Stifling Folds of Love

by John Brooke

  She went back in. Lining up at the busy bar in search of more beers for herself and her partner, the PJ cop allowed the assize court judge to engage her in clubby chit-chat. He was a director. They were discussing the issue of entrance fees and yearly dues, more particularly sliding rates for couples and families, when a busboy came rushing though frantically calling, ‘Au secours!’ (Help!) A brawl had erupted on the dance floor.

  Aliette left the judge in mid-explanation and ran for the ballroom.

  Remy Lorentz was pounding away at Alain the accountant. Claude Néon groped at the edges of it, ineffective in his efforts at pulling them apart. Mylène, Alain’s accountant wife, continued dancing maniacally and very drunk through pools of light, oblivious to her husband’s little war. Rose Saxe’s stout husband, pink with booze and rage, was flailing, trying to land a fist on the snake Lorentz. The man was old but the ugly thing in his eyes was ageless.

  The band played on, diabolical, inspired!

  C’est la nuit, c’est la nuit

  C’est gratuit, c’est gratuit

  C’est l’esprit, c’est l’esprit de pleine nuit!

  — oh oui, oui oui oui oui…!

  Tom-tom solo. Shrieks and whistles from all sides. The crowd was stoked, loving it!

  Aliette finally registered Pearl Serein behind the knot of brawling men. She was sparsely elegant in a bone-white crew-necked tunic cut to mid-thigh, hair loose, skin brown. She appeared frozen in panic under the band’s frenetic lighting, awash in waves of pounding music. The inspector noted the helpless eyes of an unknowing fool who has done something very wrong, no idea what. Then Claude Néon stepped past the faltering Alain and punched Remy Lorentz hard in the face. Remy fell back into the melee, blood bursting from his nose. Claude had no time to savor it. Immediately he was fending off a ragged man groping desperately for the lady at the center of the storm. Raymond Tuche. Where the hell?…with dust in his hair and dressed in all the wrong clothes. Claude tried to maneuver the deranged artist — but got bashed out of the way by Remy’s return lunge. Claude swung back at Remy. Another round of tit-for-tat pounding began. Leaving Ray alone in front of Pearl. Aliette saw him go down on his knees, imploring Pearl through the delirious noise…while Pearl just stood there looking at him, helpless, a piteous sight if it weren’t so absurd. All the while, the band’s roving strobe light raced in time with the machine-gun drumming. For a searing instant the sculptor’s eyes were smashed by the strobing light, revealing wild fear, uncomprehending terror. Aliette watched as Ray Tuche reeled, unseeing, phantasmagorical, a soul stripped bare… But the strobe moved on, defining more moments of violence in stark tableau, each man like a statue for a series of split seconds, the most apparent thing the savage at the core of each man’s eyes. Elemental. Not attractive.

  Dark-age crude was another thought that came to an inspector’s mind.

  Claude, in the midst of it, showed no better or worse than any of the rest.

  The band smiled a group smile, oh yes, very diabolical, and pumped the music even higher.

  Gaston came running, leading a squad of waiters.

  ‘Claude!’ Aliette Nouvelle went moving through and around chaotic members.

  Someone splashed something all over her left side. ‘Merde!’ She smelled brandy…

  Then the strobe light hit her eyes full on: one, two, three, four, five pulsing rings that left her blinking, unable to see anything but greenish shadows for fully half a minute, as if submerged.

  When her vision cleared, Pearl Serein was gone.

  And Raymond Tuche?… Where?

  The fighting continued, unreal inside the ungodly din, the ravaging strobe, the entire scene transposed to negatives and excruciating noise. The inspector managed to communicate Pearl’s sudden absence to Claude — then she ran from the hellish room. Her first instinct sent her down a half-flight and into the ladies’ locker room — still a place where a girl can expect at least a few moments free of an overweening man. But there was no Pearl Serein to be found here.

  Aliette was standing in front of the locker room mirror contemplating the blotch across her midriff for a blank moment when the pounding music suddenly stopped mid-note. Someone must have pulled a plug. She heard the inevitable pan-pon!…pan-pon! of uniforms arriving. Good. Her second instinct was to pull her dress over her head, grab a club towel from the pile and soak it in cold water. Damn, damn, damn!… She worked away in her underwear.

  Quel bordel — a brand new 900-franc dress!

