by Colin Meloy
“See you there, Charlie,” said Amir. He turned to the waiter. “Bertuccio, will you show our cannon-in-training out to the straight world?”
“With pleasure,” said Bertuccio. He and Charlie then made their way back up the spiral staircase, down the tight brick corridor, through the secret door, and back into the deserted dining room of the café. By now, the sun had started to set and the street outside the windows of the café was cast in long shadows. Bertuccio opened one of the doors, gave a quick scan of the area, and ushered Charlie outside. The waiter put his finger to his eye as if to say keep safe, then disappeared back into the café, leaving Charlie, bewildered and ecstatic, back out on the streets of the city.
Chapter
TEN
It was dark by the time Charlie returned home. The front gates were closed; he had to ring the doorman to have them opened. The tall windows of the Fisher mansion were lit bright, and Charlie could see his father’s silhouette looking down over the grounds from his upstairs study window.
Charlie had barely walked into the main foyer when the butler appeared, saying, “Your father has asked for you. He is in his study.”
It was a serious matter indeed when he was asked to visit his father’s study, a place reserved for the most intimate of lectures and scoldings. Oak bookshelves, lined with leather-bound volumes, covered every inch of wall space that wasn’t papered with the various awards, commendations, and diplomas that Charles Sr. had been awarded over his many years as a servant to his country. Photographs peppered the in-between spaces, photos of Charles Fisher Senior shaking hands amicably yet sternly with every head of state imaginable. A large desk was anchored to the center of the room. His father was standing just beyond the desk with his back to the door, still facing the window, when Charlie entered the room timidly. “Yes, Father?” he asked.
“Where were you? Are you aware what time it is?” His father’s voice sounded strained; Charlie had never heard such concern there.
“Sorry,” said Charlie. “I guess I just lost track of time.”
“I spoke to Simon; he said that he hadn’t told you to get art supplies. In fact, he didn’t know what I was talking about.” Charles Sr. still had his back to his son. “What is going on, Charlie?”
“I—” Charlie began. He was interrupted. His father had turned around to face him.
“This is unconscionable behavior, Charlie. It is nine thirty at night. You have missed dinner. You have not given a soul any mention of your whereabouts. Do not forget, Charlie, you are the son of the American consul general!”
“I’m sorry, Father,” Charlie said. “I was out with friends. I’d lost track of time.”
“There are considerations—you, a boy, in your position in life. You have to—” Charles Sr. stopped abruptly. “What did you say?”
“Which part?”
“You said you were out with friends?”
“I did,” said Charlie. He didn’t realize that the admission would stop his father so completely in his tracks. “Some kids I’d met,” he added.
“Oh,” said Charles. “Well.”
“C’mon, Father,” said Charlie. “Don’t act so surprised.”
“I’m not surprised at all,” said Charles. His father’s face, however, still betrayed a state of relative shock. Finally, a little smile broke across his face. “Good for you, Charlie. Who are they? Who are their families? Would I know them?”
“I doubt it,” said Charlie, thinking fast. “Private-school kids. On foreign exchange.” It wasn’t technically a lie.
Thankfully, his father didn’t press him. “Very well,” he said. He seemed to tamp down his enthusiasm, remembering that he was playing the castigating parent. “I’m glad you’ve found some chums. But it still does not excuse your tardiness in returning home.” Having finished, his attention was swayed to a book on his desk, which he casually opened with a flick of his finger; he seemed to trace the first few words of a chapter. Charlie remained in the room until his father looked up and, seeing he was still there, said, “That is all.”
“Thank you, sir,” said Charlie. “I won’t do it again, promise.”
“Mm-hmm,” said Charles Sr., idly flipping a page in the book.
Charlie retreated into the hallway and, once he was out of sight of his father, dashed down the carpeted hall and into his room. There he threw himself on the bed, breathless, still awash in the sweet, incensed air of the pickpockets’ subterranean catacomb. He fell asleep promptly and deeply.
The following morning, Charlie ate his breakfast in silence. Once he was finished, he cornered André outside the larder.
“Yes, sir?” asked the assistant butler.
“I was wondering if you had an extra—what do you call it—a valet?”
“You mean a gentleman’s valet? A suit stand?”
