“So tragic about Cerdan,” Flanner said. “Yes, he was married to someone else. Yes, he was a boxer who wasn’t very bright, but to be killed in that airplane crash en route to meet her in New York, such a tragedy. I don’t think she will ever get over it. Piaf blames herself, of course, but who wouldn’t?”
“The French love their tragedies,” Slim added.
“Yes.” Flanner nodded. “They plunge from the intellectual darkness of Sartre to sentimental treacle of Piaf. She is a monstre Sacré—untouchable.”
Next came a gorilla in a makeshift cage singing Georges Brassens’s “Le Gorille” to a fashionable woman in a Victorian dress who strolled by, admiring the beast. The gorilla dropped his curled digits, revealing an enormous black rubber penis, much to the delight of the crowd.
“Now we’re getting going,” Flanner shouted rambunctiously.
The woman pulled up her skirt, revealing a bare bottom, teasing him. The gorilla tried to reach through the bars, but the woman kept moving away. Finally, he caught her and smacked her on the ass, singing, “Attention le gorille!” to the cheering of the crowd.
Horrified, Slim looked over at Flanner, who was on her feet yelling, “Brava! Bravo!” as a cigarette dangled out of her mouth. In disgust, Slim got up and made her way to the door. Françoise chased after her. “Where are you going, Slim?”
“This isn’t a contest. It’s a sex show,” Slim said with a measure of disgust.
“You spent too many years in convent schools. I run the hottest lesbian bar in Paris, and from time to time, I have to make it a bit interesting.”
“We’ll get shut down if you do this kind of stuff.”
“Slim, we’ll be shut down if we don’t.”
“I’m not going to be party to this, Françoise.” Slim took off her mustache and handed it to her.
Françoise shrugged and said, “Your loss.”
Slim left the bar and walked into the hallway. Is the light out again? She wondered as she made her way through the dark, annoyed at Remy for not replacing the bulb. Halfway up the stairs, she heard a creaking sound behind her. Turning around, all she could make out was a shadow.
“Hello?” After hearing no response, Slim climbed another step.
“Hello,” a voice whispered behind her. “Hello, Slim.” The voice was tinged with a French accent. It sounded familiar; where had she heard it before?
“Who’s there?” Slim asked, unnerved.
“Are you here to find me?” the voice asked.
“Marie Claire, is that you?” She turned to look but still could see only a shadow on the bottom step.
“Yes, Slim, it is me, Marie Claire, back from the dead.”
An eerie laugh echoed as Slim took a step down toward the voice.
“Who are you?” Slim asked.
“I told you, I am Marie Claire.” The laugh came again, but this time it was more of a cackle.
Slim took another step down.
“Don’t come any closer,” the voice said, taking a menacing turn.
“What do you want from me?” Slim asked, suddenly terrified.
“I want you to find me. How about a little game of hide and seek?”
“I’m not playing any games.”
“Count to ten, Slim. Do it now!”
Slim saw the shadow of a gun raise up toward her.
“Do it, or I will shoot you.” The tone had turned angry.
“Everyone will hear if you shoot me.”
“No, they won’t. This is a Sten gun from the war.” Slim knew from Daniel that Sten guns had silencers, so the voice was right; she could be shot and no one would know. There was only one thing she could do.
“OK, I’ll stay right here and count to ten,” Slim said. “One . . .” As she saw the gun’s shadow rise toward her, Slim jumped up onto the banister and began to slide down when a bullet whizzed by her shoulder. She looked around and saw no one. Then she heard the door to the bar swung open. Slim followed into the bar, looking for her assailant, but everyone was wearing a mustache. Then someone screamed, “She’s got a gun!” pointing to a woman in the corner who was running out the front door into the street.
“It’s nothing, everyone! Just a gangster American; she’s part of the show.” Françoise snapped her fingers, and the jazz trio began to play again. The customers started to relax and laugh. She grabbed Slim by the arm and whispered, “What’s going on?”
