Louis Shalako
The
Special Homicide Unit was busy at the best of times. At the worst of times,
their small team of detectives were understaffed and overworked. It was a small
part of a larger division of the Sûreté. It
was one cog in a much larger machine, and a bit of a dumping ground for the
sort of cases that, upon examination, appeared to have had little chance of an
arrest, let alone a successful prosecution.
It was only their record of success that
justified their existence at all. It was also why Gilles had originally been
tapped to head the small, specialized working group in the first place.
Maintenon wasn’t just good. He’d been good, very
good, literally for decades now. In other words, it was not just luck and it
sure as hell was not a fluke. Flukes happened from time to time, but not a
whole bunch, not all in a big long row like that. That’s not to say they didn’t
have their failures, because they did—everyone had their failures and the
homicide business was no different than any other.
Maybe that was Smirnov’s problem. He hadn’t
accounted for the possibility of failure.
Smirnov had believed himself to be the smartest
guy in the world, a type Hubert had run across before.
Hubert
was in the room, poring over report, after report, after report. If he was to
have any hope of catching up, let alone even understanding this case, he would
have to read every stinking line of it. It was all too possible to get bogged
down in the details…
The
file was thin enough, but those had been different times. Vadim Smirnov. Only
child of Russian émigrés, relatively prosperous people who had been resident in France, but
rendered stateless after the Russian Revolution of 1917. As members of the
hated bourgeoisie, they would hardly take the risk of going back to Russia. Not
if they didn’t have to. The case dated back to 1913, when Gilles—and
Archambault, had been young constables, involved in an investigation relating
to human smuggling, white slavery and child prostitution. It was believed the
victims, a number of attractive young women, a smaller number of attractive
young males, all of them underage, some of them of quite a good social
background, had been inveigled,
whether through drugs, alcohol, psychological extortion, or other means, simple
kidnapping perhaps. Some, at least, had been smuggled out of the country and
sold as sex-slaves in the harims of
certain foreign countries.
Others
had ended up in the various stews,
brothels right here in town.
Gilles
had been an undercover cop working the vice beat at the time—the worst beat of
all in some ways, and yet, it was an opportunity. An opportunity to do some
good in the world. He was lucky to be there, at the right time and in the right
place, with some good relationships with the people around him. This included
plenty of civilian sources, and right when it counted most.
Gilles
and Archambault had put two and two together. They had come up with a plan. The
plan had required certain bait, and certain risks, and time more than anything.
They’d gotten lucky in that poor old Vadim and a couple of others had
come along to pick up the package. He’d been convinced by a simple photograph
of the merchandise, a rather
youthful-looking police woman who had volunteered, (and good for her, too), and
to deliver an envelope simply stuffed with money.
Convicted
by a jury of his peers—theoretically, at least, although few people were as
bent, warped, positively twisted, or even just plain sick, as he was, Smirnov
had been sent off to Devil’s Island for twenty-five years. Before leaving,
right at his sentencing in fact, he had sworn undying vengeance against all
things police, but most of all against Gilles.
Gilles
had approached him—Gilles had been totally undercover, and it had taken some
little time to establish that bond of trust with Vadim. That sort of thing
wasn’t easy to do. Smirnov had liked
Gilles. He’d taken him under his wing, made him his protégé, and he had thought they were friends. The fool had been
fooled. He didn’t like it much. He saw it as a betrayal, and this coming from
someone in his rather peculiar profession, where honour was also seen in a
rather peculiar light—assuming you were not one of them, it could seem mighty peculiar indeed. Yet even the criminal
underworld had their standards and their pecking-order. Pimps and pedophiles were
about as popular as arsonists and anarchist bomb-tossers. The honest thieves
saw themselves as above all of that.
