Or, as one politican commented, “where the bourgeois bohemian bobos met the boubous, colorful African immigrants’ robes.”
“So he’s gone!”
“Not if his kabob’s still grilling,” she said. “He went into Kabob Afrique. There’s a big line trailing out onto the street.”
“Cloclo, you’re being watched,” Aimée said.
“Men pay me for that, you know.”
“I’m serious. Be careful. Work another beat for a few days.”
“Vraiment?” Aimée heard a throaty laugh. “I could use some sun. Cannes, Menton, or do you suggest Cap Ferrat?”
“Can you describe the guy?” She threw some francs onto the table.
Just then the man who’d been ogling her walked over and took Aimée by the elbow.
“Care for a drink?” he asked. “I’m partial to big eyes and long legs.”
She knew his type; any encouragement and he’d be all over her like a rash.
“Desolée, I feel the same,” she smiled. “But I’m partial to a brain between the ears.”
She grabbed her coat.
“Oooh, letting the skirt get away?” one of his friends sniggered as she left the café.
She ran, the phone to her ear, into the wet street.
“Like a . . . ,” Cloclo said, her voice wavering, “. . . that lizard that changes color.”
A chameleon changed to fit its background, she thought.
“Why do you say he’s a chameleon, Cloclo?”
“. . . black hair, sideburns today, leather jacket . . .”
“Careful, Cloclo, I mean it . . .”
The line went dead.
At least Cloclo was working somewhere else now and she had given Aimée a description. She ran down the Metro stairs, slid in her pass, and joined an older woman reading Le Figaro, waiting for the train. If she made a quick train connection she might get to the kabob place in time.
She changed lines once and exited from Château Rouge station in seven minutes.
Under a weak setting sun filtering through a break in the clouds, she saw awning-covered stands selling all types of bananas: short, thick, green, yellow, red, as well as stubby plantains. Men wearing long djellabas stood by upturned cardboard boxes on which tapes and “used” VCRs were displayed for sale. Laundry flapped, hanging from chipped metal balcony railings above, suspended from fissured buildings. As she walked by, women in colorful boubous shouted “Iso, iso,” hawking barbecued corn in plastic bags. Several discount travel shops advertised flights—Paris-Mali, for two thousand francs—on hand-lettered signs.
The quartier reminded her of an Arab medina with its tangle of threadlike alleys, the perfume of oranges, and the cries of hawkers everywhere. She stood in the Goutte d’Or, “the golden drop” on the other side of Montmartre, named for the vineyards that once covered the slope. North African soldiers recruited for the First World War had found cheap lodgings here overlooking the Gare du Nord train tracks, after 1918. And the tradition continued; it was still cheap and even more rundown, teeming with Africans and Arabs and other segments of the “third world” according to conservative rightists and the encroaching bobos.
Aimée scanned the street and spied Kabob Afrique midblock.
Thursday evening
LUCIEN PUSHED OPEN THE corrugated metal siding that had been nailed over the warehouse door, slid out, and hitched the music case onto his back.
Three years in Paris and he had achieved nothing.
Kouros, he figured, had pulled out of the recording deal at the hint that he might be connected to terrorists. And now, instead of a SOUNDWERX contract, the law was after him and, almost worse, a fellow Corse had tried to frame him as a terrorist.
In the damp street, a line of customers trailed out of the door of the kabob place. He noticed a jean-jacketed, spiky-haired woman peering into a shop window with her back to him. Her long black-stockinged legs ended in stiletto heels.
He might as well call the Chatelet ethnic music organizer and make an appointment. Since his DJ jobs were in alternative clubs the flics didn’t police, he’d survive.
He passed Kabob Afrique, its faded green shutters latched open. Right now, he’d prefer a canastrelli biscuit, the traditional late-afternoon Corsican treat, with wine. And to be near sun-drenched, rose-yellow stone houses, basking in the last copper rays of the sun. Instead, he stood in a densely packed lane of silvery gray nineteenth-century buildings, in the wan wintry light.
The woman wearing the jean jacket was asking him something.
“Pardon, Monsieur . . .” Her bag dropped on the cobblestones in front of him.
He bent down to retrieve it at the same time she did. They knocked heads as their hands touched. “My fault, sorry,” she said.
Her flushed cheeks, huge eyes, and striking face put him off balance. He’d forgotten other women, stunning women, existed.
And then he saw fear in her eyes. She clutched her bag, stood, and retreated. She edged around the street corner into a narrow lane, getting away.
Women! He readjusted his cetera case. Then he glanced down the lane. He was aghast to see the glint of a knife being wielded by a man who had cornered the woman against a pile of broken furniture.
Thursday
LAURE HEARD THE VOICES. Faraway voices, punctuated with beeps, and shuffling footsteps. Cold, she was so cold. And her head so heavy and cotton filled. She tried to speak but her dry, thick tongue got in the way.
“What’s that?” said a young voice in her ear. “Good. I know you’re trying.”
What were those noises? The sounds, the moaning. They came from her. She felt a searing pain in her side. A flash of white passed by her. Then a smiling face was looking at her, a warm damp washcloth stroked her brow. The monitor tinkled beside her.
“Hello, Laure. You’re back with us now, aren’t you?”
She nodded and felt a dull throb behind her eyes.
“Try this.”
Ice chips traced her lips, her fat tongue licked them greedily.
“Slowly, Laure. You’re thirsty, non? Take it nice and slow.”
She sensed heated blankets laid over her feet, hot-water bottles shoring up her side. The licks of ice were chilly and invigorating. Drops of water trickled down her eager, parched throat.
She grew aware of shadows on the row of beds, the bustle of nurses, and the low monotone of a loudspeaker system somewhere in the background.
“Someone’s here to see you, Laure,” the voice said. “Says he’s an old friend. A family friend.”
Drooping eyes were watching her; a man sat in the chair next to her bed. His head nodded. “You had us worried, Laure. You look much better. Remember me, Laure?”
The retirement party, the café, and Jacques. It all flooded back. This was Morbier, her father’s old colleague.
“You don’t have to speak,” he told her. “Squeeze my hand if you understand.”
She had to speak, to tell him about the roof, the scaffolding . . . she had to talk. About coming to, and the men, the snow in her face. And how they laughed. Those men. And their gun, the other gun. Someone had taken hers. They’d kicked her when she reached for it. The glint of metal from his pocket. How everything went black again.
She spoke, but no sound came out.
Thursday, Late Evening
AIMÉE CURSED HER BAD luck. The mec who’d chased her after Zette’s murder was holding a knife to her face.