“Exactly. Something I could hang a jacket on.”
“Your father has several. Shall I fetch one for you?”
“Please do,” said Charlie.
Later that morning, a wooden stand appeared in the corner of his room. You may not be acquainted with such a device, but it has served many fine-dressed men and women over the years. It is essentially a coat hanger, as one would find hanging in a closet, mounted on a wooden stand. Charlie studied the thing for a moment—it stood roughly as tall as Charlie was himself—before draping one of his navy blazers over the hanger. He adjusted the jacket at the shoulders before fastening the top and middle buttons. It made an admirable, if disembodied, man’s torso. He then grabbed a handful of coins from a turtle-shell bowl on his dresser and began seeding each pocket on the jacket with them. He’d found an old emptied wallet in one of his father’s drawers, and he slipped it into the jacket’s inside pocket—its coat pit. For good measure, he folded up one of his handkerchiefs and slipped it into the breast pocket. He took a few steps back and admired the made-up dummy.
“How do you do?” he asked.
The coat stand did not respond.
“Well, if you’re going to be that way . . . ,” Charlie said, before he edged closer.
Charlie began to practice.
He practiced fronting the mark—working directly in front of the dummy. He practiced shading with a blute—holding a folded-up newspaper between himself and the dummy to cover his hand as it wormed its way around the fabric. He cautiously coaxed the smash from the jacket’s pockets with his index and middle finger while his pinkie carefully opened the jacket’s lapel like a shut-in parting his window curtains. He practiced unsloughing—undoing—the buttons on the jacket front to better get access to the coat pit; he practiced reefing the kick from that inside pocket, a move Amir had shown him that involved carefully making pleats in the fabric of the jacket with one’s fingers so as to move the wallet up toward the opening of the pocket and there to fall into a waiting palm. By lunchtime, he’d even devised a move where he binged the handkerchief—the wipe—from the dummy’s outside breast pocket—the tog tail—and used it to safely shade his hand as he banged a coin from the coat jerve, or the ticket pocket.
He did not do these things smoothly; he made many mistakes. He had no doubt that his amateur skill would not get him very far in the Test of the Seven Bells—but that was not really his aim. He merely wanted to try.
And so he practiced.
Sunday morning arrived. Charlie woke early and, after some deliberation, dressed in the jeans-and-flannel combo that had been so winning for him the day he’d first set foot in the pickpockets’ scatter. He placed a cap on his head at a rakish angle and bid adieu to the dummy in the corner of his room, the one who’d been so cleanly picked over for the last few days. He thought he heard an audible groan of relief.
By the time Charlie was heading out the door, his father had already made his way to the atrium and was assiduously tending to his garden. He’d been apprised of Charlie’s plans—a day trip to a calanque a few miles down the coast, where the family of one of his new friends had a yacht anchored—and had not hi
dden his appreciable pride in his son’s newfound social life. He answered Charlie’s quick “Good-bye!” with a fatherly wave over his shoulder.
It being Sunday, much of the house staff had been given the day off, and there was (thankfully) no Guillaume to expose his ruse; it was typical that Charlie should be responsible for his own transportation on weekends. He walked down Avenue du Prado to the imposing statue of David, forever standing guard between the ocean and the avenue, and there caught the number nineteen bus, jumping off a few stops down Avenue Pierre Mendès France to the front gate of Hippodrome Marseille Borély.
Now, the racecourse at the Borély is an extraordinary thing. It is not the destination of horse-racing pilgrims worldwide, like Pimlico or Churchill Downs; it does not carry the romance of Del Mar in California or Melbourne’s Flemington—but it is certainly a sight to behold, nestled as it is smack up against the placid Mediterranean to one side, the stark white cliffs of the Vallon de l’Agneau to its south, and the fine mansions of the Prado to its north. On a sunny day, when the races are run and the stakes are high, there is no better place to be.
