“Lost your way, Mademoiselle?” he asked, his voice dense as crème fraîche. His large, smoke-colored eyes crinkled in amusement, then his lips curled in a smile.
He had a wonderful smile.
It reminded her of Yves, her former boyfriend, a Middle East correspondent. Etienne Mabry’s lips curled the same way.
She and Yves had an on-again, off-again relationship, a disaster that had ended the year before on a corner in the old part of Cairo, sun-baked pyramids and buzzing flies for a backdrop.
“Sorry to disturb you,” she said, wishing she could fuse with a nearby pillar and just watch him. “I’ll wait until you’re finished.”
Etienne Mabry glanced at his watch and shook his head.
“We’re running into overtime again,” he said. “At our next Young Investors’ meeting, we’ll tackle Mademoiselle Scalbert’s argument as to what constitutes excessive risk and what’s smart.”
The Young Investors gathered their things. Some cast long looks at Aimée as they left. Mabry spoke to a student and then pulled on his jacket. “How can I help you?” he said, as he reached the door.
“Aimée Leduc,” she said, handing him her card. “Your uncle’s looking for you, too.”
He set down his worn brown leather briefcase. “Leduc Detective?” he asked, reading her card. “Is there some problem?”
“Christian Figeac’s been taken in for questioning,” she said. “He wants you to bail him out.”
Etienne Mabry’s brow creased with concern. “Not again.”
So this wouldn’t be the first time Mabry had rescued Christian from jail.
“I’ve been trying to reach you for some time,” she said.
He patted the breast pocket of his fine-checked blue shirt. He even wore a red tie de rigueur for a businessman. “My fault … I forgot my phone. So sorry to make you come here to find me! I sponsor the Young Investors from the local lycée, the high school where my partner and I volunteer.”
To her relief she realized he wasn’t her bad-boy type.
“What happened to Christian?” he asked.
“The flics took him to the Commissariat,” Aimée said. “Something to do with the Crédit Bank.”
Etienne Mabry looked puzzled.
“Which Commissariat?” he asked, turning to lock the door.
“Nearby, the SPQ* on rue d’Amboise,” she said. “I’m sure this isn’t news to you but he seems to have …” She paused on the stairs.
Mabry watched her intently, waiting. He didn’t help her finish her sentence. He guided her downstairs with his warm hand under her elbow, and she detected a faint smell of citrus in his cologne.
“… substance abuse problems,” she finished.
“Chronic ones,” Mabry said, his brow still furrowed, as they arrived outside. “Why are you involved, if you don’t mind my asking?”
“Something in the past involving his father and my mother.”
She winced. Had she said that out loud?
“Crédit Industriel et Commercial, you said?”
She nodded.
“Odd, both Figeacs banked with Barclays.”
He pulled out a helmet and mounted the black-and-chrome Harley-Davidson parked on the cobblestones in front of them.
Maybe there was some bad boy in him after all.
AIMÉE WAS puzzled. As she walked toward her office, she tried to make sense of Mabry’s comment about Christian’s bank account.
She wondered why Romain Figeac lived in the Sentier amid garment sweatshops, fabric wholesalers, and working girls: the rag and shag trade. It wasn’t fashionable or arty like the Left Bank, though she vaguely remembered that Balzac had set dramas in the Sentier and Zola had been born there. Had Romain Figeac been an antihero, opposed to the literary establishment?
*Service de Police du Quartier
She leaned against a column and pulled out her cell phone. She punched in the private number for Martine, her friend from the lycée and current editor at Madame Figaro, the watered-down right-wing women’s magazine.
“Allô, cheri?” breathed Martine after the first ring.
“Not even close,” said Aimée. “Should I call back?”
“Just wishful thinking, Aimée,” Martine said. “Jérôme’s taken his kid en vacances. Just because I moved in with him doesn’t mean I go on holidays en famille.”
Aimée hadn’t been too surprised when, after almost a year helming the right-wing daily Le Figaro, Martine had jumped to the women’s magazine. And she’d moved in with Jérôme, the publicity director, a divorce with a child. Joint custody was something Jérôme’s ex pursued with vigor, insisting on shared vacations. Martine walked on shards of glass until they returned. A boyfriend vacationing with his ex would bother Aimée, too.
“Mind if I pick your brain?”
“Do you ever do anything else?” said Martine, her voice husky. “Just take me to Alain Ducasse’s new restaurant, then I’ll be putty in your hands.”
That would cost next month’s rent. Martine sounded bored, and edgy.
“Madame Figaro having problems?”
“The Madame and I might soon agree to disagree,” Martine said. “Tiens, don’t get me started. What do you need?”
“A lot of things. Info on the connections between Haader-Rofmein and Action-Réaction gangs.”
“Time traveling? Blast from the past?”
“My mother. Kind of like that.”
“Let me look.” Aimée heard tapping as Martine’s long nails sped over the keyboard. The phone line clicked. “Hold on,” she said.
“Any man in your life?” Martine asked, sighing as she returned. “But then you’re different from me. I’d be crawling the ceiling.”
“Well, I met this suit,” Aimée said hesitantly. “A golden boy from the Bourse, but I doubt he’s interested in me.” She felt too embarrassed to even mention that his uncle was also a possibility.
“Aren’t you, what do they call it … evolved?” Martine breathed into the phone. “Call him.”
“Seems too ‘nice,’ but he has got a Harley.”
“Impressive,” Martine said. “You know capitalists have some good points.”
“We met under adverse conditions,” Aimée said.
“Doesn’t matter … you met!”
Another click on the line.
“It’s Jérôme, I have to get off,” Martine said. “About your mother, I’ll dig around.”
AIMÉE’S CELL phone rang.
“Allô?” “Christian Figeac called,” René said. “His financial advisor sprang him from the Commissariat. He felt contrite, says his father used to keep tapes in some panel.”
“Panel … where?”
Why hadn’t Christian mentioned this before?
Irritated, she paused in front of a busy tabac, taking in the late afternoon paper’s headlines: WORLD TRADE ORGANIZATION PROTEST and TERRORIST THREATS OF POISON GAS with photos of demonstrators being hauled away from the Palais des Congrès. When she saw the photo of a man captioned “Spokesman for Action-Réaction,” she slipped four francs into the vendor’s hand and folded it under her arm.
“The tapes are behind the desk in his father’s study. But he’s gone, he’ll return later,” René was saying. “He said he’d forgotten about them since his father kept most things at the bank or with his publisher.”
These tapes might contain information about her mother … why hadn’t Christian remembered sooner?
“I’ll stop at Romain Figeac’s, then come to the office.”
“I’m driving to Media 9,” he said. “A negotiation question and since you weren’t there …”