Lucky Ce Soir, page 19
“We followed them as far as the river where they went under, through a telecom tunnel. On the other side, the tunnel opens to the whole catacomb network. Nobody knows for sure exactly where all those tunnels go. It is a very good place to hide—dark, confusing, and dangerous in places.”
“And the license plate on the black sedan parked behind M. Fabrice’s?”
“A wild bird chase—”
“Goose.”
If looks could kill, I’d been drawn, quartered, and spread across the back forty. “The license number M. Fabrice gave us was registered to a red Fiat in the Nineteenth. The owner was home all night, the car with him.”
I leaned back. Jean-Charles nuzzled my ear—a good sign, as long as he didn’t pull a Mike Tyson. “I’m familiar with tunnels. The storm drains under Vegas stretch for over three hundred maze-like miles. One thing I learned, even if the maps are outdated, somebody knows where all the passages go.”
Despite the Champagne, she looked like she needed a drink. “It is illegal to go there.”
“Even better.” A bit of confidence crept in. “Even Eve couldn’t resist the Forbidden Fruit.”
Emma’s phone jangled and danced on the table. She grabbed it with a practiced swipe. “Oui?” Her face reddened and her mouth puckered as she listened. “What do you mean he escaped? No one dances out of the jail.” She turned her back to us as if the movement would block our interest and the conversation.
I stifled a laugh. More than half of me expected this. No, not just anyone, but a particular dark-haired, flamboyant, bad-boy pirate I knew who made his living out of avoiding consequences.
Jean-Charles looked lost. “Sinjin,” I mouthed to him. Understanding bloomed, quickly replaced by anger. “And Desiree?” he mouthed back.
I shook my head. “She wasn’t home,” I mouthed back.
A moment of confusion, then understanding dawned.
We both had that sinking feeling. Desiree and her bad choices. And Sinjin with his smooth manners and matinee looks could convince even the most skeptical that he was a good choice…until he proved he wasn’t. Reeling from two disastrous relationships, Desiree was ripe for the picking.
What the hell had she done? And could I pull her bacon from the fire this time? Could anyone? Should we? Without consequences how would she learn?
We both continued eavesdropping on the commissaire’s conversation. “He must’ve had help. Did anyone come to see him?” She paused, listening, then her eyes flicked to Jean-Charles.
“There’s your answer.” I put my hand over his.
He threw back the rest of his Champagne, then placed the glass on the table with so much force I thought the stem would break. It didn’t. “My sister. If there is trouble, she will find it.”
“Don’t be too hard on her. When it comes to women, Sinjin Smythe-Gordon is the proof to Mesmer’s theory of Animal Magnetism.”
“Really?” Looking for a fight, he let an accusatory tone slip into the question.
Way too smart to pick up that gauntlet, I realized my words held the seeds of self-incrimination. “Experience is an antidote to his charm. I’ve met far better.” I pulled his arm around me until I could feel his breath on my cheek.
“Really?” he whispered.
“I didn’t exactly sit at home waiting for you to drop in my lap. And, don’t forget, I was raised in a whorehouse.”
Emma had ended the call and stared at us, her head swiveling from one to the other like a spectator at a tennis match. “Whorehouse. What is this?”
“Exactly what it sounds like.” I shut her down with a frown. “So Sinjin is on the lam and Desiree is helping him.”
“I am not sure of this ‘lam,’ but he is free. A woman matching Desiree’s description visited him just before he disappeared. We don’t have proof…” she enunciated the word with a slight eye-roll for my benefit, “…but the implication is clear. We must find them both.”
“Guilty by implication, it’s a thing here?” I know, sticking my thumb in the gaping wound in her pride, but, well, I had an excuse not to be my best self at the moment. Being on the wrong end of a fight with a Peugeot was excuse enough. The woman had me wishing on a star that I could find proof of her guilt. Rather female of me, which didn’t make me proud. But I couldn’t shake the feeling she was mixed up in all of this somehow. “Oh, I wouldn’t waste your time beating the bistros. He’ll show up.”
