The Bones of Paris
Page 30
“Yes, that would explain it.”
“Qu’est-çe que ç’est?” Another customer sidled down to look, and in the end, a dozen or so men pawed over the pictures before they came back to Stuyvesant.
They’d all seen Pip’s snapshot on his earlier visits, and the change to Man Ray’s didn’t affect their lack of recognition. Of the other photographs, only the blonde rang any bells, reminding three men of a singer who’d worked in the French bars, although come to think of it, they hadn’t seen her much recently. The description stirred recognition in the back of Stuyvesant’s mind.
“Name of Mimi?”
That was her, although the men were no more certain of the complete name than the women had been ten days earlier.
However, it was the picture of the youngest girl, the healthy-looking brunette with the missing segment in her face, that caused the most unease.
“This girl looks pretty beat up,” said Frank.
“Great makeup department. But do you recognize her?”
“She looks a little like my sister.” Is your sister missing? Stuyvesant tried to think of a gentle way to word the question, but Frank made it unnecessary. “At least, like she did until she had her second baby, she’s ten kilos more than that now. Still, she’s happy and her husband likes it, so who am I to complain? Who are these women?”
“They’re all missing.”
“What’s that theater doing, eating them?”
Stuyvesant forced a smile. “It’s probably a publicity stunt, but families worry.”
“So you’re setting up a missing persons agency. Any reward for finding them?”
“If I had the money to offer a reward, would I be drinking here?”
Frank’s gale of laughter was a sore temptation, but Stuyvesant managed to walk out without hitting any of them.
One drink wasn’t enough courage to face rue Jacob. Ten probably wouldn’t be. He did not give himself a chance to chicken out, but marched up the street to the house and knocked. Softly. Maybe she’d be asleep, too.
She was not.
The housekeeper showed him into a room with dark pink walls and dark pink drapery, crowded with soft, multi-cushioned sofas, ornately carved chairs, vases of luxuriant flowers, and small tables strewn with books. Portraits of women lay along the walls, looking askance at his blunt masculinity.
When she returned, the gray-haired housekeeper seemed amused at his reaction to all this female décor. He turned away from a painting of a woman in man’s clothing, and followed her through more pinkness until they came to Natalie Barney, nestled among settee cushions with a book.
“Mr. Stuyvesant,” she said warmly. “So good to see you again. That was you at Le Comte’s party the other night, wasn’t it? I can’t imagine you have too many lookalikes.”
“That was me, in among the bones. Great music.”
“And one of the odder assortment of guests. Will you have coffee? Wine? Do sit down. Berthe, this is Mr. Stuyvesant from New York, I met him a year or so ago at that mad party on the Île de la Grande Jatte. As I recall, Mr. Stuyvesant, you were working as a private investigator?”
“Still am,” he said, accepting both chair and coffee.
“Dolly Wilde was saying I should write a murder mystery with a Sapphist detective. Detective stories seem all the thing.”
“You’d sell a million,” he said gamely.
“More to the point, I could have some fun with the clichés.”
“That too.”
“What can I do for you, Mr. Stuyvesant? Berthe said you were looking for a girl.”
Putting down the cup, he chose two of the photographs, pushing all thoughts of death from his mind, and his voice. “Two girls, in fact. The first one’s named Pip Crosby. She went missing in the spring, and her family’s hired me to find her. The second is a friend—of mine, that is, not Pip’s. Sarah Grey. She was at the party the other night, and hasn’t been seen since.”
Miss Barney put her feet on the floor to accept the pictures.
“Oh yes, Sarah. She works for Dominic.”
“That’s right.”
“A sweet girl,” said the lesbian.
Down, boy. “She is, yes. She and her fiancé had a little argument, and we both figure she’s just gone off with friends for a day or two to let things cool off.”
One eyebrow lifted. “And you were wondering if I might have been that friend?”
“It did occur to me that if she’d been feeling the urge to get away from the irritations of the male species for a while, she might have mentioned it to you. In passing.”
