Murder at the Lanterne Rouge

by Cara Black

  “You believe this Aram?”

  “I believe he dislikes paying Chinese protection money,” she said. “Let’s call it a mutual non-admiration society.”

  “So he’d know this Tso,” he said. “We have to prove my Meizi’s innocent.”

  Silver rivulets of rain snaked down the apartment windows overlooking Passage du Pont-aux-Biches. Aimée’s shoulders slumped. Why couldn’t René get it?

  “But Chinatown’s a closed world,” she said, frustrated. “I’m getting nowhere.”

  “Has that ever stopped you before, Aimée?”

  Saturday, Noon

  CLODO BURPED. HE was safe from the flic, celebrating down in the Métro on the bench of the line 9 platform at République station. He steadied his shaking hand around the bottle of red, trying to rid his mind of what happened last night, the mec’s cry for help.

  Unsuccessful, he watched the surge of passengers. That poor mec didn’t deserve suffocating like that. Who did?

  The burnt-rubber smell from the train brakes lingered in the fetid air. The parfum of his childhood, of the underground. A warning buzzer sounded and the doors shuddered closed. Then the train rumbled off, gathering speed.

  Clodo swigged from his bottle on the deserted platform, watching the train’s red lights disappear in the dark tunnel. In the distance he heard the grating of a shutter being rolled down, closing off this section.

  Now he could get some sleep.

  Snatches of conversation heralded the crew who maintained the subterranean world—three hundred stations, more than two hundred kilometers of routes unseen by flics. The Métro workers were simple to avoid if one knew the station maintenance closure schedule via the homeless grapevine. And Clodo did, courtesy of a fellow clochard. On the weekends, no line work, apart from stock and service repair runs, would run on this route, which branched toward Strasbourg Saint-Denis.

  Ever since the war, he’d dreamed of working in the Métro. It was a second home to him, in a way, after the nights taking shelter in the station. Always good with his hands, he’d applied at the Vincennes train repair center, but without a school certificate he had no chance.

  He downed the dregs from his bottle, tossed it in the bin. Time for his stash in the Métro tunnel.

  And to barter the cell phone he’d found on the steps near the body. Wouldn’t do the mec any good now. But Clodo would raise a bottle to his memory.

  At the mouth of the tunnel, he ignored the yellow sign saying Passage Interdit au Public—Danger and the blinking signal-switch panel. He followed the narrow walkway hugging the curved wall of the Métro tunnel. The service walkway supported a small, green, illuminated track that stretched ahead in the darkness. Clodo inched his cold fingers along the grimy wall for several yards until his thumb caught on the flaking mortar. He wedged out the loose brick and reached into the niche for the bag.

  His stash.

  As he replaced it with the mec’s cell phone, the tunnel filled with blaring white light and a terrifying whoosh as a repair train thundered through like a luminous snake. He saw the momentary silhouette of a figure before the bright light passed. He closed his eyes, grabbed the wall. Wind blew grit in his nose and ears. The walkway vibrated beneath his feet.

  Merde. He moved faster. The walkway led down three steps to the rails. Candles flickered ahead on the ghost station platform, silhouetting blanketed mounds. The enclave of the homeless. Not far.

  With the forecasted drop in temperature today and the shelters full, it was too much trouble for the Métro flics to rouse the drunken and unwashed. Clodo clutched his stash inside his fur coat, knotted his pink scarf, and steadied himself, careful to avoid the live third rail. 750 volts of electricity. He’d seen a man fried last year. Lying on the rail, his hair standing up like a porcupine’s.

  Raised drunken voices and red wine smells told him he’d arrived. Graffitied posters and water-stained advertisements from the forties still clung to the walls. Forgotten relics, like those who clustered here for warmth, but intimately familiar to Clodo. He remembered his mother swearing by Persil soap, like the old pockmarked green bottle half visible on the tattered poster. It was one of the few things he remembered her saying.

  He gathered crumpled newspapers and torn cardboard, nodded to Fichu, who huddled in several khaki sleeping bags.

  “Want to rent me a bag, Fichu?”

  “If the price feels right,” Fichu mumbled. “What you got, Clodo?”

  Clodo sat down. A wave of dizziness, then a fit of coughing overtook him. Damn lungs burned.

