What She Saw

by Gerard Stembridge

  “Someone in the suite has called it.”

  “Exactly! And, well, it arrives and the doors open and . . . there’s really no other way to say this. There seems to be . . . there’s an orgy going on.”

  Nathan starts to laugh.

  “You mean a proper, actual sex orgy.”

  “Yes. Totally. I can see maybe a dozen people, I don’t know, that’s happening further off, inside the suite, but right in front of me, in the elevator lobby, more or less as close as you are to me now, there’s this one naked guy—not young, I mean like, in his sixties—and he’s holding this young woman, and I mean gripping her, and she’s fully dressed and pretty obviously trying to escape, but there’s no way this guy’s letting her go. He’s going to get his way, Nathan, and it’s so shocking and . . . and disgusting that I’m just, you know, the original pillar of salt, I guess. I can’t move. Then the doors started to close again and they both see me—oh yeah, and I have my phone in my hand so I try to grab some shots, but that doesn’t work out and the elevator goes back down. Nothing I can do about it.”

  “Jesus. How long did this last?”

  “The doors were open, maybe eight, ten seconds.”

  He’s silent for quite a while. Then the serious questions begin. And of course he wants to know why she was in the private elevator in the first place.

  “I don’t really know. The bellhop had told me about it earlier, but he wouldn’t say who was staying in the suite. Then later I see this guy going into it, but he has his back to me. And also . . . well, the young woman—the one I saw struggling with the naked old guy?—she’d been sitting next to me in the bar earlier and this little chinless guy came and escorted her to the elevator, which kinda made me really curious. Maybe I let it get a little crazy. Lately . . . my mind, I . . . Lately I’ve been . . .”

  Lana pauses, not comfortable with where this is heading. Nathan waits, saying nothing.

  “The truth is I don’t know if Hopper was the real reason I came to Paris today. I thought that’s what it was, I mean genuinely, but maybe there was something else going on . . . you know, subconsciously.”

  She shrugs and stops speaking. He doesn’t fill the silence. It’s up to her where the conversation goes.

  “Nathan. You haven’t said anything to me about what happened with us. You haven’t even mentioned . . . why I never contacted you after . . . I mean how do you feel about that? Aren’t you . . . I don’t know, are you still angry with me? You’ve got every right to be.”

  Lana is surprised that he replies without any hesitation, as if he’d been waiting for the question: “It was a long time ago. I was angry, sure. I was in a blinding rage, totally livid, and inconsolable actually. For a few weeks, a couple of months maybe. But then . . . What was the point in staying angry? And after a while I was able to tell myself that you must have had your reasons.”

  “But didn’t you—don’t you want to know them?”

  “Now?” He sounds genuinely shocked. Lana immediately guesses that what he would see as such a peculiarly American need to rake over the coals had never crossed his European mind. “No. But I do want to hear more about this evening. It sounds really extraordinary. What happened next?”

  So Lana returns to her story, telling him about escaping back to her room, locking herself in, the knock on the door, the arrival of Inspector Fichet. Nathan does not interrupt until he hears the name.

  “Wait, sorry. This guy called himself Inspector Fichet?”

  “Yes.”

  Nathan grins.

  “Did he show you any identification?”

  “I never asked. Yes, doh! I know.”

  “Inspector Fichet. Very cheeky. Obviously the name didn’t ring any bells for you?”

  Nathan poses the question with such boyish pleasure, such an air of a magician setting up his big reveal, that Lana is quite pleased to get the jump on him.

  “You mean Les Diaboliques?”

  He looks duly surprised.

  “Oh, you did make the connection?”

  “Are you suggesting Lana Turner wouldn’t know about Les Diaboliques?”

  “Well, I suppose—”

  “Silly Americans don’t know their classic French movies, do they?”

  “No, well, no. That wasn’t at all what I was—”

  She is enjoying his chagrin, but decides to let him off the hook.

  “And you’re right. It never occurred to me that the name was a little joke, a famous detective character from a classic thriller. It was explained to me later. But only after Fichet and his friend tried to kidnap me.”

