Maintenon: March 2026

Monday, 9 March 2026

The Dead Man's Touch, Inspector Gilles Maintenon Mystery #11. Chapter Eleven. Louis Shalako.

It's only in retrospect, that it begins to look like some semblance of a plan.

Louis Shalako

It took him a while to catch on. At first, the low black car parked across the street from his building meant exactly nothing. He was just shifting his briefcase to the other hand, digging for his keys, when the window cranked down and an old, familiar voice accosted him from the driver’s side.

“Hey, old man. I see you finally got yourself a good haircut—” Alphonse.

“Fuck! This must be my lucky day.”

Alphonse was waving him over, and he crossed to the other side and got in so they could talk.

“Hey. I hear you finally did it—” Having reached his sixty-fifth birthday, Alphonse had finally taken his retirement.

“Yeah. So, ah, Gilles.”

“And you ended up with the fucking car, too. How in the hell did you manage that one?”

“Let me buy you a couple of drinks down the street, and I’ll tell you all about it.”

“All right.” Gilles lifted the briefcase over and into the back seat.

The pair got out, and Alphonse locked it as carefully as ever.

Their little bistro was just a few doors down, it was a warm afternoon, and there were tables on the street where they could at least keep an eye on things, as Alphonse put it.

Grabbing a table, a waiter headed on over, pencil and pad at the ready…

“Beer?”

“Beer.”

“So.”

“Okay. So, I don’t know if I mentioned it, but some bright boy was questioning some of the expenses for the old unit. One-oh-five. They don’t even call it a car, Gilles.”

Maintenon grinned faintly as their waiter came back, with a small pitcher, glasses, and a big bowl of free popcorn.

“Yeah, some bright young fellow in the accounting department. The vehicle is five years old or greater—and they do get a lot of kilometres, with lots of different people, idiots mostly, driving the living shit out of them. How could this one be any different? That’s how they think up there. And, considering a few items, such as a brand-new motor, right out of the crate. A new clutch, a rebuilt transmission…new battery, new starter, new generator. New tires, new brakes, fucking brand-new wiper blades. Oil and filter changes every three months. Half the vehicles in the force are lucky to get that once a year, it’s like no one can find the time…” It never occurred to anyone, anyone at all, that good old Alphonse absolutely loved that fucking car. “When a bearing went, we got it fixed. When the fuel pump went, we got it fixed…right.”

Over the five years, the thing had been rebuilt from top to bottom, and Alphonse had the log book to prove it.

Maintenon, sipping foam off the top of his mug, nodded along. It was hard not to laugh, sometimes.

“And it’s like they figured no car has costs like that. There must be something wrong with it, it must be what the Yanks call a real lemon, Gilles…” He shook his head. “Yeah, the kid says—this vehicle must be some kind of an outlier. That’s how they talk up there, Gilles.”

He trailed off, tasting his own beer and taking his own sweet time with it.

“Okay. So, what happened—”

“So, I says to this kid, well, how much is it worth if we sent it to the scrappers? And he says, we’d be lucky to get two or three hundred francs for it. The taxi companies love old cop cars, they’re built like tanks in some ways. They have the biggest engines, the heavy-duty brakes and suspension. In the end, they sell them off by the lot, people literally bid on them five or ten at a time. Old cop cars are dirt cheap at auction, Gilles. And I said, well, okay. I’ll give you that much for it, and maybe a little more besides. Just to ram it home, I made them pay for the safety check and the new plates and such.”

Ye olde Hispano-Suiza.

“Ha.”

“…and damned if they didn’t take it. Anyhow, that was about the time the wife and I were thinking…well, you know. About what we might want to do next. And I just said fuck it, Gilles. Not everyone gets a retirement, and you never really know just how long you got.”

“That’s very true, anyhow. Here’s to you, Alphonse. Retirement—what are you going to do, anyways?”

Alphonse snorted, then uttered a long, deep sigh.

“Huh. Painting the fucking dining room, for starters—ah, what the hell. I guess I can take it.” After that, he had a funny feeling they were getting new rugs and probably a couch. “When winter comes, we’re thinking of heading down to the Côte d’Azur.”

“Heh-heh-heh.”

“Seriously, Gilles. After all those years, at some point, I have to wonder if I will ever be able to sleep in…like any normal human being.” At five a.m., there weren’t too many places to go, in his observation. “Sooner or later, Gilles, we’ll be driving each other nuts.”

Gilles sat there, grinning. He raised his glass.

“Here’s to the wife, who must be a very patient woman.” She’d waited long enough, and so had Alphonse.

“Ah—ha.” Ha.

And of course, Gilles thought of Ann, gone for so many years now, and things got pretty quiet between them. One might as well top up those beer glasses…

For his part, Alphonse lit up another one of his innumerable cigarettes, and studied him for a while.

