AL05 - Murder in Clichy al-5

by Cara Black

  Madame Nguyen’s face remained expressionless. But Aimée thought she’d mask her terror, having been well-schooled in concealment in Indochina. Disappointed, Aimée closed the door, and the taxi took off. She remembered her coat left inside the resto and ran back for it. The waiter handed it to her, his mouth turned down in a frown.

  “I’m sorry we aren’t staying for lunch,” Aimée said.

  “She never eat here,” he said. “Understand.”

  “Pardon, but what do you mean,” she asked surprised. “You know Madame Nguyen?”

  “Cochin Chinese have long memory. Like elephant.”

  “But Madame Nguyen—”

  He lapsed into what Aimée took for a Southern Chinese dialect. Several of the waiters around him laughed. Rude and disgruntled, she figured, since she’d taken up his time.

  “They’re not saying nice things,” said a frowning young Asian woman, seated by the aquarium. “I’m sorry. No need to act rude, people change their minds.”

  “What are they saying?”

  “Forget it,” the young woman said. “They’re nervous underneath.”

  “But why?” Aimée asked.

  The young woman’s frown deepened. “They’re saying the health department visited last week. One man says he’s afraid the health department will close the restaurant and then he’ll be out of a job.”

  A good thing they hadn’t eaten here, Aimée thought, running to the bus. She had an idea and somehow she had to get back into her office.

  AIMÉE KNEW Leduc Detective was being watched. Yet everything she needed was inside the office. She walked up rue Bailleul, entered an apartment building foyer, and kept going to the rear garages she knew corresponded to the back hall window of their rue du Louvre office.

  The garage and back alley were deserted. She pulled down the fire escape, hiked up her skirt, and climbed. On the landing, she took the fire extinguisher from the wall—just in case—and unlocked Leduc’s frosted-paned door.

  No one.

  She had to make this quick. In their storeroom she found the Health Inspector badge from the Direction de la Protection du Public. She changed into a navy blue wool suit, grabbed some underwear and her black heels. The answering machine light blinked.

  Two messages. Both hangups.

  In the mail stacked on her desk, she found a letter addressed to her in Guy’s writing. She took a deep breath and opened it. A court summons for damage to his office?

  Flyers from Neuilly real estate agents and several full page ads describing apartments for rent fell out. Guy had circled one of them in red.

  Neuilly sur Seine—four rooms, light and with southern exposure, near Métro, 150 m2* facing park.

  Below it he’d written: Perfect for my photo lab and your home office. Even a guest bedroom, and the park nearby for Miles Davis!

  She looked at the postmark. The day before yesterday. Was this all a misunderstanding? Should she swallow her pride and call him?

  Never.

  Yet after a moment, she punched in his office number. Four rings later his secretary, Marie, answered.

  “I’m sorry, Dr. Lambert left an hour ago,” she said.

  “Left. When does he return?”

  “Let’s see,” she said. Papers rustled in the background. “I purchased return train tickets for him and Madame Bélise.”

  “Madame Bélise?”

  “Can you hold on, please?”

  She put Aimée on hold.

  “Returning tomorrow,” she said in a businesslike voice when she came back on the line. “Any message?”

  “Non, merci.”

  Gone with his new woman.

  And for a moment she had thought it could work out. Wanted to make it work out, even if she’d have to live in the suburbs. She tore the real estate flyer into little pieces.

  She switched on their remaining computer and quickly consulted the Direction de la Protection du Public online site. The Vietnamese restaurant’s several infractions were listed. She switched the computer off, locked the office door, and climbed back down the rear fire escape.

  A half-hour later, she stood at the service entrance of the resto, behind Place de Clichy, having been careful to avoid the rue de Clichy and Académie de Billard. Steam billowed from the resto back door.

  She stepped inside and saw pots of boiling water and colanders draining translucent rice noodles, and heard the hiss of frying sesame oil filling the kitchen. Piles of limp bean sprouts and broccoli sat in aluminum bowls. A radio blared Chinese pop songs.

  “I’m looking for Derek Lau, the owner. Where’s his office?” she asked, holding a file folder in front of her.

