Ron Base - Tree Callister 03 - Another Sanibel Sunset Detective (2 page)

But Freddie’s outburst only served to confirm the cloud that hovered over the evening, a cloud that not even walking beside the Seine could lift. Tree tried not to think about the recent traumatic upheavals in their lives on Sanibel Island, Florida, and their effect on their marriage. Seismic changes had occurred since an aging ex-newspaperman, desperate to reinvent himself, had decided to become a private detective. All that was for another time.

That’s what he tried to tell himself.

When it was finally dark, they found a cab that transported them through narrow streets to the apartment they had rented for the week. It was located in a part of the city known as Montorgueil, haunt of the so-called Bobos, according to Freddie, a contraction of Bourgeois and Bohemian, the new fashionables of Paris, young people with a lot of money pretending they had no money at all. No wonder Tree felt out of place. He was a person with no money, in Paris pretending he had a lot of it.

Their apartment was off Rue Montorgueil, along a cobblestoned thoroughfare full of shops now closed for the night. They climbed the three floors to their combination sitting room and bedroom, with French windows that opened to the street. A gentle breeze stirred the curtains. Somewhere below a passerby sang at the top of his lungs.

The nameless song drifted away as Freddie and Tree made the sort of love you can only make in Paris—the kind of love that drives all the bad things away, that lodges forever in memory.

Paris love.

2

Late the next afternoon, after a day of sightseeing, they returned to their apartment, and Freddie finally admitted she was feeling awful. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” she said.

She lay down on the bed and allowed Tree to place a blanket over her. She murmured thanks and seconds later fell into a deep sleep.

When she awoke again, it was eight o’clock. Tree got her some water. She said she was feeling better, just tired and wanting more sleep. She wasn’t hungry, she said. But if he was, he should go out for something.

“I don’t want to leave you.” Tree said.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Freddie said. “You don’t have to starve yourself to death for me.”

“I’ll grab something fast, and come right back,” Tree said.

“Take your time. All I want to do is sleep.”

Was that all she wanted? Tree wondered. Maybe she also desired time alone without him. He splashed water on his face and put on a blazer. By then Freddie was sound asleep again.

Trying to shake off the unease he had been feeling practically since their plane landed, not at all helped by Freddie’s abrupt exit from the evening, he walked along rue Dussoubs to rue Montorgueil. The streets were filled with young people, everyone seemingly preoccupied with their cell phones. It struck Tree that he was not young and he did not have his cell phone with him. He felt suddenly downright elderly and out of place and curiously vulnerable. Being on the town in Paris by himself lacked the appeal it once had.

He spotted that rarest of things in Paris at night—a taxi without a passenger. Suddenly, he knew where he wanted to go. When you could find no comfort in the present, the best thing was to escape to the past.

Tree jumped into the cab.

________

Curious how memory plays its tricks.

Tree remembered the bistro side of La Closerie des Lilas being much larger than the intimate dark wood ship’s cabin that confronted him. It had been years since he was last here and during that time, Lilas had expanded in his mind to accommodate constantly growing memory.

A friend had brought him for lunch the first time he was in Paris in the early eighties, another of those places that had drawn Tree because it was a Hemingway hangout.

Since then, the brasserie had become something of a Paris touchstone for him although he wasn’t certain why. Nothing particularly remarkable had ever happened to him here. The food was good without being memorable. Still, in the glow produced by the tiny wall lamps, with the piano player at the entrance tinkling away at Gershwin’s “Summertime,” Tree relaxed, feeling much more at home swimming in the nostalgia of his past than he was among the young of rue Montorgueil.

Tonight, with everyone on the terrace enjoying the summer evening, Tree pretty much had the interior of the brasserie to himself. Just him and whatever ghosts of Hemingway lingered. He occupied a stool at the end of the bar near the brass plaque marking the place Hemingway used to sit.

For a moment, Tree was tempted to order a kir royale, his drink of choice in the old days. He dismissed the impulse, asked for sparkling water and a menu. He would eat something at the bar, briefly inhale nostalgia, and then get back to poor, sick Freddie.

“Wait a minute,” he said to the bartender.

“Monsieur.”

“I’ve changed my mind. A kir royale, si’l vous plait.”

Why not? he thought to himself as the bartender nodded and went away. I’m in Paris, after all, and for a single night reliving long-ago youth—a youth that would include a kir royale at La Closerie des Lilas. Or maybe two.

The bartender returned and placed a glass filled with a bright liquid the color of a pale rose on the bar in front of him. Tree stared at it for a time and then lifted the kir royale until it glittered in the light of the Closerie. He placed the edge of the glass to his lips and took a deep swallow.

The sweet, biting taste filled his mouth, and then made its way languidly through his body, as if to warm him with the memory of what it was like to sit here with a few of these inside him. Of course, it was never the first that got you into trouble. It was always the second and then the third.

Well, he thought, putting the unfinished glass back on the bar, he wasn’t going to get into any trouble tonight. Those days were long over.

“You are in my seat,” a voice behind him said.

He turned to find a young woman standing there. He had a sense of blonde hair tumbling around bare shoulders, a short skirt and long legs.

“Is this where you sit?” he said.

“It’s where Hemingway sat, so that’s where I have to sit.”

Tree got off the stool to make room for her, taking his glass with him.

“You’re sure you don’t mind?”

“I’ve sat there many, many times,” he said.

“I’m Cailie Fisk,” she said, offering a slim hand.

He took her hand. “Tree Callister.”

“Tree? That’s an interesting name.”

“It’s short for Tremain. When I was growing up the kids all called me Tree.”

“Nice to meet you, Tree.”

