Read Killer Critique Online

Authors: Alexander Campion

Killer Critique (10 page)

BOOK: Killer Critique
11.88Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads
“But isn't he chairman and part owner of a large
vignoble?”
Capucine asked.
“Maybe he is, but he still doesn't have two euro coins to rub together in his jeans. And I'll tell you why. You think I'm a complete retard, but I'm
so
not. I asked my lawyer to check him out. It seems Guy's shares, as well as the rest of the family's, are in some sort of trust. The way it works is that the family votes on everything and they decide how the money gets doled out. He's got lots of shares but not even close to a majority. So he doesn't ever get any gelt from the company. Got that,
Commissaire,
or is this too complicated for you?”
“But he still gets a salary,” Capucine said. “So why do you have to pay for his dinners?”
“Who the hell cares? I dunno where his shekels go. And I don't give a rusty fuck. Maybe Guy has another little honey on the side. Hey, there's an idea. We could do a threesome. How cool would that be? But he hasn't come clean on that one yet.” She rooted around in her oversized handbag, pulled out a pack of Marlboro Reds, lit one, and blew a thick stream of smoke through her smile.
“Okay if I smoke?” she asked rhetorically. Capucine pushed an ashtray toward her.
“So what do you see in him?” Isabelle asked.
“What do I see in him? What
don't
I see in him? Guy's my little puppy dog. He's pleased as shit to follow me around all day. He never asks for anything. Well, yeah, a little small change maybe, but so fucking what? Sometimes he's like, ‘Let's go to such and such three-star restaurant tonight' or ‘I need a new suit. Let's go get one at Chaumet,' but that's nothing. It doesn't even count as money. And the best part is he doesn't even like sex. Guys my own age are all over me all the time. You can't even get a decent night's sleep. Guy, man, his head hits the pillow and he's gonzo. It's great!”
“That's not the impression you two give.”
“Don't tell me you fell for that crap. You're
so
like somebody's grandmother. That started out as a joke, and now everyone just assumes that's all we do. Take that crazy blind restaurant where the guy was killed. Everyone, and I mean everyone, had his mind in the gutter as to why I was under the table. Well, duh, I was railing a few lines of Special K down there. And, hey, try that one in the dark.” She laughed happily.
“Ketamine. A veterinary tranquilizer,” Isabelle said, entirely unnecessarily, for Capucine's benefit.
Sybille rolled her eyes.
“You know, that place got really old after about three minutes with the bad food and people making a mess and squealing and all. What the hell else was there to do? K's something you should definitely try, Officer. It gives you a nice mellow outlook on life. You could really use that.”
“Have you always liked older men?” Capucine asked.
“Duh. Who wouldn't? They're not childish like guys my age, and I know just how to get what I want from them. My daddy taught me all about that.”
CHAPTER 16
E
ven though Parisians—with the help of a good bit of wishful thinking—prided themselves on their lack of materialism, most of them shared one common object of unbridled desire. This was an apartment on the quai opposite the place de la Concorde. Every night its brightly lit, two-story-high semicircular window sneered down at the traffic stalled in the square. Exasperated motorists inching forward toward their humdrum dinners and domestic squabbles imagined an enormous living room with a spectacular view, populated by a select handful—remarkable physically, sartorially, and intellectually—sipping
martinis améri-cains
in tiny cone-shaped crystal glasses while prattling on with brilliant insouciance.
As it happened, the apartment in question was owned by Capucine's cousin Jacques, who had purchased it when the serendipitous confluence of three substantial inheritances coincided with the apartment's appearance on the market.
Jacques was the closest thing Capucine had to a brother. They had been inseparable companions since early childhood, and now that Jacques held some vague but apparently august position in the DGSE, France's intelligence agency, they shared a loose professional bond. In fact, Jacques had bailed her out on more than one of her cases.
In keeping with his mercurial personality, Jacques redecorated the flat at least twice a year. Capucine was convinced there was some deep Freudian significance to this contrived instability but didn't have the slightest inkling of what it might be.
He had called her the week before with an invitation to a dinner party—a
dîner en ville,
as he had described it—in honor of the latest refurbishment. Capucine was to come at seven, an hour and a half before Alexandre and the other guests, so he “could catch up on all his nubile cousin's little peccadilloes” while he supervised the preparation of dinner.
For a split second after she arrived, let in by one of the catering staff, Capucine thought the new furniture had been delivered that afternoon and was still covered with dust cloths. Every single piece in the cavernous room was draped in fabric tinted in a blue so pale it took an effort to perceive the hue.
“You hate it, of course,” Jacques said, entering the gigantic room, foppish as ever in a light brown silk suit, the fourth button on each sleeve conspicuously unbuttoned, a dark blue silk shirt open to mid-chest, giving him an aggressively relaxed, rock-star look. “It was done by a decorator who is profoundly influenced by Christo and Jeanne-Claude. You know, the couple who drape bridges and islands and things.”
