Murder in Bel-Air

by Cara Black

  She was itching to open the envelope, but her phone was ringing. Babette again. Then a voice mail. A flash emergency—the washing machine had broken, flooding the kitchen. Aimée made a round of calls to plumbers, every number she tried busy, busy, busy. Ten minutes later, she’d secured a promise from her neighbor’s Polish plumber to come first thing in the morning. Their food arrived just as Saj called with updates on the firewall. She was eating so distractedly she almost didn’t notice the autumnal colors: orange-glazed turbot slivers topped by parsley, served on a bed of whipped beets with dollops of pureed potiron.

  Finally off the phone, she caught René up. “All under control. But Saj wants us in early so he can explain the new maintenance and security protocol he’s worked out.”

  Dirty diapers, a flooded kitchen, and problems with their firewall. Another day at the office.

  Finally she had a chance to pull out the envelope and set it on the table.

  René stared in surprise. “That’s what you found?”

  “Hidden in a crypt. Meant for a GBH, I’d say. Whatever that stands for.”

  “GBH. Gamma benzene hexachloride?”

  “What’s that?”

  “Treatment for lice.”

  Who knew?

  “I found this in the mausoleum numbered one twenty behind the coffin of Georges de Larrigue.”

  “120gdel . . . Okay, I get that Genelle or Germaine hid this. Must be important. What’s inside?”

  She opened the flap. Pulled out a packet of papers. Spread them next to her ramekin of mousse au chocolat.

  “René, it’s part of a map. The names look African.”

  He nodded. “It’s western Côte d’Ivoire. See the border and mountain range straddling Liberia?”

  She shifted the papers around between them. A list of names, European and African. Official-looking documents—cargo manifests or maybe bills of lading.

  René unfolded a much-thumbed rectangle. “This looks like a flight plan.”

  He lifted up a torn sheet from a newspaper dated three days earlier. Written in the white margin was Gérard Bjedje Hlili with an address, 34 rue de Pommard.

  “This your man, GBH?” René asked.

  It was coming together. “We’ve got it, René! Germaine must have hidden the key in the washer as a double safe.”

  “‘Double safe’ as in keeping the money and this information separate?”

  “Maybe she was afraid she’d be murdered before she could deliver these documents to GBH.”

  “So she knew his whereabouts?”

  “Who else could have written down his name and address here?”

  Aimée’s appetite vanished. She pushed aside the mousse au chocolat and threw down her serviette.

  René licked his spoon. “What’s the hurry?”

  “What if we’re too late, René? This information’s already three days old.”

  René wiped chocolate from the corner of his mouth. Folded his serviette. “This is all kind of dodgy, don’t you think, Aimée?”

  “That’s beside the point.” Was it? “‘Dodgy’ as in having to do with smuggling?” she said.

  “I don’t know,” said René. “But there’s no reason you should get involved.”

  And what was she supposed to do, with her absent mother at the root of it? “A little late for that.”

  “There you go, jumping off the deep end.”

  “Deep end? A woman’s been murdered. She might have died for whatever this is, René. Sydney made it clear that this needs to get to GBH. Now we’ve got his name and this address—”

  “Think, Aimée. Act rational for a moment.”

  “Fine.” She set a wad of francs on the table. “I’m taking a taxi.”

  As she stood, a wave of dizziness hit her. She gripped the back of her chair. The doctor had warned her against stressing out. She closed her eyes, inhaled.

  “You all right, Aimée?” René’s voice sounded far away. Somewhere in space.

  Breathe. Again.

  Clarity seeped back in. She opened her eyes. The dizziness had passed.

  “Regardes, it’s your third day back at work.” Rene’d scrambled down from his chair. “You need to rest.”

  She could do this, couldn’t she?

  “I’m fine.” She smiled at the chef. “Espresso to go, please, Farouk.”

  Wednesday Evening

  “Feels familiar, these little houses.” René downshifted on the dark, tree-lined street, which was illuminated by streetlamps. “But you’re sure you want to do this?”

