AL06 - Murder in Montmartre

The Sudan? She grabbed the door frame.

“Just like that?”

“An unexpected position came up. Few have Doctor Lambert’s qualifications in ophthalmological surgery. There’s a desperate need. He decided, overnight.”

“Merci,” Aimee said. She hung up and dropped the envelope on her desk. Tears rimmed her eyes. He’d gone.

“Flee, flee . . .” Hadn’t Mallarme written that? So Guy had run to Africa to save the blind and to escape.

Laure lay in a coma and now all she could do was stand here feeling sorry for herself. She was beyond pathetic.

A news announcement interrupted the broadcast. “Police find links to Corsican Separatist threats to bomb government buildings. Sources in the Ministry of Interior decline to state the targets. More on the top-of-the-hour news.”

Corsicans. Instead of this pity party, she needed to do something, quit treading water while she waited for the lab report to surface. Probe deeper, investigate, find proof, a witness. Vindicate Laure. Where to begin?

She remembered the prostitute Zoe Tardou had mentioned. If she was working tonight she’d be on the street.

Aimee smoothed her white shirt, tightened the knot of the black tie under the vintage Saint Laurent “Le Smoking” jacket she’d found at the Porte de Vanves flea market. Over that she donned her black leather coat, winding her scarf tightly against the crisp chill, and headed for the Metro.

Half an hour later, she exited through the verdigris Art Nouveau Metro arch. In the distance, staircases mounted the butte, home to small zinc cafes, tiny fifteen-seat theatres. Wind whistled through a broken roof tile along the passage. The burning wood smell of a working chimney wafted past her.

On the steep street, a white-haired man locked his bicycle to the street lamp. “Ba waoui,” he said, with the twang of an old-style Parisian, to a man rubbing his arms in the cold. “Have to go down to Paris tomorrow.”

That old Montmartrois spirit that grudgingly condescended to Paris “below.”

She grinned as she passed him and he tipped his cap to her. “Bonsoir, Mademoiselle.”

“Et vous aussi, Monsieur!”

She followed the cobblestone street past several small hotels and a prostitute’s bar where a miniskirted woman sat in the window petting her dog. A handwritten sign read—RECHERCHES HOST-ESSES—Hostess Wanted—and the red-lit bar was empty.

She followed the narrow street to the corner. Beyond, it curved and led to a flight of stairs up to Abbesses. The steps glistened in the rays of a single streetlight. Across from the building where Jacques had been shot, she saw a heavily made-up prostitute right where Zoe Tardou had said.

“Bonsoir,” Aimee said. Her breath came in puffs of mist.

“I don’t do women, cherie,” the woman said, shifting her weight to her other foot. “Try rue Joubert; they work without pimps and do their own thing.”

Rue Joubert, near the department store Printemps, was a street of les Traditionelles, prostitutes who charged standard prices and used condoms. The categories varied; there was the marcheuse who walked the street; the entraineuse who worked in a bar; the caravelle, at the airport; the michetonneuse on a cafe terrace, and finally, la call-girl, at the high end.

“Thanks for the information,” Aimee said. How could she get this woman, forty if she was a day, to talk? “A flic was murdered here the other night, you’ve heard about it?”

The woman’s eyes darted around the warren of streets and passed over the front of a shuttered plumbing shop. The dark sky cast a gray tint over muffled angular figures bent into the wind, framed by white stone five-story buildings. The scene could have been an Impressionist painting.

“I know you’re working, but that night did you see something, or hear something?”

“Flics aren’t my business.”

“Nor mine, but they’re accusing my friend, a female flic, of shooting her partner.”

“Didn’t she?” She stared at Aimee for a moment. Of course, the prostitute would have heard all about it in this part of Montmartre.

“She was set up and I owe her a favor,” Aimee said. “Were you here Monday night?”

“Every night.” The woman shrugged.

“So you heard the shot at around eleven o’clock that night, just before the worst of the snowstorm?”

“What’s it worth to you?”

Aimee pulled a hundred-franc note from her pocket.

Just then a middle-aged man wearing a wool overcoat walked by, paused, then looked at Aimee. “It’s cold tonight. Like to keep me warm?” he asked.

Aimee shook her head, controlling her shudder.

“Alors, this is my corner,” said the woman, anger flashing in her eyes.

“Nice to see new blood here, Cloclo. How about a three-way with your friend?” he said, grinning.

Cloclo, whose workname was slang for costume jewelry, stepped from the shadows and took his arm. “You’re my friend, cheri.” She guided him along the cobbles. “Special price, eh, you’re my last tonight.”

“Cloclo!” Aimee called.

Cloclo looked back and laughed.

Aimee held up several hundred-franc notes and pointed to the lighted cafe-bar sign next to a small hotel on rue Veron. Cloclo nodded, then disappeared around the corner.

She could warm up and nurse a verre de rouge until Cloclo turned up, if she did. Given the crow’s-feet around the prostitute’s eyes that heavy makeup didn’t hide, she figured the francs she’d flashed would bring her.

Inside Chez Ammad, the cafe-bar, a young man behind the counter flashed her a smile. Cropped hair, jagged broken teeth. A street fighter or too many sweets. She figured the latter.

A cafe of locals, not trendies or mediatheques. This might be a good opportunity, while she waited for the prostitute, to ask if anyone here had noticed something odd Monday night. But she couldn’t rush it or they’d clam up.

The man stuck a tape in a cassette player. Dalida’s voice rose above the conversations in the cafe. The long brown wood-paneled room resembled a bus. One she wished she hadn’t gotten on. Thick cigar smoke hovered like a cloud over a table of middle-aged backgammon players. Bourgeoisie or bureaucrats by the look of their expensive leather shoes.

She wanted a smoke. Tomorrow at 9:37 a.m. it would be four days since she’d quit. And she wished she wasn’t counting the minutes. She looked around to see who she could pump for information and pointed to what the man next to her at the counter was drinking.

“The same,” she said.

Overhearing her, he said, “You look the active type.” With his hooded eyes and splayed workman’s hands he could have been the bartender’s brother. “Call me Theo.”

“I can still do a handstand and cartwheel without splitting my pants,” she responded.

His hooded eyes widened and he grinned. “Hear that, Marcus?” he said to the bartender. “We’ve got an acrobat here!”

“I left the circus,” she said, putting three francs on the counter. “Terrible benefits.”

She wished the prostitute would walk through the door, hoped she wouldn’t have to wait very long. The wet wool smell and cigar fragrance were getting to her.

“Did you hear that, Marcus? Our bricklayers’ union’s not the only one. The scaffolders’ too.”

Was this about the scaffolding on the building where Jacques was killed? Interesting.

“So, Theo, you work in construction over there?” She jerked her hand toward the window.