Murder in Belleville

Sunday

MUSTAFA HAMID WIPED AT the spittle on his chin. But there was none. He must have closed his eyes. They burned, and his nose felt dry, his mouth parched. Thoughts blurred, and he felt so weak. So tired.

He slit the envelope. It took a long time, the white paper ripping and fighting him. And there it was, simple and irrevocable. The long thread back. The summons to his roots.

He’d be damned if he’d give in. The old fight blazed in him again. Human rights had to be fought for, otherwise we’re all animals!

Everything he’d spent his life working for—thirty years of it—would go down the pissoir.

He stared at the messenger, whom he didn’t know.

“No deal,” he said, shaking his head.

Sunday Late Afternoon

DEDE’S GAZE REACHED OVER their heads as they shouldered the gym bags. Aimee spun around. Several men who could be Muktar’s relatives approached from both directions.

“Dede” she said. “Who set the car bomb?”

“Let’s talk at my place,” Dede said.

The mecs moved closer, their eyes locked on her and Rene as if they were rabbits. Rabbits caught between their crosshairs.

“Crowds make me nervous,” Rene said.

“Me too,” Aimee took his arm, edging out from the trellis toward the open grass. Three uniformed CRS, armed with machine guns slung over their chests, were visible through the grilled fence on rue des Couronnes.

Almost a shout away.

“Keep going, Rene.” She and Rene kept edging over the grass. Large signs proclaimed PELOUSE INTERDITE, but she didn’t care if she stepped on the grass.

The way the mecs’ jacket pockets bulged bothered her.

She and Rene were out in the open; to their left was a wooden playground structure. If only they they could get the attention of the CRS.

“Put those bags down,” Dede said, his chest heaving. Several of his shirt buttons were undone, revealing gold chains.

“Dede, I asked you a question,” she said, ready to pull out her Beretta.

“Try to behave, eh?” Dede said, his teeth white and smiling. “Let’s work out the misunderstanding. Just hand those over. Let’s keep this civilized, eh.”

“Civilized?” she screamed. “Muktar called me nasty things in Arabic.”

The men Dede summoned had disappeared up the trellised steps. An unreadable look crossed his perspiring face.

“You little sabpe!” Dede said.

“Little?” she said. “I’m taller than you.”

“You’re dead,” Dede’said, his eyes vacant. “And you’ve dug a lot of graves next to yours,” he added before disappearing.

The CRS headed through the open gates toward the grass.

“Some trouble here?” asked one of the stout-legged CRS.

“Yes, officer,” she said. “Thank God you’re here.”

And she meant it. She wasn’t often happy to see the CRS.

Sunday Evening

BERNARD SPRAWLED AT HIS desk, opening a new pill bottle, the phone on hold to the interministeriel hot line cradled in his neck. That evening heightened media attention had erupted into a free-for-all when film stars, a rock mogul, and a political observer from L’ivenement joined the hunger strikers. Channel France 2 demanded access for news coverage inside the church.

Meanwhile Guittard kept the ministry in limbo, back-pedaling on the arrest and roundup order but still not rescinding the eight-hour deadline.

His other phone hadn’t stopped ringing. Finally he picked it up.

“Directeur Berge, can you speak to speculation as to whether Mustafa Hamid’s AFL links to the fundamentalists in Algiers will influence the power struggle with the Algerian military?” The reporter’s grating voice continued, not waiting for a response. “Being a pacifist, does Hamid eschew the military’s stance in Algiers?”

“Why are you asking me about Algeria?” Bernard asked in surprise. “We’re dealing with sans- papiers, an internal French immigration issue under le code civil. Defining who is a citizen and allowed to stay in France presents no forum for civil unrest in Algeria.”

He slammed the phone down. Who had started that rumor?

Bernard put his head down on his desk. How far could this go? Hamid’s reputation in all communities over the years was stellar. It could be said that he practiced what he preached more than anyone. He thought back to Hamid, remembering his remark about violence. Was Hamid a pawn? Could this affect Algerian politics?

Even if Bernard cared, what could he do about Algeria anymore? Deep inside, Bernard realized he’d given up long ago.

He’d said good-bye from the crowded ship’s deck. He remembered the smoke from the burning medina, the stench from the hanging bodies rotting in the sun on the Esplanade, and the port shaking from the oil-storage-tank explosions. He’d clutched his slain father’s watch and held his mother’s hand as the sun died over the port of Algiers.

ON THE FLOOR OF Rene’s studio, Aimee and Rene emptied the gym bag. A Prada purse, sleek and black tumbled out. The perfect match to the Prada shoes she’d found in Eugenie’s trash. Not many could afford to throw away Prada shoes with a broken heel.

“ST196” said the cover of a folder. She opened it. Black-and-white photos were stapled together. Shots of dark-skinned Algerian men, in front of a concrete background. Numbers attached by safety pins to their shirts.

But why?

Something bothered her.

“Doesn’t this all seem strange to you?”

“In what way?” Rene asked, as he sliced a large, crusty slab of baguette stuffed with tapenade, slivers of smoked salmon, goat cheese, and ruby tomatoes. He handed one half to Aimee.

“Why keep it in that dump I escaped from?” she said, taking a bite. “Why didn’t the boss have it? Why threaten me at the circus?”

“They deal in explosives,” Rend said. “Suppose they’re in at the deep end—not used to blackmailing ministers or their mistresses. Let’s say it’s not Dede’s specialty.”

That made sense. She ate looking out his window onto dimly lit rue de la Reynie, which narrowed into a passage to Place Michelet. A man’s shaved head, like a thumb, caught the light.