Free Mannequin by J. Robert Janes

stupid and would use her brains.
    â€˜The résistants, the ‘patriots,’ will kill me,’ she said. ‘They will strip me naked, Herr Kohler, then they’ll beat me as those from the rue Lauriston did not so long ago, isn’t that correct? And then they will stone me to death.’
    The rue Lauriston … She was refering to a previous case. ‘Hey, what’s with the Herr Kohler bit? It’s Hermann you’re talking to.’
    Entirely not her fault, she had been badly roughed up in that other episode by gangsters of the French Gestapo and still bore the bruises and the memories of it.
    â€˜Come on, let’s pick up Oona. I have to see Louis. It’s urgent.’
    She shook her head. ‘It’s finished, Hermann. Your little ménage is over. Me, I am going back to work so as to be fucked by Frenchmen!’
    â€˜Oh no you’re not’
    â€˜Am I too good for my fellow countrymen, Herr Haupsturmführer?’
    â€˜Of course not. You’re too good to be a whore.’
    â€˜And you—you are saving me from that? You with your great big Bavarian cock?’
    â€˜Come on. A girl is missing, Giselle. We have to find her before they kill her.’
    *  *  *
    The Club Mirage was on the rue Delambre in Montparnasse. Squeezed among the thirsty tunics of Fritz-haired men in grey-green and navy or air-force blue, St-Cyr tossed back the pastis with a gulp and fiercely thrust the glass across the bar. ‘Another,’ he said. Eight hundred Wehrmacht troops on leave hooted, cheered and ogled the chorus line of naked girls and grandmothers who should have known better, while the band, preferring noise above all else, blew their guts out.
    It was pandemonium— Kultur with a capital K! Under chartreuse floodlights, emerald ostrich plumes and brilliant red pasties moved in a layered haze of tobacco smoke, farts and sweat that had a life of its own.
    Leon Rivard, the one with the face like ground meat, tossed him a quizzical eye but knew enough not to ask what the trouble was. ‘This one is on the house,’ he shouted. ‘The last one also.’
    â€˜Merci. ’
    Downed again. A fire in the belly and the brain. A real tough guy who was pissed off at something. Ah yes. ‘Hey, Gabrielle isn’t mad at you, Inspector. She just cut her holiday short to come back to work. Okay?’
    â€˜It’s Chief Inspector St-Cyr to you, and she’s far too good a singer for a dump like this.’
    Rivard grinned. One of two brothers who owned and ran the place, the Corsican fluted, ‘Just as you please, monsieur,’ before fist-wiping the zinc and refilling the glass a fourth time.
    The girls up on stage were thrusting their bottoms at the troops. The roar grew deafening. St-Cyr added a drop of water for propriety’s sake and gloomily watched as the pale yellowish-green of the pastis became milky. ‘Hermann,’ he grunted disconsolately, as he fingered his glass in thought. Everything with his partner would have to be out in the open this time. There must be no secrets if they were to find Joanne. He would have to tell him the engraver’s son had been forging papers for the Resistance. He would have to trust Hermann not to turn the boy in. There might be a connection to something the Bavarian had uncovered.
    The pastis, pre-war and 90 proof, was kept under the bar not only because of its rarity but because most Germans found its strong taste of liquorice revolting. The girls were gone, the stage empty, the hush expectant. Perhaps a minute passed but not an eye was diverted. Even the thirsty who thronged the bar had put down their glasses or rapidly shaken their heads when more was offered.
    In the shimmering, sky-blue, sleeveless sheath that was her trademark, with diamonds at her wrists and neck, Gabrielle Arcuri walked on stage. Thousands of tiny seed pearls, in vertical rows on the fabric, rippled, electrifying the