Cara Black - AL05 - Murder in Clichy

“But I’m here, too,” she said to him as she sidled onto the stool next to his.

“I’m impressed.”

But she didn’t think he was. Like a cat ready to spring, he gripped the beer bottle with white clenched knuckles. His wide forehead took up much of his face, whose features consisted of a zipperlike mouth and dark deepset eyes. Slick-backed hair and broad shoulders completed the picture. But the scar on the side of his neck, the kind mecs got in prison from awls used in the shoe factory, put her on high alert.

“You’re Blondel?”

“I represent him.”

She pushed off from the zinc bar, shaking her head. A mec rested his billiard cue on the green baize and moved closer. A set up?

And here she thought she’d been clever.

“Let me know when he wants to talk,” she said.

“What’s the problem?” he said, a deep chuckle. “I thought you wanted to help me. Jacky wants to talk, too.”

He gestured to the other mec now chalking his cue with the blue cube in his hand, and blocking her escape.

Of course, a Jacky! Buff body, tight black leather pants and a pompadour. He smiled. Gold incisors. Her throat tightened.

“Maybe I changed my mind,” she said, eyeing the restroom door. ”If Blondel wants to talk, let me know.”

“Where’s Sophie?”

“She owes me, Thadée, too,” Aimée said, “So I’d like to know, as well. I figured we could work together.”

“I’m Blondel,” he said.

“And you’re going to sell me the Pont Neuf,” she said.

“Did Nadège mention a defaulted candy bill?”

Nadège ?

“Who’s that?”

And then she remembered Thadée saying “Nadège, Sophie,” before he was shot.

“Who are you, Mademoiselle?” he asked, a sneer in his voice. His eyes hardened. “Let’s go somewhere and get to know each other.”

This wasn’t going the way she’d hoped it would.

She edged toward the exit, but Jacky barred her way with his cue.

“Give me a moment, I need to use the restroom,” she said, in a loud voice. “Excuse me.” She smiled as she edged past Jacky.

And then it hit her . . . Thadée’s defaulted candy bill?

What had she jumped into? A dope deal that Morbier had warned her against? Was Sophie responsible for it now that Thadée was dead? Or this Nadège? Had this mec done him in? But that didn’t make sense, why kill him if he owed money? Or might pay his debt with valuable jade in lieu of cash?

Several sweating men shouldering a massive pool table were blocking the back door by the counter. And another delivery loomed behind them.

“Mademoiselle, we’re unloading a truck of new tables. Go the other way.”

“Blondel” and Jacky stood, feet planted and arms crossed over them, barring the front door. The bulge in Jacky’s coat pocket spelled trouble. There had to be another way out.

Passing the door to the bathrooms, she climbed a narrow staircase that led to game rooms and more billiard tables. No way out up there.

Downstairs, in the restroom, she entered cubicle after cubicle. Odors of evergreen disinfectant came from the stalls. But there was neither door nor window.

Back in the hall, she found a light-well concealed by draperies next to the cloakroom. But it was nailed shut, top and bottom.

The only thing left was the garbage chute. Ripe and pungent. No way would she go down that. Then she heard footsteps. Her phone vibrated in her pocket.

“Oui?”

“I’m waiting,” the man who had called himself Blondel said. “There’s a car out front, we’ll take a drive so we can talk somewhere quiet.”

Like hell they would.

She lifted the lid of the dirty metal garbage chute, tried not to breathe, and put her legs over the edge. Rank odors swelled from below. She belted her coat tight, grabbed the rim, and lowered herself down a sticky, greasy metal slide. Her toes found a small foothold. Thank God.

Before she could close the chute lid, Jacky’s head appeared silhoutted against the light. And then she slipped.

Her arms bumped against the sides and she put them in front of her face.

She landed in darkness on something wet. Scratching came from somewhere. Rodents. Jacky shouted from above. No way would she let him catch her after going through this.

She pulled herself up, then sank. Putrid smells of decaying food and oil surrounded her. Flies buzzed. Then the container she’d landed in tipped over. Her elbows hit concrete. Loud squeals came from the corner, and her heart pounded.

She got to her feet, fell, scrambled for the wall, but her hands came back clutching half eaten melon rinds. Something scurried over her boots. Big, fat, with a long greasy tail. She ran, heading for a patch of light, praying she’d find a way out.

By the time she reached the end of the cavelike opening her stockings were in shreds and she’d lost part of a high heel. Glass crashed and broke behind her. Instead of veering into the courtyard, she spied a green-metal fence and began to climb. She remembered the mansion facing the square and the driveway leading to it.

She jumped, landed in mud, and tiptoed through bushes. Footsteps kept coming. Merde ! She had to keep moving.

She saw the back door of the mansion’s frosted glass conservatory, wedged open with a cane. She stepped inside, closed the door and locked it.

“Mathilde!” said an old man in a wheelchair before an easel painting. A faded woollen shawl, pinned around his shoulders, held flecks of paint. The brush, Aimée realized, was tied to his wrist.

“I’m sorry, monsieur.”

“Where’s Mathilde? My tea?” he said in a quavering voice. “I want my biscuits. Always have my tea with biscuits.”

“ Bien sûr ,” she said, keeping to the shadow. “I’ll check.”

He sniffed. “Mathilde forgot to take the garbage out again, eh? Lazy one. Twenty years in service and she needs reminding of everything.”

“ Tiens , your tea’s here,” said Mathilde, an older woman, with short gray hair, wearing a housecoat and rubber boots. She saw Aimée and surprise showed on her face. “Running late, eh? Weren’t you supposed to mix the paints, get everything set up for him?”

Aimée heard crashing in the bushes outside. Her cell phone vibrated but she ignored it.

“ Désolée. ”

The older woman shook her head. “You art students are more trouble than you’re worth. He’ll complain now for days. Simple, non , just mix the pigments with thinner. His hands shake so much he can’t manage it.”

“But it’s beautiful,” Aimée said, looking at the oil painting on the easel, “reminds me of Renoir.”

The old man spit on the floor. “That old fool. Never paid his rent on time my grand-mère used to say. Brought his whole brood to live with him, too.”

“Don’t get him started,” the woman said, setting down the tea tray and rolling her eyes.

“Degas, how the laundresses hated him! They called him a dirty old man. But Manet, eh, he created Impressionism. His atelier was a few blocks from here. The Academy called them upstarts, the school of Batignolles, at first. Manet, Cézanne, Toulouse-Lautrec. . . .” His voice trailed off and his rheumy eyes grew wistful. “Sometimes when the fog hovers over Place de Clichy, the lights mist, like the old gas lamps when I was young. . . it’s how he painted it.”

Mathilde sniffed. “Never changes. Zut! Artists don’t bathe, do they?”

“May I wash up?” Aimée asked, reminded of her state.

Mathilde pointed to a small laundry area. “Be quick about it, he pays the art students’ league by the hour.”

In the closet-sized space, she took off her coat and boots, ran hot water and scrubbed them down, and washed her face. She pulled out her cell phone and called a taxi, then listened to her messages.