The Last Time I Saw Paris (33 page)

After Claire left the Oberons’ last night, she’d slipped through the darkened streets until curfew was lifted then checked into a small hotel in Saint-Germain. The place lacked charm, but it was cheap and also lacked an inquisitive front-desk staff. She paid for two nights then crawled up the stairs to her room. Rolling up in her coat on the rickety bed, Claire stared at a crack in the wall’s plaster until the street outside came alive. Giving up on sleep, she splashed water on her face and stared into the clouded mirror over the sink.

She was alone, without a plan or resources. But she had a certain way with von Richter, and she knew how to find him. And, no matter the risk, she wasn’t about to walk away from Grey or the girls.

Claire suppressed a shiver as she glanced back to the Ritz, scanning the street for cars. Von Richter had stepped out of a black sedan and entered the hotel nearly an hour before. From what he’d told her in New York about his vacations spent in Parisian cabarets, she knew he would soon be seeking the dark side of Paris’ beauty as the weekend began. And she would make sure he found what he sought—and then some.

A gust of wind ripped the paper from her hands as sleet began to pepper her face. Claire shivered, pulling her knees close to her stomach and wrapping her arms around her legs. The tall colonnade in the center of the square offered shelter, perhaps, beneath its elaborate verdigris surface, but she wasn’t about to parade across the open pavement to get there. Another glance back at the hotel and Claire cursed. The soldiers at the hotel’s entry eyed her with cool interest.

Claire stood stiffly and turned away from the square. Her face tucked into her collar, she hurried down the sidewalk. Icy wet pellets drummed against her bare head. An opportunity lost. Another night spent in that dank hotel staring at the cracked wall. She wanted to scream; instead she concentrated on the slick pavement beneath her feet.

Claire froze, then turned to stare over her upturned lapel at two black sedans idling at to the curb. The driver’s window in the first car was cracked open; he waved her closer with two fingers. SS skull-and-crossbones insignia were visible through streaks in the car’s steamed windows. Claire shrugged her coat collar up higher.

“What is the way to Le Boeuf sur le Toit?” the driver said in halting French.

Claire stepped up to the car door, her eyes scanned the interior. The party inside the vehicle had already started. A bottle was being passed around, cigar smoke billowed through the window opening. One man faced the others, his back toward her. He was in the middle of a joke, it seemed; ashes fell from his waving cigar as he paused dramatically at their laughter. He turned toward the driver as he laughed, the visor of his cap hid his eyes, but a thin scar traced a line under his lip. Claire feigned a cough, her voice hoarse. “Avenue des Champs-Elysées to rue du Colisée.”

The window rolled up as the first car pulled onto the street, the second car trailed behind. Claire let out a breath as they accelerated away. When the cars turned off the street, she began to run.

She remembered the feel of that scar under her fingers.
A duel,
von Richter had told her with some pride. She charged down the Métro stairs and ran toward the platform. It was 17:00, she would just have time to get to the hotel, change, and make an appearance at a certain Nazi-favored brasserie.

 

 

B
locks from La Vie en Fleurs, from a dark corner across rue Colisée, Claire watched a crowd of soldiers lounging in front of the entrance to the brasserie. The building was a modern jewel with sleek, hard lines, and Le Boeuf sur le Toit capitalized in Art Deco letters over the entry. A mass of officers crowded around a small table tucked beneath the overhang. The sleet had stopped. Heavy traffic trampled the icy pellets into dark patches of wet cigarette butts and trash.

A doorman in a white jacket held the coveted list, his haughty expression visible at a distance. You couldn’t keep the Germans out of Paris, Claire thought with a grim smile, but you could keep a few of them out of your brasserie.

Claire shifted the heavy vase brimming with crimson ranunculus in her hands. She couldn’t risk going to the shop so she’d purchased the flowers at a ridiculous price from the window of a jewelry shop on les Champs. Based on the doorman’s sour expression, she’d made the right decision. Crossing the street, she backtracked and turned into an alley behind the restaurant. She steeled herself and marched up to the soldier guarding the back entrance.

He grimaced at the wind that ruffled the papers clutched in his hand. A glance at a worn tablet hanging on the wall next to him. “Badeau is not on the list.”

“But you see right here I have a pass for flowers. The arrangements for tonight were made,” Claire said, concern building in her voice.

He shook his head and motioned toward the alley with the flick of his thumb.

Claire pushed the flowers at him. “An SS kommandant paid 275 reichsmarks for this. A special party for his mistress. What will happen when he calls tomorrow and wants his money back? Shall I tell him to charge you?”

After a moment, he scowled and pushed the flowers back at her. “If you are lying, I will shoot you myself.”

Claire bowed her head in a display of humility.
“Merci,”
she murmured as she hurried past. At this point a bullet was not an unexpected outcome. But she had higher aspirations tonight.

In the restroom off the back hall, Claire set the vase on a counter and inspected herself in the mirror. She looked like hell. Soaking wet, her hair was slicked against her head and her coat hung off her like a wet blanket. If the guard came searching for her tonight, he would be looking for a drowned rat. Not this, she thought slipping off her coat.

The diamonds at her neck caught the light like a thousand candles. Claire released the clip at her waist and the full volume of her creamy silk gown spilled over her legs, circling her feet. She pulled a pair of delicate grey pumps from her coat pocket and slipped them on her feet. A towel for her hair, a little brushing, a coat of red lipstick.

Claire examined the identification card in her hand. Claire Badeau stared back at her.
Parisienne.
Knowing. A spark of drama in her eyes. She slipped the card into her décolleté. Inspecting herself in the mirror, she willed her heart to numbness and arranged a smile. She broke the stem from a ranunculus blossom and threaded it behind her hair.

