by Tim Sandlin
Her eyes met mine again. She said, "Il ne ferait pas de mal à une mouche, ce cowboy."
She turned, reeking with dignity, and walked away, her friends at her side. Grumbling, the security guards retreated back into the university. The crowd broke up with nothing worse than the old hag lady spitting on the sidewalk, there next to my boot. The gendarme gave me a long stare, as if memorizing my mug, then he, too, moved off, leaving only Pinto and Monty as Odette reached the corner and, without a backward glance, disappeared.
I kept my eyes on the spot where she had last been visible. "What'd she say there at the end?"
"She said, 'The cowboy wouldn't hurt a fly.'"
"I need your help."
Pinto Whiteside looked at me with some humor in his face. What might be called a simper. "You should have thought of that earlier, when you were flaunting your Western arrogance."
"You have to help me find out where she lives."
"Think about it a moment and see if you cannot discover a polite way of asking."
My future ability to live with myself depended on getting that buckle back. Tyson was more likely to grow up strong and decent if he had hard evidence that his father was not hopeless. "Please."
Pinto held the miserable dog up. "Monty wants you to say please to him also."
I would rather snort barbwire than talk to a dog as if it's human. God knows I've talked with horses, and the occasional bull, but I draw the line at dogs. Talking to other people's pets is stupid.
"You're humiliating me on purpose, aren't you?"
"How much do you want to find the girl?"
I looked at Monty. I swear, the dog had the same sappy beat-down-by-gravity face as Pinto. Leather cheeks. Broom eyebrows. "Please, Monty. Can your master help me find that lying tramp who stole my champion belt buckle?"
Pinto smiled. "Only if you let me smoke."
"Christ."
15.
Pinto Whiteside took off down the sidewalk at a good clip, Monty under his arm, flip-flops flapping loudly with each step. I hustled to keep up. One thing I've noticed is there's a direct relationship between the speed people walk and the size of the city they live in. I walk GroVont, Wyoming, speed, which puts me to the rear of most folks.
"You slept with this girl you claim is a lying tramp?" Pinto asked.
I circled a three-wheeled car parked on the sidewalk. Paris doesn't have parking rules. "Her and a friend of hers. They were a double."
Most men get curious when you mention doing a double, but Pinto didn't bat an eyelash. Maybe doubles are commonplace in France. "Did your lover give her name?"
"She's not my lover. We had sex, and she only gave a first name, Odette, but the man in the philosophy department said Odette Clavel had been in Boulder."
"That's a start."
A funny little taxicab sat parked diagonally across the corner point where two streets met. The body was mustard yellow, same color as Odette's tights the night we met, and the top was electric blue. It had a silver racing stripe and PERNOD painted red across the side panel behind the back door. The car was Pinto's destination.
As he unlocked the passenger door, I said, "What's this?"
"What?"
"You drive a toy."
"It's my car. If you wish to find the girl, you'll get in." The car had a swept-back look, the shape considered futuristic about fifty years ago. I could picture Buck Rogers driving this car on Mars.
"Not the front seat," Pinto said. "Monty Clift rides in front. Paying customers ride in back."
"Am I a paying customer?"
"Cabdrivers can't give free rides. It's against city ordinance."
The backseat was covered by the same material as my aunt Delilah's davenport. "What year is this thing?"
"'Sixty-seven. I traded thirty cabochons for it. Quite the bargain, in my humble opinion."
"Depends on what a cabochon is."
"Unit of turquoise." Before Pinto started the car, he lit the cigar he'd threatened me with earlier. "That was the last year Citroën built a classic automobile. After 1967 they modified the profile to mimic the more pedantic Mercedes."
I rolled down both the backseat windows. "Does it run?"
"Of course she runs." And to prove his statement we bumped off the curb and into traffic. For the second time in my life I found myself sober and in a taxi. Just when you think you've done everything you'll ever do and the rest of your days will be variations on the familiar, experiences start popping out at you. Life is similar to riding bulls, in that respect. Self-evident Truth #5: If you don't stretch regular, the falls will break you.
