A Twist of Orchids (34 page)

“So Serge grabs me and dumps me in a tub of water, a Jacuzzi,
quoi.
They turn the jets on and he shoves my head under and keeps it there until I think I’m going to burst. Then he pulls me up for a bit and the Ton asks if I’ve changed my mind, and when I say no, Serge pushes me under again and keeps on doing it until I’ve pretty much swallowed the whole fucking tub,
quoi.
On one of my times up I hear the woman say they should be careful not to drown me, but Serge keeps on shoving me under and pulling me up until I crack,
quoi.
I say, ‘Okay, okay, I’ll do it.’ So then the Ton says, ‘Lift him.’ So Serge pulls me out and dumps me on the ground, and I’m puking my guts out in a fucking flower bed. And the Ton says, ‘Okay, we got a deal.’ And he says to Serge, ‘Get him out of here and lose him.’”

“That was it?” Mara broke in, incredulous. “Luca let you go like that?”

“Well, he got what he wanted.” Kazim sounded aggrieved. “He knew I’d keep my end of the bargain, because if I didn’t, he’d fix me, and not just me, my parents, too,
quoi.
But I told him, no way. They had to drive me back to Périgueux because I didn’t know where the fuck I was, and I had to get my bike,
quoi.
”

“
Zut!
” Julian had to admire the kid’s crazy nerve.

“So Serge took me back to Nadia’s, but my bike wasn’t where I left it. I figured,
merde
, some shithead’s stolen it. I went up.
Nadia looked like she’d seen a ghost. Then I knew my bike hadn’t been stolen, the bitch had sold it. I hadn’t been gone more than a few hours, and she’d already sold my bike,
quoi!
She said she thought I was history, so why would I need it?

“But she had a bigger problem than me on her hands. Peter had been into her fanny pack and took the H she had off me. He’d overdosed, and now he was out cold. I had a look at him. ‘He’s not out,’ I told her. ‘He’s meat.’ She knew it, just didn’t want to believe it,
quoi.
Brigitte had taken off by then, and Nadia was in a real sweat. She didn’t want a dead junkie on her hands. So I told her I’d take care of it, but she had to give me the money she got for my bike. She said she only got a thousand euros, but I said, ‘Don’t con me, bitch. That bike was worth ten thousand new,’ and she coughed up another two thousand. I figure she still kept most of it back. Junkies are like that,
quoi.
”

“So that’s when you got the idea to put Peter’s body in the skip? You put your ID on the body so it would be identified as you?”

“Yeah. Nothing with a photo on it and enough cash to make it look right. Nadia helped me carry Peter down. I wanted to leave him in the street, where he’d be found right away, but she insisted on putting him in the skip and covering him up with junk.”

“You’re a right piece of work,” Julian informed him. “I don’t suppose it ever occurred to you that Peter has family who should have been informed of his death, who still need to be told?”

“It was a way out of my problem, all right?” Kazim said, with the heartlessness of youth. “Anyway, I told Nadia she had to lose herself, and if she got picked up by the cops she had to swear the body was mine,
quoi.
She said she’d do it, and I knew she would because with the Ton thinking I was dead, the heat’d be off her,
quoi.
That’s how her mind works. But now I had another problem, because my parents were going to think I was dead.”

“Good of you to consider it.”

Kazim said defensively, “Look, I called my father, okay? I told him, I’m alive, but tomorrow they’re going to find a body with my ID on it,
quoi.
I said if he wanted me to go on breathing he had to identify the body as mine, not to ask questions, and not to tell my mother. That was the hard part”—Julian was surprised to hear Kazim’s voice catch slightly—“letting my mother go on thinking I was dead. But I knew she’d tell the cops if she found out the truth. I figured once the Ton heard I was history, he’d leave my parents alone. But it didn’t work like that. He never really needed me, just the shop as a front, and he could deal with my father just as well as me,
quoi.
Except my father wouldn’t go along with it.”

“And that’s why Luca had him beaten up,” Julian concluded.

“Yeah,” said the Ismets’ son, after which he fell silent. By then, they were entering Brames. Julian wanted to believe that Kazim was thinking about what he would say to his mother when she discovered that he had faked his own death. He wondered what Osman would say to Betul, for that matter.

