Third Saturday Fiction

Chapters 14-15, Paris, from the novel Death Mask

By Steve Glossin

[Relics have been stolen from the grave of Tupac Amaru, the Last Inca. The lead archaeologist and his intern Bob Tilden, who can identify the grave robber, travel to Brazil to investigate a rumored auction involving illicit international collectors. They arrive too late but learn that a shady Portuguese has sold the artifacts to a mysterious, fabulously wealthy Egyptian. Their recovery depends on the loyalty and resourcefulness of Bob and his old boss Bill Holden, who hopes his Middle East contacts from their days as United Nations weapons inspectors in Iraq can help them find the Egyptian. Bill has dispatched Bob to Paris....]

“Passeport, s’il vous plaît,” said the uniformed customs agent as Bob approached the booth.
    Bob reached into his leather jacket’s inner pocket for his passport.
    The man ruffled through the pages, took the entry form, stamped the passport and handed it back. “Merci.”
    Bob dropped the passport into his pocket and followed a few passengers who like him had no luggage to claim. He felt lost when he neared a group of uniformed men standing beside a row of wooden tables. One of the men said something in French.
    “You speak English?” asked Bob.
    “Oui,” the man answered like a bored civil servant. “Do you have anything to declare?”
    “I’m supposed to meet a man.” Bob retrieved a piece of paper from his shirt pocket. “Frankos Polneck’s the guy.”
    “Monsieur, can I see that?” asked the customs agent, holding out his hand.
    Bob handed it to him.
    “François Poulenc. You must be the Amèricain with la peinture.”
    “The what?”
    “The painting,” said a slender gray haired man in a navy blue suit, who had arrived in the middle of the conversation. “I’m François. I had to make a telephone call. You are Monsieur Bob?”
    “Yeah. You speak pretty good English.”
    “Thank you. I’ve studied and worked in America. May I see the painting?”
    Bob set the flat twenty-four inch square leather case on the wooden table, took a key from his pants pocket and handed it to the Frenchman.
    François unlocked and opened the case and the customs agent compared it with the import documents. The painting was a seascape by Pierre Bonnard, a loaner to the Louvre from the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art.
    The customs agent spoke a few words to François then stamped the import papers and retained a copy.
    “Everything appears to be in order,” said François. “Do you have something for me to sign?”
    “Yeah, thanks. I almost forgot.” Bob reached into the pocket where he kept his passport and dug around until he found it. “If you’d sign here,” he said, pointing to where Bill had made a red X. “I’m off the hook.”
    François took a red Mont Blanc from his coat and signed the document. He returned the original to Bob and kept the copy. “Now you’re off the hook,” he said with a wink. “When are you returning to New York?”
    “Tomorrow. I’m supposed to spend the night at the Orly Hilton. If you could tell me where it’s at, I need to catch a taxi.”
    “It isn’t far from the airport. I can drop you off.”
    “Hey, that’d be great.”

In his room at the Hilton, Bob squinted at the paper and dialed the number Bill had given him.
    “Allô.”
    “Hi, my name’s Bob. A friend gave me your number. Said you could help me find someone.”
    “Are you looking for a girl?” the man asked in heavily accented English.
    “I don’t think so, unless she’s called the Egyptian.”
    “Oh, so you want a belly dancer.”
    “You’re putting me on, right?”
    “I can put you on anything that you desire, but first you must tell me your preferences.”
    “I’m trying to find out about a man called the Egyptian.” Bob was getting annoyed. “A collector of stolen artifacts.”
    “You should have said so,” the man replied in an irritated tone. “I cannot meet with you until later tonight.”
    “That’s okay. I’m staying at the Orly Hilton.
    “No, not your hotel. Do you know Père Lachaise?”
    “I don’t think I’ve ever met him.”
    “I’m not talking about the man. He died a long time ago.”
    “Then why did you ask me if I know him?”
    “It’s the name of a place in Paris. In Montparnasse. Everyone in Paris knows where it is. You can take a taxi from your hotel and be there in thirty minutes. Ask the driver to take you to Rue Emile Richard, but don’t use the main entrance. There’s a small gate two hundred meters to the right that is always open and the path will take you to division six.”
    “Just a minute, I need to write this down. If you’d spell it for me it’d help.” Bob wrote the instructions on a piece of paper then repeated what he was told.
    “Oui. The small house where we will meet has a sign on it. That is where Ferdinand de Lesseps resides. I’ll meet you there at eleven tonight. If I’m not there by midnight, there are complications and we need to reschedule.”
    “I’ll be there.” Bob assured him..

