“Interpol’s file on her only goes back to Oslo, 1992,” she said. “Before that, in the late sixties, she was a Chinese agent acting with traveling troupes along the Vietnamese border.”
René stroked his goatee. “And the older de Lussigny stole the jade right after Gassot discovered it.”
Aimée found her scarf and wrapped it around her neck.
“In the 1930s the last Chinese Emperor, Pu Yi, is thought to have sold the jade disks to warlords in the south to finance his private opium patch,” Aimée said. “Rumor was that a local French governor stole the disks and hid them by having them fastened to the jade astrological figures that were being held in safety by the Cao Dai. He planned to prop up the failing colonial rubber industry by selling the disks, piece by piece. The governor was Julien de Lussigny’s father.”
René rocked on his feet. “Ironic that Julien de Lussigny tried to use them just as his father had earlier.”
She nodded. “After the colonials fled Indochina, no more was heard of them,” she said.
She picked up her bag. Put the leash on Miles Davis. Aimée stretched her arm and winced.
“Dinard and Julien de Lussigny planned to sell them at auction,” Aimée said, “but then they withdrew the jade for a ‘private sale’ to the ministry.”
“From what I saw in Thadée’s files,” René said, “it seemed that Thadée counted on selling the jade to settle his and Nadège’s debts to Blondel.”
“And the gallery’s, but Blondel not only had drug debts to collect, Regnier had hired him. He shot Thadée,” she said. “And strangled Dinard. But it was Gassot’s comrades who strung up Sophie. They all wanted the jade.”
René reached in his coat pocket. “I’m sorry I gave you a hard time, Aimée.” He flipped his wallet open. Despite his misgivings, he put a creased business card with a man’s name on it in Aimée’s hand.
“Pleyet left this at the hospital for you,” René said. “This man’s retired, Pleyet said. But he worked with your father.”
She stared at it. “Merci. ”
“Pleyet told me to tell you ‘Sometimes in life the answers we want don’t make sense.’ ” René buttoned his coat. “ ‘Or make the sense we’d like them to.’ And to remember that.”
OUT ON the quai, the apricot-hued setting sun filtered through blue-gray tree branches. Aimée paused under a quay-side light, its pinprick of illumination reflected in the sluggish Seine. The Métro rumbled over the Austerlitz bridge, looped past the red stone Morgue, and hurtled toward Bastille.
“I’m off to my Hacktaviste class,” René said.
“See you later. Miles Davis needs a walk.”
Down on the quai, Miles Davis barked and sniffed a man’s pants. He turned. Surprised, Aimée stared into Guy’s eyes. She didn’t know what to do. Had he come to accuse her, hand her a summons, or inform her of the bill for his damaged office?
She stood tongue-tied, wishing it had happened differently. And that she was wearing more mascara.
Guy shifted his feet. “Don’t forget, you need to have those stitches taken out.”
His gray eyes and lopsided smile were the same. And his wonderful hands, that ruffled Miles Davis’s neck fur.
“Let me write you a check for the damages,” she said, pulling out her checkbook. But her newly bandaged hands impeded her progress. “Please forgive me. I owe you an explanation.”
“That’s not why I came,” he said. “And we don’t owe each other explanations.”
But once they had. “Look, Guy, let’s try to settle this out of court.”
He reached out and touched her cheek. “I tried, but I can’t stop thinking about you.”
How could she say this the right way? Was there a right way?
“Why pretend, Guy? We’re too different. We both know I’m not what you want,” she said. “You have someone, I know. Work it out with her.”
“What?”
“Like you said, we don’t owe each other explanations.”
Something glimmered in his eyes and he laughed. “So you’re the one who telephoned. I’m going to be an uncle!” He pulled her over to the street. He waved and a blonde waved back from a Renault, a bouquet of white roses in her arms. “Do you see Cécile? She’s my sister! She’s been trying for years. We went to the Savoie to tell my parents.”
Aimée stared. Her mouth hung open.
“Speechless for once, Aimée?”
How could she have been so wrong? Stupid again!
“My schedule’s crazy. Like yours. Cécile keeps telling me that I should accept you as you are,” he said. “Big eyes, torn fishnet stockings and all. Do you want to try this again?”
Aimée saw the last glint of the sun hitting the rooftiles.
Did she?
*mètres carrés, square meters