The Last Time I Saw Paris - Lynn Sheene [106]
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.
“Fraulein.”
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.
Blocks 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.