It was ten when the taxi stopped on Rue Emile Richard near one of the entrances to Père Lachaise. Bob set one leg on the sidewalk, grabbed the roof of the car and unsteadily pulled his body out. He had experienced some bone jarring rides across the desert in a Toyota Land Cruiser, but nothing as unsettling as riding across Paris with a driver, cigarette dangling from his mouth, who ignored streetlights and signs.
    “How much?” he asked.
    The driver didn’t reply but tapped a finger on the meter.
    Bob saw 43.50 displayed and handed him a fifty Euro note.
    The driver snatched the bill and stomped on the gas without giving any change.
    Bob raised an arm in protest, but was relieved to see him go. He turned and edged his way cautiously along the cracked sidewalk, avoiding the pits where the cement had crumbled and left crevices large enough to fall into. The streetlights that had used gas before being converted to electricity were spaced far enough apart to leave deep shadows along the wall as he searched for and finally found the gate. Bob grasped the rusty handle, twisted it and pushed as the hinges protested the movement arthritically. He peered into the darkness and spotted a dim light in the distance under a canopy of swaying trees.
    Bob stepped into the gloom and closed the gate. His pace quickened along the rough cobblestone street, his footsteps echoing his movement and seeming to urge him to go a little faster. The leaves rustled above his head like rattling bones in the gusts of wind that blew through the trees.
    He supposed that the small buildings and strange structures along the murky road must be used by the local residents to store their garden tools.
    After ten minutes he came to a pole with direction signs illuminated by a small yellow light above it. Painted in small black letters on the bottom of the sign was “Division 6.”
    Bob studied the street signs and was relieved to see “Avenue Casimir Perier,” the first street he had written down. He followed the direction pointer until he reached the next crossroad. He turned right onto Chemin Serré and continued on the curving street until he reached an intersecting street. It had a pole but no signs.
    He could either continue straight or take the road to the left. He checked his notes and read “take a left,” which made the decision easy, and he continued toward his meeting.
    Five minutes later Bob thought he heard a giggle in the dark. He stopped and tilted his head, then continued forward. It became deadly quiet. After another ten feet he heard it again.
    Again he stopped. “Who’s there? I know someone’s out there.”
    “Are you American?” a male voice asked in English.
    “Yeah, who are you?”
    “Hey man, come on over,” came the reply. “We’re Americans too.”
    “Where are you?” Bob said, straining to see in the dark.
    “Shit, sorry about that.” A small flickering glimmer appeared twenty feet away. “Follow the light, you’ll be okay.”
    Bob headed gingerly toward the yellow glow until he saw a guy and a girl sitting on a blanket with a candle between them. Both were dressed as if they had been transported from the ’sixties to the twenty-first century. “Whatcha doing?”
    “We’re waiting for Jim to talk to us.” The guy lifted a bottle of wine to his lips. His dark hair looked to be tied in a ponytail hanging over the back of his red and blue madras shirt. His bare feet stuck out of widely flared denim trousers.
    The girl’s straight blonde hair was spread over her white peasant blouse, which was tucked into a pair of flared denim hip huggers.
    “Have a seat, man, it’s early.” Ponytail passed the bottle of wine to the girl. “Where you from?”
    Bob consulted his watch. Ten-thirty, a half-hour before the meeting. He approached the couple and sat down. “Illinois.”
    “That’s cool, we’re from Iowa. Best thing we ever did was leave the farm.”
    “You come from a farm?” Bob sensed a kindred spirit.
    “Yeah, nothing to see for miles but a sea of corn…Like a taste of wine?” he asked.
    The girl held the bottle out.
    “No, thanks…I was raised on a farm.”
    “Small world, man. Name’s Donald, but everybody calls me Donny. This is my girl friend Jasmine.”
    Bob shook their hands. “You said you’re waiting for Jim. Is he a friend of yours?”
    Donny picked up the candle and held it next to the headstone. “Jim Morrison 1943-1971,” it said.
    “Lead singer for the Doors, right?…I thought he died.” Bob’s forehead wrinkled.
    “He did, but his spirit’s close by,” said Jasmine, speaking for the first time. “This is his home now, Père Lachaise.”
    The realization that the garden shacks were crypts and Père Lachaise was a cemetery stunned Bob momentarily. “Oh Jesus.”
    Bob feared no man, even when being threatened with a knife or a gun. But the mystique he associated with cemeteries from the time he was old enough to understand his grandfather’s strange tales brought on an anxiety worse than anything he had felt before. He could work on an archaeological site and watch mummies being excavated from the earth and not feel the slightest nervousness. They were a part of ancient history.
    Being among the recent dead was another matter. “Can I have some of that wine?”
    Jasmine handed him the bottle and he drained it, then sat quietly, shaking.
    “Hey, you okay?” asked Donny.
    “This is a cemetery,” said Bob to no one in particular as he verbalized his thoughts.
    “Père Lachaise! Have you ever seen one cooler than this? The place is huge and you wouldn’t believe who they have buried here. During the day it’s like Disneyland with all the tourists, but at night it’s something else. I swear I’ve seen them leave their crypts and move about.”
    “Who?” asked Bob, his eyes getting bigger.
    “The dead, man. They sort of float by like they’re searching for a friend or someone.”
    “Have you got any more wine?” Bob needed something to numb his mind.
    “Try this,” said Jasmine, handing him the joint she had lit a moment earlier.
    Bob put the joint between his lips and took a large hit. Half of it quickly burned to ash. He handed it back to Jasmine and held his breath for thirty seconds before exhaling. “Wow, that’s some good shit.”
    Donny opened another bottle of wine and handed it to Bob. “Wash is down with a little of this.”
    “Thanks!” Bob tilted it up.