  Despite mounting dread over the significance of these documents, the only thing she felt sure about was that this was the right way to offload them and the money. The whole thing smelled odd; everything had been upside down since she’d gotten the call from the playgroup. If delivering the documents to GBH was so simple, why had her mother not done it herself? Aimée pushed the thought aside—maybe Sydney hadn’t been able to for some reason.

  “That’s it. Number thirty-four,” she said.

  Rue de Pommard was a line of three-story houses with mansard windows peeping from tile roofs. Petites maisons of meulière stone—the red-brown composite often found embedded with ancient shells quarried outside Paris. Twentieth-century bourgeois Parisians had embraced the look, embellishing the houses with art-nouveau details.

  “Now I remember,” said René. “I was here with my computer repairman friend from Montgallet once. He makes house calls out here—a lot of media types and journalists who are all clueless about tech. It’s a trendy neighborhood.”

  No doubt. Each house had a garden. Chloé would have loved it.

  Number thirty-four was set back from the street. By the time René had parked the car, Aimée couldn’t get rid of the feeling that someone was watching her again. Fear prickled the back of her neck. Darkness shrouded the place.

  Was Gérard Bjedje Hlili waiting for the drop-off?

  Hedgerows towered, glistening with mist floating from the direction of the old Bercy wine depot. Orange-red leaves rustled in the gutter.

  “I don’t like this,” said René, lowering his voice.

  As if she did? But she shouldn’t drag René into it. “Stay here. Wait.”

  “Not on your life,” he hissed. “The side door’s ajar.”

  “You see in the dark now?”

  “Easy to tell from how the light glints off the door’s glass at an angle.”

  She saw what René meant. “Ajar” as in entrez? One way to find out.

  As a precaution, she stuck the envelope inside the waistband of her pencil skirt, which held it snug against the skin of her back.

  Only a few lights on in this compound of small stone houses. Not a sound but the occasional rumble coming off the rail tracks from the switchyard of the Gare de Bercy.

  She’d ignore her unease over what the documents suggested. Hand them over to GBH. Arrange to leave him the money the next day. Finish this and get her mother’s whereabouts from this man.

  Standing in the shadow by the half-open door, Aimée noticed a wide-open window facing the yard. Heard movement in the house. Debated whether to knock or walk in until she heard a man’s voice from inside: “Flown the coop . . . Almost two hours and no sign of him . . . Your fault. I should have grabbed him when . . . What do you mean ‘visitors’?”

  She froze in the chill night air. Someone had seen them. René tugged her arm. She made her feet move and followed him behind the hedgerow. A figure slid out of the open door and shut it behind him without a sound.

  He was coming right toward them. Stuffing down the urge to run, she motioned René not to move.

  “That GBH?” René whispered.

  She shook her head. “Bad news.” She recognized his stealthy movements, felt that tremor of unease she’d had in the rainy courtyard,
that animal presence. “That’s the legionnaire who threatened me. See the tattoos on his knuckles?”

  “And there’s a watcher on the street.”

  The legionnaire’s steel-toed boots stopped in front of the hedge where she and René were hiding. Had he smelled her perfume? Any moment he’d see them.

  Aimée heard the unmistakable metallic click of a safety sliding off. Gun, she mouthed at René, get down. She grabbed her Swiss Army knife and dove at the mec’s ankles as René, thinking quickly, scooped up a handful of dirt and threw it at the legionnaire’s face.

  A thupt, thupt drilled into the stone wall behind them. Grit and powder sprinkled her hair, got in her ears. The salaud was using a suppressor.

  Her knife ripped fabric and made contact with a sinewy muscle. A yell. She jammed the blade deeper, held on for dear life. She had to throw him off balance. “Drop the gun.”

