Thérèse referred back to her notebook. “But Monsieur Fallon said . . .”
“Monsieur Fallon,” Beck interrupted, “is not the guy who’s supposed to pull off a miracle.”
“Well, no, he isn’t, but . . .”
He’d heard enough. “Is there a phone in this place? Seriously—is there a phone?”
Thérèse fingered the locket around her neck, her eyes wide and darting. “Yes—I’m sure there’s one in the office upstairs . . .”
“Up here?” Beck asked, taking the steps two at a time. He stayed on the right side of the wide expanse, keeping his weight away from the fire damage, then followed the right arm of the structure around to the next floor.
“Monsieur Becker,” Thérèse called from below. “The stairs are damaged. You shouldn’t be . . .”
“Which door is the office?” Beck leaned over the railing at the top of the stairs and sent Thérèse the kind of glare that had made foremen break into a sweat.
“It’s right there in front of you, but you’ll need the keys . . .” Thérèse put a tentative foot on the first step as if she expected it to give way under her weight.
“Madame Gallet!” He tried to keep his tone friendly, but there was a growing hardness to it that he couldn’t control. “The stairs held me, and I’m three times your weight. Just get yourself and the keys up here, will you?”
Thérèse stopped where she stood and propped a fist on her hip. “Monsieur Becker,” she said in a clipped, offended tone, “it may be all right for you to speak to Americans in that manner, but you will not—”
“Okay, fine!” Beck threw his hands up. “Just—if you could get me into the office so I can use the phone, I’d be most grateful.” The effort of putting a polite sentence together had cost him the few remaining shreds of his patience. “I stopped getting reception on my cell halfway here from the airport.”
Thérèse harrumphed and lifted her chin a little higher. She moved up the steps at a cautious pace, muttering under her breath, until she reached the landing. When she finally stood beside Beck, she met his glare with a withering stare and somehow managed to look both angry and apologetic as she shrilled, “You will not treat me like your maid, Monsieur Becker. I am Monsieur Fallon’s interior designer and your liaison with the outside world for the duration of this project. I am not, however, your slave.”
She drew the last word out so long that it almost made Beck smile in spite of his mounting fury.
“Fine,” he said, reining in the urge to bust through the office door without the benefit of a key, if only for the release of adrenaline it would ensure. “Now, will you please,” he said, barely controlled, “show me to the office?”
Thérèse gave him a wide berth as she moved to the door right across from the landing. She fumbled with her keys, her fingers less than steady, and finally opened the door of the tiny room. There was nothing there but a phone on the floor, connected to a wall jack, and a window with a view of the broad marble stairs outside the castle and the small river beyond.
“I thought you said this was an office. . . .”
“Precisely. This was an office.”
Beck was pretty sure he’d heard sarcasm in her response, but there was no smile to validate his suspicion.
“I’ll wait outside,” she said, leaving the room.
“Madame Gallet!”
She poked her head around the doorframe. “Yes?”
Asking for help had never been one of Beck’s strong suits. Asking for help from someone like the high-strung interior designer was even more of a stretch. “What do I dial to get out?” he asked.
“Two zeros and a one. Then your area code. And it’s Thérèse,” she corrected him. “If we’re going to be speaking to each other in English, we might as well be American about it, wouldn’t you say?” Her mouth pinched into something that might have been an attempted smirk, though it never made it to her eyes. “I’ll just be outside the door, then—Monsieur Becker.”
If she’d been expecting Beck to reciprocate her first-name invitation, she was going to be disappointed. “No need for ‘Monsieur,’” he said. “‘Mr. Becker’ is fine.” He held her confused gaze for a moment, then waited silently until the door clicked shut.
Beck dropped to a sitting position on the floor under the window and took several deep breaths. Then he reached for the phone. The process of dialing a rotary phone had an exacerbating effect on Beck’s already-strained nerves. By the time he’d entered the last digit and waited for the dial to turn, he was taking more deep breaths and practicing restraint.
