AL05 - Murder in Clichy

The woman paused at the door of a room suffused by red light. The musk of incense wafting from inside. An old Chinese chest overflowing with Legos and toys stood by the door.

“The dragon mean strong, smart, and patient.”

She shut the door. But not before Aimee had seen the Cao Dai shrine on the wall.

AIMEE STOOD in dense fog outside the locked and silent Cao Dai temple. She saw no sign of surveillance. There was no sign of anyone in the deserted street. Linh hadn’t answered her phone, but Aimee had to ask her questions. Important ones.

Down here in the 13th, she didn’t speak the language, didn’t know the customs. Merde! She didn’t even look like anyone here.

A video store plastered with posters of Hong Kong action movies, the only sign of life in the quiet, narrow street, stood a few doors down.

She opened the shop door to the sounds of gunshots and explosions, and flinched. On a screen above the counter, Jet Li karate-chopped a gang of black-suited Ninja assassins.

“Monsieur?” she asked a young Asian man, with spiked red-tipped hair and an earring. He sat behind the counter, engrossed in rapido Bac histoire, the study text and notes for the Baccalaureat exam. Aimee knew the rapido well—but not well enough, since she had failed her first Bac. She had passed the second time around.

He glanced at his watch. “You’re the last rental, I’m closing.”

She needed to thaw him out, get information. She leaned on the counter. “C’est difficile, eh, the Bac. I didn’t pass the first time.”

He rolled his eyes. “This is my second time.”

Aimee nodded knowingly. “You’ll make it. My friends and I did, on the second try.”

She tried to keep the conversation going, hoping he knew something about the area. “I meditate at the Cao Dai temple,” she said. In theory, anyway. “I need to reach one of the nuns from the temple.”

He shrugged. “I’ve got no clue about what goes on around here in the daytime. I only work evenings.”

“Any idea where the nuns live?”

He used a receipt to save his place and shut the book. He shook his head.

“Have you seen Cao Dai nuns in this quartier?”

“Never.”

The sound of Jet Li’s karate chops, brisk and thumping, filled the store.

“What about the concierge of the building next door? Would he know?”

He stood, rang the cash register and cleared it. “I can’t help you.”

Someone must rent them the space. “Sorry to ask so many questions, but do you know who owns the building?”

“There’s a mah-jong game the video store owner goes to sometimes, behind the Cao Dai temple. I’ve seen the man who sweeps out the temple go there, too. Other than that, I wouldn’t know.”

At least it was a place to start.

“Thanks for your help,” she said. “Good luck on the Bac.”

The building next door to the temple had shuttered windows and a dark green oval door with a digicode. She stood, rooting through her bag for a screwdriver with which to unscrew the plate, when the door opened. A man came out with a fox terrier pulling on a leash, his collar raised against the fog.

“Bonsoir,” she said, smiling. “I forgot my friend’s code.”

He nodded and Aimee slipped inside and walked toward the rear. She heard the slap of mah-jong tiles before she saw the lighted concierge loge and smelled the cigarette smoke trailing out to the narrow strip of concrete between the apartments.

Several Asian men sat around a table in the small room whose walls were tinged with brown and yellow. Everyone smoked. She recognized the squat man with a withered arm who swept the floors. A charity case, she’d figured, but he played his tiles as fast as the others.

“Pardonnez-moi,” she said, stepping inside the open door and smiling at him. “I don’t mean to interrupt your game, but I wonder if I can have a private word with you, monsieur. I’ve seen you at the meditation sessions next door.”

His eyes shuttered.

“Say it here,” he said, looking down. “I’m involved in a game.”

A man next to him nudged the man’s ribs. “Don’t want to spoil your luck, Quoc?”

She saw the pile of francs next to the ashtray, small porce- lain tea cups, half-full, tea leaves floating in them, felt their eyes on her.

“Forgive me, but I’m looking for Linh, the nun,” she said. “She helped me to meditate. Can you tell me if she’s staying nearby?”

“Why ask me?” Quoc said.

“Since you work there. . . .”

“Never saw her before last week,” he said.

Was he just trying to brush her off?

“But you’re there all the time. Surely you would have noticed her.”

He paused, irritation on his thin face. “Ask the priest,” he said.

“Monsieur, that’s a good suggestion, but in the meantime. . . .”

He covered his tiles, anxious to get rid of her.

“I take it back,” he said. “The week before last I saw her. That’s all I know. Now, I need to finish this game.”

She’d only noticed Linh at the temple a few times herself, but figured not all nuns attended every session. Why would they?

“Can you give me the address of the nuns’ residence?” she asked, hoping they lived nearby.

He slapped his tiles down. “But when I saw her, she wasn’t a nun.”

Startled, Aimee noticed the grins on the men’s faces as they smacked tiles down on the wooden table.

“You mean she wore street clothes?”

“Sure, she wore street clothes. Now, if you’ll excuse me.”

“Eh, Quoc,” the man next to him grinned, “you mean she’s too pretty?”

He shook his head. “She reminded me of that cafe actress in the sixties, the one who sang the French go-go songs in Chinese and Vietnamese.” He winked at the man next to him. “You remember, eh?”

“Sorry, I don’t understand,” Aimee said.

“Are you saying she’s not a nun?”

“I’m not saying anything. Not many nuns here,” Quoc told her. “Only old ones.”

“But she could have come from another temple, n’est-ce pas?”

Quoc lit a cigarette from a burning stub in the ashtray, a Vietnamese brand, lapsed into Vietnamese and shuffled the white tiles, ignoring her.

What about Priest Tet, who ran the meditation sessions, Aimee wondered. Would he be more helpful?

“Do you have the priest’s residence telephone number?”

“Priest Tet?”

She nodded and he wrote it down on a piece of paper.

“That’s all I know.” He refused to answer any more questions.

She made her way back to the street. Bone-chilling fog swirled around her legs as she ran for the late night bus. If Linh was petitioning the International Court of Justice for her imprisoned brother, she wouldn’t necessarily wear her nun’s robes all the time. But Quoc’s words disturbed her. She telephoned the Cao Dai priest’s residence.

“Forgive me for calling so late but I need to speak with Linh,” she asked. “The nun who helped me with meditation.”

“Nuns? No one here now,” Priest Tet said. “Not many nuns practice at our temple. Try Joinville-le-Pont,” he said. “They can help you.”

But at the Joinville-le-Pont Pagoda there was only an eighty-six-year-old nun who knew of no Linh or any