Kaleidoscope

by J. Robert Janes

  The thing had been licked shut and stapled for good measure.

  ‘Open it in private, yes? There are eyes everywhere.’

  ‘Is Louis being followed?’

  She moved closely to brush her lips over his. Put his hand on her seat and pressed her middle against him as she leaned away. ‘Not by me. You were sufficient. Me, I have enjoyed our little affair and might wish for more, were you not so very worried about that partner of yours. Bring Hugo what he wants and me, I will see that you are justly rewarded.’

  ‘I’ll bet,’ said Kohler, giving her bum a pat. ‘Auf Weidersehen, Fräulein. Sweet dreams.’ Louis … where the hell was Louis?

  She caught him by the arm. ‘Your friend is in Pigalle, Herr Kohler. If you look hard enough, you might just find him there.’

  ‘Then give me a lift, damn you. Delphane may be out to kill him.’

  ‘To stop him, I think, from finding Josette-Louise Buemondi, isn’t that so? Pigalle, Herr Kohler, the meeting place of the mannequins and others, too, of course. The Lorettes, the prostitutes.’

  The city was dark.

  St-Cyr threw his back against a wall and swore. There must be several of them after him. In spite of his going over the roof-tops of the rue du Terrage, they had picked up his trail as he’d come out of the métro. Now what was he to do? They had torches. They were the ones who shone them over the faces of the crowd. French Gestapo! Traitors … searching always for him. Running, shoving people aside … three … four torches. The leather trench coats and fedoras … others following them. Yes, yes … Ah Nom de Dieu! Were there still two groups, the one following the other and both of them after him?

  He ran. He made it to the entrance of Les Naturistes and bowled the doorman out of the way. ‘Police!’ he cried. ‘A raid, eh? Out! Out! Vanish while you can, my friends.’

  The girls screamed. The Wehrmacht’s soldiers, stunned into inactivity, hesitated then surged towards the exit. ‘Gestapo!’ he cried. ‘A raid! All leave is to be cancelled if you are found on the premises!’

  He fought against the mob. Naked girls were being passed overhead from hand to hand. Screaming, shrieking … yelling at the top of their lungs. ‘Fire!’ shouted one of them as she was flung up into the tobacco smoke, her plump breasts jostling, then being squished by soldiers’ hands who honestly believed they were helping.

  He reached the stage and ducked behind the curtains. He made it to a dressing-room that was all but empty.

  ‘So, my fine, what’s up, eh?’

  The woman was in her mid- to late thirties. Tall and with the stretchmarks of several difficult children.

  ‘Madame, the revolver … Please, I … I am from the Sûreté. I’m on a murder investigation.’

  She was totally naked and dragged off her blonde wig as she tossed her head. ‘The Sûreté? Hah! That’s a new one. Just what’s your game?’

  ‘That gun is illegal, madame. There are those looking for me who will arrest you.’

  ‘But you’re from the Sûreté?’ she said, scratching a thigh. ‘Why should they chase one such as yourself? Why should they not reward me for stopping you?’

  A dangerous woman when unarmed; a menace as now.

  ‘The revolver,’ he reminded her, catching a breath and trying to hear beyond the deafening commotion in the club. ‘The badge,’ he said. ‘I have the identification but please … I cannot explain. I must get away. A young girl’s life is in grave danger.’

  The painted eyes grew dark. The generous bosom swelled. ‘Which of my girls? Come, come, my little weasel, which one of them has been up to mischief?’

  A shrug would be best but he didn’t have the energy, was suddenly exhausted. ‘None of them. A mannequin. The twin sister of a girl in Provence who is suspected of killing her mother.’

  The revolver lifted slightly to nudge the air. ‘And someone wants to kill her?’

  ‘Yes. I am so very afraid that is exactly what will happen.’

  She screwed up her face in doubt. ‘Why did the other one kill the mother? It’s not a very nice thing to have done.’

  Ah Nom de Dieu, must he spend all night discussing the case with her? ‘I’m not even sure she did. There’s a weaver who might have done it.’ He caught a breath. ‘And also the father … Yes, yes, that one. My partner feels the father, he has been at one of the daughters. The one with the epilepsy, but me, I am not so sure of this.’

  She waved the revolver, motioning him to a chair, but at some sound above the tumult, said, ‘The laundry basket and quickly!’

