Paris Love Match

by Nigel Blackwell

  “Hi, mum.”

  “Piers. I called a few moments ago. You didn’t answer.”

  Sidney wrapped an arm around his neck and cried on his shoulder.

  “I was busy, mum”

  “Busy with what? And what’s that noise?”

  “It’s nothing. Just things. You know. Stuff. Stuff to do.”

  “Well, I hope you’re not getting into anything down there, dear.”

  Sidney snorted as she wiped her nose on her arm. “Why me? What have I done?”

  “Piers, who’s that?”

  “No one, mum. It’s nothing.”

  Tears streamed down Sidney’s face. “I’m not a criminal. I’ve never hurt anyone. I haven’t stolen anything.”

  “Piers. What’s going on there?”

  “Nothing, mum.” He struggled to disentangle himself from Sidney’s arm and stand up. “It’s nothing, really.”

  Sidney grabbed his wrist. “And I don’t know anything about what that man took. I’m innocent. You have to believe me.”

  “Piers! What is happening? Have you fallen in with a bad crowd?”

  “No, mum, no. It’s … it’s … it’s the TV. Oh shit, no, not the TV, it’s not the TV.”

  “Piers! Mind your language, please. What on earth has gotten into you?”

  A middle-aged man in a jacket walked down the steps staring at Piers. Piers turned away from his gaze. “Mum. I wasn’t trying … I was just … It was …”

  Sidney’s sobs reached a crescendo. “Please, please. What have I done to deserve this? Why are they doing this to me?”

  Piers shook off Sidney’s grip. “I don’t know-“

  She grabbed his leg. “Don’t leave me to them. I don’t know what that man stole, or why they’re following us.”

  Piers shook his leg. “Let go, will you.”

  “Piers! What an earth is happening? Who is there with you?”

  Piers turned to see the middle-aged man kneeling at Sidney’s side. “Can I help you, my dear?” She turned her sobs to him.

  “Mum, I have to go. I’ll … I mean we can talk later.”

  “Is this man hurting you?” said the middle-aged man.

  Piers covered his phone’s mouthpiece and glowered at the man. “I am not hurting her.”

  Sidney’s sobs renewed in vigor and she grabbed the man’s arm.

  “Piers, we need to talk. If you’re getting yourself mixed up in something, your father and I need to know about it.”

  “Mum. I have to go. I’ll call you later.”

  “Piers! Don’t you hang up on me!”

  Sidney wailed.

  The middle-aged man took hold of Sidney’s arm. “Is this man abusing you?”

  With a “Bye, mum,” Piers mashed the off button, and wiped his brow.

  Sidney shook the man’s shoulder as she sobbed on.

  The middle-aged man took her hand and tried to steady her. “Are you all right, mademoiselle? Is this man hurting you?”

  Sidney shook her head. “No. Not him. Over there.” She pointed across the road.

  The middle-aged man looked at an empty wall across the street. “What’s over there?”

  “Them.” Sidney looked up and down the road. “Oh, damn.”

  “Mademoiselle?”

  “They were over there.”

  The man looked along the road. “Who was?”

  Piers bent down. “It’s okay, sir. We’re okay.”

  Sidney shook Piers’ arm. “They’ve gone.”

  “I know.”

  She blew her nose.

  The man took her hand again. “Mademoiselle, are you all right?”

  Sidney took a deep breath, swallowed, and her sobs evaporated. She put her hands on the man’s arm and took a deep breath. “Oh, yes. Thank you for your help. Yes, you’ve been a wonder.”

  “Really?” His eyebrows crunched together so close they almost touched.

  Sidney smiled, the full thousand watts.

  The man blushed and eased to his feet. “Well, if you’re sure, I’ll be going then.”

  She smiled, and the man took to the steps, a definite spring in his stride. At the bottom he turned to look back up. Sidney waved and he returned the gesture, a broad but quizzical grin on his face.

  “I think he’s going to start skipping,” said Piers.

