Paris Love Match

by Nigel Blackwell

  The water’s cold was numbing. The pain in his leg and chest grew into a fire that threatened to overwhelm him. He gasped and kicked with his good leg. His face dipped under the water. He thrashed with his hands, pulling himself just far enough out of the water to snatch a breath.

  The current was pulling him along, away from Kuznik and his knife. But, as he looked up, he realized his was heading out of the protection of the bridge. In a moment, he’d be visible above the water.

  And Brunwald’s men wouldn’t let him drift away alive.

  Chapter 31

  Sidney twisted the key in the ignition. The engine churned and churned before it caught. She held the key in the start position and the motor squealed in protest, jolting her into releasing the key.

  She put her foot on the accelerator and the engine screamed. She kept her foot down, but the car still didn’t move. The man outside held his gun on her and stepped backward. She gave him an unsure grin.

  “Put in in gear, for Christ’s sake,” said a voice behind her.

  She whipped around to see Little’s face looking up at her from underneath the rear seat. “Shit! What are you doing here?”

  “Dying, if you don’t put it in gear!”

  She grabbed the transmission lever and rocked it back and forth.

  “Put your foot on the brake.”

  She stamped on the brake and the lever bumped backward. A small display said, “Drive,” so she took her foot off the brake and stamped on the accelerator.

  The car lurched forward, wheels spinning. She jerked the steering wheel as the car leapt for the end of the road. The tires squealed as she struggled to take the corner and ride up the slope to the main road. Above her she glimpsed a large flash of yellow and behind her she heard a terrific crash. She turned and saw a giant, yellow dumpster crushing the front of Brunwald’s Mercedes.

  Little pointed forward. “Look, look, look!”

  In front of her, traffic raced by on the main road.

  Little jerked himself up between the front seats. “Slow down. You’ll bloody kill us.”

  She stamped on the brake. The Citroën nose-dived and juddered to a stop, launching Little face-first into the center console. He yelped and wrenched himself back, blood running from his nose. “What are you doing?”

  “Driving! What the bloody hell does it look like?”

  In the distance, police sirens sounded. With a crack, the Citroën’s rear window exploded and she saw a man with a gun running up the ramp to the main road. She grabbed the gear lever, wrestled it into reverse, and stamped on the accelerator.

  “Non, non, non,” Little screamed.

  Sidney twisted the steering wheel and the car weaved toward the man. She saw the look on his face change to horror. He jumped, but the rear of the Citroën hit him and he crashed, face-first, onto the trunk. She stamped on the brakes. He tumbled off and rolled back down the slope to Petit Quai.

  Little thumped her shoulder. “Go, go, bloody go!”

  Sidney didn’t move; she was still staring at the man rolling down the road. Little reached over the seats, shoved the gear lever into drive and twisted her shoulders forward. It took a moment for her to realize he was pressing on her knee, forcing it down on the accelerator. The engine roared and the car shot forward.

  Pedestrians leapt aside, and traffic on the embankment road loomed again. Sidney covered her face with her hands, and felt Little shoving past her. She peered between her fingers and saw Little twisting the steering wheel away from a red car right in front of them. She stopped pressing on the accelerator and grabbed the wheel. “Let me!”

  “About bloody time,” Little said.

  The Citroën leaned drunkenly and its tires squealed.

  Little screamed “paintwork,” but the side of a minivan directly in front of her held her full attention. A deep crash of heavy objects was followed by the long screech of ripping metal. She braced herself against the steering wheel, but Little flew forward, over the front seats, landing head-first in the passenger footwell.

  The engine’s roar died and the car bounced diagonally away from the minivan and into the oncoming traffic. Sidney screamed and twisted the wheel, attempting to perform a U-turn in the middle of the traffic while tires screeched and horns blared all around them.

  Little righted himself in the passenger seat. “What the hell are you doing? This is my car!”

  “Shut the fuck up. I’m driving.”

  “Driving?!”

  Police sirens closed in on them. Cars weaved around Sidney’s slow progress across the width of the road.

