Murder in Belleville

Saturday Night

AIMÉE STARED AT THE mirror to the left of the bar, cracked in four or five places, in crowded Café la Vielleuse. Painted on the mirror was a faded image of a woman holding a vielleuse, an old-fashioned hurdy-gurdy. The woman’s blue puff-sleeved blouse and white tie bespoke turn-of-the-century fashion. The timeworn burnished wood, mosaic floor, and stumpy bar competed with seventies modernizations in the front. Café la Vielleuse straddled the broad boulevard de Belleville and the uphill, two-lane rue de Belleville, choked with buses, cars, and hurrying pedestrians.

“There must be a story behind that,” she said in a conversational tone, smiling to the busy waiter behind the counter.

He nodded and stuck his pencil behind his ear, then flicked the milk steamer into high gear, filling the café with a muffled whining. Then a slow hiss as the milk frothed.

“The manager, Dédé, would know,” he said.

“Have I missed Dédé?”

“He’s in back. Dédé!” the waiter yelled over the noise.

A stocky man sat behind a large adding machine at the rear, picking his nose. The machine droned continuously, spitting out a roll of adding tape. “Merde!” he barked, giving the machine a shove and switching it off.

“The mademoiselle has questions about La Vielleuse,” the waiter said, jerking his thumb at Aimée.

Dédé, a squat fireplug of a man who was a head shorter than Aimée, fluffed his thinning hair as he walked toward her. His cropped suit jacket didn’t meet his checked trousers. He wore pointed-toed heeled boots.

“Tiens, there’s quite a story to that,” he said, then extended his hand to shake hers.

Aimée dropped her purse on the floor, “Je m’excuse,” she said, quickly stooping to pick it up. The linoleum was littered with sugar-cube wrappers, cigarette butts, and lottery stubs. But anything was better than shaking Dude’s hand!

When she stood up, Dédé lit a cigarette, set down his gold lighter, and leaned on the zinc counter. She smelled wine on his breath. “In 1914 les Aliemands encamped at Fontainebleu. Their cannon flattened the shop next door and shattered la viell kuse, comme ga” Decle said. “We left her like that so people would remember.”

Outside on rue de Belleville, Chinese children, a heavy-set Arab woman, and Jews in yarmulkes thronged the sidewalk. Gawking at something. Aimée wondered what drew their attention. Then she saw a figure on stilts juggling what looked like bowling pins.

“Rumor has it that the Germans’ big gun got pulled back for duty on the front,” Dédé said, fingering a soccer ball on the end of a keychain, “and that saved Paris from bombing.”

“Lots of history here.” Aimée kept a smile on her face, her tone neutral. She figured she’d better buy him a drink.

“Would you like a drink?”

“I wouldn’t mind a biere Iambic, Belgian style.”

“Make that two,” she said.

Dédé smiled and snapped his fingers. Every so often he jangled the keychain, as though he needed to know it was still there. Aimée wondered if he’d tell her about Edith Piaf.

She didn’t have long to wait. As the froth-topped glasses of beer appeared, Dédé recounted the “Sparrow’s” birth on the steps of 72 rue de Belleville. He said a plaque now proclaimed: EDITH PIAF SANG FIRST ON THE STREETS OF BELLEVILLE. MUCH LATER HER SONGS TRAVERSED THE BOULEVARDS OF THE WORLD.

A nice way to put it, she thought.

“To tell the truth, Piaf s mother made it to Hospital Tenon, behind Gambetta,” Dédé said. “But the other makes a better story.”

Dédé had a point. Aimée sipped the biere Iambic letting the toasty hops mingle with the sweetness of raspberry.

Not bad.

She noticed, as they stood at the counter and Dédé recounted the story, how he’d nod to patrons, send a wink across the café, or raise a hand in greeting. He never broke his conversational thread or lost her attention. Or missed noticing a spilled glass or conveying a sharp glance to a waiter who hadn’t noticed a patron ready to pay the bill. Elymani’s description, the slick giclie type, came to her mind.

“My old boss told me that Piaf sang out front, but then so many did in those days,” Dédé shrugged. “Truth to tell, she wasn’t anything special until her cabaret-owner boyfriend was killed and the police judiciare hauled her in for questioning. Brought her major publicity.”

He grinned.

“Things haven’t changed, eh?” Aimée said. “People get famous any way they can.”