Bob was having a conversation with Jim Morrison, but someone was trying to interrupt them, kicking him on the foot and saying something that he didn’t understand.
    “Ignore him,” said Jim, “and he’ll go away.”
    “Yeah, but he’s kicking my foot,” said Bob.
    “They all do that. Once they get you down, man, they just keep on kicking.”
    “Amèricain, get up,” said the tour guide for the fifth time. “Go back to your hotel.”
    Bob cracked his eyes, and the face of an elderly man stared down at him. He was wearing a blue blazer with a silver badge over the pocket. “Paris Tours.”
    “You can’t sleep here,” said the guide. “Go to your hotel.”
    Bob rose to a sitting position, trying to remember where he was. When he read the headstone, bits and pieces of the previous night began to emerge.
    He staggered to his feet to look for Donny and Jasmine, but they had vanished. The last thing he remembered after the fifth joint had been passed around and another bottle of wine was opened was Donny saying, “Bob, it’s Jim, can you see him?”
    The tour guide saw how big Bob was and took a step back, as though wondering whether he should call a guard.
    “Where can I get a taxi?” asked Bob, with a bad case of cotton mouth.
    The guide pointed towards the nearest exit and watched the big Amèricain lumber off.

“I’m getting ready to board the flight,” said Bob.
    “Did you learn anything last night?” asked Bill.
    “Yeah, but it didn’t have nothing to do with the Egyptian. I’ll tell you when I get to New York. I gotta go, they’re boarding.”
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Copyright © 2014 by Steve Glossin

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