by Cara Black
Why not tell her in the first place? she wondered. She rubbed the fogged-up window with her sleeve so she could see out. It made sense, if they’d used this exit to take Mireille and the others out unseen.
“They’re more than lowlifes,” he said.
“What do you mean?” She stared at him. “Tell me.”
He gave a half-smile, pulled her closer, tightening his grip, his hand pulling down her zipper. “Let’s talk it over at my place.”
Then she saw that his other hand was inside her half-open handbag, reaching for her wallet. Talk about lowlifes.
“Right here. Number 34. I’m Ricot.”
“No names.” She put her hand over his mouth. “It’s better that way.”
His eyes widened. Large light-brown eyes. She hoisted her leg and straddled him in the driver’s seat, pinning him down, keeping her hand over his mouth. “You’ve got beautiful eyes. And of course you want to keep them.”
The tip of her Swiss Army knife touched the jugular vein in his neck.
“Now get your hand off my wallet.”
He did.
“And zip up my dress.”
He did.
“Bon. I’ll ask you again: how many?”
She took her hand off his mouth.
“Two Africans,” he said, “big mecs.”
“You’re observant. What about the woman?”
“Woman? I remember the mecs because they broke my neighbor’s car windows. Drunk and ready to fight.”
“And a woman?” She pressed the knife point on his bob-bing Adam’s apple.
“That’s right. She looked sleepy, but I scarcely saw her.”
Mireille. Drugged?
“But your neighbor took down their license plate number to claim insurance, n’est-ce pas?”
“Put the knife down.”
The Deux Chevaux’s engine sputtered. Heat rose from the floor; she wished these old models had defrosters.
“As soon as you tell me.”
“I wrote it down. The paper’s in my pocket.”
She felt around in his leather jacket pocket. Used tissues, a crumpled pack of Gitanes, a few coins, and a balled-up paper on which was scribbled what appeared a license plate number.
“This?”
He swallowed. His Adam’s apple bobbed. “Oui.”
“See, it’s not hard. I knew you’d cooperate.”
She kept the knife point on his neck.
He stared at her. “You know . . . it’s kind of exciting like this. People say. . . .”
She felt the bulge in his pants, and in a quick movement she opened the door and got out. “But you won’t say anything. I know you live at 34, rue Henri Barbusse. And you never saw me. Right, Ricot?”
AIMÉE STOOD IN a telephone booth near the Jardin du Luxembourg and thumbed through the yellow pages, searching under “Boucherie.” Three pages of butchers, along with horse butchers, listed by arrondissement. She tried a hunch and ran her fingernail down the 5th arrondissement listings.
Boucherie Chazel on rue Saint Victor advertised “Boucherie, charcuterie, volaille gros—Demi-gros pour restaurants et collectivités.”
Twenty minutes later, she stood on rue Saint Victor, a street that had once abutted the old Philippe Auguste wall, below the level of the next street and connected to it by three sagging steps. Boucherie Chazel lay shuttered and dark; its dark green wooden storefront adjoined a seventeenth-century hôtel particulier. On the door was a sign reading “Closed until end of September due to a death in the family.”
Great.
She didn’t find a parked Boucherie Chazel truck there, nor on the parallel rue Pontoise, where the old pool she remembered from swimming classes was located. Nor in the side street, with the stone-blackened thirteenth-century Collège des Bernardins, a former Cistercian abbey. Nor on any more distant side streets leading to Boulevard Saint Germain.
Her adrenalin subsiding, she sat down, exhausted, on the steps and leaned against a pillar of Église Saint-Nicolas-du- Chardonnet. The church, a bastion of rightwing Catholics, still held masses in Latin and counted Le Pen among the members of its congregation. Zola had studied next door until, unable to pay his fees, he had been expelled.
Her shoulders and legs ached from the climb from the sewer. But time mattered, and she forced her mind to run through the possibilities; instead of working at the butcher’s, these men might have bought the truck secondhand.
She found the phone number in the back of her address book . . . a 24/7 operation. A direct line only used by the flics. She punched in the number and hoped she could invent a good enough story.
