by Cara Black
“But, I see,” he said, his voice hesitant. “I mean, sorry . . .”
“Don’t worry,” she said. “Everyone stumbles over those phrases. Me, too. How much?”
“Won’t your doctor get upset?” he asked.
“I’m a big girl,” she said, sliding a twenty franc note along the zinc counter.
She felt Madame Danoux’s breath in her hair. “Clothilde’s busy. That drink hit me, I’m tired. Let me take you back.”
Part of her wanted that. The other part refused. She had to find out who had called.
“You go ahead,” she said. A frisson of fear passed through her.
“You seem nervous.” Madame Danoux squeezed her arm. “Sure?”
“Bien sûr,” she said. “I’ll get help to go back.”
Her landlady left.
“Monsieur, where’s the phone?”
“End of the counter.”
“Remember a person who used the phone on Monday night?”
“Could have been anyone.”
“Someone called me, then they hung up,” she said, keeping her voice calm with effort. “I heard the accordion in the background.”
“You’re lucky,” he said. “When they start singing, it’s impossible to hear.”
Someone pressed a paper into her hand. “That’s sheet music.”
Sheet music? As though she could read.
“Sorry, my bus broke down. I got here late Monday,” the bartender said. “Anyone see who used the phone on Monday? Help this lady?”
“How about Lucas?” said someone at the counter. “He sees everything!”
The remark, greeted with laughter, made her want to slink away, fly a million miles off. Blindness felt like being naked in a world of clothed people. All her expressions were read, but she could decipher none.
“Give me a break, eh!”
She recognized Lucas’s voice. But he was laughing.
“Aimée Leduc? Pay no attention to these old men,” he said, clutching her elbow. “I know all the songs by heart. You don’t need to read. They’re jealous.”
“Lucas, do you know if Clothilde’s still busy?” she said, glad the dark glasses masked her eyes. Milky opaqueness crackled in the corners of her vision. Veins of shooting dull lights throbbed at the edges. Like slowly flowing lava.
Merde. It was if the earth shifted and gravity pulled her sideways.
She clutched the rounded zinc counter, her fingers on the filature, trying to concentrate.
“Clothilde?” Lucas said, stools scraping beside him. “You give me too much credit; peripheral vision isn’t all it’s made out to be.”
This time his voice boomed over the accordion, tinkling glasses and conversation. “Clothilde!”
“J’arrive!”
The eruptions taking place in her eyes made her dizzy. Blinks of light, a lessening of the pressure on the optic nerve . . . hadn’t the retinologist said that? Maybe those pills had already reduced the swelling.
It made her yearn to see more. But deep down she feared it wouldn’t happen. Face it. She was afraid to hope.
“Lucas, your women get younger and younger!” said Clothilde.
Aimée heard what sounded like a slap on his rear. And felt the presence of a towering, perfumed woman.
“Clothilde, you broke my heart,” he said, “Now I have to go for the young ones.”
“Bonsoir, Clothilde, I know you’re busy,” Aimée said. “But Mimi is my neighbor.”
“Mimi . . . of course!” she said.
“She mentioned you might help. Someone using your phone called me Monday night about eleven. Remember?”
“Monday, never,” she said. “I opened at midnight.”
Aimée’s heart sank. The counter jumped as a bottle landed by her.
“Mais non . . . what am I saying? Monday night my accordionist started at ten p.m. He left early for an accordion slam . . . whatever that is!”
“Do you remember who was here at the counter?”
“My habitués, the regulars.”
“Do you know who used the phone?”
“Chérie, for one franc, anyone uses the phone,” she said.
Aimée expected that. And it could be true. But she suspected Clothilde ran a tight ship and had eyes in the back of her head, like any good owner would. She’d know who drank what, how to keep the regulars happy, when to talk and when to listen.
It was hard to trawl for information and remain casual. Clothilde had been around before Aimée was born. How could she get her to reveal the truth or to let something slip?
