Murder in Belleville (16 page)

She had to persuade Samia to talk, pass on her
plastique
connection.

“Not my concern,” Samia said, a petulant edge to her voice. But her quick anger had deflated. “You tell Khalil to deal with me himself,” she said. “I’ll get word to Zdanine.”

“Khalil said to tell you I speak for him.”

Samia half smiled, showing the edges of little white teeth. One of them was gold-capped and caught the light. “I mean no disrespect to a fellow sister,
bien stir,
but business is business,” she said. “And time for me to get dressed.” She was about to usher Aimee to the door.

I’m blowing this, Aimee thought. Time to forget subtlety when the opportunity is walking out the door. “Samia, let me speak for Khalil and you for Zdanine,” she said. “I need to arrange more
plastique.
Eugenie was supposed to help.”

Samia’s eyes widened; her round shoulders tensed. “I don’t like this.”

“Who does?” Aimee made her tone businesslike and shrugged. “The last delivery man blew himself to Mecca before his ticket was punched.”

“That’s history. Zdanine was only a distributor,” Samia said, shifting from one bare foot to the other as she scratched a calf with the opposite big toe. “He’s washed his hands of it now,” she said, her eyes level as she sipped tea. “Where it goes and to whom…” She let that hang in the musk-scented air of her kitchen.

“From what I hear,” Aimee said, leaning closer, “this is the beginning.”

Samia shook her head. “My clients are waiting. I’ve got to go-“

Aimee wondered what kind of clients.

She lowered her voice to a whisper and brushed her arm against Samia’s. “Wholesale,” she said, nodding her head. “Khalil understands profit margins. Do you?”

Samia’s gaze wavered.

“Wholesale,” Aimee said, growing more confident at Samia’s reaction. She drew out the word to underscore the importance. “No dropoffs. No francs and centimes. Just thousand-franc notes and bank accounts. Big ones. That’s wholesale.”

“Zdanine deals with this, not me,” Samia said, but her dark brows wrinkled—unsure.

“Sounds like you’re not equipped to handle orders,” Aimee said, pulling back, glancing again at her watch. “Khalil misinformed me. Forget I came. I’ll outsource this.”

Aimee shouldered her bag and stood up. She’d put the offer out there, sweetened it, and waited expectantly.

Samia’s full lips tightened.

“Outsource?” she said, pronouncing the word slowly.

“Khalil prefers to work with family, of course. However, it looks like I’ve no choice,” Aimee said and sighed. “Other roads lead to
phstique.
He assumed Zdanine’s linked to the supplier.”

Samia’s eyes narrowed. “He doesn’t tell me about business.”

“Just remember we came to you first,” Aimee said. “Later on, don’t say Khalil didn’t offer his family a fat slice of the tart.” Aimee studied her nails, trying to remember graffiti slogans on the Belleville Metro. “Like he says, ‘Brothers of the
bled
‘countryside’ should unite!’”

Samia snorted. “Bled!? The closest we’ve been to the countryside was when the colonials massacred those who couldn’t emigrate as servants. Khalil went back for his ‘roots,’ and now he can’t wait to get out.”

She had a point, Aimee thought.

“Am I too
blanc
for you, Samia, is that it?” Aimee asked.

Samia didn’t answer.

Frustrated, she didn’t know how to get information from Samia. So far she’d gotten zip. Aimee looked around, thinking furiously. She felt as if she’d gone north instead of south.

She ran her fingers over a small CD player on the counter, and noticed the big-screen TV in the next room. A red-bordered overdue France Telecom bill lay on the windowsill. Now she had an idea.

“You’ve got a nice life, Samia. Quite a class act.” Aimee strolled toward an open pantry lined with pate\ Turkish halvah, and Iranian caviar. “Better life than most. I’m a working girl. Hundred-franc uprights were all I knew, and burned-out cars were my place of business until I met Khalil. He became my
patron,
taught me things, showed me how to bleed the Johns and make more than my rent.” She looked meaningfully at Samia. “I’ll do anything the
mec
asks.”

