Murder at la Villette, page 18
Aimée noted the high pitch of her voice. Unlike before.
“That wasn’t him, Madame Olivera.”
“My mistake. Entrez.”
Why? Aimée’s gut clenched. Something was wrong.
“I’m running late.”
Madame Olivera blinked twice. Her eyes radiated terror.
“It’s n-not private in the hallway, please come in.”
Among the apartment’s colorful hangings, Aimée spotted a wall mirror reflecting the man concealed behind the door. He wore a seagrass-green shirt and was clutching Madame Olivera’s shoulder.
“Of course,” Aimée said, keeping her voice calm.
At the same moment she pivoted, grabbed Madame Olivera, shoved her aside and kicked the door wide open, slamming the man in the face.
“Ahh . . . merde,” he yelled.
Her pivot and kick weren’t up to René’s black belt standards, but the element of surprise made up for that, she hoped. She rued the fact she hadn’t let René drag her to more of his jujitsu classes.
The man’s nose was bleeding and he was on the floor, grabbing for a gun that had fallen on the carpet. She kicked the gun away, then followed up with a kick to his kidney, and as he doubled up, to his ribs.
She’d seen this in a movie. Her thick-soled boots more than made up for lack of skill.
Madame Olivera looked on in surprise. “How—”
Aimée didn’t have long before the man reacted. “Quick, go get dish towels and scarves. Now.”
Mobilized, Madame Olivera sprang into action.
The man grabbed her ankle hard in a pincerlike hold. She lost her balance and caught herself on a chair, tumbling to sit on his thrashing legs. Madame Olivera was back, roping his wrists with a wet dish towel while Aimée tied his ankles with a winter wool scarf.
All the while he was shouting and cursing at them.
Aimée stuck another dishrag in his mouth, then picked up the gun and opened the barrel, dislodging the bullets one by one.
She checked his pockets for more bullets. A knife. But there were no other weapons.
She wiped her fingerprints off the bullets, handle and barrel and inside of the gun. Then stuck it in his hand.
Madame Olivera sucked in her breath. “Désolée. He just appeared and then forced me to call you.”
Aimée believed her.
“How did he know?”
The woman worried her work-worn fingers over her pocket. “These gangs have spies everywhere. Lookouts. He’d heard you were looking around. Thought you’d be useful.”
“Useful?”
Aimée was thinking it was the other way around—she wanted info from him.
“That’s what it’s all about here. Learn something, use it against another . . . slither up the ladder. Snakes, all of them. He’s skinnier than before.”
So he’d fallen on hard times. That made two of them.
Aimée led Madame Olivera away from the struggling drug dealer, then whispered, “Didn’t you pack your bag? You should be going to the airport.”
“I’m not leaving. I’m seeing this through.”
“Let me talk to him. I need to find out who killed the officer who was going to speak at your daughter’s parole hearing. Then we call the flics. We both get what we want.”
Madame Olivera’s lip trembled as she shook her head. She’d picked up a kitchen knife. Alarm fizzed up Aimée’s neck.
“I don’t care if I die now. I’ll take him with me.”
“Mais non, he needs to go behind bars, where he put your daughter.”
The stale scent of fear drifted from the man tied up on the floor.
“Killing’s too good for him,” Aimée said. “He needs to suffer.”
“He could get off,” Madame Olivera said. “Go free.”
“Not if I’m around. Listen, you don’t want to get stuck with his murder, go to jail, appear in court. Don’t end up where your daughter died. It’s him—you need to send him to prison, and I’ll help you.”
After a long moment, she nodded and said, voice like steel, “People die in prison.”
“Okay, follow my lead.”
“But his other gang members will come looking for him.”
“Give me your phone.”
She did, making sure the mec saw her. Aimée turned and rang Eli Rochas. He was her only contact in les stups, slang for narcotiques, the drug squad. He owed her big-time. Voice mail. She whispered him a message and prayed he’d get it in time and keep it on the down-low.
