Murder at the Lanterne Rouge ali-12

by Cara Black

  “But we’re old friends,” Aimée said. “Call this a health inspection. Lots of complaints. Just think of the unsafe working conditions for your employees.”

  “I call sécurité.” The woman hurried down the steps in small, brocaded house slippers. “Private property, not for public.”

  “But this isn’t up to code, Madame.” Aimée pointed to the fuse box with rusted wires trailing from it. Telltale signs of illegally tapping into the electricity source. “Dangerous.” She wagged her finger. “Where’s Meizi?”

  The woman whipped out her cell phone, hit a number on her speed dial.

  “Not cooperating, Madame?” Aimée reached for the fuse box switch. “Then I’ll need to shut you down.”

  The woman jabbed the bamboo back scratcher at Aimée, just missing her eye. Aimée pulled the bamboo from her hand, knocked the cell phone to the floor, and grabbed the woman’s wrists.

  “Get Meizi,” she said to the girl. The girl backed up, frightened.

  “Now.”

  “Tso!” the woman shouted, struggling. Tough and wiry, like an old hen.

  Aimée twisted the woman’s arms behind her and, in a flash of inspiration, stuck the bamboo between her jade bracelets, which trapped her like handcuffs. She looked around, but the girl had disappeared. With a deft movement she twisted the bamboo between banister posts and stuffed the woman’s red silk scarf in her mouth. That should keep Madame Wu quiet for a while.

  Footsteps pounded on the stairs. Aimée looked up to see a man, hooded eyes, a cigarette between his crooked teeth.

  “If you’re security, then I’m the electrician,” she said.

  “Gweilo.” And then she saw the raised knife in his hand.

  She yanked the fuse box handle. A sputtering fizz, earsplitting grinding sounds. The light from the bare bulb flickered before the building plunged into darkness, machines grumbling to a painful halt. In the sudden quiet, Aimée could catch the soft conversations of workers, the drumming of Madame Wu’s feet. And that persistent humming, which came from somewhere above.

  She had the advantage now; the man would have to come down the steps. She pulled out her penlight, set it on the last step, flicked it on, and stepped away.

  Cold air gusted past her face. In the dim light she made out the flash of his knife. She gave a quick kick upward, contacting what she hoped were his ribs. A crunch, and a yelp of pain.

  She didn’t have much time. Who knew how many of his cohorts waited upstairs? Her fingers found the penlight on the dusty floor, then his knife. She shone the beam in his eyes, put the knife tip to his throat, and stuck her hand in his back pocket. Thick wads of hundred-franc bills, a cell phone.

  “Bonus time for your employees,” she whispered in his ear. “Number five on the list of secrets of successful bosses.”

  He yelled.

  She silenced him with another kick, this time to the temple, and his eyes rolled up in his head. Out for the count, but for how long? She had to hurry. She ran up the stairs, shining her penlight over each rotted step. The humming grew louder, and she followed it up to the third floor. She needed to find Meizi. And a way out. She hoped to God the frightened girl hadn’t sounded the alarm. She hit 1-6 on the man’s cell phone.

  “Police,” the voice answered. “Je vous écoute.”

  “Rue du Bourg L’Abbé,” Aimée said, “in the courtyard behind Les Bains, there’s a man with a knife attacking—”

  “I’ll transfer you.”

  “Listen, he destroyed the fuse box,” Aimée interrupted. “It’s dark, we can’t … he’s coming …”

  She clicked off, hopeful for a quick response time, since the commissariat was located around the block. She didn’t know what she’d face inside. And she couldn’t wait.

  A line of light shone from under a door. She tried the handle. It didn’t move.

  She closed her eyes, tried to center herself. Focus.

  Then she kicked the door in.

  Saturday, 3 P.M.

  CLODO BLINKED AT the bright white light. He was cold all over. Even the blood coursing in his veins felt cold.

  “He’s responding,” a voice said, and the white light receded. “Two more milligrams of morphine.”

  “Can you feel this, Clodo?”

  He floated on a river, strains of an accordion drifting in the air. Sun speckles shivered on the water’s surface.

  “Feel what?” Clodo asked.

  “Good.” The voice moved away. “Rest for a while.”