Samia looked away. Maybe the affluence was hard to maintain. Aimee saw a framed photo of an almond-eyed boy with a serious expression, the honey patina of his skin like Samia’s. He wore the short pants of a Catholic-school uniform, a bookbag slung over his shoulder.

“He’s gorgeous,” Aimee said, and meant it. “Your son?”

Samia nodded, her eyes lighting up. “Marc after Marcus Aurelius,” she said, a winsome expression crossing her face.

“Catholic school?”

“He’s baptized,” Samia said, a hint of pride in her voice.

“Must cost,” Aimee said, rubbing her fingers together.

Samia stiffened and turned away. “Zdanine helps us; he furnished the flat.”

“But he can’t help you now, can he?” she said, not waiting for an answer. “He’s stuck in the church.”

She saw the struggle in Samia’s eyes.

Aimee knew she’d reached her when she’d talked about her little boy. And she knew Samia had money trouble.

“Look, if you’re not interested, at least help me connect with Eugenie,” Aimee said.

Samia’s blank look answered her.

“You’ve got to go, haven’t you?” Samia said, her veiled politeness strained. “I’m late.”

Aimee tore a paper sheet from her datebook and wrote her cell phone number down. “Think about what I’ve said. Call me in a few hours.”

Disappointed that Samia hadn’t taken the bait outright, Aimee went down the worn stairs, past the
hammam,
and onto the street. She hoped when Samia got desperate she’d call.

“H
OW MUCH
?” Aimee asked the man with the armful of watches on rue de Belleville.

“Fifty francs,” he said, brandishing his arm close to her nose. He jiggled a phosphorescent tangerine plastic band with a yellow happy face off his wrist.

“Not my style,” she said.

Her cell phone rang.

“Didn’t we have a meeting?” Rene asked.

She thrust fifty francs into the man’s palm, grabbed the watch, laced up her hightops, and took off running.

By the time Aimee returned to the office she’d convinced herself she’d find Sylvie’s killers through the
Maghrebin
network. However, at this rate it could take a year.

Rene looked up from his book, his large green eyes hooded. She didn’t like it.

“Don’t tell me,” he said, looking her up and down. “You’re supplementing our income?”

“Didn’t we get the EDF contract?” she said, sitting down heavily.

“Like I said, the nervous little manager liked us,” Rene said, leaning back in his orthopedic chair. “But the big EDF guy in the sky doesn’t want to ‘piecemeal’ the security system, or so they say. He’s got a point. The Seattle firm offered a bid on comprehensive services. Impressive.”

Aimee stood up, fire in her eyes. “So can we.”

“Already have,” Rene winked. “I roughed a basic package together,” he said, pulling out a thick folder. “A draft, of course. But I thought we might want to throw in something special. A little extra.”

“Exactly. Some piece
de resistance,”
she said, tossing her leather jacket on the coatrack. She scratched her head, then opened their office window overlooking the Louvre. The knock of diesel engines and the occasional cry of a street vendor competed with the roar of Paris buses.

“Let’s get to work, partner,” she said, unsnapping the studs on her sleeves.

After an hour they’d redone their network vulnerability scan and thrown in maintenance too. A realistic offer. And at lower than what they figured the other firm would bid. She felt good, at last, to work on something concrete. Aimee took a deep breath and faxed their offer to the EDF.

Her cell phone rang.

She prayed that Samia was on the other end.

“Allo?”

“Philippe denies e-e-everything,” Anais said, her voice thick and slurred.

Relieved finally to hear from Anais, she was startled at her tone.

“He won’t s-s-speak of her.”

“I’ve been worried, trying to reach you,” she said, terrified by the way Anais sounded. She grabbed a piece of paper. “Let me come and get you. Where are you?”

