“It doesn’t,” he admits.
“Then why?”
“Er… We wanted to ease you into the agency, let you find your bearings. Mapping the antique shops was… erm…” He screws up his face comically as he admits, “It was the least dumb of the ideas I came up with.”
I stare at him, incredulous both at the way things work at MINDFUCH and at his honesty. Everybody knows that publicly funded organizations generate a lot of useless work. But they usually deny it. And what sane boss would recognize the inaneness of his ideas? In front of a novice underling, of all people!
Pondering that question, I look at Paris again, feastingmy eyes on the Eiffel Tower across the Seine, and then on the martyred roof of Notre-Dame.
Max follows my gaze. “I watched it burn, you know. I stood right here, petrified. The flames, the black smoke, the fire trucks, the sirens…” He falls silent as if reliving the horror of that day.
“I watched it on TV with my mom and my gran,” I say. “My gran—she passed away in January—wept like a baby.”
“Mine attempted to kill herself.”
I jerk my head back. “Are you serious?”
“That fire was our biggest failure.”
“Our? You mean, MINDFUCH’s?”
There’s a conflicted expression on his handsome face.
“Erm… yes,” he finally says. “That’s what I mean.”
“But how is MINDFUCH responsible for what happened?”
He looks away. “The letterHin the name of our agency is forheritage. It’s our job to help protect and conserve French heritage.”
“Neatly, diligently and fairly,” I recite from the acronym.
“And usefully,” he adds. “TheUis foruseful.”
Was there a tinge of self-irony in his voice or did I imagine it?
Not knowing what to say, I study the pagoda-like building of the city’s best covered market, the Marché d’Aligre, located halfway between MINDFUCH and my hotel.
He clears his throat. “Your new assignment will be real.”
“So glad to hear it!”
“It will be very important and very secret.”
“Isn’t everything we do here secret?” I inquire a littletoo innocently. “You made me sign a confidentiality agreement.”
“True. But this one is supersecret. You must be extra careful not to whisper a word about it to anyone, not even to another MINDFUCH colleague.”
The familiar suspicion rears its ugly head again. “What exactly do you want me to do?”
“Go on a field trip!”
“With you?”
“Yes.”
My eyes narrow to mistrustful slits.
And Max’s light up with sudden comprehension. “Not like you think!”
