by Cara Black
On the Left Bank she bypassed tree-lined Boulevard Saint Michel heading up rue Saint Jacques, a part of the ancient pilgrimage route to Compostela in Spain. She turned left past the Sorbonne, where from the Middle Ages until the nineteenth century classes had been taught in Latin. The streets narrowed in the Latin Quarter, one of the oldest of Paris, home to churches, Roman ruins, universities, the Grandes Ecoles, book stores, and, now, research facilities. It was still an intellectual center. The cobbled passages were traversed by students spilling out of small bars tucked into medieval two-story timbered buildings. Strains of remix from the DJ du mode wafted in the warm air, along with the fumes from the cigarettes everyone smoked.
By the time she had woven her scooter through the warren of streets below Montagne Sainte-Geneviève, darkness had descended. Her knuckles ached from squeezing the brake levers on the steep inclines. All the way here, she had wondered who Mireille had run from and why she’d left an address on a napkin for her.
Aimée located 61, rue Buffon, opposite the nineteenth-century Natural History Museum, which stood in the leafy gardens of the Jardin des Plantes. Number 61 was a worm-holed wooden gate in a crumbling stone wall plastered with old, curling advertisements posted despite the faded DEFENSE D’AFFICHER warning. A small weathered plaque said OSTE-OLOGIQUE ANATOMIE COMPARÉE. It was the comparative anatomy research facility. She pulled out the napkin and entered 2A5C on the digicode keypad.
Her feet crunched on gravel as she stepped inside a double-deep courtyard leading to a glass-roofed, wood-and-brick, vine-covered building. Shadows deepened. Quiet reigned, apart from the dense chirping of distant crickets.
To the right, an old turreted gatehouse loomed over the stone wall. Cracked steps overgrown with lilac bushes led inside. A faded sign read Loge B. Vacant by the look of it, but there was light glowing from an open window.
A strange place to meet.
She mounted the gatehouse stairs and reached a dim landing on which there were two doors. One stood open, and light shone from within. Then Mireille was expecting her.
“Excusez-moi,” she called out and knocked. “Mireille?” A breeze scented by wild lilac floated from the open window. She stepped over a newspaper crumpled on the hexagonal brick-colored tiles. The place felt unlived-in, like a storeroom.
“Mireille?” she called again.
In the room ahead, she saw a stool standing upside-down, metal file cabinets tipped against the wall, a large mahogany desk overturned by the window. Trashed, and signs of a struggle.
The hair rose on the back of her neck.
She reached for the stool leg to wield as a weapon. The breeze ruffled a paper on the wall, a small dog-eared black-and-white photo that had been partially taped over a crack. It showed a night scene at an outdoor café. A young man sat next to a woman in a sleeveless dress; the table was littered with glasses. Part of the photo had been torn off. Something about one face looked familiar. She stared at the young man in the rattan chair, smiling, raising his glass to the dark-skinned woman next to him. Aimée looked closer. Could that be her father? That crooked smile, the thin mustache he’d shaved off when he left the police force. A younger version of her Papa. She lifted the photo carefully. On the back, in faint pencil, was written “Brasserie Balzar,” a well-known brasserie near the Sorbonne.
Her pulse raced.
Taped beside it she saw another much-thumbed black-and-white photo. A smiling woman held a baby in her arms; in the background were waving palm trees and a sugarcane field. The same woman from the café photo. She turned it over.
“Edwige and Mireille” was written in pencil.
A torn photo of her father with this woman. Was it proof that she had a sister? She felt a pain in her gut. The walls slanted, the light dimmed. The world as she knew it shifted.
Why hadn’t her father told her?
And where was Mireille?
The lilac scent of the breeze mingled with a tangy metallic odor. She rose, still gripping the stool by the leg, and edged past a wooden crate. Something glinted in the shadows behind the desk. It took a moment before she made out a design on the brick-colored tiles. A white powdery circle. She reached down to touch it, and her fingertips came back coated with rough granules.
A circle of salt.
