Mayhem

by J. Robert Janes

  St-Cyr was impressed. ‘Like the hallmarks on old silver?’

  ‘Ah yes, exactly. The set of the eyes is another way; also, did he use stock eyes and hand-paint them, or take the trouble to have them custom-made?’

  There was no stopping him now.

  ‘Then, too, is the body padded out with well-chopped tow? Cotton wool is no good, Inspector, and this one didn’t use anything but the best.’

  He put the bird down. ‘Without opening it up, I can’t say more. There’s no mark. The work’s excellent – so good I have to feel the twinges of envy. Was he not in business here in Paris?’

  Meaning he hadn’t been. ‘Why would there have been a heavy elastic band around it?’

  Verdun shrugged. ‘To remind the owner of something or to hold its ticket, but we would not do such a thing, nor do I think this one would either. No, someone else must have put the elastic there, someone who didn’t know, or didn’t appreciate fully, the quality of the workmanship, the hours, the labour of love, the …’

  ‘Good! Enough! So, for now that’s sufficient.’ St-Cyr swept the bird away and started for the door.

  ‘You can leave it here. A thought might come. I might be able to sell it for you. I have a general who is very partial to canaries.’

  The pavement was narrow. There were two women coming towards him. ‘What general?’ he asked, darting back.

  ‘He’s actually not a general. He wears the blue uniform.’

  ‘Luftwaffe? Their airforce? Come, come, I’m in a hurry.’

  Verdun knew he’d missed another 100 francs. ‘It has the anchor. Their navy.’

  ‘The Kriegsmarine?’

  ‘Stationed in Paris. The Hotel Lutétia, I think. A moment, please, Inspector. Yes … yes, here it is.’

  He held up a white card. ‘The Vice Admiral Guenther Heinrich von Lion.’

  Von Lion in the street of lions! Ah Mon Dieu … The Hotel Lutétia was the headquarters of the Abwehr, the German military intelligence service – arch enemies of the SS and their Sicherheitsdienst, the SD, the secret service of the SS over on the avenue Foch!

  The pissoir was rank. A plugged drain gave fjord to the yellow slime that had collected. A few cigarette butts, smoked down to their last toothpick, floated about giving tendrils of nicotine. Some bastard had jerked off against the flaking iron of the trough.

  The Abwehr … the Abwehr … the Sicherheitsdienst … A canary.

  ‘Louis, what the hell’s happened to you?’ The morgue was freezing.

  ‘Me? I have just lost my lunch. The Abwehr, Hermann. The canary … It’s just possible our Monsieur Antoine is an Abwehr agent.’

  ‘Jesus, you’d better read this then. It was left on the doorstep of the head juju man up at the Church of St Bernard, Father Eugène Delacroix.’

  Louis read the thing, the pallor deepening as the blood drained completely away. ‘Is Christian Masuy also involved?’ It was a cry, the bleat of a goat in trouble.

  Masuy was also the Belgian, Georges Delfanne, who had invented for the Gestapo and their French counterpart the infamous torture of the bathtub.

  ‘Paul Carbone is enough, Louis. He and Lafont have been at each other’s throats for years, or hadn’t you heard, seeing as you were the one who told me of their feud?’

  Carbone, a notorious Corsican gangster, worked out of Number 48 rue de Villejust, the Intervention-Referat that was mentioned in the priest’s note.

  ‘But … Carbone and Lafont both work independently for the avenue Foch, Hermann, not the Abwehr any more?’

  ‘This thing goes round and round, Louis.’

  ‘Why the Abwehr’s interest in the canary, Hermann, unless the girl had been about to sell out to them?’

  There were gangsters upon gangsters interlayered with the many layers of the Gestapo, the SS and the Abwehr too. What treasures one didn’t get, another took, and quickly. Each was jealous of the others; Henri Lafont did hate Paul Carbone with a passion, and the Carbone gang was the leading edge of the Intervention-Referat.

  ‘Lef’s have a look at the bodies, Louis. Something might have turned up.’