  Little pushed on the steering wheel to turn faster. “Come on, come on.”

  “Get off! I’m doing fine,” Sidney said.

  “Fine? You’ve bloody wrecked my car, and if you don’t go faster we’re going to be arrested.”

  “For what? This is your car.”

  “Are you on something? You’re forgetting the bullet holes, the cars you’ve run into and the dumpster your boyfriend dropped on Brunwald and his apes back there. Oh, and you ran someone over for good measure.”

  She bumped over the curb and floored the accelerator. “You think they’re going to come after us?”

  “They’re police, for god’s sake, that’s what they do—mind, mind, mind.”

  She looked in the direction Little was staring and saw another yellow dumpster flying through the air. “Wow.”

  “We have to be in front of it before it blocks the intersection. Go, go, go,” he said as he pushed on the steering wheel.

  “Get off!”

  “Faster!”

  “It’s coming toward us.”

  “Faaasterrrr!”

  Sidney pushed the accelerator down hard. The engine note changed, the gearbox dropped down, the car leaned back on its suspension, and they lunged forward. As they raced across the intersection, Sidney kept watch on the giant yellow dumpster and Little tried to steer them around the car in front. They clipped its rear corner, and the Citroën bounced, while the car in front veered into rapidly-braking oncoming traffic.

  Behind them, Sidney caught a glimpse of yellow, dust, and debris. She felt the force of the dumpster smashing down in the middle of the intersection. It bounced once, a solid, crushing force that dug into the tarmac. Cars screeched to a halt all around it, blocking the intersection in all directions. “That could have killed us!”

  “Tell that to your boyfriend.”

  “He’s not my—where is Piers?”

  “In the Seine, if he’s lucky. Take the next left, Pont Saint-Michael.”

  Sidney kept a vice-like grip on the steering wheel. The turning was close—so close that she turned the wheel sharply. The tires squealed. So did Little. The car leaned over so far she thought it would topple, and she raced across oncoming traffic, thumped the curb, and mounted an empty patch of sidewalk.

  “Stop!” Little said. “Stoooppp!”

  She trod hard on the brake and the car slewed sideways to a halt, rocking back and forth on its suspension.

  Little panted. “Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit! Sh—”

  “What?”

  “Shit! Are you stupid? You bloody near killed us! This isn’t Starksy and bloody Hutch.”

  “What do you expect? I can’t drive. No one said I would have to drive. I didn’t ask to drive. I’ve never driven anything before. I was expecting someone to be there to pick me up. You know, like a proper handover?”

  “Can’t drive? And you tell me now? After you’ve wrecked my pride a joy?”

  “Like I said, no one asked me. If you’d asked me, I would have—”

  “You weren’t exactly easy to get hold of, you know?”

  A car they had cut off drove past, its horn blaring and the driver shaking his fist at them. Sidney made a face back at the man.

  Little stretched. “Besides, I risked my life by staying squashed up under that seat for the past several hours, just so I could help you get free.” He gestured to his car. “And this is the th
anks I get?”

  Sidney gave him brief apologetic smile. “Sorry.”

  Little’s glower softened slightly.

  “Thanks.” She gave him a big smile and wrapped her arms around him. He patted her shoulders before sliding his hands around her.

  “Okay,” she said.

  “Yeah.” He patted her shoulders one more time. “Come on, we need to find lover boy.”

  They got out of the car. Back along the embankment, she could see lines of stationary cars, honking their displeasure at the congestion. Two giant cranes loomed over the quay, their cables drifting down to the yellow dumpsters.

  Sidney laughed. “Look what he did.”

  Little raised his eyebrows. “Oh, yeah. Laugh a minute. Bloody near killed us.”

  “But he didn’t.”

  Little huffed and walked toward the middle of the bridge.

  Blue flashing lights surrounded Petit Quai. Handcuffed men were being forced into the back of an armored police van. On the bridge, police were attending to a man on the ledge where Piers had stood. She strained to see.