Monty stood on his back legs with his front feet on the seat back, watching me and drooling into that facial fur you find on Scotty dogs. I leaned over the front seat to roll down his window, too, and while I was lurched forward I got a good look at the operator license card on the passenger visor. The ID photo showed a turkey-necked black man with a tattooed lower lip.
"This isn't your taxi," I said.
Pinto glanced at the picture of the black guy. "That's the owner I bought it from. He quit driving to become a drug dealer. Specializing in North African hallucinogens, as I recall."
Back in my own seat, I said, "So you don't have a license."
"I have a license. In New Mexico."
"Why is the speed limit eighty? That seems kind of quick, for city streets."
Pinto snorted smoke out his nose. "The signs are for kilometers an hour, not miles."
"That explains it."
We turned the corner past a Gap store. The other three corners on the intersection were held down by an Athlete's Foot, Wendy's, and a Southern Baptist Church. "That's the fourth time you've turned right," I said.
Pinto said, "I wasn't counting. Are you certain you don't wish to purchase a piece of turquoise? What's a cowboy without turquoise?"
"You're driving back where we started."
"Paris isn't laid out in rectangular blocks like Boise or wherever you are accustomed to. Seen from above, the streets here resemble a fireworks display. Intersecting sprays."
"That's the second time we've passed the old lady with the birdcage."
"You would be astonished at how many women in this area carry birdcages. The city is rife with them. Listen, cowboy, I must talk to you about something important."
"Is this as personal as your what-do-I-think-of-turquoise question?"
"I believe my wife is cheating on me."
A suicidal maniac on a bicycle cut in front of us. The Citroën bumped his rear tire, spinning the bike rider into a three-sixty and over an outdoor bench where a couple was holding hands and gazing into each other's eyes. The bike rider did an ass plant, then he bounded up and flashed us what I took as the French bird. Monty barked, but I don't think Pinto noticed any of it.
"But your wife is a whore," I said.
"She is a courtesan. France would have no history without courtesans. No culture. You have a banal American sensibility about the subject that is completely off base."
"Your wife screws for cash."
Pinto blew a smoke screen at the windshield. "What is your point?"
"Doesn't a woman who screws for cash cheat on her husband, by job description?"
Pinto puffed smoke and made more right turns. I sat back and watched Paris. The neighborhood reminded me of the once I was in Memphis, Tennessee. Same humidity. Much more ethnic diversity than we have in Teton County.
Finally, Pinto said, "I think Mrs. Whiteside may be talking to someone other than me, revealing subjects close to her heart. Life, art, beauty."
He blew more smoke. Even with the window down, forward visibility was limited. I politely pointed out that the only conversational subjects worth the bother are subjects you can do something about, and life, beauty, and art don't qualify. I said, "A sentence without information is a dead sentence."
Pinto went on as if I hadn't said a word, which more or less shows I was right. "She has a customer who comes to her three aftern
oons a week, after lunch. I have no proof, but I believe they are not having sex."
"So she's finishing in the money by not doing the job. You should be proud."
I'm not sure if he heard me. Pinto Whiteside had a way of disappearing, as if he could shut off his senses, like with the biker Monty and I saw but he didn't.
"I've been there after he left the premises, and the bed looks artificially mussed. I strongly feel Mrs. Whiteside shook the sheets to make it look as if they'd been rolled in. And her bidet was dry."
I remember the first time I realized Mica was getting plowed on the side. She drove her truck into the ditch and called me on the cell phone to come pull her out. When I got there, I found tracks — size twelve, at least — leading off in the snow toward the Stagecoach Bar. She denied anyone had been with her, even after I found a torn condom foil in the ashtray. Silver Sheaf. Ribbed. I circled the far side of the ditch until I found the rubber where someone had tied a knot in the top and thrown it over the fence. Mica still denied it. Said she'd never seen that rubber before in her life.
