AL05 - Murder in Clichy

She pulled out the PMU racing receipt and twenty francs. “Maybe you sold my friend Thadee the winning ticket. If so, I owe you a little thank you.”

“Congratulations, but I was at the gym,” he said.

“So, who should I talk to?” she said.

Gerard jerked his thumb at a middle-aged man, tying an apron around his waist, by the orange juice squeezer.

“Alors, Jojo, something to brighten your morning,” he shouted.

Aimee smiled at the man. “Did you answer the phone last night when I called for Thadee Baret?”

“Eh? Speak up,” Jojo said.

She noticed the calluses on his hands.

She held out the form. “Did you sell this to Thadee?”

“I sell a lot of those,” he said, “more than a hundred yesterday.”

Great. “Of course, but when I called around 5:30 you passed the phone to Thadee. Remember, a mec with glasses, no coat?”

He nodded. “Comes in here almost every day. A nice guy.”

Heartened, she grinned. “Here’s twenty, he wanted to share his winnings with you.”

“So I brought him luck!” Jojo squeezed another orange on the spinning machine. Juice trickled through the thick orange pulp.

Aimee didn’t want to inform him just what kind of luck.

“Know where I can find him, now?”

“At work, I’d guess,” he said.

“Where’s that?”

Jojo’s eyes narrowed. “How’d you get his ticket anyway?”

“He gave it to me,” she said. “Said he moved. And I’ve got to give his money to him.”

Despite the reluctance in Jojo’s eyes, he wiped his hands and pocketed the twenty francs. “He lives above the art gallery on rue des Moines. The chichi place.”

Elated, she buttoned her coat.

“Merci,” she said.

Now she had somewhere to start.

AIMEE KNOCKED on the closed door of Galerie 591, a renovated warehouse. Rain pattered on the cobblestones. She wound her black wool scarf tighter against the chill, trying to figure out what she’d say. Posters advertised an upcoming British collage exhibition. She peered inside the darkened gallery: framed oils, collages, and metal sculptures filled the space. Upscale, and with prices to match, no doubt.

The gallery lay one street over from where Thadee had been shot. She figured he’d cut through a back courtyard or passage to rue Legendre. Didn’t most of these warehouses have rear courtyards?

A wrought iron fence closed off a long courtyard leading to the gallery entrance. Further on stood more warehouses, some converted into lofts. Aimee opened the creaking gate, and used the house phone to call the gallery’s number. As she stood under the eaves by a leaf-clogged gutter, she heard the echo of the gallery phone ringing. Her call went unanswered.

A dilapidated tire factory crumbled under a soot-encrusted glass roof at the rear of the couryard, the faded sign bearing the letters PNEUS in blue type. Huddled next to it was what looked like an old car parts warehouse from the thirties.

She crossed the courtyard from the art gallery to a door- way under the sign GRAPHIX. Strains of jazz came from inside. She pushed the door open and saw a space divided into red cubicles, each containing a drawing board.

“Is anyone here?”

“You lost?” asked a man wearing a black ribbed turtleneck sweater. His shaved head glinted in the light focused on his desk. Rain beat a murmur on the dirty glass roof.

“Does Thadee live next door?”

“You mean the gallery owner?” Irritation shone in his eyes. “I imagine he did.”

Aimee thought it best to feign ignorance. “Did? What do you mean?”

“Far as I know, he’s at the morgue. His ex-wife made a scene this morning when the flics came.”

So she’d found his home. Now the next step. Try her hunch.

“You mean Sophie?” she asked. If that name didn’t ring a bell she’d try the other one.

He nodded, bent over his drawing. An uphill battle, this conversation. He had the personality of wallpaper paste. Lumpy, and sticking in all the wrong places.

“Did Sophie go with the flics or . . .” She hesitated to say to identify the body.

“The last I heard was her screaming for everyone to leave her alone,” he said. “Then I shut the door and went back to work. Look, my firm rents this space and I’m on a deadline.”

“Sorry to disturb you,” she said, backing out. “You won’t mind if I poke around back then?”

But his head was bent over his work as he mumbled a reply.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” she said, closing the door.

She rang another doorbell. No answer. The rest of the courtyard lay deserted. If Sophie had to identify her ex-husband’s body she’d be gone a while. It would make more sense to come back to interview her later.

Aimee left the way she’d come in, avoiding the fluttering yellow crime scene tape by the boulangerie. The busy life of the village-like quartier streamed around her. She walked down rue des Moines, her boots wet from the slush, her heart as leaden as the gray sky above.

What else could she check? She remembered what Linh had said about an auction catalogue. But no auction house opened this early.

The only other lead she had was the name Gassot and the Sixth Battalion. She stepped into a phone cabinet, checked the phone book listings. The anciens combattants center was nearby. No better place to locate an old soldier like Gassot or someone who knew him. Or knew something. She was clutching at straws. But, until she found Sophie she had nothing else.

“C’EST DOMMAGE, ” said the middle-aged man behind the anciens combattants reception desk. He puffed at a cigar hanging from the side of his mouth. “Not my war. But the Dien Bien Phu vets meet on the second Sunday of the month. You just missed it.”

Merde!

Regimental plaques and blue, white, and red banners lined the wall of the center. Black and white photos of troops from the first and second World Wars, the Indochinese and Algerian conflicts, accompanied them. She searched the photos, but none showed the Sixth Battalion.

“Monsieur, I’m looking for Herve Gassot or the number of the group’s secretary.”

“Let me see,” he said. He ran his tobacco-stained finger over a directory. “Voila! Herve Gassot himself’s the secretary now; he saw combat at Dien Bien Phu.”

Her hopes rose. “There were rumors that a cache of jade was looted from the Emperor’s tomb near Dien Bien Phu. . . .”

“Gassot spent time in Indochina. He knows all the stories, that’s for sure. But he keeps to himself. There’s only one number listed for him.” He scratched his grizzled head of hair. “Non, here’s another one, not sure which is which. Maybe a contact number. Not all of the members have telephones.”

He wrote them both down on paper and passed it to her.

“Merci.”

“We’ve got a symposium tonight,” he said, heading toward a stack of folding chairs. “I need to set up, if you’ll excuse me.”

She tried one number on her cell phone. After ten rings she gave up. She tried the second. Again, the phone rang and rang. Disappointed, she hung up.