Murder in Clichy

Wednesday Morning

Hervé Gassot gazed nervously at his two comrades. Yvon Nemours, stocky, wearing a too small tracksuit that strained around his thick waist, searched the crowd. Picq, standing by the blue-veined rabbit carcasses in the covered Marché de Batignolles, lit a cigarette.

Was this safe enough? Did the crowd of shoppers and market hawkers that surrounded them make them inconspicuous? All around them, women wheeled shopping carts and jockeyed for position at the cheese sellers. Pungent, acrid odors emanated from the stand where a man in a white apron, stained with yellow runny streaks, discussed the merits of a ripe St. Nectaire with a customer.

“Albert had become chummy with Thadée, the gallery owner shot yesterday,” Picq said, cupping his cigarette between his forefinger and thumb like a Pigalle mobster.

“We know that, Picq.”

“More than chummy. You know Albert’s big mouth. Seems he talked about the old days and this mec’s related to the family.”

“Related?”

“They own the buildings, that’s why he had his gallery there.

That’s two blocks from here.”

Gassot edged closer. He glanced behind his shoulder. Couldn’t help it. “So what are you saying?”

Picq ground out his cigarette with his foot, shook his head.

“Someone was asking around the anciens combattants center,” Nemours said. “And those two we saw in the café. . . .”

“I don’t like it,” Gassot said.

He could tell by Nemours’s and Picq’s faces that they didn’t like it either. Had the past resurfaced? Was someone after them for their mistake at Dien Bien Phu?

“I check every fifteen minutes but the gallery’s closed. No sign of life.”

“We’ll break into the gallery tonight,” Nemours said, “and ask his ex-wife about the jade. And if she doesn’t know anything. . . .”

“We should check with Albert’s doctor,” Gassot interrupted.

“The coroner’s report declares ‘Death by unusual circumstances,’ ” Picq said. “Lucie’s convinced Albert was murdered.”

Nemours turned to Gassot. “You have to see Tran.”

“Tran?’

“If anyone knows what’s happening, Tran will.”

GASSOT HURRIED through Parc Monceau under chestnut trees that shuddered in the wind. A turtledove swooped down near the pond. He passed the mansions overlooking the green lawns. The gilt trimmed fence gave it the look of a private park. Marie-Thérèse had walked Napoleon’s heir here; Proust had loved this little lake. Hadn’t he—or someone— waxed poetic about the perfume of a childhood spent in the Parc Monceau?

Gassot resented the butter and shallot smells emanating from the kitchens of these mansions, the scurrying hired help, and the smooth hum of the limousines: the sounds and smells of the homes of the rich.

Thirty minutes later, beyond Porte de Clichy at the Cimetière des chiens, he faced Tran. Tran, a smooth-faced man with thick, paper-white hair, wore navy blue pants and shirt and soft-soled canvas shoes. He chain-smoked as he weeded the gravel walkways. Lean and compact, Tran looked as he had in Indochina, except for the lines around his eyes and his white hair. The younger son of a Cao Dai priest, Tran had seen combat with Gassot’s regiment until his elder brother died at Dien Bien Phu. When the government outlawed the Cao Dai sect, he’d gone into service with French colonials.

That’s when it had started, Gassot remembered. The whole sad mess. The meetings, the whispered asides during humid Haiphong nights where the corpses of fluorescent jellyfish glittered on the surface of black harbor water. Rumors of jade treasures amidst the rolling rhythmic slap of the waves. The air heavy with the scent of rotting mangoes in the compound guarded by the Montagnard hill tribesmen, with their green metal bracelets, multicolored loincloths, and carbine clips slung over their shoulders.

“Bonjour, Tran,” Gassot greeted him.

“A wonderful treat to see you,” Tran said, one hand holding a weed-filled bucket, the other motioning to a marble bench. “Sit down.”

A formality. They met here on the first Wednesday of every month on a stone bench overlooking the dog cemetery. But Gassot was three weeks early and he knew Tran must be curious.

Gassot hesitated. He wanted to explain the fear and doubt, the smell of vengeance surrounding Albert’s death—explain it in a way so Tran would help, rather than dismiss them as scared old men.

Rows of small blackened stone crosses and suitcase-sized marble slabs stretched before them. Withered white chrysanthemums left from Toussaint, All Saints Day remembrances, defied the wind whipping over the small tombstones. Funny, Gassot thought, dog owners tended their pets’ graves better than the families of the military tended theirs.

