A concierge now stood in the doorway. It was a different man than the one who had delivered the glow sticks earlier. He looked concerned. “Is something wrong?” he asked. “Other guests reported hearing a woman screaming and pounding on a door.”
“No, no, no, nothing’s wrong,” Tom said. “Elle va bien. C’est seulement le chaleur.”
“I am most happy that she is fine,” the Concierge answered Tom in English. “And you are very correct. The heat is getting to all of us, oui? Please try to get some rest and . . .” he put a finger to his lips, “. . . shhh.”
“Oui,” Tom’s accent was perfect. “Je suis desole.”
“No apologies necessary. Now, goodnight.”
“Bonne nuit,” Tom answered and closed the door.
Anna was fighting for her sanity. “Tom,” her voice and body trembled.
“Yeah,” Tom raced to her side and hugged her close.
“You spoke French.”
“No I didn’t.”
“Yes you did . . . to the concierge . . . just now. ”
“I couldn’t have, Anna. I don’t speak French either.”
“I know.”
For the first time since she ran from room 531, Anna noticed that she still held the green glow stick tightly in her hand. She watched as it slowly went out. Anna dropped the stick to the floor and started to cry.
Chapter 17
“We are so out of here,” Tom snapped. He flipped his suitcase onto the bed and started throwing in his clothing.
Anna had told Tom all that had occurred from the shower to his sudden fluency in French. As soon as she had finished, he started to pack. As quickly as he tossed things into the suitcase, Anna pulled them out.
“We can’t leave, Tom. Not now Not yet.”
“Yeah? Just watch us,” Tom crumpled up the shirt he had worn on the flight over and stuffed it into the side pocket of the suitcase. Anna removed it and folded it neatly.
“Okay, fine!” Tom pushed the suitcase off of the bed. “You’re right. Fuck the clothes. . .let’s just go.”
“It’s too late to run,” Anna said.
“Bullshit, Anna. If we’re breathing it ain’t too late.”
“Okay, you go,” Anna said, clutching her hands together so hard that they hurt. “I think he, or it, really just wants me anyway. I think you should go home. You’ll be safer there.”
“Oh, shut up,” Tom said. “You know that if you stay . . . I stay.”
Anna silently breathed a sigh of relief and relaxed her grip. “If you think that’s best.”
“What I think is best is that we get our red, white and blue butts home on the next plane out of here.”
“It won’t do any good, you know it won’t. That’s why we came here, because of all of things that were happening back home.”
“But why you? Why us?”
Anna had no answer to that question. Was it the music boxes? Was it something else? “I don’t know.”
Tom sat down on a chair. He looked directly at Anna and tried reason in place of rant.
“Anna, baby, think about what just happened to you. Look at your hands. Look at your head.”
“My head?” Anna was aware of having a splitting headache, but she didn’t realize that it showed on the outside.
“Take a look.”
From a couple feet away, Anna looked in the mirror on the dresser. She quickly moved right up against it for a second, much closer look. She touched the small dark blue bruise that had appeared in the very middle of her forehead. It was in the same spot where she had run into the man next to room 531. It was also a perfect match for the bruises down her body, which had appeared the night she had purchased the music boxes.
When Anna touched the new bruise the pain shot to the back of her head and down her spine. When she pulled her hand away the pain returned to its previous level.
“See what I mean,” Tom continued. “Anna, when I opened the door, something threw you across the room.”
Anna thought about what Tom just said, and about the fact that he was probably right . . . they should leave and never look back.
“I’ll tell you what,” she said. “Later on this morning we’ll go see the exporter. If we can’t find out any more, then maybe we’ll just go home. Deal?”
“For real deal?” Tom asked.
“For real deal.”
Anna and Tom shook hands. A “for real deal” between the two couldn’t be backed out of no matter what. Anna had invented the technique as a way of locking Tom into his promises.
* * *
Neither Tom nor Anna slept again that night. They walked along the banks of the Seine from Musee D’Orsay to Notre Dame as the sun rose.