  He fumbled in his coat, keeping the bag from Fichu’s view. Pulled it out.

  “What the …?”

  In his hand was a sealed Plasticine bag of white powder.

  “I don’t do sugar, Clodo.”

  “Some bastard took my bottle,” Clodo said. “My wine’s gone.”

  “Left you with something you don’t want to keep.” Fichu shook his head. Bleary-eyed, he rubbed his nose. “Dope dealers here these days. Strangers.”

  Clodo struggled to his feet. “We’ll see about that. He owes me, the salaud,” he said. Then he remembered. “Interested in a cell phone, Fichu? It’s fresh.”

  “Like I’d get reception down here?”

  Clodo shuffled to the end of the platform. Another fit of coughing overtook him. The tunnel reverberated with the roar of an approaching train.

  “Looking for this?” a voice said behind him.

  Before Clodo could turn, he felt a hand on his back. Then a push. Felt himself flying in front of the blinding light.

  Saturday, 2 P.M.

  “BUT I TELL flic this morning,” said Madame Liu, “I no see le petit, or you. I go to funeral service last night.”

  Aimée stared at Madame Liu, the manager of Chez Chun, a tiny woman with an upswept hairdo of lacquered curls. Her hair didn’t move when she shook her head, but her jade bracelet jingled as she speared a receipt on a nail.

  “Can I speak to the waitress who worked last night?”

  “She live far away, work Monday.”

  Convenient.

  “But flics tell her my food make le petit sick. True?”

  No one forgot René. Aimée shook her head. Looked outside on the narrow, slush-filled street.

  Aimée pointed to the shuttered luggage store. “But you must know the Wus and Meizi. Any idea where I can find them?”

  “Quartier change. New shops. People come and go.”

  “What about this man with bad teeth. Tso?”

  Madame Liu averted her eyes. “I semiretired.”

  Aimée wouldn’t know it from the way Madame Liu whipped around cleaning tables. She noticed the woman’s knuckles had whitened around the dishtowel she clutched. Was she hiding something?

  But it made her think. This narrow street was the shortest route from the Conservatoire to Pascal’s great-aunt’s.

  “Have you ever seen this man?” She showed Madame Liu Pascal’s photo.

  Madame Liu lifted her reading glasses from the chain around her neck. Stared. “Him? No eat.”

  As she suspected, Madame knew him. A local in the quartier. Aimée suppressed her excitement. “Last night? What time?”

  “Not eat here.” Madame Liu took her reading glasses off. “Busy, now prepare for dinner.”

  “Where did you last see him, Madame Liu?”

  “Not sure.”

  “Here in the quartier? On the street?”

  “Dead man, right?”

  Aimée nodded.

  Madame Liu grabbed a dry dish towel. “Come back later.”

  Aimée had to get some kind of information from her. “But the flics suspect a Chinese gang killed him.”

  “Flics don’t speak good Wenzhou dialect.”

  “They’re lazy, too,” Aimée said. “But that’s between you and me.”

  Madame Liu leaned forward. “Flics like my noodle soup. Like no pay.”

  She imagined Prévost enjoying a free lunch. Flics took it as their due
, and her godfather Morbier was no exception. That grated on her.

  “Me, I pay for information. I keep it quiet, too.”

  Aimée pulled fifty francs from her wallet. Set it on the table. This search was getting expensive, and her bank balance was getting low, but she pushed that out of her head. “Do you know anything about his family?”

  “Family? He have very old auntie?”

  Aimée nodded again. Not only was Madame Liu a good observer, but she knew who lived in this village-like warren of medieval streets.

  “He teach class and eat here Fridays. Order #32 shrimp wonton soup.”

  “So last night …”

  “Every Friday, but not last night.”

  And he was murdered around the corner.

  “But did you see him yesterday? Going in the luggage shop to see Meizi, to buy a bag for his auntie?”

  “Sad for auntie. Nice lady.” Madame Liu rubbed the towel over the cracked tiled counter.

  “His auntie knows no Chinese would hurt him,” Aimée said. Time to stretch the truth. “But I need Meizi’s help to prove that to the flics.”

  Madame Liu nodded to a young man arriving in the back door.