  Little produced a small pair of binoculars. “It’s not him. One of Brunwald’s. The big guy. He looks in a bad way.”

  Sidney took the binoculars and scanned the scene. “Kuznik. Couldn’t have happened to a nicer person.”

  “You know him?”

  “A bastard,” she said. “Where’s Piers?”

  Little pointed at the Seine. “Down there somewhere.”

  Sidney screwed up her face. “You’re serious?”

  Little rolled his eyes. “I told you. He’s in the Seine.”

  “In?”

  Little leaned over the wall at the edge of the bridge. “In.”

  Sidney stared at the murky water. “Why’s he in there?”

  “Because Brunwald would have killed him if he’d been any closer.”

  “Is he going to be okay?”

  Little looked back down into the water. “Only if he gets here in the next couple of minutes.”

  Chapter 32

  Piers drifted, carried by the Seine’s flow. The edge of the bridge was no more than ten feet away. Another five seconds and he’d be exposed to Brunwald’s men, a proverbial sitting duck, bobbing on the water.

  He took deep, rapid breaths and dived down, swimming hard for the bottom. He scooped water with his hands, fighting his buoyancy. The cut on his chest burned, and his injured leg begged him to stop.

  He sensed his surroundings brighten and knew he’d emerged from the shelter of the bridge. He opened his eyes for a second. The water stung, but, to his relief, all he saw was the Seine’s dirty green color. If he couldn’t see Brunwald’s men on the bridge, they couldn’t see him either.

  He kicked with his good leg and renewed his struggle to keep underwater. His desire to breathe added to the pain in his chest. His arms ached and his strokes slowed. The pain in his injured leg made it useless, and he thrashed his good leg to keep himself down.

  His strokes faltered. His arms trembled as if he was about to lose control. His body screamed for air and rest, but he gave one last effort, down, forward, and away from the bridge.

  He curled his head onto his chest. It took every ounce of effort to stop his nose breathing in the Seine. His lungs begged him to open his mouth. His throat closed up. He had to breathe. He had to surface.

  He headed upward, flailing his arms and kicking with his good leg. He thrust his head up and back, desperate. The air hit his face. His mouth burst open, spluttering and coughing. His lungs pumped his chest, sucking oxygen in a frenzy. He choked and rubbed his eyes as he whipped around to look for Brunwald’s men. He breathed a sigh of relief when he saw Pont au Double was farther than he’d expected.

  He forced a big draft of air into his lungs, ready to dive again, and then realized blue lights were flashing on the bridge. Large had done his job; the police would handle Brunwald and his men. He let out his breath and treaded water with his good leg, letting the current carry him. His lungs burned and his ribs felt as if they’d been stretched two sizes. His biceps and shoulders felt heavy and weak.

  He’d escaped Brunwald’s grasp, but had Sidney made it? She had driven away in the Citroën, and Little should have been able to direct her to the second bridge. But had they made it before the second dumpster came down?

  Piers saw police on the ledge where he had fought Kuznik. They were strapping the giant to a stretcher. He’d been lucky to escape. A second slower and he’d be the one being loaded onto a stretcher, probably for a short trip to the morgue.

  The river carried him on. Pont Saint-Michel was only a minute away. The bridge was lined with people watching the activity around Notre Dame. He’d intended to use the oxygen to keep submerged and draw less attention, but being seen was a fair exchange for making it out of Kuznik’s grasp alive.

  He kicked for the bridge’s central support, but the arch of the bridge swept darkness over him before he reached it. The water sped up as it squeezed through the narrow part of the bridge. He dug in with cupped hands and fought the flow. The ladder’s iron rungs were his only plan of escape. The proverbial light at the end of the tunnel approached fast.

  The swirling water slowed as it began to open out. Even the overcast daylight was almost blinding as he emerged from the tunnel. He swam hard, but the water swept him away from the rungs and safety. Head down, he scooped water in his hands until he felt the rough burn of a rope flick past his wrist. He grabbed tight, and looked up to see Large’s frame filling the bottom rung, the rope around his arm. Large grinned. “Need a hand?”

