Tangled Ashes (3 page)

“So talk fast—I’m between meetings. What’s Gary’s harebrained scheme this time?” she asked, swiveling toward him on her stool, legs crossed, the tip of her foot sliding around his calf. “Turning another dilapidated factory into a schooner museum?”

Beck turned to dislodge her foot. He dispensed with subtlety—wasn’t in the mood for it anyway. “I’m heading to France. For a few months. Big project for one of Gary’s contacts.”

Leslie raised a perfectly arched eyebrow. “Nice. Can I come along?”

On the television screen, Paul Pierce took a shot from the top of
the key and failed to make a basket. “I leave in two days. Thought you should know.”

There was a pause while Leslie absorbed the information. Then she leaned in, her mouth close to his neck, and whispered, “Guess we’d better make the most of the time we have left, huh, slugger?”

The beer on her breath repulsed him. The way she touched his thigh did too. Then again, he’d never been more than mildly intrigued by her. Theirs was a cynical arrangement of convenience and distraction. He got the distraction and she got the . . . He wasn’t sure what she got, actually. It wasn’t predictability and it certainly wasn’t entertainment. More often than not, they used more words ordering their drinks than they did having a conversation. That’s where the convenience came into play. Hours of company and no need for small talk. Didn’t get any better than that.

“Actually,” he said, taking a long swallow from his glass, “I’m going to be swamped, so . . .”

“There are a lot of hours in a couple of days,” she insisted, her voice dropping a notch or two as she traced the veins on the top of his hand with a fingertip. Whoever said a person couldn’t live on hope alone had never met Leslie. She’d known him for several months and still lived with the delusion that she’d get him into bed. “What are you—a monk?” she’d asked one night, when he’d driven her home in the wee hours after a protracted cocktail party and dropped her at the curb. He’d driven off without answering, watching in his rearview mirror as she stomped her foot on the wet sidewalk. But she’d recovered fast enough and somehow made peace with the situation. As long as they played with fire on a regular basis, she seemed happy to be his drinking partner and social accessory. Suited him just fine.

Beck downed the last of his beer and dropped a twenty-dollar bill on the polished surface of the bar. He stood, grabbed his jacket off the stool next to him and moved toward the door.

“What—no ‘See ya later’? No ‘Nice knowin’ you’?” Leslie swiveled on her stool, hands out in amazement, a flush of red high on her cheeks.

Beck gave her a long look, racking his mind for something meaningful to say. But he could no more validate their relationship with declarations than he could end it with regret. He shrugged, averted his eyes, and turned to go.

It hadn’t taken long for Beck to say the rest of his good-byes. Most of them had required no more than a few words of instruction and a casual wave. Such was the nature of his friendships. They were about work or about distraction. Period. They didn’t keep him warm at night, but they sure made transcontinental moves less complicated.

T
HÉRÈSE
G
ALLET FUMBLED
with the oversize key and carried on a flurry of conversation as she tried to unlock the castle’s front door. Beck stood by with waning patience. He’d been through the same drill minutes before at the castle’s main gate, and the routine was getting old. Jet lag was weighing him down, and Thérèse’s inefficiency was stoking the kind of anger that made him miss his punching bag.

Thérèse spoke English with the crisp, staccato diction of a chirping bird. They had started out in French as they drove from the train station in Chantilly to Lamorlaye, but when fatigue had interfered with Beck’s rusty linguistic skills, they had switched easily to the language he’d spoken since his parents had moved from Canada to Chicago when he was only ten.

“All the château’s doors need to be replaced,” Thérèse twittered, her fingers easing the key in and out of the lock, turning,
then turning again, hoping to catch the ancient mechanism hidden inside the antique white door. “It’s really quite astounding that there hasn’t been more vandalism in all these years,” she said, her voice sharp and high-pitched, her eyes unfocused as she leaned into her task. She was a slight woman, probably pushing sixty, but she moved with a speed and an erect posture that belied her age.

Beck peered through the window while Thérèse fumbled with the lock. He tuned out her babbling and squinted into the shadows beyond the castle’s door. He saw a sweep of stairs framed by an archway, stone floors, and little else. Thérèse had explained on the way to Lamorlaye that Gavin Fallon, a British expatriate and wealthy real estate tycoon, had purchased the dilapidated property several months before and had only recently decided to begin the renovation process.

“Eureka!” Thérèse cried when the key finally turned. She pushed down on the brass handle and motioned for Beck to precede her inside. “Here it is,” she said with a more dramatic flourish than Beck thought necessary. “It’s not much to look at right now, but it does have potential, wouldn’t you say? Look at those carved banisters. And these
windows
! Here—let me switch on the light so you can have a better look.” She hurried over to the wall next to the door and flipped a switch.

Beck had somehow expected more than a single bulb hanging from a wire to illuminate the space. But there it was—as out of place in this historical context as a corn dog at the Ritz. And sadly, all it did was further reveal the castle’s disrepair.

