Murder in Pigalle (20 page)

“Unless the screws tightening up in the
quartier
stressed him, he’s gambling, amping up. What’s the red tassel?”

“Proof.” Aimée’s palm shook. “This was on Zazie’s backpack the last time I saw her. But the
flics
need more for a case.”

“We don’t,” said René, taking the Cercle de Jeux ticket from her. His jaw set. A single-minded focus in his green eyes. “Now we know Zazie was here. Time le Weasel coughs up her location.”

A woman’s voice carried over the pavers. The apricot light streaming into the arched carriage entrance sharpened her figure into a dark silhouette—a woman not much taller than René, a chignon atop her head and what appeared to be a long apron tied around her ample waist.

The voice, not the one she’d heard on the answering machine minutes before, sounded familiar. She knew that woman’s voice. But from where?

Time to find out.

“
Bonjour
, Madame. You’re the concierge?”

Startled, she fumbled with her shopping bag. Red and white radishes—reminding Aimée of little torpedoes—fell on the cobbles.

“You’ve no business here,” she said, irritated. “It’s private property.”

“
Excusez-moi
, Madame,” said Aimée, bending down with
difficulty to recover the radishes. Soon she’d need a crane for such a maneuver.

The low smoker’s voice was at odds with the woman’s clear complexion and bright grey eyes. “But you’re Leduc’s daughter,
non
? The big eyes, skinny legs—you’re taller now. Grown up.” Her eyes narrowed. “And a bun in the oven, as they say.”

Now Aimée remembered Cécile. A Pigalle working girl whose pimp Aimée’s father had put in prison. Instead of turning informer, as he’d counted on, or showing him any gratitude for freeing her from the life, she’d found another
macquereau
—so named for their sardine-shiny flash suits. Would the woman be friendly to her now or hostile?

“Cécile.” She smiled, bent down to brush both cheeks. “You’re looking even younger than the last time I saw you, if that’s possible.”

“I found
mon Sauveur
,” she said, tugging the gold cross around her neck. “In Saint Rita’s chapel.”

“You look happy,” Aimée said.

“I’ve made my peace with the past. How is Leduc now?”

Aimée looked down at the worn pavers. Almost ten years gone, but the memory seared like it was yesterday.

“He died in a bomb explosion in Place Vendôme,” she said.

“
Désolée
,” she said, glancing at Aimée’s stomach. “He won’t see his grandchild, then. You know, I made my peace with everyone but your father. I always wanted to.” She shrugged. “
C’est dommage.
”

“Can you help us, Cécile?” She folded Cécile’s hand in her own. “Marie-Jo’s friend Zazie’s missing. She’d been following the rapist.”

“That pig who murdered the little girl above the cheese shop?”

Aimée nodded. “Maybe if you could help me find Zazie … Think of it as some way of making it up to Papa.”

Cécile glanced at René. Her brow furrowed.

Impatient, René was tapping his handmade Lobb shoes on the cobbles. She noticed his balled-up fist clutching the detritus from le Weasel’s pocket, the other jingling his car keys. “Cécile, where’s le … I mean, Monsieur von Wessler?”

“Him? If he didn’t answer the door, some modeling job or out gambling, I expect.
Comme d’habitude
, these days.”

René shot her a look. “
Excusez-moi
, Madame. Talk to you later, Aimée.”

Gung ho, René headed to his parked Citroën, which glowed dark green in the sun. Where was he going? To try to track down le Weasel? She wished they’d had a chance to discuss a plan, but she would call him when she’d gotten more information from Cécile.

But before she could, the phone rang in the concierge’s
loge.
“I’m busy, and with any luck that’s the plumber.”

Before Aimée could press her, she’d gone into the
loge
and shut the door.

Aimée’s bad feeling mounted. She hesitated on narrow rue Chaptal, the afternoon sun melting into dim gold reflections on the mansard windows. Did René believe he could force a confession from le Weasel in a casino? René had taken off like a shot, unprepared and without thinking things through, just like he often accused her of doing. He was tired, too. The purple-tinged rings under his eyes worried her.

She knew Zazie had been here, that Zazie had trailed le Weasel and was after the rapist—but had she ever found out they were one and the same? Or just assumed?