The card read Badeau, but Claire Harris Stone was back.

She dumped her coat and shoes in the trash. White-vested servers loaded with trays bustled past her as she paused at the doorway of the main dining room. Clusters of drinking officers, men in tuxedos and women in evening gowns stood at the mahogany bar and sat around tables. A pianist played from a glittering alcove. The room smelled of a decadent blend of roasting meats overlaid by tobacco.

She stroked the cool stones around her neck with the tips of her fingers. It was the kind of party she expected when she came to Paris. Before Madame Palain, before Grey.

The music was brisk, some sort of complicated waltz. She slowed herself down to half-time as she sauntered through the tables. A ripple of silence followed her to the bar.

The bartender leaned on his elbows, hands mechanically wiping a glass with white linen. His lined eyes were focused on the distance like a man who preferred to think he was someplace entirely different. He glanced at Claire, his gaze rested on her necklace for a second before returning to her face.
“Bonsoir, Madame. Bienvenue.”

Claire bellied up to an open space at the bar.
“Merci. Ça va?”

“Not too bad. What can I get you?”

“Champagne, please.”

He nodded and reached below the bar. “A strange place tonight for
une Américaine
,” he said, voice soft.

Claire smiled. “It is a strange place tonight for all of us, no?”

He smothered a grin as he poured. “
Oui
, Madame.”

The champagne tingled all the way to her empty stomach. She turned to face the room, cocking her hip and slinging one bare arm on the bar. She inspected the men present. All were Wehrmacht, regular army. Von Richter wasn’t in the room.

A towering captain stood at the end of the bar. His massive shoulders were shaped like a battering ram, his face red from drink. She caught his eye and let a pleased smile grow on her face.

There was a lot she didn’t know about von Richter. His favorite drink, his favorite club. She sure as hell didn’t know how that party boy ended up in the SD. But she did know that when it came to women, von Richter wanted what he couldn’t easily have.

I
t was her second glass of champagne, the captain’s second bottle, when von Richter’s party finally arrived. Their drunken shouts and giggles drowned out the pianist as they swept into the mezzanine next to the bar. The group had grown; dancing girls had joined the officers. The women were wrapped in coats for the weather but still wore sparkling headdresses and heels.

Claire and the captain leaned against the bar, the better to be seen. He’d been a good choice. He spoke no French and didn’t care that she didn’t understand German. His face so flushed that his blue eyes stood out like beacons, he continued a story he had started thirty minutes ago. She didn’t follow a word, but at von Richter’s entrance, Claire laughed loud enough to be heard over the roar and stroked the soldier’s brawny biceps.

Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed von Richter’s approach. She slid closer to the captain, one hip pressed against his muscled thigh.

“Madame Stone,” a voice said behind her shoulder.

Claire didn’t respond. After a moment, the soldier’s story trailed off into silence. She watched the scowl grow on his face before she turned around.

Von Richter faced her. “A long way from home, aren’t you?” he said in English.

Claire responded in French. “I’m sorry, Monsieur, but you have mistaken me for someone else.”

Von Richter replied in smooth French. “There are some things I don’t forget.”

“I am flattered to be considered so memorable, but I am not who you think I am.”

The soldier looked between them. He frowned but didn’t speak, his eyes on von Richter’s rank and SD insignia. A blonde, no more than sixteen, stumbled up behind von Richter.

She giggled as she slung an arm over his shoulder.
“Venez, mon beau gosse.”

“Your little friend is lonely,” Claire said.

The girl glared at Claire and burrowed against von Richter’s back.

Claire traced the line of the captain’s biceps, her eyes on von Richter. “We were just on our way out, weren’t we, Kapitän? Someplace a little more . . . confidential.”

Von Richter’s eyes hardened as he glanced at the soldier.

“They’re going inside without us.” The girl tugged on von Richter’s arm as the party filed down the hallway.

He shrugged, a small intrigued smile. “Forgive my mistake, Madame.” He turned on his heel.

Claire watched him disappear behind a heavy wooden door, disappointment flaring inside her. Her mind worked as she finished her drink. Had she overestimated his interest in New York? No, she decided, remembering the hardness she felt dancing next to him that night.

The captain finished his third bottle in a swig and straightened up to his full height. He motioned toward the door and spoke. It didn’t sound like a question, but she got the idea. She forced a smile and walked toward the exit.

A pale, hard-faced SD Lieutenant stopped them in the lobby. He spoke a few words to the soldier then turned to Claire. “Would the lady accompany me to the back room?”

The Wehrmacht captain spit out a curse and stomped into the darkness.

The lieutenant smirked and turned to Claire. He leads you to a room full of snakes, she thought, her palms sweating. She gave him a smile and walked, hips swaying, before him down the hallway.

The smoke-filled back room was swinging. A waiter with an armful of bottles ducked between drunken couples entwined on chairs, tables and the floor. Three women had shucked their coats and stood on a table, diamond-patterned panties glittering in the faint light. They clicked a rhythm with their dancing shoes while an officer sitting in a chair below stared up at them, his eyes half slits.

Von Richter inspected Claire from across the room. The blonde sat on his lap, wearing only ruffled pink panties and a garter belt, her arms wrapped around his shoulders, fingers in his hair.

Claire walked up to face him. “I feel overdressed,” she said, her eyes on the girl.

“Then take off your clothes,” he said with a smirk.

She didn’t reply.

“What is the point of this game, Claire? You play with fire. I thought you were smarter.” He absentmindedly stroked the girl’s leg. She nuzzled his neck.

Claire inspected him. First she needed to get rid of that damn girl. She shrugged. “Ah, Alby darling, if you insist on pulling skeletons out of closets, at least pour me something.”