Fata Morgana

by William Kotzwinkle

  Picard saw the gypsy child standing in the doorway, winked at her. She smiled and ducked away.

  “Here is the Sun, your card of accomplishment, which indicates that you may triumph, after some delay.” She pointed to the adjacent card. “You are a lawyer?”

  The card was Judgment. “No,” said Picard, “but...” He smiled. “...I have something to do with the law.”

  “You must be careful, then, for it is linked to this card, the Five of Cups, indicating imperfection, a slight flaw.”

  “How so?”

  “I believe it is connected to the Valet of Coins—your tendency to overlook obvious facts.”

  “Well, how is it all going to turn out?”

  “There are the Lovers—here is their card. It is with them you will ultimately be concerned. Are you in love?”

  “Hardly.”

  “The Lovers are sometimes called the Brothers—and one of them always kills the other.” She moved her finger to the last card. “This is the High Priestess. It’s the card of enlightenment. Perhaps...” The woman smiled for the first time, and her sleepy eyes suddenly sparkled. “...perhaps you will become an enlightened man, as you say.”

  “So I can look for a favorable ending?” smiled Picard, laying a large franc note on the table.

  “Beware of the Magician, my friend. His card is shining strongly against you.”

  “I have a few cards of my own,” said Picard, and with a bow he left the room, and the building, plunging back into the crisp autumn air. The wind whirled the leaves on the street in a bright dancing ring. The magic ring. Grandmother called it that... when leaves are caught in the wind...

  He walked into the ring, driving his foot through the little dancing pocket of leaves, scattering them.

  The grey day surrendered into the arms of night. The lamps of the Quarter were being lit. He began dressing. His evening suit was well made; the leather pistol pouch sewn inside the jacket did nothing to spoil the clean line. From a tobacco tin on his bureau, he scooped out three loose pearls, as well as a pearl stick pin and a pearl ring. They were first quality, purchased by the Prefecture at a significant discount during the liquidation sale of Horace the Rat, as the fence was known, just before the Prefect closed him out of business for good, after which it was understood he would leave the country, which he did, floating head down into the Channel, his complete liquidation brought about, it was believed, by his creditors.

  Picard removed one more item from the tobacco tin, a small packet of embossed calling cards, written in the name of Monsieur Paul Fanjoy, Africa Oyster Bed Company.

  “Monsieur Fanjoy,” said Picard, bowing toward the mirror, “we meet again.”

  He completed his ensemble with top hat, evening cape, and a slender malacca cane. Monsieur Fanjoy, wealthy boulevardier, ready for a night of prowling. He raised his cane and brought it down in a swift parry-and-thrust, breaking the arm of an imaginary Baron Mantes. The room went spinning and he had to lean on the cane to keep from falling. He breathed deeply and fought for balance. Take it slowly, gently. In any case, Monsieur Fanjoy knows nothing of fighting. He taps his cane daintily as he goes.

  He put on thin yellow gloves, shut the door behind him, descended the rickety stairs. In the hallway of the ground floor, he passed the open door of the concierge’s room; it was dimly lit and he heard the usual voices of the card-players, a gang of thugs and loafers from the neighborhood. He preferred dark ramshackle buildings like this one, where you could come and go as you please without some damned old woman perched on the landing, demanding your key each time you went out. The bitches ran Paris and he hated them and their old maid’s regulations about what you could and could not do in your rooms, whom you could entertain there and who was forbidden to enter. His present concierge would not care if he imported a thousand naked dancing girls and rode with them on elephants up the stairs. The mood of the building was casual; the gentlemen practiced knife-throwing in the halls.

  He entered the rue de Nesle and walked the few paces to the rue de Nevers, a perfect little alley in which to tap a man on the skull. As often as he’d walked it, he could not get his body to completely relax there, for the lane was too tight, too threatening, and he used it now to tighten his guts. The little lane did its work, its shadows and stone walls honing his nerves toward readiness.

  He exited the narrow alley, onto the quay, tasting the river air. The worst a man can do is lie in his bed like a turnip in a bin, rooting slowly in the darkness. Movement, Picard, and the lights of the city, that’s what you need to bring you round; wine and a kick in the belly. Those who sit at home in their stuffed chair will start growing stalks out of their head.