Her lovely laugh went far to explain her reputation for conquest. “Mr. Stuyvesant, I so hope that one day I have need of a private investigator. However, no, Miss Grey did not express any specific dissatisfactions with the men in her life, and she is not taking shelter under my roof, although she would be welcome to do so.”
“Well,” he said, “thanks anyway. And thanks for the coffee.”
Her gaze lingered on Pip. “Am I right to think this was taken by Man Ray?”
“That’s right. Le Comte had it done. I understand he was thinking of putting her on the stage, and wanted it for publicity.”
“Yes,” she said.
Her drawled monosyllable caught his ear. “Is there something I ought to know about Man Ray?”
“ ‘Ought to know,’ Mr. Stuyvesant?”
“Pip Crosby was a good kid, and she’s missing. He’s one of the men she was in contact with.”
“I’m sure it’s nothing. But as you might imagine, people tell me things—gossip, yes, but also things that women feel other women ought to be told. One of those pieces of gossip concerned Mr. Ray. It seems he enjoys telling how he beat a former girlfriend with his belt. It is common knowledge that he prefers attractive young female assistants. They pose for him, and some of the poses are rather disturbing.”
“Does any of this ‘gossip’ have him being an active threat?”
“No. And I’d have heard.”
“I’d imagine that half the artists in Paris—half the male artists, that is—expect their women to be …”
“Submissive?”
“I was going to say ‘agreeable,’ but yeah, submissive.”
“You are no doubt correct. And to be clear, Mr. Stuyvesant, I have no problem with submission, if given willingly.” The meaning in her blue eyes was clear.
Stuyvesant rose to her playful challenge like a man. “Willing submission is the only kind that matters. Not the kind with a belt.”
“Thus saith the knight in shining armor,” Miss Barney pronounced. She handed him back the photos, watching him put them away. “You are welcome to stay, Mr. Stuyvesant. Friday afternoons I hold a salon, when we talk about everything from art to orgasms. You could show my friends your pictures. And, you might find the other guests entertaining.”
“Not as entertaining as they’d find me, I expect.”
She laughed again, and stood, taking his arm to steer him through the pink world and back onto the narrow gray street.
He went by the Hotel Benoit, to check for messages—none—and grab his overcoat, since dusk was falling.
The day awarded him one moment of bleak humor when Bennett Grey answered Sarah’s door wearing a flowered apron, but it faded the moment Stuyvesant looked into his green eyes and saw their shared thought: She’s been gone forty-two hours.
FIFTY-SEVEN
“YOU’RE COOKING?” IT was obvious that the man in the apron hadn’t slept.
“Just rescuing some green beans from Sarah’s garden. The housekeeper brought a cassoulet.” Rescuing Sarah’s beans when you can’t rescue her, thought Stuyvesant, and poured himself a drink.
Grey returned to his vegetables. “Tell me about your Miss Crosby.”
“Not mine. She made that clear.”
“You have a picture?”
Stuyvesant showed him the Man Ray portrait, then told him about Pip in Nice: pretty girl in a bar, middle-aged man
, unlikely but promising—until she kissed him good-bye and left for Rome.
Grey snipped, sliced, listened as Stuyvesant described his fruitless search through Montparnasse and Montmartre, and reluctantly, his despair over Pip’s fate. The kitchen went still for a moment, muffled by a blanket of dread.
“Miss Crosby sounds as wary of obligations as you are.”
“What are you talking about? I wasn’t the one to cut it off with Sarah.”
“Who said anything about Sarah?”
“Every conversation with you seems to be about Sarah.”
“Yes, we’ve had so many conversations in the past few years.”
“I’ve … been busy. Anyway, why would Pip be scared of something long-term? A twenty-two-year-old with someone my age is more likely to be bored.”
“Those are not the eyes of a twenty-two-year-old,” Grey said. He shoveled the beans into a steaming pot.
“Yeah. I know.” Stuyvesant studied the man’s profile. “Sarah said you came over in April?”