“Somewhere,” she said, her voice slipping away. “Martine and the housekeeper take Simone to preschool. But s-S’Something’s wrong. S-s-sent you a
cheque.
Philippe’s afraid. I didn’t tell you—S-Sylvie gave me the envelope—”

“I need to talk with you, Anais,” she said. “Where is that envelope—?”

But Anais hung up before Aimee could finish. Worried, she called Philippe. No one answered at the de Froissarts.’ She tried the ministry. Philippe’s cordial secretary had no idea where Madame de Froissart could be reached but again promised Aimee she’d see that the minister got her message.

Fat chance. She’d begun to feel the only way to bag Philippe would be to grab a rifle and haunt the ministry.

She searched the mail on her desk and slit open a letter addressed to her. She waved Anais’s check in the air.

“Our account’s ten thousand francs richer,” she said.

Rene blinked.

“Anais?”

She nodded. “Let’s eat while I fill you in on the latest.”

They ordered sushi from the new Japanese restaurant below their office, putting it under business expense.

Over a spider crab roll and
saba
marinated mackerel Aimee told Rene about Morbier’s agenda and Samia, who baptized her son and wanted him to be French, while his father, a pimp and explosives conduit, claimed sanctuary in the church.

“What about the
Fichier
in Nantes?” she asked. “Sylvie must have another address.”

“So far no luck, but I’ll keep trying,” Rene nodded. “My friend loaned me a new identity morphing software,” Rene said, rubbing his stubby hands together. “For now why don’t I try it out on Sylvie?”

“Be my guest,” Aimee said, putting down her chopsticks. “What does it do?”

“A slight hitch remains,” he said. “We need a photo.”

“I think I can do something about that,” Aimee said. She logged onto her computer, accessing the bank account with Sylvie’s password,
beur.
She dug around for documentation used to establish the Credit Lyonnais bank account. After ten minutes she got excited when she pulled up Eugenie’s
carte
rationale
d’identite
photo.

“Look, Rene,” she said, printing the image.

For the first time she got a good look at the woman, not just her dismembered limbs.

“Parfait!”
Rene said. “Knockout!”

“She’s good looking, striking—” She was about to add that no one, attractive or not, deserved to be torn apart by a bomb.

“Knockout’s a new program. An image-masking software,” he said, “which works for anything involved in digitally enhanced images.”

“Meaning?”

“Watch this,” he said, his eyes bright with anticipation.

Aimee slipped Sylvie’s photo onto the scanner.

At his terminal Rene drew selection lines defining the inner and outer boundaries of Sylvie’s face. Knockout outputted the processed foreground—the object with colors removed—and a grayscale alpha channel that preserved the transparency of the original.

“Short red hair?”

“Like mine,” she said, remembering the wig. “Make it a bit more shaggy in the back.”

He played around, then printed the image out. A seamless fit.

“You’re a wizard, Rene!”

“Try jogging people’s memory with that,” he said. “You know, for the right price the
Maghrebin
network performs similar functions. A gold Eurocard, driver’s license, even a
Securiti socicde
number.”

“Merci,”
she said, again surprised by Renews depth of underworld knowledge. “I need to find out where this Duplo
plastique
comes from.” She pecked Rene on both cheeks. “Time to get busy.”

“Where are you going?” His green eyes widened.

“To jog Philippe’s memory,” she said. “Get his thoughts.”

Before she’d unzipped her leather jumpsuit, her cell phone rang again.

“Oui.”
She caught herself before she blurted, “Leduc Detective.”

“I’m waiting for you,” Samia said.

She’d expected Anais but recovered quickly, “Samia, you’ve reconsidered?”

“There’s someone you need to meet.” Samia’s voice sounded strained, tight. “Hurry up.”

“What about Eugenie?”

“He knows,” she said. “I’m at the
hammam.
Can you meet me in fifteen?”

“I’m on the way,” she said, reaching for her jacket and tucking the Beretta in her pocket.

This could be the break she was looking for.

