What She Saw

by Gerard Stembridge

  “There is something else . . . remember I lost my purse, so I have no—”

  “Do not worry about that. We will pay, of course. You are our important guest.”

  He speaks quickly and quietly to Pauline, who nods and skips across the road.

  “She is going to the apartment to find Odette. I hope she is there.”

  “Why haven’t you phoned her?”

  “We agree before, she will phone me. If I phone her, it might be the wrong time. It might make trouble. Please tell me, Lana. I am a little worried. When you went up to the suite, did you see her? What was happening?”

  Lana doesn’t know if she can trust him enough to tell him what she saw.

  EVERY SECOND STEP WAS A DAGGER, A RED-HOT NEEDLE. FERDIE TRIED pressing his weight on the heel of the injured foot, which was a little less painful, but made it harder to keep up with Bellhop and Caramel Girl, whose long, infuriatingly languid strides were taking them farther and farther away. The pursuit was becoming hopeless until they veered toward an entrance to the Palais Royal metro station and pranced down the steps. Might be bad, might be good: it would be harder for Ferdie to avoid being noticed in an enclosed lit space, but there was at least the possibility of enjoying some rest on a metro journey while tracking the pair to their destination. Of course he had no ticket and the bureau was closed and the machine would take too long, but—a little luck at last—an emerging passenger gave Ferdie a chance to hop through before the exit door swung shut.

  No sign of them in the empty tunnel. Palais Royal had two lines, so four platforms. He went to the nearest: Line 7, direction Mairie d’Ivry, and immediately spotted Bellhop on the opposite platform, direction Villejuif, jigging a little impatiently. Why was Caramel Girl no longer with him? Ferdie dragged himself up the steps, trying to decide if he should keep looking for her and risk losing both. Reluctantly he decided to stick with Bellhop. There was only so much he could do with this fucking foot and already he was near the limit. He hobbled across and down, then lurked at the platform entrance out of Bellhop’s sight. When the train came the last car would stop just a few agonizing steps away. Boarding unnoticed wouldn’t be a problem, but monitoring where Bellhop got off and tracking him without being caught mightn’t be so easy.

  Ferdie had a clear run to the almost-empty last carriage so, as soon as Bellhop got on, he hopped on the good foot, pulled himself in, and fell onto the nearest seat. He stretched the injured foot, taking the weight off. Heavenly relief. Closing his eyes he imagined Caramel Girl massaging the foot gently, whispering, “Tell me where it hurts, my angel.” All too soon the train stopped. Ferdie dragged himself up on his good foot, stretched out a hand, and released the doors. He peeked out with extreme caution. No sign of Bellhop departing. Ferdie sat back again. He repeated the procedure at every stop until, at Crimée, Bellhop appeared on the platform, walking toward him. Ferdie quickly sat and leaned forward, elbow on knee, hand on forehead, shielding his face. The warning horn for doors closing had already started as Bellhop passed. Ferdie had to tumble out so fast his injured foot landed agonizingly on the platform and he fell to his knees. Bellhop was already disappearing into the tunnel. Ferdie scrambled up. If he could keep him in sight until he reached the street he might not have to follow much farther. It would be enough to see him enter a building somewhere and get the address. Then Ferdie could grab a taxi to the nearest emergency room. What he really wanted was to wake up in his bed and discover that all this had been a nightmare.

  Instead, he had to continue pounding along several tunnels and up an out-of-order escalator. Bellhop seemed to be moving even faster now. What the fuck was the kid’s hurry? Ferdie thought, knowing he wasn’t hurrying at all, just gliding with long, easy strides, while he winced, felt tears, and smothered squeals, only a stumble away from total collapse.

  Which, at the top of the steps, right under the MÉTROPOLITAIN sign, he did. Face forward. He heard himself let loose one pathetic dog whine before blacking out.

  Then, after how long he had no idea, Ferdie felt himself being turned over. He blinked. Caramel Girl’s eyes had never looked more liquid, tender, sympathetic. She had returned. What miracle had brought her back? He blinked a few times, focusing more clearly. The eyes, still golden, so caring, still gazed down at him, but somehow her hair didn’t seem . . . what was wrong? And the mouth . . . Christ! Why had he never noticed the resemblance before? Of course he had never seen Caramel Girl and Bellhop together and certainly he had never, ever looked into Bellhop’s eyes the same way. He hadn’t looked into his eyes at all. He was, as far as Ferdie was concerned, just a young Arab on the make, whereas Caramel Girl . . . Were they twins? Looking at the boy now there was no doubt he and she were family. Which meant Bellhop had pimped out his sister or his cousin.

