Paris Noir Read online

  “We met in the 11th arrondissement.” I saw myself entering that bar near the Cirque d’Hiver, where Ilona had said she’d meet me at 11 o’clock, the Pop’in. It was full of noise and smoke, a young crowd, very hip, in the midst of a pop rock revival. As background music The Von Blondies were singing “Pawn Shoppe Heart,” a piece I’d used to close a show two years earlier. And there she was at the counter, perched on her Jimmy Choo high-heeled sandals, the latest black leggings, a denim miniskirt, a white blouse open over a sequined tank top, under the de rigueur military jacket. She was talking with the bartender without really paying attention to him, her elbow resting on a pink motor scooter helmet, with her pale blue gaze outlined in black towering over the room. Not difficult to recognize; Yelena had shown me a photo of her.

  She’d spotted me too, an older guy not in sync with the rest of the clientele. I walked toward her, she greeted me quickly, in French but rolling her r’s,no warmth, scarcely polite; she accepted another glass, then abruptly took her gift and buried it in her purse. Without opening it.

  “Strange, don’t you think, that she didn’t want to see what it was?” Yveslooked up from his keyboard for a few seconds.

  I shrugged. This had intrigued me at the time. But the girl’s haughty manners had hardly made me want to try and understand or linger in the bar. I was tired after my week in Milan, and the idea of a peaceful evening was rather attractive. Besides, very early on she’d given me hints that she wanted to leave, and she got up from her stool without waiting for me to finish my beer. With a half-hearted goodbye, she took her helmet, headed for the door at the entrance of rue Amelot, then froze abruptly, her hand on the doorknob. After turning around, she came back toward me, all smiles. She was really beautiful when she smiled.

  A bit surprised, I’d taken a look outside, seen a few passersby, particularly a hefty guy a little older than me, kind of tough looking in a black three-piece suit. But he had turned his head away when he caught me looking at him, and by the time I asked Ilona about it, he’d disappeared. She herself had chosen to play the guilty party, so I could forgive her for her behavior.

  “She came back just like that and apologized?”

  “Yes. She was a strange girl.”

  “And what about the guy in the suit? Did you ask her if she knew him?”

  Nod. “She claimed she didn’t. At that point I had no reason to doubt her.”

  Sydneydidn’t seem convinced but went on: “And then what did you do?”

  “She suggested dinner. We left the Pop’in and went to Oberkampf.” But, in fact, things didn’t happen that simply. After talking for another half hour inside, Ilona had made me climb up to the second floor and then back down again into the bar’s concert hall. There we zigzagged between full tables so as to leave through an emergency exit that led to an inner courtyard, and then into Beaumarchais.

  “And her bike?”

  “Her bike?”

  “Yes, you said that she had a helmet, was it just for decoration?”

  “No, she had a scooter, but she wanted to go on foot.” Because she’d parked it in front of the bar. And that was when I understood the reason behind this and the paranoia Ilona was showing. She kept looking behind her on the way. I had attributed her behavior to her eccentricity. All the Russian girls I’ve met in my work have been a bit eccentric. In fact, she had obviously wanted to avoid rue Amelot—and the people who were waiting there for her. “We walked for about thirty minutes, around Place de la République, up Faubourg du Temple as far as Saint-Maur, then turned right to get to Oberkampf and the restaurant. Café Charbon, know it?”

  Sydneydidn’t react but I felt Yvesnodding on my right and heard him commenting on my lack of judgment, strolling around like that on a Saturday night in such a neighborhood with that kind of girl.

  I heard a noise behind me—Ralphwas back in the room: “No answer to the number you gave us, Valère.” His voice was first very close, controlled, then I had the impression that he was straightening up to talk to his boss. “I got our colleagues there. One guy speaks English so I asked him to check a couple of IDs. He’s going to call back.”

  “Go on, Monsieur Henrion.”

  “We ate, talked a little, there was a crowd. It wasn’t very good.”

  “Still didn’t open the present?”

  “No.”

  “So, this Ilona girl wasn’t as bad as all that.”

  “I did it for Yelena, because she was her best friend.” And perhaps a little for myself, I thought.

