by Cara Black
A siren bleated nearby. Talk about high alert and quick response from the local fire department. Had the Mercedes owner called the flics?
The sirens wailed closer. Louder. And the gang scattered, including the musician’s double.
She couldn’t control the shaking of her hands. But she didn’t want to be there when the fire brigade blocked the street looking for the fire. Or the flics appeared.
“Let’s go. We need to talk, somewhere safe,” Lucien Sarti said, palming the knife. “Whoever you are.”
Thursday Night
RENÉ PACED ON THE uneven floorboards outside Paul’s apartment. Plaster crumbled in a fine dust from the wall, moldy mildew smells hovered by the skylight. At least he didn’t have to wear the Toulouse-Lautrec guise. Right now, he wished he had a hot rum to give him courage.
He’d left another message on Aimée’s phone. Just her voicemail message answered him. The stairs creaked and a woman in her thirties ascended, her red-hennaed hair knotted in a green clip. She had eyes that reminded him of Paul’s. She wore a long black skirt and a poncho, and carried a string shopping bag filled with nestled wine bottles.
“Can I help you?” she asked in a brisk tone.
“Madame, I met Paul—”
“Ah, you’re the actor. Paul told me about you,” she interrupted. “He wrote a wonderful essay, thanks to you.”
René hesitated. He wished Aimée were here.
“Actually, I hoped to speak with you and Paul.”
“Perhaps another evening,” she replied.
What should he do? She was struggling with her key and the heavy string bag.
“Let me help you,” he said.
“Non, merci, I can manage.”
“Mind if I wait for Paul?”
“Why?” Suspicion clouded her eyes.
René stepped back. “There’s an important matter. . . .”
A sudden panic showed in her face. “You’re checking up on us, aren’t you? From social services.”
“Not at all,” René said, taken aback.
“I know your kind. Worming your way into our life. You want to take Paul away!”
“Relax, Madame,” he said desperately. “Look at me. I don’t know about social services or anything like that. I do know Paul’s a bright boy. Intelligent, talented, but shy.”
A flicker of shame crossed her face. “Shy, oui. My fault, right? That’s what you’re saying.”
“There’s something we need to discuss. Please, let’s talk inside, not in the hallway.”
“Discuss? My place is a mess.” She hesitated.
“You should see mine,” he told her.
With more prodding, he coaxed her inside. By the time he’d helped her clear the small table of dishes, reached up, and rinsed two glasses clean and set them on the table, his hip throbbed from the cold. There was no heater in the slant-roofed one-room apartment. But it was neat despite the sofa bed, desk, and mismatched period chairs that filled the cramped space.
“Chilly, eh?” he said.
She gestured to the stove and unpacked her string bag.
On his tiptoes he turned the knob of the small gas oven. The blue pilot light flickered, hissed, and caught. He opened the door and a trickle of heat radiated out.
“Establish rapport, appear nonthreatening,” said the last chapter in the detective manual. Anxious to disarm her, René made conversation. “Those stairs are quite a hike,” he said. “I mean for someone like me,” he added, watching her pour wine from an unlabeled bottle. It looked like generic rotgut with viscous sediment in the bottom. “In my former apartment I had quite a climb. Have you lived here long, Madame?”
“Isabelle,” she said. “You can cut the small talk.”
Easy on the page, harder in real life. René realized the detective manual’s advice had limitations.
“Paul’s father left after he was born.” She drained her glass. “We’ve moved around. Always in Montmartre.”
“You’re lucky, great view.” He gestured to the large window with lace curtains.
She rested her elbows on the worn table, seemed to relax. “I don’t know what you want to ‘discuss,’ but I suggest you tell me.”
“It’s better if we all talk together—you, me, and Paul,” he said, trying to stall.
“What’s this about?” she asked.
Might as well get to the point. “Paul told me he saw the shooting the other night on the roof,” René said.
“You’re crazy! Paul makes up stories. He has a vivid imagination.”
