Murder in Clichy

Friday Evening

NADÈGE HUDDLED IN THE dark doorway, pulled her jean jacket collar over her pearls, and wrapped her scarf around her feet. She tried to still her hands. Chills and feverish jitters wracked her. She was sweating; she couldn’t stop sweating. The searing pain in her spine! The familiar, awful ache of withdrawal.

Globed lights threw a yellow haze on the wet cobbles and illuminated the infrequent evening buses that rumbled past. Quiet reigned, the school crush over, as the post-work apéritif hour settled upon the Clichy back streets.

The gnawing craving filled her. How many hours had it been? She wasn’t counting, but it had been all day. She was doing better, cutting back. She’d stopped before, she could stop again.

Waves of guilt rocked her. Leaving her little Michel. Non, she’d been right, that had been a good move, she couldn’t keep him with her, he was better off, so much better off with grand-mère. Clean sheets, a full rice bowl, and she would make sure he arrived at school on time.

And now she’d do what had to be done to clean up Thadée’s mess . . . and hers. Thadée had regretted introducing her to his supplier when she, in turn, became indebted to him. She struggled against a surge of irritability and nausea.

But which role to play? The indignant, well-bred French girl or the pliant Asian? All her life she’d acted the part that was called for, never sure which fit. Lately, she hadn’t cared much.

Mealtimes in Paris with her father or her friends’ families had been full of discussion and debate, alive with conversation in between multiple courses. Yet as a small girl her grand-mère admonished her if more than the click of her chopstick was heard on the rice bowl; it showed bad manners. “Show reverence for food, with silence,” she’d said. And always, “Show respect for elders, never argue, express self only in harmonious way.”

Her grand-mère would pull herself to her five foot height, stare at Nadège, and say “Gweilo stole Vietnam, push us out our country, your country but, it still is inside us; we never leave it, it never leaves us. Someday we return to tend our ancestors’ shrine once more.”

Growing up, Nadège had wondered when that would be as her grand-mère cursed the régime and her mah-jong cronies moaned about how Vietnam was changed. Later, she’d realized her grand-mère would never leave France. She didn’t even have a passport.

And “harmony” would get Nadège nowhere unless she found Thadée’s stash. It wasn’t in the apartment, but she hadn’t checked out Thadée’s old townhouse, whose rear faced the shadowy gallery courtyard. She clutched her beaded bag, pulled her denim jacket tighter, and took advantage of the mid-evening lull to slip across the narrow street and press 75AB on the digicode buttons. The massive dark blue door opened and she stepped inside.

Thadée had told her once, if anything happened, to go find his cache and she’d be safe. And then distracted by a phone call, he’d forgotten to give her its location. So typical of Thadée, she thought, and a pang of remembrance lanced through her. But she had found the key, if only it was the right one.

The dank foyer, lined with old mailboxes, held a green garbage container and puddles. The plaster ceiling leaked and dripped on the spiral staircase. Occasional acquaintances of Thadée had used it as a shooting gallery until he’d cleaned himself up and thrown them out. He’d never used drugs after that. She doubted that Sophie, who disliked her, had ever graced the crumbling place.

There was a ghost in every house. One had to make peace with it or get out. Would Thadée’s ghost cooperate?

She reached into her bag for incense sticks, the votive candle and the silk flowers, now crushed and bedraggled, that she carried. She set them on the dry first step as a makeshift shrine. A half-empty bottle of Evian would have to do for an offering, in place of Thadée’s favorite drink, Pernod. Her hands shook as she lit the candle, then she put them together in a silent prayer.

May his spirit and all the spirits wander in peace.

The votive candle caught and flickered, casting Nadège’s oblong shadow onto the peeling wallpaper. She gripped the wobbling banister and mounted the steps. She’d locate the stash, but not do anything with it, of course. Then she’d go to the station, take a train, and lay low in the countryside. Non, better first to take care of business.

But as she went through the rooms, she heard a shuffling sound and saw a flickering of light.

She wasn’t alone. Her stomach clenched in fear.

“May I help you?” said an older woman, stroking a purring cat that was nestled in her arms.

Nadège noticed the woman’s slender, graceful body and chiseled cheekbones. She must have been a stunner in her day. The woman set down the cat and unfurled an umbrella she picked up from the floor. A good thing, too, as the soggy plaster leaked with a steady drip, drip, from the coved ceiling. Nadège worried that Thadée’s stash would already have become moldy.

“Gotten chilly, hasn’t it?” the woman said, chatting as if they were meeting at a garden party.

“You’re Thadée’s friend? Do you live here?”

“Sometimes.” The woman gave her a wide smile. “Un vrai Monsieur! So generous.”

Nadège’s eyes welled and she nodded. “Do you know . . . ? ”

“Terrible,” she said, reaching for Nadège’s arm. Her hands were ice cold but sympathy radiated from her. “You’re too beautiful to be so sad! Come, take a seat.”

In the adjoining room stood a bed and an upright harpsi- chord, whose legs tilted, its wooden frame warped, keys missing. Once, though, it must have been exquisite. Several water-stained boxes blocked an antique armoire. Nadège fingered the large old-fashioned key in her pocket. Sniffled, and wiped her nose.

“Call me Neda,” the woman said, sitting down on the mitered herringbone pattern parquet floor as if they were at a picnic. “You have such beautiful pearls. You’re an artiste, I can tell.”

“Moi? Just a year in École des Beaux-arts, but. . . .” Nadège felt shy.

“Voilà,” Neda said, smiling. “See, I knew right away.”

“It doesn’t count, really,” said Nadège, biting back a smile.

But those months had been unlike any others. She’d taken stage and set design courses and planned on apprenticing at the Opéra Garnier. Life had held rose-framed sunsets in the student quartier. Then she met Michel’s father, a costume designer with a habit. Just after Michel was born, he’d left and everything had fallen apart.

“Thadée confided in you, n’est-ce pas?”

“A little,” Nadège said.

“What about that chest he found and the things inside?”

Nadège shrugged her shoulders, trying still to ignore the pains in her back.

“So, ma chère,” Neda said as she pulled off her gloves and shot up between her fingers. Now Nadège understood. Aristocratic addicts had to hide like everyone else.

Neda leaned back with closed eyes and sighed. “How can I be your friend? A little poudre? Opium? Or liquid morphine?”

Nadège nodded. Juste un peu. To help tide her over. That’s all.