Murder at the Lanterne Rouge

were double-parked, and Aimee narrowly missed a woman pushing a stroller. She had to hop off her scooter and thread it through cite Dupetit-Thouars by foot. Narrow lanes of shuttered shop fronts sported peeling posters and flaking stucco, just as in black-and-white Brassai photos of prewar Paris. A luthier, a stringed-instrument maker, still operated behind dark windows. Otherwise, the old shops looked deserted, awaiting the gentrification heralded by the bright, white facade of a trendy kitchenware shop.

She parked her scooter on the slush-covered cobbles at the curb. Down another open passage lined by two- story buildings, she found 55. Children’s voices came from an interior courtyard.

She pressed the button and the dark-green door clicked. Pushing it open, she found another arched door, its sign engraved in gold letters: Lestimet, Custom Racing Cars.

Posh and exclusive. Not her destination.

“Lost, Mademoiselle?” A Frexpresse deliveryman appeared at the door.

“My friend’s meeting me.”

She gestured to a smaller door, unpolished and water-stained. “Maybe I’m wrong,” she said, making this up as she went along, “but I thought she said it was for rent.”

He nodded. “It’s been vacant on and off for years. Bad leaks. Not on my pickup route anymore.”

Talkative, this man. Didn’t he have deliveries to make?

“Really?” She kept her eye on the door, hoping someone would come out so she could sneak in.

“You’re better off somewhere else. A real headache, I’ve heard.” He leaned forward as if in confidence. “You know, it was a nightclub during the war. They kept it secret from the Boches. Supposedly Maurice Chevalier liked the girls there. Then squatters for years.”

Perfect venue for an illegal sweatshop.

She waited until he’d waved good-bye and buzzed himself out, then put her ear to the door. Ticking noises, the smell of leather.

The door opened and she caught herself before she fell inside.

“Pardonnez-moi,” she said to the surprised middle-aged Chinese woman hurrying out. When she didn’t stop, Aimee walked inside.

In the weak light falling from the glass-roofed atelier, thirty or so Chinese women of various ages worked at industrial sewing machines. She scanned the downturned faces. No one looked up, all intent on feeding thin pigskin leather under the punching needles. Mattresses were stacked against one water-stained wall.

Mon Dieu, they slept here. They must work in shifts.

In a corner, a group hand-stitched delicate leather straps onto handbags they took from an overflowing bin. These handbags, Aimee realized, sold for thousands of francs in Place Vendome. It sickened her, almost as much as the pervasive leather odor.

But no Meizi. Merde.

A woman in the corner watched Aimee, saying something under her breath to the woman beside her.

Aimee scanned the walls for a schedule, anything listing workers. Perhaps her timing was off, and Meizi worked the night shift? She saw only a calendar, still turned to December, with a picture of a faded Christmas tree. She peered around stacks of cardboard boxes labeled: Fontain, luxe a la mode fabrique en France.

Over the punching machines she heard someone approaching. Best defense was a good offense, her father always said.

She pulled out her phone. Hit mute. “The orders?” She spoke into her silent phone. “But I’m here!” She whipped around to face a short Chinese man in red-framed glasses, with spiked, blond-tipped hair.

“Attends,” she said as he opened his mouth. She rolled her eyes and raised her hand. “Of course I’ll ask him,” she said into the phone, nodded as if listening intently, then clicked off.

“Monsieur, I’m Melanie, Fontain’s new distributor,” she said breathlessly and shook his hand. “I won’t take your time except to check if the order’s ready.”

He blinked.

“Don’t tell me it’s not ready?” she said in feigned dismay.

“Tonight’s order?”

“But it’s supposed to be packed, ready for shipment.”

“Shipment?”

Wrong. She had to salvage this, keep him off-kilter.

“New policy,” she said, thinking fast. “We’re treating these leather bags as if they could be shipped overseas. Like the Italian brands. Impresses the retailers.”

Nonplussed, he shrugged. “Not my end.”

“So you’re telling me what, it’s not ready?”

“Ten P.M. tonight,” he said. “Like usual. What’s going on?”

“That’s what I’d like to know.”

“Let me call the office, check on this.”

She could only keep this up so long before she blew it. “The schedule’s fixed?” She looked around. “So you’ve got another shift in tonight to guarantee the order’s ready?”

“But who’s your contact, anyway?” His eyes narrowed behind his glasses. “Why don’t you know how we process standing orders?”

She’d ruffled his feathers. Stupid.

She stepped forward, waved her finger close to his red glasses. He didn’t like that, she could tell. “Off point, Monsieur.” She raised her voice: “I’m asking how you’ll fill the order with only this crew. You have more people coming in, yes or no?”

He stepped back. Nervous now. Reached for his phone.

She punched numbers on her cell phone. “Bon, we’re canceling the order.”

A long moment passed. Several heads looked up, then back down at their machines.

“Mais Mademoiselle, pas de probleme,” he said, clicking off his phone and now fawning. “Six of our finishers arrive in an hour to add the final touches, do quality control.”

He didn’t want to lose the order he thought she had power over. He smiled. Small teeth.

Scared. Good.

“Not those young ones who clean toilets for Ching Wao! We expect experienced hands.”

He blinked again. “I don’t know what you mean.” But he did. “They’ve all worked with me before …”

“How long?”

“On this fine detail? The lining, the seams? Three, four years. We only use the older women.”

And then it hit her. All the women were wearing cotton gloves. “Do those gloves protect their hands?”

“But Mademoiselle, cotton lisle absorbs moisture and oils from the skin to prevent stains and protect the leather. Our workers do precise work, keep their hands supple.”

He approached a woman at the nearest machine. Motioned for her to stop and take off her gloves. “See?”

Disgusted, she looked at the smooth, pale hands. Not work-worn like Meizi’s. But she’d found out what she came for.

“Bon, I’ll keep this between you and me,” she said, then turned on her heel and hurried out before he could stop her.

She ran through the next coved door, down the narrow passage and to her scooter, not pausing to catch her breath. All that to find Meizi didn’t work here.

She battled a mounting feeling that going around intimidating sweatshop managers would get her nowhere. She hated snooping, invading the lives of women forced to work in underground sweatshops. A wild-goose chase? Smarter to cut her losses and think of another way. But which way?

She pulled her scooter off the kickstand, turned the ignition, and squeezed the clutch into first gear.

One address down. Two more to go.

AIMEE STRODE INTO the cobbled Passage du Pont-aux-Biches, which led up to a steep stretch of staircase and rue Meslay, a cache of designer wholesale shoe stores. Her friend Martine labeled it “the stairway to heaven.” But Aimee didn’t have time for shoes now.