Paris Noir - Aurelien Masson [81]
“A Cinzano!”
“I’m sorry, monsieur, we don’t have any.”
“A dry day?”
“Excuse me?”
“Is it an alcohol-free day?”
“I’m not sure I understand you. Martini, cognac, Suze, I can bring you whatever you want. Except for drinks that are no longer sold.”
“They’ve banned Cinzano?”
“That’s funny. We don’t serve Cinzano because no one buys it anymore.”
“Since when?”
“I think I served the last one … let’s see. Twenty-five years ago?
“Twenty-five years?”
“And that was an old bottle and a very old client.”
“A mandarin citron, then.”
“I see … Monsieur wouldn’t prefer an absinthe? Or a Gallic beer? A good Gallic cervoise?”
With his cloth over his shoulder, he’s as boring as the other one. The future dead man. You’d think they’d passed the word around to each other. If that’s the case, perhaps he knows why I have to kill him. But it’s not the kind of question you ask a man thrown off by the idea of a mandarin citron. He needs something basic. Counter level, you might say.
“Garçon!”
“Monsieur …”
“Where have the girls gone?”
“What girls?”
There’s a confab at the espresso machine.
“Are you the gentleman on the fourth floor?”
“I haven’t counted floors, but that must be right.”
“You went out alone?”
“Yes. Well, it’s not exactly an exploit, it’s something that happens often, you know. Besides, I’m going to do it again right this minute. You’re really irritating, acting like you’ve just landed here from outer space.”
A café without Cinzano, rue des Dames without dames—aren’t you surprised that memory has no memories? That’s not quite right, actually. I do have memories. And that’s the strangest thing. The neighborhood, for instance. I could tell you a lot about it. Like rue des Dames. The bars, the furnished rooms, the ankle-twisting pavement, and the sky you glimpse above the lopsided buildings. The street and the street girls—you might think they’re connected. Wrong, it owes its name to the nuns. They followed it to go up to their convent up there in Montmartre. That must have been in the time of musketeers and sedan chairs. Because I don’t recall meeting any nuns here. No musketeers either. Streetwalkers, yes. Fishnet stockings and slit skirts, with their weary saunter, exhausted from too much soliciting. Lips like embers that don’t want to die, and eyes that have seen everything. The laundresses, too, that was their spot. Rosy skin, hair wild in the steam of the workshops, their blouses opening to the movement of their naked arms. And those smells, making you hungry as a wolf, with a ferocious yen to bite hard. To howl like a tomcat. Blood boiling in your veins. Hot, red, and very thick. Blood …
I shouldn’t forget to kill him. But who? That’s what escapes me. That man on the bicycle riding down from Place de Clichy, his briefcase strapped to the rack? I don’t think so. The pizza deliveryman, perhaps. I don’t much like pizza. Or that one walking along rue Darcet … He came out of the Hotel Bertha, at the corner of les Batignolles. Rue des Batignolles, les Epinettes Park. Names that sing like music boxes. You wind them up, and off you go up the boulevard. “C’est lajava bleue, la java la plus belle …”
It’s a summer evening. The paving stones are still warm from the heat of the day. The air carries the scents of linden blossoms and white wine. That comes from Sainte Marie. The trees from the square and the outdoor cafés all around it, like garlands. They’ve set out the tables and chairs, and barrels when there are no tables left. We passed the bottles around, the nice fine wine with the stony taste—house reserve—and the sparkling wine that makes you sing. “C’est la java bleue, lajava la plus belle…” The grocer donned a fireman’s helmet, big Marcel found himself a rusty old gun, and the postman is proudly showing off two grenades in his mailbag. “Express