by Cara Black
Traffic crawled, almost at a standstill.
The image of the man’s body in the light of the red lantern came back to her. Her stomach clenched. His gnawed flesh, those vacant eyes.
René parked near Cathédrale Saint-Croix des Arméniens, the small Armenian church. No. 21, their destination, sported chipped dark-green doors and a Digicode. Aimée tried to stifle her rising suspicions that Meizi was part of an illegal ring that preyed on Frenchmen. But that was ridiculous; she cleaned toilets.
“Doubt your dental floss will work here, Aimée.”
Wrong type of door. Damn, why didn’t she carry that casting putty anymore? The universal postman’s key, which she still hadn’t given back to Morbier, wouldn’t work either.
“We’ll have to wait until someone comes out,” René said.
“I don’t like waiting.” Aimée took her LeClerc face powder and makeup brush out of her bag and brushed the keypad with powder. She compared the congealed fingerprint oil to locations on the keypad.
René blinked. “Giving the Digicode a makeover?”
“Utility chic, René,” she said. “How many combinations can you get out of the numbers 459 and letter A?”
“Two hundred fifty-six,” he said, a nanosecond later.
Amazing. She’d need a calculator.
He reached up on his toes peering closer. “Given the alphanumeric proximity and location …” His voice trailed off. “Let’s try this.” He hit four keys.
The small door in the massive one clicked open. “Impressive, René. You got it on the first try.”
He stepped over the wooden doorframe and into the damp courtyard of what looked like an old metal foundry. Inside was a glass-roofed atelier, and ironwork everywhere. Beside the dilapidated townhouse on the left stood a Regency-era theater, complete with pillars and arabesque stonework. Amazing what lay behind the walls, she thought.
“Ching Wao? Never knew the name. Never spoke with them,” said the white-haired man who met them inside the atelier. “Chinese moved out. Gone.” He set down an iron rod, picked up his cup of steaming coffee. Thought for a moment. “Yesterday. Or maybe today.”
Aimée scanned the weedy courtyard. “Where’s his office?”
“I wouldn’t call it an office,” he said.
“So what did he do there?”
“Like I know?” he said. “Back on the right by the rear entrance.”
A narrow dripping stone-walled passage led to a door labeled Wao SARL Ltd. Through dirt-encrusted windows she saw an empty desk, chairs. She tried the door. Locked. But the window yielded to a push. A few shoves and she’d opened it enough to reach in and grasp the door handle.
“Try his number, René. I wouldn’t want to break in while he’s on the toilet.”
René shook his head. “Number’s disconnected.”
A grim look settled on his face. “Let me do the honors.”
She noticed the bulge in his overcoat pocket. The Glock.
René kicked the door open.
In the high glass-ceilinged room, half-drunk cups of tea sat on the metal desk. Chinese newspapers, a pink plastic hair-band, and a black telephone lay on top. The tea was warm.
“We just missed him,” René said.
The only decoration was a world map tacked on the wall. Aimée studied it, and saw circles drawn around cities: Canton, Bangkok, Trieste, Bucharest, Zurich.
Some kind of trade route? Or smuggling stations?
She opened the desk drawers. Nothing.
Aimée didn’t know what to think, but it didn’t look good.
Back at the car, René shook his head. “There’s something wrong.”
More than wrong.
“We’re going to the luggage shop.”
Unease filled her. With René carrying a loaded Glock, things could go very wrong. She thought quickly. “Give me your phone, I’ll call the shop and we’ll clear this up.” She hit the number. She pressed END after ten rings.
“No answer,” she said. “Bien sûr, the Wus are at the commissariat giving a statement.” She sighed. “That could take hours.”
“So we’ll go, find them, and tell Prévost—”
“Forget it,” she interrupted. “Right now, they’re with interpreters in a back room. Besides, he’ll call us in later. Better we hear from them first.”
René punched the steering wheel.
“You don’t know that, Aimée. I have to talk to Meizi.”
She needed to buy herself time, get to Meizi first. “More important, we need to know what this Ching Wao’s up to, René,” she said. “He rented a space, has a business, employees. Someone has to know about him. There are records. Go look them up.”