“Let’s find out. I’ll ask him again, in your presence. Everything will remain confidential.”
She poured herself another glass and noticed René hadn’t touched his. “Too good to drink with me at my table?”
He preferred wine at meals, not on an empty stomach, but he knew his duty.
“Not at all, Isabelle.” He took a sip. A toasted walnutlike aroma. Not a bad way to warm up. “An aged Merlot?”
She nodded.
“Isabelle, I’m sure you’re concerned.” He handed her a card; thank God, he had one with him. “Paul says there were two gun flashes. If he gives this evidence to her lawyer, an innocent police officer will be cleared.”
“Innocent policeman? You’re joking.”
About to say “policewoman,” René paused. “What do you mean?”
“That one demanded protection money.”
“Jacques Gagnard, the man who was murdered on the rooftop?”
“Look, it’s not my business,” she said. “Forget I said anything.”
“How do you know the flic was bent?” he asked, easing his dangling leg onto a chair rung to relieve his aching hip.
She shrugged. “No big secret if you work the street or have a café with machines.”
Like Zette’s bar on rue Houdon, René thought. Maybe Aimée had hit the mark after all.
“I need more than that. It’s vital; a policewoman is suspected of killing her partner.”
Isabelle’s short laugh took him aback. “Ask me if I’m surprised.”
Her speech had cleared. After the wine she appeared more lucid. Some drinkers were like that. Then, a blackout.
“Your son saw a man murdered. It happened right across from you.”
She drained her glass.
“Those were real gunshots, not the télé. Have you realized your son could have been hit by a stray bullet?”
She looked away.
How could he reach her? He took another sip of wine, wishing his hip didn’t hurt so much. Poured more in her glass. “Isabelle, say this flic was corrupt and an angry contact shot him. We need your help to find the guilty man.”
“You’re undercover, right? Some special detective unit.”
René took a big sip. Let her think that. He nodded.
Isabelle stared straight ahead, then locked eyes with his. She pushed a strand of red hair behind her ear and took a deep breath. “There were three shots. I saw it all.”
“Three?” René’s stomach flip-flopped. Whether from the wine or her words, he didn’t know. It didn’t matter. “Paul said . . .”
She shook her head. “Paul didn’t see the third one. The last shot.”
“Did you see who fired?”
“I don’t want Paul involved, you understand,” Isabelle said.
Negotiate, like it said in chapter eight, page eighty-seven. Reluctant witnesses would try to negotiate. Agree, but obtain your objective.
René nodded. “If you agree to meet the lawyer and give evidence, Paul can be kept out of it.”
“Then it’s a deal, little man?”
No one had ever called him that in his life and gotten away with it.
“Count on it. And my name’s René.”
She pushed aside her half-full wineglass. “Et donc, René, I was sitting right here, writing my uncle for help. Paul was asleep in his alcove behind the curtain. Or so I thought. That’s why I noticed. It was black outside, like coal; a storm
was brewing. Then, all of a sudden, something flashed right across my line of sight from that roof. I heard a bark like a gunshot. It startled me so much I spilled the ink.” She pointed to a splotch on the table’s surface.
“Go on,” he prompted.
“Dark figures were moving on the roof. I turned down the radio. In five minutes, maybe more, I saw another flash.”
It could make sense. Had they ambushed Laure, used her gun on Jacques, then put their gun in her hand and fired again?
“How much of that had you drunk, Isabelle?” He gestured to the empty green bottles on the floor by the fridge.
“I got my check Tuesday.”
“What does that have to do with—”
“No money on Monday, René. I ran short. Paul had to have food,” she said. “But I stock up on food when I get my check. Always. Then I can’t spend it on my friends.”
He stared at the bottles. To a lonely woman, wine was a friend.
“My boy’s a monkey. He goes up on the roof all the time. I blame that old fool downstairs who lets Paul help him,” she said. “I heard the door creak open and then I saw the third flash. Paul set his schoolbag on the table and crept into the sleeping alcove. Eh, you can be sure I gave him a talking-to. Told him we’d have trouble if he opened his mouth. He promised, after I put the fear of God in him.”
