AL05 - Murder in Clichy al-5

by Cara Black

  “Eleven rue Biot,” she said to the taxi driver.

  “Clichy’s out of my way.” The driver shook his head. “They were my last fare. Sorry, I’ve been working since six a.m.”

  Lights glittered on the Seine below. A passing barge churned the black, sluggish water. No other taxis in sight.

  She reached for her wallet. “Fifty francs extra for your trouble.”

  “Must have a hot date.”

  Little did he know.

  The taxi driver hit the meter switch. “Get in.”

  NUMBER 11 RUE Biot, between the old Café-concert L’Européen, where Charles Trenet had sung in the thirties, and an Indian restaurant, was a cobblestone’s throw from Place de Clichy. She pressed the buzzer, the door was buzzed open, and she stepped into a small courtyard. Against the night sky, a row of antennas poked from the rooftop like twigs: a good sign. She passed the old stables, now garages, and mounted the back stairs to the second floor.

  The door stood ajar. She walked inside to what she figured had once been two rooms that had been opened up into a large space. Bare putty-colored walls, a wooden farm table, a bag of potting soil on the floor. Instead of the buzzing and static she expected, she saw a plump woman in her forties wearing an apron, sitting at a scanner by several radios. She wore headphones.

  “I’m looking for Léo. . . .”

  “Short for Léontyne,” she said, smiling. “My mother loved opera and Léontyne Price.”

  “Nut sent me.”

  “I know,” she said. “Can you hurry up? Sorry but I’ve got to add forty-five megahertz in about seven minutes.”

  She gestured to a large red clock, and pulled off her headphones.

  Aimée nodded. “I don’t know if my friend’s in Paris, but he’s in trouble. I’m desperate. Can you help me find him?”

  Léo hit several switches and adjusted a black knob that caused a needle to quiver on the volumeter.

  Aimée wrote René’s name and cell phone number on a pad of paper by Léo’s elbow.

  “Parfait! Most people don’t even have that much. Now we can tap into the ocean of dialogue, ignore the police bandwidth, firefighters, ambulance drivers, paramedics, sanitation workers, and infant monitors and pinpoint it. Like they say, it’s an electromagnetic jungle out there.”

  Aimée was out of her depth. “How does it work?”

  “I set up a system for this phone’s ESN and MIN code, its serial number and identification number. So each time,” she paused, rubbing her neck, “René . . . that’s his name, René?”

  Aimée nodded.

  “So when René makes a phone call, my scanner picks up his ESN and MIN numbers, my computer, hooked up to my scanner, recognizes his cell phone, and tunes in to his conversation and records it.”

  “Sounds easy. But I’m sure it’s not.”

  “So far there’s no encryption in the radio spectrum,” she grinned. “When it happens, we’ll figure something else out.”

  “And if the phone’s not on?”

  “I can only monitor what’s out there.”

  Aimée paused looking around the room filled with radios. She clenched her fists, trying to keep her hands still, to keep her nervousness in check.

  “His kidnappers used his phone once. To call me on my cell phone.”

  Léo’s smile vanished. “Kidnappers?”

  “How closely can you track, Léo?”

  “Well, during the Occupation the Nazis found hidden British crystal radios transmitting from cellars. This operates on the same basic principal. But the Nazis had roving trucks with tracking equipment to follow the signals and triangulate. Primitive, but it did the job. Stationary antennas have limitations; it depends on the signal and relay time. Keep them talking.”

  “What if I can’t?”

  “You must. If he’s in Paris—and we don’t have an electrical storm—the longer the phone call, the closer I can pinpoint. If the gods smile, not only the street but the building.”

  “Merci, Léo,” she said. “I’ll owe you.”

  “Don’t thank me yet,” Léo said.

  On her way out, Aimée noticed the wheelchair folded by the door, and end of a metal hospital bed peeking from behind a draperied alcove. Aimée wondered when Léo’d last been out of this apartment. But then, she traveled through Paris every night. Riding the airwaves.

  EARLY EVENING quiet had descended over the shadowy, intimate, crescent-shaped square near Clichy. Strains of an accordion mingling with a guitar wafted from somewhere above her. Familiar, an old working-class song her grandmother had played. Aimée looked up to see the silhouette of a couple dancing behind a lighted window.

