Chapter 2

The next morning, he asked for a guide well versed in the dark, dusty corners of the aeroport. Becque nodded, saying he had just the man. On his way to the door, Vautrin mentioned the orange cat. “Tell me you didn’t name your mousers after the President.” Not at all, Becque laughed. In the early months of the Louvre reopening, the former palace was overrun by rodents of every sort. An orange tabby, named Felix, was brought in. He was astonishingly successful. In his honor, every subsequent mouser is an orange tabby so named. Becque cautioned him from regarding this mere sentiment or whimsy. There were highly practical reasons for doing so.

Vautrin found himself near to an unfamiliar state of utter bemusement. First he had learned being a corrupter of cats was a serious corporate crime. Now, there were practical reasons for all the aeroport’s mousers to be orange and named Felix. He nodded, inviting Becque to continue.

The cat handler need not utter a host of names to summon his charges for rollcall, examination or grooming. The orange coats are the easiest for workers to see in the variable lighting of the berths. Finally, it surely confuses business rivals as to the nature and number of rodent control animals needed for the facility: security in small matters made for security in all matters. Bemused indeed.

He waited for his guide at the borrowed desk. It was early enough to have the room to himself. While waiting, he browsed a copy of the List of Disciplinary Causes. There it was in Section Three: Actions Which Hinder, Harm or Otherwise Impede the Function of the Facility. Infraction one hundred twelve was ‘corruptor of the cats’.

A youngish man of medium height, medium built, medium anonymity appeared. After introducing himself as Casimir Rimbaud, he asked if there was a specific place Vautrin wished to see first. Vautrin thought the best start would be the arrival and departure area platform. Which one? Number One is dedicated solely to London traffic. Number Two handles ships from all other Imperial-class aeroports.

Rimbaud leaned in, as if confiding a secret. The two docks are not equal in size. Number One berth is too narrow to accommodate the new, larger international aeros. Given the brief transit of the London-Paris route, Royal Sky Service ships provide fewer amenities. They are, therefore, small enough to nicely fit in Number One. Les Anglais, though, construe the numbering as a mark of their esteem among Parisians. He rolled his eyes at such putting on of airs. Leaving the presumptuousness of Englishmen aside, Vautrin decided that since the crime had most likely been committed in the International berth, that was the place to begin their tour.

Rimbaud had arrived with a package in hand. He ripped it open, shaking out a freshly pressed pale blue shop coat with dark blue collar, cuffs and piping. The Aero Authority logo was embroidered, rather than stenciled, on the breast pocket – quite different from any other coat Vautrin had seen. Rimbaud produced a receipt book and asked him to sign for it. With that done, the date and time beside Vautrin’s name in a visitor log. Vautrin asked about the coat and why that particular log.

That pattern designates inspectors on direct business from the Authority’s Central Office. No one interferes with them or inquires too deeply as to their purpose. The lack of inquisitiveness is driven, in part, by the inspector’s authority to deliver summary punishments under the List of Disciplinary Causes.

Maintenance logs are retained for ten years; employee logs for five. On the other hand, visitor logs are not considered records. So long as visitor names are checked off at the end of the day, and nothing untoward happened, no one bothers with a second look. Normally, a new visitor log is begun as soon as the old one is filled, with the old one sent to the incinerator. This combination seemed to offer maximum mobility with a minimal paper trail.

“And Becque has cleared all this?” Vautrin was both intrigued and appalled by this open-faced disregard for rules. He gave the log a second, closer, look. His name was recorded on the last page of the log, and would no doubt find its way to the incinerator in the very near future.

“Oh, no. He has no interest in such details.” Rimbaud said with a straight face. “He might well dismiss me if I tried to bring them up – wasting his time and such. I would prefer to avoid such a fate. Shall we begin?” He held the door open. When the detective had passed into the hall, he tossed the last dozen empty pages of the log book into a waste basket. Rimbaud believed in seizing good fortune when it came his way, and in manufacturing it when it didn’t.

They spent the better part of two hours examining each door, each walkway and service alcove in the international arrival area. Rimbaud arranged for a steward to guide them along the path taken by an arriving passenger, beginning with the first step off the gangway to finally settling into a hired cab.

The walk-through took less time than such a journey would require, despite Vautrin’s multitude of questions and requests for demonstrations. No aero was tethered in the hanger, no passengers giving over passeports, and certainly no cabs to be hailed to the Rue du Rivoli portico. Nor were there customs men on the next level down. Rimbaud called a runner, who sped off with a note in hand. He invited Vautrin to join him on a bench.

The uniformed customs officer strode down the hall. His face and posture telegraphed serious displeasure at the summons. Vautrin’s coat changed his mind even as he shaped an indignant first sentence. Rimbaud told him the inspector was from the Orsay, letting the customs man assume the finance ministry, and that Vautrin enjoyed the ear of The Chief. They spent another hour on a slow walk-through of the customs and passeport section.

On releasing their guide, Rimbaud suggested a stop at the manager’s dining room. They settled at a table along a wall. Over soup, Vautrin returned to the mousers. If the cat handler called his charges, wouldn’t that confuse employees named Felix? Easily avoided, Rimbaud assured him. The Authority simply does not hire anyone of that name. Vautrin recalled his daughter’s love of Alice in Wonderland. Dear God, had he fallen into a rabbit hole of his own?

They began crawling though long galleries of dusty attics, until Vautrin was certain no intruders had passed through the Seine wing. Their attic explorations continued for two more days. They were challenged only once. While crossing the international berth, the noise level increased sharply. Workers appeared in the galleries high up the walls. All across the high iron wall, dark bays flickered into light, filling with rolling pallets of supplies ready to be loaded into the docked vessels.

The suddenness of the change caused Vautrin to stop in the middle of the deck. A spring-drive cart bearing stenciled crates trundled across the floor. The driver shouted over the din that the next arrival was in five minutes. They knew the rule – no one inside the line! He looked more closely at them, and asked who they were and what they were doing.

Rimbaud held up his badge, pointed to Vautrin, and said “M. Vautrin is a special inspector of facilities, charged with...” The driver flicked a hand impatiently, eased his grip on the arrestor bar, and drove away while Rimbaud was still speaking. They followed more slowly on foot. Once at the girder wall, they stood behind the broad yellow line on the floor to watch.

Vautrin turned for his first close view of an Imperial-class aero. Looking bow-on, the lettering was distorted, but he deciphered it as the Avion Rouen. The largest passenger aero in the world, it dwarfed the transport giffards of his military days. The Rouen was half again the size of the ill-fated Macedone, which had been a giant in its own, very brief, day. He stifled thoughts of his fleeting tenure as second officer of the Macedone.