Murder Below Montparnasse (33 page)

“A quick summary.” Aimée slipped two hundred francs in Marevna’s apron pocket. “I’m in a hurry.”

“Da.”
Marevna read and nodded. “On envelope say, ‘In case I die.’ ”

Inside was a single sheet of blue paper. Marevna held the page to the light above the stove. Paused. “November 14, 1910. Very old-fashion Cyrillic. Words we don’t use anymore.”

Marevna read, then reread, her brow furrowed. Two long minutes. “Letter, how you say,
intime?
Private between man to a woman.”

“A love letter?”

A blush spread over Marevna’s face. This modern girl was embarrassed by an ancient love letter?

“Go ahead, Marevna.”

“Much passion. Full of longing, wants to smell her on his fingers, feel her skin on his skin.… He aches that he won’t see her again. Not sure he’s doing right thing … but.…” Marevna’s breath caught. “He loves this woman. Begs her to understand. He’s consumed, thinks of her every minute. But he must do what he said. No other choice but forget his … how you say? Doubts. Forget his doubts.”

“Doubts?” Aimée said. Huppert’s words came back to her.

“This part—it’s not clear.” Marevna bit her lip. “Something how his beliefs, the lies, worth the price, the sacrifice. Nothing holds him back now.” Marevna’s voice quivered. “She’s left him.”

And by this hot stove in the back kitchen, Aimée sensed a presence. A spirit. As if the soul released from this missive after eighty years now hovered and breathed in their midst.

“We say a passion that shakes the tree roots,” Marevna said, “happens once in a life. Makes the pain worthwhile.”

Aimée knew there was an equivalent expression in French but couldn’t remember it.

Marevna’s hand shook. She pointed to the signature on the letter. “Vladimir.”

Aimée gasped. “You mean … Vladimir Lenin wrote this? That’s his handwriting?”

Shaken, Marevna leaned against the dishes.

Proof of what Huppert had intimated. Modigliani painted Lenin in love, a man caught between his lover, his comrade-wife, his political aspirations, his theories, his doubts before he sacrificed ideals to fanaticism.

“But who was this woman?” Marevna patted the letter, which she now held like a precious object away from the pot of borscht. “There’s no name.”

“A Russian woman whose role faded long ago,” Aimée said. “Does it matter? She played her part in history and left. He led the Revolution, changed the world.”

“No one will believe this,” Marevna said, her eyes wide.

“I thought Russians were romantics, souls as deep as Lake Baikal, wide as the steppes,” Aimée said. “All those things from Tolstoy. He wrote in French, Marevna. We read him in school.”

“No one wants to believe this. This is dangerous, Aimée.” Marevna glanced at the babushka. “Stone deaf. She refuses hearing aid. But him.…” She jerked her thumb at the snoring old Trotskyist. “Trouble.” Her mouth pursed. “Lenin’s still an icon. Old people, tourists line up all day in snow in Red
Square … hours to see his mummy. He is myth, but they still must believe in myth.”

Aimée watched Marevna. “Does it bother you knowing he’s not the Lenin you thought he was?”

“Phfft.” She handed the letter back to Aimée. Stirred the borscht with a wooden spoon. “In every school we saw big letters: ‘Lenin lived, Lenin lives, Lenin will live.’ ” But Marevna’s eyes brimmed. “Okay. Inside, romantic me think it’s like
Casablanca
, give up great love. But Lenin was no Rick, no hero. But it would devastate my grandma.”

R
ENÉ WIPED HIS
damp temples with his handkerchief and took a deep breath. Then another. He’d spent hours circumnavigating the firewall, disabling his safeguards, the alarm triggers he’d installed. But thank God for the thumb-drive containing his backup and the cloned token to override part of the system. Then recoding the disabler with Saj’s help. Tradelert’s mainframe, as designed, only allowed modification in twenty-four-hour cycles and the clock was ticking.

Now it all came down to these few seconds to stop them.

But if Tradelert had re-keyed the code, had time to install new passwords, it wouldn’t work. He prayed they hadn’t. Prayed they had kept the system up to show off and impress the investors who were due today, California time.

“I can keep the connection and the back doors open for two more minutes,” Saj said. “Ready, René?”

Now or never.

René entered the last code. Hit the keys. Nothing.

Sweat broke out on his upper lip.

“Connection’s gone, Saj!”

“Keep your sombrero on.” René heard the furious clicking of keys. “One minute thirty seconds,” Saj said. “Should reestablish connection within fifteen seconds.” When nothing happened, he muttered, “Relay’s temperamental. Weather issues cause havoc with the satellite transmission.”

