Generation of Liars (10 page)

I pushed my barstool back so that
the legs made a keen scrape across the floor and I popped to my feet. “I’m not
going back to my old life.”

Pressley grabbed my collar and
arrested me into his embrace. “I wondered what happened to you for three years,
damn it, I wondered every single day.”

“Well, you found me,” I declared,
my fluttering eyes pacing up and down the length of his face, from his
chromatic eyes to the sooty stubble on his chin, “now what the hell are you
going to do about it?”

His hands slid down to my waist,
the thrust of his fingers pulled me into his body, and he ran his lips over
mine. I could taste the sugar from my absinthe on the tip of my own tongue.
“I’m going to hold on to you this time.”

I pulled away and told him, “You
won’t find the location of the dynamite stick on my lips.”

“And you won’t find the dynamite
stick inside my pockets, but you’re welcome to search me.”

I gave him a loathsome look and
made a demonstration of turning my head and walking away. “Don’t follow me,” I
barked.

“Margaux,” Pressley called to me,
“aren’t you even the least bit curious about how your family is?”

I felt the sting of tears wash over
my eyes and I blinked back the urge to cry. I slowly turned my head back
towards him; the dim lighting of the bar traced his face like a halo’s trim. “You
talk to them?” I asked.

“All the time. They miss you.”

 “How are they? How are my
parents? And Maribeth?”

“Your parents are fine, but they’ve
been devastated ever since you disappeared. They think their oldest daughter is
dead. And your sister, she graduated from high school this year. Top of her
class, and she took a scholarship to Wesleyan so she could stay close to your
parents. They have a pervasive fear about losing the only daughter they have
left.”

“She’s going to Wesleyan?” I asked.

“Yeah, just like you did. She said
she wanted to follow in her big sister’s footsteps.”

“Pressley, listen to me, you cannot
tell them that you found me, okay?”

“They are worried sick. Do you have
any idea how happy it would make them to know that you aren’t dead?”

“Pressley, I can never go back
home. I don’t want them looking for me. It could land me in a lot of trouble.”

“That doesn’t make any sense. Why
won’t you tell me why you ran away?”

I ran my hand over my scalp, raking
my hair in a tortured motion. “I can’t. It’s complicated, and I can never tell
anyone. Please, just don’t tell my family, or anyone else for that matter, that
you saw me here in Paris. And never speak my real name. Ever.”

“I can’t call you Margaux?”

My eyes slipped side to side. “No.”

“Listen, I am going to get to the
bottom of this. I have been assigned the task of retrieving the dynamite stick
for the government and I won’t rest until I have it in my hands. I also won’t
rest until I’ve figured out why you ran away from home, or what you’re doing
here in Paris tangled up with that gangster, Motley.” He walked past me and a
whiff of the sweet musk of his Proraso aftershave trapped inside my nose. The
same as he used to wear.

“You can’t leave,” I said.

“Why not?”

“Because,” I declared, one hand
planting firmly on my hip, “I was leaving first.”

A smirk curled its way onto
Pressley’s lips. “Face it, Alice. You’re not over me.”

I began fidgeting with the belt on
my trench coat. “Pressley, I’m serious, stay away from me, or it could land
both of us in a lot of trouble.”

“I’ll take my chances.”

I watched Pressley walk out the
door and then I torpedoed to the bar and asked Marcel, the bartender, for a
refill on my absinthe.

His hand twisted a cloth inside the
glass he was rubbing dry. “What was that about?” he asked.

“My secrets are catching up with
me.”

“Everyone’s secrets are safe in
Pigalle,” Marcel assured me as he fixed my drink.

“Not mine,” I told him.

Chapter Five: Masquerade & Absinthe

M
Y
CHEEKS WERE hot from the buzz of my absinthe, so when I got outside to the
sidewalk I fanned out the collar of my trench coat and let the cold air knock
onto my chest. As I strolled back towards the metro station, I waved to Sara
Cinnamon, who was leaning out her window, coquetting to a man in a business
suit. That’s when I felt my phone buzz inside the pocket of my trench coat.

“Hello,” I answered, still very
much out of my wits from the mix of absinthe and an unexpected kiss from my
first love.

