Murder in the Rue de Paradis

by Cara Black

  She had already classified this as an emergency. She punched in the new number. Another message in Ansary’s voice, in both French and, she figured, Kurdish, instructed her to leave her number. He was cautious and hard to reach. But then, if she were financing a reputed “terrorist” Kurd party, she might be also.

  She tapped the long-handled spoon on the tall frosted glass. Glancing back at the desk, she saw the shaven-headed man signaling her.

  With the phone crooked between her good shoulder and her ear, she picked up the next sheet.

  “Another transmission,” he said.

  Thermo-Fax paper with a few waving lines and a blurred grayscale photograph displaying indistinguishable figures. No facial delineation, but she could tell they were men. One was stocky and broad-shouldered in a type of uniform, pinpricks of white from medals on one side of his chest, braid, epaulettes on his shoulders. A tall figure was partially cut off. There were words in Turkish with those funny little dots.

  Her cell phone rang.

  “Allô?”

  “There’s no fire. Why did you call me at work?” said Ansary, sounding irritated.

  He’d know Nadira had been caught by now. Or did he?

  “Do you have a comment concerning the Iranian assassin in custody?”

  “What’s there to say?”

  “Do you question her involvement in Yves Robert’s murder?”

  Ansary sighed. “And what if I do? That’s the last thing on my mind. Security forces have thrown a cordon around this part of the quartier. They raided the iKK party office and rounded up party members from the cafés. Write that in your article.”

  She stared at the fax. “Do the Ilisu dam or Hasankeyf mean anything to you?”

  Pause. “Hasankeyf?”

  “The archeological village—”

  “I know. I come from the hamlet five kilometers away. My family. . . .” His voice broke. “Gone. The military blamed it on water-level testing necessary to attract French company contracts. But they wanted the Kurds out. And efficient as always, the military—”

  “Can you help me, Ansary? I have a photo but can’t understand the Turkish words. One of them looks like Ehret.”

  He drew a breath heavily.

  Stumbling over the pronunciation, she read, “Albay Ehret ve meshru Turk-Fransiz aile evladi dedi telafuz ederken Umut. . . .”

  “Colonel Ehret and the scion of the prominent Turkish– French family Umut. . . .” he said, translating.

  “Ehret’s the colonel . . . ?”

  “In charge of Anatolian military operations. He commanded the Yellow Crescent five years ago. They flooded my village.”

  “You have proof of this?

  “It took me years to find it. I gave the documents to Yves Robert,” said Ansary, his voice now distant. “And what good did it do? None.”

  Her knuckles grasping the phone whitened.

  “And this other man mentioned in the article?”

  “One of the elite?” he said. “I don’t know.”

  “His picture runs off the page,” she said. “But he’s tall.”

  Her words hung in the air.

  “Look, I’m working. I have to go.”

  She missed it and it was right here. “Please, let me read it to you again.”

  He said something, but as he spoke a buzzer sounded in the background.

  “What?”

  “Umut.”

  “Is it a name or a place?”

  “Both. I have to go.”

  “Wait, please, one more question. What does Roj bas, mean?”

  Vatel had used these words as he entered Kat’s apartment.

  “Roj bas,? Kurdish . . . a greeting.”

  “Like Salaam Aliekoum, would you say?”

  The greeting used by Arabs and Turks, the response Aliekoum Salaam, with the hand over the heart.

  “It’s the Kurdish equivalent.”

  He hung up.

  Yves had said “Salaam Aliekoum” on the interrupted cell phone message. It seemed unlikely then that he’d met a Kurd who’d knifed him from behind.

  Shadows draped the ornate iron balconies of the six-story white stone buildings across the street. A late-night bus, half empty, trundled by. The bark of a dog came from the open window.

  She debated calling Georges to ask him about the whereabouts of Ansary’s documents. She’d have to use tact, a quality René often said she lacked. But Georges didn’t answer the phone.

  She handed her card to the desk man.

  “We close in twenty minutes.”

