Murder at the Lanterne Rouge (5 page)

René climbed into the car, brushing a soggy brown leaf from the shoulder of his wool overcoat.

“Since when do you carry this loaded?”

“The last time I was shot made me cautious.” A grim smile. “You never know what you’re up against.”

True. Yet it didn’t ease her worry that René might go vigilante. She put the Glock on top of his car registration and shut the glove compartment.

“Ching Wao understood when I said Meizi’s name.” He readjusted the height of his adjustable seat. “The rest was in Chinese. But we’ll go to his address on rue de Saintonge.”

He gunned the Citroën up the ramp and over Pont d’Austerlitz.

“René, you’ve known Meizi less than two months.”

His jaw set in a hard line. She’d never seen him so upset. “You’re thinking she’s illegal. I don’t care. But I know she’s terrified, Aimée. And there’s nothing more to say until I get the truth from Ching Wao.”

They drove into the honeycomb of narrow streets edging the Marais. Years ago her grandfather had told her the street names reflected the professions of the ancient quartier: rue des Cordelières, road of the rope-makers; rue des Arquebusiers, musket-makers; Passage de l’Horloge à Automates, watchmakers and windup machines. He never tired of reminding her that rue du Pont aux Choux—Bridge of Cabbages—was named after a medieval bridge spanning the open sewers. Or how he’d investigated a case on rue des Vertus—road of the virtuous—where hookers plied their trade.

Traffic crawled, almost at a standstill.

The image of the man’s body in the light of the red lantern came back to her. Her stomach clenched. His gnawed flesh, those vacant eyes.

René parked near Cathédrale Saint-Croix des Arméniens, the small Armenian church. No. 21, their destination, sported chipped dark-green doors and a Digicode. Aimée tried to stifle her rising suspicions that Meizi was part of an illegal ring that preyed on Frenchmen. But that was ridiculous; she cleaned toilets.

“Doubt your dental floss will work here, Aimée.”

Wrong type of door. Damn, why didn’t she carry that casting putty anymore? The universal postman’s key, which she still hadn’t given back to Morbier, wouldn’t work either.

“We’ll have to wait until someone comes out,” René said.

“I don’t like waiting.” Aimée took her LeClerc face powder and makeup brush out of her bag and brushed the keypad with powder. She compared the congealed fingerprint oil to locations on the keypad.

René blinked. “Giving the Digicode a makeover?”

“Utility chic, René,” she said. “How many combinations can you get out of the numbers 459 and letter A?”

“Two hundred fifty-six,” he said, a nanosecond later.

Amazing. She’d need a calculator.

He reached up on his toes peering closer. “Given the alphanumeric proximity and location …” His voice trailed off. “Let’s try this.” He hit four keys.

The small door in the massive one clicked open. “Impressive, René. You got it on the first try.”

He stepped over the wooden doorframe and into the damp courtyard of what looked like an old metal foundry. Inside was a glass-roofed atelier, and ironwork everywhere. Beside the dilapidated townhouse on the left stood a Regency-era theater, complete with pillars and arabesque stonework. Amazing what lay behind the walls, she thought.

“Ching Wao? Never knew the name. Never spoke with them,” said the white-haired man who met them inside the atelier. “Chinese moved out. Gone.” He set down an iron rod,
picked up his cup of steaming coffee. Thought for a moment. “Yesterday. Or maybe today.”

Aimée scanned the weedy courtyard. “Where’s his office?”

“I wouldn’t call it an office,” he said.

“So what did he do there?”

“Like I know?” he said. “Back on the right by the rear entrance.”

A narrow dripping stone-walled passage led to a door labeled Wao SARL Ltd. Through dirt-encrusted windows she saw an empty desk, chairs. She tried the door. Locked. But the window yielded to a push. A few shoves and she’d opened it enough to reach in and grasp the door handle.

“Try his number, René. I wouldn’t want to break in while he’s on the toilet.”

René shook his head. “Number’s disconnected.”

A grim look settled on his face. “Let me do the honors.”

She noticed the bulge in his overcoat pocket. The Glock.

René kicked the door open.

In the high glass-ceilinged room, half-drunk cups of tea sat on the metal desk. Chinese newspapers, a pink plastic hair-band, and a black telephone lay on top. The tea was warm.

