What She Saw

by Gerard Stembridge

  How dare Vallette take his—touch his—beautiful DS21 without permission? This was not right. Why was he the one suffering, left in the cold, without his car? And who knew what would happen to him in the morning if he didn’t have answers? But to what? He didn’t know what the fuck was going on. He had never seen the blond American until she stepped out of the elevator and assaulted him. Okay, Caramel Girl was his responsibility, but he had no idea what she’d done and where she was now. He would have to dig up something worth telling Vallette before facing him again.

  The bellhop was his best chance. He was visibly injured, so surely he’d be released from work? Ferdie would wait for him. He limped under the arches beyond the camera gaze and chose a pillar to lurk behind and keep watch. He was lighting up when it occurred to him that the boy would, of course, leave by an employee exit. Fuck! Had he missed him already? Frantic, he hopped and hobbled and lurched to the corner and turned right and right again. Then he had his only piece of luck all night. Two figures emerged from a service door only a few meters ahead, but they were walking so fast and talking with such fierce intensity that they didn’t notice him. In the darkness they looked weirdly similar. Something about the heads? Neither wore a uniform, but one had what seemed to be a bandage on the left wrist and the other had a feminine swing in her step.

  Ferdie chased them as quickly as he could and when he managed to get the fast-gliding figures in his sights once more in the brighter light of rue St.-Honoré, he grew more certain that it was indeed the wounded bellhop and Caramel Girl he was, with considerable discomfort, pursuing.

  IT’S DOING NOTHING FOR LANA’S ALREADY DIZZYING STRESS LEVELS TO see the curls bouncing gleefully as her doll driver goes faster and faster, taking turn after turn. Her perky little frame and shrill, gleeful, and utterly incomprehensible chatter contrast with Lana’s grim silence and crumpled posture. What outrageous nightmare had she stumbled into? She needs to wake up now, perspiring but relieved, to discover that she’d actually dozed off on her luxurious bed in gorgeous room 511 and the last hour had not happened.

  But the doll driver’s gush and the eager laughing face remain all too real. And the curls swish as she turns far too frequently in Lana’s direction. Shouldn’t she be looking at the road? What’s she asking now? The wide eyes and questioning brow are clearly expecting an answer, but the only thing Lana wants to say is, “Would you please look where you’re going!”

  Instead, as calmly as possible, she explains.

  “Ah, pas de Français?”

  “Pas d’Français?”

  The doll driver repeats it like it’s the most unbelievable thing she’s ever heard. Lana is about to offer her usual self-effacing “un peut” but decides not to complicate matters just now.

  “Yes. No French. I am American.”

  Now the curls shake as if this explains everything.

  “Ah! I speak American. No way! Yes way!”

  “Please, please! The road.”

  The street is narrow and Lana can see a car approach. Doll driver looks around casually, then shrieks, then swerves. The cars skim each other, Saran Wrap close. As they flash by, Lana catches the naked terror on the other driver’s face. The curls bounce and the voice giggles.

  “Fun, yes? Now I ah . . . I ah.” She points two fingers at her eyes and then directs them ahead of her. “I look. I see for Guillaume. My eyes. You also, please.”

  She can’t sustain the linguistic effort any longer and continues in breathless French. Lana wishes there was a cord at her back to pull and turn her off, but still, grateful to have been saved from danger, she concedes that the somewhat melodramatic circumstances of their meeting might be a factor.

  Now the headlights reveal a young man in the middle of the otherwise empty street, hat in hand, waving it wildly. Lana braces herself, knowing that the doll driver will either swerve dramatically or brake dramatically. It’s the second option and despite her precaution she still finds herself flung forward, almost into the front passenger seat. The young man jumps in, jabs a finger at Lana, and announces, “Wonnerful.” His face disappears into the curls as the pair kiss for an unnecessarily long time. Then in intimate breathless tones they exchange excruciating little chirps of love. Amid the overlapping gush Lana recognizes certain words enunciated with boastful clarity: sensationelle, audacieux, and ange courageuse. Just when she is certain they have entirely forgotten her presence the guy pops his stupid little hat on at a cheeky angle and turns to her. Close-up, his young face is clownish, with a wispy beard, a crooked mouth, and moist, laughing eyes.