  He walked onto the bridge, crossed to the Right Bank, into the massive public courtyards. The lights of the palace blazed. Seven o’clock, our Emperor is dining with his beautiful Eugenie. Later he’ll slip off to find a whore somewhere. Long live the Emperor. Rescued last month in a pimp’s alleyway. Wearing a disguise, in search of love, and nearly assassinated. The Emperor has the spirit of youth. Refuses to be encrusted by his crown. A wise man. And here is the rue de Richelieu. This Monsieur Lazare—right up the street from the palace. Paying through the teeth for such an address. Fleecing somebody, I can feel it in my bones. A fortune-telling machine. Grotesque. Our enlightened Empire.

  And which of these luxurious houses—but of course, that one. Bengal lights and colored lanterns. Lit up like a palace.

  Faint sounds from the salon reached him, soft music, the tinkle of glasses. He entered the glittering courtyard, crossed to the staircase of the townhouse, where a footman admitted him, taking his card, his cape and hat, and extending a silver salver. “One hundred francs, Monsieur Fanjoy, please.”

  The footman led him up a long hallway and gestured him into the grand parlor. The room was supported by Grecian pillars and hung with heavy gold drapes. Vines were twined around the pillars, and plants of all kinds grew between them, making the entire room a garden. The women were spectacular.

  He glanced quickly over the faces, whose outlines were continually being traced in the newspapers. He looked for the cracks in their facade, could tell which ones would be easy game for a blackmailer. Little secrets have a way of playing at the tips of our fingers and in our eyes. The skilled blackmailer sees it and he draws on it, until the secret is his.

  At the buffet table he avoided the cream tarts, selected a sandwich of black-jeweled caviar. The essence of the sea burst onto his tongue, strong and mysteriously fishy, precisely the atmosphere of this room, reflected the Inspector, gazing about him.

  The gentlemen’s vests sparkled with war and service medals. Their faces were proud, distinguished—Lecour the boxing master, what is he doing here? Even he is subdued, Lecour who hits like a mule’s kick, acting as if the darkest secret of his life were known.

  Picard’s eyes were drawn to the far end of the buffet table, to a slender young man who had produced a sheaf of papers from his pocket and was explaining their contents to a second man, of soft sagging face and a freckled dome crowned by a few strands of red hair.

  “...the mine is located here, beyond Banana Point. Our expedition will be outfitted at a native village, approximately three miles from...”

  Duval the certificate peddler, observed Picard. The Prefect arrested him last year, outfitting balloon expeditions from a room on the rue du Dragon. Princesse de la Tour d’Auvergne gave him two hundred thousand francs for a lot of hot air. If he has found his way to this salon, it’s because he senses some kind of game is afloat. Looking for a piece of it himself. And there’s the fox.

  Picard moved nearer to the darkly tanned figure posturing himself against one of the Grecian pillars. The man’s slow and languid gestures had apparently hypnotized the young woman who stood with him, for she stared in fascination as he spoke to her, and seemed to sway gently, among the plants and vines that surrounded her swarthy host. A Moroccan bandit, reflected the Inspector, if you saw him strolling through P
igalle...

  But here, with the gold drapes, the attendant butlers, the velvet suit he wears—transformation. A man of mystery, whose eyes look deep into our souls, into our secrets. And if he looks too deeply, if he perchance perceives a little indiscretion in our private life, why for just a small sum of money he’ll keep your secret to himself.

  “...I would say, Countess Lydiatt, that your body is becoming more sensitive to astral influences... you have begun to sense them in the air about you...”

  “But it’s true, Monsieur Lazare, every word! I’ve felt that way for the whole season...” The girl blushed, lowering her eyes momentarily, and the fox smiled indifferently, as if Countess Lydiatt’s most intimate feelings were of only passing interest to him. But then he brought his jeweled fingers to his chin, supporting his head with a sudden thoughtfulness, as his strangely dazzling eyes grew

  brighter. “You were visited by an important dream, very recently, something of great urgency...”

