The Red Brick Cellars: A Tolosa Mystery (6 page)

“That is not what I said,
mon cœur.
”

“I am not your heart, your honey, your cabbage, or anything else. I am your ex-wife. With an extra emphasis on the
ex
.” Her volume had gone up. The man in a suit at the next table glanced up at them from his paper. Catherine attempted another deep breath.

Max leveled her a half sad puppy and half general-going-to-war stare. “It is not up to you, or the Church, or the Republic to say what you are to me. If I say you are my heart, then you are. You do not have the power to change the fact that I love you.”

Catherine wasn’t so sure about that, but wasn’t willing to step over the line and do something really stupid only to anger him. Once again, she decided to leave the battlefield, or at least find a different one.

The waiter arrived with their drinks and the one brownies. Catherine poured milk and sugar in her tea, and stirred. Maxime paid the waiter for both of them. He picked up his lighter, flicked it open, and closed it again. Maxime inherited it when his father passed away two years before. Now, he was never without it and used it to occupy his hands when he wanted something to fiddle with. As far as Catherine knew, he had never used it to light anything. She wasn’t even sure that it had fuel.

The fact that he paid for her both annoyed and relieved Catherine. She might have money right now, but at the end of the month, she would be in the same fix as the past month. She couldn’t expect a mayor to die and pay for her food on a regular basis. In any case, she needed to get to the point of this meeting, so she let the who-pays-for-what argument go.

Once they were married, they had bought an old brick house close to the Capitole. For the past year, Max lived in the house and Catherine had found a dingy apartment a little farther out from the city center. They had both shouldered their half of the mortgage and rent combined. Of course, Maxime being a hot shot IT and Agile independent consultant meant that he made about twice as much money as Catherine. So where he had been doing fine financially since their separation, she slowly ate through her savings and learned to live cheap.

This last month she hit bottom. She maxed out on the allowed overdraft of her bank account, which was why she had ended up going to the mayor’s wake despite being forbidden to write about it. With minus 1000 euros in the bank and not even a crumb to eat at home, she had turned to the generous Pierre Saint-Blancat, who specified in his will that there should be food and dancing at his wake. Somebody had apparently removed the dancing part, but the food remained.

“I wanted to meet to discuss the selling of our house,” Catherine said, eyes on her tea.

Maxime winced. “I’d prefer if we could wait a little longer. It really is a buyer’s market these days. The prices aren’t going up. If anything, they’re going down. And we’d need to sell with a profit to gain back the notary fees after only two years.” He set his empty coffee-cup on its saucer.

Catherine planned to make her tea last for a while. The brownie was delicious, and now the sugar was kicking in. “I don’t care about money or the market,” she said. “I don’t want to own that house with you any longer.” Maxime knew how much—or rather how little—she earned, but Catherine couldn’t decide if he simply didn’t appreciate the financial situation she was in or if he was consciously playing dumb in an attempt to punish her.

Max looked at her until she met his gaze. “You loved that house so much.” He was making puppy eyes at her.

She
had
loved the house. She still did. But it contained one ex-husband she wanted to avoid at all costs, and it was way too expensive for her lousy pay-check. She had held out until the divorce was finalized and now it was time to get a move on.

“It’s a lovely house,” she conceded. “But we have to sell. We already agreed we would sell when we started the divorce.” She took a tiny bite of the brownie and closed her eyes to enjoy the dark chocolate and crunchy bits of walnuts. She wished she was a French kid still in school. With dinner being so late—seven at the earliest—they all had a snack at around four in the afternoon.
Goûter
, meaning tasting, they called it. Sometimes Catherine thought it just might be even better than tea. Maybe.

Maxime didn’t say anything, only watched her eat. Catherine took her time enjoying her tea and cake, but when the last crumb was gone, she glared at Max. “Are you going to put the house up for sale or do I have to take care of it?”

Real sadness made its way into his expression: a sign that he’d started to take her seriously. “Fine,” he said while he turned his empty cup on its saucer. “I’ll put it up for sale. But you let me know if you change your mind, all right? It’s going to take awhile.”