In the fog of her pregnancy brain, she’d missed something with Cécile. She couldn’t let this unease in her gut go. Cécile had to know more.

“
Zut
alors
, I’ve told you all I know,” said Cécile peering out from the concierge’s
loge.
She made a
tsk
sound. “But you can’t let things go, eh? Like your father.”

Her father’s lopsided grin flashed in front of her; his tired,
smiling eyes over a bowl of
café au lait
in the morning, poring through police files at the kitchen table. His bathrobe, the musk and fresh laundry scent it carried, her father’s smell. The ache of missing him never went away.

But she wouldn’t let Cécile fob her off again. “It’s more than that, Cécile,” she said. “Zazie’s in danger. What more can you remember? There must be something.”

Cécile glanced at the time. Untied her apron.

“Red hair?”

Aimée stepped closer. “Curly and red. You saw her, Cécile?”

“Marie-Jo and this Zazie went out yesterday afternoon. With this nice man, a friend of her father’s.”

Alarm flooded Aimée with this new twist. Wasn’t the father in prison?

“Were the girls struggling? Upset?”

“
Mais non
, not at all.”

Aimée felt a tightening in her chest. Who the hell was this “nice man”?

“What time was this?”

She thought. “A bit after five. Something like that.”

The most recent sighting of Zazie by several hours. “Can you describe him?”

Cécile shrugged. “Polite.”

“His clothes, color of his hair?”

“I had to sign for a package. Too much going on to notice.”

“Can you just look at these and see if you recognize him?” Aimée pulled René’s camera from her bag, showed her the small screen, clicking each photo. “Was the man who took them—the friend of Marie-Jo’s father—was he any of these men?”

A shake of her head.

Standing in the heat, feeling her ankles starting to swell and at the end of her rope, she pulled out her last shot, the FotoFit. “What about him?”

Cécile blinked. “Jean-Michel!”

Aimée’s heart caught.

“So you know him. Where does he live?”

“Live? But he’s in Marseilles. Talked to them this morning. He’s my nephew.”

“You’re sure?”

“My sister’s boy. But his eyes are bigger.”

Great. The generic FotoFit matched half of the French male population.

“
Un moment
,” Cécile said. “Show me the ones in the camera again.”

Had this jogged her memory?

Aimée clicked forward.

“Go back.
Mais oui
, this one, that’s Marie-Jo’s father. Zacharié.”

Aimée saw a side view of the man’s face, black curly hair.

“Did he take the girls?”

Cécile shook her head. “He asked me which way they’d gone. He seemed worried.”

Aimée filed that away. Now she had to press Cécile while her memory stirred.

“Did this nice man have an accent? Try to remember. Young or middle-aged?”

“Didn’t look like a rapist to me,” she said, dismissive.

“See, you noticed something. Then what did he look like? How did he strike you?”

“Like I said. Polite.”

“But you’d seen him before, right?”

“A long time ago, perhaps.
Non
, I’m not sure. So many people come through here.”

All working ladies typed men instantly. That was part of their trade and negotiations.

“Neighbor, shopkeeper? Lives in the
quartier
?”

“Come to think of it, he wore pressed jeans, like some of them do.”

“Some of who?”

“Off-duty
flics
.” She shook her head. “I don’t know. We only spoke a few seconds.”

She turned the concierge sign to
FERMÉ
and grabbed her handbag.

“I’m late for Saint Rita’s.”

Aimée’s head spun. Cécile’s observations of a nice man in pressed jeans like an off-duty
flic
didn’t fit with what they’d learned. Someone else had abducted the girls.

Who?

Meanwhile René had run off half-cocked to nail le Weasel.

She punched in René’s number. No answer. Tried again.

Frustrated, she started to leave a message, but the voice mail cut her off. When she tried again, his message box was full.

Merde
!

Thoughts swirling, she made toward the bus stop. The dense heat hovered, caught in the valley of tall sandstone buildings. She realized she’d gone the wrong way on rue Chaptal.
Merde
again.

Retracing her steps, she noticed a man loitering at the now-closed doors of Marie-Jo’s building. He rocked on his heels and checked his phone. Marie-Jo’s father—she recognized him from René’s camera.

From the corner bar came loud cheering. “Score!”