Something bothered René.
“Peering out into the dark from your window, how could you see figures?”
“Before the storm came in full force, I could make out shapes. There were two dark figures.”
“Isabelle, think of how it looked from the other side. If you had a light on, wouldn’t they have seen you?”
“I keep the light on over the sink so as not to disturb Paul,” she said. “Low, like this.”
Isabelle stood and turned off the overhead light. A soft pink glow bathed the corner. “I could see out but, sitting here, they wouldn’t see me.”
René glanced at his watch and stiffened. “It’s late, shouldn’t Paul be in bed? Where is he?”
“Hiding, as usual. But he always comes home, sooner or later.”
“Isabelle, he could be in danger. Have you thought of that? Was the light on when he put the bookbag on the table?”
Something registered in her eyes. She’d had a new thought.
“What is it, Isabelle?”
Whether it was the wine or the warmth dribbling from the oven or both, she rubbed her cheek and volunteered more information.
“This mec asked my neighbor where Paul was. He’s rough, arrogant, pushes his way around the quartier. Why did he want Paul?”
René’s heart sank. “Maybe Paul’s hiding from someone. Maybe that’s why he’s so late.”
Or maybe he’d been caught. Where the hell was Aimée?
She grabbed the wineglass. Her hand trembled, sloshing red driblets on the tabletop. Like blood, René thought.
“We’ll have to move,” she said.
“You can’t run away,” he told her. “Call the police.”
“Police? No.”
“If he’s in danger, you have to. After he’s found, and you can tell the lawyer what you know, you’ll both be safe. I promise.” At least he hoped so.
She hesitated. “I stay away from the flics. I have a record.”
“What happened in the past doesn’t matter,” he said. “Think of Paul.”
He saw the struggle in her face.
“He could come home any minute.”
René hoped so. Otherwise he’d have to look for him.
“Now, tell me where he might be hiding.”
Thursday Night
“SO , MUSICIAN, WHY’ S THE mec following you, or is it the other way round?” Aimée said. Her breath, a vapor trail, dissipated in the night air over the lighted outdoor ice rink at Rotonde de la Villette. “I need to know.”
“You and me both,” Lucien Sarti said, leaning on the rail, looking down.
A few skaters, mostly couples at this time of night, crossed the ice. The music almost drowned out the distant screeching of brakes from the overhead Metro line at Stalingrad.
“He’s the one trying to frame me.”
“For terrorism?” she asked. “Is he part of your Separatist cell, gone rogue?”
He shook his head.
Behind them loomed the domed rotunda of La Villette, a circular arcade fronted by Doric columns, a barracks during the Commune, later a salt depot. Ahead lay the wide dark-water basin that funneled below them and narrowed into Canal Saint Martin.
They were in an open public place at least, although only a few figures, huddled against the bone-chilling cold, waited in line at the crêperie stall.
Her cold thigh still felt the warmth of his pressing against her. Instinct screamed that it must be the other mec who Cloclo had meant. Hadn’t Lucien Sarti defended her? But “Never assume,” had been her father’s dictum.
He pulled the knife from his pocket, holding it low. A worn wooden hilt, a serated blade. “A fish gutter,” he said. “The weapon of choice on the Bastia docks.”
She knew they were also used in restaurant kitchens. Then her cell phone trilled. René? She pressed Answer.
“Aimée, forgive the late notice.” The husky voice of Martine, her best friend since the lycée, boomed over the line. “Gilles shot more pheasant than we can eat in a lifetime. They’re plucked, herbed, and roasting. And there’s a perfect Brillat-Savarin for after dinner. Say you and Guy will come, please.”
These days, Martine inhabited the world of the Sixteenth Arrondissement. Soirées and châteaux on the weekend. Courtesy of her boyfriend, Gilles. But that milieu was staid and lifeless to Aimée.
