“Hello,” I answered, still very much out of my wits from the mix of absinthe and an unexpected kiss from my first love.
“Alice,” Motley said on the other end of the line. “I have a job I need done tonight. Where are you?”
“I’m in my old neighborhood in Pigalle.”
“Are you sure that’s a safe idea?”
“It’s perfectly fine. I was just visiting with old friends.”
“The job I need done tonight holds a very limited window of opportunity. There is a very exclusive party happening at a mansion on the Seine right now, and you and Rabbit will need to get inside. I’m going to send Rabbit to pick you up immediately.”
My ears piqued to the sound of a bottle smashing on the sidewalk somewhere in the distance. A roar of desire-laden laughter carried from the breeze-swept curtains cloaking an open window. I looked down at my hands, bathed in a red neon shadow.
“Tell Rabbit that I will be waiting beneath the red windmill.”
* * *
Ten minutes later, Rabbit pulled up in his black A4 and I hopped from the curb into the car.
“You know,” I told Rabbit, wrestling into the smooth leather seat and clicking the seat belt in place, “it probably looks really bad for you to pick up a girl in falsie lashes and a trench coat in front of the red windmill.”
“I’ve been spotted in worse circumstances with you,” he said, thundering the gas pedal. “Did I interrupt a date or something?” The question came as he glared down at my pink kitten heels.
“I don’t go on dates,” I said. “And I don’t appreciate the assumptions about my personal life.”
“Hey, if you don’t like me knowing where you are, learn how to drive so I don’t have to keep picking you up places.”
“I know how to drive,” I reminded him. “I just hate doing it.” I switched the dial on Rabbit’s stereo to something I liked. “Did Motley give you any details on the job? It looks like we have a party to crash tonight.”
“Yeah, it’s some kind of masquerade ball,” Rabbit elaborated. He wrapped his arm behind the seat and fished out a glittery pink mask. He dropped it into my lap and switched back the radio station.
“This mask is cute,” I remarked. I slipped the mask on over my face and pulled the rearview mirror over to my side and pursed my lips flirtatiously at my own reflection.
“You are so immature, Alice.” Rabbit adjusted the mirror back to the road view.
“Where’s yours?” I asked.
Rabbit dug into the backseat again. He showed me a black and white mask, styled after Phantom of the Opera.
“Killer,” I complimented. “So what do we have to do at the party?”
“It’s simple. While the party is going on, we have to slip into the host’s personal space and hijack his computer.”
“Does the host have some information regarding the dynamite stick he isn’t willing to sell?”
“No, something better. The name of the man whose party we’re crashing is Jean Etienne. He is one of Paris’ most high-profile art dealers. There’s a rumor he might be in possession of the dynamite stick.”
“How likely is this rumor to be true?”
“Well, look at it this way, his specialty is collecting rare stuff, pricey stuff; and the reason why he has been successful as a dealer is that he has good traffic channels.”
“Being able to import a Picasso doesn’t link someone to the dynamite stick.”
“No, it usually doesn’t. However, I have it on good authority from a source close to Etienne that his latest import wasn’t a painting at all. It was a thumb drive specially delivered all the way from Tokyo.”
“Who’s the source you speak of?”
“The source needs to remain private.”
“You mean you won’t tell me?”
“Sorry, Alice, this is a really sensitive source and I have to keep it hushed.” Rabbit took a turn onto Avenue Marceau and gunned the gas.
“I’d say this Etienne character must be able to import more than a few Picassos if he lives in the 16th arrondissement,” I remarked. My eyes were taking in the luxurious estates as we zipped by them. “You don’t get to live in Paris’ richest neighborhood by accident.”
* * *
I had to gasp when Rabbit rolled the car up to the horseshoe driveway in front of Jean Etienne’s estate. The home was modeled after Versailles and it had views of Paris you usually had to pay for. The women walking inside the party looked like the type you usually had to pay for, too.
Rabbit put the car in park and dropped the keys into the valet’s hand. “Act natural,” Rabbit whispered into my hair as he hooked his hand into mine and led me up the steps to the front door.
