Stifling Folds of Love

by John Brooke

  Yes, and now Remy worked for them.

  That cop had gone straight to it. Forced him to face it. Again.

  Now Rose Saxe was throwing it into the streets for everyone to pick through.

  The thing that rubbed closest to the bitter heart of it was that he wasn’t even mentioned. That was wrong. If there was going to be a history of Pearl, Remy Lorentz had to be part of it.

  Remy’s mama — five years gone now — had told him love made life bearable. Especially a life spent in service to people who took you for granted. Mama, who’d passed all those years behind the counter in the tiny stationery shop with Remy’s moody pa, would know. No matter how high Remy had got in local, then regional tennis circles, she always told him, ‘Find someone on your own level. Don’t be a dreamer. It never works.’

  Remy believed her. Remy had been with Pearl, and Pearl had been on his level. Their paths were parallel, if sometime distant at certain points along the way. Two small shops across the street from each other, the life in a small apartment directly above. Pearl’s American mom was good at tennis and Pearl had inherited it. From retail to tennis, they shared much, they understood each other, he and Pearl. Then teaching. Because, no, Roland Garros, Wimbledon, Forest Hills…the larger tennis world beyond was not in the cards for Remy Lorentz. It took a while but he came to terms with that. It took some time for Remy to find Pearl…to find her again after the heady days of being an up-and-coming tennis phenom, which, let’s face it, were days filled with champagne, interviews, blow jobs on demand. Oh, man! Hard to let go of a life like that. But finally, after a year of anger, too many blind bursts in dead-end directions…then depression… he had allowed himself to make a call and see what Pearl was up to.

  Teaching. The little ones. It was her mission in life.

  Pearl helped Remy find his stroke again, so to speak. She helped him understand that he could teach tennis and still enjoy life making the most of the ‘lovely talent’ nature had bestowed. Lovely talent. Those were Pearl’s very words. He kept them like a mantra. She pointed him toward the club. Encouraged him. Straightened his tie and sent him off. He got the job. She helped him deal with the death of his mother. They knew each other. They were doing well, even if Pearl was never anywhere remotely near to being one of those excellently willing tennis groupies always waiting by the exit ramp, always up for whatever. Well, there’s no perfect life.

  But before she’d died, Remy’s mama had said they were good together. He and Pearl.

  Then one dumb mistake — one silly moment of impetuous ass-holerie: ‘You can have her for a thousand francs, man.’ — and Remy lost Pearl to Didi.

  Didi Belfort was so not-Pearl. Watching Pearl and Didi on the court, Remy knew that Didi knew it too. No way you can be with a woman who won’t ever let you win a point. Pearl played hard. Didi played like a panicky giraffe. It wouldn’t last. Impossible. It was her little gesture — to show him how things would have to be. Remy could see it every time he saw them.

  And, OK, Remy got it. No more asshole. You say au revoir to poor Didi — we will move forward, with respect. I promise.

  Then Tommi Bonneau put Pearl and Didi in his column on the back page of Le Cri du Matin and everything changed. Putting a picture of Pearl and Didi out dancing in the same space as a shot of a tanned and water-beaded Johnny Halliday with an arm around his newest amour on some beach ensured everyone would see it — and see it in that light. Especially Didi, if not Pearl.

  You never knew what Pearl was thinking. Remy always thought he did.

  Didi. Pierre Angulaire. The banker… Remy got to watch them, sitting there naked on the men’s locker-room bench reading about the fun they’d had with Pearl the night before. That was when Remy began taking up those silent offers the ladies made while he was demonstrating the basics of the backhand. Had he ever actually liked any of them? More to the point: Had they liked him? Not much. Not past those few minutes of hot fun…

  Remy’s sullen meditation brought him to the house in Rue Pontbriand. He knew he shouldn’t be standing in front of this door. Two cops, that judge — they’d all told him in no uncertain terms. Back off. Stay cool. Don’t paint yourself into a frame.

  He should walk on. But didn’t. Remy knocked. Hard. Kept at it, till the door was opened.

