by Cara Black
From a coved window on the small landing she saw the man’s shiny bald dome in the apartment across the way. Instead of a light well where the buildings joined, there was open space. In medieval times, she imagined neighbors conversing with each other across the way or the king’s men leaning out and throttling their enemies.
The bald man turned. And before she could duck, he saw her staring at him. She moved aside.
Opposite her, a door opened. Inside the room, a man combed his stringy hair with his fingers before a cracked mirror. His false teeth on the cheap dresser caught the light.
“Adieu, chéri,” the pute said, tucking franc notes into the tiny pocket of her blue leather hot pants. She shut the door, showing no surprise at seeing Aimée on the landing.
“My horoscope today said quick and easy.” She rolled her eyes. “Not even slow and hard!”
Aimée controlled her shudder at the thought of the old man.
“Know him?” Aimée gestured across the window to the bald man. “Over there.”
“Not as a client but … ” the pute said, her voice trailing off.
Aimée hoped she invited a confidence. She folded a hundred-franc note and gingerly slipped it into the woman’s already stuffed pocket.
“As my landlord,” the woman continued, as if there’d been no pause. “The salaud’s raising our rent and won’t even fix the hall lights. At night, with my johns, I have to use a flashlight.”
“His name?”
“You a flic?”
It was Aimée’s turn to roll her eyes. “Would I hunt small fry like this?”
“Didn’t think so, but then you could be some new type of undercover,” the woman said.
“People hire me,” Aimée said. “Kind of like you. Every job isn’t picture-perfect or smooth sailing but it keeps my interest.” She smiled. “I get bored easily.”
“You mounting a sting?”
He must be a bigger fish than she thought.
Aimée looked down to cover her surprise. The woman’s turquoise platform heels were worn down on the sides. She pounded the cobbles, all right.
“Mais could I tell you even if I wanted to?” Aimée said.
The pute grinned. “Just get Nessim Mamou into hot water … maybe it will warm him up.”
So that was Nessim, Michel’s shady uncle. “I’m looking for Jules, his partner.”
The prostitute shook her head.
“Distinguished, white-haired mec, nice tan.”
The woman nodded. “He’s around.”
She saw Nessim scurry through the passage. Aimée walked down the stairs, and past the overflowing green bins of garbage marked PROPRIÉTÉ DE PARIS.
She strode over the pitted cobbles, toward the punch of machines coming from the rear courtyard, as if she knew where she was going. She didn’t. Her teeth ached from clamping down so tightly. But attitude counted, especially in the Sentier.
She’d lost him.
Reaching the last courtyard, the one with a faded sign saying WASNARD, she veered to the left. She mounted the curved wooden stairs, the treads of which were grooved and worn. A cotton taste filled her mouth. Dry and bland. What if someone asked her why she was here? She had to think of something quickly. And she had to find out where Nessim Mamou had gone.
Above, the punching noise of machinery grew louder. Voices, in what sounded like Chinese, pattered from an open window. She peered closer. Across the well, open windows spiraled upward along the path of the stairs. Opposite her, one was cracked open. A dark-skinned man, his hair tied back, fed cloth into an industrial sewing machine. She could see mattresses behind him stacked against the walls.
Did these workers sleep here? Sprawl after work on the floor in buildings little changed from the fifteenth century?
The solid door opened in front of her and a muttered curse caught her before she could move. Several faces looked up from the pressing machines.
“What are you doing standing here, eh?” Nessim asked. With his long face and jowly cheeks, he resembled a basset hound. His brown suede jacket enhanced the effect, she thought.
“Monsieur, I’m looking for …”
“The showroom’s downstairs,” he interrupted, edging her toward the staircase.
“But you’re the patron, of course,” she said, managing a smile. Widening it and winking. “C’est dur. You’re a hard one to catch up with.”
“Like I said …” His eyes narrowed, looking her up and down. Sizing her up. Good thing she had the leather jacket on.
“I’m a location scout for Canalt + film,” she said, improvising.
“The cinema?”
