A Twist of Orchids

by Michelle Wan

“Call me Heidi.” She invested the words with heavy innuendo.

  Géraud looked at her more closely. Her face was round, her small blue eyes were shrewd, and her scarlet mouth looked positively rapacious. She had alarmingly hennaed hair to match her mouth. Why was it, he thought with annoyance, that so many women of a certain age opted for the red look?

  “Very well, Heidi. We share the fame. And now, before we go any further, how much?”

  “A thousand euros. That includes expenses.”

  “You’re joking! You might pay that for an unusual specimen. For a new discovery, the limit, as you very well know, is what the market will bear. Seven thousand. And a seedling of Phragmapedium kovachii,” he added. It was time Heidi learned with whom she was dealing.

  •

  “How will you go about it?” asked Adelheid a little later.

  They were seated at her table, having (after considerable wrangling) settled on a price. She had knocked him down to five thousand plus a Paphiopedilum sanderianum in good condition (Phragmapedium kovachii was off limits). Now they were drinking to their new partnership. Géraud eyed the straw-colored liquid in his glass, swirled it, sniffed, and took a mouthful. He couldn’t fault her choice of wine. It came, he noted, ready-chilled. Had she been so sure of success?

  He shook his head. “Can’t divulge. I have my methods.” He could see that she looked doubtful. “But one thing I can say is that I have a way of keeping tabs on where Julian Wood is in his search.”

  “Oh, yes?”

  He took another sip of wine. “My wife, you see, is a friend of his.” He referred to Julian’s artist, Iris Potter, with whom Géraud lived not in a state of matrimony but in a long-term, on-off relationship. That is, Iris periodically left when her cranky lover became too hard to bear and returned when his temper improved. Julian had once said to Iris within Géraud’s hearing that he did not know how a nice woman like her could stand living with a chameau like him. That was another score the squat orchidologist had to settle. “She’s a very good artist,” Géraud went on. “In fact, it was she who did the drawing in Julian’s book.”

  “Your wife did the drawing? Did she see the embroidery he claims it is based on?” Adelheid pushed a plate of cheese puffs toward her guest.

  “No. That’s the scandal of it. He simply told her what to draw. I’m convinced this embroidery is an invention. Even she felt he was pulling a fast one.”

  “Hmm. So how can she help you?”

  “Eh bien”—Géraud’s fat fingers dipped into the cheese puffs—“Julian tells her things, and she tells me.”

  The bright lips shaped into a predatory smile. “So! You ask her to ask him how he plans to go about looking for Cypripedium incognitum. Where he will search. Et voilà, you get there first. What if he beats you to it?”

  Géraud frowned in annoyance. “Let’s get something straight, Heidi. When I search for orchids, I do things my own way. I don’t answer questions, and I don’t give out information. I want your absolute assurance that I will have no interference from you. Is that clear?”

  He expected her to object. However, the woman took it surprisingly well. She cocked her head at him and gave him what passed for a coquettish grin.

  “Mmm-um.”

  Géraud absolutely knew that he could not trust her.

  • 19 •

  It was a little past ten on April Fools’ night, or as they said in French, poisson d’avril, April Fish. Kazim was taking fifty euros off a runny-nosed junkie when he spotted the Mercedes parked in the shadows of Place de la Clautre. A man dressed in black slid out of it and moved swiftly toward them, throwing a wedge of darkness before him as he passed under the lamps of the empty square. Kazim recognized the man, the one they called Serge, at once. It was hard to mistake a face like that, the skin pulled tight and as reflective of light as the steel blade of a knife.

  “Merde!” Kazim uttered. He swung around. The junkie, who had said his name was Freddy, was gone. For a con with a limp, he had vanished into the darkness surrounding the cathedral with surprising speed.