“Vehicle Division, Tissot,” said a tired voice. The bureau at 3, Quai de l’Horloge, around the corner from the Prefecture, kept the cartes grisés, cards, and records for all vehicles registered in Paris.
“Juppe, s’il vous plaît.”
“He’s on sick leave.”
Just her luck. Juppe had graduated from the police academy with her father and done them the occasional favor. She rethought her strategy.
“His sciatica again?” She made a clucking sound. “Sorry to hear that, Officer Tissot. Maybe you can run a license plate for me.”
“Eh? Those requests go through division.”
By the book, this Tissot.
“And in normal cases I’d use the proper channels. But . . . we’ve got a situation.”
“Everyone has a ‘situation,’” Tissot said. “We’ve got a back-log of requests. Priority goes to that white Fiat Uno.”
The Fiat Uno “seen” speeding away from Princess Di’s crash in Pont de l’Alma. The damn Fiat Uno. She thought hard. She could use that.
“Didn’t I say that?” She didn’t wait for his reply. “We’ve had a sighting.”
She heard clicks in the background. What sounded like a cup clinking on a saucer. “Your priority access code?” There was a definite spark of interest in Tissot’s voice.
“Do you think I wrote it down or remember?” she said. “Listen, I’m on ground patrol, our routine sweep netted a Fiat Uno.”
“Give me the license plate number.”
“877 LXW 75,” she said reading the number Ricot had written down. Tissot wouldn’t know it belonged to a truck, not a Fiat Uno, until he’d pulled the registration.
“Paris plates.” Tissot sounded alert now.
“How long will it take?”
“There’s a backlog,” Tissot said again. More clicking in the background. “Running a registration takes a few hours.”
“But I’m in the street. . . .”
“And I’ve got your mobile number on the screen.”
Zut! Already a record of her number at the central bureau. She couldn’t help that now.
“Of course you’re alerting traffic—”
“An all-points bulletin,” he interrupted. “Priority one for Fiat Uno sightings. Location?”
“Rue Henri Barbusse, heading toward Jardin du Luxem-bourg.”
Within the hour, every parking garage and street in a five-kilometer radius would be scoured, the whole of Paris within four hours. She’d unleashed the powers-that-be. A scary proposition.
“Contact me with the address,” she said.
“You and a few others,” Tissot said.
The trick consisted in getting there first, she thought. They’d find that truck unless it was parked in a private garage. She pushed that thought down.
All she could do now was wait.
Her hand touched something. Mireille’s bag. Stupid . . . in her haste, she’d forgotten all about it.
She took off her jacket, folded it inside-out, and laid it over her knees. One by one she set out the contents of Mireille’s bag on the silk jacket lining. A key chain with one key, a string of red and black beads, a worn holy card showing an old-fashioned Saint George on a horse, a loose twenty-franc note. She sniffed the myrrh-smelling stick of incense. Aimée’s address was written on the back of a used Metro ticket. A small leather-bound journal.
No cell phone or wallet.
Not much.
In the back of the journal she found yet another black-and-white photo of her father. He wore a police uniform from the sixties, a stiff round hat and a cape over his shoulders. She remembered that cape, weighted down with regulation lead pellets to avoid flapping in the wind. His familiar grin. He was thinner and sported a moustache. A pang of longing hit her.
Her chest heaved. She couldn’t even find her sister, much less save her. Sobs erupted from deep within her. Tears dampened her cheeks.
The banner in the photo’s background read Département de Géographie, Sorbonne, “Au revoir.” A farewell party. She realized the photo was torn, like the other one. Odd. On the back, just the letters JCL and BC remained from the original inscription. One of his friends at the Sorbonne whom Morbier had mentioned? Something niggled at her, some connection. But what?
She’d think about that later.
The traffickers would kill Mireille. Self-pity wouldn’t help to find her. She wiped her face with her sleeve.
Her cell phone vibrated in her pocket.
Tissot was fast.
