He wouldn’t come back again looking for her, would he? Weren’t Solange Doumer and her daughter enough, for pete’s sake?
She turned off the light over the typewriter and stood in the darkness, listening carefully. If anybody was out there, it was probably Albert, the night watchman. The old man seldom came up as far as the third floor at night; as far as she knew, he was holed up somewhere down on the ground floor level, where, Sam suspected, he spent most of his time sleeping. She’d only seen him once or twice.
But if Chip was out there, prowling around, maybe looking for her, what was she going to do?
Usually she turned on the lights that lit up the stairwell before she turned off the desk lamp in the publicity office. Now she was glad she hadn’t. She couldn’t see anybody in the dark, but on the other hand, they couldn’t see her.
Sam stood in the blackness telling herself she was pretty sure she could handle Chip. In fact, she’d take care of Chip’s urges for good, she thought grimly. This time she really would call the police. The telephone was right there on the desk.
In the dark, every sound was magnified, even the sound of her own breathing. She couldn’t stand there forever, she knew after several long minutes had dragged by. The thick darkness made her strained eyes hurt just with the effort to hold them open. She reached carefully around the edge of the desk, found the doorknob and pushed the office door slowly ajar.
The faint shine from the skylight at the top of the stairwell made a moonlit glow of the marble staircase. Sam quietly slid the door open, stepped out and pressed against the wall outside.
Was Chip somewhere at the top of the stairs, maybe trying the door to her apartment? She’d fix his wagon—prowling around a house in the middle of the night trying to start something with her again, when he already was taking care of two other women!
Was he some sort of sex maniac? The thought struck her suddenly. It was something to consider. But he’d spent the night with her, and he hadn’t acted like a rapist then. On the contrary, he’d—
Forget it, Sam told herself. Never mind about Chip or how good he was in bed or anything else. If he was out there, he deserved what he was going to get. She moved a few steps away from the wall and looked up. She was hidden by the curve of the stair at the third-floor landing, if anybody was up there watching.
As she stared into the blackness, Sam’s straining eyes focused again uncertainly on shadows, on moving forms and more shadows that dissolved and took shape and then changed again. What was she seeing, anyway? She was too tired to know.
Then, as the last furtive phantom up near the roof faded away, Sam felt a rush of relief. The images thrown by faint moonlight near the roof had glimmered for a moment and then disappeared. She didn’t know what she was going to do to Alain des Baux the next time she saw him but she was going to think of something to pay him back for his practical jokes, his kooky stories.
It wasn’t Chip. It was the ghosts of Benedictine monks.
Her tired brain had made the night shadows into the black-cowled figures of one of Alain des Baux’s monks from the crypt. Like an ink blot, the form had melted and changed, looking first like one phantom in a black-hooded robe, then two. When she blinked, they were gone.
Time to quit, Sam told herself. She was worn out when she started seeing things. She flicked on the switch at the side of the publicity office door, and the inside of the Maison Louvel suddenly bloomed into reality. No ghosts, but then no Chip, either.
She was so tired she actually felt a little disappointed.
“God, I hate this place,” Brooksie greeted her. “It’s full of tourists.”
The journalist was sitting at an umbrella table in an outdoor café on one of the upper terraces of Les Halles that overlooked the great modernistic pit of Paris’s mammoth fashion complex. “I’ve already ordered,” she added. “You were so late I didn’t know how much longer you were going to be.”
Sam slid into a metal chair at the umbrella table and picked up a menu. “I had to mail something and there was a long line. What’s good to eat here?” she asked, looking around.
Les Halles had been one of the places in Paris that Alain des Baux had offered to show her, and she was feeling a little sorry she was seeing it without him. A lovely spray of gardenias in the usual Lachaume box had arrived that morning with a note saying he would be out of town for a few days and would call her when he got back. Sam leaned to look over the high terrace to look down into the canyon of what had once been Paris’s famous old produce market. She saw a tangle of glass, structural aluminum, cranes and earth-moving equipment. Les Halles was a collection of shops, restaurants, subway stations, snack bars and exhibition halls built in an odd mixture of ultramodern and typically ornate Parisian beaux arts architecture. Layered concrete terraces were tunneled with Plexiglas-covered galleries, aluminum-reinforced arches suggestive of flowing waterfalls dropped from level to level into the pit below and tuliplike turrets and towers crowned the heights. Acres and acres of the development contrasted strangely with the mansard roofs and weathered stone of the run-down eighteenth-century district surrounding it.