  “She is fantastic, my Pauline, yes? I am Guillaume. And you?”

  “Oh . . . Lana.”

  In the breathless babble that follows between the couple, she hears “Lana Turner” quite distinctly but figures it’s most unlikely that Pauline is suddenly revealing surprising knowledge of her birth name. Still, given the shocks of the night so far, it’s worth checking out.

  “Did she say, Lana Turner?”

  “Ha, yes! Pauline says she never hear of someone with this name, Lana, except for the movie star, Lana Turner. She loves her. Me? Veronica Lake, always.”

  “Yes. Well, actually there are lots of people in America called Lana. . . . Look, I’m not feeling very good right now—”

  “Non? But you are a very lucky lady.”

  “Am I? Really?”

  “Yes, Pauline comes just in time.”

  “But I’ve lost my purse, my cards, phone, cash.”

  “The phone—you lose your phone?”

  Guillaume suddenly looks like the little boy who’s been told the candies are not for him.

  “Yes. It was in my purse.”

  Now his speech sounds very unchildlike, shrugging and mugging. Lana isn’t at all sure what to make of this.

  “Too bad. A pity. Anyway, you are here. Claude was clever, non? And brave. He tells me you are a nice lady.”

  “Sorry, who says this?”

  “Claude.”

  “Who is Claude?”

  “Claude. At the hotel. The brother of Odette.”

  “Odette?”

  “Oh, of course, you do not know her name.”

  “Who are you talking about?”

  Guillaume’s hesitation is surprising. Then he makes the grin even bigger.

  “Claude’s sister. The beautiful girl at the hotel bar. You spoke to her, remember?”

  It hits Lana that the beautiful girl and the bellhop—who is Claude, it seems, not Laurent—do resemble each other. Except the smile—Lana had not seen the sister smile. Odette. Odette and Claude. Odette is fine, but Claude doesn’t feel right at all. Laurent suits him much better. It’s a pity.

  How much does this couple know about what had happened in the Suite Imperial? Now that she thinks of it, how does Guillaume know that she had sat next to Odette at the hotel bar?

  The headlights of a car coming toward them freeze suddenly about twenty yards away on the narrow street. A second set of headlights is visible behind. Guillaume and Pauline look toward the cars, then at each other. Smiling again, Guillaume turns back to Lana.

  “The camera, the camera.”

  He gestures toward Lana’s feet, where she notices an open leather bag. There’s a video camera inside. She picks it up. He grabs it, checks something on the side, then turns back again, his manner suddenly very professional, snapping his fingers.

  “The memory card.”

  “Sorry?”

  “A card, a little card. Quickly!”

  Lana rummages and finds two identical slim black rectangles. She holds them up. Guillaume says, “Wonnerful!” and snatches one. Despite the glare of the headlights ahead, Lana can see doors opening and shadowy figures moving. Guillaume mutters to Pauline as he slides the card into a panel at the side of the camera, turns it on, rolls down the window, and holds it out, pointing toward the other car. Pauline starts the engine and revs up.

  Two large black shapes now appear in front of the headlights, moving
toward them, unhurried. With their cars planted in the middle of the street, nothing, not even the yellow loaf, can get past. Pauline looks over her shoulder, but this time there is nothing doll-like in her expression. She stares past Lana at the road behind, laser focused. The car jerks and reverses at frightening speed. The black shapes start running, then stop and turn back toward their own cars. Terrified as she is, Lana cannot but be impressed at how cleanly and directly Pauline guides the little yellow loaf backward. The doll can drive, that much is clear. But the headlights of the other cars are blinding as they get closer and closer. Guillaume, still hanging out the window as he films the pursuit, whoops loudly.

  At a quiet intersection Pauline spins around and changes gears like a pro. The loaf leaps forward and flashes across the front of the first pursuing car as it emerges from the street. Guillaume sits back inside, howling his enthusiasm.

