The Alternative Detective (Hob Draconian)

by Robert Sheckley

  We have a saying in the private eye business—before turning to subtleties, do not forget the obvious. Therefore, I turned and redescended the carpeted stairs to the telephones, the toilets, and the tiresome concierge.

  She frowned as I heaved into her line of vision, and I noticed her right hand moved to rest protectively on top of her precious towels. I nodded to her curtly—a man of affairs not to be disturbed with inanities about towels in telephone booths—and then realized that I had used up my only jeton on the previous call.

  I had no time to fool around. I fished a hundred franc note out of my pocket. “Five jetons, s’il vous plaît, and keep the change.”

  This brought a smile to her parched and bloodless lips. My unorthodox behavior was backed by good French currency, so I was probably all right after all.

  Clutching my coins, I rushed to the telephone booth. It was now occupied by a large blonde woman of middle years and considerable makeup, settled in for what looked like an all-day chat with her mother living in a garden apartment in Passy or St-Germain-en-Laye.

  I tapped on the glass with my jeton, hoping to intimidate her. I had forgotten that I was in Paris, home of the Unflappables. She gave me a look that said, clear as clear, “Go back to your gutter and your bottle, miserable sans-culotte.” Then she turned back to the telephone, evidently determined to talk until the café closed or hell froze over, whichever came first.

  In desperation I turned to the concierge, who had been watching this with the usual ironic smile.

  “Madame,” I said, “I need to make a call of an emergency nature. Can you help me?” As I spoke I did not neglect to put down on her desk yet another hundred franc note.

  This brought about an immediate softening in her expression. “M’sieu is a doctor?” she enquired.

  “Exactement!” I cried. A private detective is after all a sort of physician to ills within the body social. Or so I could argue if the need ever arose.

  “Follow me, m’sieu.” She rose from behind her desk, scooping up the coins in her dish and putting them into a pocket of her black bombazine dress. She led me through a door marked No Exit, down a corridor dimly lit with tiny light bulbs, to a door marked No Entry. She unlocked it, pushed it open, and entered, with me following close behind.

  We were in a sort of storeroom. One wall was lined to the ceiling with steel shelving, upon which rested rows of glassware. There was a battered old desk in the middle of the room. Lying face down on the desk was a small balding man with his pants down around his ankles. I thought I had stumbled on yet another case of foul play when the man turned his head, revealing beneath him a smallish woman with elaborately curled hair and a dark skirt hiked up around her hips.

  The ensuing argument between the three of them started at a shriek and built from there. I spotted the telephone and went for it, as the concierge explained that M’sieu le Docteur had to make a call of an emergency nature and why did not M’sieu Albert and Mamsel’ Fifi seek out a cheap hotel for their coupling?

  This time a receptionist answered Clovis’ phone. Aware of the ears fastened on me, so to speak, I said, “Docteur Draconian here. I must speak to Monsieur Clovis immediately.”

  “But you are not M. Clovis’ regular doctor,” the receptionist said. “What has happened to Dr. d’Amboise?”

  “Called away to surgery. I must speak to Clovis immediately.”

  “Is it anything to do with his test?”

  “It could be,” I said.

  “Positive or negative?”

  “I am at liberté to reveal that only to M. Clovis himself.”

  “You can tell me,” she said. “M. Clovis keeps no secrets from me.”

  “Then he will tell you himself. But my instructions in these matters are clear. Mademoiselle, please do not waste any more of my time. Put me through to M. Clovis.”

  “Ah, I am desolated to have to tell you that M. Clovis has left instructions that no one is to be told where he is. In confidence, I can tell you that he is shooting the climactic scene of his new movie tonight. No one is allowed on the set except the actors and the technical people. But as soon as M. Clovis returns—”

  “I don’t think you understand,” I said. “I am also appearing in the film.”

  It took her a moment to assimilate that. “You are M. Clovis’ docteur, and you are also an actor?”