“We just missed him,” René said.

The only decoration was a world map tacked on the wall. Aimée studied it, and saw circles drawn around cities: Canton, Bangkok, Trieste, Bucharest, Zurich.

Some kind of trade route? Or smuggling stations?

She opened the desk drawers. Nothing.

Aimée didn’t know what to think, but it didn’t look good.

Back at the car, René shook his head. “There’s something wrong.”

More than wrong.

“We’re going to the luggage shop.”

Unease filled her. With René carrying a loaded Glock, things could go very wrong. She thought quickly. “Give me
your phone, I’ll call the shop and we’ll clear this up.” She hit the number. She pressed
END
after ten rings.

“No answer,” she said. “
Bien sûr
, the Wus are at the
commissariat
giving a statement.” She sighed. “That could take hours.”

“So we’ll go, find them, and tell Prévost—”

“Forget it,” she interrupted. “Right now, they’re with interpreters in a back room. Besides, he’ll call us in later. Better we hear from them first.”

René punched the steering wheel.

“You don’t know that, Aimée. I have to talk to Meizi.”

She needed to buy herself time, get to Meizi first. “More important, we need to know what this Ching Wao’s up to, René,” she said. “He rented a space, has a business, employees. Someone has to know about him. There are records. Go look them up.”

“That’s your game plan?”

“The
flics
and Prévost will keep their mouths shut, but we have a stake in this,” she said, wrapping her scarf. “Get on the computer, sniff around. It’s the best way to find out.”

But René gunned the engine, turned into the narrow street. “I know she’s there. They open early for deliveries. Meizi works in back.”

Trucks clogged the street. The luggage shop shutters were rolled down.

“I told you, René.” She bit her lip. Had the Wus done a runner like Ching Wao? She had to find out.

René peered at the shop front. “
Merde!
”

“I’ll sit on this and let you know when she arrives. No reason to wait in the cold street or in the car,” she said. “See what you can find out on Ching Wao.”

Keep him busy.

“My former hacker student works in records at the
mairie
,” he said. She saw the wheels spinning in his mind.

“Brilliant.” Impatient, she stared at the traffic on rue de
Bretagne. “I’ll get out, grab a coffee and wait. I’ll call you the minute they show up.”

She jumped out before he could protest. The snow had melted to gray slush on the cobbles, spattering her boots.

Twenty minutes later, after a steaming espresso at a nearby café, she found the luggage shop’s shutters open. Men unloaded boxes from palettes in the back of a truck double-parked in front. She shivered, remembering the man’s body on the palette last night.

“
Bonjour
,” Aimée called out as she entered the luggage shop. But no
bonjour
in response. Were they in the back?

Aimée fought her way down a narrow aisle stacked with roller bags of every size and color. Knockoff faux-leather handbags hung like streamers from the walls above piles of boxes. The smell of incense from a red-lacquered wall shrine competed with the synthetic plastic aromas of the merchandise.

“
Allô?
”

The only answer was the grunting from the martial arts movie playing on the small
télé
behind the counter.

Scraping noises came from an open side door. She peered into the dank hallway running alongside the shop toward the open courtyard. A young woman, wearing a white cap over her black hair, was stacking cartons of sweatshirts against the wall, her back to Aimée.

Meizi.

“Meizi, René’s so worried.”

A carton toppled.

“
Aiiya!
” The young woman looked up, her cheeks flushed. A round face, uneven teeth, thick black eyebrows. Not Meizi at all.

Aimée hit the light switch, a yellowed enamel knob protruding from the wall. “
Excusez-moi
, where’s Meizi?”

Fear filled the young woman’s face. She backed away.

Determined, Aimée stepped over the uneven stone pavers. Something crunched under her boots. Spilled pumpkins seeds. “Can we talk a moment?”

“No speak
Français
,” the woman called out, and pointed back in the shop.

Aimée had to talk to her somehow. “Let me help you,” she said.

She lifted up the carton of sweatshirts. Heavy, like a sack of potatoes. She wondered how a small woman could lift all this. And at the diversity of the enterprise.

“
Non, merci
.” The girl bit her lip.

She wanted Aimée gone. Now.

