by Tim Sandlin
Bernard had a brandy bottle raised and ready to splatter. Odette two-handed a chair leg into his wrist so hard he dropped the bottle and fell to his knees. Odette let go of the chair leg and looked over at me.
I said, "Thank you, ma'am."
She smiled.
Giselle ducked out the back door.
I yelled, "Hold on," and took off after her. Made about three steps when Remi coldcocked me with a textbook. Four hundred pages, right in the nose. I fell and lay on the sticky floor, facing the book. It had an English title — Synergy of Global Economics.
Remi and Leon each took a side and yanked me to my feet. Leon twisted my right arm up behind me. Pain shot through my shoulder and I screamed, "Yow!" He pinned me to the wall like a bug on a windshield. Armand was in my face, spewing French invective. He held his hand out toward Remi and I was right about the knife. It was the kind you open with a button. Zip. Remi handed the knife to Armand. Armand stuck the blade to my throat.
He said, "We kill CIA spies here."
"I swear to God, Armand, I'm not a spy."
He grinned big and I think the son of a bitch would have cut me had the cavalry not arrived. Whistles screeched and gendarmes came pushing through the crowd, yelling things I didn't understand. Armand touched the knife button and, zip, the blade disappeared.
Armand breathed into my face. "Go home."
Leon let go and I fell. Next thing, the gendarmes were lifting me off the floor and the apache bunch were long gone. Only one stayed to watch was Bernard.
I said, "Boy, am I glad to see you guys."
The gendarmes didn't see it as a rescue. They took me as the perpetrator, to the point where one of them slapped handcuffs around my wrists.
"Some hoods tried to mug me," I said. "I'm an innocent tourist. Here to spend money."
Several patrons broke into explanation. They pointed at me and up in the air to show how I stood on the table, then over at the busted mirror. A guy in suspenders demonstrated my kick.
I squirmed against the cuffs. "This won't look good for your public relations. I was attacked in broad daylight."
Bernard was smug. I didn't see Odette.
I yelled, "I am an American!"
The cash register lady spit in my face.
21.
The French police castrated me. Symbolically. They took my boots, belt, and hat. The belt isn't important unless it's held together by a champion's buckle, and while the boots belong to the code, they're valued more by hunting guides than me, but to take a man's hat — that's cruel punishment. My hat is my soul.
Or balls, depending on the metaphor of the day. The arresting gendarmes were your typical humorless neighborhood peace officers, clean young men who lift weights and overreact to belligerence, but the booking sergeant or whatever that position is called in France was the friendliest fella I'd met in two days. Scotch-nosed, triple-chinned, a truly amused man. Happier than even the Chinese takeout guy. He leaned across the desk and shook my hand. Everything I said struck him as hilarious, even though, so far as I could tell, his English was limited to "Tommy Lee Goes to College" and "Teen Choice Awards, " both of which he said several times while I emptied my pockets. One long question in French ended with "Jessica Simpson?" I think he was asking if I knew her.
I said, "We used to ball at church camp."
They had this high-tech inkless fingerprint machine, like a grocery store price scanner, that compared me to a database of terrorists. I'd been fingerprinted once before. Back in high school, on the way to a rodeo in Bear Lake, I couldn't find anyone to give money to at a gas station in Montpelier, Idaho, so I left. Ten miles later, the highway patrol came down on me like a kidnapper of children. An hour later, I was printed and dumped into a drunk tank with a man who told me he was the prophet Elijah. I was too scared to call Mom or anyone back home, so they held me through the weekend and cut me loose with no paperwork.
Maybe the no paperwork is why I didn't show up on their database cross-check, or maybe Montpelier lies outside the terrorist radar system, because the happy man read his computer while I waited, then he clapped me on the shoulder and said, "C'est bon, vous n'avez pas de easier."
I said, "I could have told you that."
The hang-up came when they realized I didn't have a passport on me. The booking man clucked his tongue, as if I'd disappointed him, and called someone else into the room who called someone else. A severe woman with twin hair buns covering her ears came in and glared at me while she talked on a cell phone. I explained that I hadn't planned on crossing any borders when I went out that morning. They either didn't know what I said or it didn't matter. Seems foreigners are supposed to haul their passports wherever they go, like Arizona is with green cards.