“’Lo!”
“Eleven weeks?! Less than three months to get this place whipped into shape? Are you out of your mind?”
“I take it you’ve been introduced to the . . . Château de Lamorlaye!” Gary’s attempt at an authentic French accent made Pepé Le Pew sound like a linguist.
“It’s not the castle I’m worried about; it’s the amount of work to be done by an impossible deadline.”
“So you know about the wife’s birthday bash.”
“I do. But I didn’t until a couple minutes ago, and I certainly didn’t when you talked me into this!”
“Did Fallon explain it to you?”
“Haven’t met him yet! I spent last night at a hotel near the airport and only got here this afternoon. This woman—Thérèse—picked me up at the train station. It can’t be done, man. No way.” The connection crackled and popped, but Gary’s chuckle still made it across the ocean and into Beck’s ear. He bristled. “If you’re laughing over there, Gary, I swear I’ll . . .”
“Listen to me,” Gary interrupted. “When are you meeting Fallon?”
Beck covered the mouthpiece. “Thérèse, when am I meeting Fallon?”
“Monsieur Fallon will be by this evening,” she replied, the wooden door somewhat muting the sharp edges of her voice.
“This evening,” Beck repeated into the phone, doing a perfect imitation of Thérèse’s snippy tone.
“He’ll fill you in. Listen, you’re not supposed to have the whole project finished by April. He’s pretty adamant about having a reception for his wife on the ground floor and portraits taken on the staircase, but the rest of the work can take longer. And if you can’t get it all done in the time you’ve got, you can pass it off to someone else when you leave.”
“Portraits?”
“Yeah. You know—pictures.”
“I’m going to work myself ragged to get a castle ready for a rich woman’s portraits?”
“So the change of time zone hasn’t improved your disposition.”
“Gary.” There was a warning in Beck’s voice.
“He’s turning the castle into an exclusive restaurant and hotel. The party and portraits are just an afterthought.”
“This is a massive project, Gary. This place is older than America.”
“And we’ve sent Rambo to beat it into shape.”
“Not funny.”
“Not in the least.”
“I’m going to need some extra help on this one.”
“Talk to Fallon. I’m just the architect on this project. If you want to redesign the floor plan, I can help you with that. Otherwise, this one’s all yours.”
Beck looked around the diminutive office and took stock of the high ceiling, the ornate molding, the ancient wallpaper, and the hardwood floor.
“Still there?” came Gary’s voice.
“Yeah.” He stood up, the phone in his hand, and turned to look out the window. In the small river below, a handful of ducks paddled lazily around a pint-size island. “What have you gotten me into, Gary?”
“Change. That’s what. Change of scenery. Change of focus. And if we’re lucky, change of attitude.”
“You’re a moron.”
“And as an equal partner, I’m a moron with clout. So stop your whining and get to planning your project. Remember that the only alternative to France is Doofus Anonymous.”
Beck sighed and raked
his fingers through his hair. “I’ll do what I can,” he conceded.
“Attaboy.”
After Becker retrieved his suitcases from Thérèse’s car, she led him to his quarters.
“Monsieur Fallon will take you on a tour du propriétaire when he arrives,” she said as she preceded him down the long hallway leading from the second-floor office through the north wing of the castle. On one side was a series of closed doors, and on the other was a long row of windows, paint peeling and putty crumbling. Some of the windowpanes had been broken and now sported roughly cut pieces of plastic to keep the elements out. Beyond the windows was a view of the castle’s back acres, a large clearing that led into dense woods. Thérèse paused when she saw Beck stop to take in the sights.
“Not much to look at right now,” she said, scanning the flat expanse that extended out of the V formed by the castle’s two wings, “but back in the seventeenth century, there were eight elaborately designed flower beds back here. A sort of mini Versailles, if you wish.”
“How do you know that?”