  Kazim was even faster, vaulting onto the seat of his Honda, roaring off in the opposite direction down Rue Taillefer. A moment later he became aware that the Merc was on his tail. He laughed. With its speed and on city streets, the Honda could outrun anything on four wheels. He led the car on a crazy chase, purposely heading west across the city, three times around the great circle of Boulevard des Arènes, the scream of his 1300cc engine splitting open the night. It amused him that the flics, who were normally out in force at this hour on a Friday night and who should have been all over him by now for speeding, excessive noise, riding without a helmet (it was still locked to the rear of his bike, where it bounced wildly), were nowhere in sight. He had used the cops as an escape hatch once already, when he had provoked the punch-up with that zitty merdeux and his mates at the market. Allah askina! Tonight he could ride his bike through the plate-glass window of a shop and no one would blink. But he wasn’t worried. The fourth time around the circle, he slowed. The Merc came up on him like a train. He accelerated suddenly and made a hard right, leaning at 45 degrees, into a narrow street. The Merc attempted the unforeseen turn, fishtailed, and described a 180 in a shriek of rubber.

  “Eat smoke, bastard,” the young Turk shouted over the roar of his engine. He threw back his head in triumph, feeling the sharpness of the wind cutting through his hair. He was now heading north. Another hard right down a narrow road brought him roaring into a major intersection. He swung back in the direction he had come, down the broad expanse of Rue Président Wilson.

  The Merc was waiting for him on one of the side streets. It gave Kazim his first real jolt of fear to see it slipping smoothly, like a barracuda, behind him into the thin, late-night traffic. He accelerated and swung away, first right and then left. He saw the car again on his tail as he hit the bottom of Rue Romaine. It followed as he entered another traffic circle and stayed with him this time as he shot out of the roundabout past the tall ruin of the Temple of Vesunna. For an instant he thought about peeling off into the dark parkland surrounding the temple, but remembered that not so long ago a body had been found there. He kept going.

  As he raced along the deserted straightaway, he realized he had underestimated the Mercedes. It was gaining on him, and this, he sensed, was where it would happen. Another surge of fear brought a taste of bile to his mouth. But the Merc merely hung on his ass like a fart, making no attempt to overtake, to drive him off the road, or to send him flying headfirst into its path, where it could finish the job by running him over. Kazim found that he was drenched with sweat under his leather jacket. The bastard was playing with him, like a cat with a mouse.

  It was the Honda’s turn to fishtail dangerously as Kazim took a squealing right into a narrow lane. And so he went, dodging and weaving through the network of tiny streets. By now he had lost sight of the Merc, but the throaty roar of his moto, bouncing off the stone faces of the darkened buildings, announced his presence as effectively as a beacon. He eased the engine back to a soft purr and regained the city center. He knew with certainty that he had shaken Serge when he found himself alone in Place St-Louis. Gently, he nosed the Honda into a cobbled passage leading through the old quarter. From there it was a short run to safety.

  •

  “Blimey, where you been, mate? They’re all over lookin’ for you,” Peter said in an awed voice when Kazim burst into the garret. “Eels voo shersh par-too,” he translated in his execrable French. “Say vray, Naahd?”

  Nadia, who was sitting at the plastic table eating a takeout, almost choked on her food. She stood up, knocking over a cardboard container. Greasy pommes frites spilled onto the floor. She ran to the door and slammed it shut.

  “Did anyone follow you?”

  Kazim postured, unzipping his leather jacket. “Not a chance. I left him swallowing my dust.”

  She turned on him, fists clenched. “Well, you can’t stay here.”

  “Hey, what�
��s with you?”

  “I said, not here.”

  “Look, just the night,” Kazim pleaded. Stripped of all his swagger, he looked young, scared, and dazed.

  Nadia shook her head vehemently. Her black and orange hair stuck up in angry spikes. Her green eyes darted about, her lips, black-lined, in-filled with purple, were pulled back in a grimace of fear. Peter stood behind her, rubbing his nose. Despite his linguistic handicap, he seemed very much a part of the conversation. Brigitte was stretched out on the sofa, blankets pulled up to her chin. She appeared to be the only one enjoying the scene.

  “Sling your gear and go,” insisted Nadia. “Now.”

  “Like where?” Kazim’s voice was shrill. “Home is off limits. I told you, I don’t want to land my parents in it.”

  “What about us? If they find you here, you’ll land us in it. We’ll all be hyper in the merde.”

  “Yeah,” Peter said, not bothering with French. “Be a good boy and push off.”

  “Three of them,” Brigitte spoke up for the first time. She fingered her gold lip ring. “All looking for little Kazim.”

