Murder in the Marais

Friday Morning

AIMÉE HUNG HER PANTSUIT in the armoire of her frosty bedroom, still smarting from Sinta's remark. She kicked her uncooperative radiator until it sputtered to life, not waiting for the dribble of heat.

Her grandfather had scavenged old bricks during the Occupation, tossing them in the fire to retain heat. He'd lined his bed with the warmed bricks, wrapped blankets over them, and slept toasty all night. Too bad the fireplace had been blocked shut since the sixties. She paged Rene, who phoned her back a moment later.

"How do I find out if a group like Les Blancs Nationaux-"

Rene interrupted her. "Their Web site is infamous, but it's not for the faint of heart."

"Care to elaborate?" She heard a low moan and muted, rhythmic thuds in the background. "Am I interrupting something, Rene?"

"I wish you were," he chuckled. "I'm at the laundromat in Vincennes next to a spin cycle. Proof that I can't afford the dry cleaners like you."

Too bad she couldn't even afford to pick up her one decent suit. "Tell me about Les Blancs Nationaux."

"Why the sudden interest?"

"The victim's daughter-in-law blames them for the murder," she said. "Morbier said they were demonstrating nearby."

"You mean that old lady carved with the fifty-thousand-franc swastika?"

"You're a regular Sherlock Holmes."

"Rumor is they videotape their meetings," he said.

"You mean show them on the Internet?"

"Just for true initiates," he said. "Part of a gruesome ritual for full Aryan brotherhood at their meetings."

Were Les Blancs Nationaux hard-core enough to tape murder? There was only one way to find out.

She accessed the Paris directory via Minitel on her home phone. Les Blancs Nationaux came up listed with a Porte Bagnolet address. She pulled the tall paneled doors of her armoire open wider and gazed inside. She still had all her costumes from when she'd worked with her father. Somewhere inside was the right outfit in which to pay them a visit.

Her cousin Sebastian's biker jacket, which she'd conveniently neglected to return, hung beside a purple-veiled harem costume. Next to the green Paris street-cleaner jumpsuit, behind a starched crisp white sous-chef apron, she found her ripped pair of black jeans from Thank God I'm a VIP boutique on rue Greneta.

She opened her stage makeup kit, a battered box that still occupied a full drawer in her bathroom though she hadn't used it for years. She went to work on her face. That done, she pulled out her wig box, dusty from neglect under her bed, then chose a black one from her collection. She snipped and teased it to the style she wanted.

A beep and hum came over the fax machine from her office. She leaned in anticipation, hoping for an update regarding an overdue account that would enable them to cover last month's office expenses. She grabbed the sheet, then stopped in mid-arc. The top header was the address of a self-serve fax/copy depot near Bastille. The paper held one sentence.

Leave the ghosts alone or you will join them.

She dropped the fax and grabbed the table edge for support, as the image of the Nazi carving in Lili Stein's forehead flashed before her. Someone considered her worth threatening and she hadn't even begun to investigate.

"SELF-SERVE MEANS exactly that," the harassed manager of the Bastille fax/copy place told her.

"Wait a minute," Aimee said threateningly, "here's the time and date. Who sent this fax?"

"Stick the francs in the machine and it faxes." He shrugged.

"Somebody's trying to kill me, Fifi." She edged closer. Perspiration beaded his upper lip. "Who was in here today?"

"Little or no contact is made with clerks." He retreated to safety behind the counter.

Her ripped leather biker jacket was fastened with chains; the torn black jeans were welded to her legs. Clunky black biker boots and a tank top with holes that showed tattoos completed her ensemble. SS lightning bolts and iron crosses peeked from her chest amid safety pins, skulls, and swastikas. Her large eyes were outlined blackly with kohl, matching her purple-black lipstick. And her black wig was spiked into a scruffy mohawk.

She questioned the other clerk anyway. He winked, saying it had been too busy. But if she met him later, she could call him Fifi as much as she wanted.

From Bastille she took the Metro to Porte Bagnolet. En route she mentally narrowed possible fax senders from the general public to a few old Jews plus Morbier who knew she was investigating Lili's murder.

Would someone who sat shiva at the Steins' have threatened her? Had Sinta, sparked by anger, faxed her a warning to leave the past alone? No, no matter what Sinta's feelings were about her detecting skills, she wouldn't do that. It didn't make sense, and whatever else Sinta was, Aimee instinctively sensed her practicality.

She found Avenue Jean Jaurès, a broad tree-lined boulevard. Every village, town, and city in France had an Avenue Jean Jaurès named after the famed Socialist leader and Paris was no exception.

Next to the front door of a flat brown building indistinguishable from the others, a piece of paper with "L B N" typed on it was fitted into the address slot. Simple and anonymous.

A metallic buzzer above it said rez-de-chaussee. She wouldn't have to climb up stairs in these skintight jeans. Imitation parquet flooring led down a fluorescent hallway that echoed with her footsteps. Posted on a wooden door was a typewritten notice: "Free Videos: Learn the Real History!"

The smell of fresh paint and disinfectant hit her as she knocked loudly. The door was opened by a thin woman in a black jumpsuit who scowled at her. One of the woman's gray eyes wandered. The other looked Aimee up and down.

"You're late!" she said.

Disconcerted, Aimee sucked in her breath and half smiled. The phrase about joining Les Blancs Nationaux evaporated on her lips.

"Don't just stand there," the woman snapped. "Entrez."

She followed the woman into the office, minimally furnished with steel desks and chairs.

"Traffic. You were expecting…," Aimee said.

"Your arrival twenty minutes ago," the woman barked. She sat down and appeared calmer. Her wandering eye wobbled less as her fingers thumped expectantly on the metal reception desk. "Where are they?"

Aimee slid her purple-black fingernails into her tight jeans pockets. She shrugged, then scratched her head.

"Don't even start," the woman said. She looked angry enough to spit.

Aimee jumped. "Look, I…"

"Last time was enough!" the woman interrupted.

There definitely was a bee in this skinny, funny-eyed woman's bonnet.

Aimee heard noises from the hallway.

An expression of alarm crossed the woman's face. She was scared, Aimee knew that much. The woman bolted from her chair.

"You explain it to him!" she said, striding to the door.

Cold fear of the unknown coursed through Aimee's veins. Now she wished she'd brought Rene as backup.

The door shot open. A tall man with dark stubble shading his skull wheeled in a dolly piled high with boxes. His pinstriped suit showed behind the top of the cardboard boxes.