Eagerly she grabbed her pen, hit ANSWER. “Allo? You found it?”
She heard the clink of glasses, muffled conversation in the background, then an inhaled breath.
“Benoît’s ear was severed to make it look like black vodou.”
She recognized Edouard Brasseur’s voice. Edouard, the elusive rebel, the one who shared the saint’s birthday with Benoît.
“But black vodou’s not practiced anymore, Edouard.” She fingered the black and red beads on her lap. “Not since the last century.”
“You’ve done your homework,” Edouard said. “This is a ruse, to divert suspicion from the murderer.” She heard him take a breath. “Throw blame on superstitious Haitians, tie it to vodou, black rituals . . . the other thing besides poverty we’re famous for.”
“You mean the tonton macoutes could be responsible?”
“Or a copycat,” he said. She heard anguish mixed with anger in his voice. “Tonton macoutes peel their victims’ faces off to prevent their spirits from finding rest in the afterlife. You said to call you when I knew what that signified.”
She sat up. The pillar poked into her spine.
“You didn’t know this before?”
“They want the file,” he said.
She blinked. “Wait a minute. You mean the file with Benoît’s report to the World Bank? Who wants it? Hydrolis?”
“Mireille knows who.”
“Can you prove that?” she said.
“Who else? Benoît trusted her for some reason,” Edouard said. ”The old guard said as much, non? Mireille picked it up. . . .”
“Now he’s dead. Pushed under a car.”
Mireille had not had a clue as to the contents of the envelope. That much Aimée believed.
“You’re sure?” he asked.
“I got there too late,” she said.
What did Edouard have to do with it?
“What’s with you?” He exhaled. “I’m not the bad guy.”
“You could say anything. There’s a price on your head.”
“Tell me about it,” he said. He sighed. “My job’s investigating Duvalier’s financial assets hidden in Europe,” he said. “But that’s not the issue here. There’s more. I’ll share, but I need to meet Mireille. Before they get to her. Deal?”
He assumed she knew Mireille’s whereabouts.
“Too late.” Her voice caught.
“What do you mean?” he asked, startled.
The call-waiting signal clicked on her phone.
She couldn’t lose this call.
“Mireille’s been abducted.”
“Where are you?” he said.
The line clicked again. The vehicle bureau, with the address she needed to find Mireille?
“I’ll call you back.” She hit ANSWER.
“Check your eyesight, eh?” said Tissot. “The carte grise and license plate you asked about are registered to Marc-Louis Chazel, residence 14 bis, rue Saint Victor. But it’s a Citroën truck, not a Fiat Uno.”
Aimée thought back to the shuttered butcher shop, the hotel particulier . . . so the owners didn’t live above the shop, but behind it.
“Was the truck reported stolen?”
“Eh? That’s besides the point.”
“So the truck was stolen?”
“Not according to the bulletin issued two minutes ago.”
“Merci.”
* * *
A DEAD END. Or maybe not.
Think like the perp, her father always said. Look at it from their angle, reason it their way. Logic dictated that one of the traffickers worked at the butcher shop and had use of the truck. With the shop closed and the proprietors gone for a few weeks, their quarters and what looked like a courtyard in back would be empty. The mecs would have free rein. Big mecs, strong enough to break the plasterer’s arm and to smash car windows. Angry, arrogant, and drunk. It had been stupid to think she could break in and take them on by herself. And then it hit her . . . she wouldn’t have to.
She clicked BACK. No Edouard. She left four words on his voicemail: 14, rue Saint Victor.
She’d provoked a citywide police alert that had netted this address. Go for the gold, she thought: involve emergency services. From a public phone near Maison de la Mutualité, a thir-ties deco conference hall noted for leftist political party meetings and Communist rallies, she punched in 18.
“Brigade de pompier,” said a voice.
“Help! The smoke alarm’s gone off in Boucheries Chazel. They’re away, and I smell smoke.”
“Calmez-vous, Mademoiselle. . . .”
“14 bis, rue Saint Victor. There’s smoke’s coming from the warehouse in the courtyard!”
