Murder in Montmartre

Wednesday Evening

“MADEMOISELLE ROUSSEAU'S condition remains unchanged,” said Dr. Huissard from Hôtel Dieu in a harried voice.

It had taken Aimée twenty minutes on the phone persuading a liaison at the Préfecture to give her authorization and another twenty being switched around departments at the hospital before she was able to reach the doctor who was treating Laure.

“She’s young, that’s in her favor,” Dr. Huissard said. “We’re running tests. She’ll have a CT scan this evening. For now, that’s all we can do.”

“Please don’t think I’m telling you how to do your job, Doctor, but your service provides basic care,” she said, aiming to be tactful. “Can’t you transfer her to another more specialized ward in the hospital?”

Should she ask Guy to put in a word of recommendation? Despite his surgical excision of their relationship, she could call him. Perhaps he could help somehow. For Laure she would beg.

“Doctor, I know an eye surgeon.”

“No outside specialists, they don’t allow it. She’s being treated by the specialists here.”

“Her condition’s deteriorating, as I understand, or it may. Why won’t—?”

“I shouldn’t say this.” She heard the doctor sigh. “I’ve already requested that Neurology take over. Right now, they’re overcrowded. As soon as a bed’s free, she’s next on the list for a neurology consult. She could be moved within the hour or later this evening.”

“May I see her?”

“No visitors. She’s in critical condition. We’re not equipped, as you know, in the criminal ward.”

“How soon could she—?”

“Mademoiselle, I promise you she’s next on the list,” Dr. Huissard said, his voice not unkind. “I need to get back to my rounds.”

“Merci, I appreciate all your efforts, Doctor,” Aimée said.

She opened the shoebox-sized refrigerator under the kitchen counter. On the shelf with the bottle of champagne and yogurt past the due date was a white wax-paper packet of butchers’ scraps.

“Miles, à table,” she said, putting the scraps into his chipped Limoges bowl.

Miles appeared with what looked like a rag in his mouth.

“What did you find this time?”

He dropped it on the floor, licked her leg, then bent over his bowl.

She picked it up. Guy’s washcloth. She caught the clinging scent of his vetiver soap.

“I miss him, too.” Her lip trembled.

Miles Davis looked up from the rim of his bowl, his head cocked to the side. Sometimes she’d swear he could understand.

She turned on her radio, a 1960s aqua rectangle with a JOHNNY HALLYDAY LIVE AT THE OLYMPIA! sticker she’d found on the street. She turned to a talk-radio station. But the callers complaining about their apartment neighbor’s cat or the higher tax on cigarettes didn’t drown out her thoughts of Guy.

On the next station was an interview with the breathy, vaguely sexy voice of Madame Claude, notorious for her exclusive maison close that had hosted an elite ministerial clientele in the seventies. Now Madame Claude peddled her memoirs instead of high-priced girls.

She switched the channel to Macha Meryl’s show on RTL, the intime hour for the lost, the lovelorn. For years, Macha, a brusque therapist, had dispensed advice on late-night radio of the tough-love variety, often to the rejected, loveless callers. To the pathetic like her.

“Caller, c’est simple,” Macha said, “a man leaves for two rea- sons: another woman, or the woman he thought he loved isn’t whom he thought. Et voilà, it’s not rocket science. My advice for when a man leaves? Shut the door behind him.”

The husky cigarette-laced voice had gotten that part right. Get on with one’s life!

Aimée put Guy’s washcloth and the moonstone ring inside an envelope and addressed it to him at the hospital. She wished she didn’t long to hear his voice one more time. One last time. Could she make an excuse and ask him for a referral for Laure?

Non, dumb. Don’t call, she told herself.

A moment later, she took a deep breath and punched in the number of his hospital.

“Doctor Lambert?” the receptionist said. “We’re referring his patients to the acting head of staff.”

Odd. “For any particular reason?”

“Doctor Lambert’s taken a post with Doctors Without Borders in the Sudan.”

The Sudan? She grabbed the door frame.

“Just like that?”

“An unexpected position came up. Few have Doctor Lambert’s qualifications in ophthalmological surgery. There’s a desperate need. He decided, overnight.”

“Merci,” Aimée said. She hung up and dropped the envelope on her desk. Tears rimmed her eyes. He’d gone.

