Murder in Clichy (17 page)

Thursday Early Evening

“WE’RE STAYING IN A hotel,” Aimée said as she cleaned René’s bloodied hands with disinfectant. The taxi pulled up on rue Sauffroy in front of Kinshasa Coiffure, its windows covered with pictures of women with braided cornrows and Afros. HÔTEL BONHEUR read an old sign by a window of the second-story building. Smells of fish and coconut mingled in the dusk.

“Here?” René asked.

She tipped the taxi driver.

“Always four star with you, Aimée,” he said.

“There’s an elevator and plenty of electrical outlets. I’ll get your car and park it in back, if you want.”

“Don’t you think we’ll stick out?” he said, observing the African women in bright scarves on the street.

“No one will think of looking for us in the African music center of Paris,” she said. “And the owner owes my cousin Sebastian a favor.”

“But we’re still in Clichy.”

“That’s why it’s perfect. Did you see the faces of the men who were holding you? Could you recognize them?”

He nodded. “One heavy-set with red hair, the other lean with a ponytail.”

Like the RG men who had been on the quai outside her apartment.

“What happened, René?”

He rubbed his neck. “They threw a net over me on the office stairs, then put a choke hold on my throat. A carotid sleeper special!”

René reached in his pocket and winced. “Does this help?” he said, pulling out the notebook.

“I’m proud of you, partner,” she said, scanning the pages.

One had writing on it, with a phone number. Regnier’s number.

“This confirms it,” she said. “Regnier, the suspended RG
mec,
kidnapped you to make sure I handed over the jade. How’s your hip?”

“I’ve felt worse.” Though he couldn’t remember when. With an effort, he tried not to limp.

The hotel room’s furniture—two beds, an angular leopard-skin couch and 1960s Formica end tables—seemed out of place under the tall ceilings and ornate nineteenth-century scrollwork moldings. Lemon verbena scents came from the bathroom. She took out her laptop and hooked it up.

“Saj will bring laptops from the office and we’ll work from here. That’s if the doctor gives you the OK.”

“I don’t need a doctor,” he said. “I just need to lie down, and to bandage my wrists. What about Miles Davis?”

“He’s on holiday at the groomer’s. Loves it, according to the groomer.”

“Is Guy coming?”

She turned away.

“What’s the matter, Aimée?”

“Time to talk about that later. There’s something more important.”

René’s brow furrowed. She reached for the box of gauze bandages. She wasn’t very good at this but she had to say it. “I know I’m not the easiest person to work with René. But I can’t see myself anywhere but Leduc Detective. And you’re part of that. I do know that with your skills, you could go anywhere. Maybe you’ve received other offers. Was that what you meant the other day?”

An odd look crossed René’s face.

“Are you in pain?” she asked. Or was he afraid to tell her he was leaving?

“You’re my family, René, but I don’t want to stand in your way. I’ll try and talk you out of it, because I’m selfish. But I will respect whatever . . .”

“Did I say anything like that?” René asked.

She shook her head. “But I thought. . . .”

“I’d appreciate a raise when we’re solvent again,” he said, as Aimée bandaged his wrists.

“Consider it done,” she grinned. She took a deep breath.

“At this rate I’m going to have to put your name on the door.”

He looked away but not before she saw a small smile on his face.

“In the meantime, what I can’t figure out is why didn’t they call you again,” René said, “or make more demands.”

Was he trying to change the subject? But he’d made a good point. “True, Regnier was waiting for me to find the jade, or else Gassot.” She stood up. “And I haven’t found either. Not yet.”

She looked out the window to the wet street below. No sign of Regnier or anyone tailing her. The orange-pink neon of Kinshasa Coiffure reflected on the windows opposite. From the resto below, came the beat of the music of Papa Wemba, the King of Congolese Rhumba Rock.

“I have to find out why Olf wants me to monitor the Chinese and British oil bids,” she said. “You’ll have to help me.”

“Oil bids?

René put his feet up on the bed, laid back. His eyes looked heavy.

“And how the jade’s involved with oil. This smelled from the beginning and it’s reeking now.”

But she spoke to a sleeping René.

Friday Morning

“FIND ANYTHING INTERESTING, LARS? ” Aimée asked over the phone. She hoped he’d thaw out and pass on more concrete details about the so-called Circle Line.