“Alice,” Motley said on the other
end of the line. “I have a job I need done tonight. Where are you?”

“I’m in my old neighborhood in
Pigalle.”

“Are you sure that’s a safe idea?”

“It’s perfectly fine. I was just
visiting with old friends.”

“The job I need done tonight holds
a very limited window of opportunity. There is a very exclusive party happening
at a mansion on the Seine right now, and you and Rabbit will need to get
inside. I’m going to send Rabbit to pick you up immediately.”

My ears piqued to the sound of a
bottle smashing on the sidewalk somewhere in the distance. A roar of
desire-laden laughter carried from the breeze-swept curtains cloaking an open
window. I looked down at my hands, bathed in a red neon shadow. 

“Tell Rabbit that I will be waiting
beneath the red windmill.”

*   
*    *

Ten minutes later, Rabbit pulled up
in his black A4 and I hopped from the curb into the car.

“You know,” I told Rabbit,
wrestling into the smooth leather seat and clicking the seat belt in place, “it
probably looks really bad for you to pick up a girl in falsie lashes and a
trench coat in front of the red windmill.”

“I’ve been spotted in worse
circumstances with you,” he said, thundering the gas pedal. “Did I interrupt a
date or something?” The question came as he glared down at my pink kitten
heels.

“I don’t go on dates,” I said. “And
I don’t appreciate the assumptions about my personal life.”

“Hey, if you don’t like me knowing
where you are, learn how to drive so I don’t have to keep picking you up
places.”

“I know how to drive,” I reminded
him. “I just hate doing it.” I switched the dial on Rabbit’s stereo to
something I liked. “Did Motley give you any details on the job? It looks like
we have a party to crash tonight.”

“Yeah, it’s some kind of masquerade
ball,” Rabbit elaborated. He wrapped his arm behind the seat and fished out a
glittery pink mask. He dropped it into my lap and switched back the radio
station.

“This mask is cute,” I remarked. I
slipped the mask on over my face and pulled the rearview mirror over to my side
and pursed my lips flirtatiously at my own reflection.

“You are so immature, Alice.”
Rabbit adjusted the mirror back to the road view.

“Where’s yours?” I asked.

Rabbit dug into the backseat again.
He showed me a black and white mask, styled after
Phantom of the Opera
.

“Killer,” I complimented. “So what
do we have to do at the party?”

“It’s simple. While the party is
going on, we have to slip into the host’s personal space and hijack his
computer.”

“Does the host have some
information regarding the dynamite stick he isn’t willing to sell?”

“No, something better. The name of
the man whose party we’re crashing is Jean Etienne. He is one of Paris’ most
high-profile art dealers. There’s a rumor he might be in possession of the
dynamite stick.”

“How likely is this rumor to be
true?”

“Well, look at it this way, his
specialty is collecting rare stuff, pricey stuff; and the reason why he has
been successful as a dealer is that he has good traffic channels.”

“Being able to import a Picasso
doesn’t link someone to the dynamite stick.”

“No, it usually doesn’t. However, I
have it on good authority from a source close to Etienne that his latest import
wasn’t a painting at all. It was a thumb drive specially delivered all the way
from Tokyo.” 

“Who’s the source you speak of?”

“The source needs to remain
private.”

“You mean you won’t tell me?”

“Sorry, Alice, this is a really
sensitive source and I have to keep it hushed.” Rabbit took a turn onto Avenue
Marceau and gunned the gas.

“I’d say this Etienne character
must be able to import more than a few Picassos if he lives in the 16
^th
arrondissement,” I remarked. My eyes were taking in the luxurious estates as we
zipped by them. “You don’t get to live in Paris’ richest neighborhood by
accident.”

*   
*    *

I had to gasp when Rabbit rolled
the car up to the horseshoe driveway in front of Jean Etienne’s estate. The
home was modeled after Versailles and it had views of Paris you usually had to
pay for. The women walking inside the party looked like the type you usually
had to pay for, too.

Rabbit put the car in park and
dropped the keys into the valet’s hand. “Act natural,” Rabbit whispered into my
hair as he hooked his hand into mine and led me up the steps to the front door.