“That woman who just ran out of the bar tried to shoot me. C’mon.” Slim made her way through the crowded tables and into the street with Françoise.
“She took a left onto Francs Bourgeois! Come!” Slim shouted as she chased after the figure running toward the Musée Carnavalet. Suddenly, the woman disappeared from view.
“Merde,” Françoise shouted in frustration as she banged on the massive wooden doors of the famed museum.
“Do you think she went into the Carnavalet?”
“How could she? Once those doors are shut for the night, the place is like a fortress, and she couldn’t have climbed through the windows.” Françoise pointed toward the barred windows flanking the entrance.
Slim took both of her hands and pushed open the doors, letting them into the two massive mansions joined to house the history of Paris. Françoise looked at her, shocked.
“What the . . . ?”
“Just because the doors are closed, it doesn’t mean they’re locked. C’mon, she must’ve gone in.”
Inside, Slim pushed a button. Suddenly, light illuminated Louis XIV outfitted like a Roman emperor on a pedestal.
“But how in the hell are we going to find her in here?” Slim asked, pointing upstairs to the endless maze of rooms.
“Shh . . .” Françoise said, placing her hand on Slim’s shoulder. “Do you hear that?”
They stood still and listened to a sound of tapping echoing in the hallways.
“It sounds like Morse code, but I don’t know it. Do you?” Slim asked.
“No, she’s taunting us. She wants us to find her.”
“Do you think it’s a trap?” asked Slim.
“Probably. She does have a gun,” Françoise reminded her.
“What if she is who she says she is?”
“Marie Claire?” Françoise sighed. “Then she must be a ghost because I think Marie Claire’s dead.”
“I’m going in there.”
Françoise stopped her. “Not without me, you’re not.”
They ran up the marble staircase, taking the stairs two at a time into a salon belonging to Madame de Sevigne, a seventeenth-century doyenne famous for her letters about French society. Slim looked around the gallery; the walls were white panel, and a painting of Moliere hung facing a seductive portrait of de Sevigne. Except for a roped-off and faded red-velvet chair, the room was empty. Françoise climbed over the rope to the lacquer cabinet underneath de Sevigne’s portrait and opened it. Reaching upward, she pulled out a revolver. When Slim was about to say something, she put her fingers to her lips to silence her.
The tapping continued as they tiptoed into the blue room of Louis XVI. Slim pointed to a decorative paneled screen that framed the right-hand corner. Françoise peeked behind with her gun drawn. No one was there.
The next room was a facsimile of Marie Antoinette’s prison cell. Slim gasped. Sitting at the desk was a figure draped in black silk crepe with her back to them, facing a wall of peeling wallpaper.
“Whoever you are, show yourself,” Françoise said. Slim wondered how Françoise could keep the gun steady. Her hands shook so much that she looked for the pockets of her tuxedo pants to hide them, but then remembered Marlene never had pockets sewn into her pants because she thought they ruined the shape.
Françoise took a step toward the figure and placed a hand on the covered head. Slim jumped back, not knowing what to expect.
“Merde, but of course,” Françoise said. She turned the chair around, revealing the ghastly waxen visage of Marie Antoinette. Relieved, they both laughed.
&
nbsp; The tapping grew louder. Françoise beckoned Slim to follow her. They ran through the exhibitions of the executions of Marie Antoinette and the Sun King, which then bled into Napoleon being crowned.
“You wonder why I led you here?” asked a voice in French from behind a screen in the corner where a new exhibit was being assembled. It was so soft that Slim could barely make out the words.
“Marie Claire, is that you?” Slim asked as Françoise stealthily made her way toward the screen.
“No, you fool,” came the response.
“Then who are you?”
“I am the one who is sending those messages to Chapman.” The voice was a bit louder, and to Slim, it sounded slightly familiar.
“Amelie?” Françoise dropped the gun to her side and pushed aside the screen. It was indeed the unfriendly French SOE agent Slim had had lunch with at la Tour d’Argent. Still wearing the ubiquitous mustache from la Silhouette’s contest, she pointed the gun at both of them.