Kazim insisted that they take him in through the back. He was terrified of being seen by Luca’s goons, who might be watching the shop. Julian could understand his fear, since the lad was supposed to be dead, but it was half past nine at night, and there was no one in the streets. All the same, he obliged. The alley, as they nosed into it, was empty. Julian pulled up behind the shop. The downstairs of the Ismets’ building was dark. Only a single light showed in an upper window.

“Get out,” Julian said, opening the rear door of the van and dragging Kazim out by his feet.

“Hey, untie me. How do you expect me to walk,
quoi?
”

“Hop.” Julian was taking no chances with the Ismets’ slippery son. “You have a key, or do you knock?”

“I got a key,” said Kazim sulkily. He indicated his jeans pocket. Mara dug it out. It came on a ring attached to a metal disk stamped with a death’s head. However, she found that the door had been left unlocked.

“That’s funny,” said Kazim. “My parents always lock up at night.”

Mara turned back. “I don’t like this.”

“Neither do I,” muttered Julian. Nervously he pushed the door open and listened. Silence. “You’d better be playing straight with us, Kazim,” he hissed and maneuvered the boy through the doorway first, securing him by the belt. They stepped inside.

In that instant several things happened. The door slammed shut behind them, there was a rush of movement, the darkness was suddenly bulky with bodies, and a gruff voice that Mara and Julian both recognized shouted: “Freeze! You’re surrounded!” Kazim pitched forward, pulling Julian with him to the ground. Then the lights went on.

Jacques Compagnon was furious.

“
Imbéciles!
” he roared. “You have compromised our only chance of catching Rocco Luca in flagrante. You are obstructing the law in the exercise of its functions—”

Julian sat up to reveal the prone form beneath him.

“This,” he said, cutting through the stream of the adjudant’s invective, “is Kazim Ismet.”

Compagnon’s prominent eyes bulged. “What?”

“I think he has a lot to tell you.” Tenderly, Julian fingered his left elbow where it had struck the floor.

“
Bordel!
” spat the adjudant. “I’ll wager he does.”

“I’m not saying anything until I’ve seen a lawyer,” said Kazim. “It’s my right. What have you done with my parents?”

Compagnon smiled unpleasantly. “Your mother is upstairs. Keeping company with Gendarme Sauret. Your father”—the veins in the adjudant’s neck swelled—“is being entertained by the drug squad in Marseille. Earlier today he took delivery of a crate of six dozen cans of olives laced with heroin, my lad. Two kilograms of the stuff. It was tagged by a sniffer dog at the port.”

“A dog can smell through cans?” Mara marveled.

“Easily.”

Kazim made a strangled noise. “You’re crazy. My father wouldn’t get involved in something like this.”

“I’ve got news for you,
mon gars.
He is involved. Our telephone surveillance logged a call to your father at 11:03 last night
ordering him to meet a shipment due to arrive at Marseille port at thirteen hundred hours this afternoon. He doesn’t normally drive all the way to Marseille for a crate of olives, does he? We couldn’t trace the call back to Luca—the bastard uses throwaways—but we know the word came from him all right. Your father’s
linked
, Kazim. The only thing that will go in his favor is that he turned himself in.”

“What?” said Julian.

“That’s right,” said Compagnon, and he sounded more outraged than pleased. “Customs let the crate pass in the expectation that whoever came for it would lead us to Luca. Unfortunately, it was Osman Ismet, and he gave himself up voluntarily on the spot.” The brigade leader’s features shaped into a horrible grimace. “He told a customs officer he
thought
there
might
be something funny with the olives. God in heaven! We could have landed Luca in it, but Ismet short-circuits the whole operation by singing like a choirboy! After that, our only hope was that Ismet was supposed to bring the shipment back to the store. He was to set the crate inside the rear door and leave it unlocked. He only thought to inform the drug squad of this when he realized his wife would be in for it if Luca’s goons came and found no olives. The drug squad informed us. We were waiting for Luca to take delivery”—Compagnon’s face turned nearly purple—“when
you
turned up.”