“That’s some pudding you’re looking into,” he said, then placed his hand over the phone to muffle some background noise.

“Count on me to stir the lumps in the pudding,” she said.

The sounds of furniture scraping on the floor, then a loud squeak came over the line. “Sorry, we’re moving out the file cabinets. Rumor has it our office has its new coat of paint and they’re shoveling us upstairs. Room 20.”

It was an old signal he used when other ears were listening in. Good thing she hadn’t mentioned Pleyet’s name.

“Can you make some time to have a coffee with me?”

“We’re worked off our feet. Call me next week; we’ll meet at the nice place under the horse chestnuts.”

He rang off.

If she hurried she’d make it to the café on Place Dauphine by the roasted chestnut stand in twenty minutes.

She crossed rue de Rivoli, passed the Louvre’s imposing Cour Carrée, raced down the small street behind the Art Deco Samaritaine department store, and hurried across the Pont Neuf. The wind whipped at her coat but her vision was crystal clear.

Figures in overcoats, bent against the wind, formed a dark stream across the bridge. The words of Hubert Juin’s poem about the Pont Neuf came to her:

I remember those I had no chance to know, the pavement still mumbles . . . the river Seine swirling near the Pont Neuf, Baudelaire slowly goes by, and Verlaine is smiling. Through the sleeping city, passes history.

Shaped like a ship, the back end of île de la Cité held the Jewish Memorial to the Deported. Aimée turned left into place Dauphine, a triangular-shaped tree-lined oasis. Once the orchard of the king, it was surrounded by the two arms of the Seine. Sixteenth century construction of the Pont Neuf had joined the island and several small
îlots
to the city.

Now, the place Dauphine backed up to the king’s old palace, the present site of the courts of the Palais de Justice and the Conciergerie prison, now a museum, with Marie Antoinette’s cell as stark and damp as she’d left it.

Aimée pushed past the rattan café chairs. She was startled to see Morbier, wearing an old raincoat, under the canvas awning against the wall. He was reading a newspaper. She sucked in her lower lip. Coincidence? She doubted it.

Flics
didn’t patronize this place; it attracted residents—such as Simone Signoret and Yves Montand who had lived in the neighborhood and other patrons who could afford the pricey menu. An occasional judge or prosecutor perhaps. But her godfather?

“Right on time,” Morbier said, setting down the paper, keeping the rainhat’s brim lowered over his face. “Another fine mess you’ve got me into.”

“What brings you here, Morbier?” she asked, keeping her tone steady.

“Ask me no questions and I’ll tell you no lies.”

“Mademoiselle?” a waiter asked.

She turned. “An espresso,
s’il vous plaît
.”

Morbier puffed on a short, fat cigarillo. Clouds of acrid smoke rose.

“Where’s Lars?” she asked him.

“Grow up, Leduc. Time to get out of the sandbox.”

Did he know she’d fallen into one yesterday? Why was he here in place of Lars? A ring of intrigue surrounded her and she still knew nothing.

“You’re old enough to know better,” Morbier went on.

“And young enough to still do it,” she said. “So you’re in league with the Ministry now, Morbier?” She shook her head in disgust. “And you call yourself a socialist?” He might as well take off the socialist party pin in his lapel and grind it in the gravel.

“Leduc, in case you forgot, we have a socialist government. First you drop off this charming woman for me to guard, then use my code to find an address from a phone number,” he said, with irritation. “Now you’re badgering Lars to access security clearance files. Of course, it tripped off an inquiry. Forced us both into some pretty lies.”

This was deep. She felt it in her bones.

“Lars knows the muddy Ministry waters. He navigates well, always has,” she said, reaching for a tissue and wiping beads of rain from her bag. “Inquiry into what?”

“Files requiring special clearance,” he said. “And you know that could mean anything—from the chief’s girlfriend’s flat rental, to his expense account for a lost weekend in Bordeaux.”

Morbier seemed intent on passing this inquiry off as trivial. Was it?

“Since when do you cozy up to Lars?”

Morbier leaned forward. “His old man, your father, and I, were colleagues. Or did you forget that, too?”

