The Grave Gourmet (19 page)

Capucine started forward in pursuit. Momo arrived breathlessly and seized her upper arm.

“Lieutenant, it's the
Salat-ul-Isha
, the night prayer. We cannot intrude.”

Capucine tried to pull her arm away. “What we can't do is let him get away.” Momo tightened his grip.

“No. Blancs are not welcome at the prayer. And if they discover we are flics, there will be an incident.”

The Asian man reached the bottom of the street, turned the corner, and vanished.

“A
ll right, where's the subject?” Capucine barked.

“She just walked back into her building.” David's voice crackled over the radio.

“David, stay put. I'll be right there. The rest of you can go back to the Quai.”

In a few minutes Capucine arrived a little breathlessly at David's side. “We lost the pickup. We're going up and see what we can worm out of the subject. We walk in, show our cards, you say nothing. Got it?”

“Lieutenant, don't we need a warrant? It's after nine o'clock.”

“What we need is not to dither around here. What you guys need is to stop telling me what to do. Let's get up there.”

Clotilde came to the door in her stockinged feet but still in her street clothes, a half-empty glass of wine in her hand. She had been crying hard. The mascara had run down her cheeks in two straight lines, giving her a pathetic Marcel Marceau look.

Capucine and David stood at the door holding their ID wallets menacingly at face height. “Madame Lancrey-Javal? Police Judiciaire,” Capucine said.

“I knew it would come to this! Am I under arrest?”

“Not quite,” said Capucine. “But I do need to talk to you.”

Clotilde turned and walked back into the apartment. Capucine followed her in. David hung back, a languid sentry at the door.

“Sit down,” Capucine said. “Tell me what happened.”

“How much do you know?” Clotilde asked, her voice choked from the crying.

“Why don't you just assume I don't know anything. Start at the beginning.”

“I have no idea how he found me. I was shopping at the Printemps one morning. In the housewares section. I needed a new set of pans. He was there next to me. He asked my advice on a skillet for omelets. We talked. He was very attractive. Such deep eyes. Very polite. He said his name was Dac Kim Chu. He was Vietnamese. We talked for a while in the store. He asked me to a snack in the department store coffee shop. Then we had dinner two days later. A few days later he offered me a lot of money to do some very little things. It was the solution to all my problems. Money has been so very, very difficult for me. I don't know how he knew. That's all there is to it. Really.”

Once it was obvious the story would be forthcoming Capucine relaxed. “Let's start at the beginning. Why is money such a problem?”

“Three years ago my husband ran out on me. I had no warning at all. One day he just left for the United States with his secretary. He took all our money, everything in the banks, sold our stocks, everything. The worst part was that he owed an enormous sum to the tax people. It seems that I am responsible even though I knew nothing about how he handled his financial affairs. So even though he deserted me I still have to pay all the taxes he owes. The tax people are terribly aggressive. I was lucky to get a reasonably paid job. I hadn't worked for twelve years. But I have to pay nearly two-thirds of my salary to the
fisc
. I have barely enough for necessities with what's left. You have no idea how awful it was. I spent every hour of every day thinking about making silly little economies, thinking about how I could scrimp to pay for things that three years before I would have thought nothing about. Money worries rule my life.” She paused. “Do you know what it feels like to borrow money from your children so you can eat? Can you imagine the look in their eyes?”

“But you have this wonderful apartment. How did you manage that?”

“That was one of my husband's sharp tricks. He opened up a postal savings account for each of the children when they were born. The interest you get is almost nothing but the accounts give you a subsidized mortgage at a very low rate after fifteen years and you can use the principal of the savings account to make the purchase. He used the accounts to buy four maids' rooms, which he rented out. When he ran off we let the tenants' leases expire, and then the children and I knocked down the walls and turned the four rooms into a single apartment. The kids all took out mortgages to decorate it. The tax people can't seize it because it's in the children's names except for my little part. That's not illegal, is it?”

“Well, I don't think that was what was intended when the postal act was written, but I don't see what anyone can do about it. It's a clever enough trick. It's been done before. So this charming man that you met at the Printemps offered you money. For what, exactly?”

