Exposure

by Alan Russell

  “She cut her hair,” he said. “All those beautiful locks—poof—gone.”

  “She’s already arrived then?”

  “Almost two hours ago. I wouldn’t have recognized her if I hadn’t known what to look for. She was wearing a very unflattering business suit. No makeup. Hat and glasses. She was hiding her beautiful body.”

  He made it sound as if she were guilty of a serious crime.

  “What kind of car is she driving?”

  “A tan Peugeot. She already went out for a drive.”

  “Where did she go?”

  “Nowhere. She seemed to be consulting a sheet of directions, but she never stopped the car. She drove almost to the Seine, and then drove back.”

  Graham thought about that. “No sightseeing?”

  Rousseau shook his head.

  “Do you think she made your tail?”

  Rousseau looked offended. “No.”

  “No stops?”

  “Only one. She pulled over to the side of the road, checked the street sign to make sure of where she was, but she never got out of the car. After that she came back to the hotel.”

  It sounded more like a trial run than a pleasure drive, thought Graham. It was possible she had been scouting out the area.

  “Where did she stop?”

  “On a residential street a few blocks north of Saint-Germain and rue Saint-André-des-Arts.”

  Saints everywhere, thought Graham. Driving the Paris streets, you needed them.

  “It’s a narrow one-way street,” said Rousseau. “Now what is its name?” He thought for a few moments, then came up with it. “La rue de Savoie!” he said triumphantly. “Yes, that is where she stopped.”

  “And then she turned around and came back to the hotel?”

  “Oui. Since then her car has been parked in the garage, and she’s been parked in her room.”

  Graham looked at the hotel. The building was U-shaped. Some of the front-facing rooms had balconies overlooking rue Blaise-Desgoffe, a relatively quiet street, at least by Paris standards. Rousseau’s car was parked across the street from the hotel. It was far enough in the shadows to offer them the obscurity they wanted, but had a vantage point to the hotel’s entrance and garage that they needed.

  “Can you see her room from here?” Graham asked.

  Rousseau shook his head. “She’s in their Grand Suite. Its balcony overlooks the courtyard.”

  “In that case,” said Graham, “I’m going to go play the tourist for a few minutes. Call me on my phone if anything comes up.”

  It was a boutique hotel, intimate and expensive. A bored clerk told Graham they were sold out, but gave him a tariff sheet with a property layout for future reference. Self-tours, Graham knew, were usually best for his purposes. He turned right at the reception desk, then went through a large breakfast room and out into a private courtyard.

  With the hotel diagram in hand, Graham figured out which room was hers. Any questions he might have had about which suite she occupied were answered by a pair of very blue eyes looking down at him from her balcony. Each took in the other before Graham looked away. He wondered if his methodical tracking of her room had given him away. His dark clothing looked acceptably expensive, and he had a talent for being a chameleon and fitting in. Maybe Lady Godiva thought he was just another rich tourist taking in the view. Graham could feel her eyes still on him. He walked around the grass courtyard, paused over some colorful flower beds, and tried to look like someone out for a little stroll. Without looking up at her, he retreated back inside the hotel, then took an elevator down to the garage. There was no attendant there, allowing him easy access to her Peugeot. He reached inside his pocket, pulled out some reflective stickers, and affixed them to the front and rear bumpers of her car. The stickers, what Graham referred to as “cat eyes,” were a poor man’s tracking device. They glowed at night, making it easy to tail a car from a distance.

  Graham rejoined Rousseau at his car. Rousseau was about ten years younger than Graham. The last time they had worked together, Rousseau had whiled away his time by combing his hair and talking about his many girlfriends. He was already working his comb through his long Gallic locks.

  “I am hoping Lady Godiva changes her clothes,” Rousseau said. “Maybe she puts on something sexy for us, yes? It is hot enough that she doesn’t need to wear much.”

  Graham wiped his brow. His shirt was already wet from his short walk through the hotel.