“Amelie, what is this about?” Françoise took a step toward her.
“Don’t come any closer.” Her fingers gripped the trigger. “We used to make love in this museum; do you remember, Françoise?”
“Oui, cherie, I remember.”
“Why are you sending those messages to Miss Chapman?” Slim asked, interrupting the two former lovers’ trip down memory lane.
“I wanted to torture her, the way she tortured me.”
“How did she torture you?”
“How? She sent that cunt here. And you fucked her, Françoise. How could you? How could you?” she asked, shaking with rage.
“I always told you that I was seeing other people,” Françoise cooed.
“I knew that I was not the only one, but she was different. You loved her. You loved her in a way that you never loved me.”
“Amelie . . .”
“No, you made love to her in a way you never did to me. She got what she deserved.”
“Did you turn Marie Claire in?” Slim asked, realizing what Amelie was saying.
“She was days away from being found.”
“How could you? You sent her to her death,” Françoise said, incredulous.
“But a man betrayed Marie Claire, not a woman.” None of this made any sense to Slim.
“That’s because I paid a man to make the call to Avenue Foch.”
“You will be tried for treason,” Françoise said disgustedly and started walking away.
“No, you two are joining me in hell!” she shouted, waving the Sten gun again at them both. “You know, Miss Moran, this could have all stayed buried, but then Chapman hired you.”
“She only hired me because you were sending her those messages.” Slim shook her head in disbelief and thought, could this woman believe that she had started this?
“I wanted to torture her the way she tortured me, but then she hired you, and you mentioned Françoise and the bar. I can’t be turned in. I won’t be.”
“Then you shouldn’t have played this cat- and-mouse game with Miss Chapman,” Slim said. “You’re the one who put this in motion.”
“And I’ll be the one who puts an end to it. I’m going to shoot you first,” she said, pointing the gun at Slim, “and then I’ll take my time with you, Françoise, you fucking bitch.”
Slim felt her knees begin to buckle.
“I never loved Marie Claire the way I loved you. That is the truth,” Françoise said evenly.
“I saw you . . .”
“Do you know how many women I’ve made love to?”
“You had no time for me after I brought that bitch over. None.”
“She came onto me.”
“You expect me to believe this?”
Incredulous, Slim looked at the two women arguing and then realized what Françoise was doing. She was playing for time.
“All these years have passed. Let’s forget all this. Like you said, Marie Claire would have been picked up, anyway.” Françoise shrugged as if to say, “Let bygones be bygones.”
From the corner of her eye, Slim noticed Amelie’s grip on the gun relax. Amelie was weeping now. “I was just so angry. I felt so betrayed.”
“Give me the gun, Amelie. Please,” Françoise begged.
Without further protest, Amelie handed her the gun and collapsed into her arms.
Slim left them like that and walked through the darkened rooms of the museum until she came back to the eerily still wax figure of Marie Antoinette. What was it like, she wondered, to know you’re facing death? And moreover, what was it like to send someone to death? What an odd relationship the executed and the executioner must have, Slim thought.
The next morning, Slim was startled to find Amelie alone, sipping a bowl of café au lait in the bar. She was unsure if she should sit or not. What could she possibly say to a woman who had tried to kill her the evening before? Amelie saw her standing there and murmured, “What can I say in my defense? I was jealous and bitter. I’m going to turn myself in today.”
“I thought the French Parliament voted to ease up on collaborators,” Slim said.
“Yes, but mostly black-market profiteers. If your collaboration led to death, you can still be tried.”
Françoise brought Slim a steaming bowl. “I keep telling Amelie, why bother? What’s done is done. Why destroy your life at this point?”
“Because I am responsible for her death.” Amelie shakily lit a Gitane. “If Chapman couldn’t find her, then she’s probably dead.”
“What if Marie Claire didn’t die?” Slim countered. She wasn’t a fan of what Amelie had done, but she still wasn’t convinced that the missing agent was dead.
“She died in Dachau. Michel saw her executed,” Amelie said.
