Private Paris (Private 10)

“We know nothing about a murder,” the tailor’s wife said, on the defensive now. “We are good people. We work hard.”

“I’m sure you do,” I said. “And you keep records, yes?”

“What kind of records?” Al-Jumaa asked, the suspicion returning.

“Orders,” Louis said. “Measurements. Addresses. Phone numbers. Who bought that hijab and that veil and when.”

Madame Al-Jumaa clucked sharply at her husband in Arabic and threw her hands up in surrender. Al-Jumaa shrugged and asked to see the picture again.

The tailor enlarged the photo and stared at the label for a moment, and then shook his head and said, “Ready-to-wear. No records of this.”

“Explain that,” Farad said.

Al-Jumaa pointed to two short, thin, black lines in the corner of the label and then gestured at the racks along the far wall.

“All the premades carry these two lines,” he said. “The custom hijabs and robes carry a crescent.”

“So you don’t keep a record of who bought ready-to-wear?” Louis asked.

“Just that a robe was sold. No names. No addresses. We are not required to keep them.”

“How’s business?” I asked.

The tailor studied me, nodded, and said, “Business is good. Every year it gets better. The future is bright for us.”

That surprised me. “Even with the laws on wearing the hijab and veil?”

His wife heard that and started clucking in amusement this time.

“She says those laws will be repealed eventually,” Farad interpreted.

“What makes her think that?” Louis asked.

Her husband said, “The population of old France is aging and dying, while the immigrant population is young and growing. The birthrate in old France is less than two children per marriage. The birthrate among immigrants is in the fours. We have five children. Sooner than later, we will simply outnumber the old French, and then the law will fall, just as I will grow rich.”

His wife added, “It is simple mathematics. Like Allah’s will: indisputable and inevitable.”

I couldn’t argue with the tailor’s logic. The numbers were the numbers.

“How long until you see it happening?” I asked Farad and Louis once we were back out on the sidewalk.

“It already is happening,” Louis said. “You can see it in places like Les Bosquets. There they are, bulging at the seams.”

“Twenty years?” Farad said. “Twenty-five until the law changes?”

“Something like that,” Louis agreed. “But by then I shall be too old to care.”

“But by then, won’t the immigrants have assimilated more into French culture?” I asked.

“Not if we isolate them,” Louis said. His cell phone rang and he answered.

“What do you think?” I asked Farad.

He shrugged. “I am not much interested in politics.”

“Pincus?” Louis gasped. “Yes, of course. We’ll be right there.”

Shaken, Louis shut his phone, looked at me, and said, “That was Sharen Hoskins. She has been ordered to accept your offer of a forensics team. La Crim’s criminalists are backlogged and AB-16 has struck again.”