“That’s your game plan?”
“The flics and Prévost will keep their mouths shut, but we have a stake in this,” she said, wrapping her scarf. “Get on the computer, sniff around. It’s the best way to find out.”
But René gunned the engine, turned into the narrow street. “I know she’s there. They open early for deliveries. Meizi works in back.”
Trucks clogged the street. The luggage shop shutters were rolled down.
“I told you, René.” She bit her lip. Had the Wus done a runner like Ching Wao? She had to find out.
René peered at the shop front. “Merde!”
“I’ll sit on this and let you know when she arrives. No reason to wait in the cold street or in the car,” she said. “See what you can find out on Ching Wao.”
Keep him busy.
“My former hacker student works in records at the mairie,” he said. She saw the wheels spinning in his mind.
“Brilliant.” Impatient, she stared at the traffic on rue de Bretagne. “I’ll get out, grab a coffee and wait. I’ll call you the minute they show up.”
She jumped out before he could protest. The snow had melted to gray slush on the cobbles, spattering her boots.
Twenty minutes later, after a steaming espresso at a nearby café, she found the luggage shop’s shutters open. Men unloaded boxes from palettes in the back of a truck double-parked in front. She shivered, remembering the man’s body on the palette last night.
“Bonjour,” Aimée called out as she entered the luggage shop. But no bonjour in response. Were they in the back?
Aimée fought her way down a narrow aisle stacked with roller bags of every size and color. Knockoff faux-leather handbags hung like streamers from the walls above piles of boxes. The smell of incense from a red-lacquered wall shrine competed with the synthetic plastic aromas of the merchandise.
“Allô?”
The only answer was the grunting from the martial arts movie playing on the small télé behind the counter.
Scraping noises came from an open side door. She peered into the dank hallway running alongside the shop toward the open courtyard. A young woman, wearing a white cap over her black hair, was stacking cartons of sweatshirts against the wall, her back to Aimée.
Meizi.
“Meizi, René’s so worried.”
A carton toppled.
“Aiiya!” The young woman looked up, her cheeks flushed. A round face, uneven teeth, thick black eyebrows. Not Meizi at all.
Aimée hit the light switch, a yellowed enamel knob protruding from the wall. “Excusez-moi, where’s Meizi?”
Fear filled the young woman’s face. She backed away.
Determined, Aimée stepped over the uneven stone pavers. Something crunched under her boots. Spilled pumpkins seeds. “Can we talk a moment?”
“No speak Français,” the woman called out, and pointed back in the shop.
Aimée had to talk to her somehow. “Let me help you,” she said.
She lifted up the carton of sweatshirts. Heavy, like a sack of potatoes. She wondered how a small woman could lift all this. And at the diversity of the enterprise.
“Non, merci.” The girl bit her lip.
She wanted Aimée gone. Now.
Rapid-fire Chinese came from the shop. Footsteps. Th
e Wus had returned. Aimée stepped back inside, to more overpowering synthetic smells. Her nose tickled. Two grunting men in parkas carried stacks of cardboard cartons in from the truck parked out front. Order upon order was arriving.
A middle-aged man, the fluorescent light shining on his bald spot, looked up from behind the counter. He switched off the télé. “Oui?” From his arm hung several fuchsia faux-leather handbags.
“Bonjour, would you tell Monsieur Wu I’m here?”
“We only sell wholesale,” he said.
Odd. “Is Monsieur Wu in back?”
The man straightened up. “Oui, how can I help you?”
But he wasn’t Meizi’s father, whom she’d eaten dinner with last night. Impatient, she made an effort to keep smiling. “Non, I mean the man who owns the shop with his wife,” she said. “His daughter Meizi works here.”
The man shrugged. “My wife’s in China.”
Her skin prickled. This didn’t make sense. “Wait a minute.” She struggled toward the back counter. “You’re Meizi’s uncle, non? I’m looking for her father, the older Monsieur Wu I met last night.”
“Last night, we closed six o’clock. See nothing.” He smiled. “I tell flics this morning, too.”