With daylight came hope. The sun faded their fears, and by the time they returned to the hotel for breakfast, they were ready to continue the investigation. Anna was filled with anticipation. Tom, on the other hand wanted to get on with it, and get out.
“Remember our for real deal,” he said about an hour later as they got into a cab for the short drive to the exporter’s office.
Anna nodded and sat down on the cab’s very hot back seat .
“Ouch,” she complained as the heated plastic covering clung to her bottom and legs. But, in fact she didn’t mind at all. Again, normal, everyday pain was something that she almost welcomed. It felt regular and real.
* * *
“378 Avenue de Italie, s’il vous plait,” Anna gave the driver their destination.
“Excusez-moi?” the driver said without looking back at his passengers.
“Avenue de Italia?” Anna tried to sound French. “Do you know Avenue de Italia?”
“Avenue de Italia, ah, Oui.”
“378 Avenue de Italia?”
“3? 7? 8?” The driver shook his head.
“Trois,” Anna counted silently to herself in French, using her fingers as assistant translators. She remembered learning to count to ten back in elementary school. “Trois, sept, huit.”
“Trois, sept, huit?”
“Oui, Trois, sept, huit.”
“Trois sept huit,” the driver shrugged his shoulders, laughed loudly, and pulled out into traffic without looking in his rearview mirrors.
Unbeknownst to Anna or Tom, the Avenue de Italia was only about 15 blocks to the left of the hotel. The driver turned right.
The heat, even in the early morning was sweltering, but Paris was magnificent. Anna and Tom sat back and watched.
The cab passed the golden dome and flower filled gardens of the Hotel National de Invalides. The driver, suddenly a tour guide, explained in French something about Napoleon the 1st’s tomb. He introduced himself as Claude, drove to the Eiffel Tower and stopped. He was very expressive in his description, even though his passengers had no idea what he was saying. In fact, he was so expressive, that Anna suspected he might be calling them every name in the French book of insults under the guise of describing the historic tower. It really didn’t matter to Anna. Claude was having fun and she was enjoying the views.
Claude gunned his engine and darted over a bridge, across the Seine and down a tree-lined lane. In no time they were at the Arch de Triumph. The cab looped around it three times before heading up the Champs Elysees. Anna remembered her dream about Tony, but fortunately there wasn’t a CB on an OR with regular mustard in sight.
When the cab reached the Place de la Concorde at the other end of the Champs Elise, Claude described the square by saying the word “guillotine,” chopping at his neck and making gagging sounds. Tom and Anna laughed. She noticed by his reflection in the rear view mirror that Claude was smiling too.
Imagine your head falling into a basket, Anna stopped laughing.
While holding hands with Tom, Anna looked out the window as they sped across the Ru De Rivoli, past the Jardin des Tuileries. Anna suddenly saw herself walking amid the fountains and flowers, and taking a pony ride. She shook away the childhood memories that were not her own. Still, at the same time, Anna,
couldn’t stop wondering what all of these sites had looked like to Ariene.
She could visualize Model T type cars and horse drawn carriages. She thought of seeing soldiers marching to their deaths in the trenches, and war machines rumbling by the rose filled gardens. She saw men in vested suits, long coats and top hats strolling with women in long dresses with parasols of every color. Anna pictured people she had never seen, but now thought she knew.
Anna leaned her head against the window, but quickly pulled away when a man’s face appeared on the other side of the glass. The man smiled and tipped his hat. He pressed his forehead on the outside of the window in the exact place Anna’s had been on the inside. It left a stain where it touched. Anna could see his breath on the glass.
“Bon jour, Ariene,” the man said.
Anna heard his voice clearly through the glass. His smile became a sneer, then a snarl. His eyes flared red with anger, and then went blank and black. They were empty, without soul or spirit.
Suddenly the man’s face was pushed hard against the glass. Someone was pressing it, trying to smash it into the cab. The man screamed in agony. Anna saw his cheeks, ear and nose get mashed down flat. The skin started to crack and break open with a thousand bleeding wounds. Whoever was pressing the man’s head moved it in small circles so that the blood smeared the glass until it was a solid whirlpool of red.