There was a line, at least a dozen people deep, radiating outside the door as they waited for the nod from the security agent guarding the door. The guard had sleeve-ripping muscles and a shiny bald scalp with two ragged gear earrings pinned to each of his lobes. I held my breath. The breeze from the nearby Seine blew against the bare skin on my legs, evoking goose pimples.
When it was our turn to be surveyed by the intimidating guard, his eyes, which had an unhealthy citrine glow to them, latched onto mine. My pulse was going like a jackhammer. He proceeded to look me up and down, starting at the tips of my kitten heels and finding my eyes behind the glittery mask. He reined his lips into a smile. He liked what he saw. “Go ahead,” he told us.
“Looks like we passed,” I husked into Rabbit’s ear as we glided into the marble foyer. “Good job on the masks.”
The palatial entrance was marked by a set of twin pillars. The floor beneath our feet was an oceanic proportion of gleaming white marble. The walls had a rose-textured pattern, and were lined in gilded tapestries that guided the eye up to vaulted ceilings, from which hung crystal chandeliers that looked like they originated in the interiors of ice caves. The room was dissected by gilded twin staircases set like a pair of lungs in the center of the room.
In the main room alone there had to be two-hundred people crammed skin to skin. Most of the women had on slinky dresses and glitzy feather masks like the one I was wearing. The men were dressed simply, favoring black and white tuxedos or symmetric dress shirts. The vibe inside the party was techno romp meets tuxedo. Rabbit and I picked a spot in the center of the grand marble foyer to do surveillance from. Silver trays of food and champagne orbited by us like celestial disks balanced over the wrists of waiters.
“Those are goons,” Rabbit informed me. He discretely pointed at each muscular man in a black shirt that the common party-goer wouldn’t notice. “But they are probably only concerned about making sure nobody walks off with one of the million-dollar paintings on the walls, so they won’t pay attention to us.” The masks, dark and obscuring, pulled over the goon’s faces, gave them a sinister appearance on top of the already intimidating bulk of their muscular bodies.
“I don’t know,” I mused to Rabbit, as I insatiably scarfed down a disc of tuna tartare on toast I had grabbed from a passing silver tray, “it doesn’t seem sanitary having the waiters wear so little while they serve us food. I could probably floss the tartare from my teeth with their uniforms.”
“Quit goofing around, Alice. We have to get upstairs to Etienne’s personal space. Focus.” Rabbit’s eyes scanned the spectrum of the room. “We should use the stairs.”
My eye ascended up the elegant arch of the steps, paved with a trail of royal plum carpet. The steps were being traveled by pairs of paramours, clumsily romancing one another from love scripts written on the floors of emptied champagne glasses.
“Taking the main staircase is too obvious,” I argued. “The only people going up there are the frisky drunks looking for a room where they can paw each other raw.”
Rabbit did a creepy smile and I knew what he was thinking. “Interesting observation,” he said.
I gave Rabbit a look of disgust. “Don’t even think about it.”
“But you’re right, Alice, simply walking up
the stairs is too suspicious. We have to pretend we’re in the throes of passion. I say we fake some heat between us to get up the stairs, and then we dig around.” He twisted his lips into a kiss. “Quick, lick my face.”
“Please don’t make me toss my tartare. Not happening. End of discussion.”
A tray of champagne flutes whirled by me on the arm of a spry, boyish waiter, and I branched my arm to claim one, in order to take the edge off the prospect of having to paw Rabbit. I took a sip and felt a tap at my shoulder. Assuming it was one of the waiters offering me more tartare, I brushed it away with my hand. There was another persistent tap. This time I turned around to see an older man with silver hair, in a silver suit, and with gray bags planted under his eyes, staring me down.
“I don’t believe you’re on the guest list,” said the man.
“And who put you in charge of the guest list?” I asked with my lips perched on the rim of the champagne glass.
Another waiter, a clone of the others, with his face obscured by a white Carnevale mask, approached us with a silver tray. “Tartare, Mr. Etienne?” he offered.