"Just got back," he said. He called to the woman, "There's more in the car."

She moved quickly. "You deal with her," she said, then she was gone.

The man heaved the boxes with a grunt, set them down, then noticed Aimee. His tan, hard-lined face contrasted with his bright, sharp turquoise eyes. He picked a plastic-cased video from the box, tossed it at her, and began stacking a pile of videos in the corner.

Aimee read the blurb inside the clear plastic: "It's all here, see the TRUTH, visit what they call a 'death camp' and see the hoax that has been perpetuated for fifty years."

"Impressive!" she said.

He turned around and took her in with one look.

She blanched. SS lightning bolts were tattooed bracelet-like around his wrist.

"We discuss ideal art forms, comparing today's degenerate art and exposing myths in twentieth-century philosophy like the fallacy of death camps." He pointed to a poster in front of her.

She pretended to study the slogan on the poster: "Guidelines to recognize Zionist tentacles in literature!"

He stretched his arm out and jabbed at it, pantomiming shooting up with a needle. "Our bodies are Aryan temples and we don't do dope." His icy turquoise eyes never left her face.

He didn't miss a beat, she thought. And he was scarier than the wandering-eyed receptionist. "No problem, I'm clean, really clean," she said too earnestly.

"Who are you?"

She shrugged. "That's something I wonder about, too."

"Where are they?" he said.

"Not ready." She panicked. What were they expecting? What if the real messenger arrived while she was talking?

The phone rang on the desk behind him and he picked it up. He turned away from her, scribbling on a note pad.

If that was someone calling about her supposed item she was in big trouble. She began studying the pamphlets in the racks along the wall, edging towards the door, as he spoke into the phone. She was almost at the door when he slammed the phone down.

"Not so fast," he said. "Take these with you," he said, handing her a bunch of videos. He seemed more relaxed. "It's been rearranged. Bring them to our Saturday meeting. At Montgallet, upstairs from the ClicClac video."

"D'accord," she agreed. She pulled out her card. "This is my real job."

He appeared almost amiable now. Her card read "Luna of Soundgarden, Events Producer/Performance Sound, Les Halles." It was one she had picked from her alias file.

Theatrically he dusted his hands off, then reached for his. As they exchanged cards she noticed his hands were ice cold. His card read "Thierry Rambuteau, DocuProductions" with a short list of phone/fax/E-mail addresses and numbers.

Loud shouts erupted from the hallway. At the sounds of breaking glass and scuffling she gripped the brass knuckles deep in her leather jacket pocket. Thierry's face remained masklike as raucous laughter echoed in the outer hallway. He herded her towards the door.

"Stay and talk after our meeting, Luna," he said, his tone changed. Warmth shone from his blue eyes. "Our cause will change your life. It changed mine."

Fat chance, she wanted to say. Outside the door, shards of glass sprinkled the parquet hallway flooring. There was no trace of anyone, but the bathroom door opposite stood slightly ajar.

She emerged into the sunlight on Avenue Jean Jaurès, curious to know what had happened but glad to leave. What was going on?

She waited ten minutes then retraced her steps into the building. Silence. A citrus scent lingered in the hallway. The glass had been swept up and the door to Les Blancs Nationaux had been padlocked.

Had Thierry Rambuteau discovered Aimee wasn't who the skinny woman with the wandering eye took her to be? What if he'd played along? She could find out if Morbier helped her.

She'd left Lili Stein's cedar-smelling coat in a locker at the station, intending to drop in at the cleaner's. Now she put it on, tired of the reactions of others in the Metro.

She thought about Lili Stein and her own mother. The mother whose face remained blurry, hovering dimly on the outskirts of memory. She put her arms around the coat that covered her tattoos and black leather. "Maman," she whispered quietly, hugging the coat to her body.

Friday Noon

"SARAH!" A HIGH-PITCHED GIGGLING voice came from behind her.

The old woman stopped, half smiling, and turned around. Too late she realized a group of young girls were talking to each other, not to her. No one had called her that for fifty years. Why had she turned after all this time?

She reached the corner and stood in front of reflecting shop windows. And for the first time in a long time, she took a good look at the way she appeared to the world. Staring back at her was a sixty-five-year-old woman, a thin, lined face with strong cheekbones, and full shopping bags between her feet. She didn't see any sign of the Sarah she used to be.

She stopped for a cafe au lait on Boulevard Voltaire across from Tati, the cut-rate store. Above the espresso machine hung a gilt mirror framed by smudged business cards and old lotto stubs.

Marie, the pudgy, aproned proprietress, sucked in her breath and asked her, "You made it to Monoprix's big sale, eh?"

Sarah nodded. "Oui." She pulled strands of hair over her ears, careful not to disturb her wig.

Marie shook her head approvingly as she wiped the counter. "I want to go before it's too late; it's only once a year. Much left?"

Sarah managed a tired smile as she adjusted the scarf over her forehead. "I couldn't make it up to the fourth floor, too jammed, but housewares still had quite a bit, people hadn't started fighting yet."

"Ah," Marie sighed, "that's a good sign." She moved to wash some glasses near the end of the counter.

Sarah pulled a newspaper from the rack. Her bursitis ached and she knew that it would be too hard to get up again if she sat down. She'd enjoy her coffee standing, not to mention the francs she'd save by not sitting at a table.

She glanced at Aujourd'hui, scanning the photos of models and celebrities caught in various scandals. Rarely, if ever, did she read the pulpy, skimpy articles below them.

Suddenly, her cup fell from her fingers and cafe au lait splashed all over the zinc counter. Staring at her was a face she knew.

How could it be? She pulled her reading glasses from her purse and stared at the photo. The nose was different but the eyes were the same. Then, taking a pen from her purse, she colored the white hair black. She couldn't believe it. Wasn't he long dead? Unconsciously, she began to shake and gasped shallowly for air.

"Ça va? You don't look well," Marie said as she appeared with a cloth to wipe the counter. "Feeling sick, eh?"

She just nodded, afraid to tell the truth. The awful truth.

"Come sit down," Marie said as she guided her to a booth.

The normal movements of walking and sitting didn't calm her. She laid her head down on the sticky table littered with cups and saucers, took deep breaths, and closed her eyes. She'd been so sure he was dead. When she'd stopped shaking and her breathing was normal, she stood up and retrieved the paper.

