Bones of Paris (9780345531773)

by King, Laurie R.

  “Of course I love detective stories, I’m in the middle of an Agatha Christie right now. Do you read them?”

  Teacups in the library. “Sure.”

  “Not much, I guess. Let me just put these in water before we go,” she said, stretching for a vase in an upper cabinet.

  “Have you thought of anything else?” he asked.

  “About Phil?” She turned on the tap.

  “Yes.”

  “No, I have not. And I should warn you that just for tonight, I’m telling myself that Phil’s just being a brat. She could be, you know, at times. And although six months is too long for a prank, for tonight, that’s what I’m telling myself.”

  Stuyvesant opened his mouth to defend the missing girl, then closed it; opened his mouth to protest, and finally noticed Nancy’s downturned mouth: her cynicism was as brittle as ice and about as thick as the florist’s ribbon. On the third attempt, he found the correct note.

  “That’s fine, since that dress distracts me quite nicely from my day.”

  She turned to shoot him a grateful look, raising a taut line of muscle up her throat. “What have you been doing that required distraction from?”

  “I’ve spent the afternoon in the movies.”

  “Aren’t movies usually the distraction?” She set the vase on the counter, reaching deft fingers to the bow on the flowers.

  “I was seeing some films made by artists. Surrealists. They were … disturbing.”

  “I believe ‘disturbing’ is the point. So, no more movies tonight?”

  “How do you feel about puppet shows?”

  The flowers dropped into the vase, spreading out and looking better than they had in the shop. “Punch and Judy, you mean? Or something more exotic?”

  “I have no idea.” Juvenile silliness sounded a good antidote to the cinéma; he could still feel the heebie-jeebies creeping across his skin.

  “How mysterious! Sounds perfect.”

  With a swirl of her beaded wrap they were out the door.

  The driver was propped against the hood of the car, having a smoke. When Nancy was inside, Stuyvesant turned to the driver. “Do you know the Théâtre du Grand-Guignol?”

  The man raised an eyebrow, then cast a glance down at his female passenger before answering. “But of course, Monsieur.”

  It would appear that adults dressed for a night out were not the usual fares for the puppet theater. But Stuyvesant didn’t care what a Parisian taxi driver thought of his plans, simply told the man that was where he wanted to go, then got in beside Nancy.

  The cul-de-sac leading up to the theater was narrow, and the driver stopped on the road outside.

  “This is where we’re going?” Nancy was looking down the alleyway towards the theater, clearly regarding the place as suspect. Stuyvesant, following her gaze, saw that some of the streetlamps appeared to be out, and the tree growing to one side looked like skeletal fingers reaching out of the wall. But surely a puppet theater would not be put in a dangerous neighborhood?

  “We don’t have to,” he said. “No, let’s just go get a drink and then we can go dancing. The Coupole—”

  “No, no, this is fine, I was just a bit surprised, is all. Pay the man, Harris, and let’s go see what’s playing.”

  The Grand-Guignol was not a puppet show. It was nothing like a puppet show, unless the puppets had grown to a nightmare size and their slapstick violence had become terrifyingly real.

  Doubts began to stir with his sight of the other patrons: not a child in sight, and few silk dresses. The space was tiny to the point of claustrophobia; the boxes with the slide-up screens at the back looked like confessionals; the pair of angels gazing down on the orchestra made the place seem more like a chapel than a theater.

  The Grand-Guignol was not a chapel.

  The Grand-Guignol was horror: monstrous, savage, perverse.

  Two minutes after the curtains rose, Stuyvesant seized his companion’s hand and made to stand up. To his astonishment, she pulled away from him.

  “This is—” he started to say, but hisses rose up from all around. He sat down again, speaking into her ear. “This is awful! I’m so sorry, I had no idea it would be …”

  “Oh, but it’s perfect,” she exclaimed. He stared at her. “It’s so outrageous, it’s … it’s absurd! I mean, no one could possibly take it seriously. It’s a joke, Harris. Watch it for a while, you’ll see I’m right.”