  The wicker sighed and screamed as she sat on it and he lay among the cast-off garments, the little shreds of clothing the girls wore perhaps in some jungle tableau. Smelling of face powder and cheap perfume, other things too, of course. Ah merde!

  ‘Where’s he gone?’ shouted someone harshly.

  ‘Who?’ she asked, lighting a cigarette and crossing her legs.

  ‘The one from the Sûreté, you slut!’

  ‘I am not a slut, monsieur. There has been no one through here. If there had been, I would not be taking my break.’

  The gaps in the wicker provided but glimpses of Delphane. St-Cyr knew it was him.

  ‘You’re too calm, madame. Is it that you are so cold, the threat of a raid does not disturb you?’

  ‘He went out the back.’

  The slap was brutal and it almost knocked her to the floor. ‘Bâtard!’ she shrilled. ‘Enjoy chasing him. I hope he shoves that revolver of his up your ass!’

  Others followed Delphane, and then still others. Hesitantly St-Cyr climbed out of the basket. Her lips were bleeding. The mascara ran. ‘You shit,’ she said more quietly but quivering with fear. ‘That one will kill me if he finds out I’ve helped you. He’s desperate, monsieur. Never have I seen a man with such hatred in his eyes.’

  St-Cyr thought to give her his handkerchief but realized his presence would be established by it and withdrew the offer. ‘If he comes after you, tell him he will have to answer to me, Jean-Louis St-Cyr of the Sûreté Nationale.’

  ‘Go! Just go, damn you, and leave me to myself.’

  When the revolver went off, he knew exactly what she’d done. He stopped. The image of Chamonix struck him. He saw the weaver’s eyes trapped in mirror after mirror. He said, ‘Ah, Jesus, Jesus, madame, why did you have to do it?’

  Then he ran. He saw her lying on the floor of that dressing-room among the scattered jars of face cream and the tins of talcum powder. Her legs were twitching. Water was passing rapidly. Blood ran from her mouth … Ah, Jesus … Jesus …

  He crouched. He said, ‘What is it here, madame? Why were you so afraid they’d come back for you?’

  There was no answer but one. She’d been involved in the Resistance. She’d been afraid that under torture she would have revealed things.

  Tormented by the thought he’d brought this upon her, St-Cyr desperately searched the room, running his eyes quickly over everything. Tried … tried to find another reason.

  He picked up the revolver that lay near her hand and only then realized it had not been fired.

  The laundry basket, he said. The basket …

  Snakes … was it to be a day for snakes? Kohler flicked his eyes over the boisterous crowd, then returned his gaze momentarily to the stage of the Sphinx. Two boa constrictors writhed about a naked virgin who was chained to the wall of some pharaoh’s tomb amid jars of embalming fluid and a sarcophagus that looked all too suspiciously like an altar. A high priestess, wearing top-heavy headgear and nothing else but see-through gauze, was threatening the poor girl with a butcher’s knife that had seen better days, while an assistant tormented the poor kid by lashing her toes with a papyrus wand – was it papyrus? Did they use such stuff for such things?

  He thought not. Baskets … yeah, yeah, they made baskets out of it. Remember Moses, eh? And paper. Yes, yes, paper.

  Louis? he asked. Louis, where the hell are you?

  The air was full of tobacco smoke and boozy catcalls. On
e young crew-cut of a tank boy with unbuttoned tunic and open shirt collar stood teetering on a table-top, fumbling with his flies and belt. ‘Hey, me,’ he shouted at the stage in throaty German. ‘Let me at her. Let the Afrika Corps show the young maiden what to expect from the Sultan!’

  They hooted, they jeered and seethed from side to side as a totally disinterested band played someone’s idea of songs from the Nile. The huge curtain, upon which had been painted a turquoise sphinx, came slowly down to the sound of gongs and nasal flutes.

  He could not stay for the second act. At the Nouvelle Eve the girls prepared for bed while a Teutonic Caesar sang Roman arias under an aluminium moon and naked ladies-in-waiting stood like statues going round and round on pedestals that squeaked.

  Again there was no sign of Louis. A rush of feet and shoulders. Others looking so hard for the Frog they failed to notice his friend and partner. Ah yes.