“It looks like something Disney World tried to build and gave up on,” Brooksie said, lifting her sandwich again. She took a large bite and stared across the table at Samantha morosely. “I didn’t sell them,” she said, her mouth full.
“Sell what?” Sam was trying to get the eye of a waiter.
“The photos I took at the Maison Louvel. Now I’m in a jam.”
Brooksie looked more than usually unkempt in a grimy purple satin shirt, her round face a little blurry as though she still wore yesterday’s heavy makeup. The wilting spikes of her orange-tipped black hair needed another application of hair spray. Sam wondered where Brooksie slept at night.
“The Stern photo agent wanted to know if I was shooting at Valentino, Mortessier, St. Laurent, or wherever. Because they were interior shots, it could be anyplace. And I’m telling him like we agreed, ‘a Paris couture house,’ and he tells me, what in the hell am I trying to pull? Buying clothes isn’t news unless Princess Jackie is buying at a big-name house, he says. And if the prince puts her under wraps somewhere in Spain until she gets off drugs, then I should go to Spain and take pictures. The bastard knows I don’t know where she’s going; Spain is a big place,” Brooksie whined. “Besides, I haven’t got the bread for the airfare, even if I knew where she was.”
Sam said, “I’m sorry, Brooksie.”
“You’re sorry? Listen, it was the same at the news syndicates. I didn’t even try the French papers. And I really need the money right now.” Brooksie slumped in her chair. “You don’t know how much I needed to sell those pictures. The Paris fashion beat is dead right now. It always is before everything breaks loose in July. Everything’s going on behind locked doors. The couture houses don’t even let the help out for lunch they’re so afraid somebody will steal their designs, and the press is poison in case some freelance nut is crazy enough to try to get a scoop.”
“It’s the same way in New York,” Samantha said noncommittally. She gave her order to the waiter for another croissant sandwich and a glass of wine and sat back. “Until the fall dress showings are out of the way nothing happens.”
“Yeah, well, listen, I need something hot.” Brooksie looked sullen. “C’mon, Sammy—like what Jackson Storm is doing over at Louvel’s.”
Sam looked down at the enameled white surface of the metal table, telling herself she wanted to do this right and not get Brooksie started in any wrong directions. She didn’t need, for instance, any wild story on Sophie or Madame Doumer or the Maison Louvel’s odd clientele. The stack of order tickets from Louvel’s customers that she had sneaked a look at in the atelier read like the casting call for a costume movie—the Baroness Morditski, the Countess Irini Hortobagy, Princess Monte Matese, the Marquise Alphonsine L’Espinous. And the clothes being made for them were even odder than the names, all those elaborate black dresses, ball gowns for very young
girls, and wedding clothes. Brooksie had hinted that Louvel’s copied their designs from other Paris couture houses and sold their copies to the bunch of oddities that came to the place. And Nannette and Sylvie were currently working on the Medivani girl’s wardrobe—conservative schoolgirlish dresses in dark colors, a princess-style coat, all much too young-looking for the rather savage teenager in her punk rock clothes who was hustled by her bodyguards through the salon for her fittings.
“Look, you’re not going to stay under wraps yourself, you know.” Brooksie pushed her empty plate away and pulled her dessert, a tarte du pomme, toward her. “I already heard on the grapevine that Alain des Baux was at Maxim’s with this fantastic-looking blonde who looked like a New York model because she was wearing black satin and jeans. And that he took her up to Maxim’s third floor, where only God gets to go. Listen, you can tell me,” she said quickly. “What’s des Baux like? I mean, what’s it like to go to Maxim’s with the top BCBG himself? Have you two got something going?”
Sam had been hassled before, if only mildly, by reporters during Sam Laredo press conferences. She knew Brooksie was working on her, but she didn’t know what to say. “No, no—we haven’t got anything going on. Good lord, Brooksie, don’t write about anything like that! I hardly know Alain des Baux. What’s BCBG, anyway?”