  The punch line has the desired effect. It’s she, Lana, who has produced the big reveal. As she explains what happened, Nathan’s eyes fix on her with an intensity unusual even for him. As she describes Fichet and friend leading her outside, his hand instinctively inches along the back of the couch where hers is resting. Even as he continues to interrupt her with questions, he edges a little closer and, when she tells him about losing her bag in the struggle to clamber into the yellow Renault, he murmurs and touches her cheek. Lana doesn’t dwell too much on Guillaume or Pauline, not even using their names, concentrating instead on the dangers, the near misses, her own internal panic at ruthless men hunting her down. She has no difficulty recalling the terror of it, so when suddenly she draws Nathan to her, the emotion is real. But it’s he who takes the next step, with a kiss, full and heartfelt.

  Lana doesn’t stop him even though she could push him away and cry, “No! This is serious. I’m alone in a foreign city without a passport. My life may be in danger.” But right now she doesn’t care at all. Nathan is clutching her to him, Nathan is unbuttoning her blouse. Nathan is tumbling from the couch, pulling her with him. Nathan is ripping off his shirt and kicking his shoes away. His tongue carries the taste of some childhood treat, his skin an almost-forgotten aroma of something delicious. She feels no pain when her flailing foot bangs the little table and the coffee mugs and biscuits spill across the carpet. They are both naked now, their eyes locked on each other, laughter in their short, frantic breaths, hands seemingly unable to concentrate, roaming, searching for that perfect spot. But everywhere is pleasure, intense and shocking.

  And then all the frustration of this tumultuous day and night bursts inside her and floods every channel of her body. Her howl surely makes the whole building tremble, but Nathan doesn’t try to stop her mouth. He’s nodding and grinning at her, the green in his eyes sparking. Then he scrunches them and grimaces and Lana remembers how at such moments his mouth always opened wide, but his cries were never more than little wheezing coughs. Now he collapses, full weight on her. It’s gorgeous, but, after a few seconds, uncomfortable. Mercifully he slides sideways.

  When Lana drifts out of her doze she has no idea how long they have lain there. Nathan’s breathing is soft, his eyes closed. Lana closes hers, too, and senses the sticky dried sweat of his skin on her palm. Her thumb touches the still-damp hair under his arm. His breath gently tickles her nose and she thinks, can’t they just stay like this, never move again? Go away everyone. Everything.

  At some point she feels herself being dragged, then lifted. Arms grip protectively, her body is now pressed against another, a neck and shoulder make a cushion for her head. It’s all so easeful she feels no desire to open her eyes. Nathan can carry her to the window and drop her down onto place St.-André if he wishes. Whatever happens now, is what happens now.

  The sheets are a cold shock but only for a moment. His body radiates heat. This time his lovemaking is slow and considerate; he seems to float above her, a shadow in the darkness, a friendly ghost. Afterward he remains hovering, his hands skating gently along her tummy to her breasts. Very soon she drifts into deep sleep.

  SATURDAY

  OCTOBER 27, 2012

  7 AM

  The alarm had been beeping for two minutes before it dragged Ferdie from a black hole of painkiller-induced sleep. He needed about another six hours, but there could be no q
uestion of missing the appointment with Vallette. He resented that the lump of bandage around his foot made dressing a struggle—he lost his balance twice—and resented having to use crutches and having to take a taxi for the first time in as long as he could remember. More than anything, though, he deeply resented—and, if he was honest, dreaded—being summoned by a mad dog who would greatly enjoy doing him harm.

  Vallette held court in Le Parthénon on rue de Courcelles between seven and eight every morning. There he outlined his plan for each day and snapped instructions to his underlings. Once or twice Ferdie had driven Monsieur Fournier there for an early-morning briefing. This was the first time Ferdie had ever been required to attend on his own behalf.