I
NSIDE THE
H
AMMAM-PISCINE
,
S
AMIA
slouched by the ticket booth overlooking the L-shaped pool. A thirties-style vaulted ceiling and salmon tiles housed the humid, chlorine-laced air. In the shallow end an old woman, her bathing cap’s tight strap separating the fleshy folds of her neck, bobbed up and down.

Aimee’s eyes darted around the nearly empty pool. She preferred the
piscine
at Reuilly; cleaner, newer, and a short bike ride from her flat. A middle-aged man, kneeling with a long handled net, was fishing for something on the dark green bottom.

“Do you have a car?” Samia asked. She’d changed into a narrow black trench coat.

Aimee nodded. Rene’s Citroen sat parked nearby.

“Let’s go,” Samia said.

Wary, Aimee noticed her fluttery eyelashes, the orange-dayglo fingernails. Morbier was right. She was young. And Aimee was supposed to be protecting her.

“Tell me where.”

“The circus,” Samia said.

Aimee followed Samia’s leather mules as they scuffed down the dank-smelling stone passage into the street.

In the Citroen, Samia’s gaze wavered as Aimee adjusted Renews customized seat and pedals.

“Which circus?” Aimee said, turning on the ignition and hearing the powerful hum of the engine.

“Cirque d’Hiver,” she said. “If you don’t hurry up, we’ll miss him.”

“Who?” Aimee asked, shifting the car down rue Oberkampf.

“The man you’re dying to meet.” Samia’s full lips were set in a firm line. “He wants to see you, too. Just to make sure.”

“Make sure of what?”

Samia shrugged. “To see that his wholesale line goes to good hands.”

Aimee kept her surprise in check. Samia had found this connection fast.

Something about it made her uneasy, nervous. Didn’t Samia know about the explosion?

“What about Eugenie?”

“My feelers are out,” Samia said. “She owes me money.”

Aimee wondered why the
Maghrebin
network hadn’t spread the news about Sylvie/Eugenie’s death. Odd—were they cagey because they’d sold the
plastiquel

Aimee found no parking spaces anywhere and
klaxons
blared in annoyance. She ended up parking under an
ARRET GENANT
towing sign, among several other cars on rue Oberkampf. They reached the Cirque d’Hiver, a circular nineteenth-century building resembling a tent, topped by a bronze statue of an Amazon on the roof and two bronze warriors on horses over the entrance. Circus posters proclaiming past glories—the Bolshoi Circus, Chinese glass balancers, Mongolian contortionists, Hungarian jugglers, and Canadian trapeze artists—were pasted outside.

The Cirque d’Hiver brought back memories to Aimee: traditional Christmas day visits with her grandfather, chewing the fluffy pink
barbes a papa
which turned fuchsia in her mouth. The monkeys sitting on the accordionist’s shoulder as he played while strolling through the audience, the spotlight’s glare on the rhinestone-studded trapeze artists. As a child she’d loved the ink-black darkness and heat from the spotlights trained on the big ring.

“Do what I say,” Samia said, jolting Aimee from her reverie. Samia pulled her coat tight around her and stared at Aimee.

“So if we pass the test, the big man gives us a contract?” Aimee asked. “My client’s picky. He wants Duplo
plastique.”

Samia looked at Aimee’s wrist and grinned.

“C’est chouette!”
she said tapping Aimee’s new watch. “I need one,” she said and strutted toward the red entrance doors.

Samia was a kid. Aimee didn’t like this, but then she didn’t like much of what had happened so far.

The Cirque d’Hiver nowadays rented the hall for everything from fashion shows to rock concerts in its one-ring circus. Aimee wondered why they kept the circus posters, mostly from the sixties and seventies, behind smudged glass in the carpeted lobby. Neglect or nostalgia for former glory?

Muffled laughter and applause came from behind greasy-looking doors. A private show of Stanislav the Stupendous—Budapest’s third natural wonder, his name framed by tiny lights—was scheduled for the evening.

“Auditions for new acts,” boomed a bored woman at the
barbe a papa
concession. She exhaled a funnel of smoke rings into the air and shook her head. “Sorry. Pas possible. Too many guests disturb the animals’concentration.”

