Murder on the Quai

by Cara Black

  Jean-Claude nodded. “Capes weighted with lead. De Gaulle wanted them to lie flat from our shoulders.”

  Soli stretched. “I heard getting hit by a cape could knock a protester out.”

  “Not mine.” Jean-Claude shrugged.

  It all flowed back—that hot June day, protesters’ tempers flaring on Boulevard Saint-Germain, him sweating in his wool uniform, the hissing crowd. He’d been assigned to march several protesters into the panier à salad, the salad spinner, as they called the paddy wagon.

  He could never forget the long-haired young woman in black. She had been stunning, with bigger eyes than Juliette Gréco, if that was possible. But such a horrific French accent. A foreigner, une Américaine?

  “She pushed a battered paperback in my face,” Jean-Claude told Soli. “Kerouac’s On the Road.”

  “C’est quoi ça, On the Road?” Soli asked, leaning forward. “A socialist manifesto?”

  Jean-Claude shrugged. “Like some beatnik bible. She said, ‘Read this, it’s good for your soul. Then you’ll understand our politics.’”

  Their politics? He’d felt like a fool, yet he hadn’t been able to move his eyes away from her. “I don’t care much for politics.”

  The others laughed and hooted at him.

  “But you should,” she said.

  Earnest, this one. Exquisite.

  “I just do my job. Keep order, keep my quartier safe.”

  “You all have agendas, filthy flics,” shouted the sweating, shirtless mec next to her. “You do the government’s dirty work, repress free thinking!”

  “Alors, why am I standing here letting you spout off and defending your right to do so?”

  She grinned. Those intense eyes pulled him to her like a magnet. How could anyone have bigger eyes than Juliette Gréco?

  Shouts echoed off the boulevard, the whine of a siren. A piercing whistle signaled him to round them up and move toward the truck.

  “Why did you become a policeman?” she asked him.

  “I fell into it, followed my old man.”

  “Where’s your passion?” She tilted her head. “Don’t you want to change things—stop injustice, protect people’s freedom?”

  “Blanket statements you people make.” He shook his head. “What about those who have no time for lofty ideals, politics? Who struggle every day, eh? We’re their only way to get justice, their line of defense. That’s why I stay. If there’s crime, I solve it. Like the shoemaker on that corner, who got robbed last week. I get redress, or try to prevent—”

  “See, you do have passion,” she interrupted.

  Passion? He’d never looked at it that way. The girl fascinated him.

  “So you’re an artist?” he said, noting the sketchbook poking out of her bag. “That’s not political.”

  “Art is political. Everything’s political.”

  “And making love’s political?”

  She laughed. A clear, silver-toned laugh. “Only a Parisian flic would say that.”

  The chief’s whistle blew again. “Get out of here,” he said. “Take your book with you or I’ll throw you in the wagon.”

  “Hey, that’s not fair,” someone shouted.

  “Only if you meet me later.” She pointed to the Café de Flore. “Tonight. I’ll change your mind. Change your life.”

  She smiled with her eyes. And he was lost.

  The clacking train wheels brought him back to the dark countryside flying by, and to Soli’s long, myopic look. Soli nodded and handed him a card. “Don’t forget our arrangement. Sunday I’ll expect a call. My Berlin contact’s very good.”

  Jean-Claude took it. “Merci. Mine’s very good, too.”

  If he wasn’t careful, he’d drift more, relive that day yet again—that day, and the incredible week that followed, that turned into a lifelong obsession and a child they’d made together.

  Non, don’t get pulled down that hole again. Maintain self-control, responsibility for Aimée. Try to let her not get hurt. Again.

  If he found Sidonie this time, Aimée would never know.

  Paris · Friday, 8 p.m.

  “Suzy?” The tank of a doorman had tattoos up his arm and plenty of attitude. “You’re too early, mon enfant. Club doesn’t get going until after midnight.”

  Mon enfant!

  “Like I don’t know that?” she said, putting her hands on her hips. “She lives in my building. Sap that I am, I told her roommate I’d drop off something she forgot at home . . .”