  “Very nice of you.”

  Ilona had insisted that we sit in the rear, near a big mirror. She sat down so she could have her back to the restaurant window. In order to see what was behind her without the risk of being recognized from the outside. During the meal, she’d called a number on her cell several times but no one answered. At every aborted call, she’d seemed more tense. As for me, I was learning a little more about her because she was lowering her guard. I was only guessing really, catching signs. I’d already heard other stories like this and had no trouble filling in the blanks.

  Like Yelena, she had arrived in Paris around the age of fifteen, leaving behind a crappy life with no future in a ruined, corrupt country. Ready to do anything to have her place in the sun. A pretty kid like so many others. Unscrupulous agencies relying on older former models from the same background who had actually become pimps had dragged her from capital to capital. Never forgetting to pump as much bread as they could out of her. Agencies that didn’t hesitate to put her on lousy jobs once she’d started to age, which meant turning a lot less tricks.

  Of course I suspected what Ilona was doing to pay the rent. I had one foot in the scene, and even if I wasn’t into those things myself, I knew them well. I’d cross paths with many girls of her type. For a while I’d thought that Yelena was working as a high-class whore too. She talked so little about her life at the time that in the end I didn’t trust her. She hadn’t understood my attitude, and our affair fell apart. By the time I realized that her discretion was only modesty and shame, she’d already gone elsewhere to work with others and start over. That was six years ago, just after my arrival in London. Since then we’d stayed in touch anyway, and this at least had given me the chance to apologize, to try and be a better friend.

  It was probably because of that, because of an old, unresolved guilt, that I had agreed to do something for Ilona at the end of the meal.

  “So really, she asked you to go to her place alone, and you said yes without hesitating, without asking for an explanation?”

  “Of course I did!”

  “And so?”

  “I can’t remember what she told me anymore, I … I’m tired.”

  “With all the junk you took?” Ralphdidn’t want to be forgotten.

  I couldn’t reply. No point trying to justify the coke,I’d taken it willingly, like an idiot. They’d made me swallow the rest by force. But my three interrogators didn’t seem ready to believe me.

  “So you agreed, and …?”

  “And I went out of the Charbon …” Into the Saturday-night zoo, a little nervous and not very uplifted by the local crowd. I’d known the Oberkampf neighborhood a few years earlier when it was trendier, sleeker, newly revitalized. Now it was like anyplace else again, with even more bars and restaurants.

  The building where Ilona and her housemate had their apartment was located in a private, gated alley not far from the restaurant. What used to be called a cité (housing block) in the 11th, a kind of narrow alley where artisans had their workshops before. These had disappeared a long time ago, replaced by very expensive, slightly bohemian apartments for models, photographers, and artists of all kinds. Or by public housing. Social diversity in the making.

  “There wasn’t much light in the courtyard and no one in sight.” I stood a moment outside, listening to the sounds of a party several floors up and watching people in the street on the other side of the gate. “I climbed up to the third floor, I found the entra
nce Ilona had mentioned on the landing, and I was going to knock when I heard the cry.” I had never been confronted with such suffering. A terrible scream, interrupted by deep gurgles and sobs. “It was a girl, I think. I thought it must be Ilona’s housemate, and I almost tried to enter, but …”

  “But?” Sydneyleaned toward me.

  “Two men began talking to each other inside, in Russian. There were heavy punches, more moaning from someone in pain. Even through the … I … I could practically feel the punches.”

  “The address! Quick!”

  I gave it to Ralphfrom memory, this time turning around. Impossible to forget it after what I’d heard behind that door. Ralphwent to make phone calls in the next room.

  “What did you do afterward?”

  “I left.”

  Yvesshook his head behind his computer screen.

  “I … I wanted to tell Ilona, ask her for her key, warn someone, get people …” I tried to explain but it was useless. “And what would you have done in my place? I had no weapon, I don’t know how to fight.” I lowered my head. “I got scared.”

  The office was silent for a few seconds. They let me stew in my shame. I felt their mocking eyes on me.

  “You left, and then?” Sydney,the humiliation had lasted long enough.