  After using the club hair dryer to the best of her limited ability on her damaged dress, Aliette Nouvelle emerged from the ladies’ room, feeling a mess, to find an unnaturally calm Gaston placating the City squad while lingering members sipped yet more drinks, not at all worried — au contraire, excited! What a great party. She heard Gaston saying something about people having reputations, everything was fine, no one would be pressing any charges. Her tablemates Nic and Nic were too old to worry about their reputations. They said the police had arrested Alain and Mylène. She gathered many more guests had cleared out via the garden and over the wall as the cops had poured in. Remy Lorentz had run like a goat, straight over the garden wall!… It seemed Rose Saxe and her hubby had also disappeared.

  But where was Claude? Gaston had no idea. He was sorely disappointed in the commissaire’s behaviour, none too subtly implying that Monsieur Néon had sparked the whole disaster. Gaston doubted Claude would have his membership nomination approved.

  Aliette could only assume Claude had gone after Raymond Tuche, who had gone after Pearl Serein. Very out of control. Growing concerned, she called the Cure Curé from Gaston’s office. They hadn’t seen Raymond since his departure earlier that evening. No, they had not tried to stop him, he was free to come and go as he pleased. Yes, he’d mentioned something about dancing.

  She conferred with the uniform in charge, asked that he conduct a search of the club grounds and direct all mobile units to keep an eye out for a seriously discombobulated Ray.

  And Pearl Serein? And Claude Néon? Where? She took a turn through the upper levels of the club. Hoping to find Claude and Pearl and Ray cooling out over a game of billiards? No such luck, Inspector. She waited another half-hour on a bar stool, but none of the uniforms on hand could find any trace. The members were drifting off. Soon it was just staff, desultory, used to these things, or so it appeared, cleaning up after another fun night at the club.

  Claude? Claude! Fighting a horrible premonition, Inspector Nouvelle retrieved her shawl from the vestry and proceeded home alone. Sure enough, there was a message waiting on her phone. He was with her…up there. Aliette peered through the night at a single dim light at the top of the building across the park. He had left the number. He answered forthwith.

  ‘Claude?…are you all right? What happened?’

  ‘Dancing. We were dancing. Then Tuche appeared, totally demented, giving Pearl a hard time. Then Lorentz — he’s dancing with the accountant’s wife and he gets into it with Tuche…it kind of boiled over.’

  ‘But Lorentz was with — ’

  ‘We’re fine now,’ added Claude.

  We? Dancing? ‘You’d better come down from there. You should hear what that Gaston was telling the City sergeant.’

  ‘I can handle Gaston. Pearl needs me. Just go to bed.’ Pause. Claude added, ‘Please.’

  Please? It sounded like an order. In a bit of a trance, she put the phone down and obeyed.

  14

  For Claude?

  She picked it up again early Sunday morning, listened to the City dispatcher’s grim news.

  She dutifully relayed the news to the number at the fabulous penthouse across the park. His murmured explanations as to best police procedure didn’t fly. Not this morning. Aliette Nouvelle was deeply disappointed in her commissaire. ‘What in God’s name were you thinking?’

  ‘Our role is to protect the public, no? Yes. I told you something would happen. Well it did and she was alone. She was at risk — given t
he situation and the facts such as we have them.’

  Maybe Claude was right. Raymond Tuche had been found dead earlier that morning.

  ‘Oh, merde. Where?’

  ‘The club. In the sauna. Yes, another heart attack. Or whatever.’ And Didier Belfort, the last of Pearl’s remaining exes, had been unaccounted for since yesterday afternoon. But neither of these facts would soothe the feeling of betrayal. ‘So now what, Claude — off to mass with the missus?’

  ‘Ha, ha. I am going to stay right here with her till we find Belfort.’

  ‘Ah. Sunday by the pool then? That’s nice.’

  ‘Inspector, it’s not the time for this. You think it’s easy walking her through this? I want you to go to the scene and confirm information with Petrucci.’

  ‘Will we have the pleasure of your company? I mean both of you? Perhaps I could talk to her.’

  ‘No and no. I told you, she’s a wreck. You will organize a search for Belfort, into Germany if necessary, and you will keep me informed. And you will — ’

  ‘Claude, I’m working for Duque.’

