The Alternative Detective (Hob Draconian) (18 page)

FAUCHON

39

“Yvette!” I said. For I had been thinking about her, and now she was standing before me. She had that smile on her face. That certain smile. You know the smile I mean? The smile that tells you you’re in play.

“Hi, babe,” I said huskily. “I kinda thought it’d be you.”

“Really?” Yvette said, also huskily.

“
Vraiment
,” I replied. “Are you really the right one, the one and only, the one who was promised me long ago in another country?”

“Search no more,” Yvette said. “Here I am, the eternal feminine dwelling in the ephemeral me.”

“I love the way you talk,” I said. “Where did you ever learn it?”

“At the Barbizon School of Metaphysical Shuck.”

“Landsman!” I cried.

“Weimeraner!” she replied.

I reached out for her, touched her face. Encountered stubble. Opened my eyes. Beheld Inspector Fauchon, smiling patiently, lower lip outthrust, waiting with commendable patience until I had awakened completely and pulled myself together.

“Are you all right?” Fauchon asked me.

“Oh, sure, I’m great,” I told him. “Has sentence been passed yet? Where are the authorities going to send me? Devil’s Island? New Caledonia? If I have a choice, I’d kinda like to do my time in the Château d’Îf. Great admirer of Dumas, you know.”

“Control yourself,” Fauchon said with paternal sternness. “Accompany me to my office. There has been a ridiculous mistake.”

We went through corridors measureless to man, down to a sunless office on the second floor of the gloomy Gallic gaol in which I had been incarcerated. Fauchon told me to make myself comfortable in the big armchair he reserved for respectable visitors, and sent out for café au lait and croissants.

“Kind of you,” I said, “but what about the gourmet dinner I ordered earlier from Henri, the chef-guard?”

Fauchon looked puzzled, then smiled with evident pleasure. “Ah, you make the ironic jest! Very good! You must have been hallucinating. Sorry, we have no gourmet service for the prisoners, but I would be happy to take you to a first-rate restaurant this evening in partial atonement for the silly error of my subordinates. You see, I told Jacques Lefevre, my subaltern, if that is the correct word, to go to your hotel and ask you to come in and see me. Jacques was unable to go himself; as he was leaving, word came in of some strange occurrences in the Rue Morgue, and so he detailed his batman, if that is the correct term, and his assistants. He told them to bring you in, and they, considering you a common criminal, made their usual rude entry into your hotel room. Again,
je suis desolé;
I do beg your forgiveness.”

“No harm done,” I murmured, accepting Fauchon’s outstretched hand. The thought did occur to me that the entire thing might have been staged, the arrest and then the apology, in order that I might consider the benefits of cooperation.

“What did you want to see me about?” I asked.

“This is going to please you very much. We have located the whereabouts of your friend Alex Sinclair. Not so bad work on the part of Paris flatfeet, non?”

“No,” I said. “Or rather, yes, very good indeed. When can I see him?”

Fauchon set fire to a Gauloise. Cigarette in the middle of his faded rosebud mouth, French blue eyes squinted against the smoke, he leaned toward to me and said, “Ah! As for that, I am afraid there is a difficulty.”

ARNE; ALEX FOUND

40

Le PÈre Tranquile was crowded as usual, its outside café portion crowded with sunglassed light worshippers. I ordered an omelette and a bottle of Orangina, and sat gazing upon the crowd with a jaundiced and dyspeptic eye. At the moment I could say, with Hamlet, man delights me not, no, nor woman, neither.

Arne the mime came by, white face, painted rosebud clown’s mouth, baggy black trousers and checkered W.C. Fields vest. He did his number for a while, then came over to my table and sat down.

“
Ça va?
” he enquired.

I made an Italian gesture denoting nothingness.

“As bad as that?” Arne said.

“Made none the better by my recent experience with your friend Esteban.” I related to him briefly the events of the previous night in the Bois de Boulogne.

“I never said he was a friend of mine,” Arne pointed out. “Anyhow, maybe he was kidding. These South Americans are great jokers.”

“So I’ve noticed.”

“Don’t worry,” Arne said. “Something will break soon.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of.”

Arne went back to his miming, and left the world to darkness and to me. I sat there trying to figure out where the South Americans fit into the picture and trying to make sense out of what Fauchon had told me. This was the mood I was in when Nigel came strolling by, immaculate in summer whites, twirling a malacca cane, a panama hat tilted rakishly over one eye, his beard bristling heroically.

“What ho?” Nigel said, the very image of hateful bonhomie.

“Besmirch me your what ho’s,” I said.

“Ah, we’re a bit peevish this afternoon, are we?” Nigel sat down, and, catching a waiter’s eye with an ease that I found unpleasantly knowledgeable, ordered a gin and tonic.

“So, what’s new?”

“Not much,” I said. “Except that Alex has been located.”

“Then the case is completed?”

“Not quite. I still have to see him and give him the money Rachel has for him.”

“But that’s a mere detail,” Nigel said. “Why don’t we go do it now?”

“Because there is, to quote Inspector Fauchon, a difficulty.”

“Just a minute.” Nigel took a long pull at his gin and tonic, found a dented cheroot in his engraved silver cigar case and lit up. Leaned back and crossed his legs. “OK, I’m ready for anything.”

“Inspector Fauchon told me that he knows where Alex is. The difficulty is, he’s promised Clovis not to tell anyone about it until Clovis has finished shooting his film.”

Nigel groaned and took another gulp of his gin and tonic. “I’m not ready for this. Why did he promise such a thing to Clovis?”

“Clovis needs Alex in his film. Alex has appeared in two weeks’ worth of shooting. It would be expensive to shoot all over again. But worse than that, Clovis wouldn’t do it. You know his reputation. Either he shoots a film through from beginning to end or he abandons it.”