Of course she hadn’t; she remembered his famous Sunday
pot-au-feu
lunches. “It bothers me that a man was shot next to me, died in my arms, and
you
let his ex-wife leave the country.”

“Murder and thugs near Place de Clichy, druggies disposing of each other! It illustrates the law of natural selection. Those aren’t my problems! Or yours.”

”
I remember the thirteen-year-old with tracks on her arm who washed up in your part of the Seine: Then it was your business! You wouldn’t let go of that case.”

“Still can’t,” Morbier said. “Key point, Leduc,
my part of the Seine
. Clichy’s landlocked. They can keep their trash there. Plenty to go round.”

Compartmentalize. Good
flics
did that. Kept their minds on the business at hand. Yet, she felt there was a lot he wasn’t saying.

“You got here fast.”

“Group R’s office is next to Lars’s”

“You’ve never told me what your group handles.”

“Need to know basis, Leduc.”

“
Bon.
” She smoothed down her black pencil skirt. Rain pattered on the cobbles. “Pleyet’s name came up as part of the Circle Line surveillance and I saw him at the jade museum. How does it tie together? Well, I’m all ears.”

Silence. Except for the rain pattering on the café awning and the bark of a dog.

“Morbier, I know Pleyet’s not in the traffic division.”

“Leduc, people like him, you don’t want to know,” he said.

True. His hawklike eyes and Special Ops aura were chilling.

“I’m not looking for a date,” she said. “Just the truth.”

Morbier stood, shuffled in his pocket, then threw some francs on the round table just as Aimée’s espresso arrived.

“Article 4 of
Code de la Police
,” he said. “ ‘
By the procedural code, police missions are placed under the authority of the Ministry of Interior
.’ ”

Morbier quoting police procedure?

“So you’re saying Pleyet’s with the Ministry of Interior? Tell me something I don’t know.”

“You don’t know anything.” Morbier bent over and clutched the table. Was that a grimace of pain as he pulled his rainhat down?

“
Ça va
, Morbier?” she asked, alarmed. She stood, took his arm, and rubbed his back.

But when he straightened up, she saw a lopsided grin on his face. “Didn’t want to make eye contact with
la Proc’
. She’s a ball-breaker that one. Always on my case.”

True? Or a way for a wily fox to get out of answering? She turned around and saw the back of
La Proc’
Edith Mesnard’s tailored Rodier suit. And then doubt nagged her. Was this a glimpse of real pain after all?

“Give me something to go on, Morbier,” she said. “Don’t make me beg. That’s if you want flowers at the hospital.”

Morbier frowned. “Drink your espresso. I’m not going to warn you off any more, Leduc. Wise up, get married, make babies, change diapers.”

Babies . . . diapers, where did that come from? And with whom was she supposed to do this? Guy was no longer a possibility.

“Miles Davis was potty trained in a week, and he’s more than enough for me to handle,” she replied.

He looked away. She noticed the liver spots on his hands, the lined skin around his eyes. He’d aged.

“Leduc?”

She looked up.

“For once, listen to me. Promise to leave it alone and I’ll sniff around,” he said. “But I mean it. You promise?”

She nodded. “I found out Regnier’s on suspension. As far as I can tell, he’s gone rogue.”

“What do you mean?”

“Just what I said,” she said. “And
he
kidnapped René. I’ve got the proof in this little notebook.”

Morbier didn’t look surprised often. But now was one of those times.

“He knows about the jade and thinks he can claim it but . . .”

“And René?”

“He sent some scum to the hospital and caused a three-alarm fire,” she said. “All by himself. But thanks for asking.”

Morbier’s eyes widened and he shook his head with a little smile. “I’m getting too old,
vraiment
?”

She nodded. “Soon, I’m going to have to put his name on the door.”

“Leduc, I meant to help,” he told her.

His chin sagged and he looked lost. Morbier? Now she was worried.

“Morbier, what happened with your grandson Marc?”

His eyes followed the sparrows pecking for food on the crackling brown leaves. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

Had Marc’s other grandparents received custody?

“If there’s some way I can help?”

“Not now, Leduc.”

Morbier stood, took his newspaper, and walked away. His shoes crunched the gravel as he crossed in the square. Could she still count on him?

