Cara Black - AL05 - Murder in Clichy

“But the rumor. . . .” Gassot hesitated.

Had she put it together wrong?

“Go ahead, Gassot. What rumor?”

“The man I saved told me the de Lussignys had stolen the jade. I never saw him again, so I couldn’t question him further. Albert insisted Thadée knew something, but he couldn’t get it out of him.”

The door splintered and the Russian stood there. And so did Blondel.

The spillover from the broken rain gutter beat a pattern on Aimée’s boots. She wished she had René for backup. Though she’d found Gassot, she had walked into the eye of the dragon.

“Time for that talk, Mademoiselle Leduc,” Blondel said. His zipperlike mouth and dull, flat gaze bothered her, but not as much as his clenched fists.

“About your dope running in Clichy?” She had to deflect him, get out of here. But how? Keep talking. “So you pay off someone in the Commissariat. I’m not interested.”

“You weren’t nice to Jacky; he remembers that,” Blondel said, motioning to someone behind him. “But I’m on someone else’s franc.”

He worked for someone else? She glanced at Gassot.

“Thadée owed you money,” she said, “Why kill him, and Albert? Whose side are you on, Gassot?”

“My own.”

“Meaning you double-crossed these mecs, and they’re after you?”

“Something like that,” Blondel said.

“I never did business with you, Blondel! ” Gassot said.

“But your comrade did. And look what happened to him.”

“ Albert? He talked too much but he’d never deal with the likes of you,” Gassot said, a quiver in his voice.

“Think again,” said Regnier, stepping into the doorframe. His riveting black eyes locked onto hers.

Aimée stifled a gasp. Why hadn’t she put that together? But the truth, as Oscar Wilde had said, was rarely pure and never simple.

“You work for Olf don’t you, Regnier?” she asked. “You hired Blondel to do your dirty work.”

His eyes never left her face. A small smile painted his thin lips. “Took you awhile, didn’t it?”

“You killed Thadée, Albert, and Dinard. And kidnapped René, to force me into—”

“A little too late for those observations, isn’t it?” Regnier interrupted. “But you two make a nice couple. Now we’re going to get the jade.”

“Why? To get back at the Ministry and the RG?”

He shrugged. “You know what the RG’s like. Thanks to them I wear a hearing aid,” he said. “Once I fell for their line about honor and service. But I came to my senses, and now I work for the highest bidder.”

Did he expect sympathy from her? She remembered Martine’s comments on how close Olf and the Chinese were in the bidding for oil rights. Now it made sense.

“Interpol’s infiltrated your group,” she said. “That should screw up Olf’s plan to use the jade to get an edge on the Tonkin Gulf oil rights.”

Regnier’s eyes widened. “What do you mean?” His phone beeped and he turned away to answer it.

“Pleyet’s with Interpol,” Aimée said.

Would that knock him off balance, at least for a moment? But he’d disappeared.

She looked for another door, another way out. High walls dripping with rain and the rabbit hutches hemmed them in. She was trapped in this postage-stamp-sized concrete yard. How had Regnier managed to vanish so quickly? Well, it was one less to face.

Could she take on these mecs ? Her pepper spray would disable one. Maybe. Gassot had the knife but she didn’t like the bulge in Blondel’s coat pocket. And would Gassot back her up?

She pepper-sprayed the Russian, who yelled and put his arms up to his face. Gassot, lunging with his knife, tripped against the rabbit hutches, sending them crashing to the ground. She got Blondel with her Chanel No. 5 purse-size atomizer.

She raced past them, aiming for the street. Scrambled down the corridor. She heard Gassot panting right behind her. And for a moment, she thought they’d make it.

A stinging blow from Jacky threw her into the reception booth. Hands tightened around her neck.

“Shall I take care of you now or wait until you tell me what I want to know?” Regnier said, sticking his blunt-nosed Mauser in her ribs. “You choose.”

Aimée froze.

Gassot, careening from a punch, was held spreadeagled against the wall. Frightened rabbits skittered over their feet. Gassot’s knife fell, clattering on the cracked tile.

“Outnumbered and outgunned, I’d say,” Regnier said.

“ Stupide . No escape route,” Gassot said, his breath heaving. “One should always have a way out.”

“So let’s talk,” Aimée said, trying to think fast. “You’ve got it all wrong, there’s—”

“We will talk, and you’ll give me the jade,” Regnier said, watching her lips. “But not here.”

A plumbing van waited on the curb, a yellow sign PLOMBERIE 24/24 painted on the side panels.

“And you looked like a nice girl,” said the Russian rubbing his red eyes as he shoved Aimée and Gassot down the hall. “Nice legs, that waif-look, half-wild and free. I like.”

“You’re not my type.”

“You never know until you try,” he said, feeling her up under her sweater.

“Later, Sergei,” Blondel said, opening the back doors.

“Keep your hands off! Help!” She screamed and kicked, hoping someone on the street would hear them. But then Jacky blocked the view in the three seconds it took to bundle her and Gassot into the van.

She and Gassot were thrown onto the van floor, the door locked. The engine gunned and the van took off, throwing them against the metal racks of supplies. No side windows. Just a small back window.

Jumbled thoughts came to her. Linh’s father had known about the jade! What a world class liar Julien de Lussigny was, acting as if he’d never heard of the jade! He’d said his father would turn in his grave if he knew of its existance. Liar! When his godfather Dinard had put it up for auction, De Lussigny had probably helped him.

The van swerved and she rammed into the wall.

“Gassot, you ok?”

“Are you kidding?”

“Think!” she said.

But he shook his head, defeated.

Maybe not this time.

She scanned the dim interior of the van. The divider between the driver’s compartment and the rear of the van, where a window had been, was blocked by a metal panel now. Had Blondel used this van to kidnap René? She didn’t think they were going far, otherwise they’d have tied them and taped them up. A whiff of pepper spray wafted from the front so she knew the Russian was up there. Jacky? Where were Regnier and Blondel?

White plastic pipe, hoses, and plumbing equipment were scattered over the van floor.

“The pipe’s not strong enough to break the rear window safety glass,” she said, rooting through the equipment. “We need a wrench, a pair of pliers, something made of metal to shatter it.”

Nothing.

She noticed Gassot’s old-fashioned flesh colored wooden leg.

“How much does that weigh?”

“Enough.”

“If you took it off, would it be strong enough to smash the glass?”

“Then how would I run away?”

Good point.

The van careened around a corner, throwing him against her.

“You jump first, then I follow,” she said, “I will pick you up.” If neither of them broke any limbs, it might work.

He shook his head.

“Got any other ideas?”

“No wonder our plan backfired,” Gassot said, his eyes faraway. “The jade was not meant for us. It’s sacred.”

Perhaps. But she had to get him back to earth. They didn’t have much time.

“The old Cao Dai priest was right,” Gassot said. “Remember the old saying, Ngoc linh phai . . .”