Killer Critique

by Alexander Campion

  Capucine nodded at one of the uniformed officers who hauled Tanguy roughly off the table, handcuffed him, and led him out the door.

  CHAPTER 33

  On Friday night Capucine decided she would sleep in the next morning. If Alexandre could sleep until ten, so could she. And why not? Tanguy had been released after a short interview. It was abundantly clear that he knew nothing about the murder. And she had nothing but administrative tasks on her calendar for the next morning. Investing in an extended sleep might bring some clarity to the case and seemed like a definitely worthwhile endeavor. She dreamt of a carousel of amorphous, comestible clouds. She was starving. But each time she reached out to grab one, it disintegrated.

  As she lunged desperately at a particularly appetizing cloud, a large bumblebee attacked her relentlessly, buzzing aggressively.

  She half opened one eye. The gray of the night might have lightened just a smidgen. It must be a little after five. The buzzing continued. Not the “tiout, tiout, tiout” of her cell phone. That was good news. Capucine relaxed back into her pillow and tried to fall asleep again. The buzzing continued. It wasn’t the artificially resonating pre-war ring of Alexandre’s cell phone. Merde. It was the house phone on her night table.

  Eyes shut, she stabbed at it, knocking the cordless receiver off its stand with a clatter.

  “Who was killed this time?” Alexandre mumbled, barely audible between two pillows.

  Capucine managed to locate the TALK button and get the receiver to her ear.

  “Oui!” she said, halfway between a bark and a sigh.

  “Capucine, it’s Béatrice. Are you up? You said you were an early riser.”

  “Not this early,” Capucine said, unable to keep the irritated tone out of her voice.

  “Well, you’re up now and that’s the important thing. What if you came out to Rungis with me?”

  “The food market? Sure. Good idea. I’ve always wanted to go. Let’s talk after lunch and figure out a date.”

  “No. Now. Right now. My car won’t start and I need all sorts of things for the lunch service. I remember you saying you’d always wanted to see the market and I thought this would be a great opportunity.”

  Capucine lifted herself up on one elbow. Alexandre snorfeled deep in his nest of pillows. “Béatrice, there are several excellent taxi companies in Paris. Why don’t you just call one? I’d recommend Alpha Taxis. They’ll be there in five minutes.”

  “Very funny. I was hoping we could spend the morning together at the market. Then we could have breakfast and catch up on our gossip. I have a sizzler that I really want to share. And I know the place that serves the best croissants in Paris.”

  Capucine was dismayed to find that she was fully awake. Now she would never get back to sleep.

  “Béatrice. It’s five eighteen. No one goes shopping at this hour of the morning.”

  “Rungis opens at six thirty, and you have to be there right at the very beginning to get the best stuff.”

  “You’re impossible. You really are!”

  “And you’re fabulous. Pick me up at the restaurant as soon as you can.”

  “On the condition that you bring some coffee. Coffee strong enough to get my other eye open.”

  Capucine slipped on a very old pair of jeans and a brand new pair of Miu Miu suede ballet shoes decorated with tiny glass beads. Without thinking, she slid her holstered Sig into the back of her jeans and buttoned on a loose patterned silk blouse that would hide it.

  As she breezed through the empty streets of Paris toward the Sixth, Capucine thought about a course in urban planning she had taken at Sciences Po that used the Paris wholesale market as the ultimate example of urban disasters.

  It was claimed in the late sixties that Parisians’ ravenous appetite for food had outstripped the capacity of the ancient and hallowed Les Halles Market in the First Arrondissement—Zola’s Stomach of Paris—and it was decided to move the market to a vast site in the outskirts of Paris near the Bourget airport. Capucine’s professor had explained that the real reason for the move had been the exponentially exploding rat population that defeated even the most aggressive efforts of exterminators.

  The urban catastrophe had been the vacant site left in Paris. A five-story-deep hole was dug, and the barren crater remained a conspicuous eyesore for nearly a decade. Le Trou des Halles—the Halles Hole—became a notorious cause célèbre, the embarrassment of Paris. Eventually, a graceless underground shopping mall was built on the site, and it was hoped the area would become a new Saint-Germain. Instead Arab banlieusards took over. Police patrols, supported by vicious Alsatians, now made over fifty arrests a day. One of Paris’s most charming quartiers had been irretrievably destroyed.