  “He walk by maybe seven o’clock,” Madame Liu said. “No stop like usual. I go funeral service. That’s all.”

  At seven in the evening it would have been dark, the shops closed.

  “Was he with Meizi? Black ponytail, sweet face, jeans and green sweater?”

  Madame Liu shrugged. “He wave. Alone. That’s all.”

  On the way to meet his killer.

  Aimée looked out the window again. Saw how close the luggage shop was. Her mind went back to last night, this table: Meizi ladling the soup, her face lighting up upon seeing René, how her smile reached her eyes. Not the face of a woman who’d killed a man and wrapped him in plastic before dinner. When Meizi excused herself to take a call, Aimée couldn’t help believing, she intended to return to her birthday meal, her present, and René.

  “My restaurant full soon, dishwasher sick. I’m busy.”

  In a swift movement Madame Liu joined the young man at the counter, turning her back on Aimée.

  Saturday, 2 P.M.

  RENÉ WATCHED THE Chinese man standing in the shadows. The red-orange glow from a cigarette bobbed as he spoke into a phone. His Mercedes jeep idled at the corner. René wanted to get close enough to see the man’s teeth.

  A moment later the man flicked the cigarette in the gutter, buttoned his sleek leather jacket, and headed for his jeep, and René finally caught a glimpse of his face. Black hair, fashionable stubble shading his face. Yellow, crooked teeth.

  Tso. The snakehead. The man who Aimée had discovered sold Meizi’s papers.

  René turned the key in his Citroën’s ignition. He followed slowly, keeping a car between them. The jeep paused off rue Beaubourg, and two men leapt out of the back to unload boxes. A delivery. Then another, until an hour had passed. Never once had Tso gotten out. Antsy, René wished he’d hurry up and get to his destination. Then René would show him what bad teeth really were.

  After the next delivery, the men disappeared and the jeep took off. René followed, staying two cars behind this time. The jeep turned into the narrow one-way rue de Montmorency and maneuvered into a parking spot.

  René pulled into a red zone.

  By the time Tso locked the jeep, René stood poised in a doorway, ready. But Tso crossed to the other side of the street. René looked both ways, keeping to the ancient buildings.

  Tso turned at the corner, stepped into a café tabac. René considered his options. Grab him when he came out or follow him. More chance of finding Meizi if he did the latter.

  “Pardonnez-moi, have a light, Monsieur?” asked someone behind René. Before he could turn, a blow hit his sternum, knocking the air out of him. Slicing pain doubled him over. His arms were grabbed behind him.

  He heard laughter, “le petit,” something in Chinese.

  With every bit of strength he could muster, he kicked out, connecting with a leg. Hearing a cry, he kicked again and again, until his arms were released. Remembering his judo, he jabbed a crosscut in his assailant’s ribs. Aching pain shot through his hip as he twisted away on the wet pavement. Tso and another man loomed over him.

  René pulled the Glock from his pocket. Aimed up at Tso’s face. Those bad teeth. “Tell me where Meizi is, or—”

  Tso ducked, tossed his cigarette, and both men took off running. Clutching his chest, René got to his feet, took a step, and folded against the wall. By the time he managed to straighten up and reach the corner, they’d gone.

  But René heard the unmistakable sound of a door shutting. Mid-block, if he calculated correctly. Not much good to anyone right now, he limped into the café tabac.

  “A brandy, s’il vous plaît,” he said, punching Aimée’s number on his phone. “Make it a double.”

  Saturday, 3 P.M.

  “BUT ACCORDING TO Aram, the sweatshop entrance is on rue du Bourg-l’Abbé, René.” Worried, Aimée surveyed René as they sat in the small café tabac. “On the next block.”

  “So Tso took a shortcut.” Perspiration beaded René’s forehead and his breath came in short gasps. “But it was him, bad teeth and all.”

  Aimée’s glass of fizzing Badoit water glistened under the café counter light. “You don’t look too good, René.”

  “I’ll feel better if you try the front entrance,” he said. “Call me and I’ll come.”

  She doubted he could walk without pain right now. She shook her head. “Stay on this stool, compris? Watch from this window until one of them leaves and call me.”