“Thank you,” Catherine said with a forced smile. “And don’t worry, I won’t change my mind.”

Seven

Glasses clinked as Louis sat the meter of pastis down on the table. The “meter” was a meter-long plastic holder with ten glasses, all filled with the anise-tasting drink. Louis chose Chez Tonton, one of many popular bars on place Saint Pierre, as the setting of his plot to foil Audrey’s plans for him.

Mouad, Louis’s best friend since they’d started playing soccer together when they were ten, looked down the long line of glasses and sighed. “Which one of these did you imagine me drinking?”

“This one,” Louis said and went back to the bar to bring a glass of apple juice for his friend. As if he’d forget that the man was a Muslim and didn’t drink alcohol.

“
Merci
,” Mouad said, raising the glass in salute.

Louis picked up a jug of water and mixed the first glass in the line of pastis. The transparent golden liquid turned yellow and opaque; the ice-cube clinked hollowly against the glass. He brought it to his friend’s glass and drank it bottoms-up. The burning sensation of the alcohol mixed with the refreshing taste of anise and cold water in his throat. The anise also brought back strong memories of nights out with friends when he was a student. He relaxed a little as he pulled his chair up against the front wall of the bar and let himself fall into it.

Students occupied most of the tables around them. Their neighboring table was shared between three young men in their twenties working on a meter of pastis of their own and two brunettes who couldn’t possibly be out of high school yet, giggling over something on their phones. A few cars drove below the canopy of plane trees just outside the bar, but place Saint Pierre was all about drinking tonight, as always. Raucous laughter drifted across the square from one of the other bars and two dogs barked at each other for the right to pee on a bush lining the street.

Mouad eyed the nine full glasses and sipped his juice. “You’re getting drunk all alone tonight?” The streetlights from the center of the square reflected in his dark-brown eyes. His nose was as big as Louis’s, perched above thin lips, currently pinched together into a severe line.

“That’s the plan.” Louis downed another glass. He set both empty glasses back in their slots. He’d have to slow down soon, but wanted to start out strong.

Looking out at the Saint Pierre Bridge spanning the Garonne River at the other end of the square, Mouad shook his head. “You’re getting drunk on purpose? Why?” He turned to Louis, serious. “You’re not drowning your sorrows, are you?”

“Nope. I’m drowning my ambition.” Louis drank half of a third glass. The alcohol was starting to fuzz his brain. It was time to slow down just enough to stay in control. The pastis in all the remaining glasses was turning opaque because of the melting ice. They matched the bar’s neon signs on the wall above them. “Actually,” he mused as he looked into the murky yellow liquid in his glass, “I’m drowning my sister’s ambition.”

Mouad looked like a kid’s soccer coach getting ready to listen to a parent’s opinion on tactics for the next game. “Please. Do tell me how you getting drunk here tonight has anything to do with Audrey’s ambition.”

The third glass went back into its slot, empty. Louis needed something to nibble. Leaning out to get eye-contact with the bald man at the bar, he signed his need for snacks. A waitress arrived with a plate of salted chips and peanuts. “
Merci, Mademoiselle
,” Louis said with a smile. He shoved a small handful of peanuts into his mouth before she even turned her back to greet a group of giggling girls. The bar appeared to be full, so patrons arriving at this hour drank their beers standing.

Louis turned to his friend patiently waiting for an explanation, glass in hand. He hadn’t changed much over the years, though his hairline was on its way to the top of his head. Mouad was the type of guy who had seemed old even in his teens. Always so serious about everything. Except soccer. When they played, it was all laughter and faking injuries whenever they were tackled. How a man behaved on a soccer field said everything one needed to know about his character. Mouad was fun, talented, and big on fair play.

Fourth glass in hand—though he didn’t drink it yet, his head was starting to feel fuzzy—Louis said, “Audrey wants me to back her up in her stupid quest to become the next mayor of Toulouse. She apparently thinks I have automatically become interested in politics because Papa died and I’m back in town for a few days.” Louis tried to think back to what his sister said exactly. “Actually, I’m not sure which one of those it was. In any case, she’s wrong, but won’t believe me when I tell her so.”