And, indeed, that was a sentiment clearly shared by a large slice of the Marseillais population this sunny Sunday in April. Charlie arrived at the front gates of the track to discover a veritable tide of people hovering around the entrance, waiting to make their way to the bettors’ windows and the grandstands. He craned his neck, looking for his confederates—his Whiz Mob—but no familiar face leapt out at him among this sea of derby hats, ascots, sunglasses, and fedoras. He fell in line with the crowd and shuffled his way forward; in the meantime, he monitored the purses, handbags, and stuffed pockets of the race-going crowd. To Charlie’s (admittedly untrained) eye, everyone here seemed moneyed enough to pass muster with the strictest interpretation of the so-called Code of the Whiz Mob—that no one facing financial hardship, marginalization, or oppression of any sort should be targeted. This was the upper crust of the upper crust of Marseille society, a fact that struck home when the following occurred:
“Charlie Fisher! Is that Charlie Fisher?”
The woman’s voice came from behind him; it was no voice Charlie recognized from his time in the pickpockets’ scatter. Whomever it belonged to was undeniably old, posh, and speaking in English. Charlie turned around to see a middle-aged man and woman, well dressed and wearing dark sunglasses, bearing down on him.
“Hello,” said Charlie, smiling wanly.
The man turned to the woman, saying, “I told you it was him.”
“Charlie Fisher,” said the woman, reaching down and pinching his cheek with a gloved hand. “Don’t you remember us?”
“I don’t think so,” said Charlie. The crowd jostled forward; a boy in a cap advertised racing programs for sale.
“We’re the Monroes! Eddie and Carol!” said the woman.
When Charlie gave no indication of remembering, the woman—Carol—said in an exasperated tone, “We’re friends of your father!”
“Put ’er there, Charlie,” said the man. He stuck out his hand, and Charlie shook it. The man was clearly American, whereas his companion seemed to speak in an accent that hailed from the plummiest parts of Olde England. “Is your father around?”
“You haven’t come to the racetrack by yourself, have you?” asked Carol.
“I’m meeting . . .” Charlie stammered, “I’m meeting some friends. And their parents. Some parents have brought their kids, and I’m friends with them. With their kids. So I’ve come to meet them. The parents and the kids.”
“Oh,” said Carol. She was momentarily thrown by Charlie’s inability to communicate what would seem to be a pretty simple explanation. “Well, that’s nice.”
Eddie, on the other hand, took it in stride. “Sounds like good fun.” He leaned in close; Charlie could smell the man’s musky cologne as he spoke into Charlie’s ear: “Hot tip. Number five in the sixth race. Grecian Dancer. She’s a long shot, but she’ll get there.” He stood back upright and winked.
“Thanks,” said Charlie. “Oh. There they are.” He pointed in an indiscriminate direction and waved, as if at some distant person. “I should really go. Nice to see you both.”
“Tell your father we said hi!” said Carol as Charlie walked away.
“And remember,” said Eddie. “Number five horse! Sixth race!”
Charlie smiled and waved, desperately relieved when the crowd swallowed the Monroes whole and he was standing again on his own. Self-consciously, he began to button his plaid flannel shirt, suddenly aware of how poorly dressed he was for the event. He looked around for the Whiz Mob; he checked his watch. It was past nine. They’d have started by now, right?
“Programmes!” called the program seller. “Demandez le programme!” Apparently he’d spotted Charlie as a potential sale, because the boy began hovering around him, repeating his pitch.
“Non, merci,” said Charlie.
“Demandez le programme!” said the boy again, this time very loudly and in his face.
“Non!” repeated Charlie angrily.
“Just buy a program, Charlie,” the boy said, in English.
Charlie looked at the boy; the boy lifted the brim of his houndstooth cap. It was Fatour.
“Oh, hi!” said Charlie. “I didn’t know it was—”
“Shhh,” hushed Fatour, annoyed. He cast his eyes about him as he handed a program to Charlie and mimed receiving payment. “Follow me.”
Fatour walked away from the front gate and across the parking lot, toward what looked like an unused ticket kiosk. Charlie followed. “Who were those pappies you were talking to?” asked the pickpocket.
“Oh, them? Just a couple my father knows.”
“They recognized you?”
“I guess so,” said Charlie.
Fatour rolled his eyes. “You have to be invisible, Charlie. Blend in.”
“I’m trying.”
The boy stopped and, turning, surveyed Charlie’s outfit. “Not dressed like a lumberjack, you’re not.” He continued walking.
“Why does everyone think I’m dressed like a lumberjack?” wondered Charlie aloud.