  Bonneau was still in his pyjamas. ‘You? What the hell do you want?’

  Bonneau was taller. Always had been. But he didn’t take care of himself. That had bothered Remy since they were five years old, neighbors but never friends in Rue Marianne. He said, ‘You look like hell, man.’ And punched Tommi in his sagging mouth and knocked him flat.

  He walked in. ‘Getting in shape, are we?’ Taking a gander into the weight-strewn dining room while Tommi regrouped, struggling to his knees. ‘About time,’ muttered Remy, and turned and kicked him. Tommi fell over, curled up, holding his gut. Remy told him, ‘You’re the cause of all this. You fucked up my whole life with your bullshit. Hers too… What have you done with her?’ He looked in the dim study. Saw nothing but a bird and a million books. Demanded, ‘Are you hiding her here, you weird ass? If you are…Pearl!’

  Remy kept going, into the kitchen, through to the back. ‘Ah.’ There was a life-sized picture of Pearl on the wall — ripped, fading, a Pearl from some years back. And more faces in a pile of 8x10’s, smoky, washed out. Who were they? Remy was puzzling over a ghost-white face when Tommi came in. Geeky Tommi — who picked up the tennis racquet lying by the door. Remy sniffed, ‘Forget it, man. She’ll never play with you… Who’s this supposed to be? Looks like Bruno…the eyes, and that’s gotta be Didi. Is this like art or something?’ Sorting through the pile, very unconcerned about Bonneau.

  Tommi said, ‘You know I hate tennis. This is Didi’s. He was going to kill me with it.’

  Top-of-the-line composite. Light. Flexible. But hard enough to dent Remy’s well-shaped skull. Tommi smashed Remy on the back of the head. Several times. What a mess.

  But Tommi was angry too.

  36

  Pushy Rose

  Sunday evening.

  Sipping a beer, Piaf circling her ankles, the inspector punched in Tommi’s number from the comfort of her bed. She got his answering machine brusquely instructing callers to ‘go through my editor.’ She left an airy message: ‘Salut, Tommi, Aliette Nouvelle here…I’d be interested in seeing prints of those shots we did the other day…was thinking it might be something nice for my mother’s birthday. Oh, and I’d love to hear your take on that Rose Saxe thing. I’m around this evening. Give me a call.’ She left her number. Did not honestly expect him to call her back.

  One minute later, the phone rang. ‘Oui.’

  ‘Inspector?’ A whisper. Someone who had embraced her clandestine role.

  ‘Hello, Rose.’

  ‘Was it all right?’

  ‘Perfect. Looking forward to tomorrow’s revelations.’

  ‘Look, there’s really not much more I can do with this thing the way it stands.’ Sounding as if the matter were another party that was getting a little flat.

  ‘But they promised a series.’

  ‘All done — on my editor’s desk. I want to take it further. I was thinking I could try something from a police point of view. You know? Spend a day in the car with a detective. That sort of thing. Can you to set it up for me?’

  ‘I don’t think it would help your cause, Rose. All it is at this stage is surveillance. Terribly dull. Making the rounds…we watch, we wait.’

  ‘Watch what?’

  ‘The streets. Known haunts. The bus station. Trains. Planes. Some people…’

  ‘Which people? My people?’

  ‘I can’t divulge that.’

  ‘People want more from this story.’

  ‘I agree. But a surveillance diary would never satisfy your readers, not with Tommi turning up the heat the way he is.’ She tried to encourage her. ‘You’re on the right track, Rose. Really. I’m impressed. Maybe we could talk further at the end of the week. I m
ean — ’

  ‘Hold a moment…’ Aliette heard Rose tell someone, ‘Court ten…be right there.’ Rose returned, ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Not a problem. Nice evening for tennis.’

  ‘Maybe one of your detectives knows her,’ suggested Rose. ‘Maybe he loves Pearl Serein like all the rest of them. It could be the thoughts of an inspector hunting an old friend. Mm? I’m a good writer, Inspector. Just give me the thread of another angle and I can develop it.’

