as I stood off to one side of their gathering. The little man eased around the tables shaking hands and saying, “Yesss, ouiii.”
He stopped and addressed the group. “Kudos to the Shadows on Les Invalides. Dirty work and a clean job.”
They laughed their sooty laughs as a tall, thin one held out a chair for him. “Congratulations to you, Louche. Your plan worked to perfection, and the cross is safely at Shadowcorps. The black paint was a stroke, ha-ha, of brilliance.”
My body felt like it was frozen. I pulled Sashay’s scarf closer to my neck and had trouble focusing on anything else that was said.
“You part of the décor, or are you working tonight, bouffée?” The little man at the centre of this thug party waved me over, to the group’s general amusement. When he looked at me, I avoided his gaze, feeling like a specimen in biology class pinned to my place.
“Where’s Michelle?”
“Sick,” I mumbled, but it was my voice that sounded like it was on its last legs.
“What’s your name? Where are you from? Not from here, I’m guessing,” he hissed softly.
Mechanically I replied, “Mac. Upper Mandeville ... cigarettes?” I hoped to shift his attention to the tray that was shaking slightly in my hands. He ignored my question.
“Califorrrniaaa.…” He stretched out the word like a lizard sunning itself on our backyard patio. “What do you think of the lighter, brighter Paris? Remind you of home?” he asked with a smirk as he opened a fresh pack of cigarillos and reached for a match.
My brilliant reply went something like, “Um, ah, yes. I don’t know, I mean, yeah, I guess.”
“Well, lighten up, kid,” he sneered as he touched the match to the tip of his smoke, illuminating his face. I felt my arms go limp as I realized I was staring at Luc Fiat, the prefect of Paris. But how could that be? I was saved by a voice from below.
“Ladies and gentlemen, mesdames et messieurs, please give a warm welcome to ‘La Reine Des Rêves,’ Paris’s own Queen of Dreams, Sashay D’Or.”
As the crowd applauded, I hurried downstairs and into the safety of the little space beside the stage to catch my breath. Sashay swept past me, and she seemed in a dream herself as strange music slowly wove its way through the club. Rhythmic blue lights like waves washed over the quieted crowd as Sashay, well, sashayed onto the stage, one long-gloved hand extended as if it were leading her somewhere. The music rose and fell. She seemed to pull endless wisps of gauzy material from the folds of her outfit as she spun and floated back and forth across the stage. Every once in a while, she would dramatically throw a jewelled, gloved hand into the air, and a little column of golden smoke would rise like it had been charmed out of the stage, while from somewhere a cymbal would crash in response.
Maybe it was the waves of blue lights, but I found myself feeling like I was beside the ocean in California, with the distant sound of children playing and my mom laughing at something my dad was saying. The sand felt warm on my hands and feet, and in the haze I could make out tiny sailboats in the distance as I watched the patterns the seagulls made on the sand as they drifted overhead. A particularly loud wave crashed, and it turned into the sound of the audience applauding. I realized I was still standing side-stage at the club. With a whiff of lavender, Sashay materialized and took my arm, leading me, in a fuzzy state of mind, to her dressing room.
“Mmm, I just had the coolest memories,” I started to tell her. She smiled at me as she removed the cigarette tray.
“I know, I’d love to see the coast of California some day.”
My head was still glowing from Sashay’s performance as little questions started to take flight like seagulls from my memory. She seemed to know what I was thinking. “Later, ma petite, let’s go. I don’t want to see anyone at the stage door. I’ll change at home, chez moi.”
She threw a coat on my shoulders, and the next thing I knew we were in the back seat of Rudee’s cab.
Twelve
The rain had stopped, but it had left the streets slick and shiny like new leather as the tires hissed down the grand boulevards. We didn’t seem to be returning to Sashay’s place in the Marais as we crossed the Pont Carrousel and drove through the archway past the Louvre. I sank back in the seat and listened vaguely to the usual exchange of jokes and recipes on Rudee’s cab radio. The cafes and bars were still buzzing, and the lights on the beautiful Opera Garnier gave it a storybook glow. We continued on through a seedier part of the city toward the giant train station, Gare St. Lazare. We stopped at the end of a short bridge overlooking the rows of darkened railway tracks, and Rudee switched off the taxi lights.
“It doesn’t look like much, but this is my first memory of Paris.”
Sashay gave me an “I’ve heard this before” look as he continued mysteriously, “Everything old is in the eye of the dog.”
I think Sashay coughed to hide a laugh, and we sat silently for a while. The night’s events were coming back in a rush to me; the delicious fog that Sashay’s show left had lifted. I tried to tell them everything I could recall about the “Shadows” and Louche, their leader. Rudee clenched his fists and gritted his teeth when I got to the part about Les Invalides.
“Snakethieves,” he spat out.
When I reached the part about recognizing Luc Fiat, Rudee stopped me. “You must be mistaken, Mac; Fiat works for the mayor’s office, and he is in charge of the campaign to polish up Paris.”
I tried to tell him that I really was sure, but I had to admit that I hadn’t been that close to Fiat on the day of the rally. When Sashay said, “It was very dark on the balcony, non?” I started to wonder myself what I had seen.
As Rudee switched on the headlights and eased back into the traffic, I asked about “Shadowcorps.” He glanced at Sashay in the mirror and said, “That’s the monstrous new building in Les Halles, isn’t it? The ugly-as-snot light-reflecting one?”
She wasn’t listening, instead looking out the window at the couples laughing arm in arm as they walked past the lights of the late night brasseries and bars.
Rudee caught my eye in the mirror and added, “I’d avoid that place like the flu, Mademoiselle Mac.”
We dropped Sashay off outside the scarf museum and returned to Rudee’s rooms at the Église Russe. “Hungry?” he asked, and without considering what that might bring, I said, “Yes, starving!”
He served himself a bowl of something pungent and steamy and made me a sandwich and a salad of some-thing called mâche, which was better than it sounded, with cherry tomatoes. Had food ever tasted this good before? He chopped a pear and placed it between us.
“So, you see a career for yourself as a cigarette girl, Mac?” He grinned at my look of disgust as I recalled the scene at the club and sniffed my hair and clothing. “Well, at least as a detective.” He seemed pleased with the evening’s efforts. “But that’s it for your little sniffer. I will call Magritte in the morning and let him know everything.”
To me it felt like a jigsaw puzzle in which we’d found a few pieces that fit together, but even the frame was scattered in bits.
I climbed
