Murder in Belleville

Thursday Morning

YOUSSEFA HUDDLED IN THE back of the church, trying to make herself small. Hamid—she had to talk to Hamid. Eugenie had told her she could trust him. The problem was reaching him.

Ahead of her the hunger strikers who sprawled on the pews rested with their eyes closed. To her they looked like the dead.

Youssefa squeezed her eyes shut under the chador. But the images were burned into her memory. The surprised looks and the raw fear on the victims as the rifles pointed their way. How the bodies shuddered at the impact, then crumpled into the pits they’d been forced to dig. The flies, the heat magnified and radiating off the corrugated-iron Quonset huts.

She pinched her legs until she couldn’t stand the pain, almost screamed out. The images faded. Youssefa forced herself to gain control.

So far she’d buried the terror when it seemed ready to engulf her. She kept her story to herself. No reason to endanger the women where she worked. They asked no questions, and she gave no answers. An unspoken agreement; life stayed safe that way.

She overheard that Hamid’s strength had ebbed, only a few AFL members were allowed access to him. And they were all men. She didn’t want to bring attention to herself and was afraid the mullahs would refuse her. Especially the one called Walid, with his officious air.

“Zdanine, do me a favor,” said a voice near her. “Eat your pistachios somewhere else.”

“Je m’excuse,” Zdanine said and stood, brushing the shells from his tracksuit. Charcoal-eyed and handsome, his gaze reminded her of an undertaker estimating the length of a person’s coffin and shroud. One who lived by taking quick stock of future merchandise. Zdanine appeared sharper than the young hittistes in her village, unemployed for lack of jobs. Many made ends meet by the odd scam or lived off their girlfriends. But, like her cousins, Zdanine seemed to share a worldview limited to himself.

She watched Zdanine stroll over to Walid, hold a short conversation, then head toward the back of the church.

But Youssefa realized that if Zdanine had Walid’s ear, then maybe he could help her.

Thursday Afternoon

TONIGHT WAS THE TIME to break into the apartment, Aimee thought. Time to check those blue plastic trash bags for clues in Sylvie’s courtyard. Garbage was collected every day in Paris, but had the eboueurs hit Belleville yet? She called her cousin Sebastien. He was good at dirty jobs. But she’d have to sweeten the pot. Entice him. Invite him to dinner. And she was hungry.

“How about L’Estaminet or Cafe de Charbon?” Sebastien suggested. “Let’s try a hot rue Oberkampf restaurant.”

Aimee was wary of the studied chic of these restaurants, old shops gutted, then refurbished to look old again in a nineties way, crowded with those wanting to see and be seen.

“Favela Chic is better,” she answered, comfortable with the childlike elegance of Brazilian saints and icons studding the walls, not to mention the steaming manioc, beans, and crusty fried Bahiana shrimp cakes.

In her room she opened her armoire, found the green street-cleaner jumpsuits she was looking for, and stuffed them in her bag. In the unused bedroom, once her father’s, she looked in his art deco chest. She didn’t like going in his room, much less through his drawers. Once they were opened, her father’s scent assailed her. The familiar wool and cedarwood of her childhood. She found his lockpicking kit, the tools wrapped in dark blue velvet. He’d taught her how to wire an explosive, crack a safe, and tap her own gas meter/phone line. He’d said, “It’s just so you know the score.”

SEVERAL HOURS later she opened the creaking door of Favela Chic, smoky and lit by strings of tiny pink and melon-green lights. The early-evening beer drinkers sat at tables covered with floral oilcloth.

Sebastien was flirting with the young Brazilian waitress when Aimee sat down at his table by the window.

“Orangina, please,” she said.

“Make that two.” He smiled.

“Muito obrigada.” The ringlet-haired waitress nodded.

Sebastien turned his head to watch the waitress sway toward the kitchen. “She seems the rave party type,” he said, stretching his long legs and leaning back dangerously in the small chair.

He’d discovered the art poster business after he’d gotten his nose out of the white powder. And the needle out of his arm.

Her little cousin was making good. Aimee felt happy for him. All six feet of him. He engulfed the chair and table like a big black bear. The black leather studded pants, biker jacket, and bushy black beard contributed to the illusion.

“I’m considering a lease on the shopfront at the rue Saint Maur corner.”

“You must be doing well, Sebastien,” she said.

“Not bad,” he said. “Some nice museum orders came in.”

“Congratulations. I’m proud of you.” And she meant it.

After they ate, Aimee had paid the bill, and Sebastien arranged to meet Maria-Joao, the waitress, after closing. He lit a cigar.

“So what do you want me to do?” he asked.

“Help me collect some garbage,” she said.

“The human kind?”

“More inane,” she said. “And stinkier.”

“Why am I not surprised at that remark?”

“We’re going to break into someone’s apartment,” Aimee said. “You’ll help me steal her trash.”

“Not my first choice of evening plans,” Sebastien said.

“Little cousin, you owe me at least one lifetime,” she said. “I remember clearing your airways and getting you on your feet before the SAMU arrived,” she said. “Not to mention ditching your stash in a roof rafter before the flics raided the place.”

“And for that,” he grinned, “I’m your slave.”

“Good. Let’s walk, digest our food before the job,” she said. “Did you park your van in Place Sainte- Marthe?”

“Bien sur,” he said. “And brought everything you requested.”

Sebastien shouldered his bulging leather bag. They reached Eugenie’s building on rue Jean Moinon. The narrow street lay deserted and dark. The streetlight bulbs had been smashed. Probably, she figured, so the junkies could do business without an audience.

“My old lycee is near here,” Sebastien said.

“And it’s changed,” she said. “Now it houses the temporary part of the morgue.”

“Hold on here, eh?” he said, recoiling. “I don’t break into morgues.”

“Don’t worry,” she said. “I already have.”

He blinked, then shook his head. “Shouldn’t we get to work?”

From her bag she handed him the extra-large green jumpsuit with PROPRIETE DE PARIS on the back, worn by the garbage collectors. She stepped into hers, zipped it up, and tied a scarf around her hair. He pulled a ski cap low over his eyes.

“We’re going to use an American technique,” she said.