That was the end of marriage number two with Mica. Number three started up a year later when she got pregnant with Tyson. Don't get drunk and sleep with an ex-wife for old times' sake is so self-evident you shouldn't even have to write it down.
I said, "For me, personally, a wife who doesn't screw someone else is better than a wife who does."
"Not if they talk intimately." Pinto slipped back into the funk I first saw when he admitted being saddled with unsellable turquoise. He had this way of moving in and out of deep funks. I've known women whose every mood swing showed on their face, but Pinto was the first man.
"Does your wife talk to you about life, art, and beauty?" I asked.
Cigar clamped between his teeth, Pinto drove with his left hand and rubbed Monty under the chin with his right. "Of course. She is my wife."
"My wife never talked to me about stuff like that."
"It is no wonder you are obsessed by a belt buckle."
Pinto pulled straight into a parking spot that was supposed to be parked in parallel. His rear end stuck out in traffic, but not enough to concern him. He turned off the car and shrugged around to face me.
"That'll be twenty-two euros. Common practice is to tip fifteen percent."
Pinto took me to a post office that looked like your basic stateside post office — Orem, Utah, to be specific — except the clerk sat behind a cage like in an old-time bank. I was once arrested in the Orem post office for threatening a clerk who wouldn't take a thirty-four-cent check. They only held me an hour. The arresting officer had played football against the clerk in high school. He said the guy had been born a bureaucrat and would die one. The cop wound up buying me a beer.
Another difference was the Paris post office had a public computer. I don't know what kind. It didn't look like any computer I'd seen before, but that's what Pinto said it was.
"Every post office in Paris has a computer. You can find anyone in the country, if you know how to use this machine."
"I'm hoping you do."
He took on a sly, silver-ponytail look. "I don't allow myself to touch a computer each day until I have sold at least one gemstone. It's an element of my strict self-discipline."
"Back home, that's called extortion."
"In France, it's laissez-faire."
"What's that mean in a language I know?"
"Free enterprise."
I checked out the machine to figure the odds of me working it without help. The directions were in French. The keyboard looked nothing like my laptop keyboard. I didn't have a clue.
"How much?"
"Thirty euros for a beautiful cabochon, ideal for the cowboy bracelet or a lady's necklace. The veining is wonderful. The color is so blue tears formed in my eyes the first time I saw this piece."
"Laying it on a bit thick, aren't we?"
"I am being honest."
I considered the alternatives. "Ten."
"Twenty-five."
"Ten. You want more, I'll walk the streets till I find someone who knows English and French both. There must be a lot of them in Paris."
"Not that will admit it to a tourist."
I waited. I'd seen his hands tremble when he put down that first Midori. Pinto was a drinker with his alcohol intake controlled by a woman. He was not in a strong bargaining position.
Sure enough, he caved. "I paid ten at the mine."
"You got robbed, same as I'm getting robbed now."
He fished in the front left pocket of his cutoffs and came out with a pretty turquoise oval, maybe an inch across. It was nice, even though I've never understood the lure of shiny rocks. Mica put a lot of stock in rocks. She bugged me for a diamond clear through three marriages. Damn things cost as much as a truck. I told her if she wanted a diamond she could buy one herself. Rocks are something you throw in water.
"Everyone takes advantage of the expatriate," Pinto said.
"I don't much care what you used to be." I stuffed the rock in my back left jeans pocket where it would no doubt get me stripsearched at the airport.
Pinto pushed buttons and studied the screen. "The name is Odette Clavel?"
"Right."
"One Lor two?"
"How the heck should I know? The man in philosophy didn't spell it out."
"You are fortunate Odette is an old-fashioned name. Not common anymore." He clucked his tongue and pushed another button. "In Paris and the suburbs, we have four with one L, and one with two."
"I hope this doesn't mean miles of walking."