  “He was a very nice man,” said Sidney.

  The group of women on the steps lost interest in Sidney and resumed their gossip.

  “You faked all that,” Piers said.

  “All what?”

  “All that. The tears, the wailing, the performance.”

  “Oh, that.”

  “Yes, that.”

  “Well, you were faking it talking to your mum.” She wriggled her head as she emphasized “mum.”

  “I had to. I don’t want her to worry.”

  “Don’t want her to worry, yet you mention the TV?”

  “I didn’t think—”

  “I told you that before.”

  “What before?”

  “You don’t think.”

  “Whatever. So what were all the tears for?”

  “I thought they might be sympathetic.”

  Piers stared at her. “Who?”

  “Little and Large.”

  “Sympathetic? They’re … they’re hit men. They not going to go back to their boss and say they let us go because you were crying.”

  “You really think they’re hit men?”

  Piers shrugged. “Perhaps not the best, but probably.”

  She sank back down and sat on the steps. “Merde. So, if we go to the police, they’ll kill us.”

  Piers sat down beside her. “Maybe.”

  “Bloody definitely, more like.” Sidney took a deep breath. “So what can we do?”

  Piers shrugged. “Find whatever Auguste stole from them, I suppose.”

  “Merde.”

  “Yeah, truly merde.”

  Chapter 9

  Piers waited while Sidney fussed over her appearance in the reflection of a shop window’s glass. “God, I look awful.”

  She turned and looked at Piers. Her hair was a mess, and her face was puffy from crying, but her eyes shone and her lips formed a wide line that bordered on a smile.

  He smiled. “No, really, no … you look nice.”

  She looked back into the glass. “Nice? Half a million years of human development and that’s all you can say to cheer a girl up? Nice?”

  “Look. I’m not used to complimenting girls on their appearances.”

  She looked at him. “Apparently.”

  “Well, thanks.”

  She fussed with her hair for a minute. “It’s no good. I need something.”

  “What?”

  “Something for my hair, stupid. What did you think I meant?”

  “So, your plan is to shop for hair products while Little and Large plan how to bump us off?”

  “Girls who don’t have their hair nice stand out in Paris. Do you want to stand out, Mr. TV star?”

  Piers sighed and Sidney headed off down the street to a pharmacy with a giant green neon cross in the window. The shop was full of middle-age women loading up on creams and lotions promising youth.

  Sidney examined an unending string of brightly decorated bottles. Piers stood at the end of the isle, shuffling his weight from foot to foot, furtively glancing at the security camera in the corner of the shop. If anyone figured out who they were, the police would have an even better picture of him, and a good picture of Sidney. She was safe until they got a good shot of her. He bit his lip and stared at her, willing her to find something fast and get out.

  She examined the small print on a florescent purple jar. “You don’t have to stand all the way over there. I’m not buying feminine products.”

  “Huh?”

  “Feminine products.”

  Piers placed his finger over his mouth and shushed her.

  Sidney shook her head. “I’m not buying feminine products.
”

  Piers’ brow furrowed “What feminine products?”

  She plucked a box of Tampax from the shelves and tossed it at him. “Feminine products. I’m not buying feminine products.”

  He missed the catch and the box crashed into the lady who stood next to him, who was reading the advertising on a product that claimed to give a “youthful glow.” He fumbled an apology as she moved to another aisle.

  He grabbed the box from the floor and waved it a Sidney. “Okay, so what?”

  “So you can stand next to me. I’m not contagious and I’m not going to embarrass you.”

  “Really?” Piers pushed the box of Tampax into an empty space between two brands of shampoo. He walked over to her. “Better?”

  She smiled. It was a warm and inviting smile, and one that every woman in the shop would likely have killed for. Piers swallowed and half-smiled back, his eyes and cheeks anesthetized, but his lips spread across his face. She laughed. “You’re weird.”

  “Thanks.”

