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Marchant
looked down again, then out the window to the rue Pigalle, his brow
furrowed. A fat bead of sweat broke free, trickled down his face
onto his cheek, disappeared under a pocked chin. He swallowed.
Joe Jones sipped champagne, eyes still. "Perhaps I am in the
wrong home. Perhaps I am mistaken even about your intentions, or
my . . . sources were . . . faulty, shall we say." His voice
dropped an octave. Bardot reached for her glass, finished it with
a gulp.
Jones set his down. "You see, I was given to understand that
you were a man of intention, a man of action." He was like
a detective performing an interrogation. Marchant felt another globe
of sweat slide down his face. Transfixed, he did not move, he just
listened.
"Yes. You see monsieur, I was given to understand that you
were a man who wanted to make money. But, perhaps I was mistaken.
Perhaps I am not in the right place." Jones drank, never taking
his eyes from the Marchant’s sweat-slicked face.
"What do you mean!?" Marchant exploded, thrilled to be
able to wipe his face with his silk handkerchief, smooth his hair.
He snapped his fingers for cognac, stalling, thinking.
"What do you mean!?" he repeated. "I, I, am a man
of substance! Integrity!!" he tossed back the cognac. "C’est
vrai!" he shouted in French, flustered. He caught himself,
switched back immediately. "It’s true! Action. Of course
I believe in action! Vraiment! Vraiment! Mais . . ." he caught
himself, looked around, at his plate. His voice dropped. "These
things you propose, monsieur" he abruptly looked, as if seeing
it for the first time, at the bulge in Jones’ tuxedo coat,
swallowed, blundered on. "These . . . ventures you would…undertake…"
The light on the windowpanes flared wild and savage. A hoarse, ragged
chorus of shouts, howling curses, accompanied it. "Etranger!
Etranger!" and "Auslander Raus!" were the only things
that Jones could make out. Yet his companions remained cool, aloof,
enthralled by the gorgeous food. Jones turned toward the light,
the backdrop of hot voices. He touched Bardot’s small finger,
nodded towards the street. Went back to the conversation. Quickly,
smoothly. Anastasia thought she had imagined his touch. But then
she realized that she hadn’t, because his energy changed, subtle
as a shift in the breeze, from calm to aware.
"Oui" he rumbled slowly. "These ventures I am going
to undertake, with you, or not, Monsieur, will place the whole of
Paris nightlife in your front hip pocket. Nothing that happens after
the sun sets will happen without passing by you, first. Monsieur.
One way or another, you will set a trend that will run for at least
the next ten years – you will become the reigning crown prince
of Paris at night."
Marchant dabbed his brow. "Monsieur" he faltered, ".
. . where, how . . . how would you begin this . . . scene??"
Jones’ eyes softened then constricted as they darted back out
to the street. There was the sudden bite of breaking glass and a
frayed chorus of electronic yelps, barks, shrieks from errant car
alarms. Joe Louis Jones shoved out of his chair and headed for the
door.
Anastasia shoved the new French francs deeper into her purse, glanced
at Marchant, who sat still as a statue, then she jumped up and ran
out after Jones.
In the street, a mob of youths with bloodshot eyes and paratrooper
boots, were setting fires. "Auslander Raus! Auslander Raus!
Auslander Raus!" they crowed, hoarse, feral. One boy took a
baseball bat to a Citroen. Someone tossed a flaming bottle of rags
which exploded into flames that licked the indifferent night sky.
"Auslander Raus!" the boy shrieked, fist in the air. He
cocked the bat and started for the Peugeot across the street. "Merde!"
Anastasia snarled. Skinheads!
The boy with the bat double-cocked it, was about to swing –
and there was a ripping flash of white light – and then the
bat was in Joe Jones’ hand, and the boy with the swastika on
his jacket stood there for a second, blankly staring at Jones. Then
he turned and ran away.
