Paris Is Always a Good Idea (15 page)

*   *   *

IT WAS JUST AFTER
eleven when he clicked the latch on the door of Luna Luna and warily entered the store. This time there was no bell to fall on his head—just the dog, who was back lying in his basket, and gave him a sleepy growl. As a precaution, Robert took a step to the side.

There were no customers in the store yet. Rosalie Laurent, who was sorting something on one of the shelves by the wall, turned round.

“Oh, no. Not you again!” she said, rolling her eyes.

“Yes, it's me again,” he replied sharply. “Unfortunately you wouldn't let me in yesterday evening.” At the thought of the way she'd left him standing outside the door the previous evening and how he'd made a fool of himself shouting on the open street, he felt a cold rage rising within him.

“I think we have a little matter to sort out,” he said.

“Oh yes?” Her smile was pure provocation. “What brings you to me today, Monsieur Sherman? Have you taken out a summons already, or did you just want to knock another postcard stand over?” She raised her dark, prettily curved eyebrows.

He took a deep breath. There was no point picking a quarrel with this little postcard cow. He had to remain in control. He was a professor of literature and he knew his Shakespeare. “First things first.”

“Neither,” he said as calmly as possible. “I would just like my wallet back.”

She laid her head to one side. “Aha. Interesting. And what has that to do with me?” She was obviously
trying
to be difficult.

“Well,” he looked studiously past her at the table with the till where a few leaflets were lying. “I assume that I forgot it here.”

“Is that why you tried to break my door down last night?” She smiled sardonically.

“Does that surprise you? I mean, you lock the door in my face and show me your middle finger. If that's what passes for fine French manners—”

“It was already locked, monsieur.” She took a step toward him, looking him up and down with her dark eyes. “Do you know what your problem is? You obviously have the greatest difficulty taking no for an answer.”

“No, I don't,” he said firmly. “At least … not normally. But yesterday it was an emergency. I can assure you that it's not particularly amusing to discover in a restaurant that you've lost your money and all your cards.”

“Oh, and am I to blame for that, too?” The eyebrows went up again. She was really good at that.

“Well, at any rate it's no wonder that I lost my wallet here in all that kerfuffle.”

“‘Kerfuffle.' You said it. It took me nearly an hour to remove all the traces of the devastation you caused.” She looked at him reproachfully. “I don't suppose you thought of helping me to tidy up all that mess?”

“Can I help it if you keep a little beast in your store to attack your customers?”

“That's ridiculous. Just listen to yourself. Now it's my sweet little William Morris's fault?” Rosalie gave a hoarse laugh.

William Morris heard his name, raised his head with a little whimper, and wagged his tail happily.

“See for yourself. He's a perfectly friendly, sweet little dog. I think you're suffering from paranoia, Monsieur … what was your name again … Sherman from—New York. And not only where it concerns how dangerous dogs are.”

She folded her bare, slim arms over a delicate blue silk blouse with little white polka dots and looked at him pointedly.

Robert Sherman grabbed his forehead. Why on earth had he come back here again? Of course. Because of the wallet. He shouldn't get sidetracked. This woman was an eternal arguer. The wallet was the most important thing.

“Just give me my wallet, and I'll be off,” he said brusquely.

“There's nothing I'd like better,” she replied scornfully. “But your wallet just isn't here.”

He looked at her suspiciously. For a moment he wondered if this contrary creature with the big, dark eyes was capable of keeping his wallet from him—out of pure spite and to cause him difficulty.

She shook her head as if she'd guessed what he was thinking.

“And no, I'm not just saying that to annoy you, though I must admit that the idea is very tempting.”

“I wouldn't put anything past you,” he said crossly. Perhaps she was lying anyway. He was 100 percent sure he'd lost his wallet in the store.

“Monsieur!” She stood with arms akimbo. “That's enough of your accusations. After all, I tidied the whole store yesterday—
after
you stomped out and knocked the postcard stand over … but I didn't find a wallet. Perhaps you lost it somewhere else. Or someone stole it.”

