by Cara Black
“My teacher says you’re an actor,” Paul said. “You act like Monsieur Toulouse-Lautrec so we can understand his work.”
“She’s right.” René nodded. “I was going to tell you.”
“Tell me about the horses,” Paul said.
And René told him how Toulouse-Lautrec had fallen from a horse. Due to genetic weakness resulting from family intermarriages, his bones had been too weak to knit together. “His father, the comte, had stables of racing horses, heavy-footed Clydesdales for work, and even ponies for visiting children. All that summer after the accident, Toulouse-Lautrec sat in a special wicker wheelchair and drew them. They were his friends. His only friends.”
René opened the book, and, together, using his pen flashlight, they leafed through the pages.
“Why don’t you try, Paul?”
René passed him a tin of pastel chalks and a sketchpad.
“Horses?”
“Draw the roofline, that’s what’s familiar, non? You could start with the gray . . . try the blue one to shade in the building, smudge it . . . see?”
René wiped his thumb across the line. “Give it depth, suggest . . .”
“Can I use that in the report for my teacher?”
“Why not? And the drawing, too. She’d like that. It shows you are resourceful.”
Paul nodded, his hands busy. Ten cold minutes later, he looked up. “You mean like this?”
René looked. The bold gray lines depicting the building were quite skillful. “You’re a born artist, Paul. Good job!”
A wide smile split Paul’s face. René realized it was the first time he’d seen the boy’s teeth. Didn’t his mother ever praise him?
“I see this every day, like Toulouse-Lautrec saw his horses every day.”
René grinned. “Of course, draw what you know. But you must work at it. He did. Every day.”
Paul nodded.
And then René noticed a half-open plastic bag in which model airplanes were just visible. Expensive ones.
“They’re mine,” Paul said, following his gaze.
“Eh, why do you keep them up here?”
“My friend gave them to me!” Paul’s lip quivered.
René doubted that. “Look, it’s not my business—”
“None of your business. You’re wrong,” Paul interrupted.
“Correct, none of my business. I once stole car magazines. The shop owner caught me. Told me if I ever did that again he’d take me to the Commissariat.” René shifted on the tiled roof. “I know you didn’t steal them but things can be returned in a quiet way with no one the wiser. I mean if your friend had taken them, of course.”
“He’s a good friend.”
“Good friends need help.” René winked, thinking it best to plant the seed and change the subject. “But I still don’t understand how you could have seen those flashes from here,” René said. “You didn’t have binoculars, did you?”
“Of course I could see. They were right there.”
“You must have good eyes. How many?”
“Two flashes.”
René shook his head. “Impossible.”
“There were two men arguing,” Paul said, his voice serious.
“Then another man came, they were nice, and then . . .”
“What?”
Paul looked away. “My maman told me not to talk about it. She said it could get us in trouble. And we have all the trouble we need. She hates the flics.”
So that was it.
“She’s not alone in that, Paul. But I know someone who’s a private detective. She can do things and not get people in trouble.”
“Like what?”
René leaned forward. “I’d have to tell her what you saw. Exactly. But she can make anonymous calls and investigate without anyone knowing. That’s what she does best; she’s a computer detective. No one will know.”
Paul’s mouth dropped.
“A computer detective?”
René nodded, stuffing his gloved hands in his pockets. Lights twinkled beyond the dark outlines of the roofs stretching before them.
“No one will know?”
“I promise.”
Tuesday Late Afternoon
AIMÉE’S CONNECTION at the police judiciare, Léo Frot, had moved to the Finance Ministry. And he wouldn’t return her calls. So she had to take a chance and try to access STIC, Système de Traitment de l’Information Fichier Central, the intranet police computer system; she would have to move fast and find Laure’s file.