  “I was going back down when I met the guy I’d seen in front of the Pop’in. He was carrying a McDonald’s bag. We were both surprised but he didn’t recognize me, at least not right away. He just checked me out from head to toe as I casually passed him, trying to stay calm. I was already running along the alley when I heard shouting in the stairway. Names, I think, at least one: Victor.”

  “His sidekicks in the apartment?”

  “I didn’t try to find out. I rushed to find Ilona at the Char-bon. She understood there was a problem as soon as she saw me come in.”

  “Not stupid, that babe. Then?”

  “Then she refused to follow me outside.”

  “Why?”

  “Instinct, I guess. The threat was behind me. She dragged me into the bathroom, and from there we stepped into the nightclub next door, the Nouveau Casino.” Barely through the door, she’d done something that puzzled me. She’d gone to the cloakroom and checked her purse. But not her helmet. Then she gave me the ticket she’d gotten from the girl in charge. I didn’t tell them this, though.

  “What did you do once you got inside?”

  “She led me toward the bar at the back. We lost ourselves in the crowd and we waited. She refused to listen to me. I could see she was scared stiff, and this began to make me panic too. I wanted to call someone.”

  “Who?”

  “You, the police. Who else?”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  Behind me, other cops were filing into the second office. Ralphstarted to talk to them, and I understood that these were the guys who had stayed at Marc’s while we’d gone to the hospital. They exchanged information in low voices.

  Sydneyreturned to the job at hand. “Why didn’t you call us, Monsieur Henrion?”

  “She stopped me. She didn’t want me to go out to make a call, and my cell wasn’t working inside. Plus, I couldn’t hear above the music.”

  “A little too easy.”

  “For you, maybe. Anyhow, I wouldn’t have had time.”

  “Why not?”

  “The thug from the stairway showed up in the club with another guy, same type only older. Ilona saw them first, me just after. They were quick to spot us and elbowed through the crowd to catch up with us.”

  “That’s where they cornered you?”

  “No.” I closed my eyes and rubbed a hand over my face to ward off the memories. Suddenly I snickered.

  “What?”

  “There was a concert later that evening at the Nouveau Casino, and they were spinning the British band Franz Ferdinand to keep people from getting impatient. ‘Auf Achse,’ you know it?”

  Sydneyshook his head.

  “Okay, forget it. There were three black guys sitting next to us at the bar. They’d been checking out Ilona since we’d arrived, so she went to ask them for a smoke. The two Russians turned up, and the first grabbed her by the wrist to yank her around. She slapped him.”

  After that, everything went very fast. The thug had wanted to slap her back, but one of the black guys gave him a violent shove. They all started fighting, and Ilona and I slipped out, taking advantage of the confusion.

  Outside, there was a black Mercedes waiting with a third man. Fortunately, it was parked on the other side of the street, pointing in the wrong direction. He’d seen us, but by the time he reacted and got out of his car, we were already far away, hurtling down Oberkampf in the middle of the Saturday-night partygoers. I remembered that Ilona had taken off her Jimmy Choos to run and we had gone through side streets, then down toward the Cirque d’Hiver to get the scooter. A mistake. In the meantime, the Russians had regrouped and, without a hitch, seeing the direction we’d taken, had made a quick return to the Pop’in.

  The Mercedes had shot up rue Amelot just as Ilona was starting her scooter. Without missing a beat, she’d jumped it up on the sidewalk to try to shake off the car.

  “Then I got really scared. I had no helmet and we were taking lots of small one-way streets in the wrong direction. We almost hit several people.” I shook my head. “I think we broke the speed record for crossing the 11th. but we couldn’t shake them, and they were going to catch us any minute. At some point, on one of the boulevards, I can’t remember which …” I stopped in the middle of my story to search my memory, in vain. “Well, I can certainly find it on a map. Anyhow, I saw a public works van parked near one of those huge metro air vents planted in the sidewalks. It was wide open, with several cables and pipes running from it into the ground.”

