Exposure

by Alan Russell

“. . . not fair . . . responsibility.”

  Both of them, Graham decided, were sounding too virtuous. Hearing only snippets was frustrating. It was like listening to a foreign language and only being able to make out a word here and there.

  “. . . your sake, as . . . foundation,” she said. “. . . appearance . . . tainted money.”

  “Not . . . fair . . . you.”

  “Not me . . . want . . . normal life . . . chance.”

  A nearby door opened. Their talk stopped. The clicking of nails, followed by footsteps, announced a nocturnal dog walk. They only resumed their conversation when the dog walker was out of earshot, but now their conversation was more of a whisper than anything else. For Graham, their buzzing was like having to listen to mosquitoes humming around his ears. Without making a sound, he moved closer to them.

  Graham raised his head, looking through the back window of the car at his targets. His light and vantage point were much improved. He ducked back down and turned off his camera’s flash and autofocus. To even hope for a visible shot, he would have to get creative with the aperture, maxing out the available light. But shooting through the car windows would only blur the already obscured. Graham decided to shoot over the hood. He raised his head again, then followed with the camera, pressing the shutter several times. The response between clicks was so slow it almost sounded like time-lapse photography. And even if the pictures came out, he still had little more than the back of the man’s neck.

  Who was he? Graham tried to think of French and Belgian athletes. He had lived away from the United States long enough to know the sporting world didn’t begin and end with baseball, football, and basketball. The French athletes made their mark in such sports as skiing, tennis, bicycling, and automobile racing. There were household sporting names known throughout Europe that few Americans had ever heard of.

  Of course, Graham could be wrong about the man being a professional athlete. He was assuming a lot based on the way he walked.

  Another set of headlights approached. The lighting could help him get a shot. But as the car neared, the man made sure his head was ducked out of sight.

  “Afraid . . . followed,” the Lady said.

  “Didn’t . . . suspicious,” he said.

  A light came on in an apartment behind Graham. He turned and saw an older man looking down to the street. Graham wasn’t sure if he or the couple was the object of his scrutiny. He drew closer to the side of the car, hoping he was indistinguishable from its shadow.

  “Thought . . . private,” he said.

  “Men . . . hotel,” said the Lady. “Can’t go there.”

  Dammit, thought Graham. She had made them.

  “Know . . . perfect . . . adventure?”

  “Great!”

  “. . . caves . . . like . . . need . . . light . . . very dark.”

  The man ran back to the Porsche, opened the driver’s side door, and retrieved something. As he hurried back to her car, Graham raised his camera and focused on him. When he opened the passenger door he was illuminated for a moment. Graham hoped for the best, snapping two pictures. If he was lucky, the lens caught the same thing his naked eye saw: the man flashing a smile at Lady Godiva just as the light cut out.

  His teeth were the giveaway. Could it be?

  Graham was already up and walking. When they noticed him, he hoped they would assume he had just emerged from one of the buildings. He was glad they were taking her car. There was no hope the Citroën could keep up with his Porsche, but with the cat eyes he might be able to keep the Peugeot in sight. He wanted to run to his car, but that would be too obvious. Graham covered the ground with long, purposeful strides. Behind him he could hear her car approaching. The camera was tucked inside a pack. Having it strapped around his neck would have been like carrying a neon sign advertising his profession.

  From what he could observe, they didn’t pay him any mind. When they turned the corner, he started to sprint. There was reason to run. He couldn’t be sure any of the photos had turned out, and big game shots like this didn’t come around often.

  It was no wonder the man was so shy of being seen. Georges “Le Croc” LeMoine was a national icon and an international soccer star. His teeth carried more wattage than Tom Cruise’s choppers. They, and the way he chewed up the opposition, had earned him his nickname. In most of the world, soccer is king, and Le Croc was king of that world. He certainly had more endorsements than any other athlete. His face was omnipresent, featured on commercials, billboards, and posters. There was a “Le Croc” clothing and athletic shoe line. He was that rarefied sports icon like Michael Jordan or Tiger Woods, making more money off the field than on it.