Finally, the nice fella shook my hand again. He made a big deal over showing me the cardboard box where he stuck my stuff for safekeeping. He put my hat in brim down and I had to explain that the head hole goes up, whenever you set a hat down. He acted as if it doesn't matter even though it does. He shook my hand a third time and one of the gendarmes who'd arrested me led me down a hallway designed to showcase the functionality of fluorescent lighting and shoved me into a cell. Like I say, the arresting officer was not nearly as relaxed as the booking guy.
The cell wasn't anything like you would expect if your concept of French jails is based on The Count of Monte Cristo. No rats, no prisoners who hadn't bathed in a decade, just regulation bars and a cell with three sets of bunk beds and your toilet-under-the-sink combination they use in American jails. Three French-speaking degenerates played cards at a wooden table, a man whose face I never saw slept on a top bunk, facing the wall, and a teenager from Chilli-cothe, Ohio, who said his name was Jesse, paced up and down, back and forth, cracking his knuckles and neck and ranting.
"When they busted my ass over on Rivoli I had to eat forty tabs of crystal and they threw me in here with no one who speaks English. I've been climbing walls for three days with no one to talk to."
I sat on a bottom bunk, elbows on thighs, head hung low. I was depressed no end. It's a shame for a man's identity to get so bound up in his hat that without it no one knows who he is or what he stands for. The hat had taken care of first impressions. It spoke so I didn't have to. Now, I was a nameless nonentity lost amidst millions of people who didn't care whether I existed or not. And, I was no closer to retrieving Ty's buckle and gaining my dead father's respect than I'd been at the Super Eight in Colorado. I felt ineffectual, which is not the way a bull rider wants to feel.
"I'd just as soon you not talk to me, either," I said.
Jesse had reddish hair, a pink face, and copper-colored braces on his teeth. Excessive freckling. If I'd had my hat, he would have known me saying, "I'd just as soon you not talk" was code for "One more word and I'll rip out your throat." Cowboys speak in understatements, taking for granted people will know they mean business, but this kid didn't know diddly because he didn't know I rode bulls and there was no way to tell him without telling him, which, of course, I couldn't do and still be a bull rider.
So he cracked his neck and plowed on. "Except the first day there was this fag from Bermuda. He talked fancy English, like a butler or something, but I stayed away from him. I'd rather talk to frogs who don't understand what I'm saying than a fag who does."
"They're Frenchies, not frogs."
"I've heard them call each other frogs all over town."
"It doesn't matter," I said, temporarily giving up on silent depression over letting Ty down, again. "Black people call each other nigger, but that doesn't make it okay for you. Same with fags, Okies, and goombahs. You have to be one to say it. You've been here three days?"
The kid climbed up a ladder to a top bunk. "Haven't slept a minute." He climbed back down. "They're dumping me on a plane tomorrow, shipping me back to Chillicothe." He walked around the card table, checking out each player's hand. I don't know why they didn't throttle him and be done with it. "My dad's going to kick my fanny down the stai
rs. I'm supposed to be studying sculpture, but I never made it to a class."
Your rodeo cowboy accustomed to all-night driving will often take diet pills or methadrine to stay awake. Personally, I'd never been able to tolerate the stuff. I'd rather guzzle coffee and pee at every rest stop than pop pills and feel like my head's being flayed.
"They usually deport Americans they arrest?" I asked.
He did pull-ups on the vertical bars, not an easy thing to do. "Unless you killed somebody. You didn't kill anybody, did you?"
"I'd rather not say. The cell might be bugged."
That got Jesse's attention. Once again, had I been wearing my hat, he would have known dry humor is my style. Bareheaded, he couldn't tell, which made him nervous and that's not a good thing if you're artificially jacked up.
He lowered his voice. "See the guy playing cards, in the middle there."