  “Yes, of course. I play the part of the foreign docteur.”

  She didn’t like it. “If you’re quite sure. …”

  “Of course I’m sure! My presence is required on the set. Mademoiselle, there will be great disruptions if I do not appear.”

  After a few moments of dithering, she came to a decision. “Very well, I will tell you, but I hope it does not get me into difficulties. Tonight’s shoot is to be held at La Closerie de Lilas on Montparnasse. Or rather, the cast will meet there first for dinner, then go on to the final location.”

  “Which is?”

  “I do not myself know, m’sieu. M. Clovis intends to reveal that at the cast party.”

  I thanked her profusely and rung off. When I turned around I saw that the smallish balding man and the smallish woman with elaborately coiffed hair were no longer in deshabille. All neatly buttoned up now, they stood in a row with the concierge staring at me.

  “Many thanks, madame,” I said to the concierge, bowed to the other two, and started toward the door.

  “One moment, m’sieu, if you please,” said the man.

  “Yes?” I said, slightly discomfitted by the intensity of their gaze. “We did not know you were an actor,” the concierge said.

  “I suppose not,” I said, wondering if it were a crime to impersonate a film star.

  “Would you mind giving us your autograph?” the man asked.

  “With very great pleasure,” I said.

  The man produced a large menu. I scrawled my name across it and handed it to him.

  He looked at it, puzzled, then said, “Perhaps m’sieu would also be good enough to honor us with his stage name?”

  “But of course!” I took the menu again. Quickly, boldly, I scrawled across the top, impelled by the sort of fatal caprice that seems so logical in Paris, “Best regards from Alain Delon.”

  “I’m his stuntman,” I explained before they could point out the lack of resemblance.

  ON CAMERA

  42

  I missed the party at the Closerie de Lilas, but, for a suitable tip, the maître d’ remembered overhearing the instructions given to the taxis when Clovis’ party was leaving. They had gone to the Hôtel Lauzan on the Île St-Louis. I took a taxi there.

  The Île St-Louis is a small island in the Seine just above the Île de la Cité, almost at the geographic center of Paris. It is a refuge of small cobblestoned streets, silent quays and unpretentious architecture. The Hôtel Lauzan was once the residence of some of France’s most famous poets and painters. Now owned and splendidly refurbished by the City of Paris, it forms a superb backdrop for historical dramas.

  Right. So I walked in to a scene of people in powdered wigs making hissing remarks to each other under kleig lights. Spotting Clovis I made my way to him.

  “Glad you got here,” Clovis said. “You’re playing Baudelaire in this scene.”

  “Really?” I said. “You really want me to play Baudelaire?”

  I mean I was really flattered but I was having difficulty holding Clovis’ attention because he had just seen an old friend across the room, a tall olive-skinned guy in a camel’s-hair topcoat, maybe a French gangster, or an actor impersonating a French gangster, or even somebody entirely different impersonating an actor impersonating a French gangster, because they play these games in Paris, at least among the class able to afford several changes of clothing.

  I turned to Yvette, who was standing by with her clipboard fall of lists and scripts and lighting instructions. “Yes,” she said. “It is a very great honor, even if it is a complicated joke on Clovis’ part, part of his actor-trouvé method wh
ich is so controversial. Come with me to costuming; we’d better get you dressed and made up.”

  I followed her across the crowded little room. We went down a corridor and came to a door marked Wardrobe. Inside, Yvette told the wardrobe lady, whose name I never did catch, that I was Clovis’s newest Baudelaire.

  While the wardrobe lady went to get my costume, I said to Yvette, “What do you mean, his newest Baudelaire? How many has he had?”

  “You’re the third.” She called out to the wardrobe lady, “Don’t forget the Baudelaire shoes!”

  “Which ones?” the wardrobe lady shouted back. “The striped dream sequence shoes or the dissolving-sanity black and gray shoes?”

  “The black and grays.”