  There were two empty pallets beside the three occupied by the girl, the mackerel and the Wehrmacht corporal.

  ‘Are those for us?’ asked St-Cyr. ‘Have we stepped into a vendetta, Hermann?’

  ‘I wouldn’t want to bet against it, Louis. The shit’s always deepest in the centre of the sewage lagoon.’

  ‘Then take a look at this. Lafont’s latest pigeon insisted I bring it along for company.’

  St-Cyr handed him the crumpled photograph. ‘Search the faces of the crowd, Hermann. See if the mackerel isn’t among them, or the other one. Me, I’m open to all possibilities but must take an immediate look at the girl’s ears.’

  The photo was grainy and the girl anxious. Both hands were in the pockets of her overcoat. The collar was up. She wore a kerchief and a frown. A nice kid, a kid out to flog the loot she’d stolen from her grandmother’s jewellery box? Was that it?

  That and forged Roman gold coins.

  Kohler fingered the butterfly which had become entangled in a death’s grip with the dragonfly.

  At peace, the mackerel didn’t look pleasant. They’d had to break the rigor just to lie him on the stretcher. The face was still frozen in its hideous grin. He’d bad teeth and snot in his nose. Snot and dried blood.

  The girl was standing in front of a stall on which were arrayed the leavings of several lives – books, lamps, dishes. He thought of that room and the little things he’d seen there. The vase of artificial flowers, the porcelain figurines.

  In profile, she looked as if she’d had more taste – wealthy perhaps, but down on her luck. Of breeding anyway, the brows, the forehead and the eyes told him that. The way she stood and looked over her shoulder.

  A girl who had dyed her hair even in the warmer climates.

  There were several faces in the crowd – men, women, even a child, a baby in a German corporal’s arms. A baby …

  Kohler bent over the jerk. Powder-burns tinged the skin around the bullet hole. The eyes were closed, the grin still there as if he’d only just said, ‘So, what else is new?’

  Kohler soaked up the photograph, concentrating on the child and on the corporal’s face.

  It was him all right. Grinning then as he was grinning now. A blocky, square-jawed Pomeranian. Aged thirty-two to thirty-five and still a corporal. A randy bastard of medium height and stocky build. Two small scars on the right cheek – a fight probably. Brown hair and a dick that would have made a schoolgirl scream.

  ‘Louis … Louis, I think I’ve been had.’

  ‘Hermann, what is it? Can’t you see I need to be left alone?’

  With a corpse! ‘Is this one the father of the child I saw this morning drawing on its mother’s breast?’

  The Frog left the girl to move swiftly between the pallets.

  ‘The young priest, Louis. I … I thought he was the father.’

  ‘Most priests are.’

  Hermann shook his head. ‘The father of that.’ The child.

  ‘Perhaps you’d better explain things, Hermann.’

  The insects were tangled but when separated, the dragonfly found its rightful owner.

  There were three blood spots on the corporal’s left hand where the brooch had dug in its feet at the moment of death. One wing was slightly bent, as were the feelers, but with these an attempt had been made to straighten them.

  ‘The corporal could simply have been minding the child, Hermann, while the mother made a purchase?’

  ‘Then what’s the mackerel doing over there?’

  It was true. The mackerel was watching the girl from the vantage of another stall. He was screened by a man in his sixties and a woman in her forties.

  Had the old priest been completely fooled by the young one, or had Delacroix known of it all along and lied with such dexterity?

  ‘Concentrate on the mackerel, Hermann. Did they bring his little fing
er?’ asked St-Cyr.

  ‘You know I don’t like this sort of thing.’

  ‘But you’ll do it anyway. Here, give me the photograph for safe keeping. The insects also.’

  St-Cyr moved back to the girl. The ears weren’t pierced so she could not possibly have worn the earrings. Perhaps she had not worn the pearls either? he thought, wanting desperately to be alone with her.

  An attendant in a blood-smeared labcoat and filthy cap cracked a grin. ‘You two chicken-pluckers back?’ he crowed. ‘Ah, my fines, she’s a nice bit of stuffing, eh? A virgin until the moment of death. Who would have guessed?’