Had she entered some alternate universe?
“What the hell’s going on?”
“No problem,” he said. “I show you my business license.”
“Where’s the couple who owns this shop?”
“You see my sales permit, export lading and bills of sale,” he said as if she hadn’t spoken.
Was he worried about the tax unit, infamous for swoop investigations?
“Monsieur, I asked you a question.”
But he turned—not easy in the aisle crowded with stacked and open boxes—and pointed to the framed business license by the cash register. He pushed a worn binder at her and opened it. “All in order.” He smiled. “You check. I work here. I Monsieur Wu.”
“Then I’m Madame Chirac.”
“You look here.” He jabbed his ink-stained finger at the sales permit printed with the name Feng Wu.
Why did he pretend not to understand? He played a game and she didn’t know the rules.
“I busy. Unpack shipment.” His French deteriorated the more he spoke. His face remained a smiling mask. “Wholesale clients only.”
She scanned the dates on the license. The sales permit was dated 1995. “Did you work here in 1995?”
He nodded, and glanced at the cell phone vibrating among the papers strewn over the counter. He ran his finger over a payment log.
“I open business in 1995. Work here every day.”
A blast of cold air rattled the cardboard. Voices signaled arriving clients.
“The man murdered last night behind the shop knew Meizi Wu. He had her picture.”
This Monsieur Wu looked down. “I don’t know. I never see him.” He folded his hands over his chest. Defensive.
Aimée stared at the business license. The forms in the binder. Everything matched.
But he’d given her an idea. She’d play his game, whatever it was.
“Mon Dieu, I can’t find anything in here,” she said, rummaging in her shoulder bag, pulling out mascara, her checkbook, keys. “Mind holding this just a moment?” She thrust her rouge-noir nail polish bottle in his hands. “Désolée. Glass, you know, wouldn’t want it to break.”
The surprised Monsieur Wu held it, his thin black eyebrows raised.
She smiled, gave a little sigh. “Et voilà,” she said, pulling a card from the collection in her bag. Imprinted with a Ministry logo. Generic. She had one for each ministry.
“You from tax office, no fool me. I cooperate.”
She smiled. “Not quite, but that’s good you’re cooperating, Monsieur.” Her smile widened and she plucked the nail polish bottle from his hand, slipping it into a plastic bag in her purse.
“Merci.” She handed him the card. “We at the office d’habitation et domicile take details seriously,” she said. “Your residence isn’t listed on the permit. That’s because you live upstairs, illegally. We checked that room last night and found illegals, sleeping men. Lots of them. We think you’re subletting.” She shook her head. “Illegal according to the statute AB34, unless your business permit includes a residence permit.”
He blinked. For a moment she thought she had him.
“So my team will need to investigate the premises. Write up our report. Say this afternoon?”
She’d stirred the pot. If he’d hurt the Wus, or was in cahoots with them, this would flush them out.
He reached in the drawer and produced a ledger, which he set on the counter. He opened it and ran his finger down a column. “I live Ivry. Suburb. See rent in this column. My shop pay from my earnings. All here. All correct.”
She’d rather see the other set of books she figured he kept. He was prepared. He’d expected a visit.
“Zut! You leave me no option. We’ll run your fingerprints in our database, and check them against the prints on file for identification.” She smiled and held up the plastic bag with the nail polish bottle from her purse. “Glass shows prints so well. Unless you’d like to tell me where you’ve hidden the Wus?”
He glanced at his cell phone. Then at her. Deciding. “Come back later.”
“Why? So you can check with Ching Wao?”
A horn tooted on the street. “Big shipment.” And before she could press him, he’d hurried after the delivery man out the door to the waiting truck. But instead of unloading, he jumped in the passenger seat and the truck roared away.
Great. René would have done better getting answers with his Glock. All she’d done was shake the tree, and now the birds had flown.