  Then I told Ilona to go around the block the wrong way. This time we got lucky, a car heading toward us from the other end of the street forced the Russians to slow down. We went back to the van and I told her to get off the scooter. I dumped it into the vent opening, and we jumped right after it onto a large conduit. The scooter was wrecked, but we were invisible. No one saw our maneuver, not even the poor guy doing the maintenance on the vent. He only saw us climb back up thirty minutes later, a little dirty, once we were sure the coast was clear.

  Sydneystared at me in disbelief.

  “Go check it out, the scooter’s probably still in the hole. We caught a taxi back to Marc’s place. I thought we’d gotten out of the jam we were in. I was wrong.”

  The phone started ringing in the next room. Ralphpicked up. I sighed. This didn’t escape Sydney.A second call, a few seconds later. They were asking for Ralphagain.I closed my eyes. The second conversation, in English, was more laborious. Italy. When Ralphhung up and joined us, his voice was less assured, more concerned. “I have bad news.”

  I lowered my head, sniffled. “Yelena’s dead.”

  “How did you know?” The cop in the polo shirt wasn’t so condescending anymore.

  I knew it because of what had happened afterwards. Ilona and I had arrived at Marc’s very annoyed with each other. Especially me with her. The adrenaline was subsiding, giving way to a more muted tension.

  “What time was it?”

  “Two-thirty in the morning, maybe three.”

  I remember yelling at her while pacing in front of the bay window of the loft.At my feet was the Place de la Bastille, with its July column and its little golden Genie of Liberty at the top of it all lit up. But I didn’t care about the view, I couldn’t stop yelling.

  Ilona backed into a corner of the living room, near a low table, far from my outbursts. After a long moment without her reacting, she removed a packet of powder from her jacket pocket and traced some lines on the table. I jumped on her, beside myself, grabbing her by the shoulders and shaking her. I stopped when I saw her sad, beaten look. The look of a girl who knew she’d lost everything. She put a finger on my mouth, snorted a line with a rolled-up bill before passing it to me. “
I hesitated and then did the same. Believe it or not, it has been a long time since I’ve done coke.We finished the lines and stared at each other.”

  Then everything got pretty hazy. She stroked my cheek, kissed me on the mouth, and bit my upper lip. Until it bled. First we made love there, on that low table. I could see myself again, lifting her skirt and pulling down her tights. She’s the one who had wanted me to take her like that, urgently, from behind. A violent, desperate ass fuck that went on for a long time, everywhere, until we both ended up passing out in the bedroom. “When I came to my senses, the three Russians were standing around the bed.”

  “How did they find out where—”

  “Yelena. She was the only one who knew where I was staying in Paris. I’d told her and she also knows … knewMarc.” I swallowed to avoid crying. “Did she suffer?”

  Ralphnodded yes.

  “And her kid?”

  “All of them, the husband too. The thugs took their time.” Ralphlooked at his boss. “Same for the housemate in Oberkampf.”

  “Jesus! Who are these assholes, for God’s sake? Tell us if you know!” Sydneybanged his palm on his desk.

  I shook my head. “They spoke Russian the whole time. One of them dragged me off the bed and punched me in the face. I ended up in the paws of the older one, the famous Victor. That much I understood. I think he was the boss.He pushed me onto my knees, threatening me with a gun. Then he made me drink vodka from the bottle. To put me out, I think. He kept poking me with the barrel to make me swallow faster.”

  I would have preferred to forget what happened next. The two other Russians had set to work on Ilona. One was holding her by the arms, the other was straddling her thighs to prevent her from moving. This guy started to cut up her face with a knife while he questioned her. “They never spoke French. Between every cut, he’d pour alcohol on her wounds. She was screaming.” A tear ran down my cheek. “She was struggling, and the more she screamed, the more the thugs enjoyed themselves.”

  “You did nothing?”

  I pointed to my cut eyebrow. “After a long time, she stopped moving. I thought they’d killed her. There was blood everywhere, on the sheets, on the walls. The torturer turned to Victor to speak to him. He got a reply and stuck his face close to Ilona’s. That jerk was holding his knife just under her chin, like this …” I mimicked his posture, “the blade facing up. And then …”