  A virgin … ‘That’s impossible,’ stormed Kohler. He’d show the –

  ‘Hermann, wait! Perhaps it’s not so impossible. The autopsy, please. Quickly, quickly, my friend, if you value your life.’

  ‘In this place? You’ve got to be kidding. I only work here because I have to.’

  ‘You’re Féloux. I knew your father. He worked at the old place over on the Île de la Cité.’

  ‘The autopsies have gone to the Préfet. My lips are sealed and no amount of money will open them.’

  ‘But you’ve just said she was a virgin.’

  ‘That much I saw for myself when they first brought her in. Torn like a rapist’s souvenir.’

  ‘So much for privacy. When the dead are carted here they become common property.’

  The mackerel had been one of the durs, one of the hard ones, but had chosen not to wear the three dots in a row on the backs of the middle three fingers of the left hand.

  Instead, he had the five points of the dice tattooed on the web of skin between the thumb and the forefinger of the right hand.

  ‘“All alone between four walls”, Hermann. This one has spent time in solitary.’

  ‘Then Records might have a file on him, and if not them, the Santé or some other can.’

  ‘Why would Madame Minou think it was her son who’d been murdered?’

  ‘Aren’t most mothers like that?’

  The attendant watched in silence as the two cows chewed their cud. A dope- or tobacco-sniffer, the dur; the girl a virgin before she’d been taken; and a corporal who’d received the bullet but who continued to smile as if from satisfaction.

  The girl was in good company; comfort even after death.

  ‘Louis, it’s suicide for us.’

  ‘Hermann, it must be done. I need time with that girl. The mackerel is nothing; the corporal little else, but she can tell us what we need to know.’

  ‘The dead can’t talk.’

  Hermann would never understand the need for silent communication with the victim or victims. ‘In their own way they can. Now put your foot to the floor. Me, I’m getting sleepy. A few more minutes … Please do not crash into anything with my car.’

  ‘Your car! You French don’t own anything any more! Besides, you never had the ownership of this one. The Sûreté did.’

  The Kommandantur was on the place de 1’Opéra. The bicycles and vélo-taxis scattered at the Citroën’s sound. Kohler clipped a couple, sending shrieks into the crowd.

  Darkness was descending on the city.

  Von Schaumburg, well past retirement and a Prussian of the old school, hated two things more than interruptions. The French and the Gestapo!

  ‘It’s on your head, Louis. Just remember it wasn’t my idea.’

  Champagne flowed. Old Shatter Hand himself, Rock of Bronze to his staff, was glad to see them.

  Kohler’s sagging jowls and shrapnel scars were marred by one half-closed eye and the nicest duelling scar a rawhide whip could give.

  St-Cyr looked pale.

  ‘Gentlemen, your health.’

  The Krug went down like broken ice. The orderly refilled their glasses then, at a toss of the General’s hand, left the bottle and evaporated.

  ‘So, gentlemen, two more murders for you to solve, and the death of one of my corporals.’

  He offered cigarettes. Taller, bigger in every way than Hermann, he had the sternness and expeditious mannerisms a general should have. The grey hair was close-cropped and bristly, the eyes were very blue.

  No fool, von Schaumburg knew they were on his side, though it would cost them dearly. Vouvray had left its stamp on them.

  ‘You will want my order staying the execution of the hostages pending your questioning them and the outcome of your investigation.’

  He’d had it all figured out. There’d been no need to even ask.

  ‘Corporal Schraum has been a burden for some time, gentlemen. Frankly, I am not sad to see him depart this world, but I must be satisfied as to who was responsible for his death. I can’t have our men being killed in the streets. You do understand?’

  The look was one of apology, a puzzle. The champagne burst against the roof of the brain, keeping the eyes open but only just.

  St-Cyr drew in a breath. ‘General, might I ask if you would order also, that the bodies not be released for burial until we request it?’