“We’re a late addition to the guest list,” Samia said, nudging Aimee.

Aimee slipped a hundred-franc note across the counter. “Of course,” she said, “we won’t disturb their concentration.”

The cigarette hung from the side of the woman’s mouth. Her blue shadowed eyes narrowed as she looked Aimee up and down. “We all need to live, eh?” she said, pocketing the note. “Enjoy the show,” she said, jerking her thumb toward the doors.

They walked by gilt-edged walls with plaster chipped in a few places. The
cirque
seemed frayed at the edges.

But despite the deserted foyer, they weren’t alone. She felt eyes following her.

Inside, she and Samia stopped, gripped by the scene under the elaborate chandeliers. Four children and four men in brown leather rode motorcycles into the ring. They parked their bikes and the men lay on top of them and juggled the children with their feet.

Scattered applause burst from the few onlookers in the worn red velvet seats. Samia tugged Aimee’s arm and motioned for her to join the front row. They sat down, their faces highlighted by the ring lights. Aimee was struck by the soft contours and sharp edges shadowed in Samia’s face. As if she were
mixte,
French and Algerian. Awe shone in her eyes.

Several large men in well-cut suits, one chewing a licorice stick, were seated to their right. Peering closer, Aimee realized that the stockier men on the aisle casually surveyed the crowd and exits.

The occasional tilt of their necks, and the thin wires trailing from their ears into their collars indicated that they wore radio receivers. Sophisticated security, she thought. What circus aficionados were they guarding?

“Wait five minutes,” Samia whispered. “Then go to the bathroom.”

“Why?”

“It’s a test,” Samia interrupted, standing up. She brushed imaginary lint from her coat, licked her finger, and wiped her brow with it. Then she was gone.

A large brown Siberian bear wearing a cone-like silver wizard’s hat pedaled a tiny bicycle into the ring. The trainer’s whip slapped the sawdust, creating dust puffs ahead of the bear in his line of vision. She wondered what the bear would do if he got out of line. Tear up the tiny bike, wreak havoc in the crowd, and other things she didn’t like to contemplate. Like Sylvie’s murderer had done.

Aimee heard loud, sustained clapping from the licorice-chewing man. Several guffaws sounded from the suits, who’d risen and enveloped him in a protective cocoon.

The suits sat back down, and some of the men evaporated toward the lobby. Aimee noticed that another man had joined the licorice chewer, addressing him as “General.” He also sat stiffly. Light glinted off their lapels, and then she realized that they wore medals and were in some kind of stiff uniform. Russians, maybe?

Her idea was quickly dispelled when a man bearing a tray of small, steaming tea glasses appeared. She could smell the mint from her seat. A Moroccan delegation playing hooky from state affairs? Diplomats didn’t wear uniforms, but the military did.

The General leaned forward, his posture stiff but his eyes alight. He chewed the licorice in time to the crashing cymbals beaten by a sad-faced clown, in a black-and-white Pierrot costume, standing in the center. Aimee realized that the bear’s paws pedaled in time to the cymbals.

Aimee stood up and made her way to the lobby. On the rest-room door hung a sign saying
CLOSED FOR CLEANING
. Aimee stuck her head in.

“Samia?”

No answer. Just the drip of water echoing off the tiles.

She wondered if this was a setup. Going in would be inviting trouble. Yet she worried about Samia.

She walked toward the red velvet drapes at the backstage entrance, giving herself time to think. This part of the
cirque
lay deserted except for a sixties-style vacuum cleaner, chromed and sturdy, propped against the wall next to assorted pails and detergents. In the dim light she could make out an exit door.

And then, on her left, Aimee heard the unmistakable sound of a safety being clicked off. Her pulse jumped as she dodged and reached for her Beretta. But from behind a large warm hand enclosed hers. She never managed a scream since another one clamped over her mouth.

