Cara Black - Murder in Belleville

He raised his wineglass in salute, his dark blue eyes holding hers. She raised her glass, then ignored him. Not her bad-boy type.

The solo ended; then the quintet resumed, with the piano player singing a smooth, unsentimental variation on Thelonious Monk’s version of “April in Paris.” Her voice was low, almost a whisper.

Aimée didn’t want to hear any more. She picked up her food, wedged the franc notes under her glass, and slipped into the crowd.

Miles Davis greeted her at the apartment door, his wet black nose sniffing her package of steak tartare. She kicked the hall radiator in her twenty-foot-ceilinged entryway twice until it sputtered to life, pulled her damp wool sweater off, and stepped out of her leather pants. She sniffed. Something smelled musty.

“Time for dinner, Miles Davis,” she said. She scooped him into her arms and carried him to the dark kitchen at the back of the apartment. The Seine flowed gelatinous and black below her tall windows. Lantern lights dotted the quai, their pinprick reflections caught in the heavy water. Almost as though they were drowning, she thought.

Bone weary, she peered outside to look at the quai, her nose touching the cold glass. The only person she saw was a figure walking a German shepherd. She couldn’t explain why, but she felt she wasn’t alone. Foreboding washed over her.

Miles Davis licked her cheek.

“A table, furball,” she said, and hit the light switch. The chandelier flickered, then emitted a feeble glow.

She took his chipped Limoges bowl, spooned in the steak tartare, and set it down for him. After changing his water, she plopped her tartine down on the counter, too tired to feel hungry.

Her thoughts turned to her last boyfriend. She pictured Yves, his large brown eyes and slim hips. When he’d accepted the Cairo correspondent post, she’d stuck pins in a Tutankhamen doll until it resembled a pincushion. Right now the only male in her life was on the floor at her feet with a wet nose and wagging tail.

Aimée heard the cat door thump shut. The hairs on her neck stood up. Miles Davis growled but didn’t abandon his steak tartare. Who could that be?

On her way to check the front door in the hallway, she smelled an odor. Had something died between her walls? Visions of decaying, rabid creatures in death throes wafted before her. She grabbed a broom and one of her boots as weapons, gingerly stepping down the hallway. The odor grew stronger.

The ripe, sweetish tang alarmed her. A bulky envelope had been wedged through the cat door she’d installed for Miles Davis. She hadn’t noticed the envelope when she entered.

She pulled on the first thing hanging from her coat rack, a blue faux-fur coat, then opened the door. Cold and musty drafts tunneled down the hallway. Her bare-legged reflection, in the worn mirrors opposite, stared back at her. Was she this rooster-haired, skinny creature armed with a broom and high-heeled boot?

Miles Davis’s low growl amped to a high-pitched bark. With the broom she prodded the envelope, feeling around. “Back off’ was smeared in brown letters—a deep dark brown. She looked closer. Dried blood.

She stepped back.

Her poking had dislodged the contents of the unsealed envelope. Something gray slid onto the black-and-white diamond tiles. Mottled and furry. The odor, strong and rank, filled her hallway.

At first she thought a stuffed animal had emerged, but it was the biggest gray rat she’d ever seen. At least it would have been if the head had been attached to a body.

She turned cold inside. The head was as big as a kitten. She hated rodents, fat or skinny.

She scanned shadowy corners but saw only the dusty niched statues that spiraled the wall of her staircase.

No one.

She had to get rid of it. The putrid stench filled the landing. She pulled a pink TATI plastic shopping bag from her coat rack and shoved the dripping head into it with a broom. Using the broom handle, she carried the bag at arm’s length down her marble stairs.

She watched for an attacker but figured they’d gone—the “message” had been their goal. Miles Davis barked, keeping up the rear under the dim hall sconces. By the time she dropped the bag in the trash, a slow anger burned over her fear. Her thoughts skipped back over the events since Anaïs’s call. Did this have a link to Sylvie or Anaïs?

Her evenings hadn’t been this eventful in a while, she thought. A dead woman and a dead rat all in one night.

BACK IN her apartment the musty smell lingered. Outside her bedroom, at the far end of her hallway, stood a small yellowed statue. Beside it lay a pile of what looked like tea-stained bandages. She froze. Voodoo … evil spirits.

The rustle behind her caused her to turn and swing.

Yves jumped aside, wearing her father’s old bathrobe and a smile. She almost beheaded the marble Napoleonic bust in the hall beside him. He leaned against the door frame, his tan body and damp hair silhouetted in the bathroom light.

“So that’s how you greet someone, after a long flight, who’s brought you priceless Egyptian artifacts?”

She took a deep breath.

“Just unannounced ones,” she said, setting the broom against the wainscoting. “Did I give you a key?”

“Your partner Rene had an extra one,” he said. “Maybe you should check your messages,” he said, coming closer. His dark sideburns snaked to his chin.

“I’ve been a little busy,” she said, realizing she was still barefoot and in a faux-fur coat.

“Something’s spoiled,” his nose crinkled.

“Rat tartare,” she said. “Someone’s trying to scare me.”

“Scare you?” he asked. “Aimée, what’s the matter?”

She almost told him right then about the explosion and the rat. But she hesitated. He was dangerous to her psyche. A soul shaker and troublemaker.

Yves searched her eyes, sniffed her breath. “Busy enough to have a drink around the corner?”

She shrugged.

“Why haven’t you come to Cairo?”

“Ecoute, Yves,” she said, pulling her coat tighter. “Parts of Paris are Third World enough for me.”

But that wasn’t totally true. It had to do with commitment. Her inability to commit made it difficult to visit another continent.

“Et, voila.” He pursed his mouth. “I’m just another notch on your lipstick case.”

“If I remember correctly, you moved, Yves. Not me,” she said. “Then you pop into my life and disturb my concentration.”

“Maybe I need to disturb it more.”

“I haven’t heard from you for ages,” she said, rubbing her legs in the frigid hallway. “Suddenly you appear. I don’t owe you an explanation.”

Yves turned away. There was a lot more she could say, but she didn’t feel like addressing his back.

“Like you, I’ve been busy,” he said, turning around and edging closer. The fresh scent of her newly laundered towels clung to him. “Civil wars and guerrilla encampments in remote outbacks don’t leave me a lot of time for chitchat.”

“Chitchat?”

She’d dealt with a dead rat and found a live one in her apartment.

“I’ve got no excuse,” he said. “Forgive me?”

“That’s all you can say?”

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“How sorry?”

She couldn’t believe she’d said that.

“Let me show you,” he said, with a small smile. “After all, I have a lot to make up for.”

She ran her fingers through her hair. They came back sticky.

“I need a bath. Want to scrub the motor oil off my back?”

“Good place to start.” He took her in his arms, noticing the bloodstains and scrapes on her legs. “I suppose you’re going to tell me about it.”

“Later,” she said with a half smile. “We better catch up first.”