“Clothilde, you’re right. But today so many use cell phones. Mimi said your memory’s sharper than a razor. You see,” she leaned toward where she suspected Clotilde to be. “It’s a bit private. Wouldn’t want the world to know. Or the doctor.”
“My ear’s right here, cherie,” she said. “Turn away, Lucas!”
Aimée had to think fast. Faster than she ever had. And make it work.
“Alors, he invested in a project. But he thinks I owe him money . . .” she said, her voice low. Then she paused for dramatic effect. “Call it an investment, I told him. No guarantees, eh? At first it was a gift, then he called it a loan. I don’t want to bring it all up again if he’s let it pass! But I have to know if he called. Then we’ll settle this. Do you understand, Clothilde?”
“What’s his name?”
Great . . . how could she get out of this now?
“I can’t say, it’s not right, if . . . well you know, he’s not the one or doesn’t . . .”
“But why . . .”
“He called me from here. I remember Nini peau de chien in the background.”
A perfumed sigh tinged by garlic wafted toward her.
“No wonder. One comes to mind.”
Say his name, she prayed.
“Alors, he’s a bit old for you. Dull, too. But it wouldn’t be him, eh?”
Say it, she wanted to yell. Say it.
“Age doesn’t matter.”
Clothilde sighed. “Men continue to surprise me.”
Aimée took a deep drag. Clenched her fist, willing her to talk. “He certainly surprised me.”
“Mathieu uses the phone. Doesn’t believe in cell phones, he tells me. He was here tonight,” she said. “Maybe half an hour ago. Hard to believe it was him.”
Mathieu?
How could it be Mathieu? Yet thinking back, Chantal had told her the flics brought him in for questioning. But attacking her and killing Josiane . . . ?
Aimée felt a garlic-scented breath on her face. “But everyone’s taste is different.”
“Well, I thought . . .”
“Now that I think about it, Mathieu’s father,” said Clothilde, “invested in girls. He made everyone turn a blind eye to the women he supplied from our place. In turn, he got favors.”
“Mathieu’s father? Wasn’t he a craftsman?”
“Ask Mimi. The high-ranking SS loved it . . . earthy Parisian girls from Marché d’Aligre. They liked peasant costumes.” Clothilde blew a breath of smoke in the air. “Go figure.”
“But I thought Mathieu’s family were respected ébénistes.”
“Eh chérie, who was acquiring works of art during the Occupation? ‘Buying’ is a polite term. ‘Appropriating’ says it better. Who better to take a wealthy deportee’s furniture and make money from it?”
Did that have anything to do with the old woman she’d seen coming out of Mathieu’s with the silvery hair?
“Clothilde!”
Voices had risen, singing along with the accordion. Old songs, like her grandmother had played.
“Excuse me, time to close the doors.”
“Lucas, mind helping me back?” asked Aimée.
She heard him gulp his wine.
“We’ll never get out if we don’t leave now.”
“D’accord,” he agreed.
Out on the street, the only sounds were their footsteps and the click of Lucas’s cane on the rain-damp
ened cobbles. The music had faded into the night. Rain-freshened air scented the stone-walled street.
“How well do you know Mathieu?”
“Listen, that Clothilde talks a blue streak,” said Lucas. “She wasn’t so clean herself in the war. I heard stories. But people did what they had to. And it’s over.”
“Do you think Mathieu’s hiding something?” she said. “Was he afraid Josiane would find out?”
“Zut!” he said. “We all hide things.”
“I have to talk with Mathieu,” she said. “Take me there.”
“Why would I do that?” he said. “I’m tired. Leave all this alone.”
She felt inside her bag, found the Beretta.
“Here,” she said, taking the cane from him and putting the Beretta in his hand. “Didn’t you want to try this?”
“You’ve got a deal,” said Lucas, his voice changed. “I hope you left the safety on or I’ll cause some serious damage.”
“At least you’ll aim better, with your peripheral vision, than I would,” she said.
“That’s a joke right?”
“But if Mathieu’s forgotten, you can remind him.”
