The Killing Song, page 10
There were only a few people in the room. He spotted her looking at something behind the glass. He went to her side.
He allowed himself a few moments to take in the pastels, the muted colors glowing softly in the low light, the rounded forms of the dancers, the perfect sweet whiteness of their skin.
He looked at the girl in the red scarf. There were tears in her eyes.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
His voice startled her. She looked at him, wiped her eyes and looked away. In the dim light he saw a redness creep into her cheeks.
“Yes, yes,” she said. “It’s silly, so silly.”
“What is?” he asked.
Her eyes were still bright with tears as she looked back at him. “I didn’t think they would be this beautiful.”
“You haven’t seen a Degas before?”
“Just in books.”
“It is never the same, is it?”
She shook her head. “I saw a picture in an art book when I was thirteen.” She nodded toward one of the pastels behind the glass. “I think it was that one. I wanted to be a ballerina. I took classes until I was eighteen.”
“But you grew too tall,” he said softly.
Her eyes went to him. “How did you know that?”
“I am a musician. I’ve worked with dancers.”
She was studying his face. “Do you play for the Paris Opera Ballet?”
He nodded. It wasn’t a lie. In his student days, he had played in several orchestras but he had hated it.
“I’d love to see the opera house,” she said.
“You can buy tickets. Don Carlo is playing there now.”
“No, I mean really see it, the insides.”
“They have tours, I believe.”
Her eyes sparkled. “Do they let you go underground? The place where Erik took Christine?”
He was confused, but then he understood. “Like in Phantom of the Opera,” he said.
“I’ve seen it four times,” she said, smiling. “Once on Broadway, three times when it came to Orlando.”
It was hard for him to cover his disappointment that her frame of reference was a modern musical. But she was so very pretty, her skin as luminous as that of a Degas dancer.
“Come with me,” he said.
“Where?”
“I’ll take you to the opera house.”
He led her out of the room and down the wide marble staircase to the main floor. It was warm and he offered to carry her coat along with his own. When she took it off, he was pleased to see that she still had the elegant body of a ballerina.
In the architecture gallery, he stopped and pointed, and when she saw it, her hand went to her mouth.
When she turned to him she was smiling broadly. “I thought you meant the real opera house.”
He smiled back. “This is the best I can do.”
She went toward the exhibit, a five-foot-tall scale model of the old opera house. It showed the building cut in half, all its interior rooms exposed, like an ornate old dollhouse, everything from the huge stage to the tiniest dressing room. And there, below it all, were the arched stone passageways of the house’s catacombs, where the doomed phantom had taken his beloved hostage.
“It’s beautiful,” she said. “Thank you.”
“It is my pleasure. I like showing off my city’s small secrets.”
She was smiling. “You didn’t tell me your name, you know.”
“Laurent.”
“Casey,” she said, extending a hand.
He took it gently.
It was very warm in the gallery. He could feel a dampness on the back of his shirt. He became aware that she still had not pulled her hand from his.
Was it the way her skin felt, so cool against his own hot flesh? Was it the sharp cut of her collarbones above the softness of her blue sweater? The way she walked? The way her hair smelled?
No, he knew exactly what it was. She wasn’t like any of the others. She was different. She was just like Hélène.
She finally pulled her hand from his. She was staring at his chest.
“What a beautiful necklace,” she said.
At first he didn’t know what she was talking about. But then he realized his shirt had pulled open, exposing the necklace that he always wore.
“Is it old?” she asked.
“Yes, very old.”
“May I?” She reached out and touched the medallion. He hadn’t been expecting it. It made him feel off balance. He held his breath.
“I love antique jewelry,” she said. She let the medallion fall.
“It was a gift from my mother,” he said.
She smiled. A smile so lovely and so very familiar, like a half-forgotten song from another time in his life. It came to him in a flash, an impulse so strong he couldn’t stop it. The words were out before he could stop them.
“Would you like to have it?” he asked.
She took a step back. “What?”
“I insist. It is certainly a better souvenir than a snow globe.”
Her eyes clouded for a moment.
He covered his gaffe with a quick smile, not wanting her to know he had been watching her before. “It should be worn by a beautiful woman.” He quickly pulled it up over his head and held it out to her. “I want you to have it.”
She hesitated, then took the necklace.
“You should put it on now,” he said.
She smiled and slipped it over her head. The medallion hung perfectly between her collarbones. For a long time he could only stare at her. She seemed to be growing softer, a blur of blue eyes and blond hair. And then, suddenly, she took shape again, and Hélène was there instead.
“Do you like Les Misérables?” he asked.
She was fingering the medallion and looked up at him. “Les Miz?”
“Yes, that’s what I meant.”
“I’ve seen it twice.”
“Would you like to see where Jean Valjean hid from Javert?”
“Another model?”
“No, the real place this time.”
Another lovely smile. “It sounds like an adventure.”
“It will be,” he said.