It read like any other glossy name-dropping article. Below the photo the caption identified the man as Hartmuth Griffe. She used the pen again and drew epaulets and a swastika on the black jacket he was wearing and she knew. It was Helmut.

Friday Noon

"GET A TAXI!" RENÉ yelled. "Our tax extension appointment got moved up."

"Wait a minute." Aimee clutched the cell phone in front of the locker in the Metro station. "Our appointment is-"

"I'm at La Double Morte," he interrupted. "Tomorrow, the tax board goes on a monthlong recess. If we don't meet now, our case goes in default and we'll be liable for an eighty-thousand-franc fine. We're scheduled for arbitration in five minutes!"

That ate up Soli Hecht's retainer and more. They wouldn't have enough left in the business account for the rent check. She grabbed a taxi.

As she ran up the marble staircase of La Double Morte, the clink of the metal chains from her leather jacket brought a low wolf whistle from the janitor. He eyed her suggestively and wiggled his tongue as he wet-mopped the steps. She just missed tripping on the slippery marble and clomped heavily up the staircase. The leering janitor approached as if to talk with her.

Aimee growled, "Watch out, I bite!"

"Good!" he said. "I like that."

She hissed, "Get a rabies shot."

Trapped in her skinhead attire, she wrapped Lili Stein's coat tightly around her. A murdered woman's couture coat, from the fifties and smelling of mothballs, was not the outfit for a meeting with number crunchers.

Her dressed-to-kill look should have been more along the lines of a gray pinstripe suit. She smoothed down her hair, rubbed off the black lipstick, and trudged carefully up the rest of the stairs. When in doubt, brazen it out!

Quite a few heads arose from their desks as she darted to the room marked ARBITRATION.

Rene Friant's perspiring face held a mixture of relief and horror as she entered. His short legs dangled from the seat. Every centimeter of him recoiled as she sat down beside him.

Eight pairs of eyes, all male, stared at her from across the long wooden table. A glass of water sat at each place. Computer toner cartridges were piled on the table near her, next to an ancient copy machine. Most of the men wore gray suits. One wore a yarmulke.

"Excuse me," she said demurely and cast her eyes down. "I just received word that this meeting was moved up."

Silence.

The one in the yarmulke glared at her, adjusting the short cuffs of his tight-fitting jacket. "I see no records of past income in the file received from Leduc Detective," he said, without taking his eyes off her. "No statement of deductions either."

He rolled his sleeve up and she saw faded tattooed numbers on his forearm. He'd been in a concentration camp like Soli Hecht. She slipped her hands, covered with SS lightning-bolt tattoos, into her lap.

The man to her left joined in. "I concur, Superintendent Foborski. I also found no record of these."

Here was the superintendent-a concentration-camp survivor-and she was dressed as a neo-Nazi skinhead.

Rene stole a glance at her and rolled his eyes. Under the table she could see his pudgy hands clasped in prayer.

"Sir, these records-," Aimee began.

But the man next to her reached for his glass, promptly spilling water and knocking toner all over her coat. Accidentally or on purpose, it didn't matter. The powdery toner turned into a clumpy charcoal mess all over her.

Even sopping wet and cold, she wouldn't take the coat off. The fake tattoos were probably bleeding all over her chest.

"Pardon, I'm very sorry," he said. "Please, let me help."

Lili Stein's coat was ruined. She tried to wipe the mess up.

"I insist," he said, pulling at her sleeves. "This could be toxic."

"Leave me alone, Monsieur!" she warned.

"Are you hiding a weapon, Mademoiselle Leduc?" Superintendent Foborski's eyes glittered. "If you don't remove that garment, I'll call security to assist you."

Her shoulders sagged. Gently, she pulled her arms out of the soggy coat, dripping and smelling of wet wool. Swastikas and lightning bolts lay exposed through the holes of her tank top.

Eight pairs of eyes fastened on her tattoos.

"This has nothing to do with that-"

"This board will look at no request without the proper forms," interrupted Foborski, "it's impossible to conduct any further business. Consider your tax in default. Penalties will be levied retroactively in addition to a five-thousand-franc fine." He waved his hands dismissively.

"No!" Aimee stood up and looked him straight in the eye. "What I was attempting to say," she began levelly, "is that all those forms have been sent to you."

She rifled through Rene's file and immediately pulled out a blue sheet. "You are," she stopped and spoke slowly, "Superintendent Foborski, I take it?"

He nodded imperceptibly, glaring.

She continued, "Your office accepted and time-dated this receipt." Aimee strutted over to Foborski and laid the sheet in front of him. "Keep it, I've got several."

"Why don't I have a copy in my file?" He looked at it suspiciously. "I'll need to have this authenticated."

She'd dealt with bourgeois bureaucracy before, so she was prepared. "Here's a copy of the sign-in log stating the time I submitted them, with the tax revenuer's stamp, if that's any help to you."

He stared at the paper and shook his head. "Take this for verification," he said to his colleague.

Aimee went back, sat down, and gave them what she hoped was a professional smile. "As you know from the form, I'm a private investigator. I don't usually look like this, but in my current case"-she turned to Foborski and looked again in his eyes-"the part demands it."

Aimee passed her investigator's license, with the orange code symbol on it, around the table. She focused on the next most hostile pair of eyes and said matter-of-factly, "Can you bring me up to speed on what points my partner and you have negotiated so far?"

AFTER AN hour of negotiations, she and Rene walked down the marble staircase, partially triumphant.

"Only a seven-day extension." She looked at Rene ruefully. "We need three months."

"Even with Hecht's retainer, we're short. Of course, if our overdue accounts paid their balance we'd make it." He half smiled. "But we'd have better odds buying lottery tickets."

Near the exit to Place Baudoyer, they sat down on the wooden bench. Rene pulled out his ever-present laptop. Aimee hesitated-should she confide in Rene?

Years after the bombing, she still woke up screaming from the same nightmare. She'd be crawling on cobblestones slippery with blood amid broken glass in the Place Vendôme. Her father would angrily demand that she hurry and piece his charred limbs together so he wouldn't be late for his award dinner. "Vite, Aimee, quickly!" he'd say out of his melted, burned mouth. "I have no intention of missing this!" She'd wake up terrified and run through her dark, cold apartment.

Only once, after too much Pernod, had she told Rene about her nightmares and the bombing. Right now, she had to talk with someone she trusted.

"I need a sounding board," she said. "Got an ear?"