  Piers wrapped the rope around his wrist and held on as Large dragged him to the iron ladder. He took the rungs one at a time, not daring to look up. His breath came in deep gasps. He felt the skin on his arms prickle. Would she be there? Had she made it away before Brunwald’s men could give chase? Had the police stopped her? What would she say?

  And would what he say?

  His world had been brighter from the moment she’d jumped into the taxi. She was stunning, for sure, but she was everything he wasn’t, and everything he wished he could be. She was infuriating, yet could bestow joy with a word, or a smile, or the lift of an eyebrow. She could be innocent and wise at the same time. She was cool, fashionable, and fearlessly independent. He sighed, and his imagination slowed its roller coaster ride. Yes, she was independent. She was cool and fashionable and worldly, and … and there went the stake through his heart.

  He was none of those things.

  He wished he were. He wished he had made more of an effort. He wished he could throw off his stupid self. Shed his fears, throw out his inhibitions. Change the day, as Bernard had said. But it was too late now. He’d done his best to save her, and now there was no reason for her to associate with him any more. He spat out the taste of the Seine, and before he realized it, he was at the top of the ladder.

  Hands grabbed at him. Little slid his arm under Piers’ and pulled, but Large did all the work. Piers grunted against the pain in his leg and chest, staggered over the wall, and collapsed to his knees on the sidewalk. Pedestrians detoured around them, staring. He lifted his head and rotated his shoulders to ease the pain in his chest.

  And saw her.

  Her eyes were wide and her hair stuck out at angles that would have impressed a punk rocker, but her thousand-watt smile had found one more watt. A tear rolled down her cheek. Her lower lip trembled. She brushed her jumbled hair back over one ear. “Damn you,” she mumbled, “Damn you, damn you, damn you, damn you.”

  She dropped to her knees and threw her arms around his shoulders. “I thought they’d gotten you, or that you’d drowned, or that … You took so long, I thought they’d killed you. I thought you, you, you … I thought I wouldn’t see you again.”

  He squeezed her tight and buried his face in the curve of her neck. She cried, and sniffed, and thumped her hands on his back. The pain in his chest screamed but he paid it no attention. He felt like he would melt in the warmth of
her embrace.

  Her tears slowed and she pulled her head back to look at him. She sniffed and laughed. “Bloody dumpsters.” She wiped her nose on the back of her hand and stood up. “Bloody dumpsters.” Her smile evaporated. “Bloody dumpsters!”

  Her eyebrows hunched together and her pupils narrowed. She swept her hand around fast, slapping him hard on the cheek. “Are you mad? Do you know what you did? You could have bloody killed me! Killed me! Crushed me with a bloody great dumpster on my head! What a stupid, idiotic, thick-headed . . .” She bit her lip and sniffed. “. . . Brilliant, wonderful, fabulous—”

  She cupped her hands around his face and wiped his lips with her thumbs. “Damn you.” She leaned down and kissed him, long and hard, full on the lips. She sunk to her knees and wrapped her arms around his neck. “Damn you, James Bond.” He slid his hands around her back, crossing them over and hugging her with all that remained of his might.

  He heard clapping, cheering, and catcalls from passersby. He didn’t care; as she helped him to his feet, a smiled stretched his mouth wide and wasn’t about to quit.

  His shirt flapped open and blood ran down his front. Her finger traced the slash across his chest. He put his hand on hers. “It’ll be okay.”

  She nodded doubtfully.

  Large bustled the group across the road to watch armed police officers swarming around Notre Dame. Brunwald was freed from the battered Mercedes. He pushed and shoved the officers. They pushed back. He swung a wild, looping right hook at one man, who caught Brunwald’s arm, twisted it behind his back and threw him onto the ground. Several officers piled onto his arms and legs as he thrashed in vain. A few moments later, they had his hands and feet cuffed and threw him into an armored police vehicle, which departed with an escort of sirens and flashing lights.