Murder at the Lanterne Rouge

“I installed Rene’s spyware on his computer, too,” she said. “Should be up and running.”

Saj inserted Coulade’s disc into his laptop. “Nice bugging job, Aimee.”

She tamped down her impatience. “We need to link the laptop I bring to the Conservatoire back here,” she said, downing her espresso.

“Done.” Rene pointed to the laptop on her desk.

Thank God Rene seemed back in form.

“Aimee, shouldn’t we ask Saj if he’s willing to get involved?”

Saj’s hacking skills had proved so valuable that the ministries he’d hacked had recruited instead of prosecuted him. And kept him on a leash.

“Bien sur.” She hoped the irritation didn’t show in her voice. “Up to you, Saj.”

“In for a centime, in a for a kilo,” Saj said, “as my grand-mere would say.”

“Franc,” said Rene.

“Quoi, Rene?”

“In for a centime, in for a franc,” said Rene, lips pursed.

Saj stretched his arms over his head. “I’m implicated already since, at Rene’s insistence, I’m a salaried part- timer. Signed paperwork.”

Rene shook his head. “How else could I pay you?”

“Bon, no one here’s broken the law,” Aimee said, and took another sip. “Yet.”

Saj was clicking keys, scanning his computer screen, now a forest of Coulade’s icons.

“Not only do we keep tabs on the professeur, we can browse his domination fantasies and collection of erotica, circa 1930,” Saj said, with a tone of distaste. “Do I have to weed through everything?”

“We need to find out,” she said. “So oui, get weeding.”

A quick knock. Leduc Detective’s door opened to a gust of chill air from the hall. Martine Sitbon, Aimee’s best friend since the lycee, strode inside, dressed in black denim from the pointed toes of her high heels to her oversize newsboy cap.

“Mais alors, not ready, Aimee?” She leaned and kissed Rene on both cheeks. Winked at Saj. “We’re late. Hurry or nothing will be left on the rack.”

Now she remembered. The last day of January soldes.

Rene’s mouth turned down. “With all this work?”

“It’s once a year, Rene,” Martine said.

“Twice.” Saj grinned.

“July doesn’t count. That’s vacances.” Martine turned to Aimee, her red mouth set in a pout. “But this sale’s invitation only. Don’t you still need a dress for Sebastien’s wedding?”

Merde!

“With that bulging armoire full of clothes?” Rene said.

“That’s my work wardrobe, Rene!” Aimee shot him a look. “I’m the maid of honor.” She rooted under her desk for her vintage ostrich-skin Vuitton travel bag, a ten-franc bargain from the octogenarian in her building who’d nearly thrown it in the trash.

Saj nodded. “Fully loaded, I’d imagine? That bag’s lethal and guaranteed to clear crowded aisles.”

“Silk lingerie sales get ugly. You have no idea, Saj.” Martine tugged Aimee’s arm. “The line’s all the way around Les X.”

Les X lay underground in an old wine cavern, a mix of vintage, retro, and last season’s gently worn couture jumbled with Tati polyester and Monoprix seconds. A Left Bank fashionista secret.

“We’re pros,” Martine said. “With synchronization, it won’t take long.”

Aimee grabbed her coat. “Keep working. After I meet Pascal’s Gadz’Arts classmate, I’ll know more.”

The image of Jean-Luc floated in her mind. His warm smile, self-assurance—the antithesis of his geeky classmate, Samour. An unlikely friendship forged by class ties? Soon, she’d meet him for a drink and find out.

Rene frowned. “Check in before.”

Her cousin Sebastien had asked Rene to escort her to the wedding. She paused at the door.

“Rene, have you gotten your tuxedo alterations?”

Rene’s hand went to his mouth.

Saturday, 8:45 P.M.

“YELLOW LIGHT, MARTINE,” Aimee said, knuckles clenched on the Mini Cooper’s lime-green dashboard. Martine had only passed her driving test last week. Aimee wished they’d taken the Metro.

She glanced at the time. Fifteen minutes to her aperitif with Jean-Luc. In the blurring fog, the streetlights gave off a tobacco-yellow haze.

“An off-the-shoulder seventies Dior organza … and in winter blue, parfait!” Martine was saying. She downshifted, the orange tip of her cigarette long with ash. Aimee regretted forgetting her nicotine patch.

“You didn’t do badly yourself, Martine,” she said, gesturing to the car’s backseat overloaded with shopping bags.

Martine rolled down the window, threw her cigarette out into dank mist. She shivered as she rolled it back up. “Shouldn’t Melac escort you to Sebastien’s wedding instead of Rene?”

She shook her head. Wary. Martine’s longtime mission, to find Aimee a man, was now focused on Melac and his ex-wife.

“I didn’t ask him.”

“Why not?”

“My father almost missed my baptism. You can’t count on flics to attend weddings, or funerals either. Not to mention Melac’s just been promoted. All hush-hush,” Aimee said. “Now he can’t tell me what he does, or …”

“He’d have to shoot you?” Martine grinned. “Not that you want to know.”

Aimee pushed aside her worry about Melac. Time to compartmentalize. Concentrate on what she’d ask Jean-Luc. Then check in with Rene to see if Saj had connected the dots, what the diagram signified. How this tied into the DST recruiting her. So much to think about.

But for the moment she tried to ignore Martine’s pack of Murattis near the gearshift.

“There’s another angle behind the DST, Martine. I feel it.”

Earlier, while trying on outfits in the dressing room, she’d filled Martine in on Pascal Samour’s murder, Meizi, and the DST.

Martine hit the horn at the bus cutting in front of her. “Better idea, give me access to Meizi,” Martine said. “Perfect for an expose on sweatshops. I’ll write a series on working conditions, the luxury items made in China and finished here, the snakeheads. No names, of course.”

She’d whetted Martine’s appetite. Her plan. “Need to stretch your journalistic chops?”

“Call me tired of seven-minute fluff pieces on Radio France.”

Aimee grinned. “Deal.”

Martine shrugged and hit the horn again. “Watch your back with the DST. You need connections in high places. De rigueur, but have you seen any real proof on your mother?”

An investigative journalist, Martine broadcast on Radio France and nourished her network of connections.

“What if it’s all lies, Aimee?”

Aimee’s hand trembled.

At the red light, Martine forgot the clutch and stalled the car. “I don’t want you disappointed again. Or hurt. Desolee if this sounds brutal, but what’s the point if your mother’s dead? A five-year-old surveillance report doesn’t bring her back.”

The wisp of hope reopened the wound in her heart. The wound that never went away. She wondered if she could face that.

“Don’t you see, they want to use you?”