  Le Croc was the toast of France, and Paris in particular. He was a hometown boy, his legend beginning in the City of Lights. France was pinning its World Cup hopes on him.

  Graham reached his car, jumped inside, and floored it. The Peugeot was already out of sight. He hoped they hadn’t turned on to some other street already. Where the hell were they going? The two of them had talked about finding privacy, and he had said something about an adventure. The Lady had seemed to like that idea. She might be a do-gooder, but that didn’t mean she spent her time going to teas and knitting doilies. Rock climbing and spelunking, Graham remembered, were favorite hobbies of hers.

  Without slowing the car, he feverishly swiveled his head at every cross street, looking for any sign of them. He was pushing the Citroën hard, had it up to 130 kilometers an hour. Shit. He couldn’t let them get away now. Catching the two of them together in a picture would be gold. From their conversation, it sounded as if Lady Godiva was taking the high road in their relationship, doing everything possible to keep it private. She obviously knew about Le Croc’s engagement to supermodel Tatiana. Everyone in the world did. They had very publicly set their wedding date, which promised to be the social engagement of the year, for after next year’s World Cup. Le Croc had wanted to be able to focus on the Cup without any distractions.

  You play, thought Graham, and you pay. Lady Godiva would be a front page distraction if Graham could get the shot of them together.

  He sped through an intersection and suddenly braked. There, off to the right. Was that the telltale glow of his cat eyes? Graham couldn’t be sure. He was already well past the turn. To backtrack would take too long.

  He punched the Citroën into reverse, raising smoke. Traffic was light, but not that light. Headlights were coming up behind him. He floored it backward in a race against the speed of light. Horns were blaring in his ear as he made the turn. Now he had to find that elusive glow. He hoped he wasn’t following a will-o’-the-wisp.

  Le Croc would know his Paris, but where the hell was he going? He had said something about a light and gone to his car. Why would he need a light? And where was this private place?

  Where could two celebrities disappear? Graham drove along streets that were more residential than commercial. Maybe Le Croc was going to a trusted friend’s home. Graham’s head was in constant motion searching for the car. He was already second-guessing himself, afraid his eyes had played tricks on him. It was possible he had seen some other reflection. The neighborhood didn’t look promising. It was as unassuming as Paris could be, not touristy by any means.

  There was no sign of the car. Graham kept pushing the Citroën. He was lost now; every street he passed was another that the Peugeot could have turned on. He followed la place de Rungis and felt defeated by the maze. Then in the distance he saw the glint, and as he neared, the cat eyes were like a nugget of gold shining out from a covering of mud.

  The unoccupied Peugeot was parked on the side of the road. Graham slowed down and looked around. The area wasn’t well lit. The darkness could be hiding them anywhere: in one of the houses; behind a fence; nestled in the grassy lot. Just as Graham was thinking how easy it would be for them to stay hidden from him, their path became apparent. />
  Their flashlight stood out in the darkness. He could see it bobbing maybe a hundred yards off. Instead of running after them, Graham took a moment to think. It was possible they could miss him, or find a way to elude him. If that happened, he needed to slow them down.

  Graham backed up, putting distance between his car and the Peugot. He parked in the weeds and brush, exited his vehicle, and then took a moment to pick up some sticks and stones. Then he ran over to the Peugeot, hunched over the left front tire, jammed a stick in the air valve, and wedged it with a pebble. To be safe, he did the same thing to the back tire. As he hurried off, he could hear the hissing behind him. It sounded as if he had stirred up a den of serpents.

  He left the road behind him and followed a path that took him by several old storage buildings. The only light was from a shop with a white neon light blinking VTT CENTER. Aside from that, everything appeared abandoned. As Graham went forward it grew increasingly dark. Where were they? He continued in the direction they’d been heading and crossed some railroad tracks that looked long unused. La petite ceinture, Graham thought. It was an ancient railway that surrounded Paris and was no longer in operation.