  Somehow the new Halles was never mentioned, even though it had become the largest wholesale distribution center in the world and apparently the absolute acme of meticulously organized food facilities management. Now, that was going to be something worth seeing.

  Béatrice piaffed impatiently on the sidewalk in front of her restaurant, next to a young man in jeans and an olive drab T-shirt made lumpy by gym-inflated muscles. “Béranger, my fish chef,” she said by way of introduction as they scrambled into the Twingo.

  Béranger bobbed his head and mumbled a shy “M’d’me.”

  “Capucine, ma chérie, we really have to step on it. It’s nearly six, and we have a long way to go.”

  They hummed down the voie sur berge, then onto the Périphérique, and finally onto the A6—the Autoroute of the Sun, which led ultimately to the glorious Riviera—and arrived at six thirty-seven. Capucine could feel Béranger fretting in the backseat.

  The market was the size of a small city. Squat warehouses with trucks backed into loading gates went on and on infinitely in either direction. They parked the Twingo in a parking lot that seemed to stretch to the horizon, and made off at a trot. Béatrice took Capucine’s arm to hurry her along.

  “I had no idea the market was so large,” Capucine said.

  “It’s bigger than Monaco,” Béatrice said with a laugh, breaking into a trot. “But we really need to get our skates on. The fish we’re after is usually gone in a few minutes. But I think we’re going to make it, right, Béranger?”

  Béranger shrugged his shoulders in an attempt at Gallic insouciance, which he was not quite able to pull off.

  The building they targeted was five long rows away. After a breathless run they pushed through a screen of hanging plastic strips. The building was cavernous, stark white, overbright from endless rows of fluorescent tubes. The din of vendors shouting to assistants reverberated, augmented by the warning cries of warehousemen pushing electric carts stacked with plastic boxes of produce. The scene was as dramatic as a Puccini opera.

  They pulled up in front of a small area under a large white banner marked KIYOTO TANSAIUMA, followed by three rows of Japanese characters. The final line was in French, PATENTED OWNERS OF KAIMIN KATSUGYO.

  Béranger searched nervously up and down the rows of piled Styrofoam containers, questing like a spaniel, until he stopped in a point, smiling and peering down at a pile of boxes.

  “Chef! We made it in time. Come look at these.”

  Capucine and Béatrice hurried over. The cases Béranger now guarded proprietarily were divided into twelve compartments, each lined with loose, crinkled plastic film. A scant inch of water lay at the bottom of the sections, which contained round pale orange fish with sharply pointed tails and serrated dorsal fins. The fish brimmed with health, their eyes crystal clear, almost sentient. But despite their sanguine glow, they were as rigid as if dead.

  “Dorade—sea bream,” Béatrice said. “The prince of fish. They’re going to be the pièce de résistance for our luncheon menu. These come from Japan. Far better than the Mediterranean variety. They’re the absolute best sea bream available.”

  Béranger was picking up the fish reverently one by one and examining them intently. Two Japanese men had flanked him and bowed repeatedly wi
th stiff smiles that did not reach their eyes. Béatrice held a muted, urgent conversation with one of them.

  “I’ve just bought twenty dorades,” Béatrice said to Capucine. “That will give us forty fillets. We might do a few more, but if we don’t, I wouldn’t want to waste fish of this quality.” She picked up one of the bream and showed it to Capucine. It was astonishingly fresh, smelling only of the sea, not a hint of fishiness.

  Béatrice took Capucine’s hand and guided it into a pinching position just behind the fish’s gills.

  “Squeeze gently.”

  “Good Lord. Its heart is still beating. How can they survive all the way from Japan in so little water?”