  “Incroyable! I think perhaps the light was too bad for my camera. I don’t know if I can use any of these shots. We can only try, yes?”

  “Why were you filming that?”

  Guillaume gives her the mystified look of a clown. “Because I am a filmmaker.”

  “Sorry?”

  Lana is genuinely beginning to suspect she’s either going insane or has found herself in some French version of Candid Camera. The two black sedans are gaining on them, panthers closing on a chicken. They can overtake the little yellow loaf with ease and force it off the road.

  “Yes. And you will be in our movie also, I hope.”

  “What movie? Hold on. I was told that those men want to kill me—”

  “Yes, I know, I told Claude to tell you this.”

  “You told—wait. Claude is the bellhop at the hotel?”

  “Of course.”

  “And you told him to tell me that I was about to be killed.”

  “Yes, me.”

  “So, is that actually true, or is this just happening in some little movie in your head?”

  Guillaume pauses and Lana’s heart sinks. These are just crazy people. It’s all some terrible misunderstanding.

  “Well, of course I cannot show perfect evidence if they will kill you—”

  “Oh Jesus.”

  “But what do you think? They were taking you out to dinner?”

  “But they are the police, right?”

  “Ha. Flics? They tell you that? You see? No. No. They are not flics. They are with Fournier. Believe me, I know Vallette. They want to take you from the hotel—”

  Fournier? Vallette? Too many names. But it’s hard to interrupt Guillaume’s flow.

  “—they want you out of the way. I think maybe you saw something they do not want to—”

  Everyone lurches to one side as Pauline spins left onto yet another narrow street. When Lana sits upright again she sees headlights zooming toward them. They are going the wrong way on a one-way street and the black sedans have followed. Instead of braking and hoping the oncoming car can stop in time, Pauline now accelerates. Horns blare as the distance between the two cars shrinks fast. Just as Lana is convinced that a collision is inevitable, Pauline veers suddenly left, into a tiny gap between two parked cars. The other car shoots by, horn still blaring, its driver just a terrified gaping mouth screaming French obscenities. Never has Lana been more impressed by the legendary parking skills of Parisians. Had Pauline really spotted the little gap ahead and speeded up so as to get to it in time? Is she that coolheaded behind the wheel? She’s even more impressed when the clamor of two sets of brakes tells her that the pursuing black sedans have been blocked by the other car. Pauline pulls out of her parking space and starts chattering as happily and inanely as ever to Guillaume as she hurtles down the one-way, still in the wrong direction, before correcting that at the next intersection. They’re in the clear, it seems, pursuers finally shaken off.

  Lana no longer has even the remotest sense of where they are. The only thing she’s certain of is that they hadn’t crossed the river, so they must still be on the right bank, right? But they’d zigzagged about so much she has no idea if they are traveling north, south, east, or west, if they’re still in the 1st, or in the 8th, or the 18th. It hardly matters at this point. She must have relaxed at least a little because suddenly she feels ridiculously hungry again.

  “Where are we going?”

  “Our little nest.”

  “Where is that?”

  “Not so far. Rue d’Aboukir. We hope that Odette will be there.”

  “You hope?”

  “Yes, we do not know what happened. Perhaps you do. Maybe you will tell us for the camera?”

  “What?”

  Lana does not like the sound of this at all. Guillaume now gives her an amused quizzical look followed by an incline of the head and a coy angled smile: the naughty little boy who has been found out, but is still confident he will charm his way out of trouble as always.

  “Oh, I am desolate. Of course. Please. I do not explain myself well.”

  He reaches into the top pocket of his denim jacket and takes out a little card, which he offers to Lana. It says Productions Liberté, and underneath in quotation marks “le camera ne ment jamais.” There are two names, Guillaume Pelletier and Pauline Garrel, and an email address.

  “I am in the hotel tonight because of Fournier. Three months ago Claude tells Odette about a sex party. She tells me. We say, ‘Claude, if Fournier is coming to the hotel again you must tell us.’ It is perfect, if only we can get some pictures. So—”

  Lana is beginning to follow. Fournier must be the naked old guy. Guillaume is unstoppable now, his every word nailed to some gesture of hand or face.