  “I will help you to my building. It’s just around the corner.”

  Ferdie was not dreaming this, even though it sounded too friendly to be true. When he attempted to answer he was surprised at the croak that had replaced his normal voice.

  “Thank you. Help me up.”

  “Let me call the ambulance first.”

  Bellhop spoke quickly and quietly on his mobile so Ferdie couldn’t catch what address he gave. No matter, he would soon be there. Bellhop offered him his good arm.

  “It’s nice I get to repay your kindness so quickly.”

  Ferdie detected no sarcasm in his tone. He grabbed Bellhop by the hand and elbow and, putting all his weight on the good foot, forced himself up. Bellhop held him as they lurched across the road, and left onto rue de Crimée. He stopped outside number 187 and punched a code to open a gray door riddled with graffiti. The lobby was tiny and cold. He didn’t bother turning on the light. He sat Ferdie on tiled stairs.

  “There’s no elevator and I’m on the fifth floor. The ambulance will be here soon. Do you agree it would be crazy to go all the way up to my apartment just to come all the way down again?”

  Ferdie nodded. He had the address and now knew what floor. This information would be a nice meaty bone to toss in Vallette’s direction. There was no added advantage in seeing inside what Ferdie guessed would be a smelly little fifteen-square-meter attic studio.

  “If you need some kind of painkiller I can run up and find something for you.”

  “No, it’s okay.”

  Bellhop sat next to him on the steps. Ferdie found it impossible now to look at those eyes in close-up without seeing Caramel Girl. It was a bit too freaky.

  “So why were you following me?”

  He said it so casually, without any trace of anger or threat, that it completely threw Ferdie. In the darkness his eyes glowed bright with what seemed nothing more than curiosity, but of course that was entirely misleading. How long had Bellhop known he was being pursued and why had he dragged him all the way to his building? Ferdie could hear how fake and hollow the denial sounded.

  “Following you? No. We must have just ended up on the same train and then . . . hey . . . got off at the same stop . . .”

  Bellhop’s smile told him he would have to do a lot better. And now the wildest thought crossed his mind. Had the boy really phoned for an ambulance or was it a fake call, or—Jesus!—a coded call to someone else now on their way here? Ferdie could hardly stand up without help, and even this skinny-ass would have no trouble preventing his escape. Did he have a weapon? It had never occurred to Ferdie that tracking Bellhop might put himself in danger.

  “It must have been very important to you, you know with your foot so bad. Do you want me to look at it for you?”

  The offer was so soft-voiced it sounded sinister.

  “No! No! Okay, sure, I was following you.” Ferdie often kept trouble away by mixing dollops of truth with vital soupçons of deceit and misdirection. Now he realized this was how he should have handled the situation from the beginning.

  “Okay, let me explain. A lot of stuff has happened tonight and none of it good for me, I can tell you. Worse than this, believe me.” He gestured t
oward his foot. “That American lady—she did this to me by the way and it seems like that isn’t all—she’s put me in big fucking trouble with my boss. I could lose my job . . .”

  The whine in Ferdie’s head was getting louder fast. It was real: a distant siren. Bellhop had called an ambulance after all. Of course he had. Look at the kid. Maybe he really was an innocent, even if his sister, cousin, whatever Caramel Girl was, was not. No, that made no sense. It was obvious both of them were involved. Marcel had ended up unconscious in the Suite Imperial. That had to be Bellhop. For now all that mattered was to get away safely in that ambulance. “You took so much trouble to help her outside the hotel, it occurred to me that you or your . . . girl might know something about what she’s up to.”

  “It was nothing. She was nice to me earlier. A big tip.” Bellhop sounded casually sincere. “And I don’t think she meant you any harm. But you know Americans, they like to stick their noses in.” He glanced down at the foot. “How did she do this?”

  “A pointy heel.”

  Bellhop grimaced. The siren was very near now. He stood and stepped quickly to open the door. Flashing red and blue lights tracked along the building across the street. Bellhop stepped out and waved. The ambulance came into sight and pulled up. It was going to be fine. He would escape and get this fucking foot seen to at last. With Bellhop’s help, how about that?

