He’d have to bide his time until le salaud got up from the table.
Doubt hit René. Would a serial rapist waste time at a gambling table? Was his own impatience clouding his logic? Le Weasel glanced at his phone, then back to his cards.
René joined the mixed clientele: a few men in blazers, a woman in un jogging with pearls, Asian men with gold-link wrist chains, a leather-jacketed rocker he recognized from the guitar shop around the corner. The woman in pearls shook her head and exclaimed, “Tout sur rouge!” as she clicked a pile of gambling chips to a red nine.
The casino gave off a low-key vibe—casual, almost homey. Everyday gamblers a world apart from the Deauville Grand Casino milieu.
His phone vibrated again. Madie, the waitress in the café, who’d promised him information, was waiting at the bistrot. He’d forgotten. Too bad.
He looked up. Saw movement at the punto banco table. But with his short stature he couldn’t see over the shoulders of the crowd. He tried edging his way forward through the gamblers.
An older woman sat at le Weasel’s place. He’d gone. Merde!
René grabbed his jacket.
Tuesday, 6 P.M.
AIMéE HAD CHANGED out of her sopping clothes, and now her damp feet were drying in the sun by Leduc Detective’s window. Her chipped, neon-green-lacquered toenails were in dire need of a pedicure.
The office was anything but peaceful. Horns blared in the street, and boos and cheers drifted from radio broadcasts from the cars below. The carpenter’s unswept sawdust was piled in the corner, making her sneeze.
So far no word from Mélanie at the clinic in Lausanne. Nor had René returned her calls. The FotoFit image lay on her desk, troubling her. This suspect had a cap without hair showing; le Weasel a full head of hair.
And what did Marie-Jo’s father mean that Aimée was climbing the wrong tree? He’d appeared worried, gone to the apartment, no doubt tried Marie-Jo’s phone. He knew this man who had been seen with the girls. Zacharié was the key.
How could she find him?
On her laptop she searched for the Actors’ Union’s database. In five minutes she’d bypassed the firewall and maneuvered into the directory, searching for de Mombert.
The biographies of an illustrious acting family spilled onto her screen. Béatrice’s career was not so illustrious. Still, roles at Théatre Charles Dullin and the Théatre de Nesle. A sporadic résumé, with gaps between engagements. Her marriage to a Zacharié Plessis had ended in divorce a year before.
Now that she knew Zacharié’s last name, she ran a search through a prison database Saj had turned her on to a month ago. A shortcut for finding anyone’s history in the penal system.
Zacharié Plessis, born in 1970 at H?pital Laboiserie. Last residence 21 rue Chaptal; convicted for what amounted to criminalité en col blanc—white-collar crime. He’d been released on parole a week ago.
Just a week ago.
Serving six months of a two-year sentence, then out on parole? Only prisoners who pulled strings served minimal time like that.
How did that fit into the equation of the girl’s abduction?
Somehow this all connected. Vice?
She tried Beto’s number. No answer.
A moment later her phone rang. “Didn’t I tell you I’d repaid the favor, chérie?” said Beto.
“True, Beto,” she said, “but you also said that the rapist would strike again before school let out.”
Beto cleared his throat. “Et alors?”
“I don’t know how this fits,” she said, “or if it does, but with your contacts in the quartier …”
“My contacts?” he interrupted.
She heard the rabatteurs—strip-club barkers—loud and distinctive, shouting in the background, “Cherchez les femmes of your dreams … no drink minimum.”
“Chérie, make it quick.”
And she told him about the “nice man.” “I need to find him.”
“That’s too vague a description,” said Beto. “All you know about him is that he wore jeans that reminded Cécile of a flic. There’s nothing to go on, no reason to think she’s even right.”
“True.” But Cécile’s former-working-girl intuition hadn’t left her. “Wouldn’t it be worth talking to the owner of the NeoCancan for a tip? Fish around and mention Cécile’s description.”
“The Johnny Hallyday wannabe, that one? Why?”
“He’s an informer, non?”
She heard Beto’s intake of breath over the phone. “He intimated that?”
“Mais non, but I figured like all the bar owners he informed to keep on your good side.” Quiet as the bars kept it, rumor went they also paid sécurité, a percentage of earnings given in a weekly envelope to the controlling network of the moment to keep their doors open.
“He’s got a record.”
Cymbals and guitar sounded in the background. The Fête de la Musique, celebrated on the eve of summer solstice, had begun.
“What’s on his record?”
“Statutory rape … but you didn’t hear that from me.”
She remembered he’d led the lynch mob to the Lille seaman. A foil to take the suspicion away from himself? Had René been right to suspect his motives?
Her mind went back to the dumbwaiter in his cellar floor. A gasp escaped her as she pictured his jeans. Long shot, but worth a try.
“Why don’t you visit the NeoCancan’s cellar?”
“Just like that, out of the blue?”
“Health violations, contraband liquor, prostitution,” she said. “You’ll think of something.”
He snorted. “Why risk my neck?”
“Several reasons,” she said, rubbing her belly. She wished she hadn’t eaten that last cornichon. “It sounds like you’re in Pigalle.”
“Along with a quarter of Paris, chérie,” he said.
“Two young girls could be held down in NeoCancan’s cave, you’re in the quartier and my Beretta’s back home.”