He nodded and left his laptop unopened. "I thought you'd never ask."

She told Rene most of what had happened since Soli Hecht had hobbled into their office. She'd already told him about finding Lili Stein.

"I wonder if Foborski attends Temple E'manuel Synagogue, the ones who supposedly hired me," Aimee continued. "Or if Abraham Stein does."

"So?" Rene said. "I can't see Stein asking a fellow synagogue member to deny you a tax extension."

"No, of course not." Aimee shook her head. "It's just strange that Foborski didn't have those forms."

"Let me help you."

She shook her head. "I'm reserving you for computer work." His hacking skills were the best she'd ever seen besides her own. Even better than her own. She saw the rejection in Rene's downcast eyes.

"Because I'm small?"

"Stop that. I dealt with your size long ago. You're my best friend."

"And tact is not your strong suit, Aimee," Rene said. "Even though you're my best friend, too. Do you think if I were tall I'd be able to help you?"

"Alors! This has nothing to do with your size, Rene. Lili Stein's homicide isn't our usual corporate crime."

"Don't count me out, Aimee."

"I swore on my father's grave." She put her head down. "Now I've blabbed to you."

"You swore to deliver something to Lili Stein. You did. Remember, I'm a black belt." He nudged her proudly. "And a good backup."

She sighed. "You keep reminding me."

"What about Soli Hecht?"

"He said no contact."

"Come to the dojo with me. You need all the self-defense kicks you can master."

"Merci." She squeezed his hand. "I'm going to see Morbier. He should have the forensics report by now."

"What is that stuff on your fingernails?"

"Like it? It's called Urban Decay," she said. "I'm going to Les Blancs Nationaux meeting tomorrow."

"Why?"

"If they murdered Lili Stein…"

He interrupted. "You need backup with those types, Aimee."

She hesitated. That might not be a bad idea. But if it was a setup…She decided against exposing him to danger.

"If I need you I'll call you." She kissed him on both cheeks. "Pressure Eurocom's accountant, make him sweat. See you later at the office."

LE COMMISSARIAT de Police seemed quiet for an early Friday afternoon. Few desks were occupied and the television blared an old American rerun of Hunter. As Aimee approached, Morbier's head appeared from under his desk.

"Lost the grip that holds up my suspenders," he said with a sheepish grin.

"Try this." Aimee plucked a safety pin from her jeans and passed it to him. "I've got plenty."

Morbier hitched up his trousers and pinned them.

"Just for that, I won't comment on your appearance." He smiled and sat down heavily at his desk.

Her father would have said something like that.

"Look, Morbier," she began. "I need a favor."

"You're a big girl now, I know," he said stiffly. "Our investigation will remain professional." He winked.

She controlled her impulse to stuff the cigarette dangling from his mouth down his throat. One minute he played hard-line and by the book. The next, he became a paternalistic old coot who couldn't express his feelings. She wished he'd decide on the role, then play it.

"I'd appreciate Les Blancs Nationaux's phone records, calls made and calls received," she said. "I want to know who Rambuteau talked with when I was in the office."

"Back up here. Who's Rambuteau?"

"A born-again Nazi who could be setting me up."

"Why?"

She hesitated. "I'll know when I infiltrate Les Blancs Nationaux's meeting."

His eyebrows lifted. "How did you manage an invitation? They don't let just anyone in-the scum level is high."

She told him.

"Maybe you shouldn't go."

"It's a bit late now."

He whistled. "Could be a trap."

"Exactly. Can you get me the phone numbers?"

Morbier's mouth hardened. "Before I do anything, hit me with the real reason you're mixed up in this Stein pot-au-feu."

"Maybe if you believed in community policing and made friends with the rabbi at Temple E'manuel"-her shoulders tightened-"he wouldn't have called me about Lili's shoplifting." She paused, realizing she had to be more careful…what if Morbier contacted the rabbi? She shifted the conversation's focus. "I'd like to see the forensics report."

"Me, too." Morbier scowled. "Somehow it's lost in the shuffle between the Brigade de Recherches et d'Intervention, the Brigade Criminelle, and the Commissariat," he said. "You know, the usual rivalry in our three-pronged justice system. Either of the other two would sooner let someone escape than let us at the Commissariat grab them."

To avoid him venting his frustration on her, she tried being sympathetic. She sighed, "Why don't the branches work together?"

"Our squad car radios can't even communicate with each other. Napoleon's theory of divisiveness still prevents us from ever getting together to overthrow the government."

She grinned. "An interesting idea that makes for lousy police work."

"Supposedly, the feds at BRI have a covert operation." He rolled his eyes.

She could tell he was warming up, testing whether to toss a few morsels her way.

"Far as I'm concerned they're all clowns. But you never heard that from me."

"In other words, be careful not to step on anyone's territorial toes?" she said.

"That's one way to put it," he said. He opened his desk drawer and pulled out the crime scene photographs and a clear plastic Baggie which he dangled in front of her eyes. Jumbled inside were dirt, scraps, and leaves.

"Voila."

She reached up but he slipped the Baggie behind his back.

"My commissaire has become extremely interested in this case." He shook his thick finger at her. "Share and share alike, Leduc?"

He'd make her pay for every particle of information. She bit back her nasty reply. "D'accord."

He pulled out two pairs of tweezers, gauze masks, and sterile plastic bags. Aimee put on a mask. He wiped his arm across the top of his computer terminal, laid down newspaper, and dribbled the Baggie contents.

"Where did your men find these?"

"You tell me." His eyes narrowed.

She remembered the splinters in Lili Stein's palm and the bloodless swastika. "You mean she was murdered in the light well?"

He nodded. "There's evidence of a struggle-forearm bruising, linear marks on fingertips from the ligature, concrete bits under her fingernails, metal scratches from the screws in her crutches. Points to the perp dragging her upstairs."

One hell of a struggle, Aimee thought. She leaned over and smelled the damp earth from a cluster of dirt-encrusted leaves. She gripped the tweezers and picked up a mud-spattered paper strip covered with numbers. Carefully, she lifted a length of variegated-colored wool, then a centime-sized cloudy, plastic cylinder. She peered intensely at each. She left the knobby pink button in the Baggie. Aimee turned the Baggie over, pointing out the double interlocked C's on the button.

"Odd," she said. "Lili Stein didn't look the Chanel type."

"Aha!" He let out a big sigh. "The killer wore Chanel and lost a button in the struggle pulling her upstairs." Morbier poked the chunky button. "A designer murder!" He smiled.