  He waved her off, bored. “She’s eating dinner with the rest.”

  “But where?”

  “Leave it with me.”

  “It’s personal,” Aimée said. “You know, a necessary female item.”

  The bouncer shrugged. Stared at her, then pointed across the street. “Are you blind?”

  She felt like an idiot—what was she missing?

  “Don’t you see her over there?”

  A group of women were passing by on the opposite sidewalk.

  Which one?

  “Suzy?” she shouted, hoping one would react.

  A head turned. Aimée waved and was rewarded with a blank stare from a woman with short black hair. She turned away and kept going.

  Great.

  “She’s your friend?” the bouncer said.

  “I’ve changed my hair. New color.”

  And with that Aimée ran across rue de Ponthieu, dodging a taxi who honked at her. She caught up with the group of women mid-block.

  “Suzy, your roommate’s sick . . .”

  Suzy turned. “Romy looked fine an hour ago.”

  Think fast. Come up with something. “There’s been an accident.”

  “Quoi?”

  Why couldn’t Suzy cooperate and stand still?

  “Not on the street.” Aimée gestured to the café tabac ahead.

  “What’s happened?” she said suspiciously. “Look, I don’t have much time . . .”

  “Two minutes.”

  In the café, Suzy stood at the counter and nodded to the waiter. “Joel, un express.”

  “Moi, aussi.” Aimée said, realizing Suzy was a regular. Impatient, Suzy drummed her tomato-red lacquered nails on the zinc counter, then set down a pack of Gitanes. She wore leopard-print leggings, an oversized black sweater that slipped off her shoulder, revealing her bra strap, and minimal makeup. Give her a wig, go back several years, and she’d win a Flashdance look-alike contest. As kids, Aimée and Martine had snuck into the matinee three times to see it. She loved that movie.

  “An accident, you said, involving Romy?”

  “Romy’s doing a facial, she’s fine.” Aimée slid fifty francs over the moisture-ringed counter under the cigarettes. She hoped that was enough. “I need information. I’ll keep your answers quiet. At Le Gogo you gave an elder gentleman in his late sixties your number. Remember him?”

  “You’re joking, right?” Suzy’s brown eyes narrowed. But she slipped the fifty in her bag. Aimée guessed she was in her thirties. Her makeup kit poked out of her bag. She definitely could use mascara for those thin lashes.

  Their espressos arrived. Joel lingered, wiping the table, until Aimée handed him ten francs. “That’s fine, Joel.”

  She turned to Suzy. “How long were you seeing Bruno?”

  Suzy grinned. Unwrapped the sugar cube. “You’re a kid, probably at the Sorbonne. What, nineteen or twenty?”

  Damn, she wished she’d changed from her Sorbonne attire of boots, denim skirt, and black turtleneck. As if that would have helped. “Does that matter?”

  “Too young for an undercover flic. I know all of them anyway.”

  “I can help you in a way they can’t.” Aimée set her bag on the zinc counter.

  “How’s that?” Suzy said, interested now.

  Aim
ée pulled out her wallet; from behind her carte d’étudiant, took out the faux PI license she’d had made. She’d only used it on one occasion before. She also slid the camera behind her bag by the sugar bowl. “I freelance.”

  Sort of true. Now she’d go with the scenario her father used. “First we establish what you know about Bruno. The last time you saw him.”

  “Désolée.” Suzy dunked the sugar cubes, stirred. Looked out the window.

  Aimée used that moment, with the camera behind her bag shielded by her hand, to snap a photo of Suzy. She cleared her throat to cover the click.

  “I don’t see how we can help each other. I’m an escort, not a hooker.”

  “Do I care? More to the point, do I look like vice, Suzy?”

  “Chérie, I think you’re late for class.” Suzy laughed and gathered her bag. She stopped to make eyes at the little furry head poking out of the Dior bag of the woman next to her. “C’est adorable. What’s its name?”

  The woman told her.

  “J’adore bichon frises.”

  Aimée had to get Suzy’s attention back. So far she’d squandered a chunk of her budget and she had nothing.