  A cook, his face beaded with perspiration, took one look at her badge and pointed toward an open door.

  Aimée knocked and peered into the cluttered, low-ceilinged fluorescent-lit office. Derek Lau, facing several phone books on his desk, was scratching his head. His eyes protruded, a classic thyroid condition symptom, and he had a crossover parting of his black hair to cover his bald spot.

  “Monsieur Lau?”

  “Oui,” he nodded, taking in her outfit and setting the phone books aside. “You people weren’t supposed to come until next week. We have one week to comply.”

  “Monsieur Lau, we use our own discretion in timing our visits.”

  “Eh, what does that mean? Where’s the usual inspector? Let me see some credentials.”

  Aimée pulled out the form she’d printed out from the site. Areas of hygiene were checked off.

  “It means, Monsieur Lau, if I see compliance, we won’t make a formal visit next week. We have plainclothes staff checking up often. Catch my drift?”

  A dawn of understanding crossed his worried eyes.

  He reached in his drawer, pulled out an envelope, and stuffed franc notes inside.

  “This should take care of it,” he said.

  She waved aside the profferred envelope.

  “So far we’ve noted meat stored and transported without containers, dirty ceilings, bacteria festering in the tile cracks, and inadequate freezers.”

  He snapped his fingers and the cook entered bearing a tray with tea. Had he stood at the door waiting?

  “Look, let’s smooth this out, eh,” he said, pushing the envelope toward her again. “I run a little business, struggle to make ends meet.”

  Let him think she was going along with him.

  “I’m referring to the farm-raised sea bass you serve,” she said, thinking back to the regulations. “A flagrant health violation, as you know. Your dossier’s full.”

  “Just jealous restaurateurs complaining I’m sure. I told my uncle we should have stayed in the 13th.” He shrugged. “The old coot wanted ‘prestige’ but this was the closest we could get to the bon 17th.”

  “This form indicates that a Ming Lau owns this. . . .”

  “My uncle, oui,” he interrupted. “He retired to Hong Kong, but I manage his investments here.”

  Derek Lau closed a tall metal file cabinet and what Aimée saw framed on the wall made her blink. She suppressed a gasp, stood, and edged toward the piled account books. How could she find out what she wanted without looking too obvious?

  “Bon, show me your vendor receipts,” she said, shooting for a businesslike tone. “We’re doing a full-scale investigation this time. You know that means a temporary shutdown.”

  “Ecoutez, eh, don’t get so serious,” he said, his words conciliatory, but alarm in his eyes. “It’s all here, nothing out of line.”

  He rummaged through his files.

  “We’ll have to close your business unless you provide immediate proof of compliance and proper documents.”

  Sweat beaded his brow. He pressed a buzzer on his desk. “Bring the Crédit Lyonnais files.” He turned to Aimée. “Drink your tea, it will only take a moment.”

  She pointed to the sepia-tinted photo on Lau’s office wall. Under the title ‘Lai Chau,’ the twelve jade zodiac figures were pictured. “Your family
treasure?”

  Instead of the fear she expected, Derek Lau shrugged.

  “Just an old photo,” he said.

  “Of stolen treasure.”

  Surprise turned to amusement. Then he sneered. “You’ve been talking to that crazy old lady. She has no right to complain!”

  She said, “Maybe you had to sell it to pay your debts?”

  “Debts?”

  “According to the records, this restaurant’s heavily mortgaged.”

  “Ridiculous. We have a line of credit,” he said. He looked at the photo on the wall. “You should be talking to the French soldiers who stole it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Like I told the old cow, according to my uncle, the French took everything, even what was hidden in the ground.”

  “The Sixth Battalion?” Aimée asked.

  “I don’t know details,” he said. Derek Lau smoothed the hair combed over his head. “Anyway, black crude’s more valuable now.”

  “What about your emperor? Doesn’t this jade belong to him?”