  She actually did not want to leave? She was amused by this … spectacle? What was wrong with her?

  Maybe the problem was that Stuyvesant had worked an actual case dealing with cannibalism.

  Maybe if he were an innocent, he would find perversion and drawn-out acts of brutality amusing.

  He stayed in his chair, appalled and yet fascinated by the convincing violence, the loving work of the stage knife, the weirdly erotic thread of blood down a naked white arm. For the first few minutes, he was intensely aware of the woman at his side, and then she disappeared from his thoughts until the curtain dropped and the lights came up, ending the first act. He’d stopped carrying a flask some years ago, since he no longer lived under Prohibition, but he could have used a belt now.

  The interval was brief, far too brief. He braced for another onslaught of depravity, but to his astonishment, what followed was a comedy—rude, yes, but no more so than some of the puppet acts in parks filled with children. Here was the guignol side of the name, exaggerated horseplay with human beings as the Punch and Judy. It was a huge relief, after that disturbing start, and he laughed all the harder because of it.

  He was surprised when, at the next drop of the curtains, Nancy got to her feet. “Come, Harris, you don’t want to see another terror-play.”

  “What, there’s another one?” He jumped up as if the cannibal-villain of the first piece might be after them.

  Out in the lobby, she explained. “They alternate, horror and comedy. Like a hot bath followed by a cold plunge. It makes a person feel the contrast all the more.”

  “How do you know about this? And why didn’t you stop me before we went in?”

  “I have French friends who brought me—although yes, it was a shock. They claim to have a doctor in attendance because so many people faint, but I think that’s just a stunt. And I didn’t object because I thought you knew.”

  “Jesus. No, I didn’t. And I’m sorry to inflict that on you.”

  “My dear man, it takes more than red-colored corn syrup to turn my stomach.” A brief shadow passed over her face, but she instantly lifted her chin. “Speaking of which, shall we have dinner?”

  He didn’t have the heart to pump Nancy Berger about her roommate; still, he couldn’t summon much enthusiasm for rare steak, either. “How’d you feel about some jazz and jive first?”

  NINETEEN

  BRICKTOP’S WAS RIGHT around the corner, and Bricktop’s was just the thing to blast Surrealist films and stomach-wrenching plays out of a man’s mind. As they strolled, Stuyvesant noticed that, although clubs that catered to the Cannes and Biarritz set would stay shuttered for another couple of weeks, the rest of Paris was stirring to life.

  Bricktop’s was jumping. Even so, the owner spotted him three steps inside the door and leapt down from her perch to greet him. “Harris! I didn’t know you were back in town—come here, you big New Yorker, you!”

  Belatedly, he wondered if he should have sounded out Nancy on the question of race, because not every American girl would be entirely comfortable with a red-headed black woman seizing her date by the ears and planting a juicy kiss on him, complete with sound effects. When he was free to move, he turned to Nancy, and saw only amusement.

  “Bricky, this is Nancy, she’s from—where’re you from, honey?”

  “Southern California,” she answered, and offered her hand. “How do you do?”

  “Bricky’s from Chicago, mostly,” he told her.

  “This big galoot helping you out?” Bricktop asked.

  “Er, no. He’s taking
me out.”

  “I helped Bricky with a little problem, a couple years ago,” he explained. “Now she thinks I’m always on the job.”

  “ ‘Little problem,’ my black ass. He saved my bacon,” the cabaret owner declared.

  “Just kept it from getting too crisp,” he said.

  “You looking for a table?”

  “I was, but you’re busy. We’ll sit—”

  “Nope, just a minute, we’ll give you one.” With a wave and a flourish, her staff caused a table to appear, alongside a group Stuyvesant knew from one of his previous times there. In fact, looking around the room, he saw fifteen or twenty familiar faces: typical of the village personality of Paris.

  A bottle of champagne attached itself to the table, Bricktop’s standard thank-you to Harris Stuyvesant.

  Two glasses of iced bubbly helped disperse the heebie-jeebies, and brought up the pink in Nancy’s cheeks. He stood up, extended his hand, and said, “I’m not entirely up to date on the latest dances, but I find a waltz and a fox-trot between them cover most songs.”

