The Wife of Riley

by A W Hartoin

  “We’ll put it on your account,” said Madam Ziegler.

  “I don’t have an account,” I said.

  “But of course you do.”

  “I do?”

  “Madam Millicent uses it for your purchases.”

  One of the guys pushed in a cart loaded with curling irons and whatnot. He grabbed a large drawing pad and began sketching. It was me. Sort of. Me if I were six feet tall and a hundred pounds.

  “What purchases?”

  “Your Valentino suit, for instance. Lovely pieces. You look well in it?” asked Madam Ziegler.

  “Oh, yeah. It’s gorgeous.”

  “Then we shall begin.”

  And they did begin. No amount of protesting did any good. I don’t think I even got to finish a sentence. They talked over me and under me and all around. Surprisingly, Frederic thought my hair was perfect and didn’t rewash it. He did lacquer it and put it in an updo that took two people to accomplish.

  I had to try on bras, skirts, pants, boots, and sunglasses. Pretty much everything you could imagine. I didn’t pick out one damn thing. Not one. I bought six outfits with all the fixings. I didn’t ask the price. Some things are better unknown. Besides, I had two kidneys. What were the chances that I’d need both? I’d heard there was a market.

  This was all done in an hour and they left as quickly as they came, leaving me not with a bill but with strict orders to call a certain tailor who would come and alter everything in an afternoon. I thought it all fit perfectly. The look on Madam Ziegler’s face said I was very wrong.

  Monsieur Barre kissed my hand, said it was a pleasure watching my transformation, and asked for the pleasure of burning my lone red flat. I gave it to him and he left, holding it at arm’s length and leaving the faint scent of pipe tobacco in the air.

  Aaron wandered in and I twirled. “What do you think?”

  “Huh?”

  “I got new clothes and hair and makeup. It all probably cost more than Dad’s car, but I’m not going to think about that.”

  “You hungry?”

  “We didn’t eat, did we? I forgot. No time now. I have to go to Patrick Roger.” I made a face and then realized, for once, I looked the part. Maybe I wouldn’t be invited to leave like I was stinking up the joint. “Go turn off that stove. I’m afraid it’ll burn down the apartment.”

  Aaron obediently went to the kitchen while I tried to think of a way not to bring him in the shop. Aaron hadn’t dried out well and he didn’t look too good to start with. He looked like Aaron and those women at Patrick Roger were guaranteed not to like it. I doubted Aaron would notice the looks and mind, but I would. If those women gave him so much as a slight sneer, I might do another round house kick. Chocolate everywhere.

  We arrived at Patrick Roger on Saint-Germain before five. My heart had taken up residence in my throat. I was certain Chuck wouldn’t be there and I’d already decided to lump it and call Dad. If Chuck was missing, I didn’t care if the whole Fibonacci thing was exposed. I didn’t care if Dad found out that we were investigating The Klinefeld Group in hopes of finding out who murdered Lester and exactly what went on when Dad flew Josiah Bled to Paris. I didn’t care about anything but Chuck.

  The sight of the storefront made me wrinkle my nose. It wasn’t the most welcoming of sights, cool and sophisticated in black and mint green. Mom loved it, but Patrick Roger made me feel less than. I took Aaron’s arm to cross the street, my little black booties clicking on the pavement. The little peplum skirt that Madam Ziegler picked out fluttered against my herringbone stockings and I straightened my snug little jacket and tossed a purple scarf over my shoulder before reaching for the door handle.

  The blonde woman behind the center counter saw me and smiled. Then she saw Aaron. The smile held but just. I checked my phone for the time. Two ’til. I itched to call Dad and unburden myself.

  The attendant asked if she could help us in French, her eyes shifting between us. I started to answer, but Aaron beat me to it, speaking so rapidly I lost interest. Before I knew it, I had a chocolate flavored with lemongrass in my mouth. I’m not sure how that happened. But I can say one thing for sure, it will never happen again. Gag.

  Aaron came at me with a little dark chocolate square. I saw the cracked peppercorn on top a second before it hit my lips. “Is that pepper chocolate?”

