Bender at the Bon Parisien (A Novel) (13 page)

“Well,
I wanted to be able to do a little digging on my own. The appraiser mentioned
in passing the Napoleon story. He didn’t think it was really the coin, but I
didn’t tell him it came from Peukington, either.”

“I
see. How are you going to sell the coin?”

“I’m
not sure yet.”

“What
if Lavaar Peukington comes looking for it? He’s not the kind of person who’d be
understanding about any of this.”

“Isn’t
that the truth?” Victor said with a laugh. “I’m thinking that we’ll all take
turns holding it. That way, if someone is suspected, he may not have it on him.”

“You
could always give it to me to hold,” Trudel said with a casual shrug of the
shoulders.

Victor
snickered. “Sure.” He took another drink.

“Don’t
laugh about it! Why is that so crazy?!” Trudel bristled again.

“You
were serious? Why would I give it to you?”

“Obviously
you can trust me! I would never be suspected by Peukington!”

She
had a point. As his girlfriend, she wouldn’t be entirely beyond suspicion, but Trudel
was removed from the situation even more than he was. Still, he was not sure if
he were truly able to trust her. Their relationship was not always perfect, and
Victor worried what might happen if they experienced one of their fights while
she had the coin.

“I
can’t believe it’s taking you this long to think it over,” Trudel said.

“Sorry.
Truth is, I’d pretty much assumed that I’d stash it in the bar somewhere for
safe keeping.”

“The
bar?! Why there?”

“Well,
I don’t want it in my home, do I?”

Trudel
shrugged and took a drink.

“I
mean, I don’t need someone like Peukington in my house,” Victor continued. “There
would be plenty of places in the bar to hide it. I’m there all the time,
anyway.”

“Like
where in the bar?”

“I
don’t know. There are tons of places.” Victor had actually already considered
many specific hiding places in the bar. He wasn’t about to tell Trudel, though.

“I
think I’ve heard enough.” Trudel stood and collected her purse from the back of
the chair.

“What’s
that supposed to mean?” Victor asked.

“Have
a nice time down south.”

“What?
Are you mad or something?”

“Victor,
you have never put my needs first.”

“We
haven’t even been going out that long!”

“You
are one selfish prick. I hope that thing is a bad penny and only brings you bad
luck.” Trudel started to walk away.

Victor
finally stood. “Where is this coming from?”

Trudel
turned back to him. “You ask me here to tell me your plans for the future. They
don’t seem to include me. Good luck with whatever hussy you wind up with next.”

“Another
hussy?! There’s only you!”

“Are
you calling me a hussy?!”

“What?
No! You’re crazy. There’s no one else!”

Trudel
had reached the door. Without turning she said, “Yeah, yeah, there’s always
some hussy!”

She
was gone.

Victor
stayed in the café for a good while longer. As baristas meandered past over the
next hour or so, he sheepishly made eye contact just long enough to indicate
the need for another drink. In hindsight, he considered it a mistake telling Trudel
about the coin.

Victor
had also thought of withholding the coin’s worth from Fleuse and Jacques. As he
sat and drank, he weighed his options. He had ruled out giving the coin to Trudel
to hide, but he realized the potential in leaving town. The others would likely
never find him.

The safe hit the
crimson carpet with a thud.

“Nope,”
Fleuse said dryly.

“Can
you get any higher?” Renard asked me.

Already
standing on the bar, I searched for another avenue. “Well, this is about the
highest point in the room for me to stand on,” I replied. “What if we try to
hit it with something?”

“Pistache,
drink,” I heard Janie say as she threw an ace down. A casual game had begun anew
when it became obvious that six people were too many to try and open a safe. I
found it a little funny that I could not discern whether or not Janie said the
word “Pistache” because she played the ace or she was telling Pistache to take
a drink. I peeked out of the corner of my eye to realize that it was both.

Pistache
was actively helping us with suggestions here and there, but it was apparent
that this guy could not resist a good drinking game.

“Spades,”
he muttered, taking a swig of his latest cocktail before offering us a new idea.
“The leg of a chair might work well as a kind of lever on the combination
dial.”

Willing
to try anything, we agreed. Renard sat the safe upright, and tilted a chair
against it.

“This
is not going to work,” Trudel muttered before playing the two of spades.

“Here
goes,” Renard said simply as he thrust his foot on to the seat of the chair. A
sharp crack sounded loudly as one of the legs of the chair splintered and a
nail pulled away from its framework. It was a good effort, but the safe was
knocked backwards and the chair upended.

“Hmm,”
Renard thought out loud.

“Note
to self,” Pistache said without looking up. “Don’t sit in that chair.”

“So,
Jacques,” Janie asked.

“Yes?”
the pickpocket answered.

“Show
me a trick.”

“What
do you mean?”

“You
know, one of your sneaky ‘get someone’s watch’ magic tricks,” she said as she
played a card.