She hung up and walked, counting in her head. Forty-three seconds later, a siren wailed from the direction of the fire station at Cardinal Lemoine, a Metro stop away. Distant, but coming closer. Two minutes and fifty seconds later, a long hook-and-ladder fire truck turned the corner. Bravo: faster than the Metro.
Wind rustled the leaves. She shivered under the dappled shadows cast by the moonlight filtering through the few remaining plane trees by the old Collège de Bernardins. The dilapidated medieval stone abbey and refectory had been many things, a plaque in front of it noted: a police station, a center for lost dogs, and until recently a fire station.
From the corner near the sagging stairs she heard the screech of the fire truck’s brakes. Saw the lime-green coats of the firemen at the hôtel particulier’s massive arched green double door, which they opened with their key. A master key to all locks was used in such situations when a whole block could ignite in minutes. Matter of fact, a fireman had told her once, they always used the key, since it took too long to wake tenants to gain entry.
Motors rumbled. The fire truck’s searchlight scanned the stone façade and grillework balconies. Motorized ladders extended into the dark sky, hoses stretched out over the cobbles connected to hydrants. A car pulled up; the occupant got out, pulled on a fire chief’s helmet, and ran ahead.
If anyone could roust human traffickers and their cargo within minutes, the pompiers could. Aimée waited. Lights ap-peared in windows.
In the courtyard, she saw inhabitants assembling in assorted nightgowns. “What the hell . . . in the middle of the night?” said a woman, pulling a robe over a bustier and garters. Others demanded to know what was going on.
Aimée stepped over the hoses to enter a sandblasted lime-stone seventeenth century-style courtyard. She scanned the tenant list quickly. In the arcade to the left there was a small glass-roofed warehouse built into the wall of the crumbling Collège des Bernardins bearing the sign DELIVERIES BOUCHERIE CHAZEL. Several men with hatchets herded figures through a wooden door.
A hand caught her arm. “No sightseeing, Mademoiselle. Time to leave.”
She turned. “I live here. There.” She pointed to a dark window on the se
cond floor. “What’s going on? A fire . . . another arson attack?”
“Wait over there with the others, Mademoiselle.”
She saw no traffickers. No Mireille.
“False alarm.” The Fire Chief stalked from the warehouse. “Someone’s going to pay for this. You’ve traced the call?”
Thank God she’d called from a public phone.
She couldn’t hear the rest. The men were rolling up the hoses. Incensed tenants were demanding the right to return to their domiciles. Firemen moved, and then she saw the Boucheries Chazel truck.
She couldn’t let them leave.
“Monsieur . . . a word.” She edged close to the Fire Chief. “The butcher shop staff sleeps in the warehouse. They’re disgruntled at the Chazels. . . .”
“Eh . . . where’s your apartment?”
“Souchet. Deuxième étage. Left.” Luckily, she’d glanced at the roster of tenants on her way in.
“How do you know this?”
“They threatened Monsieur Chazel. But I don’t see them here.”
He hadn’t moved. Desperate to get him to investigate, to find Mireille and the traffickers, she continued: “I heard them threatening to ruin his equipment. Is it arson?” She gasped, put her hand over her mouth, as if catching herself. “I don’t mean to suggest . . . but flammable chemicals . . . well, it’s a hazard to the building. The whole street could go up.”
Small or large, every butcher shop had at least minimal slaughtering facilities. Sanitation and safety guidelines governed the procedures under strict Ministry of Health requirements. To clean saws, knives, and the cutting and skinning instruments, flammable liquids were used. And nowadays, she knew, butchers used small propane torches to burn off the fluff and small feathers that remained after a chicken was plucked. She’d seen the blue propane gas tanks when she passed the local butchers’ back doors.
“Flammable? You mean attempted arson? That’s a serious accusation, Mademoiselle Souchet.”
“Accusation? I know what I heard. Monsieur Chazel’s unwell; it shocked me. But those men—”
A scuffle erupted among figures near the warehouse. “Chief, we found two men in the back!”
“Can you identify these men?”