  “Szechuan,” he said.

  “That doesn’t make it better.”

  The attendant saw my face and went to gather different chocolates for me to try. She did it with a smile and it was freaking me out. I’d been inside for five minutes and she wasn’t pointing to the door.

  “Why’s she being so nice?” I whispered. “I know Madam Ziegler made me look decent, but you kinda look like you live in a gas station bathroom.”

  “I told her that you’re Nina Symoan,” said Aaron.

  “Nina’s old enough to be my mother.”

  “So?”

  “I don’t know. It seemed kind of important.”

  It wasn’t. The attendant totally thought I was a fifty-year-old rock star wife. I wasn’t sure how to take that. It did keep them from giving us the boot while I waited in vain for Chuck to walk through the doors. We sampled so much I was going to have to buy a pile to satisfy the attendant. I let Aaron choose. He had tastes similar to Madam Ziegler—the more expensive, the better.

  My heart got heavier the more we waited. Fifteen after and no sign of Chuck. I wanted to cry, but I wasn’t sure what would happen to the fancy mascara Frederic slathered on my lashes.

  The attendant started stacking green boxes on the counter. Big boxes.

  “How much chocolate do you think my mother wants?” I asked.

  “Presents,” said Aaron.

  “For who?”

  “Sisters.”

  That took me back. For a second, I forgot about Chuck. Aaron never mentioned his family. He didn’t seem to have one. He spent holidays with us and nobody questioned it. I’d come to think of him as a singular creature who appeared out of nowhere and belonged to no one but us.

  “You have sisters?”

  “Yeah.”

  “How many?”

  “Four.”

  “Holy crap. That’s a lot of sisters.”

  “Yeah.”

  That was all I was going to get on the subject. Aaron majored in one syllable answers.

  I pulled a hundred euros out of Novak’s stash and hoped it was enough. “Here,” I said. “Tell me if you need more. I’ve got to tell Dad about Chuck.”

  Plus, I’m going to cry.

  “I’ll be outside.” I started for the door.

  “Why?” asked Aaron.

  I slapped my forehead. “Pay attention. Chuck’s not here. He’s in the wind. Something’s happened. Since we were chased by a couple of armed suits, I’m guessing it’s not good.”

  “He’s in the back.”

  I froze. “What? Who?”

  Aaron licked a speck of chocolate off his lip. “Chuck.”

  “Chuck’s here? Right now? Here?”

  “Yeah.”

  I punched his shoulder hard enough that he fell against the glass display cabinet and the attendant exclaimed in horror. The thing barely shuddered. Chill, woman.

  “He’s safe and you didn’t tell me. Are you some kind of masochist?” I yelled.

  “Women like Chuck,” said Aaron, completely unperturbed.

  “Really? Ya think?” I grabbed his tee. “I’m going to punch you until you pop.”

  The attendant came around the counter all flustered. “Madam, madam, you will have to leave. You are disturbing the other customers.”

  I turned to her. “Oh, really? We’re the only ones in this snotty joint.”

  “Madam, I insist you leave.”

  I let go of Aaron and spread my arms. “Go ahead. Insist.”

  That stymied her. Apparently, normal people left when she insisted. I wasn’t normal just then and it’s possible I never was.

  I crossed my arm
s. “I’m not leaving until I get what I came for.”

  “And what is that, madam?” she asked, taking out her cellphone.

  “First, I’d like you to take a good look.” My voice went all squeaky. “Do I look fifty?”

  She squinted at me. “You are well-preserved. Americans do not age gracefully.”

  “In my case, I wouldn’t have aged at all. I’m twenty-six. Hello, twenty-six.”

  “I do not believe this to be true.”

  “What the…” I went for her, chasing the woman around the counter. I would’ve caught her, too, but Chuck chose that moment to come out of the back with two French beauties hanging on his arms.

  “Mercy! What the hell are you doing?” he shouted.

  I stopped on a dime and went for him, already in a full-blown ugly cry. I hit his chest so hard, he stumbled backward and barely stayed on his feet.

  “What the hell is wrong with you?”