  He still hadn’t worked out how to play this and, as he extracted himself awkwardly from the cab, there was one more eye-catching cause for resentment. Parked across the road was his DS21, the car he would normally be using this morning to chauffeur Monsieur Fournier, the car that normally was his to take home each night, that for the last four years he had used pretty much as he pleased. In effect, his car, his Citroen DS21. Now that psycho fuck was swanning around in it. And Ferdie was very aware that his laptop was still under the driver’s seat. The laptop with amusing photoshopped images of Vallette along with other files not intended for the eyes of others, especially those who might wish him harm. He would have to retrieve it this morning. But this was a lesser problem, the greater one being that he still didn’t know what had happened last night and where he fit in. It couldn’t be just megalomaniac rage that the chauffeur had dared bring a girl to the party without clearing it with His Eminence. Caramel Girl had caused trouble, that was for sure, and it was connected with the American and presumably the bellhop, whom Ferdie had sort of decided to protect if possible. Only if possible, naturally. There were limits.

  He shouldered open the glass door. The place was empty apart from Vallette and the other two. Did he pay to have it all to himself at this hour? He was sitting alone at a banquette, eyes down, studying some file. Oscar and Marcel sat at another banquette, gobbling omelets and bread in silence, heads down, mouths in constant motion. The assault on Marcel last night hadn’t dented his appetite. They looked around when they heard the crutches’ click on the tiled floor. Ferdie was aware of smirks from the meatheads, but even more aware that Vallette didn’t even glance up as he approached him, click, click, click. The journey felt a lot longer and louder than it was in reality and the slide into the banquette probably didn’t need to be as awkward as he made it. When he laid the crutches aside one of them clattered on the ground and it required some wriggling and stretching to retrieve it. Finally he was settled, but Vallette’s eyes stayed focused on his file. Ferdie knew that game and could wait, but it riled him enough to clarify his thoughts and decide right then that there was no way he was going to tell Vallette anything he didn’t need to know. Bellhop would not be mentioned. He would say that he happened to meet Caramel Girl in a bar the night before and, after talking to her, had casually invited her to meet him in the Le Chev’ bar. He wasn’t sure she would come so he hadn’t bothered to mention her, but guess what, she had turned up. Sure, Monsieur Vallette sir, was right, sir, it was all a bit too impromptu, but he would never have thought of bringing her up to the party if he hadn’t felt very confident that Monsieur Fournier himself would decide if she was welcome or not and he had seemed very happy to meet her. Stick that in right at the end because Vallette would know it was true. Ferdie wouldn’t need to describe the moment of introduction in detail: the way the boss’s eyes had suddenly flicked to full beam and the tip of his tongue had pushed through closed lips like some sea worm wriggling between rocks.

  If none of this worked with Vallette, Ferdie still had plan B. When the growl finally came it wasn’t in greeting.

  “Your whore was carrying a hidden camera.”

  Naturally he hadn’t bothered to look up, but he adjusted his file deliberately, it seemed, to let Ferdie see that he was studying photographic material. Upside down and at an awkward angle it was hard to be sure what exactly the shots were, but there was no doubt that naked bodies in action were the main focus. Ferdie’s insides lurched. A hidden camera. Such a thing had never occurred to him. Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. This was really, really, properly serious. Oh Christ! And so much worse for him. He thought about Caramel Girl tied up and the blond American rushing from the elevator and Bellhop’s pal in the porkpie hat whispering to him and Marcel unconscious near the overturned chair and understood how easy it would be for Vallette to insinuate him into this . . . cabal or whatever it was. Even if he didn’t already hate Ferdie’s guts it would be natural to suspect that he was involved. A hidden camera? Someone really was out to get Monsieur Fournier, out to destroy him. It wasn’t just psycho guard dog Vallette manufacturing conspiracies. And Bellhop must have known about it. Had to.

  Straight to plan B then.

  Ferdie tried not to let turmoil show on his face, although it hardly mattered given that Vallette wasn’t even looking at him. He would hear the fear, though, so Ferdie controlled his voice as best he could. He tried for innocent surprise.

  “My God! Did you take it from her?”

  Vallette’s eyes shot up, probably despite himself.

  “Don’t ask me questions. I ask you questions.” Now that he was finally looking at Ferdie he went for a long stare. It felt so weird looking at Vallette actually looking back at him.

  “Just tell me everything about your part in this.”

  Plan B. The important thing now, the only thing, was to direct Vallette’s attention away, far away from Ferdie.

