The rain-swept pavement mirrored the dull gray clouds. The number seventy-four bus shot out diesel exhaust as it gunned by.
“With his skills, of course,” Aimee said. So both of them had held two jobs, working hard. Yet Nathalie had stiffened when she’d asked about Jacques’s past.
Nathalie opened the car door.
“I need to verify this,” Aimee said. “Can you remember the company for whom or the location where he consulted?”
“He knew Montmartre, he had contacts here. Sometimes he took private jobs, you know, for VIPs.”
“Who could I talk to who might know about this sideline?”
“I didn’t get involved.”
Why wouldn’t this woman talk?
“Try to remember, Nathalie. A name?”
“Look,
“Everything’s important,” Aimee said, trying to appeal to the woman’s pride. “Let me stress that if all the facts don’t come to light now, they could be used later to prevent a conviction, to let the killer go free. As a
Nathalie blinked, threw her purse in the passenger seat. “He talked about Zette sometimes, an old boxer who runs a bar. On rue Houdon.”
CLUB CHEVALIER , the bar on rue Houdon, had seen better days. And they had passed several decades ago, Aimee figured. The dark bar was lined with plastic-covered banquettes and decorative columns, their plaster bases now heavily gouged. A large woman with blonde hair, a pink apron around her girth, vacuumed the matching once- pink carpet. What VIPs did they serve here, Aimee wondered?
“Pardon, Madame, may I speak with Zette?”
“Eh, we’re not open.”
“Is Zette here?”
The woman sighed and switched off the vacuum. An artificial-stone water fountain gurgled in the corner, green fungi grew on the lip of the shell-like basin. Several game machines blinked red and blue in the corner, the kind that used to have slots but now were computerized. A radio blared out the results of the horse races from somewhere in the back.
“Who wants to know?” the woman said, her hand on her hip.
Aimee grinned. “Jacques’s friend sent me.”
“Not that business again?”
Have the police been here, too, Aimee wondered. “I need to talk with him.”
The woman shouted, “Zette!”
No answer. Just the excited voice announcing the race winners: “Fleur-de-Lys by a head, Tricolor a close second, and Sarabande makes it third!”
Aimee heard the clink of a glass and someone slapping papers down.
“Zette!”
“Leave me in peace, woman!”
“Someone to see you,” the woman said.
Aimee heard a muttered “
A balding gray-haired man poked his head around the door in the back of the small bar. He had several gold teeth, a crooked nose, and a white scar splitting his right eyebrow, giving him a perpetually questioning look.
“Will talking to you make me happy, Mademoiselle?”
“How about a drink and we’ll find out.”
“Aaah, such possibilities!” He scratched his neck, gave her the once-over, and raised his other eyebrow. “But I can smell a
Respect? Who gained respect that way? The woman, a bored look on her face, pulled the vacuum cleaner into the back.
“I’m not a
“So you say. Where?”
“Commissariat in the fourth arrondissement before he joined my grandfather at the detective agency that I run now.”
“Aaah, so you know Ouvrier?”
He was testing her.
“I went to his retirement party last night, around the corner.”
“Me, too,” he said. “I didn’t see you.”
“The tail end,” Aimee said, edging toward the bar. “I’d never seen him out of uniform but he looked sharp in a pinstripe suit, eh?”
“That’s a fact,” he said. “I left early, had to man the bar here. Knowing Ouvrier, next time he wears it will be his funeral.”
Pause. From the silence, she figured Zette hadn’t heard about what had happened to Jacques.
“Mademoiselle, I didn’t catch your name, or your father’s,” Zette said.
Not only careful and street-wise, he’d let her know he was well connected at the Commissariat. As a smart club owner should be, but it bothered her.
“Jean-Claude Leduc,” she said. “Aimee Leduc, here’s my card.”
She set it on the wet, glass-ringed counter.
He turned her card over in his hand. “A woman PI?”
She nodded. “Computer security.”
Had he known her father? “Does the name Leduc sound familiar?”
“I know a lot of people. So tell me what you really want to talk about.”
Aimee realized she’d passed muster, set twenty francs on the none-too-clean counter, and smiled. “Bet you’re thirsty.”
Wine would make this dance with Zette more palatable. Or so she hoped.
“I’ve got a nice little Corsican red that sings in the gullet.” He reached for an unmarked bottle and two wineglasses and set them in front of her. “It’s never too early for me.”
She noticed his loaf of a body, a bit gone to fat, but biceps bulged under the tight red soccer shirt. He must work out. An old prizefighter with the scars to prove it.
“Young ladies don’t visit me much anymore,” he said, pouring the garnet red liquid.
Zette’s attempt at charm? She took a sip. Plump, fruity, and smooth on the way down. Not bad.
On the bar wall hung a framed newspaper sport section headlined ZETTE KO’S TERRANCE THE MAD MOROCCAN.
“So you’re that Zette? My father went to your matches at the Hippodrome.”
She stretched the truth. He’d won complimentary championship tickets from the Commissariat once. A worn-around-the-edges retired prizefighter might soak up the flattery.
Zette shrugged as though used to this.
“Boxing gave you a good living, eh?”
“All this.” He took a long sip and gestured around the bar.
“And a VIP security service with Jacques Gagnard
“You’ve got it wrong,” Zette said without skipping a beat and drained his glass. Poured another and topped up hers. She took another swig.
“How’s that, Zette?” she said. “You worked with Jacques, didn’t you?”
“So that’s who you want to talk about,” he said, staring at her. “Something’s happened to him, hasn’t it?”
She hesitated to give him the bad news. “I’m sorry.”
“Sorry, what do you mean?”
She paused, her index finger tracing the rim of the glass. “He was shot and killed on a rooftop. On the next