  “Did you see her pictures in Playboy?” asked Rousseau.

  Graham shook his head.

  “It was very sexy. She was on a horse in some of them. Her long hair covered her bosom.”

  “I did see that one,” Graham said. “It ran in Stern and People. She was posed to look like one of those John Collier paintings of Lady Godiva.”

  “Yes. Some of those pictures look like a painting. But others were more—”

  His English seemed to fail him, but not his hands. Rousseau gestured and groped.

  “Graphic?” asked Graham.

  “Yes.” He draped his index and middle finger over his hand. “There was one where she was riding this way on her horse.”

  “Sidesaddle?”

  Rousseau nodded with satisfaction. “The camera was shooting from inside a glass, and she was looking back.”

  “They framed the shot from inside a window?”

  “Exactly. She was leaning back on the horse. This time her hair no interfere with the pictures. Her legs were apart and her hand, it dig into her thigh. She have these long nails, very red. Her breasts were lifting to the sky, her perfect nipples pointed like arrows. I remember the picture so well because it felt like I was spying on her while she was having this sexy daydream. I feel naughty, yes? Like I was seeing something risqué. Like I was a voyeur.”

  “A Peeping Tom,” Graham said.

  “That’s right.”

  “They set up the shot to make you feel that way,” said Graham. “When Lady Godiva took her famous ride, the townspeople of Coventry all agreed they wouldn’t watch as she passed by. But supposedly there was one fellow, a tailor named Tom, who violated their agreement by peeping at her through an open shutter. Peeping Tom paid for his lecherous ways.”

  “What happened to him?”

  “One version of the story is that he was struck blind; the other is that he died.”

  “Maybe I close my eyes if I see her without clothes,” Rousseau said.

  “I doubt it.”

  Rousseau laughed. “You are right. Any man with blood in his veins would look at her. I do not blame that Tom. If his Lady Godiva was like this one, how could he not look?”

  For some reason, Graham found himself annoyed. “She didn’t take her ride because she was some kind of exhibitionist. Lady Godiva accepted the challenge to get some tax relief for the people of Coventry. The townsfolk showed their respect for what she was doing by turning their backs on the exhibition. All except Tom, that is.”

  Rousseau answered Graham’s story of the past with an all too present inquiry: “So now you are trying to be like this Peeping Tom, yes?”

  Maybe that’s what was bothering him. He was Peeping Tom, but worse. At least Tom had a prurient interest. Graham was just out for the almighty dollar. There was this feeling that he, like Tom, was targeting something that should have been left alone. In way of answer, Graham shrugged.

  “I hope you are not blinded,” said Rousseau. “What is it the English say? Tom paid the piper.”

  Graham shook his head. “No. He paid the peeper.”

  The hours passed slowly. Every hour Graham did a surreptitious check of her room, then returned to Rousseau’s car. He came back from his latest surveillance, paused at the open driver’s window, and shook his head. The men had grown increasingly silent around each other. Rousseau was even tired of talking about
women.

  “It is past eleven,” Rousseau said. “She is not coming out tonight.”

  “Possibly.”

  “Were there lights on in her room?”

  “No.”

  “We are wasting our time.”

  “We’ll see.”

  Rousseau tapped his watch, his finger spanking the crystal. “She is in her bed. She is asleep.”

  “Maybe she’s taking a nap.”

  “I have to go.”

  “I want you here until at least one o’clock. You know how things are. One moment everything’s quiet, and the next it’s crazy.”

  “There is a woman—”

  Graham interrupted. “What’s a few more hours?”

  “It is silly to wait. I am hungry for more than a candy bar. And it will be nice to pee in the toilet instead of a soda can.”

  He reached for Graham’s pack and extended it out through the open window. “Call me if you need me. I can be back in fifteen minutes.”

  Graham didn’t take his bag. “Screw that. You took this job—”

  “And I worked all morning and evening, and I will be ready to work again when you need me, but now I am leaving.”