“Flee, flee . . .” Hadn’t Mallarmé written that? So Guy had run to Africa to save the blind and to escape.

Laure lay in a coma and now all she could do was stand here feeling sorry for herself. She was beyond pathetic.

A news announcement interrupted the broadcast. “Police find links to Corsican Separatist threats to bomb government buildings. Sources in the Ministry of Interior decline to state the targets. More on the top-of-the-hour news.”

Corsicans. Instead of this pity party, she needed to do something, quit treading water while she waited for the lab report to surface. Probe deeper, investigate, find proof, a witness. Vindicate Laure. Where to begin?

She remembered the prostitute Zoe Tardou had mentioned. If she was working tonight she’d be on the street.

Aimée smoothed her white shirt, tightened the knot of the black tie under the vintage Saint Laurent “Le Smoking” jacket she’d found at the Porte de Vanves flea market. Over that she donned her black leather coat, winding her scarf tightly against the crisp chill, and headed for the Metro.

Half an hour later, she exited through the verdigris Art Nouveau Metro arch. In the distance, staircases mounted the butte, home to small zinc cafés, tiny fifteen-seat theatres. Wind whistled through a broken roof tile along the passage. The burning wood smell of a working chimney wafted past her.

On the steep street, a white-haired man locked his bicycle to the street lamp. “Ba waoui,” he said, with the twang of an old-style Parisian, to a man rubbing his arms in the cold. “Have to go down to Paris tomorrow.”

That old Montmartrois spirit that grudgingly condescended to Paris “below.”

She grinned as she passed him and he tipped his cap to her. “Bonsoir, Mademoiselle.”

“Et vous aussi, Monsieur!”

She followed the cobblestone street past several small hotels and a prostitute’s bar where a miniskirted woman sat in the window petting her dog. A handwritten sign read—RECHERCHÉS HOST-ESSES—Hostess Wanted—and the red-lit bar was empty.

She followed the narrow street to the corner. Beyond, it curved and led to a flight of stairs up to Abbesses. The steps glistened in the rays of a single streetlight. Across from the building where Jacques had been shot, she saw a heavily made-up prostitute right where Zoe Tardou had said.

“Bonsoir,” Aimée said. Her breath came in puffs of mist.

“I don’t do women, chérie,” the woman said, shifting her weight to her other foot. “Try rue Joubert; they work without pimps and do their own thing.”

Rue Joubert, near the department store Printemps, was a street of les Traditionelles, prostitutes who charged standard prices and used condoms. The categories varied; there was the marcheuse who walked the street; the entraineuse who worked in a bar; the caravelle, at the airport; the michetonneuse on a café terrace, and finally, la call-girl, at the high end.

“Thanks for the information,” Aimée said. How could she get this woman, forty if she was a day, to talk? “A flic was murdered here the other night, you’ve heard about it?”

The woman’s eyes darted around the warren of streets and passed over the front of a shuttered plumbing shop. The dark sky cast a gray tint over muffled angular figures bent into the wind, framed by white stone five-story buildings. The scene could have been an Impressionist painting.

“I know you’re working, but that night did you see something, or hear something?”

“Flics aren’t my business.”

“Nor mine, but they’re accusing my friend, a female flic, of shooting her partner.”

“Didn’t she?” She stared at Aimée for a moment. Of course, the prostitute would have heard all about it in this part of Montmartre.

“She was set up and I owe her a favor,” Aimée said. “Were you here Monday night?”

“Every night.” The woman shrugged.

“So you heard the shot at around eleven o’clock that night, just before the worst of the snowstorm?”

“What’s it worth to you?”

Aimée pulled a hundred-franc note from her pocket.

Just then a middle-aged man wearing a wool overcoat walked by, paused, then looked at Aimée. “It’s cold tonight. Like to keep me warm?” he asked.

Aimée shook her head, controlling her shudder.

“Alors, this is my corner,” said the woman, anger flashing in her eyes.

“Nice to see new blood here, Cloclo. How about a three-way with your friend?” he said, grinning.

Cloclo, whose workname was slang for costume jewelry, stepped from the shadows and took his arm. “You’re my friend, chéri.” She guided him along the cobbles. “Special price, eh, you’re my last tonight.”

“Cloclo!” Aimée called.

Cloclo looked back and laughed.

Aimée held up several hundred-franc notes and pointed to the lighted café-bar sign next to a small hotel on rue Veron. Cloclo nodded, then disappeared around the corner.

