Murder at the Lanterne Rouge (10 page)

“As I said, from the luggage store.” She paused. “She may use another name.”

“No one is who they say they are, Mademoiselle.”

She nodded. “True. About five feet tall, black ponytail.”

“Generic. Look on the street. Describes a good quarter of them.”

She pulled her wallet back. “I’ve got more details. First I need to know if you’re interested.”

He met her gaze. “Five hundred francs interested.”

Expensive.

“Two fifty up front,” she said, “the rest when I find her.”

“I can’t guarantee …”

Aimée slid the francs over the counter. “She speaks good French.”

“Narrows it,” he said, pocketing the francs.

“She’s part of Ching Wao’s cleaning operation in the thirteenth arrondissement,” she said.

“Ching Wao’s gone.
Phfft
.” He opened his palm.

“Tell me something I don’t know, Aram. When I got there, his tea was still warm.”

A gleam of admiration flashed in Aram’s eyes. “
Bon
, he pulled girls from several sweatshops. Mixed and matched. For another hundred, there’s a list for you.”

“And a way in?”

“That’s extra.”

A
NXIOUS
, R
ENÉ LOCKED
the door of his Citroën on a side street near Leduc Detective. Prévost had been called out. René had given his statement to a sergeant who’d turned a deaf ear to his questions. So far no one from the dojo had heard from Meizi. After obtaining the address of the property management agency that had rented the space to Ching Wao, he found the office closed for the weekend.

Meizi didn’t answer her phone.

He stepped over an icy puddle in the cobbled street. And slipped. He grabbed the wall, a sharp pain shooting up to his thigh. René hated days like this, the permeating dampness. He longed for his hot water bottle and an Epsom-salt bath, the only relief. He glanced down narrow, congested rue Vauvilliers, thinking of the long three blocks to reach Leduc Detective.

His mind went back to the e-mail his friend Marcel had sent him last night from Silicon Valley.

Not for the first time, René wondered why he slogged through damp, cold Paris when he could be enjoying the beach
and sun, the chance to bite into a new field as it developed. Join the ground floor of these start-ups. Mountain View … where the hell was that, and how far from the beach?

But he knew the answer.

He trudged ahead, concentrating on avoiding the ice, the slush, the slick pavers. He turned the corner and found his way blocked by a delivery van. The chill blast of wind cut René’s cheeks and sent shooting cold up his legs. Why hadn’t he taken a taxi?

Then he realized he’d circled back the way he’d just come from in this warren of streets. Right back to his parked car.
Merde!
He shooed away a fat pigeon in his path. At his height, his gaze barely reaching over the parked car hoods, everything loomed gigantic. He never let on to Aimée how often he got lost on foot.

Or his feelings for her, which simmered just under the surface—until he met Meizi. Meizi gave him happiness he’d never known before. Or would give him, at least, over time, once her parents warmed to him. But she’d forgotten his ring on the table.

Had she dumped him, just like that? A horn blared, interrupting his thoughts. His phone trilled in his pocket.

Meizi. Excited, he hit answer.

“Are you all right?” he gasped.

“As soon as you give me a clue concerning the spyware tracking popping up on your desktop, René,” said Saj.

Disappointed, he stood on the damp pavement in the slush and biting cold.

“Network it to your terminal, Saj,” he said. “Have you dug up anything on Ching Wao’s business license?”

“A common name, it turns out.”

“So let’s narrow them down.”

Time to get to work.

H
ALF AN HOUR
later, after a plate of spiced lamb couscous, Aimée sat at a Formica table in a back nook adjoining the hotel’s kitchen.

“There are only three addresses on the list,” Aimée told Aram over her tiny glass of sweet mint tea.

“Be happy you’ve got that,” he said.

“Pretty expensive, Aram.”

“So’s the payoff I make to stay open. Factor that in.”

“Protection money?” Aimée pulled out her tube of Chanel Red, swiped her lips.

“At first I refused, but fires in my kitchen changed my mind.”

“You’re not saying the
flics
—?”