Jones moved forward with the growling efficiency of a main battle
tank. And Anastasia knew that she was not the only one who had seen
the boy Nazi fly through the night air like a child’s toy,
because before her, the skinheads broke, ran with wild abandon,
dropping their weapons as they ran.
Anastasia felt dizzy. There, behind a minivan, a buxom, red-haired
olive-skinned woman in a bright red miniskirt, red fishnet stockings,
was involved in a loud tug of war with three sneering skinheads.
The object of their mutual interest was her gold lamé purse.
The Nazi boys yanked hard at the purse, but she bared her teeth,
refused to let the battered bag go. Then there was that flash again,
bright as a dozen laser beams. Anastasia crooked her arm up in front
of her face to shield her eyes. It was reflexive, and when she looked
back the three skinheads were gone. . . .
The sirens grew more insistent. Against the dull, ancient stone
wall, the svelte, buxom redhead clutched her purse with both sinewy
arms, now shouting at Joe Jones in a torrid, burbling river of heavily
accented, almost unintelligible French. In spite of everything,
Anastasia giggled as she trotted over to rescue him.
"Croatia! Zagreb! Zagreb!" the woman held the purse with
one hand, shook her fist at him. "ZaGREB!!!" she shouted.
"Dontcha think we oughta get ouda here, sister?" Jones
rumbled, lapsing back into his dense New York street idiom. "Things
are about ta get a little hot, dontcha think?"
The woman’s face went blank. She narrowed her eyes into two
tight slits as she once again wrapped both arms around her purse.
"Zagreb!" she hissed. Broken glass crackled as she stomped
her foot on the dented pavement.
Anastasia Bardot giggled. Jones whipped his head around. His eyes
relaxed about one millimeter. "I wuz wonderin’ what happened
ta you. I thought you mighta skipped. Not enough action to keep
you occupied!" Anastasia hit him with a mock frown, looked
at the disheveled woman, at the flustered Jones, then giggled again.
"She is trying to tell you that she is from Zagreb, Joe. Croatia.
The nation of Croatia. OK, Joe?"
Joe backed off, looked at the woman, at Anastasia, scratched his
head.
"Oui, Joe Jones, Americain tough guy?"
He cracked a grin for the first time since they had hopped out of
the sparkling Bentley limousine. He counted his words. "OK.
So…she’s from Yugoslavia…"
"Croatia, Joe!"
"Zagreb!" the woman shouted.
Joe Jones smirked at the woman, who was making no attempt to leave,
took Anastasia, led her further away. Closed his eyes, let out an
exasperated sigh. "OK. Certainly east of the Seine. So?. What’s
that got ta do with us?"
"She is considered a foreigner, Joe. Skinheads – very
mean, very bad – obviously –" She pinched Jones.
"Very xenophobic. Don’t like foreigners. Don’t really
like anybody, monsieur tough guy."
The air was still acrid with burning tire smoke, burning steel,
burning glass as they moved quickly to Marchant’s gate, and
the abruptly abandoned dinner party. Then the rushed sound, deliberate,
like a bike on loose gravel, of someone darting after them, and
the Zagreb redhead was with them.
Jones entered last and Marchant closed the door behind him, putting
a full glass of champagne into his hand at the same time. Marchant
offered him a Gauloise.
"Quite the display, monsieur" he spoke low as he struck
a match.
Jones’ eyes flipped up as he puffed at the cigarette. He let
his lungs fill with smoke, relaxed. "Indeed. We did not want
you to be bored, monsieur."
"A toast, then." Marchant, shuddering, held Jones’
gaze as best he could. "To excitement." The two men drank
slowly, eyes burning, in silence. Marchant wiped his sweat- slicked
brow with his hand. The hand shook. He did not hide it anymore.
"I will sign a contract for at least two events, monsieur."
He wiped his face, took a deep breath. "I hope I am not signing
the warrant for my own destruction" he whispered into his glass.
Go back to Part 1: The
Adventure Begins
Go back to Part 2: Argent
Sauvage
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