  She eyed the café’s rear galley kitchen, where a sagging apron, a pair of overalls, and a white butcher-shop coat hung from the coatrack. “You work in a charcuterie, Monsieur?” she asked the man behind the counter.

  “Not me. Next door.” He flicked a thread of blond tobacco from his rolled cigarette. “After a pichet de rosé the butcher always forgets it.”

  “Bon, let me borrow it.”

  “Eh? It’s not mine.”

  She slapped twenty francs on the counter. “Then I’ll rent it.”

  Drumbeats thrummed from Les Bains, the club in the old bathhouse on rue du Bourg-l’Abbé. The building entrance on the right was boarded up. No luck there. The one on the left, shrouded in scaffolding, was also boarded up. The only way to the sweatshop in the rear courtyard was through the club.

  “No date?” asked the mascaraed transvestite at the door. His Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence name tag read Lola.

  “Not yet, Lola,” Aimée smiled.

  “We’d love to let you in, but the benefit is reservation only. Sold out.” Lola gestured with an orange-lacquered nail, which matched his eye shadow, to the poster announcing “Afternoon Tea Dance! HIV caregivers support benefit competition.”

  Where were her sequins when she needed them? But Michou, René’s transvestite neighbor, entered these contests all the time.

  Aimée opened her coat, revealing the white butcher’s smock. “I’m a health inspector.”

  “Mon Dieu, but we’re up to code!”

  “I know you passed inspection, Lola.” Aimée gave a little sigh. “But I’m inspecting the toilets in the rear courtyard. Some complaints, you know.”

  A couple, tottering on high heels and wrapped together in a feather boa, passed her.

  “We don’t want any trouble,” Lola said.

  “Of course you don’t, that’s why you’ll let me do my job,” she said, slipping a fifty-franc note in the donation box.

  “We’re all about cooperating.” Lola swept his arm at the ushers. “Let this girl in. She’s in a hurry.”

  Out on the dance floor, couples gyrated under a flashing disco ball to “I Will Survive” as a large-shouldered blond, in a skintight red velour jumpsuit with the highest heeled boots Aimée had ever seen, lip-synched along.

  She felt a tap on her shoulder. “Don’t tell me your dance card
’s filled.”

  She turned to face a person wearing a white Courrèges tunic with the signature geometric design. Vintage and delicious. But those cheekbones looked familiar.

  “Where’s René?” He pecked her on both cheeks. “Careful, I just powdered.”

  Viard. The police crime lab head on rue de Dantzig. And Michou’s partner. “It’s complicated, Viard. Where did you get that Courrèges?”

  “If you’re a good girl, I’ll let you borrow it,” he said, his hips swaying to the music. He gestured to the lip-syncher. “Michou’s on next.”

  “Right now I need to get to the back.”

  “She’s not that bad. She’s a professional, you know.”

  She and René had seen Michou’s show in Les Halles many times. “I know, stunning. But there’s a clandestine sweatshop only accessible—”

  Viard put his arm up, pearl bracelet sliding. “Like we can help those poor people?”

  “But I can. So you’ve seen them, Viard?”

  A moue of distaste showed on his crimson mouth. “How can you miss those grinding machines?” Viard said. “It’s in the courtyard behind the men’s. As sisters under the skin, we let them use them, you know. There’s Michou!” And he danced off.

  She found the door marked Exit near the men’s, pushed it open to a damp alley narrowing between the buildings. Cracked concrete and crumbling stone walls led to a thin courtyard surrounded by bricked-up windows, already dark in the fading afternoon light. Behind her sounded the distant strains of “I Will Survive”; before her the chomp, chomp of machines. She felt the vibration in the soles of her boots.

  She entered the door at her left. Inside, Chinese men in sweat-stained T-shirts fed plastic sheets into twenty or so cutting machines. She recognized the plastic, which matched the luggage she’d seen. The hot oil and synthetic odors choked her. Good God, how could the factory owner let human beings work in this air? In this noise?

  An older woman peered down at her from a stairway. Coiffed black hair, jade bracelets on both wrists, red silk scarf trailing from her neck, and thin painted eyebrows. Aimée sucked in a breath as Madame Wu pointed a bamboo back scratcher at her like a weapon.