  “Ithoughtyouweredeadorkidnapped,” I snuffled into his tee. I won’t lie. I was snotty and it was gross, but I didn’t care.

  “What?” he asked, pushing me back. “I can’t understand you.”

  “Your”—I inhaled and my body shook—“phone. I thought you were dead.”

  “What about my phone?”

  I wiped copious amounts of mascara off my cheeks. “You didn’t answer.”

  “Oh shit. I turned it off when I was interviewing and forgot about it.” He accepted some tissues from one of the lovely attendants, who didn’t look all that pleased to see me, and dabbed my cheeks. “Why in the world did you think I was dead? I’m pretty good at not being dead.”

  I blew my nose. “There was an incident.”

  He stiffened. “An incident that made you think I might be dead? What the hell happened?”

  My angry attendant came over, making a shooing gesture. “Madam, monsieur, you must leave.”

  Chuck gave her a look that chilled my blood and it wasn’t even directed at me. “Madam, we’ll leave immediately. Aaron, settle up.”

  He took me to a back corner and asked again what happened. I told him about Novak’s apartment, leaving out the Fibonacci stuff, and said that he’d caught someone trying to get into my phone, my regular phone. A flush colored his cheeks when I told him about the chase, but he was eerily calm.

  “Are you okay?” I asked.

  “We can’t go back to the apartment. If they found you at Novak’s, they know where we’re staying.”

  “We went to Elias’s place.”

  After explaining the apartment, he looked me up and down. “I thought you looked different.”

  “Good different?”

  “Super hot different. You didn’t get any more of those red shoes, did you?” he asked.

  “No, but I can.”

  He scowled and I laughed while hugging him. “Thank god. You’re okay.”

  “I won’t turn off my phone again.”

  “Please don’t. My heart can’t take it.”

  Aaron poked me in the kidney. “Done.”

  My partner had three big bags, full up with boxes. The attendant had gone to help some other customers who’d wandered in. They were Americans dressed in workout gear and tennis shoes. She didn’t approve of them either. I could tell by the set of her spine, ramrod straight.

  “Let’s get out of here,” I said.

  Chuck insisted on going out and checking the street first. It was pointless. The suits could easily hide in the foot traffic. The sidewalks were teaming with Parisians and tourists. Once he decided it was clear, we hoofed it into a cab and went straight back to Elias’s place. The cab dropped us at Notre Dame so we could get lost in the crowd before heading over to the Île Saint-Louis on foot.

  Monsieur Barre took one look at Chuck and his damp, snotty tee before calling Madam Ziegler. Chuck couldn’t talk him out of it. I don’t know how he thought we were going to pay, but that wasn’t his concern. Style was, plain and simple. Madam Ziegler would be on our doorstep first thing in the morning. Monsieur Barre had it arranged before we walked over the threshold.

  Chuck marveled at Elias’s place while I apologized. “I’m sorry about the clothes. I’ll see if I can do some appearances for DBD to pay for them. Mickey wants me back.”

  He shrugged. “Don’t worry about it.”

  “Um…these clothes are bound to be crazy expensive.”

  “I figured.” He went through some of the canvases stacked against the living room wall. “They’re not all by geniuses, are they?”

  I went over to look at a rudimentary nude. The nipples were huge, but not in a Picasso-like way, more like an I-don’t-know-how-to-draw way. “No, they’re not. You understand what I mean by crazy expensive?”

  “Mercy, I’m a single guy that makes decent money and lives in a studio apartment. I can afford it.” He led me into the bathroom. That was way more upsetting than the clothes situation. “There’s no shower. What the fuck is that about?”

  “You can take a bath,” I said, suppressing a smile.

  “I don’t think I can. I’m a guy. It’s against the guy code.”

  “Elias obviously did it.”

  “He threw himself off a bridge. Enough said. What about the other Bled apartments or a hotel, for Christ’s sake?”

  “Absolutely not. This apartment is listed nowhere. You’d have to do some serious rooting around to find out about it. If we go to a hotel, we’ll blow through Novak’s money in three days. This is free.” I left and had him following me room to room, crabbing about the lack of a shower. I peeled off my little jacket and flopped on the bed. It made a tremendous creak and I sunk into a hole. “I think I’m stuck.”