She ignored him. "Assuming that's Lili Stein's wool, where are her knitting needles? Or the bag she carried her knitting in?"

And what about Soli Hecht's name in Lili's knitting, the photo, or the threatening fax? She didn't mention any of this to Morbier, especially since Morbier had mentioned the federal BRI, the government's strong-arm enforcement. She'd figured Hecht didn't want flics involved due to his innate suspicion of them. But maybe it was something else…maybe he suspected corruption.

"Checked the dustbins, public and private?" she asked.

"Dustbins, that's quaint," he said. Morbier made a long face and consulted his notes. "Garbage pickup was that morning and the hotel bin had just been emptied."

She cocked her head sideways. "Which hotel?"

"Hôtel Pavilion de la Reine nearby." She'd heard of this exclusive hotel, multi-starred in the Michelin guide.

"What about this?" She pointed to the scrap of paper in the Baggie. "How near to Lili's body was it?"

"The crime-scene unit noted this was found in the courtyard entrance," he said.

"See the numbers. That looks like a receipt. Let me make a copy," she said. "And I'd like to borrow the photographs."

He nodded.

She took a sterile strip of Saran Wrap, laid it on the copier plate, picked up the paper scrap with tweezers, and set it down. Then she laid another sterile Saran strip over it, put down the lid, and pressed "Copy."

The ripped edge had a number, like the bottom of a receipt. She decided to check the shops near the alley.

"Thanks, Morbier." She eyed a Columbo-style trench coat with a patched lining on a hook. "Yours?"

Morbier shook his head. "I'm on call. Inform me if you find out anything."

"Think someone would mind if I borrowed the trench coat for a while?" she said.

He grinned. "Be my guest, your tattoos are guaranteed to offend every group."

"I do try," she said, donning the coat.

OUTSIDE OF La Double Morte, Aimee walked smack into a large knot of people clogging one side of the rue de Francois Miron. Orthodox Hasidic Jews in black stood grouped among bystanders in suits and jeans.

"Nom de Dieu, Soli Hecht!" she heard an old woman wail.

Aimee flinched at hearing Soli's name.

Red lights flashed from an ambulance straddling the sidewalk ahead. She pulled the trench coat tighter and started running. She made it to the corner before the ambulance pulled away. White-coated attendants slid a stretcher into the back door. She caught a glimpse of a blanketed mound before the doors clanged shut. The siren echoed off the cobblestones as it sped down rue Geoffrey l'Asnier towards the Seine.

Worried, she shook her head as she stood in front of the bronze six-pointed star on the gate of the Centre de Documentation Juive Contemporaine.

Two men conversed beside her in Yiddish. Both wore the black upturned hats; one was bearded, the other's skimpy suit pants didn't quite reach his white ankle socks.

"What's happened?" she asked.

"Soli Hecht got clipped by the Bastille bus," said the bearded one, switching into French. A Hebrew magazine stuck out of his pocket.

"An accident? Is he all right?" she said.

The bearded man turned to look at her and shrugged. "Hard to say, but they didn't pull the sheet over his head. No panier a salade," he said, referring to the blue van that picked up corpses. "An accident? If you believe it was an accident…" He didn't finish.

Startled, she backed into the stone wall. "But he's an old man…," she trailed off as the men walked away.

The bearded man looked back over his shoulder at her. "Do recriminations ever stop?"

Now, with the crowd mostly dispersed, she saw the blood-stained cobblestones by her feet. A shiver ran down her spine. Lili Stein had been murdered less than three blocks away.

The institutional-looking Centre de Documentation Juive Contemporaine stood close to the Seine. A bronze memorial to the Martyr Juif Inconnu filled the entrance. Aimee strode briskly past it to the gravel quai.

She remembered the envelopes in Lili Stein's desk drawer addressed to the center, the list in her knitting with "Soli H" on it. Most of all, she thought about Hecht's words. She had put the photo in Lili Stein's hand. But it had been too late. What did Hecht know that put him in danger?

Uneasiness gnawed at her. First Lili, now Soli.

Pigeons swarmed near her feet hoping for bread crumbs as she pulled out her cell phone. Her footsteps popped gravel and the pewter-colored Seine flowed lazily beside her. She shooed the pigeons away as Morbier answered.

"I just saw Soli Hecht put into an ambulance," she said. "Rumor is he got pushed in front of the bus."

Aimee wanted to hear the official spin from Morbier. See if the police were treating it as an accident or attempted homicide.

"Alors!" came Morbier's reply. "Someone trips in front of a bus and you call me at le Commissariat! Anybody see him pushed? Eh? A perpetrator and a motive would help, too. Voila, then you have something."

"Just sharing information." She clicked off.

She didn't like this at all. She hadn't from the beginning. Things didn't smell right, as her father would say. She entered the Center's paved square to inquire if Soli had been there or if someone noticed something. On the memorial, death camp names were chiseled. She gazed, saddened by the long list: Auschwitz, Belzec, Birkenau, Chelmno, Ravensbruck, Sobibor-so many places she'd never heard of. "Never forget" was handwritten in bold letters on a placard propped below.

"Never forget," Lili Stein had told her young son, Abraham. What had Lili meant? Aimee wondered-had it killed her?

The interior of the five-story building blended fifties architecture with anonymous high-tech features. State-of-the-art alarm sensors and high-density vision cameras perched in marble niches above her. On the wall in the sparse reception area hung a directory of the Center's services in several languages.

A small young woman with a thick black braid down the back of her denim smock bustled out to greet her. Her name tag read "Solange Goutal, Administration Assistant."

"Yes, may I help you?" Behind rimless glasses her bright eyes were puffy.

Aimee displayed her ID. "Did you know Soli Hecht was involved in an accident in front of this building?"

"Why, yes," Solange said. Anguish was printed on her face. "I spoke with him as he left."

Aimee hoped her surprise didn't show. "When was this?"

"Are you from the police? Show me your ID again," said Solange.

Aimee kept her smile businesslike. This woman could have been the last person to speak with Hecht before his accident. "I'm a private detective, investigating the murder of the Jewish woman near here."

"Of course I want to be helpful, but how is it related?" Solange said. She pulled a lace mouchoir from her pocket and blew her nose loudly.

"My job," Aimee said, frustrated that Solange Goutal was the curious type, "consists of eliminating coincidences to find solid clues and build a case."