The smell was stronger now. Sweet lilac mingling with the cloying metallic odor of blood. She peered behind the over-turned desk and saw a slumped figure. Non, not Mireille!
A man lay against the wall behind the desk. His dark, slack-jawed face shone dully in the light, his half-opened eyes revealed dilated pupils, his black bristly hair was matted with leaves. A deep-red blossom stained the gristle that had been his ear; tufts of skin had been peeled away from his temple.
She gasped in horror and stepped back, clutching the photos with shaking hands.
A vacant gatehouse, this body, a photo of her father . . . but no Mireille.
She had to get out of here.
But she forced herself to look again. The body was that of a large man, an African or Caribbean man. He wore leather shoes, handmade by the look of them. His bloodied tailored shirt had an intact white sleeve with a gold cufflink at the wrist. He had on pinstriped blue trousers. . . . Not a homeless type.
Who would cut off his ear, peel away the skin of his fore-head, and leave behind a circle of salt?
A siren wailed. She jumped. Time to leave. She stuffed the photos into her jacket pocket. She wanted to search the papers on the floor, but from the courtyard below she heard the rustling of bushes and the snapping of twigs. Was the killer lying in wait outside?
A patrol car’s orange-red light flashed from the landing windows illuminating the hallway like a wash of blood. Brakes squealed to a halt outside. She couldn’t afford to be caught with a corpse.
From the landing window, she saw two flic cars blocking the rue Buffon gate. And her parked scooter. She couldn’t go out the front door and risk meeting the flics face to face, nor could she hide in the bushes of the compound if the killer was waiting there.
Footsteps sounded on the stairway. The beam of a flashlight skittered over the broken tiles of the hall floor.
She stuck her foot out the landing window, pulled herself through, scraping her hip, and levered herself to the top of the stone wall, an uneven crumbling ledge of broken glass, pigeon droppings, and twigs. It was, she saw, a good twenty feet above the pavement.
She hunched down, edging away from the gate and the flic cars below, creeping toward a tree branch. She almost lost her balance. By the time she reached the branch, yards away, she knew she was going to have to jump. Her knees couldn’t take it any longer.
She inhaled, grabbed the branch, and lowered herself. Damned pencil skirt! She heard a rip as her legs dangled in the air. She dropped and landed in a half-crouch. But although her hands were skinned, at least she was all in one piece. On all fours, she crept around the empty flic cars. Static and squawking noises erupted from their radios. She had to hurry. She pulled the scooter from its stand, gripped the handlebars, and walked in the shadows of the wall toward the next block. Then she swung her leg over and switched on the ignition. Her fishnet stockings were in shreds; her ripped skirt flapped open high up her thigh.
Who was the dead man?
Behind her, a car engine started. Bright headlights appeared in the scooter’s rearview mirror. The car’s gears ground as it accelerated.
She revved ahead. And so did the car.
Monday Night
A KNOCK SOUNDED on the high-ceilinged gilt-edged salon door of the Haitian Trade Delegation. “Madame Obin?” said the attaché. “I’m leaving.”
Léonie Obin paused, fingering her worn rosary. A phone rang somewhere in the suite of offices.
“Give me a moment,” she called. She breathed “Amen,” pressing her lips to the statue of Saint George, whom she also knew as Ogoun. She brushed ashes from the honte, the mimosa herb for reducing pride, into a tin, then tied a remaining grass stalk into a knot to w
ard off bad luck.
Léonie tucked her juju, her amulet, under the silk scarf draping her neck. She was fifty-five years old, thin, light-skinned, with planed cheekbones and distinctive topaz-colored eyes. She was a mélange, a “bouquet garni,” like most of the fair-complected mixte who composed the elite ruling families of Haiti.
Léonie heard muffled laughter and a murmur of conversation. Guests still lingered from the reception that had begun three hours ago. Why hadn’t they left? Lateness would jeopardize her meeting with Edouard.
She smoothed down her carefully coiffed hair and hurried out. No one was waiting on the Aubusson carpet in the mirrored hallway to delay her with conversation. Then the front doorbell buzzed, and she jumped. Edouard, finally, more than an hour late? Please, Holy Mary and Ogoun, she thought, guide my way, bless my undertaking.