“A historical production, a made-for-TV drama,” she said, injecting a world-weary tone into her voice. “You know, a sixteenth-century vehicle for Depardieu, his favorite kind. Good thing he plays the king, he’s gotten immense.”
In the dim light, she saw the man grin. Then frown. He had an olive complexion and wore gold chains around his neck.
“Why here?” he asked.
Good point, she thought, standing in this peeling arched hallway, plaster crumbling onto the weather-beaten tiles and pigeon droppings coating the opaque glass. The sweatshop crew watched them.
“Cutting corners on a fast production schedule,” she said, her voice lowered. “We plan to use parts of the Sentier, filming at night and on weekends when it’s empty. Paris can be a cheap location with a local crew.”
The man nodded. Cheap and quick, he understood.
She glanced around. “After all, the old wall of Paris ran through here, didn’t it?”
She was making this up as she went along. But she remembered from her school days that Charles V had built battlements that crossed the present-day Sentier.
He liked that, she could tell. Maybe she’d just made a friend.
“Come with me to my office.”
He locked the door with a slender long-handled key and gestured for her to go ahead. Now no one could see them.
She stuck Etienne’s gun against his ribs. “Let’s meet Jules instead.” He tried to sprint past her but she stuck her foot out and tripped him. He crashed into the stone wall. She put the gun to his temple, rolled back the trigger.
“Where’s Jules?”
He was breathing short and quick. “He didn’t show up.”
“Why?
Nessim tried to twist away but she pinched a nerve in his neck and he went stiff with pain.
“That’s just for appetizers.” She pinched harder.
“I don’t know,” he gasped.
“You’re Michel’s uncle Nessim, aren’t you?”
Surprise painted his face. He nodded.
“That’s another reason I don’t like you,” she said. “But you’re going legit soon. And all your little sweatshops, too. The ones with poisonous equipment that give people TB.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I didn’t like all those fake credit guarantees by the Kookie Mode company, which fronted for Michel’s supplies, and the ordered merchandise that they never paid for, and then their filing for bankruptcy. You face seven years in Frésnes.”
“I’ll be a poor man …”
“But a happy one,” she said. “Where’s Jules?”
He shook his head.
“He was late. Before our appointment, he was meeting those old radicals.”
“Action-Réaction?”
He nodded, his eyes fearful.
“Stay here for awhile.” She shoved him into a dark alcove, and, grabbing pink plastic twine from boxes in the hall, twisted it around his wrists and ankles just as she had tied Etienne. Tight. She was getting good at doing this with a gun in her hand. “Think about how good you’ll feel starting a new life after giving Michel that building with all new electric wiring.”
She slipped Etienne’s gun back into her backpack. Nessim’s eyes popped. He started shouting. She pulled off his shoe, slipped off his dirty gray sock, and stuffed it into his mouth.
&nbs
p; SHE WALKED quickly toward Action-Réaction, taking a short-cut through another passage.
From the far end of the dim, deserted passage came the sounds of the shops’ closing up: the emptying of garbage, locks clicking. Suddenly a whizzing sliced by her ear and the half-silvered long mirror in front of her shattered.
A bullet … she ducked, fell over a trash bin and scrambled over the floor. A sharp pain sliced her calf then raced up her thigh as a glass shard cut her. Cloth and material scattered over the uneven tiles. Feathers and bits of fiberfill sprayed over her, like snow in July. She clawed her way over the damp material and leaned against the passage wall.
No time to catch her breath. Ahead of her the metal grate over the passage exit had been locked!
Footsteps pounded in the distance.
She pulled herself up on the protruding water pipe that snaked over the stone wall. As she dug her toes in where the pipes joined and gripped the rusted metal supports, she wished she was wearing high-tops instead of Manolo Blahnik heels. Every toehold hurt. But the only way out was over the passage’s glass roof.
The tinted, metal-framed glass peaked above the locked passage. Grayish blue light dribbled over the dark storefronts, creating a webbed pattern on the tiled floor. The rusted fire escape at the far end was broken; she had no option.