As her father had said, If only the
flics’
left hand knew what their right hand was doing, they wouldn’t try wiping their arses with both hands at the same time.

Gray mist hovered over the rooftops. She took a deep breath. She would have to flush out the scum herself.

LATER THAT afternoon, Aimée sipped wine at a pre-war
bar à vin
on rue de Clichy
.
The decor featured white-globe sconces, a stamped-tin ceiling, and enough tobacco in the air to stain her teeth just by inhaling. She wished she could open the window. The smell of wet wool, the sputtering heater, and the stale smoke was suffocating. Even the raw damp wind outside would be preferable. And she wished she could see better through the fogged-up windows.

She watched men enter Académie de Billard, Blondel’s haunt across the rue de Clichy. Most were of a certain type. She figured a lot would be named Jacky, would be on the dole, and would have the hots for Arielle Dombasle whose film career had peaked in the 80s. And all were wearing leather bomber jackets.

She was an outsider. She doubted they’d be forthcoming about Blondel, the man mentioned in Sophie’s postcard, even if they knew him. Maybe this could work to her advantage. Stir things up. Count on
merde
to float to the top, as the saying went. Instead of going in undercover, she’d play it straight. Try to draw him out.

She punched in the Académie de Billard number. It rang four times. Someone picked up; cleared his throat.

“
Oui?
”

“Blondel, he there yet?”

“
Et alors
, who’d like to know?”

She heard the click of billiard balls in the background.

“Tell him Sophie’s gone,” she said, not pausing for breath. “But I’ll help him. We’ll work out the details. Fifteen minutes?”

“What do you mean?”

Was he stalling, unsure of who she meant or— “Give me your number,” he said. “In case he checks in.”

Which meant he’d pass her message on. Like in the old days, before cell phones, when few apartments had private phone lines and the café was a central message clearing house. Blondel would call her if he wanted to talk.

Nice, old fashioned, and secure for Blondel.

She gave her number and hung up.

There had to be a back door to the billiard hall, maybe more than one. If she met Blondel there, she wanted to be sure of a way out. She crossed the street to rue de Bruxelles, passing the house where Zola died of asphyxiation and walked the short block to Square Berlioz. Elegant and calm, it held a
vert-de-grisé
-covered statue of the composer Berlioz, and a playground. Seven narrow streets intersected at the square, a few sloped toward Gare Saint Lazare, others up to Montmartre. Hard to imagine that the sex shops of Pigalle flashed their neon only a few streets away.

Haussmann-era apartment buildings lined the street, with their grilled balconies, deep courtyards, and back apartments with service exits. Then she found a cobbled driveway leading to a mansion on the square.

Perfect.

Back on rue de Clichy, she ducked into an entrance beside the greengrocers which bordered the Académie de Billard. It led to a courtyard with shuttered windows, past trashbins, and to the rear door of the Académie’s bar. Crates of empty bottles marked the rear entrance.

Inside, she put her phone on vibrate, slid past the side of the bar, and headed toward the restrooms. A few men were shooting pool on dark wooden tables that filled the period brown mosaic-tiled floor. The high ceilings, beveled gilt-edged mirrors, giant Roman numeral clock over the coat room, and stained-glass skylights reminded her of an early train station.

The phone vibrated in her pocket.

“
Allô
?”

“You want to see me?” said a deep voice.

That was quick. He sounded interested.

“I can help you,” she said.

“You sound pretty sure of yourself.”

“Sophie cut out on me, but we can be useful to each other.”

“Who knows?”

Nice and oblique, in case anyone was tapping the phone.

“Meet me in Académie de Billard.”

“I’m already there,” he said.

In the mirror, she saw a man wearing a leather bomber jacket hunched over the bar, talking on the phone.

She hung up and kept walking, glad she’d entered from the side and had identified him first.

“But I’m here, too,” she said to him as she sidled onto the stool next to his.

“I’m impressed.”

But she didn’t think he was. Like a cat ready to spring, he gripped the beer bottle with white clenched knuckles. His wide forehead took up much of his face, whose features consisted of a zipperlike mouth and dark deepset eyes. Slick-backed hair and broad shoulders completed the picture. But the scar on the side of his neck, the kind
mecs
got in prison from awls used in the shoe factory, put her on high alert.