She could warm up and nurse a verre de rouge until Cloclo turned up, if she did. Given the crow’s-feet around the prostitute’s eyes that heavy makeup didn’t hide, she figured the francs she’d flashed would bring her.

Inside Chez Ammad, the café-bar, a young man behind the counter flashed her a smile. Cropped hair, jagged broken teeth. A street fighter or too many sweets. She figured the latter.

A café of locals, not trendies or médiathèques. This might be a good opportunity, while she waited for the prostitute, to ask if anyone here had noticed something odd Monday night. But she couldn’t rush it or they’d clam up.

The man stuck a tape in a cassette player. Dalida’s voice rose above the conversations in the café. The long brown wood-paneled room resembled a bus. One she wished she hadn’t gotten on. Thick cigar smoke hovered like a cloud over a table of middle-aged backgammon players. Bourgeoisie or bureaucrats by the look of their expensive leather shoes.

She wanted a smoke. Tomorrow at 9:37 a.m. it would be four days since she’d quit. And she wished she wasn’t counting the minutes. She looked around to see who she could pump for information and pointed to what the man next to her at the counter was drinking.

“The same,” she said.

Overhearing her, he said, “You look the active type.” With his hooded eyes and splayed workman’s hands he could have been the bartender’s brother. “Call me Theo.”

“I can still do a handstand and cartwheel without splitting my pants,” she responded.

His hooded eyes widened and he grinned. “Hear that, Marcus?” he said to the bartender. “We’ve got an acrobat here!”

“I left the circus,” she said, putting three francs on the counter. “Terrible benefits.”

She wished the prostitute would walk through the door, hoped she wouldn’t have to wait very long. The wet wool smell and cigar fragrance were getting to her.

“Did you hear that, Marcus? Our bricklayers’ union’s not the only one. The scaffolders’ too.”

Was this about the scaffolding on the building where Jacques was killed? Interesting.

“So, Theo, you work in construction over there?” She jerked her hand toward the window.

One of the cigar smokers looked up. “Theo’s responsible for the noise. It’s been six months. The building commission permit was only for two.”

“Did I include you mecs in my conversation?” Theo frowned.

The oil fumes from the kerosene heater permeated the air. Her nose itched and she sneezed. She caught Theo looking at her legs.

The burgundy, smooth and full bodied, left a tart aftertaste.

“So we should work faster and end up in the quarries?” Theo asked, throwing up his arms.

“Typical union talk,” said the cigar smoker. “Always whining.”

“Limestone quarry pockets honeycomb the foundation. On this part of the hill it’s like you’ve got to put on velvet gloves just to move a few centimeters of earth.”

“He’s right,” said Marcus, wiping down the counter. “We had to get a special clearance to replace a water pipe!”

A vigorous discussion ensued, reminding her of her grandmother’s Auvergnat village, where the café was the social scene on winter nights. Familiar, like a worn blanket. But instead of farmers, the café patrons mirrored the face of the butte: bricklayers, intellectuals, a reporter from Le Canard Echaine, the satirical newspaper, and retired bureaucrats.

The barman, Marcus, refilled her glass and winked. “On Theo.”

“Santé,” she said, raising her glass, figuring the lull in the conversation was a good time to ask questions. “Theo, wasn’t there a shooting where you work?”

“Caused another delay,” he said.

“Why’s that?”

“Some flic offed another flic.”

“That’s not what I heard,” she said. The conversation paused. “My neighbor saw men, not cops, shooting on the roof.”

“What could your neighbor see in a freak snowstorm? She must enjoy freezing her eyeballs off. Some kind of record, the amount of snow that fell that night.”

“I heard that the storm broke right after the shooting,” Aimée said.

“To see anything in that weather, she must have laser vision.”

Before she could press further, Cloclo walked in, nodded to the regulars, and spied Aimée. Cloclo indicated a table in back underneath a sloping soot-stained glass roof. She remembered her grandfather saying, “Prostitutes are a thousand times more honorable than actresses. The first sell their bodies; the second, their souls, and more.”

“A pastis, if you’re buying,” Cloclo said, as she passed Aimée at the counter.

By the time Aimée brought over the drink, Cloclo had divested herself of her long black coat. Sparkling costume jewelry clinked in her deep cleavage, and pastel pink Diamonique bracelets encircled her wrists.