“How old is this place?” Beck asked, interrupting Thérèse’s chatter.

She took a notebook from her purse and flipped through a few pages. “I thought you might want some historical background,” she said, smiling pertly. “I jotted down some notes that you might find interesting.” She seemed proud of herself, a trait Becker found
annoying. When she’d turned to the desired page, she said, “It’s quite complicated, really. The foundations date back to . . . it looks like the twelfth century. It was a fortress, originally.”

“The twelfth century?” Beck was stunned.

“Yes, but the current structure is much more recent. The fortress was mostly destroyed during the Hundred Years’ War.”

Beck shook his head, astounded.

“You’ve heard of that, I’m sure?”

Ignoring her question, he pursed his lips and stepped farther into the entryway, taking stock of the limestone walls and the detailing on the staircase. He’d pictured something old by American standards, but this felt more like archeology than architecture.

“The part we’re standing in was rebuilt during the Renaissance,” Thérèse continued, “and it looks like the final restoration . . .” She flipped some more, tucking back a strand of graying hair that had escaped from her rather austere chignon. “Yes, that’s right. The final restoration came in 1872. It was really quite extensive, as you’ll see. They added the entire north wing and modernized the overall look of the castle.” She glanced up at Beck and frowned at the disbelief she saw on his face. “I’m sorry—were you not aware that the structure was . . . historical?”

“Oh no,” Beck assured her, shaking his head and looking around at the centuries-old walls within which he stood. “I knew it was a historical monument. It’s just . . . In the States, anything that predates McDonald’s is considered ancient history.”

Thérèse looked around too, but she appeared to be scanning for rodents more than admiring the decor. “Well, yes. Of course. It’s quite old. And dusty. And damaged.” She pointed at the graffiti-covered walls, the broken windowpanes, the yellowed marble floors, and the evidence of a fire on the grand staircase. “I’m not sure Monsieur Fallon understood the full scope of the challenge, taking on this renovation, but I presume it will keep us all busy for . . . a while.”

Beck stopped listening. He was picturing the finished product in his mind and calculating what it would require to see the work to completion.

“Of course, how you’re going to accomplish it all by April is a mystery to me,” Thérèse said. “But I’m sure you know exactly what you’re doing.”

It took a moment for what she’d said to register, but when it did, Beck snapped his head around and squinted in the half-light. “Did you say April?”

“Well, yes, I . . .” Thérèse was flustered. She consulted her notebook again and nodded. “Yes. It says it right here. Monsieur Fallon wants it finished by the twenty-third of April, for his wife’s fortieth birthday.”

“You’re a dead man, Gary,” Becker muttered under his breath as he turned away from Thérèse, hands on hips, and contemplated the enormity of the task ahead of him.

“Pardon me?”

He raised his arms out to his sides and turned in a slow circle. “There is absolutely no way that I can get this place ready in three months. None!” He brushed disintegrated mortar from between the angle stones in the wall nearest him and watched it sift down to the floor. “Look at that!” He turned on Thérèse, his voice rising in frustration. “And that staircase?” he continued, striding over to the cherrywood structure and pointing at the large area of carved wood that had been destroyed by a fire. “This is hand-carved. We’re talking dozens of man-hours just to fix that three-foot gap!”

Thérèse referred back to her notebook. “But Monsieur Fallon said . . .”

“
Monsieur
Fallon,” Beck interrupted, “is not the guy who’s supposed to pull off a miracle.”

“Well, no, he isn’t, but . . .”

He’d heard enough. “Is there a phone in this place? Seriously—is there a phone?”

Thérèse fingered the locket around her neck, her eyes wide and darting. “Yes—I’m sure there’s one in the office upstairs . . .”

“Up here?” Beck asked, taking the steps two at a time. He stayed on the right side of the wide expanse, keeping his weight away from the fire damage, then followed the right arm of the structure around to the next floor.

“Monsieur Becker,” Thérèse called from below. “The stairs are damaged. You shouldn’t be . . .”

“Which door is the office?” Beck leaned over the railing at the top of the stairs and sent Thérèse the kind of glare that had made foremen break into a sweat.

“It’s right there in front of you, but you’ll need the keys . . .” Thérèse put a tentative foot on the first step as if she expected it to give way under her weight.

“Madame Gallet!” He tried to keep his tone friendly, but there was a growing hardness to it that he couldn’t control. “The stairs held me, and I’m three times your weight. Just get yourself and the keys up here, will you?”

Thérèse stopped where she stood and propped a fist on her hip. “Monsieur Becker,” she said in a clipped, offended tone, “it may be all right for you to speak to Americans in that manner, but you will not—”

“Okay, fine!” Beck threw his hands up. “Just—if you could get me into the office so I can use the phone, I’d be most grateful.” The effort of putting a polite sentence together had cost him the few remaining shreds of his patience. “I stopped getting reception on my cell halfway here from the airport.”