  “It’s a sort of Japanese zombie thing,” Béatrice said with a laugh. “They call it kaimin katsugyo, which apparently means something like ‘live fish sleeping.’ I guess it’s really a form of acupuncture. They inject a needle in a very secret spot and the fish goes into some sort of hibernation. It doesn’t move, it passes almost no water through its gills, but its heart still beats. Actually, it still keeps beating when we cut the fillet out but it doesn’t notice a thing. Or if it notices, it doesn’t say anything.” Béatrice and Béranger sniggered with laughter.

  “That sounds like something out of a grade B horror movie,” Capucine said.

  “Not when you eat them,” Béatrice said. “They cost an arm and a leg but the taste is unique. Imagine a fish on your table that was alive five minutes before you start eating it. The fillet still quivers.”

  That was something Capucine would rather not have imagined.

  “Enough of this,” Béatrice said imperiously. “Gambas, Béranger—shrimp! Where was that place we found those amazing gambas the last time?”

  “Right down here, Chef,” Béranger said, moving off rapidly.

  Capucine assumed that the bream would be left in situ, in their comatose limbo, until the car was driven around and they were picked up for the final leg of their long journey to Paris.

  They arrived at a concession several hundred yards away, at the other end of the warehouse, that apparently dealt exclusively with shellfish. There was a profusion of oysters, clams, oursins, and dark blue French lobsters. In a far corner, stacks of Styrofoam crates contained giant luminous orange langoustines easily eight inches long.

  Béranger carefully examined three or four from different crates, turning them over and pulling gently on their legs. He leaned over to Béatrice and whispered, “Ils sont superbes!”

  Béatrice motioned to a man who had been following behind with a pad.

  “We’ll take eighty. No, wait. Make that eighty-eight.”

  She turned to Capucine. “The extra eight are for your lunch. It’s the least I can do for having rousted you out of bed at the crack of dawn.”

  Capucine hesitated for a beat, about to object. After a second the moment had passed.

  Even if the gift of eight shrimp was far less than compromising, Capucine felt unaccountably embarrassed. She had scrupulously avoided labeling Béatrice as either copine—pal—or suspect. If the latter, Capucine’s presence on the outing was unconscionable, if the former, her hesitation over the modest gift was far worse than ungracious.

  On the way back Capucine wound up with a bulky crate of gambas under her legs, requiring her to deal with the pedals on tiptoe. The crates filled with the bream had filled the Twingo’s tiny trunk and the vacant back seat. The gambas had been piled on Béranger’s and Béatrice’s laps, reaching to the roof. The only place left for the remaining crates had been the floor of the driver’s side. Despite the air-conditioning, the funk of gambas filled the tiny car. As the ride back progressed, Capucine’s anticipation of lunch plummeted.

  Back at the restaurant Béatrice marched through the door with a stack of crates up to eye level, Béranger with a slightly smaller stack, and Capucine, slightly embarrassed, with only two of the light Styrofoam boxes. Once the crates were stacked in the walk-in refrigerator, Béranger disappeared promptly out the back door, no doubt to get some sleep before his service in the kitchen began. Béatrice threw her morning’s receipts into a wooden out-box in her office and surveyed her deserted domain happily. Her satisfaction was palpable.

  “Breakfast! Nothing happens before eleven when the cooks start to come in. Of course the prep staff gets going in about half an hour but the last person they want to see is me. How about a café au lait and some croissants before we get going on our Saturdays?”

  They found themselves at a tiny café table around the corner. A napkin-lined wire basket of croissants arrived with the coffee. As they pulled the doughy, yeasty crescents apart, eating them nugget by nugget, brightly scrubbed, freshly made up people and perky little dogs on leashes paraded purposefully across their field of vision. Le weekend was off and running. True to Béatrice’s word, the croissants were exceptionally good.

  “So, is the case solved yet?” Béatrice asked.

  “I wish. It just keeps getting more and more complicated. But tell me your news. ”

  Béatrice leaned over the table, took Capucine’s hand, and whispered conspiratorially. “You can’t breathe a word of this. Promise?”

  Capucine bent close to Béatrice and nodded eagerly.

  “I think I’m about to get my first Michelin star. I really do!”

  “How do you know?”