Please God
, René thought. He was hunched over, his eyeballs glued to the screen, his fingers poised.

“Connection. Go, René.”

René’s fingers flew over the keyboard. He hit send.

“Done.”

“We’re still up. Connected. It’s out of our hands now.”

L
ENIN IN LOVE
. All the more reason for the Russian oligarch to want the painting—either to legitimize his museum or hold it over the old guard and threaten exposure.

Ten minutes later, Aimée found the bar’s address behind bustling rue de la Gaîtié, studded with theaters and concert halls famous for Piaf and Georges Brassens. She’d followed rue d’Odessa past the old
bains
toward Place Joséphine Baker. It was indeed a leather bar. And she wasn’t dressed for it.

Her cousin Sebastien had frequented this bar before he’d gotten clean. Run-down, she remembered, haunt of dealers and stray Bretons fresh from the train at Montparnasse, mistaking the faded leftover Breton sign for a home away from home. Looking for a buckwheat crêpe and finding the underbelly of Montparnasse.

Now a simple black door. Discreet. New owners and new clientele evidenced by the calendar of
soirées
—a menu of domination, and S-M. Tonight:
femmes et fétiches
.

Great.

A woman in a leather thong and little else, pink butterfly clips holding her blonde hair up, gave her the eye. Svetla sat at the far end of the bar. Her short hair slicked back, wearing a leather biker jacket and low jeans over bony hips, revealing a flat stomach and pierced navel. Dark shadowed eyes on the prowl. Primed for a night off.

Svetla’s look played well in a lace-and-leather bar in Paris.

But Aimée needed to lure Svetla back to the Hôtel Plaza Athénée and bend the diva’s ear if she wanted to learn the oligarch’s plan. And hurry out before Svetla saw her.

“Didn’t know you swung this way, Aimée.” Cécile, a friend of Michou’s, René’s transvestite neighbor, was blocking her exit. Cécile wore lace bloomers held in place by strategically placed suspenders. A big pout on her
rouge-noir
lips. “You never told me.”

Of all the people to run into.

“I’m meeting someone, Cécile.”

“Let’s make it a party,” Cécile said, leaning closer to her on the bar. Smoke spiraled from her cigarette into Aimée’s eyes.

“It’s not like that.” She wished she could make Cécile disappear.

“And pigs fly.”

“
Alors
, she’s a Russian bodyguard.”

“Ooh, like them rough do you?”

Svetla was watching them, the edges of her mouth turned down.

“My friend gets jealous.” She waved to Svetla.

“I would too, Aimée. I’m mad you never let on,” said Cécile, but Aimée had already hurried past her.

“Svetla, I can’t stay here. I know her.”

“I noticed. Your girlfriend?”

“No way, but a little complicated.” She winked.
Think. Think
. She needed to lure Svetla out. “But that party—if we don’t hurry, we’ll miss it.”

“Miss what party?”

“
Zut!
Didn’t you get my message? My friend’s
soirée
. Invitation only.…”

“Let’s have a drink first,” Svetla said, unconvinced.

“And miss a Parisian leather party? Models,
les bobos chics
.…”

“First I’ve heard.”

“Exclusive, Svetla,” Aimée said. “I used my connections and wangled you an invite. Special, only for you.”

“You mean like models, designers, Karl Lagerfeld—like that?”

“
Bien sûr
. Last time, Karl held the party. Maybe tonight too.”

“Where?”

Svetla’s affected disinterest didn’t hide her excitement. Aimée had hooked her. Now to reel her in. And fast, without giving her time to think it through.

“They call with the address twenty minutes before—it’s a flash party. But you need to change. First we’ll stop at the Athénée, then go from there.”

“I don’t understand this.”

“There’s a dress code.” Aimée let out a low laugh. “I want to make sure the bouncer will let us in.” She had to chance it. “Or you’re not interested? Shall I invite someone else instead?”

Svetla slapped down twenty francs. The notes stuck to the wet drink rings on the bar. Cécile blew Aimée a kiss as they left.

D
IDN’T BODYGUARDS ROOM
on the same floor as their employer—or next door? According to that hotel detective, they did. Round-the-clock protection duty. In the taxi, Svetla had revealed that the diva and the oligarch had stayed in tonight. Perfect.

Aimée glanced down the hotel hallway, deserted except for a thick blue carpet and bronze wall sconces.