  Pigalle in winter and in the black-out. Torches flickering over the faces of the crowd. Girls selling themselves. Boys out to buy. Painted lips and flashing eyes caught in the beam of someone’s torch. The lips red … red … the teeth white, the girl laughing now.

  Kohler hit the man solidly on the back of the head and the torch spilled away. The girl vanished.

  Josette-Louise Buemondi had been a mannequin, among her other professions. Custom brought such girls to the Place Pigalle when in search of work. It was here that the artists and sculptors came for a look when in need of the real thing in the flesh, ah yes. The girls would stroll outside in better weather during the days, or sit outside any of the cafés or round the fountain. Laughing and talking, preening themselves and hoping for a job that might last more than two hours. Now, of course, they’d be inside or at home in bed.

  Yet Louis had come here and the Abwehr’s tail had let Bleicher know of it.

  Kohler moved away from the man he’d hit, leaving that one in the gutter. French of course – all of them would be French. Even the Abwehr used them.

  He lost himself in the crowd, asked where the hell would Louis look for the Buemondi girl?

  From a vent above the windows of a bakery, the smell of baking bread and rising yeast rushed down over famished sparrows who gathered in rapture at the vapours. ‘It is so good,’ said one. ‘Heaven,’ said another. ‘Me, I would gladly sell myself for twenty francs, monsieur.’

  He felt his arm being tugged. The girl whispered shyly, ‘Anything, monsieur. I will do anything.’

  ‘How do they make the smell?’ he asked.

  ‘With the essence,’ she said. ‘One of the cooks, he puts a few drops on the stove and voilà, we smell the baking bread even though there is none to be had except for the usual stuff and then only if you get here very early in the morning. Fifty francs, monsieur, and I will …’ She pulled his head down and pressed her lips to his ear. ‘Honest,’ she said. ‘For you I would really do such a thing.’

  ‘Later,’ he said. ‘Right now I’m kind of busy.’

  The smell of sweat, garlic, onions and tobacco … pipe tobacco intruded, the man much shorter than himself. the shoulders squared … Louis … was it Louis?

  Delphane! Doubling a fist and lifting a foot, St-Cyr kneed the bastard in the groin, slammed him squarely on the nose and stamped on a foot! Ignored the babbled, ‘Louis …! Gott im Himmel, idiot, that was me!’ Disappeared muttering, ‘I should have killed him! Merde, why did I not do so? He shot that dancer. He killed her, a mother of six children!’

  On the pavement outside the Canada where one used to get onion soup equal to that of the tiny stand-ups in les Halles before this lousy war, two charcoal braziers glowed softly. There were a few chairs, a few of the little round tables. He could not see much, but the Canada had always been a place for the little people of Pigalle. Waitresses, dancers, doormen, Lorettes and mannequins all came here to warm the toes and the soul, but always in a hurry and never for long enough.

  He did not approach the café too closely but stood in the darkness letting the noisy, jostling crowd brush past him, catching but glimpses through the black-out of the glowing coals and of forbidden cigarettes cupped surreptitiously in hands that should have known better. The sudden burst of a lighter took hold, a cheap one, the flame torching up only to be hastily extinguished, for all such lights were illegal and the offence punishable by an indefinite stay in prison.

  When he noticed the girl sitting in deepest darkness behind one of the braziers, it was only because she had momentarily given in to the urge to warm her fingertips and had leaned forward.

  Then she dissolved back into the darkness and St-Cyr saw her in his mind’s eye. On the run, hungry and afraid – destitute but with a friend in the Canada who would turn a blind eye to her spending the night out here.

  Garlic came to him and he awoke to the fact that there were two of them, one on either side and yet … Ah Nom de Jésus-Christ, was it really Josette-Louise in that darkness?

  ‘Pardon, messieurs,’ he said, gruffly pushing his way between them. ‘The pissoir, eh? Could you be so good as to direct me?’

  Their heads cracked solidly. One gasped, the other swore, but by then he had raced between the braziers, knocking them over. A woman shrieked, a man howled. He darted into the darkness only to find the bird had flown. Ah no! No!

  A fight had broken out. Whistles were being blown. He raced along the rue Pigalle, knocking people aside.

  When a vélo hit him, he slipped on the ice, fell flat on his back and skidded off into the darkness.