“Edouard?” At first she didn’t recognize him in the dim hallway. His hair had been dyed a light brown and he was in shadow as he leaned against the carved door. Then he stepped forward and she saw his unmistakable grin.
“Took you a moment, eh?” he said with a familiar shrug of those broad shoulders. He wore a three-piece suit with a tailored blue shirt, presenting himself as a successful businessman. A new disguise. Two years had passed since she’d last seen him. She needed something from him and prayed he’d cooperate.
“You still have your goons watching the place, I see,” he said. “As usual.”
“You’re paranoid, Edouard,” she replied.
“More like careful.” He sniffed, his gaze sweeping over her. “And you’re up to your old tricks, too. Offering to Ogoun.”
She venerated a tapestry of saints, spirits, and deities, typical of the island. The mix of Christian and West African spirits was woven into the fabric of everyday Haitian life. Léonie had grown up believing that the more deities you prayed to, the better. Ten years in Paris hadn’t altered that.
“Your call surprised me, Léonie. You’ve changed since I last saw you. You’re so much thinner,” he observed.
Her bones hurt. The “weakness,” she had the weakness. No one called it an epidemic. Before it prevented her, she had work to do.
“Quick,” she said, ignoring his comment. “There are people here. Come into my office.”
Once inside, Edouard stood under the wavering light of the chandelier, a relic of the room’s former use as a dining room. If he suspected that Léonie was ill, he didn’t pursue it.
“After avoiding me for so long, what changed your mind, Léonie?” he asked.
“Edouard, I’m your aunt, for God’s sake,” she said. “Address me with respect. We need to talk.”
“I think you want something from me.”
She knew he saw a disapproving old woman. She had always presented an obstacle to him. “What do you mean?” Léonie took a deep breath.
“I know you have access to all the bank accounts,” he said.
“I merely handle the trade delegation agreements, you know that,” she said.
Edouard’s eyebrow raised. “Not according to people we’ve questioned.” Like a dog scenting a fox, he never gave up. “You handle a lot more, Léonie.”
She waved an arm dismissively. “Years ago, maybe I did. But Duvalier’s money’s gone. Pfft . . . spent. That’s why you need to stop this bank account inquiry.”
Edouard stiffened. “We have testimony and documentary evidence.”
“Think of the future, Edouard,” she told him. “Think of the programs for Haiti, the projects awaiting funding—”
“And forget the massacres that took place and the daily shootings in the street that continue?” Edouard interrupted. “Listen to you, Léonie, you sound more colonial than the plantation owners did. You love looking more blanche than your sheets, acting cultured . . . but you should realize you’ve never fit in here. And you never will. To them, you’re black.”
Stung, she averted her eyes, concentrating on the lozenge-patterned wood floor, the intricately inlaid blond and ebony strips of wood.
“We know Duvalier’s attempting to access the accounts.” He paused, running a tan finger over the mahogany surface of her desk. “We will block his access, freeze the accounts. That money belongs to the Haitian people.”
She shook her head. “Don’t you ever learn, Edouard? Why do you look for danger?”
“You can’t protect me, not that you ever did. The price on my head keeps going up.” He grinned. “Haven’t you heard?”
“It’s not something to boast about, Edouard. Who do you think helped you—” She bit the words back. She had protected him in the past and paid for it in more ways than one. And would shield him now, if he’d furnish her with Benoît’s file. She ached to reveal the file’s importance to him. Could she make amends before it was too late?
“Haiti needs this World Bank loan, Edouard,” she began.
“World Bank loan?” He snorted in disgust. “We come from a country with no infrastructure, no delivery system except for the bribes that go straight into the pockets of officials and developers.” Edouard grasped her wrist. “You’re living in the clouds, Tante Léonie. The last project funded was abandoned a year ago. Benoît’s research—”
“He approached you, didn’t he?” she interrupted. “He must share his findings with us so we can straighten matters out. You wouldn’t want to jeopardize funding agreements. Right now his research complicates matters and brings up irrelevant questions.”