Maintenon’s
eye-witness testimony on the stand had been convincing. Vadim had to sit there
in court and watch and listen, with his carefully-constructed image being
destroyed, painfully, for a man of some renown of his own. He was already a
successful businessman, with quite a number of small hotels, bars and
restaurants. All of them of a rather grimy nature. That was the funny thing
about crime, sometimes. To say it was just greed would have been too easy,
without actually coming up with an explanation. He obviously knew how to apply
himself. The man could have easily done without it and still become a success.
He’d also had a penchant for the social scene and a rather brazen philanthropy
of the front-page variety. He was a donation-matcher, a known type. The
publicity would mention some ludicrous upper limit, a million francs or
whatever, knowing that it would never be met and therefore he would never have
to cover it. Funny thing was, the journalists never seemed to catch on. They
lapped it all right up, with a kind of relish. His cover, and his image of his
own self had been smashed in the dirt. His extensive network of criminal
contacts had been compromised, and those people would not be too happy either.
His more respectable friends had run for the hills, figuratively speaking.
It
had been established that the man wasn’t above sampling his own wares from time
to time, and that kind of embarrassment hurts.
His
properties were gone. His wife had abandoned him, and the kids weren’t speaking
to him, although that might have changed over time. It often did. Any shred of
genteel respectability he’d once had was gone—and that hurt too.
If
he had stashed a little money away somewhere, the police had never been able to
trace it, although it was a pretty good bet that he had.
It
never seemed to occur to these guys. Devil’s Island was infinitely preferable
to the guillotine, which wasn’t exactly known for second chances. There were a
few dead bodies here and there, going back years in some cases. Proving the act
had been futile. The man had insulated himself well enough to slide on that
aspect of the case, or cases, as it turned out. It was more a case of criminal
conspiracy to kidnap and extort, and then there was the kiddie stuff—real sex
crimes, bad enough for all of that. Gratitude was hardly to be expected, but
even so—even so.
And,
while Smirnov, was putting in hard labour, in his off hours busy growing root
vegetables and leafy greens, begging for cigarette butts, trying not to get
fucked up the ass in the meantime, and cursing his fate on Devil’s Island,
Gilles and a million others like him had gone off to the War…four, long years
of war.
The
fucking idiots had let him out, with time off for good behaviour. Word was,
he’d been studying the Bible and teaching other inmates how to read—so that
they could better understand and appeal their cases, and shit like that. He’d
become some kind of a Good Samaritan.
The
mug shot was indifferent, faded with time, very small. It could have been
almost anyone after a while. So that wasn’t going to be of much help.
And
now, he was back in France. He’d been back for some years. Word was, he was
back in business, the only business he had ever known—the man was making up for
a lot of lost time, or so it seemed. He’d reverted back to type. Interestingly,
the physical description matched up with any number of their suspects, although
age alone might have let him off. The Bisson character, possibly—they might
want to call the sweatshop and clarify on that little matter. Fuck, he couldn’t
even recall the manager’s name, although it was in here somewhere.
Smirnov
had built up a new organization over the course of several years. He had a big,
rambling bar in one of the seedier little side-streets in Montmartre, one with
a whole rabbit-warren of tiny rooms up above. With a little money, a small gang
of associates, and a lot to lose, Smirnov’s thoughts might very well have come
back to good old Gilles Maintenon. So many years, on a remote island, cut off
from the very world. The man would have had plenty of time to brood—to
think—and to plan.
.jpg) |
| ...Smirnov. |
“Regarding
Monsieur Smirnov. Historically. Years ago. He’s smuggling people out of the
country, the victims possibly drugged or unconscious. What better way, than
inside of a bogus deep freezer? Put a bunch of air holes in the bottom, make
sure the crate is loosely built in terms of leaving cracks for air to get in.
Nail the top on, grease a couple of palms and that load is safe enough. Customs
inspections are more of a problem getting stuff into the country. No one cares
what goes out, except for possibly gold, or diamonds, or large sums of
currency.” Stuff leaving the country was somebody else’s problem, essentially.