  Rousseau shook Graham’s pack. His cameras were in there, dammit. Reluctantly, Graham snatched the bag. The Renault’s engine turned over. “Au revoir,” Rousseau said.

  Graham pointedly spat on the ground. He would have preferred to offer a salty editorial, but he didn’t want to draw attention to himself. It wasn’t the first time someone had bailed on him. People didn’t realize how tough stakeouts were. It was hard, mind-numbing work that defined monotony. Graham could almost sympathize with the Frenchman. Almost. It would be all too easy to call it a night like he had, but Graham often succeeded where others failed because he steeled himself to be patient. Still, it wasn’t easy watching doors that never opened and windows that remained dark.

  Graham threw his pack over his shoulder, then set off at a quick jog up the street. He was a naturally fast runner, his speed more a result of genetics than any workout regimen. Over the years, he had managed to get shots his colleagues missed just because of his speed. His car was parked a block away. Rousseau’s surveillance spot of the hotel was too good to give up, and Graham needed to reclaim it while he could. Even that late at night, parking spots didn’t last in Paris. He jumped into the Citroën and was able to park in the same spot again.

  He adjusted the driver’s seat, trying to find a comfortable reclining position. Killing time, Graham thought. He understood prisoners when they said there was nothing more difficult than killing time. The foot traffic around the hotel was slow. He liked it when guests showed themselves; it gave him something to do. Graham studied the faces of all the guests coming and going from the hotel. He used his small Zeiss binoculars, scouting for a familiar face. Mostly what he saw were chatting couples. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary.

  Almost all of the garage traffic was incoming, cars returning from an evening out, but at a quarter to midnight he saw lights emerging from the gloom of the garage. He also saw that the car had a glowing bumper.

  Graham’s pulse started racing. The hunt was on. Maybe the Lady was just going out for a drink or an ice cream, but it was possible she was going to rendezvous with the mystery man. He started the Citroën but didn’t turn on its headlights. He stayed slouched down in the seat, waiting for her to drive by. As she passed, he snuck a look to confirm she was the driver. Lady Godiva, he saw, was out for a ride.

  After pulling out of the space, he made no effort to close the gap between them. The reflective sticker allowed him to stay well back. He debated about calling Rousseau. Graham was quite familiar with Paris, so navigating the city wouldn’t be the problem, but he could use a second set of eyes and wheels. He pulled his phone from his pocket, hesitated a moment, then put it back, deciding to wait and see what developed.

  She drove along rue de Rennes, turning on rue de Vaugirard and traveling along the perimeter of Luxembourg Gardens. Someone had told Graham that in Hemingway’s destitute days he used to catch pigeons in those gardens and make a meal out of them. The Lady headed south on rue de Médicis, then turned right on boulevard Saint-Michel. The more she drove, the more it appeared she was lost.

  Then, without even the warning of brake lights, she turned on rue Michelet. As he approached, Graham watched her make a U-turn, ending up with a view of all cars continuing down Saint-Michel.

  Graham cursed, unsure of what to do. He didn’t look at her as he passed, even averted his head slightly. Turning on rue Michelet would have put him directly in her sight. And he couldn’t duplicate her U-turn without all but announcing that he was following her.

  There really was no choice. He continued down Saint-Michel, keeping his attention on the rearview mirror. He saw Lady Godiva reversing her route. Graham turned on rue Pierre Nicole, then sped up Henri-Barbusse. It was clear now that Lady Godiva had been cautious, not lost. Her route had been designed to lose any potential tails. Graham wondered if she had picked up on his car. That’s why you always needed at least two vehicles working a tail operation. Fuck Rousseau, he thought.

  In Graham’s gut, he knew she was meeting with her mystery man. There was no other reason for her to be so cautious. Graham’s adrenaline was pumping. He wanted to push hard on the accelerator, but a car barreling up on her bumper would only bring him to her attention. His only chance was to get ahead of her.