“It’s funny. I never would have occurred to me. It’s only in retrospect, that it starts to look like some kind of a plan.”

“What does?”

“…the car, dumb-ass.”

Ah, yes, the car.

As for the plan, Gilles wouldn’t put it past him.

And good for him, too—

It’s not like he hadn’t earned it.

END

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Friday, 6 March 2026

The Dead Man's Touch, Inspector Gilles Maintenon Mystery #11. Chapter Ten. Louis Shalako.

Yes, Gilles. This is revenge.

Louis Shalako

“Ah, Gilles. We are ever so glad you could stop in—”

Gilles nodded. So, it was like that, was it? Roger had his chair tipped back, feet up on the end of the desk, a long cigar in his mouth, and a balloon glass of cognac not too far from the hand.

“Good afternoon, sir.”

Roger laughed out loud.

“Come on, Gilles. Cut me some slack—show the old man a little mercy, if not respect for an old friend.”

He sipped and puffed and it seemed he would have his revenge.

“Fuck. No one loves me anymore…yes, just a broken-down old man, and it’s finally come to this: drinking on the job…”

One could almost hear the weeping violins in the background.

“Oh, all right.” Sighing, he settled in after pulling the chair in a little closer, to the bottle, the mahogany box, and the ashtray as well. “For fuck’s sakes…”

“I suppose this is about young Pelletier…” Roger nodded thoughtfully, eyes far, far away.

He was not a very good actor—

“No. Sir. Actually, it’s not.” Maintenon poured himself a snort and savoured the aroma under his nose for a moment. “Besides. I already have Pelletier.”

“Ha.”

Reaching for the box, he pulled a cigar and snipped the end off of it. Roger gave the heavy desk lighter, half a kilo and all silver and jade, a hefty shove over his way.

“So. You want something, then.”

In spite of himself, Maintenon’s internal temperature was rising.

“Yes, Roger, I do want something.” He really hadn’t been expecting any kind of torment from Roger, normally, he really wasn’t like that.

“Ha! Well, go ahead then. Spit it out.” There was a sardonic grin and the lips curled around and he gave a puff on what was, after some examination, a pretty good little cigar…

“Yes. Very well then. I want the room on the second floor, the former home of Street Crimes. I want new desks, new typewriters. I want new chairs, and new phones, new curtains, new lights, and a new tele-printer and a new wire-photo machine. I want new people, and I want his and hers washrooms, showers, lockers, a real, live, actual closet. I want a fridge and a sink and a fucking kitchenette. I want at least three cars, five or six would be better. I want three more detectives, a couple of sergeants and about a half a dozen plainclothes constables. And yes—I do want Pelletier. Mostly because he’s got some kind of a brain in his head, and not because he’s some broken-down old hack, cast off by his old unit, and counting down the days until retirement—or even just payday.”

Raising the glass, he savoured some of the Napoleon.

“Well. I see—yes, I do see. And so. It’s either that, or early retirement, I suppose.” And what a wicked grin that was, too.

Resisting the urge to growl at the man, Gilles went on.

“Our present room is cramped, grubby, there isn’t one item in that room that hasn’t been there since day one. It hasn’t been painted in fifteen years. That room was grubby enough when we moved in. With senior people getting weeks of vacation, court days, sick days, leaves of absence, retirements, and replacements that never come, and what with being understaffed to begin with, it really is time, Roger. It is time that something is done about it.”

“It’s okay, Gilles. I understand.” The feet dropped to the floor. “I’ve been thinking along similar lines myself—I mean, the room is empty, of no real use to anybody, and quite frankly, there was some question of what to do with it…”

A rather bemused Gilles Maintenon.

He paused for dramatic effect.

“There have been one or two other inquiries…” The eyebrows arched expressively. “It’s okay, I’ve been stalling them off. We do have a little money left in the budget, although we could always declare a surplus and roll it over into reserves…Gilles. With the current political atmosphere, we might as well spend it. Next year’s allocation shouldn’t be too much of a problem.”

“Argh.”

Roger grinned, and rising, went over to a side desk.

“Here, bring your drink.”

It was quite the display, artfully arranged—and probably not by the hand of Roger himself, but arranged, nevertheless. Probably by the very same interior decorator who had provided it.

This was revenge, all right—

And be careful what you wish for.

Roger had sales-samples. Carpet samples—tile samples, colour charts for the paint, fabric samples for the chairs and curtains. Short lengths of wood, stained or varnished in various treatments. There were rolls of architectural drawings, artist impressions in watercolours, and all the elevations, as walls were called by the real experts. Cost estimates and timelines for various phases of the work, which might take a month or six weeks. Window treatments, desks and chairs, telephones and typewriters, various brochures, catalogues, it was all there, right down to wall clocks and desk calendars. A turn-key operation, and all new. His eyebrows rose as he scanned down the cost estimates…holy, shit.

