by Cara Black
Zette’s club!
Montmartre again. She copied it to the disc, controlled her shaking fingers, and typed in her father’s name, Jean-Claude Leduc.
And then she saw the grainy photo, one of a young Morbier, Rousseau, another man, and her papa all in uniform, smiling on the steps by Marché Saint Pierre, the textile market, Sacré Coeur in the background. The fourth man—who, she figured, was Jubert—was her father’s height and had small eyes and a prominent nose. His hands were in his pockets. All young, with expectant grins on their faces, their lives before them. What had happened? She choked back a sob.
“Simone, Simone . . .”
She realized Gérard was calling her from the hallway.
She wiped her eyes. The words jerked her back to the present. “Oui, j’arrive.” She dragged the file to the disc, copied it, and thrust her coat inside her bag.
She hit Quit and grabbed the disc as it whirred out, stuck it safely inside her blouse, then joined Gérard.
“Une débâcle!” one of the techies was saying. “Just like that, the network froze.”
“You remember that, eh, Simone? Last week . . .”
Gérard was getting too friendly or too inquisitive. Testing her? Time to get out.
“Don’t remind me,” she groaned, interrupting him as he offered her a small plastic cup of steaming espresso. From the vending machine. Awful stuff! She pitied these mecs.
“Un moment, eh. I’ve got to pee,” she said with a big smile. “I’ll be right back.”
She rounded the corner, her bag hitched over her shoulder, and ducked into the women’s restroom, then peeked into the corridor. Deserted. She slipped out, ran down the hall, and to the door marked STAIRS. She shut the door so it closed without a click, then raced down the five flights. Still in the enclosed stairwell, she took off her wig and glasses, pulled on her coat and hat, adjusted the brim low to hide her face, and stepped into the main foyer. The turnstile lay just ahead and she almost breathed a sigh of relief.
“Monsieur, my card won’t work. Pass me through, eh?” she said to the new guard as she made a show of wringing her hands at the turnstile.
The phone rang. The red light lit up. The inter-building line? Gérard?
The guard glanced at the switchboard. Only one on duty. He hesitated.
“Please, Monsieur, eh, my taxi’s waiting!”
She heard a buzz, the turnstile arms grated forward, and she shoved her way out.
“Merci! I have to hurry, hope the taxi hasn’t taken off.”
“Mademoiselle, wait—”
He reached for the phone as she ran past the sign-out log and through the glass doors. She didn’t stop running until she’d made it into the dimly lit bistro restroom across the street. Her lungs heaved and she couldn’t stop shaking. Ten minutes later she’d wiped off her red lipstick, applied an orange bisque, turned the reversible black coat inside out to its tan side, pulled black tights over her stockings, and changed her boots to Christian Louboutin red-soled pumps, a flea-market find.
Thank God the bistro was crowded. She sidled her way to the counter, more relieved than she’d felt in hours, and ordered a perroquet, pastis with mint syrup, named for the colors of a parrot, and watched the front of the DTI building.
A car pulled up, an unmarked flic car by the look of it. Mon Dieu! Several men joined the two men who’d stepped out onto the wet pavement. The guard appeared. He was probably telling them about her supposed taxi. With trembling fingers she punched in René’s number on her cell phone.
“Allô, René,” she said. “I need a ride.”
“No taxis around?” he asked.
One of the officers looked around and jerked his thumb across the street toward the bistro. Her shoulders tensed. They’d question the man behind the counter.
“You could say that,” she whispered into the phone. “I’ll be waiting at the Vel d’Hiv.”
She placed ten francs on the counter and made it out of the bistro door before the flics crossed the street. At a brisk pace, her head lowered, she walked down rue Nélaton and turned right down the next cobbled street. Breaking into a run, she made it to quay de Grenelle. Panting, she faced the needle-shaped tree-lined island allée des Cygnes, at one end of which was the original, but smaller Statue of Liberty. At the other was the Metro, rumbling over metal-strutted Bir-Hakeim Bridge. Double swaths of planted shrubs bordered the Seine here.
