Murder in Bel-Air

by Cara Black

  “Désolé,” came the reply at each of the four two-star hotels he tried.

  Thank God the rain had let up. But the damp got to his joints; his damn hip was acting up.

  The legionnaire had covered his tracks.

  Thursday, Midmorning

  “No luck?” asked the taxi driver, putting down his jambon tartine after the fifth hotel.

  René shook his head. Weary, he sat back, his trench coat and good shoes sodden.

  “There’s only one more I can think of, monsieur.”

  René hated facing an expensive defeat. He explained his search. Worth a try to get the taxi driver’s thoughts.

  “Ah, why didn’t you say so?” The taxi driver wrapped up his sandwich in waxed paper. “My little brother imagines himself joining the legion one day. In his dreams. Doesn’t stop him from hanging out with legionnaires, a ragtag lot—it’s all drinking, les femmes.”

  Interested, René leaned forward, careful to avoid hitting his chin on the back of the driver seat. “Hanging out where?”

  “Cité Debergue, in a former garage, a billiard hall remodeled like an English pub. My brother thinks it’s ‘classe.’”

  “Let’s go.”

  As René got out, he remembered to ask the brother’s name. Good thing, too.

  A stocky bald man was polishing glasses behind a mahogany bar, which was well stocked and with Guinness on tap. In the dim light, René saw sea-green-baize tables, heard the click of pool balls. Apart from two players and the bartender, the bar was deserted.

  “Members only,” the bartender said.

  A puff of white dust rose as a player rubbed chalk on his cue. René sneezed.

  “Johnny Hervot recommended I drop by,” René said. “Consider membership.”

  “Johnny?” A laugh. “That kid’s not a member.”

  Great.

  “Misinformed then,” René said. “You know him and his pals?”

  “Pals?”

  Could this bartender answer only with questions? “Legionnaires. Devacour, Lammers, and Volker. Some others. Said to come here for a drink.”

  “Them?”

  Another question.

  René waited.

  “We have standards here,” the bartender said.

  René hadn’t expected that. “Good.”

  What else could he say? But he wouldn’t leave without something. “So they’re at the usual place?”

  “Like I know.”

  There went this brilliant bit of investigation.

  “Regardez, Johnny’s okay.” The bartender paused in the middle of toweling a wine glass. “A bit of advice—you don’t want to drink with those mecs.”

  René bristled at the condescending warning in the man’s voice. Comme d’habitude, this man doubted a person his stature could defend himself. Nothing new. “Why’s that?”

  “Don’t get me wrong; I like legionnaires. Happy to serve them, you know, but guys like Devacour give them a bad name.”

  One thing René already knew.

  Outside on the narrow Cité Debergue, he explored his options: zero, unless he hung outside the billiards place at night until it heated up. Like he had more time to waste.

  Thursday, Midmorning

  René almost missed the sign for Hôtel Debergue, tucked back on the façade of one of Cité Debergue’s low buildings, barely visible under a wall-mounted lantern. A blonde on her cell phone walked out of the hotel’s lobby, her stilettos clicking a rhythm on the cobbles. A working lady.

  Suddenly, he had a hunch he was in the right place.

  He opened the door. From outside, the hotel appeared discreet; inside was another story. The lobby—dark woodwork and a faded red-velvet boudoir motif—spoke of an old neighborhood hôtel de passe. The pay-by-the-hour kind—thin walls, noisy lovemaking neighbors, and worn carpet. Hôtel Debergue had known better days. Not what one expected in this residential quartier.

  “Has Andreas Devacour checked in?”

  “Ça dépend.” The young man at the reception, rail thin with slicked-back hair, shot a glance at a man smoking in the miniscule lobby.

  “Depends on what?” asked René.

  “You bring good news or not?” said the man in the lobby. He turned around. Muscled and wearing a hunting vest, he looked to be in his early forties, greying at the temples. He sat by a withered potted plant in a fug of smoke. No tattoos on his thick clenched knuckles.