The man who I now realized was Jean Etienne waved him away without breaking the cold, concentrated stare he was generating at me. “I did,” he finally said in reply to my question.
Being caught is nothing for a liar. We get caught all the time. Par for the fib-filled course. But here’s the rule to live by: keep lying. Keep spinning the web. Use charm. Use flattery. Use your grandma under a bus. Whatever. It. Takes.
“Well?” I asked, all confidence, and enhancing the arch of my shoulders in a ballerina-esque manner. “Since you’re in charge, what does a girl need to do to get on your list?” I did a flirty smile, and if I had the ability to make my eyes twinkle like they do in the movies, I would have used it at that moment.
Etienne smiled back, which I considered a good sign. He smoothly lifted his hand to my face, brushing his fingers against my chin, and tried to lift my mask.
I pushed his hand back and smiled coyly. “Uh-uh,” I told him, my finger wagging, “you have to earn a peek.”
Etienne’s eyes, cold as steel, lingered on me, and I held my breath, waiting for him to reach his conclusion about what to do with the girl with green eyes in the tan trench coat caught crashing his party.
When he opened his mouth to speak, his thin lips parted, and when he smiled before delivering his verdict, they rolled above his red, wet gums. “How about I keep you as my own personal guest of honor?”
“That sounds good,” I told him. “Now that I’ve been fully vetted and approved by the man in charge himself, tell me, what does the guest of honor have to do around here to get a decent drink in her hand?”
“Forget the crap they’re serving the guests, I’ll take you to my cigar room, where you can sip from my personal stock.” Etienne synchronized his eyes to mine, and with an instructive nod, he indicated the staircase.
“Lead the way,” I prompted. He hooked my hand and led me up the silky steps, and when I got half-way up, I turned my head and gave Rabbit the most antagonistic look I could manage. The chattering of voices and rub of violin strings from the party fell away as we approached the top of the stairs.
At the apex of the staircase, the second floor opened up to a broad hallway, lined with heavy wooden doors that resembled medieval passageways. “This one,” Etienne instructed, pushing open the door to his cigar room and nudging me inside.
The cigar room was glamorized by imperial leather couches and several trophy deer heads on the wall. I walked immediately towards a large bay window and parted the cinematic curtains that draped borders around it in order to peek outside. Silver spotlights illuminated the gardens below, pampering the cigar room with a stunning view of the Seine.
“That view is breathtaking,” I swooned.
Etienne pulled out two crystal cups from a Louis XIV style mahogany hutch with glass panels. He wanted to know, “What will it be?”
“Absinthe, if you have it,” I replied, sliding onto his leather couch. “With an extra sugar cube.”
He hurriedly poured two drinks and chopped a cigar. He carried them over to me and I swiftly sipped my absinthe as though the drink in my stomach would make Etienne’s overflowing chin and corpulent physique more tolerable.
“So,” Etienne initiated, taking the first sweet inhale of his cigar as he stretched over the sofa like a playful tomcat, “when I add your name to the guest list for my next party, what name will I write down?”
I thumbed the edges of the belt on my trench coat and told him, “Nadine. Nadine Blye.”
I rationalized to myself that it wasn’t a total lie. I was Nadine Blye, sometimes. Or at least I had a passport that said so. She was a physicist, and six months earlier I had purchased a fake identity under her name from Wally, with an accompanying fake PhD from Princeton and a passport stamped for Russia. I had needed it for one of Motley’s jobs.
“A pleasure to meet you, Nadine,” Etienne purred, the way a rich old man with a pretty young thing in his cigar room tends to purr. “Tell me, what brought you to my party?”
“Refill my glass and I’ll tell you,” I teased, shaking my empty cup at him. I had just felt the vibration of my phone from inside my pocket, altering me to a new text message, so I needed Etienne to turn his head so I could read what it said.
Etienne got up from his chair and I peeked and saw a message from Rabbit. The text said, New intel…the possible dynamite stick isn’t in the house, might be on his yacht…look outside.
