Mayhem

by J. Robert Janes

  In turn, she stroked his hand and let concern well up in her lovely brown eyes that were still so very clear and large, the lashes long. ‘Now tell me about it, eh? Why a German, Louis? Oh for sure he’s handsome, but he will drop her. We both know this.’

  He shrugged. ‘That’s not why I came,’ he said lamely. ‘Chantal, I need your help. We’re on a murder case – a boy. It doesn’t make much sense but there’s something about it I don’t like.’

  She understood but waited patiently. She refilled his cup but followed Muriel’s ritual of first pouring the milk and then adding the sugar. Two teaspoonfuls. Louis had once been such a handsome man – they’d both agreed about this. He still could be if only he’d …

  ‘First, there is the perfume,’ he said, ‘and then there is the purse.’

  He was lost to her now, the eyes distant as he conjured up the film of the murder. ‘The perfume,’ he said. ‘It has civet as its fixative. That particular tincture has been used to remove certain rough edges, you understand. Me, I think there has been a little too much jasmine – it’s a shade heavy, Chantal. This is something very personal – a woman who knows her own mind and is very positive, isn’t that so? Lavender is involved – that breath of spring, the essence of constant love. A touch of angelica, some vetiverol and bergamot, I think. Yes, I’m certain of it.’

  She looked with admiration at this cop who could be so sensitive. Her tiny heart exploded at those words of his.

  While concentrating on the perfume, he continually felt the fabrics as a designer would.

  That a woman should ever leave such a man! Ah, Mon Dieu, what was the world coming to?

  ‘The purse,’ said St-Cyr distantly. ‘The scent was on it. There was a small crystal vial as well – twists of cobalt blue glass – candy stripes of it, Chantal. Very, very nice. Very expensive. Something Victorian, I think.’

  ‘English?’ she asked quietly.

  ‘Yes … Yes, English. With a silver top in the shape of a crown.’

  ‘A sceptre?’ she prodded.

  ‘Yes … Yes, the head of a sceptre.’

  ‘And the purse, Louis. It struck you, did it not?’

  His eyes were moist and sad – wounded. Ah Mon Dieu! ‘Electric, Chantal. Shimmering flashes of bluey-greens – forks of them beneath beads that were pearls.’

  At once she was firm. ‘The pearls would spoil the look of the silk. The woman should have asked for sequins or cut-glass beads so as to flash the fire of the silk and match the motions of her body as the dress moved with her. Like Northern Lights, Louis. The aurora borealis.’

  ‘Flowing, Chantal – rippling across the heavens as she moved,’ mused St-Cyr. ‘It is what I have thought myself.’

  ‘Is she German or French, this murderess?’

  ‘Ah! She did not commit the crime, not her. At least, I do not think she did.’

  ‘But is she French, my friend?’

  He nodded – longed for a cigarette but realized Kohler had only loaned him one and that he’d carelessly tossed that away, not thinking to have saved the butt. The big shot on a case.

  She obliged and told him to take several. ‘As many as you think will tide you over. Go on. Ah, don’t be shy. The Boches, they bring us plenty.’

  The generals, the captains and the lieutenants.

  ‘What did Marianne buy?’

  ‘Some lingerie, what else? He picked it out for her. She was very shy about it, Louis. Muriel made her undress – completely, you understand – while I kept the lieutenant busy with little things.’

  Was nothing secret any more? ‘So, you can help?’ he asked. ‘The purse first, I think, and then the scent. The one should lead you to the other, and my feet are tired.’

  ‘How much time do you have?’

  ‘Two days.’

  ‘Two …?’ She raised her pencilled eyebrows.

  ‘The General von Schaumburg has insisted,’ he said, grimacing.

  ‘My poor Louis, it’s just not your day. Muriel will know what to do. Try to call back this evening or in the morning, but not before eleven thirty, please.’

  ‘I’ll be out of town by then.’

  ‘At the scene of the crime?’

  ‘Yes, at the scene.’

  So it was still to be a kind of secret from them. ‘You do not trust us?’ she said – one would have thought her near to tears. ‘It’s always the same.’

  ‘Fontainebleau and a back road to Barbizon. Three a.m., and a boulder right between the eyes.’

  ‘A crime of passion?’ she asked, delighted with his confidence.