She clutched the stonework, feeling the pipe sway dangerously below the oval mezzanine window that overlooked the passage like a balcony. Two floors rose above her. Below in the shadows, she heard the metallic click of a door.
She shimmied up the stone, reaching and pulling herself to the next window ledge, which was dusty and sharp. An ominous crack came from the pipe and she climbed faster, searching for toeholds, panting and praying. She tried not to look down but every few meters her grip slipped and her eyes locked on the dirty tile below.
Power tools, glass rectangles, and metal rods filled the walkway skirting the glass roof. She jumped onto the walkway, landing by a bucket of plaster, hammers, and saws. She stood and tried the window handle. Rusted shut. No way to get out.
Thuds and pounding shook the water-stained door on her right.
Whoever it was had made it up here by the stairway while she’d had to do it the hard way.
She reached into the pack for the .357 and used it as a hammer against one of the panes in the heavy glass roof. The several-meter-thick glass didn’t even chip. She didn’t want to waste bullets so she put back the .357 and picked up the nail gun at her feet, flicked the switch, and shot nails into the glass, which veined into rivers of tiny cracks, sparkling in the dim light. Panes quivered and then shattered.
Stooping, she was about to crawl through the hole she had made when an arm caught her and spun her around.
Gisela’s face glistened.
“Like I said, I’m good at following up,” she said, pointing a Beretta, like Aimée’s, at her. “They belong to me. My mother died for them.”
“The diamonds? Your mother committed suicide because her political convictions crumbled and she couldn’t take prison anymore,” Aimée said. “But wherever they are, you’re welcome to them. Ask Jules.”
“You’re lying about my mother,” she said. “Jules was supposed to be at Action-Réaction but he’s not there.
Then were Gisela and Jules in this together?
“You killed Teynard,” Aimée accused her. “Why?”
“Jules said he was in the way,” Gisela told her.
So she had guessed right. Gisela and Jules were in league!
“Where’s Stefan?” Aimée asked.
“That’s where I’m taking you.”
Was Stefan in on this too? “Gisela, you think outwitting two terrorists who’ve evaded capture for twenty years …”
“Stefan’s gone soft,” said Gisela.
Then there would be only two against her, instead of three.
Aimée knocked the Beretta from Gisela’s hand into a sack of plaster.
Gisela grasped a long wrench, and Aimée followed its arc in slow motion as it sliced down toward her head. She ducked, pulled the nail gun up, and emptied it into Gisela’s thigh. Gisela’s screams resounded in her ears.
By the time Aimée could get sense from Gisela she knew she had to hurry or Stefan would be the next to die.
Tour-Jean-Sans-Peur … why hadn’t she thought of it before … Jutta and the renovation at Tour Jean-Sans-Peur! She made herself run. Narrow rue Sentier lay deserted. She tried to ignore the pain in her leg and the sticky feel of her own blood accompanying her strides.
A crescent of moonlight reflected on the cobbles of the tower’s courtyard. She climbed over the locked gate. The tower lay silent and dark, like a chess piece. Beyond the tower’s entrance was the adjoining school construction site. As she went closer, distant noises came from below the partially gutted tower—a measured scraping, like digging. Moving behind a small cement mixer and pile of sand, she pushed aside a plywood barrier.
Inside, an incandescent work light, yellow cable and wire trailing from it, illuminated a stone floor. An arc welder, and forklifts were parked by a cordoned-off ventilation duct. Several holes in the floor were taped over and crossed by rebar scraps she’d barely noticed last time. Frigid air rose from the subterranean depths. She pulled the red leather jacket tighter over her cat suit and headed to the stone stairs. The smell of old stone and powdered plaster filled the stairwell. The stair treads were piled with big suction disks, the kind used by glaziers to move glass.
She pulled Etienne’s .357 from her backpack and followed the scraping noise down the steps. Rusty-colored rebar of all different lengths poked out of the cement walls on the next floor. A gaping hole in the wall revealed a dimly lit tunnel. The scraping was louder now. She entered the curved, packed-earth tunnel.
