Cara Black - Murder in Belleville

Monday Evening

THREE WIRE SERVICES, IN addition to Agence France-Presse and CNN, had picked up Martine’s story by the time Aimée opened the door of Leduc Detective. She heard the radio say fingers pointed to an Algerian jewelry importer, rumored to be in the pay of Afghani-based terrorists and sympathetic to the militant fundamentalists. He was alleged to supply the Algerian military with inferior-grade weapons and military surplus. His Swiss bank account, the article continued, buried under an alias, hid a multitude of sins.

Aimée logged on to her terminal and René’s. From hers she accessed Sylvie/Eugénie’s account using the beur password. The five-million dollar balance was still there and she hit Save.

On René’s terminal she followed the maze he’d established to the Bank of Algiers. From the Bank of Algiers she linked to the AINwar bank account and the two other subsidiary companies. Aimée withdrew all but the minimum balance of ten dinars from each account.

In the same fashion as Kaseem and Sylvie had previously established, she transferred the sums to Sylvie’s Channel Island account. However, instead of their procedure, she transferred that balance, all fifty million francs, to the AFL’s account.

Now Kaseem and his businesses were broke. But the Algerian military would think he’d hid it all in Switzerland.

To foil attempts at wire tracing, she pulled out the police report of Sylvie Cardet’s death, highlighted the name “Eugénie Grandet” and the bank statements and faxed this to the records department in the Fichier in Nantes. The Fichier would declare the Eugénie persona dead and freeze the account.

She logged in to the Ministry of Defense, the humanitarian mission funding. Marking the shipment as time-dated medical supplies and perishable, she red-flagged the containers. This earmarked them for inspection prior to departure from the port of Toulon. Toulon was the largest naval center and adjoined a military complex. If the shipment contained the surplus military arms she figured it did, the inspectors would seize them.

Kaseem wouldn’t get his shipment.

She brushed off her black leather pants and reached for her jacket.

Now she figured she should pay Hamid a visit and tell him some good news.

HAMID’S WARD bed in L’hôpital Tenon overlooked leafy lime trees on the street below. Color now tinted his cheeks; his eyes had lost their listless quality.

“Salaam akikum,” he said, shaking her hand, then touching his heart.

“Aleikum es-salaam,” Aiméee returned his greeting. She pulled an orange from her bag, setting it on his enamel hospital tray. “May I peel this for you?”

“ Merci ,” he said. “I’ve given my life to the AFL, but I couldn’t save the sans-papiers.” Hamid said, his face still haggard. “But the new immigrants, the young ones, they think differently. I never heeded them. Now I must rebuild.”

“I know the truth,” she said, digging her fingers into the firm orange flesh.

“What do you mean?” Hamid’s eyebrows rose like accent marks over his deep-set eyes.

“Kaseem pressured you.” She peeled the skin, the segments fanned out in her hand. “Like he does everyone. But you’re his brother, as maghours you only have each other.”

She offered the orange pieces to Hamid. He slipped his worry beads into his other hand and accepted the orange. His eyes lit up with curiosity.

“Your brother killed Sylvie,” she said. “Blew her up.”

Hamid’s hand shook, but he didn’t drop the orange on the worn green linoleum. “I don’t believe you.”

“I’m sorry. He didn’t know Sylvie gave this to Anaïs,” she pulled out the photos. She spread some of them over the hospital blanket. “Isn’t it south of Oran, where you were born?”

Hamid nodded slowly and stared.

“Now it’s a wasteland labeled 196,” she said. “Just a number. Not even a name. A cemetery of bleached bones mingled with sunken munitions. As young men you two fought there once. You lost to the French.”

Hamid nodded. “Yes, a lifetime ago.”

“Kaseem calls himself the General,” she said. “He still likes to play war. He has to find toys so he can play with the big guys.”

Fear shone in Hamid’s large eyes. “There’s no proof.” His tone was hesitant.

“But Kaseem can’t do that anymore. I took care of those toys,” she said. “Sylvie’s money and his are back in the AFL.”

Hamid’s face registered disbelief.

Rectangular shadows crossed the linoleum in the long ward. Few beds were occupied. A smiling ward matron in a starched white uniform nodded as she passed them. The matron’s clogs clicked busily away.

Aimée passed him some more orange segments, then stood up.

“Now you can rebuild, Hamid,” she said. “Hire lawyers to fight deportation, run a day-care program, a newspaper, a meals on wheels—do it the way you want. Even attract the young kids with a modern center, a gym, Arabic classes, video games. You name it.”

“I don’t really know you,” Hamid said. His eyes were unsure.

“Sylvie would have wanted it like this,” she said. “To make up for her father’s work in the OAS. The murdered innocents, things she hated.”

“Funny.” Hamid’s eyes turned wistful. “That’s the last thing Sylvie told me.”

“What’s that?” she asked.

“She wanted to make up for what her father did.”

“Sylvie must have been a special person.”

“A rare star,” Hamid said.

Touched, Aimée remembered Roberge saying the same thing. In fact, almost everyone but Anaïs had loved her.

“Where is Kaseem?” she asked.

She remembered how Hamid’s face twitched when he lied.

“On the plane,” he said, his mouth slightly askew. “Why?”

“I only want to tell him what I did,” she said. “Prepare him for what’s in store back in Algiers.”

She wanted to serve Kaseem justice on a platter, personally. See the look on his face, even if it was long distance.

She thought she’d have to battle with Hamid for hours but he seemed to come to a decision.

Hamid watched her, expressionless.

“Just don’t hurt him,” he said.

She nodded. She’d let the military he liked to play with handle that part.

“He’s at a wedding,” Hamid said.

STREET LIGHTS shone over the news kiosk as Aimée bought the special edition of Le Figaro with Marline’s lead story. Harrowing images of prisoners tagged with numbers, their numbers recognizable on piled corpses, filled the lower half of the front page. The sidebar column related the story of the alleged surplus weapons supplier, sympathetic to fundamentalists. Parfait, she thought. I just want to see Kaseem’s face.

Patrons milled around the busy Kabyle Star restaurant on rue de Belleville. Aimée threaded her way past diners to the back banquet room. From inside she heard traditional music accompanied by a tambour coming from the private wedding reception.

“I’m with the in-laws on the groom’s side,” she said to the curious bouncer.

Kaseem stood by the buffet, his arm around a uniformed man, laughing and toasting with a glass of juice. A furious gaiety spilled over the room of a hundred or so guests. Small children ran between the tables, old men in caftans scooping them up every so often.

“There, see him.” She pointed, and waved at Kaseem, knowing he couldn’t recognize her from the darkened distance. “Kaseem Nwar, my sister’s brother-in-law …” but the bored bouncer was already waving her inside.

Aromas of mutton and cloves from the steaming clay tajines tempted Aimée from the buffet. She saw platters of bistilla, flaky spiced pastry frosty with sugar and shaded by cinnamon. The air was dense with perfume, sweat, and orange blossom water.