Murder in Clichy

by Cara Black

  But when he straightened up, she saw a lopsided grin on his face. “Didn’t want to make eye contact with la Proc’. She’s a ball-breaker that one. Always on my case.”

  True? Or a way for a wily fox to get out of answering? She turned around and saw the back of La Proc’ Edith Mesnard’s tailored Rodier suit. And then doubt nagged her. Was this a glimpse of real pain after all?

  “Give me something to go on, Morbier,” she said. “Don’t make me beg. That’s if you want flowers at the hospital.”

  Morbier frowned. “Drink your espresso. I’m not going to warn you off any more, Leduc. Wise up, get married, make babies, change diapers.”

  Babies . . . diapers, where did that come from? And with whom was she supposed to do this? Guy was no longer a possibility.

  “Miles Davis was potty trained in a week, and he’s more than enough for me to handle,” she replied.

  He looked away. She noticed the liver spots on his hands, the lined skin around his eyes. He’d aged.

  “Leduc?”

  She looked up.

  “For once, listen to me. Promise to leave it alone and I’ll sniff around,” he said. “But I mean it. You promise?”

  She nodded. “I found out Regnier’s on suspension. As far as I can tell, he’s gone rogue.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Just what I said,” she said. “And he kidnapped René. I’ve got the proof in this little notebook.”

  Morbier didn’t look surprised often. But now was one of those times.

  “He knows about the jade and thinks he can claim it but . . .”

  “And René?”

  “He sent some scum to the hospital and caused a three-alarm fire,” she said. “All by himself. But thanks for asking.”

  Morbier’s eyes widened and he shook his head with a little smile. “I’m getting too old, vraiment?”

  She nodded. “Soon, I’m going to have to put his name on the door.”

  “Leduc, I meant to help,” he told her.

  His chin sagged and he looked lost. Morbier? Now she was worried.

  “Morbier, what happened with your grandson Marc?”

  His eyes followed the sparrows pecking for food on the crackling brown leaves. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  Had Marc’s other grandparents received custody?

  “If there’s some way I can help?”

  “Not now, Leduc.”

  Morbier stood, took his newspaper, and walked away. His shoes crunched the gravel as he crossed in the square. Could she still count on him?

  As her father had said, If only the flics’ left hand knew what their right hand was doing, they wouldn’t try wiping their arses with both hands at the same time.

  Gray mist hovered over the rooftops. She took a deep breath. She would have to flush out the scum herself.

  LATER THAT afternoon, Aimée sipped wine at a pre-war bar à vin on rue de Clichy. The decor featured white-globe sconces, a stamped-tin ceiling, and enough tobacco in the air to stain her teeth just by inhaling. She wished she could open the window. The smell of wet wool, the sputtering heater, and the stale smoke was suffocating. Even the raw damp wind outside would be preferable. And she wished she could see better through the fogged-up windows.

  She watched men enter Académie de Billard, Blondel’s haunt across the rue de Clichy. Most were of a certain type. She figured a lot would be named Jacky, would be on the dole, and would have the hots for Arielle Dombasle whose film career had peaked in the 80s. And all were wearing leather bomber jackets.

  She was an outsider. She doubted they’d be forthcoming about Blondel, the man mentioned in Sophie’s postcard, even if they knew him. Maybe this could work to her advantage. Stir things up. Count on merde to float to the top, as the saying went. Instead of going in undercover, she’d play it straight. Try to draw him out.

  She punched in the Académie de Billard number. It rang four times. Someone picked up; cleared his throat.

  “Oui?”

  “Blondel, he there yet?”

  “Et alors, who’d like to know?”

  She heard the click of billiard balls in the background.

  “Tell him Sophie’s gone,” she said, not pausing for breath. “But I’ll help him. We’ll work out the details. Fifteen minutes?”

  “What do you mean?”

  Was he stalling, unsure of who she meant or— “Give me your number,” he said. “In case he checks in.”

  Which meant he’d pass her message on. Like in the old days, before cell phones, when few apartments had private phone lines and the café was a central message clearing house. Blondel would call her if he wanted to talk.

  Nice, old fashioned, and secure for Blondel.