“Chinese mafia,” Aram interrupted, lowering his voice. “I pay, like everyone on the street. They extort, kidnap shop owners’ kids if they don’t pay. Demand the gold bars under the bed and a cut in the business.” He sipped his tea. “The quartier’s wrapped up tight, all ‘in-house.’ ”

No wonder the
flics
got nowhere.

“And the girls?”

“I don’t know, don’t ask.”

“For the meal, Aram.” She slid ten francs over the table.

But he shoved the money back. “I invited you.”

Service compris?
She liked that, but wrote it off to ingrained Arab hospitality. “
Merci
. What’s the word on the street about last night?”

He smiled. Again that white smile. “No one sees. No one hears anything. The usual.”

“Let me understand this. You’re saying if someone did witness the murder, they—”

“Shut their mouths.” He sliced his index finger across his neck. “
Compris?
”

She suppressed a shudder, picked up her bag and pushed back her chair from the table. Paused at the distant look in Aram’s close-set eyes.

“That incident with your cousin, not my doing,” he said. “Just so you know. The hard stuff, not my thing.”

She believed him. “But I’m proud of Sebastien. He heeded the wake-up call.”

“Not many do.” And from the downcast look, she realized Aram knew of what he spoke.

A
IMÉE HEADED HER
scooter up rue des Vertus, past the Tai Chi practitioners in the Square du Temple, where denuded trees shivered in the wind. Across from Eglise Sainte Elisabeth, she turned right at la poste, whose grilled doors were open to a line of seniors snaking out to the street. Lining up for their monthly pension checks. Even in this weather!

A few brave brasserie patrons sat outside on rattan chairs under flapping awnings. Here the one-way streets were double-parked, and Aimée narrowly missed a woman pushing a stroller. She had to hop off her scooter and thread it through cité Dupetit-Thouars by foot. Narrow lanes of shuttered shop fronts sported peeling posters and flaking stucco, just as in black-and-white Brassai photos of prewar Paris. A
luthier
, a stringed-instrument maker, still operated behind dark windows. Otherwise, the old shops looked deserted, awaiting the gentrification heralded by the bright, white facade of a trendy kitchenware shop.

She parked her scooter on the slush-covered cobbles at the
curb. Down another open passage lined by two-story buildings, she found 55. Children’s voices came from an interior courtyard.

She pressed the button and the dark-green door clicked. Pushing it open, she found another arched door, its sign engraved in gold letters: Lestimet, Custom Racing Cars.

Posh and exclusive. Not her destination.

“Lost, Mademoiselle?” A Frexpresse deliveryman appeared at the door.

“My friend’s meeting me.”

She gestured to a smaller door, unpolished and water-stained. “Maybe I’m wrong,” she said, making this up as she went along, “but I thought she said it was for rent.”

He nodded. “It’s been vacant on and off for years. Bad leaks. Not on my pickup route anymore.”

Talkative, this man. Didn’t he have deliveries to make?

“Really?” She kept her eye on the door, hoping someone would come out so she could sneak in.

“You’re better off somewhere else. A real headache, I’ve heard.” He leaned forward as if in confidence. “You know, it was a nightclub during the war. They kept it secret from the Boches. Supposedly Maurice Chevalier liked the girls there. Then squatters for years.”

Perfect venue for an illegal sweatshop.

She waited until he’d waved good-bye and buzzed himself out, then put her ear to the door. Ticking noises, the smell of leather.

The door opened and she caught herself before she fell inside.

“
Pardonnez-moi
,” she said to the surprised middle-aged Chinese woman hurrying out. When she didn’t stop, Aimée walked inside.

In the weak light falling from the glass-roofed atelier, thirty or so Chinese women of various ages worked at industrial sewing machines. She scanned the downturned faces. No one
looked up, all intent on feeding thin pigskin leather under the punching needles. Mattresses were stacked against one water-stained wall.

Mon Dieu
, they slept here. They must work in shifts.

In a corner, a group hand-stitched delicate leather straps onto handbags they took from an overflowing bin. These handbags, Aimée realized, sold for thousands of francs in Place Vendôme. It sickened her, almost as much as the pervasive leather odor.

But no Meizi.
Merde
.

A woman in the corner watched Aimée, saying something under her breath to the woman beside her.