  “—so Claude meets the guy who fixes special girls for Fournier. He tells him Odette is a girl like this. She is so beautiful, yes? We know Fournier will want her. This is our plan: she will go with a special little camera, hidden. So, tonight Odette waits at the bar. I am in the foyer. I see you speak to her. The chauffeur, the little pimp, he comes. He brings her to the Suite Imperial. I see you take Odette’s cigarettes. It is nothing, but then later you are also at the private elevator. You are watching and walking, up and down, up and down. So, now I think, who is she? Is she also interested in Fournier? Ah no, she is following beautiful Odette—”

  “Well, no, not that it matters, but that wasn’t why—”

  “It’s okay, Odette is very extraordinary.”

  It’s not worth explaining. Guillaume now has the expression of someone who has just seen a dog with two tails. He holds up a finger dramatically.

  “But then, what is this? Oh! You go in the elevator. It goes up, then it comes down and you are there again. I see you eungh! on the chauffeur’s foot. That makes me laugh. How will the putain drive now? But I know from your face something is wrong. There is something bad. I wait for Odette to return. Fournier and the chauffeur leave the hotel. Then I see Vallette go to the reception. I am watching all the time, oh yes. They talk. They look at the computer and ha! I understand. I am clever, me. They are looking for you. But where is Odette? What has Vallette done with her? What will he do with you? Now I am thinking fast. My brain is buzz buzz buzz all the time—”

  “Wait. You keep saying ‘Vallette.’ Are you talking about the man who told me he was a police inspector?”

  “He told you this?”

  “Yes. He called himself Inspector Fichet.”

  “Fichet?”

  “Yes.”

  “It was a lie . . . Fichet?”

  He turns and jabbers at Pauline. Lana hears “Fichet” at least four times, then Pauline shrieks laughing. Lana begins to feel her blood boil. What is it with this girl? Does she have to behave like she’s battery operated?

  “Excuse me, do you mind telling me—”

  “I am desolate. But it is a good joke. Vallette, he is mad, but clever, too, you know. Let me explain, Lana. You say this name, Inspector Fichet, I think I remember this name. So I say to Pauline. Fichet, Inspector Fichet, what is this name? Pauline says, Fichet, but you know. I s
ay I cannot remember. And she says, Les Diaboliques, Inspector Fichet. Of course! Of course. I am an idiot. Les Diaboliques. Do you know this movie? It’s a good joke from Vallette, yes?”

  Lana cannot speak. She’s definitely all out of laughs having just survived an attempted kidnapping. Maybe an attempted murder, too, though she doesn’t really buy that, but it sure ain’t funny either way. Who is this Fournier? If her weary spinning brain had been following the story correctly, that was the name of the old naked guy. Fournier.

  Lana is flung sideways this time as Pauline brakes hard, changes gear, and backs into another tiny gap between cars. They have arrived at their destination, wherever that might be. Guillaume and Pauline say more pretty things to each other, kiss, and step out. Lana guesses she should too. The street is silent and, by Lana’s notion of Paris, featureless. Guillaume points toward the top floor of a building across the road.

  “We are there. Let us hope Odette is returned.”

  Lana hopes so, too, although nothing she has heard has made her confident about that. It seems stupid to just follow this pair into a strange building, but as she has no wallet or phone and no idea where in Paris she is, Guillaume and Pauline are her lifeline right now. Their smiles might be neighborly or marionette crazy, but they are all she’s got. And she is awesomely, horribly hungry.

  “Do you have food at your place? Because I have to tell you, I haven’t eaten for, like, ten hours. I can’t go on without—I have to eat.”

  “Eat? Of course, no problem.”

  Naturally, this new idea requires another powwow with Pauline, which takes a lot longer than can possibly be necessary.

  “Pauline says when she is feeling hungry like this, her favorite plate is boeuf bourguignon. She asks if you like boeuf bourguignon also?”

  “Yes, I love it. Frankly, Guillaume, shake a little salt on your arm right now. I’d happily take a bite out of that. I just need to eat.”

  “Perfect. Then we will go to Le Tambour.”