Murder in Clichy

Thursday

RENÉ SQUIRMED ON THE dirt floor and thumped his feet. The dank chill, and the diffused light from the kerosene lantern, reminded him of the ancient cave in the Loire Valley he and his mother had camped in one August holiday. With its thick walls it stayed cool despite the heat of summer. But he hadn’t had his ankles taped up then.

“Time for pipi?” asked the gravel-voiced man.

He nodded and tried to talk but the tape over his mouth garbled his voice.

“Water?”

He nodded harder. The mec came into view, blocking the pile of bricks, and the ants still pushing their crumb. He had to get out of here.

“Let’s see, it’s been a while,” said the mec.

A while . . . more like six hours!

The mec was wearing denim overalls, snakeskin boots and his brown hair was pulled back in a stringy ponytail. He slit the duct tape binding René’s ankles with a knife and pulled René to his feet. Were they going to kill him?

“Little guys like you have an interesting sex life, eh?”

René snorted.

“What’s that?” he grinned. “Oh I forgot, you can’t speak.”

René’s cheeks burned with a searing pain as the mec ripped the duct tape off his mouth. He groaned.

“Quiet!”

“Sick. I’m going to be sick,” René whispered, his voice hoarse.

“Watch the boots,” the mec said, pushing René toward a rusted iron bucket by a pile of old newspapers. “Over there.”

René gagged. “I’m dizzy,” he gasped, heaving. “Help me.”

“Hold the wall,” said the mec, a look of disgust on his face.

“Can’t.” He gagged, spitting near the man’s boots.

“Not on the boots, dwarf, or I kick you with them.”

René heard the slow rip of duct tape and felt his wrists being freed. Numbed, tingly, but free. He leaned on the wall for support, pushed off and shot out his left leg, kicking the surprised mec in the kidney. The man doubled over. René’s next powerful straight kick landed under the mec’s chin and whipped his head back.

If his hip hadn’t throbbed so much he’d have broken the mec’s fourth and fifth rib, too. Still, he would need a hospital visit.

René flexed his short, swollen fingers, grabbed the duct tape and wound it around the mec’s mouth, hands, and feet. Then, huffing, he pulled the limp body behind the high cobwebbed pile of bricks.

Phone, where was his phone? Not on the dirt floor where there were only men’s magazines and a small notebook. He grabbed the notebook with his numbed fingers and stuck it in his pocket. He took the kerosene lantern, the fumes making his nose itch, and searched the moaning mec’s pockets. Only a pack of Gitanes. His fingers didn’t obey well, but he ran them over the packed dirt, back and forth. And near the corner they found his cell phone. With his thumb he turned it on as he stumbled toward the stairs. He punched in Aimée’s number.

He heard several clicks, then ringing. But there were footsteps on the stairs. Merde!

“I’m underground in an abri near a Bata shoe store,” he whispered and clicked the phone to silent mode.

“Hey, the beer’s cold,” said the second of his captors. “Wake up! Where are you?”

René ducked behind a rotting wood chair and felt something long, like a pole. He grabbed the end, slid it across the third to bottom step, and raised it. The chair blocked his view but he heard the whoosh of air and a loud ouf! as the man tripped and fell. Bottles crashed, spraying beer. There was a smell of malt everywhere.

Stunned, the heavy-set red-haired man sprawled on the dirt floor. René reached for his thick neck, pinched the carotid artery, and gave it a twist. The man’s head sagged. René shone the lantern on him, took the roll of duct tape, and covered his mouth with tape.

Sweat dripped between René’s shoulderblades. After binding those thick wrists he had run out of tape. He undid the man’s belt, shifting and moving the inert body until it finally came free of the man’s waist. Then he looped the belt and knotted it several times around the man’s ankles.

René tried to ignore his throbbing hip as he hobbled upstairs. He felt along the pebbled wall in the dark, ran into a rough wooden door and tried the handle. Locked.

So close.

He had to think fast. The third man was bound to arrive at any moment.

He called Aimée.

