C'est la Vie (Raja Williams Series) (12 page)

“I’m sorry, Yvette. You know how I feel about you being here.”

“Yes, but it is better if we wait until we are ready to go.”

“It won’t be long, I promise,” said the man. “Then we will be set for good.” He embraced Yvette, kissed her and then brushed back her hair while he looked at her with admiration.

That’s when Vinny recognized who the man was. It was Inspector Gilliard from the Paris police. Vinny turned away slowly behind the wall, mouthing the letters O-M-G. She peeked again and saw the inspector walking to the rear stairwell that led out the back of the cabaret. Vinny hurried back to her room. This was big. Huge. Ginormous. She had to tell Raja now.

“Yeah, Vinny. What’s up?”

“You’ll never guess who just left the cabaret after visiting one of the girls.”

“No, I won’t.”

“Come on, try.”

“Inspector Gilliard.”

“Bam shizzaam. How do you do that?”

“No way. That was right? I WAS just guessing.”

“Right on the money. That’s not all. He is the mysterious boyfriend Yvette has been talking about. The one she is planning a trip with. I heard him say they would be all set soon.”

“The inspector must be expecting a windfall. Do you think he’s working with Bruno?”

“I-D-K.”

“We had better find out.”

“Okay, boss. Right now I’m going to go clothes shopping with Yvette. I’ll see what I can learn from her.”

“Shopping? That sounds like your kind of assignment. And I’m out here slaving away.”

“I’m only going to find an outfit to get arrested in.”

“That I’d pay to see.”

“You don’t have enough money. I’d better go.”

“Keep me in the loop.”

“Always.” This time Vinny knocked on Yvette’s door and asked her where to go shopping for clothes.

“I haven’t been shopping for weeks. I’ll take you myself,” said Yvette, excited to go on an outing.

They drove to the shopping district and got out of the car. “So what exactly are you looking for?” asked Yvette.

“Wild, hip, young, hot,” said Vinny. “Take your pick.”

“No formal gown
s then?
”

“Nope.”

“Okay, follow me.” Yvette led them down a small street with boutiques on both sides and stopped in front of one with the sign that read
Chat Qui Rit
.
It meant the laughing cat.

“You want young and hot, then this is the place,” said Yvette.

After looking around inside, Vinny began trying on tops and skirts. When she found a combo she liked, she modeled the outfit for Yvette.

“I hate to say this, considering my profession, but you look like a streetwalker.”

“Great. That’s exactly the look I was going for.” Both Vinny and Yvette laughed out loud. “Come on, what else will I need to complete the look?” asked Vinny. She tried on a scarf.

“Way too conservative. You need flashy. Maybe something with feathers or sparkles.” Yvette held up a red boa. “And we need makeup if you want to get this right.”

Although they were becoming fast friends, Vinny had no luck getting any more out of Yvette about Inspector Gilliard besides the fact the two had been dating for six months and were planning to leave Paris in the not-too-distant future. Yvette was obviously trying to keep the relationship quiet. However, the two girls did have fun getting Vinny’s look just right for a Parisian streetwalker. By the time they were done Vinny had nailed the part. Yvette had no idea what she was up to. Vinny asked the clerk to wrap up the clothes she had worn into the store so she could wear her new outfit. As soon as she got outside, she was turning heads. The girls laughed at the rubbernecking men.

“You are not going to have any trouble attracting attention, if that’s what you want to do,” said Yvette. She drove them back toward the club.
“You know, Vinny, I’ve had more fun today than I have in a long time. Why don’t we go up to my
room? I’ve got a bottle of
Beaujolais
I’ve been saving. We can drink some wine and I’ll tell you stories from my adventures at the club that will make you laugh so hard you will pee yourself.”
 

“Love to, Yvette, but I can’t tonight. I have a date with destiny. Drop me off at the Hotel du Mont Blanc, will ya?”

Although Yvette was confused, she knew every girl had her secrets, and did as Vinny requested.

