“You mean he’s got his own feelers out?”
Saj shrugged, then winced. “Aimée, tell the flics. That one from the art squad who liked you so much. The one who wants to set you up for a buy.”
Dombasle. The one with the nice eyes. “He wants a patsy.” Part of her wanted to confide in Dombasle, get his advice, but the other part knew she had to handle this alone. Finding the painting would lead to her mother. But first she had to neutralize the Serb.
And the hours were ticking away, her deadline looming. A tingling sensation ran up her arm.
“But tell him what? That I ran away after I found Yuri tortured, and took the art dealer’s photo before he was pushed on the Métro tracks?” She shook her head. Reached in her desk drawer and shuffled the reports until she found her mascara and kohl eyeliner. She needed a quick touch-up. “Alors, the Serb’s brother made a fool of police security at H?tel-Dieu, threatened you, who they regard in their own twisted logic as a suspect.” She stood, headed to the back armoire. “I need to neutralize the Serb, and not in this outfit.”
Behind the plumber’s overalls, nurse’s uniform, and other disguises in her armoire, she found jeans, a vintage charcoal Sonia Rykiel cashmere tunic, and a black chrome metallic jacket.
“Slow down, Aimée,” Saj said. “Don’t go this alone. Or run off half-cocked without a plan.”
“Good point. I’ll bring my bag of tricks.”
“Act tough, then. Don’t say I—”
“Didn’t warn me? This mec’s ruthless—you’re injured, and what if you’d been home alone? He’s carrying out a vendetta. Until he learns you didn’t kill his thief of a brother, he won’t stop.”
“You don’t have to prove that to me. Or that you’re brave.”
Brave? The last thing she felt. “Look, my mother’s involved and I need you safe.”
And then she remembered. “Where’s Maxence? Don’t tell me he’s playing hooky already?”
“Been and gone to René’s for the cables I need. You need me working.” She heard the smile in Saj’s voice. “Someone has to be beside this kid. He’s good, Aimée.” Suddenly he looked a little bleak. “But don’t forget, boss, I need you.”
“Still hurts, Saj?”
He nodded. Winced. “What can I do from here? How can I help?”
She thought. “Find out what you can about this Bereskova. His business, the museum. Tatyana intimated it’s a front.”
“Odd, non, that she’s so up-front on that score?” Saj said.
“That struck me, too.” She pulled out her map and located Avenue Claude Vellefaux near the hospital where Serge gave pathology seminars. Why hadn’t she heard the lab results from him? She tried his number again; his phone went to voice mail.
At the office door she paused. “What’s our alarm code disarmer?”
“Hare krishna hare krishna.”
“A Hindu mantra?” She’d learned that much from Saj. “Feels like sacrilege or something.”
“Krishna won’t mind. Means we’ll chant several times a day.”
HER SCOOTER IDLED at the red light on Canal Saint-Martin. Irritated, she pulled on her gloves, watching the locks move the water slowly under the arched bridge. Like everything else today. Slow.
A barge made its way into the water, filling the basin with shushing ripples as a small heron winged its way over the bank.
She found the café across from the peeling stuccoed walls of H?pital Saint-Louis, built in the seventeenth century to contain plague victims. The area still felt isolated. She noticed the young drug dealers on the corner of nearby rue Jean Moinon and a Chinese hooker emerging from a car, two blocks down from the hooker turf on rue de Belleville. Edgy and mixed.
The Serb mafia café fit right in. Soccer team pennants on the nicotine-stained walls, mismatched chairs at gouged wooden tables. The turn-of-the-century frosted-glass windows were fogged with smoke.
The clientele matched the decor. Several large-shouldered men, bouncer material, wore tracksuits and huddled over beer and dice at the half-zinc, half-Formica counter.
A shame to ruin the counter like that, she thought. And a bigger shame to see no espresso machine.
“Badoit, s’il vous pla?t,” she said to the man behind the counter. He looked up from the dice, revealing a craggy, pitted face and dark-knit brows. He was the size of a truck.
“No Badoit.”
“Bon, something sparkling, as in water.”
He popped the bottle top of a Knjaz Milo?.
“Nice label.”
“From Serbia, my country,” he said, as if challenging her.
“Bon.” She smiled, took a sip. Mineral-tasting fizz trickled down her throat. “We’re off to a good start, you sharing with me and all.”
“Eh?” His brows knit closer together.
One of the mecs jerked their thumb at him. “You raise or not?”
He inclined his big head with the barest of nods. If she hadn’t been watching him closely, she wouldn’t have noticed. She realized this crew communicated in subtle ways.
They’d sussed her out from the moment she walked in. At least no one had raised a gun. But she doubted the bulges in the waistbands of their jogging pants held packs of facial tissue.
“No need to waste time, eh? Tatyana.…”
“Who?”
Like he didn’t know.
“Russian, blonde.” That sounded generic. She racked her brain. “Sports a white Chanel watch—a client who referred me.” Also lame. She took a breath. “I have a job for Feliks’s brother.”
She saw no reaction on his face.
“Job? You’re in a café. My café. Go to the labor exchange.”
“I mean a job for a specialist.”
A smile spread over his jowls. An ugly smile that didn’t reach his dull eyes.
“Construction, you mean—removals, concrete work. I refer you. But plumbers, you get Polish in their own their café, or the soup kitchen outside Notre Dame de l’Assomption church.”