“I decided to try.”
“It went all right?”
“It was hard. But I managed.”
“Did she have really short hair then?”
“Not terribly. Does she now?”
“Yeah.”
“It must make us look even more alike.”
It’s like he felt my thoughts against the side of his head. “It is a bit startling,” Stuyvesant admitted.
“Harris, my sister is happy here,” Grey said. “Her hand bothers her less each time I see her. And I like this Doucet chap.”
“Yeah, I get it. She’s fragile and I’m a threat. I’ll leave Paris when … this is all finished.”
The copper pan was taking forever to return to a boil.
Grey broke the silence. “I feel I would know, if … something … happened to Sarah. That Paris would go dark.”
The forbidden topic—the two men’s history, Stuyvesant’s reason for avoiding Cornwall, the thing that had kept him wandering rootless across Europe for three years—stirred like a grizzly bear in the corner of the room.
“Look, I’m sure she’s fine, we’ll—”
The cutting board smashed into the sink, shattering amidst an explosion of bean-trimmings and soapy water. Grey stood, hands grasping his skull as if the easy lie had driven an ice-pick through it. “Don’t. Please don’t.”
“Jesus. Bennett, I’m sorry. You said that your … abilities were fading.”
“Not enough.”
“So I guess the Project isn’t leaving you alone?”
“Oh, they’re still interested, all right. If I could just get them to stop spying on me, the arrangement would be almost bearable.” He dropped his hands. “Look, this is about ready. Want to eat?”
Not really.
Grey served the food onto two plates and laid them on the kitchen table. Stuyvesant doggedly picked up knife and fork, casting around for a polite topic that wouldn’t turn their stomachs. “I like this part of Paris. Almost like being in the country. Sarah said there was a blacksmith?”
“A self-educated philosopher who dispenses Plato along with his horse-shoes. I gave him a hand a few times, at the forge. Tell me about your girl.”
“Nancy? She’s … unexpected. Like your blacksmith.”
“Not your usual blonde kitten?”
“Not blonde, no kitten. Nothing usual about her.”
“I’m glad.”
Stuyvesant glanced up. “I thought you approved of me and Sarah? In a big-brother kind of way.”
“I did. At the time. But women have a way of making their own decisions.” And before Stuyvesant could divert him with a question about Cornwall’s weather or the health of his simpleton neighbor, Robbie, Grey walked right up to the conversational grizzly bear. “Whenever I see Sarah, it’s like a knife in me. Her prosthetic, her scars, the way she shies at any loud noise—and now this insistence on facing down her demons with a nightmare job involving men like Didi Moreau. I look at all what she’s going through and I think: I did that.
“You and I have both seen what men in the trenches can do. Incredible acts of courage. But I’ve never known anything like Sarah’s everyday, long-term, soul-grinding bravery. And I’m to blame. I—”
“Not you. It was me, Bennett. I was slow and stupid and—”
“Shut up!” Grey snarled. “Harris, just … shut up. Look. I see things. I see everything, at every moment, smack in front of my eyes. But once—just once—three years ago, I let myself be distracted, by hope and by love, and my sister paid the price. God, what a price. You never told her, did you?”
Tell Sarah that her beloved brother had kept Stuyvesant from averting a catastrophe? “No.”
“I’ve spent three years trying to convince myself that I couldn’t have predicted Sarah’s choice. But I know Sarah as well as I know my own body. I should have seen it coming.”
“Bennett, you said it yourself: you’re not a mind-reader. All you see is the tension. Even if Sarah planned what she was going to do—and I’ve always believed it was an impulse—would you have known? If she’d made a rational and, I don’t know, serene choice, would you have been able to see through it?”
“I might have guessed.”
“For Christ sake, man, I might have guessed. Quit killing yourself over it.”
Grey’s eyes rested on Stuyvesant’s glass. “I do so want to drink myself senseless right now.”
“But you won’t, because Doucet needs your eyes.”