Vinny waited until Yvette drove off and was out of sight. Instead of going into the hotel, she walked up to Boulevard Saint-Michel, a main artery where she would more likely be seen. Recalling an old film noir movie she had seen, Vinny spotted a conspicuous street lamp and struck a provocative pose underneath. It didn’t take long for the first car to pull over.

“
Ch
é
rie
, come with me,” said a smiling young man in a black Citroen.

Vinny told him to get lost, and he shrugged and drove away.

An older man pulled over and said only, “
Bonsoir
,”
and began licking his lips compulsively while ogling Vinny.

Vinny shook her head and waved him off, feeling disgusted. Where were the police when you needed them?

She got her wish a few minutes later when a small police van pulled over twenty yards up from her spot. Another car had stopped for Vinny, and she made a show of walking over to talk to the driver. The man leered at her half-exposed breasts.

Before he could say anything, Vinny said, “Dude, if you can break away for a second, you might want to look up the street.”

The man did, and when he saw a policeman getting out of the police van, he sped away nearly running over Vinny’s foot in the process. She shouted and shook her hand angrily, until she saw she had the attention of the policeman, and then she stepped back onto the sidewalk and waited.

The policeman strolled up to her in no apparent hurry. “You know we are cracking down on the girls out here. Even the pretty ones.” He smiled.

Vinny realized he was simply flirting and might not even arrest her. She had to do something. She waited until the policeman got close enough and then kicked him hard in the leg and turned and removed her shoes as if preparing to run.

It gave the policeman plenty of time to recover and grab her arm. “Hold it right there,” he said, no longer smiling or flirting. “You are going to come with me. I’m placing you under arrest.”

It was the first time Vinny was happy to hear those words. She smiled to herself briefly, but made a tough face when she turned to face the policeman. “Come on, a girl has to make a living, doesn’t she?” she said, pretending to struggle.

“I will handcuff you if you insist on giving me trouble.”

“I bet you would like that, wouldn’t you?” said Vinny.

“Come along.” He dragged her toward the police van where a second policeman was waiting. He was older and appeared to be the senior of the pair.

“What have we got here, Ben?” He looked Vinny up and down. “You sure you want to take her in?”

“Yes. She assaulted me. I think I’m bleeding.”

The older policeman laughed. “She doesn’t look too dangerous to me. Seems like a shame to arrest such a pretty girl.”

“I wouldn’t get too close if I were you, sir,” said Ben.

“You wouldn’t hurt me would you,
ma chère
?”

“Nope,” said Vinny, smiling pleasantly.

“See?” said the senior officer.

That only made Ben more determined to arrest her, just as Vinny hoped it would. He opened the back of the van and pointed for her to get in.

When the two officers were in front, the older one said, “Okay, Ben, but you get to do all the paperwork.” He winked at Vinny through the screen window.

When they arrived at the police station, Vinny noted all the computer terminals available as she was taken into custody and booked for solicitation. She gave her real name, knowing she wouldn’t be in the system. It was one of the benefits of being a hacker with her level of skills. She could erase any record in nearly any computer system. Ben took her into the back where they had holding cells, putting her in one with another woman.

Vinny found out the mousy little woman’s name was Celeste. She had been picked up for shoplifting. The dark circles under her eyes and excessive nervousness meant she was probably an addict who was already in withdrawal from whatever she was on.

Vinny had run into her first problem. She had to get into a cell by herself. When one of the policemen walked by, Vinny stopped him.

“Look here, officer. This woman is withdrawing from something. She doesn’t look well. She should have medical attention before it gets bad.”

The policeman looked at Celeste. “There is nothing I can do. Either she should not take drugs, or she should not get arrested.
C’est la vie
.” He shrugged and walked away.

Vinny needed to get herself isolated. Just then two policemen came down the hall on either side of a rather large woman who was swearing at the both of them and struggling. When they shoved her into the cell with Vinny and Celeste, Vinny noticed that one of the policemen had a scratch on his cheek and the other was flushed from exertion and his shirt tail was pulled out. The woman scowled and gave them the finger as they walked away.