She didn’t stop until she reached a small grove bathed in the glow from a yellow streetlight. Kneeling under the bushes, she caught her breath. Sirens wailed on her right. She saw the blue flash of a police car’s light against the stone buildings. Why couldn’t René hurry up?
Damp red rose petals and the smell of earth stuck to her hand. Flat stones embedded in the ground, gravelike, held scattered bunches of flowers. She shuddered. This was once a bicycle-racing vélodrome where Jews, rounded up in July 1942, were held. Now the Vel d’Hiver was a memorial garden adjoining the DST.
Messages had been placed under the stones: “For Maman, I never had the chance to say goodbye and tell you how I love you. I pray you are in the stars shining above.”
Her own mother, an American radical activist, had left them when she was eight, without saying goodbye. The pain never went away, but she’d tried to move on. Sadness vied with her apprehension that René would be too late.
Her cell phone vibrated.
“René?”
“What have you done now? There are flics crawling everywhere; foot patrols, cars. They’re stopping taxis.”
“Well—”
“Non. Don’t tell me. Where are you?”
She looked through the bushes. “I can see your car. Park on quay Branly facing the monument. Open the trunk like you’re looking for something. Be sure you get your brake lights even with the chestnut tree, the big one. See it?”
René’s Citroën edged along the street and parked by the tree. He got out, wearing a painter’s smock, and unlocked his trunk. Under the street lamps, his resemblance to Toulouse-Lautrec was uncanny. He pulled out a tool set and placed it on the glistening pavement. A blue-and-white police car prowling the quay paused. She crouched, gripping the branches, her heart pounding. Then it drove on.
Her heels sank into the dirt as she made her way from the memorial to the quay. René pulled out a blanket, shook it, folded it laboriously to shield Aimée from the view of another cruising flic car. She held her breath until it passed and then ran, keeping low, and barreled into the trunk.
“Hope you cleaned up your tracks,” René muttered, putting his toolbox back, then shutting the trunk. He’d spread blankets over the tire jack, yet it dug into her spine. Still it beat riding in a flic’s car in handcuffs.
All the way back, wedged in René’s trunk, her mind spun. Had she remembered everything? Kept her head covered and down when she was within the security camera’s range? Wiped all her prints off the keyboard, the bathroom faucet, and door handles? Worn gloves in the elevator and not touched the stair railing? Yes . . . her heart skipped. The Marie Lu foil biscuit packet. Gérard had finished the biscuits, wadded the wrapping, and thrown it in the trash bin by his terminal.
With Gérard’s help they’d soon discover the files she’d copied, but she’d stolen nothing, destroyed nothing. Like a courteous hacker, she’d cracked the system but wreaked no havoc. All she’d done was level the playing field in Laure’s investigation. At least for now. If she gave the files she’d copied to Maître Delambre, how could the flics complain? The information was already in their files. They’d be caught concealing evidence from the defense.
Maybe she could shake Jubert from his lair. Now at least she knew what he looked like, albeit as a young man, and she’d found out that at one time he’d worked in the Ministry of Interior. If Gérard had steered her right, even on rue des Saussaies. A place she doubted she could crack with dynamite.
BACK AT her apartment, she banked the fire in her salon while René hung up his painting smock. Crac
kling flames cast shadows onto the tall ceiling. Miles Davis was curled on the rug. At least the contractor had given her a working fireplace. The kitchen and bathrooms, their gaping-open walls revealing ancient electrical wiring, were another story.
“You first, Monsieur Toulouse-Lautrec,” she said. “What have you found out?”
He stuck his short arms into a wool cardigan, buttoned it, and joined her, cross-legged, on a sheepskin rug on the parquet floor. She passed him a hot buttered rum, and he closed his eyes and inhaled. The fire’s warmth heated a small area, never penetrating to the cold corners.
“Much warmer than the roof. That’s where I was when you called. Pretty quick, eh!”