“But what does that have to do with Alex? I mean, why can’t people see Alex?”

“Fauchon told me that Clovis is worried because Alex has disappeared from the shooting schedule twice now, causing costly delays and turning the whole project on its ear. Now that he has Alex again, he’s keeping him in seclusion until the final squences of the movie are filmed.”

“In seclusion where?”

“That’s the part that Fauchon promised Clovis he wouldn’t tell. Not until the shooting’s finished.”

“But why would Fauchon do this for Clovis?”

“That takes a little explaining. You know that the French government, through its various grants and facilities, bankrolls most of the French films in production. Clovis’ film has already cost the government close to ten million dollars. They’ll recoup when it’s released, of course, unless Clovis throws a fit and doesn’t finish it. The Minister of Culture wants to see this film finished. As a matter of fact, his daughter is working on the production.”

“Yvette?” Nigel asked.

“Of course, Yvette. So the thing is, important people want to see Clovis finish his movie. Alex is necessary to Clovis; Alex is not wanted for any crime, and so Fauchon figures if an American wants to drop out, there’s no law against it.”

“But he told you that Alex was all right?”

“Precisely. ‘Nevaire bettaire’ were his precise words. The French police have no reason to assume that any foul play is involved here. If a man wants to isolate himself and not answer his calls, well, they didn’t arrest Howard Hughes, did they? That was Fauchon’s example, not mine.”

“So what do we do next?”

“What I considered doing,” I said, “was having you and Jean-Claude kidnap Clovis and threaten him with hideous tortures until he revealed Alex’s whereabouts.”

“We’d need a car for that,” Nigel said thoughtfully. “Also it would cost more.”

“Forget it,” I said. “That was hyperbole, and it’s not actionable.”

“Well, what
are
we going to do?”

“I,” I said, “am going to telephone Clovis immediately and demand an explanation.”

“Yes,” Nigel said. “I think you should.”

“See you later,” I said, and went inside to use the telephone.

I went to the change desk and asked for a
jeton
, the small French coin that activates jeton-operated telephones. It was rather difficult catching the attention of the girl behind the cash register. She was having an involved discussion with one of the waiters, a sulky-faced little fellow with long poetic hair, about regional variations in
choucroute garni.
It was a talk too tedious to translate. I finally obtained the requisite coin and went below, to the lower level where the toilets are, the telephone booths, and the inevitable concierge.

This particular toilet attendant had basilisk eyes, harpy nose, iron-gray hair and bloodless lips. I sidled toward the telephone booth, intimidated instantly. “M’sieu?” she said, holding out a small hand towel. I realized at once that she thought I was going to the toilet. I could have explained to her that I merely wanted to use the telephone, but these people don’t like explanations, only money, so I accepted the towel, tipped her ten francs, and went into the phone booth.

I could see her watching me through the tinted glass. I was beginning to feel just a little weirded out. A few hours in a cell at Santé doesn’t really do all that much for your equilibrium. And mine is just a bit wonky even at the best of times.

“Yes, hello, who is calling?”

The suddenness of Clovis’ voice in my ear startled me, even when it was coming to me through a telephone receiver in response to the number I had just dialed.

“Clovis? It is Hob.”

“Who?”

“ ’Ob!”

“Ah, why did you not say so at first? Where are you, why have you not contacted me; you missed a shoot yesterday, did you know that?”

I was still going to give him hell for holding out on me about Alex. But first I thought I’d better explain my own omissions.

“I was going to phone you this morning,” I said. “Then these cops came and dragged me out of bed—”

“Wait,” Clovis said.

“
Pardon?
”

“I want you to save that story. You can tell it on camera in the next filming.”

“I’m sorry, Clovis, I don’t seem to be tracking you.”

“We are filming a key scene tonight,” Clovis said. “During it, you will need to make a speech. It doesn’t matter what you say because we will dub in our own lines later, after we know what the scene is all about. You are following this, non?”

“No. Sorry, I mean yes.”

“Be there at 10:00 p.m. sharp. The entire cast will be present. This is the big one, kid. We’re counting on you.”

“Oh, don’t worry,” I said (fatuously, as I think now).

“Good. By the way, Alex sends regards. He looks forward to seeing you. At ten, then!”

He hung up. I sat in the booth holding the receiver and gaping at my reflection in the plate glass. For a moment I doubted myself, but then I pulled myself together, yes, he had said it. Alex! Tonight at ten!

There was a heavy tapping at the door of my telephone booth. It was the concierge. I opened the door and stepped out. “Madame?” I said.

“The towel,” she said, whipping it out of my hands. “One does not take a towel into the telephone booth.”

I considered trying to explain, but it was just too difficult. Easier to tip her another ten francs and head for the stairs.

Wait until Nigel hears this, I thought, a modest gloat arising in my chest.

Then I stopped in mid-step and slapped my forehead with the palm of my right hand. I had neglected to get the address of the shoot from Clovis.

TELEPHONES IN CAFÉS

41

Glimpses of Paris: rectangular white and blue street signs; Grill Self-Service; people carrying the long loaves of French bread known as baguettes; open-air neighborhood food markets under striped awnings and umbrellas; the haughty beauty of the produce, aware of itself as the prototype for still-life painting; long, low barges on the Seine—
les bateaux;
fishing on the Seine; Japanese tourists in neat business suits, much becameraed; and everywhere, love is in the air—the couples walking arm-in-arm, or arms entwined around each other’s waist, pausing here and there to exchange a long kiss; orienting glimpses of the Eiffel Tower, Notre-Dame, the Montparnasse Tower, the Sacré-Coeur, Invalides, the Panthéon, the Luxembourg Gardens; the swirl of traffic around the Étoile, the Place de la Concorde, and the diesel trucks barrelling down the Boulevard St-Michel.