“The party goes all night. Sure you’re off duty?”

“On call,” Svetla said.

Even better. Svetla opened the door to a suite with a dressing room the size of a studio apartment, blue velvet floor-length drapes framing the window.

“Nice,” Aimée said, scanning the room for a travel itinerary, Svetla’s agenda—anything that might indicate the diva’s room number or her plans.

“Why don’t we party here first?” Svetla said, tossing her leather jacket on the giant bed.

From behind she felt Svetla’s muscular arms around her. A hot kiss on her neck. Aimée noticed Svetla’s cell phone poking out from her jacket pocket on the bed.

“Think I’m easy?” Aimée arched her back.

“I can hope.” Svetla’s tongue licked her ear.

Aimée twisted away. “First I’ll raid the minibar for champagne. Find you party clothes for later.” She glanced at the marble bathroom with the huge tub. “Why don’t you lather up and I’ll join you.”

“Promise?”

“Seduction’s an art. Don’t rush. Let’s do it
à la Française
. We’re good at that.”

“World famous.” Svetla grinned and began peeling off her jeans.

Aimée tried not to avert her eyes. Hoped she didn’t blush to high heaven. An amazingly toned body. Svetla’s muscles rippled.

“You’re shy,” Svetla said. “I never would have thought it.”

If she only knew.

“Make the water hot for me.” Aimée cringed inside, but Svetla bought it. For now. Minutes. She had minutes.

She ran to the minibar, grabbed a bottle of champagne, and then reached into Svetla’s jacket pocket. The cell phone was gone. Only silver-foiled breath mints came back in her hand. She scanned the room again, noting the chair, the desk, the telephone. But fancy hotels often had phones in the bathroom.

“Chilled and perfect,” Aimée said, walking in. She popped
the cork and set the champagne on the edge of the tub, beside Svetla’s phone. Apparently it never left her side.

“Get in.”

Aimée grinned. “I still have everything on. Champagne glasses?”

“Grab a tooth mug by the sink.”

She poured, careful to spill on Svetla’s phone. “Zut
 … desolée
. Let me dry it.”

Aimée reached for a towel from over the tub. “Hear that?”

But Svetla grabbed her and stuck Aimée’s hand on her soapy nipple.

“They’re calling me with the party location,” Aimée said, a tremble in her shoulders. “Oops, let me dry this off. I’ll be right back.”

Before Svetla could get out of the marble tub, she’d closed the door, tied the handle with her scarf, and knotted it to the gilt chair and braced it before the door. If Svetla pulled, the pressure would jam the door tighter against it. Then she tugged the small dresser and wedged it in place.

Aimée hoped that Svetla would take a while to figure out how to unscrew the gold-plated door hinge. Figured it would hold her for fifteen minutes. Unless the scarf tore—she doubted Hermès had intended it for this kind of work. She grabbed the belt from Svetla’s jeans and fastened it around the doorknob. Yelling and pounding came from inside.

“Bitch! I’m calling hotel security!” Aimée heard the whacks of what sounded like a hair dryer against the wood. Good thing four-star hotels supplied strong wood doors.

“Do that and you lose your job, Svetla.” Aimée flicked on the ringer switch. Two missed calls from Marina. “What’s Marina’s room number?”

“You’ll die, bitch.”

“Try to act helpful.”

“Marina calls and checks on me,” she yelled. “If I don’t answer—”

“Then I’ll tell her she needs a new bodyguard. What did Tatyana tell Marina about the painting?”

“Painting? I don’t know.”

Liar. Svetla had sat beside them in the bar, in the limo—she’d heard everything. “Forget a bonus from your employer if you don’t warn her. Tatyana’s a fraud. Isn’t your job to anticipate and avoid issues?”

“Tatyana’s a wannabe, an amateur,” Svetla yelled. “Marina’s bored. Laughs behind her back.” More loud banging on the door.

“What about the painting?” Keep her talking.

Aimée scooped up Svetla’s jeans and jacket, unplugged the room phone, and threw it all in the dressing room with the rest of her clothes. She locked the door and put the key in her pocket. That should give her a few more minutes.

Scraping metallic noises came from the bathroom as Svetla worked the hinges. Tweezers from her manicure set?
Merde
. She should have taken Svetla’s toiletry bag.

“Tell me about the painting,” Aimée said.

“Painting for paper museum?” A laugh. “Good luck.”

She wondered what that meant. “Paper museum? Explain. One more chance to tell me, Svetla,” she said.