Leper Tango (17 page)

“You know this area?” “Yes. I know it.”

“You looking for someone?” “I haven't decided yet.”

The
Moulin Rouge
, a slew of strip clubs and porn palaces, fronted by impresario types trying to lure wandering johns into their haunts, all reassured me that nothing fundamental had changed. We crawled up and down the boulevard a couple more times. I directed him through some of the smaller streets.
Rue des Martyrs, rue Houdon, rue des Abbesses
. Then a sweep wide towards
Père Lachaise
cemetery.

“Turn down Sebastopol towards
St-Denis
.”

“People know me up here in Pigalle. I am an exwrestler.
Champion de catch.
Could have been champion of France, if it hadn't been for a fight one night. Cost me four years in
la bagne
.”

St-Denis had its familiar ramshackle look. A pestilent oasis, ridden with human maggots, but an oasis all the same for those of us who seek such places to relieve us of other malaises ill understood by the healthy of spirit. The driver interrupted my thoughts again.

“My wrestling days are finished. I was bouncer for a while at the
Folies Pigalle
. It was all right. But, there's nothing a group of transexuals like better than a fistfight, and whenever the fights broke out, one of them always wanted to take a poke at the biggest man. My last night there, a coked-up tranny in a spandex dress shot me from behind. In the
nuque
.”

He pushed his right forefinger inside the track of the scar along his nape. “Nobody could get me down on the mat, then some fifty kilo drug addict takes me out.
Tant pis
. Then I ran into money problems with the
milieu
. Had to stage my own death. Simplify. Now, I drive, and when I don't drive, I play my cello at home.”

He glanced into his rear-view mirror, exposing an ugly grimace.

“You think it 's funny, a big ox like me playing the cello?”

“What's funny about it?” “You on the run?”

“Stick to your driving.”

He shrugged his shoulders, shook his head.

“You're the client.”

The real-life outline of the buildings enveloped with an undulant silhouette. Excessive fatigue, or the lousy weather. Or time to see an optometrist.

“Listen, you wouldn't be interested in some cunt, would you? I can bring you to a place with some first class girls. It will cost you a bit, but they're
clean
, you know.”

“Is Club
le paradis
still open?”

He shook his head, but seemed to cheer up after I passed him one of the notes from my wallet.

“This is Paris, my friend. We don't find your
paradis
, we'll find you something else.”

Then, as if the thought had just occurred to him.

“You ever want some protection, my friend, you call Victor on this cell phone. You might need it. Things happen to people in this city. Things they never dreamed possible. Some of them are good things. Some of them are not so good.”

“Fuck it, let me off here.”

I had spotted a café at
rue des petits carreaux
, opening up for textile workers arriving for the day shift. I entered, ordered a coffee, smoked a half dozen cigarettes. Then, decided to call up Ducastin-Chanel. Take her out to lunch. It made sense. A lot of insane propositions make sense at the tail-end of an all-nighter.

I sat in the stairwell for two hours waiting for Ducastin-Chanel to prepare herself for our little date. The taxi took another long hour, while she shivered at curbside
rue de Mulhouse
and I finished another half pack of cigarettes. It was the first time I had seen her with teeth in her mouth. On her chamois skin, she had stroked a long ivory shadow with her rheumatic claw from lids to brow bone, applied dark brown shadow in creases, then lined her upper eyelids from inner to outer corners with black kohl pencil, curving the line upward at the outer corners. This was capped off with two coats of black mascara on the outer periphery of the upper lashes.

Didier, our flat
-
nosed Aveyron waiter, dropped a couple of
kirs
. Paid her a compliment on her crinolined evening dress and white opera gloves. Ducastin-Chanel responded that they were a replica of Gina Lollobrigida's costume in ‘La Morte Ha Fatto L'uovo.' “Or was it: ‘Death laid an egg'?”

She berated Didier upon learning he had used Muscadet instead of Bourgogne Aligoté in the Kir.

“Give a lady a cigarette, Franck.”

I passed her a Marlboro. She cradled the cylindrical shape in her fingers like a trophy.

“You don't believe it, do you, Franck?”