  “Suzy, please, think back about a month ago, a client at Le Gogo. Bruno, an older man, late sixties.”

  “A silver fox? Not too many when I worked at Le Gogo.”

  Aimée opened the matchbook, showing Suzy her name and number. “Didn’t you give this to Bruno?”

  Suzy glanced at it. Shrugged.

  Aimée took out Elise’s photo of Bruno Peltier: white-haired, wrinkles around smiling eyes, wide like his daughter’s. He was trim in a jogging suit, on the short side. She slid it under Suzy’s demitasse saucer.

  Recognition showed in the escort’s eyes. She gave Aimée a calculating look. “Et alors, how can you help me?”

  Before Aimée could answer, the club bouncer stepped into the café and took Suzy’s arm. “You’re due at the club, Suzy.”

  The next moment, Suzy had gone. But Aimée had seen a flash of fear in her eyes. Suzy had been about to tell her something. Merde.

  “Didn’t even touch her espresso,” said Joel.

  “I’ll drink it.” Like Aimée needed another espresso. “He always like that? Rude, so protective of her?”

  The café light reflected on Joel’s rimless glasses. Aimée wished she could see his eyes. Always a good barometer, her father said.

  “Depends.”

  “Why would our talking bother him?”

  “The club keeps a tight rein on the girls,” said Joel. “Maybe he thought you were recruiting her for another club.”

  “Moi?” She shook her head. Came up with a story. “My boss thinks Suzy witnessed an old man being assaulted, that’s all. I wish I could have asked her a few more questions.”

  Joel lowered his voice and leaned forward. “Suzy works an after-after club, too.”

  Aimée nodded. These after-afters ran from 2 until 5 a.m. for the die-hards. Sounded like she might be pulling an all-nighter. Maybe she did need this espresso after all.

  “Ever seen him around?” She showed Joel the photo Elise Peltier had left of her father.

  “That’s the man who was assaulted?”

  “You could say that.”

  Joel shrugged. “Not a local in here. But the older guys like Régine’s.”

  Aimée walked past the back of the Claridge, the elegant hotel, then by a boîte de nuit—no name—with quilted gold leather doors for an entrance, and reached the Pharmacie Optique du Docteur Athias, its name bright in green letters. Another architectural victim of the seventies, looking out of place among the glittering neon club marquees behind the Champs-Élysées.

  It would still be a while before the night action got going. There was no point in surveilling Suzy now—that wouldn’t bear fruit until later. What could she do for the next few hours? What would her father do?

  He’d start at Régine’s and work his way down the street. But how would she get these bouncers to talk to “a kid” like her?

  She had an idea. She’d treat it like an experiment in the lab: she’d try out a hypothesis, then categorize what worked and didn’t in two mental columns—one for positive trial outcomes, one for negative ones.

  She sidled up to the bouncer who stood, arms crossed, in front of the black façade under the silver letters spelling out Régine’s. The half-open door revealed a slice of the glitz factor inside.

  “Have you seen my grandfather?” she asked innocently. “We live around the corner, but he wanders sometimes, forgets where he is. He hasn’t come home, we’re worried.”

  She showed him the photo. As he studied it, she considered how natural it felt to lie to someone to get information out of them.

  “Désolé.” He shook his head.

  She got the same response with varying degrees of sympathy from all the club bouncers. So far, her hypothesis was not testing well; several points in the minus column.

  The last bouncer, whose hair glistened with gel, shook his head. “I’m substituting. Raoul, the regular, is sick. Check with the bartender.”

  In the deserted club, purple strobes flashed, “Love Shack” by the B-52s blared on the speakers. That song was everywhere. The smell of clove cigarettes tickled her nose.

  “You’re early, ma chère,” said the bartender, an untied bow tie hanging down his pristine white shirt as he polished glasses.

  “Sorry to bother you, but it’s my grand-père. We live on rue Washington but he wanders, you know, forgets where he is. Seen him?”

  He didn’t even look up. “A missing person, eh? Talk to the flics.”

  “That’s my next step.” She sighed. “He used to come to the clubs in the forties and sometimes he thinks he’s still a young man.”