Several bare bulbs lit the scene before her. Stacks of thick glass panes braced by a single two-by-four lined the vaulted stone walls. Ahead lay what looked like part of an abandoned Metro platform with an old cement control booth.
Suddenly, a deafening roar shook the walls. With the smell of burning rubber, a lighted train hurtled past. She jumped back as the squealing of brakes made her cover her ears. And that’s when she saw Stefan, chipping with a shovel at the tiled wall.
A hand grabbed the .357 from her, pushed her face to the cold tile, held it there.
“Nice of you to return this,” said Jules, Etienne’s uncle, gripping her arms and putting the barrel to her temple. The smell of cigars clung to him. “Your mother was thoughtful, too.”
“Showing off your mercenary technique?” Aimée asked, gritting her teeth, disgusted to think she’d found him mildly attractive when she’d met him in the Bourse. And then she’d slept with his nephew. The stupid things I do, she thought.
“Is my mother here?”
“You miss her, don’t you?” Jules asked, pushing her toward Stefan. He felt in her pocket and took the Beretta. Gisela’s Beretta.
Jules held both guns now.
Not only stupid, dead stupid.
Stefan’s knuckles on the shovel handle were bleeding. He looked tired and beaten. “Aimée, why didn’t you back off?” he asked.
Cold air rose from the dense earth. Crumpled Béghin Say sugar wrappers littered the cracked concrete. She thought back to the sugar spilled on her counter. A sweet tooth. “You broke into my apartment, but didn’t find anything,” she said.
Aimée looked at the curved arches, the platform, the small control booth, and saw how the lines intersected.
“If my mother was here with you, you’d know where to look for the diamonds,” Aimée said. “She switched them on Jutta, didn’t she?”
Aimée went on, not waiting for Jules to reply.
“But I know where they are now. You sent me the map.”
Jules grinned. “So enlighten me.”
“First, tell me where she is.”
“If I knew that, I wouldn’t have waited twenty years to come back,” he said.
“That’s not why �
�� Romain Figeac lured you to Paris. He spread word in Dakar that he’d found you. That he’d expose you.”
It was a good guess. Jules slapped her head, so hard she fell against a steel drum. Her whole body stung.
“Why do you think the diamonds are still here?” Aimée asked, gasping. “Wouldn’t she have taken them long since?”
“Your mother cut a deal with the flics and turned our group in,” Jules said. “Stefan and I got away. But when she got out of Frésnes, word was she never made it back here.”
Jules’s eyes shone with a calculating coldness.
“You’re digging in the wrong place,” she said, pointing to the area next to where the glass was stacked by the rusted metal lockers.
“Prove it,” Jules said.
“Look in my backpack.”
“Empty it, Stefan,” Jules said, kicking Aimée against the tile wall. Jules pulled out the notebook. “Show me.”
She turned the page to the one showing Emil and the platforms.
“See, the vaultlike lines are the same,” she said. “And there’s the treasure chest she drew. See what looks like an arrow? But it’s pointing the other way.”
Jules pushed her forward and threw down a pickax at her feet.
“Get to work,” he said. He’d started the small cement mixer, which made a grinding noise.
And with horror she realized that Jules would make them do the dirty work, then take the diamonds and cement their bodies into some hole.
“After twenty years, do you think there are any diamonds left? It’s crazy,” she said.
“Tell her, Stefan,” Jules said. He swatted Stefan with the gun.
“She told me … on the way to the safe house,” Stefan said, his voice rasping. “We thought the flics were following us from the cemetery. There was a traffic jam, and all this Metro construction. Jutta and Beate jumped out of the car and hid the diamonds here, buried, by the tower, in the wall. They were going to come back and move them. But then there was a shootout.”
“Why didn’t they hide them in the coffin, too?” Aimée asked.
Stefan shook his head. “At the cemetery, Jana convinced them she had a connection who could fence the diamonds. So only the bonds were hidden there. Those were enough for me. But Jutta became greedy.