From her vantage point, a table in the back of a bistro filled with early diners, she observed the crowd. This was a haunt of men and a few women wearing the badge of the DTI, Direction des Transmissions Informatiques, the computer division that was located across the street at 7, rue Nélaton where the DST, Direction de la Surveillance du Territoire was housed. They wore street clothes, no uniforms. A plastic holder was clipped to each jacket bearing an ID card with the blue Ministry crest and the employee’s name. Such a card would be simple to duplicate and would get her past the entry guards. Once inside she’d have to do some “social engineering,” as René called it. Faking it expressed it better. The graveyard shift, when there was minimal staff, would be the best time to try.
She finished the dregs of her espresso, paid, and fetched her coat from the rack. It hung under all the others, as she’d planned, since she’d arrived early. By the time she found it, she had memorized the badge of one Simone Teil, #3867 Dept AL4A, clipped to a black raincoat whose owner sat at a nearby table. She drew a sketch of the badge crest and design on the white paper tablecloth. Now she put that piece of paper in her pocket and left.
Late Tuesday Night
JUST BEFORE MIDNIGHT, AIMÉE flashed her plastic laminated ID at the pair of guards behind the tan-and-turquoise reception counter at the DTI. There was a faded, scuffed feeling to this seventies-era building. Even the curling emergency-exit plan taped to the wall had seen better days.
Several men passed through the turnstile and signed out. The guard barely glanced at her badge. “Back again, Mademoiselle Teil?” His partner sat with his eyes glued to the video monitors.
Aimée nodded, keeping her head down, the black-brimmed hat and turned-up coat collar on her neck, hiding most of her face as she scanned the log. Simone Teil’s angular signature was distinctive and easy to copy. She signed in. “My report’s due in the morning.” She sighed. “You know how that goes!”
“No rest for the wicked, eh?” the guard said, his eyes darting over her.
Little did he know.
“Merci.” She shouldered her bag, edged toward the turnstile, and inserted her card. The machine beeped and the metal bars locked, barring her entry. Her hands trembled.
She took the card and made a show of rubbing it. “The magnetic tape’s worn. Can you let me in?”
“Worn? But those are the new cards, issued last week!” the guard said.
Great. And her luck to get a talkative guard.
“Go figure,” she said. “Must have gotten scratched in my purse.”
“Odd. They designed them to avoid that.”
“Why don’t you pass me in?”
“Your card should work.”
“Of course, it should! I’ll get it taken care of tomorrow. But just this once?”
He hesitated, looked at his watch. “I’m off in a few minutes.”
She rubbed her head. ”The chief himself called me and insisted I come back.”
“Time to tally the end-of-shift report, Fabius,” said the guard by the video monitors.
He shrugged and took a card from his pocket. She edged into the turnstile.
“You’re sure it doesn’t work?” Fabius asked. “I just checked the card assignments.”
“Eh?”
“Swipe it once more.”
Think fast.
My nail file,” she said, pretending to swipe her card. “That’s “what scratched it up!”
The turnstiles clicked. Tha
nk God he was going off duty. Somehow she’d figure a way to get out. But poor Simone Teil would get a questionnaire next time.
Now the hardest part. Logging on with someone else’s password.
On the fifth floor, as she passed a large photo of President Mitterrand adorning the drab corridor, bile rose in her stomach. She felt a sickening lurch, ran into the restroom, and threw up. Mostly espresso, leaving an acrid bitter aftertaste.
Nerves. Infiltrating the heart of the police nerve center was the most audacious thing she’d ever done. She’d never attempted anything like this on her own. To break into STIC, the interior police file system, what nerve!
Flirt, bluff, maneuver . . . she could do this. Had to do this. Too bad René wasn’t here. No system was impenetrable, he always said. The perfect crime was the undetected crime.
She took off her hat, splashed water on her face, cleaned her mouth, and popped some cassis-flavored gum. Think. Prepare.