  And for a moment, she forgot the drizzle on the pavement and it could have been the countryside. Low stone buildings, a cat slinking around the corner, the church clock pealing the hour. But she couldn’t get away from the awful sound in her head of the bullets’ ricocheting by the phone cabinet where Thadée had been shot. The sickening scene replayed over and over.

  Why kill Thadée?

  If she couldn’t meet the kidnappers’ demand, René would be next. She looked at her watch . . . already an hour had passed! She willed her fear down; it wouldn’t help her find René.

  She remembered the door closing yesterday in the Olf office foyer, her frisson of fear. If she’d been the target and escaped, and now they’d gone for René, it was her fault.

  Darkness blanketed the narrow street, the furred glow of dim streetlights the only illumination.

  She had to find Sophie, the woman Thadée had named with almost his last breath, his ex-wife. She had to try to figure out where Thadée had gotten the jade—and who might have it now.

  She walked past the glass awning to the rear of the courtyard. Under the stone lintel, by an ancient water spigot, a nicked metal sign in old formal French forbade children to play in the courtyard. She wondered when was the last time any children had lived here.

  She passed the back stairs, wrapped her scarf around her head, belted her shearling coat tighter, and thanked God she’d worn her good boots. Only a three-inch heel.

  Adjoining the old tire factory, beyond the fence, she saw an eighteenth-century limestone townhouse. Preserved, with an air of neglect at the edges. Was this where Thadée had lived? She hit the two buzzers. No answer. Only darkened windows.

  Galerie 591 was locked. But a dim light shone through the mottled glass. She called the gallery telephone number. The phone rang and rang.

  Aimée knocked on the service door. No answer. Looking in the window, she saw a dimly lit office with state of the art computers on several desks. Beyond lay a room with metal sculptures and paintings strewn across the floor. Curtains blew from an open hall window. Glass shards sparkled on the floor.

  Someone had broken in.

  She turned the knob of the door. Locked. She pulled out her lock-picking kit, inserted a thin metal skewer into the bronze cylinder-like Fichet lock. A few turns and she heard the tumble of the chamber and the lock snapped open.

  Inside, a 1920s-style lamp with beaded fringe cast a reddish glow over the gallery.

  “. . . Ohé, someone here?”

  She caught a faint whiff of classic Arpège emanating from a damp sweater flung over a chair.

  Glancing out the open window overlooking the adjoining townhouse, Aimée saw a woman going out the door. In the glare of the streetlight, this woman, a pint-size Venus, was applying lipstick as she crossed the desolate square, her heels clicking on the cobbles. She wore a vintage mini-dress over beat-up jeans. A chic, downplayed look.

  A chainsmoking, Vespa-riding thirty-something man puttered by, idled the engine, and stopped. Aimée noted the woman’s black hair with purple braids. Could she be Asian? But her face was turned and it was too far away to tell. After exchanging a few words, she swung her leg over the man’s Vespa and they rode away.

  Aimée chewed her lip and listened. She pulled out her penlight and shone the beam on the wood floor.

  “
Sophie Baret?” she called out.

  The only response was the rushing of water and creakings of the old warehouse mingling with the flushing of pipes and the sound of water from the roof gutters hitting the street.

  Flushing? Or something else? The sound of water in the background continued.

  She crouched, grabbing what seemed to be a shovel leaning against the showcase. She realized it was an artwork inlaid with a mosaic of blue glass and ceramic tile tesserae. A fairy dust-like glitter sparkled as she carried it. Making hard contact was all she cared about. The floorboards creaked. Dampness permeated her bones and she shivered.

  As she kept walking, the sound of gushing water grew louder. Inside a dank hallway lined by old showcases from thirties millinery stores, lay more objets d’art: sculptures and installation pieces. Aimée recognized several of the artists from the current art scene. An older Jean Basquiat painting hung on the wall.

  The dim, gray streetlight worked its way through the grime-encrusted windows. Aimée heard a tapping noise.

  By the time she reached the rear bathroom, her boots were soaked. She raised the shovel as a weapon and opened the door. A rush of water streamed over her feet.