  His aunt—he was dancing with his Aunt Marguerite, a long, thick braid down her back, and it was 1942. His parents watched them, laughing and drinking wine. It didn’t matter that he’d never danced with Marguerite before. Or that his parents were already gone in 1942. Light glimmered on their wineglasses; his mother crinkled her nose like she always did.

  “Try not to move, Clodo.”

  “But why not?” he said. Joy filled him. They were there all together at the river. “I’m at the bal musette.”

  Footsteps. “Never seen one survive.” A muffled conversation. “He thinks he’s dancing, doctor.”

  “His dancing days are over,” a man was saying. “If you think he’s up to it, I need to question him.”

  “We’re monitoring his morphine drip,” another voice said. “Give him some time. The first few hours post-surgery are critical. No drug stills the phantom leg pains after amputation.”

  What were they going on about? Now he was dancing with his mother, her flower-print sundress twirling as they spun to the music, her head thrown back, happy and laughing. But her face changed. Now it was the man, and he was yelling. Yelling until the plastic silenced his screams.

  Saturday, 3:30 P.M.

  RENÉ PUSHED BACK the brandy snifter on the zinc counter, his gaze raking the street, the doorways.

  “Call me Bruno,” said the man rinsing tall beer glasses behind the counter. He was in his fifties, with the red, veined nose of a drinker. “Likes to dress up, your friend.”

  “At every opportunity,” René said, declining another brandy.

  “She a secret agent?” Bruno winked knowingly. Too many Bond movies, René thought.

  “A force of nature,” René said, “but why don’t you tell me about the one with bad teeth who bought cigarettes.”

  “He do that to you?” Bruno shook his head. “Seen him a few times. That’s all. No shame, these people, attacking your kind.”

  His kind? All his life René had struggled against ignorant perceptions, to prove his stature made no difference. He’d studied martial arts at the dojo, achieved a black belt to prevent trouble. If only the cold hadn’t affected his hip this way.

  “Implying that I can’t take care of myself?” René said.

  “I call it unfair the way these Chinois take advantage,” said Bruno, on the defensive, “that’s all.”

  “So he’s done this before?”

  “They’re taking over the quartier, buying up the shops,” Bruno said. “Me, I’m the only family business left, apart from Chartier, the butcher.”

  Seeing he had a captive audience, Bruno warmed up. René listened with half an ear to his litany against immigrants, until Bruno’s words caught his attention.

  “Colonized the quartier, the Chinois have.” Bruno tipped back his bière. “Prête-nom, rent a name, compris?”

  René thought he knew what Bruno meant, but shook his head.

  “They use a legal name to run a business. Not the real proprietor. Some big entrepreneur in China, more like it.”

  Had Meizi’s luggage shop done this? René wondered.

  “Yet no one does anything.” Bruno sighed. “Only one thing riles a phlegmatic Parisian to action.”

  Not selfish with his opinions, this Bruno, René thought. “So you mean transport strikes? Or the cost of Gauloises going up?” René rubbed his hip.

  “I mean officials getting a free apartment.” Bruno shoved the morning edition of Libération across the counter. “Huge flat, com
plete with balcony terrace, private garden,” Bruno said, “while it’s us taxpayers footing the bill.”

  Nothing rubbed a Parisian raw more than a plutocrat with a maison secondaire in the country who enjoyed a government-paid apartment in Paris.

  “Part of the perks, non?” René’s eye scrolled the article.

  “There’s perks. Then there’s excess and being found out, like this ministry official Roubel, with his pied-à-terre on the Seine.”

  Why the hell hadn’t Aimée called?

  Saturday, 3:30 P.M.

  AIMÉE SCANNED THE attic room, the mattresses on the floor lumpy with sleeping figures. She registered the sharp drafts of air from holes in the roof, the peeling wallpaper, the pot bubbling on the stove and emitting chili paste odors. The humming of sewing machines in the adjoining room.

  She wove among the mattresses, checking the faces. No Meizi. Merde!

  Any moment Tso could show up, summon reinforcements.

  At the sewing machines fifteen or so women treadled the old-fashioned foot pedal sewing machines and stitched zippers. Hoodie sweatshirts were piled beside them on the floor.