But frustration wouldn’t get her answers. Aimée ducked behind the counter and explored the back of the shop. Boxes, cartons, a cracked, stained porcelain sink. Dark, empty cupboards. Wet mops leaning against the cobwebbed, padlocked back door. No one had used this door in a long time. Barred windows filmed with dirt looked onto the narrow walkway. The place reeked of damp and mildew. No one hid here, or would want to. She followed the cartons into the side hallway. The young woman looked up from the carton she was taping.
“Why are you afraid?” Aimée asked. “Did they tell you to keep quiet?”
The young woman dropped the tape dispenser. Perspiration beaded her lip. “Why you bother me? Why you make problem?”
“Problem? I think you’ll have a problem when the flics ask to see your ID, your residence permit. Or don’t you have one?”
“You no understand.” The girl’s lip trembled.
“Understand what?” Aimée said. “Look, if Meizi’s in trouble, I can help her. So can my partner.”
She could tell the girl understood more than she let on. Aimée’s scarf fell from her arm. “It’s hard feeling alone and afraid. I want to talk with Meizi. Won’t you help me, tell me where she’s gone? S’il vous plaît?”
The girl stepped closer, picked up Aimée’s scarf. Met her gaze and pressed the scarf into her hand.
“No good to ask questions. People watch you. Understand?”
AIMÉE PAUSED AT the walkway behind the shop, still blocked off by orange-and-white striped crime-scene tape. She wondered what evidence besides the wallet the crime-scene techs found. Wondered if the evidence had degraded in the melting snow. Or with the rats. Could the flics identity Meizi from the picture? It would be almost impossible if Meizi were illegal.
LIKE FINDING A single snowflake in a gray snowpile in the gutter.
Dejected, she walked, glad to get away from the synthetic smells hovering in the street.
Fake. Like everything else here, in this conspiracy of silence.
The feeling she’d been beaten dogged her.
So far she’d learned the Wus didn’t live above the shop. Meizi cleaned toilets, Monsieur Wu was a different Monsieur Wu. And things stank.
But she had someone’s fingerprints on her rouge-noir nail po
lish bottle. Five minutes later, she’d reached Benoit, a fingerprint analyst in the crime-scene unit on 36 Quai des Orfèvres. He’d gone to school with her cousin, liked heavy metal. And with the promise of highly coveted concert tickets, agreed to meet her.
With two hours until their rendezvous, she needed to keep busy. Sniff around.
Where rue au Maire elbowed right, she noticed a small hotel, the one-star variety. A hôtel borné, her father had called them, a fleabag demi-pension with rooms rented by the hour, typically by working girls, or old men who couldn’t afford anything else rented by the month.
The hotel’s open door led to a booth, then winding stairs. The smell of turmeric and onion mingled with the sweetish odor of tobacco.
A North African man in a red-and-green striped djellaba smoked a hookah in the cubicle of a reception booth. “We’re full, complet,” he said. “Try later.”
Aimée wanted information, not a room. She saw hotel business cards on the chipped counter. Sophisticated for a one-star hotel. “Hôtel Moderne, proprieter Aram,” she read. “You’re Aram?”
He shook his head.
“Did you know the man who was murdered last night? Or his girlfriend Meizi, from the luggage shop?”
The man shook his head again. Gave a big, gold-toothed smile. “Better you ask Aram. Knows everybody. Here a long time. But he’s at le dentiste.” He pointed to his teeth.
Good chance, then, Aram knew the street talk. Or saw something. At least she figured he didn’t buy into the Chinese wall of silence.
“Mon dentiste. Très bon,” he was saying. “You need dentiste?”
“Non, merci.”
Did she have something stuck in her teeth? She ran her tongue over her teeth to check. But she’d speak with this Aram, the hotel proprietor, later.
In her heeled boots, she picked her way over the melted slush and puddles, avoiding the cobble cracks. She felt eyes on her back. Visiting the luggage store had set off her sensors. The awareness that she was being watched sent a frisson up her spine.
She noticed the quick looks from shop merchants. Everyone here had something to hide. How would she ever find Meizi when she couldn’t even find anyone willing to talk?
The address listed on the dead man’s library card was only a block away. She didn’t know if he lived alone or had a family, but she’d find out. She’d discover his connection to Meizi.