“Marie Claire was never in Dachau,” Slim said.
“What do you mean, she was never in Dachau?” Amelie asked, shocked.
“I spoke to the station agent in Karlsruhe when I was there. He saw Marie Claire the day she was transferred from the women’s prison. An SS officer showed him a telegram from Berlin. It said that Marie Claire was being transferred to Natzweiler concentration camp, not Dachau, and the latter didn’t have a woman’s camp until 1944.”
“Natzweiler? That’s on the border in France, but it’s only for men as well. I don’t understand. Why would Michel lie?” Amelie asked.
“That’s what I was hoping you could tell me.” Slim searched Amelie’s face, but she looked totally confused.
“Do you think Marie Claire could still be alive?” Françoise asked.
“I am wondering if she might be,” Slim responded.
“But the only reason Chapman thinks she’s alive is that I sent her all those messages.”
“Maybe what you’re doing opened up a can of worms everyone wants to be sealed again. I do have a question for you, though,” Slim said.
“I’ll try my best to answer it for you,” Amelie said without looking up.
“How did you know what Marie Claire’s safety word was? Miss Chapman said it was used when she was contacted with those messages.”
“She wanted me to know in case she got picked up, so I could let London know.”
“But how do you know Morse code? I thought you were a courier.”
“Bronwyn taught it to me when she was first dropped in France. The British women were being picked up right and left, and she wanted to make sure she left someone in Paris who could communicate with London. She trusted me.” Amelie’s voice cracked on the last sentence.
“Don’t forget, as a courier, you did a lot of good. One bad decision should not . . .” Françoise said.
“I betrayed a fellow agent and my country. Sometimes one bad decision does define a life.” Amelie reached out and squeezed Françoise’s hand. “I’m sorry. I know you loved her.”
“Amelie, before you turn yourself in, I want you to give me a week to see if I can find out what happened to Marie Claire.” Slim wanted at least a chance to save Amelie’s life.
“If she w
ound up in Natzweiler, she most likely suffered the same fate as she would’ve in Dachau,” Amelie said ruefully.
“But if she’s still alive, you won’t be prosecuted for turning her in.” Françoise grabbed her old lover’s hand. “I’m sure she would forgive you. You were both so young.”
“If she’s still alive, then we must keep what you did between the three of us. It will help no one if you confess to this,” Slim said.
“No, if Marie Claire is alive, then I will let her decide what I should do. In the meantime, Slim, I would like to go with you to Natzweiler,” Amelie pleaded softly.
“How do you know I am going there?” Slim had made reservations on the afternoon train to Struthof but hadn’t told anyone yet.
“It’s the obvious next step, isn’t it? May I come?” Amelie asked.
Slim was unsure what to say. She wasn’t sure how mentally stable Amelie was, and she was concerned about traveling with her. She had known Marie Claire, though, and might be useful in helping to find her. Against her better judgment, Slim said, “Yes, you can come with me. I’m leaving on the four o’clock train.”
“I have to go back to my apartment and pack. How long do you think we’ll be gone?”
Slim shrugged. “Not more than three days.” She couldn’t imagine that it would take more time than that.
Amelie stood up and said with a quavering voice, “I’m going to make this right.”
After her former lover had left, Françoise shook her head. “This is my fault. As long as I can remember, women were just toys to me. Perhaps because when I was coming up, I fell in love right and left, and I was passed around like an amuse-bouche. The only one who showed me any love was Marlene, and I still adore her for that. When the war came, I resolved that I would no longer be some rich person’s plaything. I would be the one in control. I cared for Amelie, but Marie Claire made me feel alive. Maybe it was because I knew that her life expectancy was akin to a butterfly. Her need for me was so urgent, unexpected, that I fell for her like I fell for no one else. When she was arrested, my world collapsed. It’s my fault that she was arrested; I will never forgive myself. Perhaps it is time for me to live my life a bit differently,” she said, stubbing out her cigarette.
The Lost Spy (Slim Moran Mysteries) Page 11