But this was unbelievable. And, if he had known the true cost, he never would have asked in the first place. This was a kind of revelation.

“Naturally, you and your people would like to have a look at all of this. The basic floor plan can be amended, they’re mostly just partitions and not load-bearing. The contractors will put them wherever we want them. Ah…just let us know what you think, okay?” He’d have his assistant bring all that down later. “Oh, here’s a couple of keys, so you guys can have a look at the actual space.”

Figuratively speaking, Gilles pulled his jaw back from the area of his knees.

“Potted palms, sir?”

“Ha. How can we have contemporary policing, without contemporary furnishings…let the artists have their follies, Gilles. You have to admit, it all looks very nice.”

It would appear that he was serious.

Serious enough, anyways—

“Thank you, Roger.”

“Now, are you going to stay and have a drink with me? It does get lonely at the top, you know…”

What in the hell could you ever say to that, except yes.

By the time he got out of there, he’d had two or three, and so had Roger. They had hashed out many of the details, and they would be talking again, and very soon.

“And let’s have no more talk of early retirement. Mine, or yours.”

“Yes, sir.”

Wild horses couldn’t drag him away, which went for either one of them, and they both knew it, but what the hell.

END

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Sunday, 1 March 2026

The Dead Man's Touch. Inspector Gilles Maintenon Mystery #11. Chapter Nine. Louis Shalako.

Pelletier.

Louis Shalako

The pair were back on the street, and as Édouard unlocked the vehicle, their friendly gendarme was nowhere in sight but there were no parking tickets and the vehicle was unmolested.

“Did you notice how he seemed a little spooked there, Inspector? Right at first, for sure. Then. When I mentioned criminal records and the employees?”

“Er. Which one—” They’d just interviewed about fifteen people, all busy, harried with the lunch crowd lining up and a few VIPs known to have reservations.

This was about half their list and they’d have to follow up.

“Bayer—Fritz, as he calls himself.” He nodded, thoughtfully, as he stuck the key in the ignition.

“Hmn.”

***

Well, it was the usual thing. With bulging notebooks, after emptying pockets and briefcases back at the room, it would almost seem like they were getting somewhere. As impressions went, it would have been pretty damned misleading. So far, they hadn’t gotten anywhere at all. And, also as usual, someone, Margot, was just heading out, and Firmin was just getting back after being somewhere else—which was just another one of their little sayings around there. The others were all out on cases, which was also predictable enough.

Ignoring them, Firmin settled in and reached for the phone. Voice low, pen in hand, he had his own focus.

“So. Édouard. What are your impressions, so far?”

“Huh. Which case?”

Gilles laughed at that one.

“You can start anywhere you like, Édouard.”

The constable nodded, thoughtfully. His impressions, insofar as he knew, would be pretty much what any other investigator would have gathered. Maybe, not even all that good.

Still, the question had been asked.

“Well. It’s all mostly bullshit—that is definitely true for the, er, restaurant caper.” And no wonder the original detectives had given it up, probably gladly.

It simply wasn’t worth wasting their time—

“Ah.”

“Well, I mean. Seriously. Take the kitchen. There’s fifteen or twenty people in there on a busy shift, with waiters coming and going, and certainly during daylight, deliveries coming to the back door. They’ve got good old Fritz all over them like a dirty shirt. My…my impression, sir, is that it’s more of an elaborate prank, as much as anything else. Did those two victims, even exist in the first place? How in the hell would I know, bearing in mind low-level employees, who might have shown an ID card or maybe not, when signing on. I’ll just bet they have application forms, all filled out, and not much else. It’s a funny thing about such a business. They don’t even write pay-cheques—employees get a written stub for tax purposes, but their pay is an envelope with bills and coins, minus relevant deductions. They might get a share of the up-front tips, even. This is one reason why alien residents so very often end up working in places like that…” If someone was known to be an illegal, the deductions were still made, only thing was they never made it to the relevant government agencies…in an employment and tax scam that was about as old as time itself. “Half the small businesses in the world are cooking their books in some way or another…”

It was just another sweatshop, if one cared to think of it that way, although the cash was paid weekly rather than daily.

“As far as fresh blood goes, any good wino would donate that in a heartbeat, for a few francs…” Or, you could buy a few pints out the back door of a clinic somewhere, in any blood type one wanted.

Maintenon nodded, following the logic.

“I mean, there are not too many places paying cash, and not too many questions asked, either. A job is a job, and maybe they just can’t go home—the world is full of refugees these days.” Half the world didn’t even have ID to begin with.

“Ah.”

“Other than that, sir. Every fucking God-damned one of them is lying to us, whether it even happened or not. What else am I supposed to think. So far, we haven’t been able to shake any one of them, and unless we can find some kind of a pressure-point, it seems unlikely to happen, shall we say, more spontaneously.”