  “I’m looking for Monsieur Devacour,” René said.

  “Big things come in little packages, eh?” The man patted the frayed red-velvet seat beside him. “Sit down. Tell me, petit, what you want.”

  René wished this dollhouse-sized lobby wasn’t full of the man’s cigarette smoke. “Non, merci. You’re the manager, monsieur?”

  A grunt of laughter. “I like that. Pilou, he thinks I’m the manager.”

  The black-haired mec behind the reception gave a weak smile.

  “I’m Nestor, Devacour’s roommate.” He smiled and stood.

  Success. René brightened. Persistence paid off.

  A second later Nestor’s meaty hands grabbed René’s lapels and lifted him up. Nestor brought his face so close René could count the man’s nose hairs. “What’s a dwarf like you want with him?”

  René choked. Smoke stung his eyes. His feet dangled.

  He kicked Nestor’s shins and, with a quick upward snap of both his elbows—he wished he had momentum for an optimal move—broke Nestor’s grasp. Nestor grunted in pain, a surprised look on his face, and dropped René, who caught his balance on a chair.

  “Who sent you?” Nestor asked.

  René watched Nestor rub his shins. “I’m asking the questions, hothead. Prove you know who I’m talking about. What distinguishing characteristics does your roommate have?”

  “You sound like a lawyer. What’s it to you?”

  “Answer my question, and you’ll find out.”

  “What’s it worth to me?”

  Irritated, René wanted to aim another kick at him. “I’ll ask a more helpful guest.”

  “No, you won’t; you’ll tell me.” Nestor sat down, stabbing out his still-burning cigarette in a coral ashtray. “Did something happen?”

  René heard a fringe of concern. “Ça dépend. Describe him.”

  He did, tattooed knuckles and all.

  Andreas Devacour had checked out permanently.

  “Tell me the last time you saw your roommate,” René said.

  “Not since yesterday.”

  “What about his friend?”

  “Eh, that chauffeur?”

  “Chauffeur” as in accomplice—the one at the other end of the wire. The one who’d chased them, shot the winos, and blown up René’s Citroën.

  “Go on,” said René.

  “Saw him once.”

  “Describe him.”

  “Sunglasses, dark hair . . .”

  Nestor hadn’t seen much, but he had paid attention to what he’d seen. He insisted the chauffeur was from a private firm; Andreas had laughed that Nestor couldn’t afford him. The firm name was something beginning with an R—Nestor couldn’t remember. Had driven a high-end Renault.

  René remembered a high-end Renault in his rearview mirror the night before.

  “Come on,” Nestor said, expectant. “Don’t you have something from Deauville?”

  Deauville? René didn’t need any more complications. And he sure didn’t need the gag-inducing wave of perfume coming off of the woman in tottering heels who was standing at the reception desk with another muscled mec.

  “Allez, little man, we’re like brothers. You can tell me.”

  René glanced at the wall clock, a seventies chrome contraption. “Andreas, or whatever his real name is, has checked into the big hotel in the sky. What something fr
om Deauville?”

  Realization dawned in Nestor’s eyes. He shook his head. “Once a loser, always a loser. Big talk, that’s all he was.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Fifteen years in l’Afrique, earns a fortune, loses it. Comes back for the big win, he tells me. He’ll be sitting pretty.” A bark of laughter. Nestor lit another cigarette. “Even invites me to the Deauville casino. I figured you came with that casino ticket.”

  “Figure this, Nestor—if I can track your roommate here, so can the flics.”

  René threw that out hoping that, if Nestor had trouble with the law, it might get him moving. Et voilà. Without a word, Nestor stood and beat it straight out of the lobby. René could practically see the trail of smoke in the man’s wake.

  René smiled as he approached the reception desk again. His chin reached the edge. On the wall behind it were framed military insignia and faded photos of men in fatigues.

  “No trouble, no trouble,” said the young mec.

  “Then you’ll hand me Nestor and Andreas’s room key,” René said. “Comprenez?”