“The victims would be drugged into unconsciousness…”
Hmn.
If
it had worked well enough in the past, he might have used the same idea again.
LeBref
looked up from his desk.
“Talking
to yourself again. That’s one of the first signs of insanity. That, and hair on
the palms of your hands.” There was a pause. “The third sign is looking for
it…”
An
old joke.
Hubert
waved him off.
“Just
thinking out loud.”
“Yeah.”
LeBref put a few things away, snapped his briefcase shut. “All right. Well, I
am out of here.”
Hubert
nodded.
Hmn.
It could be, Hubert supposed. It was
a least some kind of a motive—but why the fucking freezer thing. That one was
just plain weird. It did send a certain kind of message. There would be a
thousand other people out there with the exact same motive, when you got right
down to it. Which didn’t necessarily rule it out as a motive, the only question
was, whose motive was it.
Hmn.
He
sat and rubbed his eyes for a moment.
Fuck.
***
 |
| ...just a minor flap here... |
Not
surprisingly, a busy and important police force such as the Sûreté, was all-in on the latest technology.
This
included the tele-printer and the wire-photo services. As a separate unit, the
room had their own rather large and expensive machine, with its own unique
dial-up number. The whole department didn’t necessarily need to receive every
little thing that passed back and forth, and the same went for the unit. They
didn’t need to receive every little wanted bulletin, missing person report, or
unexplained body found in a gutter. This was more useful to the situation room
people down on the ground floor, a kind of clearing house of information for
all of Paris, and in the larger sense, all over France and its overseas dependencies.
It
was no big surprise when the machine in the back corner made its characteristic
buzz, rattle and bang and began to print something out on its long rolling band
of perforated paper.
Garnier
came in just then, taking off his hat and jacket and hanging them up on the
rack by the door. There were sweat stains under the armpits.
“So.
How’d it go?”
Garnier
dropped into his chair.
“Yeah.
Big, white moving van. Stolen weeks ago. Abandoned in an industrial area.
Nice—they tucked it in at the end of a long line of similar vehicles. It took
some time before anybody clued in that it didn’t actually belong there. Ha. There is nothing really distinctive
about it. Monsieur Aubert was kind enough to come along on his lunch hour and
have a look. He said it might be the same vehicle or it might not…” According
to the odometer reading, it had travelled less than a hundred kilometres in all
of that time. “It fits well enough, without a single shred of other evidence to
tie it in.”
Towed
to the police garage, their technical people were having a look at it but he
didn’t expect too much in that regard.
“Basically,
the thieves jimmied the door and then hot-wired it. Any kid could do it, with a
little knowledge and a bit of nerve.” Still wearing its original number plates,
it also reinforced the idea that the thieves must have had somewhere to hide
it. “Well, if nothing else, the company will be glad to get it back. Them and
the insurance people.”
“Hmn.”
Hubert looked over, the machine having gone quiet.
Rising,
he went to grab a fresh cup of coffee…and then he’d tear that off and have a
look.
And
of course the phone on his desk was already ringing, it was about time he had a
real good shit, and it was some little time before the significance of that
photo, that face, staring up at him from the slightly-curled papers, still warm
and smelling of hot ink on his desk sort of hit him—
Maintenon.
***
Another
phone was ringing in the background, then it stopped.
Hubert’s
hands shook as he passed sheets to Martin.
“Okay—it’s
from Sergeant Dampier in Bagneres de Luchon…he says the girl is in
communication with Éliott.”
“LeBeaux.”
“Yes.
And he says, she brought them a small hand mirror, with the fingerprints on it,
wrapped up in an old pair of socks, and that LeBeaux is holed up with the
hermit. She gave them a roll of film, with exactly three exposures. This is
from the best one.” He bit his lip. “There was a note. This part scares the
shit out of me. He says in the note, apparently the girl is deaf, he says we
were followed, he thinks on the way down, but definitely when we were there and
on the way back. And the only way to break the tail was to abandon me and jump
off the train. And, in his opinion, Gilles’ life is still in danger. Holy,
shit.”
