And it hit her. The cellar the comrade kept her bike in—the old-fashioned key Natasha mentioned—could it be the key to a cellar storage space? The cellar Madame Figuer lent her wheelbarrow to Yuri to empty out? Aimée needed to get down there.
She passed the visitor log with the signatures of Khrushchev and Brezhnev and tiptoed out before the tour guide noticed.
At the concierge’s loge she didn’t have long to wait. A young man wearing jeans set down a Darty shopping bag.
“You’re early,” he said. “My mother’s showing the apartment in twenty minutes.”
“No problem,” she said, improvising. “I want to rent space for my bike. Can you show me?”
“The cellar space goes with the apartment. Desolé.”
She sighed. “I’m tired of having bikes stolen. The third one in two months. I need it for work. Really, it doesn’t take much room. I’d share.”
“Talk to my mother.”
She was desperate to get down there. “But I heard an old man’s storage got emptied. My friend helped clean it out, a real mess he said.”
The young man took out his door key. “That’s the truth. Like a dump. Left for years.”
Her ears perked up.
“Gave my mother a real headache, trying to get his son, the old man, to empty it.”
“But I don’t care. Can’t I just see it? You’d really help me out.”
“She’s in charge, desolé, not up to me.” He opened the door.
She couldn’t let him go.
“Could I measure it? We’d go for the apartment if I knew I could fit the bikes and an old chest down there.” She smiled. “I love this street. Had my eye on the building. I know I could convince my boyfriend, but …”
“The soccer match on the télé starts in three minutes.” He picked up his bag.
Poor mec, she hated to push but couldn’t lose this opportunity. “Would you mind giving me the cellar key?” She gave another smile. “Won’t take me but ten minutes. Then I’ll tour the apartment with your mother.”
A sigh, then he reached for something inside the closet. Handed her an old-fashioned, rusted key. “Number C-twenty-four. Watch out for rat droppings. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
He wanted to get rid of her and watch the game. Fine by her.
Her penlight beam wavered over the dirt floor in the cellar tunnel. A row of water-stained coved doors with numbers stretched along the cellar tunnel. Only a single naked bulb illuminated the space.
C24 opened with the key and a wave of musty air hit her. What was she looking for? A sign that Yuri had found a Modigliani that had been left here for more than seventy years? All she discovered in the shadows were rat turds and a broken chair on the hard earth floor.
“Mademoiselle?”
A plump black-haired woman shone a flashlight.
“I’ve already rented the apartment.” Her words rolled with an Italian accent. “The storage goes with it. You’ll need to find another place for your bicycle.”
“A shame, but merci, Madame,” Aimée said, racking her mind for a way to prolong the conversation. This woman might offer some insight. “Nice cleanup for a space full of seventy-something years’ worth of garbage. Least that’s what your son—”
“Porca miseria, don’t get me started,” the woman said. “A health hazard. I could do nothing until that old buzzard’s son finally came. He should thank me, he should. Found a masterpiece, or so he claimed.”
The woman liked to talk. And used her hands, evidenced by the flashlight’s yellow beam waving over the damp stone walls.
“By masterpiece you mean a painting?” Aimée shook her head. “Like a Rembrandt?”
The woman shrugged. “I don’t know. He seemed excited enough. These things happen, sì? People find treasures at flea markets, in attics. Down here all that time, wrapped up. Wouldn’t surprise me if it’s worth a fortune, that’s how it always happens. But you only know for sure if you get it appraised.”
Aimée followed the flashlight beam back up the steps, glad to leave the whiffs of decay and humidity behind her. Mortar crumbled under her feet.
“That’s what I told him,” the woman continued. “Let an expert examine it. Take it to an auction house, or an art gallery, a museum—I don’t know.” She laughed, a deep laugh from her stomach. “He says to me, Madame Belluci, you’re right. I promise to buy you a nice dinner.”
“He took your advice! Did he buy you that dinner?”
“That’s the funny thing,” Madame Belluci said. “We have reservations tonight at La Tour d’Argent. He told me we’d have champagne with the art dealer.”
Reservations Yuri couldn’t keep. “Lucky you. A prominent, well-known art expert, I assume?”
“I don’t know.”
Aimée paused. “Then I won’t keep you, you’re busy.” She glanced at her Tintin watch. “Eight o’clock comes early, I know. Keep me in mind if a space opens up for bikes, okay?”
Madame Belluci ran her hand through her curly hair, blew a gust of air out of her mouth. “But I didn’t say eight. Dinner’s at nine.”
Now Aimée knew what to do. She forgot the unpleasantness of Florent’s groping—finding the parking ticket had led to the cellar and the concierge. Now the art dealer.
No one got reservations at La Tour d’Argent at such short notice unless they were connected. Yuri wasn’t, so she figured the art dealer must be.
Ten minutes later, she entered La Tour d’Argent on Quai de la Tournelle. Afternoon light spilled over the gold sconces, red carpet so thick it muffled her footsteps, the red-velvet-flocked wallpaper soaked up conversation. The place exuded privilege.
An entrée cost the price of a pair of gently worn Louboutins. Even if she won the lottery, not her type of place. A tuxedoed ma?tre d’ took one look at her outfit. “Mademoiselle, our last seating for luncheon’s full.”