She leaned back and crossed her arms, giving my exposed legs a quick glance of irritation. “Why do you think that?”
“He needs help, and I’m the only real friend he has. Desiree is beautiful and can simper, but I can get things done.”
“You seem confident.”
While I was pretty sure I was right, confident might be overstating, but I decided to go with it. “The wine thieves double-crossed him. I have a feeling he needs that wine, or his ass is in a crack.” Knowing Sinjin, he’d played both ends against the middle and the wine was the key. Without it, he’d piss off some very bad folks—I’d bet my last dollar on that.
The temptation to just let it all go, to not help anyone find the wine or solve the crime washed over me. For once, Sinjin would get what was coming to him. But then, so would the Bouclets, and Desiree, as misguided as she was, needed help. I couldn’t let her hang for a murder she didn’t commit, or even a jailbreak she probably did. Was there a twelve-step program to cure the compunction to save everyone from themselves? If so, I needed a long residency.
“Sinjin likes control. Don’t we all. Here in France, he is out of his control zone. He’ll look for someone he thinks he can manipulate, or at least convince to help him. He already has Desiree dangling on his every glance. But he needs someone else, someone who can walk the walk and hang with those who talk the talk in his world.”
“You?” She still looked skeptical.
I could see her wheels turning. I’d bet a mint she thought this looked like a good chance to catch me red-handed. Such a gift I have—cultivating low friends in high places. “If you can think of any other candidates, I’ll gladly give up my spot at the head of the line.”
“Does she always talk like this?” Emma asked Jean-Charles.
“Yes. It is her way to keep the madness at bay.”
I tried to twist around to give him some stink-eye, but he held me tight. “And your Sinjin has much to learn if he thinks he can best you at a game of bluffing.” His words were meant to mollify.
I didn’t share his confidence. To think I could pull it off again was pushing my luck, not that I had any choice. The key would be to teach him a lesson and not be left holding the loot when le flic showed up. But before Sinjin roped me into any ill-conceived plan, I had to figure out what was going on, who was behind it, and where they might have stashed a king’s ransom in fancy wine. “I need to figure out where they went in the underground, or where they might have gone. Maybe from that, we can extrapolate what they did with the wine.”
Jean-Charles whispered in my ear, his breath soft and sweet. “I know just who you need to talk with.”
One of the officers on the scene beckoned to Emma, who clearly was tiring of our game of verbal thrust and parry. Which worked out—I’d had enough of her dodge and weave and attacks on my character. She was hiding something; I could feel it. Maybe it was just a serious case of the-one-who-got-away. Time would tell.
I pulled Jean-Charles’s arms as tight as possible around me, wincing as the anesthetic properties of the adrenaline abated. “You sound so sexy when you’re all concerned and helpful.”
“You like this?” He lowered his voice even further, making me laugh, which hurt.
“Okay, we can talk with this person if you think he can help. Then I will need a very hot bath with someone to scrub my back. Then I am thinking some medicinal makeup sex, very gentle makeup sex.”
“You always have the best ideas.”
Chapter Thirteen
I CLUNG to the loop to keep my balance on the Metro train as it hurtled through the tunnels. Each jostle reminded me I’d suffered a collision with a large metal projectile. My head pounded. My body ached in places I didn’t know possible. It hurt to breathe. I thought perhaps a rib or two might be bruised or dislocated or broken or whatever happens to ribs to make each breath torture. I’d done the best I could to clean my coat. The stockings were a complete loss, as were the shoes. I’d scored a pair of flats in a shop on Avenue Kléber as we’d headed for the Metro. There I’d pulled myself together as best I could with damp cloths in the restroom. For a gal who’d cheated death, I thought I’d come through rather brilliantly.
A few of my fellow Metro passengers thought otherwise as they shot me curious looks.