  Ferdie did feel a little guilty that he’d be handing him to Vallette in the morning.

  MIDNIGHT

  The sauce is so wine-dark it looks black, the meat falls to pieces on her tongue, the shallots are sweetly unctuous and make her head swoon. Lana cannot recall ever enjoying beef bourguignon so much. Hunger retreats and the crimson ambience of Bistro Le Tambour soothes her battered brain. A discreet rumble of voices to her left and right envelops her in a dream of normality, almost resembling the kind of Parisian evening she had, just a couple of innocent hours ago, expected to enjoy. The medication seems to be kicking in, too, allowing her to slow a little after the rather insane sequence of events that had brought her here. Guillaume and Pauline sip coffee, grin, and encourage her every mouthful as if she were a five-year-old with behavioral problems. Disconcertingly, their conversational duets, which sound quietly intense and full of portent in French, turn out to be entirely banal when relayed to her in English.

  “Pauline says bon ap’. She is happy that you are enjoying your plate. She says it is her special skill to know what is the perfect food for the perfect moment. Pauline says you are lucky because her ah . . . metabolism—same word, yes?—will not allow her to eat such food at this late hour.”

  And on and on in that vein, Guillaume praising everything about Pauline to the extent that Lana doubts his sincerity just a little. But soothed and sated, she’s inclined to be generous. Perhaps they are covering up the depth of their concern for Odette, who hadn’t returned to the apartment and still hasn’t made contact. She files the young man’s gush under immaturity and the woman’s narcissism under charming naïveté. And to be fair she’s a hell of a driver. Is it such a rare or even a bad thing: two young people under the illusion that their relationship is the axis on which the world turns? And they had just saved her life. Hadn’t they? They had, hadn’t they? What had happened exactly? Her decision to run away from Fichet—or Vallette, if Guillaume is correct—hadn’t been a decision in any proper sense, more like a fight-or-flight thing propelled by a melodramatic warning from a young man she liked and trusted. The most important question on Lana’s mind is, does someone very powerful have her in his crosshairs? The way Guillaume had kept referring to the naked guy by last name only, Fournier, like he presumed Lana already knew him, suggested he was famous or, more likely, notorious. Who was he? Now seems as good a time as any to hear the worst.

  “So, tell me, who is Fournier?”

  “I am sorry?”

  “You keep saying this name, Fournier. Who do you mean?”

  For the tiniest moment Lana thinks she sees something disturb Guillaume’s happy clown face. A ripple across the surface that’s not quite anger, more like a suspicion she might be toying with him. The shadow of a fast-scudding cloud, it passes quickly and the face is all sunshine and quirky delight again.

  “You are not going to say now that you did not see Fournier?”

  “I told you I saw a naked guy on the seventh floor of Le Chevalier, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “And he was, well . . . manhandling the young woman I saw in the bar. Your friend Odette, right? Okay. But you keep saying the name Fournier, and what I’m trying to explain to you is that I don’t know that’s who it was.”

  “But you saw his face?”

  “Yes.”

  “So, you mean you cannot be certain it was him?”

  “Oh Jesus, Guillaume! What is so hard about this? I don’t know anyone called Fournier. It’s like, I don’t know . . . okay, do you know who Kelsey Grammer is?”

  “Sure. He’s the guy, Frasier.”

  “Right, bad example. I was trying to think of . . . You see, I’m from a place called Seattle.”

  “Yes, I know this place.”

  “Okay, so I was trying to think of someone famous from Seattle that you’ve never heard of—”

  “And Kelsey Grammer is from Seattle?”

  “No, ah, sorry, no, actually, the character Frasier was, but—oh look, forget that. Just wipe that. Let’s say, ah . . . does Stone Gossard mean anything to you?”

  He gives it a lot of thought, like there’s a cash prize on the line. Jesus! Lana really wishes she hadn’t taken the conversation in this direction and when Guillaume starts discussing Stone Gossard with Pauline, she interrupts quickly.

  “Anyway, listen, the point is that you haven’t heard of him, whereas, to me, a Seattle girl, he’s totally part of my growing up, right?”

  They both nod, but it’s not certain they’ve got the point at all.

  “Likewise this guy Fournier seems to be famous to you, but I don’t know who he is, or what he is, or what he looks like. The name Fournier means nothing to me.”

  Guillaume looks genuinely blindsided. He rabbits at Pauline and of course she does some more eye-popping and mouth-O’ing.

