Murder in Belleville

Sunday Midafternoon

AIMEE STOOD IN THE Vietnamese jewelry shop window fingering twenty-two-karat rose-gold chains and watching Dede. He’d paused outside Cafe la Vielleuse, watching the traffic as he buttoned a long mohair overcoat, then turned up his collar.

At a nearby tabac, its torn awning hiding her view, he chatted with the shopkeeper. After a minute, Dede went inside but the shopkeeper, his sleeves rolled up, remained outside, watching the pedestrians. She left the jewelry store and stepped onto the crowded sidewalk.

A few minutes later Dede exited, patted the man’s shoulder, then walked at a fast clip up steep rue de Belleville. He passed Cour Lesage, then turned right into rue Julian Lacroix.

Aimee’s dark glasses and Gucci scarf covered the headset she wore. In her gray raincoat pocket was the power pack for the walkie-talkie she spoke to Rene with. Following Dede proved a challenge. He’d stop frequently, shaking hands or nodding to men on the street. She’d pause and look down into her bag or peer at the nameplates on grimy apartment doors.

Most of the men were beurs. By the look of it young and unemployed. From open windows came aromatic smells—spices and oil, laced by orange blossom and the refuse in the street. She kept in touch with Rene’as he monitored the bandwidths in the area.

“Dede’s on the phone, I can see,” she said.

“I’ve got his bandwidth,” Rend said.

She heard clicks, a buzzing, then Dede’s voice in short spurts saying, “Nervous, no amateur … emptied the flat… asking questions … Eugenie … move everything. General… get Muk-tar.”

“Rene, he’s turned off rue du Senegal,” she said.

Dede’s boots clicked in the distance.

“I see him,” Rene said. “I’m below the synagogue on rue Pali Kao. He’s moving fast now.”

By the time Aimee made it to the corner, Rene appeared.

“Did you lose him?” she asked.

Dede reminded her of a rat. A fat one.

“He evaporated,” Rene said. “But the block isn’t long. Let’s go.”

New angular buildings were nestled between old decrepit ones on the hilly cobbled street. Timber supports braced their buckled walls. She saw evidence of habitation in the lines of wash and rusted pots of geraniums, despite the walls appearing in a state of semicollapse.

“Don’t be offended,” Rene’s eyes twinkled. “It’s better if he thinks you’re an amateur. Shall we try this one?” He gestured toward the oldest building, rotten beams propping up damp walls. Parts of the courtyard had been torn up, bald stones, plaster, and wood laths strewn.

“Do you know something I don’t?”

“He went in there,” Rene said.

She heard footsteps. Apprehensive, she motioned him back. Quickly they ducked into an arched doorway.

Dede whipped past them. Aimee held her breath, counting the beads of dew on a rusty door knocker. His heels echoed off the peeling walls. They waited a few minutes before emerging into the courtyard.

“Guess I should see what he doesn’t want me to,” she said.

Rene stood watch as Aimee padded to the rear. She passed an upturned metal chair, its legs pointing skyward. Turning right, she followed a wet tunnel-like passage to a slant of gray light. A paint-chipped stairwell led to the next floor. The only sound was the drip of rain from a rotted metal gutter onto the cracked concrete.

On the right was a faded green door partially visible under the stairs. Then she saw the sign.

A dark blue handprint was stamped above the doorframe. Like in Samia’s building.

Excited, she looked around and listened. Only the plop of raindrops and in the distance, a muffled radio talk show.

She pulled the Beretta from her black jeans and slipped it into her coat pocket. Thinking fast, she came up with a pretext to get inside.

“Dede,” she said, even though she knew he’d gone. “Sorry I’m late.”

No answer. She leaned forward on her toes, put her ear to the door. Nothing. She touched the wood, and it creaked open. Hadn’t Elymani said the Maghrebins used places like this?

A musty smell greeted her. The small, low-ceilinged apartment looked as if homeless people camped in it. Soggy sleeping bags emitted a reek of mildew; rags and papers littered the floor. Torn dark green plastic bags, covering the open window, fluttered.

She paused, wondering about Dede’s purpose in coming here. He hadn’t stayed long. The floor was tracked by many dirty footsteps. Had it been a Maghrebin haven of operation? Had Dede left because they’d moved on?

She tiptoed over a phone book and tripped, catching herself on an armoire that groaned dangerously. The slender wooden handle came off in her hand. Sooty and full of splinters, it stung her scarred palm.

She almost didn’t notice the fat Bottin Administratif government directory on the warped linoleum floor. What a strange thing, she thought. Someone would need a handcart to carry that heavy volume.

She found her penlight and shined it along the floor. Nothing but dried-up yogurt cartons. But there wasn’t the film of dust or layer of dirt she’d expect if the place had been deserted. By the old tiled fireplace sat an ancient coal bin. She shoved it aside with her boot; underneath lay a wooden trap door to the coal cellar. She pulled the worm- holed top up, shone her penlight around.

Cold, dead, empty space.

She checked the mattress in the back room, finding dried rat turds. Flakes of stucco powdered the scuffed floor. On the wall an old calendar with saints’ pictures had been turned upside down.

Her walkie-talkie vibrated on her hip. Startled, she switched it on.

“You’ve got company,” Rene said.

She looked around nervously.

“Whereabouts?”

“Approaching the rear courtyard,” Rene said.

No time to go out the way she came in.

“Dede?”

“Some Maghrebins,” Rene said in a throaty whisper. “Get out of there!”

She pulled a chair to the window, leaned on the sill, kicked the chair. Digging her toes into the wall, she hoisted herself up. She prayed the building held up and she would have somewhere to land.

Outside the window she faced a wall.

A wet dripping wall to nowhere.

Sewer smells clung in the dank crack between buildings. Probably from a leaking toilet somewhere above, sweating rivulets furred by moss. Below that lay packed earth and cracked glass.

No exit.

Blindly she reached out and felt for a ledge.

Nothing.

She let herself back down into the room, her hands trembling.

Where to go?

Voices and footsteps came from the passageway. She spied the trap door, ran and opened it.

She folded herself inside and pulled the door closed. Soot filled her lungs, her legs cramped in that sliver of a space. She could hardly breathe in the frigid cellar. Footsteps pounded heavily over the floor.

She wished she understood Arabic because, from above her, the conversation was clear. They stood right over the wooden door, which creaked and groaned with their weight. To her the clunk and scraping from above sounded as if they were pulling tiles or bricks from the fireplace. Then she realized they might look down in the coal cellar. She scooted as far back in the blackness as she could. As far back as her knotted legs would push her. She wished her hands wouldn’t tremble so much; she was afraid to drop her penlight. More footsteps entered the room.

She recognized the words “Dede” “rue Piat,” and realized they spoke