"So how was your lingerie show?" I asked. "Did the mayor of Miami come and buy your underwear?"
Elodie laughed. "No. Why should he? It was just a little French soiree."
"Yes, and he'd already been to another French soirée, hadn't he? With the engineers. Are they here in New Orleans, too?"
"How would I know? You think I am the type to hang out with engineers?"
"Well, we all seem to be traveling around America together, don't we? The engineers, me, and you. Everywhere I have an event, you all turn up."
"Surely you haven't forgotten, Paul? I'm doing a master's in emergency and disaster management. If there's one place that needs help, it's New Orleans." There was so much sincerity in her voice you could have used it to sweeten your coffee.
"So you've come to help rebuild the levees? Did you bring your rubber gloves?"
"Oh, Paul, you and your British humor. As tasteless as ever. I'm just doing a little thing here with the Alliance."
"And it has nothing to do with the World Tourism competition?"
"Ah, well, I must confess ..." She put her hands together as if she were praying. "Since you told me about the competition, and how you might get a job at the end of it... Well, I have been asking myself what I will do at the end of my studies, so I offered my services to the French campaign, yes."
"And you're organizing events in competition with mine?"
"Not exactly in competition," said Woodrow, stepping in to defend the lady's honor. Not realizing, of course, that Elodie didn't have any. "Elodie wants the Alliance to organize an event out here at the plantation to tie in with Mardi Gras. A reenactment of Revolutionary War battles showing how France helped the US achieve independence."
Why can't the French and Americans just go back to hating each other? I wondered. We Brits are America's allies, not the French.
"And does your mission include trying to screw up my campaign?" I asked Elodie. I was beginning to suspect that she might be fonder of flat-headed engineers than she admitted.
"Oh Paul, would I do that to an old friend?"
It would have been ungallant to answer.
14
While I was sinking under a flood of unpleasant surprises, Jake was like the proverbial pig in merde. He was sitting at the plantation's open-air cafe drinking beer with a couple of Cajun musicians in checked shirts and baseball caps. He raised the neck of his beer bottle in greeting as we rattled by on Woodrow's golf cart.
The parking lot was filling fast. Shadows were springing up in headlight beams as people walked across the lawn to the glowing rectangle where the show was about to start. I thought I could hear someone making an announcement inside the tent. "We've raised the stage a yard," they were probably saying, "so you'll be able to take photos up his kilt."
They were going to see a landscape of goose pimples. The rheumatic evening air was making me wonder how the Scots ever managed to breed beyond the Stone Age. Even down here in Louisiana, protected by boxer shorts, you felt your wedding gear shriveling up in self-defense, so God knows what it must have been like out on the blasted heaths of Scotland.
I had decided to read a bit of Macbeth, and had my script folded up in my anorak pocket. I hadn't bought the book, of course. I'd just gone online and printed out some famous scenes. It was tough choosing what to read, though. There were long chunks that I didn't understand. In the "Is this a dagger" speech, there was a sentence like "Witchcraft celebrates pale Hecate's sufferings," which was as clear as the witches' brew to me. And there was no footnote to explain what a "dudgeon" was.
I'd toyed with the idea of doing the "Out, out damned spot" speech, but that was spoken by Lady Macbeth, and I thought that my kilt had caused enough gender confusion already.
In the end I'd settled on the "hubble bubble toil and trouble" scene. Although in fact, I discovered, it wasn't "hubble bubble" at all. The line was "double, double." I preferred the "hubble bubble" version myself, but I'm not a bard so I thought I'd better stick to the original.
Within limits, of course. You just cannot perform Shakespeare in the unabridged, uncensored version in America these days. So out, out went the line about "blaspheming Jews." And the "Turk's nose" bit the dust—there might be a restaurant owner in the audience. There was also lots in my scene that I didn't understand—what was a "fillet of fenny snake"?—but if anyone asked, I'd just say it was an ingredient in the original recipe for haggis.