Thérèse harrumphed and lifted her chin a little higher. She moved up the steps at a cautious pace, muttering under her breath, until she reached the landing. When she finally stood beside Beck,
she met his glare with a withering stare and somehow managed to look both angry and apologetic as she shrilled, “You will not treat me like your maid, Monsieur Becker. I am Monsieur Fallon’s interior designer
and
your liaison with the outside world for the duration of this project. I am not, however, your slave.”

She drew the last word out so long that it almost made Beck smile in spite of his mounting fury.

“Fine,” he said, reining in the urge to bust through the office door without the benefit of a key, if only for the release of adrenaline it would ensure. “Now, will you please,” he said, barely controlled, “show me to the office?”

Thérèse gave him a wide berth as she moved to the door right across from the landing. She fumbled with her keys, her fingers less than steady, and finally opened the door of the tiny room. There was nothing there but a phone on the floor, connected to a wall jack, and a window with a view of the broad marble stairs outside the castle and the small river beyond.

“I thought you said this was an office. . . .”

“Precisely. This
was
an office.”

Beck was pretty sure he’d heard sarcasm in her response, but there was no smile to validate his suspicion.

“I’ll wait outside,” she said, leaving the room.

“Madame Gallet!”

She poked her head around the doorframe. “Yes?”

Asking for help had never been one of Beck’s strong suits. Asking for help from someone like the high-strung interior designer was even more of a stretch. “What do I dial to get out?” he asked.

“Two zeros and a one. Then your area code. And it’s Thérèse,” she corrected him. “If we’re going to be speaking to each other in English, we might as well be American about it, wouldn’t you say?” Her mouth pinched into something that might have been an
attempted smirk, though it never made it to her eyes. “I’ll just be outside the door, then—Monsieur Becker.”

If she’d been expecting Beck to reciprocate her first-name invitation, she was going to be disappointed. “No need for ‘Monsieur,’” he said. “‘Mr. Becker’ is fine.” He held her confused gaze for a moment, then waited silently until the door clicked shut.

Beck dropped to a sitting position on the floor under the window and took several deep breaths. Then he reached for the phone. The process of dialing a rotary phone had an exacerbating effect on Beck’s already-strained nerves. By the time he’d entered the last digit and waited for the dial to turn, he was taking more deep breaths and practicing restraint.

“’Lo!”

“Eleven weeks?! Less than three months to get this place whipped into shape? Are you out of your mind?”

“I take it you’ve been introduced to the . . . Château de Lamorlaye!” Gary’s attempt at an authentic French accent made Pepé Le Pew sound like a linguist.

“It’s not the castle I’m worried about; it’s the amount of work to be done by an impossible deadline.”

“So you know about the wife’s birthday bash.”

“I do. But I didn’t until a couple minutes ago, and I certainly didn’t when you talked me into this!”

“Did Fallon explain it to you?”

“Haven’t met him yet! I spent last night at a hotel near the airport and only got here this afternoon. This woman—Thérèse—picked me up at the train station. It can’t be done, man. No way.” The connection crackled and popped, but Gary’s chuckle still made it across the ocean and into Beck’s ear. He bristled. “If you’re laughing over there, Gary, I swear I’ll . . .”

“Listen to me,” Gary interrupted. “When are you meeting Fallon?”

Beck covered the mouthpiece. “Thérèse, when am I meeting Fallon?”

“Monsieur Fallon will be by this evening,” she replied, the wooden door somewhat muting the sharp edges of her voice.

“This evening,” Beck repeated into the phone, doing a perfect imitation of Thérèse’s snippy tone.

“He’ll fill you in. Listen, you’re not supposed to have the whole project finished by April. He’s pretty adamant about having a reception for his wife on the ground floor and portraits taken on the staircase, but the rest of the work can take longer. And if you can’t get it all done in the time you’ve got, you can pass it off to someone else when you leave.”

“Portraits?”

“Yeah. You know—pictures.”

“I’m going to work myself ragged to get a castle ready for a rich woman’s portraits?”

“So the change of time zone hasn’t improved your disposition.”

“Gary.” There was a warning in Beck’s voice.

“He’s turning the castle into an exclusive restaurant and hotel. The party and portraits are just an afterthought.”

“This is a massive project, Gary. This place is older than America.”

“And we’ve sent Rambo to beat it into shape.”

“Not funny.”

“Not in the least.”

“I’m going to need some extra help on this one.”

“Talk to Fallon. I’m just the architect on this project. If you want to redesign the floor plan, I can help you with that. Otherwise, this one’s all yours.”

Beck looked around the diminutive office and took stock of the high ceiling, the ornate molding, the ancient wallpaper, and the hardwood floor.