On the other side of the wooden kiosk, just out of sight from the horde of race-goers queuing at the gate, the Whiz Mob was gathered.
“Howdy, Charlie,” said Amir. “Glad you could make the meet.”
“You’re late,” said Jackie. Charlie, upon seeing her, was taken aback. She was dressed to the nines in a dashing canary-yellow shift dress and coat. She wore a wide-brimmed black straw hat that sat on her head at a dangerous angle, and her lipsticked lips burst red from beneath its shade. She was pulling on a pair of black polka-dot gloves as she spoke. “Pluto will fill you in.”
“O-okay,” stammered Charlie. He turned to the other pickpockets: Amir was leaning against the kiosk, wearing his customary pink shirt and drainpipe chinos. Sembene stood nearby, dressed in a short-sleeved patterned shirt and blue jeans. Michiko was there in a smart pastel skirt and a Peter Pan–collared shirt; the Bear stood by her side in a blue blazer and slacks—they both seemed dressed to fade into the crowd like ghosts.
Pluto, squaring himself up in front of Charlie, seemed to be ripped straight from the front windows of a Fifth Avenue men’s clothing store: pastel-pink sports coat, neckerchief, and a sharp straw trilby hat. Even his eye patch seemed to contribute to the overall aura of a very cosmopolitan young man, intent on a lucrative day at the track. “You’re running with Amir and the twins. Center field, remember? Don’t try anything. Your job is to watch and learn. Got it?”
“Got it,” said Charlie.
“Bear’s steering for Michiko, who’s running cannon.” Pluto whipped out a brochure for the track and, unfolding it, revealed a map of the racecourse itself. He pointed to one side of the track. “They’re working over here, by the grandstand.”
“But I will be going here first,” said the Bear, indicating the bettors’ parlor with a thick finger. He’d taken one of the racing programs from Fatour; he n
ow snapped it open and began reading the schedule of races. “We are working the track. Might as well make some money on the side, okay?”
“Sure,” said Pluto. “Just don’t blow your okus on bad bets this time, huh, Bear?”
Borra mumbled something—probably disparaging—in Russian.
Pluto was undeterred. “Amir, Charlie, and the twins—you’re working the crowd by the track. Jackie—”
He was interrupted by the girl. “That’s Jacqueline to you,” Jackie said in a lilting, high-society Southern drawl that could melt butter.
“Jacqueline,” Pluto continued, “and I are working the Premier Club, in the suites above the grandstand.”
“How are you going to get in there?” asked Charlie. The one time he’d been to the Marseille Borély had been with his father, at the invitation of some wealthy real estate baron from Chicago. They’d spent the entire time in the viewing suites that had been built at the top of the stands, where well-dressed waiters saw to your every need. A special pass had been required; the security, Charlie recalled, was very tight.
“Oh, we’re credentialed,” said Pluto, reaching into his coat pit and retrieving a laminated card. The flowery logo for Le Club Premier was printed there, above the name Alejandro Escobar.
Jackie snaked her wrist around the crook of Pluto’s arm, saying, “I so adore the races, Alejandro.”
“And where’s Molly?” asked Charlie, taking in the motley group. “I mean, the Mouse.”
“Ah,” said Pluto. “The coup de grâce.” He rapped his knuckles against the wooden wall of the kiosk.
“Coming!” came a girl’s voice from inside the box.
“C’mon, Mouse!” said Pluto. “Charlie’s here. Everyone’s accounted for.”
A door in the kiosk opened a crack, and Charlie could see Molly’s face peer out. “This is ridiculous,” she said.
“Come on, Mouse,” said Amir, holding back his laughter. “Show us your stuff.”
The door swung wide and the girl stepped sheepishly out into the light. She was dressed in an outfit made entirely of shimmering satin that looked as if it had been dipped indiscriminately in a series of colored paints: the breast of the jacket was purple and covered in orange diamonds; the sleeves were bright yellow. On her head was a goggle-topped helmet, which sported the same yellow-and-purple color scheme as the jacket but in a kind of beach-ball pattern. Her pants were white and puffed out like twin parachutes. Charlie immediately recognized this getup as something known in the racing world as jockey silks, the iconic outfit worn by all the riders. To add to the general rainbow hue of her attire, Molly’s face was beet red.