One cardplayer was Arabian, I think. He was dressed in white robes, like a suicide bomber. His hair appeared to have been Brylcreemed. No doubt, they'd taken his headgear and pride also. Another one gave off the vibes of a hard case — greasy T-shirt, antique tattoos, nose that had been broken on a regular basis. From the way he held his cigarette, you could see he didn't need a hat to convey attitude. In the middle, between those two, sat the guy my speed freak buddy was talking about. This boy was effeminate in all senses of the word. He had the eyelashes, cheekbones, and throat. Straight or gay, he would have been in big trouble in an American jail.
Jesse bounced closer to me where he thought the others couldn't hear. His meth breath was atrocious. "He's not really a guy. He's a chick. She told the booking officer that her name is Claude and they stuck her in with us. She's hoping her boyfriend will show up. She expects him to be arrested any day now."
The girl who would be Claude spread her cards and said something sharp, in French. The hard case groaned and the Arab slapped down his hand.
"How do you know this?" I asked.
"The fag from Bermuda talked to her. She'll blow you for five euros."
I watched the girl shuffle. She, or he, had the fingers of a female, but something about her eyes — the pupils, I think — made me wonder. "How do you know she's a girl?"
"She said so."
"But she says she lied to the cop out front. Maybe she didn't. Maybe she lied to the Bermuda homosexual instead. Maybe she's a guy who likes to suck tool but he's afraid to admit he's a guy for fear some homophobic prick like you will pound him." I did the Columbo thing where you pretend you just thought of something whereas, in truth, you thought it a long way back. "You didn't let him suck you off, did you?"
Jesse's face gave the answer.
"That means you're a homo now. For the rest of your life, you can't go back," I said.
Jesse's pink face went pinker. Neon. He licked his chapped lips and his eyes skittered. "Hold it. I'm no queer."
"You are if you've been sucked by a guy. That's natural law."
The effeminate whatever it was glanced across the room at us. He or she knew we were talking about him or her.
Jesse the little fart whined. "It's the sucker who's queer. Not the one sucked. Weren't you ever in Boy Scouts?"
"It's both. You can ask anyone." I called over to the cardplayers. "If a guy sucks off a guy, they're both gay, right?"
The Arab stared blankly, but the others nodded the way people will.
I looked back at Jesse. "See."
Jesse's jaw clench was so tight he was in danger of breaking teeth. Sweat trickled beneath his fire red earlobes. The knuckle popping took on a machine gun staccato.
I went for the kill. "Don't tell me you got sucked in Boy Scouts, too."
He was about to cry. "Hell, everyone gets sucked in Boy Scouts."
"Not me." I called over to the cardplayers. "You guys get sucked in Boy Scouts?"
This time they ignored me.
Jesse's voice cracked. "I'm no fag. I do girls all the time."
A jailer type came in the outer door. He had on a blue uniform and matching cap, and he carried a hoop full of keys.
I said, "Now I understand why you can say that word without offending Claude."
The jailer said, "Rowdy Talbot?"
"Yo."
The jailer tried two keys before getting it right. As the cell door swung open, he said, "Sortez, "which I took as, "Let's go."
I said, "You better check Claude out. I wouldn't want to be you."
Jesse wept.
22.
The jailer led me back through the fluorescence to the booking room, where the happy sergeant had my personal possessions box open on his desk. He was squinting into my right boot, as if I'd hidden contraband in the pointy toe.
He pushed the belt and hat my way and said, "Allez."
The hat felt pretty good, back where it belonged. "What did I do to get turned loose?" I asked.
"Allez, et bonne journée."
"Don't take any wooden nickels."
Outside the clouds had darkened and a mist kind of sat in the air, not falling so much as taking up space. Pinto Whiteside stood next to the Citroën, which was parked with the right tires on the sidewalk and the left tires in the gutter. Pinto was wearing slacks and a polyester shirt with the top three buttons unbuttoned, showing white fuzz on his chest.
He said, "Happy trails, cowboy."
"Did you bail me out?"
"Bail is not the precise word." He opened the passenger-side door. "Get in."
I looked in at the seat, knowing sitting in front was an honor but also wary of dog hair. "How much will it cost me?"