  “Meizi?”

  No one looked up.

  If Meizi wasn’t here, she’d made a huge mistake. She pushed down panic.

  “Police!” she shouted, flashing her PI license. “Show me your identification.”

  Treadles ceased as the sewing machines stopped. She heard rustling from the mattresses. A cry.

  “Ask our boss, Tso,” said a young woman in a blue hoodie, her hair in a ponytail not unlike Meizi’s. “He have our papers.”

  “Not Meizi Wu’s papers. Where is she?” Aimée said, making this up as she went along.

  “Don’t know.”

  “I don’t like your lies,” she said, then sniffed. “Or the soup.” She pounded her fist on the stove. “Tell me or I’ll take you all to the station right now!”

  Terror showed on the women’s faces.

  “A girl in back,” said the one in the hoodie. “Don’t know name.”

  “That’s better.” Aimée stepped back and opened the door. Looked down the hallway. “Now get out.”

  The young woman moved closer, and her stale breath hit Aimée in the face. She stared at the white butcher’s coat. “You not police!”

  The blue hoodie wanted to argue with her?

  “Undercover narcotique.” She thrust several hundred francs in her hand. “Talk to Nina at the Chinese church. She’ll help you.”

  The young woman stood dumbfounded. Loud voices came from below.

  “Or you want to get arrested in a drug bust?”

  Without another word, the women rushed by her, stampeding down the hall.

  Tso and Ching Wao made a staggering sum, she realized, considering all the women here and in the sweatshops. Aimée picked her way through the piled hoodies to a pantry. Under a skylight was a sink filled with hundreds of zippers. Beside it, Meizi, her ankle chained to the pipe on the floor. Like a dog.

  Horrified, Aimée knelt down. “Meizi, are you all right?”

  Meizi nodded, her eyes wide. “Something’s happened to René?”

  Had she tried to protect him and failed? Aimée’s earlier suspicions evaporated.

  “He’s a black belt, remember?” She smiled reassuringly.

  Noises came from the attic. They didn’t have much time. Aimée pushed the door shut and kicked at the pipe under the sink. “We’ll talk later. First we need to get out of here.”

  “But I can’t leave.”

  After all this, Aimée had no intention of losing her. “Au contraire.” She kicked the pipe until it shuddered apart and lifted off the chain. For good measure, she took the broken segment of rusted pipe. If only she’d kept Tso’s knife.

  “Tso’s coming back,” Meizi’s voice trembled. The chain was still hooked around her ankle.

  “I took care of him, for now,” Aimée said, “but it’s the flics you need to worry about.” She glanced around. “Any screwdriver here?”

  Meizi’s shoulders heaved. “They want to deport me?”

  “Worse, Meizi,” she said. “You’re a suspect in Pascal Samour’s murder.”

  “Who?”

  “Don’t play with me,” Aimée said, some of her distrust returning. “The body in the walkway behind your luggage shop.”

  Meizi shuddered.

  Aimée tried the adjoining door.

  “Non, Aimée. We’ll go out the skylight!” Meizi looped the greasy chain and tucked it in her pocket. “We sneak out that way all the time. That’s why he chained me.”

  Aimée climbed on the sink rim, praying it would hold her, unlatched the skylight and propped it open with the pipe.

  The slanted blue-gray slate roof overlooked the courtyard, which was filled with the flics. To her left were more skylights. Afraid of heights and up on a rooftop. Again.

  Meizi grabbed a hoodie from the pile, and a Tati shopping bag with her things. “There’s a way over the gutter. Come on, Aimée.”

  She could do this. Had to. Frigid air gusted over the rooftops. The cold slate froze her knees. Aimée kept her eye on Meizi’s back and the stovepipe chimneys ahead.

  And then Meizi disappeared. Like smoke.

  Aimée found herself poised over a hole in the tiled roof.

  “Down here, Aimée!” Meizi shouted.

  Aimée gripped the edge of a roof tile, breathing in rank odors of mildew, and dropped down, catching herself before she fell on a picture frame. She landed in a dim attic next to a half-sheeted piano.

  She hit René’s number. No reception. They’d have to risk going to the café.

  “Let’s go.”