  He staggered, rubbing his eyes, trying to kick her off. “Give it to me, you—”

  René sprang at him while she wrestled with the salaud’s leg. He swung out, and René, a black belt, blocked his hand. The gun, safety off, flew free and discharged as it landed. A spit of glass as a window shattered. Merde. At least it hadn’t hit them.

  The legionnaire staggered and fell. René kicked him in the head, and he went quiet.

  She grabbed his feet, ripping her skirt as she struggled to drag him. Heavy, this big mec. “Help me.” Together they pulled him into the bushes. Blood trickled from his leg, the knife still stuck in it.

  She put her fingers to her lips. Mouthed, He’s wired.

  René pulled out the man’s earbud. “Not anymore.”

  She quickly rifled through his pockets, found his phone and a notebook, and shoveled everything into her bag. Winced as she pulled her knife from his calf.

  “Let’s go, Aimée,” René said.

  Not until she checked the house.

  Before René could stop her, she ran to the unlocked door and let herself in, scarf over her head in case there was surveillance. With her penlight she scanned the rooms—IKEA furniture, binoculars on a kitchen table, a sleeping bag on the couch. A case of instant noodles and packs of instant Nestlé coffee. Like every safe house she’d ever accompanied her father to. It breathed transience, anonymous fear, and waiting. No trace of her mother. No one there at all.

  Back out in the yard by the fence, rosebush branches were broken, and there was a mash of footsteps in the dirt. GBH was gone.

  Wednesday Night

  René’s hands trembled on the steering wheel.

  “He got really quiet, Aimée.”

  “Don’t worry about him, René. He pulled a gun, remember? Shot and tried to kill us.” She turned around. Bit her lip. “We’re being followed.”

  “You do know how to top off an evening, Aimée.”

  Perspiration beaded René’s brow. He turned left into Place Lachambeaudie. Ahead stood the well-lit pillared church of Notre-Dame-de-la-Nativité de Bercy, an island in the stream of traffic on Place Lachambeaudie. Churchgoers congregated on the steps after a nighttime service.

  A dark car with beaming headlights was closing in.

  “Hold on,” said René between clenched teeth.

  “Go for it.”

  She braced her hands on the dashboard, planted her heeled boots on the floor. He cut a hard left behind the church and swerved into the opposite lane, throwing Aimée against the door handle. René looped around the church, past the fire station, and accelerated. But instead of heading toward the Seine, he looped again around the church and at the last moment took a hard right into the street threading through the old wine depot.

  In the distance behind them, the headlights popped up.

  “Merde, there aren’t many ways out of here,” he said.

  She pulled out her map and located the quartier as quickly as she could in the dark bouncing car. “You don’t have to get out. Just before the Bercy warehouse tunnels, take a hard left up into the freight yard.”

  The Citroën DS juddered, taking the curve and spitting gravel as René downshifted up the slope. He pulled behind a camion by the corrugated iron–roofed rail freight depot. Killed the lights. His hands were shaking.

  “You all right?” René asked.

  Aimée craned her neck to see if the car had followed. “I’ll know in a minute.”

  A minute passed. Then another. Their breath fogged the car’s windows. A train passed on the network of rails below them. Switch points with red pinpricks of light connected to the black rails, looking like a realist painting.

  “Think it’s safe?” René reached for the key in the ignition.

  “Not the way we came in. Ten to one the car’s waiting.” She looked at the map again. “We’ve got to walk over the bridge just there. Get a taxi.”

  “Along the rail lines? You’re crazy.” Then, in a plaintive whine, he added, “I can’t leave my car here.”

  “We’ve been seen. Marked. Put a note on your windshield, say you had engine trouble; you’ll pick it up first thing in the morning.”

  They followed a path to the old upper-level tracks of an abandoned rail spur toward la Petite Ceinture, disused and overgrown with weeds and wildflowers. Thank God she’d worn ankle boots. The area skirted les Maréchaux, the old ring road of Paris encircling the outskirts.

  Every few minutes she turned back to see if they’d been followed. Not yet. René grumbled, “It’s hell on my shoes.” His Lobbs were handmade.

