Above, the punching noise of machinery grew louder. Voices, in what sounded like Chinese, pattered from an open window. She peered closer. Across the well, open windows spiraled upward along the path of the stairs. Opposite her, one was cracked open. A dark-skinned man, his hair tied back, fed cloth into an industrial sewing machine. She could see mattresses behind him stacked against the walls.
Did these workers sleep here? Sprawl after work on the floor in buildings little changed from the fifteenth century?
The solid door opened in front of her and a muttered curse caught her before she could move. Several faces looked up from the pressing machines.
“What are you doing standing here, eh?” Nessim asked. With his long face and jowly cheeks, he resembled a basset hound. His brown suede jacket enhanced the effect, she thought.
“Monsieur, I’m looking for …”
“The showroom’s downstairs,” he interrupted, edging her toward the staircase.
“But you’re the patron, of course,” she said, managing a smile. Widening it and winking. “C’est dur. You’re a hard one to catch up with.”
“Like I said …” His eyes narrowed, looking her up and down. Sizing her up. Good thing she had the leather jacket on.
“I’m a location scout for Canalt + film,” she said, improvising.
“The cinema?”
“A historical production, a made-for-TV drama,” she said, injecting a world-weary tone into her voice. “You know, a sixteenth-century vehicle for Depardieu, his favorite kind. Good thing he plays the king, he’s gotten immense.”
In the dim light, she saw the man grin. Then frown. He had an olive complexion and wore gold chains around his neck.
“Why here?” he asked.
Good point, she thought, standing in this peeling arched hallway, plaster crumbling onto the weather-beaten tiles and pigeon droppings coating the opaque glass. The sweatshop crew watched them.
“Cutting corners on a fast production schedule,” she said, her voice lowered. “We plan to use parts of the Sentier, filming at night and on weekends when it’s empty. Paris can be a cheap location with a local crew.”
The man nodded. Cheap and quick, he understood.
She glanced around. “After all, the old wall of Paris ran through here, didn’t it?”
She was making this up as she went along. But she remembered from her school days that Charles V had built battlements that crossed the present-day Sentier.
He liked that, she could tell. Maybe she’d just made a friend.
“Come with me to my office.”
He locked the door with a slender long-handled key and gestured for her to go ahead. Now no one could see them.
She stuck Etienne’s gun against his ribs. “Let’s meet Jules instead.” He tried to sprint past her but she stuck her foot out and tripped him. He crashed into the stone wall. She put the gun to his temple, rolled back the trigger.
“Where’s Jules?”
He was breathing short and quick. “He didn’t show up.”
“Why?
Nessim tried to twist away but she pinched a nerve in his neck and he went stiff with pain.
“That’s just for appetizers.” She pinched harder.
“I don’t know,” he gasped.
“You’re Michel’s uncle Nessim, aren’t you?”
Surprise painted his face. He nodded.
“That’s another reason I don’t like you,” she said. “But you’re going legit soon. And all your little sweatshops, too. The ones with poisonous equipment that give people TB.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I didn’t like all those fake credit guarantees by the Kookie Mode company, which fronted for Michel’s supplies, and the ordered merchandise that they never paid for, and then their filing for bankruptcy. You face seven years in Frésnes.”
“I’ll be a poor man …”
“But a happy one,” she said. “Where’s Jules?”
He shook his head.
“He was late. Before our appointment, he was meeting those old radicals.”
“Action-Réaction?”
He nodded, his eyes fearful.
“Stay here for awhile.” She shoved him into a dark alcove, and, grabbing pink plastic twine from boxes in the hall, twisted it around his wrists and ankles just as she had tied Etienne. Tight. She was getting good at doing this with a gun in her hand. “Think about how good you’ll feel starting a new life after giving Michel that building with all new electric wiring.”
She slipped Etienne’s gun back into her backpack. Nessim’s eyes popped. He started shouting. She pulled off his shoe, slipped off his dirty gray sock, and stuffed it into his mouth.
SHE WALKED quickly toward Action-Réaction, taking a short-cut through another passage.
From the far end of the dim, deserted passage came the sounds of the shops’ closing up: the emptying of garbage, locks clicking. Suddenly a whizzing sliced by her ear and the half-silvered long mirror in front of her shattered.
A bullet … she ducked, fell over a trash bin and scrambled over the floor. A sharp pain sliced her calf then raced up her thigh as a glass shard cut her. Cloth and material scattered over the uneven tiles. Feathers and bits of fiberfill sprayed over her, like snow in July. She clawed her way over the damp material and leaned against the passage wall.
No time to catch her breath. Ahead of her the metal grate over the passage exit had been locked!
Footsteps pounded in the distance.
She pulled herself up on the protruding water pipe that snaked over the stone wall. As she dug her toes in where the pipes joined and gripped the rusted metal supports, she wished she was wearing high-tops instead of Manolo Blahnik heels. Every toehold hurt. But the only way out was over the passage’s glass roof.
The tinted, metal-framed glass peaked above the locked passage. Grayish blue light dribbled over the dark storefronts, creating a webbed pattern on the tiled floor. The rusted fire escape at the far end was broken; she had no option.
She clutched the stonework, feeling the pipe sway dangerously below the oval mezzanine window that overlooked the passage like a balcony. Two floors rose above her. Below in the shadows, she heard the metallic click of a door.
She shimmied up the stone, reaching and pulling herself to the next window ledge, which was dusty and sharp. An ominous crack came from the pipe and she climbed faster, searching for toeholds, panting and praying. She tried not to look down but every few meters her grip slipped and her eyes locked on the dirty tile below.
Power tools, glass rectangles, and metal rods filled the walkway skirting the glass roof. She jumped onto the walkway, landing by a bucket of plaster, hammers, and saws. She stood and tried the window handle. Rusted shut. No way to get out.
Thuds and pounding shook the water-stained door on her right.
Whoever it was had made it up here by the stairway while she’d had to do it the hard way.
She reached into the pack for the .357 and used it as a hammer against one of the panes in the heavy glass roof. The several-meter-thick glass didn’t even chip. She didn’t want to waste bullets so she put back the .357 and picked up the nail gun at her feet, flicked the switch, and shot nails into the glass, which veined into rivers of tiny cracks, sparkling in the dim light. Panes quivered and then shattered.
Stooping, she was about to crawl through the hole she had made when an arm caught her and spun her around.
Gisela’s face glistened.
“Like I said, I’m good at following up,” she said, pointing a Beretta, like Aimée’s, at her. “They belong to me. My mother died for them.”
“The diamonds? Your mother committed suicide because her political convictions crumbled and she couldn’t take prison anymore,” Aimée said. “But wherever they are, you’re welcome to them. Ask Jules.”