Odd. “Try W-O-O,” Aimee suggested.
Rene added, “She sometimes goes by Marie.”
The nun shook her head.
“But I met Meizi here at practice,” Rene said, exasperation in his voice.
“Check for yourself, Rene,” the nun said, pushing the list over. “But we don’t let people drop in on practice; they need to join.”
Sandalwood incense wafted from the meditation room.
He pushed the list back to the nun. “But you’ve seen her. Black ponytail, jeans, petite, a bit taller than me.”
“Chinese?”
Rene nodded.
“But those girls clean the bathrooms.”
Startled, Rene stepped back. “What do you mean?”
“Cash, you know.” The nun rubbed her fingers together.
So they paid girls under the table. No tax. No trace.
“But I met her in a martial arts class,” he said.
“One of the perks is taking a class for free,” said the nun.
A stunned look appeared on Rene’s face, so Aimee broke in. “Don’t you have an address? Or a number to reach her at?”
The nun blinked in alarm. “It’s not how it looks. We operate on donations, and it helps the girls out. I don’t want anyone to get in trouble.”
“A bit late for that,” Aimee said. “She’s disappeared.”
Rene spread his hands, pleading. “We’re trying to help her. Please.”
The nun looked around the deserted teak-wood foyer. She pulled out a paper from the drawer. “Ching Wao. We call him and he sends girls to work.”
“They’re illegals?” Aimee asked.
“I don’t ask.” The nun paused. “But I hope this girl, Meizi, is all right.”
RENE SPOKE INTO his cell phone outside the dojo as freezing wind off the Seine whipped the quai. He paced back and forth, trying to get reception as the Metro clattered on the overhead tracks from Austerlitz.
Meizi had lied about living above the shop, and about cleaning bathrooms at the dojo. What else was she hiding?
Aimee couldn’t bear to see Rene heartbroken. If she could find Meizi, talk to her, and … what? Get her to admit she had another man?
Aimee opened the glove compartment and felt around. Under Rene’s car registration she found his licensed Glock pistol.
With a full clip.
Not only was he a crack shot, Rene had a black belt in judo. She’d always said he should register his fists as lethal weapons.
Rene climbed into the car, brushing a soggy brown leaf from the shoulder of his wool overcoat.
“Since when do you carry this loaded?”
“The last time I was shot made me cautious.” A grim smile. “You never know what you’re up against.”
True. Yet it didn’t ease her worry that Rene might go vigilante. She put the Glock on top of his car registration and shut the glove compartment.
“Ching Wao understood when I said Meizi’s name.” He readjusted the height of his adjustable seat. “The rest was in Chinese. But we’ll go to his address on rue de Saintonge.”
He gunned the Citroen up the ramp and over Pont d’Austerlitz.
“Rene, you’ve known Meizi less than two months.”
His jaw set in a hard line. She’d never seen him so upset. “You’re thinking she’s illegal. I don’t care. But I know she’s terrified, Aimee. And there’s nothing more to say until I get the truth from Ching Wao.”
They drove into the honeycomb of narrow streets edging the Marais. Years ago her grandfather had told her the street names reflected the professions of the ancient quartier: rue des Cordelieres, road of the rope-makers; rue des Arquebusiers, musket-makers; Passage de l’Horloge a Automates, watchmakers and windup machines. He never tired of reminding her that rue du Pont aux Choux—Bridge of Cabbages—was named after a medieval bridge spanning the open sewers. Or how he’d investigated a case on rue des Vertus—road of the virtuous—where hookers plied their trade.
Traffic crawled, almost at a standstill.
The image of the man’s body in the light of the red lantern came back to her. Her stomach clenched. His gnawed flesh, those vacant eyes.
Rene parked near Cathedrale Saint-Croix des Armeniens, the small Armenian church. No. 21, their destination, sported chipped dark-green doors and a Digicode. Aimee tried to stifle her rising suspicions that Meizi was part of an illegal ring that preyed on Frenchmen. But that was ridiculous; she cleaned toilets.
“Doubt your dental floss will work here, Aimee.”
Wrong type of door. Damn, why didn’t she carry that casting putty anymore? The universal postman’s key, which she still hadn’t given back to Morbier, wouldn’t work either.
“We’ll have to wait until someone comes out,” Rene said.
“I don’t like waiting.” Aimee took her LeClerc face powder and makeup brush out of her bag and brushed the keypad with powder. She compared the congealed fingerprint oil to locations on the keypad.
Rene blinked. “Giving the Digicode a makeover?”
“Utility chic, Rene,” she said. “How many combinations can you get out of the numbers 459 and letter A?”
“Two hundred fifty-six,” he said, a nanosecond later.
Amazing. She’d need a calculator.
He reached up on his toes peering closer. “Given the alphanumeric proximity and location …” His voice trailed off. “Let’s try this.” He hit four keys.
The small door in the massive one clicked open. “Impressive, Rene. You got it on the first try.”
He stepped over the wooden doorframe and into the damp courtyard of what looked like an old metal foundry. Inside was a glass-roofed atelier, and ironwork everywhere. Beside the dilapidated townhouse on the left stood a Regency-era theater, complete with pillars and arabesque stonework. Amazing what lay behind the walls, she thought.
“Ching Wao? Never knew the name. Never spoke with them,” said the white-haired man who met them inside the atelier. “Chinese moved out. Gone.” He set down an iron rod, picked up his cup of steaming coffee. Thought for a moment. “Yesterday. Or maybe today.”
Aimee scanned the weedy courtyard. “Where’s his office?”
“I wouldn’t call it an office,” he said.
“So what did he do there?”
“Like I know?” he said. “Back on the right by the rear entrance.”
A narrow dripping stone-walled passage led to a door labeled Wao SARL Ltd. Through dirt-encrusted windows she saw an empty desk, chairs. She tried the door. Locked. But the window yielded to a push. A few shoves and she’d opened it enough to reach in and grasp the door handle.
“Try his number, Rene. I wouldn’t want to break in while he’s on the toilet.”
Rene shook his head. “Number’s disconnected.”
A grim look settled on his face. “Let me do the honors.”
She noticed the bulge in his overcoat pocket. The Glock.
Rene kicked the door open.
In the high glass-ceilinged room, half-drunk cups of tea sat on the metal desk. Chinese newspapers, a pink plastic hair-band, and a black telephone lay on top. The tea was warm.
“We just missed him,” Rene said.
The only decoration was a world map tacked on the wall. Aimee studied it, and saw circles drawn around