Vinny decided this woman would do nicely. As soon as she caught the woman’s eye, Vinny mocked up the most hostile tone she could, and said, “What are you looking at?”

The woman glared, but seeing Vinny’s slender frame, chuckled and did nothing.

“I’m talking to you, you big oaf,” said Vinny. “The ugly cell is down the hall.”

The woman sneered hatefully, then stormed at Vinny like an angry bear, rearing back a huge ham of a fist to bash Vinny senseless. Although the woman outweighed her by at least sixty pounds, she was no match for Vinny. One lightning-fast blow from the heel of Vinny’s hand to the woman’s nose sent her staggering backward and then a second later blood began to pour. Mousy Celeste screamed at the top of her lungs, and before the large woman could recover, two policemen had arrived at the cell.

Celeste pointed at Vinny. “She started it. Sh-she’s crazy. Get me out of here.”

Vinny just stood there with her hands on her hips and smiled.

After assessing the situation, one of the policemen opened the cell while the other stood ready with his baton drawn. Celeste tried to bolt.

“You stay,” said the policeman, catching her and pushing her back with his baton. “You come with me,” he said to Vinny, who stepped out compliantly. The other officer escorted her around the corner and down a narrow hall to a row of small empty cells. After putting her inside one, he punched a keypad and the cell’s lock engaged.

No one had searched Vinny very thoroughly. Perhaps due to a shortage of female officers, or perhaps because Vinny’s skimpy outfit didn’t have a lot of hiding places. She waited long enough to make sure she would not be disturbed, and then pulled out a small device she had strapped to her upper thigh. It was a custom RF decoder she had created for her plan. The individual cells had keypads, but the security system had an overriding electronic RF signal to lock down the whole place in an emergency. Of course, Vinny could make that work both ways.

Five minutes later she had the security code for her cell and overrode the door lock, freeing herself. As she sneaked along the hallway she heard voices and ducked into the first open door she could find. It turned out to be a cleaning supply closet. Vinny left the door cracked enough for her to see and hear. Two officers talking about a case went by and turned down a hall leading to the evidence room. Vinny slipped out of the closet and hurried down the hall to a small empty office she had seen on the way in marked Comptabilit
é
. It was the accounting office. She went inside and closed the door behind her.

A computer terminal sat on the small desk. The finance records would definitely be on a closed internal system. Vinny hoped it would also get her into the server where the case files were kept. Sitting at the computer keyboard on the desk, she pulled up a screen with code. The system was an antique in computer years, but she knew it well. After calling up a page with folders, she clicked on o
pen investigations,
and got a pop-up security screen requiring a password. The device she brought could do a random entry search, but repeated password tries would likely lock her out and trigger an alarm. She pulled up another system screen and typed code. Vinny knew where there would be a record in the memory cache of recent actions. Once she found the file she was looking for, she hacked the password in less than a minute. Going back to the pop-up security screen, she typed the password, and was in. After downloading the two case files she wanted onto a flash drive, she searched for other internal traffic, keying for Inspector Gilliard and Margaret Browning. She downloaded the results, and logged off the system, then she erased all evidence of her activities. The whole thing had taken only ten minutes. Vinny strapped the device and flash drive back to her thigh and readied to leave.

A woman’s voice got loud right outside the door, and the doorknob moved slightly. Someone was about to enter. Vinny rushed over and pulled open the door from her side, and looking confused, said, “This isn’t the bathroom.”

The accounts officer stood there with her hand in the air and her mouth open, but said nothing.

Vinny said, “Excuse me,” and hurried past her and down the hall toward the front. She was planning to simply walk right out through the front door when something stopped her in her tracks. Straight ahead talking to one of the policemen was Bruno Laurent, the club manager. She ducked back into the hallway and listened. When she heard her name she knew she was in trouble.

Vinny hurried back to her cell, going inside. She heard Bruno and the officer coming down the hall. She had to get the door locked before they got there. Fumbling with the decoder, she finally found the code for the lock. The press of a button engaged the lock just before the two men appeared. She strapped the device to her thigh and dropped her skirt to hide it just as Bruno stepped into view.