He
had ten seconds to think—and no more.
“One,
get the prints…no, call personnel and tell them to get Maintenon’s dossier up
here. We want the prints. His most recent official photo. It’s not about the
employment record or his pension contributions, okay? Top secret—tell them they
have three minutes.”
“Right.”
Martin reached for the phone, ignoring the one that had just begun ringing, no
doubt disappointed on their first try only a few moments before…fuck, he had to
pick up. “Special Homicide. Garnier here. My apologies. Hold, please.”
He
stabbed the button and kept on with his first instruction as Hubert babbled
into his own telephone, on the line with the desk downstairs.
“Hello?
Hello? Henri? It’s Hubert up in Special Homicide…I need you to find Roger. Yes,
that one. I need him like right now. I need you to find Alphonse. Also right
now. And I need you to find Delorme or Levain, or both, got that?”
The
line squawked a bit but he slammed it down. He rummaged in his desk drawers,
frustrated at not being to find it immediately, looking for his big,
old-fashioned magnifying glass. He pulled out a couple of tissues and began
furiously polishing that.
“How
much do you want to bet?”
How much do you want to bet.
“Sorry,
no takers—”
Garnier
was back on the line.
“Sorry
about that, sir. Just a minor flap here. Ah. So. You have a case, and you think
we might be able to help. Yes, sir. Ah—send the file on up, and thank you,
Inspector.”
He
put it down.
“Another
case.” He shrugged. “We’ll put it on Firmin’s desk—”
As
far as jokes went, that one fell pretty flat.
“Huh.”
Hubert was thinking, thinking, thinking—
There
was a knock at the door.
“Come
in!” Two strong voices bellowed at once.
***
They’d
made Mademoiselle Fournier, Eugenie from Personnel, a civilian employee, wait
while they examined their prints, three full and a couple of partials. The one
big thumb-print was perfect. She’d brought the file at a dead run, judging by
the breathing. She would be prepared to wait for the file, or to make them sign
for it—one way or the other.
In
the meantime, Hubert had handed her the wire-photo image. They compared the
official photo from the dossier to the man in the photograph.
“Anybody
we know?”
“It—it’s—Maintenon.”
Her jaw dropped and she clearly understood the significance of their unusual
request for the dossier, which were supposed to be restricted information. “I
think! He was down there—at the front desk, inquiring about vacation pay. Don’t
forget, he had that beard.”
He’d
been down in Personnel a couple of weeks ago, or more, at this point. The
trouble was, she really didn’t see the man all that often.
Pulling
out a sheet of typing paper, Hubert covered the bottom half of both faces. The
official photo had him with a mustache. The photo had been taken several years
previously. Gilles had taken up with the neatly trimmed beard more recently.
The images were two different sizes, one taken by a good camera in studio
light, processed and printed by a true professional. The other image had been
taken in bad light, by a strict amateur, developed in some haste, by someone
who perhaps wasn’t the best, and then the image had to be scanned in, line by
line, reduced to a set of electrical pulses, sent by wire and then reproduced
at this end in another sort of blaps
of ink on paper sort of process…
Even
so, the resemblance was uncanny.
Martin
looked up from the fingerprints.
“Holy,
shit.”
Hubert
gestured toward the young lady.
“Give
her the glass.” Neither one of them really knew
Gilles, as for himself, his poor old heart was about ready to pop out of his
chest.
What
he needed, was an objective opinion—maybe even two or three of them, and some
kind of a plan.
“Merde…” It was all
she said.
None
of them were experts in fingerprint analysis, but if those weren’t the prints
of Gilles Maintenon, they would all be damned.
“Where
in the fuck is Roger—” Hubert, fit to be tied.
His
hand hovered over the phone, as he positively willed it to ring, but it didn’t.
END
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