  ‘Duque knows we’re ahead of him on this. And you will find and talk to Lorentz and — ’

  ‘How could you punch such a beautiful man, Claude?’

  ‘Because he’s a fucking out-of-control maniac. And if he resists in any way you will call for assistance and bring him to garde à vue and tell him next time I see him I will — ’

  ‘It is hard to have faith in your methods, monsieur.’

  ‘Will you please try to get a handle on your reactions? It’s work. All right, Inspector? Clear?’

  ‘Yes, sir!’ Wham! She rang off. Clear as fucking mud.

  What a prick. What a centerless man. And in front of all those people!

  Miserable, the inspector fed her cat, dressed and headed out to work.

  ‘My lord,’ Aliette breathed. ‘Raphaele, he clamped down!’ Raymond Tuche was folded into a corner of the sauna. His tongue had been caught at the final moment trying to squirm its way between clamped teeth. In death, the artist aped those horrific images of electroshock therapy.

  ‘Heart attacks hurt.’ It was becoming the pathologist’s refrain. It was far too early on a Sunday morning, Raphaele Petrucci did not look much better than she felt. ‘What happened here?’

  ‘Here? No idea. Upstairs, the dance turned into a brawl. He got caught in the middle of it. Maybe even caused it, it’s still not clear.’ Aliette studied Ray’s eyes: wide and bloody, the same terrified aspect she’d glimpsed the night before as he crawled through the battle on the dance floor, desperate, crawling to his Pearl. ‘I’ve never seen a man more terrified. It was macabre. The band kept playing while they went at it, incredible noise, they had this strobe light going. For a few seconds there, it was like I could see right into poor Ray’s mind. Completely boggled.’

  Petrucci glanced at his notes, ‘His heart was hurting him already. He was depressed.’

  ‘Ray was broken-hearted.’

  ‘Clinically, not poetically.’ The pathologist pulled a rubber glove over his hand, opened an envelope, removed a vial of pills. ‘These were in his pocket.’ An anti-depressant called Méridien, a Prozac clone, praised for its effectiveness in dispersing the veils of depression, also known to produce negative side effects such as heart trouble and impotence.

  ‘Both Pearl and the nurse at the cure mentioned that Ray wasn’t helping the cause if he forgot to take it — which was often.’

  ‘And a strobe light was the very last thing he needed,’ Petrucci noted.

  ‘Really?’

  ‘If his nerves were already fragile, the effects could spark real damage. It’s horrible, but at least there’s sense to it this time. At least I’ve got one little thing to tell our professor from Strasbourg.’

  ‘Lucky you.’

  ‘What is wrong with you this morning?’

  ‘Nothing.’ Aliette turned away from Raymond Tuche, Raphaele Petrucci, the entire mess.

  ‘And Néon? Where is he, anyway? I thought — ’

  ‘Néon’s been taken hostage, Doctor.’

  ‘What are you talking about, Inspector?’

  She shook her head and walked away, through the taped-off men’s locker room, out into a sunny Sunday morning. There was a small crowd of club members waiting outside, some already in their tennis whites, unclear as to what was going on and where they were allowed to go. Captain Mathieu Deubelbeiss of the City Police was sorting through assignments. The inspector politely suggested that one Remy Lorentz, tennis pro, be detained — the club office would have his coordinates, and to make sure all units were still on the lookout for Didier Belfort. She would also put a team on the noble’s trail.

  Deubelbeiss had no objections. The media had got wind of the tragedy and were gathering at the club gate, held in abeyance by two uniforms. Nothing like a bit of Sunday news. Mics, note pads, cameras, the TV truck. Cakeface was looking sleepy underneath her TV gunk. ‘Ask Captain Deubelbeiss,’ Aliette pre-empted Cake before Cake could even ask, and kept walking, through the club gate and up to the corner, where she caught another cab.