“Bon chic, bon genre, social register, good family. It means the snob French crowd that Americans don’t get to meet, like the gorgeous duke. He doesn’t use his title, you know that? It’s ‘in’ right now to be a hardworking technocrat, a top-level management type like an engineer, a computer whiz, that sort of stuff, with the apartment in Paris, the company jet, the house in the country, the villa on the Riviera, the whole thing. But when Alain des Baux is getting it on with somebody, that’s hot news.” She paused and then said craftily, “You knew des Baux had a thing going with the other Medivani chick, Princess Catherine, when she was doing Paris a few years ago, didn’t you? The duc des Baux and the princess ran with a wild bunch, very in with the Monaco crowd, the London scene with the Brit aristos, until they started having burnout. Like, Princess Catherine got treatment for her drug problem at one of the hospitals here in Paris and des Baux went back to the States for a while.”
Sam put down her sandwich carefully. This meeting with Brooksie had suddenly taken a turn she hadn’t counted on. “Look, Brooksie, what are you—”
“I’m just telling you, Sammy,” the journalist said. “You come over here doing a job for Jackson Storm you don’t want anybody to know about, and Alain des Baux is taking you to Maxim’s, and I’m sitting here having lunch with you and I’m supposed to act like this is nothing? Look, when’re you going to gimme a break? I’m not in Paris freelancing for my health, for Christ’s sake!”
“Brooksie, don’t yell,” Sam said, looking around. “Actually I have got something for you, but I need your help. Jackson Storm is going to—”
“Wait a minute,” Brooksie interrupted her, grabbing Sam’s arm. “God, there they are. Do you see them?”
Below their terrace, on a walkway overlooking Les Halles’s flower beds and serpentine tunnels of aluminum and Plexiglas a man and a woman were walking hand in hand, their faces turned to each other, oblivious to people passing and the spectacular view.
“That’s Gilles Vasse,” Brooksie hissed, “the hot new designer at Mortessier. He must be out of his mind, that’s Lisianne with him! Oh crap, I haven’t got my camera!”
“What’s going on?” Sam was still thinking about what Brooksie had said about Alain des Baux and the older Medivani daughter. Had Brooksie really meant he’d had an affair with the notorious Princess Catherine? The wild princess had been featured regularly in scandal sheets like the Star and the National Enquirer.
“The Vasse kid is such a doll,” Brooksie was saying. “Jeez, isn’t he beautiful? He’s only twenty-one. She’s seven years older than him if she’s a day. Lisianne’s been modeling for Galanos since she was in her teens.” She twisted in her chair to watch the couple walking just below them. “God, it makes you wonder what it’s like to look like that, both of them so goddamned good-looking. What did they come here for?” she muttered under her breath. “In an hour probably half of Paris will be on the telephone telling Rudi Mortessier that Gilles was with Lisianne in Les Halles.”
The House of Mortessier, Samantha knew, staring down at the lower terrace, was third-or fourth-ranked after the big three of Dior, St. Laurent and Cardin, and Rudi Mortessier was world famous for his classic haute couture clothes. But she couldn’t keep up with what Brooksie was saying. Why would half of Paris want to telephone Rudi Mortessier because his young designer was walking in Les Halles with a beautiful model from Galanos?
The couple had turned to look up at the café. The young man lifted his hand to point with a gesture that said perhaps they should stop and get something to eat. He was wearing a simple black turtleneck sweater and black slacks that emphasized his lithe, slender frame, but it was his face that captured attention—black brows drawn ruler-straight over a short chiseled nose, high cheekbones, and a thin, volatile mouth brimming with fire and youthful sensitivity. The exquisite girl with him was a true French beauty, her classically lovely face and dark, somewhat melancholy eyes conveying a gentleness, a mask-like serenity that was the essence of cool, dreamy loveliness.
“Rudi Mortessier took this Gilles Vasse kid out of his mother’s dressmaking shop in Tours,” Brooksie said out of the corner of her mouth, “and brought him to Paris two years ago, sort of your Dior-Givenchy or your Dior-St. Laurent connection in the old days. The kid’s a hot fashion talent. He’s doing about sixty percent of Mortessier’s collections now. You see how gorgeous he is. Poor little Rudi is madly in love with him.”