  “So, I am sorry if we are idiots, Lana. What you are saying? You have never heard of Jean-Luc Fournier?”

  “Exactly. Never. Should I have?”

  “Ah, of course. A good question.” Now for some reason Guillaume looks more delighted than ever, a child getting a surprise gift. “Now I see. It is the French attitude, of course. Ha, ha! We think if someone is famous throughout France then of course the whole world will know also. Please forgive me.”

  “No, really, absolutely not. I’m sure I should know who he is.”

  “No, please, Lana—”

  “Think of me as just another one of those American tourist types who never know stuff—”

  “No, no, not at all, but you see, just now he makes such controversy, so significant. Everywhere people talk, talk, talk about Jean-Luc Fournier. Everyone has an opinion about him—”

  “Guillaume . . . Guillaume . . .”

  “Yes?”

  “Please tell me who he is?”

  “Of course, yes. Well, you know in two months is the election for president of France?”

  “I . . . yes, I did hear something about it, but to be honest, I haven’t really been paying much attention.”

  “Jean-Luc Fournier is a candidate. Right now, he is the favorite to win.”

  IN THE AMBULANCE THE PARAMEDICS HAD CAREFULLY REMOVED HIS SHOE and sock. “Got some swelling there, pal.” They gave him a couple of painkillers and began to dab at the foot with damp antiseptic-smelling cloths. Apart from inevitable stings this felt pleasantly cool. Then one of them cheerily pronounced, “Looking a bit ugly, but don’t worry, you’ll live.” Ferdie looked down. The swelling had already given the instep the look of a pig’s trotter, and the purple stain appeared to be a splat of spilt ink.

  But by t
he time they rolled him into the emergency room, he was in the best mood he’d been in since those tingling moments earlier tonight, walking with Caramel Girl from the bar to the elevator and up to the Suite Imperial. While waiting his turn, Ferdie became slowly aware of an unusual process at work in his brain. Was it because the situation itself was so strange? He had not been in the hospital since he was a child. Even lying still, but awake like this, was unusual. Ferdie led a busy life, so when he went to bed it was either alone at a late hour, exhausted, and so he tended to fall asleep within a minute, or—by no means as often as he’d like—with a woman, in which case lying still was not what was required. Ferdie had never been subject to late-night terrors, and generally did not toss and turn, his mind dancing between this and that. Through the day he followed a clear, simple path, made any decisions he had to make quickly and easily, from what to eat to who he liked or disliked. Mostly he did as he was asked by whoever was paying and he rarely dwelt on the meaning or consequences of his actions. So when the night came, so did sleep. Easily.

  But right now, sleep was not an option. The doctor might appear in five minutes or it might be hours. He was not in unbearable pain, but a steady throb or pulse, as if someone had captured his foot and was squeezing it gently but pointedly, prevented any drift into unconsciousness.

  Ferdie was not a person to fret over how long it would be before help arrived. Hanging around was a big part of his job; he was used to it. Whether he sat calmly in the car or stood outside having a smoke, he enjoyed letting thoughts just drift in and out of his mind: always the same easy stuff. None of that was happening now. Sure, his brain had had a lot to cope with, but even the kind of thoughts he frequently enjoyed that were relevant to the events of the evening—such as his hatred of Vallette along with pleasing fantasies of the pain and degradation Ferdie might inflict on him—were not present. No, instead his mind returned again and again, unbidden but irresistibly, to Caramel Girl and Bellhop. Not individually, but as a pair. A very beautiful pair. Part of a family. How had he not seen it? They looked much more like each other than he and his brother or either of his two sisters did. And yet . . . Every so often he asked himself why he was thinking about them, but his attempts to shift attention to other subjects failed and the brother and sister loomed again and again. He decided that apart from the faces they were not alike at all, actually, unless they had deliberately presented a misleading impression of themselves. Obviously the girl had been playing a role, but even so, something about her playing of that role felt authentic; her brusque, incommunicative manner rang true, even if the details of her story turned out to be bullshit. And the boy’s easy charm, his smile, his apparent desire to please equally felt like the real essence of him. He had to have known that Ferdie was following him and surely understood very well that this was not a friendly act. He could have left Ferdie lying on the street. Instead he shouldered him to his home, more or less, had called for an ambulance, and even offered to accompany him to the hospital. If Caramel Girl had her brother’s personality, Ferdie could imagine really falling for her.