  She gave her number and hung up.

  There had to be a back door to the billiard hall, maybe more than one. If she met Blondel there, she wanted to be sure of a way out. She crossed the street to rue de Bruxelles, passing the house where Zola died of asphyxiation and walked the short block to Square Berlioz. Elegant and calm, it held a vert-de-grisé-covered statue of the composer Berlioz, and a playground. Seven narrow streets intersected at the square, a few sloped toward Gare Saint Lazare, others up to Montmartre. Hard to imagine that the sex shops of Pigalle flashed their neon only a few streets away.

  Haussmann-era apartment buildings lined the street, with their grilled balconies, deep courtyards, and back apartments with service exits. Then she found a cobbled driveway leading to a mansion on the square.

  Perfect.

  Back on rue de Clichy, she ducked into an entrance beside the greengrocers which bordered the Académie de Billard. It led to a courtyard with shuttered windows, past trashbins, and to the rear door of the Académie’s bar. Crates of empty bottles marked the rear entrance.

  Inside, she put her phone on vibrate, slid past the side of the bar, and headed toward the restrooms. A few men were shooting pool on dark wooden tables that filled the period brown mosaic-tiled floor. The high ceilings, beveled gilt-edged mirrors, giant Roman numeral clock over the coat room, and stained-glass skylights reminded her of an early train station.

  The phone vibrated in her pocket.

  “Allô?”

  “You want to see me?” said a deep voice.

  That was quick. He sounded interested.

  “I can help you,” she said.

  “You sound pretty sure of yourself.”

  “Sophie cut out on me, but we can be useful to each other.”

  “Who knows?”

  Nice and oblique, in case anyone was tapping the phone.

  “Meet me in Académie de Billard.”

  “I’m already there,” he said.

  In the mirror, she saw a man wearing a leather bomber jacket hunched over the bar, talking on the phone.

  She hung up and kept walking, glad she’d entered from the side and had identified him first.

  “But I’m here, too,” she said to him as she sidled onto the stool next to his.

  “I’m impressed.”

  But she didn’t think he was. Like a cat ready to spring, he gripped the beer bottle with white clenched knuckles. His wide forehead took up much of his face, whose features consisted of a zipperlike mouth and dark deepset eyes. Slick-backed hair and broad shoulders completed the picture. But the scar on the side of his neck, the kind mecs got in prison from awls used in the shoe factory, put her on high alert.

  “You’re Blondel?”

  “I represent him.”

  She pushed off from the zinc bar, shaking her head. A mec rested his billiard cue on the green baize and moved closer. A set up?

  And here she thought she’d been clever.

  “Let me know when he wants to talk,” she said.

  “What’s the problem?” he said, a deep chuckle. “I thought you wanted to help me. Jacky wants to talk, too.”

  He gestured to the other mec now chalking his cue with the blue cube in his hand, and blocking her escape.

  Of course, a
Jacky! Buff body, tight black leather pants and a pompadour. He smiled. Gold incisors. Her throat tightened.

  “Maybe I changed my mind,” she said, eyeing the restroom door. ”If Blondel wants to talk, let me know.”

  “Where’s Sophie?”

  “She owes me, Thadée, too,” Aimée said, “So I’d like to know, as well. I figured we could work together.”

  “I’m Blondel,” he said.

  “And you’re going to sell me the Pont Neuf,” she said.

  “Did Nadège mention a defaulted candy bill?”

  Nadège?

  “Who’s that?”

  And then she remembered Thadée saying “Nadège, Sophie,” before he was shot.

  “Who are you, Mademoiselle?” he asked, a sneer in his voice. His eyes hardened. “Let’s go somewhere and get to know each other.”

  This wasn’t going the way she’d hoped it would.

  She edged toward the exit, but Jacky barred her way with his cue.

  “Give me a moment, I need to use the restroom,” she said, in a loud voice. “Excuse me.” She smiled as she edged past Jacky.

  And then it hit her . . . Thadée’s defaulted candy bill?

  What had she jumped into? A dope deal that Morbier had warned her against? Was Sophie responsible for it now that Thadée was dead? Or this Nadège? Had this mec done him in? But that didn’t make sense, why kill him if he owed money? Or might pay his debt with valuable jade in lieu of cash?