  The girl’s eyes opened wide, matching the fox’s, and Picard turned away in disgust, toward the buffet table once more. Tell him your dreams, Countess. Pour your whole story into his lap.

  Picard was served another cracker of caviar. The redheaded man at the end of the table was still nodding enthusiastically over Duval’s bogus portfolio. “Yes, it sounds good. A good investment. I like the ring of it, a touch of adventure, eh?” The man smiled. Picard tried to see the cover of Duval’s portfolio, saw only the word

  Eldorado

  “Shall we meet for lunch tomorrow?” Duval took off his glasses, rubbed them with a silk handkerchief, his eyes clear and innocent as a lamb’s. “At my club...”

  “The Industrialist’s, is it?”

  “Yes, will two o’clock be convenient?”

  “That’s fine,” said the red-headed man. “And then later perhaps you could come to our place for supper? Suzette was asking for you. She’d especially like to see you again, and hear more about the mine. She’s fascinated by Africa, you know.”

  Picard came directly beside the two men, pretending to be absorbed in the selection of a morsel of cheese. Duval has hooked the fellow completely. But if I have anything to say about it, monsieur, your money will not go out the window, and Duval here will go into a cell once more. “Excuse me,” said Picard. “I could not help overhearing you gentlemen.” He nodded to the investment portfolio. “You were discussing a gold mine?” He put his hand into his jacket, producing his card. “Paul Fanjoy, Africa Oyster Bed.”

  Duval studied the card for a moment, then looked up with a smile at the large bluish-white orb which adorned Picard’s tie pin. “Pearls, Monsieur Fanjoy?”

  “My main business is in the coastal waters,” said Picard. “But I’m always looking for another African investment. I know there’s gold on the mainland, and plenty of it.”

  “Paul Fanjoy,” said Duval, looking at the card again. “I cannot place the name, Monsieur Fanjoy, but your face is familiar.”

  “Your club is the Industrialist’s? I’ve been there.”

  “And you shall be there tomorrow,” said Duval. “You’ll join Monsieur Bonnat and me for lunch, and we can discuss the mine in greater detail.” Duval handed the portfolio to Picard. “Perhaps you know the region...”

  Picard studied the map, traveling along a spidery blue thread of water through the jungle’s green face, deep into the rain forest, to Duval’s Eldorado.

  “And when does the expedition begin?” He looked up from the map, only to find the eyes of both men cast beyond him, onto a woman in cherry red, her gown exposing the greater part of shoulders and bust, around which she’d arranged some transparent pink tarlatan, a delightfully unsuccessful conceit.

  “I haven’t seen that much breast since I was weaned,” remarked Bonnat.

  “And she is... ?” Picard reached for a cream tart.

  “Madame Lazare, of course,” said Duval.

  Picard followed her with his eyes as she circulated among her guests. Her naked arms were something you could squeeze a bit, the sort he liked, and he imagined her thighs must be the same, exquisitely plump to cushion a man’s fall.

  She stopped in the center of the room, chatting with a grey-haired officer, her bosom trembling as she laughed, as she touched her hand to the chain of velvet flowers in her hair, and Picard felt velvet petals opening in his stomach as she glanced toward him. The sensation was unbearably delicious, and he turned away. There was no point in torturing himself.

  As if in response to his move, as if she had more interest in those whose eyes were cast away from her, she made toward them, or so Duval reported, under his breath, as Picard reached for another cream tart and replaced it, uneaten. He could feel her approaching, turned slowly, into her dark eyes.

  “We are overwhelmed, madame,” said Duval, bowing to the hand she extended to him, receiving it in his own and kissing it lightly, upon her dark red gloves.

  “I’m so happy you could come. Did your fortune of yesterday ring true?”

  “Completely.”

  Madame Lazare smiled. “Ric is rarely wrong.”

  “How does he do it, madame?” asked Picard.

  “My husband is a rare being,” said Madame Lazare, slowly opening a silken fan across her lips. Again Picard felt a maddening sensation pass through his body, as if the woman had reached an invisible hand into his stomach and was toying with him there, upon the very nerve of bliss. Her eyes lingered with his for a moment, vaguely curious, before she turned to Bonnat.