She took a deep breath. Then another. This would work.
Wouldn’t it?
She knelt on the floor by the hog-tied prisoner and consulted her Tintin watch. She affected what she hoped was a this-is-just-business tone.
“There’s enough time for you to get away. Comprends? You’re small fry. Not important to my boss.” Aimée pincered her thumb and forefinger and pulled out the gag. “No screaming or this goes back in.”
He spit and snarled. “Who’s your boss?”
“Pas important. And we can keep it that way. I need you to tell me everything you know about the murdered mec on the canal. Otherwise I call my boss.”
“The man who had his throat slit in the canal, c’est ça?”
Aimée tried not to cringe. “I’m listening.”
“Why?”
“You want to leave here in one piece, non?”
He laughed. “Mes camarades are waiting for you.”
His gang. True or not, she could bluff, too.
“Au contraire, the Angels from rue de l’Ourcq are waiting for you. And they don’t like you.”
That registered.
“I just want to know about the murder.”
“What’s it to you?”
“You’re wasting time,” she said, glancing at her watch. “The Angels are en route.”
A sparkle of fear lit his eyes.
“You’re crazy. I didn’t kill him. We don’t do murder.”
So killing a young girl by getting her addicted didn’t count?
“I’m a merchant, c’est tout.”
A dealer of death.
She stuffed down her feelings and shot a glance at Madame Olivera, who looked like she was about to grab her knife again. Aimée shook her head.
“This lady’s upset, so it’s in your best interest to help me out. Then you can go.”
He spit at her. A green frothy blob landed on her boot. Seething inside, she smiled.
“Fine. I’ll find someone more cooperative. You’re obviously not the kingpin anymore.”
Aimée stuffed the scarf back in his mouth, grabbed under his arms and hauled him to the apartment’s standing oak beam, then tied him to it.
“Let’s go,” she said to Madame Olivera. “They’ll take care of him.”
He was twisting and struggling, trying to talk through the scarf damp with his saliva, kicking his feet and straining to get free. Panic flecked his eyes.
“Give me the killer’s name, what he looked like, how he talked, where you saw him—anything.”
She took out the wet scarf filled with his drool. His eyes skittered. His body shook.
“I’m waiting,” said Aimée.
“He’s got facial hair, a scruffy beard, talks like a flic.”
Terror shot up her spine.
“Where was he seen?”
“On the quai by the bridge.”
“How do you know?”
“I don’t know exactly. He goes to a clinic.”
“What clinic?”
“I’ve been away. Could be a hospital. That’s all I heard.”
“Heard?”
“Word on the street,” he said.
She believed him.
Aimée took Madame Olivera’s hand, then said, “It’s time to go.”
His bound hands scrabbled. “You can’t leave me like this.”
“Bonne chance.”
Aimée handed Madame Olivera her packed bag by the door, then pulled her out, down the stairs and into rue Bellot. A dark car with blacked-out windows cruised down the street, behind it a van, which stopped.
“Keep moving,” Aimée said.
Eli Rochas stepped out of the car. Dark hair and matching dark, intense eyes scanning the street. If he saw Aimée, he ignored her. He made a slight motion with his left hand and the van door slid open. Les stups had arrived just in time.
“They’ll let him go,” said Madame Olivera.
“Au contraire. My contact at les stups will take care of that.”
At least she hoped he would—he owed her. With a price on her head, she couldn’t be sure. Yet the mecs in narcotiques were cowboys and rode their horses the way they wanted.
Aimée dropped Madame Olivera’s phone, stomped on it.
She looked around. “Time to go. Now. Run.”
Thursday Afternoon • Rue de l’Ourcq
The Biker Tattoo Bar
ISABELLE CHECKED HER log sheet for the supplies and loading schedule to the assigned vans. She looked around for the rest of the crew. No one.