“He’s
not a magician!” Renard shouted from across the room as he made another awkward
attempt with the chair on the safe’s door.

“Ah,
I see,” Pistache answered. “You are looking for some sleight of hand.”

“Exactly.”

“A
magician …” Pistache glanced at Renard who again looked our direction, “I mean
pickpocket, never reveals his secrets.”

“Oh
come on,” she said as the game continued. “We’re all friends here.”

“We
are?” Trudel asked.

“Well
we are after all this,” I muttered.

“Sorry,
ma cherie
,” Pistache said to Janie.

“Just
go ahead, Pistache,” Renard chimed in again from his spot with the safe.
“She’ll get a kick out of it. Haven’t you been trying to impress her all
evening?”

“It’s
true,” Janie added flirtatiously. “I’ll be impressed.”

Pistache
looked at me. I shrugged. He was annoying, but Janie was flirting with this guy
whether I liked it or not. I threw some whiskey in a glass and downed it
immediately.

“Ok,
I’ll teach you one thing,” he said, sighing.

“Excellent,”
she said as she put her cards down.

I
heard another leg splinter from the chair.

“It’s
called the Sailor’s Revenge,” Pistache explained.

“Okay,”
Janie answered. “What is it, and why is it called that?”

“Well,
it’s said that sailors developed it to lift the key to the rum cabinet.”

“At
least it has a cool name.”

“It’s
pretty simple, really. But, it takes a lot of practice. Watch closely.” The
pickpocket turned to me. “Would you hand me a bottle cap?”

Plenty
of beer bottle caps were lying around. I immediately found one on the floor
behind the bar.

“You
see,” he continued, nabbing the item from me. “You pick up the object with your
thumb and forefinger and close the rest of your fingers around it, like this.”

I
handed Janie a second bottle cap. The game of Pistache had been momentarily
suspended.

“Got
it, that’s easy enough,” she said, mimicking his actions.

“Good.
Now as you turn your fist, work the item between your middle and ring fingers.
You’ll want to move it through them, to the back of your hand, pinning it with
the backs of those fingers. Simultaneously open your hand, exposing your empty
palm.” As he described it, he opened his fist and spread his fingers apart. The
bottle cap had vanished.

“That’s
a good trick,” I marveled.

Janie
tried it, and noisily dropped the bottle cap instantly.

Pistache
smiled. “Kind of. Relax your hand more,” Pistache advised.

She
tried it again, this time using her other hand to try and steady the object. “I
don’t get how you do it so fast,” she noted.

“Ah,
ah, ah. Don’t use your other hand. You never want to get in the habit of trying
to rely on it. Someone will always be looking at your other hand. I told you it
takes practice.”

Janie
dropped the bottle cap again.

“The
key is to perform it in one fluid motion,” Pistache went on. “If your hand
stays moving, no one will be able to stay focused on the sleight of hand. That
way, even if a corner of the bottle cap is peaking through your fingers, it
will be hard to see.”

Janie
dropped the bottle cap yet again. “I’m not getting it.”

“Well,
I didn’t say it was easy,
ma cherie
.”

Again,
the chair splintered under the weight of another awkward attempt at opening the
safe.

“That
didn’t work,” Fleuse muttered the obvious to Renard as he gazed at the
situation.

“That’s
true, Monsieur Newman,” Renard answered through his teeth. “Thank you.”

“I
am going to need another beer,” Pistache said with disappointment as he moved
on from the sleight-of-hand trick. The game was burning through drinks.

Janie
was still transfixed on the bottle cap without showing any signs of
improvement.

“Wait
a minute,” the pickpocket asked me. “Can you make a
Feu du Saint Denis
?”

“I
have no idea what that is,” I answered.

“It’s
a flavored whiskey shot, and the top of it is on fire.”

“Who
was Saint Denis?” I asked.

“He
was a saint.”

“Huh,
okay. Let’s try and keep the lighting of fires to an absolute minimum,” I
responsibly suggested. As a bartender in college, I was familiar with making
drinks like these. They’re hard to get right, not to mention dangerous.

“Well,
think about it,” Pistache persisted. “What if there was a way to somehow use the
fire to open the safe?”

Everyone
was attentive. I didn’t like the idea of lighting a fire, but with one million
euros at stake, I figured I couldn’t stop the pickpocket.

“I
can’t believe I’m still playing this game,” Trudel muttered. She had never put
down her cards. No one paid any attention.

“That’s
a terrible idea,” Renard sounded as the voice of reason. He apparently didn’t
want any fire in the bar either. He was too busy setting up the scene for
another go with a chair. He was putting more care into it this time though as
he searched for the exact angle for proper leverage.

“It’s
not such a bad idea!” Pistache disagreed. “Maybe we weaken something that can
give way in the lock.”