“Martine, I can’t talk,” she whispered, turning toward the canal.
“Did you and Guy fight again?”
“Eh, what’s that?”
“You heard me, Aimée.”
No use pretending. Might as well come clean. She could never keep the truth from Martine for long.
She cupped her hand over her mouth. “Guy moved out, Martine,” she whispered. “This is not a good time.” She squirmed, embarrassed that Lucien Sarti might overhear her.
“Then, of course, you must come!” Martine said, her husky voice rising. “Gilles’s colleague from Le Point’s here. You’d like him.”
The conservative right-leaning journal, known for nostalgic articles on the de Gaulle era? Not likely.
“Look, this mec’s chasing me. . . .” Aimée whispered.
“Lust often, love always, as they say. You sure don’t let the grass grow under your heels!” Martine said. “A bad boy?”
“Bad-bad.”
“Tiens! You mean . . . nom de Dieu! Not this again . . . you’re not getting involved!”
“Later, Martine.” She clicked her phone off and turned back.
“Your man moved out, eh?” Lucien said.
She wanted the metal sewer lid under her feet to open up.
Sarti leaned his long legs against the skating-rink fence. The glittering quayside lights reflected in his eyes. Faraway eyes. “My woman . . . once she was my woman . . . belongs to someone else now.”
“I’m sorry.” Caught off balance, she didn’t know what else to say. These things happened. As she well knew.
“Life’s like a train,” he said, his voice low. “I got off too soon.”
Maybe she had, too. Not tried hard enough with Guy. Now, in some way, she felt that she and Sarti shared something, as if they paddled in the same boat.
She had to get back to the point.
“Let’s discuss that guy, the one framing you. Your doppel-gänger? How do you know him?”
“Petru?”
“If he’s the one who looks so much like you.”
“He’s from another clan,” Lucien Sarti told her. “He’s different from me.”
Clan? Sounded old-fashioned, insular.
“What do you mean?” she asked. She kept her eye on the sparse crowd at the crêpe stall un
der the arcade. A kerosene lantern hung from the cart. She heard the scraping of ice skates, scattered laughter of couples, and the strains of a Strauss waltz wavering on the wind.
He should have been fearful, but Lucien Sarti appeared sad and wistful. He didn’t seem like a killer.
“I miss the rhythm of village life,” he said. “Here the horns beep at a red light, one runs from one Metro stop to the next. Rushing, always rushing. In Corsica the pace of life is human.”
“Petru appears to have adapted pretty well,” she said. “Who does he work for?”
“You should know,” he said.
She thought quickly. Of course. Yann Marant had said Lucien Sarti had arrived at the party later. “You were at Monsieur Conari’s party. How do Petru and his goons fit in?”
“Goons? All I know is that she . . . someone warned me Petru had planted terrorist pamphlets in the recording studio and arranged for the flics to arrest me.”
“Do you believe this woman?”
His eyebrows rose. “Why should I doubt her?”
Why frame him as a terrorist? How did that connect to Jacques’s murder? Too many pieces—odd, disparate ones. How to connect them?
“Why would Petru implicate you, then follow you?”
“Like I said, he’s not from my village.” Lucien paused with a tight smile. “Who knows? My great-uncle could have stolen his father’s mule. Eh, it’s just like you Parisians characterize us.”
“Interesting angle, musician. You’re the one stereotyping.”
“So, you willing to hang out with an alleged Corsican Separatist?” He interrupted, shooting her a look.
Cut the sarcasm, she wanted to say.
“Not if I can help it.” No reason for him to know she made a beeline for bad boys, once even a Neo-Nazi who’d turned out to be a good guy in disguise. “Convince me you’re not one.”
“To you, we’re goatherds with shotguns, taking care of vendettas, savage and wild like our island, eh?”
“Let’s get back to the point. What did you see the night Jacques Gagnard was killed?”
“You, handcuffed, being herded into the police van,” he said, not skipping a beat.
There was more, she sensed it.
“Did you hear shots?”