There was a line, at least a dozen
people deep, radiating outside the door as they waited for the nod from the
security agent guarding the door. The guard had sleeve-ripping muscles and a
shiny bald scalp with two ragged gear earrings pinned to each of his lobes. I
held my breath. The breeze from the nearby Seine blew against the bare skin on
my legs, evoking goose pimples.

When it was our turn to be surveyed
by the intimidating guard, his eyes, which had an unhealthy citrine glow to
them, latched onto mine. My pulse was going like a jackhammer. He proceeded to
look me up and down, starting at the tips of my kitten heels and finding my
eyes behind the glittery mask. He reined his lips into a smile. He liked what
he saw. “Go ahead,” he told us.

“Looks like we passed,” I husked
into Rabbit’s ear as we glided into the marble foyer. “Good job on the masks.”

The palatial entrance was marked by
a set of twin pillars. The floor beneath our feet was an oceanic proportion of
gleaming white marble. The walls had a rose-textured pattern, and were lined in
gilded tapestries that guided the eye up to vaulted ceilings, from which hung
crystal chandeliers that looked like they originated in the interiors of ice
caves. The room was dissected by gilded twin staircases set like a pair of
lungs in the center of the room.

In the main room alone there had to
be two-hundred people crammed skin to skin. Most of the women had on slinky
dresses and glitzy feather masks like the one I was wearing. The men were
dressed simply, favoring black and white tuxedos or symmetric dress shirts. The
vibe inside the party was techno romp meets tuxedo. Rabbit and I picked a spot
in the center of the grand marble foyer to do surveillance from. Silver trays
of food and champagne orbited by us like celestial disks balanced over the
wrists of waiters.

“Those are goons,” Rabbit informed
me. He discretely pointed at each muscular man in a black shirt that the common
party-goer wouldn’t notice. “But they are probably only concerned about making
sure nobody walks off with one of the million-dollar paintings on the walls, so
they won’t pay attention to us.” The masks, dark and obscuring, pulled over the
goon’s faces, gave them a sinister appearance on top of the already
intimidating bulk of their muscular bodies.

“I don’t know,” I mused to Rabbit,
as I insatiably scarfed down a disc of tuna tartare on toast I had grabbed from
a passing silver tray, “it doesn’t seem sanitary having the waiters wear so
little while they serve us food. I could probably floss the tartare from my
teeth with their uniforms.”

“Quit goofing around, Alice. We
have to get upstairs to Etienne’s personal space. Focus.” Rabbit’s eyes scanned
the spectrum of the room. “We should use the stairs.”

My eye ascended up the elegant arch
of the steps, paved with a trail of royal plum carpet. The steps were being
traveled by pairs of paramours, clumsily romancing one another from love
scripts written on the floors of emptied champagne glasses.

“Taking the main staircase is too
obvious,” I argued. “The only people going up there are the frisky drunks
looking for a room where they can paw each other raw.”

Rabbit did a creepy smile and I
knew what he was thinking. “Interesting observation,” he said.

I gave Rabbit a look of disgust.
“Don’t even think about it.”

“But you’re right, Alice, simply
walking up the stairs is too suspicious. We have to pretend we’re in the throes
of passion. I say we fake some heat between us to get up the stairs, and then
we dig around.” He twisted his lips into a kiss. “Quick, lick my face.”

“Please don’t make me toss my
tartare. Not happening. End of discussion.”  

A tray of champagne flutes whirled
by me on the arm of a spry, boyish waiter, and I branched my arm to claim one,
in order to take the edge off the prospect of having to paw Rabbit. I took a
sip and felt a tap at my shoulder. Assuming it was one of the waiters offering
me more tartare, I brushed it away with my hand. There was another persistent
tap. This time I turned around to see an older man with silver hair, in a
silver suit, and with gray bags planted under his eyes, staring me down.

“I don’t believe you’re on the
guest list,” said the man.

“And who put
you
in charge
of the guest list?” I asked with my lips perched on the rim of the champagne
glass.

Another waiter, a clone of the
others, with his face obscured by a white Carnevale mask, approached us with a
silver tray. “Tartare, Mr. Etienne?” he offered.

The man who I now realized was Jean
Etienne waved him away without breaking the cold, concentrated stare he was
generating at me. “I did,” he finally said in reply to my question.