“Or
we wind up melting it shut,” Fleuse offered. He still stood with Renard and the
chair.

“Fleuse
is right,” Trudel offered.

“Thank
you,” Fleuse said, touched by the attention from Trudel.

“Well
for whatever it’s worth, I don’t love it either,” Janie added.

Pistache
scoffed. “Go back to working on your bottle cap trick.” He nodded in Janie’s
direction, but spoke next to Trudel. “Keep your friend quiet.”

Janie
gave him a little scowl and threw the small metal item at him lightly. He didn’t
react.

“Take
it easy, Jacques,” Fleuse said in defense of the ladies.

“Bite
me, Fleuse. I can take care of myself,” Trudel spat.

“Well,”
Pistache continued, “it looks like your chair thing is working really well, so
maybe you should keep going with that while I make a
Feu du Saint Denis
for everyone here who likes me.”

“Let’s
just hear him out for a second,” Fleuse said to Renard after a moment of
reconsideration. He turned back to Pistache. “Ok Jacques, what do you propose?”

Pistache
looked my way. “Do you mind if I join you?”

“No,
come on back.”

He
scurried around the bar and joined me. Snagging a bottle of whiskey, he
carelessly swung it from the shelf. “Let’s see,” he wondered aloud. “Do you see
any
poison du poisson
?”

“I
have never heard of that, either.”

“It’s
serious stuff,” Fleuse interjected.

“He’s
right,” Pistache answered, standing on his toes to search the liquor bottles.
“It’s a spirit extracted from a fish only found in the Mediterranean. It’s the
highest-proof liquor there is. Just a dash is perfect for this drink, but even
as much as a shot of
poison du poisson
straight up will cause memory
blackouts almost immediately.”

“It’s
said that you wouldn’t be able to walk within the hour,” Fleuse added, hands in
pockets.

Janie’s
eyes widened as she shook her head at me.

“Maybe
we should steer clear of that stuff, then,” I suggested.

“Found
it!” Pistache exclaimed.

He
pulled a dusty bottle from the back of the shelves. Dark amber liquor sloshed
inside as he set it on the bar.

“Why
would anyone have that around if it’s so dangerous?” I wondered.

“A
lot of people like the
Feu du Saint Denis
, American,” the pickpocket
answered. “Can’t make one without this. It really looks and smells about like
regular whiskey. It’s illegal in the United States, you know.”

“Is
there at least a warning on the label?”

“You
worry too much,” Pistache said.

Another
thud.

“We
need a big hammer,” Renard said, having just tried dropping the safe again. “Is
there a tool chest anywhere back there?”

“I
have not seen one,” I replied as I picked up the bottle of
poison du poisson
as Jacques set up shot glasses. He was right. It smelled just like ordinary
whiskey, which fueled my fear of the drink.

“I
never saw Victor back there with a hammer or tools,” Trudel added. “Pistache,
young lady.”

Janie
took a sip of her drink. “Diamonds,” she countered.

“Ah,
here we go!” Pistache exclaimed as he flipped a bottle in his hand.

“Now
the trick with these,” Pistache said as he grabbed the bottle from me and began
mixing, “is to gently trickle the high proof alcohol over the top. Just a touch
only. This way, it lights easier because it has not mixed completely into the
body of the drink.” With that, he struck a match and whisked it across the row
of drinks with a dramatic flare. Each one glowed a gentle purple flame. “The
flavor will be there after the burn.”

“Yeah,
that’s great, but I agree with Monsieur Renard,” I said. “I don’t think this
will help us with the safe. You could do more damage than good. What if something
melts?”

Pistache
didn’t have a good answer. He picked up one of the shot glasses, blew the tiny
fire out, and drank it.

“You
know what we could do,” Fleuse interjected. “How about we run an experiment?”

“Somebody
do these with me before they burn out,” Pistache said barely listening. Fleuse
walked to the bar. Everyone except Renard grabbed a shot glass. Janie stared
into hers distrustfully.

Reassuring
her, I said, “I know from making drinks like these that the flame burns off the
high-proof stuff. It’s been going long enough now. We’re okay.”

“I’m
just trying to avoid waking up naked in a park,” she joked.

“Which
park are you thinking?” Pistache asked, smiling.

We
all blew out the flame, and drank the contents.

“So
what kind of experiment?” Janie asked Fleuse as she placed the empty shot glass
on the bar with a knock sound.

“Yeah,
I don’t follow,” Pistache said.

“Let’s
see just how hot this booze burns and its effect on intricate metalwork,” Fleuse
suggested. “We might be able to tell if it will cause more harm than good. We
can use my watch.”

“You
don’t want to do that,” I warned. “It’ll probably trash it.”

“Yeah,
I bet you built that, right?” Trudel added.

“No,”
Fleuse said with a smile as he unfastened the wristband. “I make clocks. This
is an inexpensive little thing. Funny, isn’t it?”