  Chuck leaned on the doorway. “Hotel sounding better?”

  “Fine. Three to a bed.”

  He paled and then pulled me out of the hole. He didn’t pull far enough and I slid right back in. “I admit it. This isn’t ideal.” I clawed my way out and asked, “So you were interviewing when you turned off your phone. What’d you find out?”

  “Nothing,” he said.

  “You turned off your phone for nothing? This day sucks.”

  “In this case, nothing is something. I interviewed three neighbors,” he said.

  I frowned. “Women?”

  “The best kind, beautiful and chatty.”

  “Don’t make me get out of this bed.”

  “I’d love to see you try.” Chuck laughed and then told me that the nothing was quite interesting. According to the beautiful neighbors, the apartment was empty or at least no one had ever been seen going in there. The padlock had been installed more than ten years ago. As far as the ladies knew, it had never been unlocked since. They didn’t know who owned it and the building management was mum. It was the subject of many a Christmas party when the neighbors got together for drinks. The favorite theory was that it belonged to some eccentric billionaire who was so busy traveling the world that he or she had forgotten they owned an apartment worth several million. Angeletta, the most beautiful neighbor, owned the sister apartment and told Chuck that it was quite large with several bedrooms. Hint, hint. I didn’t like Angeletta one bit.

  “So while Aaron and I were being chased through the metro, you were flirting with this ancient woman.”

  “I never said she was ancient,” said Chuck.

  “She’s as old as your great-grandmother and hag-like in my mind. Let’s leave her that way, shall we?”

  “You’re jealous.”

  “You’re a flirt.”

  “It’s what I do and it works. You’ve been known to flirt your way to answers,” he said.

  My nose tipped up. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Okay, sure,” he said with a grin. “Let’s go to dinner.”

  I pointed at the crusty spot between his pronounced pecs. “You can’t wear that.”

  “You got a better idea?”

  “Maybe there’s something in the wardrobe,” I said.

  “You want me
to wear hundred-year-old clothes when you’re rocking the sexy?”

  I rolled my eyes. “Oh, puhlease. Men’s clothes don’t change that much.”

  Chuck opened the tall walnut wardrobe and rooted around, coming out with, you guessed it, a white-collared shirt. “How big was Elias?”

  “Not big.”

  Chuck stripped off his tee and I very nearly gasped. The abs were crazy, and I hadn’t seen them in a while.

  “Have you been working out more?” I asked.

  He shrugged and tried to put on the shirt. Nope. Not going to happen. Chuck couldn’t even get a sleeve on. “Okay, baby. Plan B?”

  “We’ll buy something on the way,” I said, once again trying to escape my bed hole. I think it was getting worse. My rump was touching the floor.

  Chuck reached for me and there was a tremendous bang from somewhere in the apartment. He spun around and ran out, leaving me stranded. “Wait! Help!”

  I clawed my way out, shredding the mattress. “What is it?”

  “It’s fine!” Chuck yelled back.

  “What happened?” I ran into the hall and was hit with a stinky gas smell. “What the hell?” I made it into the kitchen and found that Chuck had ripped a curtain panel off the window and wrapped it around Aaron’s head. There was a cloud of grey soot filling the room and I went into a coughing fit that nearly knocked me to the floor.

  “It’s fine,” said Chuck. “It’s completely fine.”

  I wasn’t able to answer, but I threw open the windows and used a skillet to wave out the smoke. Chuck unwrapped Aaron’s head. His glasses were intact, but his eyebrows were gone. Only red stripes remained where they used to be.

  Once I stopped hacking, I saw the stove still belching out soot. I ran over and started searching for a shutoff valve, finally finding it behind the stove, but it was rusted open. “Chuck!”

  Chuck managed to wrench it closed and the belching stopped.

  “I got the oven working,” said Aaron with a wheeze.

  “You call this working?” I asked.

  “I can make dinner.”

  I grabbed him by the tee and dragged him out into the hall, slamming the door to hold in the stink.