  “Three?” Kazim swung around and stared about him wildly, as if all of his pursuers were somewhere hidden in the flat.

  Brigitte grinned. “A guy with a limp. That skinny, weird-looking guy they call Serge. And a tall one.”

  “Serge,” croaked Kazim. “He came here?”

  Peter said, “Nah. Just the tall bloke. Left this.” He dug Julian’s card from one of his voluminous pockets and flipped it to Kazim. “Check ’im out, mate. Maybe ’e can ’elp you.” Kazim, who spoke no English, stared at Peter uncomprehendingly but caught the card.

  “He knows your parents,” said Brigitte.

  “Look,” Kazim swung back to Nadia. “I got a couple of caps left. High-grade white. Just let me put down here for the night and they’re yours.” He dug out the heroin-filled capsules, two of the four that he had remaining.

  Nadia gave him a nasty sneer. Reluctantly, he added another capsule. She snatched them from him.

  “’Course they’re mine!” she screamed. “You owe me that for back rent. Now get going.” She gave him a shove.

  Kazim shoved back. “You owe me, bitch!” he yelled. “Who’s your pipeline? Who keeps you in came? Where’s your supply going to come from tomorrow? The next day? And the day after? You think of that?” He squared off, looking both desperate and furious.

  Nadia laughed. “You nul. You double zéro. You don’t know the first thing. Without me you’d have given the stuff away. Besides,” she added sullenly, “you haven’t got a pipeline. Not anymore.”

  “Save your breath,” Brigitte advised him over the top of her sleeping bag. “You’re finished.”

  Kazim looked stunned. Then he advanced on Nadia, his face working in fury. “You sold me! You piece of garbage, you sold me!”

  “Get out!” cried Nadia, retreating. Beneath her wild makeup she looked terrified. “We don’t know you. We never heard of you.”

  “C’mon, mate. Use your loaf. We don’t want trouble.” Peter stepped in to intercept the Turk. The two men struggled briefly, but Nadia jerked the door open and then flew in with a crazed strength to help Peter push Kazim out it.

  “I’ll make you bleed for this!” Kazim yelled as he stumbled into the blackness of the landing. The door slammed. He heard the bolt click.

  The rush of events left him feeling weak and dizzy. After a moment he gathered his wits and what courage remained to him and groped along the wall until he found the minuterie. He still clutched the card Peter had given him. He blinked at it in the sudden illumination of the timed light. Slowly, he reached into his jacket for his cellphone.

  •

  The telephone in Julian’s cottage sounded. After five rings, the répondeur kicked on with its bilingual message: “Bonjour. Vous avez rejoint le numéro de Julian Wood … Hello, you’ve reached the number for Julian Wood. Sorry I’m not here to take your call, but I do check my messages frequently …”

  Kazim did not comprehend English, but he understood the recorded greeting in French. He wasn’t talking to any fichu answering machine. He killed the connection. Then he changed his mind. Brigitte said the man knew his parents. He redialed. This time he left a message: “This is Kazim. Look, if anything happens, I want you to know a gars named Serge is after me. Nix on the cops. I don’t want my parents mixed up in this.” He paused to think. “Tell them … just tell them I’m okay …” He switched off but continued hanging on to the phone as if it were a tenuous lifeline.

  The light went out. He punched the minuterie again and headed down the stairs. As he went, he tried the doors giving onto the landings. They were locked, as he knew they would be. His moto was parked at the bottom of the stairwell. Predictably, the light gave out again just as he was wheeling it out the door. The street outside was deep in shadow, lit only by a distant lamp. He had to negotiate his way around the big skip of debris that seemed to be a permanent annex to the front of the house. A slight noise, coming from his right behind the skip, startled him. He whirled around. A cat slid away. He was almost sick with relief.

  Then a voice spoke softly in his left ear.

  “Poisson d’avril, Kazim. Going somewhere?”

  To Kazim, the April Fools’ greeting sounded as sharp as the snap of a switchblade.

  • 20 •

  “Frequently,” for Julian, meant whenever he stopped by his cottage to collect his mail and check up on things. That was when he also listened to his phone messages. One of these days he would have to break down and get a cellphone. He hated the things, considered them an unnecessary disturbance of his life, which was already unsettled enough. For now, all of his existing clients knew to reach him at Mara’s, but prospective new business did not. Perhaps that was why no prospective new business had come his way.

