Meizi shuddered.
Aimée tried the adjoining door.
“Non, Aimée. We’ll go out the skylight!” Meizi looped the greasy chain and tucked it in her pocket. “We sneak out that way all the time. That’s why he chained me.”
Aimée climbed on the sink rim, praying it would hold her, unlatched the skylight and propped it open with the pipe.
The slanted blue-gray slate roof overlooked the courtyard, which was filled with the flics. To her left were more skylights. Afraid of heights and up on a rooftop. Again.
Meizi grabbed a hoodie from the pile, and a Tati shopping bag with her things. “There’s a way over the gutter. Come on, Aimée.”
She could do this. Had to. Frigid air gusted over the rooftops. The cold slate froze her knees. Aimée kept her eye on Meizi’s back and the stovepipe chimneys ahead.
And then Meizi disappeared. Like smoke.
Aimée found herself poised over a hole in the tiled roof.
“Down here, Aimée!” Meizi shouted.
Aimée gripped the edge of a roof tile, breathing in rank odors of mildew, and dropped down, catching herself before she fell on a picture frame. She landed in a dim attic next to a half-sheeted piano.
She hit René’s number. No reception. They’d have to risk going to the café.
“Let’s go.”
But Meizi blocked the door of the small attic. “You can’t tell René.”
She wondered at Meizi’s stubbornness. If they didn’t get out of here … but she decided to play along.
“Do you want your parents caught in a raid?” she said. “Held at Vincennes detention center, checked for valid identity papers, their shop records audited?”
Meizi’s face blanched.
“They do have papers? And you?” She knew the answer, but had to get Meizi out of here. “Or are you illegal?”
The truth shone in Meizi’s eyes. Illegal. About to bolt. Aimée grabbed her shoulder. “I don’t care. But I can help you.”
“Help me? But you’ll tell René.”
He knew most of it already.
“Non, you will. Then I’ll introduce you to a lawyer specializing in asylum requests.”
Tears pooled in Meizi’s eyes. “No good. It doesn’t matter about me. Tso’s cousin threatened my parents, my family in China. One message and they’re—”
“So your parents aren’t here,” Aimée interrupted.
Meizi’s hand went to her mouth. Shook her head. “You don’t know the way snakeheads operate.” Sobs racked her shoulders.
Aimée’s mind went back to Madame Wu’s unsmiling face, René’s disappointment at the long hours Meizi worked. How the “parents” chaperoned her everywhere.
“They’re not your parents,” Aimée said. “You work for them, and this Tso controls you.”
“Tso controls everyone here, the ateliers in our building, the whole street.” Meizi took Aimée’s arm. “They keep me in the shop, speaking French, making a good face for the customers, the flics.”
Sirens whined outside. A questioning look appeared in Meizi’s large eyes. “What’s happening? Is this a raid?”
Smart. She was putting this together.
“I guess you want to find out the hard way,” Aimée said. “Or do you want my help?”
Meizi hesitated, then tucked the chain, which had fallen out of her pocket, into her jeans’ waistband and opened the door.
“This way,” Meizi said.
They ran down the corridor, descended three flights of the twisting staircase to the street door. “Out here.”
Aimée sucked in her breath. Cold, crisp air hit her lungs. Late afternoon light glinted off the damp cobbles. She could see the café. Perfect. They’d reach René …
A siren whined. Flashing red lights appeared from a police car. They had to get out of here. Now.
She grabbed Meizi’s hand, pulled her into the crooked passage. They ran past a woman shaking a tablecloth from her window and emerged on the next street. Panting, Aimée stopped and caught her breath.
Passersby in dark overcoats leaned into the wind, which rippled the red awnings of the belle epoque hotel across the street. She clutched Meizi’s arm and tried René again as they started into the lanes of traffic. She ran with her cell phone to her ear, just avoiding the Number 38 bus.
Faded gold letters on the facade advertised Hôtel Bellevue et du Chariot d’Or. In the marble foyer, festooned with turn-of-the-century colored glass, she set her bag on the reception desk. “A double room, s’il vous plaît.”
“No luggage?” The concierge, a middle-aged brunette with Slavic cheekbones, crunched her consonants.
“Does it look like it, Madame?” she said. “We missed our train.” Aimée glanced at the room tariffs posted on the wall. Old-world, all right; the kind of hotel that a few generations ago lodged patrons for the myriad theaters on the Grands Boulevards.
She set down the slimmer wad of Tso’s francs and showed her ID with its less-than-flattering photo and filled in the form. “We’re hungry. Room service available?”
The woman sniffed. “Bien sûr, if you like omelettes à l’estragon.”
They took the groaning cage of an elevator to the second floor and navigated a maze of hallways to a bare-bones room facing rue de Turbigo. If René would answer his phone, she wouldn’t have to go back out in the cold. She ransacked her mind for the name of the café tabac; finally, it came to her—Café Saint-Martin, the name of the street it was on.
Aimée dialed the black melamine rotary relic room phone, but only got Reception. “Mademmoiselle, could you look up a listing for me?”
The receptionist sighed. “That’s five francs extra.”
“Connect me,” Aimée said, then added, “s’il vous plaît.”
A man’s voice answered. “Qui?”
“Monsieur Friant, s’il vous plaît. He drank a brandy at your counter not twenty minutes—”
“Ah, le petit!” he boomed. “Why didn’t you say so? And you’re the secret agent. The butcher needs that coat back.”
“And if I talk to Monsieur Friant, he’ll get it.”
“Attends.” Banging as he dropped the phone. Crunching in her ears.
“What have you done, Aimée? The place is crawling with flics.”
“Try to answer your phone sometime, René. Damn irritating.”
Pause. “I’ll reinsert my SIM card. The phone fell during my … altercation.”
“Tso’s taken care of, for now.” She looked at Meizi, who sat in the room’s only chair, fingers tensed on the armrests. “Someone wants to talk with you.”
“Meizi … you found Meizi?”
“Room 22, second floor, Hôtel Bellevue et du Chariot d’Or. Around the corner, on rue de Turbigo. You can’t miss it.”
Aimée checked her face in the mirror over the lavabo, her raccoon eyes. A mascara mess. She splashed water on her face, rubbed off the smudges, lined her eyes with kohl, and applied lipstick. Then poured Meizi a glass of water and took out her lock-picking kit.
She knelt down, examined the lock chained around Meizi’s ankle, and chose a double-edged snake rake from her kit. With a swift jiggle the lock opened. Meizi rubbed her ankle.
“Now you’re going to tell me about your boyfriend, Meizi.”
“But René’s my boyfriend.” Meizi’s eyes batted in fear.
“I think you have things to tell me about last night,” she said, smoothing the duvet. “Why you disappeared from the restaurant. Why I saw you wearing my hat on a street corner. Why that man pushed you.”