  Several sweating men shouldering a massive pool table were blocking the back door by the counter. And another delivery loomed behind them.

  “Mademoiselle, we’re unloading a truck of new tables. Go the other way.”

  “Blondel” and Jacky stood, feet planted and arms crossed over them, barring the front door. The bulge in Jacky’s coat pocket spelled trouble. There had to be another way out.

  Passing the door to the bathrooms, she climbed a narrow staircase that led to game rooms and more billiard tables. No way out up there.

  Downstairs, in the restroom, she entered cubicle after cubicle. Odors of evergreen disinfectant came from the stalls. But there was neither door nor window.

  Back in the hall, she found a light-well concealed by draperies next to the cloakroom. But it was nailed shut, top and bottom.

  The only thing left was the garbage chute. Ripe and pungent. No way would she go down that. Then she heard footsteps. Her phone vibrated in her pocket.

  “Oui?”

  “I’m waiting,” the man who had called himself Blondel said. “There’s a car out front, we’ll take a drive so we can talk somewhere quiet.”

  Like hell they would.

  She lifted the lid of the dirty metal garbage chute, tried not to breathe, and put her legs over the edge. Rank odors swelled from below. She belted her coat tight, grabbed the rim, and lowered herself down a sticky, greasy metal slide. Her toes found a small foothold. Thank God.

  Before she could close the chute lid, Jacky’s head appeared silhoutted against the light. And then she slipped.

  Her arms bumped against the sides and she put them in front of her face.

  She landed in darkness on something wet. Scratching came from somewhere. Rodents. Jacky shouted from above. No way would she let him catch her after going through this.

  She pulled herself up, then sank. Putrid smells of decaying food and oil surrounded her. Flies buzzed. Then the container she’d landed in tipped over. Her elbows hit concrete. Loud squeals came from the corner, and her heart pounded.

  She got to her feet, fell, scrambled for the wall, but her hands came back clutching half eaten melon rinds. Something scurried over her boots. Big, fat, with a long greasy tail. She ran, heading for a patch of light, praying she’d find a way out.

  By the time she reached the end of the cavelike opening her stockings were in shreds and she’d lost part of a high heel. Glass crashed and broke behind her. Instead of veering into the courtyard, she spied a green-metal fence and began to climb. She remembered the mansion facing the square and the driveway leading to it.

  She jumped, landed in mud, and tiptoed through bushes. Footsteps kept coming. Merde! She had to keep moving.

  She saw the back door of the mansion’s frosted glass conservatory, wedged open with a cane. She stepped inside, closed the door and locked it.

  “Mathilde!” said an old man in a wheelchair before an easel painting. A faded woollen shawl, pinned around his shoulders, held flecks of paint. The brush, Aimée realized, was tied to his wrist.

  “I’m sorry, monsieur.”

  “Where’s Mathilde? My tea?” he said in a quavering voice. “I want my biscuits. Always have my tea with biscuits.”

  “Bien sûr,” she said, keeping to the shadow. “I’ll check.”

  He sniffed. “Mathilde forgot to take the garbage out again, eh? Lazy one. Twenty years in service and she needs reminding of everything.”

  “Tiens, your tea’s here,” said Mathilde, an older woman, with short gray hair, wearing a housecoat and rubber boots. She saw Aimée and surprise showed on her face. “Running late, eh? Weren’t you supposed to mix the paints, get everything set up for him?”

  Aimée heard crashing in the bushes outside. Her cell phone vibrated but she ignored it.

  “Désolée. ”

  The older woman shook her head. “You art students are more trouble than you’re worth. He’ll complain now for days. Simple, non, just mix the pigments with thinner. His hands shake so much he can’t manage it.”

  “But it’s beautiful,” Aimée said, looking at the oil painting on the easel, “reminds me of Renoir.”

  The old man spit on the floor. “That old fool. Never paid his rent on time my grand-mère used to say. Brought his whole brood to live with him, too.”

  “Don’t get him started,” the woman said, setting down the tea tray and rolling her eyes.