“René . . . don’t hang up,” she said. “Are you all right?”

“Aimée, I’m in Paris, underground someplace.”

“I know. Stay on the line,” she said, breathless. “Whatever you do keep the phone on. We’re triangulating your position.”

“Hold on. Don’t talk,” René said.

He kept the phone in his pants pocket and inched his way back down the steps, fighting for breath. The key had to be on the big red-haired man. He felt around in the pocket of his down-filled jacket and pulled out a cheap pocket calculator. It took him two tries to turn the unconscious man over so he could examine his shirt pockets and his pants pockets. A wallet. Then a ring of keys jingled, and he pulled them out.

René made his way up the stairs again, in the dark. He took one of the long-handled old-fashioned keys, reached up, and slid it toward the keyhole, but the bunch of keys fell from his still swollen fingers and vanished in the darkness.

Below, René heard one of the men stir and groan. René ran his fingers over the stone step. Nothing. He panicked.

If only he could see!

Then his fingers grazed the top of the keys. He tried to grasp them but his fingers just pushed them down into a narrow crack.

He needed something with which to pull them up to him.

He slid down the steps once more, saving his legs for the climb back, and with the knife cut some excess duct tape from the man’s wrists. He climbed back, his legs and hip protesting. He lowered the tape into the crack, tamped it carefully around the bit of key sticking up and prayed the tape would hold. Slowly, centimeter by centimeter, he lifted the keys. By the time he had them in his hand, perspiration was running down his forehead in rivulets and dripping into his eyes.

More noises came from the big man, a knocking and rustling as he struggled against his bonds. Then there was a metallic clang.

The kerosene lantern!

A crackle and thupt of something igniting. René’s hands shook. Despite the cellar’s dampness, with so much old wood and paper, the flames would catch, then suck up oxygen for fuel and create an inferno!

He reached up, aimed for the keyhole, and willed his hand to be steady. He missed. He tried again, leaning his short arm against the door. The key didn’t fit. Smoke and kerosene fumes rose, choking him.

René tried the next three keys. The fourth was the right one. He turned it, but the key stuck. With all his might, he pressed and turned. And tried again. The old-fashioned lock clicked and he rammed the door open with his shoulder.

He fell on a wet floor by bags of cement, striking a small cement mixer. A worker, wearing overalls and a bandanna around his head, jumped back in surprise.

“Where is this place?” René said.

“Señor, no habla Français,” he said, alarm in his eyes.

René crawled across the floor to pull himself up by the wall. Black smoke billowed up from the staircase. The worker yelled and grabbed a bucket of water.

René made his legs move. Step by step, past an open door and into a garden courtyard. Birds sang by a low ivy-covered wall. He’d never noticed the sweetness of the tang of wet leaves or realized how beautiful a gray sky could look.

Keep going, he had to keep going, follow the narrow lane past the parked vans, and get to the street. Get away. The arched porte cochère lay just before him and he heard a car slow down, shifting into first. He ducked behind a van as the car turned in. A black Peugeot.

Hurry, he had to hurry. Despite the searing ache in his thigh, he had to keep walking. The car pulled behind him, a door opened and shut. He panicked, knowing it would only be a few minutes before they discovered he’d escaped. He heard someone yelling to call the sapeurs-pompiers, the firemen.

He edged past the van, keeping close to the walls, and made it through the arch. Saw a narrow cobbled street lined with parked cars.

He looked up, wiped his brow and saw the street sign: rue Lemercier, a one-way street. He reached into his pants pocket for his cell phone.

“Aimée?” he said. “I’m on rue Lemercier, wherever the hell that is.”

“Near Clichy. Go to your right René. Walk.”

He heard honking. And there she was, jumping out of a taxi and running toward him.

For once in his life the earth and stars aligned: He’d done something he never thought he could do, and with arms opened wide she was running to him.

Somehow he walked, he didn’t know how.

“René!” Tears spilled from her eyes as she grabbed him.

“What took you so long, Aimée?” he said.