“That's just it. For doing virtually nothing. All I had to do was go into the ladies' room at work and pick up an envelope that would be inside the paper towel dispenser, on top of the towels. Then I would put that envelope inside a copy of the
Monde,
go outside an hour after I got home, and walk around my neighborhood. The man would come up and exchange newspapers with me.”

“And how would you know when to do this?”

“I would find a flower on my desk. A white hibiscus in a little plastic water glass from the water dispenser. That meant I had to pick up something in the ladies' room. If Dac Kim wanted to deliver something to whoever in Renault these things came from, I would place a pink hibiscus on my desk and then put whatever it was in the paper towel rack. Everyone thought I had a secret admirer in the office.”

“Were there many deliveries?”

“Oh, no. Once or twice a month most of the time. But sometimes there would be a flurry back and forth. A delivery a day.”

“And how much did you get for this?”

“Every time I gave him something there would be an envelope with money in the newspaper he exchanged with me. At the end of the month it was as much as my salary. It was a godsend—with no taxes, of course. It changed my life. It was like being free again.”

“Very neat. But I don't quite see how you fell into such an elaborate plan on the strength of one quick lunch and one dinner.”

Clotilde stared at the floor for a moment reddening slightly. “I'm afraid there was more to it than that. We had several dinners. We became…well…intimate. He even spent a few weekends here. Actually, I never went to his apartment. He always came here. He was the first man I slept with after my husband. I had come to feel no one wanted me. The money only came later. One day I told him how desperate I was about money. He offered to help me. At the time I really thought he was doing me a favor because of what he felt for me. I didn't know what I was doing. I still don't.” She drained her glass of wine. “I'm going to have some more wine. Can I get you some?”

“Thanks. I will take some. I'll pretend I'm not on duty.”

“What about him?” Clotilde asked, indicating David.

“He's not allowed to pretend.”

When Clotilde returned with two glasses Capucine asked her, “And what would you guess all this is about?”

“I have no idea. Really no idea. It has to be some sort of industrial espionage thing. That much is obvious. But I can't imagine what it might be. I mean, what else could it be? I'd guess it was the new model designs or something like that. Or colors, maybe. They're enormously secretive about those things.”

“And you never asked him?”

“Well, after I started giving him envelopes, our ‘relationship' died down,” Clotilde said, making quotation marks in the air with the first two fingers of each hand. “He told me he didn't want to mix business with pleasure. His personality changed. He became tough, almost brutal. I became afraid of him. Like tonight, when I told him I wanted to quit he told me I had no choice. If I tried to quit he would come around with some friends to make sure I would continue. He is a tremendously powerful man. I'd never been with a man as strong as he is. Very frightening. He made love very roughly. Very roughly. He always hurt me. I think that was the part he enjoyed.”

“What happened tonight? Why did you tell him you wanted to quit?”

“Renault has toughened its security measures. I'm not sure, but I think it might even have something to do with all the papers I am giving him. There are new security staff and everything. Tonight I nearly got caught. The security guards wanted to go through my briefcase. If I hadn't complained they would have opened the envelope I was taking Dac Kim, but I got strict with them and they let me go. I don't think they noticed anything but I panicked completely anyway. I told Dac Kim that I wanted no part of it anymore. I gave him his envelope but refused to take his money. That was when he told me I had no choice.” She drained her wine.

“I know I made a huge mistake. But it was so nice to be with someone after those years of loneliness. And then it was even nicer not to have to worry about money all the time. I knew it was very wrong, but I pushed it to the back of my mind. Are you going to arrest me?”

“No. Nothing you've done is criminal. I'm sure it violates Renault's employment regulations and could possibly expose you to a civil suit, but that's hardly a police matter. We're interested only because it relates to a case we're working on. Tell me, how do you contact this man?”

“I have a cell phone number for him. I call it when I get an envelope. He doesn't answer. I just call and hang up. Obviously, his phone records my number. And he meets me that evening. Or he will call my cell from a pay phone and tell me he wants to see me in such and such a place.”

