Nights In Black Lace (23 page)

Bryan hoped no one had posted about him, doing a fast mental run-through of his better qualities. He was a nice, brainy, fit guy who did his utmost to please in bed and out, respected his girlfriend's moms
and
his girlfriends, put the lid down and kept his feet off the newer furniture.

Then he got focused. The website known as www.hesaidwhat.com was new to him, but this Brad Quinn was all over it. Actually, there were several.

He read the comments as Jeanne scrolled through.

“I think that must be the one,” Jeanne said, pointing a finger at the screen. “A junior banker, based in France. Not a wizard of finance, evidently. This girl calls him Overdrawn. And that one calls him Short Stuff.” The computer expert snickered at some of the other, much less polite comments.

Odette sighed. “It is as Madame Arelquin said. The ones closest to me seem to be to blame.”

“We still have to deal with the Khong guy somehow. Now what? Report him to Interpol?”

“Not without proof.” She waved a hand at Lucie's monitor. “This means nothing. We have confirmed our suspicions and I will find a reason to fire Lucie. Jeanne, please install keystroke-capturing software. She has another week. Perhaps she will lead us to other miscreants.”

“
Oui
, Madame Gaillard,” Jeanne said. The monitor reflected in her glasses as she got busy with that.

T
he jet screamed down to the JFK runway and landed with a bump.

“Wake up,” Brian said softly to Odette. Even in two side-by-side first class seats, she was all over him.

She'd slept through the morning coffee and croissant service, which he'd managed to consume with one hand. He brushed the croissant crumbs off her.

“
Mon Dieu
,” she muttered, running a hand through her hair. “I must look a fright.”

“You look fierce. Hair like that has to be all the rage in New York.”

“Marc says that fierce is good.” She reached into the small personal organizer she'd stuffed into the seat pocket in front of her and found a mirror. Her eyes widened in horror at the sight of her reflection. “He is wrong. Fierce is fierce.”

The pilot made an announcement about waiting for a gate.

“You have time to fix yourself up.”

Odette did the best she could, combing her hair and putting on a touch of makeup.

Navy blue skirts stretched over narrow hips, the flight attendants stalked through the aisles like herons, collecting newspapers and casting curious looks at Odette.

“Are you Madame Gaillard?” one of them murmured, bending over. “
The
Madame Gaillard?”

“Ah—”

“I thought it was you. Are you in New York to give a show?”

“No. Please forgive me—I only just woke up,” Odette said politely.

“Of course. My apologies. I just wanted to say that I wear only Oh! Oh! Odette!” the attendant whispered and winked at her.

For a second Bryan thought she was going to pull up her navy blue skirt and confirm the good news. But she rose when another attendant called to her.

“Excuse me,” she said to both of them and hurried off.

“Ah, the price of fame,” Odette said. “Do you mind? At least the other passengers are pretending not to notice us.”

“I don't care. Let's not talk about it.”

“They were looking at you.”

“It's a free country. I guess I can handle getting looked at.”

She sighed and stuck all her cosmetics back in her bag. “I do not like it once I am out of Paris. I wonder if I have time to pee. We are just sitting here not moving.”

“They would probably roll out a red carpet to the toilet for you.”

She patted his cheek as she undid her seat belt. “Very funny. But I must go.”

She rose stiffly and took care of that, then plopped down beside him again. “Have we advanced in line?”

“Not an inch.”

“The New York airports always have delays,” she sighed.

“I wouldn't know,” he reminded her. “It's my first trip to the East Coast and I had to complicate things by going all the way to Paris and then here. Next time I'll fly direct from LA. Thanks for paying my way, though.”

“Thanks for not objecting. It is all the same money, anyway. It goes around and around the world, and rains where it wants to.”

“Tell me again how you managed to make millions?”

“Not now.” She was yawning hugely. “I wish I could go back to sleep. But then I will mess up my lipstick if I do.”

“Put on your sunglasses.”

Odette nestled into his shoulder. “I will.”