Aimée scanned the walls for a schedule, anything listing workers. Perhaps her timing was off, and Meizi worked the night shift? She saw only a calendar, still turned to December, with a picture of a faded Christmas tree. She peered around stacks of cardboard boxes labeled: Fontain,
luxe à la mode fabriqué en France
.

Over the punching machines she heard someone approaching. Best defense was a good offense, her father always said.

She pulled out her phone. Hit mute. “The orders?” She spoke into her silent phone. “But I’m here!” She whipped around to face a short Chinese man in red-framed glasses, with spiked, blond-tipped hair.

“
Attends
,” she said as he opened his mouth. She rolled her eyes and raised her hand. “Of course I’ll ask him,” she said into the phone, nodded as if listening intently, then clicked off.

“Monsieur, I’m Melanie, Fontain’s new distributor,” she said breathlessly and shook his hand. “I won’t take your time except to check if the order’s ready.”

He blinked.

“Don’t tell me it’s not ready?” she said in feigned dismay.

“Tonight’s order?”

“But it’s supposed to be packed, ready for shipment.”

“Shipment?”

Wrong. She had to salvage this, keep him off-kilter.

“New policy,” she said, thinking fast. “We’re treating these leather bags as if they could be shipped overseas. Like the Italian brands. Impresses the retailers.”

Nonplussed, he shrugged. “Not my end.”

“So you’re telling me what, it’s not ready?”

“Ten
P.M
. tonight,” he said. “Like usual. What’s going on?”

“That’s what I’d like to know.”

“Let me call the office, check on this.”

She could only keep this up so long before she blew it. “The schedule’s fixed?” She looked around. “So you’ve got another shift in tonight to guarantee the order’s ready?”

“But who’s your contact, anyway?” His eyes narrowed behind his glasses. “Why don’t you know how we process standing orders?”

She’d ruffled his feathers. Stupid.

She stepped forward, waved her finger close to his red glasses. He didn’t like that, she could tell. “Off point, Monsieur.” She raised her voice: “I’m asking how you’ll fill the order with only this crew. You have more people coming in, yes or no?”

He stepped back. Nervous now. Reached for his phone.

She punched numbers on her cell phone. “Bon, we’re canceling the order.”

A long moment passed. Several heads looked up, then back down at their machines.

“
Mais Mademoiselle, pas de problème
,” he said, clicking off his phone and now fawning. “Six of our finishers arrive in an hour to add the final touches, do quality control.”

He didn’t want to lose the order he thought she had power over. He smiled. Small teeth.

Scared. Good.

“Not those young ones who clean toilets for Ching Wao! We expect experienced hands.”

He blinked again. “I don’t know what you mean.” But he did. “They’ve all worked with me before …”

“How long?”

“On this fine detail? The lining, the seams? Three, four years. We only use the older women.”

And then it hit her. All the women were wearing cotton gloves. “Do those gloves protect their hands?”

“But Mademoiselle, cotton lisle absorbs moisture and oils from the skin to prevent stains and protect the leather. Our workers do precise work, keep their hands supple.”

He approached a woman at the nearest machine. Motioned for her to stop and take off her gloves. “See?”

Disgusted, she looked at the smooth, pale hands. Not work-worn like Meizi’s. But she’d found out what she came for.

“
Bon
, I’ll keep this between you and me,” she said, then turned on her heel and hurried out before he could stop her.

She ran through the next coved door, down the narrow passage and to her scooter, not pausing to catch her breath. All that to find Meizi didn’t work here.

She battled a mounting feeling that going around intimidating sweatshop managers would get her nowhere. She hated snooping, invading the lives of women forced to work in underground sweatshops. A wild-goose chase? Smarter to cut her losses and think of another way. But which way?

She pulled her scooter off the kickstand, turned the ignition, and squeezed the clutch into first gear.

One address down. Two more to go.

A
IMÉE STRODE INTO
the cobbled Passage du Pont-aux-Biches, which led up to a steep stretch of staircase and rue Meslay, a cache of designer wholesale shoe stores. Her friend
Martine labeled it “the stairway to heaven.” But Aimée didn’t have time for shoes now.