Solange's eyes crinkled. "I see." But Aimee could tell she didn't. "Vandals set fire to our Star of David last week. Les Blancs Nationaux didn't claim responsibility, but it wouldn't surprise me if they had."

"Hard to say." Aimee gritted her teeth but kept smiling. She wanted this woman to answer her questions, not pose other questions. "Why don't you tell me about Hecht."

"Well, he needed assistance down the stairs because of his arthritis." She indicated the curved marble stairway. "I helped him with his coat. I always helped Soli if I could. His work is so important." She smiled sadly.

"Did you see the accident?"

She sniffled, holding back tears. "My back was turned, deactivating the security system," she said. "I heard brakes squeal, then a thud. I ran outside but…" She closed her eyes.

"You deactivated the security system after Soli Hecht left?" Aimee said. That didn't make sense. "Why?"

"If Soli is involved with a project, he works here any time. We close at noon Fridays for Shabbat. However, today, for the deportation memorial services I came in to finish up some work. Sometime after three Soli buzzed the office so I deactivated the alarm, then let him in. I reactivated the alarm but he only stayed a short time. To let him out I had to deactivate again. In doing so, I forgot to disarm his office alarm code."

"But I just walked in," Aimee interrupted.

"My mistake." Solange shook her head. "I was supposed to activate the process again. But it's so hard to remember."

"He has special access?" Aimee asked.

"Of course!" Solange sounded surprised. "Soli got the grant from the 4th arrondissement for this building space. His foundation maintains an office upstairs. Since the Jews lived and died in the Marais, he always said, their history should be shown here. But this week was the first time I'd seen him in several months."

Startled, Aimee realized that this information fit if his recent contact with Lili involved his work at the center. Keeping her excitement in check, she asked, "What was he working on?"

"That's confidential information," Solange said. She glanced at her watch. "I need to close the center."

"Is there anyone in his office whom I can talk to?" Aimee asked.

"Only Soli could tell you that. There's no one else in today."

Why wouldn't Solange talk? Supposedly there'd been an attempt on Soli's life, so why worry about confidentiality?

"Solange, I need to know about this work he's involved in."

"I told you it's confidential," she snapped.

Hecht had slipped her fifty thousand francs to find Lili Stein's killer and now he'd been hurt. There must be a connection to Hecht's foundation, but she wouldn't find out if this braided lackey kept blocking her way.

"Your director better be more helpful." She leaned close to Solange.

"She's involved in the memorial at the deportation monument today, but she'll be in Sunday." Solange backed up against the highly polished wood reception desk.

"What if Soli doesn't make it until tomorrow and you've obstructed my investigation-would you like that on your conscience?"

Solange's chin quivered. "I don't make the rules, I'm sorry."

"Answer me this." Aimee crossed her arms. "Did Soli act differently today than before?"

Solange paused, knotting her fingers. "His rheumatoid arthritis had become worse. He was in constant pain," she said, then sighed, "That's why it seemed unusual."

"Unusual?" Aimee said, alerted by the change in Solange's tone.

"That he was at a bus stop," Solange said matter-of-factly. "He told me he was going to take a taxi home."

Aimee willed her face muscles to stay put, hiding her excitement. Her suspicious feeling about Solange evaporated. "Did you report the accident to the police?"

"They didn't even respond when I called. Told me to dial SAMU, the emergency. Soli's a special man. This doesn't seem fair."

Outside, Aimee stared at the now dull brownish spot on the cobblestoned street. It didn't make sense for Hecht, in constant pain, to wait at a bus stop when a taxi stand was a few meters away. Especially since he'd said he would take a taxi. Somehow she'd unearth this mess, cobblestone by cobblestone if need be.

Late Friday Afternoon

"YOU SAY SOLI HECHT is in a coma?" Aimee asked Morbier as she stood across from his desk. "Is he going to wake up?"

"Severe trauma, internal injuries." Morbier shrugged. "Then again, I'm not a doctor."

"If he wakes, can you arrange it so I talk with him?" she said.

France 2 droned above them on the TV in Homicide. On the screen, angry demonstrators at the Élysee palace gates paraded near a newscaster who vainly attempted to interview them.

"A big if. He's in his eighties, amazing that his heart is pumping at all. Round-the-clock surveillance, too," Morbier added.

Her heart raced. Something was very off here.

"Wait a minute, weren't you calling this an accident? Not even investigating when I called you…"

Morbier cut her off. "Not me. Word came down the pipe."

"Meaning what?" she asked.

"From above. Not my dominion anymore. My men and I have been ordered clear of this investigation for safety and precaution. You, too." He stared at Aimee.

"Hold on." She hated being told thirdhand. "Does this include Lili Stein's case?"

"BRI has been assigned to the 3rd and 4th arrondissement," he said.

If Solange Goutal's emergency call had been ignored but Soli Hecht was abruptly put under hospital surveillance, a lot more was happening than met the eye. Her eye, anyway. "You're no longer handling this case?"

He shook a nicotine-stained finger at her. "Stick to your computer, Leduc; that's all you need to know."

"What about getting me the phone numbers dialed from Les Blancs Nationaux's office?"

He shook his head. "I can't help you."

Typical Gallic evasion, she thought; the French had perfected the art of sitting on the fence. He cupped his palm and took a deep drag of the Gauloise stub held between his thumb and middle finger. His bushy eyebrows lifted high on his forehead.

"Talk to me, Morbier," she said. It came out more intimately than she meant it to.

"First time in twenty-six years I've had a case taken away." He regarded his desk with a sour expression and ignored the tone in her voice. "For what it's worth, I don't like it either."

She felt her temper erupting, but she thanked him and walked out.

Late-afternoon traffic had choked to a standstill on rue du Louvre as she walked to her office. Morbier's comment spun in her head and she longed for a cigarette.

Instead, she bought a baguette at the boulangerie next to her building. In the small supermarche wedged on the other side, she picked up chèvre cheese, local tapenade relish, and a bottle of Orangina. She waved to Zazie, who was doing her homework by the window in Cafe Magritte.

As she mounted the worn stairs to her office she decided she had to keep investigating, no matter what Morbier said. They might be able to push him around but no one could tell her what to do.

Inside the office Miles Davis greeted her, excitedly sniffing her bag of food. He'd spent the night with Rene. She fed him some scraps from the butcher's. The only trace of Rene was a message taped to his computer screen with one word: "later."

