already.
She reached into the backpack to see what else was inside. What someone had tried to grab, what Thadee had been killed for. She loosened the buckles and lifted out several burnished silk-enfolded objects. She carefully unwrapped them and gasped. Jade animal figures. She took them out, one by one, and set them down on the stainless steel examining table. They looked like the animals of the zodiac she’d seen on the poster at the Cao Dai temple. The jade was intricately carved, and its opaque green milkiness radiated in the light. Exquisite. Eleven figurines, each no bigger than her palm.
Guy’s office phone rang again. “Hold on, Aimee,” he said from the hallway. “Let me take this call.”
Aimee stared at the jade pieces. Even to her untrained eye, they seemed to belong in a museum. Small, slender jade disks crowned each figure, except for two which showed old breaks.
She fingered the smaller of the two loose jade disks. Worn lines, just visible, were carved into the jade. A kind of hexagram? She peered closer, realized the lines formed a primitive dragon.
She re-counted. Eleven zodiac figures: the Rat, Ox, Tiger, Rabbit, Snake, Horse, Goat, Monkey, Rooster, Dog, and Pig. Weren’t there twelve zodiac signs? One was missing. The Dragon.
There was no way she was going to carry these treasures on the Metro to her office. She had to stow them somewhere safe, until tomorrow. Somewhere no one would think to look.
The moonlight suffused and softened the hard lines of the examining room. Surely they’d be safe here overnight. She could nip into the office early and tell Marie she’d forgotten something. Meet Linh outside, and deliver the backpack, with its contents, to her.
She opened the doors of white office cabinets filled with boxes of gloves, disposable syringes, and Steri- strips. Guy’s office staff must stock them regularly. She opened the cabinet under the small sink. Flush with its side was a piece of white particle board, perhaps intended to be installed as a shelf. She removed the containers of bacterial soap, stuck the backpack inside, fitted the particle board in front, rearranged the soap and closed the cabinet door.
Guy walked in and handed her some pills. “Antibiotics to prevent infection and a stronger anti-inflammatory medication for your optic nerve. And go to the police. Doctor’s orders.”
He pulled on his raincoat. “Sorry, I have to rush to hospital rounds,” he said, helping her into her coat. “You know, my apartment lease is ending and I’m looking for a new place. Bigger, in the suburbs.” He touched her face, cupped her chin in his hands. “Wouldn’t you like a modern place . . . somewhere near the Neuilly park for Miles Davis to run about in and bury bones?”
Where had this come from? Give up her seventeenth-century apartment on Ile St-Louis, with its pear tree in the courtyard, temperamental electricity and sparse hot water? For the suburbs and a commute to work?
Guy traced his fingers down her neck. “You could work from home. Do consulting.”
Surprised, she pulled back. He was going too fast. “Guy, I’m a Paris rat, born and bred. I need to keep close to the sewers.”
She still hadn’t told him that she was half-American, afraid it would raise questions: questions she didn’t know the answers to, about her American mother who had disappeared when Aimee was eight. Who had been linked to radicals and German terrorists in the 1970s.
“I like riding my bike to Leduc Detective,” she said, neglecting to mention that her bike had been stolen the previous week. Again.
“My colleagues want to meet you,” he said. He stared into her eyes, feathered her brow with kisses. His tone had turned serious. “Their wives keep busy in the suburbs and they wouldn’t dream of moving back . . . the crime, pollution, the traffic and noise.”
“Then I wouldn’t have the Metro strikes to complain about,” she said, keeping her tone light. Or the
The way this conversation was going disturbed her. Was he hinting at domestic
He looked at his watch, then back at her and grinned. “To be continued later. Remember where we left off.”
AIMEE TOOK the Metro, changed twice, and waited by the Louvre-Rivoli kiosk until she felt sure no one had followed her. She took a deep breath, walked the well-lit half block to Leduc Detective, and found Rene at work on his computer. She hung up her coat and made espresso.
“I thought you drank green tea now,” he said. “Part of your ‘regimen’ ”.
He meant for her condition; she was still recovering from loss of vision caused by injuries inflicted in the vicious attack she’d suffered in the Bastille district.
“I drink that, too, Rene.”
Homeopaths and Western medicine . . . she tried them all with an impatient wish for a miracle pill to strengthen her optic nerve. Time and tranquility—Guy’s prescription—were what she didn’t have.
Invoices were piled high on her mahogany desk. The office, apart from computers, scanners, and fax, had changed little since her father and grandfather’s time. On the wall, old maps portrayed Paris divided by arrondissement, one showing the ancient walls, the other the sewer tunnels webbing the foundations. The armoire containing her father’s old uniform and her disguises stood by her grandfather’s desk, his auction find, which had belonged to Vidocq, the former thief who had become Paris’s first Police Inspector. The room was full of memories, the only history she had.
What had she gotten into now? She didn’t want to lose all this. Or her livelihood.
“Things smell, Rene. Bad.”
“How’s that?”
“Sit down, Rene.”
“But I am sitting,” he said.
The yellow glow of the streetlight slanted across the parquet floor as Rene leaned back in his customized orthopedic chair. She sank into the Louis XV chair in need of re-upholstering, put her feet up on the
“Thadee Baret was shot. He died in my arms,” she said.
Rene’s large eyes bulged. “Were you hurt?”
“Just a graze. Guy stitched me up,” she said. “I’m fine.”
“Let me see,” he said.
She flashed her bandage and told him the rest.
“Take that jade to the temple tomorrow, Aimee.”
“I intend to,” she said.
“I had no idea . . .” Rene’s voice trailed off. He shook his head. “But we’re in a crunch, I need help with the stats to clear this report by tomorrow’s deadline.”
“Aimee, I thought it would be simple. Don’t forget your promise to stay away from this kind of thing,” he said. “The promise to yourself. And me. Your new regimen and meditation.”
She bit back a retort and stared at the statistics pile on her desk. Better make a dent in it. She worked silently for a half hour, preoccupied. Then she stopped.
Should she confide in Rene? She’d always dumped her love problems on him and asked his advice. “Guy wants us to move in together. In the suburbs!”
“You . . . living a doctor’s wife’s life, doing lunch?”
Rene turned away but not before she saw an odd expression on his face.
“What’s the matter Rene? Are you afraid it spells disaster for our relationship?”
“Do you think it’s your style, Aimee?”
She rubbed her eyes. Funny, he’d encouraged her to see Guy, her one-time eye surgeon, until their relationship grew intimate.
“The truth? I always thought. . . .” His words trailed off.
“Thought what, Rene?”