  ‘Yes – me, I think so but I am wondering what sort of passion and this, my dear, dear Chantal, I firmly resist telling you.’

  At the door she took his hand in hers and brought it to her lips. ‘Take care, my dear detective. Don’t worry so much about your wife. A far more brilliant star will come to shine over you and share your bed. Me, I am certain of this.’

  Not until he was out of sight of the shop did he stop to look at the vial of perfume he’d pinched.

  As a man to the woman of his dreams, he opened the tiny vial and brought it to his nose. First one nostril and then the other – no need for blotting paper samples. None at all.

  Muriel had called it Mirage.

  Satisfied, he screwed the silver sceptre back down on its candy stripes of cobalt blue glass and ice-clear crystal.

  Then he lit up, gratefully filled his lungs, and started out again.

  Now he’d find the maker of the dress to which the purse had belonged, and then he’d find the name of its owner.

  Kohler gripped the counter. ‘What the hell do you mean, your boys lost him?’

  Glotz continued mining the bulbous, hairy nose before examining the dross with the eye of a scientist. ‘Just that, my fine Bavarian friend. He bought a sack of salted chestnuts.’

  Glotz rolled the dross into a ball.

  ‘So what the fuck have chestnuts to do with things, eh?’ demanded Kohler.

  The Bavarian was even picking up the French idiom. Been too long on the beat perhaps. Due for a change. Siberia.

  Glotz flicked the cannon-ball away. ‘Look, it’s simple, Hermann. After he left the restaurant on the rue St-Denis, St-Cyr played the man on holiday but paid no attention to the whores. He bought a sack of chestnuts, then went into the National Library to borrow a book. Who knows? He left two of the chestnuts on one of the desks in the central reading room.’

  ‘You schmucks! You call yourselves the Watchers. Christ Almighty, don’t your boys know that place has seventeen exits that are clean? Louis had his eyes on you all the time.’

  Louis … ‘So, what’s he up to that requires such secrecy?’

  Kohler silently cursed himself. ‘Nothing. It doesn’t matter. Louis had to have a bit of time off.’

  Glotz grinned. He ran pudgy fingers over the plain oak desk that was scarred with scratches and initials. ‘He didn’t go to see his wife,’ he said and smirked. Toying with Kohler had its moments.

  ‘Louis wouldn’t do that. He has his pride.’

  ‘So, where did he go then?’

  One could push shits like Glotz only so far. ‘I don’t know. Looking up a few friends, I guess. Louis has plenty of them from before. He’ll be working on the murder. He’ll tell me all about it when I see him. We’re heading south again.’

  ‘You taking the Frenchman’s shooter with you?’

  ‘Yeah, I’m taking it with me.’

  ‘How long?’

  ‘Overnight – a couple of days – a week. Christ, I don’t know.’

  ‘What about von Schaumburg’s daily reports?’

  Did Glotz have ears everywhere? ‘What about them, eh? We’ll telephone the old fart and let the world know all about it.’

  Implying the Gestapo tapped von Schaumburg’s line, which they did.

  Glotz fiddled with a pencil. ‘This murder, Hermann. From what I hear it’s a matter of some concern.’

  The diamonds, probably. J
esus Christ! ‘It’s a nothing case. A nobody. Just some pretty boy who got his head bashed.’

  ‘By a girl.’

  ‘Yes, by a girl.’

  Glotz fingered his double chin. ‘You’re not telling me much, Hermann. It would be better if you did.’

  ‘Fuck off. You creeps don’t know your jobs. Me, I thought you were supposed to be really something. Top quality. Right from Himmler’s nest.’

  Eggs. So, all right, you prick! ‘Care to hear a little something, or are your ears still plugged from the Somme?’

  ‘Listen, you …’

  ‘Okay, so I’ll listen.’

  Kohler knew Glotz had him where he wanted him but even so he had to say, ‘You should have been with us. We’d have shown you what war was all about.’

  ‘Lawyers don’t manhandle field guns.’

  ‘No, I guess they don’t. Besides, you’d have been too young, wouldn’t you? Still at your mother’s breast.’

  ‘I resent that. I was eight years old at the time.’

  Kohler nodded. ‘You see what I mean. Some men never leave the tit.’