The window itself seemed to bow inward just before the glass exploded. Anna was instantly covered by a shower of shards of glass and strips of flesh. She screamed and brushed the debris from her lap. Anna looked at Tom for help. Tom just sat there calmly looking out at the Louvre Museum with its hideous glass pyramid blocking the view of its architectural splendor.
“Tom!” she yelled, knocking bits of bone and scalp from her clothing. “Don’t you see it?”
“Of course I see it,” Tom looked at the steel and glass structure, which cut the lines of the Louvre in half. “Ugly, huh? What the hell were they thinking?”
Anna looked back at her lap, which was now completely free of glass and gore. Her window was also intact, almost. A small crack ran along the side from the top to the bottom. A crack that Anna knew had not been there before. She quickly looked away.
“378 Avenue de Italia,” Anna said again. She no longer tried to sound friendly.
“Oui, oui, oui. Avenue de Italia,” Claude pointed straight ahead as he drove back over the Seine. “Avenue de Italia.”
Obviously annoyed at his passenger’s audacity, Claude kept mumbling in French and gesturing to emphasize whatever point he was making about tourists. Apparently distracted by his own gesticulations Claude inadvertently drove directly by the entrance to the Hotel Baronette. He continued on in the opposite direction from the one he had taken earlier, many, many meter clicks ago.
In a few minutes he turned down the Avenue de Italia. In a dozen or so blocks, the very essence of Paris had changed. Instead of grand old buildings and history at every turn, this street was lined with modern office buildings and stores. This was business Paris . . . and, as with most city’s, it’s appearance was business as usual.
There wasn’t much time to compare architecture. Claude pulled up in front of a large warehouse and slammed on his breaks. “378 Avenue de Italia,” he snapped.
Anna paid him far more than his attitude or their destination warranted. Money was not her primary concern at the moment. Besides, she had enjoyed at least part of the tour.
Each dollar improved the driver’s demeanor. “Thank you very much,” he said in perfect English. “I hope you enjoy your visit to France.”
Tom was about to say something, but Anna held up her hand and said, “Don’t.”
Claude pulled the cab away from the curb and waved. At least Anna thought it was a wave.
* * *
Monsieur LaRoche was expecting them when they walked into his office. Anna had called him from the plane when they were flying over. At first he had refused her request for a meeting, but it is difficult to say no to someone who is 37,000 feet over the Atlantic and on their way.
“I have to admire your persistence, if not your common sense,” Monsieur LaRoche said as soon as Anna and Tom appeared in his office doorway. He completed writing a note on a pad next to his phone while raising and extending his free hand. “I have some good news for you, I think.”
“That is something we could really use,” Tom said.
“Please have a seat.” Monsieur LaRoche directed Anna and Tom to two chairs in front of his desk. He sat back down in his seat and looked at them for the first time. For several seconds, he placed his hands together at his chin as if he were praying. He stared at his visitors, apparently trying to decide whether to deliver the good news he had promised them.
Perhaps it was the look of pure desperation on Anna’s face, but for whatever reason he chose to continue. “After you phoned yesterday, I contacted my client.”
“The grand niece of Ariene?” Anna’s eyes opened wide.
“Oui,” Monsieur LaRoche paused again, obviously uncomfortable with what he was about to say.
“Please,” Anna said softly. “Go on.”
“My client’s name is Madame Isabelle Lapautre. She was very concerned about your decision to pursue the history of the music boxes. In fact, she called it foolhardy and dangerous.”
“Why dangerous?” Tom asked.
“She did not offer, and I did not ask.” Monsieur LaRoche was obviously interested in speaking with Anna only. He found Tom to be a nuisance. “She only said that it would be very wise if you abandoned your plan.”
The disappointment showed on Anna’s face. “I can’t do that.”
“She thought that might be your decision. So, in light of your insistence and your arrival in Paris, she has agreed to give you an audience.”