Woodrow dropped Elodie off to find her French cronies, then veered away from the parking lot and pulled up at the opposite end of the marquee. It was a sophisticated tent, and even came with a backstage area. This was where the city officials were waiting to meet me.
As soon as I walked through the door—or flap—three people jumped on me with smiles, handshakes, and greetings. They were all African-American—one woman and two men called Renee, George, and Roland—and were dressed in formal business suits, with fine gold chains around rlieir necks and wrists. They looked like a bride, groom, and best man waiting for the priest to show up.
They got the "I saw you on the Internet" stuff out of the way and then huddled around me to spell out bluntly what I had to do to gain their vote. It felt good to be dealing direct rather than through a hustler like Jesus the realtor.
"The French will be doing some good work," Renee said. She had wonderfully manicured nails, I noticed, like a row of perfect false teeth. "But their battle-revival thing won't interest all sections of our community, if you see what I mean." I nodded. Of course, independence for America hadn't meant freedom for the slaves. "You, though, you'll be tapping into the whole web community and getting us global exposure."
"Great," I said, "though I don't see how reading a speech from Macbeth will do that."
"One moment," the taller of the two guys, Roland, interrupted. "Macbeth? Can I see the speech you're planning to read?"
I handed it over, and Renee carried on explaining how I was going to win New Orleans. She wanted me to drive around the French Quarter in the Mini, filmed by a TV crew. I would park outside some of the big hotels, say how great New Orleans was looking, stuff like that. She would men be able to use the footage on the city's website and sell it to the hotel chains, and probably get a few segments on national TV shows, too. The message would flash across the States and around the world, letting everyone know that the city was up on its feet again and ready to play host to as many visitors as wanted to come. Mardi Gras was just around the corner, and it was vital that the city's hotels be booked up.
"Fine," I said. "When do you want me to do the film-ing?"
"We can start straight after your speech here. Nighttime in Bourbon Street."
"Isn't Bourbon Street pedestrian?" I asked, but saw from her expression that if she gave the word it would turn into an airport runway. "What about the French engineers—are they here?" I asked.
"French engineers?" This was a new one for Renee.
"Yeah," George said. "Those guys gave the talk about hurricane protection."
"Oh, yeah." Renee looked fierce. "But if they think they can barter help in a crisis for votes in this contest, they're barking up the wrong mangrove tree. People should offer help for help's sake, right?"
"Right," I agreed. That wasn't exactly what I was doing, but she didn't seem to mind. Suddenly, life was looking brighter. If all I had to do to win New Orleans was read a bit of Shakespeare and then pose in a few hotels, there was a real chance of beating the French in their own historic territory.
"Wait a minute. This speech—he can't do it." Roland was holding out my script for Renee to read. "Look, there are witches," he said. "They're making a potion. They're saying a magic spell. They say hell. You know how much trouble there's been about the Harry Potter books. The city libraries have received more complaints about them than any other—"
"Don't be such a tight-ass, Roland," Renee said. "You never heard of voodoo? New Orleans'll love it. Now can you take a photo of me and Mr. West here? Paul, will you just lift your k
ilt a little? It's hiding your knees."
15
My fake accent would have got my throat slit in Glasgow, but the crowd seemed to be loving it. Flashbulbs were flickering, phones were held high, a couple of TV cameras zoomed in, and I could hear my voice booming across the bayou as loud as Swampie's explosions, drowning out the frogs and the babble of amused gossip that had started up as soon as I appeared on stage.
The kids had finished making poor old Will spin in his grave. One of them had turned Richard the Third's call for help into a fireman's lament—"mah kingdom for a hose." A boy and a girl had giggled so much during a scene from Romeo and Juliet that it really did sound as if they were teenage lovers. And now I was the top of the bill. The kilt guy—now the kilt, anorak, baseball cap, and logo guy— hamming Macbeth and realizing halfway through that in my bulky lurid top, with spindly legs poking out below, I was probably doing a very convincing impression of that other famous fake Scotsman, Shrek.