Miles Davis fell asleep perched near the heater and Rene's chair. Aimee poured the Orangina into a crystal Baccarat wineglass left over from her grandfather. She folded the cheese and tapenade into the crusty baguette and ate.

After she finished her meal, she carefully taped the photo image and torn snapshot piece from Lili Stein's room together. She scanned the complete image into her computer and digitally enhanced the photo and printed a copy.

Aimee placed this image among the spread-out photos from the police folder and her own archive files. Then in chronological order, she tacked them up along her wall and looked for connections to the swastika.

She peered at them though a magnifying glass. The black-and-white photos cast everything in a timeless past. Each snapshot held a different scene, but they were all views of the Marais. She recognized the cafe, Ma Bourgoyne, she often went to. A group of booted Nazis sat drinking at the corner table. Next to it, women with rolled pompadour hair wearing ankle socks and t-strap shoes stood in line holding ration books.

Another photo showed the local Kommandantur on the rue des Francs Bourgeois, with armed Nazis guarding the heavy wood entrance doors. She almost dropped her goblet of Orangina.

On flags flying above the Kommandantur, the swastikas were tilted, with rounded edges, exactly like the one carved in Lili Stein's forehead.

Miles Davis growled, then someone knocked loudly on the office door. Had Rene forgotten his keys? She slipped her unlicensed Glock 9-mm from the desk drawer into her back jeans pocket.

"Who's there?" she said.

A muffled voice came from behind the door. "Herve Vitold with BRI."

"Show me your identification."

A laminated photo identity card with Brigade de Recherches et d'Intervention flashed in front of the peephole.

"Un moment." She shuffled the photos together and slid them back into a large envelope in her drawer.

"Excuse the caution." She opened the door slowly. "I've had some threats."

Aimee had never seen a Saville Row suit before but figured the Nordic-looking man standing at her door wore one. Probably a Turnbull and Asser handmade shirt, too.

"Of course," he said. His white blond hair glinted in the hall light but his features remained hidden. "Mademoiselle Leduc?"

Aimee nodded, keeping her hand cocked on the gun's safety.

"I have no appointment, but I'd like half an hour of your time. With commensurate compensation, of course," he said.

Aimee opened the door wider and let him in. She tried to appear as professional as possible in her too tight jeans and a torn Asterix vs. Romans T-shirt. A whiff of something expensive laced with lime hit her.

"Please come in and have a seat, I'll be with you right away," she said.

"Herve Vitold." He held out his hand as she showed him into her office. "Security administrator." He had gold-green eyes and an expensive tan for November.

"Please sit down," she said, surprised he didn't wear a uniform.

He leaned forward, took out a leather checkbook, and flashed a kilowatt smile at her. "Your rates, please. I want to take care of the business first."

Aimee briefly wondered why a Gentlemen's Quarterly type from the federals at BRI would walk into her office and want to pay money to talk to her.

"Five hundred francs for a half hour," she said promptly.

Let him put his money where his mouth was. See if this handsome man in an expensive suit was real or joking.

Immediately he pulled out a Montblanc pen, filled in the amount, and slid it across the desk, briefly touching her fingertips. She could have sworn his fleshy, manicured fingers lingered a second too long. Shell-shocked at receiving such a check though she was, she didn't react. Her mind was mostly on his very curly blond eyelashes and the green in his eyes. Consciously, she ignored a danger signal in her brain flashing "Too good to be true."

"How may I help you?" she smiled.

"First, may I say I appreciate your taking the time. A business like yours…" Here he vaguely gestured around the office, not exactly a beehive of activity. "And with a busy schedule, I'm sure." He flashed his brilliant smile. "But I'll get right down to it, shall I?"

"It's your franc."

"My branch works with precautionary services, sort of a field unit, out of La Defense," he said.

Get with it, girl, and ask a question, she told herself. "Sorry to interrupt, but I'm not familiar with government security. Don't you wear uniforms?"

Again that smile. "No uniforms. We exist and we don't exist, if you get my meaning."

Talking in tongues was what it sounded like to her. "Not really. Maybe you should get to the point."

A glimmer of amusement crossed his face.

The shadows lengthened across her office walls and she stood up to switch on the office lights.

"Mais bien sûr," he said. "Special branch out of Bourget, responsible for terrorist management, has taken over the Stein case. All inquiries, surveillance, and follow-up are to be handled by us."

That fit Morbier's dictum. "Why?"

"Given the present political climate and sensitivity of the issue, Special Branch feels it must be handled with care." Vitold sat back, crossing his trousered legs precisely at a ninety-degree angle. "This is a historic moment. Finally, for the first time since the last war, the European Union delegates will sit together and sign a treaty that binds Europe. Nothing must endanger this or the covert operation we've mounted to nab terrorists intent on destroying this process."

Too good to be true, all right. "Are you telling me to, let us say, butt out?" she said.

"Mademoiselle Leduc, I'm asking you." His eyes flickered again with amusement, then hardened. "I know how important the tax extension is to your firm right now and I wouldn't want anything to interfere with the process."

"Is this some kind of veiled threat?"

He stood up with a perfect crease down his pant leg and a still wrinkle-free shirt. "Now, now," he clucked patronizingly.

She stood up, too. "You walk in here, write a check, and expect me to back off a paid case by threatening to interfere with my taxes? Who do you think you are?"

"Vitold, as I've said, but I neglected to mention that your investigator's license is about to expire, since you've not renewed it."

"My investigator's license is code orange. Permanent and nonrenewable," she said.

"Not anymore."

"Threaten somebody else." She glared at him, ripping his check into franc-sized bites.

He grabbed her wrists, imprisoning them in a viselike grip. Little white pieces of his check fluttered onto the parquet floor. She realized his large manicured fingers could snap her bones in half like matchsticks.

"Must be careful of your little hands." He stroked the scar on her palm.

She jerked her head towards the video camera mounted into the deco molding. "Go ahead, the security camera is capturing our moment as we speak."

An odd smile washed over his face and he let go.

Then he was outside her office, striding toward the glass-paned hallway door.

"Consider carefully. I would if I were you," he said.

She whipped out the Glock. But he was gone. Only a whiff of lime lingered in the air.

She was shaking so much she couldn't keep her hands steady. She forced herself to take deep breaths and slip the safety back on. How deep had she waded in-and what kind of trouble was this anyway?

The indentations where Herve Vitold's fingers had pinched her wrists were still visibly white. She rewound the videotape and printed a photo of him. She remembered that Texas saying "Not fit for dog meat," and wrote that in red across Vitold's image.