  He did not pick up Kazim’s message until Monday morning: “… if anything happens, I want you to know a gars named Serge is after me. Nix on the cops. I don’t want my parents mixed up in this …” Julian could almost smell the fear in the young man’s voice.

  Kazim had not left a number, but Julian was able to retrieve it and put in a return call. There was no reply. He left a message: “Kazim, this is Julian Wood. Look, whatever you’re up to, you sound like you’re in over your head. Don’t be stupid. Go to the police. Far better they deal with you than Serge. And call me or at least get in touch with your parents as soon as you get this. They’re worried sick about you.”

  Then he phoned the Ismets, but they weren’t answering either, so he left a message for them as well: “It’s Julian. Call me. Right away.” He hung up, glumly imagining a futuristic world in which telephones that no one answered faithfully recorded urgent messages that no one listened to.

  Kazim had said no cops. Just the kind of stupid thing a nineteen-year-old kid in trouble would say. As a compromise, Julian called the Brames Gendarmerie and asked to speak particularly with Sergeant Laurent Naudet. Laurent was not there, but at least there was a live person at the other end of the line. Briefly, Julian considered raising an alarm about Kazim but decided against it. He was probably overreacting, and he didn’t know what fallout there could be for Betul and Osman. Besides, he’d rather talk to Laurent, whose discretion he trusted. He left his name and number and asked that Laurent get in touch with him as soon as possible.

  Tired of leaving messages, Julian opted for direct action. He decided to drive to Périgueux. He phoned Mara.

  “This sounds serious,” she said after he had repeated Kazim’s words. She put aside being sniffy that he had not taken her attempt to trace Christine Gaillard seriously; also, she was fed up with waiting for a response from any electrician willing to take on rewiring the Hurleys’ house. “I’ll go with you. You need backup.”

  •

  “Where exactly are we going?” she asked when Julian picked her up at the house in Ecoute-la-Pluie. Jazz and Bismuth, desperate not to be left behind, shoved ahead of her in
to the van.

  “Nadia’s place. I’m pretty sure Kazim’s been staying there.”

  They started off. Jazz assumed his favorite position, forelegs planted on the tool box behind Julian’s seat, big head resting on Julian’s left shoulder. That way he got a comfortable place for his chin and a view of the passing countryside through the driver’s window. Bismuth, less interested in the journey than the arrival, curled up between two bags of potting soil and went to sleep.

  “Serge,” Mara said. “Didn’t Loulou mention someone by that name? Rocco Luca’s henchman?”

  “Not necessarily the same bloke,” said Julian, not liking the thought. “It’s a common enough name, and it could just be someone Kazim’s fallen out with. He seems to run with a tough crowd.” He braked at a stop sign. “You’ll enjoy meeting Nadia. Hair like a wolverine and a personality to match.”

  “It has to be drugs. That’s probably how he financed his bike. Maybe Kazim pushes for Luca. Kazim held out on him, and Serge was sent in to settle the score.”

  Julian hated to admit it, but what she said made sense. Jazz snorted gustily, blasting him with a dose of dog breath.

  •

  The bells of the city had finished pounding out their noon symphony. Now they were followed by a coda of metal grilles being dragged across shop fronts. People hurried out of buildings and down the sidewalks. All had the purposeful tread of those with a serious mission: the quest for lunch. The cafés and restaurants filled up. The day was warm and bright, with that delightful playfulness of spring that is so quickly replaced by rain squalls. The outdoor tables were quickly taken. People were hungry for sun and sat soaking it up, faces raised to a limitless blue sky. Waiters and waitresses, harried, balletic, ran their mini-marathons, dodging, weaving among the tables.

  “The shrimp omelet? Who’s it for?”

  “Two Kronenbourg!”

  They delivered up plates of sandwiches and pizzas for fast snackers; four-course meals for those intent on digging in for the longer haul. Conversations took place among the clatter of cutlery, the clink of glassware, the rumble of passing traffic. People chatted into cellphones. A woman drew deeply on a cigarette, draped her arm over the back of her chair, closed her eyes, and let a cloud of smoke drift slowly from her mouth.