“Give me the number. I'm sure it's a prepaid phone that was bought anonymously, but it still needs to be checked out. With a little luck you'll get out of this mess,” Capucine said. “But be very careful. You're dealing with a highly dangerous man. Go on doing what you were doing. You'll hear from me in the next day or two. If anything happens call me at this number,” she said, giving Clotilde her card. Capucine smiled at her gently and patted the back of her hand. “Don't despair. With a little luck things will work out, you'll see.”

 

Capucine swept into the restaurant and pulled up short at the end of the bar. Alexandre wasn't hard to spot. He was at his usual corner. Tables had been pushed together and a crowd of ten or twelve were well into dinner, rowdy enough to verge on the obnoxious. She walked across the room grinding her teeth. It was Alexandre's coterie of journalist cronies. None of them were devotees of the police and she suspected some would be delighted to craft an editorial pearl around any grain of gossip she might drop.

As she approached the table the portly waiter came up and handed her a tall glass with two ice cubes and four fingers of amber liquid. “Scotch, Lieutenant. You look like you've had a hell of day.”

She was greeted boisterously. People moved around to vacate the chair next to Alexandre for her. A very pink and very corpulent man exclaimed in stentorian measured tones, as if he were proclaiming Racine, “Ah! The advent of our gorgeous and intrepid detective. Just in time to cast the pall from our gloomy gathering. My dear, have your efforts in repressing the forces of evil been crowned with success?”

“On the contrary, Robert, I've left my evil hare free to make another lap around his field and am concentrating on oppressing his victims instead. Just to keep my hand in, of course.”

“Alexandre, do you ever know what she's talking about?”

“Never. It's the secret to a perfect marriage. All one says is ‘Yes, dear' over and over again with suitably adoring looks and then one reaps the rewards. A technique you really should try on your next wife.”

Halfway through her titanic Scotch Capucine sank into the general hilarity, losing herself in the sexual peccadilloes of the candidates of the upcoming senatorial elections.

Much, much later she and Alexandre found themselves at the virtually deserted Deux Magots, sitting at the celebrated corner table in the window made famous as the second home of Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir. They drank coffee and bad cognac in miniscule snifters, made even worse by being several drinks too many.

“Doesn't sound like it's going all that well,” Alexandre said.

“It's going and that's what counts. The problem is that the guilty consistently turn out to be innocent. They are even victims.” She told him about her evening and the Asian agent who had vanished.

Alexandre was silent for a moment and then motioned to the waiter for two more cognacs. “If this is really the work of spies, it'll get wrenched out of your hands. Marie-Hélène will have no choice but to call in the DGSE, even if it does drive her up the wall.”

Capucine laughed. “No, my love. For once you're wrong. It's going to stay a police case and the police will get the murderer. I think I can promise you that.”

“S
ometimes it takes forever to get here. Monsieur Guyon was very annoyed this morning. But what can I do?” Capucine had arrived at Guyon's office at nine thirty. It was obvious that Thérèse Garnier had just arrived herself. She informed Capucine that Guyon would be with her shortly and began setting up for the day. She hobbled rapidly and erratically around the office, the staccato of her heels broadcasting her verve. Eventually, she perched behind her desk, applying makeup carefully, looking intently into the mirror of her powder compact, peering over the top as she recited her morning epic. “The flat escalators at Le Châtelet were broken and the tunnel was completely jammed.” She brushed her hair back vigorously. “Then the train never came.” Her eyes seemed to widen with the effort. “And when it finally came we were packed in like sardines.” She shook her head. Her lips turned up in the beginning of a smile. She still wasn't attractive, but the abject look was almost gone and her eyes hinted at the mischievous. She reached into her bag and produced a tiny bottle of perfume, held it between thumb and middle finger, inverted it, and delicately touched the recesses under the lobe of each ear. She smiled. “I guess it's not all that bad. I'm going to run down the hall and get some coffee. Want some? I'm sure Monsieur Guyon won't keep you waiting long.” As she stood up her square frame looked almost elegant in the inexpensive tan suit. The transformation was complete. It was impossible to imagine her existing outside the luxury of leather and chrome and soft, indirect lighting.