  She was a sweet mover, was Nancy Berger, more demanding than any other girl he’d swung around the floor, but when he’d adjusted, he found her strength and quickness appealing. The song ended and quickly launched into the next, and the next. Dancing pushed away a city full of ghosts; dancing made a man thankful for strong legs and healthy lungs; dancing made a man’s arms delight at the woman filling them.

  When they sat, the champagne in the cooler seemed miraculously to have replenished itself. Two glasses of that went down just as easy.

  Bricktop came down from her desk to pull up a chair between them. She had to raise her voice to be heard. “So where you been, Harris?”

  “Berlin, and before that Amsterdam.”

  “Ooh, that Berlin’s a hot town. And I hear it’s real cheap.”

  “It is, if you’re being paid in dollars.” If you’re being paid at all, for that matter.

  “Ain’t that the truth? Never been to Amsterdam.”

  “It’s very tidy, but not much night-life.”

  “Imagine.”

  “I wouldn’t, if I were you.”

  “Anything I can do for you, Harris?”

  “Other than emptying out your cellar?”

  “What, those old things? They were going flat, I’d rather you drink them than me throw them out.”

  “Sure, Bricky. Well, I’ve been looking for a guy name of Dominic Charmentier, has something to do with the Grand-Guignol theater. Does he come in?”

  “Le Comte? Sure.”

  Stuyvesant cocked his head. “He the guy who collects art?”

  “Le Comte collects all kinds of things. I guess you could call some of them art.”

  He glanced at Nancy, whose attention was firmly fixed on the band, and drew Pip’s photo out of his pocket. “Is this one of the things he’s collected?”

  Bricktop held the picture out to the light, then handed it back. “She was in with him, but that was months and months ago. What’s happened to her?”

  “Nothing that I know of, but her mother’s looking for her. If this Count comes in, would you point him out to me?”

  “Harris, you know I don’t put up with any trouble in here.”

  “No trouble,” he said, and made the solemn gesture of turning a key on his lips, becoming aware as he did so that his mouth felt a bit numb. Nothing like bubbly for a fast buzz.

  Bricktop patted his arm and turned her attention to Nancy, admiring her dress, asking where she was from and what she did to keep herself busy, looking impressed at the summer in Greece and a stint working as cook aboard a steam yacht the previous year that Nancy hadn’t got around to telling Stuyvesant about.

  After four minutes, she and Nancy Berger were lifelong friends: there was nobody like Bricktop. After five minutes, a small riot at the next table had her rushing over and cracking wise to defuse the situation. And after six minutes, she was up in front of the room launching into “I Wanna Be Loved by You,” throwing a handful of unlikely French words into the lyrics.

  “She’s a sweetheart,” Nancy said.

  “That she is,” he agreed.

  “You and she, you’re good friends.”

  “I’ve known her for a while.”

  “Have you slept with her?”

  “Nancy! A gentleman never tells.”

  “Right,” she said.

  “I promised you dinner. You hungry yet?”

  “Yes, but I’m having too good a time here to break off.”

  More dancing, and somehow the bottle of wine never seemed to run dry. At some point, he found himself discussing the steps of the Black Bottom with his companion, who did not know it, so he dragged Bricktop from her perch to demonstrate. The entire place was soon on the floor doing the step-and-shake of the dance, and the level of energy, which had been high before, now became near to bursting. The place had an end-of-the-world kind of feeling to it, like the pressure of the summer was about to explode into a thundershower.

  Stuyvesant and Nancy dropped into their chairs, sweating and infected with the excitement. She leaned forward to speak into his ear. “That Bricktop’s quite a teacher.”

  He swiveled his head to reply. “Personal tutor to the Duke of Wales.” Her face was just inches from his. It took no effort at all to let his body sag forward, just a fraction. Her lips tasted of wine and the salt of perspiration, and she was not the one to move away first.

  She held out her empty glass, her dark eyes sparkling with amusement.