“Look,” pleaded Kazim, and for the first time Julian had the impression that he was worried about someone other than himself. “You’ve got it all wrong. The heroin was me, okay? I mean, before this. I was doing a little business on the side,
quoi
, but my parents knew nothing about it. First of all, they would never deal drugs. Second, they’d never order that many olives at one time. Besides, two kilos of H? That’s chicken piss. It’s more than I ever handled, but way less than Ton-and-a-Half would even bother
with. He’s expecting a big shipment, I mean
une grosse affaire, quoi
, but it has nothing to do with us.”

“A big shipment?” Compagnon demanded hoarsely, “How big?”

“He didn’t say.”

“How do you know all this?”

Kazim recounted his experience in the Jacuzzi. “After they hauled me out, I heard him talking about it.”

“Luca?” Compagnon wanted to be certain. “You’re positive it was Luca?”

Kazim shrugged. “Sure. I saw him,
quoi.
He said a mom-and-pop outfit like Lokum had its uses, but he wouldn’t risk using us for something really heavy. Anyway, why would the Ton even want to touch us? He must have figured you were already all over the shop because of me. I think he just wanted a front.” Kazim looked resentful. “I heard him say something about a
passe-passe.
”

“
Passe-passe?
” Compagnon said sharply. A conjuring trick. His color went from white to red with shock and anger.

“Now you see it, now you don’t,” murmured Julian.

“
Putain!
” roared the adjudant, and expelled a volley of even stronger curses. He looked as if he would explode. “Are you telling me while the sniffer dogs were occupied with a crate of
maudits
olives, something else came in on that Ropax?”

“Ropax?” Julian stiffened.“Are you talking about the
Bosporus I?
”

“Exactly.”

“What day is it?” Julian asked urgently.

“The sixth,” said Mara. “Why?”

“You,” Julian addressed himself to Kazim. “The woman you said you saw with Luca. What did she look like?”

“Don’t know. I just got a glimpse of her,
quoi.
They were trying to drown me, remember?” Kazim’s tone was petulant.

“Think, you little prick,” Julian said in a barely contained voice.

“Okay. Okay.” Kazim spoke very quickly. “She had crazy red hair,
quoi
, and big bazookas.”

Julian swung around to the brigade head. “What time did the
Bosporus I
dock?”

“A little past one.”

Julian checked his watch. Ten past ten.

He said, “She was bringing back a load of orchids. Adjudant Compagnon, I think I know how the drugs came in. Trouble is, by now we may be too late to catch her.”

“Her name is Adelheid Besser,” Julian told the gendarmes. “She’s an orchid collector and breeder. She went to Turkey for a conference. She traveled out on the
Bosporus I.
She was due back today, and that’s probably how she returned.”

“And you think the drugs are coming in with the plants?”

“If she was the one Kazim saw, then she’s clearly involved with Luca, and it’s a good bet that’s how they’re doing it. The orchids make a good cover. Customs focuses on the plants. Their interest would be on spotting a rare species she might be trying to smuggle in, not on drugs. But, of course, she’d have all the necessary import documentation because the orchids are for scientific purposes. She’s got some kind of research project going with people in Turkey. The plants would have cleared easily.”

Compagnon ordered two officers to remain at Lokum and called the gendarmes staking out Luca’s residence.

“He’s not here, sir,” said the officer who responded. “Do you want us to remain?”

“Damn right,” barked the adjudant. He then called Brames for reinforcements to join the team at Luca’s.

Compagnon, Laurent, and Julian jumped into a police car that Albert brought to a squealing halt in front of the store. Four more gendarmes piled into a second vehicle. Mara wanted to pile in as well, but Compagnon told her irritably to return to the store and give her statement to Lucie Sauret who, with her partner, was remaining to guard Betul and Kazim. Before Mara could
protest, he slammed the car door in her face. Julian powered down his window.

“Be reasonable, Mara. Do what the adjudant said. I’ll see you back at the house.” He tossed her the keys to his van.

He directed them out of the town, onto the D660, then north toward Queyssac. The village was dark and silent as they sped through it. After continuing for another few kilometers, Julian realized that he had missed the turnoff. He told Albert to go back. Albert braked hard and swung around sharply, nearly side-swiping the gendarmes following them.

“
Bordel!
” roared Compagnon as Albert veered wildly. They bounced over the rough shoulder, teetered on the brink of a ditch, regained the road, nearly hit another oncoming vehicle, and shot back down the way they had come. The second car of gendarmes completed an equally reckless U-turn and came roaring up behind them.