Rapid-fire Chinese came from the shop. Footsteps. The Wus had returned. Aimée stepped back inside, to more overpowering synthetic smells. Her nose tickled. Two grunting men in parkas carried stacks of cardboard cartons in from the truck parked out front. Order upon order was arriving.

A middle-aged man, the fluorescent light shining on his bald spot, looked up from behind the counter. He switched off the
télé
. “
Oui?
” From his arm hung several fuchsia faux-leather handbags.

“
Bonjour
, would you tell Monsieur Wu I’m here?”

“We only sell wholesale,” he said.

Odd. “Is Monsieur Wu in back?”

The man straightened up. “
Oui
, how can I help you?”

But he wasn’t Meizi’s father, whom she’d eaten dinner with last night. Impatient, she made an effort to keep smiling. “
Non
, I mean the man who owns the shop with his wife,” she said. “His daughter Meizi works here.”

The man shrugged. “My wife’s in China.”

Her skin prickled. This didn’t make sense. “Wait a minute.” She struggled toward the back counter. “You’re Meizi’s uncle,
non?
I’m looking for her father, the older Monsieur Wu I met last night.”

“Last night, we closed six o’clock. See nothing.” He smiled. “I tell
flics
this morning, too.”

Had she entered some alternate universe?

“What the hell’s going on?”

“No problem,” he said. “I show you my business license.”

“Where’s the couple who owns this shop?”

“You see my sales permit, export lading and bills of sale,” he said as if she hadn’t spoken.

Was he worried about the tax unit, infamous for swoop investigations?

“Monsieur, I asked you a question.”

But he turned—not easy in the aisle crowded with stacked and open boxes—and pointed to the framed business license by the cash register. He pushed a worn binder at her and opened it. “All in order.” He smiled. “You check. I work here. I Monsieur Wu.”

“Then I’m Madame Chirac.”

“You look here.” He jabbed his ink-stained finger at the sales permit printed with the name Feng Wu.

Why did he pretend not to understand? He played a game and she didn’t know the rules.

“I busy. Unpack shipment.” His French deteriorated the more he spoke. His face remained a smiling mask. “Wholesale clients only.”

She scanned the dates on the license. The sales permit was dated 1995. “Did you work here in 1995?”

He nodded, and glanced at the cell phone vibrating among the papers strewn over the counter. He ran his finger over a payment log.

“I open business in 1995. Work here every day.”

A blast of cold air rattled the cardboard. Voices signaled arriving clients.

“The man murdered last night behind the shop knew Meizi Wu. He had her picture.”

This Monsieur Wu looked down. “I don’t know. I never see him.” He folded his hands over his chest. Defensive.

Aimée stared at the business license. The forms in the binder. Everything matched.

But he’d given her an idea. She’d play his game, whatever it was.

“
Mon Dieu
, I can’t find anything in here,” she said, rummaging in her shoulder bag, pulling out mascara, her checkbook, keys. “Mind holding this just a moment?” She thrust her
rouge-noir
nail polish bottle in his hands. “
Désolée
. Glass, you know, wouldn’t want it to break.”

The surprised Monsieur Wu held it, his thin black eyebrows raised.

She smiled, gave a little sigh. “
Et voilà
,” she said, pulling a card from the collection in her bag. Imprinted with a Ministry logo. Generic. She had one for each ministry.

“You from tax office, no fool me. I cooperate.”

She smiled. “Not quite, but that’s good you’re cooperating, Monsieur.” Her smile widened and she plucked the nail polish bottle from his hand, slipping it into a plastic bag in her purse.

“
Merci
.” She handed him the card. “We at the office
d’habitation et domicile
take details seriously,” she said. “Your residence isn’t listed on the permit. That’s because you live upstairs, illegally. We checked that room last night and found illegals, sleeping men. Lots of them. We think you’re subletting.” She shook her head. “Illegal according to the statute AB34, unless your business permit includes a residence permit.”

He blinked. For a moment she thought she had him.

“So my team will need to investigate the premises. Write up our report. Say this afternoon?”

She’d stirred the pot. If he’d hurt the Wus, or was in cahoots with them, this would flush them out.

He reached in the drawer and produced a ledger, which he
set on the counter. He opened it and ran his finger down a column. “I live Ivry. Suburb. See rent in this column. My shop pay from my earnings. All here. All correct.”