“But why, Édouard.”

“That is but the question. Whatever the hell it is, whoever the hell it is, well. There must be a reason. That reason must be pretty important, or why fuck with the police at all…” Why draw any attention at all.

“That seems pretty logical.”

“What other conclusion could we draw? It’s bullshit right from the beginning. It also implies a plan of some elaboration.”

“Hmn. No, this was no spontaneous, impulsive little double murder. I’m almost sure of that. It’s like you say. We’re supposed to go looking for a couple of bodies, based upon a complaint that looks entirely bogus. It’s also made the headlines, and naturally, a million eyes are watching us…” Maintenon’s thoughts trailed off. “The reporters take the facts handed to them, having no reason to question it, and the readers, with even less reason, sort of take it at face value. To them, it is now fact. But that doesn’t mean we have to.”

“Well, there you go.” Édouard. “I guess you could say, we have our motivation. We have our list of names. We can check for criminal records, military service, arrests that didn’t go anywhere. We can knock on doors and see if we can find them at home…it would be nice to get some mug-shots and fingerprints off of every damned one of them. We could show them around to the neighbours, or check out previous employers. Let’s put it to them, tell them we’re waiting for a warrant, and then see who disappears first…”

Firmin, off the phone now and sitting there fascinated, and about as quiet as a church-mouse, impaled Gilles with a long look and a wry grin. He gave an appreciative nod, and Gilles tried not to show any sign of it, all of this over Édouard’s shoulder.

Firmin.

Maintenon nodded, allowing himself a tight and wry little grimace.

The thing with routine police work was that it took time, it took money, and more than anything it took warm bodies. People that knew what they were doing, had some idea of how to do it, and a dash of imagination. It also had this funny way of working out, if you just kept at it long enough.

“…and what a tangled web we weave, when we set out to deceive…”

One had to admit, Pelletier sure had that one right.

Gilles looked up at the clock. He had an appointment with Roger at three-thirty, and he wanted to put some thought into that as well.

“All right. Why don’t you start off down in the archives. A couple of those gentlemen sounded foreign as well, you could call the customs and border people. Passport Control. They have their own records of comings-and-goings, although it does tend to take a little time. Call the switchboard and tell them what you want. It does require some patience, ah, sometimes.” He sighed. “One thing we do know. This one isn’t going to be solved in five minutes.”

Édouard snorted.

“No, I should say not—” His mouth curled. “You know, I asked them, how is Fritz to work for? I got a few blank looks on that one, it was like they had no idea of what I was talking about, or it was like I was just stupid or something. It’s that kind of environment. They’re all scared shitless of him, and yet they could get jobs in just about any kitchen in town. A man like Fritz is expected to be an asshole—pardon my language, but there it is.” Working with someone like Fritz looked well enough on any future resume, assuming any culinary ambitions at all.

As long as you could stand it in the meantime—

“And what about the Boitard case?”

Cynthie: at least she existed.

“Hmn. It’s like the same thing again. I would call it nothing but bullshit, and yet we at least have a body to anchor it. Cynthie really did exist, on some level—”

He sat there, rubbing whiskers, unconscious of pretty much everything but his own thoughts.

“Here’s another one, sir.”

“Yes?”

“Huh! Where in the hell did Monsieur Garreau, a nineteen year-old kid, who was not even showing up at work, go for just on two weeks. Did he have a bank account. Did he withdraw money? Did he have a big whack of cash stuffed under the mattress…and did he make his own bed or is momma still doing that—she very much seemed the type. Did anyone even ask. Why did he leave, where did he go, why did he even come back. How did he live, what did he eat, who was he with. I’d give my left testicle to hear a few good answers on that one. And yet, ostensibly, the case has been brought to a successful conclusion, and no harm done. Right?”

Maintenon, to all appearances was barely listening, but then, he had bit of a stubble himself, and all the same impressions to consider.

“Ahem.” Firmin stood there, completely forgotten as it were.

Édouard, mouth open, craned to look.

“Er, yes, Detective?”

“Come on. Bring your list. I was just going down there—” He gave Gilles another long look. “Criminal Records, I mean…they know us pretty well down there.”

“Sure. Why don’t we start with the one guy who quit, this Monsieur Lalonde. Then we’ll go from there.” Without a job to worry about, he might be a little more talkative. “It’s a place to start.”

Firmin raised an eyebrow, but said nothing as Édouard hauled himself to his feet.

Thank Darwin, or the gods or someone or something somewhere, but Maintenon’s phone rang at that exact moment or he might have shown a little more appreciation.

It was all he could do, just to keep a straight face.

Yeah, this kid was good all right.

Not everyone got Firmin’s seal of approval quite so easily.

As for Gilles, he was fairly convinced.

Right about then Archambault came back, and then it was Garnier, and now the damned phones were ringing all at once or so it would seem.

END

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