  He took a chance on where she was going, pushing the Citroën through the Paris streets. It responded ably, if not spectacularly. His hand-eye-foot coordination was pressed into service as he navigated through Left Bank pedestrian and car traffic.

  Earlier in the day she had driven to a residential street, but for no apparent purpose. It was somewhere north of boulevard Saint-Germain. What was the name of the street? Graham worked his mind as feverishly as he did the accelerator. Rousseau had struggled to come up with the name. It was a side street off rue Saint-André-des-Arts. Graham’s mind was working in two languages. A red light slowed him for an instant but didn’t stop him. He pushed through.

  The car’s clock told him that it was five minutes until midnight. Her rendezvous would be at midnight, he was sure of it. That would be when his Citroën would turn into a pumpkin unless he remembered the name of that goddamn street.

  Rousseau. Of course. That bastard knew. As Graham pulled his cell phone from his pocket, he hit a pothole about as big as the Grand Canyon. The jolt sent him upward; his head bounced into the ceiling. As he grabbed at the steering wheel, his phone flew down between his feet.

  The jostling served one good purpose: it cleared his head. La rue de Savoie, he remembered.

  He barreled down the tree-lined boulevard Saint-Germain, hoping Lady Godiva was somewhere behind him. Then he made a turn and got on rue Saint-André-des-Arts. The Citroën didn’t have GPS. He thought about using the program in his cell phone but didn’t have time to call up the app. He debated on where to turn, driving from instinct. Rousseau had said it was north of rue Saint-André. Graham made some turns and lucked onto Savoie.

  It was a short, one-way street. He traveled it from one end to the other and saw no sign of her Peugeot. But one car did catch his attention. Someone was sitting in the driver’s seat of a rather conspicuous Porsche 911 Carrera S.

  Graham turned the corner and parked on rue Séguier. He grabbed his camera and tried to sneak up on the Porsche, using parked cars and building stoops as cover. A car door opened just as Graham hunkered behind a bumper four car lengths away from the Porsche. He heard footsteps, and tensed. Graham lowered his head, looking between the tires for approaching feet. The footfalls continued, but not in his direction. This wasn’t someone used to waiting. The driver of the Porsche had grown impatient and was out pacing.

  Graham snuck a look. Just his luck. The Porsche was parked as far away from the streetlight as p
ossible. Graham was afforded little more than a moving silhouette. Male, he could see. Medium height. An athlete, Graham immediately decided.

  Like birds of a feather, celebrities and jocks often hung out together. They had their youth, fame, and riches in common. Graham had seen enough professional athletes to recognize them at a glance. They all had a certain walk. It wasn’t a swagger exactly, but more of a coordinated strut. It was the “cock of the walk” way a rooster strolls around a barnyard, or the way the king of beasts regally pads across a savannah. Only professional athletes carry themselves with that absolute confidence. Even though the man was only pacing, Graham was sure of what he was in the signature way he carried himself.

  Car lights approached. The man turned his face, looking out from an angle. It was a good way to obscure his features. That’s what people with very identifiable faces did. He needn’t have worried. It was her Peugeot.

  There wasn’t a space open for her to park. She edged into a partial space, leaving the back half of her car jutting out into the street. He walked across to her. Graham raised his camera, then lowered it, knowing the shots wouldn’t come out. At best he’d have a back in shadow. He would have to bide his time.

  The man leaned his head into the car. It appeared they had a long and tender kiss. Then they started talking, keeping their voices low. Graham could only make out every third word or so. The man’s accent was French.

  “. . . worried . . . late,” he said.

  Her garbled reply, “. . . might . . . following.”

  “Haven’t seen . . .”

  “Probably . . . jumpy.”

  They stopped talking. Graham didn’t think they were kissing, but he couldn’t be sure. He wished he were carrying a parabolic listening device.

  “Sure . . . shock . . .” she said.

  “. . . unexpected.”

  “That’s . . . face-to-face . . . not . . . worry.”