Rain was threatening again. It had barely let up since he returned from Miami. But the woman at his side seemed undeterred by the weather. She was talking about seeing Les Miz, and yes, she assured him, she had read the book, too, but not in French. She said she cried when Fantine died and Jean kissed her cold hand.
She told him her name was Casey Hoffmann and she was in Paris for only two days, that she and her friend Paula Ridley had saved their money for years to come to Europe. With their Eurail passes, they had been to Munich, Zurich and Lucerne. But two days ago, in Strasbourg, Paula had gotten food poisoning and had been forced to spend her first night in Paris at the American Hospital in Neuilly. Now she was confined to bed at their hotel.
It was the Hotel Albion, she said. Very clean and cheap but the room was so small she could stand in the middle and almost touch both walls, she said with a smile. Did he know it?
He told her he did, and that it was a nice place. He was having trouble concentrating. He couldn’t stop staring at her face.
“I felt guilty going out today,” she told him. “But Paula insisted that I try to enjoy myself.”
“And are you?” he asked.
“I am now,” she said with a smile.
When they got to the kiosk in the Place de la Résistance at the river, he bought two tickets. The woman stared at the sign—VISITE DES ÉGOUTS DE PARIS—but it was obvious she didn’t know what it said. She balked when she saw the heavy metal door propped open over a narrow staircase leading down into the earth.
“What is this?” she asked.
“The sewers,” he said.
“What?” She started to laugh.
His smile was patient. Even though he had planned none of this, he was confident he could make this work out. He knew he had to be careful with this one, that the usual easy charm, nice dinner with wine, would not be enough. There was a depth and grace to this one. This one was worth the effort. This one would be different. This one, in the end, would not disappoint him. He just had to be patient this time.
“It’s very interesting, I promise,” he said, pointing to the sewer entrance. “There’s a very good museum. Very few tourists know about it.”
She peered into the hole, then looked back at him with a wry smile, as if she understood that his last words had been some strange test of her sophistication.
“Okay, let’s go,” she said.
The smell was not as bad as he remembered it. But he had not been down here in a long time, and never in this part that had been sanitized and organized for the tourists.
The old tunnels had been rigged with bright lights but there was nothing that could be done to dispel the dank feeling. He followed her as she moved slowly along, reading the exhibit signs, translating the French for her and explaining how the sewers had changed over the centuries. They walked along the metal catwalks, over small swift-running rivers, under huge pipes and cables.
Finally, when she turned to face him, she was holding the red scarf over her face.
“I’m sorry about the smell,” he said.
She let the scarf fall. “‘Here among the sewer rats, a breath from hell, you get accustomed to the smell.’”
He stared at her.
“It’s from Les Miz.” She laughed, and it echoed through the tunnels.
He was dumbstruck. Then he laughed in delight. He took her arm. “Come on, I want to show you something.”
They headed down a side tunnel, a narrower one from the main one with the exhibits. At a barricade, he ducked under. She hesitated, then followed. He saw one of the blue enamel signs on the wall that told him they were now under avenue Bosquet, but it had been so long that he wasn’t sure where to go. The tunnel narrowed, the lights grew farther apart. A right turn? No, it was left. Yes, there it was.
A metal gate. He was certain she couldn’t read the print on the rusted red sign above it: LES RISQUES SONT NOMBREUX ET PEUVENT ÊTRE MORTELS. But the one word above it was clear: DANGER.
“I don’t think we should be here,” she said.
“It’s all right,” he said. “Besides, this is the old part, from the eighteen hundreds. It’s quite beautiful. I know you will appreciate it.”
The gate opened easily. Which meant, he knew, that workers were probably in the area. He would have to be careful.
They entered a low-arching tunnel of stone. He had to stoop slightly as he walked slowly behind her, and the sound of running water grew stronger the farther they went. They emerged into an intersection of three high tunnels with arched openings and the roar of water.
He took a moment to savor the beauty of the old place. To his eye, it looked like the apse of an old rural church, a place where sinners came to be absolved and saints were buried underfoot.
He looked to the woman and wondered if she saw it as he did. But then her expression gave away her thoughts, and he saw it all through her eyes. The floor was wet and slick. The stone walls glistened in the sickly green glow of the overhead light. Water was pouring out of two viaducts low on the walls and down into a three-foot-wide trench in the floor. A rat struggled to find footing on its edge, then gave up and floated away.
He had to get her back.
“I shouldn’t have brought you here,” he said. “I should have understood you are far too delicate for this.”
“I’m not delicate,” she said. There it was, that smile again. God, she was so very lovely.
“Would you have dinner with me tonight?” he asked.
Her expression changed. The smile lingered, but there was caution in her eyes now. He could see it, even in the dim light.
“There is this restaurant, Le Coupe-Chou,” he said. “It is very special to me and—”
Her smile faded some. “You’ve been very sweet, but I don’t think—”
“Hélène, please, you have to—”
She took a step back, the smile gone. “My name is Casey,” she said.
Casey? He stared at her. God, what was wrong with him? Of course she wasn’t Hélène.
“I think we should go,” she said.