Sam watched as the handsome boy drew the girl into his arms and kissed her gently on the lips. “Who’s in love with whom?” she said, confused.
“The kid was no dummy,” Brooksie went on in the same low voice. “He knew what was going on, and the whole damned Paris haute couture scene got up every morning and called each other to see how l’affaire Vasse was doing. Like Rudi is giving this kid a Jaguar, a full-length sable coat from Moscow, which Gilles almost never wears. Gilles plays soccer and needs soccer shoes, so Rudi gets him several custom-made sports outfits. Rudi had this beautiful gun made for him—a chrome-plated Beretta—and jewelry like you wouldn’t believe. Rudi is tearing his heart out. Big deal! After all, the kid was designing dresses for his mother? In her shop in Tours? What’s the flip side, anyway? Then this happens.”
“What happens?” Sam cried, baffled.
Brooksie watched the young couple disappear up the winding steps to their level. “That’s what everybody is trying to figure out. If you ask me, I think the kid and little Rudi were getting it together, because for a while Mortessier was so happy he was out of his mind. Then Vasse falls in love with Lisianne, who is the top mannequin for Galanos, maybe the top model in Paris, and the first thing you know Gilles and Lisianne are living together in her apartment.”
For a moment Sam sat staring at Brooksie. “Is Mortessier going to fire him?”
“Nah, Rudi is still in love with the kid. Besides, Rudi is such a nice little guy, really a doll, he wouldn’t do something like that. Also, Gilles designed most of Mortessier’s collection this year. He still goes over to Rudi’s apartment in Passy for dinner, all that stuff. Only when he’s with Lisianne, they stay out of sight. Except now. I wonder,” she muttered, “what in the hell that means?”
“Are you going to do a story on it?”
Brooksie turned her green eyes full on her. “On what? That there’s a three-way love affair going between some of the nicest people in town? That’s not news—that’s Paris.” The green eyes narrowed suddenly. “I want your story, that’s what I want, Sammy. The Storm King story—you know, the big stuff—that Jackson Storm is getting ready to invade the Paris couture market.” She watched Sam’s face closely as she said, “Jack Storm made a move on Lo
uvel’s somehow without anybody knowing about it, didn’t he? And he sent you over to take a look, because the jeans market in New York is suddenly busted, and there was no reason for you to stick around, right?”
“Now wait a minute, Brooksie,” Sam said quickly. “I have got something to tell you but it’s not exactly—”
“Sam Laredo’s not showing anything in New York this July.” Brooksie wasn’t listening. “Sam Laredo Western wear’s been taken off the New York Dress Institute lists. All the Storm King Western wear lines are taking a bath, the boots, the kid stuff, Sam Laredo, everything. It was in Women’s Wear Daily Monday.”
Women’s Wear Daily? Sam thought, staring at her.
She hadn’t read the fashion trade paper in weeks; she didn’t even know you could buy it in Paris. After a moment she said in a whisper, “What do you mean, Sam Laredo’s been taken off the lists?”
The other woman shrugged. “Jackson Storm’s dumping his Western wear lines, that’s what it means. And he’s not the only one. Cowboy clothes are dead this year.”
Sam sat staring down at her half-eaten sandwich, trying to think. It couldn’t be, not what Brooksie was telling her. Last year’s Jackson Storm’s Western wear fall preview in the ballroom of the Sherry Netherland had been an extravaganza that dominated the front pages of the New York Times special Sunday fashion section. Department store buyers and press people in New York for the Dress Institute affairs, many of them going on to Paris a week later, had crowded into the Sherry Netherland ballroom, and Jack Storm’s publicity teams had been frantic trying to find more caviar and champagne and enough chairs for the overflow crowds. Now this year’s fall Western wear show was canceled? And nobody had told her one word of what was going on?
“You’re going to give me the story, Sam,” Brooksie was saying. “If Jackson Storm is going to make the big move, it’s going to be the story of the year, news news, not just the fashion beat—like Time magazine, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, everything.” She slammed her elbows on the table. “Are you listening to me? I don’t care what comes out of Jackson Storm New York. I want the story here, in Paris, from you, Sammy! Jeez, I should have known, you’re still his number one girl. He wouldn’t dump you, would he?”
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