She had to jump over a gutter rushing with last night’s rainwater. “
Excusez-moi
, but you’re Zacharié, Marie-Jo’s father?”

He started. “And you are?”

“Looking for Zazie, her red-haired friend.” She pulled out her card. “Please, she’s the friend Marie-Jo left with yesterday, around five o’clock.”

Something like pain crossed his face. He glanced down the street, moved away from her.

“Who’s your friend the girls went with? Where’s Zazie?”

“Not my friend.”

“But who? What’s happened to her?”

Fear and anger battled in his eyes. “Stay out of it. You have to stay out of this.”

“And leave them in the hands of a rapist?”

His jaw quivered. “What the hell does that mean?”

“Don’t you understand? The girls were trailing a rapist who murdered a twelve-year-old yesterday, and now they’ve disappeared.”

A taxi pulled up on the street. “I think you’re climbing the wrong tree.” He jumped in the back seat.

“Wait!”

But the taxi took off in a splash of scummed gutter water that sprayed her ballet shoes. She ran, her feet sopping wet, trying to see the taxi number—too late. It disappeared down the hill into a winding street.

R
ENÉ GLANCED AT
Aimée’s name on his call list. Three times already. He wished she’d take a nap.

Blue smoke spiraled toward the casino’s Art Deco stained-glass ceiling. Low conversations carried through the clink of
glaçons
in whiskey tumblers, a swish from cards dealt onto the baize tables.

Behind velvet curtains in the private, roped-off area, le Weasel lit a cigarette on his maroon leather chair at the felt poker table. Gone through a pack already, evidenced by the butts in the ashtray. In front him was a dwindling pile of chips. Le Weasel played
le punto banco
—small stakes—and relentlessly. René couldn’t wait for the
salaud
to wise up—not that he ever would—and quit the game and lead him to Zazie.

Fat lot of good the tips René had dispensed had gotten him so far. The casino, all wood and brass with a wall-sized, Art Nouveau stained-glass window backlighting the nine poker tables, listed itself as a “social club” with a large membership fee to skirt the gambling regulations.

He’d slipped the smiling bouncer a “spectator” fee, indicating he’d like to get a feel for the place before he joined.

“
D’accord
, Monsieur.” The man had smiled and held out his hand.

But that was as far as René had gotten. “
C’est privé
, Monsieur,” said a short, sparse-haired waiter, barring René’s way past the bar. “Members only.”

“
Bien sûr.
Could I have a word with Monsieur von Wessler?”

“Not allowed, Monsieur.” The waiter indicated he should wait at the bar.

He’d have to bide his time until
le salaud
got up from the table.

Doubt hit René. Would a serial rapist waste time at a gambling table? Was his own impatience clouding his logic? Le Weasel glanced at his phone, then back to his cards.

René joined the mixed clientele: a few men in blazers, a woman in
un jogging
with pearls, Asian men with gold-link wrist chains, a leather-jacketed rocker he recognized from the guitar shop around the corner. The woman in pearls shook her head and exclaimed, “
Tout sur rouge
!” as she clicked a pile of gambling chips to a red nine.

The casino gave off a low-key vibe—casual, almost homey. Everyday gamblers a world apart from the Deauville Grand Casino milieu.

His phone vibrated again. Madie, the waitress in the café, who’d promised him information, was waiting at the
bistrot.
He’d forgotten. Too bad.

He looked up. Saw movement at the
punto banco
table. But with his short stature he couldn’t see over the shoulders of the crowd. He tried edging his way forward through the gamblers.

An older woman sat at le Weasel’s place. He’d gone.
Merde
!

René grabbed his jacket.

A
IMÉE HAD CHANGED
out of her sopping clothes, and now her damp feet were drying in the sun by Leduc Detective’s window. Her chipped, neon-green-lacquered toenails were in dire need of a pedicure.

The office was anything but peaceful. Horns blared in the street, and boos and cheers drifted from radio broadcasts from the cars below. The carpenter’s unswept sawdust was piled in the corner, making her sneeze.

So far no word from Mélanie at the clinic in Lausanne. Nor had René returned her calls. The FotoFit image lay on her desk, troubling her. This suspect had a cap without hair showing; le Weasel a full head of hair.