  Dragging himself up, St-Cyr caught the breath of the condemned. That left knee … Ah damn! Hermann … where the hell was Hermann when needed most? Drinking, whoring, gambling with the money of others?

  Firefly lights in the darkness, the pinpricks of vélo lamps constantly passed him by. ‘Have you got a woman, monsieur?’ said someone. ‘Would you like to come with me? It’s just around the corner.’

  He brushed her away and when he found the girl, cowering in a doorway, she was weeping softly. Two Wehrmacht soldiers stood over her. Young boys, timid boys. Paris and a first taste of forbidden love.

  He pushed his way between them. ‘Sûreté, gentlemen. Gestapo, eh? This one is wanted in connection with a murder.’

  They vanished. He crouched. Reaching tenderly out, he touched her cheek. ‘Mademoiselle Josette-Louise, is it really you?’

  He felt her nod. ‘Then listen, please. I have come as a friend and know of a place where you can safely stay.’

  Necessity drove them to hurry along the rue Notre-Dame-de-Lorette, the girls teasing, catcalling after them. ‘What will she do for you that I can’t, my fine monsieur?’ ‘Take both of us, eh?’ cried another out of the darkness. ‘Such hurry!’ cried yet another. ‘Bang, bang, my horny elephant. Don’t break her in half!’ ‘Take her here in the slush, eh?’ The slush … ah yes. It was freezing.

  The rue Henri-Monnier was no better but by then they were running on more ice. The girl went down and he dragged her up. ‘My stockings!’ she shrilled. ‘My very last pair!’

  ‘Forget your stockings! We are being followed by killers!’

  She felt him clap something cold and hard around her right wrist. She heard him grunt, ‘There, ah there now, my little one, the bracelets will unite us as never before!’

  Handcuffs, ah merde! He ran, she tried to keep up with him. They broke into the Place Pigalle and crossed the boul’ de Clichy, dodging the bicycles and vélos. Now it was the rue Houdon, she thought. ‘Please …‘she managed. ‘My chest, monsieur. I cannot keep up.’

  ‘You must!’ Ruthless … he would have to be ruthless with her. Delphane … was it Delphane behind them? That woman at Les Naturistes, he cried out to his conscience. Delphane murdered her but you will receive the blame, ah yes.

  They hit the rue Foyatier. One lonely blue-washed lamp glowed softly up on the hillside between the thousands of stone steps. High above it, the Butte of Montmartre and the Sacré-Coeur were in total darkness.

  ‘Try!’ he said, drag
ging her after him. ‘We must escape or all is lost!’

  They climbed, they slipped and climbed again. Step after step, the steepness of the staircase robbed the breath and strained the thigh and calf muscles until they screamed in agony and he stood with her crushed against him in darkness, their breath mingling as that of lovers.

  ‘Hush,’ he whispered, an impatient gasp.

  ‘He is still down there, monsieur,’ she shrilled breathlessly. ‘He has fallen twice and now again but is dragging himself after us.’

  A cheek and ear were hot against his smothered lips. ‘Only one man?’ he managed, catching a doubtful breath.

  She nodded, allowing herself a moment in his arms. ‘The bracelets,’ she gasped, hoping he would unlock them, but he only shook his head.

  ‘Come on, now. Let us try to outwit him while he’s tired.’

  In the days before the war there had been wrought-iron handrails and ornamental chains to help the weary up the stairs but these had all been taken to the Reich to be melted down into submarines and tanks.

  They ran without help, on ice, climbed up and up, and when they reached the Basilica, slid to ground against its stones.

  First one and then another silhouette appeared, hunting in the darkness. A lover gasped, a couple kissed.

  Josette-Louise Buemondi stood so still, he could but sense some further trouble.

  By the barest jerking of the bracelets, she telegraphed the danger. A silhouette stood out against the darkness of the city, shade upon shade. St-Cyr felt her quiver. The suddenness of fresh tears told him it was Delphane. The height, the shoulders, the bare head – the size of it, the very way the man stood still for so long … Hermann, could it possibly be Hermann?

  They waited but saw no more of him.

  Kohler removed the bloodied handkerchief from his throbbing nose but still stared at the ceiling of the tiny dressing-room. He’d come half-way across the city, right back to Montparnasse, hoping to find Louis and the girl with Gabi at the Club Mirage on the rue Delambre. But they hadn’t been here.