  The hand closed over the cigarettes and matches. As he got up, Glotz tugged the heavy suit jacket down over his fleshy rump and paused to button it.

  ‘You’re getting fatter,’ breathed Kohler. ‘Like pork. Paris suiting you, eh?’

  Glotz ignored the remark. One word to von Schaumburg from Kohler and there’d only be more trouble. But still there was the matter of the diamonds to consider. Yes, there was that, and something else.

  Down in the bowels of the Sû reté, the smells rocketed up at them. They passed several detention cells. There was water on the stone floor in two or three places, blood in another. Weeping from one cell, the sounds of some poor bastard throwing up his guts in another.

  Kohler gripped himself. An interrogation already? That maid … that little piece of ass with her boulder …

  They went into the sound room at the far end of the corridor. Green lights, headphones, perpetual dusk and silence, batteries of tape recorders slowly turning. Secrets,… secrets … Only one of so many such rooms.

  Glotz took him to a spare machine and found a spool of tape. ‘So, the earphones, Hermann. You put them on, in case you didn’t know.’

  They both did, and the spool began to turn. At first there was nothing, then some static, the scraping of bedsheets perhaps. Finally, a woman’s earthy sigh.

  Then the voice of a man, the accent unmistakably German. ‘Liebchen … higher … higher. Yes … yes, that’s it. Higher still. Now in.’

  The woman gave another sigh, a moan – a series of these – and then a savage grunt as she pushed herself back against him.

  The bed began to rock, she to moan and twist her head from side to side and suck for air, Steiner to laugh. In and out. In and out. ‘Erich … Erich … more … more. Hurry … Hurry. I’m coming, chéri. Coming. Ah, Mon Dieu, Mon Dieu … Come, Erich. Come!’

  She threw her face into the pillows, perhaps biting them, was utterly lost apparently as Steiner slammed home and let her have it with a ragged gasp, a slap of choice rump, and a final, ‘Ahh,’ that was long and tortured.

  The woman cried out too. ‘Your knees … Your knees, Erich. I must grip them as I …’

  She must have straightened up – left the pillows or something. Then the purring started, the whimpering. ‘Erich … Erich, don’t ever leave me.’

  Kohler dragged off the earphones but found only sadness and defeat.

  Glotz watched him closely. The Bavarian’s eyes were a pale, insane blue and very hard. No smiles … none whatsoever.

  ‘So, what the fuck do you want me to say?’

  ‘Nothing. I just thought you’d like to hear it. We’ll try to have some film for you the next time you’re in.’

  ‘And Louis?’ Kohler swallowed.

  Glotz removed the spool of tape and caressed it. ‘That depends entirely on yourself, Hermann. A little more co-operation, I think. Yes … yes, that and a closer watch on your friend.’

  And the diamonds – one mustn’t forget them, thought Kohler, sensing even greater trouble but not wishing to think about it.

  ‘Shits like you deserve the Russian Front.’

  ‘Perhaps it is yourself who deserves it, Hermann.’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  The creep slid the spool of tape back into its box. No doubt he’d listened to it several times.

  The Bavarian didn’t like him, but liking or not liking really had nothing to do with things. He wouldn’t look at Kohler yet. No, he’d pause, and then he’d say, ‘Full reports on this murder, Hermann. Everything you give von Schaumburg. Everything you give the Sturmbannführer Boemelburg and,’ he turned to look up at him, grinned, and continued, ‘everything that Frog of yours finds out. Yes, that, Hermann, and everything the two of you hold back. It’s a matter of priority. Orders straight from Berlin. Now bugger off and find him. Make the Frog croak or else we’ll have him in for a listen.’

  Kohler grabbed the jacket and burst the button. ‘You shit! You haven’t the fuck of an idea what it’s like out there, have you?’

  The jungle.

  Glotz brushed himself down and examined the empty threads. ‘Berlin will hear of this, Hermann. Your conduct is under investigation so don’t forget it.’

  The scissors and the sewing machines were going like crazy in the cutting room of the Salon Chez Nadeau above the shop on the rue de la Paix.

  St-Cyr could see his fingers beneath the remnant of silk, it was so sheer. The late afternoon light filtered in. Outside, a bit of snow was falling.

  He brought the silk up to his nose. Ah, Mon Dieu, such sensuality. A cheek was brushed.