  She knew walking took it out of René, as he suffered hip dysplasia, which was common in dwarves. She slowed her pace.

  Her phone trilled, an eerie ringing in the night, as the wild flowers whipped her legs and the breeze carried the tang of oil and fir trees. They took a break on a crumbling cement outcrop on a spit of land where the rail lines forked.

  “Allô?” she said.

  No answer. A click.

  Her mother? Another message?

  “What’s your poison?” said a crackling voice in the dark.

  Startled, she almost dropped the phone.

  René jumped from the outcrop with his arms braced in attack mode.

  Laughter. “Le petit’s a kung fu fighter.”

  A lantern illuminated a man in stained overalls holding a bottle. He tapped the side of his red-veined nose, warning them about trouble.

  “Keep your eye out for patrols,” he said.

  “The railway guards?” asked Aimée.

  He took a gulp, then nodded.

  “When?” René asked.

  “Should walk this way any minute now,” the man said.

  Great.

  “What about you?” she asked.

  “Moi?” He laughed again. Pointed. “Patrols ignore our bunker, an old war shelter. Plenty of bon vin and mes camarades.”

  René shot Aimée a look. “It’s got to be safer down there.”

  Aimée looked around. Safer with a bunch of winos? “I don’t think so.” She felt wetness on her neck. Swiped it and her fingers came back red and sticky.

  “You’re bleeding,” said René, blinking in the light. “Were you hit? Didn’t you feel it?”

  Had her adrenalin been pumping so much she hadn’t realized she’d been grazed by one of the legionnaire’s bullets? Or shrapnel? Blood drenched the collar of her silk YSL blouse—merde.

  Idiot. She needed to stop the bleeding. “Okay, I hope they have water.”

  They entered a stucco half triangle protruding from the earth under a canopy of swaying fir branches, felt their way down the leaf-strewn stairs to a narrow candle-lit cavern. Two men sat passed out by a niche arranged like an altar, with candles and empty bottles. One snored. The other had a sleeping kitten resting on his lap.

  “Party central, eh?” said René, looking around for a bottle of water. “Sit down; let me clean your head
.”

  The shelter reeked of wine, candle wax, and mold. She wanted to turn around and leave. Impatient, she found a three-legged stool by the wine altar.

  René probed her scalp, using his cloth handkerchief to part her hair.

  A sharp pain bit into her scalp. She gritted her teeth.

  “Don’t move,” he said.

  René showed her a sliver of bloody metal shrapnel in his handkerchief. “Not deep—that’s the good news.”

  Head wounds bled. She didn’t want stitches. Going to a doctor for a shrapnel wound would raise questions.

  She handed René a roll of adhesive tape from her bag.

  “That’s what we use for the calendar at the office,” he said.

  “Tape me up, René. Hurry.”

  Wednesday, Late Night

  While the man who’d led them down from the outcrop pulled out a guitar and strummed a Georges Brassens song between pulls on the bottle, she took out the legionnaire’s phone. The war-era bomb shelter had the ambiance of a flophouse with an old-man-squat flavor. So damn thirsty, but she wouldn’t have touched the offered bottle with a barge pole.

  “Non, merci.”

  The phone was a grey military-grade clamshell model. She flipped it open.

  It required a code. She handed it to René. “Time to work your magic.”

  He flicked four alphanumeric keys. Nothing. He squinted at the keypad. Tried again. On the third try, the small screen blipped and showed a call list.

  A genius with code.

  She wrote down the one phone number it contained in her Moleskine’s to-do list.

  “Trash it,” said René. “Destroy it in case—”

  “Hold on,” said the drifter, his fingers paused on the guitar strings. “You’re victims of a consumer society. A throwaway world. Give it to me.”

  “It’s hot,” said René. “No reception down here anyway.”

  On the wall behind him in the flickering candlelight, Aimée saw a peeling blackout notice dated 1942. The rank smell of mold in the corners was getting to her.