Martin had never forgotten her father, who’d helped him get out of prison before he’d served his full sentence. Aimée never asked for details. Martin had a mass said in her father’s name and put flowers on his grave every year on November 1st, Toussaint, All Saints’ Day.
She tapped her freshly lacquered “terabyte taupe” nails on the wood tabletop. They sat in Martin’s “office,” the only place he took appointments: on the red leather banquette in the back room at Le Drugstore on the Champs-élysées. He would dispense his knowledge in his own good time. And for a price.
“Merci, Fran?ois,” said Martin to the waiter in a black vest and long white apron who served Aimée a steaming chocolat chaud, its deep mocha color pierced by a dollop of crème.
“Forgive me for missing Chloé’s christening,” Martin said. “But I’m getting over un rhume; wouldn’t want to spread germs to the little one.”
She slid her latest photo of Chloé over the table. “Six months old, mostly sleeping through the night. She has a fondness for puréed aubergine. Go figure.”
Martin blew a kiss at the photo. A wide grin broke his pock-cratered cheeks. “Qu’elle est belle!”
“The onesie you sent her is her favorite,” said Aimée.
His eyes softened behind the large lenses. “Your father’s looking down on her.”
If only, she thought. Maybe he was. How many times in the past few months had she imagined him, a proud grand-père, pushing the stroller beside her in the Jardin du Luxembourg? Or the two of them strolling arm in arm on the quai, Chloé on her hip?
Move on. She needed to move on. But Nicu had brought it all back, and she had a promise to keep.
Le Drugstore’s mirrors reflected a Manet-like scene of blurred streetlamps on the Champs-élysées and tree branches bent in the wind. Aimée and Martin shared the back room with only one other couple. Fran?ois hummed to himself, drying glasses at the counter. Cigarette smoke spiraled from Martin’s unfiltered Gauloise. Aimée tried to stifle her craving: she couldn’t risk a nicotine patch since she still nursed Chloé. Sixteen months and two days without a cigarette, and she still wanted to tear the Gauloise from his hand.
Martin had no cell phone; he arranged appointments from his “nerve center”—using the pay phone in the lounge downstairs by the WC. Four rings followed by two alerted the toilet attendant, la dame pipi, to an incoming request for Martin. He received his clients upstairs at his reserved table. His clientele ranged from ex-cons and gang leaders to prominent officials. A conduit for both sides, he bought, sold and bartered information. His expertise and contacts were too valuable for even the flics to compromise. Still, he’d told her once, he had the phone swept for bugs daily.
En route to Le Drugstore, she’d called Morbier for help, but her call had gone to voice mail. Elusive as always, screening his calls. No doubt out celebrating Chloé’s christening sans her in a restaurant and couldn’t hear the phone ringing. Or maybe he’d been angry with her for stopping on the curb with Nicu, delaying the party, or for making a scene with Melac, and planned on chewing her out later in private. Knowing Morbier, though, she figured on the latter.
Niceties over, Martin raised an eyebrow meaningfully at Fran?ois, who nodded—they would not be disturbed. Martin leaned forward.
“You made an appointment, Mademoiselle Aimée?” Martin had given her fifteen minutes, his usual. And she couldn’t leave René babysitting all night.
She gathered her courage. Martin never liked speaking about her father’s death. “An informer of my father’s, Drina Constantin, a Gypsy with a small son, remember her?”
Martin’s eyes were hidden behind his thick lenses and the smoke from the Gauloise. “My memory’s not that good, Mademoiselle Aimée.”
“You’re too modest, Martin.” His knowledge of the underworld was encyclopedic. And if he didn’t know something, he knew someone who did. “Think back to 1984.”
“Let’s say I was otherwise occupied at that time.”
In prison.
“D’accord.” Aimée bit her lip. “I think Drina Constantin knows who killed Papa.”
She watched Martin. Looked for a movement, a flicker of his eyes behind those framed glasses. But his eyes were as still as the glass they looked through.
But then Martin heard bigger secrets than that every night.
“Et alors?” he said.
“An hour and a half ago, Drina Constantin disappeared from H?pital Laennec. Poof, gone.” She told Martin the little she knew. “The woman can’t walk, she’s dying.”
“A Gypsy scam, Mademoiselle Aimée,” he said, relaxing against the back of the seat. Like tout le monde, Martin distrusted Gypsies. “These Romany scam artists have been flooding the country these last ten years. The Roma keep to themselves—they would never really bring an outsider into a family matter.”
That much she’d witnessed from Uncle Radu’s reaction. Martin had raised a sliver of doubt in her mind.
“You watch, someone is going to ask you for money—expensive medical treatments for your papa’s old informer.”
Her stomach twisted. Could Martin be right? Could that be why they’d brought her into this, exploited her vulnerability, her obsession with her father’s death? A classic scam. Could she have been so na?ve? But no—she shook off the prejudice and doubt that came to her so easily. These were people, suffering people, not scammers. Her gut instinct told her to trust Nicu, that he didn’t lie about his mother’s message. She believed that the woman had been abducted by someone who wished to keep her silent. What if other lives were in danger?
“Distrust goes both ways; to them we’re the outsiders,” she said, putting down her cup. “I was skeptical at first, too. But the woman’s got terminal cancer, and someone pulled her off a hemodialysis machine. The doctor was alarmed; I heard more than concern in the staff’s voices. Whatever happened to her, it wasn’t Drina’s choice, and I need to help her.”