He remembered his mother’s tales of running to the shelters or sometimes to the Métro. More often she’d gone to underground cellars and caves. Most Allied attacks had focused on outlying train depots and factories that had been taken over by the Germans.
Fat lot of good this information did him; he could be anywhere. If only he could locate his phone, reach it, and call Aimée.
“Get some beer while you’re there,” the gravelly voice said somewhere behind him.
“Where?”
“Next to Bata.”
“No names, shut up!”
Bata . . . the shoe store? René closed his eyes.
“He’s asleep.”
How many Batas were in Paris? They were usually in low-rent quartiers. Places like la Goutte d’Or, the African section, or Belleville or Clichy.
They’d left the rags in a wet pile on his raincoat. Even that he could live with. He disliked more the fact that he could see them. A bad omen for kidnap victims. It meant the kidnappers didn’t care if they could be identified; the victim wouldn’t be around long enough to identify them.
Forty-eight hours. Then dismemberment and death.
Thursday
AIMÉE HEARD THE HUM of the fax machine. Apprehensive, she stood up to read the fax. Was it René’s captors, with a meeting place?
“Meet me downstairs at the Musée Henner. Dinard.”
Dinard, the jade expert!
Twenty minutes later she stood in front of Musée Henner, a weathered, sand-colored stone museum that displayed the blue, white and red French flag. Rain pelted the cobbles. She doubted if Dinard had had time to research the jade. But he wanted it.
She needed to string him along, glean information from him. His present interest must stem from the RG’s visit.
Aimée entered and saw a wooden staircase mounting to the upper floors of the eighteenth-century townhouse left to the state by the owner, a mediocre German painter. A fresh-faced young woman at the reception met her.
“You’re here to see the curator?”
Aimée nodded, not knowing what else to do, and followed the young woman’s directions to the bowels of the museum. Too bad; she would have liked to see the view from the top.
The sign on the door read CURATOR. She knocked and Dinard’s assistant, Tessier, opened it. He motioned her inside to a room with a computer on a desk next to piles of papers. Oversized art books filled the bookshelves; a large oval window overlooked the back courtyard
She stayed by the door, prepared to back out. “Where’s Dinard?”
“Monsieur Dinard asked me to collect the jade pieces,” he informed her, his forehead beaded with perspiration.
She played for time. “Why the fax, and the mystery?”
“He’s had to leave for the hospital for a hypertension screening.”
“No offense, but I’d rather give him the pieces myself,” she said. “My understanding is that he’s investigating their origin and provenance.”
She noted the perspiration on his brow and how he kept smoothing back his brown hair. A nervous habit she remembered from their previous brief meeting at Dinard’s office.
“They’re holding something over you, aren’t they?” Aimée asked.
A flash of anger lit his eyes and she knew. That’s what the RG did. Intimidation, threats of blackmail, wiretaps. Sickening. Regnier was probably overseeing the campaign.
“Look, you’re not my business,” she said. “All I want to know about is the jade.”
“They know about you,” he said, his anger replaced by a cunning look.
“Pleyet and the RG? Tell me something new.”
The phone rang. Was this a signal?
“I have to leave,” he said to her. “I don’t have much time. To do the research properly we need the jade pieces.”
“Like I said, I prefer to give them to Professor Dinard myself. When can I meet him?”
“In Dinard’s position, he can’t be seen dealing with you.”
“So that’s why you wanted to meet here?”
He nodded, turning toward the window. The parquet floor creaked as he shifted his stance.
Aimée said, “I have a question. Since the pieces have such a high value and the art world is so small, Professor Dinard must know the identity of the last owner.”
“We work in a museum.”
“But you deal with collectors, n’est-ce pas? You would know those with jade collections.”
“I thought you wanted help, Mademoiselle.”
But not the help he wanted to give her. “Who’s interested in the jade?” she asked.
“Do you have it with you?”
She shook her head. “I don’t think you’re a jade expert. You’re just full of hot air and questions.”
From his expression, she’d struck a nerve. He froze.
There was a pause. She heard a clock ticking, saw the shadows in the courtyard. Felt the chill in the room which had no working heater.
“I assist and help curate exhibitions,” Tessier said, his voice lowered. His eyes darted around the room. “But you’re wrong. The study of jade is my passion.”
Unease filled her. “Did Dinard mention the jade to you the other day after I left?”
Tessier shook his head.
“Or his conversation with the RG?”
“I’m not privy to Professor Dinard’s conversations.”
Shadows lengthened from the trees casting a dim light in the room. Tessier wiped his brow.
“Tessier, you’re wasting my time,” she said, heading for the door.
“Wait.” He took a deep breath. “Dinard’s on the way out,” he said. “Museum politics. They offered me his post, but only if I perform like a seal.” He wiped his brow. “My life’s devoted to art. Why should my education and expertise be wasted?”
“I had the collection, then it was stolen. But I still have this.” She held up the jade disk.
Tessier’s eyes widened. He took a magnifying glass from the desk. “May I examine this, please?”
“Tell me about the jade,” she said. “Then I won’t bother you. Tell them anything you want. I’ll leave you in peace.”
His eyes shone. “The first Emperor of China waged war for some jade beads. We call them disks. They symbolize the sky and the earth, hence the round shape. Jade’s more than a stone, it’s an integral part of an ancient system of worship, essential in the ritual propitiation of the gods and in the performance of homage. There’s a cultural parallel with our discipline of philosophy; it had both a political meaning and a practical function.”
He studied the disk, then shrugged. “But I don’t know if this small disk decorated jade astrological figures or belonged to another, older piece,” Tessier said. “The original disks were small. And sacred. It’s so hard to tell.”
“You’re saying these disks could be older than the zodiac animals they were attached to like halos.”
“I’m speculating,” he said. “The original meaning of the Chinese word for “ritual” was “to serve the gods with jade.”
Tessier pulled a small book from his pocket and translated from Chinese:
Shamans, represented by the earliest Chinese character 
(wu), used tools to draw circles superimposed at right angles. From this we may deduce that shamans monopolized the technology for making circular 
bi disks or beads, and thus had the exclusive power to present sacrifices to the gods and ancestral spirits. The round shape of the bi is said to derive from the circular path that the sun follows in the sky. According to accounts from 283 B.C. we know an unblemished