"Want to run now, asshole?" Doucet asked.

"No, thanks. In fact, that bat will suit my needs perfectly. I'm going to take it away and use it on you."

"How do you figure?"

Fisher let the smile drop from his face. "You're still running your mouth."

Doucet charged. He hadn't taken two steps before Fisher's Gerber was out of its sheath. Doucet's left leg was just coming forward when the dagger slammed, hilt deep, into his thigh. The left foot came down and immediately slipped from under the Frenchman as though he'd stepped onto an ice rink. He went down, knife hilt first, into the concrete. Then came the screaming.

ITtook ten minutes to get Pierre, Louis, Georges, Andre, and Avent cuffed and arranged on the couch. Doucet, who'd received a sedating tap from Fisher's sap, was barely conscious, moaning gibberish as Fisher secured him to the sturdy oak coffee table, wrists and ankles cuffed to the legs.

Fisher made himself a cup of tea, sat down in one of the recliners, and waited until the others regained consciousness. Doucet was the last to come around. Fisher had bound the thigh wound using a sweatshirt he'd found stuffed between the couch cushions. Fisher's aim had been true: The Gerber had struck no arteries, just muscle.

Pierre was the first to speak. "What the--"

"We're done with questions, gentlemen. Now's the time for answers. You run a thriving identity-theft business. I want to know where you keep your stock."

Louis said, "We don't have--"

Fisher silenced him with a raised hand. He picked up the cricket bat from beside his chair, then stood up and walked over to Doucet, who gaped at him. "I'm going to start hurting your boss," Fisher said. "How badly is up to you. The quicker you give me what I want, the less pissed off he's going to be at you." Fisher brought the cricket bat level with his waist, extended his arm, let the bat hover over Doucet's kneecap for a moment, then let it drop.

Crack!

Doucet screamed. Fisher let him get it out of his system, then said, "That's not even broken, guys. Next time I'm going to put a little heart into it."

"Tell him," Doucet said.

No one spoke. They looked everywhere but at their boss.

"Tell him, or God help me!"

Louis said, "Behind the dryer. There's a satchel."

"Don't go anywhere," Fisher said, then went upstairs, retrieved the valise, and came back down. "One more piece of business. Romain, you've been misbehaving--"

"I didn't--"

"Shut up. You've been misbehaving and now it's time to atone. I'm going to do some things to you, and it's going to involve a lot of pain, but you'll survive. While you're recuperating, I want you to remember this night. If you so much as litter or steal a magazine or curse at an old woman, I'll come back here and kill you." Fisher looked at the others, staring at each face in turn. "All of you. And I'll take my time doing it, too. Understood?" Six heads nodded.

Doucet said, "Hey, hey, you don't have to do this. I can give you--"

"There's nothing you can give me, and there's nothing you can say. You're a bully. Bullies' brains are wired differently. To truly get it, you need an unforgettable lesson."

"Please, don't--"

"Too late for that," Fisher said. He hefted the cricket bat, tested its weight, then walked closer to Doucet, who was openly sobbing now. "Don't worry," Fisher said. "You'll pass out quickly."

2

ATeleven the next morning, Fisher's taxi pulled onto rue de Vesles. Fisher let it go another hundred yards before asking the driver to stop. He paid the fare and climbed out. The block was lined with boutique clothing and shoe shops. Fisher crossed the street and walked another hundred yards, past the intersection of rue Marx Dormoy, then back across again. No sign of watchers. Once on the opposite sidewalk he reversed course again, past Marx Dormoy, and then into a tunneled alley called passage Saint-Jacques. Once through the alley he found himself in a warren of tree-lined courtyards and tall wrought-iron fences.

He found the right house number and pressed the buzzer. A moment later a wheezy voice replied, "Yes?"

"It's Francois Dayreis."

The door buzzed and Fisher pushed into the alcove, then down a short hall to a stairwell. He took it down one flight to the basement apartment and knocked. Fisher heard the shuffling of feet on carpet. Down the hall a ceiling fixture flickered, went dark, then flickered back to life. Abelard Boutin opened the door and gestured for him to enter. Boutin was as close to a human gnome as Fisher had ever met. In his late fifties, he was five feet, four inches tall and stoop shouldered, with only a few wisps of greasy gray hair to cover a skull so dented it reminded Fisher of a golf ball. Boutin's black-rimmed Coke-bottle glasses completed the look. Boutin cared little for appearances, Fisher had learned, at least those in the "realm of the animated," as Boutin called it. The Frenchman had only one interest: forgery. Like a mathematical savant who lived his life immersed in numbers, Abelard Boutin lived his life for the perfection of falsification. There were plenty of forgers in France but only a handful of Boutin's caliber.

It was that and one other trait of Boutin's that had brought Fisher here. Boutin could be trusted to do whatever it took to keep his beloved world intact. Clients who threatened that integrity were culled from the herd.

"How can I help you today?" Boutin asked wheezily. Clearly he was a fan of Gitanes: His apartment stunk of them. He shuffled Fisher into the apartment's sitting/ TV/work room. The center of the space was dominated by a ten-by-five-foot maple workbench equipped with all the tools of Boutin's trade. A perpetually burning electric brazier at each end of the workbench ensured that unexpected police guests would find no documents, only the tools of an avid fly-fishing-lure maker: swing-arm halogen magnifier lamps; miniature, multiarmed clamp vices; delicate pens and paintbrushes; a high-end copier-printer; and a laminating machine--for making weather-resistant shipping labels, Boutin had explained to Fisher on their first meeting. The forgery-specific tools and supplies Boutin likely kept in a well-concealed safe.

"I need these altered," Fisher replied, dropping the driver's licenses for the Doucet gang down on the table.

Boutin waddled over, snatched up the licenses, studied each in turn, then shrugged. "Easy enough. You have pictures?"

Fisher handed him the strip he'd taken in a do-it-yourself photo booth.

"The usual names?" Boutin asked.

"No, these." Fisher handed him a typewritten list.

"How soon?"

"How much?"

"Depends on how soon."

"Later this afternoon."

"Sixteen hundred for all."

"Eight hundred."

"Out of the question. Fourteen."

"One thousand, and let's be done with it. I'm sure you don't want me here any longer than is absolutely necessary."

This did the trick. Boutin waggled his head from side to side, thinking, then nodded. "Come back at five."

Fisher walked the half mile toward the city center, to a Sixt rental car agency on Aristide Briand, rented a white Ford Fiesta, then drove north out of the city on the D931. He reached Verdun just after noon. One of the handful of forgers on par with Boutin lived in an apartment near the quai de Londres on the Meuse River.