“Good to know,” Arnaud said, “for the next time we get a bloodstained restaurant check from Syria.”
When the evidence was encased, they examined it more carefully. In a rapid, feminine hand, it read: ‘Crécy, boeuf, eaux gaz 2g, saucis, pain, mousse choc 2, tasse, serv.’ The whorls of the letters looked like roller-coaster loops and pigtails, and after each entry was a number, the total being €83. Not surprisingly, the date was the same as the date of the murders, although the waitress had not written the year.
“Two people, Duvalier, one of whom is ours.”
“Maybe they paid with a credit card. Let’s go.”
“Later,” Arnaud said.
“Why Later?”
“I have to go to the dentist. The restaurant will be open in the evening. It might even be closed now.”
“All right. I’ll copy the check to show them, and give the original over for blood and prints. How can you wait? How can you stand it?”
“Because my tooth hurts. We’ve been at this for months. Nobody’s going anywhere. He says to eat fewer things with sugar. He’s right. I don’t even like it, really. It’s too sweet. I like flavor. I should be able to do without it, don’t you think?”
WHEN THEY ARRIVED at the restaurant it was early and almost no one was there. An old lady who had to have remembered the conquest and liberation of Paris was drinking red wine at a corner table. She wore a blocky black hat of the forties and, in the heat of August, a dark coat. Someone like that, both detectives sensed, whose husband was probably long gone, whose children, had she any, were old, and whose life had wilted, had reason to drink in a corner as she waited for nothing and knew it.
The head waiter’s pencil mustache made him look like he should have been in a silent film. As Renée’s husband or father, or whoever he was, approached them, menus in hand, they took out their identification.
“Is this familiar to you?” Arnaud asked, handing over the receipt.
“It’s our addition.”
“Did you write it?”
“No. Josette.”
“Is she still employed by you?”
“She’s right there,” he said, pointing to a woman polishing drinking glasses. All the two detectives had to do was pivot.
“Yes?” she said.
“Did you write this?” Duvalier asked. He handed her the receipt.
“I did.”
“What can you tell us about it?”
“It’s an order for two. Purée Crécy. We serve that in season due to the quality of the carrots harvested at Crécy. Boeuf Bourguignon, twenty Euros. Two Badoits. Saucisson de Lyon, fifteen Euros. Bread. Two mousses au chocolat. Tax. Service. You know, we don’t use carrots from Crécy, but no one can tell the difference. Perhaps I shouldn’t say that, because you’re policeman, but he didn’t know the difference.”
“Who?”
“The guy who ordered it.”
“Did he pay with a credit card?”
“Cash. We note credit cards.”
“Do you remember who he was?”
“Of course I do. He’s famous.”
“He’s famous?”
“Yes. I’ve seen him on television. Sometimes on the news, sometimes late at night. Once he was on for an hour, just talking. I don’t think I could talk on television for more than a second.”
“Who?”
She looked at them with contemptuous sheep eyes. They could see that she thought they were really stupid for not knowing the person she was thinking about. Then her expression changed to one of happy superiority. “Fran?ois Ehrenshtamm.” She smiled as if to say, ‘What unbelievable idiots!’
Duvalier answered, “Fran?ois Ehrenshtamm, really?”
“He comes in.”
“Do you remember whom he was with?” They were excited, because they were narrowing it down: Ehrenshtamm, perhaps, or his dining companion.
“Who he was with,” she corrected (she thought). “Different people. Sometimes alone.”
“But this time?”
She shook her head to say that she didn’t, and added a shrug of the shoulders as confirmation.
THE OVERWHELMING COLOR in Fran?ois’ apartment was red. It was as if he and his young wife and the beautiful, blue-eyed, baby girl in her arms lived inside a rose in summer. It must’ve been on purpose, part of his philosophy – while one was alive, at almost any cost, to seek heat, warmth, blood, vitality, fecundity. Who else would paint walls deep red? It was simultaneously comforting, enveloping, and exciting – just full of life. The baby’s aquamarine-blue eyes against the red made Duvalier and Arnaud feel that they had exited the world they knew, and they envied the beauty and warmth of that into which they suddenly had come.
Like most famous people, whose many surpluses allow them to be generous, Fran?ois welcomed his visitors graciously. He brought the two detectives into the living room – where immense bookshelves stretched from floor to ceiling four meters high – and, because dinner was over, offered them dessert. The rules didn’t oblige them to refuse, so they didn’t. Young Madame Ehrenshtamm – the baby content in a sling in front of her and curious enough to turn her head to the guests each time her mother changed direction – brought chocolate mousse and tea.
“Your favorite,” Duvalier said.
Only somewhat surprised, because it was not exactly a wild guess, Fran?ois answered, “Yes.”
“You like it at Chez Renée?”
“Absolutely.” Unthreatened, Fran?ois waited for the line of questioning. He enjoyed the prospect, as he was used to questions, challenges, and verbal sparring, and justly thought himself at least the equal of even the most skilled advocate. He had triumphed once at a trial, emerging from hostile cross-examination the complete master of the proceedings.
“And you like Purée Crécy?”
“I do, yes. It’s a childhood food, like madeleines.”
“Proust,” Arnaud said.
“Proust,” Fran?ois echoed, not quite condescendingly.
“So,” Duvalier went on, “do you remember the last time you had purée Crécy, and mousse au chocolat at Chez Renée?”
“Not really. It must’ve been quite a while ago.”
“Last fall?”
Fran?ois looked like it was coming back to him. “Maybe.”
“And your dinner companion had boeuf Bourguignon.”
“How do you know that?”
“We have witnesses and documentation.”
“You have witnesses and documentation? For my dinner at a restaurant?”
“Yes. We know the time and the date, that you were there. All we need to know is who was with you.”
“Why?”
“That’s the subject of investigation.”
Feeling that he had already done enough to damage Jules, Fran?ois grew reticent.
“Who was it?” Arnaud asked.
“It was a long time ago. I often eat out with friends, colleagues, interviewers, editors.”
“Yes, but you know who it was.”
“How do you know I know?”
“Your expression. You’re covering.”
“You’re sure of that?”
“I am. This is what we do. Sorry,” Duvalier told him, “but the penalty for obstructing an investigation is not nothing.”
“The investigation is not about something serious, is it?” Madame Ehrenshtamm asked.