Idiots. If she didn’t hurry, she’d punch in late for her cleaning job at the start-up, and she couldn’t afford to miss work. Yesterday, Luca had had two doctor appointments, so she’d called in sick. She couldn’t keep using that excuse much longer or she’d lose the job, lose the chance to get her brother into adaptive housing with therapy. This program was the only one of its kind in France.
She left via the back bay near the ramps and slipped out into the gravel parking lot. All this to double-check that the proper cigarette cartons were loaded into the designated van. Fuming, she didn’t hear the swish of fabric behind her until she felt a gust of warm breath on her neck.
She whirled around. No one. Nothing.
And then she was lifted off her feet, pulled backward into the storage unit. A damp cloth was pulled over her mouth and nose as she felt her wrists being tied.
She didn’t know how much later she came to. All she could do was pick and scrape at the binding on her wrist. Her ragged, bloodied fingernails felt raw. She was in the squat’s back room, overheated for once. Stifling.
An overhead light blinked on.
She was tied to a chair. Blondie the biker loomed over her. She wanted to kick him.
“Let’s make a deal. Tip me off when the cigarette shipments are about to come in, the distribution routes, the timetable, and I’ll let you go.” He flashed a police badge, which he then stuck in his shoe. “And leave you alone to take care of your disabled brother.”
An undercover flic. She should have picked up on him before. And he was corrupt. He’d let her go, eh? Taking advantage to line his pockets.
“Answer me.”
She pretended to think.
This glass-roofed atrium had been a winter garden once. Where were those pruning shears she’d left in here to trim the plants? Why hadn’t whatever was binding her come loose?
“Sounds easy. But it’s complicated. I’m a cog in the wheel.”
“Don’t give me that. You’re the acting boss, from what I see.”
“Moi? I answer to higher-ups.”
“So you say.”
“You think they’d leave someone like me in charge? It’s temporary, the boss got appendicitis. I just help here with the warehouse,” she lied. “Better deal with big guys and let me go.”
She ran this network. But he didn’t know that for sure.
“I can’t wait around,” he said.
“Do you know how many are involved in distribution and sales?” She side-eyed him. “I don’t know the details of the business. No one knows. No one talks or they’re out.”
Blondie took her chin in his hand. Raised her face.
“But you will, non? If it’s to save your brother.”
Salopard. The gang mistrusted Blondie, and he wouldn’t get far. But that didn’t help her right now.
“Alors, all I know is this: a buyer goes to a wholesale dealer—incognito, word of mouth—whose name no one knows. This business means being ready to jump at a moment’s notice. No advance warning. You’ve witnessed this. All of a sudden we’re told a time, place and shipment amount.”
“That’s it? Why should I believe you?”
“Have you seen any evidence here to the contrary? What kind of flic are you?”
He raised his arm, about to hit her.
But his phone trilled. He turned and answered.
Flics were offered a cut, and no one—consumer or seller—minded. This way no one got hurt or killed. Turfs were respected, and the only angry people were in the ministry tax office.
Everyone hated them.
He hung up.
“Had time to think about it?”
“My boss will offer you a cut,” she said. “Every month, no matter what happens.”
That should keep him happy.
“Tell me where Aimée Leduc’s hiding.”
A flic knew Aimée had been hiding with her. Merde. Her fingers felt for the ties, anything.
“How do I know? She came and went.”
Blondie slammed his fist down on a water-damaged table. Her body twitched.
“Like I’d believe that?” he said, sneering. “Tell me or I rat her out.”
“Why’s she important?”
“I need her help.”
Liar.
She knew his type. Blondie had something to prove. She figured he’d probably screwed up a drugs raid, been demoted to cigarette smuggling and wanted a way back up the ladder.
He’d gain points by nabbing Aimée. After he turned her in, he’d attempt to rig a contact with Isabelle’s supplier and bungle it up. She’d been around flics long enough to know this Blondie wasn’t the sharpest knife on the rack.
Maybe she could use that. Outsmart him.
“I don’t know where she went,” she said. “She’s gone.”
