Murder in Belleville

“Meetings?” Was he undercover or working on something Martine didn’t agree with—or both?

“I also mentioned how amazed I was by the way you changed the temperature, how you altered the color of things. And how I’d like more of that,” He paused. “That’s if I remember correctly.”

She cleared her throat. “I’ll have to check on that and get back to you,” she said, quickly gulping the rest of her coffee, aware of Morbier’s gaze.

“You do that,” Yves said. “I’ll be waiting.”

They hung up.

“You’re blushing,” Morbier said, cocking his eyebrows.

“I do that when I drink fast,” she said, rooting in her bag for a tip.

Morbier grinned and said nothing.

“Here’s Samia’s number. She lives above the hammam near the Couronnes Metro,” he said. “Pack your swimsuit, there’s a piscine adjoining the steam rooms.”

Tempted for a moment, she paused. She hadn’t swum her regular lap quotas for several days.

Morbier nodded. “Like I said, little fish lead to big fish.”

“I don’t have time for swimming, Morbier,” she said. “Or to chase the Paris periphery for pond scum.”

What was she doing at a cafe with Morbier wasting her time? She pushed back her chair, scraping the sidewalk, and tossed her phone into her Hermes bag.

“Don’t go rushing off, Leduc,” Morbier said, wagging his nicotine-stained finger at her. “Last time you did that you had more broken bones than usual, remember?”

She flinched, fingering her throat at the memory of the rooftop in the Marais. The concussion, the lacerations needle-like over her skin …

A glass was knocked to the floor at the next table, jerking her back to the present.

“Think of it this way, Leduc,” Morbier said, lighting another cigarette from the smoldering butt in the ashtray. “If you trace the plastique to the source, you might nab the mistress’s killer.” He shrugged. “Get some shitheads off the street. The murderer could be, as de Gaulle said, ‘Chier dans son propre lit,’ shitting in one’s own bed. Criminals often do. A common mistake.”

“I think de Gaulle was referring to the Algerian crisis in that instance, but you’ve got a point,” she said, a smile fighting its way over her mouth. “But like Papa used to say, things don’t always seem as they appear or he would have been out of business.”

“Keep an eye on Samia, that’s all,” he said. “Samia grew up in the housing projects with gangs, Rai’ music and tattooed bleakness. But trouble, like Zdanine, tends to follow. Far as I’m concerned, Zdanine is scum, but he’s connected.”

“D’accord, I’ll call and meet her,” she said, “but I’ve got to change.”

“Make sure,” he said, wagging his finger, “you dress appropriately.”

She walked toward the Metto. On the corner the outdoor tables at Chez Mireille Bistrot were full. The hcdah boucherie Islamique held a steady stream of shoppers. Petulant whines of tired toddlers in their strollers, and the rumble of the Metro below greeted her accompanied by fumes from the 95 bus, direction Austerlitz. She wondered how Sylvie could have hidden in this dense quartier, where a woman would be noticed. Especially a good-looking woman. She shouldered her bag for the Metto ride to Rene’s.

Aimee paused at the stairs of the Couronnes Metro. She felt someone’s eyes sizing her up. The bearded men wearing chechias and flowing white habayas stared at her from the Abou Bakr Mosque entrance. Her shoulders tensed. Les barbes—the Islamic fundamentalists she’d read about. Their staring disturbed her, rattling in her brain all the way to Rene’s.

RENE’S HAUSSMANN-ERA building fronted rue de la Reynie—a tree-lined strip Aimee regarded as a minioasis from the nearby Les Halles, with its cheesy clothing shops, discount CD stores, and young crowd. His apartment overlooked a quiet, geranium-lined walkway wedged between buildings.

Rene’s parking space was the same size as his studio apartment. But it certainly had more room, she thought, considering Rene’s obsession with the latest computer equipment.

Computers and monitors, raised a cushion’s height from the carpeted floor, lined two walls. Books covered another wall. His window looked onto a hulking gray building, draped and scaffolded for renovation. From the stereo a voice rasped, “Serves you right to suffer” accompanied by a guitar riff filling the room.

“James Lee ‘ooker,” Rene grinned. “Les blues.”

Aimee smiled. Last time Rene’s infatuation had been Django Reinhardt.

Two futons were piled in the corner. A poster showing the 417 types of French cheeses hung on the wall of his cockpit-size kitchen. Bodybuilding weights sat on the low counter specially designed for Rene’s height.

Miles Davis sniffed her with his wet nose from his pillow beside Rene.

“So far, looking for Sylvie I’ve hit the Fichier firewall,” Rene said. “But this new software should help.” He pointed to several zip disks, stacked between the monitor screens filled with encrypted algorithms.

“You’re a genius,” she said.

He nodded, his eyes bright as his fingers danced over the keyboard. “Tell me that after I crack the code.”

He was in his metier. No one she knew came close to his expertise.

“What about the Swiss electronic switch on the explosive?” she asked.

“Curious, that one,” Rene said, hitting Save. He stood up and stretched. He wore a grey tracksuit, the top fitting his long torso but the pants shortened. “Seems that circuit board hooked up to a relay—you know the kind in the movies where the mecs set the device to explode in ten minutes? Meanwhile they’ve driven five miles away and have an alibi.”

She made a face, pursed her Chanel-red lips. That would complicate things.

“However, reading the report,” Rene said, packing his practice bag for the dojo, “that doesn’t seem to fit. Seems they activated it from nearby, like you suggested, from the ‘fake’ SAMU van.”

She picked up Miles Davis. But her edgy feeling remained.

“Can you watch him some more?”

Rene’s eyes narrowed. “What’s up?”

She told him about Morbier’s lead.

“Call me if you need backup,” he said. “I’ve got another bag of shank bones in the fridge,” he said as she made for the door. “You’re welcome to hit the dojo with me.”

“Next time.”

“Be careful,” Rene said, giving her a meaningful look.

AIMEE HAILED a taxi at the roundabout that dropped her at her rue du Louvre office. By that time she’d arranged a rendezvous with Samia within the hour.

Inside her once elegant nineteenth-century office building, with the ancient dark green water spigot in the foyer, she was tempted to take the birdcage elevator. But the tightness in her leather trousers told her no. She hiked the three steep flights. On the landing opposite the smoky bevel-edged mirror, she unlocked her door.

She hurried past her desk, stacked with Paris pages jaunes and manuals on secure cryptosystems, to the back storage room. She never missed leaving criminal work, but the old regret hit her. To play it safe, she pulled on her bullet-proof vest, made especially thin, the spy-store clerk had told her, for those “special occasions.”

She rifled past hangers containing a blue rubber-strapped fishmonger’s apron, the traffic jacket with SUBURBAINE stencilled on back, her lab coat embroidered with “Leduc” from her premed year at Universite Rene Descartes, and an acid green sequined feather-boa affair from a defunct sex club in Pigalle.

After some deliberation and flirting with the boa, she chose a black leather jumpsuit, a relic of a friend’s drug-dealing days. The leather unitard, composed of zippered pockets and quilted patches, fit skintight. She struggled into the legs and zipped it over her black lace bra. A zebra-striped foulard draped around her neck completed her ensemble.

After applying makeup she stepped into slingback black heels. She threw her red high tops into her bag in case she had to deal with more slick cobbles. Quickly she painted her nails so they could dry in the taxi.

Forty minutes later she’d emerged from rue du Louvre, hailed a taxi, and arrived at Samia’s.