“Here you go,” Etienne said, handing me my drink. I took it from him and plunged it to my lips until it was drained. I set the empty glass down and popped off the sofa to my feet, raising my arms up over my head. The lamplight next to the sofa bathed my figure in spotlight and I began dancing.
“Are you in the mood to dance, Nadine?” Etienne asked.
“Mmmhmm,” I answered, letting my body swivel, carefully timing my dance steps so that I traced my way over to the window. I parted the curtains again, twisting myself around them like glossy bed sheets as I danced, and I got a peek at Etienne’s yacht parked out there.
“But I would much rather dance on your big boat.”
“My boat?”
“Yeah.” I nodded out the window towards the dock. “Isn’t that yours?”
The way his eyes followed my shoulders as they pulled back and forth, I knew he was considering it. He jumped to his feet and grabbed a set of keys from inside his desk, and he grabbed the bottle of Le Tourment Vert absinthe my drinks had been poured from.
“Let’s go,” Etienne said. I let him lead me back down the staircase and we passed through the main foyer again. Rabbit was standing exactly where I had left him, except now there was a skinny girl in a geisha mask and a black spandex dress latched onto his arm. He was so enamored with nuzzling into her shiny black hair that he didn’t notice the nasty look I transmitted to him as I passed by. This was not the time to be picking up honeys.
Quickly paced, we took the main foyer to a private library that had large glass double doors that led out to the waterfront. Etienne threw open the doors. “After you, Nadine.”
I walked outside and a rush of cold air hit my bare legs. “Is it this one?” There was a pristine white yacht parked along the dock, its details were made mysterious by the river’s leaping shadows.
Etienne tugged open the cabin doors. “Go ahead and make yourself comfortable, Nadine.”
“Certainly,” I said, letting a lingering stare cross between us.
The inside of the yacht was cramped, even though it had been redecorated for amenities like a big-screen television and a massage table. My eyes scanned around for the dynamite stick as I sat down on the plush sofa which took up a good portion of the den.
The coffee table, pulled up next to the legs of the sofa, had a black laptop resting on it. Aside from that, nothing else looked promising for the likelihood of concealing the disk.
“Are you comfortable, Na
dine?” Etienne eased beside me on the sofa and latched his arm around my shoulders. I was a pretty good liar, but it’s tricky to fib your way out of cramped space with a gross dude who is all up on you, and Etienne was all up on me in a matter of seconds. His lips aligned themselves to mine and he kissed me with a perverse suction.
I shrugged myself free. “I’m thirsty again.”
“Let me see your face,” he said.
“Soon,” I replied.
“Now.” His hand tugged at my mask and I swatted his fingers away from my face.
“I said soon. Be patient.”
“I want to see your face. Take off that mask.” Something about his hot breath and the way the rocking boat made the tartare come back up to my throat caused me to snap. I clawed the length of Etienne’s cheek with my nails. “Nadine? What the hell is this?” He wiped the blood away from his cheek where I had raked his skin.
“Where’s the thumb drive?” I asked, sliding my snub-nose revolver out of the pocket on my trench coat.
“What thumb drive? What are you talking about, you screwy little bitch? Are you trying to rob me?”
“You know what thumb drive I’m talking about,” I hollered, lifting the revolver and directing its nose to the middle of his forehead. “The dynamite stick.”
Etienne probably had two-hundred pounds on me, so when he lunged at me instead of answering my question, it knocked me to the floor. The revolver flew out of my hand and spun across the floor, farther than either of us could grasp for it. Etienne pinned me down by each wrist and collapsed on my chest with his full weight.
“Who sent you here?” he asked. “Who do you work for?”
“I work for myself,” I growled.
“Do you want money? Is that it? Or were you sent here to kill me by one of my competitors?”
“I came here for the dynamite stick.”
“What the hell is that?”
“Don’t play dumb.” I hiked my foot up so that the sharply pointed toe of my shoe struck the tender root of his spine.
Generation of Liars Page 8