Murder in Belleville

“But I know what you mean,” Rene said, wiping mustard from his goatee.

She kept watching the figure. When the headlamp from a passing motor scooter illuminated his face she recognized Claude, Philippe’s goon.

She rolled the fat sandwich in nearby computer paper, stuck it in her pocket, and gathered the photos.

“Hate to eat and run but…” she said, buttoning up her black three-quarter-length leather coat. “I’m going to give this to Philippe. See if this will loosen someone’s grip on his nuts.”

“Succinctly put,” Rene said. “Meanwhile?”

“I’d like to leave gracefully,” she grinned, “without any fanfare from that bald mec Claude, who’s watching the apartment.”

“Philippe’s thug?”

She nodded, ruffling Miles Davis’s furry neck.

“He knows your car, Rene.”

Rene tossed her a set of keys to his old motor scooter. “Take the underground passage from the basement to my garage.”

“Can Miles Davis stay?”

“Bien sur,” Rene said.

“Mind your manners, furball,” she said, slipping the keys into her pocket.

SHE DROVE Rene’s Vespa, an apple green remnant of his Sorbonne days. Passing the curled metal lanterns in Place des Vosges, she saw Claude following her in a small van, his lights visible in her wobbling side view mirror.

Why hadn’t Martine spoken to Philippe and gotten Claude off her tail? She gunned up boulevard Richard Lenoir wondering how to get rid of Claude. Where had he been when they’d been cornered by Dede in Pare de Belleville?

She stayed close behind the green bus traveling up the boulevard. Claude kept a discreet distance, but she realized he was pacing his truck. He probably thought she didn’t notice him, the stupidel Well she’d make that work to her advantage.

Continuing up boulevard Richard Lenoir, she maintained an unhurried pace until rue Oberkampf, where she jumped the curb. There she zoomed down the wide pedestrian way, which had been paved over Canal Saint Martin. Claude couldn’t follow her there, but he could see her until she turned left into rue Crussol, zipping into the warren of narrow streets she remembered behind the Cirque d’Hiver. Streets fronting the cirque headed to Republique or Bastille. She chewed the sandwich, crumbs sprinkling her legs, as she waited in a darkened doorway. Cafe des Artistes lay dark—Inds had closed. She saw the truck’s taillights heading toward R^publique. Feeling it was safe, she shot back over the boulevard to Belleville.

“MAIS, I didn’t call the SAMU,” Jules Denet said, ten minutes later. “I called the flics.”

Aimee wanted to be sure her and Rene’s theory of two SAMU vans fit. It did.

And make sure Denet recognized Sylvie in the morphed photo. She didn’t want to show up at Philippe’s and have made a huge blunder.

Jules Denet poured herbal tisane into Aimee’s cup, a steaming gingery concoction. Blanca perched on the back of his chair, pecking her feathers, bits of plumage wafting onto the floor.

“When did you last see Eugenie?”

He rubbed his unshaved jaw, making a scratchy sound. “Must have been that afternoon—she was hauling trash into the courtyard. Said she was leaving.”

“Leaving?”

“The permis de demolir was to be posted.” Denet offered Blanca an apple slice. Blanca nibbled the white bit, ignoring the green skin. “The building’s about to be torn down. Poor Eugenie, she seemed excited.”

“How’s that, Monsieur Denet?” Aimee said, sipping her tea.

“Things had changed, that’s all she said.”

“Had you noticed any visitors?”

“You asked me already,” he said, stroking Blanca’s head. “But there was a truck parked out front a day or so before.”

Aimee’s antenna went up.

“What kind of truck?”

“Blue, maybe gray. No,” Denet shook his head. “Brown.”

Frustrated, she gripped the underside of his chrome table, then breathed deeply.

“Any specific reason, Monsieur Denet, that you remembered this truck, a delivery service, a company name, or some kind of logo, perhaps?” Her smile was thin.

“Wings by the letters,” he returned her smile. “That’s it.”

“Do you remember the name?” she asked.

“Like Euro-Photo,” he said. “But I’m not sure. Eugenie knew the young man.”

“How do you know, Monsieur Denet?” she asked.

“He carried things back and forth,” he said. “Seemed funny to be a moving man, I thought.”

“In what way?”

“Bad limp,” Denet said.

Aimee’s mind went back to helpful Gaston. A cold fear coursed through her. Had Gaston led her off track the whole time, sent her to a car bombing, then fed her useless information?

“An older man with a limp, Monsieur Denet?”

Blanca pecked at corn kernels on the coffee table. Denet seemed lost in thought.

She wished he’d answer her.

“Young like you,” Denet said. “Dark skin. Funny hair, like yours.”

Aimee smiled, relieved, partly because she hated to think herself such a bad judge of character, but also because she liked Gaston.

She filed his information and got on with her purpose in visiting Denet. She pulled out the digital composite Rene had made, setting it by his teapot.

“Please look at the this, Monsieur Denet.”

He looked at the photo, then shook his head.

“Monsieur Denet? Isn’t that Eugenie?”

“Leave me alone!” He shook his head violently.

Aimee stood up.

Jules Denet sat unmoving, his head down.

“I’ll see myself out, Monsieur,” Aimee said.

She slung her leather coat over her arm. The only sound was the dance of Blanca’s talons on the glass- topped table.

“Yellow roses. I’d like to send roses,” Denet said, his eyes welling with tears.

“That’s Eugenie, isn’t it?” she said, sitting down.

He nodded. “Could I make a copy of the photo? I’ll be sure to give it back,” he said, his voice low.

“You keep it, Monsieur,” she said.

Blanca had gone to his shoulder and he stroked her absent-mindedly. “Eugenie loved yellow roses. They were her favorite.”

“I’ll make sure there’s a dozen,” she said. “You have my word, Monsieur Denet.”

Even if I have to pick them myself from the garden at 78 rue du Guignier, she thought as she let herself out and walked to rue Jean Moinon. She remembered those yellow roses. Those had to be Sylvie’s roses in Sylvie’s house.

“PHILIPPE,” SHE said, leaning down and speaking into her cell phone outside Denet’s door. “We need to talk.”

“What the hell have you done?” he said, his speech slurred.

Taken aback, Aimee paused outside Denet’s apartment. She stood in his doorway, keeping alert to movement on rue de Men-ilmontant. Her eyes scanned for Claude.