"Much less than it would have if I hadn't made some calls."
I've never worn slacks in my life. In fact, for the thirty years of life that I remember, I've worn denim blue jeans every day. Nothing else. Ever. Although, I must confess they weren't always Wranglers. Back in my formative years, Mom bought Levi's and Lee's, even some weird Pamida cut-rate brand back in grade school. The Wrangler exclusivity didn't start till I turned pro.
"Did you think that if you beat up every person in Paris, eventually somebody would cough up the buckle?" Pinto asked.
"It's a thought."
"It's a stupid thought."
I fumed while he fought the gears into first and lurched us back onto the street. Why is it whenever someone gets you out of jail they inevitably feel it gives them the right to criticize? "Where's the dog?"
"Thank you for asking. Monty is at the hairdresser." Pinto felt for his cigar. "It's Wednesday. He has a wash and fluff every Wednesday."
He lit up at a red light as a guy in a cowboy costume crossed in front of us. Even through smoke and Pinto's badly streaking wipers, I could see the hat was cheap plastic. The chaps were fake sheepskin. He looked dressed for Halloween.
"What I can't understand is why Giselle was so bent on keeping my buckle. It can't mean anything to her, compared to the nastiness I'm bound to raise getting it back."
Pinto hit the steering wheel with his flat hand. "Not one soul in France is buying the buckle story. It's absurd. Even if it's true, think of a lie that's more believable. Tell them you work for Microsoft. Armand is so paranoid he'll believe you."
"Armand told his gang I'm a CIA agent loaned out to Starbucks."
Pinto gunned the Citroën into a street not much wider than his car. The second floors, or whatever they are in France, stuck out from the buildings and partially covered the street, causing a tunnel sensation. I don't care for tunnel sensations.
"How do you think he got that idea?" I asked.
"I told him."
I looked across at Pinto, who was bent forward with both hands on the wheel. His pale eyes skittered, with his focus bouncing from the car in front of us to up the block a ways to the rearview mirror. He wasn't looking at me on purpose. What I wondered was why men with excessive chest hair think it's worth showing off.
"Or, to be completely frank, I told a fare last night," he said. "I wanted to see how long it took getting back to Armand."
>
"Why?"
"Why what?"
"Why would you tell anyone I'm CIA, working for Starbucks."
"Because I am."
Two men in business suits rolled by on these pogo stick—looking things with wheels. I'd never seen anything like it.
Pinto said, "Segways. They're popping up all over Paris. Guides take out group tours on them." We watched as the machines jumped a curb. One man about fell, but he uprighted himself and continued on down the sidewalk, forcing pedestrians into the street.
"There's a faction of taxi drivers who reward each other with Italian chocolates for hitting a Segway," Pinto said.
I said, "I have to kill you now."
Pinto pretended I was joking. "We must focus on my wife."
"Let's stick to Starbucks."
He gunned a hard right and we took off up a hill. It was the first hill I'd seen in town. "I did you a favor back there. The American ambassador himself telephoned the chief of police."
"I don't believe you."
"Okay. You're right. But I did cash in IOUs from people you can't even conceive of. I saved you from deportation and now you owe me."
"If Armand's bunch had known the truth, they might have given up the buckle and be over it. Instead, you told them I'm their worst enemy. That's not a favor."
"Armand will never voluntarily hand you that buckle. I need your help with Mrs. Whiteside."
"Starbucks, Pinto. Tell me about Starbucks."
It took several blocks. Pinto kept trying to bring the conversation back to Mrs. Whiteside, the high-end hooker, but eventually he came to the point, which was that Starbucks was poised to invade France and the company wished to be welcomed with love as opposed to pipe bombs. Pinto had been sent in — he said, "inserted" — with the CIA's blessing to clear out the more radical cells of opposition.
"It would only take a few dead cats and broken windows to drive Starbucks out. They aren't nearly as geared for hatred as the burger chains. Basically they're a bunch of Seattle hippies who found a great way to make money."
"Personally," I said, "I don't give a hoot."