  A stern voice sounded behind him. “Do you need these, sir?”

  He turned to see a shop assistant in a white lab coat shaking the box of Tampax in front of his face. “Do you need these, sir?”

  He shook his head slowly.

  “Then please return the products you do not wish to purchase to their proper location.”

  The assistant brushed him aside and placed the box amid a large display of Tampax products.

  Sidney grinned and raised her eyebrows at Piers. “Oops.”

  Piers frowned. “Have you found something yet?”

  Sidney waved a small black jar with a bright orange wavy stripe at him. “Let’s go.”

  They lined up at the checkout. Sidney paid with a twenty-euro bill and shoved a handful of change back in her pocket. On the way out of the store, she stopped at a mirror and fixed her hair with a brush. When she turned around she looked stunning. The perfect wave of her relaxed curls had been restored. Every strand of hair was artfully arranged, and the left hand side was perfectly flipped over her ear. She grinned and lowered the tone of her voice. “Better?”

  Piers smiled and licked his lips. “Amazing.”

  Her grin turned into a contented smile. “Well, that’s an improvement.” She patted his arm. “From nice to amazing with one jar of hair goop. Who would have thought?”

  Piers led out of the shop and noticed Little and Large on the opposite side of the road. Large wore wrap-around sunglasses over an impassive face, but Little had a gloating grin and tapped his watch.

  He wondered if they should confront them again. Find out something about the guy who had been shot, and what he was supposed to have stolen. He’d barely said a word before he was shot. They didn’t have a clue about—

  He turned to Sidney. “Do you still have the guy’s phone?”

  Sidney nodded.

  “Good, let’s get a coffee.”

  They took a table in the back of a small café. She handed over the battered mobile phone.

  The waiter arrived and Sidney ordered two coffees, a wallet in her hands.

  Piers stared at her.

  She pinched her eyebrows together. “What?”

  He shrugged. “I thought you didn’t have any money.”

  Sidney covered her wallet with her hands.

  Piers mouth hung open. “Wait a minute.” He grabbed for the wallet, but Sidney was quick and tucked it into a pocket.

  Piers leaned forward. “You took his wallet, didn’t you?”

  “No.”

  “Well, what was that?”

  “What?”

  “The thing you just hid.”

  “Mine.”

  “Your wallet?”

  “Of course.”

  “Didn’t look like a girl’s purse.”

  “I prefer a wallet.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes, really.”

  The waiter returned and thumped two coffees on the table. He stared at Piers.

  He nodded at Sidney. “She’s paying.”

  She fumbled in her bag, keeping it under the table, and produced a twenty-euro note. The waiter rummaged in his pockets, cheerlessly dumped her change on the table, and stomped off.

  Sidney scooped it up and dropped it into the wallet. Piers got a clear view this time. It was light tan, worn thin, but clearly leather. Equally clear was a big red stain. “Nice decoration.”

  Sidney bit her lip and lowered her gaze. She turned it over in her hands. “He wasn’t going to use it, was he?” She licked her lips. “I mean, I don’t think he’d mind.”

  Piers shrugged. “Hard for him to express an opinion now, isn’t it?”

  Sidney gave a big sigh. “Look, I’m not proud, but I haven’t had any money for days. Do you know how expensive it is to live in Paris?”

  “I’m learning.”

  Piers leaned back and took a sip of nearly cold coffee. “I should be mad … but what’s in it?”

  “I haven’t looked.”

  Piers slapped his forehead. “Well, let’s not worry about sorting out the mystery of who this guy is, and what he did.”

  Sidney glowered. “All right. It’s not like I’ve had a lot of spare time.” She pulled the money out of it and flung the wallet onto the table. “You search it.”

  Piers stared at it for a moment. At least it had landed blood-side down. It didn’t look ominous. It wasn’t a valuable possession, not something someone rich and powerful would have. Not that someone rich and powerful would have been running from gunmen; they’d have been sipping martinis and assembling their lawyers from their penthouse suite. No, this wasn’t the wallet of someone who sipped martinis.