“Don’t give me that.”
Thursday • Metro Stalingrad
AIMÉE STOOD AT the Metro entrance with Madame Olivera. The budding plane tree branches fretted overhead, and the pale cream sun cast patterns on the pavement. Above, behind a wrought iron balcony, daffodils nodded in the breeze.
They’d peeked from a doorway down the street as les stups left with a cuffed Modou in tow.
Awe shone in Madame Olivera’s eyes. “I’ve got no idea how you do this. You’re a female Steven Seagal.”
Aimée grinned. Nice comparison.
“Buy a new phone. At Gare du Nord take the RER B to the airport,” said Aimée. “Go.”
Madame Olivera turned. She stopped on the Metro steps and came back up. She’d taken something from her ragged shopping bag, and she was holding it out to Aimée.
A photo of a young woman in a chef’s outfit with a large smile.
“My Maria. Please remember her like this.”
And then Madame Olivera joined the crowd going down the Metro steps and was swallowed in the crowd.
At least Aimée had done what she’d promised—gotten her some justice.
Something Melac had wanted, had tried to do.
Now, to find Melac’s killer.
As she walked on the quai, theories swirled in her mind.
Again she wondered if Melac had witnessed what he shouldn’t have. It felt like she was clutching at cotton wisps floating away—out of reach, elusive.
Her phone trilled.
“Aimée,” said Saj, his voice hurried and low. “You’re being tracked. Your contact, too. They’re near.”
“Who?”
But the line cut.
By contact he meant Isabelle. Good God.
Think.
She took the soft pink Repetto ballet flats from her coat pocket, put them on and reversed her coat. She tied a scarf bandanna-style around her head, donned blue-framed glasses and smiled at the women at the street market.
A line of older women trailed from the pop-up shop for Italian scarves. Aimée browsed as one woman was slapping shut her flip phone. She slid it in her pocket as she conversed with her friend. Aimée leaned forward, her coat hiding her hand, as she slipped the flip phone out of the pocket.
No code to open it. Perfect. And GPS had limited tracking with the few cell towers in the nineteenth. She couldn’t have planned it better.
She hit René’s number.
“Special delivery.”
She hung up.
Then did the same for Saj’s number.
Aimée put the woman’s phone back in her pocket and strolled away.
Thank God she practiced pick-pocketing on a regular basis.
Saj and René knew the code.
Now it was up to them to come through.
PASSAGE WATTIEAUX BACKED a series of two-story houses, taller apartment buildings and what was once a school, judging from the faded sign reading ÉCOLE DES GARÇONS. Aimée kept her eyes peeled for cameras, watchers.
She registered no suspicious people or vehicles. So far.
She used the key Isabelle had given her. It didn’t fit in the back gate. Merde.
She took off one of the small hoop earrings Bellan had left, twisted the metal and used it to pick the lock.
Handy, all right.
With this tiny rod to use as a lever, she jiggled the other hoop’s rounded tip flat, inserting it until on her second try the tumbler yielded. She pushed the well-oiled gate open and hurried over the patchwork of fallen plum blossoms in the back yard.
Finally it felt like spring.
Deep tire tracks were grooved in the mud. The wet ridges made it hard to walk, and her thin ballet flats got encrusted in mud.
A young woman was tied to a chair in the glass atrium. Voices were raised. She was yelling.
It was Isabelle.
Aimée gasped. Blondie paced around Isabelle. Aimée edged closer to hear what was being said.
What could she do?
She had an idea.
But before she could act on it—footsteps crunched on the gravel walkway.
Someone else had joined this party.
Thursday, Earlier • Two Blocks from
Leduc Detective on rue du Louvre
SAJ, ALL SIX feet of him, replete with an Indian muslin tunic over his flowing dhoti and Nepali wool socks in Birkenstocks, folded himself into the passenger seat of René’s rental. His knees hit his chest, disturbing the cowrie shell and turquoise beaded prayer necklace.