  Graham caught sight of their light, or more of a glow really. It was only there for a second or two, reminding him of a scuba diver’s light fading into the depths. The reason for that soon became clear. They had entered a tunnel. Graham hesitated outside its entrance, momentarily put off by the darkness. The tunnel was long abandoned, framed with signs warning of its dangers and threatening prosecution of trespassers. Walking in blind wasn’t a heartening prospect. There could be open pits and broken glass and countless other hazards. Graham decided his best bet was shuffling forward along the rusty, though intact, metal rails.

  One step, and then another. He couldn’t let them get too far ahead, but hurrying was out of the question. The darkness slowed him down, as did the slippery way. The old stones were weeping overhead and the water kept dripping on Graham’s head. It was hard to tell how far he went—time seemed to slow in the dark tunnel—but he was glad to see a light at the end of it.

  The tunnel opened to a residential area, with high, unattractive apartment buildings visible on both sides. It wasn’t the kind of spot you would find on any Paris postcard. Graham looked around for the telltale flashlight, but didn’t see it. There was no easy exit from the old railroad tracks, so he assumed his prey had continued forward. Ahead he could see another tunnel and quickly crossed the open space to it.

  The second tunnel was shorter; he could easily see to the other side. Graham traveled around fifty yards, and came to another opening. Greenery and trees hung over and around the tunnel, encroaching on the rails and blocking much of the sky. From appearances, he looked to have surfaced in the middle of an urban park.

  The light he was looking for was far enough away that it appeared to be little more than a flickering match. He hurried forward to the third tunnel and didn’t even hesitate before entering. Perhaps he should have. It was far longer than its two predecessors. The light in the opening behind him quickly dimmed, leaving him to trudge forward in blackness. The only illumination was the far-off flashlight. At least they weren’t near enough that he needed to worry about them hearing his pursuit. There were spots in the third tunnel where it almost felt as if it were raining, the water insistently dripping. The drip, drip, drip echoing made him edgy; it was easy to see how water torture worked. There was the smell of mushrooms, decay, and abandonment.

  He counted off steps in his mind. It was better than whistling in the dark, and it gave him a reference for how far the tunnel went. He had traveled four hundred twenty-three steps, and closed the distance on the flashlight, when he noticed the light’s advance slowing. The beam started alternating between the rails and the left wall of the tunnel. It appeared as if Le Croc was looking for something. His search lasted for a minute or two, long enough for Graham to draw close enough to hear them. The two of them had left the rails and were standing on the left side of the tunnel.

  “You first,” Le Croc said, shining his light down.

  She followed the direction of the light and seemed to disappear. Then it was Le Croc’s turn to do the disappearing act. In their wake was a short-lived glow, almost like the bioluminescence of a firefly.

  Graham turned on his phone’s flashlight app and then took off after his prey. He hurried through the tunnel, turning off his light at its end. Fifty yards ahead of him he could see Lady Godwin holding a flashlight while Le Croc worked on pushing aside a heavy metal grating. Then the two of them began their descent down through the hole. Graham waited for them to get ahead. A minute later he reached the opening where the couple had disappeared and held his light over it. The hole was narrow but appeared manageable, with stone rungs leading down. Still, it would be a tight squeeze. It was one thing following them through the tunnels, but another to go down some hole. Graham was glad there was no sign announcing, Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.

  He could go back and wait for them near their car, do a photographic ambush. If they were wary, though, they could cover up. He still didn’t have his money shot, the picture of the two of them together. And beyond that, there was the secret between them. He had heard it in their voices. There was a story here beyond their stealth romance.

  Graham took a deep breath, as if he were breaching the water instead of the ground, and then descended into the darkness of the underground. He crawled along to his right until he could stand up and then stopped to listen. He thought he could make out footsteps, but the acoustics of the passage made it impossible to determine where the noises were coming from. Graham turned his light in one direction and then the other, seeing narrow corridors in both directions.