  Returning to the commissariat, she climbed the quiet stairs to the third. Monique was not available. At her mama’s in a village lost in the Vosges. Just Bernadette Milhau on Duty desk, a bit sulky, getting tired of being junior. Aliette made calls, woke people, ruined breakfasts, altered plans. Sorry, our commissaire is in a bind — not that there’s anything we do can save his useless soul. By noon the team had been rallied and sent out to find Didi Belfort. Instructions: Mathieu Deubelbeiss is in charge — clear any action first through him. Call Claude at Pearl’s as often as you need for hints or suggestions from the lady — clubs, restos, friends, hideaways, country inns. If going to the Belfort family’s wine properties north of the city be sure, be sure, be sure! to read your map. If crossing the line into the next prefecture, call Commissaire Lefèbvre. (Claude’s counterpart in the next district, always prickly about turf.) She made a call to Freiburg, requesting counterparts there to pay a visit to the castle in the Black Forest and redoubts of several other of Belfort’s maternal-side cousins around the region. For Claude. Why? Good question…

  Aliette Nouvelle pondered this as she grabbed yet another cab. ‘33 Rue Pontbriand.’

  15

  Tommi’s Place

  There are charming pockets lined with creative renovations now, but for the most part the east end is unattractive, the dull result of cheap, hasty rebuilding after wartime destruction. The house at 33 Pontbriand was another plain, two-story cottage, a two-tone Deux Chevaux parked in front the classiest thing in sight. Tommi Bonneau answered her knock clad only in a bathrobe, a pinky sleep-starved glaze coloring his eyes. ‘Well, speak of the devil. I hear some cops are quite the dancers.’

  She barely blinked. No big surprise that Tommi had spies planted at the club. ‘And I suppose you’ve heard Ray Tuche is dead.’

  ‘Just got the call. Means another rewrite.’

  ‘What exactly are you trying to prove here, Tommi?

  ‘I don’t prove anything, Inspector. I report.’

  ‘Sure. But why?’

  ‘Because it’s part of the story?’ Tommi paused. Hugged himself as he mulled it. The morning air was cool. ‘Something about a broken heart? The down side of a life like hers?’

  ‘Pearl’s?’

  ‘She’s my subject.’

  ‘You followed Georges Pugh on Tuesday, looking for an interview. You might have been the last person to see him alive. Bruno Martel too, for that matter.’

  ‘Didn’t help me any,’ he replied tersely. Tommi Bonneau looked straight at her, feral eyes hardening. ‘Maybe if they’d known, they might’ve talked to me.’

  Aliette felt his sangfroid like a quick punch. ‘If they’d known they were going to die?’

  Tommi shivered, massaged his arms. ‘Is there anything in particular I can help you with?’

  ‘May I come in?’

  ‘Why?’
/>   ‘These men are dying. Maybe you can help us.’

  ‘I don’t have to let you.’ True: as someone who tiptoed along the fine edges of Article 9 on a daily basis, he would be familiar with similar laws designed to protect citizens from spontaneous visits from the police. ‘And I have company.’ Aliette acknowledged the sound of footsteps directly above, followed by a door closing, bath water flowing, a certain smile on Tommi’s lips. But she held her ground. And he was clearly up and working. So he shrugged and stood aside.

  Her eyes adjusted to the gloom. To her left, Tommi’s dining room was a chaotic home gym, littered with weights and exercise machines. Glancing in, a nosy cop. ‘Keeping fit?’

  ‘Only way to survive the pace.’

  So why such a sickly look to the man?

  ‘You want Pearl Serein? Come…’ leading her through the messy kitchen, flipping on a rear room light. There was Pearl, larger than life-sized on the wall, dominating a cluttered studio.

  Much larger than the life of a quiet schoolteacher. Like a poster from your favorite film. Not a profile, and not face-on; a three-quarter shot: you could see her hair wisping up behind as she leaned on folded arms. She appeared to be listening with a calm, rapt attention, her lips just parted. No smile — the smile was in her eyes, crinkled softly in a sort of delight. Tommi had captured something, to be sure. But a yellowish, metallic tint corroded the magic of her presence, and she was curling at the corners, and there were messy claw-like rips across her enigmatic gaze.

  ‘Your Pearl’s looking a bit the worse for wear,’ mused Aliette, ever sceptical of icons ‘— like she’s been fending off too many desperate men?’

  ‘She is a bit bashed up,’ conceded Tommi. ‘Backed into her a few times. Some of my set-ups? She’s been keeping watch here ever since she started up with Didi Belfort.’ Gazing at his heroine, he sniffed in rueful response to a cop’s dry observation. ‘Yes, too many desperate men, Inspector, and never the right one — sadly. We do want her to be happy in the end. I’ll print up a new one, one of these days. Here, these are more in keeping with our Pearl…’ proudly opening a drawer.