As I got to the end—"By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes"—I saw Elodie sneak in at the back of the tent and assume the pose of someone pretending they've been watching the whole show. She was whispering to a tall young guy, hubbling and bubbling trouble as usual.
I came offstage to a hero's farewell and delivered myself into the arms of the waiting Renee.
"We'll just wait for the TV guys to get ready, and then we'll head into town," she said. "We'll do Bourbon Street, the riverfront by night and maybe a spooky tour of the cemetery. Couple restaurants, maybe. We'll do the hotels and the riverboat tomorrow."
"My knees are your knees," I told her.
I went and asked Woodrow not to lock the gates, said goodbye to Jake and Juliana and adieu to the witch Elodie, and then Thelma the Mini followed Renee's long black town car out on to the road.
I wished that Suraya, Jack Tyler, and the doubting Alexa could see me now. The combined might of France's engineers, the Alliance Francaise, and a French revolutionary army couldn't stop my kilt and my little car winning a battle for England.
As Thelma rushed through the night toward the city, I imagined the voters in Boston telling the French, Sorry, Messieurs, but we're going to follow Miami's and New Orleans's lead. We're going to vote for the kilt guy. Did you see those films he did in Louisiana? Great stuff. We're going to invite him back to the city—staying in a five-star hotel, of course—to do the same thing. No regrets, France, but we're going to vote for Britain, earn Paul his fat bonus, and vive les Hommes in Skirts.
My next stop, Las Vegas, was bound to jump on the bandwagon. I could already see myself cruising along the Strip between the lines of swooning casino hostesses and flicking a finger at the impotent Eiffel Tower at the Paris Las Vegas resort.
The French were going to be as dead as a dudgeon, as filleted as a fenny snake.
Las Vegas
Money Makes the Wheels Go Round
1
"AIM AT HIS HEART," the girl told me.
She leaned across to lift my arm, and pressed her chest against me, as if to identify the part of the body she was talking about. Her chest was highly vulnerable to attack, its only defenses being an alarmingly low-cut red-and-gold halter top and a glossy covering of sweet-smelling cream. Her legs were much better protected, exposing no more than a narrow band of skin between a red miniskirt and gold thigh boots. She looked like a hostess for a pornographic airline.
"An Uzi is light," she went on, "but it might buck a little. If you aim at his chest, the worst thing that can happen is you blow his head off."
"Blow his head off?"
"Well, this thing fires so fast, it'll be more like chain-sawing it off." She looked almost apologetic about the damage I was about to do. "Sweep across his chest, OK?" She snuggled up to me again and gripped my sagging arm.
"That way, if he tries to evade the bullets, you're still gonna hit him. This baby don't give you time to dodge."
I glanced down at the "baby." It could have been a toy except for its drill-like weight and the way everyone seemed keen to stay out of its firing line.
"You gonna shoot the fucker or what?" The large shadow standing a few yards away was more mocking than impatient.
"Just squeeze," the girl said seductively, as if inviting me to fondle her nearest breast.
I looked my victim in the eye and began to tighten my finger around the slim, hard trigger. Not for the first time on this job, I also started to think, How the hell did I get myself into this merde?
2
Poor Thelma never made it into New Orleans.
I was cruising along, congratulating myself on how I was going to stick it to the French engineers and the French Alliance, and thereby earn enough to tell the French government where to shove its fine, when Thelma just seemed to fall asleep. One minute she was sprinting through the bayou, the next she was catatonic, and no pleading or coaxing could revive her.
It didn't take long for Renee and company to realize that they weren't being followed through the oil-black night, and they came back to find out why.
Of course, they all wanted to know what was wrong with the Mini. As if I could tell them. The only car maintenance I ever did was fill petrol tanks and drive through car washes. Which explained why, far from diagnosing the immediate problem, I was having trouble finding out how to open the bonnet, or the hood as an agitated Roland insisted on calling it.
"I don't own a car," I explained, a confession that halted them in their tracks. Even the frogs out in the woods seemed to stop chirruping in shock.