  She gasped. A woman, tied by her scarf to the snaking water pipes of the Turkish style squat toilet, her body oddly twisted, writhed and kicked. Her brown knee-high leather boots beat a pattern on the dirty tiled floor. Only the whites of her eyes showed. Her eyes had rolled up in her head.

  Aimée rushed to lift her up, loosening the scarf from her neck and shoulders. Had she been tied up, tried twisting to free herself, but enmeshed herself further?

  As the handle was released, the water slowed to a trickle. But the woman’s flailing arms knocked Aimée into the mirror. It shattered, splintering. Bits of glass studded Aimée’s coat.

  “Killer!” the woman screamed.

  “Wait a minute,” Aimée said. “I’m trying to help you! You’re Sophie? Thadée’s . . . ?”

  Aimée ducked as the woman swung a fist at her, then slipped, her head hitting the tiles with a loud crack. Her body slackened and went limp.

  Filled with panic, Aimée listened for the woman’s shallow, irregular breaths. She moaned and struggled against Aimée.

  Somehow Aimée dragged her out of the bathroom and propped her against an old counter top. Thuds and noises came from the floor above them, then there was a clatter on the stairway. Her heart skipped. Was someone coming back to finish Sophie off?

  Wednesday Night

  NADÈGE PULLED DOWN HER sleeves, took a breath, and entered her father’s mansion facing the Parc Monceau. She had to explain to him about Thadée; she needed his help. She could hear her father’s reply ‘He’s always in trouble . . . like you.’ True. But Thadée was still his brother-in-law, wasn’t he? Her tante Pascale’s ex, it’s true, yet part of the family. And there was a lot more to it.

  The uniformed butler stood aside, letting her ascend the marble staircase lined with hanging tapestries. She grabbed the handrail to steady herself. Her spike heels clattered above the noise of the reception; conversations, tinkling of glasses and the strains of a baroque chamber music ensemble.

  The usual.

  Her petite great-grandmother, tottering on her bound feet in their tiny embroidered shoes, had told her when she was small, “You are of the Lang-shun princess blood line. There’s royal blood in your veins.” Right now there was a lot more than that in them.

  With Chinese and Vietnamese heritage on her mother Phuong’s side, French on her father’s, Nadège had been termed l’asiatique behind her back at school. Her mother had died when she was four. Nadège had been raised by her grandmother, the first in her generation not to have bound feet.

  She found her little boy, Michel, asleep in the black lacquer bed, grand-mère’s marriage bed. A tart odor of incense surrounded him and the faint, suffused red light from the small altar in the corner gave a blush to his cheeks. Against the wall, a Chinese chest held linens and his tumbled treasures of Legos and wooden blocks.

  She planted a kiss on his warm forehead, leaving a fuchsia imprint, then headed next door. Passing through a long parlor, she entered a small, darkened sitting room. 1950s Chinese movies flickered in scratchy black and white on a large screen. Grand-mère lay snoring, her thin jet-black hair combed into a bun. Her head rested on a stone pillow.

  Nadège saw the Longchamp racing forms, the betting stubs under the chaise. Everything neat and arranged. Grand-mère played the horses, winning more often than not. And she liked modern gadgets like the newest cell phone.

  For a moment, Nadège wanted to lie down next to grand-mère, to nestle in her arms like she had as a small child. But the craving wouldn’t go away. No good wishing it would.

  Nadège rooted in her makeup bag. Found her small pipe, rolled the gummy black-brown pellet between her thumb and forefinger, lit the pipe and inhaled. The heavy, sickly sweet smoke hit her lungs. Took her away.

  When she came to, she found herself sprawled on the wood floor, her nose running, her sweater ripped, its feathers and beads stuck in the parquetry crevices. The TV screen still flickered. Her grand-mère’s eyes were open, watching her.

  “No good girl!”

  Guilt flooded her. As it always had throughout her childhood.

  Her grand-mère lapsed into a harsh mixture of Vietnamese interspersed with Chinese.

  “I don’t understand when you talk like that,” Nadège said.

  “Where is your hiêú? Your greeting for your elders?”

  Nadège knew she meant filial respect. “Tiens, grand-mère!”