“Makes you wonder about the world, eh, Tran,” he said. “Humans are less remembered than dogs.”

Tran smiled and shrugged. “Maybe because dogs are more faithful. Truer,” Tran said, offering him a cigarette, a Vinataba brand. “Remember the La Bai we smoked, camarade?” Tran asked. State Express 555, Ho Chi-Minhs’ favorite brand, had been a black market exclusive, too expensive for him.

“Merci.” Gassot accepted one and lit his from Tran’s: the way they had in Indochina, where no one had matches to waste.

He remembered the woody tobacco taste of the unfiltered cigarettes and the picture of playing cards on the package. He’d never smoked so much as in Indochina where it was a national pastime. That, and sabotaging the French. Of course, that came later. Much later, it was the Americans’ turn.

“Has something happened, camarade?” Tran asked. He exhaled smoke that spiraled in a blue-white haze.

And then the Paris sky opened, rain spattering down in furious fits and starts. Unlike the warm Indochina monsoons that descended steadily onto corrugated tin-roofed huts, Gassot remembered, leaving fat beads of water on the curled palm leaves.

Tran tugged his arm and they ran for cover.

“Ça va?” Tran said. “Your eyes are far away today.”

Gassot could still hear the rustle of the silk worn by the half-Asian mademoiselles, denigrated as bui doi, the dust of life. He remembered the acrid odor coming from the opium smokers next door.

“What’s the matter, camarade? ”

In the shed where tools were kept, Gassot straightened his shoulders, realizing Tran was studying him. He forced himself back to the present and took a deep breath.

“Do you ever hear from Bao?” She had been Tran’s cousin, Bao of the pale oval face and laughing eyes. He knew that after forced marches and prison camp, the light would have gone out of them.

“Not for several years,” said Tran.

“Still in Indochina, is she?”

“Seems we’re talking about the old times instead of why you came here, camarade. . . .” Tran’s voice trailed off in disappointment. His manners were more French than Gassot’s and his accent was impeccable. But then he’d lived in France almost as long as Gassot, working for a wealthy old colonial family as an indentured servant until his retirement. Though slave would have described it better.

But he liked to keep busy, so he worked part-time now, here, as groundskeeper.

“You’re worried. It’s Albert . . . his heart?” Tran said.

Gassot gathered his courage. “Albert died in the hospital. But he was murdered there.”

“What makes you think he was murdered?”

“Who else knows, Tran?” Gassot asked.

“Mais, you don’t mean—”

“Who else knows about the massacre at Lai Chau?”

“The dead know,” Tran replied. “And your comrades.”

And it had been their regiment’s fault. Their bombing coordinates had been off. Off by half a kilometer, sending them into the no-fly zone.

A plain of burning flames, so intense the heat had melted the straps of Gassot’s helmet on his neck. The hidden mines planted by the Vietminh in the plain had exploded under the hail of the French bombing attack—an attack that had been meant to destroy the Vietminh forces, not ignite a incendiary vortex claiming thousands of both Indochinese and French lives. The deafening explosions cratered the red earth. Rice paddies were clogged with body parts kilometers away, destroying the ancient drainage system. The peasants starved the next season, refusing to eat a crop nourished by the blood of their ancestors.

No one talked of their mistake; the reports were destroyed, the incident hushed up.

“Only three of us left now,” Gassot said. “But someone could have escaped.”

“No one escaped from that hell,” Tran said.

“A victim in a field hospital? Or an eyewitness?” he said. “Someone who heard the stories and has come for revenge?”

“Go ahead and torment yourself, camarade,” Tran said. “You’re good at that. But it can’t bring them back. Nothing will. As they say, it’s all termite spit.”

“Albert opened his big mouth; he talked about the jade. And then the man he spoke to was shot. Killed.”

Tran’s hand shook as he lit another cigarette. “Merde!”

Tran, reestablish your connections,” Gassot said. “Go back “to the house. Talk to the old buzzard about the jade. You’re the one who heard the rumor in Haiphong.”

Tran bowed his head. “That’s so long ago,” he said.

“The jade is here. In Paris. We know it. We’re not the only ones looking for it, Tran,” Gassot said. “Remember that.”

“But we’re the only true believers.”

Gassot turned away. He stooped, tried to control the quiver in his shoulders. “Tran, you have to go back to the house.”

No one would suspect Tran. Gassot kept to himself his fear that someone was picking them off, one by one.