Murder at the Lanterne Rouge

Her shoulders stiffened. “Tell me something new, Martine.”

“And you’ll beat them at their own game, Aimee?” Martine let out the clutch, ground into first. “All those psychological profilers sitting on Aeron chairs in think tanks outside Versailles, funded by you and me. Dissecting your personality, your vulnerability.”

Common intelligence practice, Aimee knew.

“They could rehash old intel, smother it with bearnaise sauce, and serve it fresh. Reel you in. Over and over.”

“Nothing’s free.” Aimee pulled down the visor, flicked on the light, and checked for lipstick on her teeth. “Plan two steps ahead, Papa always said.”

A scooter cut in front of them and Martine braked just in time. “Idiote!”

“Bien sur! That’s it.” Of course. The DST had attached a GPS to her scooter. Stupid. Why hadn’t she figured that out before?

“Your plan?”

Aimee shut the visor. Hesitated. Sacault’s matchbox message had contained a time and location. Nothing else.

“The DST’s got me under surveillance. My scooter, my office …” She looked at Martine meaningfully.

Martine blinked. “Stay at my place, of course.”

“Martine, the first place a profiler would look is at my best friend’s.”

“So what will you do?”

“Do you still have your learner’s driving permit?”

Martine nodded. “Check my wallet.”

Aimee rifled through Martine’s Hermes. “May I take a press ID, an old one?”

“Will I regret this, Aimee?”

“Just insurance.”

Aimee put both Martine’s old Liberation press ID and the permit in her bag. “I need to play the game by my rules. Not the other way around.”

All of a sudden a figure darted into the narrow street.

“What the hell?” Martine yelled.

Illuminated in Martine’s headlights was a man, on the cobbles directly in front. Aimee’s stomach jumped to her mouth. She knew they were going to kill him.

“Don’t hit him! Martine!” Aimee shouted. Each detail imprinted in her mind, as if in slow motion. The man’s camel-hair coat and dark leather buttons came closer. And closer. Martine punched the Mini Cooper’s brakes, skidding on the slick cobbles. With a squeal they veered toward a lamppost. Whipped forward, Aimee threw up her arms and hit the windshield. Pain crunched her wrist. The lime-green Mini Cooper scraped the lamppost, then shuddered to a halt. And stalled.

“He ran out of nowhere,” Martine gasped, her knuckles white on the steering wheel. “Into the street, just like that!”

Shaken, Aimee rubbed her wrist.

“Mon Dieu, are you all right?”

“Just a bruise, Martine.” Aimee unsnapped the seat belt. It could have been worse. The camel-hair coat under the wheels, and herself through the windshield.

“He just jumped out,” Martine said again, gesturing to the man, his light-brown coat now bobbing through the crowd.

In a hurry, that one, Aimee thought.

Martine set the gear in neutral. Turned the ignition. The engine responded.

Had he been following them? But she couldn’t think about that now.

“And I’m late. I’ll walk,” she said, trying to ignore the pain. “It’s a few streets away.”

Aimee reached for her Vuitton carryall.

Martine lit a cigarette, her hands trembling, and shook her head. “At least you bought the winter blue for Sebastien’s wedding.”

And the little black Agnes b. dress, the vintage YSL beaded turquoise bikini Martine insisted was necessary for the Martinique beach in February, plus strappy heeled sandals for next to nothing. With the huge markdowns, she couldn’t resist. She hated to think of her bank account.

“Let me drop you at Arts et Metiers.”

All Aimee wanted to do was get out of this tiny car and put ice on her wrist before it swelled like a balloon. “Faster to walk from here, Martine.”

Horns beeped behind them. Aimee pulled herself out, straightened up.

“You sure you’re all right, Aimee?”

Her boot caught in the gutter and she cursed her three-inch high heels. “Fine, Martine.”

With a wave Martine ground into first gear and took off.

A siren whined. Aimee buttoned up her long leather coat against the permeating damp. Why had she worn a black lace top and skimpy cashmere sweater with the temperature dropping and zero visibility?

She hurried in the shadows past buckling seventeenth-century buildings and grimy, dark alleys. Turning the corner in the fog, she found her way blocked by several men. They wore thin jackets and were stamping their feet on the cracked pavers, their breath like steam in the dim streetlight. Their angry-sounding rapid-fire Chinese dialect echoed off the high stone walls.

“Excusez-moi,” she said. Tso’s men? Unease filled her as she edged by them. Suspicion, or something else she couldn’t name, painted their faces. A second later the men backed off and melted into the doorways, their words evaporating with their breath.

Another world, she thought. These few blocks were a slice of an old Chinatown—where Wenzhou immigrants settled after the First World War to work in the factories. A little-known enclave tucked near the Arts et Metiers, and not the most welcoming.

The street twisted and into view came a small Chinese store with red banners proclaiming the Year of the Tiger in gold letters. Beyond that was an old diamond merchant, now a wine bar. Her destination.

JEAN-LUC TRACED THE wineglass rim with his finger. His brow creased. “I didn’t understand Pascal. Never could. Now it’s too late.”

Aimee wished the stiff, tooled leather of her chair didn’t scrape the back of her knees. That the glass of wine didn’t cost what she’d paid for the marked-down beaded YSL bikini. That the ice pack on her wrist would stop the swelling.

And that she’d reapplied her mascara.

Easy on the eyes, this Jean-Luc, still wearing his jeans jacket. In the light of the sputtering votive candle, she saw his blue gaze go to his cell phone on the table. “Sorry, but I’m expecting a call. A work crisis.” He gave an apologetic shrug.

She’d need to hurry this up. A copy of Charlie Hebdo, the controversial satirical cartoon weekly, lay on a low table. Out of place, she thought. “How close were you to Pascal?”

“Us Gadz’Arts, alors, we’re a fraternite.” Jean-Luc combed his damp blond hair back with his fingers. “I know we appear odd to outsiders. Rituals form our traditions.”

Medieval. Tight-knit and insular for today’s world.

“I feel responsible,” Jean-Luc said. “Like in some way I let him down. Gadz’Arts weld together into a family … yes, we call it that. It’s our life.”

Important to him, she could tell. “For the rest of our lives we help each other, network, line up jobs, act as godfathers to each others’ children. That’s what hurts.”

She nodded. Remembered Madame Samoukashian’s words about the initiation rituals. “Pascal didn’t seem the group type. What do you mean by welding?”

He shrugged again. “Everyone goes through bizutage, initiation, it’s a rite of passage, a bonding ritual.”

“Hazing? That’s bullying.”