From the eighteenth! René was a speed demon behind the wheel. “You, on a roof?”
“You’re not the only one, you know,” he said. “A fantastic view despite the ice. Right across from the building where Jacques bought it.”
She swallowed the wrong way. Choked. He amazed her all the time.
“Eh, Monsieur Toulouse-Lautrec, what did your eyewitness see?”
“Paul’s nine years old, shoplifts, and promised his mother not to tell about the two flashes he saw on the roof.”
“Two shots? Hold on, then the ballistics report should indicate two bullets. Un moment.” She pulled out the disc from her shirt, pulled the laptop from her desk, and booted up. “Let’s see, the ballistics report should clarify it.”
René’s jaw dropped. “This information . . . did you . . .?”
“I thought you didn’t want to know,” she said, inserting the disc. “That intranet system gave me a headache. But as you always say, no system’s impenetrable. And I had a little help. Until the mec ate my biscuits and woke up.”
“You’ve done it now, Aimée,” René said. “They won’t stop till they find you. Breaking into—”
“They don’t know who I am.” She kept telling herself that, praying that her fingerprints wouldn’t be found. And that she’d never run into Gérard on the street. But even if she did, how would he recognize her?
“Look at this.” She clicked on Laure’s dossier. The screen filled with the files, arranged by unit. “Strikes me as funny that only one of these was furnished to her lawyer.”
“Check the entry date and time,” René said, rubbing his arms. “More might have been entered after her lawyer received his information.”
She checked. “These were entered several hours before I met Maître Delambre. What’s going on?”
“A police cover-up?” René said.
She opened the ballistics file and read it. “One bullet was recovered from the corpse. From Laure’s Manhurin,” she summarized.
Great.
But if Paul had seen another flash . . .
“You’re sure he really saw something, René?”
“Paul has an eye for detail,” René said. “I don’t think he’d make it up. He has no reason to.”
It was the only hope she had. “Say there were two guns. If Paul saw two flashes—”
“And heard only one shot,” René interrupted.
She stared at René. “I’d say the other gun had a silencer.”
René rubbed his wide forehead. “That’s what it means?”
“Stands to reason.”
“How would the bad guys know Laure was down below?”
“Good question.” She watched the fire, trying to make sense of what Paul had observed.
“If they planned to shoot Jacques and he boasted he had backup—” she ventured.
“Would he do that?” René interrupted. “Show his ace in the hole like that?”
“True,” she said and thought. “Think of it from their point of view. What if, from the roof, they saw Laure accompany Jacques across the courtyard. Let’s assume they took advantage of an opportunity to implicate Laure by using her gun and leaving gunshot residue on her hands.”
“Maybe,” René said. “That’s plausible. But why kill Jacques in the first place?”
“I’m working on that. Blackmail? Bribery?” She shook her head and stared at the fire. Did Zette’s gambling machines fit in this?
“What about other witnesses?” René asked.
“The partygoers saw nothing. Félix Conari, the host, and Yann Marant, his systems analyst, mentioned a musician, Lucien Sarti. So far, I haven’t been able to find him. That old lady, Zoe Tardou, on the top floor across the way acted secretive but she’s an odd bird.” Such a strange woman. She filed away the thought that she should question Madame Tardou again.
“Did Paul see anything else?” she asked.
René shook his head.
They didn’t have much.
“We have to get Paul to give a statement to Laure’s attorney.”
“His mother drinks, he shoplifts.” René told her.
She shrugged.
“First thing tomorrow, I’ll give the files to the lawyer and I’ll explain what Paul saw,” she said. “This lawyer needs all the help he can get.”
“Will you explain that you entered the DTI and tunneled into the intranet system?” René shook his head.
“Not in so many words,” she said. “But if the lawyer has this information, what can they do? Accuse him of illegally obtaining the documents they were mandated by law to furnish him?”
René’s cell phone beeped in his pocket.
“Oui?” he answered, a smile on his face. He took the call in the kitchen. Miles Davis growled.