“No, no. That's not possible … it
must
be here,” he insisted. “The last time I took it out of my pocket was here in this store—when I paid for the book.”

“Oh, yes … the tiger story. That was stolen from you, too. You're really being dogged by bad luck, monsieur. Perhaps Paris just isn't your city. Perhaps you should just get back to New York as quickly as possible.” She took a couple of steps backward and went behind the counter. “But … be my guest. You can take another look for yourself.” She directed her whole attention to a squared notebook, pretending to write something on it with an aggrieved expression.

Robert looked around and tried to remember what direction he'd taken as he exited so hastily. Had he left the brown leather wallet on the shelf by the counter? But it clearly wasn't there. Or had he still had it in his hand when that yappy little mutt circled round him barking and he fell over the postcard stand in fright? Had the wallet fallen out of his hand without his noticing it in all the commotion?

He looked in every corner of the little store, searched under the big wooden table that stood in the middle, inspected the area around the entrance, and even looked carefully at the window display. But there was no sign of the wallet.

All this time Rosalie Laurent watched him with a bored expression, winding her long hair into a bun that she fastened at the back of her head with a single hairpin.

“Well?” she said, yawning.

“Nothing,” he replied, with a shrug of his shoulders.

“I could of course give you the thirty euros you overpaid yesterday,” she said, and he might even have accepted the offer, if she hadn't immediately added: “It's not much, but it'll be enough for a Coke and a couple of Big Macs.”

“I appreciate your generous offer, but no,” he said with a growl. “I'd rather starve than take any money from you.”

“Huh. As you wish. Then I'm afraid I can't help you, Monsieur Sherman.”

“Oh, it'd be a great help to me if you'd just keep your mouth shut for a moment,” he replied. “I'm trying to concentrate.”

“Charmant, charmant,”
she chatted on unperturbed. “That's a favor I'll be glad to do you, monsieur. I've got better things to do than talking to you, you know.” She smiled triumphantly. “But you won't find your wallet here,
mal-heu-reuse-ment.
”

Robert racked his brains. The way it was looking at the moment, he would really have to accept Rachel's offer. He didn't have a cent in his pockets. And that was not just in the proverbial sense. He would have to work out an emergency plan. Rachel would have to cancel his cards immediately and he would have to go to the consulate to get a replacement passport. He'd ended up in every tourist's favorite nightmare. Except that he hadn't even been mugged.

“Funny, I was absolutely certain…,” muttered Robert, more to himself than anyone else, and chewed his knuckles thoughtfully. In the absurd hope of a miracle he stood at the display window and stared at the black-and-white tiled floor.

And the miracle happened.

Outside, a racing bike was parked with panache. A tall, sporty guy in shorts and a T-shirt took off his helmet and opened the door to the store.

*   *   *

SO FAR ROBERT SHERMAN
had only ever experienced unfortunate chains of circumstance. But here, in a postcard store in Paris, where he was standing not entirely by chance and certainly not voluntarily, he experienced for the first time in his life a fortunate chain of events.

For example, it was fortunate that a client of a certain René Joubert, a fitness trainer by trade, had canceled her coaching appointment that Friday because of a migraine, as a result of which that young man was parking his bike outside Luna Luna at the very moment that Robert was in the process of learning the pattern of the tiled floor by heart. Also fortunate was the fact that the cyclist greeted his girlfriend with a hearty “My appointment was canceled, so I thought I'd drop in! There's great news!” And even more fortunate was the fact that—while Rosalie came out from behind the counter to welcome René—the little dog also felt himself compelled to climb out of his basket wagging his tail and jumping up at the muscular legs of the man in the green shorts.

While René bent down to scratch William Morris's fur, Robert and Rosalie looked almost simultaneously into the dog basket, which, as they could easily see, wasn't
totally
empty.

They looked at each other in surprise, then, against their will, grinned, one of them with a feeling of boundless relief, the other with a slightly guilty expression, and then remarkably said the same thing:

“I think I owe you an apology.”