“Pictures in the mairie.”
“Next thing I know, Fallon’s going to be wanting me to restore the gardens, too.”
Thérèse smiled a little wistfully, her eyes still on the darkening property. “Wouldn’t that just be sublime?”
When they arrived at the end of the hallway, Thérèse led him down a narrow wooden staircase near the castle’s north tower to a small apartment that extended out a half story lower. Someone had tried to clean up the space by scrubbing the floors and clearing the cobwebs, but it still looked like it had been uninhabited for decades. Thérèse opened the doors to each room as they passed. All three faced different directions, and none of them gave any particular clues as to their former use.
“We set up your bed in this one,” Thérèse said, motioning into a bedroom that faced the stables and the large circular drive at the front of the castle. “There’s a salle de bain right across the hall, so this seemed most convenient.”
Becker stepped inside. He immediately recognized the smell of plaster and fresh paint. “Remodeled?” he asked.
“Monsieur Fallon paid a local company to come in and redo the walls for you. I promise you it’s unrecognizable compared to what it looked like a week ago.”
Becker took in the gouged hardwood floors, the seafoam-green walls, and the handful of frames that hung here and there. The art looked like something his mother might have bought for a quarter at a garage sale. “You do the decorating?”
Thérèse harrumphed again. “Mr. Becker, I assure you that my work is far superior to what you see here.”
“Whatever. There’s a bed and a chair. Good enough for me.”
“I’m sure you’ll be quite comfortable. If you’d like me to replace the . . . art . . .”
“Don’t bother. I won’t be spending much time in here anyway.”
“As you wish.”
“Was the bathroom redone too?” Beck asked, stepping back out into the hallway. He stopped short. “What’s that smell?”
Thérèse reached for her necklace, toying with it. She seemed to be struggling for the right words to answer his question. “Well,” she intoned, taking her time, “it seems that the hooligans who spray-painted the front entrance might have . . . stayed . . . here for a while.”
Beck looked around. “Here? In this room?”
“Actually, it appears they might have spent less time in this room than in the one at the end of the hall. . . .” Her voice trailed off.
Beck moved quickly to the door at the end of the hallway and pushed it open. The stench there was far worse. The walls were covered—covered—in obscene graffiti, and the wood floor in one of the corners looked eaten by acid.
“Monsieur Fallon didn’t think you’d want to live in this bedroom,” Thérèse said, looking over his shoulder.
Beck pointed at the repulsive corner. “Didn’t you say there’s a bathroom right across the hall?”
“Well, yes,” Thérèse said, still fidgeting with her necklace, “but it dates back to the beginning of the last century, so nothing actually worked until Monsieur Fallon had a repairman in last month. He also had all the wiring and plumbing redone in this part of the castle.” She hesitated. “So you’d be more comfortable.”
Beck raised an eyebrow. “Well, I appreciate the wiring and the plumbing, but there’s no way I’m living with this stench.”
“There are other rooms, I suppose . . . ,” she began.
“Yeah, a few dozen from what I’ve seen so far.”
“But this toilet is the only one that’s functional right now. So if you need to . . . you know . . . in the middle of the night—”
Beck held up his hand. “All right—I get it.”
“Maybe if you sealed the door with tape? Perhaps that would keep some of the smell from getting into the rest of the apartment.”
“Or maybe if I got a room in town.” He shrugged. Thérèse was silent for a suspiciously long moment, and Beck narrowed his eyes at her. “What?”
“Nothing,” she said, turning away from the foul-smelling space and closing the door. “If you’ll follow me, I’ll show you to the kitchen. It’s right beneath this apartment, just down another flight of stairs.”
“Thérèse.” The command in his voice made her stop in her tracks and turn to look at him. “What aren’t you telling me?”