  “A camera? No. I knew nothing about that. Until last night she was, as far as I was concerned, just another party girl I’d . . . engaged.”

  “But you chose not to include her in the dossier with the others.”

  Ferdie did not want the conversation to move in that direction.

  “I will explain that, of course, but first if I may, there is something you will want to know immediately. Last night, once I realized that this girl . . . was a problem, I decided to try to find out more. Too late perhaps, sure, but the guy who had introduced her to me, who had . . . arranged everything, works in the hotel. A young bellhop. You will remember him from last night, I think.”

  “That skinny child is her pimp?”

  “Yes, actually I think they may be related in some way, brother and sister maybe, but I don’t know for sure. Anyway, sir, I decided to follow him last night. I found out where he lives. May I give you his address?”

  Ferdie was rather pleased with the way, at that moment, he pulled a pen from his inside pocket and held it expectantly, a little dramatic action that might help keep Vallette’s attention where he wanted it. Vallette pushed a sheet of paper toward him. Ferdie wrote down the address and turned the page, holding it up.

  “He’s probably still asleep at this hour,” Ferdie said, tempted to add, “as any fucking normal person would be at seven on a Saturday morning.” But he held his tongue and watched Vallette for signs of which way he would swing.

  It seemed a very long wait, but then without warning Vallette stood, snapped his file shut, and went to his boys. He muttered something and headed toward the exit with Marcel scurrying behind, while Oscar fumbled for money and threw some notes on the table before chasing after them. It was as if they had forgotten Ferdie’s existence. This was fine as far as it went and maybe the smart thing was to say nothing and let them go, but he needed some reassurance.

  “Monsieur! Am I coming with you?”

  Vallette, almost out the door, turned and strode back toward the banquette. He leaned in close to Ferdie.

  “When you are fit to work again, call me. If I need to talk to you before that, I will find you.”

  Left alone, Ferdie drew a long breath. Then he remembered his laptop. It was frustrating, but there was nothing to be done about that just now. Though his situation wasn’t in any way secure, things had gone as well as he c
ould have expected, which would probably not be the case for the poor bellhop. What was about to happen to him did not make Ferdie feel good, but like the laptop problem, there was nothing to be done about it. Actually, this was not absolutely true. The question was, would Ferdie be willing to do whatever he could?

  8 AM

  Negotiating the steps to street level at the Crimée metro station felt a bit awkward but was certainly a lot less painful than the night before. He had to be careful now. The crutches made him conspicuous and he couldn’t be certain where Vallette and the boys might have parked. Maybe one of them had stayed in the car. He looked in every direction, then found an opportunity to cross the road, which was much busier now. At the corner of rue de Crimée he peered down, confident that the DS21 would stand out, but it didn’t, nor were there any convenient cafés to use as a lookout spot. Ferdie wasn’t stupid enough to go clipping along the street, making himself visible to whichever of the meatheads might be on guard in the car, bored at missing all the fun inside, and delighted at the opportunity to have some of their own at his expense. As he turned away, conscious that it was dangerous even to hover at the corner, he almost bumped into an old immigrant beggar woman bent at ninety degrees, shuffling. She jerked a plastic cup at him and just as he was about to pass her by an idea struck him. “Want to make twenty euro for one minute’s work?” Though she remained bent over, her head lifted suddenly, eyes wary, mouth all scowling suspicion. Maybe this was a bad idea. But eyes, mouth, and wrinkles were all transformed at the sight of the twenty. On a scrap of paper he carefully printed the colors and number of the car and pointed down the street. “Find this car, and I’ll give you this, yes?” She reached for the twenty and when it was withheld, the face sagged again and she wailed, presumably at the unfairness of life, which would never be any other way for those like her, but finally trundled down the street. As it happened, she earned her twenty so easily Ferdie felt foolish. No more than five cars down he saw her stop, check the piece of paper, and look closely at a car Ferdie could not see from his angle. She shuffled nearer and seemed to be staring in through the window. Clearly there was no one inside or by now the old bag would have been rewarded for her inquisitiveness with the slap of an opening door.