“Believe what?”

“That these chapped old lips ... you know, Franck.”

“No. You've got something. I could see you giving a man pleasure.”

“Not just pleasure, Franck. I could deliver pain. And pain could be lucrative.” Didier dropped a bottle of
Grand Vin Château Tayac
, a Cru Bourgeois 1993. Ducastin-Chanel stared at the glass. She pushed her knuckly hands around the stem of the glass, lifted it to her lips, which hung like rotted bark. For a moment, she was impervious to me, staring through the glass with that glaucoma glare favoured by the geriatric. She was like anyone old. When they get you at close quarters, they won't give you what you need unless you listen to the rest. And the rest never matters. “ W hat about the
gamine
? You said you'd tell me where I could find her.”

“When you get older, people no longer respect you.

I don't blame them. I was a
balance
for a while. Passed on information to the
Brigade Judiciaire
on Pierre Lescot.

But the younger ones didn't respect me. I don't blame them.”

She smiled coquettishly, looked at her empty glass.

“Can't a girl have some fun, Franck?”

I waved Didier over. She had something, although it had become a little bit
sthpeshial
with the passing years.

“They were good days. You see, Franck ...
it's Franck,

isn't it
?”

“Yeah ... what about
la gamine
?”

Her teeth clamped shut at fair velocity. That skinny claw of hers suddenly gripped onto my left wrist, and her look became ferocious, confessional, as if she'd waited since that night at the Bobigny forty-seven years ago to release the secret within her.

“Listen to me, Franck, we gave people a destiny. The bordellos in those days were beautiful places. The johns circulated freely through the rooms. There was entertainment. Dancing,
bal-musette,
smok ing rooms. Of course, we had to deal with the police, but this is France, Franck. Things can be discussed. I need some money, Franck ...” She glanced down at her crotch.

“It's all over now. I don't blame them. Why should I blame them? Franck, you know something ... you look terrible.”

The boudin and mashed potatoes arrived ...

II

One of the reasons you keep running into the same actors in the global café scene is that these places are basically high-end franchise operations for the lost souls of the world. W hether it 's Harry's Bar, the Café Carlyle in New York or
Le Fouquet's
on the Champs Elysées, which I was about to enter, you can program these people as easily as the consumers at McDonalds or your local Burger King. Just substitute Chablis Laroche for the root beer and
souris d 'agneau confite au romarin
for the big whoppers and you have the ticket.

I always walk into a café periscope up, do a quick survey to see if there is any loose
poontang
, as the hillbillies call it, and park myself within a table or maximum two of the prey for the evening. As the thermal sensors moved to the right side, who do I see, but Sheba herself sitting at a table with a Paki wearing too many rings, looking bored, dabbling idly at the remains of a
Baba au
Rhum
, while sipping a vodka martini. She wore a fur coat that looked pretty fresh off the rack. Her eyes bugged out when she saw me, no doubt at the promise of an escape route from her current beau but, credit where it's due, the enthusiasm was there.

“Franck!”

Waving me to a table on the other side of
Le Fou
quet's
, at a safe distance from her escort.

“Franck, it is really so good to see you. Where
on
earth
have you been? Come, let's sit down, Franck. You
have to tell me everything.”

She pulled a cell phone out of her purse. I glanced over at her Paki pal, picking up his own unit five tables away.

“Ranjit, something has come up, and it's rather serious. I had better meet you back at the hotel.
Non, non
, I beg your pardon! You want to tie me up with what! Ridicule, listen, later, I can't get into it, just go back.
Chérie
.”

Ranjit understood and Ranjit laughed and Ranjit stood up, good-naturedly waving the waiter to his table.

“So, Sheba, tell me all about Ranjit.”

“Him?” she inquired, as if conducting an archeological dig. “Nobody, really. I'm helping him, in my own way. You seem awfully curious, Franck. Who are you working for these days? The CIA?”

“Not at all. I'm strictly private sector.”

“I once worked for the DST. The French secret service.” She stopped short, recalling something. “Franck, have you figured out the answer to my question?”

“Ask a question, you get the answer. Anything, Sheba.”

“About your fantasy.”