  “Little Michel doesn’t need you around. A bad example,” she said. “Don’t come back. Méchante . . . like your mère! No good!”

  But you raised us, Nadège wanted to answer. “I’m hungry,” she said, instead.

  “Too much food downstairs. Too much drink. Fancy French like your papa. Gweilo,” she spat. “You like them.”

  As if every person outside her grand-mère’s enclave was a white-faced devil.

  “Papa won’t talk to me,” she said. “You know that. I need your help, grand-mère.”

  She had no place to stay now. Nowhere safe.

  “Thadée’s dead.”

  Grand-mère shook her head. “Sad. Sorry. He your uncle by marriage but mix with bad people. Like you. You too lo fan, all foreigner,” she said. “Don’t listen nobody. Too much this,” she said, pulling Nadège’s sleeve up.

  Only old bluish marks.

  Nadège chased the dragon now, inhaling the wispy trail of smoke from a pellet burning on tin foil. Quitting, she was quitting.

  “The horses running good, grand-mère?”

  “Don’t change subject. I try but no good breeding.” She sat up, readjusted the jade hairpiece in her bun. “But I take care, Michel. So smart, that boy.”

  Just as she’d raised Nadège. After her mother’s death, Nadège’s papa had shunted her off to these rooms in the back wing. Grand-mère kept her own servant, her own entrance, even her own little kitchen filled with the special smells of Saigon. And every Friday night, under the watchful eyes of Victor Hugo and Buddha, both revered as saints by her grand-mère’s Cao Dai sect, her mah-jong pals could be found clicking the mah-jong tiles atop the black lacquer table.

  “Thadée was killed,” Nadège said. “Shot.”

  Grand-mère shook her head. Was there something else in those sharp eyes?

  “Sad, like I say. But bad people, bad business. Bad aura, all gweilo,” she said. “He no relation to me, no business of mine.”

  Her grand-mère’s ringed hand put a fistful of francs in Nadège’s hand. “Go now.”

  “Where’s papa?”

  But her grand-mère had already turned up the volume on the TV set.

  Nadège cleaned up her nose, applied more makeup, and found her way through the kitchen. The cooks, busy stuffing squabs, ignored her and the hired servers, with full trays, elbowed her out of the way.

  She slipped
into the main room and took a glass of kir royal from a waiter. Her former stepmother, a year older than Nadège, whose blonde hair hit her waist, was holding court by one of the Rodin statues.

  Nadège made her way to the high-ceilinged glass solarium. Often her father hid in there; he hated this kind of party, just as she did. And there he stood, under the Belle Epoque iron-and-glass framed roof. Her father, black hair graying at the temples, glinting in the candlelight, tapped his cigar ash into the base of a palm tree.

  As she moved closer, she saw he was speaking with two men. One wore a blue police uniform. And from the tense look on her father’s face she realized he now knew about Thadée. Nadège edged out of the solarium, through the kitchen, and into the night.

  Wednesday Midnight

  AIMÉE POUNDED ON HER godfather’s door. She saw Morbier’s sleepy-eyed surprise as she half-carried a stumbling Sophie across his doorway.

  “Tiens, Leduc,” he said, pulling his flannel shirt around him, consulting his worn watch, and sniffing. “It’s late. Don’t bring your drunken friends here, eh . . . especially one who looks like trouble.”

  “She needs babysitting and she’s not drunk.”

  “Nice of you to extend my hospitality, but I don’t have room for guests. Like I said—”

  “Round the clock until I discover who has kidnapped René.”

  Startled, Morbier pushed his socialist newspaper aside, kicked his wool charentaise slippers away, and spread a blanket on his couch. She laid Sophie down, pulled off the wet, brown boots, and covered her.

  Sophie, who’d passed out again in the taxi, blinked, barely conscious. Aimée poured her a glass of water and helped her to sit up and, painfully, drink it.

  “Sophie, did you see who attacked you?”

  “Where am I?” She rubbed her eyes, sniffed. “Smells like the warehouse.”

  Morbier’s housekeeping skills left a lot to be desired, but a warehouse? Then Sophie stiffened.

  “I was tied up, hung from. . . .” She stiffened. “You’re kidnapping me!”