  The grip of claustrophobia tightened around Graham’s throat. His feet didn’t want to move. Something felt wrong. It was like being entombed. That was it. This wasn’t any storm drain, he realized. The structure was old, very old. The obvious struck him: he was in the catacombs. The real Paris underground.

  Graham knew something of the history of the catacombs. Centuries back, extensive mining had taken place underneath Paris, with hundreds of miles of tunnels quarried for their stone, gypsum, and clay. The underground started to be referred to as the catacombs after millions of skeletons were transferred out of Paris cemeteries and moved by night into the quarries. Between six and seven million skeletons were given new resting spots in the tunnels.

  The hundreds of miles of corridors still existed. Tourists could avail themselves of an “official” tour of a sanctioned portion of the catacombs. A friend of Graham’s had told of descending down a long spiral staircase, then walking through a tunnel whose walls were lined with bones and skulls. He had said that “souvenirs” were discouraged, and that packs and purses were checked by guards to make sure no bones were purloined.

  It wasn’t the usual place, Graham thought, to bring a date. But then again, it was easy enough to go incognito among the dead.

  Why would Le Croc take her down here? They could have more easily talked just by parking at some deserted spot. But this place was apparently familiar to Le Croc from his days as a Parisian youth. He was showing his old haunt to her. Adventure, he had said. She had probably told him about her cave explorations. Graham guessed it was their shared derring-do that had brought them together in the first place.

  Pick a way, Graham thought. He started walking. The low passageway forced Graham to hunch over. His shirt was already wet with sweat. He breathed mostly through his mouth, not liking the stuffy smell of the tunnel. Graham’s light illuminated cornerstones with street names and dates, some dating back more than a century, but what he didn’t see was his quarry.

  There was no shortage of graffiti on the walls. The writings were time capsules of sorts, going back many years and inked in many tongues. Graham was surprised at how many paintings were on the walls. But then again, this was Paris. Some appeared to b
e true works of art.

  Graham came to a stop, thinking he heard sounds ahead. Not voices, not exactly, but something. It would have been easy to believe it was the moaning of ghosts. He felt along the walls and suddenly encountered nothing. Graham brought the light up and saw that he had come to a side tunnel. Which way had they gone? He stood at the crossroads listening, and then continued forward.

  His calves and shoulders already ached from having to amble along like a gorilla, and some hard encounters with the ceiling had him fearing for his scalp. He felt all turned around, like Alice down the rabbit hole. His light revealed some official-looking German writing on the walls that dated back to World War II. The Nazis had evidently been down there before him. Graham knew they hadn’t been alone in the underworld. His father had told him the French Resistance made good use of the catacombs, operating out of sight of their occupiers.

  Graham continued forward. The cross draft on his face coincided with his groping hands encountering open space on both sides of him. It was hard to tell if he was standing at the crossroads of another tunnel or just a side gallery. Graham stood listening and staring around him. The noises were still coming from ahead. He pressed forward, wondering about what he was hearing. It sounded like music. Could Le Croc have brought a radio? The tunnels twisted sounds, swallowing some, echoing others.

  The darkness was breached for a moment by a flash of light. His targets had to be near. Graham turned off his light and tried to move forward silently. Better a few more scrapes on his body than alerting them. As he closed in, the music became clearer. It was a techno beat, the same kind of music that had plagued him the night before. For a moment, it looked as if a lantern flashed on, but then the light disappeared.

  Graham sniffed the air. There was an acrid, familiar smell, the heavy smoke of marijuana. Had they gone down below to smoke grass?

  He turned the corner. Off to the side was another gallery. At first glance, Graham thought that glowing eyes were staring at him, but then he realized he was seeing the light of candles—candles angled through the eye sockets of skulls. Someone was inhaling on a joint, and Graham watched the cigarette flare red.