  He picked it up and turned it over. The ugly red stain ran across one side like a river, twisting and turning, changing direction under the influence of invisible forces. One corner was frayed and he toyed with a thread that was unraveling before looking inside. There were five credit cards and a wedge of credit card slips. He pulled them out.

  The cards were standard fare: Visa and MasterCard, but no gold cards. “Auguste Chevalier,” he said.

  Sidney stared at him. “Does that help?”

  Piers shrugged and went back to examining the wallet.

  The paper slips were from various automated machines. Piers sorted them into piles and found equal-sized transfers from one card, to a bank, to another card. They weren’t big amounts, a few hundred euros, but clearly the man had been jugging his debt.

  “Nothing personal in—”

  He stopped to look at two small pieces of thin card that Sidney was waving in front of him.

  “They were mixed in with the money,” she said.

  He reached for them, but she drew them away. “Say please.”

  He sighed and held his hand out. “Please.”

  She looked at him with mock seriousness. “Say, well done, Sidney, for finding out about Mr. Chevalier.”

  “Just give me them, would you?”

  She raised her eyebrows.

  He forced a smile. “Please.”

  She smiled and handed over the cards.

  Piers flipped them over. “Train tickets.”

  “Boy, you’re a genius.”

  “To Milano.”

  “Milan,” she said.

  “Boy, you’re a genius.”

  She stuck her tongue out at him and turned away.

  “Shit.” Piers jumped up, grabbing the wallet and its contents and shoving them in his pockets. “We’ve got to go.”

  “Why?”

  Piers waved the tickets. “This train leaves in twenty minutes.”

  “So? He’s not going to be catching it. He’s dead.”

  He waved them again. “Two tickets.”

  Chapter 10

  Piers pounded up the steps from the Montparnasse-Bienvenüe subway to the railway terminus above. Sidney was a good flight of steps behind him shouting, “stop.”

  According to the station clock they had seven minutes to find Auguste Che
valier’s traveling companion. He surveyed the monitors and found the Milan train.

  Sidney staggered to his side, doubled over, and grabbed a railing. “When I say stop, I mean fucking stop.”

  He patted her on her back. “You’re doing great. Come on. Platform four.”

  “Platform nothing. I can’t move.”

  Piers hooked his arm under hers. “Come on, we can’t split up.”

  She wriggled, but he kept a firm grip and dragged her toward platform four.

  She thumped his back. “Let go before I call rape.”

  Piers stopped and let her go. She massaged her side and eased herself upright. “For your information, that hurt.”

  Piers nodded. His shoulders slumped and the muscles in his face relaxed downward. “I’m sorry. But the train leaves in six minutes.”

  Sidney grunted and rubbed her stomach. “All right, action man, go on.”

  They hurried to platform four, passing several railway employees who were more interested in their lunch destination than checking passenger tickets.

  “How are we going to find this person?” Sidney said, still holding her side.

  “Easy. They haven’t got a ticket, so they’ll still be here when the train leaves.”

  Piers slowed his pace. A train sat idling, but a mass of people stood waiting, their luggage beside them. Small shops ran along the rear of the platform. Stairs led up to a balcony that ran the length of the shops and gave access to offices above. Sidney pointed to the departure board. A second train departed from the same platform ten minutes after the Milan train.

  He rubbed his forehead. “Great, so we don’t even know which train these people are waiting for.”

  “Who do you think it might be?” Sidney said.

  Piers shrugged. “A woman?”

  Sidney hummed and looked around the crowd. “Maybe. He could be married.”

  “You didn’t nick his ring then?”

  “Huh?”

  “You didn’t take his wedding ring?”

  She glowered at him, her eyebrows pressed down hard. “He didn’t have a wedding ring.”

  “So, you did check?”

  She shook her head angrily. “Women notice these things. Unlike men who think they’re just a decoration.”