  “Degas, how the laundresses hated him! They called him a dirty old man. But Manet, eh, he created Impressionism. His atelier was a few blocks from here. The Academy called them upstarts, the school of Batignolles, at first. Manet, Cézanne, Toulouse-Lautrec. . . .” His voice trailed off and his rheumy eyes grew wistful. “Sometimes when the fog hovers over Place de Clichy, the lights mist, like the old gas lamps when I was young. . . it’s how he painted it.”

  Mathilde sniffed. “Never changes. Zut! Artists don’t bathe, do they?”

  “May I wash up?” Aimée asked, reminded of her state.

  Mathilde pointed to a small laundry area. “Be quick about it, he pays the art students’ league by the hour.”

  In the closet-sized space, she took off her coat and boots, ran hot water and scrubbed them down, and washed her face. She pulled out her cell phone and called a taxi, then listened to her messages.

  “Since you doubt I’m Blondel,” the man said, “you’ll receive proof when I find you, Mademoiselle Leduc.”

  Merde. He’d gotten her name from her voice mail message!

  Friday Evening

  NADÈGE HUDDLED IN THE dark doorway, pulled her jean jacket collar over her pearls, and wrapped her scarf around her feet. She tried to still her hands. Chills and feverish jitters wracked her. She was sweating; she couldn’t stop sweating. The searing pain in her spine! The familiar, awful ache of withdrawal.

  Globed lights threw a yellow haze on the wet cobbles and illuminated the infrequent evening buses that rumbled past. Quiet reigned, the school crush over, as the post-work apéritif hour settled upon the Clichy back streets.

  The gnawing craving filled her. How many hours had it been? She wasn’t counting, but it had been all day. She was doing better, cutting back. She’d stopped before, she could stop again.

  Waves of guilt rocked her. Leaving her little Michel. Non, she’d been right, that had been a good move, she couldn’t keep him with her, he was better off, so much better off with grand-mère. Clean sheets, a full rice bowl, and she would make sure he arrived at school on time.

  And now she’d do wha
t had to be done to clean up Thadée’s mess . . . and hers. Thadée had regretted introducing her to his supplier when she, in turn, became indebted to him. She struggled against a surge of irritability and nausea.

  But which role to play? The indignant, well-bred French girl or the pliant Asian? All her life she’d acted the part that was called for, never sure which fit. Lately, she hadn’t cared much.

  Mealtimes in Paris with her father or her friends’ families had been full of discussion and debate, alive with conversation in between multiple courses. Yet as a small girl her grand-mère admonished her if more than the click of her chopstick was heard on the rice bowl; it showed bad manners. “Show reverence for food, with silence,” she’d said. And always, “Show respect for elders, never argue, express self only in harmonious way.”

  Her grand-mère would pull herself to her five foot height, stare at Nadège, and say “Gweilo stole Vietnam, push us out our country, your country but, it still is inside us; we never leave it, it never leaves us. Someday we return to tend our ancestors’ shrine once more.”

  Growing up, Nadège had wondered when that would be as her grand-mère cursed the régime and her mah-jong cronies moaned about how Vietnam was changed. Later, she’d realized her grand-mère would never leave France. She didn’t even have a passport.

  And “harmony” would get Nadège nowhere unless she found Thadée’s stash. It wasn’t in the apartment, but she hadn’t checked out Thadée’s old townhouse, whose rear faced the shadowy gallery courtyard. She clutched her beaded bag, pulled her denim jacket tighter, and took advantage of the mid-evening lull to slip across the narrow street and press 75AB on the digicode buttons. The massive dark blue door opened and she stepped inside.

  Thadée had told her once, if anything happened, to go find his cache and she’d be safe. And then distracted by a phone call, he’d forgotten to give her its location. So typical of Thadée, she thought, and a pang of remembrance lanced through her. But she had found the key, if only it was the right one.

  The dank foyer, lined with old mailboxes, held a green garbage container and puddles. The plaster ceiling leaked and dripped on the spiral staircase. Occasional acquaintances of Thadée had used it as a shooting gallery until he’d cleaned himself up and thrown them out. He’d never used drugs after that. She doubted that Sophie, who disliked her, had ever graced the crumbling place.