  The nod was curt. The explanation followed. ‘Schraum had relatives in the Reich. Some minor SS bigwig, the Gauleiter of Stralsund, his home town. Berlin are demanding retribution and full military honours. There’s even talk of awarding him a medal.’

  For one whose horse had fallen so low, the General had taken it pretty well. A medal …

  ‘Refill our glasses, Kohler. So, gentlemen, the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht and myself find ourselves in debt to two detectives from unlikely sides and I must ask that you again offer the army your assistance. Kohler, you will be excused your affiliation with the Gestapo; St-Cyr, you will make sure he behaves himself and that I have the answers I need to justify the stays of execution. This office, gentlemen, is at your service.’

  ‘They all know more than we do, Louis.’

  ‘Especially the dead ones.’

  ‘You want a room at the Boccador? No one will mind.’

  ‘After what that one just said about the Gestapo? No, my friend. I will sleep at my house in my own bed.’

  ‘Enjoy the rats. If I see Gabi, I’ll tell her the deal’s off.’

  ‘It has to be, Hermann. As in war, so in sleep; let the warmth of valour offer its slender reprieve. I can’t have her hurt.’

  ‘Seven will come too quickly.’

  ‘Not soon enough. The sifting must begin, Hermann. Let’s start with the carousel, eh? and go on from there.’

  ‘I’ll pick you up.’

  ‘No, I would like to walk over. It’s not far from the house and it will give me time to think.’

  They parted at the foot of the rue Laurence Savart, and he walked up the street alone.

  The boys were playing soccer in the dwindling light but when they saw him trudging wearily towards the house, they stopped to watch.

  He waved a tired, sad hand. Hervé Desrochers said, ‘Send him the ball.’

  Antoine Courbet, who lived across the street from Number 3, said, ‘No. The explosion smashed all the windows in our house. My father would beat me.’

  ‘First they took his car, his beautiful big black Citroën,’ said Dédé Labelle, whose mother took in laundry and did odd jobs.

  ‘Then they took his revolver and only let him have it after the shooting had started,’ said Guy Vachon, whose sister had been brought home from the streets by that one, and whose father had then miraculously found a very good job in a garage.

  ‘Then they demoted him to inspector with the consequent loss of wages.’

  ‘And killed his wife and little son.’

  ‘And blew up the front of his house, instead of letting the Resistance do it for them!’

  ‘Give him the ball. He looks as if he needs it.’

  ‘He’ll never see that we get our windows back. My father says he’s not long for this world and that the Resistance are bound to get him the next time, if only God would give him the smile.’

  Dédé dropped the ball and kicked it. They all watched in silence as it hit the road and started to bounce and rol
l towards the detective.

  His vision blurred, St-Cyr missed the kick and they knew then that he must be really sad and very preoccupied with another case.

  ‘I hope he doesn’t start playing that horn of his,’ said Guy Vachon. ‘My mother says he will.’

  ‘His euphonium,’ said Antoine Courbet. ‘It drove the first wife to madness. She had to leave and married a railway worker from Orléans.’

  ‘It was the crime, the long nights without passion,’ said Hervé Desrochers. ‘A woman requires regular thrusting to keep her happy.’

  ‘That’s why the last wife took up with a Kraut.’

  ‘A house without a woman is a house without a soul.’

  ‘Or bread in the oven.’

  ‘Or buns.’

  The detective retrieved the ball and worked it up the street towards them. He seemed to falter, to stumble – was he a little drunk perhaps? – but then he had a burst of energy, showed real skill, and took the ball through them all before collapsing into sleep.

  ‘We can’t leave him there. Someone might steal his wallet.’

  ‘I’ll get my father. You get your uncle. They’ll put him to bed.’

  ‘He’s not drunk. He’s just tired.’

  ‘Detectives need their sleep.’

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  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  copyright © 1992 by J. Robert Janes

  Cover Design by Linda McCarthy

  978-1-4532-5189-8

  This edition published in 2012 by MysteriousPress.com/Open Road Integrated Media