“It's quite ... interesting,” Capucine said.
“No it isn't. The only appeal is that every time someone sits on anything, the decorator has to come back the next morning to redrape the cloth, while glaring at me in reproach.” He emitted a loud cackle halfway between a hyena's snicker and a donkey's bray. “Truth be told, it's been this way for a week and I'm already more than a little sick of it.”
He sidled up to Capucine with a burlesque of a Lothario leer. “It's delightful to see you,
ma petite cousine,
” he murmured and embraced her in a hug that began with an exploration of her back and proceeded gradually south. When his fingers reached her waist, Capucine pulled away and slapped him playfully on the cheek.
He winked and took her by the hand.
“Come with me
mon petit chou
—little cabbage of my life. We're needed in the kitchen.”
The kitchen was also brand new. The ceiling had been raised into the floor above to form a perfect cube. Every surface, including floor and ceiling, was covered in apparently seamless, gleaming white lacquer, like a squash court from hell. No appliances or kitchen utensils were visible. The room was completely bare save for a long brilliantly white marble table in the exact center.
“Hideous, isn't it?” Jacques said. “I can't wait until Alexandre sees it. He'll be apoplectic.” He neighed his demonic laugh.
Three women in white aprons unloaded aluminum boxes onto the center table, taking particular care not to scratch the surface. A fourth, who looked vaguely familiar to Capucine, wandered around feverishly, searching the room frantically. In a flash Jacqueline de Sansavour's photo from a
Figaro Madame
article the week before popped up in Capucine's consciousness. Apparently, she was officially the ne plus ultra of the Paris catering scene.
“Excuse me,” Madame de Sansavour said nervously. “There must be a stove,
non?
”
“Of course,” Jacques said. “Right here. Just push the panel and the door opens up.” He pushed. The panel slid upward, disappearing with a discreet sibilant hiss, revealing a professional brushed-steel range.
Madame de Sansavour breathed a deep sigh of relief.
“Enough of all this domesticity,” Jacques said to Capucine. “Come and have a drink. We have a good hour and a half until Tubby Hubby arrives. I'm sure we can pass the time in all sorts of creative ways.”
She followed her cousin into what he called “his room,” a cramped, cluttered student's studio with disordered bookshelves along one wall, a particularly messy desk, an unmade single bed. The room was categorically off-limits to decorators and Capucine knew it was where Jacques spent most of his time when at home, almost never wandering out into the rest of the huge apartment if guests weren't present.
An overturned wooden wine crate held a small array of bottles, a few glasses, and a bottle of Krug champagne in a dented tin ice bucket. In a maternal gesture, Capucine straightened the sheets on the bed, pulled the covers up, and sat, knees primly together, on the edge.
Without asking, Jacques poured Capucine a flute of champagne and two fingers of Japanese whiskey for himself. Furtively, he added an ice cube.
Putting his index finger to his lips and sitting next to her on the bed, he said, “Not a word to Portly Partner. He'd never forgive the desecration of the whiskey he taught me to drink.
“I see from the scraps of paper that flit across my desk that you're working on an amusing little case. A restaurant critic who's been snuffed out in flagrante critico, as it were. What fun. And it seems that you're giving that poor, valiant
juge d'instruction,
August-Marie Parmentier de La Martinière, such a hard time, it borders on insubordination.” He cackled loudly.
“And I also understand that your suspects include a delectable, barely pubescent sexpot movie star, the current winner of the Prix Goncourt, the owner of one of the most well-known wine domains in France, the heiress to one of the great fortunes of France, who is amusing herself by dabbling in the restaurant business, and our dear childhood playmate who now hobnobs with the government's ministerial cabinets.”
“You do get that kind of dramatis personae when murders happen in haute cuisine restaurants,” Capucine replied with studied nonchalance. “Your little scraps of paper seem to be particularly well informed. Your people wouldn't happen to be bugging the
PJ's
phones, would they?”
“Bug? I wouldn't even know what such a vulgarism might mean. But when you're entrusted with the protection of the patrimony of
La Belle France
from the onslaught of the philistine invasion, your weapons must be very well honed indeed.”
Capucine did not smile at this. Jacques frowned in mock concern.
“Oh, stop fretting. Be kind to your dear little juge. Underneath it all, you know he loves you. He's a little shy. Just don't lend him any money. He'll be unemployed by the Saint-Sylvestre,” Jacques said, using the French term for New Year's Eve.
“That's not it at all.”
“Oh, how dim of me. You think Corpulent Consort might be on the murderer's list. Could that be it?”
“More or less. I'm concerned that there's some chance these are not rational, motive-driven murders. Some deranged person may be engineering some sort of vendetta against journalists or restaurant critics or something like that.”