She opened her oversized leather bag, took out her femme arsenal, thickened her mascara, rouged her cheeks to give color to her paler-than-usual complexion, and outlined her thin lips in red. Carmine red. Her short hair she gelled into wispy spikes. Looking into the soap-splashed, dull mirror she reconsidered. Non, too recognizable. She pulled a blonde shag-style wig out of her bag, combed it with her fingers, and put on blue-tinted John Lennon-style spectacles. Then she said a little prayer as she strode into the large fluorescent lighted room containing fifteen or so metal desks with computer terminals.
“Bon. Better be the right terminal,” she muttered, setting her bag down at the first one with a loud thump.
A few heads looked up. She booted up the computer.
“Merde! I’ve been having this trouble all day. Anyone else get stuck logging on?” she asked.
Several of the men shook their heads, bent over their terminals. One, his plump face mirrored in the screen, grinned.
“New?” he asked.
“Can you believe it, they assigned me to a special branch this afternoon, then switched me here tonight for a case La Proc is determined she’ll put on the docket tomorrow?”
“These things happen,” he said, sipping from a stained brown espresso cup.
Aimée’s stomach turned as she tried to ignore the smell of espresso. The papers piled on his desk were addressed NIGHT SUPERVISOR. If anyone could help, he could.
“It’s for the Antecédents Judiciares . . . but it’s happening again . . . the stupid system won’t let me log on!” She pulled out a pack of Marie Lu butter biscuits, the children’s comfort food. He looked the type. “Like one?”
“Merci,” he said. “Have you tried Système D?”
Did he mean what she thought he meant? Système D, the term everyone used to wangle a way around bureaucracy: cir- cumvent forms for the notary, hedge the real estate requirements or the school registration regulations.
She perched on his metal desk, flicked some crumbs off her leather miniskirt, and crossed her black-lace-stockinged legs.
“Why don’t you show me?”
“How long is your shift?”
She wanted to scratch her scalp under the hot, itchy wig.
“Depends how long it takes.” She sighed and leaned closer.
“Like to watch the sunrise over the Seine?”
Startled, she looked away. That was Guy’s favorite pastime, one they shared together. The thought of his gray eyes and long tapered fingers passed before her. She pushed him out of her mind.
“I can’t plan that far ahead, I’ve got so much to do, Gérard,” she said, noting the name after his title. “I’m Simone.”
“Let me see if I can help.” He grinned, a nice smile despite his pockmarked round face. “What’s the first log-in problem you have?”
“The system refuses to accept my password.”
Gérard clicked Save, closing the file he was working on. He swiveled his chair to the next terminal.
“Try this.” Within a minute he’d logged her on and navigated to the records section. “We go in like this. It confuses a lot of the newbies.”
She nodded, absorbed his instructions, and pushed the spectacles up on her forehead. He’d bypassed two of the tedious steps. And he was fast.
“Cases pending. Cases before the Tribunal,” he said. “See, cases about to be arraigned. Enter the dossier number here.”
“Like this?”
She moved next to him, her leg brushing his, and typed in Laure’s dossier number that she’d memorized from Maître Delambre’s file.
“Voilà! Merci, that’s great.”
“Gérard,” said a young man two rows over. “Earn your pay. Give me the authorization code on this mess!”
She now had access to Laure’s file but that wasn’t all she’d come for. She had to think fast before he left. “The files from the sixties and seventies. Still kept on paper?”
He shrugged. “Of course.”
“Non, pardon Gérard,” she said with big smile, eager to cover up her faux pas. “I mean personnel. The flics’ assignments. They want me to go in depth into someone’s record.”
He moved the cursor up to archives.
“The system will say special clearance needed,” he told her, glancing at her badge. “But with your clearance it’s allowed if you go in the back door.”
Nice new added feature!
“Back door?”
He reminded her of a bear: brown fuzz on his scalp, the round face, and barrel-shaped chest.
“Use my nickname here.” He typed in ours: bear. So she hadn’t been the first to notice it.
Too bad she couldn’t e-mail Laure’s dossier, newly swollen, direct to Leduc Detective. She’d have to copy what she found onto the disc she’d brought with her.