  A slap of metal as the key hit the counter.

  René took it. “What kind of two-star hotel are you, anyway?”

  He scratched his neck. “Clubhouse, the mecs call it. My uncle owns this place. Bought it after he’d saved up in the Legion.”

  And then René understood. The clientele, such as Nestor and the muscled mec with the working girl, had been soldiers of fortune once—the type who became mercenaries after the Foreign Legion. This fleabag hotel was their stomping ground.

  The door of room thirty-eight opened to a smell of vetiver aftershave and laundered sheets. Large enough for two twin beds and not much else except the cache-misère faded forties wallpaper and pasteboard armoire. A nineteenth-century print of a mustachioed man in a frock coat hung on the wall. The Spartan feel was enhanced by the beds, which had been made with military precision. On one bed lay a much-thumbed copy of Oui magazine, open to a naked woman.

  René heard footsteps in the hall. Nervous, he scanned the room. Whatever evidence the mec might have left, René had to find it now.

  In the armoire hung a white shirt and a pair of polished black shoes. He got down on his hands and knees and saw Air France luggage tags—a cheap roller bag under the far bed. What should he do—search it here and risk missing something or getting caught? Instinct told him to take it. Self-preservation told him to just walk away—robbing a dead man was more Aimée’s style.

  His phone vibrated. Aimée.

  One minute later, he’d locked the hotel door behind him and was on his way, gripping the roller bag handle.

  Thursday, Late Morning

  Why wasn’t René answering? Infuriating. She worried he’d gone to check out his ruined car in Bercy, where they’d had problems the night before, and stepped into danger.

  “I’m concerned about René, Saj.”

  “He’s a big boy.” Saj looked up from his laptop. “You know what he’s like when he’s on a mission. He gets results, Aimée.”

  She hoped so.

  “As you requested, I went back to the beginning,” he said. “Ready?”

  While she’d handheld a skittish client who had finally re-upped to a hefty security contract, Saj had taken over digging into the scanty, redacted file on Gérard Bjedje Hlili, twenty-four years old. Born in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire. Father in the sales force at the CIE, Ivorian clone of Electricité de France, until he rose in the managerial ranks. Mother from a fishing village in the Comoé coastal region. The family had lived in Paris for several years when the father was transferred for top-tier managerial training; Gérard had been in school. Returned to Abidjan for l’université—Saj noted he had been in the same class as Germaine and Armand, the Tillion twins, well-off members of the Frenchified elite of Abidjan. Gérard and his mother had visited her village and come down with cholera in the 1995 epidemic. Gérard had survived, but his mother hadn’t. Subsequently, his father lost everything backing a clean-water village development project run by a corrupt politician. Gérard grew disenchanted with the government. His father died of a heart attack, and Gérard had joined the FRP, a rebel group in his mother’s birthplace.

  A sad story. Aimée saw the roots of his activism.

  “Say that rebel group’s name again, Saj.”

  “Freedom Revolution Peace Party, the FRP.”

  Aimée typed the phrase and did a search. Several hits came up.

  “Doesn’t look like a fringe group or a marginal faction,” she said. “Seems really popular among the younger voting crowd.” She slipped her heels off. Rubbed her ankle. “According to the DGSE, a coup d’etat will happen. Online chatter says the military has the edge and promises to end corruption.”

  “Where’ve we heard that before?”

  “Saj, were the Tillion twins active in the FRP?”

  “Not according to this file. But there’s a lot missing.”

  “I read that Germaine’s brother, Armand, died a month ago in a shooting.”

  “You think that’s connected?”

  “They all went to school together, but I don’t know,” she said. “Could the missing parts have anything to do with why Germaine, a hot DJ in Abidjan, was living in hiding as Genelle, a homeless woman taking shelter in a convent—or why she attempted to put information and cash in Hlili’s hands before she got murdered?”

  As Aimée pulled her heels back on, she wondered why Sydney had gotten involved.