  “To some branch of the Imperial family, but it’s hard to say which, since they intermarried. All of them trace their lineage back to the first Emperor. Now Bao Dai’s ill and penniless after a life of Monte Carlo gambling and many wives, but the French government keeps him,” Derek Lau said. “His old mother in Saigon sold the Imperial porcelain to pay for his child support. Spoiled to the end.”

  “But isn’t this jade more important than its price in money? Doesn’t it mean something?”

  “It guarantees the patrimony. The possessor is the ruler ordained by heaven, according to my uncle.”

  “Patrimony?”

  Derek Lau patted his thin strand of hair into place. “The right to the land, promised by the first Chinese emperor. We’ve had many emperors, but what the first emperor ordained remains law.”

  She stood, put the health violation list on his desk and shoved the cash-filled envelope back to him.

  “I don’t take bribes.”

  His calculating eyes took in her interest in the photos of the jade.

  “But ancient treasures interest you, eh?”

  She grabbed her clipboard.

  “I’m sure I’m not the only one who appreciates beautiful objects, Monsieur Lau,” she said.

  He shrugged. He wanted to make a deal, it was in his eyes.

  “Who else is interested, Monsieur Lau?”

  “My memory’s not what it used to be,” he said.

  It seemed fine to her.

  “I could delay this report,” she offered. “If I sense your cooperation.”

  He paused, weighing his answer. From the kitchen she heard the crackle of oil in a hot wok.

  “A man from a museum,” Derek Lau said. “He’d been talking to the old lady, too.”

  “Did you catch his name?”

  “I run a business, not an information service,” he said.

  “Tall and thin?”

  Derek Lau combed his hair with his fingers. “Plump, round glasses.”

  “Did he wear a bow tie?”

  “Bow tie? Is that how you call it? On his neck. Yes.”

  Dinard.

  “It’s yours,” he said, unhooking a picture frame from the wall. “Take it.”

  Aimée shook her head, she’d seen and heard what she needed. “Merci, Monsieur Lau, we’ll be in touch.”

  “What about the credit reports?”

  “Next time,” she said.

  Saturday

  HIDDEN DEEP IN THE armoire, Nadège heard the faint beep of a cell phone. The kicking stopped.

  Mumbled words, then footsteps descending the stairs and the start of a car engine below. She crawled out of the armoire. Water . . . so thirsty. She had to find water for her parched throat. Weak afternoon sun slanted across the floorboards.

  How long had she been out? All she remembered was the old grande dame’s long kid gloves. Then a smoothness like she’d felt at the rehab clinic when she’d been given sedatives for several days. Part of a cure that had almost worked.

  What had Thadée told her? A child condemns one to live?

  She steadied herself and, despite the tremors, made it to the window. A car backfired on the street. The men’s words echoed in her mind. Find the kid. Michel. Her child. In danger.

  Her eyes watered as she held the handrail, making her way down, careful to avoid the rain water pooled on the steps. On Avenue de Clichy, she found a taxi. When the taxi pulled up to her father’s, she asked him to wait and made her way inside, shaking. No one was there except stooped, old Ngoc, the last butler her grand-père had brought from Indochina. She knew her father was embarrassed by the colonial flavor that still pervaded the house. Perhaps it would not for much longer.

  “Ngoc, lend me twenty francs, would you?” she said.

  “Désolé, Mademoiselle,” he shook his bald head. A wisp of a gray beard was tucked into his cardigan, a castoff of her grand-père’s. “I’m not supposed to give you money.”

  “For the taxi, Ngoc,” she said.

  Ngoc crinkled his eyes.

  “Tran, Tran!” he called.

  To her surprise, she saw Tran, their retired gardener, appear.

  “Let me help, Mademoiselle,” Tran said, and pulled a bill from his pocket.

  “I hope you’re a good girl, Mademoiselle,” he said. “Not getting into bad ways, again.”

  “The best I’ve been in a long time, Tran,” she said, her heart beating fast. Her body had cleared the knockout drug and something had lifted inside her. Michel’s life was at stake. That was more important than anything.