“Like the Pope?” Tom asked.
Monsieur LaRoche gave him a look that caused Anna to say, “Shh, Tom. Be quiet.”
Anna turned to Monsieur LaRoche. “Will she tell us the whole story?’
“What she chooses to tell or not tell . . . that is up to her. But, I don’t think you will be disappointed.”
“Thank you.”
“In French, sil vous plait. You are after all in France, no?” Monsieur LaRoche lectured.
“Merci.”
“Much better.”
“When can we meet with Madam Lapautre?”
“I have arranged everything. You will meet with her at 11 o’clock this morning.” He looked at his watch. “Which gives you almost two hours.”
“That’s wonderful,” Anna said. “Tha. . .merci. Merci beaucoup.”
Tom sighed, knowing that his real deal with Anna about returning home was now officially dead.
“Madame Lapautre’s home is perhaps three kilometers from here.” Monsieur LaRoche handed Anna one of his business cards. Under his name he had written the niece’s name and her address, 15 Rue Desera. “I suggest that you take a cab.”
Anna and Tom laughed. “I think we’ll walk,” Anna said. “We don’t want to be late.”
“Or broke,” Tom added.
Monsieur LaRoche ushered Anna and Tom out of his office and walked them to the warehouse door. “I wish you luck and good health. Au revoir.”
* * *
When Anna and Tom stepped out on the Avenue de Italia, the sun seemed unusually bright and the heat was shimmering in the air.
“Nice day for a walk, huh?” Tom said.
“Yeah,” Anna said. “Let’s go.”
Anna led the way in the direction given by Monsieur LaRoche. She knew how to get to the home of Madam Lapautre. She only wished she knew what she’d discover when she got there.
Chapter 18
Anna and Tom arrived at 15 Rue Desera very sweaty and a little early. The journey which began as a happy stroll through Parisian streets quickly grew into a major pain in the ass. The pain grew much worse with each degree the temperature rose through the 80’s. By the time Anna and Tom stood in front
of the Cafe, across from the number 15, both of their faces were bright red and their clothing clung to their bodies like wet tissue paper.
As Anna peeled her blouse away from her chest she smiled at the memory of her grandmother telling her that “Ladies don’t sweat, they glisten.” She wiped her brow and then shook the drops of sweat from her fingers.
“Grandma,” she whispered. “If this is glistening, then I ain’t never glistened so much in my whole damn life.”
“What,” Tom was glistening up a storm himself.
“Nothing,” Anna said. “What time is it?”
Tom’s watch had taken a sweaty slide to the side of his wrist. He twisted it back in place. “About a quarter to.”
“Drink?” Anna pointed to the cafe.
“And a dip in the bathroom sink.”
While Anna found a table in the shade of a tree, Tom excused himself. “I’m going to go wash up a little,” he smelled his shirt. “Maybe a lot.”
“Good idea.” Anna sniffed the air. “Very good idea,” she said, collapsing on one of the green wooden chairs that crowded the sidewalk. Anna watched as Tom walked into the cafe and down the stairs to the men’s room.
After ordering two bottles of sparkling water, Anna sat back and watched the people walking by and the others who had also decided to take a break from the heat by resting in the cafe. She looked at the faces of old travelers and young lovers. There were people smiling, laughing and talking. There were others who sat in silence, staring away and dreaming of another time. Anna found herself wondering what life stories these people could tell, and how each of them would die. She wanted to know what these people were thinking right now, and what their last thought would be.
Anna watched a young couple walk by. The woman brushed her hand against the front of the man’s pants, as if by accident. She did it again, and then again . . . smiling all the while. Anna’s eyes followed them down the street, and she imagined what their love making would be like.
When her gaze shifted back to the cafe, Anna was startled to see a man standing at the far end of the row of small tables. He just stood completely still, staring directly at her. Anna looked away for a moment, but when she looked back he was still there, watching. But, now he was one table closer.
The Haunting of Anna McAlister Page 13