“We can’t be jealous, Miles,” Aimée said, ruffling his neck. René demonstrated classic symptoms of a coup de foudre, love at first sight.
“Off to a rave?” she asked, on René’s return.
“The rave sputtered and died.” René pulled on his coat, slipped his fingers into fleece-lined gloves.
She didn’t want to ask him why he was leaving instead of staying to pore over the files with her.
“I’m meeting her for a drink. Guy should be back soon, right?”
Aimée knew if she told him the truth and asked him to stay, he would. But that would be selfish. René deserved to love someone.
She nodded.
“E-mail me the ballistics report. I’d like to check something.”
“Like what?” She stood, excited.
“Just an idea. If there was a second shot, wouldn’t there be a bullet somewhere?”
“You’re a walking genius, René.”
SHE GRIPPED the velvet curtains at her window, watched René emerge from the shadows onto the quay, and enter his Citroën. Below, the Seine flowed black and inklike. An ice-flecked barge glided by, its blue-lighted captain’s cabin and red running lights reflecting on the water.
She put another log on the fire, thinking of Laure’s father policing Zette’s bar and the illegal gaming machines. Why would an old gaming investigation matter now? Did it? Then Jacques had worked with him. Zette had ties to the Commissariat. Was she right in guessing that he was an informer? Tomorrow she’d probe deeper.
Thin beams of moonlight slanted across the parquet floor. Her mind drifted to when she was nine, Paul’s age, and to the policeman’s ball she’d attended with her father. He’d escorted her to the rented hall in the tile manufacturer’s on Canal Saint Martin. Couples glided across the polished wood floor surrounded by tables bearing white tablecloths, silver-plated breadbaskets, and gleaming candles.
“Papa, I want to dance.”
“Ma princesse, this isn’t your ballet class,” he’d said, affectionately. “They’re waltzing.”
“I know.” She’d smoothed down her velvet party dress, several centimeters shorter than when she’d worn it the year before. “Dance with me, Papa?”
Was it Morbier or someone else at the round table who’d nudged him? “Go on, Jean-Claude. Bad manners not to dance with your little princesse.”
“Mais, it’s been years—”
“Please, Papa!”
An odd look had crossed his face. He took her arm, escorted her to the edge of the dance fl
oor, a serious set to his mouth.
“We’ll make a little square, eh? Like this: side, back, side, and front. Follow me.”
Her legs tangled with his right away. He gripped her back.
“Try again.”
More frustration as he stepped on her toe.
“Aimée, let’s give this up.”
Shame bubbled up inside her and her face reddened.
“Papa, you said I can do anything if I try hard enough. Why can’t I dance like a big girl?”
“You know, I haven’t danced with anyone since your mother.”
“Maman?”
She couldn’t read his expression. He never talked about her mother. Refused to.
“Et alors, stand on my feet. Remember, we make a little box, one . . . two . . . three . . . one . . . two . . . three.”
She remembered her father’s black polished shoes, hard under her small feet, how he gripped her and whirled her around the dance floor. And the feeling she’d never forgotten of moving with the music, safe in his arms.
She’d never stop loving him, but she had to know. The hard part was going to be reading his dossier. Would she find evidence of a cover-up, extortion, bribes? She could delete the dossier before reading it and never know.
She joined Miles Davis on the rug by the crackling fire and took a deep breath. Then she scrolled to the file entitled Jean-Claude Leduc and clicked on it. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and opened it.
Empty. The file had been erased.
Tuesday Evening
LUCIEN BOWED TO THE applause of the small crowd. He’d seen Félix deep in conversation with a white-haired man. No Marie-Dominique. He knew she wouldn’t come, but the curve of her tan back, the green flecks in her eyes, invaded his thoughts.
Never get between the fingernail and the flesh, his grand-mère would say when she wanted him to mind his own business. Marie-Dominique had indicated loud and clear that he was an inconvenience in her life.
He fanned himself with a program in the close air, picked up his cetera and case. The next act was a magician who grinned as he set a black velvet box on the stage.