She back-kicked her heel and tried to twist away. Her head Car a Black was slammed against the woodwork, hard. The pressure, like a band of white heat, tightened around her head.

Too bad her kicks landed in the air, not in the groin of whoever or whatever gripped her in a headlock. She jacknifed her body, turning until her spike heels impacted hamstring hard muscle. She heard the growl of pain, and ground her heels in harder.

Something glittered. For a brief moment she saw a huge hand, with a diamond ring shaped like a star. Then she twisted and kicked again. Anything to release that pressure on her head. She screamed, trying to get attention or help.

She tried to roll, but her legs didn’t obey.

And then she poked and jabbed back, flailing at the air until she hit something soft like tissue. A man’s cry reached her. She’d either gotten him in the eye or the nuts. Either way it had to hurt. But she was down on the floor, face to face with a hideous forties red floral carpet. Now her legs responded. She tried to push off the floor.

“
Bent al haram,”
a voice hissed in her ear.

With as much force as she had, she elbowed behind her and scrambled to her feet. She heard him crash into the metal pails and swear. Running and falling, she kept on going.

A loud roar sounded, like a high-speed TGV. Her chest reverberated as something punched her in the back. And she knew she’d been shot. The bullet-proof vest hadn’t absorbed the whole of the bullet’s impact. A burning sensation stung her hip. She stumbled but caught herself.

Wall plaster rained over her black leather. Don’t think about the bullets, she told herself as terror gripped her—keep running. Don’t stop. There were loud shouts, the sounds of someone running into the metal buckets. Applause reached her ears, the performance was over, patrons streamed into the lobby.

Screaming and barreling past the velvet curtains, Aimee ran into something large and furry. The Siberian bear growled, and then all she heard was white noise.

A
IMEE GREW
aware of an odd taste in her mouth, grit on her face, and something wet on her chin. Drool. And slits of fractured darkness. Prickly stubs poked her ears and nose, sweet and crinkling. Hay.

By the time she realized she was under a burlap bag, she was ripping her way out with torn red fingernails. Her head throbbed. The ground shook. The earth was moving—not the way she liked it to.

At least the leather jumpsuit had protected her. The bear was gone.

Then she remembered.

She’d crawled into a feed trough for animals—the first thing she’d stumbled across after the stage entrance. She untangled her legs and reached for her bag, still strapped over her shoulder. Her side pulsed with pain. She took short breaths—big ones hurt—afraid to touch the spot where her bullet-proof vest had failed.

Despite her sore head and body, the ground shaking helped her get up quickly. Grabbing a ledge beside her, she plowed into the tail of a wrinkled gray elephant. She scooted out before the stamping feet got any closer. The elephant’s trunk picked up the burlap, tossed, then stomped on it. Just in time, Aimee thought, trying to ignore her splitting headache.

A trainer led a pair of chestnut mares over the cobblestones. He clucked and said some soothing words. She followed the trio past the sign
ENTREE DES ARTISTES
and nipped into the first empty stall. It had a waist-high wooden partition and was vacant except for a pile of fragrant hay.

She knelt down and felt her head, gingerly. A bump had blossomed like a big onion. Carefully she smoothed her hair and unrolled a gray parachute silk raincoat from her bag. Her legs wobbled.

From the neighboring stall, she heard a horse slurping water and flicking its wire-haired tail against the buzzing flies. She slid out of her slingbacks, which had somehow stayed on her feet, and into her red Converse hightops and laced them quickly. For the last touch, she donned a pair of large-framed horn-rimmed glasses. Before her head split in two, she was going to go back inside and find who’d whacked her. But first she needed to deal with the bullet throbbing in her side.

At the Cafe des Artistes facing the cobbled back lane behind Cirque d’Hiver, she leaned against the bar. She ordered a pastis and
aspirine
from Ines, a pudgy woman, who sat doing a crossword in the corner.

“Slice of horsemeat works better on a shiner,” Ines said, shoving two white pills across the soggy bar.