  I asked, “What happened to the other two Baudelaires?”

  The wardrobe lady came back with a pile of heavy-looking dark clothing, a white shirt, and the black and gray shoes. Yvette motioned for me to gather everything up, then led me back into the corridor.

  “The other two,” I asked again. “What happened to them?”

  “One of them was arrested for attempted bank robbery in Nice. He was, as you would imagine, a two-career man, though of course Clovis hadn’t known that when he engaged him.”

  “And the other?”

  “Victim of a hit-and-run. Two months in the hospital.”

  “The role hasn’t had much luck. I wonder why Clovis picked me.”

  “Because you’re the right size,” Yvette said. “There’s not time to run up new costumes. Especially the shoes, that’s difficult on short notice.”

  “What’s so special about the shoes?”

  “Clovis has a theory about Charles Baudelaire and shoes. Shoes are Clovis’ main symbol for the changes of temperament that Baudelaire underwent.”

  “Is this movie about Baudelaire?”

  “Not exactly,” Yvette said. “It’s difficult to say what a Clovis movie is about. No one knows anything until Clovis finishes editing and reshooting and reshooting. You can change in there.” She indicated a door.

  “Yvette,” I said, “I’m sorry I didn’t keep our appointment the other day.”

  “It is of no concern,” she said, in a manner which clearly indicated to me that it was. And I was pleased for a moment, because the fact that I had disturbed her implied that she felt something for me. But then on second thought, I realized that anyone would be annoyed at being stood up for dinner; it wasn’t necessarily personal.

  “Is anything the matter?” Yvette said.

  “No, why do you ask?”

  “Because you stood there for the longest time just looking at the ceiling, and I thought you were having an attack or something.”

  “Call it an illumination,” I said. “Is it true that Alex is here?”

  “Oh, yes. He’s around somewhere.”

  “Did you tell him I was looking for him?”

  “I haven’t spoken to him today. But I assume that Monsieur Clovis has told him. You’d better start changing.”

  I opened the door and went into a little anteroom. Yvette came as far as the doorway. There was a screen in the far corner and I began changing behind it.

  An uncanny feeling came over me, in the hot little dressing room, as I buttoned up my long black Baudelaire coat and stepped out to be fitted with moustache and makeup. Yvette was standing there looking casual and cute in her Lois jeans and white shirt top. Her dark hair was done up in a ponytail. There was a faint sheen of perspiration on her upper lip, a glow of color in her cheeks. She looked as fresh and vital as springtime itself, and then I cut it off because I really didn’t know what disaster my fatal mentality was setting me up for this time.

  “I’d like to see you when this case is finished,” I told her.

  She gave me a nice smile, a smile that could have meant anything, the sort of smile you give when everything is wide open and the world looks hopeful.

  And then Clovis was calling her from the corridor, and Yvette came up to me and pressed something hairy into my hand.

  “Here is your moustache,” she said. “Bon chance.”

  HÔTEL LAUZAN

  43

  The Hôtel Lauzan is located on the Quai d’Anjou on the north side of the Île St-Louis, almost equidistant between the Pont Marie and the Pont de Sully. I used to live there when I was Baudelaire, in a little room under the eaves. From there I watched the Seine stretch and preen itself, and found, in the contrast between the river’s protean mutability and the fixed lines of the quays and bridges, a symbol for art itself. That was quite a while ago, before the unfortunate matter with Jeane Duval.

  Still, that was a few years ago, and now, since I was enjoying one of my increasingly rare fits of sanity, I had decided to take myself back there again. Tonight was the regular meeting of the Club des Haschischiens, the famous Hashish Club where so many notables assembled, not all approving, of course, but fascinated by our custom, anxious to talk to us, peering in wonder at our effrontery, eager to worship at the shrine of our intelligence.

  I wrapped my long cloak more closely around me: it was a bitter night. I stroked my rather striking moustache, and I entered the hotel.

