Meizi’s lip quivered. She eyed the door. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“But you will, and before René arrives in five minutes.” Aimée pointed to her Tintin watch. She handed her the water glass. “I won’t let René get hurt, Meizi. You’re going to tell me what’s going on.”
“You don’t understand.”
“Then take a drink and explain it to me.”
Meizi’s hands shook. “It’s my family. Non, I have to go.”
“Go where?”
Meizi squirmed, terrified and shaking. How could she make Meizi open up?
“There’s a surveillance operation in the quartier. Plainclothes in cafés,” Aimée said. “In parked vans, wiretapping the shops, the ateliers.”
She knew the first part was true. Had seen more vans this morning. Figured the second part was close.
“But if I don’t work off the debt, my family’s dead,” Meizi said. “If I don’t cooperate, they send me to Marseille.”
“Marseille?”
“That means, you know …” Meizi’s voice lowered. “To be a … prostitute. Truckers at the highway rest stops, massage parlors in Aubervilliers.” She shook her head. “I hear stories. Girls don’t come back.”
No brothels anymore. Everything was mobile; girls switched and moved at a cell phone call’s notice. An ongoing headache for vice, according to Melac.
An idea formed in Aimée’s mind. She took Meizi’s hand, squeezed it. “I’ll help you,” she said. “After you tell me about Pascal Samour’s murder.”
Meizi blinked, thought. Took a sip of water. “The funny Frenchman with red hair?”
“You knew him, non?”
“He eats … ate at Chez Chun all the time. That’s all.”
Frustrated, Aimée leaned forward. The bedsprings creaked. “Quit lying. Samour recommended you for a job at the Musée.”
“Vraiment?” Meizi brightened. “He offered, but I never thought he meant it.”
“And that photo he carried of you?”
“Photo?” Meizi’s brows knit.
“The photo of you in the shop.”
She nodded. “That’s right. I remember his friend had a new camera, he played around, took some shots.”
His friend? “Do you remember this friend’s name, what he looked like?”
“But that was two weeks ago, maybe. Lots of people come in the shop. I don’t remember.”
Aimée stored that for later. Now she needed to take advantage of the few minutes before René arrived.
“Think back to last night, it’s important,” she said. “Tell me what happened. The phone call.”
Aimée saw a blossom of blood appear on Meizi’s bitten lip. How she glanced away.
“I don’t want René hurt either, Aimée.”
“Alors, tell me the truth. The dead man’s great-aunt deserves to know, don’t you understand?”
“The flics make controls,” she said, “stop people in the Métro, on the street. Check for identification, the carte de séjour.”
“So the call was to warn you?”
Meizi nodded. “I had no ID. Nothing.”
“Why not?”
“Someone borrowed my card. We share. So I ran.”
“But behind the shop you saw the killer.”
“Killer? I ran away from the flics,” she said. “Tried to reach les tampus, the girls in Belleville who’ve paid off Tso and work legally. But their room’s empty. Gone. I had nowhere to go.”
“Maybe you saw and didn’t know it,” Aimée said. “Think back, Meizi. The street, it’s dark, cold, snowing.” She did her best to lead her. “You’d left your coat in the resto, but the caller tells you to run, you’re afraid, you turn the corner, and then …”
“Noises like ripping plastic,” Meizi said.
The killer would have worked fast to subdue Pascal and then wrap his head in plastic. Aimée couldn’t stop herself from picturing those eyes.
“What else, Meizi?”
She hesitated. “A homeless man sleeps behind the shop on the back steps. He sings, that’s all.”
Aimée remembered the man, too. How the first-responder medics called him Clodo.
“I think you’re smart, Meizi,” Aimée said. “So smart you want me to think Clodo’s involved. But I doubt it.”
Meizi fingered the duvet.
“Tso’s men murdered Samour, non?” Aimée said. “Under Ching Wao’s orders. You witnessed them and they threatened you.”
“The snakehead’s cousin?” Meizi’s mouth opened in surprise. “But Tso’s afraid of the tax men. So’s Ching Wao, with all his Mercedes. The unreported earnings from their protection rackets. It’s about money.”
Money. Like always.
“No one dies in Chinatown,” Meizi said.
“What do you mean?”
Meizi took a long gulp of water. “A valid carte de séjour is valuable. They sell them.”
“He’s sold yours already, you know that? You’re not ‘sharing’ anymore.”
Thin vanilla light pooled on the wood floor. The radiator grumbled. Meizi pursed her lips. “You won’t tell René?”
“Tell René you’ve got another man?”
Meizi shook her head.
“He knows you’re not who you say you are.”
“I can’t let René know.”
“That Pascal got you a job?”
“Non, that I lied about my parents. He’ll never believe anything I say. Please, just until I figure this out.”
Aimée nodded. “And in return?”
“Listen, one section of the Chinese cemetery at Ivry is full of unmarked graves,” Meizi said. “Potter’s field, that’s what you say?”
Paupers, no family. Aimée shuddered. Did Tso threaten Meizi and these women with an unmarked grave? “So you’re saying …?”
“When someone old dies or commits suicide, papers get passed on.”
For a culture that reveres its ancestors, this seemed a sacrilege, and a high price for living in France. But a leverage point she could use with Prévost.
“Tell me more about their protection racket.”
“The luggage store is a front,” Meizi said reluctantly.
“In what way?”
“Like half the shops. A way to launder money from Wenzhou. Tso makes them pay ‘insurance.’ ”
“But what did Samour have to do with it?”
Baffled, Meizi shook her head. “Nothing. He’s … he was some kind of scientific engineer, non?”
“What aren’t you telling me, Meizi?”
“I don’t know what you want to hear, but …” Her throat caught. “Tso’s suspicious. He thinks I’ll run away. Had that man follow me. That’s why I wore your hat.” Meizi’s lip trembled. “René’s the only person I know here, the only one who cares. I’m short, too.” A smile flitted across her face, then it was gone. “He has a good heart.”
Meizi gulped the water, determined to go on.
“René struggles to overcome things,” she said, her voice dropping. “He thinks he hides it, but I see his lonely side. I feel lonely too. Lying to him makes me sick inside. Now he won’t trust me.”
Touched, Aimée nodded. “René calls you his soul mate, Meizi. Just talk to him.”
Her phone beeped. A message. She’d forgotten she’d muted her phone. She heard Mademoiselle Samoukashian’s voice: “Meet me at the mairie, upstairs, Salle Odette Pipoul. I need to see you. Now.”
Had Mademoiselle Samoukashian discovered something?
A knock sounded on the door. Aimée put two hundred francs and her card in Meizi’s hand. An idea had formed. “Call Tso. Tell him you’re afraid, hiding. But promise to tip him off before the big raid happens. Convince him, Meizi. Say you don’t know the details yet but you’ll warn him,” she said. “He’ll call his dogs off. He’ll need you.”