“I actually did give this a little thought recently. Let me tell you a little anecdote, Sheba. When I worked criminal assizes, occasionally, it was pretty rare, but occasionally they'd catch a big fish, someone who actually ran things, as opposed to being a runner, or an enforcer. One day, a kingpin, the genuine article, was escorted into the courtroom for a preliminary hearing. His name was McNeill. My partner, Hervé Bourque, represented him. McNeill always had a few big-hair, big titted broads hanging from his elbow, and had a phalanx of thugs, ex-boxers and hit-men at his beck and call, laughing at his jokes, pushing reporters away, generally scaring the shit out of people. That particular day, I think I was entering a few guilty pleas, and wondered whether McNeill didn't have a lot more figured out than me. Shortest distance between two points type of thing. McNeill's dead now. But still, he had it figured out in a way.”

She laughed. And the laugh was genuine. Even now, particularly now, I can see there were times she found things genuinely amusing.

“You want to be a gangster, Franck! Oh, that's so funny. Franck Robinson, gangster. What next!”

“Don't worr y about it, I can switch fantasies, no problem. You remember what we talked about in Montreal? Olive tree, overlooking the ocean, all of that. I'm thinking that nothing could make me happier.”

She frowned, as if I had resurrected a bad memory. “All right, all kidding aside. I actually saw a shrink back in Montreal. You had some kind of effect on me, baby. I asked her what my problem was. Assuming I had a problem. She said my fantasy was to fuck the city of Paris.”

She stared at me. Come to think of it, it wasn't just

her cunt. It was the cumulative effect of the saliva oozing up like a long dead geyser between her lips, her Grecian ass, her siren voice, and how they hypnotized me into believing that satanic cunt and its insatiable desires were actually good for me.

“Fuck Paris?”

“That's right.”

“
Baiser toute une ville. C'est quand même curieux.
” She smiled. “Who are you running away from, Franck?”

I reached into my own grab bag of enemies and pulled out a recent candidate.

“A man named Spike.”

“Spike, horrible name. What does it mean,
clou
? So
américain
. I am so glad to see you again, Franck. Should we get married?”

She pulled out a powder pack, flipped it open, looked into the mirror.

“Don't worry about it, Ranjit's gone back to the hotel.”

She laughed.

“
Tu es vraiment marrant, Franck
. Now, I recall why I liked you. You are funny. What do you need?”

“I think I might need a little haven for a while. And I'm flush, provided Spike doesn't show up.”

“My car's outside, Franck.”

“What about Ranjit?”

She laughed, and I like to think that, in her own way, she was enjoying the moment.

“I missed you, Franck. I had totally forgotten you, but I missed you all the same.”

We drove all night, and arrived in La Rochelle right on the Atlantic coast in the Southwest in the late morning. She parked her Audi at beachside, and we walked along the ramparts of the port area, passing under a medieval clock marking the entrance into the walled old city. Her flat was on
rue Gambetta
, accessible through an inner courtyard. We walked up to another door, marked Escalier B. She punched in a four digit code, and the door clicked open. She walked down the corridor ahead of me and turned around.

“
Chez moi
. For now.”

Once inside, she showed me into her living room, and disappeared into another room. I dropped onto a California divan, scoped out the place. On the wall opposite, a star of David hung, dead centre. Beneath it, a jangle of pictures in a calculated disorder, each portraying Sheba in different poses. A vampire. An interior shot, her back to the camera, staring through a window onto the desolate Atlantic shore. An Audrey Hepburn

Breakfast at Tiffany's
pose. In the next, an artful twist of
a beret and a set of shades gave her the look of a terrorist.

The last, a black and white shot from the back of a vintage Citroën. She wore a black pillbox with Egyptian motifs, a checkered dress with a v-neck and held a Colt 45 flat against her loins. Her left leg was propped up on the bumper.

I recalled a conversation with Hervé over Scotch one evening back in Montreal. Hervé was a rare enough bird, had been through wars, both domestic and military, and understood most of the base rules of engaging in human conf lict. I inquired whether it was true that French broads liked to throw knives and dishes around as a form of foreplay.