  The camera tracked me to the stairs. Our leader, La Présidente, as we call her, was there to greet me. I went past her, climbed the stairs and went to the cramped east room. The air was dense with smoke from the charcoal fire and the candles, and from the pipes of the tophatted gentlemen. They sat on sofas, or lounged in easy chairs covered with figured silks and satins, long slender pipes in their mouths, talking, laughing, arguing between puffs. As I watched, they seemed to waver ever so slightly, as though they were becoming the hallucinations they sought.

  I spotted my dear friend Théophile Gautier, somewhat taller than I had expected. “Ca va?” I enquire of him.

  “Oh, the party’s just warming up,” he replied. “The usual crowd is here, as you can see—Delacroix on that couch, Boissard with the silly hat on his head, the Goncourt brothers looking supercilious as always.”

  “Who’s that fat fellow with the coffee cup?”

  “M. Balzac. He comes only for the conversation, since he claims that his consumption of coffee and spirits renders him immune to the effects of the Black Smoke.”

  From the coiner of my eye, through a haze of lights, I could see Clovis making circular motions with his arms. I interpreted that as meaning that he wanted Gautier and me to walk around, so the camera could track us. I took hold of Gautier’s arm and led him slowly across the room.

  “And who are those two over there?” I asked, because two men had just entered and were looking with stern eyes upon the proceedings.

  “The one on the left is Wagner, of course; you can tell by his floppy tie. The other is an up-and-coming young poet named Rilke.”

  Wagner and Rilke walked over to us. The cameras turned to them. I said to Gautier, under my breath, “Alex, that is you under the beard, isn’t it?”

  “That would be telling,” Gautier said. “How in hell are you, Hob?”

  “Me? I’m fine. But how the hell are you? And what in hell are you up to?”

  “We’ll talk later,” Alex said. “Frankly, old buddy, I am really glad to see you.”

  WRAP-UP; MOULES WITH ALEX

  44

  Clovis wrapped it up soon after that. Below, a reception room had been set aside for the cast party that was one of Clovis’ signatures. I removed my costume and my makeup. Already I was coming down a little from the privilege of having been Charles Baudelaire. But, I reminded myself, it’s not so terrible to be good old Hob Draconian, especially when he is on the verge of solving his case.

  I had expected Alex to give me the slip again. It would be in keeping with everything else that had happened so far. But that wasn’t what happened at all. He sought me out at the cast party and suggested that we slip away and get a drink somewhere and talk. We left the party and took a taxi. Alex knew a student place near the Panthéon, and we went there. I don’t remember what it
was called. Le Moule Dorade, I suppose, since everything in Paris is at least gilded if not golden.

  There was a tiny spotlit platform and on it people were dancing very slowly to the sound of drum machine, electric guitar and swizzle stick. They moved so slowly. This was the thing to do, control freaks were in, the old willpower thing, we’ve all seen it before now. It wears this year’s clothes and it probably has something to do with why anyone would be interested in Clovis’ cockamamie ideas about Baudelaire’s shoes. His imputation of importance to the notion irritated me. What did he think he was, weird poseur with his Zeitgeist all pat, coming on with his pronunciamentos ex cathedra?

  The band was about what you’d expect in a chichi place like this, mandolin and wooden flute playing folksongs of Brittany. We ordered a pitcher of beet-red Belgian beer, a plate of mussels in a spicy marinara sauce, and fell to.

  Alex hadn’t changed much in the ten years since I’d seen him. He was tall, muscular, blond, good looking. He seemed ill at ease, however, and had chosen our table carefully, sitting with his back to the wall so that he could see everyone who came in or out.

  “So what’s new?” Alex asked.

  I shrugged. “What should be new? I’m a private detective now. I guess that’s new.”

  “Quite a change from the old days,” Alex said. “Do you ever play poker any more?”

  “Rarely.”

  “How’s the detective business coming along?”

  “Not bad. I found you.”