  But she had to find a sedative to tone down her craving. Like in rehab. She slipped into the bathroom, searched the drawers. Found the clonadine and valium her father had wangled from her last rehab, and paid the doctor for privately. It would ease the chills and pressure; it couldn’t make her feel any worse. She needed help to function through withdrawal.

  Inside her grandmother’s room, she called for grand-mère and Michel but there was just the burnt toast smell of incense, its thick powdered ash on the red lacquer altar beside the five fruit offerings for good fortune. She stumbled over one of the toys scattered on the floor. Horror hit the pit of her stomach.

  “Ngoc, where are Michel and grand-mère?” she called.

  Tran appeared and took off his cap. Why was he in the house now? Something felt wrong.

  “She’s upset with him; he’s worried,” Tran said. “Your grand-mère won’t talk to Ngoc.”

  Her grand-mère ruled the back wing. Poor Ngoc. Over the years Ngoc had been her ally. But he forgot things. Little things. There was always a commotion in the back wing when her grand-mère discovered Ngoc’s forgetfulness.

  “Grand-mère upsets easily, Tran,” she said. “Then it’s over.”

  Ngoc appeared next to Tran, leaning on the door for support.

  “I can’t remember where I put the chest for Madame Nguyen, and she refuses to speak with me until I find it. But—”

  “Perhaps they’re at school, Ngoc?” she suggested.

  “Mademoiselle,” he said, “Now I remember!” He grinned. “At the science museum in La Villette. Some school trip.”

  Nadège breathed a sigh of relief. They would be safe with so many others. She called her grand-mère’s cell phone. No answer, just a message in Chinese. She told her, “Take Michel to the country house in Fontainebleau. Don’t come back here.”

  She went back into her grandmother’s bedroom and lit a handful of incense, and propped it in the blue and white porcelain holder on the shrine. She bowed her head three times as she had been taught. Prayed, “Keep my baby safe, keep my baby safe, keep my baby safe.”

  She reached for the thin red cord around her neck. Gone. Of course, and her luck with it, courtesy of the old grande dame. Then she felt something tangled in her purple braid. She combed through her long hair with her fingers. Her lucky red cord with the jade disk came back between her fingers.
Maybe the gods would answer her prayers after all.

  She had to think. But her mind had slowed. A wave of nausea rose and subsided. Thadée wouldn’t have left something valuable in that building, where anyone could get at it.

  She sniffled, rubbed her running nose with her sleeve. Think.

  Thadée must have kept his stash here. Her stomach cramped and then it subsided. Right under everyone’s nose. He’d told her it was big and would take care of everything. The key. She remembered her old grandfather’s dressing room. She’d seen Thadée there once.

  She stumbled to the other wing, her heels clacking on the marble, and into her grandfather’s rooms. They were still cluttered with his things, as if he’d left for a moment, not an eternity. His white helmet was still on his desk, the overhead ceiling fan and white mosquito net still hung over the canopied bed. He’d sworn he couldn’t sleep without it, even here in Paris.

  She opened the changing room door. It was windowless and dark. A wave of sleepiness came over her. She ran her hand along the wall, found the light switch, and hit it. The suits and overcoats were flooded with brittle white light. An old-man smell and the sight of medals imprisoned in dusty, glass shadow-boxes greeted her. His ties, belts, and slacks hung in straight lines. In the corner, she saw his steamship chest plastered with an old label: HÔTEL MAJESTIC, SAIGON. It lay open. Empty. She grabbed for the closet rail, fighting her fatigue, and fell.

  Saturday Afternoon

  AIMÉE KNEW DINARD WANTED the jade. What if he’d found it?

  She approached his home in the fashionable part of the 17th where celebrated courtesans like la Belle Otero who’d counted kings and ministers as her “benefactors,” had lived, where Debussy had composed. Not Aimée’s stomping grounds. Impersonal, with deserted sidewalks where the affluent still dwelled behind steel-shuttered windows. Dinard’s street was cornered by the Banque de France in a former neo-Gothic mansion. Opposite, the Nazi Kommandantur had melted the statue that had once stood in the square, like so many monuments in the city, for the German war effort. Now, honey-colored leaves skittered across the desolate excuse for a square.