She felt their way down rue Charenton with the cane. Tap, tap, tap. At the gurgling fountain she remembered and turned right into what she figured was the entrance to the courtyard of Mathieu’s shop. The tall doors were closed. She felt all over with the cane, found the digicode, and hit some buttons.
“Who’s there?” came an irate reply.
“Pardon, I forgot my uncle Mathieu’s digicode. He’s asleep. Please let me in,” she said.
“Write it down next time.”
A loud buzzing came from their right.
She and Lucas pushed the heavy door open.
“How did you know about this entrance through this building?”
“Well, it’s opposite the old part of the Résidence built in the Musketeers’ time. They all connected at one time. Feel the wall’s thickness. Like the Résidence.”
“Saves us from going up to rue Faubourg St. Antoine and entering Cour du Bel Air that way.”
Or through the back of Passage de la Boule Blanche. She wouldn’t do that again.
“Sounds funny to ask this Lucas, but can you see anything?” “I didn’t want to admit it, but the little peripheral vision I have crashes at night.”
“Crashes?”
“Grays and shadows are subtle at the best of times. Darkness blacks it all out.”
Pills. She had to take her pills. Merde!
She found them, swallowed, and tapped her way over the cobbles to the gurgling fountain. She stuck her head under, lapped up the water, welcoming the coldness. The clean mineral taste slid down her throat. It must tap into the old artesian source from the Trogneux fountain across the street.
Late-night starlings twittered in the courtyard. The honeysuckle scent she remembered seemed stronger in the night air. By the time they reached the atelier’s glass door, she’d tripped several times on the worn stones.
She felt the glass. Tapped it lightly. “Mathieu?”
“Door’s open,” said Lucas.
She grabbed Lucas’s elbow, followed him. Followed the strong smells of paint thinner emanating from Mathieu’s atelier.
“Mathieu?”
No answer. From somewhere a Mozart sonata played, low and soothing. A tape, the radio?
She heard Lucas feeling around ahead of her. Wood scraped and was pushed aside. They hadn’t gone far. Then a loud ouff as Lucas sat down.
“Look, I don’t feel good prowling in his atelier. He’s probably upstairs asleep. We’re blind, so our sleep patterns are off. Night or day means nothing to us, but to the rest of the world it does.”
“I’ll be right back.”
She tapped with the cane, feeling her way ahead. Sensed the legs of work tables, rectangles of picture frames, hollow panels, the thick metal block of what must be the heater emitting sputtering bursts of warmth. Then the stone wall, thick and damp.
And she heard the gun fall on the floor, skidding over the wood. Her reflex was automatic. “Lucas! Duck and cover your head!”
She ducked down under a thick-legged work table. No shot.
“Lucas?”
No answer. Silence.
Then she heard the door close. The metallic ratchet fell as it locked.
Saturday Night
“THIS CAME FOR YOU, Sergeant Bellan,” said the night duty desk officer. “And these messages.”
All from Aimée Leduc.
Bellan took them, with his espresso, and sat down at the desk. He’d closed the Beast of Bastille file, sent it to the frigo. He wanted to throw Aimée’s things in the trash bin to join the cigarette butts, coffee-stained memos, and wilted violets.
But he set Officer Nord’s report down to read first. Then he opened the thick envelope, scanned the morgue log, and read the note Aimée’s partner, René, had written.
He gulped the espresso.
“I need a driver, officer,” he said, stuffing the report in his case.
“No one left in the driving pool tonight, sir,” he was told. “We’re short on officers if you need a backup.”
“No problem, no backup. I’m on special detail. Get me a car.”
Loïc Bellan sped over the pont Notre-Dame, the dark Seine illumined by pinpricks of blue light from the bateaux-mouches below. He pulled into the Place Lepine, on the Île de la Cité, where vendors were setting up stalls for the Sunday flower market.
He ran into Hôtel Dieu, flashed his badge, and was pointed in a direction by the sleepy-eyed security guard. Several long hallways and wrong turns later, he found Intensive Care.
“Nurse, I need to speak with a patient in custody, Dragos Iliescu.”