 

Fourteen

That very evening Rosalie Laurent was, to her own surprise, walking through the Tuileries beside Robert Sherman in perfect harmony. After the discovery of the wallet, which had inexplicably landed in the dog basket, she had apologized shamefacedly. But the American had also done the same. For his unacceptable behavior. Then an embarrassed silence had fallen.

René, in some confusion, had looked from one to the other. Then amazingly the connection between the wallet and the stranger with the American accent had struck him.

“Non!”
he shouted. “
C'est pas vrai!
Is that the psychopath?”

Rosalie went bright red.

“Eh … yes … sort of,” she stuttered. “This is Robert Sherman.” She glanced quickly at the American, who seemed to be enjoying her embarrassment. “We … we were just sorting something out. Let me introduce you. Robert Sherman—René Joubert.”

“Glad to meet you,” said Sherman with great presence of mind.

René drew himself up to his full height. “I don't share your gladness,
connard
,” he thundered. He took a threatening step toward the surprised Sherman, who seemed momentarily not to understand the meaning of the word
connard,
and looked him straight in the eye. “Listen very carefully; I will say this only once. If you hassle my girlfriend again, I'll break every bone in your body.”

Sherman regained his composure surprisingly quickly. A thin smile played at the corner of his mouth. “Oh, is this your boyfriend?” he asked Rosalie, who at that moment simply wished that the earth would swallow her up. “What is he then? A bouncer in a club?”

He ducked smartly behind one of the postcard stands as René took a swing at him. The blow hit thin air and René spun completely around and shouted at the smirking Sherman: “Come here, you coward!”

“René … stop!” Rosalie threw herself between them before it developed into a brawl in the shop that would surely have knocked over more than just a couple of postcards.

It cost her some effort to explain to her outraged boyfriend that she didn't need protection anymore, and that Monsieur Sherman had only returned because he wanted to get his wallet back. He'd lost it in the shop, and it had actually—believe it or not—been in the dog basket the whole time.

“Just think, William Morris was lying on it, which is why we couldn't find it at first,” she said, laughing to defuse the situation.

René frowned and looked suspiciously at the American. “What's this all about? A wallet? I thought it was all about your book? You told me yesterday that this lunatic kept insulting and threatening you. He trashed your store and then in the evening rampaged around so wildly in the street that you almost called the police, is what you said!”

Sherman raised his eyebrows expressively. Rosalie squirmed uncomfortably as the two men looked at her in confusion. Perhaps she'd been so angry that she'd exaggerated a bit when telling René.

“Well … I suppose ‘threatened' is a bit too strong,” she said eventually. “But anyway I didn't get the feeling that you were on a peaceful mission yesterday, Monsieur Sherman.”

“I may have gone a little too far,” Sherman conceded. “Yesterday one thing just led to another—the whole day was more than unpleasant. But as far as the authorship of the children's book is concerned, I am one hundred percent in the right, and if you hear the whole story, you'll understand why.”

Rosalie coughed. “I'm all agog.” She thought back to her telephone conversation with Max Marchais. “I have my own contribution to make. We should discuss the matter once more—calmly. Perhaps not here in the store, where customers could come in at any moment.”

They had finally agreed to meet in Le Café Marly that evening. “Now that I have my wallet back,” Sherman had added; finding the wallet had obviously made him feel generous, “we can continue our discussion over a civilized meal. Your friend is also very welcome to come, of course, and can then personally convince himself that I wouldn't harm a hair on your head.”

*   *   *

ABOUT HALF PAST EIGHT
they were sitting under the arcades of Le Café Marly and had ordered their meal—but without René, who had arranged to meet a friend that evening.

“If you ask me, he actually seems quite normal,” René had said after Sherman had left the shop again.

That's what Rosalie thought, too, as she now unobtrusively examined the American who was admiring the view of the Louvre with its illuminated glass pyramid.