  She had to hurry. She picked a terminal, logged on, and started her search. One entry for Colonel Ehret listed his military service. She cross-referenced the entries with “Ilisu Dam.”

  Nothing.

  Then she searched newsgroups for prominent Turkish-French families. Fifteen or so came up on various philanthropic news group sites. She had to winnow it down . . . to what . . . tall men?

  The café lights dimmed. Merde . . . was the power going out? She looked up to see a young man, bloodstains on his tank top, entering the café. At the counter, he ordered a Pernod.

  “I’ve never seen anything like it,” he said, shaking his head. “The Citroën DS shot through rue de Paradis like a flying saucer.”

  The barman nodded. “Those DS roadhandle like gazelles, that’s why they call her the ‘goddess.’ My uncle drove one.”

  “Then it crashed into the statue.” He took a gulp of the Pernod. “And a dwarf spilled out!”

  Aimée froze. René! She forced herself to stand and approach the counter. The blood staining the man’s top made her stomach lurch. She had visions of René’s mangled body encased in twisted steel, remembered his attempt to protect her, their argument over real estate, her last angry words. . . .

  “He . . . he’s dead?”

  She’d take it all back, take every word back, rob a bank to pay for . . .

  “Eh?” The man grimaced. “I ran to help him and I cut myself. See!”

  “Please . . . tell me the truth. . . .”

  He blinked at her.

  “The dwarf dusted off his jacket, not a scratch on him or the DS, just a fender gone.” He shrugged. “Damnedest thing!”

  The bartender nodded. “The hydraulic suspension in de Gaulle’s DS saved him, too. The OAS ambushed him with machine guns, but the old bull drove away, cursing them. They’re built like tanks, those ‘goddesses,’” the barman said. “Of course, they guzzle gas like there’s no tomorrow.”

  Aimée grabbed at the zinc counter ledge as she tottered, then fell.

  Her cell phone rang.

  “Allô?” she managed to say, as she sat up.

  “You all right, Aimée?” said René, sounding sheepish. “If you’re angry at me for telling Morbier, I understand, but it’s better that you’re safe . . .”

  “Me?”

  “Listen—”

  “You emerge from the jaws of death and—!”

  “An exaggeration. The car needs a little work.”

  Poor René, his beloved car injured.

  “Forget any ideas about leaving the DST,” he said. “The quartier’s in lockdown.”

  “I can see.” She pulled herself up.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’m in the café Panique near the Place de la Republique,” she said. “Trying to decipher a fax.”

  “But you were supposed to—!”

  “Hold on, René.” She walked back to the computer terminal and scanned the screen.

  “Listen, Aimée, Vatel said you were in danger. But when I went to meet him, I found him—”

  Her fingers halted on the keyboard. “You saw Vatel? Did he tell you anything?”

  “He couldn’t. His throat was slashed. Like Yves’s.”

  She gasped, envisioning again that swirl, that mark.

  “Does ‘Pamlu’ mean anything to you?” René asked.

  “Should it?”

  “The paper was torn off, but I found it
gripped between Vatel’s fingers. He wanted to tell you something. Get out of there, Aimée.”

  “I will.”

  She hung up before he could protest further. She searched the newsgroups for the names Umut and Pamlu. At the bot- tom of the page, a genealogy newsgroup for the Pamluk family, caught her eye. An Umut Pamluk was listed as an Ankara correspondent, now the Agence France-Presse administrator.

  She stiffened.

  “Mademoiselle, we’re closing in two minutes.”

  She kept reading. Umut Pamluk, an accomplished stage actor in his twenties, had changed careers. He wrote under the pen name of Gerard Drieu, using his father’s last name. He published a well-received history of the Turkish military. His father was a SAHE manager; he’d had a Turkish mother, a Pamluk; he’d married a French wife. There had been an acrimonious separation after her supposedly blatant affairs with foreign correspondents splashed over the Ankara society column. An obituary noted his wife’s recent death.

  Aimée froze; then she began to berate herself. Not only had she believed Drieu, she’d been blind. Nor had Yves seen, until it was too late. But Drieu wouldn’t get away with it.