Half an hour later Guyon opened his door and beckoned Capucine in brusquely. “Voilà, mademoiselle, let's get going. I have a very busy morning.”

Once inside the office, he waved her to a chair with an authoritative gesture. “You're making progress, mademoiselle. I see you have capitulated to the elementary rules of politeness and deigned to have these sessions in my office,” Guyon said, delighted he had kept her waiting so long. “What is it today?”

“Monsieur Guyon, it appears that your department has been infiltrated by some sort of espionage activity. Normally, that wouldn't concern me, but there's a chance it's connected with the murder of the président.”

“My good woman, we went through all that the last time. You claim that this fake DGSE agent worked for some American company. So be it. But he didn't steal anything except a free lunch, so I don't see what the problem is.”

“This is something altogether different. We intercepted one of Renault's employees handing an envelope to a man on the street. Even though we weren't able to obtain the contents, it very much looks like the envelope contained confidential data coming from your department.”

Guyon sneered. “I don't understand. You saw one of our people on the street handing someone something. But you seem to have bungled again and never saw the contents of the envelope. Why ever would you conclude that it was theft of secrets? Sometimes I wonder about your mental processes. The less efficient you are, the more you see crime on every street corner. It's an obsession.”

“For some time our officers have been assisting the Renault security guards at the building security checkpoints. They intercepted an employee who was taking materials out of the building. That employee was followed and was seen to hand those materials over to someone on the street. Our guess is that this is an entirely different operation from Trag's.”

“This is an outrage! You've planted flics on the Renault staff? You're following our employees around? On whose authority? And who is this person you're accusing?”

“Monsieur Guyon, these issues are irrelevant. For what it's worth, the human resources department cooperated fully with us in integrating police officers into the security team. But, since it's part of a murder investigation, the identity of the person in question will remain confidential for the time being. The reason I'm here is that you clearly have a serious leak in your department. I should say ‘another serious leak.' Obviously, you are going to want to take steps, but I want those steps to be coordinated with our investigation. Do you understand?”

“And what do you expect me to do? You're the police officer. Not me.”

“Industrial espionage is rarely a police matter, as I'm sure you know.”

“So you come in here and tell me these things, but you don't have any suggestion as to what I should do.”

“Monsieur Guyon, you have two possible routes. You can go to the DGSE or you can hire a private company. I do think you need to do something, but it's important you keep us informed. In fact, it's even a legal requirement.”

Guyon paced in front of his desk. “Well, Lieutenant, what do you think I should do?”

“At one point you seemed to think the involvement of DGSE was logical. Given Typhon's importance to the nation that makes a certain amount of sense. I can give you a contact there if you want. He's a man who is very easy to get along with. He will tell you if they can be of value or, if not, recommend a private firm.”

“Lieutenant, you apparently don't have the slightest notion of how corporations work. Do you really think I have the authority to go whining to the DGSE? What would the board think? How would our acting president react? You're out of your mind.”

“If you feel it would require the involvement of the acting président, then why don't you see him?”

“How little you understand. He's the chief financial officer. He's been placed in a temporary position until the board chooses to name a new président. He's not there to make decisions. He doesn't even sit in the président's office. The président's former secretary remains at her desk. She handles everything that goes into the office of the président. Do you think I should ask her to handle it? Wouldn't that be clever?”

“That's an idea with more merit than you suspect, Monsieur Guyon. But, you must take steps. You can't just ignore this. At the very least you have to alert the acting président. This could possibly be very serious for Renault.”

“Very well, I'll go see him. But I can tell you right now what he'll say.”

“You do that. And if you two decide to go to the Ministry of the Exterior I'll be happy to give you a contact.” Capucine got up. “Call me and let me know what your decision is. You have my number.”

On her way down in the elevator Capucine regretted her cockiness with Guyon. It was true she felt the case was heading to fruition almost of its own accord, like a pimple that invites being popped. But that didn't mean she had the slightest idea what to do next.