Skin Trade by Reggie Nadelson

roller-coaster, there would be questions, officials, forms to fill out, time wasted. I said, “No, really.”
    Gourad knew I was lying, but he let it go.
    Outside, the city sped by in a wet blur. My hands shook when I lit a cigarette. “You said Lily was raped.” The words came out flat, harsh.
    â€œIt looks that way. I’m sorry. You want the details?”
    â€œNo.” Don’t think about it, I said to myself. Just keep moving.
    â€œWhat?”
    I was talking to myself out loud. Momo looked at me sympathetically.
    â€œNothing,” I said.
    â€œTake it easy.”
    â€œYour guys are nowhere on Lily’s case, isn’t that right?
    Gourad, angry, said, “You got it.”
    â€œWhere we going?”
    â€œMy shift, like I said.”
    If I stayed with Gourad, he might open up. He wanted to talk. He was angry with the brass and I knew how that was, so I’d keep with him. “You from Paris, Momo?”
    â€œSure.”
    â€œParents?”
    â€œWhat’s the difference?”
    â€œHey, I’m just making polite conversation. No one gives a shit where your parents came from.”
    â€œYou think that?” he said. “You’re from New York where no one gives a shit. It matters in France. You’re not French unless you’ve been here five hundred years. I’m part Moroccan. My father’s parents came over when he was a kid.”
    I kept my mouth shut.
    â€œI wish to God I could spend all my time on Lily’s case, but we waste our time on small shit. Last night we had to shake down some West African guys for swipingfake Vuitton handbags, then we picked up some Algerians for selling an ounce of hash. I could be working on the fucks who beat up Lily, who killed that little girl and stuffed her body behind the billboard. But we have to make Paris nice.”
    Gourad’s fury spurted up out of him, it made him tick, it made him ambitious.
    I said, “You got kids?”
    â€œSure. Nice wife, two nice kids, nice house in the suburbs. You’d like Monique. You’ll come for dinner, she’ll make her cheese soufflé. You like a cheese soufflé, Artie?”
    â€œSure. Thanks.”
    â€œOne more thing.”
    â€œWhat’s that?”
    â€œYou carrying, Artie? You have a weapon? It’s not allowed in France. This is not the Wild West, OK? We’re not in Texas.”
    I didn’t answer. I didn’t have a gun, not yet.
    â€œMomo?”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œLily’s hair. When you found her, how was her hair?”
    â€œShort,” he said. “Her hair was short.”
    â€œThere was hair at the scene? Her hair?” He didn’t answer.
    â€œTell me.”
    â€œYes. I don’t know why. I don’t know what the fuck this means, but something happened to her hair. We found chunks of her hair where they beat her up, like someone hacked it off.”
    *
    Momo Gourad drove like a crazy man. He drove me around the parts of Paris he worked on his shift and kept up a stream of chatter. He was up-front about his own boss and the way, like most cops, he hated the system. He was also holding back, feeling me out, wary. He had some kind of personal investment in the case that I didn’t understand. He had the gray binder with Lily’s case file in his desk drawer and I wanted it bad enough to sit alongside him in the car and listen to him however long it took.
    â€œIt won’t help, calling again,” Gourad said as I started dialing the hospital for the third time. “Give it a break. Please.”
    I called anyway. There was no news.
    Snow kept falling as Gourad drove. Everywhere, I clocked the streets, memorizing what I could, figuring out the city. Rue Saint-Denis where there were sex shops and peep shows and clubs marked cuirs, like they were selling leather goods. “ Salons de Lingeries”, “Show Lesbiennes”. There were fast-food joints, fake English