Jean-Charles hung onto the loop next to mine. The rest of the passengers, some seated, some standing, all disinterested in those around them, stared at their phones or blankly through the windows—another day in the bank. Occasional lights strobed in the darkness as we flashed by. The air was heavy and dank and smelled of adventure. I loved the subways, any subway—well, okay, not the ones in Tokyo where people jammed in so tight you literally couldn’t breathe, and, at my height, I could see over the heads of the short men to see the comic-book porn they were absorbing. I never quite got that—sex with comic book figures? How did that titillate? But the Paris Metro had a gentrified, Old-World shabby chic to it that contrasted with occasional glaring modernization. “Where are we going?”
“Not far. Near the Sorbonne. It is quite the game for the young people to traverse the catacombs.” He shouted over the clatter of the train.
“To see how far they can get without getting caught.” I remembered many a scary night as a stupid college kid wandering the drainage tunnels under Vegas. We took great delight in thumbing our noses at authority. Big bad-asses that we were, we often found ourselves running from the denizens of the dark who called the drains home and who fiercely protected their turf. The adrenaline jolt had become addictive—a character flaw I was aware of but curiously incapable of mitigating.
“Don’t even think about it,” Jean-Charles said, reading my mind.
I pressed a hand to my chest, gently. The ribs howled, stealing my breath. I glossed over the pain. Ignoring it would make it go away, right? “Moi? I would never. Aren’t you worried about your sister?”
“I’m serious.” He looked it, too, not that that made a bit of difference. “And don’t try to distract me with talk of Desiree. All these years she has been flying slowly toward a crash site. Perhaps today is the day she learns the limits of her charms. You need to be taught a lesson as well.”
“Yes, us uppity women need to be put in our place.” I gave him a fake smile. When would men stop beating their chests and start being partners rather than protectors? He couldn’t watch me 24/7, and somebody had to find that wine. For some reason, my gut told me Emma Moreau wouldn’t be hell-bent on that angle…she had a killer to catch. The wine and the murder were related, but she’d work her angle, and I’d work mine.
“You will be the death of me. A nice turn of phrase.” He sobered. “But my sister might actually put my father in the grave.”
“I would say you will die a happy man, but it is not the truth, and I don’t mean to be a problem. You must let me be me. Let me do what I need to do. I’m not so dumb. Look, I’ve made it this far without some man saving my bacon. Maybe someday I’ll overplay it, get cocky, but not today. And not tomorrow.”
He waffled and let me have my way…for now.
For that I was grateful. I didn’t need a fight, couldn’t stomach it, quite frankly. In a moment of infrequent clarity, I realized the whole saving-my-world-as-I-knew-it-from-the-forces-of-evil was getting super old. Yes, I overstated my importance—but that was the key to conjuring my superpowers, such as they were. I wore self-delusion like a personal Cloak of Invincibility. But when I got home, maybe I’d find a new job, cut back the tilting at windmills. A nice dream. But for dreams to come true, they have to start somewhere. “Who does Emma hate?”
He reared back in surprise. “Why do you think she hates anyone?”
“Come on. She wears it like a comfortable sweater.”
He stared out the window for a bit, his eyes unfocused. “There are people who are fighters, and people who are victims, or define themselves as such.”
“Emma is a victim?” A commissaire in the police department didn’t scream victim to me.
“Of life.”
“Ah, she aspired to loftier positions. And marrying it would be an expedient way to achieve it. Sounds more like a predator than a victim.”
Jean-Charles arched his eyebrows in surprise. “She is harmless.”
“Like a spider.”
“You two drew a line in the sand the moment you met.”
There was some truth there. “But that doesn’t mean it’s not warranted. How did your cozy little Champagne confab come about?”
“She wanted to tell me what she found out about the wine theft.”
“And did she?”
The look on his face told me all I needed to know. She’d maneuvered him into a compromising situation, and he’d fallen for it. Not that most men wouldn’t. Some lessons are learned the hard way. “Former lovers transitioning to friends, a battle most don’t survive. Take it from one who’s suffered the wounds of friendly fire.” Before he could offer a lame excuse or an explanation that would make me think less of him, I asked, “Who are we going to see?”
“Pepper Kirkland.”