"There's a new listing in the fifth, near the university. The others are all quite a distance out."
"Fifth what?"
"I will write down the address." He pulled out a card that said TURQUOISE TAXI and American Owner above a silhouette drawing of the '67 Citroën and a phone number with ten digits — five pairs. He flipped the card over and scribbled on the back. "It's on rue St. Jacques."
"Can you point me that direction?"
"I can drive you."
"No, thanks, I can't afford any more of your help."
16.
The apartment building on St. Jacques was across from a monster of a church surrounded by a ten-foot wrought iron fence with spikes on top and a locked gate to keep people out. Next door to that was an Internet cafe and next door to that was Chinese takeout. I went into the takeout place and bought two egg rolls because they were the only food I recognized in the display there, except for a tray full of chicken feet. I wasn't flexible enough for chicken feet. The Chinese man working the counter was friendly. He called me Clint Eastwood, and meant it the good way. We got along fine with me pointing at the egg rolls and him writing the price on a pad of paper. His number 1 looked like a check mark pointed up. I don't know if that's French or Chinese.
I sat outside in the sun, watching Odette's door and eating egg rolls, hoping she would come along with my Crockett County buckle. I wondered what Tyson would do with the buckle when I gave it to him. Throw it away, maybe. Or trade it for an Xbox. I didn't care so much what he did with the buckle, so long as I gave it to him, and, later, when he's old enough to escape Mica, he can remember he once had it. I didn't want to die with him thinking about me the way I thought about my old man.
Shit and piss on myself. I'm lying again. I hate it when that happens. The truth is, I didn't want to die with Tyson thinking about me the way my old man thought about me when he died. I didn't need disappointment from two directions.
Dad didn't believe in hugs. To tell the truth, I don't recall ever seeing him touch a human being. He must have. I mean, I was born, which implies touching Mom, and I figure he hauled me around or somesuch, back when I was a baby. But I certainly don't remember him hugging me, or squeezing my shoulder. Tousling my hair. My theory is being a male in Wyoming had turned him emotionally catatonic.
Most of the time, Dad worked, although I suspected that was more getting away from Mom than any great labor ethic. He smoked
Larks and read Fur, Fish & Game in the bathroom, dropping the butts between his legs into the toilet. Once, when he drove me to school during a blizzard, we were stopped at the red light in GroVont and he leaned forward to wipe condensation off the windshield. While he was leaned forward, he looked over at me and asked how old I was.
I said, "Ten."
He nodded and said, "I would have guessed nine." The light turned green and he put the truck in gear.
I said, "How old are you?"
Dad said, "Don't matter."
That's the last conversation I can remember having with him. I've played it over in my head a thousand times, trying to read love between the lines.
After a while, a woman with a bouquet of flowers approached the glass door from inside. I wiped my fingers on my jeans and crossed the street. She pushed a button on the wall and there was a buzz in the door. I held the door open for her while she backed through with the flowers. Big purple blossoms of a type I didn't recognize.
She said, "Merci."
I said, "You're welcome," and went on in. There was the one door off the lobby there. A bank of mailboxes took up part of the wall. The elevator had two doors instead of one. The outer door was on hinges, but the inner door was expandable steel, like a toddler gate. When I looked in I saw the elevator was tiny, maybe a yard square, big enough for one person if he wasn't hauling much stuff or two if they liked each other a heck of a lot. Too much like an upright coffin for me. I have a thing about coffin-shaped enclosures.
I walked up two flights of dark stairs to a hallway with a runner rug and no lights. The hallway smelled like Pine Sol. The door off to the left had a 2 on it. I knocked and waited. The door had three locks, which seemed excessive. Even foreigners must not trust foreigners. It took quite a while for whoever was in there to twist open the locks. Finally, the door opened a half inch and a female voice said, "Qui est là?"
I said, "Rowdy."
"Qui?"
"Don't pull that speak-no-English on me again."