The plane gave a lurch and they started rolling. But it was another hour before they disembarked and headed for customs, where Odette had to stop to pet Sniffy, the luggage-inspecting beagle, even though Sniffy was working, then on to the baggage claim.

She slipped on her sunglasses along the way. There stood their driver, among a crowd of others, holding a sign that said GAILLARD in large block letters.

“So much for traveling incognito,” she said with a sigh.

Bryan looked around. “No photographers on this end. I think we're safe.”

They said hello to the man, who didn't seem to speak much English or French. He was from Eastern Europe, Bryan judged after a glance at his limo license. He got them settled in the back of an immense town car, and Odette relaxed against the seat cushions.

“So squooshy. So American. I love town cars,” she said.

Bryan thought of his wheels, a beater car now on its last legs, so to speak, and didn't answer. He was more impressed by the skyline in the distance.

He'd seen it from the window of the plane, a choppy line of skyscrapers that looked to be all one color from JFK. In the car, as they got closer to Manhattan and the morning haze lifted, the buildings seemed much more different from one another and the city seemed to grow before his eyes.

There was something vital but also brutal about it. It didn't have the venerable charm of Paris and the looming tall buildings were kind of oppressive.

“Interesting, no?”

“If you like big cities.”

“It is different when you are walking around. The inhabitants of New York can be very nice.”

“I'll take your word for it.” Bryan looked out at the skyline again, just before the town car went through a purple E-ZPass tollbooth and got sucked into a tunnel.

He breathed a little easier when that was over, feeling like a hick. But tunnels that went under rivers were just not his thing.

“Where are we?” he asked.

“In midtown. On the east side of Manhattan. Our hotel is on the west, not too far from the garment district.”

The driver honked his way through the crowded streets, going down a one-way and around to get them there.

Guys shoving big metal racks crammed with dresses and bolts of material crowded the streets.

“Not what it once was,” Odette was saying, “but I love to wander here.” She tapped on the plastic partition when she recognized the hotel, paying the fare and tipping the brass-buttoned guy who came out with a luggage rack.

She seemed so used to this chaos. Bryan told himself it was no big deal. But he was grateful when they were alone in their hotel room at last.

He flopped on the bed. “I don't care if I never get on a transatlantic flight again. Whew. I'm done in.”

“We can unwind tonight. Go to a show.”

“No. Sleep,” he mumbled, rolling over and grabbing a pillow.

“You big baby,” she scolded him.

“You slept, Odette. On me. All the way from DeGaulle. Meaning I didn't.”

“Ah, you poor thing.”

Bryan sat up a little and removed the foil-wrapped mint pressed into his hair. Fortunately, none of the goo inside had been squeezed out. He put it on the night table, along with another one from the other pillow where she would lay her head. If she ever stopped talking.

“Mints on the pillow. Minty-fresh toothpaste in the WC. That must be why the room cost a mint,” Odette giggled. “That too is an American expression, no?”

“Yes,” he said, feeling deeply ashamed that she'd paid his fare to New York. At least he'd managed to finagle a connection to California, by abject begging and waving his original return trip ticket for an ultra-discount-economy-strapped-to-the-wing three-stop that ultimately ended at a small local airport near Newport Beach.

It had been the most interesting week of his life, but he couldn't keep up this pace and he did have a life that didn't involve fashion. Had never involved fashion.

He watched her unpack, pulling out various outfits and hanging them out.

Then, from a poufy-looking bag, she took out a short blond wig, going to the mirror to pull it on over her dark hair.

“How kinky.”

“This is for tomorrow.”

“Why?” He rolled over, intrigued by the transformation in her appearance. “I like the punk pixie look on you.”

She inspected her reflection and then dug around in her makeup bag, taking out a tube of eyeliner, which she applied in wicked swoops to each of her eyelids. A slash of pale lipstick and she was done.

“Huh. So far, so good. I really like it.”

“Nothing doing. This is for business.”