“No wonder your nickname is Cloclo,” Aimée said.

“I’m on my feet all day,” she said. “I like something to brighten me up.”

On her knees, too, Aimée thought, noticing the snags and a run in her black sheer stockings. Aimée palmed the promised francs under the table into Cloclo’s waiting hand. Cloclo’s cheap floral scent mingled with the anise smell of the pastis.

“We can talk but I don’t have much to say,” she said.

Great. She’d just slipped her the last of her cash. No taxi-ride home on a night that promised to freeze the gutter water.

“Listen, Cloclo, think of helping me as helping my friend. She’s in a coma from the blow she got up there. Hard to go downhill from there.”

“This friend . . . your friend, she’s the flic, right?”

Aimée nodded. “We’ve been friends since we were ten years old. Our fathers worked the beat up here. Laure always had an inferiority complex. Her harelip—”

“I know the one. Young,” Cloclo interrupted.

“She treat you right?”

“Left me alone.” Cloclo added water to the pastis, stirring it to a cloudy mixture. She took a long sip, her eyes never leaving Aimée’s face. Aimée tried to ignore the acrid smell of anise.

For Cloclo, in her line of work, that would be treating someone right.

“Laure wouldn’t kill her partner. No matter what.”

“I didn’t like him.”

Aimée’s ears perked up. “Her partner, Jacques?”

Cloclo shook her head and ran a finger over a black-penciled eyebrow.

“Do you know what Jacques was doing up on the roof?”

“Jacques’s not who I meant,” she said, glancing at her Diamonique watch.

Startled, Aimée leaned forward. “Who do you mean?”

Something shuttered behind Cloclo’s eyes.

“It’s getting late,” Cloclo said.

Was she afraid? “Sorry, go ahead. I thought you meant her partner, Jacques.” Aimée felt the vibration of Cloclo’s black stiletto pump tapping the wooden floor.

“That mec. He thinks he owns the rue, you know the type I mean?”

Aimée thought back to the musician she’d seen in the doorway, the one Conari had identified as Lucien Sarti.

“Dark skin, eyes, and hair, a musician. You mean him?” Aimée asked.

“Not that good-looker.”

“Then I don’t know who you mean.”

“The guy who gives me a hard time—a crude type,” Cloclo said. “Not the one who carries a music case.”

Near them a chair scraped over the floor, a voice rang out, “Adieu, mes amies.”

Cloclo waved to an old man shuffling out.

Aimée had to focus Cloclo on this other mec. “Did he know Laure and her partner?”

”How well he knew her partner, that I don’t know,” Cloclo said, her tone matter-of-fact. “But he flaunted his connections, you know. Wanted freebies.”

Something stirred in Aimée’s mind. If she could put the details together, some piece would fit.

“Did you see this mec and my friend’s partner together?”

“I saw them talking in that bar on rue Houdon.” Cloclo’s eyes flicked across the room.

Finally, a connection. “Zette’s? Does this guy have a name?”

She shrugged. “Those Corsicans keep to themselves, eh?”

“He’s Corsican, you’re sure?”

Cloclo nodded, and her costume jewelry clicked together on her ample chest.

Aimée tried to put it together. Jacques knew Zette and had been seen with this mec. Had he killed both of them? Why?

“Where can I find this crude Corsican?”

“Him, you don’t want to know. But he goes in and out of the chichi place down the street from my station.”

Station...her place on the street.

“You mean opposite the fancy townhouse across the courtyard from number 18?”

“Oui.”

“Any idea which apartment he goes into?”

She shrugged again and downed her pastis.

“What does he look like?”

“Like any punk with money. Gold around the neck. Stylish hair and clothes.”

Now to the important part.

“Did you hear a shot, Cloclo?”

She shook her head. “I was working, chérie.”

“See anything?”

“Like I said.” She rolled her mascaraed eyes. “Working. But the good-looker walked up from Pigalle and stood in the doorway, you know where the street divides?” She drained her glass.

Aimée pictured the view from Cloclo’s station and the spot where Sarti had stood. If he came from Pigalle, would he have had time to kill Jacques and attack Laure? What about the other mec?

“Here’s my number,” Aimée said, handing Cloclo a card. “Call me the next time you see the Corsican. Night or day. There are more francs in it for you.”