He felt a slow burn of anger. At himself for being so wrong about her. But also at her for not giving him more of a chance.
“Please,” he said. “Have dinner with me.”
She took another step away from him. “I think I better go back to the hotel,” she said. “I really have to check on my friend.” She glanced around. “Take me back, please.”
He didn’t move. Didn’t say a thing.
She was staring at him. Then she started past him, but he grabbed her arm.
“Hey,” she said.
“I have to have it back now,” he said.
“What?”
“My necklace,” he said, raising his voice above the roar of the water. “If you are not going to be with me, then you must give it back.”
She jerked away. Her fingers went to her neck but her eyes didn’t leave his.
He could see it in her face that she was thinking now that she had made a mistake. She was thinking about how stupid she was to trust a strange man in a strange country. And then, there it was, that question that always came to them.
Why?
There was a ripple of fear in her eyes now, and he knew she was thinking of escape. But to where? She couldn’t get past him on this narrow walkway, and she didn’t know where these tunnels went, not like he did.
She pulled herself up to her full height. “Let me go,” she said loudly.
He shook his head. “I can’t.”
The fear in her eyes had turned to panic. But she was trying very hard to hide it, and he felt a genuine respect for her strength. She would have been so perfect. She would have been so—
She pivoted quickly and was running away, toward one of the tunnels.
He started after her, down the slick walkway. He didn’t hurry because he knew she would soon get lost. But when he caught up to her, what then? His anger was building, not just because she had rejected him. Not even because she had disappointed him. No, it was because she was forcing him to do something he really hadn’t wanted to do, hadn’t really planned to do.
As he followed her, he reached in his coat pocket. He always kept one there, even though he had never had to resort to it before. But she had left him no choice. His fingers found the cello string and he clenched it in his fist.
He found her in a cul de sac, standing on a small metal bridge, the water raging beneath her feet. There was no light back here, just the barest reflection from the main tunnel. But he could make out the red scarf and the white oval of her face.
He started toward her.
Her scream—earsplitting and shrill—froze him in his tracks. It went on and on, an animal noise riding on the roar of the water. When he realized she wasn’t going to stop screaming, he jerked the string taut between his fists and came toward her.
Her hand came up just as the wire string came down. If she had been shorter, if she had been weaker, if he hadn’t miscalculated her will to live, the wire would have hit its mark.
But the side of her palm took the first cut of the wire, and she pushed against him.
He stumbled on the slippery stone and struggled to regain his balance. She was backed against the wall, holding her bloody hand. All the images of Hélène were gone now, dissolved by his rage.
“Salope!” he hissed.
He ran at her, fist raised to strike her. Again she tried to push him away, but this time he was able to grab her arm. He gave it a hard twist backward and she cried out in pain. She started to go limp.
Too late he realized she was faking. Then he felt a searing jolt of pain as her knee came up into his groin.
He gasped and doubled over, trying to pull in a breath. He reached out for her and she spun away.
He looked up to see her flailing arms, her white face. Then she tumbled backward into the trench.
As he rushed to the railing, the only thing he saw was the trail of red scarf being sucked into the rushing gray water. The only thing he could think about was the necklace around her throat.
15
I dreamed I was on a cruise ship and we were hit broadside by a tidal wave, like in The Poseidon Adventure. I fell five stories into icy water and then couldn’t get to the surface because there were too many bodies blocking my way.
Cameron’s face was above me when I jerked awake.
“Get dressed,” he said.
“What? What time—”
“After ten. You’ve been asleep for twelve hours.”
I swung my legs over the edge of the sofa, disoriented in the gloomy light of Cameron’s apartment. It took my brain a moment to realize it was ten in the morning, not evening.
“Matt, come on, get dressed,” Cameron said, coming back into the room and thrusting a coffee cup at me.
“Why?” I wrapped my hands around the warm cup.
“They’re pulling a body from the river. It’s a young woman.”
I was awake instantly. I grabbed my clothes off the chair and made a quick stop in the bathroom. Cameron was waiting at the open front door with one of his raincoats. I shrugged into it as we raced down the stairs and out into the cold.
“How did you find out about this?” I asked in the car.
“I was coming home from work and Athena called me. She’s a reporter at the Trib and saw the police alert come in. She’s, well, she’s my fiancée. I told her about you.” He felt my stare and glanced over. “Not everything. Just enough.”
I let it go. The traffic was heavy and I braced my hand against the dash as Cameron sliced the Citroën through the congestion. Ten minutes later, we turned left onto a broad street running along the Seine. I caught a glimpse of Notre Dame’s gray hulk across the river but everything else was a blur.
Then I saw the familiar strobe of blue lights.
Traffic was stopped. Cameron drove the Citroën up onto a curb, slapped a PRESSE sign on the dash, and we jumped out. A crowd had gathered on a low bridge. For a second, I expected to see the blue-caped gendarmes, like in some corny movie, but the cops holding back the crowd looked like they could have been from Miami’s SWAT team.