“What kind of business, Odette?”

“The risky kind.”

He got up and put his arms around her. “We're getting good at that. And I love the idea of having two different women in one night, especially when both of them are you.”

She elbowed her way out of his embrace. “Not now. This wig makes my head ache.”

 

He found out why she'd brought the blond wig soon enough.

They were walking up 39
^th
Street and crossed at Seventh Avenue.

“There is the giant button,” she said, scrabbling in her purse for sunglasses.

“Huh?” He looked up, distracted by the roaring traffic, not wanting to be run over by a taxi driven by a homicidal maniac.

Sure enough, there was a giant button, about fifteen feet high, leaning at an angle with a giant needle thrust through it.

“You are in the garment district,” she said, sticking the sunglasses on her face. “Home of the garmentos. There goes one now.”

A youngish guy with slicked-back hair and a sharp suit who was screaming orders into a cell phone shoved past them.

“Can you feel the magic?” Odette asked Byran.

He looked down at the trash on the sidewalk and took in the general grimness of this not-yet-gentrified part of Manhattan. “Not really.”

“I wish I could say it gets better. It is interesting, though.”

“Yeah, I could see why you'd say that.”

He glanced at loft windows crammed with bolts of fabric and shops that sold things like buttons and trimmings and lace. Odette could probably spend days here.

She took his hand when the light turned green, and they went into a building that had been something special in the glory days of Art Deco.

Now it was shabby, the stairs to the elevators kicked and stomped on by thousands of—what had she called that guy? A garmento. He wondered if the feminine form was garmenta and then he wondered if it was an Italian word.

The bell dinged. An ancient man in a brass-buttoned uniform that looked too big for him drew open an accordion-style gate when the elevator slid open. He nodded without saying a word.

Jesus. Bryan had never seen an elevator like this, let alone a uniformed attendant.

He tried not to gawk.

“Khongaroo Kids, please,” Odette said.

The elevator man nodded and pushed a brass lever over a half-circle to send them up, then reversed the motion to stop.

They thanked him and stepped out, heading down a hall lined with lumpy carpet. He stumbled over a lump. “I hope that wasn't a rat.”

“Me too.” Then Odette stopped. “Here we are. Ready?”

He beat on his sweater-covered chest. He'd worn the thickest one he had, (a) because New York in April was colder than Paris in April, and (b) so he would look bigger. Not that he wasn't built, but he was supposed to protect her, in case things got ugly with the kiddy-pajamas guy.

Odette tried the knob and went in, talking immediately to the receptionist. Bryan checked out the photos of apple-cheeked tots in budget sleepwear. It was hard to believe that her naughty, elegant designs had somehow ended up here.

The receptionist called someone in an inner office and then waved them toward a glass-paned door.

He was expecting to see thousands of seamstresses bent over sewing machines. Instead he saw the usual maze of cubicles, with various people studiously ignoring them and trying to seem invisible.

“I thought this place made children's sleepwear,” he whispered.

“Everything is made abroad where labor is cheap,” she whispered back. “This is a front office, that is all.”

They paused outside another glass-paned door that had King Khong Enterprises on it in gold letters etched with black.

“Here I go,” Odette said in a soft voice.

“No,” he corrected her. “Here we go. But you can go first. I'm just the muscle.”

Mr. Khong turned out to be a mild-mannered Asian guy with an accent Bryan couldn't place. Whatever. There was nothing memorable about him.

Odette got right to the point. She sat down, whipped off her sunglasses and stared Khong right in the eye. Then she crossed her legs and leaned forward.

He didn't blink. He didn't look down. The womanly weapons move of showing leg and boobs didn't seem to have any effect on him at all.

Bryan stood there observing the two of them, not at all sure how this game of cat-and-mouse worked. Or even which one was the cat and which was the mouse. He stuck his hands in his pockets and waited.

Odette made a big show of carefully folding her sunglasses and then unzipping her purse.

Really slowly.

As slowly as a stripper unzipped her g-string.