She shrugged. "No problem."
"You must put this in Lili Stein's hands." Hecht's tone had changed, from fervent to pleading. "Swear to me on your father's grave. On his honor." His eyes locked on to hers.
What kind of Holocaust secret was this? Slowly she nodded in agreement.
"We will have no more contact, Mademoiselle."
Soli Hecht's joints cracked as he rose. His face wrinkled in pain.
"You could have faxed me this query, Monsieur Hecht. It would have saved you this trip."
"But we've neither talked nor met, Mademoiselle Leduc," he said.
Aimee bit back her reply and opened the door for him. Warped floorboards, a tarnished mirror, and scuffed plaster adorned the unheated landing. She buzzed for the turn-of-the-century wire elevator grating noisily up the shaft. Slowly and painfully he made his way to the hall.
Back in her office, she stuffed the francs into her pocket. The overdue France Telecom bill and horse meat for Miles Davis—pronounced Meels Daveez—her bichon frise puppy, would wait until she'd done the promised work.
Eurocom, the cable giant, had royally screwed up her finances by breaking Leduc's security service contract and hiring a rival Seattle firm, the only other firm that did the same work as she and her partner. She hoped there'd be enough money left to spring her suits from the dry cleaner's.
Her standard software keys enabled her to crack coded encryptions. They opened information stored in a database, in this case, she figured, a military one.
After punching in her standard key, "Access denied" flashed on the screen. She tried another software key, Reseau Militaire, an obscure military network. Still the screen flashed "Access denied." Intrigued, she tried various other keys but got nowhere.
Morning turned into afternoon, shadows lengthened, and dusk settled.
After several hours she realized she would earn her francs on this one. So far, nothing worked.
Wednesday Evening
LATER THAT EVENING, on one of her last decoding attempts, she used an old postwar retrieval key. She was surprised when the system responded, "For access enter via auditory/visual format." A rare but not unheard-of access path.
Nothing came up with audio. She opened the visual file using NATO documents decoding software. Suddenly her screen filled with black and white. After several seconds, she could clearly make out a photograph. No text appeared, only the photo. She enhanced the pixel quality, enlarging it as much as she dared without distorting the image.
The torn black-and-white snapshot with its smudged white margins showed a cafe scene next to a park full of children. People sat at the sidewalk cafe and stood in small groups. The ones standing were SS. Their backs were turned, but she recognized the lightning bolts on the sides of their collars.
No one looked at the camera. Most of the civilians wore dark shapeless clothes. A candid shot of occupied Paris. Almost half of the snapshot was torn away.
Shaken, she stared at the photo. She'd eaten at that cafe plenty of times, knew many of its habitues. But now she would always think of the Nazis who'd been there before her.
This marked the first time she'd cracked a code revealing a photo without text. How would this documentation be proof for the old woman? But that, she reminded herself, wasn't her job.
After saving the image, Aimee printed a copy. She couldn't help wondering what this woman's reaction would be.
With the photo tucked in her Hermès bag, a flea-market find, she wound a leopard-print scarf around her neck, belted her leather jacket, and locked the office door.
Below her office, she hailed a taxi that skidded to a stop on wet rue du Louvre. Late evening crowds filled the awninged sidewalk cafes. The Seine glittered on her right as the floodlit gray stone of the Pont Neuf flashed by.
The buildings changed as the taxi entered the Marais, the Jewish district, full of sixteenth-century hôtel particuliers, once abandoned and now often restored. Figures scuttled over the glistening cobblestones. In foggy, narrow rue de Bearn the taxi bumped over the curb and let her off. Fetid air hovered from the bouches d'egouts, gutters leading to the sewers.
Her destination, 64 rue des Rosiers, stood above a dusty window lettered DÉLICES DE STEIN in faded gold, advertising kosher goods in Hebrew and French. Opposite stood a falafel stand with trays of chopped red cabbage, onions, and pickled carrots peeking out from under a striped canopy.
Dark green paint flaked off the massive arched entry doors in front of her. She made her way past a bicycle leaning against the stone wall below a peeling circus poster. The cobbled courtyard smelled of yesterday's garbage. To her left, a vacant concierge's loge guarded the entrance.
On the second-floor landing, the dark wood door of Lili Stein's apartment stood ajar. From inside, a radio program blared. She knocked loudly several times. No answer. She pushed the creaking front door open.
"Allô?"
Slowly she entered the dim hallway of a musty apartment, reluctant to invade someone's privacy. She hesitated. Still no answer.
Inside, her eyes adjusted to the darkness. From the hall, she peered into the dim living room, then walked inside. A pine sideboard held a cloth runner embroidered with the Star of David and bearing brass candlesticks. Beside that, a vintage radio stood next to a recliner, the upholstery worn and spattered with grease spots. Approaching the radio, she saw a framed sepia photo on the wall. In it a young girl, wearing an old-fashioned school uniform, stood arm in arm with a stout aproned woman before a shop window. Both wore stars embroidered with JUIF on their chests. Aimee paused, saddened. She recognized that window as the one below on rue des Rosiers belonging to Delices du Stein. Under the photo a single white rose bloomed in a vase.
Lili Stein must be deaf to play the radio so loud, she thought. Maybe the old woman had a serious hearing loss.
She approached the radio, an old crystal set with knobby dials and yellowed channel band. She turned the volume lower. Used tissues littered the floor. "Madame Stein, I'm here with your packet!"
No response.
Her neck muscles tightened. Water trickled from somewhere out in the hallway. She didn't like this. Wasn't the old lady expecting her?
She paused beneath the living-room door frame. Across from her in the bathroom, a leaky faucet dripped onto a brown stain in the basin.
Her hand brushed the dark paneled wall searching for a switch. But her fingers only came back greasy.
Her anxiety mounted. She passed the dingy bathroom and edged down the narrow hallway. At the end, what looked to be a bedroom door stood partly open. She felt for her keys in her leather bag, positioning the pointed edges between her fingers as a weapon, her first lesson from the martial-arts dojo.
Carefully, she wedged the door open wider. In the dim light an old woman was sprawled on the bed, her stockings rolled down.
"Madame, Madame?"
She switched on the light. The woman's ashen face stared vacantly at the cobwebbed ceiling. Aimee walked towards the bed, then froze. Someone had carved a swastika into the woman's forehead. She gasped, gripping the bed frame as her legs buckled. Her heart pounded. She took a breath, then forced herself to touch the cheek. Smooth and cold like marble. . .
What if the killer was still there?
She reached for her Phillips screwdriver, part of the mini-tool set she carried in her bag, scanning the room for the attacker. But the only other inhabitant was a bloated angelfish, its silvery bubbles rising in the tank on the old rolltop desk. Wooden slats were nailed over the room's lone window, blocking all but a ribbon of light from the light well.