Jacques hee-hawing laugh exploded. “A serial killer in France! Can you imagine? You've been watching too much American TV. Serial killing is just not our thing. The only one we've ever had who didn't ride a horse was Eusebius Pieydagnelle. And he only killed hot young women, presumably because they laughed at his name. If my parents had saddled me with a moniker like that, I'd probably try to take out as much of the population as I could, too.”
“Be serious, Jacques. Two critics have been killed while reviewing restaurants. In virtually identical circumstances. Of
course
it makes you think. And the worst part is that the
juge d'instruction
is making it impossible for me to take any action on the case. I feel so impotent.”
“I'd have thought you'd be used to that with Geriatric Gastronome.”
“Jacques, please! I need to talk to you about this.”
“All is not lost. My little pieces of paper also tell me that the PJ was naughtily negligent in the way they reported the second murder to the magistrates. Fingers will be rapped with the administrative ruler in due course, but you still have a few days' grace before your juge reappears on your horizon.”
“But he'll be back. And then I won't be able to do a thing. I may need you to pull some strings for me one more time.”
“
Cousine,
even the DGSE doesn't dare stick its bloodstained fingers into the magistrates' hall. You know what's inscribed over their door.
‘Lasciate ogni speranza, voi ch'entrate'
—‘Abandon all hope, ye who enter.' This time, I'm afraid you're on your own.” His hee-haw was so piercing that Jacqueline de Sansavour appeared at the door, alarmed.
“Is everything all right?” she asked with wrinkled brow.
Jacques favored her with an enigmatic smile.
Madame de Sansavour proffered a dinner plate on which the perfectly browned carcass of a small bird lay on a bed of dark green sauce, surrounded by almost fluorescently orange baby carrots and brilliant green, undersized string beans.
“I thought I'd show you what you're serving tonight,” she said her voice lowered conspiratorially. “It's a recipe I pinched from Béatrice Mesnagier.”
Capucine and Jacques darted each other a conspiratorial glance.
Mistaking their look for a lack of recognition, Madame de Sansavour said, “She's the up-and-coming star of the Parisian restaurant world. The
tout Paris
talks only of her. This is quail stuffed with foie gras on a bed of
pistou,
accompanied by carrots and
haricots primeurs.
Of course, they're not really primeur this late in the season. I have a supplier who plants late to make them look like early spring vegetables. What do you think?”
Both Capucine and Jacques peered intently, sniffed as energetically as hound puppies and beamed idiotically.
When she left, Jacques looked at Capucine thoughtfully. “You know,” he began, “this
juge
of yours—”
Jacques fell silent, cocked his head, eyebrows raised, ears piqued at the door.
In a loud theatrical voice he said, “Quick,
ma cousine,
slip your panties back on and pretend nothing happened. That always works.”
Alexandre walked into the room scowling. Biting her lip, Capucine tried very hard not to giggle. Alexandre was such a sucker for Jacques' gibes.
Capucine could never come to grips with her husband's jealousy of her favorite cousin. True, Jacques loved to tease Alexandre with veiled double entendres of implied past sexual episodes between him and Capucine. True, too, that in the years since their marriage Jacques had refined his repartee to a degree that he could enrage Alexandre with the vaguest of references. But surely Alexandre could see that it was all just affectionate ribbing. Inexplicably, he never did.
“So you've taken to cooking, have you?” Alexandre asked Jacques a little coldly.
“I have indeed. I've been sweating like a navvy at my stove all afternoon and right now have a few helpers cleaning up the kitchen before the guests arrive.”
Alexandre harrumphed. “I just ran into Jacqueline de Sansavour. I wrote a piece on her a few weeks back. Her catering is the current rage. I wouldn't have thought you'd have the good taste to hire her.”
“So, Jacques,” Capucine interjected hastily, “who's coming tonight?”
“As Françoise Sagan used to say, ‘The four sexes will be represented.' A novelist whose stories all take place in Japan, a poet who writes only in classic alexandrines, a sculptor who does delightfully nasty things with steel, and a dancer who has elevated the tango to new heights.”
“I see,” Alexandre said. “And I take it Capucine and I are here to represent the other two sexes, is that it?”
“And so there will be seven at the table?” Capucine asked, a little more loudly than necessary.
“Oh, yes,” Jacques drawled, aping a Sixteenth Arrondissement accent. “I've given the matter of the optimum number of people at a dinner party a great deal of thought. Conventional wisdom has it that eight is the ideal number. But it strikes me that an odd number is far superior. Five is too few. There is just a single cumbersome conversation. Seven is perfect. The conversation fragments, regroups, and fragments again. And with an odd number everyone tries to guess who's the odd person out. That creates a delightful creative tension.”
BOOK: Killer Critique
11.88Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

Other books

Complete Poems by C.P. Cavafy
Grief Encounters by Stuart Pawson
From Baghdad To America by Jay Kopelman, Lt. Col. USMC (ret.)
For Those Who Hunt the Wounded Down by David Adams Richards
Dead Man's Wharf by Pauline Rowson
Invisible Prey by John Sandford