  “Don’t they all?” said a middle-aged woman with bright red hair. She heaved an armload of account books on the black bar counter. “Accounts done,” she said to the bartender, and then, turning to Aimée, “An old, lost gentleman? Let me have a look.”

  Aimée concealed her excitement. Showed her the photo.

  The woman pulled her glasses down from her head.

  “His name is Bruno Peltier. Look familiar?”

  “Been a while. But he came in several times.”

  Ooh, the woman remembered him. Had Aimée hit pay dirt already? “Alone?”

  She shook her head. “Can’t remember. You sure he’s as forgetful as you think?”

  Aimée tried for a perplexed look. Then shock.

  “Mon Dieu, did Grand-père run off with a girl?”

  The redhead shot the bartender a quizzical look. From the corner of her eye Aimée saw him shake his head slightly.

  “Not one of ours,” the redheaded bookkeeper said. “Again, haven’t seen him for a while. Bonne chance.”

  Glad to get out of the blaring music and clove smell, Aimée stepped into the cold street. Looks like Bruno had liked the nightlife. But she’d tracked down a Bruno sighting. Score one in the plus column.

  She huddled in a doorway. With the windchill factor, she needed a down coat. What could she do now? She couldn’t go home to change, didn’t relish waiting hours in a café for Suzy.

  Several shopping arcades from the Champs-Élysées connected to rue de Ponthieu. The Club Alibaba cornered one of them. She waited until the bouncer got involved in a conversation.

  Could she slip by him?

  Just then Suzy and two other women sashayed past him and into the Alibaba’s door under the club marquee. She took a quick photo, but the bouncer looked up and saw her. Wagged his finger at her as if she’d been a bad girl.

  Let him think he owned the street. He didn’t own the arcade. At least she’d seen Suzy go inside.

  As a truck passed, she ducked into the arcade—a dimly lit seventies steel-and-chrome affair with a
bunch of shuttered boutiques and a small bar. Deserted on a cold autumn night. She saw what she took for the Alibaba’s back delivery door. Tried the handle. Locked.

  Sheltered from the wind, she kept an eye on Alibaba’s back door. A waiter wearing a long white apron and black vest came out of the small bar and lit a cigarette. He exhaled, blowing smoke rings. She was about to cadge a cigarette when he glanced at his watch, pulled out a key chain, unlocked the Alibaba’s back door and went inside. The staff must work in both establishments.

  She ran and caught the door, pinching her fingertips in the gap before it shut. Somehow she wedged the door open and slid inside. Damn, she’d have a blood blister.

  She needed to act quickly. A wall of thudding sound reverberated in the dim corridor; she felt the pounding of Duran Duran in the soles of her boots.

  She found Suzy applying eye makeup in a communal dressing area partitioned by curtains. A stale odor came from an empty box of chocolates.

  “Alors, how did you get in here?” Suzy expelled air in annoyance. “Shouldn’t you be in bed?”

  Instead of rising to Suzy’s bait, Aimée shrugged. She had to get something out of this woman.

  “Wouldn’t you like to make extra for just sitting on your derrière, Suzy?” She leaned toward the makeup-smudged mirror. “Me, I only get paid if I deliver. I’m in school and this is how I make my rent, compris? I live in a place smaller than yours and Romy’s.”

  A slight exaggeration. Several of Suzy’s chambres de bonnes could fit into Aimée’s seventeenth-century townhouse apartment on the Ile Saint-Louis. Minor details.

  “Does this jog your memory?” Aimée dropped a hundred francs and the matchbook into the chocolate box. If she didn’t pace herself, she’d run out.

  Suzy lit a cigarette. “Men on the verge of cardiac arrest aren’t my type.”

  “Fine.” Aimée reached to take back the note. The carrot-and-stick approach her father used. Too bad she didn’t have a stick.

  Suzy’s hand stopped her. Offered her a cigarette. Aimée took one. And accepted a light.

  Thupt went the flare of the match. The tobacco jolt hit her, as good a rush as the espresso.

  “I only worked at Le Gogo maybe for a week and a half in October.”