“My mother had a Peter O’Toole fetish. Pepper’s parents must have been Stan Lee fans.” I turned my eyes skyward. “Rest in peace, Mr. Lee.” I resumed my diatribe. “I’m sure Pepper would agree we need to bring back originality, but some of us suffer when those who love us try to fit our size ten feet into size four shoes.”
Jean-Charles chewed on his lip as his face squinched in concentration. “Sometimes you talk, and I am completely lost. I do not have this problem with anyone else.”
“Iron Man. Pepper is the name of Tony Stark’s assistant. But her last name is Potts, not Kirkland. I’m sorta glad about that. Weird shit happens in the Stark household.”
Jean-Charles clamped his mouth shut, which had been hanging open.
I had him back on his heels, a proud moment. “We’re a young country. Movie references are all the history we have. Is your Pepper American? Male or female?”
A gamer, he pulled himself together. Thankful for a question he could answer, his expression relaxed. “American, although he came to Paris to study music after college and stayed. And he’s most decidedly male, a rather refined specimen, or so I’ve been told. He teaches at the American University and studies French wine for his Masters of Wine. A brilliant oenologist.”
“But he feels a bit constrained in the dusty, musty Old-World reality of Bordeaux, Burgundy, and academia?” I liked this kid already. No doubt we would get on swimmingly.
“He’s taken a shine to urban spelunking, I believe they call it. But he doesn’t partake; rather, he maps the tunnels. Others take photos and draw diagrams, and Pep turns those scribblings into beautiful maps. I’m sure he’ll tell you all about it. Beautiful women bring out the storyteller in him.”
“Urban spelunking?” The words rolled around inside my imagination. I felt one side of my mouth curl. “I’ve been looking for a hobby.”
“No!” He said it with such force a few passengers looked up from their mental masturbation devices.
When they realized no blood would be spilled, they quickly lost interest, returning to the pleasure at hand, so to speak. That metaphor was getting the best of my imagination. I needed to leave them to their own devices. Unable to help myself, I chuckled—a bit of merriment in a dismal day. My ribs protested, but I felt better.
Urban spelunking. Who could resist? “You said so yourself, all work and no play makes me rather dull.”
“It’s illegal.” His tone had lost its playful lilt. I couldn’t imagine why.
“And your point?” I feigned innocence. If I couldn’t torture another metaphor to please me, then I could at least tug on his chain for a bit.
“My mother…”
“Will love me if I save her daughter, reclaim the lost wine, and refurbish the family name.” I neglected to mention she would see me shot at dawn if I failed, but we both knew it. So what was the point? Speaking the words made them real. I liked my version of the story better, so I left it at that. A bit of willful manifesting, if that wasn’t redundant.
The train slowed. Passengers pushing toward the door paused our verbal back-and-forth, leaving me on the upswing, at least for now. Reality was, I’d do what I wanted, and Jean-Charles could choose to bail me out or not.
I found going up the stairs was far less painful than the going-down part. The night had deepened when we climbed from the bowels to once again breathe fresh air. This part of Paris was just unfolding, embracing the night. Filled with a mix of locals, students, and a few tourists who knew Paris was best in the winter, the streets teemed with energy. The bookstores, the cafés in the alleyways only open at night, the bars and nightclubs still slumbering yet as the night was a bit too young for that kind of merriment; the place beat like the heart of the city. My favorite arrondissement by far. My whole being thrummed with life. I grabbed Jean-Charles’s hand with both of my own. “In a perfect world, this is where I would live.”
“We can live here.” He said it quietly, without emotion, so perhaps I wouldn’t realize it was the first skirmish in the war of putting two very full, very demanding lives together.
“Life is far from perfect.” I didn’t let that thought dim my enjoyment of the spectacle of life in the Latin Quarter.
“If you lived here, you would drink too much, eat too much, and get no sleep.” Jean-Charles tried to lighten his mood.
“Sounds like home already.” The dance of humanity caught in the throes of merriment whirled around me, reminding me of Vegas in so many ways. Maybe that’s what drew me. “Where are we going to find your friend?”