After she grew calm enough to work, she sat back at her computer. She knew access codes changed daily in the security branch at La Defense. Within ten minutes, she had bypassed the "secure" government system, accessed their database, and found Bourget Special Branch.

The Bourget chain of command, responsible for antiterrorism functions, only crossed municipal police lines in the event of attack bombings, hostage situations, and the like. Not cold bodies of old women with swastikas carved into their foreheads.

Then she checked BRI's files, but no Herve Vitold came up. She spent two hours logging into all government branches with corresponding security.

If Vitold was who he purported to be, then Aimee was Madame Charles de Gaulle, God rest her soul. She found no one named Herve Vitold existing in any data bank.

Friday Evening

THE GRAVELLY VOICE DIDN'T sound happy.

"Consider this an order, Hartmuth. The chancellor is very set on this item of the trade agenda."

Hartmuth kept his voice level. "Jawohl. I've said I'll review the adjunct waiver proposal before I decide."

He clicked off. Briefly he wondered about Bonn's reaction if he didn't sign the agreement.

Hartmuth wearily set his briefcase down on the Aubusson carpet, collapsing into the recamier's brocade. All the rooms were furnished in authentic antiques, yet they were so comfortable, he thought. This silver-and-silk-threaded pillow was familiar, like the kind his mother embroidered on winter evenings long ago.

But that world had been shattered out of existence. Setting his stockinged feet upon the pillow, he lay back exhausted and closed his eyes.

Yet he couldn't sleep. He relived the journey, the one in which he returned to his father's home on the outskirts of Hamburg. Of ninety-one thousand taken at the defeat of Stalingrad he'd been one of the five thousand Germans limping back after the Siberian work camps.

At the end of the muddy road, rutted with bomb craters, he'd recognized the blistered paint and blown-out windows. Entering the doorless shell, now empty and deserted, he'd seen that even the fireplace bricks had been taken. He shuffled to the back, looking for his fiancee, Grete. His family had arranged their betrothal while they were in the Gymnasium, before the war.

A steady chopping and then a sound of splintering wood came from a dilapidated outbuilding in the crisp, bitter air. Red-faced, her breath frosty on a chill March afternoon, Grete was chopping down the back garden shed for firewood, using a rusty ax. She clapped a cracked and bleeding hand over her mouth, stifling her cries, and hugged him.

"You're alive!" she'd finally managed to say, her voice breaking with emotion. "Katia, Papi is here. Your Papi!" Grete said, shivering in the icy wind.

A child, wrapped in sewn-together burlap sacks, sat in a nearby wheelbarrow. Oddly, he felt no affection for this hollow-cheeked, runny-nosed creature with yellow ooze dripping out of her eyes. The baby had been playing with a warped photo album and his father's violin bow, all that remained of his family. Grete assured him proudly that Katia was his, born of their coupling on his last furlough in 1942. Yes, he remembered that. He'd been so anxious, after his fiancee's doughlike legs and desperate embrace, to return to Paris and Sarah.

He knew Katia was his and he resented her. He wished he didn't. Guilt flooded through him for not wanting his own child.

Because of Katia he knew he'd have to stay and take care of them, marry Grete, and keep his promise. She deserved it, for bearing his child, protecting the house. She told him herself what had happened to his parents.

"Helmut, the snow hadn't melted by April and Muti and Papi couldn't stand to see Katia shiver so badly. They decided to investigate a rumor about black-market blankets in Hamburg. Only one tram was left running, painted white and red to resemble medical transport," she said. "I'm sorry." Grete put her head down. "I'm sure they didn't feel a thing, Helmut. We saw yellow-white light." She pointed beyond the muddy, rutted road. "After the explosion, smoke billowed into the sky and a rain of little red slivers fell on the snowy field."

He wondered if she was telling the truth or was the truth too painful to tell? It sounded like the explosions in the Siberian oil field where he'd been a POW. Working at the camp in the frozen tundra, men had been burnt by eruptions of fire on ice into charred cinders before his eyes. He wore gloves to cover the skin grafts crisscrossing the old burns on his hands.

He sat up in a cold sweat. Loyal and steadfast Grete, she hadn't deserved his gift of an empty heart. But he couldn't very well go back to France then-he, an ex-Nazi just out of a POW camp, to search for a Jewish girl, a collaborator.

Postwar Germany had no services, no food. Grete cooked the roots and tubers he found by clawing under the snow. Scavenging in the forest, he dreamed of Sarah, seeing her face in the catacombs as they shared tins of black-market pâte.

But all around him, people boiled and ate their shoe leather if they had any. He sold his mother's pearls for a sack of half-rotten potatoes that kept their hunger at bay. Gangs of children ran after the few running trains, fighting over burned pieces of coal that fell onto the tracks, hoping to find some only half-burned. They weren't allowed back into the basements under the rubble until they brought something to eat or burn.

Hollow and numb most of the time, he survived by his wits and by scavenging. At night, spooned between Grete and Katia for warmth, he'd see Sarah's curved white thighs, feel her velvety skin, and imagine her blue eyes.

Grete knew right away he didn't love her, that he loved someone else. But they married with no regrets. No one had time for regrets in postwar Germany, and he and Grete worked well together. They were a team of two dragging Katia along. Her eyes never seemed to heal. One eye stayed closed and continually dripped. There was no penicillin to be had and no money for the black market.

Grete appeared one day with tubes and packets stuffed in the pockets of her too-small winter coat. She pulled out a fat tube of metallic-smelling ointment.

"Helmut, hold her, please. This will help her eyes," Grete said. Firmly she rubbed it around and inside Katia's lids as much as she could, while he held his squirming child. Then Grete pulled some huge yellow-and-black pellets out of a paper packet. "Good girl, Katia, now just swallow these. Here's some cold tea to help them go down," Grete said soothingly.

Katia made a face and spit them out. Grete stuffed them back in her mouth.

"Grete, Grete, what are you doing?" He thought Grete had gone crazy and was giving Katia dead bees to eat because she was so hungry.

Her eyes flashed angrily, "It's medicine! She has to take them or she'll be blind, Gott im Himmel, help me!"

And he did. He never forgot what those huge penicillin tablets looked like and how Grete's face had looked as they got them down Katia. Only the GIs had them. Katia's eyes got better and he never asked Grete how she had got the penicillin.