Murder in the Latin Quarter (21 page)

Her ankle ached. She shifted position by a centimeter and slipped.

“Over there. I heard a noise.”

Aimée held her breath. The wall with its rusted pipes trailed up into the darkness. . . . Would they hold her weight if she climbed them?

“Eh?” The other
flic
scanned the wall with his powerful beam. Aimée edged back on her toes once more. The yellow light reached the tip of her ballet slipper. Another few centimeters and he’d find her.

Then the beam swept away, following the crumbling wall into the next cubicle. The
cataflic
moved past her into the other chamber.

She reached and pulled herself up by the pipe. Above her, rungs disappeared into the shadows. Slime coated the metal rungs of a manhole shaft. It would be an exhausting climb, the equivalent of several flights, up to the street.

But it was a way out.

One foot balanced on the ledge; with the other, she found a foothold and hoisted herself up. She climbed straight up the narrow shaft. No time to rest. Her foot slipped and she grabbed the rungs. Metal burned her knuckles; she was dizzied when she looked down.

“Hey, there’s someone up there!” a man shouted.

Then yellow flashlight beams crisscrossed below her.

“You! Stop!”

She kept going. Her calves strained, her fingers pinched, and her bag hung heavy. Each breath was labored. Perspiration ran between her shoulder blades. And then she felt a jar-ring crack to the top of her hard hat. She’d hit her head on the bottom of the manhole cover.

She prayed it wasn’t cemented shut.

She felt for a metal ring and tugged it, levering and shoving with all her might. It moved, grating sideways. She left the hard hat and beer can on a ledge and hoisted herself over the metal lip onto the street. Then she shoved the cover back into place and found herself sitting next to a garbage can on the wet pavement, Michelin car tires passing inches from her face.

Panting from her close escape, she removed her scrubs, balled them up, and left them in a pile under a parked car.

She had to clean up. Then she’d melt into the Metro. She dusted off the Schiaparelli jacket, pulled out her compact to check for white limestone dust in her hair. A car turned into the street.

In the compact mirror’s reflection she saw a trio of blue uniforms round the corner. IGC, the
cataflics.
One spoke into a walkie-talkie.

No wonder they hadn’t followed her up the shaft: they’d simply radioed for above-ground backup. Even without the scrubs, she couldn’t risk being questioned now.

Her eyes darted for cover. No cafés, a darkened bistro, a shuttered locksmith. Light from streetlights pooled in the puddles. She saw no hiding places; the doorways were all flush with the pavement.

The car, a Deux Chevaux with a rattling engine, backed into a parking space. A few doors down, the IGC shone flash-lights into the doorways. Aimée opened the car door to blaring reggae music and jumped into the passenger seat.

“What the . . . ?” A man with a long ponytail turned from the wheel to stare at her. Tan, lean, not hard on the eyes. Amnesty International and Che Guevara stickers littered his dashboard. This looked promising.

“Get out of my car.”

“They’re after me. I’m in trouble. Deep trouble.”

He sneered, taking in her outfit.

“Hey, party girl, not my problem.”

“Can’t you drive around the block, please?”

“And lose this parking place? No way.”

Tapes spilled over the torn back seat. Handwritten labels with the names of major films. Pirated illegal tapes. Worth a nice sum in the right market.

“Slumming in couture?” He jerked this thumb. “Out.”

He reached for the door handle and turned. “
Merde!
” His jaw dropped. “
Cataflics!
They don’t play around! Don’t pull me into this.”

A billyclub tapped on the passenger window.

“Let’s fog up the windows,” Aimée said, tugging his sleeve.

“Eh?”

She locked her lips on his surprised ones, determined not to let him come up for air, and tried to grind her hips against him—but the gearshift got in her way. Then his leather-jacketed arms were around her as she felt him respond. Kind of nice, apart from his overpowering patchouli scent.

“Monsieur!” Harder knocking on the window. Aimée opened one eye. A trio of large IGC men loomed over the tin-can hood of the Deux Chevaux. She reached with one hand and opened the driver’s window.

“
Désolée.
” She giggled. “We’re a little busy. . . .”

“And your headlights are on.”

The IGC man winked and tipped his cap, and they walked down the cobbled street.

Her shoulders sagged in relief.

“Where did you learn to do . . . that?”

“That? Call it the benefits of a higher education,” she said. “Thank the Sorbonne.”

He blinked, his ponytail undone, his hair spread over her shoulder. He took little breaths and kept his arm around her. Such nice hazel eyes.

“I haven’t seen you in the
quartier.
”

“You wouldn’t,” she said, adjusting the rearview mirror and using her sleeve to clean up her smudged red mouth. She took off her ballet slippers, slipped on her Louboutin heels.

“But you’re not just another party cataphile escaping through the sewer.”

He seemed observant. Not only that, he lived here.

“Did you see an old
boucherie camionette
tonight parked over there?” She pointed to where she figured the other exit led.

“Why?”

“Say two or three hours ago?”

He shrugged. “Maybe. I don’t remember.”

Information would cost, she could tell. She leaned against his chest. “If you did something about that gearshift, I could help you remember.”

“Could you, now?” He turned the key in the ignition, put the transmission in neutral, and set the parking brake. The engine sputtered and idled.

She twirled a strand of his hair around her fingers. “The
camionette’s
old. There’s a name on it. Cha . . . something.”

“Chazel.” He stiffened. “Lowlifes. They harassed my neighbor, broke his car windows. He’d complained because they parked in his space.” He pointed. “Right there.”

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.