She perched on the stool, very still, closing her eyes as though attempting to draw in the essence of Hemingway. Her eyes popped open again and she looked at him. “I wonder if he really did sit here. I mean, how does anyone really know?”

“I’ve thought the same thing many times.”

“He does talk about the Closerie in
A Moveable Feast
, so I suppose the chances are pretty good that his elbow must have nudged this part of the bar, however inadvertently.”

“I’m surprised someone your age is even interested in Hemingway.”

“I’m fascinated by all things Paris,” she said. “When you’re growing up in St. Louis, that’s a million miles from Paris, so I embraced all the clichés. The Eiffel Tower. The impressionists. Hemingway in Paris. The unrealistic, romantic view they keep for the tourists. But then I’m the kind of girl who gets to London and rushes over to see the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace. Old things, but enduring. I like that.”

The bartender came over and arched an eyebrow? “Madame?”

She ordered a kir royale.

Tree looked at her. “Why a kir royale?”

“I don’t know. I read somewhere that if you came to La Closerie des Lilas you should order a kir royale. So here I am at the Closerie ordering a kir.”

“That used to be my favorite drink.”

“Used to be?”

“Back in my drinking days in Paris.”

“What’s that you’re holding?”

“It’s a kir royale,” Tree said.

She smiled. “Your drinking days appear to have returned.”

“Nostalgia overcame me for a minute there,” Tree said.

“How did it taste?”

“Not quite the same.”

“It never does, I guess. You came here for work?”

He said, “I was a newspaperman in Chicago.”

“But you’re not anymore?”

“Not for a long time.”

“What do you do now?”

What to say to that? “Now I’m a private investigator on Sanibel Island in Florida.”

“You’re not serious.”

“Some days I wonder,” he said.

The bartender placed the kir royale in front of her. “What’s in this?” she said.

“It’s crème de cassis which is a black currant liqueur. An ordinary kir is topped with white wine. With a kir royale, they add champagne.”

She lifted the glass off the bar. “To Hemingway and nights in Paris,” she said.

He touched his glass to hers. “To Hemingway,” he said.

She took a tentative sip and smiled. “It’s delicious. Are you not going to have a drink?”

“I think I’ve had enough,” he said.

“Come on, Monsieur Tree Callister from Sanibel Island, you can’t toast Hemingway and Paris and then not drink.”

“Maybe you’re right,” he said with a grin, and finished off the rest of his kir.

His eyes watered, and he felt that warmth again. The room softened around him. Or was that his kir-fueled imagination?

“So let me see, Sanibel Island,” she said. “That’s off the west coast of Florida, isn’t it?”

“That’s right. In fact, the agency I run is called The Sanibel Sunset Detective Agency.”

“And how many agents does Sanibel Sunset Detective employ?”

“Just one,” Tree said.

“You?”

“I’m the Sanibel Sunset detective.”

“I see. Are there many calls for private detectives on Sanibel Island?”

He laughed and shook his head. “Everyone thought I was crazy, including my wife. But there is business as it turns out.”

“You’re in Paris with your wife?”

“Yes, we’re here celebrating her birthday.” Now Tree was beginning to feel embarrassed, and the burning in his face wasn’t just the result of the unexpected liquor in his system. He hastened to awkwardly explain: “She’s come down with some sort of bug. I ducked out to get something to eat.”

“I’m sorry to hear she’s not feeling well,” Cailie said. “I hope she’s going to be all right.”

The waiter returned and asked in English if they wanted menus. “I haven’t eaten anything today and I’m starving. Have you eaten yet?”

“No, not yet,” he said.

“Why not get something together, and then you can get back to your wife, and I’ll go back to my lonely, miserable hotel room.”

“Now I’m starting to feel sorry for you,” he said.

“Maybe that’s the idea.”

“A beautiful young woman in Paris, you won’t be lonely for long.”

“In the meantime, I am hungry.”

Tree thought of Freddie back at their apartment. She probably was sound asleep. And he
was
hungry, and, he had to admit, the kir royale had released something inside him. He felt loose and free tonight, like the old days in Paris. Why not dinner? He glanced around at the unoccupied tables and booths. “Why don’t we sit over there against the wall?” He turned to the bartender. “Is that all right?”

“Bien sûr, monsieur.”

They took their drinks to the table. Cailie sat facing him and the waiter brought the menus.

“Tell me about yourself,” Tree said. “You grew up in St. Louis. Are you still there?”

She studied the menu a moment before she said, “Very much so.”

“What do you do there?”

“Right now, I’m not so sure.”

“No?”

“It’s the sort of confusion that occurs in a life when your sister is killed, and you break off with your fiancé, and all the things you thought were certain in life suddenly aren’t so certain anymore.”

“I’m sorry,” Tree said.

“Don’t be sorry about the fiancé,” she said. “He’s a jerk. But my sister was a different matter. We weren’t very close, but still, she was my sister. Everyone in the family was devastated, of course. My parents are having a terrible time with it. I had to get away. I’ve always wanted to come to Paris, and so I thought, well, if I’m ever going to do it, then maybe now is the time.”

“And was that a good decision?”

She paused to consider this. “I think so,” she said carefully. “Although it turns out you can’t outrun your demons—or your memories.”

“You certainly can’t outrun your memories,” Tree said. “That’s the trouble with Paris. It holds onto them for you and waits for you to come back and then springs them on you.”

“Maybe,” she said with a shrug. “But I’m a newcomer, remember. So I bring dreams to Paris, not memories. Overall, Paris has been a fine escape. I don’t have to think about my sister here, I don’t have to think about anything but seeing and experiencing all the things I’ve always dreamt about the city.”