  She hit PRINT. The café lights dimmed. Outside on the terrace, the waiter was stacking the rattan chairs. Her hands trembling, she grabbed her bag and picked up the printouts.

  The waiter saw her out the door and locked it. There was no one on the street except an old man walking his dog. She hurried up the first road to her left, her mind turning over the changes in Georges’s voice, the partial fax. What if Drieu had been there . . . listening? What if he’d figured out where she was?

  She headed to rue des Vinaigrers, the old street of the vinegar merchants. And to the only person she knew in the quartier. She called Drieu and left him a message to meet her there as soon as possible.

  She answered René’s call on the first ring. “It’s Gerard Drieu,” she told him. “He killed Yves.”

  “You mean the admin at Agence France-Presse? But that doesn’t make sense.”

  A taxi whizzed by, horn blaring. “It makes a lot of sense.”

  “Wait a minute, where are you?”

  “Heading to rue des Vinaigrers,” she said. “You know the place.”

  “But—”

  “Drieu’s half-Turkish, his French father worked for SAHE. The company that snagged the Ilisu Dam project. Yves found out. It all makes sense now.”

  She knew what she had to do. She heard footsteps, and broke into a run.

  Thursday Night

  RENÉ LIMPED FROM the all-night garage at a half-run. Rue des Vinaigriers. That meant only one place.

  How could she have escaped the DST and safety, the protection guaranteed by Morbier? But never mind how: Why? Bullheaded and stubborn as always. Wrong or right, she was loose on the street, in danger. Never mind the why.

  His hip ached, the Glock sat in his desk drawer . . . what use could he be? And Morbier? He’d bring the wrath of the security service to bear on Aimée. When he found her.

  One more block to go. René wiped his forehead as he crossed Boulevard Magenta.

  “Monsieur, not a nice time for a walk. Your papers, please.”

  A jumpsuited figure stepped in front of him.

  “Excuse me, you don’t understand—”

  “Wasn’t your vehicle involved in a collision?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “It seems you left the garage without making a full report to the officer. Now, if you’ll come this way.”

  He gestured René to a gray van.

  Thursday Night

  AIMÉE PANTED, CATCHING her breath in a doorway on rue des Vinaigriers. Streetlights punctuated the shadowed, stone buildings with their mansard roofs and tall shutters. She caught the tang of leather emanating from inside. Behind these entry doors were leather workshops full of pelts and hides. Even the stairways reeked with the odor of leather.

  Drops of warm rain fell on her face. Leaves rustled. She passed a ground-floor establishment with a black façade over which gray metal shutters had been rolled down. Above them were gold letters in scroll reading S. Poursin, established 1890. She edged into the shadows of the massive black doors, and buzzed. The doors swung open. And she went inside, leaving one door ajar.

  “Albert?” she asked.

  Tall glass showcases displayed every kind of buckle known to man. Brass, copper, metal. And then some she couldn’t identify.

  “Mademoiselle Aimée, long time no see.” Albert, in his grease-stained blue work coat, pockets overflowing as usual, peered over his reading glasses.

  “The usual, a new client, I take it?”

  The thump and clack of machines came from the factory in the rear. A huge peaked glass ceiling extended over a workspace filled with machines that reached to the next street.

  “You might say that, Albert. May I use the back office?”

  “You know where it is.” He scratched his grizzled gray hair. “I’m running the sanders, can’t stop and chat.”

  “I appreciate this, Albert,” she said. “Merci.”

  “Your father was a good man. I owed him,” he said.

  He left the rest unsaid.

  Pangs of guilt assailed her for using Albert’s workshop to lure Drieu, but it was the only place she could think of. She glanced around, then scanned the printout and faxes.

  Taking bribes from SAHE, working with Ehret . . . Yves must have found out. She’d still have to locate the proof that Ansary had furnished Yves, but maybe she could get Drieu to admit it. If he bit.

  She heard a distant click and scrape as the garage door opened.

  He just had. And sooner than she expected. There was no time to prepare. In the grimy glass-windowed office, she searched her bag. She’d left her microcassette recorder back at the office.