  But Meizi blocked the door of the small attic. “You can’t tell René.”

  She wondered at Meizi’s stubbornness. If they didn’t get out of here … but she decided to play along.

  “Do you want your parents caught in a raid?” she said. “Held at Vincennes detention center, checked for valid identity papers, their shop records audited?”

  Meizi’s face blanched.

  “They do have papers? And you?” She knew the answer, but had to get Meizi out of here. “Or are you illegal?”

  The truth shone in Meizi’s eyes. Illegal. About to bolt. Aimée grabbed her shoulder. “I don’t care. But I can help you.”

  “Help me? But you’ll tell René.”

  He knew most of it already.

  “Non, you will. Then I’ll introduce you to a lawyer specializing in asylum requests.”

  Tears pooled in Meizi’s eyes. “No good. It doesn’t matter about me. Tso’s cousin threatened my parents, my family in China. One message and they’re—”

  “So your parents aren’t here,” Aimée interrupted.

  Meizi’s hand went to her mouth. Shook her head. “You don’t know the way snakeheads operate.” Sobs racked her shoulders.

  Aimée’s mind went back to Madame Wu’s unsmiling face, René’s disappointment at the long hours Meizi worked. How the “parents” chaperoned her everywhere.

  “They’re not your parents,” Aimée said. “You work for them, and this Tso controls you.”

  “Tso controls everyone here, the ateliers in our building, the whole street.” Meizi took Aimée’s arm. “They keep me in the shop, speaking French, making a good face for the customers, the flics.”

  Sirens whined outside. A questioning look appeared in Meizi’s large eyes. “What’s happening? Is this a raid?”

  Smart. She was putting this together.

  “I guess you want to find out the hard way,” Aimée said. “Or do you want my help?”

  Meizi hesitated, then tucked the chain, which had fallen out of her pocket, into her jeans’ waistband and opened the door.

  “This way,” Meizi said.

  They ran down the corridor, descended three flights of the twisting staircase to the street door. “Out here.”

  Aimée sucked in her breath. Cold, crisp air hit her lungs. Late afternoon light glin
ted off the damp cobbles. She could see the café. Perfect. They’d reach René …

  A siren whined. Flashing red lights appeared from a police car. They had to get out of here. Now.

  She grabbed Meizi’s hand, pulled her into the crooked passage. They ran past a woman shaking a tablecloth from her window and emerged on the next street. Panting, Aimée stopped and caught her breath.

  Passersby in dark overcoats leaned into the wind, which rippled the red awnings of the belle epoque hotel across the street. She clutched Meizi’s arm and tried René again as they started into the lanes of traffic. She ran with her cell phone to her ear, just avoiding the Number 38 bus.

  Faded gold letters on the facade advertised Hôtel Bellevue et du Chariot d’Or. In the marble foyer, festooned with turn-of-the-century colored glass, she set her bag on the reception desk. “A double room, s’il vous plaît.”

  “No luggage?” The concierge, a middle-aged brunette with Slavic cheekbones, crunched her consonants.

  “Does it look like it, Madame?” she said. “We missed our train.” Aimée glanced at the room tariffs posted on the wall. Old-world, all right; the kind of hotel that a few generations ago lodged patrons for the myriad theaters on the Grands Boulevards.

  She set down the slimmer wad of Tso’s francs and showed her ID with its less-than-flattering photo and filled in the form. “We’re hungry. Room service available?”

  The woman sniffed. “Bien sûr, if you like omelettes à l’estragon.”

  They took the groaning cage of an elevator to the second floor and navigated a maze of hallways to a bare-bones room facing rue de Turbigo. If René would answer his phone, she wouldn’t have to go back out in the cold. She ransacked her mind for the name of the café tabac; finally, it came to her—Café Saint-Martin, the name of the street it was on.

  Aimée dialed the black melamine rotary relic room phone, but only got Reception. “Mademmoiselle, could you look up a listing for me?”

  The receptionist sighed. “That’s five francs extra.”

  “Connect me,” Aimée said, then added, “s’il vous plaît.”

  A man’s voice answered. “Qui?”

  “Monsieur Friant, s’il vous plaît. He drank a brandy at your counter not twenty minutes—”