my shoes.

Detective Martinez remains focused completely on the street scene. But God, I need some coffee, some air. I begin speaking.

“Listen. If I could just jump out for a minute and-”

As I’m about to finish the sentence, two vans-one black, one red-turn into the garage next door to Taylor Antiquities.

Our cell phones automatically buzz with a loud sirenlike sound. The doors of the unmarked police cars begin to open.

As Maria and I hit the street, she speaks.

“It looks like our evidence has finally arrived.”