  “There’s been a rumor going around for over a month. Three weeks ago one of their inspectors came for dinner. They always announce who they are. Another came for lunch last week. That’s a very good sign. And last night they called up, asking for a reservation on Wednesday. Isn’t that incredible!”

  “That is such good news,” Capucine said. “I really hope it works out.”

  “Oh, it will. You have to have faith in life. But what about your case? You must be making some progress.”

  “Not really. You must have seen the press about the murder the other day.”

  “At Dong,” Béatrice said. “I read about it. What an awful place that restaurant is.”

  “Alexandre’s sentiments exactly.”

  Béatrice’s spoon clattered in her saucer. “Someone shoved a baby blowfish down the victim’s throat, right?”

  “Yes, apparently the SAMU found it almost impossible to get it out. The fish has spikes that point backward and they lodged in the throat.”

  “And he was killed in the toilet?”

  “Yes, sitting on the toilet seat.”

  “How awful.” She leaned forward. “With his pipi hanging out! How gross was that? Capucine, you really must catch this murderer. I can’t get over the fact that the person who killed someone in my restaurant is still on the loose.”

  “What about the three victims in other people’s restaurants? Isn’t that just as bad?”

  “Just as bad? Of course not. It wasn’t my restaurant.” Béatrice seemed almost affronted.

  Breakfast over, Capucine moved the box of gambas from the driver’s floor to the cargo space in the back of the Twingo and made her way back to the Marais. In the heat of the morning the odor of the shrimp intensified. It was far from unpleasant—they were still perfectly fresh, after all—but it was definitely overly-present. Capucine couldn’t make up her mind if her reaction was because sea food didn’t sit well on top of croissants or because her unconscious mind had finally deemed the gift unethical.

  Parking in front of her building, Capucine crossed the street—the cageot of gambas in her hands—and walked into a shop that sold magazines and books. She picked up the fat Saturday edition of Le Figaro and the Nouvel Observateur.

  As she paid, she said to the owner of the little shop, “Someone took me to Rungis this morning and gave me these. Unfortunately, we’re going out for both lunch and dinner. Would you like them?”

  The shop owner was so delighted Capucine was almost embarrassed.

  CHAPTER 34

  One of the tenets of her marriage’s folklore was that Capucine loathed the Salon des Vins de Bordeaux but still insisted on
going every year, purely as an act of altruistic solidarity with her husband. In actual fact, Capucine adored the salon, not only because she was fond of Bordeaux but also because of the comic value of the tribal behavior of the oenological elite.

  The salon’s program was straightforward. The top end of the Bordeaux châteaux gathered in Paris to present their most recent vintage to the owners, chefs, and sommeliers of the city’s best restaurants. Naturally, the event was also populated by the usual crested gratin as well as the press.

  Since the vintage would not reach its prime for nearly a decade, the châteaux also proposed a selection of their more notable past millésimes. Somber men in somber blue suits made long boring speeches to grave gaggles collected around their tables, who vigorously slushed the wines in their mouths and then spat them genteelly into chromed spittoons placed in the center of each snowy white be-linened table. For Capucine the gesture was somehow both farcical and profoundly erotic.

  Spitting was clearly only a partial palliative to inebriation—Alexandre explained that it was really about “ownership,” not staying sober—and by the time they arrived, the crowd had become tipsy enough to resemble passengers on a transatlantic liner weaving as they aimed for the dining room in a swelling sea.

  Capucine and Alexandre gamely jumped into the fray, sipping, spitting, nodding at commentary. By the time they reached their third stand, Capucine had sealed her lips shut like an amateur poker player, trying hard not to giggle.

  As they sauntered around the room, it was obvious to Capucine that Alexandre had acquired the luster of a celebrity. He was endlessly buttonholed, greeted effusively, loudly bestowed with nuggets of culinary gossip by people he clearly had never seen before. The elephant in the room pursued him as closely as if his jacket pockets were filled with peanuts. Not only had his métier been knighted by the scandal of murder, but Alexandre himself had become irresistible with the notoriety of being the most likely next victim.