Mouad shook his head in exasperation. “I’m not sure if you getting drunk tonight will prove to her that you don’t care about politics.”

“Ah!” Louis pointed a finger in the air, glass still in hand. “But it will. Her press conference is tomorrow morning, and I won’t be there because I’ll be home in my bed, sleeping off my hangover. Also,” he added as he studied the people at nearby tables, “I was hoping someone would recognize me and report back to Audrey that I am more interested in pastis than in the Republican Party.” Louis had a history for winding up in the papers for the most idiotic of stunts. For once, he hoped that might work in his favor.

The conversation from the surrounding tables buzzed agreeably in Louis’s ear. He couldn’t make out any specific words, but everything was laughter, friendship, and youth. The bars on place Saint Pierre were famed for receiving a great number of the Toulouse students any night of the week. Louis had always preferred Chez Tonton for its view of the square and its meters of pastis.

Mouad popped a peanut into his mouth. He took his time chewing, not taking his eyes off Louis. “You’re an idiot.”

Louis raised his glass in a mock toast. “That’s the general idea, yes.” He downed the drink. Four down, six to go. Judging by the way his world turned when he closed his eyes at this point, it might not be a great idea to finish the whole meter by himself. He sat back to take a break from the alcohol.

“Did you hear that they’ve canceled all sorts of festivals over the last two years?” Mouad said, eyes on his drink. “It feels like Rio Loco is the only one left.”

Louis glowered at his friend. “What do you mean canceled? Weren’t enough people showing up?”

“Oh, they were all great hits. Especially the ones in the more difficult neighborhoods.” There was a challenge in his serious eyes. “But this city council has different priorities from the previous one, I guess.”

Louis sat back and shook his head. From the corner of his eye, he thought he saw someone taking a picture of him with a phone. Was it too much to hope that it would end up on social media somewhere? “You’re telling me my father stopped a bunch of festivals since they weren’t in line with Republican policies?”

Mouad nodded and steepled his fingers under his chin like he always did when testing Louis’s viewpoint.

Despite the fact that his father died less than a week ago, Louis wasn’t about to defend the way he did politics. In fact, it had been the biggest factor in his decision to work abroad. He often agreed with his father that something needed to be done on one subject or another, but they rarely agreed on the means to achieving results. Louis had, for the most part, omitted to voice that to his father. For this festival thing, he guessed the reasoning was to save the city money since they always contributed to sustaining the festivals.

Louis put his hands up in surrender. “I won’t be defending his policies, even now. Those festivals were a great way to bring tourists to Toulouse and to make the population happy. Not to mention the cultural impact.” He shook his head. “It’s like canceling soccer practice to save money on renting the field—it’s not going to help you win any matches.”

Mouad flashed two rows of bright white teeth. “I’ve missed you, Louis.”

“Feeling’s mutual,” Louis replied, putting his hand on his friend’s shoulder. It felt good to be home, hanging out with friends, being allowed a minimum of physical contact without anyone jumping to conclusions, and enjoying a night out with hundreds of drunken students.

“There’s one point where I agree with your family, though,” Mouad said, all serious again. “You really ought to get involved in politics. It’s where you belong.”

Louis retrieved his hand, disappointed that his friend was turning on him. He grabbed the fifth glass and took a sip. The ice-cubes had almost melted. He’d have to speed up if he didn’t want to end the night drinking warm pastis.

Mouad caught Louis’s eye. “But I don’t agree with them on how you should go about doing it. You don’t belong in the Republican Party.” He studied Louis for several seconds. “You should come with me to a meeting with the Socialist Party; you’d fit right in.” In presidential elections, there would always be one Socialist finalist and one Republican finalist, except that horrible year when Jean-Marie Le Pen from the extreme right Front National made it through the first round. Louis’s family had always been on the Republican side, going generations back.

Louis looked up into the canopy of the plane trees and pulled on his scarf with his free hand. “You might not want to be associated with the Saint-Blancat name much longer.”

“How so? What have you done?”