  “And how is your wife, monsieur?”

  “Fine, yes, very fine. I must bring her here again. She enjoyed it immensely. But she won’t tell me what your husband’s machine said to her.”

  “There are secrets,” said Madame Lazare, bending forward to take a tiny sandwich from the buffet table. The three men leaned as she did so, like drunkards teetering on the edge of an abyss. She straightened again, still smiling, as if she had not just revealed her own secrets. Picard wanted to rip the pearl ring off his finger and hand it to her on his knees.

  He was spared by the arrival of the butler, who came up to them and bowed to Bonnat, holding out at the same time a small golden tray with Bonnat’s card on it.

  “Here I go again,” said Bonnat with a laugh, taking his card and following the butler across the room, toward a large oak door leading out of the parlor.

  “And you, monsieur—” Madame Lazare turned to Picard. “What brings you to our salon?”

  “These,” said Picard, reaching into his pocket and bringing out a midnight-blue handkerchief, which he slowly opened, revealing three large glowing pearls. Madame Lazare held out her hand and Picard put the pearl-laden handkerchief into it. “I’m hoping your husband will tell me where to find more such beauties.”

  “My husband is a collector too. Perhaps he can help you.” Her gown was against his leg, her perfume in his brain, and her fingers touched his lightly as she handed back the handkerchief.

  The sound of a slammed door made them turn. Bonnat came toward them, his face as red as his hair, his lips set in a hard scowl. Raising his hand, he laid the back of it across Duval’s cheek with a loud crack.

  Duval stood silent for a moment, then spoke in a quiet voice. “Very well.”

  “Tomorrow at dawn,” said Bonnat. “At the southeast gate of the Montparnasse cemetery.”

  “A suitable location,” said Duval. “Pistols for two and coffee for one.”

  Bonnat started to say more, then turned and walked away, out of the parlor, his footsteps echoing in the silence that had fallen over the salon. Duval picked up the crumpled piece of paper Bonnat had hurled at his feet.

  “What is it?” asked Madame Lazare.

  Duval glanced at the paper and then folded it, putting it in his pocket. “As you say, madame, there are secrets.”

  “His wife?” she asked softly.

  “You are too perceptive.” Duval smiled, Bonnat’s handprint slowly disappearing from his cheek.

 
“What are you going to do?” asked Picard, feeling that he must stop the duel.

  “Do? There is only one thing a man of honor can do. I’m leaving Paris at once.”

  “I’m happy there will be no bloodshed,” said Madame Lazare. “It doesn’t do to carry such things to extremes.” She smiled, a flickering scorn in her eyes, for both of them. She extended her hand to Picard, and turned away. He studied her movements as she crossed the room—beneath the elegance of the hostess there was something else, a hint of the gypsy dancer, of wine and taverns, her hips looking as if they wanted to roll when she walked. But it was all hidden, or nearly so, this dark abandon, veiled by the propriety and wealth of the rue de Richelieu.

  Duval flourished the Eldorado portfolio again, tapping the gold embossment with his finger. “Has Bonnat spoiled your taste for adventure, Fanjoy? Or do you still love a mine?”

  “What happens in people’s bedrooms is all the same to me.”

  “Good, good, then you and I shall meet as planned, tomorrow at my club.” Duval lowered his voice conspiratorially. “But how do you suppose this fellow Lazare gets his information?”

  “A network of informers,” said Picard, regretting at once that he’d spoken a policeman’s sentence, but Duval paid no attention, was already moving toward Lazare. Picard crossed the room beside him. Lazare had seated himself, with a number of young ladies nearby him. The ladies looked at Duval curiously, for by now they had divined, without the use of a fortune-telling machine, what the slap in his face had meant.

  “Your oracle is a most efficient spy,” said Duval, speaking from behind Lazare’s chair.

  Lazare looked up, turning his head slightly over his shoulder toward Duval. “It is only a toy, monsieur.”

  His wife had reached alongside him, to an ornate music stand, from which she’d taken a stringed instrument of obvious antiquity. “Play for us, Ric,” she said, handing him the instrument. Its wood was black, highly polished and shaped in the form of a snake, with four strings running from tail to lip.