“Brings up questions?” His grip turned to iron. He shoved her against her desk, overturning the bowl of freesias. Water dribbled down to the floor.
Léonie winced.
“I’m sorry.” A brief flicker of shame crossed his face.
She’d use his guilt. Coax him a little and he’d acquiesce.
“You’re Benoît’s friend. It will be simple for you,” she said.
“But Benoît’s an academic,” Edouard said. ”I don’t see why his research matters.”
“And he doesn’t understand the implications either,” Léonie said. “It’s muddled, but I’ll sort out the situation. Just get me his file.”
“What file?” Edouard’s expression hardened.
Stupid, she’d never meant to be so direct. None of this had gone as she’d planned. She was losing her tenuous hold on him.
“Everything that backs up the Trade Delegation analysis helps, Edouard,” she said.
“Now I see,” Edouard said. “That’s why you called. You want arguments to outweigh the risk factors of continued political stalement, lack of political commitment to reform, and weak institutional capacity.”
“That’s textbook talk, Edouard.”
“Actually, it’s from the conclusions of the last International Monetary Fund report on Haiti,” Edouard said. “The elite evade taxes and skim off aid money as usual. But those funds are drying up, eh? If you haven’t gotten Benoît’s report, there’s a reason. So you’re desperate.”
“It’s not true, Edouard.”
“Don’t tell me, Tante Léonie. I know you still funnel funds from Lichtenstein front companies through the Swiss bank accounts. But Benoît’s embarrassing you, non?”
Stricken, she shook her head, but she looked away.
“So I’m right,” he said, a sad note in his voice. “I hoped I was wrong.”
Two men appeared behind him. They were dark-skinned and wore black clothing and tennis shoes.
“Who—” she began.
“Never mind,” he interrupted.
And then she remembered she hadn’t heard the front door click shut when he came in. Her lips quivered in fear. He’d planned this all along.
Edouard opened the drawers of her desk, rooting through the papers and dossiers. Fear coursed down her spine. Nothing was going as it should. Instead of listening to her, he’d taken control. But he wouldn’t find the bank accounts.
He paused and stared around her office. “It’s all a song-and-dance, Léonie. You want Benoît’s file, and for all I know you woul
d go so far as to steal it. But you’d counted on using me to get it.”
“Non, Edouard. Why can’t you understand that what’s in this file puts everything at risk?”
“Lies. Like always.”
She held her breath. He steered her toward a framed oil painting, reached up and lifted it off the wall. Edouard pointed to the circular steel safe that had been hidden behind the picture.
“Open it,” Edouard said.
“Only the chargé d’affaires knows the combination,” she said.
She prayed to Ogoun, clutching the knotted straw.
One of the men pulled out a drill from a duffel bag and headed to the safe.
“Stop him, Edouard.”
“No wonder my uncle left you,” he said.
Little did he know that his uncle had left only after he’d infected her with the “weakness.” Edouard remained the ungrateful, spoiled child who’d run off to join the rebels, put-ting his family at the mercy of the Duvaliers. The lies she’d had to tell, the corruption she’d been forced to cover up, to survive. Edouard hadn’t changed.
He stood close to her now. So close, she could smell his faint citrus scent. Then his hands rested on her trembling shoulders. He lifted her chin, staring into her eyes. “Still shielding a black houngan, an evil dictator, even when he’s in exile.” He shook his head. “You’re living on blood money.”
As if she’d had a choice. But it wasn’t like that now. It was worse.
“In Port-au-Prince, you closed your eyes with rest of the elite,” he said. “You’re all the same, barricading yourselves in your villas to avoid the sight of blood running in the gutters from the maimed limbs hacked off by machetes. You tried to blind me too, but I can see reality.”
“Edouard, pursuing the Duvalier bank investigation will stall the loans the Haitian people need so desperately.”
“Is that really what scares you, Léonie?”
He’d ruin their chance of obtaining a World Bank loan. Rather than procuring Benoît’s file, she’d aroused Edouard’s suspicions.