"You don't own a car?" Roland seemed to be choking on his necktie.
"I've always lived in the center of London and Paris. I'd just be paying a fortune to park it until it got stolen. When I need a car, I hire or borrow one."
This, to the average American, was like saying that you can live without your own penis or air-conditioning.
"Let me have a look." Roland found the hood switch, while Renee called for a tow truck.
I stood at the roadside, racking my brains for helpful suggestions. The car had cut out as if someone had disconnected its life-support system, so maybe it was the spark plugs. But I honestly wasn't sure if cars had spark plugs any more. I kept my mouth shut.
Fifteen minutes later, a swamp dinosaur emerged from the blackness, its four eyes blinding us as they lit up the forest for half a mile around. The repair truck that pulled in to the roadside was one of those pickups with wheels twice as high as the Mini, and almost as wide, the treads on them like black mountain ranges. Mounted on the back was an extendable hydraulic crane with a cable as thick as a cruise ship's anchor chain. The vehicle seemed to have been designed to wade out into the bayou and pull sunken oil tankers back to land.
The mechanic jumped down to earth. He was a thin, wiry guy in baggy yellow overalls. His baseball cap sat low and tight on his skull, and he had a beard of sorts—a few straggly bristles like blond needles in a pincushion.
He took a cigarette stub out of his mouth and laughed. "Ah don't normally fix Rollerblades," he said.
"It isn't a Rollerblade," I said. "The wheels aren't in a line."
He looked me up and down. "Yo car?" The small vehicle seemed somehow to compute with the tall foreigner in a lurid anorak and a skirt.
I confessed to this, and he got me to describe exactly what happened.
"Don't seem to be anything wrong with the engine," Roland said, but the repair man ignored him. He strolled over, threw his lighted cigarette to the ground, and gazed under the hood.
"We need to get to New Orleans as quickly as possible," Renee said.
The repair guy nodded silently, and went to sit in the Mini. He turned the key to check the readings on the dashboard, and sat there motionless for a few seconds. Everyone except Roland was watching him as if waiting for a dove to pop magically out of his baseball cap. Roland was fiddling with his watch, annoyed by all the amateur dramatics.
The guy finally moved, and beckoned to me.
"Come h
ave a look, Legsy."
"Let me see." Roland shoved in front of me, bent forward, and immediately moaned as if his team had just conceded a lame touchdown. "You're out of friggin' gas," he said. His opinion of me had obviously sunk as deep as a Gulf of Mexico oil drill.
"Out of gas?" Renee echoed.
The pickup guy emerged triumphantly from the Mini. "Middle of America's biggest oilfield, and he's outta gas," he said.
"No way," I defended myself. "We filled up yesterday. We got thirty dollars' worth just when we crossed into Louisiana."
There were a few dubious faces in the ghostly light from the pickup truck's headlights.
"I can show you the receipt if you like," I said.
The repair man knelt and checked under the car. "No leak," he said.
The dubious faces turned back toward me. There was no point digging around in my wallet for a receipt. They'd only accuse me of forging it.
"Do you have any petrol—er, gas with you?" I asked.
"Yeah, but you let it run out of gas, you gonna screw up the fuel pump. I better tow it in, check it out. Maybe there is a leak somewheres."
He gave us the philosophical look of the handyman who is forced to inform you that you are going to pay him lots of money in the very near future.
Thelma was hauled off into the darkness, her rooftop Union Jack fluttering defiantly but powerlessly up at the massive tow truck, and I was loaded into the town car and shipped to New Orleans.
There, on the orders of Renee and a stressed-out TV producer, I smiled at a hotel chain's neon-lit logo, signed in for a room while lying to a manically grinning receptionist that I'd had a great journey to the city, and admired the furnishings of a plush guest suite with a four-poster bed and a bathroom as big as a two-car garage. After a short argument, I also agreed to sink into one of the tasseled velvet armchairs and pretend I was worried that the camera might see up my kilt.
Merde Happens Page 23