From around the night desk came the beeping of machines, and the sound of a floor waxer in the cavernous hallway. The ancient stone had been sandblasted, giving it a butterscotch hue in the dim lighting.
“Let me check, I just came on shift,” she said, consulting a computer. He saw the other nurse in the station nudge her, point to a file. A dark blue folder.
“Too late, I’m afraid, Sergeant,” she said. “He passed away.”
Frustrated, Bellan wanted to kick himself. Why hadn’t he come earlier?
“What was the cause of death?”
“The doctors are doing a preliminary now, taking a toxicology screening to determine if it was drugs.”
“Here’s my card. My number’s there. Have the doctor call me the minute he knows.”
If he hadn’t been so stubborn . . . so rigid in the way he thought. Wasn’t that what Marie told him, “Loïc listen to someone else sometime, then make up your mind.”
Merde!
All the way in the car, he berated himself. There was only one other way. He parked on the curb of 22, boulevard de la Bastille. He turned off the ignition and sat in the car. The small shop was lighted. A minute later he got out.
“Bonsoir, Monsieur Tulles,” he said. “Is Bidi here?”
“We’re just closing up,” smiled Monsieur Tulles. “Bidi! Guess you want to ask him more questions.”
No answer.
“I’m sorry, that boy with those headphones is . . . Bidi!”
Bellan looked down at his feet. Something about this place, Monsieur Tulles, and Bidi made him tongue-tied. He hesitated, swallowed hard.
“Actually, Monsieur Tulles, if you don’t mind, I need Bidi’s help.”
Saturday Night
AIMÉE SHUDDERED AND CALLED out, “Tell me . . . Lucas, are you all right.”
Mozart’s piano music trilled faintly in the atelier’s background.
Had Lucas been knocked out . . . by Mathieu?
“Mathieu . . . who’s that?”
A sound like a deadbolt slipping into place.
“Who’s there?” Her words caught in her throat.
What was going on?
She couldn’t wait to find out, she had to do something. Quickly.
> She groped ahead of her along the floor. Felt a sheet of dense, smooth metal. Hard and thick. She figured it was lead.
Something rustled from the far corner.
Her breath caught. She reached her hands out. Felt a shoe . . . no the curved wooden heel of a clog. She kept on. Her fingers came back sticky and metallic smelling. Blood.
Mathieu.
Now she knew why his door was open but he didn’t answer. Her fingers brushed a smooth round dome. His head. Then she froze.
He was bald.
Why hadn’t she thought to ask before. He was bald. No need for that shampoo.
Too late. She’d been about to accuse him of attacking her, killing Josiane, but he couldn’t have. So dumb. Why hadn’t she realized? If she had, he might still be alive.
And it all fell into place. The tar smell, the burns on Dragos, the lead, and the odd thing she’d knocked over, then touched. She realized that Morbier had been on a wild goose chase looking all over Paris for the “explosives” when they were here.
Right here.
She felt around Mathieu’s body. Next to the sheet of lead were glass bulbs and beakers. Like the ones René had found. But these had raised letters on them. On the bottom.
The script must be Cyrillic. But she traced an upside down U, then numbers. Her stomach jolted.
The symbol for enriched uranium.
U-235.
Weapons grade enriched uranium.
Probably five or ten gram samples from the size of the beaker. Dangerous enough. More than lethal if enough samples were put together. Enough for a dirty bomb.
And the killer had the perfect cover for customs checks.
Of course he must have been here, unpacking a shipment. They’d interrupted him. She prayed he’d knocked Lucas out, not killed him. All she could do was to try to get him talking. Get him near her.
“I know how you did it,” she said, her voice steady. “Ingenious. And I have to say, I admire your plan. But why?”
The Mozart piano concerto rose in the background.
“You,” he breathed. “You’re the one.”
Her breath caught again as she recognized the voice. Shivers ran down her spine. The uranium . . . where was it? Had she touched it?
“I don’t understand. Why?”
“It’s my business,” said Malraux. “I sell and trade.”