  “Everything’s possible.” Saj stood and stretched his long arms, emitting a puff of incense smell. His beads clacked. “Yet, I don’t get why the DGSE put GBH in a safe house,” said Saj. “Isn’t it hands off in l’Afrique?”

  “Côte d’Ivoire’s the crown jewel of the Françafrique chain,” said Aimée, pushing her chair back from the desk. “French business in Abidjan, the military connection . . . Doesn’t it reek of a postcolonial lovefest?”

  “More like an affair.” Saj nodded. “The DGSE’s job could be to keep Hlili, a popular young leader, in the wings. Safe and ready to motivate the masses. A leader who’d owe them favors.”

  Weak glints of sun reflected off the aged patinaed mirror.

  “So the DGSE can’t be seen being involved; that’s why Sydney’s the intermediary, right?”

  “According to Lacenaire,” said Aimée.

  If she could trust him.

  Saj clicked keys on his laptop. “You raised questions over those flight manifests and cargo lists, so I followed up. Things checked out until I delved deeper into the last cargo lists. Specifically the Tehran flight. Seems my poking around hit a snag.”

  “‘Snag’ as in . . . ?”

  “Superhack needed. They frontloaded security, beefed up the firewall.”

  Great.

  “How long to penetrate it, Saj?”

  “With René and me both on it full-time, maybe tonight or tomorrow morning.”

  She calculated the manpower away from real business such as their daily contracted security monitoring plus the client updates she needed for a round of meetings the next day. Was it worth it to spend energy on what could turn out to be a moot point? Would delving deeper help her figure out where Gérard Hlili was or whether she should still be trying to get him the documents? Would anything they could learn be relevant to finding her mother?

  And where was Sydney? How could the DGSE claim to be keeping her safe?

  All Aimée had were questions. And the clock was ticking.

  “For now let’s concentrate on finding GBH,” she said.

  Saj swiveled his neck one way, then the other.

  “Neck problems, Saj?”

  “My energy chakras are misaligned.”

  More head-swiveling, then a loud crack. A serene glow spread over Saj’s face. “Maybe we’ve been wrong about the pol
itical opposition,” he said, “or whoever hired the legionnaire.”

  “In what way?”

  “Maybe they didn’t want the documents. Maybe they just wanted these people, especially GBH, dead. Didn’t GBH get the hell out before the legionnaire arrived?”

  Saj had a point. “You’re right,” she said. “He’s afraid, like Germaine was.”

  And maybe she needed her chakras aligned, too.

  “So we know he attended school in Paris and lived here for five years. Knows the city, I’d say . . .” Saj paused. “At least, his quartier.”

  “Where’s his old stomping grounds? Can we find his parents’ old address?”

  Gérard Bjedje Hlili had attended Sainte Clotilde, a private Catholic school on rue de Reuilly, not far from the convent, it turned out. But the old family address was redacted.

  “Attends,” said Aimée. “It shows GBH’s father did his managerial training at EDF. The package included housing and children’s school tuition.”

  That was all she needed. Within two minutes, she’d gotten through the EDF’s back door into the company’s employee site and found a list of EDF housing for staff. Most companies owned buildings, but she gasped at how many the government-run electricity company had. “Landlord” could have been its middle name.

  “Voilà, 83 rue du Pensionnat.” She knew that warren of streets off Place de la Nation.

  She put a mark on the map, right off Avenue du Bel-Air—yet another mark in the twelfth arrondissement.

  “Say he’s hiding with old friends, maybe?” said Saj.

  “Won’t know until we ask.”

  In the back armoire, Aimée checked her disguises for something easy to pull over her agnès b. black cat jumpsuit. Found the perfect outfit. Stuck it in her bag. She looped her Hermès scarf around her neck and put her worry for René on hold. Rang Babette for her thrice-daily check-in on Chloé, who was down for a nap at Martine’s.

  “Everything okay, Aimée?” She heard the hesitation in Babette’s voice.

  “You’ve been great, Babette. To the letter. Just as we practiced.”