Murder in Belleville

“Now you can rebuild, Hamid,” she said. “Hire lawyers to fight deportation, run a day-care program, a newspaper, a meals on wheels—do it the way you want. Even attract the young kids with a modern center, a gym, Arabic classes, video games. You name it.”

“I don’t really know you,” Hamid said. His eyes were unsure.

“Sylvie would have wanted it like this,” she said. “To make up for her father’s work in the OAS. The murdered innocents, things she hated.”

“Funny.” Hamid’s eyes turned wistful. “That’s the last thing Sylvie told me.”

“What’s that?” she asked.

“She wanted to make up for what her father did.”

“Sylvie must have been a special person.”

“A rare star,” Hamid said.

Touched, Aimee remembered Roberge saying the same thing. In fact, almost everyone but Anais had loved her.

“Where is Kaseem?” she asked.

She remembered how Hamid’s face twitched when he lied.

“On the plane,” he said, his mouth slightly askew. “Why?”

“I only want to tell him what I did,” she said. “Prepare him for what’s in store back in Algiers.”

She wanted to serve Kaseem justice on a platter, personally. See the look on his face, even if it was long distance.

She thought she’d have to battle with Hamid for hours but he seemed to come to a decision.

Hamid watched her, expressionless.

“Just don’t hurt him,” he said.

She nodded. She’d let the military he liked to play with handle that part.

“He’s at a wedding,” Hamid said.

STREET LIGHTS shone over the news kiosk as Aimee bought the special edition of Le Figaro with Marline’s lead story. Harrowing images of prisoners tagged with numbers, their numbers recognizable on piled corpses, filled the lower half of the front page. The sidebar column related the story of the alleged surplus weapons supplier, sympathetic to fundamentalists. Parfait, she thought. I just want to see Kaseem’s face.

Patrons milled around the busy Kabyle Star restaurant on rue de Belleville. Aimee threaded her way past diners to the back banquet room. From inside she heard traditional music accompanied by a tambour coming from the private wedding reception.

“I’m with the in-laws on the groom’s side,” she said to the curious bouncer.

Kaseem stood by the buffet, his arm around a uniformed man, laughing and toasting with a glass of juice. A furious gaiety spilled over the room of a hundred or so guests. Small children ran between the tables, old men in caftans scooping them up every so often.

“There, see him.” She pointed, and waved at Kaseem, knowing he couldn’t recognize her from the darkened distance. “Kaseem Nwar, my sister’s brother-in-law …” but the bored bouncer was already waving her inside.

Aromas of mutton and cloves from the steaming clay tajines tempted Aimee from the buffet. She saw platters of bistilla, flaky spiced pastry frosty with sugar and shaded by cinnamon. The air was dense with perfume, sweat, and orange blossom water.

Aimee hugged the wall, melting into the draperies as she surveyed the room. She saw the bride and groom spotlighted on the dance floor. The bride wore an ornate blue-and-gold caftan, her neck shimmering with gold necklaces. As the wedding couple danced by, guests stuck money in the laughing bride’s hair and around her shoulders.

“Such a gorgeous ta’shi ka” said a heavily kohl-eyed woman who’d appeared next to Aimee. “The gold sets off her hair and the blue highlights her eyes.” She eyed Aimee knowingly. “The third day of the wedding fite is always the best. The best spread!”

Aimee nodded, trying to move away from the woman.

The woman elbowed Aimee in the ribs. “Just like I told Latifa the other day, don’t worry. Everything will be perfect, everyone will come, the buffet will be wonderful, and your baby will pass the virginity test!”

Aimee wished the woman would shut up. Her voice kept increasing in volume.

“The groom’s family is so traditional.” The woman leaned forward, her tone becoming confidential. “What can they expect from girls born over here, eh? But they can hope, I say.”

“May I ask you a tremendous favor?” Aimee said, feeling out of place. She didn’t wait for the woman to answer. “Hand this to Kaseem, please!” she said thrusting the paper into the woman’s jeweled fat fingers. “That man there.”

She pointed toward Kaseem, who was seriously stuffing franc notes in the giggling bride’s hair. “He’s my friend’s uncle, and he wanted the paper for some reason. I’ve got to go back out and park the car. It’s on the curb and I’ll be towed. Please!”

The woman shrugged. “Why not? I want to find out if he has a son my daughter’s age anyway.” She let out a loud laugh, nudged Aimee in the ribs again, and worked her way to the other side of the room.

Aimee thought Kaseem might want that money back when he realized his bank account status. She’d enclosed a copy of his new statement as well. She edged along the velvet curtains dividing the banquet room from the dining area.

Aimee never got to see the look on Kaseem’s face.

She felt something stick in her spine. Pointed and sharp.

Her heart pounded.

She reached back for her Beretta but an iron grip imprisoned hers.

She turned slowly. The knife edge grazed her skin. Dede’s eyes locked hers. Cold and dead. Sweat prickled her spine.

“Make a move,” Dede whispered, “and I gut you like a fish.”

“It’s over, Dede,” she said, her voice hoarse. “Kaseem’s history. Read the paper.”

Out of the corner of her eye she saw Kaseem holding the newpaper while the woman pointed toward where Aimee had stood. Several uniformed men had gathered, peering over his shoulder, yet agonizingly Aimee couldn’t see his face.

“Quimporte?” Dede said. “I always finish the job.”

He hustled her through the swinging kitchen doors to the left. They followed a white-aproned waiter past bubbling saucepans in the hot steaming kitchen.

Aimee wriggled, but every time she did, the knife came closer to her flesh. For a little man, Dede had a grip like iron.

“Tiens, you can’t come in here!” a waiter said, his arms laden with a huge couscous platter.

“I know the chef,” Dede said, barreling past him with Aimee.

They stumbled past yelling waiters and sweating cooks who shook slotted spoons at them. Aimee grabbed at some knives on the chopping block but Dede seized her hand, shaking them out one by one. One of the chefs rushed forward as the knives clattered to the floor.

“Stand back,” Dede yelled, waving the Beretta and letting go of her arm briefly.

Aimee’s one thought was to grab another knife. Instead her hand came back with greasy steel kabob skewers. She worked them under her sleeve before Dede caught her hand again.

If only she could get away, escape out the back exit. But Dede’s truck waited in the back passage, an old deux chevaux delivery truck, battered and rusty. He opened the back doors, slammed her inside.

“Let’s go for a ride,” he said.

Dede” whacked her again. This time so hard that she flew against the hard plastic cartons racked on the truck’s wall. White-hot pain shot through her body. Then he kneed her in the back, knocking the wind out of her. She gasped, trying to get air. The last thing she remembered was her head hitting the floor and seeing the blurry pavement through a rusted-out hole in the floorboard.

SHE BECAME aware of her heels dragging over stones, gravel popping, and dirt. Everything was dark except