Both men gazed down at their congealing food.
“Go see your Nancy,” Grey said.
“I’ll stay until Doucet phones.”
“Have you even talked with her today?”
“No.”
“You’re a fool.”
“I know.”
Grey reached for the plates.
“Go ahead, call her. If Doucet finds it busy, he’ll try again.”
“I’ll be quick.”
The new number rang twice before Nancy answered.
“Harris! I hoped you would call.”
“You mean you hoped I wasn’t one of those men who … gets what he wants and then runs like hell?”
“I had little fear of that,” she assured him.
If I were Bennett, I’d hear if that was a lie. “Good to know.”
“Harris Stuyvesant, you’re such a gentleman, I had to fling myself at you before you’d so much as kiss me.”
“I—” He was suddenly aware of Bennett Grey, listening to every word of this coo-and-bill. “Honey, I can’t talk, the fellow I’m with is waiting for a call. I just wanted to tell you I was thinking of you.”
“Come and see me.”
“It’ll be late.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Really late.”
“Just ring the bell.”
“Persistent, aren’t you?”
“When it comes to what I want, yes.”
Now, that was a heart-warming response. “I can’t promise, but I’ll try. And if not, I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Bye,” she said, and the line went dead.
Bennett Grey walked in to clear the last of the dishes.
“Don’t say anything,” Stuyvesant warned.
“Wouldn’t think of it,” Grey replied.
FIFTY-EIGHT
TWO MEN IN shirtsleeves, drinking coffee with the garden door standing ajar. As if waiting for a blonde-haired woman with emerald eyes to step inside, laughing at something she’d stumbled over in the dark.
“You think she’s dead, too, don’t you?” Stuyvesant said to the black rectangle. When there was no response, he glanced over and saw Grey’s expression of horror.
“Harris, what—”
“No! Not Sarah! I’m sure she’s—I mean, there’s no reason—sorry! No, Jesus. I was talking about Pip.”
Grey took a shaky breath and ran a hand over his face. “How the hell would I know?”
“Sure, I just—”
“Yeah. Sorry. It was a fire. Pip’s injury. When she was ten she was badly burned. Broke her arm, too, but the scar was worse—big as my hand across. But she didn’t seem sensitive about it—if anything, the opposite.” The most exquisite pleasure …
“A physical wound wouldn’t give her that look of mistrust.”
“No? Then what?”
“If she posed for artists, I’d guess that was a way to flaunt the scar. Maybe she slept with middle-aged men as a way of facing the kind of injuries that don’t show.”
Stuyvesant stared at him.
“What?” Grey asked.
“No! You really don’t need to know.”
“All right.”
Nancy, there in Luna Park: The uncle. Maybe too close. The night air was growing cool, but neither of them moved to shut the door.
“How is your Miss Crosby tied to Doucet’s investigation?”
“I don’t know that she is. But when I brought her name to him, he started looking at his other missing persons and came up with a list of those with connections to the art world. There’s thirty-one names, and he—”
“Thirty-one?”
“That’s the names he and his sergeant haven’t been able to clear, who didn’t turn up in a morgue or at home. They can’t all be related, but like I say, those are the ones who had something to do with art or music or acting. Whether that makes for a pattern, I don’t know. You want to see my notes—see what you think?”
Grey shook his head, though not as a refusal. “It isn’t the kind of seeing I’m good at, but I’ll look if you like.”
Stuyvesant tossed the notebook on the table. “These go back to the start of last year. Do you mind if I take a look at Sarah’s things?”
“We went through her diary and letters this morning.”
“Yes. Well …”
“Help yourself,” Grey said.
A bedroom was where a person dreamed, where she kept her secrets, where she gave herself up to …
For once, Stuyvesant was grateful not to have Bennett Grey’s skills: he really didn’t want to see the hairs on the pillow, to breathe in the odors of their relationship. How many strange bedrooms had he stepped into, hoping for some clue to the person—the beloved, lively person who …