Aimée scanned the police interviews and the crime-scene findings in Laure’s file. Only one had been included in the file the lawyer had shown her. Sloppy policework, or a cover-up?
She inserted her blank disc. The Manhurin .32 PP, the police weapon licensed by Walther and manufactured in France, had, she remembered, the characteristic six-groove rifling, and its accuracy was up to fifty meters. At least that’s what her father had claimed: accurate and heavy. She’d study the ballistics findings and other reports later. Right now all she need do was copy them to the disc.
After two attempts, she accessed the older personnel files. The most recent for Ludovic Jubert were dated 1969. What about the rest of his career? Where was he now? She had to work faster. Gérard, helpful as he appeared, could check and ask her some difficult questions, like why “Simone” was working on these reports.
All the later data had been pulled. The few documents in Jubert’s file were standard reports covering his police academy graduation, first assignments, and some sparse information ending in 1969. Had these been left in by mistake? The documents listed Jubert, Morbier, Georges Rousseau, and her father as a team working in Montmartre.
So he had worked with her father!
And then something caught her eye. Jubert had worked a special detail, the game-machine detail, in Montmartre. A café owner would buy a fixed machine for ten thousand francs and make fifty thousand francs a month from each. Like the ones she’d seen in Zette’s bar. The special investigative section policed gaming and the 147 legal casinos in France. MI—Ministry of the Interior—was stamped on the top of the pages describing the investigation.
The fluorescent light bothered her eyes, the metal surface of the desk was stained with brown coffee rings, and the buttery smell of Marie Lu biscuits made her want to heave again.
“Seems you’ve found your way around,” Gérard said over her shoulder.
She gritted her teeth and nodded. “Funny, haven’t found the rest of this man’s dossier.”
Gérard rubbed the worn elbow patch on his blue regulation police sweater. Most of the computer technicians, even though they were police, wore street clothes. Was he a wannabe action man?
“Aaah, one of those!”
&nb
sp; “What do you mean, Gérard?”
He rolled his eyes. “Hands off.”
Jubert was protected. By whom and why?
Only a few men still worked at their computers now; the others had drifted out to the espresso machine. Smoke curled from the hall.
“Break time,” he said.
She didn’t want to leave. “Bon.” She stretched, did some head rolls. “I’ve got to finish this.” She yawned. “Who is he anyway?”
Surprise painted Gérard’s plump face. “The boss?”
Stupid. Why hadn’t she put it together? She had known that Jubert was high up. She tried to recover.
“Oh that one,” she said, injecting a bored tone into her voice.
Gerard grinned. “You’re a techie, right?”
“Names don’t mean much to me. Ministry types, well, they’re not part of my world. My quartier’s Montmartre, the unchic side. Looks like he started there,” she said as if it was an afterthought.
“Maybe, but he’s moved up in the world. More like rue des Saussaies now.”
That was where the head of the Ministry of the Interior had his office. An inquiry by the Préfecture de Police was accessible to the Ministry. She knew that much. Both branches could access the STIC files.
“You’re with IGS, n’est-ce pas?” Gérard whispered and leaned closer.
Inspection Génerale des Services—Internal Affairs.
“Did I say that?”
“You don’t have to.” He grinned. “Just remember how I’m helping you, eh?”
“Of course, Gérard.” She returned the smile. How long could she keep up this charade? She ought to leave but first she wanted to find out as much as possible.
“What about these men? Both deceased, Leduc and Rousseau?” She tried not to flinch when she said it.
Gérard hit the control key and F1.
Rousseau’s file filled the screen. “Voilà. Come have a coffee when you finish.”
Where was the secret Laure had alluded to and felt guilty about? It didn’t jump out at her. What about Morbier’s scrawl on his newspaper about a report six years ago dealing with a Corsican arms investigation? All she could find in his file documented Rousseau’s rapid rise in the Commissariat after a successful gaming investigation on rue Houdon, at a Club Chevalier.