  For an age he sat there, an island in that sea of busy women, a man in touch with an image, a mirage.

  His fedora lay on the table to one side.

  ‘Is she tall?’ he asked, but the girl had left him to give orders to someone or to carry them out herself. Very capable, a very petite jeune fille. Brown hair, brown eyes, still a certain fierce hesitation even yet. That of a cornered rat. Age twenty-four now and still unmarried. Rescued from the streets at the age of fifteen and given a lecture, 300 francs and a job or else.

  Saved, some would have said, but not to her face. Too busy now to remember, and anyway, one shouldn’t hold that sort of favour over a girl. Ah no, one certainly shouldn’t.

  He reached for the shears and carefully cut off a wedge of the fabric, sufficient to catch its shimmering iridescence.

  Sylviane Valcourt came back with her boss, he tall, suave and extremely handsome – age forty-two, married with three children, a mistress in Auteuil and a summerhouse near Châteaudun.

  Julian Nadeau’s hand was on the girl’s shoulder. The dark grey suit had the look of elegance about it, so did the silvery blue tie and the white shirt with its starched collar.

  The dark eyes betrayed a certain inner anxiety. The girl was watchful.

  ‘Sylviane, would you leave us, please?’ asked St-Cyr. ‘I’m sure you’d sooner get on with something else, eh? Just for a few minutes. I promise I won’t keep him too long. It’s really nothing.’

  Nadeau told her it was okay but brushed a hand over the back of her neck for good measure. ‘Louis is an old friend. Please see to the Baroness’s things. She wants the dress for this evening. Everything must be perfect.’

  ‘Did you think I didn’t know that?’ came the acid retort.

  She still had the walk, that saucy flick of her hips that had so intrigued the patrons of the rue St-Denis. St-Cyr followed her with his eyes before holding out the wedge of fabric in question and then carefully pocketing it.

  The dark eyes settled on him. ‘Must I?’ asked the designer and part owner – only part owner – of this cushy little business.

  ‘I think so,’ said St-Cyr. ‘One old favour deserves a new one, eh? Isn’t that so?’

  ‘That business was over years ago. Must you …’

  ‘
Insurance fraud and arson, Julian. Questions are still being asked. It’s just too bad, my friend. Me, I’ve done all I can but you know how the Germans are. Records – ah, Mon Dieu, you should see the records those boys have got their hands on.’

  He rolled the remnant bolt over to take up the rest of the fabric and emphasize the point.

  ‘How did you know we’d made the dress?’

  St-Cyr shrugged. ‘Me, I didn’t. You were one of six possibilities. The sixth on my list.’

  The little insult couldn’t fail to help.

  ‘Who told you it was us? Was it Callot …?’ Nadeau irritably ran a hand over his beautifully trimmed black hair. ‘Lelong … it was that Lelong.’

  ‘It was guesswork, Julian. None of your competitors fingered you. Pure legwork, and a simple process of elimination.’

  ‘Look, I can’t tell you the woman’s name. Some things must be in confidence. There’s an absolute principle involved. Absolute!’

  Suddenly bored with it all, St-Cyr got off the dressmaker’s stool and reached for his hat. ‘She’s a singer in a nightclub, Julian.’ It was just a guess, a shot in the dark.

  Nadeau nodded and felt the fatherly patting of his elbow. ‘So, okay, let’s leave it, eh?’ said St-Cyr. ‘If not the name of the woman, then that of the club.’

  ‘What’s she done? Look, I’m not interested in her, Louis. She’s just a customer. Once – only once. A referral and trouble at that.’

  The things one learned. ‘I didn’t say you were interested in her, and so far as I know, she hasn’t done a thing.’

  Now a gentle squeeze of the forearm just for good measure.

  ‘Then why …’ began the designer irritably, only to break and give in. ‘The Mirage on the rue Delambre. It’s a cabaret.’

  ‘It’s got a nice name. Me, I’m aware of the place but,’ St-Cyr gave another shrug, ‘I must confess I did not think to connect the two.’

  Before he could be asked what he’d meant, St-Cyr was in among the seamstresses, nodding to one, exclaiming over the dress another was making. A last look down the long length of the cutting room showed Julian and his assistant forlornly staring his way while the women continued to bend to their work.