  Footsteps. She looked around the office. An old Olivetti typewriter, brown ledgers, an inkwell. Albert’s business practices hadn’t advanced to the 1990’s. But he had an old beige plastic answering machine. It would do. Had to.

  “I just got your message,” Drieu said, a bewildered look in his eyes, his blond hair damp and tousled as if he’d been running. “Why are we meeting in a buckle factory?”

  “I know the foreman,” she said. She edged close to the desk, covered her hand and hit the red recording button.

  He didn’t look like a killer. And he didn’t look half Turkish. But she remembered the legacy of the Ottomans who had promoted intermarriage, and that his father was French. Blond . . . the Afro Coiffeur woman’s words . . . “hair like a witch doctor”. . . yellow. And he was tall.

  “Aimée, I found Yves’s files,” Drieu said. “And you won’t like it.”

  Trying until the end. But then he’d been an actor.

  “Yves sold out the Kurds.”

  “More like the other way round.” She shook her head. “Your father works for SAHE, you had the connections. Colonel Ehret’s your friend. You took the bribes to flush out the Kurds. If anyone sold out the Kurds, you did. Yves realized it and was about to expose you.”

  Gerard Drieu’s face darkened. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “You overheard Langois arranging to meet me at the Gare du Nord and silenced him, too.”

  “Calm down, Aimée,” he said, “you’ve got this all wrong.”

  “You’re big pals with Colonel Ehret.” She gestured to the blurred fax on the blotter. “Umut Pamluk, that’s you, isn’t it?”

  “What do you want?” Comprehension flickered in his eyes.

  “Admit to sabotaging Yves’s articles—”

  “But why would I?”

  This wasn’t going the way she’d planned. “The part I don’t get is why you thought you had to kill Yves. It was more than hiding bribes, wasn’t it?”

  The rhythmic pounding of machines thumped dully in the background.

  “You come from a prominent Ankara family. With your connections, you could have had his articles suppressed.You could have swung the rest, too, wi
thout killing him, non? And yet, even in the society columns about your estranged wife, they mentioned her affairs, blaming her. . . .”

  Drieu slammed his fist down on the desk, rattling the answering machine. The inkwell spilled, bleeding violet ink onto the blotter.

  Wild anger sputtered in his eyes. Green-gray eyes that now were narrowed in hate. “Shut up.”

  She had struck a nerve.

  “Why don’t you tell me—”

  “I said shut up.” He took a step closer. “I tried to reason with him. But he wouldn’t listen.”

  Where was René? She looked for a weapon. Nothing.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Everyone was gossipping about them. At receptions, at parties. Of course, they were. Yves carried on a blatant affair with my wife, right in my face!”

  Did everything boil down to sex?

  He pointed to the fax. “It was spread over the gossip columns every day. In the papers I’d written for!”

  Chills ran up her spine.

  “Yves?”

  “Yves denied it. But Ehret showed me photos. He’d caught them together at a villa on the Bosporus.”

  Was it true?

  “No, Gerard, Ehret used you,” she said. “Ehret manufactured them, to keep you blinded with rage. He was taking bribes from your father’s company. He kept sweeping the Kurds out, flooding the villages, don’t you see?”

  “So touching, this unshakeable belief you have in Yves.” He shook his head. “But you didn’t know him, didn’t really know him, did you?”

  She tried to repress a creeping doubt.

  “Do you know what he was doing that morning? Why he left you?” There was a sick smirk on his mouth. “Eh? He liked men, goats, anything, like his friends, the filthy Kurds.”

  Her hands trembled. Wrong, he was wrong.

  “Liar! You followed him from the loft, you knew he was meeting his contact,” she said. “Faroum heard rumors about you at the mosque. You couldn’t have that. So you wore the chador and slit Yves’s throat to make it look like a Yellow Crescent killing.”

  “No one will believe you.”

  “And Vatel, who knew your Turkish name—”

  “That Kurd . . . a wanted terrorist? An informer on his own people . . . it was just a matter of time.”