'Tell me what you saw.'
He shook his fist in the air but still wouldn't look at her.
Now she wanted to shake it out of him.
'Look, I know you don't like me but holding it in won't bring Arlette back! You want justice, so do I. And we both know we have to find it ourselves. Right? Did the
She couldn't see his face. Finally he spoke, his back still turned toward her. 'Everything started with that damned tinned salmon,' he said.
'What do you mean?' she asked, surprised.
'Stuffed in her wardrobe. Everywhere,' he said.
'Black market?'
He turned and reached for his glass. She slowly poured him another. Rachel Blum's words spun in her head.
'Arlette sold black-market food. She was a BOF, right?' she said.
Shaken, he looked up. 'I haven't heard that term in years.' He sighed. 'She graduated to petrol, watches, even silk stockings. I told Arlette these things were too dangerous.'
'Did Lili help her?' she said.
Saliva bubbled at the corner of his mouth.
'Where was Lili? Did you see her?'
'I tried to apologize,' he shrugged. 'But there were so many bloody footsteps. All over.'
'Why were you sorry? Did you and Arlette argue?'
He nodded.
'The footsteps went upstairs?' Aimee asked. 'You thought they were Lili's?'
He raised his eyebrows.
'Javel, Lili saw what happened. Why didn't you ask her?'
He shook his head. 'She was gone. There were so many footsteps by the sink.'
'Lili wasn't there? Maybe hiding somewhere?'
His eyes had narrowed to slits. She was afraid he was about to pass out. She took a gulp of Pernod to combat the pervasive ammonia smell from the kitty litter.
'Javel,' she said loudly and tiredly. 'Tell me why.'
'I told the inspector.' He spoke more lucidly, unaware of the tears trickling down his cheeks in thin silvery lines. 'They beat me bloody at Double Morte. Called me a cripple. Said I couldn't get it up and laughed at me. First inspector got too greedy for a black-market collabo.'
'What was his name?' Aimee asked.
'Lartigue. Run over by a Nazi troop truck accidentally, they say.'
'Lili knew who killed Arlette, didn't she?' she said.
He shoved the empty glass towards her and she poured him more Pernod with a generous dash of water.
'Rachel said Lili knew,' Aimee said. 'Come on, Javel, who else would know?'
He shrugged, then leaned forward. 'That Yid collabo who slept with a
'Same eyes?' Who was he talking about?
'Such bright blue eyes for a Jew!' he said.
'When was the last time you saw her?' Aimee asked excitedly.
His head landed heavily on the table. Passed out. Only when he was snoring did Aimee tuck the crocheted blanket around him. She put milk in a bowl for the missing cat, rinsed out the glasses in his dingy sink, and shut the door quietly behind her.
LE RENARD, 'THE FOX,' was a relic of Les Halles in the fifties. Somehow it had missed the wrecking ball that had swung on rue du Bourg Tibourg when they razed the old central market of Les Halles. There, Violette and Georges served their famous
Aimee had arranged to meet Morbier here. After Javel's information, she counted on getting Morbier's approval to set her plan in motion.
She entered the haze of cigarette smoke and loud laughter. Georges winked as she smoothed down her black dress, inched her toes comfortably in the black heels, and adjusted her one good strand of pearls. She slid around the corner of the zinc bar to kiss him on both cheeks.
'Eh, where have you been? The snooping business keep you too busy to shoot the bull with old
'I had to raise my standards sometime, Georges, my reputation was getting tarnished,' she threw back affectionately.
Morbier perched at the counter, poking in his pants pockets for something. He found an empty pack of Gauloises, crumpled the cellophane, then searched his overcoat.
'Any chance of Violette's cassoulet for me and this one?' She nudged Morbier as she said it.
Georges smiled and said, 'I'll check.'
Aimee motioned to Morbier. 'I'm inviting you.'
He feigned indifference. 'What's the occasion?'
'It goes on the business account,' she said. 'Under purchasing information.'
He chuckled as he lit up a nonfiltered Gauloise blue. 'You can try.'
They edged towards a booth with cracked brown leather seats. Dingy and comfortable, a cop hangout with good food. Several others from the Commissariat nodded and raised their glasses of
'No dice on the forensics. Lili Stein's file has disappeared upstairs.' He tore off a piece of crusty baguette.
'I need to know when she was killed.'
'Formulating some theory that I should know about?'
'Just a theory,' Aimee said.
'Like what?' He lifted the edge of the white tablecloth and wiped his mustache.
She frowned and tossed him a linen napkin.
'Nothing points directly to the LBN. The swastikas I saw at the meeting were different from what was on. . .' Aimee stopped. She remembered the bloodless lines carved in Lili Stein's forehead and heard the bland voice from the Auschwitz=Hoax video. Burning anger rose in her throat.
'Is something wrong?' he said.
She stopped herself. Anger would get her nowhere.
'No. The closest hate crime in the videos I borrowed was burning the Star of David in front of the Jewish Center.'
Solange Goutal, the receptionist at the Jewish Center, had guessed right.
'Borrowed?' he said.
After watching the videos, she'd been relieved to see Les Blancs Nationaux hadn't recorded killing Lili. But that didn't mean they hadn't done it. Just that she hadn't found a tape, if any existed. Not only had she slept with Yves, deep down she wanted to do so again.