  Something told him he might find out for himself just how far Nancy Berger’s tan went.

  More champagne, more music, and if it cost Stuyvesant half the Crosby advance, it was worth it. This was the first time he hadn’t been working in … weeks? Months? He was lit up and he was happy, and going to be happier, and he was just beginning to wonder if it might be time to leave and move on to other things when he realized that Bricktop was bending down to speak in his ear.

  “I probably shouldn’t tell you this,” she said.

  “Whassat, sweetheart?”

  “Your fellow just came in. Charmentier? Don’t you go bothering him, he’s here with friends, but I thought you might like to see what he looks like. We’ve sat them over in the corner.”

  He half-rose to see past the crowd, and found himself looking straight at Man Ray.

  Black widow’s peak, downturned mouth, darkly brooding eyes, and the supercilious air of a jaded god. The shining creature to his left might have been a footstool.

  The footstool was leaning forward to hear as Ray spoke to the man on his right. A fourth member of the party was missing, having left a wrap across the back of the chair next to Le Comte. Stuyvesant pulled his gaze from the artist to study the collector and patron of the arts.

  Dominic Charmentier was a slim, aristocratic-looking Frenchman somewhere in his fifties, although it was hard to tell for sure in the light and the smoke. His pomaded hair might have been blond or white; his skin was unlined. Blue eyes, beaked nose, thin hands, and a wide mouth with a noticeably fuller lower lip. He was listening politely to Man Ray, although his eyes were on Lee Miller.

  Stuyvesant couldn’t blame him.

  “Come on, honey, let’s have another dance.” Stuyvesant pulled Nancy to her feet.

  “I don’t think—” she protested, but his arms were already around her.

  Running surveillance on a person from a dance floor was tricky, especially since his feet had grown unusually clumsy, but looking past Nancy’s shoulder, he could see the party.

  Nancy squeaked. “Sorry,” Stuyvesant said, and loosened his grip.

  “Who are you looking at?”

  “Just a guy I thought I recognized.” Just a guy who really rubs me the wrong way. A guy who might have something to do with my missing girl.

  “A friend?”

  “Wouldn’t say that.” Ray seemed to be lecturing the count, his hands sketching shapes in the air, looking impatient when Cha
rmentier did not appear to follow what he was saying. He dashed his cigarette into the tray and pulled out a pen to draw on Bricky’s pristine tablecloth.

  Le Comte watched; Lee Miller stretched around Ray’s shoulder to see; Stuyvesant steered Nancy into one set of dancers, then another. Nancy apologized both times. After a third near-collision she took her hands from his shoulders. “Why don’t we just go talk to them?”

  “No.”

  The waiter came with a tray of drinks, placing one before each of the trio and one at the empty chair. Ray dropped his pen and exchanged it for the drink, squinting at the black lines as if to say that he knew the world would consider the sketch a work of genius, but then, he was the only one remotely qualified to actually judge.

  It was just too tempting.

  “On the other hand,” Stuyvesant told Nancy, “why the hell not?”

  He dropped his hands from Nancy’s body to shoulder his way through the dancers, dimly aware of Nancy’s protests and apologies following him across the floor. Dimly aware, too, of an internal voice telling him that this was such a bad idea, that Bricky was going to blow her top, that there was always tomorrow …

  But he’d had too many tomorrows, too many days of heat and frustration, with Berlin and Paris and five nights with Pip looking over his shoulder and nobody knowing her and the loathsome films and that gorgeous young woman with the boots of the great photographer resting on her back, and too much drink and not enough food and the club’s mad energy—

  It was like teasing a burning match over a pool of gasoline. How was it possible to look down your nose at someone standing above you? Something in those bushy eyebrows, it had to be—something that just tempted a man’s fist …

  Not tonight, though. Tonight was just for a verbal jab.

  The three seated figures looked up, glasses in mid-air. The music jived on around them, the dancers whirled and stamped, as Stuyvesant fixed his eyes on the dark-eyed artist, swaying slightly (Jesus, Harris, are you tight?) as he felt the two pairs of blue eyes from either side of Ray.