She pinched her lips together for a moment. “I wouldn’t presume to tell you what to do, Mr. Becker. Monsieur Fallon said you wanted to be lodged on-site, and that’s probably most practical. But . . . if it were me,” she said, her eyes darting up and down the stairs, “I’d most certainly consider alternative lodging.” She looked at him out of the corner of her eye. “There have been some . . . strange happenings in this castle of late.” With that, she turned back to the stairs and descended them at an alarming pace, leaving a perplexed and disgruntled carpenter on the landing behind her.
Where the worn wooden stairs ended, a tiled floor began. Thérèse led him through two sets of doors and down several more steps before they entered the kitchen. Beck looked around in surprise. “This is pretty modern,” he said.
Thérèse nodded. “It was remodeled—rebuilt, really—in the sixties, when some Swedish entrepreneur thought he could turn the château into a conference center, but he ran out of funds before he got much farther than the dining halls. That phase of the castle’s history only lasted for about a year.”
Beck scanned the modernized space. The appliances were dated but far from derelict. The walls were fairly clean. The tile floor just needed a good scrubbing. There was mold, of course, and oil stains above the stoves, but the space reassured Beck nonetheless. There was one room—one room—in the castle that wouldn’t require as much work as all the others.
Fallon found them in the fruit cellar, a cave carved out of a raised mound just outside the kitchen’s entrance. It smelled of earth and decay.
“Getting the grand tour, are you?” came a jovial, loud, regal-sounding voice from the top of the stairs leading to the cellar.
Thérèse threw her hands up in the air. “Monsieur Fallon!” she shrilled, as if the Messiah himself had appeared before her. She hurried up the stairs, exchanging a kiss on each cheek with the owner of the château. Beck followed and held out his hand. No kissing for him. He didn’t care how customary it was in France. Fallon shook his hand with a firm and friendly grip. He was a tall, burly man, though his girth was somewhat mitigated by the well-cut suit he wore. He’d lost the majority of the once-red hair on his head, but his mustache showed no signs of imminent graying or thinning. It did handlebars proud.
“Mr. Becker, I presume?”
“Beck.”
“Welcome to France, my lad.”
Beck resisted the impulse to cringe at the loudness of the Brit’s voice.
“Has Thérèse introduced you to the project of your lifetime?” There was a twinkle in his eye that Beck found disconcerting. “I
t’s going to be smashing, isn’t it? Just smashing.”
Beck didn’t want to dampen the man’s enthusiasm, but he felt that honesty was the best approach. “Well, sir, it probably can be, eventually. But it’s the time factor we might have trouble with.”
“Come on inside,” Fallon said, smacking Beck on the shoulder and motioning him back into the kitchen. “It sounds like we’ve got some negotiating to do!”
The three of them passed through the kitchen and returned to the bottom of the stairs, where a door led into what must have been a small drawing room at some time. It was on the same level as the château’s entrance hall, though on the opposite end of the north wing, so the ceilings were tall and the windows elegant. This space too had been scrubbed down and emptied, except for a large desk, a couch, and two upholstered chairs.
“Welcome to your office,” Fallon said, his voice just shy of a bellow.
Beck cut Thérèse a glance. “I thought the office upstairs was the only one in the castle,” he said.
“It’s the only one with a phone,” Thérèse answered with more petulance than was entirely necessary.
“Nonsense,” Fallon said, pointing to a small table next to the window, where a wireless phone sat in its cradle. “We’re also trying to have high-speed Internet installed, but it appears that’s a little more complicated than I thought. Small-town technology, you know? And installing a satellite dish on top of the town’s most visible landmark is apparently a matter for much discussion! Sorry we couldn’t have it up and running by the time you arrived. Still, if you’ll be needing the Internet—” he paused, and Beck nodded—“you’ll be able to connect using dial-up, at least until we get the other worked out.”
Beck mumbled some threats aimed at Gary under his breath.
“Monsieur Fallon,” Thérèse said, “if you’ll excuse me, I’ll leave you two gentlemen to your . . . negotiations.”
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