  ‘The only cop who knows her has been taken off the case.’ She thought about it. ‘You could try the pathologists. Now there’s a world of broken hearts. Your readers would love the two men working on it. They both have buckets of style. I could set that up.’

  ‘Are you palming me off, Inspector?’

  It was this disquieting persistence. ‘Not in the least. I’m giving you a thread.’

  ‘Aliette…’ said Rose, her tone now softer, motherly, angling, ‘we’re in this together, my dear.’

  ‘Rose, I appreciate your enthusiasm, but people cannot be distracted. Or compromised. Their thoughts on Pearl, from whatever angle, have nothing to do with their work. We’re not ex-friends or fans, we are instruments of the law. If we went in that direction and it came to light, defense advocates would find the tiniest things and — ’

  ‘Let me shadow you. I’ll do a profile of a commissaire-in-waiting.’

  Such a pushy woman. ‘You’re kind. But again, highly inappropriate. Our current commissaire is on leave and I fully expect to see him back on the job before too long.’ Aliette the diplomat.

  Rose was blunt. ‘Can we not move past this polite veneer? We are talking serial murder here.’

  ‘We don’t know that yet, madame. And you must not even think of suggesting such a thing.’

  ‘I can take this so much deeper, Inspector.’

  ‘I have to let you go, Rose. I’ll be in touch.’

  Ringing off, wondering if the lady understood her role. The cousin game was often delicate.

  Within a minute, the phone rang again.

  ‘Putain! you’re not my friend.’ And he hung up. Such an angry Tommi.

  Sipping beer, running a toe along Piaf’s back, wondering, Could Anne-Marie handle that?

  37

  Lunch With Monsieur le Divisionnaire

  Inspector Nouvelle ate her cereal slowly and deliberately. Then she combed her hair, applied make-up, donned a serious gray suit. Took the gun from the back of her sweater drawer and put in her briefcase. Couldn’t remember when she had last carried it. Hadn’t needed it. So many other much more subtle ways of getting the job done. But Norbert Fauré was a hard-nosed traditionalist and a gun was obligatoire. A brisk walk to work cleared her mind.

  Stepping into Monique’s office for coffee and the usual Monday morning meeting to make sure everyone was headed in the right directions, she was met by a picture of Claude in rumpled clothes, spade in one hand, a flat of geraniums in the other, befuddled, utterly at a loss in the face of the intruding lens.

  Local Scene

  Why are we not surprised to learn Commissaire Claude Néon has been relegated to gardening duty while the search for Pearl Serein continues? A leave of absence? How genteel. One fears for the flowers in his care. After all, look at the mess he made with the rose that is our Pearl.

  A grim PJ team lingered over coffee, suffering with their exiled leader, letting righteous anger simmer. The inspector’s first bit of business was to draft another memo to Gérard Richand. Please! Silly words are one thing, pictures of cops looking like fools are dangerous. Not exactly in those words, but Gérard would hear her. She was with Monique, making sure the thing went off ASAP with a photocopy of Article 9 and a perfect photocopy of the offending page attached when Monsieur le Divisionnaire arrived. Early. At least half an hour.

  ‘I have a very full schedule.’ He accepted a coffee and a plate of biscuits and took it through to Claude’s office. He shut the door. Message: I am not part of this debacle. The inspector finished with Monique, returned to her desk for her notes, checked her face and hair in the ladies’ room mirror. Then went in. Fauré was standing at Claude’s window, nibbling a biscuit, ‘Well?’

  The man’s presumptive presence irked her. ‘We’ve been talking to and watching members of each victim’s family, as well as her own connections, past and present. But no sign of her.’

  Finishing his biscuit, he started a cigarette. ‘Been looking across the river?’

  ‘Sir, anything beyond our jurisdictional lines would be for you to arrange.’

  He shrugged his indifference to territorial protocol. ‘You have contacts — it’s your beat.’

  ‘Don’t forget, she’s a schoolmistress…the little ones.’

  ‘Néon’s exact description. So?’

