Cara Black - AL05 - Murder in Clichy

“The usual?”

She nodded and he poured a glass of red wine. The dense garnet-red wine left a sediment in the bottom of the ballon-like glass. Nico was the kind of mec who listened to her stories when no one waited for her in her cold apartment under the sheets. A mec who would stifle a yawn and share a bottle at the zinc counter.

Aimée . . . how are your eyes?” “

“ Pas mal. Haven’t stopped me yet, Nico,” she said.

“Not even the TGV can stop you when you get going, eh? As your papa used to say.” He wiped his wet hands on his none-too-clean apron and untied it. “Share a verre with me, my treat?”

“Next time, Nico,” she said.

He jerked his thumb toward an entwined couple nestled in the corner.

“They can’t decide between a rough little Sangria or a smooth Veuve Clicquot.” He winked. “Two ends of the spectrum. Do they want to dance on the table? Or feel it tomorrow, behind their eyeballs?”

The man in the far corner pointed to the champagne.

“ Excuse-moi , a decision.” He reached for the champagne flutes and a tray. “Back in a minute.”

Aimée sipped her wine.

How could doing a simple favor for Linh have gone so wrong? And what should she do now? But the full-bodied wine with a smoky aftertaste had no answers.

She tried René’s cell phone. No reply.

She set five francs down, bid Nico à bientôt and turned the corner to her apartment on quai d’Anjou. Fingers of fog curled under the Pont Marie and spilled over the wet, cobbled quai.

A figure walked a dog along the riverbank below. Two men in wool overcoats stood by her door. Another joined them as she approached.

She gripped the pepper spray in her pocket.

“Mademoiselle Leduc?” said the one smoking a cigarette. Pale-faced and with dark, darting eyes, he emitted a bristling energy. The stubble on his head could have used a trim, or maybe he was growing out the shaved-head look.

“Hasn’t your mother taught you manners? How to introduce yourself, and apologize for accosting a young woman alone?”

“Guess she forgot,” he said, with a narrow-lipped smile. “In my job, it’s not required.”

“And what would that be?” She scanned the quai, saw one man behind the trunk of a plane tree, another against the stone wall, the barge lights silhouetting his cap. Not exactly a subtle show of force.

“I can’t speak officially. Let’s say I’m employed by someone who guards the common good. . . .”

“Someone with nasty methods?”

“It doesn’t have to be that way,” he said. “Now, show me what’s in your bag.”

He’d seen too many old movies. And the way he watched her, his eyes intent on her mouth, bothered her.

“What common good?”

“We work in the national interest.”

Typical RG talk. Straight out of the Renseignements Généraux manual. One of the men shifted, the gravel crunching under his feet by the wall.

“You’ll have to show me some ID. I’d feel stupid if I were to be robbed on my own doorstep.”

The two men moved closer and she backed up, pulling out her pepper spray.

“Back off or I start screaming and you get this in the face.”

She wished she had her Beretta. But those days were over. No more climbing over rooftops or hanging from rusted pipes. She’d promised.

“ Du calme, ” he said, and flashed his card.

“I can’t read it,” she said pulling out a flashlight. At least she could smack one of them in the face with it and get the talker with the spray.

“Fabien Regnier, Renseignements Généraux,” she read. “Guess you think that impresses people.”

“Not you, I’m sure,” he said. “But you’ve dealt with us before, on contract. In a ministry surveillance context, remember?”

She bit her lip. The ministry surveillance on which her father had been killed in an explosion. It had been five years ago, but was as vivid to her as if it were yesterday. She’d never known the RG were involved.

“So for old time’s sake, hand over the bag,” he said.

“Just like that, out here on the cobblestones? You’ve got more balls than you were born with, expecting me to . . .”

“We want what’s ours,” he said, lowering his voice.

“You have no authority,” she said. “What do you mean, yours ?”

“I think you know.”

Two additional men drifted from the shadows, a stocky red-haired man and a lean one with a stringy ponytail down his back. They enclosed her in a tight ring. The red-haired one spread a much-thumbed France-Soir newspaper over the wet cobbles. Fabien Regnier, if that was his real name, gripped her bag. She winced as he emptied it, shining her flashlight on the contents as he picked through her Nicorette patches, ultra black mascara, a broken turquoise earring, her worn Vuitton wallet, cell phone, Chanel No.5 purse-sized atomizer, well-thumbed cryptography manual, Swiss Army knife, the holy card from her father’s funeral, an Egyptian coin, and a letter containing Guy’s poem.

“C’est de la poésie, ça ?” asked one of the men reading the poem with a furrowed brow. “Calling you a wild orchid, your rose complexion’s rough beauty . . .”

“That’s personal,” she interrupted.

“But it’s very well written, Mademoiselle.” Fabien Regnier grinned, passing it around. It infuriated her. They were looking through a window into Guy’s soul and using it for a cheap laugh.

“Where did you put it?” he asked. His eyes were hard. He leaned close to her face. “The jade .”

She had to think fast. “Since you know so much, how come you don’t know it’s gone?” she said, making it up as she went along. “ Pfft, stolen from my office while someone barricaded me in the supply room.”

“How convenient!”

“Not really, but it didn’t belong to me. And I don’t think it belongs to you.”

“Stolen property must go back to where it came from.”

Had Baret stolen the jade to sell to Linh?

“What do you mean? How does the jade connect to you at the RG?”

“That’s not your concern.” Fabien Regnier snapped his fingers.

As Aimée looked up she caught the eye of the hawk-nosed man who approached. Lean and in his late fities, his cap brim low over his hooded eyes: she knew him. Recognized him from the unit that had contracted for Leduc’s services for the Place Vendôme surveillance. He’d been the one holding her back as she screamed, seeing her father’s charred limbs on the cobblestones.

Tension knotted her shoulders.

“We don’t want to have to mess up your apartment but—”

“Go ahead, it’s a mess already. The contractor makes sure of that.”

“Actually, we already have,” he said. “You need a new contractor.”

“What? Where’s your search warrant?”

Fabien Regnier picked up his cell phone; it must have vibrated on his hip. And then she noticed the butterscotch colored plug in his ear. An audio amplifier?

“Oui ,” he said, turning to answer it. A moment later, he clicked off, nodding to the others who fell back. He whispered in her ear, “If, as you say, you don’t have it, we want you to find it. That’s your priority now. Your career here, in Europe, anywhere in the world, depends on it. Your agency, your apartment, even your dog’s yearly rabies shots, depend on it.”

She stiffened.

“Good evening,” he said, giving her his card. “See, mother did teach me some manners.” And got into a waiting car.

SHE FELT so weak she had to force herself to climb the worn marble stairs to her dark apartment. This stank worse than overripe Camembert. The RG’s tentacles extended everywhere: their calling cards were intimidation, blackmail, and wiretaps. She never understood how people could refer to them as the good guys, likening them to the FBI or MI5. Then again, maybe it was apt after all.