“Belleville was different then, all populaire, working class. The populaire worked hard, played hard,” he winked, draining his glass. “My papa inspected rail lines, and my mama shoved a vegetable barrow in the market. So I say I grew up in between the market and the tracks.” He let out a bark of laughter and palmed his empty glass. “Raised on this like mother’s milk.”

Several of the staff behind the counter joined his laughter. To Aimée the guffaws sounded brittle and forced.

“Encore, s’il vous plaît,” she said, realizing she’d need to keep buying to hold Dédé’s mouth open. Dédé seemed to relish portraying himself as a populaire descendant. And he probably drank all day, nourishing his memories. But he stayed razor sharp and seemed to make it his business to nurse acquaintances, know people. She wondered how he knew Eugénie.

“They say Piaf never stopped, had the energy of a hummingbird,” Dédé continued as he raised his Here. “Salut.”

Aimée saw her opening.

“My friend Eugénie, who lives right near here, is just like that,” Aimée said, nodding. “Sometimes it’s tiring to be around her.”

Dédé sipped his biere. His eyes had narrowed. He didn’t respond.

Maybe he was used to doing all the talking, or maybe he didn’t like how she’d turned the conversation. A chirping noise sounded in his pocket, and he plucked out his cell phone. Red and compact, a new Nokia. He answered, mumbled something Aimée couldn’t hear, clicked it off, and slipped it back in his pocket.

“Eugénie’s got a place on rue Jean Moinon,” Aimée said, smiling. “Bien sûr you probably know her, Eugénie Grandet.”

“We’re the busiest café” on the boulevard. There are so many people,” Dédé said. His small dark eyes crinkled as he threw up his arms, revealing a gold watch and a thick rose-gold chain circling his wrist.

“Tiens, Dédé, be honest! You know everyone who comes in here,” the young waiter piped, while he rinsed glasses and dried them.

If he’d meant to curry points with Dédé, Aimée figured the effect had been the opposite.

“Unfortunately I can’t put a face to every name,” Dédé said, his tone now self-deprecating. “But I make sure things run smoothly and all our clients feel at home, eh—that’s my job! Thank you for the drinks, next time it’s my round.” He winked, giving her an oily smile. “Now if you’ll—”

She had to stop him before he bolted.

“You’re too humble,” Aimée said. She laid her hand firmly on his wrist, covered with wiry black hairs, to hold him. “Eugénie’s got short hair, like mine, only bright red.”

“The one in the tight overalls,” the waiter said. “She comes here—”

Dédé’ shot him a look that shut him up.

“Mes enfants,” Déde” gave a loud chuckle, squeezed Aimée’s hand with his, then removed it. “I can’t keep up with you kids. Meanwhile I’ve got to check on the unloading. Pascal, I need your help.” He gestured to the young waiter, and with the ease of a lizard removed himself.

She wanted to disinfect her hands.

But as she glanced down her eye caught a slim lighter, a luminescent pearl set on it. No ordinary pearl.

A Biwa pearl.

And Dédé’ had forgotten it, but then she figured it hadn’t been his to forget.

She palmed the lighter, small and expensive, certain it belonged to Eugénie/Sylvie.

She must have rattled Dédé’s cage for him to forget this. But he’d remember soon. She threw fifty francs on the counter and was gone.

IN THE office, René passed her the latest fax from the EDF. “We’re in the hurry-up-and-wait mode,” he said.

Aimée read the fax stating that the EDF had brought Leduc Detective’s security system proposal under review.

“But they haven’t said no.”

“I’m buying lottery tickets,” René said. “Could be quicker.”

She told René about the conversation at Café la Vielleuse.

“So Dédé knows more than he’s telling,” René said.

“A lot more,” she said. “Look at this, Dédé forgot it on the counter.”

She put the lighter into René’s stubby hand. He turned it over in his palm, feeling the bumpy pearl. “This doesn’t look like a man’s lighter.”

“I’d be surprised if it was,” she said.

“Dédé’s got a nice little Nokia phone,” Aimée said. “They’re not the encrypted cell phones, are they?”

“Not yet. Those work wonderfully for monitoring transmissions!” René’s eyes widened. “And they have such clear reception. Nice bandwidth too!”

His face gleamed with excitement.

“If you’re going to follow him,” René said, sliding a laptop in his case, “count me in.”

“Glad for the company,” she said.