  ‘I can’t see her going anywhere near my contacts for love or money.’

  The divisionnaire sat in Claude’s chair and made a note with Claude’s pen. Aliette, always momentarily fixated watching people make their various notes, observed a still-vital, highly pragmatic police professional under the rumpled world-weary veneer.

  He looked up, caught her staring. ‘Other ideas? Observations?’

  ‘We’re monitoring the media.’

  ‘Absurd,’ he muttered.

  ‘Perhaps. The regional paper has assigned one of their columnists to do a series on it. Her first piece came out on the weekend…it’s generating reactions.’ Rose Saxe’s effort was discounted with a roll of Fauré’s smoky eyes. Aliette pressed on. ‘This is a small place. People feel connected to a situation. Sometimes they say more than they mean to.’ He sipped his coffee, drew on his cigarette, turned his gaze toward the mountains. She added, ‘I’d like to take a closer look at Bonneau, but my judge won’t let me.’ No recrimination; a simple statement of strategic possibility.

  The tiniest sniff expressed succinctly Norbert Fauré’s measure of Gérard Richand. ‘No?’

  ‘Insists we have to find her first. He really detests the love and rumor element.’

  ‘Well, he’s doing his job.’ Like the lowest-grade traffic cop was implied. Then, offhand, too casual, he asked, ‘And how is Monsieur Néon?’

  Aliette suppressed a smile. She heard cop guile, loud and clear. ‘Our contact has been minimal. Monique…our secretary? She’s visited twice. Moral support. And gardening columns. He seems to be weathering the storm…Our friends downstairs will have much more on that front.’

  ‘Bon.’ Stubbing his smoke, he pondered it.

  Commissaire Duque’s City Police team had been ordered to watch PJ Commissaire Néon. Distasteful, but not unwarranted, the most logical of moves, so much so that Claude would surely know what was occurring. Inspector Nouvelle was being apprised of developments but was excused, along with her team, from participating in this aspect of the investigation, the better for morale when the thing was resolved. Norbert Fauré had excused himself as well, the better for his own credibility. But like any prudent cop caught up in such a thing, Aliette had been proceeding under the assumption Fauré would have his hand in deep regardless.

  So it was dreary, this charade of questions to which the answers were already known.

  She waited, blank and professional, for him to pronounce.

  Whatever he had in mind, Fauré decided to wait. ‘Let’s hear what Conan has to say.’ Finishing his coffee, he took two of Monique’s cookies for his pocket.

  The inspector escorted him down to the morgue. She was embarrassed — she could see Raphaele Petrucci was too — as Dr. Gilles Conan went through the same spiel she’d suffered through on Friday, heading toward the same non-conclusions.

  The cagey divisionnaire seemed to know exactly what to do: He sighed with undisguised boredom through his hoary nose and fired up another smoke.

  Flustered, Gilles Conan recited, ‘Tobacco smoke cooks the blood and curdles it like milk.’

  Norbert Fauré absorbed this with a blasé grunt. ‘We all have to die of something, Gilles.’


  ‘You won’t enjoy it, my friend.’

  ‘Are we supposed to enjoy dying?’

  ‘I believe we are — and it can be beautiful. It is a part of life, no?’

  ‘I enjoy these.’ Fauré puffed deeply on his Gauloise.

  Conan reddened. ‘You are free to die as you choose, but really Norbert, your smoke does not help the forensic process…Mm?’

  Gauloise dangling from his purplish lips, Divisionnaire Fauré threw up his hands in mock surrender and walked out of the morgue, presumably to finish his smoke in the street.

  Aliette watched him go, uncertain as to how Conan’s gratuitous display would settle.

  ‘Don’t you worry,’ soothed the doctor, ‘Norbert Fauré is a practical man. He understands good science cannot be rushed.’

  ‘I hope so.’ More for Raphaele’s sake than hers — he was the one who stood to lose most from Conan’s leisurely approach. She left them to it and joined Fauré on the commissariat steps. It was a nice May day. Would Monsieur le Divisionnaire enjoy a walk before eating?